kolikotime's comments

Some will say that it was a good intervention, in my opinion it is the continued and sustained pattern of French intervention that has resulted in the continued fragile nature of these states. And oh please we all know it wasn't really about "democratization", it was about removing an opponent of French geopolitical aims.

Ivory Coast background - France enables a local despot, known as Felix Boigny, who does enable local economic growth but institutionalizes power to such an extent that the county falls into civil war and disrepair upon his death in the 1990s, leading to two civil wars in which France plays a major role.

Togo coup of 1963 in which France played a role - Togo remains a dictatorship for 53 years and now has a large and enraged protest movement. The regime has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of dissidents.

Cameroon's backing of Paul Biya - Despite his continued anti-democratic manners and blatant electoral rigging, France sticks by their man, leading to now a insurgent civil war in Anglophone Cameroon.

The Libyan intervention - What can be said that hasn't been said, a new failed state, arms flowing across the subregion which leads to trouble across the Sahel in Mali and Northern Nigeria.

And these are just a few examples.

Of course they didn't orchestrate it, but without Sarkozy's calls for an air intervention,which America and Britain then went along with, the war likely would have fizzled or resolved in a way in which there wouldn't be a massive power vacuum. Along with Iraq it stands as one of this century's greatest follies as it resulted in Libya having very factionalized governance, and furthermore then led towards arms being spread across the Sahel, which led towards trouble in Mali and in Northern Nigeria the rise of Boko Haram.

Furthermore it backfired on the EU as Gaddafi was instrumental towards regulating migratory flows, even during the protests and the civil war.

Invest in African growth businesses(stocks at the moment, African focused mutual markets). Purchase African products. Lobby your government/EU governments to continue AGOA(US)/open the door towards African food/crop imports (unlikely). And honestly, tourism, some great destinations on the continent, and a great way to actually spend in local economies.

Africans don't need charity. The NGO industrial complex has failed to create modern states, it can deliver great help to badly affected communities but it can't leapstart growth. We all know the US won't invest tens of billions in African countries, but change your perception of Africa as some place to be helped, and countries that want investment, this explains why China has become such a big player on the continent.

West Africa, the region with the most greatest number of Francophone states and influence is largely the poorest African region(some like to argue Central Africa, but people debate its composition and shape more readily than West Africa). My experiences in the region often reveal great resentment with the nature of French involvement within their political economy. Now you may disagree with that and think its all hunky dory in those countries, but for me its quite strange as a Ghanaian American to see, and we often feel sorry for them. We feel especially sorry for Togo, our bordering country next door which has lived under a family dynasty for 51 years, a dynasty overtly supported by France.

And we definitely felt sorry for Ivory Coast when French special forces busted into their presidential palace to resolve a domestic electoral dispute. But hey CFA Franc, stability and all that, yeah!

The World Bank had free reign largely in Africa from the 1960s until the early 2000s. They and the IMF had an untrammeled monopoly for the most part, which was further supercharged by the 1980s Washington consensus. In that time period African states on the whole became poorer and state infrastructure crumbled. Now its not entirely on the World Bank/IMF of course, as in many countries there was misgovernance, but we can wholly agree they did not create Eden in Africa.

What has changed the equation for the continent started in the 2000s, the commodities boom along with telecommunications improvement, along with the entrant of new players such as China, India, Turkey, and until recently Brazil(in the Lusophone states).

So if we choose to look at those historical datapoints, without even getting into abuses at the IMF/World bank, we can effectively agree that the Bretton Woods sisters have done very little to move the needle on African prosperity.

Can anyone blame Africans for ignoring the World Bank and IMF when the countries that did ignore its orthodoxy, from China in the late 1970s to then India in the early 1990s, prospered?

While we can debate the relative merits and demerits of the CFA, it is still quite very strange and quite frankly colonial that the arrangement continues.And there have been coups in the past in the West African subregion which call into doubt this argument that Francophone African states have much sovereignty to change the situation.

Furthermore, regardless of the relative merits and demerits of the monetary zone, it can't be denied that France has an overt influence on its former colonies. Most of West Africa is essentially a French backyard policywise as France's political economy is highly dependent on African natural resources(Oil from Gabon, Uranium from Niger, Maganese and phosphate from some of the smaller Franco West African states). France's behavior is quite strange especially when one can see how Britain, Spain, Portugal and Italy largely don't politically matter on the continent anymore.

Lastly, one just has to compare the state of Francophone African states towards most of the Anglo states, they are on by definition normally poorer and more fragile. The likes of Togo, Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, and Guinea are on the whole basketcases, and play a part in why West Africa, which is the region China has lended to the most is the poorest.

I've never heard of them, which leads me to doubt their credibility. One particular problem on the continent at the moment is the wild rise of fake news on subjects ranging from politics to even entertainment. Mostly circulated via whatsapp through random blogs. For general Pan African news content I recommend the following - Africa Report - Jeune Afrique (Translate, its in French) - Africanews.com (Relatively new, but has a CNN like approach) - Al-Jazeera (some great African content at times) - BBC Africa (can be a bit basic but gets the generals mostly right) - Bloomberg Africa There are better national specific resources than these, but you'd have to have an interest in a specific country to care about those.

West African American here (Ghanaian - American). This article actually isn't true, while the Kenyan Chinese pact that led to the construction of the Nairobi - Mombasa Port does have clauses related to penalties around lack of payment, there has been no actual announcement or any signs of China declaring possession of the Mombasa Port. In fact, the big issue in Mombasa right now is actually revolving around a Kenyan state company taking over one of the terminals, a situation that doesn't delight the workers due to the late payment periods of said state company.

Speaking furthermore, I do find it highly concerning just how much of an echo chamber this place is in regards to this notion of "Chinese colonialism" and Chinese "debt - traps". Most African countries still owe far more to the IMF/World Bank than they due to China. Of the 54 African countries, only four are in severe debt to the Chinese (Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, Zambia), and of those four countries China has gone the distance in terms of reviving moribund national rail systems and helping to set up industrial zones, which is in part why East Africa boasts the highest growth rates on the continent.

Africa is a vast continent with booming populations. They're also counties with deeply huge infrastructure needs. Ghana alone while one of the richer African countries is in desperate need of new roads, power plants (blackout issues), hospitals (we recently passed a universal healthcare law), and education(we recently launched universal free senior high school education). The funding to launch these countries into elevated statehood isn't going to come from the West. The city Of New York's pension fund isn't going to be investing likely in the KSE (Kenyan Stock Exchange).

So are there issues with Chinese engagement? Yes. Will some countries make a botch of it? Yes. But are other countries seizing the opportunity and using it to drive a higher standard of life? Yes. But in my opinion it is a far better arrangement than the European sponsored neocolonialism of the past. France in particular still operates a monetary zone that operates in 14 African countries in its former colonial obit, and we cannot forget the provocations against the Gaddafi regime earlier this decade which resulted in accelerating a migrant rush towards Western Europe. The Chinese stay out of African politics. and in historical terms have largely not interfered in the political processes of countries not in their "near abroad" to borrow a Russian political term.

Anyway those are my thoughts from someone who is African and has actually been to various countries in Africa.

Front-end Masters and Lambda School.