During the first decade of independence for the tropical African states, economic planning has moved through several stages. Before and at the time of independence the development literature still featured debates as to whether or not to plan, and what the role of the government should be in economic development. In Africa these debates were won, hands down, by the planners and by ‘African socialists’ of various types. Within a few years there appeared a host of plan documents responding to the perceived requirements, leading one analyst even to characterise Africa as ‘the continent of economic plans’1 articles on ‘comprehensive economic planning’ and simple econometric models were at that time in fashion. These plans were typically prepared by foreigners with relatively little experience of the countries concerned, and were based upon the scrappiest of data and analysis. While not as elaborate in their technique, or as far removed from reality, as many of their counterparts of the period in Asia and Latin America, these plans tended to be just as lacking in real content, political support, or potential for implementation. Their authors usually departed for home shortly afterwards, leaving the hardpressed decision-makers on the scene (many of whom were themselves expatriates newly arrived in the country) little the wiser.

In the years that have elapsed since the ending of colonial rule, the newly independent states of Africa have been understandably preoccupied with a general resolve to achieve rapid and sustained economic growth. Certain countries have attached especial importance to investment in agriculture, others have devoted high proportions of their resources to material infrastructure, to the exploitation of minerals, or to education and training; whatever the immediate policy pursued, however, there has been general unanimity that at the far end of the development process each African state hopes to possess a growing number of economically viable manufacturing industries.1 Apart from the material benefits that industrialisation can bring there is a general belief, as Pierre Moussa has put it, that ‘the factory chimney has mythical value; it expresses a people's success on earth, their ability to cope with the modern world’.2

In the lives of nations, as of men, reputations all too often achieve their widest currency when they are already out of date. The Somali Republic is no exception to this general rule. Although the real circumstances had already significantly altered before the military brusquely seized power in October 1969, Somalia was still generally known for democracy at home and trouble abroad. The first of these characterisations referred to the striking persistance of a vigorous and effective multi-party parliamentary system, and the second to the seemingly uniquely intractable nature of the ‘Somali Dispute’ which committed the Republic to supporting the secessionist claims of the contiguous Somali populations of Kenya, Ethiopia, and French Somaliland, at the price of severely strained relations with these neighbouring states. These and other attributes unusual amongst the new states of sub-Saharan Africa appeared to be closely connected with the Republic's exuberant sense of national identity, a quality all the more remarkable in being firmly grounded in a long-standing and entirely traditional cultural nationalism.

Guinea and the Ivory Coast are neighbouring, former French colonies in West Africa. Both gained their independence about the same time – Guinea in 1958 and the Ivory Coast in 1960. The contrast in the subsequent economic performance of these two countries with closely corresponding resource endowments is remarkable. The Ivory Coast's gross domestic product has grown at an annual rate of about 8 per cent in real terms. The Guinean economy has stagnated. A review of the economic record of both since independence suggests that three factors were mainly responsible for their strikingly unequal performance: (1) differences in governmental philosophies of mobilisation and organisation of resources; (2) differences in the extent to which foreign markets shaped domestic economic expansion; and (3) differences in the role of foreign entrepreneurs in the national development effort.

The politically effervescent Frene Ginwalla has had to relinquish the editorship of The Standard in Tanzania, sacked by President Nyerere. The revolutionary wing of the student body of the University of Dar es Salaam has had its political claws blunted. Militantly zealous expatriates in Dar es Salaam have declined in influence. And those who used Uganda's problems following the January 1971 coup as an additional excuse for radical slogans have now been forced to cool down following the official rapprochement between the Governments of Tanzania and Uganda.

This article is based on the assumption that there are worldwide trends towards the more humane treatment of prisoners which have as their principal objective the reform of criminals. These trends are determined by the societies that have evolved them; they trends are not therefore characterised by African aims and they do not express themselves in African forms. So the possibilites of purely African innovation are limited.

The 19605 can be justly described as the decade of great expectations about the developmental potential of education. It started with the historic 1960 Ashby report on education in Nigeria,1 and the equally widely quoted 1961 Addis Ababa conference of African ministers of education; 2 before it expired, over 40 manpower-education plans had been published, not to mention a host of commissions of inquiry and academic studies. In the first five years alone, school enrolment in Africa rose by almost a half; the average proportion of the government budget spent on education jumped from one seventh to over one sixth— the highest for any continent except North America— and the proportion of national income devoted to education increased from 3 per cent to 43 per cent, exceeded only by Europe.3 These rates of growth were almost certainly sustained in the second half of the decade.4