This paper aims to clarify theoretically inter-relationship between the uniqueness of resource allocation systems and stagnant industrial development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper also tries to propose appropriate and effective policies of African governments for the purpose of promoting production especially that of small farmers, the solely important key actors in African development. In the past development strategies based on either “the state” or market economy have not been successful in initiating the process of sustainable industrial development due partly to their inadequate understanding of resource allocation mechanisms on the basis of either the state or market economy in the African unique context. In African countries where market economy system is underdeveloped, efficient resource allocation according to productivity among industrial sectors has been difficult to be materialized. The African state's resource allocation should have been directed toward the small farmer sector since it is crucially important in bringing about dynamic process of industrial development in view of inducement of technical innovation in this mainstay of African economies and socio-political stability with equity. However, if compared with East Asian states, African counterparts' functions have been strikingly insufficient. This fact is very much related to socio-political influence and decision making mechanism of small farmers and regional and ethnic biases in the state resource allocation in Africa. Taking Kenya's experience of success and failure in promoting small farmers' production into consideration, the paper finally proposes regionally well-focused and gradually spreading initiatives of the state's small farmer policy.

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This paper analyzes the “camel trust system” (dabare) of the Gabra, pastoralists in a Eastern Province of Kenya. Gabra people transfer their camels as gifts, and on the basis of short term loan, trade and “trust”.
Trust, the most ordinary of these four, is a long term loan. Usually, an owner trusts out (loans) most of his camels to other Gabra, and he lives on camels trusted in (borrowed) from other Gabra. Trustees can keep trusted camels as long as the owner does not ask for their return. Trustees have the right of use of the camel and what it produces, most importantly milk. As well, trustees can in turn, trust offspring to another Gabra. Trustors and trustees are recognized as “jal” (special friend), connected by the trusting of camels. This “jal” chain creates multiple networks in the Gabra society.
The first part of this paper outlines the trust system of the Gabra and analyzes the relationships which are found in the “jal” networks. There are two important relationships. One is a direct relationship between trustor and trustee, characterized by intimacy and loose reciprocity. The other is an indirect relationship between the owner of a camel and the trustees of that camel's offspring. A camel owner has the right to demand a gift from the trustee, however, in some cases, this demand is deemed too high, and the trustee does not accede to the owner's demand, in which case the owner will compulsorily recall his camel from that trustee. The latter relationship is particular to the Gabra trust system.
Secondly, this paper analyzes three features which the trust system generates in the Gabra society. (1) Trust system organizes the Gabra into particular clan. The trust system strongly unites the owner's clan's members. As clans ideally own numerous camels, owners of camels and his clan members keep a close eye on trustees to ensure they breed a camel correctly. The trust system mobilizes and unites the members of the owner's clan. (2) Trust system have the Gabra conform themselves to the discipline. As the owner and his clan's members keep close watch on trustees, trustees try to keep the regulations of trusted camel. Moreover, as the owner who is offended with trustee often compulsorily recalls his camels form that trustee, trustees must always be deferent to camel owners. By virtue of these, trustee are obliged to assume a discipline-abiding attitude with respect to any Gabra who is closely watching him. (3) Trust system makes Gabra imagine the ethnicity. The owner and trustees often live in different region in Gabra land. Trust system connects these people who mutually live in “outside” of their daily-world. By virtue of these, the Gabra recognize the reality of their ethnicity.
It is likely that these features resulted from the detachment of the right of ownership from the people who directly exchange the camels.

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Ethnographic literature on woman-marriage in patrilineal societies in eastern and southern Africa shows a lot of confusion about ethnographers' assessments of this type of marriage due to the misuse of analytical terms. This paper aims to examine the validity of two guiding concepts in the writings of woman-marriage: female husbands and the house-property complex.
The term female husband refers to a woman who takes on the legal and social roles of husband and father by marrying another woman in accordance with the approved rules and ceremonies of her society. There are two major types of female husband. A surrogate female husband is a woman who acts as a substitute for a male kinsman in order to provide offspring for the latter's agnatic lineage. An autonomous female husband is one who marries independently, without any reference to male kin, and who is always a pater to children born by her wife or wives.
The house-property complex is a system of property holding and inheritance in which all property held by a polygynous family in patrilineal societies is divided and held separately by the nuclear family, or ‘house’, of each wife. This institution is thought of as an important factor in practices of woman-marriage. Its distribution is from the southern Sudan through East Africa to the east of Victoria Nyanza and into the eastern part of southern Africa.
Problem arises if an ethnographer encounters a practice of woman-marriage in a society in which the house-property complex exists. Because both concepts which are built on different principles conflict each other in such a situation. I suggest three criterions for deciding which concept is more efficient explanation of woman-marriage in question, namely a source of bridewealth, the legitimacy of a child, and the appropriateness of the application of the term female husband.
A case study of woman-marriage among the Mbeere, one of the Northeastern Bantu-speaking peoples, is more cogently analyzed in terms of the house-property complex rather than the idea of female husbands in the light of those criterions. (i) There is a principle of internal segmentation of a polygynous family, in which each wife attaches much importance to keeping a single ‘house’. (ii) After woman-marriage, a sonless married woman stands as mother-in-law for the young woman, and as a grandmother for the latter's child, which is clearly manifested in the modes of address and naming of a child.

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