With the global economy picking up following the debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no better time for Africa to take advantage of new economic opportunities.
But something stands in our way: foreign powers using our continent as a theater for their proxy wars. These conflicts set Africa on a path backwards. Moving forward will take Africa asserting its independence by building up our own economies, free from an overreliance on geopolitical outcomes.
In 2018, of the 10 fasting growing economies, 6 were in Africa.
Now, African economies are struggling due to renewed East-West tensions. These conflicts have derailed Africa’s promising recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic by raising food and fuel prices. They are disrupting trade of goods and services while thwarting Africa-centered investments.
Foreign narratives over the past decades have painted Africa as a hotbed of poverty, disease and hunger—as a child in need of guidance seemingly only they can provide. Africans must fight for a future that defies their expectations.
A losing a formula
Africa is a competitive economic arena, a healthy place to do business. Not the place to exercise proxy wars. We must acknowledge this makes it extremely challenging to develop long-lasting African solutions to African problems. Every time we let others write our story, we lose.
Outsourcing our regional security and economic prosperity has failed and has instead given foreign powers the pretext to meddle in our lives and prolong conflicts under the guise of providing “help.”
Their “help” undermines regional integration and economic development, as is apparent in the Sahel, which is now their favourite theater to exacerbate instability on the continent.
Foreign military personnel in our backyards, no matter their motives or “good” intentions, has never worked in our interests. It’s an afront to our dignity as a free people. Let’s not get fooled that they are fighting for ideas or to protect our communities, they are fighting for control over our resources.
Their so-called “bilateral” agreements sold to us as trade promotion and economic development have likewise failed to deliver. Instead, such agreements have weakened Africa’s bargaining power in international negotiations and constrained the growth of African trade.
We must take ownership of our great promise for the future.
