The world is faced with a crisis in Africa. The word "crisis" is undoubtedly overused in today's complex and unstable world, but the current situation in Africa richely deserves its use. On top of fundamental problems of longer-run development - rapid population growth, slow economic growth, and susceptibility of drought and desertification - that had already attracted wide-spread concern, recent years have seen savage blows from a malfunctioning world economy dealt on Africa. The collapse in African countries' international terms of trade consequent to oil price increases and severe global recession has done the greatest damage, but high international interest rates and protectionism have also hurt.