Beyond the Primary Commodity Trap: Essays on Politics and Poverty in Africa

Beyond the Primary Commodity Trap offers an alternative paradigm for analysing African development from the current "aid and aids" narrative. Taking as its point of departure Africa's failure to extricate itself from over dependence on raw materials and its seeming inability to industrialise, it offers an analysis of the political forces that have shaped and continue to shape Africa's political economy. The book focuses particularly on the endemic poverty in the continent and how it interfaces with politics. Written with the general reader in mind, the book also examines some of the internal dynamics in Africa and how these combine with the continent's history and some other extraneous factors to explain the current conditions of economic poverty and the poverty of leadership in many parts of the continent.