“A 30-Year Perspective: Past and Future” is a series of windows into the 30-year period in sub-Saharan Africa that saw rapid change in GDP per capita from from the early 1970s to 1987. The paper lays out several reasons for the lack of development in these countries and provides various strategies that could help reform their economic conditions for a better future. From my point of view, the article focuses on modernization theories, and this article contradicts that theory by supporting the dependency theory, critically analyzing the reasons for Africa's poor economic performance in the past, as well as the possibilities for the future. land with immense possibilities due to the abundance of resources, but unfortunately their “high hopes of rapid development” have met a crucial collapse, with fundamental problems in the economic, social and political arenas of the subcontinent. The World Bank article provides evidence to suggest that modernization theory is the driving force in allowing weak state institutions to grow, referring to the importance of economic growth and industrialization of countries to develop. “Industrialization was believed to be the engine of economic growth” and the focus on the importance of “transforming traditional economies” show sufficient evidence to demonstrate support for modernization theory to achieve development (p. 16, a thirty-year perspective: past and future, 1989). Modernization theorists consider the primary source of change to be innovations and encourage the underdeveloped world to adopt new ideas, techniques and values ​​that would transcend them from a traditional society to a “more rational” one. Hence the st...... middle of paper......• World Bank. 1989. “A thirty-year perspective: past and future” In sub-Saharan Africa: from crisis to sustainable growth (ch. 1)• POL201 Lecture University of Toronto, 11 October: Dependence, underdevelopment and dependent development.• http: / /www.undp.org/africa/ - United Nations Development Programme, 2011• Mukherjee, Aditya. 2010. “Empire: How Colonial India Created Modern Britain.” Economic and political weekly XLV, n. 50• Amin, Samir. 1972. “Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: Historical Origins.” Journal of Peace Research 9, no. 2• Valenzuela, J. Samuel and Arturo Valenzuela. 1978. “Modernization and Dependence: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin American Underdevelopment.” Comparative Politics 10 (4)• Cardoso, FH and E. Faletto, 1979. “Preface to the English edition”. Dependence and underdevelopment in Latin America