Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g7rbq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-27T22:32:12.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘With a little bit of luck…’ Coping with adjustment in urban Ghana, 1975–90

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Résumé

Cet article, qui s'appuie principalement sur des observations anecdotiques recueillies sur le terrain, retrace le déclin économique du Ghana dans les années 70. Il déciit les perceptions de lutte pour la survie et le succès durant cette période excessivement pessimiste. Il poursuit en décrivant le point de vue de certains sur la notion de survie et l'état du progrès économique du Ghana vers la fin des années 80 et le début des années 90. Ces commentaires discursifs font ensuite place à des données quantitatives simples relatives au travail, à l'accès à l'emploi et à la structure du marché du travail à cette époque. Il en ressort, compte tenu du fait que les Ghanéens continuent à vivre comme dans le passé, que les recommandations et les stratégies politiques du FMI et de la Banque Mondiale en faveur du développement de l'industrie manufacturière, visant à encourager les multinationales à s'implanter, n'ont pas produit les résultats escomptés. Au lieu de cela, les Ghanéens ont favorisé (comme ils l'ont toujours fait) des stratégies basées sur les contacts et la bonne fortune: miser sur la chance en somme. L'élément volatile découvert assez récemment dans les calculs de la Banque Mondiale est depuis longtemps un des facteurs fondamentaux (voire le seul) au sein des projets de nombreuses petites entreprises. Pendant ce temps, les Ghanéens s'efforcent de survivre voire même de prospérer à l'aube du nouveau millénaire, en espérant que la chance va leur sourire.

Type
Cast-off economics: Africa and the West
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adesina, Kola. 1996. ‘A concerted initiative for Africa’, West Africa 4120, 1420 October: 1590-1.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Robert. 1996. Ghana Country Assistance Review: a study in development effectiveness. Washington DC: World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, Bromley, and Gerry, Chris (eds). 1979. Casual Work and Poverty in Third World Cities. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne. 1976. ‘Status Ambiguity in Amedzofe-Avatime: women and men in a changing patrilineal society’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1977. Factors Affecting the Migration of Women in Ghana. Report to the SSRC (in British Library).Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1979. ‘Women at work: some changes in family structure in AmedzofeAvatime’, Africa 49 (1), 97111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1985. ‘Ghanaian responses to the Nigerian expulsions of 1983’, African Affairs 84 (337), 561–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1987. ‘Women in the family: cultural change in Avatime, 1900-80’, Development and Change 18 (2), 251–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1992. ‘Ghanaian women in the migration process’, in Chant, Sylvia (ed.), Women and Migration in the Third World, pp. 91108. London: Belhaven Press.Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne Unpublished. Field notes, 1973-1974, 1976-77, 1979, 1983. n.d. ‘Disintegration and Despair: Ghana, 1983’. Paper given at Centre of African Studies seminar, University of Liverpool, November 1983.Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne, and Legge, Karen. 1994. ‘Gender and Adjustment: pictures from Ghana’, in Emeagwali, Gloria T. (ed.), Women Pay the Price: structural adjustment in Africa and the Caribbean, pp. 6387. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1996. Adjusting Society: the World Bank, the IMF and Ghana. London: I. B. Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chazan, Naomi. 1983. An Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics: managing political recession. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Brydon, Lynne 1991. “The political transformation of Ghana under the PNDC’, in Rothchild, Donald (ed.), Ghana, pp. 2148. Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Cornia, G. A., Jolly, Richard, and Stewart, Frances. 1987. Adjustment with a Human Face, two volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Frimpong-Ansah, J. H. 1991. The Vampire State in Africa. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Ghana, Government of, 1987. Programme of Actions to Mitigate the Social Costs of Adjustment. Accra: PAMSCAD.Google Scholar
Ghana, Government of, and UNICEF. 1990. The Situation of Women and Children in Ghana. Accra: UNICEF.Google Scholar
Glewwe, Paul, and Twum-Baah, Kwaku A. 1991. The Distribution of Welfare in Ghana, 1987-88. LSMS Working Paper 75. Washington DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Guardian, The. 1993. ‘“You've just got to be lucky,” say World Bank economists’ (Ruth Kelly), 30 December.Google Scholar
Eboe, Hutchful (ed.). 1987. The IMF and Ghana: the confidential record. London and Atlantic Highlands NJ: JPAA/Zed Press.Google Scholar
Jeffries, Richard. 1982. ‘Rawlings and the political economy of underdevelopment in Ghana’, African Affairs 81 (324), 422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffries, Richard, and Thomas, Clare. 1993. ‘The Ghanaian elections of 1992’, African Affairs 92 (368), 331–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loxley, John. 1988. Ghana: economic crisis and the long road to recovery. Ottawa: North-South Institute.Google Scholar
Meagher, Kate. 1995. ‘Crisis, informalization and the urban informal sector in sub Saharan Africa’, Development and Change 26, 259–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moser, C. O. N. 1981. ‘Surviving in the surburbiosInstitute of Developmental Studies Bulletin 12 (3), 1925.Google Scholar
Moser, C. O. N. 1992. ‘Adjustment from below: low-income women, time and the triple role in Guyaquil, Ecuador’, in Afshar, H. and Dennis, C. (eds), Women and Adjustment Policies in the Third World, pp. 87116. Basingstoke: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, Mosley, Harrigan, Jane, and Toye, John (eds). 1991. Aid and Power: the World Bank and policy-based lending, two volumes. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nugent, Paul. 1991. ‘Educating Rawlings: the evolution of government strategy toward smuggling’, in Rothchild, Donald (ed.), Ghana, pp. 6984. Boulder CO and London: Lynne Reinner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nugent, Paul 1995. Big Men, Small Boys and Politics in Ghana: power, ideology and the burden of history, 1982-94. London and New York: Pinter.Google Scholar
Oti Boateng, E., Ewusi, K., Kanbur, R., and McKay, A. 1990. ‘A Poverty Profile for Ghana, 1987-88’. SDA Working Paper 5. Washington DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Ray, Donald I. 1986. Ghana: politics, economics and society. London: Pinter; Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Rimmer, Douglas. 1992. Staying Poor: Ghana's political economy, 1950-90. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Rimmer, Douglas 1994. ‘Background to Structural Adjustment’. Unpublished paper, Symposium on Ghana, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 13-14 December.Google Scholar
Donald, Rothchild (ed.). 1991. Ghana: the political economy of recovery. Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Soto, Hernando de. 1989. The Other Path: the invisible revolution in the Third World. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Toye, John. 1991. ‘Ghana’, in Mosley, Paul, Harrigan, Jane and Toye, John (eds), Aid and Power: the World Bank and policy-based lending, two volumes, pp. 150200. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Waddington, C. J., and Enyimayew, K. A. 1989. ‘A price to pay: the impact of user charges in Ashanti-Akim District, Ghana’, International Journal of Health Planning and Management 4, 1747.Google Scholar