Guinea Bissau

Abstract

Examines late colonial and post-independence policies in the fields of urban and regional planning, land, housing and provision of urban infrastructure in Guinea Bissau. While many PAIGC policies may be seen as "proto-socialist', international pressures on an economy that never quite "took off' made pragmatism an habitual type of policy among its political leaders. Preoccupied first with launching an ill-fated industrialization programme and then with its own political survival, the first PAIGC Government effectively failed to address the question of a growing urban housing crisis. The Government that succeeded it in 1980 and has governed the country ever since preferred a path of reduced state intervention and found in self-help schemes a convenient ally. Two quite distinct development strategies and several policy mistakes later, the country is now being forced to taste the bitter medicine of structural adjustment. -from Author