3.5: The Ongoing Scramble for Africa

Learning Objectives

1. Describe how the conventional ways we describe wealth and poverty underestimate Africa.
2. Explain the resource curse thesis and why many African countries are particularly vulnerable to it.
3. Explain the African democracy gap.
4. Compare and contrast the first and second scramble for Africa and their enduring legacies.
5. Describe the characteristics of a third scramble for Africa and how it mirrors patterns of the past
6. Define carbon inequity, climate vulnerability, and climate resilience in the context of African countries.

 

Plundered Wealth

The image most people have of African countries is one of poverty. By the conventional ways wealth and poverty are measured, Africa south of the Sahara is the world’s poorest region. The region produces about 3 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP),^[1] a measurement of the monetary worth of economic goods and services produced and traded within a country. African countries south of the Sahara have the highest extreme poverty rates, defined as the share of the population earning less than $1.90 per day. While extreme poverty is decreasing in most countries, including many in Africa, defining poverty at such extremes should be questioned, as people earning, say, $2.50 per day still experience acute deprivations. There is growing consensus among economists that broader thresholds are needed for best gauging the global progress in eradicating poverty.^[2] Because poverty affects a person's access to health, education, risks, and opportunities, a single measure is insufficient. For this reason, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative utilizes 10 indicators (including income, education, electricity, water, and sanitation) combined into a weighed Multidimensional Poverty Index to capture the world's poor in the context of a myriad of deprivations. In this more holistic measure, the same geographic pattern persists: deprivation impacts millions large shares of the population in Africa. Globally, this expanded multidimensional snapshot portrays a world in which deprivation is much broader and the share of the global poor is approximately 50 percent higher than what is defined by income measures alone.^[3]

Conventional ways of measuring wealth and poverty can be problematic. First, the gross domestic product per person tends to mask the economic reality of most people because it produces an average figure that does not account for inequality. For example, South Africa has the highest GDP per person in the region, but it is also considered the world’s most unequal country. In 2019, the richest 10 percent of South Africans held more than half of the national income.^[4] Furthermore, many African economies are growing rapidly in terms of their GDP, but rates of poverty reduction are not mirroring this growth. This suggests economic growth is not necessarily reaching the poor. The GDP is also misleading because it does not record the informal economy which consists of non-recorded everyday economic activities. It is estimated that Africa has the largest informal economy in the world, and most economic output and employment in African countries is informal.^[5] Lastly, even purchase parity calculations in our conventional measures cannot fully grasp the wide differences in cost of living, standards of living, and lifestyles in the world.^[6] The World Bank, for example, often gauges urban infrastructure through access to toilets. Flushing toilets are wasteful devices in countries where water is scarce. Latrines, or pits on the ground, are water efficient and effective at preventing contamination and dismissing them distorts the reality of global sanitation. Thus, in one way or another, may it be via the GDP or toilets, our conventional ways to gauge poverty and wealth tend to underestimate Africa. 

Africa is rich. It has a growing workforce, booming entrepreneurship, high levels of biodiversity, and substantial petroleum reserves. The region is among the world’s richest when it comes to its natural resources, standing as a geological vault for close to one third of the world’s minerals. Africa has most of the world’s reserves of chromite, tantalite, cobalt, gold, phosphates, and platinum and produces most of the world’s diamonds, platinum, and cobalt.^[7] Petroleum, too, is the backbone of many African economies, and despite the planetary havoc of burning fossil fuels, it remains the world’s primary source of energy. Why is it then that such precious natural resources make Africa rich by our conventional measures while at the same time large shares of the African people remain poor (by those same measures)? The answer is complex and beyond Africa. It is estimated that the majority of the world’s poor live in countries that are resource rich, where oil and minerals play an important role in the national economy.^[8] For example, in Nigeria and Angola, the two largest oil exporting economies, large shares of the population remain poor. The Democratic Republic of Congo, containing vast mineral wealth with estimated worth in the trillions of dollars, remains entrenched in conflict and as one of the world’s poorest countries. Economists have long generalized this phenomenon as the resource curse, or the tendency of resource rich countries to reproduce poverty, conflict, and instability. It is a wealth paradox.

“The curse” is not a universal phenomenon and does not singularly explain why countries experience conflict, instability, or hunger. In Kenya, for example, resource industries are a minimal part of the economy, but poverty and conflict still occur. The resource curse is also not the product of an inexplicable spell but what tends to happen in many countries that rely on exporting oil and minerals. Something like this: First, the nation experiences a boom in exports of natural resources, which increases incomes and the prices of domestic non-natural-resource goods. This results in greater imports of cheaper goods from abroad which hurts domestic manufacturing and agriculture. This decline of other important parts of the economy can lead to an economic dependency on natural resources. Second, oil and mineral price volatility can put countries in and out of recessions, creating economic instability and hindering growth. Third, the revenue that is generated from oil and mineral exports largely comes from selling licenses to foreign companies to pump and mine by paying economic rents directly to governments controlling the resources. At its worst, this extractive and centralized scheme is accompanied by rampant corruption by government leaders, tax evasion by companies, and wealth accumulation by elites. Put together, these factors have been the focus of much scholarly work^[9] looking to dispel Africa’s resource curse as a systemic looting that funnels profits from the land to both domestic and international actors.^{[10] [11]} In this section, we will introduce some of these factors as they shape an ongoing scramble for Africa.

 

Legacies of Colonialism

Extractive economies

Many of the contemporary challenges in Africa today are rooted in the continent’s colonial history. As discussed in Section 3.3, colonial borders and their dynamics outlived colonization, fragmenting historic ethnic homelands and shaping devastating ethnopolitical conflicts. The economic impacts of the protocolonial and colonial period also cannot be underestimated. For example, in the North American colonies alone, Europeans profited from an exorbitant number of hours of forced free African labor estimated to be worth more than the total of today’s global economy.^[12] Perhaps it is meaningless to attempt to quantify the plunder in trillions of dollars, as even the highest estimates are meager in the face of the suffering and enduring socioeconomic impacts of slavery.^[13]

Even as the slave trade was abolished and begun to wane, slavery had established an economic model for the region based on extraction of Africa’s economic assets. A model that shifted from extracting bodies to extracting minerals and raw materials.^[14] It was the prospecting of Africa’s natural wealth that led Europeans to rush to partition Africa into colonies in the first scramble for Africa. European colonizers were largely focused on exporting mineral and agricultural goods, with little attention to or investment in local development or connectivity. When rail lines were built in Africa, they were generally constructed to simply take resources from the interior to the coastal ports without concern for developing regional linkages. Local communities which may have previously practiced subsistence agriculture were shifted to export-oriented crops destined for European markets. This extractive relationship was based on an uneven exchange for manufactured goods from Europe. Consequentially, African markets were flooded with high value imported goods and indigenous production collapsed, resulting in a resource dependent economic model that persists in most of the region to this day. 

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): [left] Africa's regional exports show ongoing colonial legacy. Main export goods of African countries in 2020 (*other minerals include aluminum, titanium, and salt; agricultural products include cocoa, coffee, tea, nuts, spices, cotton, tobacco, and essential oils). Minerals, oil, and agricultural products are the most valuable exports of African countries south of the Sahara. This resource dependency is part of a colonial legacy where economic relations and physical infrastructure were established on the basis of extraction (CC BY-ND; Statista). [right] Africa's biggest economies: African countries with the highest GDP over time (in billion U.S. dollars) from 1990-2020. The world economy is largely controlled by a few countries. The US, China, Japan, and Germany alone account for half of the global GDP. Nigeria and South Africa are the only two African countries south of the Sahara that rank amongst the world's fifty largest economies (CC BY-ND; Statista).

 

The inheritance of authoritarianism

Nearly all African countries gained their independence during the Cold War. The struggle for control between the ideologies of the US and the Soviet Union shaped the second scramble for Africa. During the cold war, the US and allies and the Soviet Union backed many African dictators, government leaders who exercise absolute power. This foreign meddling played an important role in the chaotic beginnings of African states. For example, colonial powers like Britain helped rig elections in Kenya and Nigeria to assure that political allies would come to power, effectively corrupting attempts at political sovereignty.^[15] Some of these newly “elected” leaders would rely on inherited authoritarian colonial practices upholding legal and economic systems for the benefit of the ruling few while legitimizing their authority through violence and repression. Decades after African independence were also marked by US or Soviet-backed coups, defined as the illegal overthrow of governments and their powers. It is estimated that between 1950 and 2010, the region experienced 87 coups,^[16] many of which were violent and sponsored by outside interests.

 

Angola's post-war landscape: landmines, biodiversity, and oil

The ideological struggle of outside powers over Angola was an underlying force in Angola’s war for independence (1961-1974) and the subsequent civil war (from 1975-2002). During this civil war, the US, South Africa, and other allies supported UNITA rebels fighting against the Soviet-Cuban backed MPLA government. Each side was part of a proxy war fought under the influence of competing foreign powers. While the war has ended two decades ago, Angolans continue to live with the imminent dangers of a war landscape with thousands of planted landmines left behind from the decades of conflict. The landmines are violent remnants of outside forces, manufactured in dozens of different countries and planted in Angola by competing military powers. It is impossible to know how many of these remain, but estimates speculate that there could be hundreds of thousands of unexploded landmines in Angola. Approximately 88,000 Angolans sustain injuries from exploded mines. The efforts to clear mines are dangerous, expensive, and time consuming. Non-profit organizations and state-led initiatives have joined efforts to demine Angola, inch-by-inch. It is estimated that these efforts half removed about half of the existing landmines, and Angola’s government has set the goal to be mine-free by 2025.^[27]

A National Geographic team of explorers identified the heavily mined interior Angolan highlands as of extreme value for wildlife conservation. It is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFC), the largest network of conservation in the world set to protect a natural region that transcends the borders of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. Because wildlife knows no boundaries and many species migrate seasonally, a regional approach is often necessary to protect migratory species. For example, Angola’s highlands are the primary source of the waters flowing into the Okavango Delta in Botswana, one of the largest and most biodiverse seasonal wetlands in the world at the heart of the KAZA TFC. The delta sustains large populations of cheetahs, lions, birds, wild dogs and the largest remaining population of the African elephant.^{[28] [29]} Over forty years of conflict in Angola had severe impacts on elephant populations. Militias used poaching as a means of survival and sold elephant ivory to buy arms. With the war toll of human displacement in eastern Angola, elephant populations began to bounce back and reclaim territory and so did subsistence farmers. On one hand, the elephants threaten surrounding subsistence agricultural plots and property.^[30] On the other hand, the restoration of wildlife creates attractive new economic opportunities for conservation-based local economies and wildlife tourism.^[31] But eastern Angola remains one of the most heavily mined places in the world, disproportionately impacting the rural poor whose livelihoods are intertwined with mine-laced landscapes. Having such large parts of the country unsafe for people and wildlife hinders movement and economic possibilities for Angolans to derive their livelihoods from agriculture or wildlife conservation. Thus, mine removal is a first step towards expanding possibilities for sustainable livelihoods in an oil-dominated economy that employs few. Diversifying economic opportunities is an antidote to Angola’s resource curse.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): The KAZA Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) covers 287,000 square kilometers, a natural region that joins Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia.Thirty-six protected areas including national parks, game reserves, community conservancies and game management areas are included, merging fragmented wildlife habitats into an interconnected mosaic of protected areas and transboundary wildlife corridors to allow the free movement of animals across international boundaries (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; via GRID-Arendal).

 

Despotic leaders and coups are less common today than they were during the Cold War. The transfer of power in African countries in recent years has been largely peaceful and democratic. Yet, measuring democracy gains can be challenging because there is no universal definition of what constitutes a democracy. Most definitions would include a majority rule, free and fair elections, equality before the law, due process, political pluralism, and respect for basic human rights. Thus, reputable attempts to measure how well democracies are doing tend to look at these characteristics as a set of vital signs aggregated into an index. One of the most widely used democracy indexes comes from the Freedom House Organization. Their annual Freedom in the World Reports measure democracies by combining 10 indicators of political freedoms and 15 indicators of civil liberties[17]. From the combination of scores across these indicators, Freedom House ranks countries as either free, partially free, or not free. According to their 2022 Report, only seven percent of Africans live in free countries (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Ghana), places where individuals enjoy political rights and civil liberties. Like global patterns, the last decade is marked by a decline of democratic governance in much of Africa, especially in Mali, the Central African Republic, and Burundi. Overall, Freedom House designates most countries south of the Sahara as not free^[18] (see Figure 3.5.3).

The Democracy Index is another widely used comparative tool ranking democracies around the world. It rates democracies across sixty indicators measuring the electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties around the world.^[19] Based on an aggregate measure, the 2021 Democracy Index categorized most African countries (23) as authoritarian (see Figure 3.5.3). In these countries, political pluralism is either absent or limited. In Rwanda and Eritrea, for example, the ruling party has absolute control on all aspects of political life. Eritrea has never held an election and Rwanda’s leader, Paul Kagame, has served as Rwanda’s president since 2000. Other authoritarian countries may hold unfair elections with deeply flawed and corrupted processes. Autocrats also show a disregard for civil liberties and silence the opposition through repression and censorship. Some countries (14) fare a little bit better and are categorized as hybrid regimes. In these countries, elections do take place, but they are not free and fair. Hybrid regimes are also characterized by corruption and weak rule of law. Examples include Nigeria and Benin. By contrast, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, and Ghana are categorized as flawed democracies, the same categorization for the United States and various Western European countries. These countries have free and fair elections and basic civil liberties but show weaknesses in governance and political culture and participation. The overall message from the Democracy Index is that there is a bleak democracy landscape in Africa south of the Sahara.^[20]

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): There are a number of ways that scholars try to understand how democracy is doing around the world. Indexes combine a series of indicators to provide a quantitative way of comparing countries. [left] The state of democracy: Global Democracy Index rates, by country/territory (2021). *Takes into account electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. This categorizes the best-scoring countries as full and flawed democracies, symbolized in gradients of blue. Hybrid regimes are noted in purple and authoritarian regimes in red. Most countries in the world in 2021 were not democracies (CC BY-ND; Statista). [right] The state of freedom in the world: Countries assessed for freedom levels in 2020. *195 countries and 15 territories were rated for access to political rights and civil liberties. This illustration utilizes the Freedom House's assessment of freedom in the world to illustrate global differences in freedom. The majority of countries in the world are not considered free, including most countries in Africa South of the Sahara. World in Data provides interactive maps and charts of the Global Democracy Index and of Freedom in the World, for further exploration of how individual countries are doing and have done over time. The temporal patterns are grim, with democracies and global freedom on a consistent decline (CC BY-ND; Statista).

 

Africans want democracy

There is a gap between the autocratic regimes of Africa and the demand for democracy in Africa. The Afrobarometer provides a pulse of African opinion in 34 countries. According to different rounds of their surveys (2011-2013 and 2019-2021), a large majority of Africans consistently oppose one-person, one-party, or military rule and show strong support for democracy as “preferrable to any form of government.”^[21] Africans of all ages and levels of education reject leaders for life and support two-term presidential limits. In Gabon and Togo, two countries where a hereditary presidency has kept power within a single family for fifty years, the support for term limits is even higher. In all countries (except Lesotho) the majority prefer elections as a way of electing leaders. However, a recent decrease in support for elections shows disillusionment, especially with the malleability, irregularities, coercion, and violence that characterizes many elections.^[22] Most do not believe their governments are handling corruption well and that corruption is getting worse.^[23] The demand for accountability has substantially increased from the past Afrobarometer surveys, with most respondents agreeing that it is more important for the government to be accountable to the people and for presidents to “obey the laws and courts” even if the president “thinks they are wrong.”^[24]

Support for democratic governance is also expressed in courageous acts of protest and resistance to authoritarianism. In Chad, protesters demonstrated against President Deby’s insistence on holding the presidency for a sixth term and continued to demand a return to civilian rule after his death in 2021. In South Africa, mounting discontent over cost of living, electricity, and corruption brought masses to protest in 2022. Both Ghana and Nigeria have had multi-sphere (digital and physical) social mobilizations in 2021. Ghana’s #fixthecountry activists mobilized against unemployment, corruption, and military brutality. Journalists, too, brave repression promoting new broadcasting channels for anticorruption investigative reporting in Ghana and Benin.^[25] These pro-democracy efforts are expressions of a strong public engagement and a desire for freedoms and inclusive institutions as a way to promote more just societies and better lives.

The resource curse does not help the African desire to boot autocrats. That is because most governments in Africa receive large shares of their tax revenues from natural resources, not income or property taxes. In Africa’s biggest oil producer, Nigeria, only 4 percent of government revenue comes from taxing the people and about 85 percent comes from oil exports.^[26] With petro-dollars flowing directly to government coffers, leaders feel less accountable to represent the interests of the people. Plus, an oil centered economy means that Nigeria is in and out of recession, depending on oil markets, and oil provides little economic benefits for Nigerians. For example, when Nigeria boasts high economic growth rates and increases its oil exports, unemployment in Nigeria continues to be high, especially for the youth. Autocrats also do not require popular support to fund their militaries and can leverage military muscle to remain in power. All of this results in lack of accountability and breeding grounds for corruption and reduced engagement with societal needs. But Nigerians remain committed to accountability. In 2021, the #endSARS movement sought to dismantle the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a special police unit notorious for their impunity and brutality against Nigerian citizens. While #endSARS did not produce the change that young Nigerians had hoped, it sent a clear message that Nigerians want more democracy, not less.

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Nigerians gather in protest in Africa's most populous city, Lagos, in October, 2020. Activists depicted hold the Nigerian flag and signs calling for the end of police brutality, killings, and robbery and also the end of corruption and injustice with the movement's hashtag #endSARS (both CC BY; Kaizenefi via Wikimedia Commons).

 

Scrambles 3.0?

China: Trading Partner or Neocolonial Power?

China’s economic and political influence is a key characteristic of today’s world. Nowhere else is this reality more evident than in Africa. Recently, China surpassed the United States as Africa’s largest trading partner, and China has invested more in Africa than anywhere else outside of Asia. Djibouti, a small country in the Horn of Africa, is home to the only Chinese military base outside of China. The strategic location of Djibouti near to oil shipping routes coming from the Red Sea makes it desirable for military bases. It is here that both the US and Chinese militaries exist within close quarters. The presence of the two mightiest superpowers in a tiny African country is an acute example of how resources and power converge in exact locations connecting global and local scales in intricate ways. Djibouti is only one of the many strong footholds of the globalized US military. China’s exclusive military presence in Djibouti, however, is a window to China’s leading role in broader shifts happening in the world.

The Chinese interest in resource-rich countries is not much different from the interests of western superpowers. China is an economic giant looking to secure access to oil, gas, and minerals and strategic ports to bolster its security and regional influence. China’s strategy in Africa is part of the larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a series of infrastructural investment projects looking to connect the economic giant to important resources and trading routes. It has been signed by 43 African countries and become a transformative force in the region. Take for example a tiny finishing village, Bagamoyo, in Tanzania. It is set to become Africa’s largest port with billions of dollars of Chinese investment. On land, the East African railroad project is being built by a Chinese company in Kenya. It meant to connect the port city of Mombasa to Nairobi and eventually the rest of East Africa. The BRI represents an expanded Chinese investment and lending with no strings attached. This means that China does not get involved in Africa’s governmental affairs and is willing to pour billions of dollars in infrastructural projects to access Africa’s natural resources without the preconditions of political stability, transparency, democracy, or human rights. Given Africa’s turbulent past with western influence and control, the “business only” approach is appealing. The African population is growing fast and urbanizing fast, more so than any region in the world. Chinese loans enable construction for much needed infrastructure to enhance extractive capabilities and boost trade and economic growth. ^[32]

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): [left] China's Belt and Road Investment (BRI) map: Chinese BRI investments by world region in 2020 (in billions U.S. dollars). This map illustrate the global investments of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Note that Africa South of the Sahara has been the largest destination of Chinese monetary investments outside of Asia (CC BY-ND; Statista). [right] China's African trade takeover: Top source country for imports in African countries based on share of total value of imports between 2020 and 2019. Over the last two decades, China has substantially increased its trading with African countries. Note how from 2000-2019, China became the top source of imports for most African countries. *South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011 (CC BY-ND; Statista).

 

The Sino-African relationship has been subject of much scrutiny and speculation. There is no doubt that there are mutual benefits to the relationship. Yet, it is also undeniable that there is a great power imbalance when African countries meet the world’s most populous nation and soon to be largest economy at the negotiating table. Some contend that China’s willingness to borrow with favorable terms and low interest rates is a type of debt diplomacy because African nations are owing more and more to China. Others note that China is still mostly importing oil and minerals from Africa and that the increased cash flow props up authoritarian leaders and facilitates corruption. In doing so, it offers a new world order that is friendly to dictators. Angola is a good example of such critiques. Angola has borrowed more from China than any African country, and it has also become one of China’s most important oil suppliers. Angola’s autocrat, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has been in power since 1979. Under his rule, billions of dollars have gone missing.^[33] In Ghana, China might be seeing greater benefits from their relationship with one of Africa’s few democracies paying obscurely low mining taxes in gold-rich Ghana. Chinese entrepreneurs have caught headlines for illegal mining operations, for abusive treatment of African workers, and for illegal fishing.^[34]

What do Africans think? A 2019-2020 Afrobarometer survey suggests that Africans have positive views of China’s influence in their countries. But when it comes to a developmental model, the majority in most African countries surveyed prefer a US-style democracy.^[35] In other words, Africans value China’s economic influence but still want democracy over authoritarian rule.

 

The Climate Burden

African countries carry a disproportionate burden of a global climate crisis. For decades, scientists warned that burning fossil fuels results in an accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would disrupt global climate systems. Sea level rise, glacier melting, flooding, drought, loss of terrestrial and marine biodiversity, increased frequency and intensity of megafires and storms, heat waves, and increased uninhabitable land are all examples of the present and future impacts of climate change. Since the industrial revolution, African countries did not significantly contribute greenhouse gas emissions compared to European countries, the United States, and China. Since 1751, Africa south of the Sahara contributed a mere 2 percent of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions.^[36] This is reflective of a deeply unequal world where the wealthiest 10 percent of the global population is responsible for more than half of the global greenhouse gas emissions. The global rich live everywhere in the world, but the US has the largest population of rich people.^[37] Yet, it is the poorest people around the world, largely in Africa and Asia, that are disproportionately impacted by the adverse effects of climate change.

There is a myriad of ways to explore this disproportionate climate burden. Often, economic measures are used since there is no doubt that climate disasters pose economic costs. A global warming of 2°C is predicted to have a greater economic impact on poor countries with large projected GDP losses in Africa, especially those along the Sahel.^[38] The World Bank estimates that business as usual means that 100 million more people will dip below the poverty line by 2030, exacerbating already acute deprivations in Africa and beyond.^[39] Nigeria, the nation with the largest number of people living below the poverty line today, could see an additional 15 million people slip into extreme poverty.^[40] These economic impacts are exacerbated because of the prohibitive costs of adapting to climate change. Countries unable to invest in technology and infrastructure experience greater climate vulnerability. Being vulnerable to climate change means being more likely to be adversely affected due to susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt. A 2022 report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that human mortality from floods, droughts, and storms was much higher in regions identified to have high climate vulnerability. It also identified Africa south of the Sahara as a vulnerability hotspot due to intersecting factors that worsen climate risks like high instances of poverty, political instability, and conflict. Additionally, large populations of farmers, pastoralists, and fishing communities rely directly on natural resources for their livelihoods.^[41] When environmental conditions cannot support livelihoods, people must flee. Climate-related migration is already happening all over the world. The World Bank projects that Africa South of the Sahara will see the largest number of displaced peoples due to climate change (see Figure 3.5.6). Considering these factors makes it clear that African countries face an environmental context that is economically burdensome.

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\): African countries are on the frontlines of climate change in terms of vulnerability and the projected displacements already happening due to climate change. [left] Index scores for climate resilience of African countries in 2022 based on an assessment of 180 countries for readiness, vulnerability, and GDP. *Averages based on 10 countries in Southern Europe, 53 in Africa. The map shows that all African countries have low climate resilience, or the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing climate (CC BY-ND; Statista). [right] Climate change, the great displacer: Average number of internal climate migrants by 2050 per region in millions. *Modeled on pessimistic reference = High emission and unequal development scenarios concerning water availability, crop productivity, and sea-level rise by the World Bank. Climate change is projected to uproot millions of people around the world. Based on these projections, Africa South of the Sahara will see the largest displacement, with over 70 million people pushed to migrate for climate-related reasons. This is more than double the displacement projected for South Asia or East Asia and the Pacific (CC BY-ND; Statista).

 

Toward climate resilience: The Great Green Wall and Green Energy

The Sahel region faces high levels of climate vulnerability. Sahelian populations are intimately dependent on the land, as 70–92 percent depend on agriculture and/or livestock for their livelihoods. Most of the agriculture is rainfed, thus agricultural productivity is vulnerable to the low and highly variable rainfall typical of the region. Due to climate change, temperatures are expected to increase 3–6 °C up until the end of the twenty-first century, causing significant reduction in crop yields. At the same time, rainfall patterns are changing in unpredictable ways with indications of a shorter rainy season and extended droughts, making agriculture more challenging. Combined with topsoil degradation due to intensive agriculture and overgrazing, previously fertile lands are being engulfed into a desert, a process known as desertification. The environmental changes in the Sahel are of particular concern because of the other volatilities already existent in the region. Sahelian states have among the highest levels of multidimensional poverty, population growth, and ongoing political instability and conflict in the world.

The Great Green Wall (GGW) is a monumental reforestation effort to halt land degradation and restore the Sahel. It is a multibillion-dollar initiative involving a range of stakeholders including national governments, international organizations, the business sector, and civil society. Its origins can be traced back to Thomas Sankara, a pan-African theorist and Burkina Faso’s former president (1983-1987) who led efforts to combat desertification in his own country. By 2007, the idea of an African Green Wall had been resurrected and was adopted by 11 founding members at the conference of Heads of State and Government of the African Union. Since then, the project is 15 percent complete. It envisions to plant millions of trees along the Sahel with the aim to restore millions of hectares of degraded land by 2030 and improve livelihoods. This innovative solution is geared towards improving climate resilience by building the capacity of a social-ecological system to adapt and transform in the face of change to support human and environmental well-being. It reflects an ambitious long-term policy vision of a green, fertile, and prosperous Africa. The GGW could also be a potential catalyst in promoting closer collaboration between countries by strengthening solidarity among Sahelian states to combat the enormous social and ecological challenges of the region.

Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\): [left] The Great Green Wall Initiative is a pan-African reforestation effort looking to combat deforestation and the effects of climate change by planting millions of trees from Senegal to Djibouti. About 15% of the targeted geographical area has been restored, about 57 percent of the restored lands are in Ethiopia followed by Niger (20%) and Eritrea (15%). Project: Reforestation of an 8,000km corridor to combat desertification and the effects of climate change. Benefits also include the creation of local jobs (CC BY-ND; Statista). [right] Africa leads the world in solar power potential: Average long-term practical potential solar energy output, by world region in KwH/kWp/day). While renewable energy generation represents only 9 percent of African energy generation, there is great capacity for renewables to become a greater part of the energy grid. According to the World Bank's Global Solar Atlas, Africa leads the world in solar power potential, an untapped opportunity that could improve access to reliable energy improving the lives of millions of people. *Baed on national averages from a total of 209 countries. Calculated for utility-scale installations of monofacial modules at optimum tilt. Excluding land with identifiable physical obstacles by ignoring possible restraints due to land use regulations. Central and South America includes the Caribbean (CC BY-ND; Statista).

 

 

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[10] Burgins, T. (2015). A Curse of Riches. In The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth. New York: Public Affairs.

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[12] Hickel, J. (Nov 2015). Enough of aid: Let’s talk reparations. The Guardian.

[13] Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2020). Historical legacies and African development. Journal of Economic Literature, 58(1), 53-128.

[14] Michalopoulos, S. and Papaioannou, E. (Jul 30, 2021). European Colonialism in Africa is Alive. Project Syndicate.

[15] Cheeseman, N. and Fisher, J. (Oct 31, 2019). How colonial rule predisposed Africa to fragile authoritarianism. The Conversation. The summary from the authors is based on their book (2019) Authoritarian Africa: Repression, Resistance, and the Power of Ideas.

[16] Devermont, J. and Temin, J. (Jul/Aug 2019). Africa’s democratic moment? The five leaders who could transform the region. Foreign Affairs.

[17] Each country and territory is assigned between 0 and 4 points on a series of 25 indicators, for an aggregate score of up to 100. Political rights are grouped into three subcategories: Electoral Process, Political Pluralism and Participation, and Functioning of Government. Civil liberties are grouped into four subcategories: Freedom of Expression and Belief, Associational and Organizational Rights, Rule of Law, and Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights. The totals are weighted equally to determine whether the country or territory has an overall status of Free, Partly Free, or Not Free. For full methodology, access Freedom House 2022 Methodology Notes.

[18] Freedom House. (2022). Freedom in the world 2022: The global expansion of authoritarian rule.

[19] The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy, on a 0 to 10 scale, is based on the ratings for 60 indicators, grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Each category has a rating on a 0 to 10 scale, and the overall Index is the simple average of the five category indexes. The category indexes are based on the sum of the indicator scores in the category, converted to a 0 to 10 scale. See full methodology notes on pages 67-79 of the report cited below (19).

[20] The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2021). Democracy Index 2021: The China challenge.

[21] Gyimah-Boadi, E., Logan, C., & Sanny, J. (2021). Africans’ durable demand for democracy. Journal of Democracy 32 (3), pp 136 – 151.

[22] M'Cormack-Hale, F. and Dome, M. (Sep 16, 2022). Support for elections weakens among Africans; many see them as ineffective in holding leaders accountable. Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 551.

[24] See 20.

[25] See 20.

[26] Burgins, T. (2015). Incubators of Poverty. In The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth. New York: Public Affairs.

[27] Vandome, C. (June 2019). Mine Action in Angola: clearing the legacies of conflict to harness potential peace. Chatam House: The Royal Institute on International Affairs.

[28] National Geographic. Okavango Wilderness Project.

[29] C.R. Thouless, H.T. Dublin, J.J. Blanc, D.P. Skinner, T.E. Daniel, R.D. Taylor, F. Maisels, H. L. Frederick and P. Bouché (2016). African Elephant Status Report 2016: an update from the African Elephant Database. Occasional Paper Series of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, No. 60 IUCN / SSC Africa Elephant Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. vi + 309pp.

[30] Calle, A., Bradley, M., Corley, M., & Kriner, E. (2021, December). Predicting the Likelihood of Human-Elephant Conflict and Assessing Patterns in Human-Elephant Conflict & Movements Over Varying Habitat Conditions in the Kavango-Zambezi Area. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2021, pp. GC25B-0659).

[31] Van der Meer, E., Badza, M. N., & Ndhlovu, A. (2016). Large carnivores as tourism flagship species for the Zimbabwe component of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. African Journal of Wildlife Research, 46(2), 121-134.

[32] The Economist. (May 20, 2022). Chinese loans and investment in infrastructure have been huge.

[33]

[34] The Economist. (May 22, 2022). The price of friendship.

[35] Appiah-Nyamekye Sanny, J. and Selormey, E. Africans regard China’s influence as significant and positive, but slipping. Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 407.

[36] Our World in Data. (2017). Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions? Cumulative carbon emissions over the period 1751-2017.

[37] Roston, R., Kaufman, L., and Warren, H. (Mar 23, 2022). How the world’s richest people are driving global warming. Bloomberg.

[38] Our World in Data. Economic impacts of 2°C. Based on projections from Pretis, Schwarz, Tang, Haustein, and Allen. 2018. "Uncertain Impacts on Economic Growth When Stabilizing Global Temperatures at 1.5°C or 2°C Warming". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

[39] Jafino, B., Walsh, B., Rozenberg, J., and Hallegatte, S. (Sep 2020). Revised estimates of the impact of climate change on extreme poverty by 2030. The World Bank Climate Change Group & Global Facility for Disaster Reduction & Recovery.

[40] Our World in Data. Additional people at risk of extreme poverty with high climate adaptation challenges, 2022 – 2030. Based on projections from Cuaresma, J. C., Fengler, W., Kharas, H., Bekhtiar, K., Brottrager, M., & Hofer, M. (2018). Will the Sustainable Development Goals be fulfilled? Assessing present and future global poverty. Palgrave Communications, 4(1), 29.

[41] IPCC, 2022: Summary for Policymakers [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, M. Tignor, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3–33.

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Attributions:

Conventional measures of poverty are informed by the World Bank. 2018. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle. Washington, DC: World Bank, CC BY 3.0.

"The Great Green Wall" is adapted from Goffner, D., Sinare, H. & Gordon, L.J. (2019). The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative as an opportunity to enhance resilience in Sahelian landscapes and livelihoods. Reg Environ Change 19, pp 1417–1428, CC BY 4.0.

This page is also adapted from World Regional Geography by Caitlin Finlayson, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.