Africa: On the Rise, but to Where?

Abstract

Africa's hitherto negative image is now being rapidly replaced by a new persona: 'Africa on the rise'. Developed mainly from Africa's growth experience, this re-imaging of Africa has generated considerable interest even among Africanists concerned that the continent has often been the target of crisis jokes. Even more notably, the rebranding of Africa has gained traction in corridors of power and centres of finance. For this latter group, however, the narrative signals more than a cultural repackaging. It is about confirming that Africa is ripe and ready to host investment and to open up markets in areas where they did not exist or existed but were not capitalist in form. Either way, however, the 'Africa on the rise' narrative achieves a major political and economic goal. Neglecting ethical questions about sustainable jobs, inequality and ecological crisis, while extolling the virtues of capital accumulation, it extends a particular neoliberal ideology which favours people with market power, not the majority with precarious positions or their relationship with nature.

Foreign Aid and Inclusive Development: Updated Evidence from Africa, 2005-2012

“…This stream of the literature has been motivated by a strand on 'Africa rising' (Leautier, 2012) and/or an 'African growth miracle' (Young, 2012) which may be more inclined towards extolling the rewards of capital accumulation and a neoliberal ideology 2 by fundamentally neglecting issues like ecology, job sustainability and inequality (Obeng-Odoom, 2014). It follows that 1 According to Pinkivskiy and Sala-i-Martin (2014), with the exception of the Democratic Republic of Congo, African countries attained the MDGs poverty target by 2014 or one year in advance.…”

On the Relationship between Globalisation and the Economic Participation of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Moreover, the growing poverty trends in the continent are also not consistent with the 'Africa rising' narratives (Leautier, 2012) and premature conclusions that most African countries (with the exception of the Democratic Republic of Congo) achieved the MDG extreme poverty target toward the end of 2014 (Pinkivskiy & Sala-i-Martin, 2014). The underlying contrast has been partly explained by Obeng-Odoom (2015) who has posited that such contrasts may be traceable to the neoliberal experiment that has been focused on articulating the neoliberal ideology and placing less emphasis on more fundamental concerns like inequality and environmental degradation.…”

Globalization and Inclusive Human Development in Africa

“…This is despite the sub-continent enjoying more than two decades of resurgence in growth (see for example Fosu, 2015a;Leautier, 2012;Pinkivskiy & Sala-i-Martin, 2014). A recently celebrated African literature has attributed this startling contrast to the globalisation and policies that are more concerned with boosting the importance of neoliberal ideology and capital accumulation at the expense of more fundamental ethical concerns like inequality and environmental degradation (Obeng-Odoom, 2015) 1 .…”