This article is an exploratory attempt to understand the state of underdevelopment in contemporary Zaïre through a study of bureaucratic decision-making process at the local level. It is based on a series of investigations which the author and a group of colleagues carried out in 13 zones in Shaba Region during 1975 and 1976, but our reflections have evolved considerably since then and, to a large extent, have outstripped the reach of the research data, so that the present article should be considered as a report on work-in-progress.

It has become increasingly apparent over the last decade that rural development is one of the most significant, complex, and intractable problems facing the newly-independent states of Africa. Colonialism left a legacy of unbalanced and vulnerable economies in which the impoverishment of the rural areas made rational planning for growth and self-sufficiency difficult if not impossible. Rural poverty also exacerbated the problems of urban migration and political hostility between the privileged towns and the deprived rural areas. Many African leaders recognised the seriousness of these problems, and most governments announced a commitment to rural development soon after achieving independence.

Over the past decade a pervasive concern of African political leaders, development planners, and social scientists has been to find ways and means of improving the lot of those in the rural areas: they comprise the bulk of the population of the tropical African states and continue in the 1970S to be socially and economically the most deprived social group.1 Despite the ‘highest priority’ assigned to rural development in the policy documents of many African governments, neither the allocation of public funds nor the implementation of development strategies have been energetically directed towards improving the living standards of the rural masses. Equally, the recognition of the need for a new development model by an increasing number of scholars has yet to produce adequate guidance for those African régimes which are seeking to transform the rural areas.

In 1967, the Portuguese Foreign Minister spoke of relations with Malawi as ‘that kind of mutual respect which ensures good neighbourliness, cordial relations and constructive cooperation’1. Yet, throughout the ten-year period from July 1964 to September 1974, the dominant political issue in Southern Africa had been the armed struggle for political rights between African liberation movements and the white-minority régimes. Within this context, the boundary between Malawi and Portuguese East Africa became part of the dividing line where the independent black African states met the white-dominated régimes. This article seeks to explore the pressures for both conflict and cooperation which were continuously being felt by Malawi and Portugal. Despite their substantial ideological differences over where political power should reside, both countries were drawn together because of their geography, Malawi being dependent upon the transportation facilities in Mozambique for an outlet to the Indian Ocean.

It was possible in this Journal more than a decade ago to attempt a fairly comprehensive assessment of contemporary development literature.1 That review article referred to a number of emerging themes, associated with such major figures as Prebisch, Myrdal, Hirschmann, Nurske, Singer, Perroux, de Bernis, and others, including relations between the centre and the periphery, ‘backwash’ effects, regional cooperation, growth points, balanced and unbalanced growth, linkage effects, and the strategy for industrialisation. These themes continue to be discussed during the 1970s, and if there seem to be fewer new ‘concepts’ there has been a significant shift in emphasis. The sheer number of works written, more and more by those with first-hand knowledge of the developing world, now demands a highly selective approach. But equally important it is appropriate to concentrate mainly on those recent publications which dwell upon the major topics being debated by Third-World leaders and economists. Accordingly the present article reviews a selection of the literature which has appeared during the last five or six years concerned with two important interrelated areas: (i) growth, equality, and employment, including rural development, and (ii) the transfer and development of technology.

There are various explanatory analyses of the instability and persistent underdevelopment in Africa. The general presumption points to a case of arrested development to begin with – the product of slavery and colonialism – a retardation that constitutes the inauspicious legacy on which newly independent African states have to build. It is argued that this ill-augury of colonial inheritance exerts a momentum of its own, intensifying in the post-independence era the cancerous growth of ethnic fissures, constitutional disequilibrations, economic disasters, and fresh dominations.

One of the most important developments in the last decade has been the movement by Africans to recover control of their own economy. A recent article in this Journal, XVI, 3, September 1976, gave a factual account of the extent to which foreign-owned industry in black Africa has been nationalised and indigenised, and discussed the inability of international law to provide guidelines for the settlement of this ongoing struggle between alien owners and host countries. Predictably, it was written by a lawyer because this field has been captured by lawyers almost to the exclusion of all others. But there is much that economists, sociologists, and political scientists could contribute concerning nationalisation, particularly in analysing its causes and effects, although up to now they have had little to say.1 This note makes a start on the question of the impact of nationalisation upon Africa and Africans, in the hope that the tentative conclusions reached here will lead to treatment of the subject by those with the tools for a deeper appraisal.

An increasing tendency in recent years has been to encourage small-scale industries as an important part of development programmes in the Third World. There has been a general emphasis on the rural sector, and a specific concern with job creation and income distribution, from which stem, for instance, the recent I.L.O. reports on the employment problems of various countries.1 In the case of Kenya and the Philippines, the promotion of small scale and rural industries has been elevated to the status of a component in a new ‘strategy’ for development. A great many countries adopted such programmes some time ago, mainly because they satisfy several of the obvious criteria for industry choice, such as labour intensity, use of local materials, and geographical dispersability, but it cannot be said that they have so far met with a great deal of success. An evaluation of Kenya's experience to date has recently been carried out by the author.2