The President of Kenya on Development and Population Policy

In following excerpts from his Independence Day address on I June 1985, President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya touches on two broad issues of current contention in development policy. The first has crystallized around contrasting development strategies presented in World Bank's Berg Report (1981) and in Organization of African Unity's Lagos Plan of Action (1980). President Moi's stress on price incentives to promote agricultural production and his support for competition, lowered tariffs, and a more hospitable climate for industrial development echo Bank's views. The second issue concerns extent of adverse economic consequences of rapid population growth: here President is firmly in traditional mainstream camp (perhaps prompted by Bank's projection of an ultimate stationary population for Kenya of 150 million), seeing problem of reducing rapid population growth as the most crucial challenge of decade. (Remarks of President Moi on same occasion in 1983 were quoted in PDR 9, no. 3, Sept. 1983, p. 574.)

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