With the intensification of the Southern African crisis, its ramifications have spread ever more widely until now they pervade and corrode virtually every sector throughout the black states neighbouring South Africa. The prospects for peace and prosperity in the region, once heralded with such high hopes, have long since faded as energies have increasingly been absorbed in the daily challenge of sustaining a precarious human existence.

Many students of human relations in South Africa would probably agree that an understanding of the policy of racial separation and the general determination of whites not to yield power to the black majority necessitates an awareness of their fears. The importance of this factor can hardly be overlooked, especially if it is defined broadly along the lines suggested by Philip Mason in his succinct study of racial tensions around the globe: There are fears of all kinds… There is the vague and simple fear of something strange and unknown, there is the very intelligible fear of unemployment, and the fear of being outvoted by people whose way of life is quite different. There are fears for the future and memories of fear in the past, fears given an extra edge by class conflict, by a sense of guilt, by sex and conscience… Fear may also act as a catalytic agent, changing the nature of factors previously not acutely malignant, such as the association in metaphor of the ideas of white and black with good and evil… Where the dominant are in the minority they are surely more frightened.1

The Kingdom of Lesotho is a small country, an enclave of South Africa, occupying 30,350 square kilometres of highland, ranging from 1,500 metres above sea-level at its lowest point to 3,300 metres at its highest. Although only about 13 per cent of the total area is arable, the majority of the de jure population of 1·5 million are predominantly rural.1 While the climatic conditions of this elevation are not alwaysfavourable to agricultural production, there are some fertile pastures in which sheep and mohair-producing goats graze contentedly.2 But the sanctity exuded by quiet mountain vistas is tempered by the stark hardships which accost many Basotho in their daily lives. The country is said to be ‘poor’ in that it cannot adequately provide for much of its population. Therefore many migrate to work in South African mines rather than trying to eke out an existence from the land or seeking limited employment in the cities.3 There are also others whose daily life revolves around desperately securing, by any means available, food for themselves and their families.

After a period of preoccupation with the study of the military in post-colonial states, some scholars have begun to turn their attention to the analysis of politics in post-military states in the Third World.1 This shift, however, has had a considerable impact on perceptions of the traditional rigid dichotomy between military and civilian régimes. In particular, there is increasing scepticism about the ability of the latter to restore political order, to establish the supremacy of civil institutions over the armed forces, and to acquire popular legitimacy. There seems little doubt that the pre-eminence of the soldiers, and their ability to dictate the degree of participation in politics, has continued to persist in a number of African countries, thereby producing systems of government that are a mixture rather than a clear manifestation of either a military or a civilian régime.

The great strength, durability, and versatility of steel has undoubtedly caused this engineering material to become, almost literally, an essential foundation of present-day civilisation.1 Indeed, it is sometimes used as one of the indices of measuring the economic advancement of nations because of its widespread direct and indirect application. The commercial importance and strategic significance of steel has been recognised in Nigeria for many years, and this has prompted successive Governments to initiate various plans designed to create a metallurgical industry. As the country continues to expand its manufacturing output, as well as to produce more oil and to refine more petroleum, so the demand for the precious metal will go on increasing tremendously.2 The creation of an iron-and-steel complex by means of a combined investment of over 5,000 million is clearly Nigeria's biggest industrial undertaking and emphasises its resolve to attain greater self-reliance.3

Since the attainment of formal political independence in the early 1960s, African leaders have been grappling with the problem of how to manage domestic political conflicts in such a way that their resolution will facilitate, rather than undermine, the maintenance of incumbent régimes. This task, never easy in the best of circumstances, has become even more daunting in recent years as the ongoing economic crisis has deprived most African states of the resources necessary for the continued use of co-optation as the most effective technique for dealing with critics who have their own political aspirations. A further complication is that the ‘frustrations of independence’ have eroded the prestige and personal legitimacy that was once enjoyed by the generation of anti- colonial leaders partly as a result of what might be described as the ‘elder tradition’ in African political culture.1

During mid-1985 a combined team of expatriate consultants and Swaziland experts examined in some detail the water-development options in the Komati river basin.1 This short article presents the abbreviated macro-economic ‘home’ that we constructed, because our policy and investment recommendations had to be consistent with the Government's overall development objectives. The incentive to publish our findings was prompted by the dearth of relevant data in the existing literature, and there may be others in a position similar to that in which we found ourselves – namely, that virtually nothing was readily available. Our 1986 draft was updated in 1988 to take advantage of the latest statistics.

One of the most pressing problems confronting development planners in Africa is how to increase local supplies of fuelwood. As explained in a donorcommissioned report at the begining of the current decade:

1. Not nearly enough trees are being planted to meet future rural and urban needs: during the next 20 years, ‘annual fuelwood planting will need to increase by about 15 times over current levels’, and even this assumes optimistically that ‘up to a fourth of future fuelwood demand will be met by conservation or… alternative fuels’. In fact, negligible resources are being devoted to establishing new ‘plantations of any significant size’.2

It was a basic assumption of many development theories and policies that the transfer of technology would resolve the problem of African underdevelopment. This did not turn out to be the case. In fact, mass urban and rural poverty are on the increase in many African countries. This result is in part responsible for the current view that technology transfer ‘must concentrate more than in the past on meeting the requirements of the small farmer, small scale rural industry, the informal sector producer’.1. This ‘basic needs’ approach is not universally accepted. It is feared that this strategy would keep African countries in a permanent state of technological dependence, thus creating the danger of neo-colonialism.2