Explain the Reasons Behind Economic Stagnation That Most Sub-Saharan African Countries Experienced During the 1980s and 1990s. Is There Any Evidence of Recovery in the Last Decade? Illustrate Your Answer with Reference

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Explain the reasons behind economic stagnation that most Sub-Saharan African countries experienced during the 1980s and 1990s. Is there any evidence of recovery in the last decade? Illustrate your answer with reference to literature and data relating to one or more Sub-Saharan African economies. After initial periods of growth, most Sub-Saharan African countries were confronted by crisis for almost a decade during the 1980s and 1990s. Sub-Saharan African countries experienced a decade of falling per capita incomes, increasing hunger and accelerating ecological degradation. This condition has therefore led to the government of these countries to undertake reforms (World Bank 1989). Weak agricultural growth has been one of the factors that led to the crisis in Sub-Saharan African countries. This decline in agricultural growth has been caused as a result of drought. The rate of population growth in most Sub-Saharan African countries was so high that domestic demand for food could not match the supply, this therefore led to widespread of hunger, decline in the exportation of agricultural produce and the fall of the market share of Africa’s major export (World Bank 1989). The statistics presented by the World Bank (2010) shows that the total agricultural export of Nigeria dropped from 445515000 to 228226000 from 1981 to 1990, leading to a 49 percent drop in exports while the export of other African countries like Niger also dropped by 29 percent from 86978000 to 61773000 within the same number of years. Nigeria experienced a period of oil boom in the 1970s where they depended on petroleum for most of their export earnings. This provided funds for the industrial take-off within the economy. Nigeria was over dependent on petroleum export and the over dependency became apparent in the 1980s when the oil boom of the 1970s turned into the oil doom. These events

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