During the 1970s, enthusiasts for Africian – Arab solidarity emphasised the potential benefits of political co-operation and economic partnership between sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab Middle East. The interest in such a relationship gained momentum among African and Arab Head of States, culminating in their summit meeting in Cairo in March 1977. It is now time to examine both the basis of the euphoria and the prospects, or lack of them, for the development of a comprehensive and durable relationship between the contiguous regions.

Some have tried to explain corruption in the Third World by reference to anachronistic traditions and to the special pressures on officials in developing countries. In this article, I argue that, at least in the case of Nigeria, the roots of corruption go deeper, to a materialism and a political fragmentation that are the products of a moment in development. After a schematic review of the relevant literature, I examine the causes of Nigerian corruption, and conclude with the suggestion that the future of good government depends on an expansion of the private economy.

Among the sober assessments of U.S. interests in South Africa by the Rockefeller Commission one finds a rare lapse into wishful thinking. It is the contention that the option of Major economic sanctions against the Republic ‘must be kept in the U.S. policy arsenal’. Since this distinguished body recommended against expansion and new entry into South Africa (but also against disinvestment), the commitment of American and European firms in South Africa has grown substantially. U.S. investment alone increased by 13 per cent in 1981. The 1,200 British companies, followed by 375 American and 350 West German firms, with a total foreign investment of R30 billion in 1982, seem to confirm the South African propaganda of stability and growth. These interests constitute an effective veto block against meaningful disengagement.

On 24 February 1966, Apolo Milton Obote, the Prime Minister of Uganda, marched into a meeting of his Cabinet with an armed escort, arrested five of his Ministers, and suspended the 1962 independence constitution he had solemnly sworn to protect. Since that fateful day Uganda has known no peace. Indeed, factional divisions and the ambitions of politicians, followed by the military dictatorship of Idi Amin after his coup d'état in 1971, soon reduced the country to howling anarchy.

While the importance of the rôle of formally qualified high- and middle-level technical personnel in the development process in Africa has been repeatedly underlined since the early 1950s, relatively little empirical research has focused on the historical evolution and present constitution of the occupations which embody these skills. As a contribution to such an analysis, this case-study examines the determinants of the institutional provision of Kenyans with engineering technician qualifications, and their subsequent employment and utilisation. In other words, we are concerned with the relationship between the supply of, and demand for, one group of skilled individuals. Although formulating the problem in this way may, at first sight, appear to be narrowly economistic, this framework provides a methodologically useful starting point for a multi-disciplinary analysis.

In 1967, shortly after Lesotho's political independence from the United Kingdom, Michael Ward desribed Lesotho in this Journal as ‘the economic hostage of South Africa’:

it is clear … that Lesotho will become more and more economically dependent upon South Africa … in the short run it has virtually no hope of becoming economically viable or independent of South Africa and foreign aid.

The objective of this article is to examine how these views hold up 15 years later, and to argue that although in summary form Ward seems to have been very accurate, the nature of Lesotho's dependence has changed in ways few would have foreseen at the time of independence. In addition, the contrast between the rhetoric of the Government and what has happened, and the prospects for the future, will be explored.

This article examines an unusual phenomenon in the context of modern African labour migration. It explains how Malawi, which had long been a significant source of migrant workers for its neighbours, managed to withdraw over one-half of its international labour force from abroad in the first six years of the 1970s, and to integrate these individuals into the domestic economy within a very short period of time. Traumatic movements of large numbers of migrant workers have been all too common in contemporary Africa, usually manifested as expulsions from host countries during periods of economic stress. A recent notable example was the exodus of about a million foreign workers from Nigeria in the course of one month in 1983. What is unusual about the reduction in international labour migration from Malawi is that it was induced mainly by economic opportunities rather than by coercion.