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In this paper, we examine data that describe Africans' everyday experiences with poverty, their sense of national progress, and their views of the future. The source is nationally representative sample surveys in 15 countries conducted from June 2002 to October 2003 in Round 2 of the Afrobarometer.
The data demonstrate that many Africans lead desperate lives: few do well. Significant proportions of Africans experience frequent shortages of formal income and other basic necessities of life. However, they do not believe that this situation is normal; they are keenly aware that things have become worse over the past decade.
Yet as Africans endure the impacts of economic crisis and subsequent adjustment, they do not conclude simply and cynically that "things fall apart." To the contrary, our data demonstrate that hope prevails: most fully expect that their children will lead better lives than themselves. Even though most people feel that the era of economic liberalization has been an era of economic decline, they are willing to give economic reform more time to work. It appears that this is no accident: we find that the societies that display higher levels of hope for their children are the same societies that express the greatest level of patience with the economic reform process.
Rather than "things fall apart," a more accurate popular adage might be: "things will fall apart even more before coming together again."
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