A failed agenda? African agriculture under structural adjustment with special reference to Kenya and Ghana

Abstract

On the basis of a close examination of World Bank agricultural reform policies in Kenya and Ghana in the 1980s, the author argues that the structural adjustment agenda has been either aborted or, where implemented, has not had the results intended. In both cases this is because the adjustment problematic assumes the presence of structures and conditions at variance to African realities. As a result, the main beneficiaries of adjustment tend to be the forces it ostensibly sets out to subvert.