In pursuit of a superior purpose

Although the arguments advanced in this article appear to contrast with the general level of optimism about the AfCFTA, I endeavour to ensure that my critique does not negate the importance of the economic growth dimension for development.Footnote ⁹ In seeking to retain equilibrium in the argumentation, I also do not intend to gratuitously mitigate the effects of neoliberalism and global coloniality that permeate the AfCFTA, and thus stand in the way of the right to development in Africa. I am primarily concerned with the theoretical reasoning that informs practical approaches to development in Africa, which, I contend, if not accurately contextualized, risks replicating models that have no potential to achieve transformative outcomes. This will require asking what development actually represents for the peoples of Africa and whether it could be achieved through the AfCFTA. Otherwise, teleological reasoning demands that we explore decolonial narratives that perceive the imperatives for development as intended to achieve a much more noble ideal or superior purpose.

By superior purpose (bigger picture consideration of what Africa is envisaged to become), I refer to the critical self-consciousness of the strategic priorities that consistently trigger a rethinking of the concept of development, and accordingly necessitate redefining the processes and mechanisms thereof from a decolonial and less neoliberalistic point of view. In retrospect, the superior purpose could be understood to derive from the motivations that informed the struggles for decolonization that ushered in political independence for Africa. The founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was premised on the conviction that “it is the inalienable right of all people[s] to control their own destiny, […] to fight against neo-colonialism in all its forms […] so that the welfare and well-being of their peoples can be assured”.Footnote ¹⁰ The Constitutive Act of the African Union refers to these convictions as “noble ideals” to be achieved through collective action “in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African peoples”,Footnote ¹¹ akin in every sense to Article 22 of the African Charter, which makes provision for the right to development.

The superior purpose manifests itself in theoretical form in search for meaning, including through the pan-African ideology of collective self-reliance and the philosophy of an African renaissance by which Africa seeks to position itself as a prominent global actor.Footnote ¹² With the purpose of attaining the renaissance objective, the framework instrument for development outlines that Africa will, in pursuit of the “[…] social systems of global governance”, establish itself as a leading continent in the world.Footnote ¹³ These noble ideals are envisioned as germinating into an African dispensation with unique attributes and value systems. Expectations in this regard have, however, failed to materialize for several reasons, summed up by a continuous dependence on imported systems and models.

In an effort to reset the African frame of thinking, decolonial scholars have endeavoured to define the superior purpose in terms of a radical turn towards a decisive consciousness in exploring the continent's creative potentials. This radical shift is crucial because global coloniality (colonialism and capitalism), as has been noted, has only aimed to forcibly drag Africa towards neoliberal capitalist modernity.Footnote ¹⁴ In that process, as Ndlovu-Gatsheni observes, complex problems have been inflicted on the African peoples for whom modernity proffers no pragmatic solutions.Footnote ¹⁵ The effects of neoliberal modernity in Africa are dismal, especially when the indices for poverty among other human development indicators for almost every country on the continent are scrutinized.Footnote ¹⁶ In the face of these stark realities, it is helpful to admit that Africa is not destined to remain impoverished. However, it would seem tragic if, following the recognition of differentiation among nations, Africa failed to explore its inherent value potentials, alternative ideologies and home-grown models in responding to the challenges of poverty.Footnote ¹⁷

The decolonial revolution in Africa gave birth to the conceptual framing of the right to development, which, as I illustrate in this article, embodies the superior purpose defined in terms of an imperative for socio-economic and cultural self-determination intended to achieve the yet to be completed decolonization process.Footnote ¹⁸ Completing the decolonization process entails that governance in post-colonial Africa (discussed below) should aim beyond mere contentment with the political freedoms acquired at independence. It should look to a status that is higher than prevailing circumstances and bigger in aspirational value, mirrored in the commitment to self-determination that informed the founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. This is prioritized in Agenda 2063 as the intention to achieve a high standard of living, better quality of life and improved well-being for all the peoples of Africa.Footnote ¹⁹ The African Union Commission estimates that “[b]y 2063, African countries will be amongst the best performers in global quality of life”.Footnote ²⁰ This translates into a commitment to “transform the continent and ensure irreversible and universal change of the African condition”.Footnote ²¹

African decolonial thinking finds justification in this light, which, from the perspective of the African conception of the right to development, exposes fundamental flaws in development programming on the continent that has principally pursued imported standards that prioritize economic growth rather than uplifting the peoples of Africa from impoverishment. After several decades of vain efforts to get Africa onto the right axis for development, Maseko indicates that, as a starting point, it is important, first of all, to dismantle, divest and indeed dispose of the “ill effects of colonially constructed inequities” and the “by-products of coloniality”.Footnote ²² The development future for Africa, if it is to produce transformative outcomes, demands a radical decolonial shift in modes of reasoning and functioning. These modes, unfortunately, have principally been defined by global categorizations and Eurocentric sub-standards with which Africa's achievements are measured and, in effect, with which Africa is required to conform, no matter that the normative parameters for measurement largely only favour the global and Eurocentric systems that create them. Globalization, for example, predominantly works more in favour of the Western capitalist economies than it does for Africa.Footnote ²³

Decoloniality for Africa entails that the processes for development and the mechanisms thereof be seen to operate for the attainment of the noble ideals for the continent, which, I argue, transcends the limitations of the AfCFTA as a mechanism for development. In seeking to redress the historical disadvantages that disenfranchized the peoples of Africa from opportunities for development, I contend that contemporary remedy mechanisms such as the AfCFTA must not aim to sustain existing structural imbalances, but rather to transform them. Rodney's narrative in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Footnote ²⁴ suggests that it is fatalistic to pursue analogous primitive neoliberal capitalist models that thrive on impoverishment, inequalities, dispossession and exclusion and expect to achieve different results. I describe neoliberal capitalist models as primitive, in the sense, as Nabudere explains, that by their internalization of capital “fewer individuals have come to own most of the world's wealth whilst the vast majority of the world's people have become impoverished”.Footnote ²⁵

African decolonial thinking permits a shift from primitive neoliberalism, and thus also permits the exploration of other possibilities and alternative models and approaches suited to redressing current setbacks that limit development prospects for Africa. Dean affirms that “there is a multiplicity of rationalities, of different ways of thinking in a fairly systemic manner, of making calculations, of defining purpose and employing knowledge”.Footnote ²⁶ It provides justification for asserting the right to development, importantly because akin to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) human development model, it is much more contextually relevant than imported neoliberal capitalistic models that focus principally on expanding the market economy. The resultant aspiration for global economic hegemonyFootnote ²⁷ has come to mean for Africa a struggle to renegotiate from a position of disadvantage, as wa Mutua notes,Footnote ²⁸ leverage against the odds, which by all indicators sees the nations of Africa consistently ranked only as emerging, developing, middle-income, low-income, least developed, fragile, heavily-indebted, underdeveloped or third world.Footnote ²⁹

Imperative for socio-economic and cultural development

To present a more comprehensive picture of Africa in terms of the noble ideals or superior purpose discussed above requires a rethinking of the strategies for development. Development is understood in this context from a human rights point of view as a composite process that aims at making conditions for livelihood progressively better for all the peoples of Africa on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation and equitable sharing of the benefits resulting from the process.Footnote ³⁰ Accordingly, the processes for development need meticulous conceptualization, absent which the outcomes have been programmed poverty, inequalities and unprecedented crises, which the UN Human Rights office says makes the right to development more relevant today than ever before.Footnote ³¹ This is true for Africa, where the right to development is enshrined in Article 22 of the African Charter as a legally binding entitlement, which Kamga says, “sets obligatory standards that states cannot bargain away, or negotiate”.Footnote ³² The African CommissionFootnote ³³ and the African CourtFootnote ³⁴ have effectively adjudicated on the right to development and, in doing so, had occasion to provide clarity on the subjective element of peoples, which delineates the right to development in Africa as an entitlement that can only be claimed by a collective and not by individuals.Footnote ³⁵

The right to development as conceptualized in the African Charter has a binary nature: conceived on the one hand as a legal entitlement claimable through judicial processes, and on the other hand as a paradigm for development that imposes an obligation for policy making in shaping governance and development practice and in redressing development imbalances and injustices.Footnote ³⁶ This article focuses more on the reading of the right to development as a development paradigm, with emphasis on the human dimension to development, which as Gawanas affirms, entails investing in advancing human productive capabilities and in maximizing prospects for well-being and improved standards of living.Footnote ³⁷ It requires, as Olowu argues, political commitment to the realization of socio-economic and cultural rights.Footnote ³⁸ Given their significance for development, the Limburg Principles emphasize that “particular attention should be given to measures to improve the standard of living of the poor and other disadvantaged groups, taking into account that special measures may be required to protect cultural rights of indigenous peoples and minorities”.Footnote ³⁹

It is reasonable that, in order to offset the odds that stand in the way of making living standards better for the peoples of Africa, asserting a claim to development as a definitive human right – not just as a means to an end but, indeed, as an end in itself – finds legal justification as enshrined in the African Charter among other instruments that compel state parties to create the conditions for its realization. To produce specific outcomes in aiming to achieve Africa's noble ideals entails, as stated in Article 22(1) of the Charter in conjunction with the doctrinal clause in the preamble, that on a scale of preference, greater attention be given to socio-economic and cultural development. It originates from the decolonial reasoning that liberation from colonial rule granted political freedoms and civil liberties, but not socio-economic and cultural autonomy, without which political independence is of no consequence to the peoples of Africa.

Both the African Charter and Agenda 2063 contain provisions which, read together, articulate the view that development is to be considered as an inalienable right to socio-economic and cultural self-determination in making sovereign choices for the benefit of the peoples of Africa.Footnote ⁴⁰ In accordance with the human development paradigm,Footnote ⁴¹ conceptualizing development as a human right emphasizes the centrality of peoples as the subject for development. Development is conceived in this instance not exclusively as a means of sustaining the market economy but, essentially, as a rights-based process intended to maximize human freedoms, productive capabilities and livelihood preferences at a higher level. The implication of framing development in this manner and, moreover, lodging it within the rubric of the law, makes it obligatory to perceive the right to development as a model for development by which Africa ought to be governed.Footnote ⁴²

Interestingly, Africa's framework instrument for development highlights the commitment to pursue an “African model of development” with an emphasis on the fact that the processes would be predominantly “people-driven”.Footnote ⁴³ It encourages recognition of the unique attributes that distinguish Africa from other regions of the world.Footnote ⁴⁴ It is with conviction of the value-addition of the African uniqueness that decolonial scholars like Ndlovu-Gatsheni, among others, have been persistent in positing a systemic disobedience to unAfrican conceptions (that do not respond to African realities) of knowing and doing, which have, unfortunately, been infused with and corrupted by universal half-truths that are seeming far from easy to unlearn.Footnote ⁴⁵ In conjunction with the understanding of decoloniality, the circumstances that evince the claim to development as a human right necessitate synchronizing various African value specificities into an exclusive governance model on the basis of which standard practices in thought, conduct and action could be gauged in relation to the duty to create an enabling environment for the right to development to be exercised without constraints.

Although implementation of the right to development in Africa is largely still shrouded in indifference, the unresponsiveness does not obfuscate the duties imposed on states to ensure its realization by setting priorities correctly and delineating an appropriate governance framework for the attainment of that purpose. The prescription for such a governance framework is anchored in acknowledging that development is indeed a human right.Footnote ⁴⁶ Taking its cue from perceptions on decoloniality, which in effect entails decolonizing the concept of development in Africa, this duty is, in essence, to determine whether prevailing systems of governance inform political thinking and governmental conduct. It necessitates, in particular, examining how programming for development may contribute to actualizing the noble ideals or superior purpose in aiming to improve living standards for the peoples of Africa.

Framework for the right to development governance

African human rights law, which embodies the African Charter, the African Youth Charter and the Protocol on the Rights of Women, among others, creates a regime that obligates states governments to prioritize the right to development.Footnote ⁴⁷ Doing so requires a comprehensive angle of reasoning in synchronizing the law and livelihood experiences into actual practice, which involves looking at how governance is modelled. Governance generally delineates the ensemble of institutions, mechanisms, practices and processes for leadership and decision making and the implementation thereof in an effective manner for the general good. It denotes the form of organizing for purposes of creating balance, inclusivity and responsiveness to societal needs, demands and entitlements. As Yu Keping quite simply puts it, governance represents the capacity to get things done.Footnote ⁴⁸

Looking at it from the angle of governmentality, which Dean says deals with how we think about governance,Footnote ⁴⁹ the situational exigencies in Africa necessitate interrogating how governance operates in response to those exigencies. The system of governance ought to provide the prism through which to analyse the rationality in coordinating complex dynamics and interdependencies, in harmonizing the interpretation and application of laws (norms, rules and policies), and in regulating ancillary actions, operations and irregularities. The emphasis on rationality is to the effect that governance must be seen to be, as Dean explains, “relatively clear, systemic and explicit”.Footnote ⁵⁰ Interestingly, a judicious reading of African human rights instruments indicates that the law does not support or give credence to any system of governance that subjects the peoples of Africa to subservience. Governance in Africa needs to be perceived from Rose, O'Malley and Valverde's notion of governmentality, which looks at diverse thought patterns to determine how they are formulated, the derivative principles and knowledge that inform their formulation, the practicalities embedded therein, the contestations they generate and how they align with other aspects of governance.Footnote ⁵¹

Governance, in this instance, cannot be concerned solely with power dynamics, as seems to be the phenomenon in Africa, but with the circumstances that give meaning to humanity as well; in which case, who actually governs must be made sufficiently clear, and according to what reasoning, with what techniques and for what purpose.Footnote ⁵² It involves an understanding of the rationality behind the way in which institutionalized politics is exercised, in conjunction with the active and willing participation of the peoples in determining how they are governed.Footnote ⁵³ Contrary to this understanding, Olowu observes that “the bane of governance in much of post-colonial Africa is that holders of public offices operate the machinery of state in such a way that gives little or no consideration to the welfare of the people”.Footnote ⁵⁴ As stated earlier, the African Charter and ancillary instruments obligate state parties to prioritize the right to development, which entails crafting a governance model that focuses on socio-economic and cultural development. Africa, however, seems instead to find favour with good governance,Footnote ⁵⁵ which since the 1990s, following the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) formulation of the concept,Footnote ⁵⁶ has not been useful in transforming the development landscape in terms of raising living standards on the continent.

Patrick Utomi advances the argument, with which I concur, that Africa needs a new approach to development.Footnote ⁵⁷ Utomi's argument suggests that the prevailing system of governance, which is more concerned with political economy than with emphasis on growth and governmental institutional capacity building, is not sufficiently transformative. The emphasis on the socio-economic and cultural aspects, which are more associated with livelihood, is intended to underscore the human dimension to development, which Kéba M'baye highlighted in his seminal conceptual argument that there is a human right to development that entitles every human person and all peoples to benefit from.Footnote ⁵⁸

The void created by the absence of a functional system of governance, which is reflected in extreme levels of poverty and underdevelopment across the continent, necessitates asking how state governments respond to the “duty to formulate appropriate national development policies that aim at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals, on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of the benefits resulting therefrom”.Footnote ⁵⁹ This obligation, acquired from the Declaration on the Right to Development and which, in principle, is of no binding effect, is reinforced by the commitment under the African Charter (absolutely binding) to take concrete measures and actions with respect to ensuring that the end purpose of the right to development is attained.Footnote ⁶⁰

There is no other authoritative instrument that provides a more compelling vision and approach to development than the African Charter, which all African Union member states have ratified and are therefore bound by law to adhere to. Fundamentally, the guarantee in Article 22(1) that “[a]ll peoples shall have the right to their economic, social and cultural development, with due regard to their freedom and identity and in the equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind” compels state parties to prioritize the socio-economic and cultural well-being of their peoples. Adherence to the noble ideals that underline the African Charter among other AU (OAU) founding instruments demands that the right measures, actions and, of course, rational political conduct are put in place. Accordingly, governance in Africa needs to be informed by, and practically modelled to accomplish, the commitment to socio-economic and cultural self-determination at the national level and extra-territorially among African states working in collaboration.

A reasonable analysis of governmentality in Africa requires putting into historical context the continent's socio-economic and cultural development contradictions alongside human rights law and the global realities that have been marked by a progressive shift towards rights-based approaches to development. It is sensible, in this regard, to look at governance on the African continent from the viewpoint of the incontrovertible entitlement to development as a human right, formulated in actual terms as the right to development governance on account of its transformative potential to actualize the imperative for socio-economic and cultural self-determination in Africa.Footnote ⁶¹ The right to development governance is not abstract. It originates from the African Charter and a broad range of other instruments and is implied in Agenda 2063, albeit in a fluid manner. Besides reaffirming the right to development for Africa,Footnote ⁶² the drafters of Agenda 2063 confusingly juxtapose different governance concepts, namely “people-centred governance”, “good governance”, “democratic governance” and “developmental governance”,Footnote ⁶³ which ultimately do not define any governance model in concrete terms. The African Charter sets the threshold for development on the conceptual basis that all the peoples of Africa are entitled to socio-economic and cultural development for which they can articulate a legitimate claim, and with which states governments are obligated to comply.Footnote ⁶⁴

Guidance is thus provided on how to model the governance system for the attainment of that purpose and, moreover, in respect of the principle of the rule of law. The idea of “people-centred governance” comes close to the point, but yet – as with “good governance”, “democratic governance” or “developmental governance” – without an explicit recognition of the human right component with provenance from the African Charter, it takes away the legal obligation that is supposed to compel states to act in accordance. The drafters of Agenda 2063 ignored the need to reason along these lines in synchronizing the different governance concepts and the human rights dimension in order to produce the more comprehensible and lawfully grounded model that I describe as the “right to development governance”.Footnote ⁶⁵ The right to development governance is, as I argue, the most rational form of governance to deliver on Africa's noble ideals for better standards of living on the continent, especially because the African Charter imposes an obligation on state parties to prioritize socio-economic and cultural development as a means by which to actualize the human dimension to development.Footnote ⁶⁶ It reiterates entitlement to self-determination and the freedom to dissociate itself from the monoculture of universalism that propagates the reasoning that the only paradigms that provide salvation for Africa are those of a colonial heritage.

Although the right to development governance is largely still theoretical in its formulation, it represents the most rational governance model, with the potential to regulate the patterns of rapport between the state as a political institution and the peoples of Africa to whom the commitment to provide better living standards is due. It creates a binding people-centred relationship that compels the state to function in observance of the commitment to prioritize human entitlements, community participation in the processes for development and responsiveness to livelihood exigencies. On the reverse, however, when development is seen barely as a matter of political discretion of a government to its people, the state tends to dissociate itself from the obligation to protect the vulnerable, the dispossessed and the impoverished, and by implication also absolves itself of the duty to create the conditions and to facilitate the processes for the right to development to be actualized.Footnote ⁶⁷

Governance, according to Fukuyama, denotes “a government's ability to make and enforce rules, and to deliver services, regardless of whether that government is democratic or not”, in the sense that an “authoritarian regime can be well governed, just as a democracy can be mal-administered”.Footnote ⁶⁸ The right to development governance is much broader and aims to be both progressive and transformative, intended on the one hand to eliminate governance malpractices and democratic deficits of all sorts, and on the other hand to ensure a combination of efficiency in the governance processes, legitimate accountability and responsiveness to the needs of the peoples.Footnote ⁶⁹ It looks at expanding the horizons for comprehensive development to be achieved in a manner that allows for increased productive capabilities, expanded alternatives and to progressively maximize well-being through the judicious use of natural resources, which, by right of priority, the peoples of Africa are entitled to derive equitable benefits therefrom.Footnote ⁷⁰

Unlike with economic paradigms that measure development in terms of GDP, the right to development governance model draws from the UNDP human development model, Sen's theory of development as freedom, and Nussbaum's capabilities approach.Footnote ⁷¹ It puts an emphasis not only on human livelihood preferences but, significantly, also on the governance processes relevant for defining acceptable standards of development. The right to development governance is accordingly envisaged to drive development on a comprehensive scale through guarantees of state sovereignty in policy formulation and domestic ownership of development processes. It equally ensures the simultaneous achievement of economic growth and the human dimensions to development, the realization of socio-economic and cultural rights concurrently with civil and political rights, and, most importantly, it prioritizes poverty eradication and hence ensures sustained improvement in living standards.

The performance indicators for almost every African country indicate that noble ideals or ultimate superior purpose remain elusive. Judging from the systems and the mechanisms in operation, which do not show evidence of a governance model of contextual relevance, Utomi's proposition for Africa to craft a new approach to development finds justification, and accordingly necessitates a different frame of thinking that admits “the essential truth that people must be at the centre of all development”.Footnote ⁷² Agreeing with Lemke's suggestion to replace “reductionist […] and economistic models of explanations with social analysis carried out in historically concrete terms”,Footnote ⁷³ I suggest that in pursuit of the superior purpose or the noble ideals for better living standards, Africa is more in need of a socialistic well-being economy than a capitalistic market economy, which I explain by bringing the AfCFTA into close scrutiny.

Neoliberal empire of a free market

The AfCFTA Agreement was adopted in Kigali, Rwanda on 21 March 2018, creating a framework for trade liberalization through a single African market aimed at strengthening regionalism and economic integration and facilitating the free flow of goods, services and the movement of persons.Footnote ⁷⁴ With the ratification of the treaty in a record period of one year and its entry into force on 30 May 2019, the AfCFTA became the largest free trade area in the world, estimated to boost intra-African trade by 52 per cent by the year 2022 and remove trade tariffs on 90 per cent of goods.Footnote ⁷⁵ Article XXIV of the GATT defines a free trade area as “an agreement among a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce […] are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories”.Footnote ⁷⁶

The AfCFTA is thus established as an accord between consenting state parties whereby a free trade area is constituted, allowing for tariff-free trade in goods and also liberalized trade in services among member countries and the elimination of other non-tariff barriers.Footnote ⁷⁷ Poverty features first in the taxonomy of Africa's development challenges,Footnote ⁷⁸ implying that in terms of priority, attention should, above other development considerations, be given first and foremost to poverty eradication. As a flagship project of the AU 2063 agenda for development,Footnote ⁷⁹ I suppose that the AfCFTA should take into account the UNDP model and accordingly accentuate the human dimension to development. In aiming to achieve free trade, understood as a policy that allows for trade in goods and services across international borders with little or no government tariffs, the AfCFTA ought to outline concrete measures on improving living standards, probably in the form of a separate protocol.

Unfortunately, neither the AfCFTA Agreement nor its ancillary Protocols provide a blueprint for the well-being of the peoples of Africa as much as they repetitively emphasize liberalized trade. Apart from a perfunctory mention of human rights in the preamble (paragraph 7) and a few provisions in the AfCFTA Agreement (article 3(e)) as well as the Protocols on Trade in Goods (article 3(2)(f)) and Trade in Services (article 3(2)(b)), which highlight the need to promote sustainable socio-economic development, the rest of the document is awash with trade lingo and neoliberal ideologies. While the narrative on the AfCFTA lays an emphasis on trade liberalization, not much is said about how quality of life and standards of living would be achieved, which is largely only implied. For Kuhlmann and Agutu, “the AfCFTA could initiate a new, sustainable development approach […] driven by the economic and social development considerations of all instead of market dominance by the few”.Footnote ⁸⁰

In a policy brief published in 2017, UNECA observes that the AfCFTA “present[s] a unique opportunity to bring enhanced growth and increased opportunity to millions of African citizens. The jobs and wealth that can be created through greater and easier intra-African trade have the potential to contribute significantly to eliminating poverty, creating jobs and promoting equality”.Footnote ⁸¹ By implication, the AfCFTA is envisaged to provide the enabling environment for the nurturing of productive capabilities, allow local economic initiatives to flourish, and thus trigger demand for ancillary capabilities. For van Lennep, the AfCFTA “has the potential to challenge the age-old dynamic of dependency, and give Africa command over its future”,Footnote ⁸² implying that by its nature it can enable Africa to achieve self-reliance and effectively exercise sovereignty against global coloniality. Mureverwi admits that the AfCFTA provides more of an enabling environment for expanded opportunities for development than is feasible under existing individual country development plans.Footnote ⁸³ These optimistic views present the AfCFTA as constituting the kind of enabling framework for exercising the right to development envisaged in Article 22(2) of the African Charter.

Economic growth of the dimension envisaged to be achieved through the AfCFTA is indeed indispensable for development in Africa, as Luke states in his argument in favour of perceiving the continental market as an instrument for development, a means for economic industrialization and diversification, as well as for promoting gender equality.Footnote ⁸⁴ I, however, contend that in its neoliberal formulation as a competitive market space (unhealthy for those without the capital strength), the AfCFTA does not demonstrate sufficient capacity to balance economic growth objectives and poverty eradication, which, I argue, is central to the aspiration of positioning Africa as an influential global power as envisaged in Agenda 2063. I base my argument on a broad perception of the realities of colonialism, globalization and neoliberalism that Africa has experienced over the decades, which I posit are of the same nature and bloodline – defined by an obsession for market expansion, exploitation and capital accumulation at the expense of sustainable livelihood for the poor.

A crucial factor for the realization of the right to development is the prerequisite for sovereign ownership and equitable (re)distribution of natural wealth and resources,Footnote ⁸⁵ which unfortunately has been of greater benefit to foreign stakeholders (investors) more than it has been to the peoples of Africa.Footnote ⁸⁶ With an indication to phase out tariffs on 90 per cent of goods exchanged through intra-African trade,Footnote ⁸⁷ a huge proportion of the resources needed to ensure the full realization of the right to development is guaranteed to remain within the African continent. The socio-economic benefits anticipated to accrue to the peoples of Africa is “estimated at 16.1 billion dollars, especially favoring women (who currently manage 70% of informal cross-border trade) and young people, who could benefit from new job opportunities”.Footnote ⁸⁸

With the expanded opportunities that the continental free market presents, it is accurate to imagine that socio-economic and cultural development could be achieved through the AfCFTA. To attain this goal, according to Mevel and Karingi, requires that expected gains be distributed fairly among the populations.Footnote ⁸⁹ Taken in context, equitable redistribution would certainly satisfy the central defining element of collective well-being that underlines the concept of the right to development. However, a close scrutiny of the AfCFTA illustrates that, innately, it is not conceived with the end goal of equalizing living standards for the peoples of Africa. Even though a significant proportion of African countries are constrained by extreme poverty, among other livelihood challenges, Ajibo notes that, apart from the abstract guarantee to promote sustainable development, the AfCFTA provides no concrete indication of how these challenges would be redressed.Footnote ⁹⁰ The AfCFTA founding instruments make no mention of the right to development, despite its protection in the African Charter and endorsement by the political leadership as instrumental for shaping the direction for socio-economic and cultural development on the continent.

The objectives set out in Articles 3 and 4 of the Agreement establishing the AfCFTA portray it as more neoliberal and market-focused, with a noticeable absence of any indication of how the continental common market would contribute to bettering living standards for Africa's predominantly impoverished peoples.Footnote ⁹¹ Mureverwi affirms that although the free market is estimated to culminate in improved welfare, the gains will only be registered at varying levels and, moreover, will not be evenly distributed.Footnote ⁹² In assessing the AfCFTA's prospects, the South African Institute of International Affairs notes that the benefits will be concentrated mostly in Africa's largest and most advanced economies, such as South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco and Kenya, owing to their industrial base, better infrastructure and sizeable domestic markets, which make them more favourable destinations for foreign investors.Footnote ⁹³ It contradicts prospects that all the peoples can hope to benefit equitably from the African free market. The apparent lack of a people-centred orientation of the AfCFTA (in disregard of member states’ obligation to ensure the realization of the right to development) implies that equitable redistribution of development gains from trade across the continent is not guaranteed.

Scepticism about regional integration, trade liberalization and growing anti-globalization sentiments obligates Africa to rethink the neoliberal strategies that underline the AfCFTA in order to ensure a functional mechanism that can substantially benefit the African populations collectively.Footnote ⁹⁴ Alluding to the UNECA policy recommendation to prioritize human rights as a means of eradicating poverty,Footnote ⁹⁵ which remains the most daunting of development challenges in Africa, I argue that the success of the AfCFTA will make sense only to the extent that member states legitimately adhere to human rights standards, particularly with regard to realizing the right to development. Actualizing the right to development equally entails, as corroborated by Article 21(1) of the African Charter, asserting the right to sovereign ownership over natural resources, which must be disposed of only to the exclusive benefit of the peoples of Africa.

It would be logical to suggest that if the system of governance in Africa, and hence the AfCFTA, were conceptualized differently and, as I argue, in terms of the right to development governance, this would produce a different outcome, one that is more human rights-based and furthermore patterned to achieve exclusive collective benefits for all the peoples of Africa above the overriding free market and economic growth considerations. The UNDP report of 1990, unlike previously, has long since shifted the understanding of development solely in quantitative terms by economic growth indicators towards an understanding of development from a humanistic perspective. Viewed from an economistic point of view, the AfCFTA would be acclaimed as a macro-economic accomplishment of gigantic proportions, geared to multiply growth rates and significantly transform Africa's economic outlook, especially in terms of industrialization, infrastructural development and technological advancement. The AfCFTA has enormous potential to succeed in its market expansion and economic growth objectives, the important question, however, being to succeed for what purpose, by what means and for whose benefit?

Capitalist problem, matrix of economic interest and the ineptitude of African governments

It is worth admitting that the AfCFTA will create the opportunity for economic gains to trickle down to some of the impoverished peoples of Africa, and thus alleviate poverty and other socio-economic and cultural development constraints by a significant margin. However, its predominantly neoliberal modus operandi through trade liberalization without sufficient livelihood sustainability guarantees does leave a crucial concern about who is more likely to benefit from the free market. Even though it is said that the AfCFTA would produce welfare gains, quantified in the estimate of USD 16.1 billion for the peoples of Africa,Footnote ⁹⁶ the calculation omits the reality that most, if not all, African countries are heavily indebted and dependent on foreign financing for development,Footnote ⁹⁷ and thus lack the free sovereign hand to guarantee that their involvement in the continental free market would translate into livelihood benefits for their peoples.

Following Ndlovu-Gatsheni's line of reasoning that capitalist modernity has for Africa created complex problems for which it proffers no solutions, I submit that while the AfCFTA is, on the one hand, acknowledged to have the capacity to transform the economic landscape and create opportunities for development, it will, on the other hand, amplify two pre-existing capitalist problems. First, without a level playing field on which the predominantly impoverished African peoples can compete in the free market space, liberalization gives economically privileged corporate actors unfair advantage over the economically disadvantaged. Second, in the absence of concrete measures for (re)distribution of the common African heritage and the gains from the free market (not spelled out in the AfCFTA Agreement), the AfCFTA, in its neoliberal nature, may only further open up the continental frontiers to continuous unencumbered extraction of the continent's natural resources.

The level of Chinese penetration into almost every African economy, for instance, characterized by shady development financing arrangements and indeterminate ambitions for global dominance,Footnote ⁹⁸ and in addition the seemingly inseverable relationship that binds some fourteen French-speaking African countries (the least developed on the continent) to France under the Colonisation Continuation Pact,Footnote ⁹⁹ are all concrete illustrations that leave crucial questions about the AfCFTA yet to be answered. Even though the AfCFTA provides the said fourteen francophone countries with the opportunity to rupture the colonial bond with France, and thus gain greater sovereignty and development policy direction, the politics that informs the Françafrique pact is such that the AfCFTA might not stop those countries from protecting French economic interests.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ For instance, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), at the end of its July 2009 Summit in Abuja, announced the decision to adopt the ECO as a single currency for the region – an initiative that has been seen as a milestone towards concretizing the AfCFTA.Footnote ¹⁰¹ In a political ploy, and with the complicity of France, the eight francophone ECOWAS countries proceeded prematurely in December 2019 to announce a rebranding of the CFA Franc to henceforth be called the ECO.Footnote ¹⁰² France followed through with new legislation in May 2020 purportedly ending its fiscal hegemony over the eight ECOWAS francophone countries, a move which Kamga finds unconvincing, in the sense that convertibility of the ECO would remain guaranteed by France and pegged to the Euro at the same rate that the CFA Franc is pegged to the Euro.Footnote ¹⁰³

A broad range of powerful foreign multinationals (wealthier than most African governments) are known to monopolize key sectors in Africa, such as commercial farming, mining, oil exploration, logging, manufacturing and even service delivery, among others. Although these multinationals are generally acclaimed for their capacity to create jobs and keep the economies of African countries afloat, the dark side of their operations on the livelihood of local communities, driven by the obsession to multiply profits, cannot be overlooked. As was the case involving the giant oil exploration multinational Royal Dutch Shell Corporation, which became a matter of litigation before the African Commission in the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre & Another v Nigeria case,Footnote ¹⁰⁴ African states governments often find themselves incapable of regulating these multinationals when they commit gross human rights violations in the course of their operations.

The African Commission found that Shell Corporation's abusive exploitation of crude oil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria caused extensive environmental hazards, which adversely impacted on the livelihood of the Ogoni community, resulting in massive violation of a broad range of human rights protected by the African Charter, and consequently ordered, among other measures, the payment of compensation to the affected communities.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Even so, the Nigerian government, instead of providing adequate protection to its citizens, colluded with Shell Corporation in perpetrating the human rights violations in the Niger Delta region and has never managed to implement the rulings of the African Commission. The victims, rather, only obtained justice by resorting to a foreign jurisdiction in the Ken Saro-Wiwa v Royal Dutch Shell litigation before the United States Supreme Court, which forced Shell into an out-of-court settlement of USD15.5 million.Footnote ¹⁰⁶

In a similar development that gave rise to the Lungowe and others v Vedanta Resources PLC case, a group of Zambian nationals from four local farming communities had to resort to the courts in the United Kingdom (UK) to assert a claim against the parent UK-based mining conglomerate, Vedanta Resources PLC, for the abusive mining operations perpetrated by its subsidiary company at the Nchanga Copper Mine in the Chingola District in Zambia.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ The complainants, said to be extremely poor, alleged damages ranging from bodily injuries, loss of income, damage to land and property and contamination of their water sources.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The UK High Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, but on appeal, the UK Supreme Court ruled in favour of the claimants’ standing right to seek remedy in the UK, on the basis that “the claimants would not obtain substantial justice if required to proceed [with their claim] in Zambia”.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ By this ruling, the Zambian government and its domestic justice system was shown to be incapable of providing legal protection to its citizens against abuse and human rights violations committed by a foreign mining company.

With such illustrations in mind, it would not be out of place to be concerned that, without a human dimension to the trade liberalization policies of the AfCFTA, other uncontrolled multinationals could take advantage of the African free market space and continue to exploit the continent's natural resources with impunity, and with no guarantee that the host governments would be able to regulate their operations. Note is taken of the Draft Pan-African Investment Code that seeks to promote, facilitate and protect investments that foster sustainable development in Africa, particularly those where investments are located.Footnote ¹¹⁰ It is noted that the AfCFTA is designed to favour existing giant economies while posing a range of threats and challenges to smaller and fragile ones, which, interestingly, form the bulk of the member states that make up the African free market.Footnote ¹¹¹ In order to deal rationally with this capitalist problem, van Lennep suggests that implementation of the AfCFTA requires creating feasible conditions to leverage on the opportunities it offers.Footnote ¹¹² This cautious suggestion hinges on the red signals from previous continental flagship initiatives that have largely not been successful.

For Cofelice, with whom I concur, the effectiveness of the AfCFTA is preconditioned on the establishment of an appropriate governance system,Footnote ¹¹³ which, as I argue, should embody a rights-based approach that emphasizes the human dimension to development, entailing by every measure the realization of the right to development. Accordingly, the core argument in this article has been in favour of a system of governance that puts the well-being of the peoples of Africa over the market economy. If my argument in favour of a right to development governance makes sense, the success of the AfCFTA would then only be ascertained to the extent that its implementation is guided by the commitment to the socio-economic and cultural development exigencies on the African continent.Footnote ¹¹⁴