Views on the implications of globalization on Africa’s development have been highly polarized over the last two or so decades. One strand of the literature views globalization and the economic liberalization measures it entails as highly negative for Africa’s development. Another strand views liberalization measures as essential and globalization as an opportunity for the continent’s economic transformation. This book falls with the latter group of the literature. Among the stated aims of the book are: (a) to analyze the place of today’s changing Africa in the world; (b) to portray how Africa is moving from despair and dependency to opportunity and ownership of its destiny; and (c) to introduce an Africa that is opening avenues for global partnerships, especially for the three leading powers in today’s world—the United States, the European Union, and China. Africa in the twenty-first century, indeed, appears to be at crossroads. On the one hand, there are a number of developments, which indicate that the continent is in transformation: fewer conflicts, a growing middle-class with growing purchasing power, rapid urbanization, a growing number of educated people, improving health conditions, growing access to information technology and foreign investment, economic reforms with improved macroeconomic policy, healthier economic growth rates, progress in the democratization process, and an expansion of global partners that contributes in raising the continent’s bargaining power in the global system.
On the other hand, Africa continues to maintain a number of old problems that threaten to undermine its transformation process. One of these problems is the resilience of the traditional economic and institutional systems under which the vast rural population operates. The population in the subsistent sector of the economy largely adheres to its own system of customary property rights and judicial systems. Thus, African countries are characterized by dichotomous economic and institutional systems. It is likely that this economic and institutional fragmentation constrains the transformation process and most African countries have yet to tackle the issue of how to reconcile the parallel systems. Instability and conflict (especially those related to diversity management and nation-building), and the fragile democratization process with its weak institutions of accountability (which facilitates rule by elected autocrats) are other significant challenges. The rapid rural-urban migration and youth unemployment, due to the industrial sector’s inability to absorb the bulging urban population, is another hurdle. As the author insightfully points out, the continent operates under conditions of tension and ambivalence that arise between the old Africa and the emerging one.
In the first three chapters the author describes the aims of the book, introduces the tasks of each chapter, and briefly describes three dysfunctional mechanisms that incorporated Africa into the global system in the past, namely: a dysfunctional use of African people during the time of slavery, the dysfunctional use of Africa’s territory under colonialism, and the dysfunctional use of African sovereignty during the first period of national independence. In Chapter three the author describes what he calls the new African beginning.
On the basis of the stated aims of the book and the discussion in the first three chapters, the reader would expect that some of the remaining chapters will analyze the drivers for and hindrances of Africa’s transformation and how sustainable the continent’s transformation trend is. The author instead takes a different approach. In Chapters 4 through 7, he identifies the African Union’s (AU) strategic policy areas and examines how Africa’s different global partners, including the United States, the EU, China, India, Brazil, the Arab League, and Turkey, engage in the AU’s strategic priorities, which include peace and stability, development, integration, and cooperation; shared values; and institution-building and capacity-building. In other words, Chapters 4 through 7 are devoted to the author’s third aim of introducing Africa and its global partners. This makes the book a bit unbalanced and it also makes the four chapters (Ch. 4–7) somewhat repetitive, since the engagement of the partners in the identified priority areas of the AU are not clearly differentiated. Moreover, the African Union is not always successful in securing ratification of its resolutions on the priority areas. The author’s thesis in these four chapters perhaps contains too much advocacy, somewhat weakening the evidence-based analysis.
The concluding chapter pulls the main points of the different chapters and compiles a strong case for the development of an Africa Consensus. No doubt, competition among the various global partners for Africa’s resources and markets is likely to give Africa some leverage in bargaining for better terms of engagement in the Global system. It is not very clear, however, why the different partners would engage in promoting an Africa Consensus.
Despite the identified limitations, the book is very valuable. It makes significant contribution in advancing our understanding of Africa’s process of transformation and the various hurdles it faces. It also makes significant contribution in how Africa can operate in the globalizing world to advance its transformation. The book is highly informative, rich in data, and elegantly written. Africanist scholars, graduate students, and policy makers would benefit from it greatly.
