A Political and Economic Dictionary of Africa

David Seddon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135355548
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Policy
• Index: Economics

This invaluable Dictionary provides an essential guide to the politics and economics of the African continent. Each individual entry provides clear and concise information, and entries are fully cross-referenced to enhance the book's usability. Organizations listed include contact details wherever possible.

Key features * Provides authoritative up-to-date information on a region that is changing fast, and for which reliable data is often hard to locate
* Each country's recent history and economy are described and analyzed in separate essays.

Entries include:
Apartheid, Central African Republic, Christianity, Colonialism, Development Aid, Genocide, Great Lakes, International Monetary Fund, Languages, Nelson Mandela, Mining, Tobacco, Uganda.

Countries covered in this voume include:
Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Spanish North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla), Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

M

Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG)

Group charged with the responsibility of developing a coherent macroeconomic policy for the new South Africa, chaired by Vella Pillay, a long-time economic adviser to the African National Congress (ANC) and consultant to the Bank of China. Set up in mid-1992 shortly after the ANC's Ready to Govern document was adopted, MERG drew on the experience of 100 economists, most of them foreign academics, and included leading figures from the ANC, the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party. In November 1993, six months before the ANC came to power as the leading partner in a government of national unity, MERG presented a 300 page document entitled Making Democracy Work. The report, however, which broadly set out a programme involving substantial state intervention and a heavily-managed capitalist development strategy of the kind popular on the left in European academic circles during the 1980s, and practised by a number of developing countries, including the emerging Asia Tigers, was shelved by the ANC when it came to power and moved more towards the liberal economic policies encouraged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in the 1980s and 1990s. Already, and even as Pillay presented his report in November, the ANC's two leading economists, Trevor Manuel and Alec Ewin, were drafting a secret letter of intent to the IMF seeking a loan of US $850m. loan and accepting the kind of conditions that would have been anathema to the majority of MERG members. Having discarded the MERG document, the new ANC government had to rely on a document called the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which had been hastily crafted in preparation for the election campaign. In mid-1995, however, a new team was set up to develop a more coherent macroeconomic framework. This team produced a policy document called Growth, Employment and Redistribution, which Manuel presented to government in June 1996.

Madagascar, Republic of

The Republic of Madagascar comprises the island of Madagascar, the fourth largest in the world, and several much smaller offshore islands, in the western Indian Ocean, about 500 km east of Mozambique, in southern Africa. The area of the country is 587,041 sq km. At mid-2004 the population was estimated at 16,908,000. The official language is Malagasy, and government acts are published in both Malagasy and French. Hova and other dialects are also widely spoken. More than 50% of the population follow animist beliefs, while about 41% are Christians and the remainder are Muslims. The capital is Antananarivo (formerly Tananarive), whose population was estimated at 1,111,392 in 2001.

Political profile

The Constitution of Madagascar provides for a bicameral legislature, comprising a Senate (established in March 2001) and a National Assembly. Two-thirds of the members of the Senate are elected by the autonomous provinces, and the remaining one-third of the members are appointed by the President, while the National Assembly is elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term of office. The constitutional Head of State is the President, who is elected for a term of five years, and can be re-elected for two further terms. The President appoints the Prime Minister and, on the latter's recommendation, the other members of the Council of Ministers. Marc Ravalomanana was inaugurated as President in May 2002, following a disputed election in December 2001 (see below).

Following a senatorial election held on 18 March 2001, the distribution of seats in the Senate was as follows: Association pour la renaissance de Madagascar (AREMA—Association for the Renaissance of Madagascar) 49; LEADER/Fanilo (Torch) 5; Independents 3; Ny asa vita no ifampitsara (AVI—People are judged by the work they do) 2; Asa, Fampandrasoana, Arinda (AFFA) 1. Appointments to an additional 30 seats were made by the President.

Following a legislative election held on 15 December 2002, the distribution of seats in the National Assembly was as follows: Tiako i Madagasikara (TIM—I Love Madagascar) 104; Front Patriotique (PF—Patriotic Front) 22 (of which the constituent AVI held 20 and the Rassemblement pour le socialisme et la démocratie—RPSD, Rally for Socialism and Democracy—2); RPSD nouveau (New RPSD) 5; AREMA 3; LEADER/Fanilo 1; Independents 23.

History

A French possession since 1896, Madagascar became an autonomous state within the French Community in October 1958, as the Malagasy Republic. In May 1959 Philibert Tsiranana, leader of the Parti social démocrate (PSD—Social Democrat Party), was elected President. The country achieved full independence on 26 June 1960. In May 1972, following civil unrest, President Tsiranana transferred full powers to the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Gabriel Ramanantsoa. In February 1973 all political parties were suspended.

Since the mid-1970s political affairs in Madagascar have been characterized to a large extent by constitutional issues. In a referendum in December 1975 more than 94% of voters approved a new Constitution, which provided for radical administrative and agrarian reforms, and the appointment of Lt-Commdr (later Adm.) Didier Ratsiraka as President of the Republic for a term of seven years. The country's name was changed to the Democratic Republic of Madagascar, and a ‘Second Republic’ was proclaimed. In January 1976 the civilian element in the government was increased, and in March the Avant-garde de la revolution malgache (AREMA—Antoky Ny Revolosiona Malagasy) was founded as the nucleus of the Front national pour la défense de la révolution socialiste malgache (FNDR), the only political organization permitted by the Constitution. In March 1990 the government formally permitted the resumption of multi-party politics.

A draft Constitution of the Third Republic, as submitted to the government in April 1992, envisaged a unitary state and provided for a bicameral legislature, comprising a Senate and a National Assembly. Two-thirds of the members of the Senate were to be selected by an electoral college, with the remaining one-third to be appointed by the President, while the 184-member National Assembly was to be elected by universal suffrage, under a system of proportional representation, for a four-year term. The authority of the President was reduced, and executive power was vested in the Prime Minister, who was to be appointed by the National Assembly. (A stipulation in the draft Constitution that the President be restricted to two terms of office had, however, been withdrawn.) Ratsiraka demanded that a draft providing for a federal system of government also be submitted to a forthcoming referendum, as an alternative to these proposals. The new Constitution was approved by 72.2% of votes cast in a national referendum on 19 August.

In January 1998 Ratsiraka (who had been elected as President in 1996) invited political leaders to attend discussions on constitutional reform, although Hery Miara-dia, an opposition grouping led by former President Albert Zafy, and members of the Panorama Group, a more moderate alliance led by Francisqe Ravony and Norbert Ratsirahonana, refused to participate. None the less, Ratsiraka subsequently announced that a constitutional referendum would take place in March 1998, to be followed by legislative elections. The draft amendments to the Constitution envisaged a ‘federal-style’ state, composed of six autonomous provinces, and also provided for increased presidential powers. The referendum proceeded on 15 March 1998, when the extensive revisions proposed were narrowly endorsed by 50.96% of votes cast.

A presidential election took place on 16 December 2001, contested by six candidates, including Ratsiraka, Zafy, Herizo Razafimahaleo and Marc Ravalomanana. According to the official results, Ravalomanana, whose candidacy was supported by a number of opposition parties, most notably the AVI, the RPSD and the Mouvement pour le pouvoir prolétarien (Mpitolona ho aminny Fonjakanny Madinika—MFM, Movement for Proletarian Power), secured 46.21% of the votes cast and Didier Ratsiraka 40.89%, thereby necessitating a second round of voting. However, Ravalomanana's own electoral observers disputed this result, claiming that he had won an outright victory, with 52.15% of the votes, and demanded a public comparison of voting records. The opposition was supported in these demands by international electoral observers. A re-count was subsequently conducted, and on 25 January 2002 the Constitutional High Court endorsed the official results and ruled that a second round of voting should take place within 30 days. Ravalomanana rejected this verdict and called for a national strike in protest. Some 500,000 people responded by gathering in Antananarivo. A political crisis ensued.

Following the completion of a further re-count, in late April 2002, the Constitutional High Court ruled that Ravalomanana had secured the presidency, with 51.46% of the votes cast, while Ratsiraka had won 35.90%. Ratsiraka refused to accept the Court's decision, but Ravalomanana was none the less inaugurated as President on 6 May, largely without international recognition, and appointed a new Council of Ministers later that month. Four of the country's six provincial governors, who were loyal to Ratsiraka, subsequently threatened to secede. In June heavy fighting occurred as troops loyal to Ravalomanana conducted a military offensive against areas controlled by Ratsiraka, securing two provincial capitals, Mahajanga and Toliary, in mid-June. At the end of June the USA recognized Ravalomanana as the legitimate leader of Madagascar; endorsement soon followed from France and, in contravention of the policy of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Senegal. Meanwhile, the OAU suspended Madagascar from its meetings, pending the staging of free and fair elections leading to the establishment of a legitimate government; this decision was upheld by the African Union (AU), which replaced the OAU in July. Madagascar's suspension from meetings of the AU—hitherto the only remaining significant authority not to have recognized the new government—was formally revoked in July 2003; the legitimacy of the Ravalomanana administration was thus considered finally to have been established.

International relations

Madagascar's foreign policy is officially non-aligned: while it formerly maintained close links with communist countries, the Zafy government established relations with Israel, South Africa and the Republic of Korea. Relations with France have been affected by disputes over compensation for nationalized French assets and over the continuing French claim to the lies Glorieuses, north of Madagascar, and three other islets in the Mozambique Channel. In February 2000 it was agreed that the lies Glorieuses would be co-administered by France, Madagascar and Mauritius, without prejudice to the question of sovereignty. Relations with the People's Republic of China were strengthened in January 1999, when agreements were signed on the expansion of bilateral economic relations and China's provision of preferential loans to Madagascar. In September 2000 the representative office for Taiwan in Madagascar was closed down, following an official visit by the Malagasy Minister of Foreign Affairs to China.

Madagascar, economy

In 2003, according to estimates by the World Bank, Madagascar's gross national income (GNI), measured at average 2001–03 prices, was US $5,378m., equivalent to about $290 per head (or $800 per head on an international purchasing-power parity basis). During 1990–2003, it was estimated, the population increased at an average annual rate of 2.9%, while gross domestic product (GDP) per head decreased, in real terms, by an average of 1.4% per year. Overall GDP increased, in real terms, at an average annual rate of 1.4% in 1990–2003; GDP decreased by 12.7% in 2002, but increased by 9.6% in 2003. The annual rate of inflation averaged 15.7% in 1990–2001; consumer prices increased by 16.5% in 2002 but decreased by 1.7% in 2004. Mining, fishing, tourism, the production of paper, food and tobacco, chemicals, and cement, and the refining of petroleum and metalwork are all important sectors of the economy. Madagascar's principal exports are coffee, shellfish, vanilla and (as re-exports from the free-trade zone) cloves, pepper, cotton, chromium, graphite and sapphires. France, the USA, Germany, the United Kingdom and Mauritius are Madagascar's principal trading partners. A new national currency, the ariary, was introduced in July 2003. In 2004 the average exchange rate was US $1=1,868.9 ariary. Agriculture (including livestock production and forestry) dominates the Malagasy economy, accounting for about one-third of GDP and employing some 86% of the workforce. Although traditional crops of coffee, vanilla, cloves and pepper continue to make up a large part of agricultural exports, the contribution of fish, in particular prawns, has also increased. The industrial sector, which contributes only about 13% of GDP, is focused on energy, textiles, wood, cement, paper, beverages and soap products, and the processing of agricultural produce. Madagascar is rich in mineral resources, including sapphires, emeralds and ilmenite, and may have reserves of oil and natural gas. However, virtually all mining activity is in the private sector and the general population derives little benefit from it. Services account for about 55% of GDP. Over the last three decades, the annual rate of economic growth has averaged only about 0.6%. As the population has increased by about 3% annually during the same period, income per head has declined sharply. After Ratsiraka took power in 1975, the Malagasy economy, which had been on a similar level to those of Thailand or Botswana, steadily declined. Over the last three decades, according to the World Bank, Madagascar has recorded the fifth lowest rate of GDP growth in the world—0.5% per annum—and that without involvement in any war, at home or abroad. In recent years, however, the economy has improved, thanks to a programme combining resumed donor structural adjustment support, debt rescheduling, liberalization, privatization and the establishment of the zone franche, concentrating mainly on garment manufacture. In the period 1999– 2001, despite widespread corruption, the annual rate of GDP growth rose from 4% to almost 6%. The rate of inflation was being steadily reduced, and in 2001 fell to around 7%. However, the political crisis of 2002, when many companies ceased their activities and the majority of the 160,000 zone franche employees lost their jobs, reversed previous gains. At about 12% of GDP, fiscal revenue is low. This constraint on public finances makes the government budget dependent on donor flows. In turn, the International Monetary Fund seeks a greater effort to combat fraud.

While new export industries have been developed, some traditional agricultural exports have been affected by low world prices (coffee) or ageing plantations. Imports have also risen as a result of liberalization, putting pressure on the balance of payments: foreign exchange has been liberalized, import licences have been removed and some state monopolies ended. Future prospects depend heavily on restoring domestic and foreign private-sector confidence: this had been improving before the recent crisis, although inadequate transparency and lack of application of the law remained persistent problems. The new government has pledged to address these issues. It is also committed to reducing poverty and fighting corruption, as well as to the principles embodied in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The greater role envisaged for tourism may be impeded by generally weak infrastructure, in particular for transport, a lack of transparency in the legal system, and ambivalence over land tenure for foreigners. The depreciation of the national currency in 2004, combined with severe cyclone damage and the high international price of petroleum, had an inflationary effect on the economy, leading to national discontent and international conce...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS
• TRANSCRIPTION OF ARABIC NAMES
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z