Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to explore and understand the catastrophic failures of state sponsored development emanating from the Labour government under Clement Attlee after WWII. The welfarist agenda of Labour’s left – championed by the Fabian Colonial Bureau established in 1940 – gained an influential foothold that would impact heavily on African policy after 1945. However, the huge economic problems faced by Britain after 1947 would see the notion of colonial development rise to become a major cause celebre in Britain’s drive for economic stability. Africa would bare the brunt of a new short-term drive to exploit colonies for dollar earning or dollar saving commodities. In 1948, the British government established two large state funded corporations to drive forward colonial development; the Overseas Food Corporation and the Colonial Development Corporation. This paper will show how numerous factors would see these organisations fail to deliver any real economic benefit to Britain in the short-term and affectively retard the progress of the welfarist agenda in British Africa.