The ethical dimension in Africa's economic recovery and development : presented at seminar on Ethics and accountability Arusha, Tanzania, 26 October - 1 November 1991

Abstract

The discussions of the socio-economic crisis, one subject that has not received the attention it deserves is the ethics of development policy and management. Yet, as this paper goes on to argue, neither would the crisis facing the African economy be contained in the short-run, nor would an inward-oriented strategy of development succeed in the end until the ethical issue is settled. The first part of the paper discusses the nature and significance of ethics. The second part attempts to carry out critical review of development theory taking into account the place of ethics in the construction of development models. The third part traces the relationship between Africa's socio-economic crisis and the escalating crisis of ethics. The fourth and final section of the paper discusses practical ways of integrating ethics into the process of public policy formulation and management that is, bearing in mind the underlying premise that the ethical challenge must be confronted before the purely economic issues are addressed.