Reflection on Africa's historic and current initiatives for political and economic unity

Abstract

The hopes for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) arising from various international,socio-economic and political negotiations, particularly after world war II (1939-1945),became largely misplaced in the 1950s through the 1960s, inter alias,due to the lopsided socio-economic development pattern which accompanied such negotiations. For example, the terms of trade worsened for the world's primary products producers (mostly African countries),while it improved for the producers of manufactured goods (industrialized countries such as the United States of America and the European countries). Against this background, the progress of such African primary producers, who incidentally adopted the 'isolationist' development approach to their respective national development programs, as a whole, was (and is still) no where comparable to the progress made in the rest of the world;particularly in the industrial European countries - producers of manufactured goods.