Recently, an American by the name Erik Prince called on the United States to ‘put the imperial hat back on’ and govern countries and regions that are unable to govern themselves. On his radar is ‘pretty much all of Africa’.
Simply put, Prince is calling for the recolonisation of Africa since, in his view, ‘they are incapable of governing themselves.’ Prince served in the US military and is a co-founder of Blackwater, a private military mercenary that is remembered for its role in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003.
Even though Prince’s prescription may be viewed as too extreme, perhaps inconceivable in our time, his diagnosis of Africa’s plight is certainly not isolated. Africa’s lamentable situation within the global system is just as widely acknowledged as it is empirically borne out.
The continent is home to approximately 1.3 billion people inhabiting a geographical expanse of 30 million square kilometres of land. On account of both population and size, Africa ranks second after Asia. The continent has immense natural resources, including the longest river and the second-largest rainforest on the planet. It is also home to 30 per cent of the world’s vital minerals that power the world.
But there is a flipside to the glowing attributes. World Bank estimates show that slightly over half of the 700 million people categorised as living in extreme poverty are in Africa, precisely sub-Saharan Africa. The continent’s share of the global Gross Domestic Product is a paltry three per cent, a figure that pales the continent’s demographic, geographic, and resource command.
Africa is home to 18 per cent of the global population. To put it into perspective, Europe is home to nine per cent of the global population, yet commands 20 per cent of the global GDP. It is only one-third of Africa’s size.
Africa’s plight is not inevitable. Yet, its escape from the protracted plight is not natural. It is part of the global system synonymous with sheer competition. States, being the basic unit of the global system, are primarily defined by national interest.
The reality about national interests is that they are mostly defined in isolation, with each state identifying what it seeks to achieve and sets about achieving it with the tools and instruments at its disposal.
Achieving national interest by one state may mean outright sabotage of the other. In fact, in numerous cases, it has occasioned exactly that. The level of influence; military, economic, political and diplomatic, determines how well a state succeeds in attaining its interest. It is a system that accords little sympathy to fair play. Survival of the fittest is the rule of the game.
Conversation about Africa’s pathway to claiming its glorious place in the global order is hardly new. A lot has been said and documented on what Africa can do, indeed should do, to extricate itself from the position of attracting sympathy and pity to that of exerting control and influence.
Encouragingly, some steps have been undertaken to improve the continent’s fortunes. A number of systems and frameworks have been established as the anchor to the ‘liberation’ quest. The African Union stands out as the continent’s best chance at enhancing and consolidating cohesion; politically, economically and diplomatically.
The African Continental Free Trade Area, a part of the AU’s system, holds immense potential for the improvement of Africa’s economic fortunes. Estimates show that its successful implementation would yield a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion, making it the fifth-largest economy in the world. It is truly the continent’s economic tour de force.
The challenge is hardly in the prescriptions. They are in plenty. The elephant in the room is the implementation and actualisation of the prescriptions. The dysfunctionalities of the systems are in plain view. Despite decades of existence, very little is heard of the AU amid the myriad of challenges afflicting the continent.
For instance, one genuinely wonders what strong interventions the AU has initiated to bring to an end Africa’s ‘forgotten conflicts’; the age-old unrest in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and, more recently, the civil war in Sudan.
It is a sad reality that despite costing over 12,000 lives, Sudan’s civil war hardly competes for global attention like the Israel-Hamas and the Ukraine-Russia wars. Not even its substantial command of the United Nations has aided the situation.
Africa alone controls 28 per cent of the UN’s voting bloc. If Africa is to claim its pride of place at the Committee of Nations, it must claim it. It must trigger and exploit all the potential leverages to assert its rightful place.