The flow of resources to women in Africa in the context of the food and debt crisis

Abstract

The basically agrarian nature of African economies finds reflection in the structure of exports9 which is dominated by a few commodities. This concentration .on. a handful of commodities makes African economies vulnerable to the vagaries of the world market9 a situation which is aggravated by a general trend of declining export volumes and prices. For this reason, a chronic current account deficit has become an enduring characteristic of the balance of payments of African countries. This inevitably leads to a decline in foreign exchange reserves. In 1984 for example, ECA estimated that these were only enough to finance two months of imports.