Hypothesen über sozio-strukturelle Auswirkungen der Entwicklungshilfe im ländlichen Raum Westafrikas

Hypotheses on socio-structural impacts of development aid in rural West Africa

Georg Elwert and Dirk Kohnert

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The cumulative impact of successful and unsuccessful rural development projects in Africa since the beginning of colonial rule has been felt in some West African developing countries to such an extent that it has structured the economies and social systems of these countries. The experience of these projects has also had an impact on the mindset of the farmers concerned. Today, development aid (at least for many LLDCs) can be seen as a kind of hidden "shadow budget", which not only serves to divert resources from productive use, but also to widen the gap between the strong and the weak in general. Commercialisation and bureaucratisation - accelerated by development aid - have also led to socio-economic differentiation within the African peasantry and even within individual farming households (along gender and age lines). Finally, the accumulated experience of development aid over two or more generations has had a negative impact on farmers: the apparently change-resistant, tradition-conscious, risk-averse "African farmer" is more the result of this experience than - as is often claimed - a natural inclination of the African farmer.

Keywords: Development aid; socio-economic differentiation; poverty; West Africa; peasantry; farming household; risk aversion; commercialization; shadow budget; state budget (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F5 F54 F55 G28 N17 N47 O2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1983-09-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Working Paper Series, Sociology of Development Centre, Univ. of Bielefeld 35 (1983): pp. 1-34

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/122001/1/MPRA_paper_122001.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:122001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().