Economic, Structural, and Sociological Explanations on Core-Peripheral Disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa

According to Appeltrouth & Edles, (2011) core-periphery is the relational concept/ is the degree of profitability of the production processes. Therefore, since profitability is directly related to the degree of monopolization, what we essentially mean by core-like production processes is those that are controlled by quasi-monopolies.

The countries of the world can be divided in to two major world regions – the “core” and the “periphery”. The core includes the major world powers and the countries that contain much of the wealth of the planet. The periphery on the other hand is those countries that are not reaping the benefits of global wealth and globalization. The basic principle of the “core-periphery” theory is that, as general prosperity grows worldwide, the majority of that growth is enjoyed by a ‘core’ region of wealthy countries despite being severely outnumbered in population by those in a ‘periphery’ that are ignored. Severe disparities exist between core-urban areas and periphery rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disparities in health, water, sanitation, and child nutrition highly occur in these areas.

African Geographers and development analysts offer a number of explanations on how and why core-peripheral disparities continue to evolve in Sub-Saharan Africa. These explanation fall under four major theoretical categories: historical-colonial, economic-modernization, structural-institutional and socio-psychological theories. Our concern will base on the three theories excluding the historical-colonial theory.

Economic Theories

Most of the economic explanations offered on core-peripheral disparities have centred around modernization theories, unlinear growth models, and efficiency – equality debates. Modernization theory was attractive to African governments in the 1950’s and 1960’s because it offered prescriptions on how to catch-up with more developed countries as quickly as possible. With the eagerness, anticipation, and high expectations that come with the advent of independence in the 1950’s and 1960’s. These models of economic development provided considerable appeal. Modernization theorists assumed that, with the right combination of the capital, know-how and attitude economic growth would proceed on a unlinear path of self-sustenance and prosperity, and countries would make a transition from a traditional to a modern state (Todaro, 1989).

Economic theories consist of various models which include Rostow’s theory of economic growth. Rostow, (1963) assumed that developing countries could proceed along a development continuum involving five stages: the first stage is the traditional or preindustrial stage, the second stage is the preconditions for take-off stage, the third one is the take-off in to self-sustaining growth stage, the fourth is the drive to maturity and the fifth stage is the age of mass consumption. A number of conditions were assumed to be necessary for take-off, a critical one being the mobilization of domestic and foreign savings to generate investment to accelerate economic growth.
Read more here

Another model under economic theory is the Harrold Domar model which offered some guidelines, hypothesising that the rate of economic growth in a country is determined by the national saving ratio, and the national capital-output ratio. The more a country saved and invested a certain proportion of its GNP (to rehabilitate and maintain its infrastructure, for example) the faster it would grow (Todoro, 1989).

Rostow recommended a critical amount of investment in the range of 15% to 20% as a necessary prerequisite for take-off into self-sustaining growth. In 1990, Sub-Saharan Africa averaged a saving ratio of 8.3%, with Gabon registering the highest (26.1%) and Chad the lowest (-18.1%) only 12 out of 39 African countries had ratios that fell within these guidelines (Would Bank, 1992). Rostow’s contentions were that limited domestic savings could be augmented by foreign aid and investment. This increased the vulnerability of African countries and forced them to give u several concessions to advanced countries.

Rosentein-Rodan (1964) proposed a more balanced pattern of investment in a wide range of industries to help African countries break out of their cycle of sluggishness. This balance approach to ‘modernization’ would allow people to work more productively, with more capital and improved technologies, and would create opportunities for people to support each other as customers. A single industry could not create a market demand for its own product or else demand would ed abruptly. Therefore, rather than proceed “bit by bit” or industry by industry, a “big push” was necessary to create industries that complemented one another and satisfied a range of human needs and demands. An integral part of this big push called for large investments in social and physical infrastructure such as power, transport, communications, and housing.

Hirshman (1958) development theorists agreed on big push of some sort, but advocated a less balanced approach to economic growth. Recognizing the scarce financial resources available to African countries, the essential task here would be to select and concentrate on strategic sectors of the economy. African countries were naturally inclined to go with an “industry-first” strategy in view of strong backward and forward linkages. Most countries, in fact, pursued import – substitution strategies as a first step toward achieving industrial self-sufficiency. Cote d’Ivoire’s approach was to promote market liberalization, develop the industrial sector, and encourage local entrepreneurship.

Criticism of Economic Theory

The economic development theories have criticized as being highly in-dimensional and ethnocentric. Modernization implied that the underlying social, economic, technological and political structure of traditional sectors in Africa could be completely transformed to assume the characteristic of more-developed countries once certain underlying economic parameters (such as increased investments) were taken care of. Not many attributes of Africa’s socio-cultural order confirmed with these models.

Furthermore, those Western mode of economic development is not take into account the dualistic structure of African countries. The assumption of the Rostow’s and the balanced and unbalanced growth models were applicable only to the formal urban or modern sectors of African countries that exhibit most of the necessary prerequisites for a take-off or a big push. Therefore, existing inequalities between the core and periphery were reinforced.

In spite of those problems, the earlier models of economic development were widely accepted by African governments. Ghana, between the years of 1957 and 1966 pursued a policy of rapid economic growth in line with the ideas of the big push development theory prevailing at the time. Ghana’s head of state at the time, Kwame Nkrumah, firmly believed in the proposition that industrial development was a precondition for agricultural progress as it provided non-agricultural avenues of employment, relieved pressure from land, and generated demand for agricultural goods. Agriculture therefore, played a secondary role and investment was channelled to physical infrastructure and industry in the core region of southern Ghana. But capital intensive industrialization was accompanied by slower growth partly because food supply had failed to keep pace with demand, leading to inflation and pressure for large quantities of food imports farming 15% to 20% of total imports in 1976.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s Nigeria pursued an important substitution policy of industrial development. Inputs such as machinery, equipment, capital, technical knowhow, and semi-processed materials were imported to produce finished goods. Nigeria’s first National Development Plan (1962 to1968) aimed to achieve an annual GDP growth rate of 4% and a savings and investment ratio of 15% of the GDP to achieve self-sustained growth by 1980 (Filani, 1981). The industry intensive nature of the planning process meant that very few benefits went to the agricultural sector, thereby intensifying the inequalities between urban and rural areas.

A major problem with African development plans between 1950s and 1970, was the emphasis on a sectoral versus a regional approach Regional development policy has rarely been employed as an instrument for socio-economic transformation in African countries. In Ghana, for example, development planning has essentially been normative single-level economic planning, with a heavy emphasis on the sectoral approach. The growth potential of each region and the part each region could best play in the overall development of a country are never given serious consideration (Aryectey – Attoh and Chalterjee, 1988). Sectoral planning dominated the first two development plans in Nigeria from 1962 to 1974, prompting the authors of a third plan (1975 to 1980) to consider a “more balanced development”. Kenya’s 3^rd development plan (1974 to 1978) sought to divert growth away from the major urban centres of Nairobi and Mombsa, by designating nice growth industrial centres in Western and Central Kenya (Richardson, 1978)

For most of the Sub-Saharan African countries emerging from colonial era, development policy was a question of whether to pursue efficiency – oriented growth strategies or equity – oriented strategies increased economic growth greater efficiency implied and greater equity implied failure distribution of the fruits of economic growth. Advocates of the former argued that core areas have all the necessary prerequisites for growth, adequate infrastructures, skilled professionals and means of communication. Pursuing an equity – now approach would retard economic growth in the core, eventually producing an equitable distribution of poverty and impairing a country’s competitive position in the global economy (Reitsma and Kleinpenning, 1985).

Therefore, at the initial stages of development, it is wise to concentrate scarce resources in core regions, and as these regions mature and expand at a later stage; peripheral regions will open up and begin to attract economic activities. With the spread of the manufacturing from the core to the periphery, the latter becomes increasingly integrated in to the national economy, and the fruits of economic development become more evenly distributed.

Friedman (1966) developed a spatial evolution model, along this efficiency – oriented ideas, to suggest that societies go through four development stages related to their city systems. The first stage is the preindustrial phase, which is characterized by a number of small independent urban centres spread across a large region with no well-developed urban hierarchy. The second stage is a period of incipient industrialization, which consists of primate city that dominates the economic landscape. A transitional stage is the third stage with other strategically located urban or growth centres reducing the dominating effect of the primate city. Eventually, the national territory evolves in to a full-fledged spatial system with an integrated hierarchy of interdependent cities that are efficiently located with maximum growth potential.

The problem with efficiency now approach is that it assumes that growth will eventually trickle down to peripheral regions. Backwash effects in Sub-Saharan Africa are much stronger than the trickle-down effects. Backwash effects occur when human and physical resources are drained from peripheral areas in to core areas for example, foreign exchange derived from the fruits of rural labour are internalized in urban areas to the detriment of rural areas. Rural areas become more impoverished, young and able – bodied people leave and deprive rural areas of essential labour required to rehabilitate their environment. Aside from these backwash effects, the process of hierarchical diffusion is prevalent as new technologies and innovations are diffused from one major core area to the next before eventually trickling down, or cascading to smaller towns and rural communities. As these backwash effects and processes of hierarchical diffusion prevail, the gap between the core and peripheral areas continues to widen.

Structural Theory

In structural theories core-peripheral disparities continue to prevail in Sub-Saharan Africa because there are underlying structural and institutional barriers that retard the diffusion of economic benefits and growth impulses from core-regions. These barriers have to be removed to facilitate any tackle – down or diffusion process.

One problem relates to the economic, political and power structure in urban areas where powerful elites reside. The urban elite form a strong political coalition that usually dictates policy to suit their own parochial interests. Sometimes, the ruling elite is a powerful and wealthy ethnic group such as the Kikuyu in Kenya, the Batswana in Botswana or the Baganda in Uganda often they form discriminatory policies toward other ethnic groups, prompting African scholars to coin the term internal colonialism. The low savings and investment levels in the region are also attributable to the consumption habits of the urban elite. Rather than investing in domestic economic ventures, they engage in conspicuous consumption habits that patronize imported goods such as expensive cars, food items and building materials.

The structure of food prices also works to the detriment of African farmers. Governments have deliberately kept the price of food artificially low in urban areas to appease their urban constituents. This policy acts as a disincentive for commercial purposes, thus depressing their incomes. It is not surprising therefore to find that farmers prefer to subsist rather than waste their time, energy and effort in marketing surplus crops.

Another is bank, credit, and institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa also work to the detriment of residents in the rural periphery. Banks and credit institutions are often unwilling to invest in rural development ventures because of the perceived risk associated with small business and other ventures. Small – scale farmers often lack the financial and technical assistance to purchase the required inputs and technologies to raise their production levels. Also, very few agricultural extension and service centres are located in rural areas to provide the necessary counselling and advice on effective farm management and on obtaining non-agricultural employment opportunities in the absence of assistance from core regions, several information networks and cooperative societies have cropped up in rural areas to provide the necessary support mechanism.

Complex land tenure arrangements also limit opportunities for economic advancement. With increased population pressure on land, traditional authorities are becoming stricter with allocating usufructuary rights on community-owned land tenure system.

Sociological Explanations

The sociological explanations for marginal development in peripheral regions focus on social behaviour. Sociological explanation is based on the following:

Particularism occurs when the interests of the particular group direct the movement and processes of the society. Such practices inhibit social mobility between cultural groups between different professions, and sometimes between localities. It also occurs when the ruling elite or a dominant ethnic group advances its own causes at the expense of others. Particularism can also be found in more developed countries when discriminatory and exclusionary policies work against certain underrepresented groups.

Ascription, or one’s status rather than achievement and competence, political appointments made by military dictators in Africa are designated in terms of inscriptive norms functionally diffuse. In this role the traditional sectors are functionally diffuse rather than specific. In other words, the same person performs several roles as a former trader and house builder, where as in the more formal sector there are highly specialized and more specific roles.

So, other sociological theories focus on social and individual qualities that are perceived to be more conducive to economic development, such as developing and achievement motivation to assume entrepreneurial qualities as opposed to developing a need to conform to other expectations or to become more dependent on others (Mc Cllelland, 1961). The centre of development strategies preneurial abilities of plantation farmers and other occupational groups in Africa have rendered such theories useless. There are other theories that suggest that people in traditional societies resist innovations and new technologies because they are conservative and fatalistic. This view is particularly naïve because it ignores the structural and institutional barriers that farmers confront. Peasant farmers are reluctant to adopt new technologies not because they are fatalistic, but because they lack the financial means and necessary technical advice that should accompany the introduction of a new technology theories that reduce the development of societies to changes in consciousness or too vague interpretation of a society’s propensities and motivation are uncalled for. Such theories generalize about certain customs and institutions without considering heterogeneous character of behaviours, social roles, and institutions of developing societies.

Generally, the underlying economic, structural and sociological explanations that widen disparities between core and peripheral areas in Sub-Saharan Africa are major concern among geographers and development analysts as explained above. However, it is very important to consider the appropriate strategies that can be designed to narrow the gap between these areas and create more opportunity for the development of human undertakings. It is therefore the role of geographers and development analysts to find out the strategies of narrowing the gap by minimizing some of the factors likely to bring about disparities between the two areas. 

REFERENCES

Adedeji, A. and Colley, S. (2013). Towards a Dynamic African Economy: Selected Speeches    and Lectures1975-1986. New York: Frank Cass and Company Ltd.

Appeltrouth, S. and Edles, L. D. (2011). Sociological Theory in the Contemporary Era. USA: Pine Forge Press.

Kamuzora, L. C. (1986). Population Growth and the Development Problems of Africa: Origins and Implied Solutions. Departments of Statistics, University of Dar es Salaam.

National Academy of Sciences. U.S. (1973). In Search of Population Policy: Views from the     Developing World. Washington D. C: International Steering Committee for the    Seminars on Population Policy.

Rwomire, A. (2001). Social Problems in Africa: New Visions. USA: Library of Congress    Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

Weeks, J. R. (2008). Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues; 10^th Edition. Belmond, USA: Thomson Learning Academic Resource Centre.

Filani, M. (1981). Nigeria-the Need to Modify Center; Down Development Planning. In W.     Storh and D. Taylorreds Development Form Above or Below. New York: Willey and   Sons

Freidman, J. (1972). A Generalized Theory of Polarized Development. New York: Free Press 108-38.

Hischman, A. (1958). The Strategy of Economic Development. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Mc Clelland, D. (1961). The Achieving Society. Princeton Ms: Van Mônstand.

Richardson, H. (1979). Growth Centres, Rural Development and National Urban Policy; a    Defence. International Regional Science Review 3(2): 133-153.

Rosenstein – Rodan, P. (1964). Capital Formation and Economic Development. Cambridge:  MIT Press.

Rostow, W. (1963). The Take-Off into Self-Sustained Growth. In A. Agarwala F. S. Singh eds. The Economics of Underdevelopment. London: Oxford University Press 155- 186.

Todoro, M. (1989). Economic Development in the Third World. New York: Longman Press.

World Bank. (1989). Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. Washington DC: World Bank.

World Bank. (1992). African Development Indicators; African Technical Department. Washington DC: World Bank.