Africa, impoverishment between development, migration, strong men in command supported by a bourgeoisie of luxury intermediaries

ROME – An international conference between the EU-Italy and the countries of the enlarged Mediterranean took place yesterday in Rome at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Heads of state and government called to find a solution to forced migration by addressing the issue of lack of development between the two shores. The basic idea is to think that by ensuring better living conditions for the countries on the southern shores of the Mare Nostrum and from Africa the migratory flows towards Europe would stop. Simplistic idea, repeatedly denied by data and analysis, which does not take into account the complexity and multi-factorial nature of human mobility.

The different reasons for the escape. The lack of economic development is only one of the expulsion factors. There are several others: the lack of democracy; non-respect for human rights; wars and persecutions; the spread of terrorism as is happening in the Sahel area and climate change, which many still deny, but which is already causing massive displacement of populations from the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. This conference offers an opportunity to reflect on the development and economic prospects of the African continent from which many, but not the majority of immigrants arriving in Italy are leaving.

Victims of the asymmetrical world economic war. Africa’s growth slows to 3.1 in 2023. Post-pandemic recovery slower than usual weighed down by impact of Russia-Ukraine war which has curbed global demand for raw materials; disrupted food systems by increasing inflation; exacerbated the energy crisis. We need a relaunch that can start from the debt issue.

The debt strangling national economies. Once again the African economies are collapsing under the weight of an unbearable debt: 1,140 billion dollars that are strangling national finances, forced to pay over 129% of debt compared to exports. In other words, they spend the meager resources that enter the coffers of the state to pay the interest on the debt, while the total amount of the debt continues to grow following the perverse logic of the debt that calls for more debt; there is also a need to put macroeconomic values ​​in order, starting with inflation and the balance of payments (balance between payments and sales) and others. This unjust debt incurred by illiberal governments with floating interest rates is a noose around the neck. No longer collectable, this money remains suspended in the gigantic world financial flow as a warning and a threat to the African peoples and their often rash governments.

How to manage the dividends of the released debt? The resources saved should be invested in productive investments starting with the enhancement of human resources. This means, in simple terms, school and healthcare to prepare African countries to have a youth trained with professional skills capable of facilitating the diversification of African economies too trapped in raw materials exported without transformation; but also an African youth who is able to intercept the enormous potential of digital and ecological transitions.

Infrastructure investments yes, but only afterwards. Then and only then investments in infrastructure capable of creating a connected community between often isolated African states (precondition for the single market). But in addition to getting rid of debt, African economies can and must find internal self-financing mechanisms by deciding, for example, to dedicate over 50% of exports of energy raw materials, or to forms of national capitalization capable of financing strategic projects of national interest. The creation of autonomous development banks whose funds would be added to the funding of the BAD (African Development Bank) or to other multilateral (Word Bank, IMF), bilateral or private funding sources.

Current leaderships: strong men or autocephalous governments. But all this is not possible without a renewed leadership and strong institutions (for now only strong men and autocephalous leadership), uniquely able to establish governance sound public finances; transparent and accountable governance mechanisms that are accountable for their actions; finally, a mobilization of civil society capable of releasing creative energies without the constraints of authoritarian governments.

The strength of “vernacular economies”. These African populations who for decades have demonstrated great ability to optimize chaos through the inexhaustible resources of thevernacular economics: the production and reproduction of wealth by people whose profit returns to them. A form of economy that speaks the local language, quite the opposite of the predatory economy in which African economic systems have been entangled from the 16th century to today, with African leaders who are content – so to speak – to play the exclusive role of business intermediaries between external interests and their territories, as did the kings of the Coast during slavery.

A bourgeoisie of luxury intermediaries. It is the well-paid social group, which maintains the international division of labor of centuries ago and which wanted the continent to export raw materials and practically free manpower, both during slavery and during the hard decades of the colonial economy, with the introduction of forced labor of the indigenous people as a pillar of the functioning of the colonial mode of production. Examples are the rubber harvesting in the Congo, the cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast, the tea cultivation in Kenya, as well as the mining of gold and other products. Condemned to be exporters of raw materials, African countries have not only acquired an insignificant role in the global economy, but are extremely vulnerable to external shocks from the continuous declines in world demand.

Neo-predatory thrusts on the continent. African economies need a revolution to become “oikos nomos”, i.e. production and reproduction of wealth attentive to the needs and attitudes of the “house”: vernacular, precisely. Only in this way will it be able to avoid the neo-predatory thrusts brought by the new boarding on Africa of China, Russia, the USA and medium and small powers. The entrance into the globalization of the continent must be conditioned by the interests and expulsions of the peoples of the continent. And only on the basis of these can we discern Afro-compatible partnerships, i.e. coherent with the development plans and world vision of the continent.

How to demand Afro-compatibility. But in order to have the credibility to demand African compatibility from the world, African leadership must demonstrate that they are vernacular, to speak the language of peoples’ needs and aspirations. Otherwise they are leavened out of the dough and out of the dough they cannot make it leaven. A offshore elite it cannot drive the African-compatibility of the continent’s global partnerships. We therefore need a newly minted leadership, obedient to the people and capable of expressing and translating the new revolution of political thought and economic-social planning into political projects and economic plans.

And Europe declaiming its extraneousness. He declaims it against the neo-predatory thrusts of globalization while it should learn the lessons from its colonial past and its models. You must make an effort – if you really want to innovate – to be an interlocutor with governments (obliged to be) but also in solidarity with the peoples and communities of the continent. A challenge capable of truly and profoundly changing development cooperation; the financial investment plans of the European Union is the whole apparatus of public aid which runs the risk of walking the beaten path which leads to a desert of results and the insignificance of their actors.

* Jean Leonard Touadi, originally from Brazaville, the capital of Congo, a former French colony; was deputy of the Italian Republic, currently professor at La Sapienza University where he teaches in a course dedicated to “Emerging Africa in the framework of sustainable development goals”