The primary purpose of this article is to offer a critical, multifaceted evalution of the economic assistance extended by the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) to the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of states (A.C.P.s) under the terms of the Convention of Lomé. The first agreement was concluded in 1975, followed by the second in 1979, which runs until March 19852. Both, of course, were signed in the capital of Togo. The Lomé Convention is largely a product of the E.E.C. association policy, included as Articles 131–136 in the Treaty of Rome3, primarily at the insistence of France. This led to the Implementing Convention of 1958 which governed the aid and trade ties between the E.E.C. and the 17 colonial dependencies of member states. Specifically, the Implementing Convention instituted a free-trade area between the associated dependencies and the Community, and created the European Development Fund (E.D.F. or Fund) as a source of supplementary aid.

This article is an inquiry into the major causes of the continued state of underdevelopment and dependency of Africa in spite of its enormous wealth and tremendous economic potential. It constitutes a follow-up to earlier, historical queries on the present state of African economies:

Although the essential character of Africa's dependence on the world system changes very slowly, if at all, particular aspects of it are always in flux. For whilst dependence continues to generate underdevelopment, some growth has occurred in several countries at particular periods with important implications for certain classes. The incorporation of the continent into the world system is an ongoing process that reflects shifts in (i) the nature of the world system, and (ii) the nature of Africa's political economies. The sub-structure of the periphery – the capitalist and extractive modes and relations of production – evolves slowly, but the super-structure – the politics and ideology of the state – are considerably more volatile. Given the organic links between the sub- and super-structure, the instability of the latter affects the continuity of the former.

Most analyses of the problems of collective production in Tanzania have focused upon the political, social, and cultural contexts within which attempts to establish that organisational mode took place.1 Economic dimensions have taken a central place, as well, but the primary concern here has been the socio-economic and the political-economic i.e. the influence of stratification and of the opposing interests of the various classes. That brand of conventional western (‘neo-classical’) economics which preoccupies itself with theoretical questions of individual behaviour and choice has played no real rôle in analysis and research. This fact can probably be attributed to two causes. First, given Tanzania's socialist orientation, and the impact which this has had upon the staffing and research interests of its University faculty, non-radical economics was held in low esteem by most researchers and writers working in Tanzania, particularly by those who concerned themselves with socialist development issues. Second, owing to the fact that western economics has traditionally offered ideological support to private enterprise, it could easily be assumed that this discipline would have nothing constructive to say about ujamaa.

In any society, and in any period, there are likely to be certain key concepts into which are condensed the prevailing assumptions and attitudes of dominant interest groups. Such collective representations vary both in their cultural specificity, and in the extent and duration of their appeal. They may derive from pre-existing terminologies, with or without contextual modification, or they may appear unheralded in the popular vocabulary of the age. They may appeal to sectional interests or they may, with variable degrees of success, reflect the values and aspirations of the society at large. Yet, whatever their various origins and associations, they tend to have in common two characteristic qualities: a strong normative content, and — perhaps more surprisingly — a formidable resistance to conceptual clarification. There is, then, a mythic element in such terms, in the way that they both harbour ambiguity and obscure its resolution.

The classical school regards international trade as the main engine of growth. But modern empirical studies have failed to show any simple and generally consistent correlation between foreign trade statistics and macro-economic aggregates such as savings, investment, consumption, and growth. The more generally accepted view is that development through trade — where it occurred — was partly the consequence of favourable internal factors, and partly the result of a conducive external environment.

Few English-speaking scholars realise that a francophone network of scholars has powerfully developed the study of contact between French and African languages over the past decade, and that this is currently being synthesised in the form of an Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire. This corporate work, sponsored by the Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française (A.U.P.E.L.F.) and the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (A.C.C.T.),1 is of considerable linguistic, educational, and sociopolitical significance, and deserves to be widely known in Africa. Indeed, it will be remembered that at the founding of the West African Linguistic Society in 1961 two surveys were mooted: West African languages and, later, English in West Africa, of which the former was accomplished with the help of the International African Institute and the Ford Foundation, while the latter was forgotten. With the ‘Inventory of French in Africa’, the francophone network of scholars has certainly stolen a march on English-speaking Africa.