"A highly recommended collection of essays which emphasises that unemployment and impoverishment are not only extensive and extreme, but have been exacerbated by previous reforms."
African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific Review and Newsletter, June 2000
This book identifies "missing institutions" as a major reason for the often patchy implementation of structural reform policies. In most African countries the labour force is growing faster than new jobs, leading to increased informalisation of the economy. Case studies concentrate on Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where less than ten per cent of the labour force work in the formal sector, as compared with some twenty to forty per cent in the 1960s. Public sector workers have been reduced but there have not been enough jobs to compensate in the rest of the formal sector. The education and training institutions also have difficulties in providing skills for the restructured markets.
In many cases reform policies tend to be seen as directives coming from abroad or from a distant finance ministry. The lack of institutions, of democratic policy making and of consultation among major social groups has weakened their impact. Rebuilding institutions and improving democratic policy making are essential for better implementation of reforms.