The objective of this research is to evaluate performance of the structural adjustment program in Malawi. Facing an economic crisis in the early 1980s, the Government of Malawi started implementing the. structural adjustment polices with the support of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Main goals of the adjustment policies are rectification of imbalances of external payments and efficient use of resources. The major policies are categorised as encouragement of production of tradable goods, increase in efficiency of markets, and sound management of public resources.
Items of evaluation are defined to be extent of implementation and impact of the structural adjustment program. As the adjustment program is composed of the structural adjustment policies adopted by the Government, and support from donors, the implementation and impact of each of the two is separately analysed.
Regarding the extent of implementation of the adjustment program, most of major policies were successfully implemented. Fiscal deficits were significantly reduced, while an exchange rate of Malawian currency was frequently devalued. Prices for produce of smallholder farmers were also raised, a sharp contrast with the previous disincentives given by a public purchasing agency.
With respect to impact of the structural adjustment program, comparison is made between economic performance during the period of 1980-82, which saw the economic crisis, and that for 1983-87, when most of the important structural adjustment policies were implemented.
The impact of the adjustment program is positive. Current account deficits of the international balance of payments were substantially reduced. Production and exports rose significantly, mainly in the sector of tradable goods. In addition, smallholder farmers increased their production and sales in response to pricing policies of the structural adjustment program.
Finally, donors increased their assistance to Malawi, which sustained the adjustment efforts of the Government.

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Since her independence in 1957, Ghana has suffered from the prolonged stagnation and the deterioration of the economy up to early 1980s, when she introduced a wide range of economic reforms with the assistance of the IMF and the World Bank. Since the implementation of so-called structural adjustment policies in 1983, Ghana has maintained annual growth rate of GDP at about 5% and showed strong recovery in most sectors of her economy. Now Ghana is often referred to as a model case of structural adjustment policies in Africa for this success.
It should be remembered, however, that various loans are provided by the IMF or/and the World Bank only when governments agree to implement structural adjustment policies. While such aids are dependent upon and closely connected with certain kinds of economic policies, the effect of the economic policies per se and that of these aids have to be distinguished. In this regard, this paper aims at clarifying the real effect of the structural adjustment policies in Ghana by examining the effect of major economic policies before and after adjustment.

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A joint Japan-Zaire research expedition has been carried out in the Sinda-Mohari region, Haut-Zaire, eastern Zaire since 1989. The purposes of this expedition are to reinvestigate the geological age of the fossiliferous sites and to make clear the paleoenvironment in this region. These are the first step to investigate a possible fossiliferous area from which new evidences of hominoid evolution will emerge. The resultant fossil mammals of the two field surveys indicate that the fossiliferous sediments (Sinda Beds) are of late Miocene to Pliocene in age. Our estimation is younger than that previously considered. The Sinda Beds are divided into the lower, middle, and upper members. All of these members contain fossils, and there seems no unconformity between them. The resultant fossil collection is more than 600 in number which comprises molluscs, fishes, turtles, crocodiles, and mammals, including the first fossil records of carettochelyid (pig-nosed turtle), Carettochelyinae, and Dwarf Crocodile, Osteolaemus, from Africa. The aquatic vertebrates indicate the existence of a large-scaled water mass in that age. The mammalian fauna implies that this area was in humid environment and kept a rainforest during the estimated period. This is a contrast to East Africa where the climate changed gradually into arid conditions. The Sinda-Mohari and adjacent areas offer us an opportunity to investigate the rare fossiliferous sites that contain the mammals living in a humid environment. Furthermore, geological age of the sediments is late Miocene to early Pliocene which is the important period for studying the hominoid evolution.

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