By Mr. Maverick
An African proverb says, “When roots are deep, there is no need to fear the wind.” Evidently, the “wind” of military coups has swept the continent’s nascent democratic foundations. In particular, 13 successful coups took place in Africa during the first two decades of this century and the risk of broader diffusion is solid. The interesting fact in this juncture, however, is the level of popular support that these military takeovers enjoy, especially in the Sahel region, where in Mali, for instance, around eight in ten citizens back their country’s military junta.
This tolerance does not corroborate a deviation from the desperate need of substantial democratic reforms that populations in many African countries call for. It derives from a firm belief that within a state of constant turmoil, military leaders stand the best chance of restoring stability and robust institutions.
An already fragile and vulnerable continent, Africa has been deeply afflicted by the multifariousness of all the recent global shocks. Climate change has destroyed vast swathes of the Horn of Africa, provoked flooding in Libya and South Sudan, and deadly storms to South Africa. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has scanted significantly grain exports to Africa, pushing food prices higher just when most African countries were trying to stand in their feet after being riven by the COVID pandemic.
On top of that, the continent’s biggest lender, China, has reduced its loans to Africa from a $28 billion peak in 2016 to just under $1 billion in 2022, while the rise in US interest rates has created an outflow of capital from various African economies. Moreover, Africa’s countries are constantly amassing debt with the number of sub-Saharan African countries in debt distress climbing to 23. All these factors render Africa’s new unrest and its citizens exasperation plausible. The question is, do developed countries and the West in particular want to let the African countries falter in this state of instability, and if not, how can the former alter the course of the latter?
The security-oriented approach that has been adopted until now is not yielding returns. Examples like the NATO-led invasion of Libya in 2011 with its spillover effects as well as French-led military interventions in the Sahel region have proven that foreign-armed complicity fuels the African peoples’ resent and in some cases generates waves of nationalism, fostering more flash points. The emergence of new powers promoting their own agenda in Africa, such as China, Russia, Turkey, India and the Gulf states, has given African leaders more alternatives of cooperation. A blend of geostrategic and commercial interests has propelled a “divide and conquer” approach on behalf of many of these new powers, who bolster new conflicts by supporting certain factions and leaders in pursuit of their own objectives.
Amidst this “Great African Game”, abandoning the use of hard power tools altogether seems counterintuitive, heedless of the fact that they remain counterproductive. Nonetheless, developed countries, and the West in particular, have to address this issue at its deeper socioeconomic core. Specifically, apart from accompanying security operations with strong political efforts to engage with healthy parts of the society and push for reforms, the West needs to create more incentives by investing in Africa financially.
Although under the current global and domestic challenges that Western countries face the idea of investing more money in Africa will be a hard sell, it is actually in their self-interest. If the current population trend continuous, four in ten people between the ages of 15 and 24 around the world will be African by 2050. In other words, when the rest of the world is aging, young Africans will form a crucial part of the future global workforce, and if the West wants to preserve a vibrant world economy, it will have to rely on the skillset and exuberance of Africans by providing for their education today. Building stronger African states and creating opportunities for young Africans could be the grit in the oyster for sustaining a dynamic world economy. After all, “demography is destiny”.
