An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa: Economic Transformations and Political Changes [1st ed.] 978-3-030-14007-6;978-3-030-14008-3

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
On Writing Africa’s Economic History (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 1-10
Research on Africa’s History and Development—A Review (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 11-29
Back in History—1000–1850 (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 31-78
Economic and Political Integration 1850–1920 (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 79-117
Transformation and Administration—1920–1950 (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 119-151
The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985 (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 153-194
Period of Deregulation 1985–2005 (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 195-235
Growth and Global Integration 2005– (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 237-263
Summarising the Past and Hypothesising About the Future (Ellen Hillbom, Erik Green)....Pages 265-272
Back Matter ....Pages 273-286

Citation preview

Palgrave Studies in Economic History

AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Economic Transformations and Political Changes Ellen Hillbom · Erik Green

Palgrave Studies in Economic History Series Editor Kent Deng, London School of Economics, London, UK

Palgrave Studies in Economic History is designed to illuminate and enrich our understanding of economies and economic phenomena of the past. The series covers a vast range of topics including financial history, labour history, development economics, commercialisation, urbanisation, industrialisation, modernisation, globalisation, and changes in world economic orders. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14632

Ellen Hillbom · Erik Green

An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa Economic Transformations and Political Changes

Ellen Hillbom Lund University Lund, Sweden

Erik Green Lund University Lund, Sweden

Palgrave Studies in Economic History ISBN 978-3-030-14007-6 ISBN 978-3-030-14008-3  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932117 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: robertharding/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

This book project started in a restaurant in Stockholm one autumn evening 2007. Our motivation was the lack of good literature on Africa’s economic and social history in Swedish that our students could read. The first Swedish edition was published in 2010 and met with some success. Although the Swedish market for a textbook of this type is limited, we felt that we had achieved our goals. We had filled a gap and provided an original contribution. And it turned out that the book was not only used for teaching at universities. There was a large community of amateur Africanists, aid workers, politicians and business people who also wanted to learn about the continent and to read something more digestible than academic work published in English. Years went by and eventually we agreed with our Swedish publishing house that it was time for an update of the book and in 2018 we published a second edition. Meanwhile, we had also raised our level of ambition and realised that we had a contribution to make to the international market. Despite the vast literature on Africa in English, a basic and holistic textbook such as ours seemed to be missing. We signed a contract with Palgrave Macmillan, took advantage of the updates we had made in the Swedish second edition, hired a translator and the rest, as they say, is history. As was the case with the original publication, this book is primarily intended as a textbook to be used by undergraduate students, but we hope that it can also be valuable to a broader audience. The experience of reaching outside the strict academic world has been very rewarding for us and we believe that there is a public interested in learning more about Africa—its history as well as its contemporary development challenges and opportunities. As economic historians we, of course, adhere to the old slogan that “history matters” and we are often surprised over how much is written about Africa that lacks a proper understanding of the long-term processes of change and development trends. We have strived to combine staying away from an academic jargon that can be excluding, while at the same time incorporate the lessons learned from the latest research within the field of African economic history and African studies. We hope that the book is both accessible and informative. In the literature, Africa is often lumped together and simplified to a single story. Instead, we show diversity and discuss variation. Much of what is written is done so from a Eurocentric

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Foreword

perspective as if Africans’ history did not start until the arrival of the Europeans and they have stayed without agency ever since. Our ambition is to emphasise Africans’ perspectives. Despite our best effort, it has been impossible for us to deal equally with all areas and aspects of Africa’s history. Along the way, choices have been made and while we have worked on widening our scope as much as possible, we also fall back on knowledge that we have accumulated through our own research over the years. At the end of the day, there are more examples from so-called “British Africa” than countries with other colonial legacies, especially from our own research on Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. There is also a greater reliance on established economic history research, which is a field dominated by researchers from outside the continent itself than on internationally less well-known African scholars and writers. For this weakness, we take full responsibility and promise to continue reading and learning more about this fascinating region from a greater variety of sources. As with any book project, we have not managed without the support from others. We would like to thank our publishing house in Sweden, Studentlitteratur, for their cooperation and assistance, especially Eric Rhen and Titti Meden. At Palgrave Macmillan, we have received support and comments from Kent Deng, Laura Pacey and Clara Heathcock. We are also indebted for the feedback from an anonymous reviewer. Last but not least, based on Sture Balgårds originals, Niklas Hillbom created a new layout of the maps and he generously let us use photos from his private collection. Lund, Sweden January 2019

Ellen Hillbom Erik Green

Contents

1 On Writing Africa’s Economic History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 On Writing History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 The Forces Driving Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 The Structure of the Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2 Research on Africa’s History and Development—A Review . . . . . . . . 11 2.1 In Europe’s Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.2 Independence and Nationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.3 Emergence of Development Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.4 Radicalisation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.5 Institutionalism Entering the Scene. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.6 The Return of Historical Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.6.1 New Perspectives on Structures and Actors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.6.2 The Quantitative Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.7 Global History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3 Back in History—1000–1850. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.1 Man and Nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.2 Production Systems and Their Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.2.1 Hunter-Gatherer Societies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.2.2 Pastoralists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.2.3 Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 3.2.4 Mining and Handicraft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 3.3 Socio-Political Structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 3.3.1 Segmented Political Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 3.3.2 Centrally Governed Kingdoms and Tribute Societies. . . . . . 52 3.3.3 Other City States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 3.3.4 Kinship and Social Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 3.3.5 Labour Allocation and Leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 3.4 Trade and the External Influence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.4.1 Trade Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 3.4.2 An Awakening European Interest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

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3.4.3 The Slave Trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.4.4 The Distribution of New Sources of Wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 4 Economic and Political Integration 1850–1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.1 Transformation of Production Systems and Socio-Political Structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.1.1 Demographic Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 4.1.2 Development of Production Systems and Trade . . . . . . . . . . 84 4.1.3 State-Formation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 4.2 European Conquest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 4.2.1 Trade and Trading Companies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.2.2 Explorers and Missionaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 4.2.3 The Scramble for Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 4.2.4 Opposition and Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 4.3 Forces of Imperialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 4.4 Economic Continuity and Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 4.4.1 Colonial Revenue and Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4.4.2 Further Commercialisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 5 Transformation and Administration—1920–1950. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 5.1 Economic Change and Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 5.1.1 Continued Economic Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 5.1.2 Infrastructure and Debts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 5.1.3 The Global Economic Crisis and the Recession in Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 5.1.4 The Weak Manufacturing Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 5.1.5 The Growth in African Small-Scale Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . 131 5.2 Economic Stratification and Inequality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 5.2.1 Geographical Inequality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 5.2.2 Economic Stratification in the Rural Areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 5.3 New Colonial Policies and New Power Arenas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 5.3.1 African Participation in the Colonial Administration . . . . . . 137 5.3.2 The Colonial Administration and Village Chiefs. . . . . . . . . . 138 5.3.3 Indirect Rule and Conflicts of Interest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 5.3.4 Urbanisation and Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 5.4 The Formation of the Gate-Keeping State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 5.4.1 The “Gate-Keeping State” Concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 5.4.2 The Colonial Regimes’ Dilemma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 5.4.3 Attempts to Regulate Production. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 5.4.4 Local and Global Trade Before the Age of Regulation. . . . . 147 5.5 The Structure and Variation of the Gate-Keeping State. . . . . . . . . . . 148 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

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6 The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985 . . . . 153 6.1 Early Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 6.1.1 Re-casting Production Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 6.1.2 Human Capital Formation and Labour Control. . . . . . . . . . . 161 6.2 Independence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6.2.1 The Prelude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6.2.2 Political Ideologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 6.2.3 Break-Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 6.3 The International Political Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 6.3.1 The Cold War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 6.3.2 Pan-Africanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 6.4 Expansion and Changes of the Gate-Keeping State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 6.4.1 The Golden Age of Small-Scale Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 6.4.2 Attempts to Industrialise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 6.4.3 Welfare Schemes and Urbanisation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 6.5 The Limitations of the Gate-Keeping State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 6.5.1 The Death of Development Optimism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 6.5.2 Good and Bad Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 6.5.3 Blood-Letting Through Corruption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 7 Period of Deregulation 1985–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 7.1 Modified Economic and Political Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 7.1.1 The Debt Crisis and Structural Adjustment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 7.1.2 The Democratic Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 7.1.3 The Civil Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 7.1.4 Non-Government Organisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 7.2 Regional Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 7.3 Transformation of the Rural Areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 7.3.1 Property Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 7.3.2 Government-Led Land Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 7.3.3 SAP’s Effects on the Agricultural Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 7.4 Diversification and Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 7.4.1 Rural–Urban Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 7.5 New and Old Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 7.5.1 Population Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 7.5.2 HIV and Aids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 7.5.3 The State of Poverty in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 7.5.4 The State and Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 7.5.5 The Informal Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 7.5.6 A Strategy for Economic Assistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

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8 Growth and Global Integration 2005– . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 8.1 Economic and Social Progress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 8.1.1 Growth and Poverty Reduction During the 2000s. . . . . . . . . 238 8.1.2 Towards Sustainable Growth?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 8.2 Africa in the Global Economy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 8.2.1 International Trade Agreements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 8.2.2 Exports, FDI, Aid and Transfers, 1960–2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 8.2.3 Current Global Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 8.2.4 Emerging Chinese Interests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 9 Summarising the Past and Hypothesising About the Future. . . . . . . . 265 9.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 9.2 Is Africa Growing Out of Poverty? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Conceptual model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Fig. 4.1

Export of palm oil (in thousands of tons) from West Africa, from 1790 to about 1850. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Fig. 4.2

Regional distribution of world trade 1913 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Fig. 4.3

Distribution of foreign investments 1914, by investor countries (left) and by recipient countries (right). . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Fig. 6.1

Growth in GDP per capita during the 1950s in selected African colonies and states. NB *The Geary–Khamis dollar is a constructed currency unit that has been accorded the same purchasing power as a U.S. dollar in a given year. . . . . 155

Fig. 6.2

The industrial sector as a proportion of GDP in selected countries, 1960–1985. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Fig. 6.3

Percentage of people living in towns in selected African countries, 1960–1985. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Fig. 6.4

Annual percentage change in GDP per capita in selected African countries 1970–1985. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Fig. 6.5

Experienced corruption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Fig. 7.1

Economic growth 1985–2008, in terms of GDP per capita, for selected African countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Fig. 7.2

Percentage degree of urbanisation in selected African countries, 1985–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Fig. 7.3

Population density in selected countries in 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005. Persons per square kilometre . . . . . . . . . . 225

Fig. 8.1

Average GDP per capita in Africa 1980–2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Fig. 8.2

Proportion of the population in Africa, 1990–2013, living on less than USD 1.90 and USD 5.50 per day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

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List of Figures

Fig. 8.3

GDP per capita in selected African countries, 1980–2016. . . . . . 241

Fig. 8.4

Relative inflow of FDI in selected regions, 1970–1997 (in dollars per USD 1000 of GDP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Fig. 8.5

Net inflow of foreign direct investments in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Fig. 8.6

Net inflow of aid to Africa 1990–2015. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Fig. 8.7

International transfers to Africa 1990–2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Map. 1.1

The African divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Map 3.1

Africa’s climate zones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Map 3.2

The spread of animal husbandry, agriculture and iron industry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Map 3.3

Important mining districts 1000–1850. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Map 3.4

The most important centrally governed states in Africa 1000–1850. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Map 3.5

Major trade routes and trade stations in the Sahara 1000–1850. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Map 3.6

Islamic areas of interest and trade routes in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Map 3.7

Portuguese voyages of discovery and landfalls in Africa (with dates). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Map 3.8

European and Arab trading ports 1700–1850. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Map 3.9

The triangular trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Map 3.10 Source areas for the slaves sold in the Atlantic and Islamic slave trade and chief ports used for shipping out slaves during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Map 4.1

Migrations during Mfecane and the Great Trek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Map 4.2

Important African states and ethnic groups 1850–1880. . . . . . . . 90

Map 4.3

European and Arab colonial settlements 1850–1880. . . . . . . . . . 92

Map 4.4

African colonies and colonial powers 1914. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Map 4.5

Important mining areas 1850–1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Map 4.6

Export-producing areas of cultivation in West Africa and regions of labour migration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Map 5.1

Important mining regions, watercourses and railways in Africa 1937. NB Minerals production is shown only if it exceeded £500,000 in 1937. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

List of Figures

xiii

Map 6.1

Post-colonial Africa with year of independence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Map 6.2

Africa’s ideological distribution during the Cold War . . . . . . . . . 172

Map 7.1

Regional trade agreements in Africa 1989. NB In 1989 neither South Africa nor Namibia were members of any regional trade agreement. Not until 1994, after its first democratic election, did South Africa become a member of the SADC. Until 1990 Namibia was under administration by South Africa and was therefore likewise not a member of any trade agreement in 1989. Rwanda and Burundi are members of ECCAS and the PTA. Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique and the Seychelles have observer status in the PTA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Photo 3.1 Great Zimbabwe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Photo 3.2 Traditional building in Arlit, Niger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Photo 3.3 Tuareg tradesman crossing the Sahara. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Photo 3.4 Sailing off Zanzibar’s coats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Photo 4.1 Muscot from Zanzibar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Photo 4.2 Old missionary church in the Congo jungle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Photo 4.3 The Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Photo 5.1 Railway between Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Livingston, Zambia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Photo 5.2 Mansion building at Château de Labourdonnais, old sugar plantation, Mauritius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Photo 6.1 Irrigation furrow constructed by small-scale coffee farmers in Meru, Tanzania. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Photo 6.2 Cattle rearing in Botswana rural areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Photo 7.1 Small-scale farmers drying their vanilla before it is marketed, Madagascar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Photo 7.2 Shanty town in the outskirts of Cape Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Photo 8.1 Family compound in a contemporary Zambian village . . . . . . . . 242 Photo 8.2 Tropical beach holiday on Mauritius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

List of Tables

Table 3.1 The slave trade westwards and eastwards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Table 4.1 Agricultural exports (tonnes) from West Africa, 1890–1914 . . . . 112 Table 5.1 Annual production volume of major export goods for selected countries, 1890–1959 (mean figures, in thousands of tonnes, other than for gold, stated in tonnes). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Table 5.2 The growth of the European settler populations, 1835–1953. . . . 126 Table 6.1 Agricultural production value per capita in selected African countries 1960–1985 (in 2010 year USD). . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Table 6.2 Percentage of school-age children enrolled in education in sub-Saharan Africa, 1960–1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Table 7.1 Core economic policy reforms under the SAP umbrella. . . . . . . . 197 Table 7.2 Social indicators in selected countries, 1985–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Table 7.3 Major cooperation agreements in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Table 7.4 Value of total agricultural production, 1985–2005, in USD million (2000). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Table 7.5 Rural households and their diverse sources of income. . . . . . . . . 220 Table 7.6 The dissemination of aids in selected African countries, 1990–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Table 8.1 Africa’s share of the value of world exports (in percentage terms), 1948–2006. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Table 8.2 Africa’s share of the value of world exports (in percentage terms), 1973–2006. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Table A.1 Current facts about African countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

xv

List of Boxes

Box 3.1 A Short History of the African Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Box 3.2 The Boserup-Malthus Debate from an African Perspective. . . . . . 44 Box 3.3 Cape Town. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Box 4.1 The Royal Niger Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Box 4.2 David Livingstone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Box 5.1 Railways, Geopolitics and Debts: The Nyasaland Case. . . . . . . . . 124 Box 6.1 The Apartheid system in South Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Box 6.2 From Congo to Zaire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Box 6.3 Sir Seretse Khama. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Box 7.1 Nelson Mandela and the ANC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Box 7.2 The Todaro model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Box 7.3 The demographic transition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Box 7.4 The definition and measurement of poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Box 8.1 Mauritius—structural change in an African island state. . . . . . . . . 246

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On Writing Africa’s Economic History

This book is about Africa’s history over the last thousand years. We look at Africa in a long-term perspective, with an emphasis on its economic and social development. Our aim is to contribute to an increased understanding of the continent’s history as well as discussing its future challenges and opportunities. Throughout the book it is sub-Saharan Africa that we have in mind and are dealing with when we use the term “Africa” or talk about the “continent”. While this distinction is in line with the existing tradition in academic research it warrants a brief motivation. As with any effort to represent the full diversity within a sizeable land mass, it is from a social science point of view reasonable to be able to make distinctions and sub-divide based on fundamental differences in terms of culture, linguistics, religion, politics, economics and history. Based on such variety we claim that there is a boundary in academic terms between North Africa made up of Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt and the rest of Africa (see Map 1.1). From our social science point of view this boundary is made up of the fact that North Africa historically has had closer connections to the Mediterranean and the Middle East and it continues to make up a socio-economic and political unit with these areas. In those instances where North Africa is discussed in the book, it is in relation to sub-Saharan Africa, e.g. as regards trade links. It is well known that Africa today faces a series of major challenges. Being the poorest continent in the world in the 1980s and 1990s it has often been associated with hunger crises, political instability and economic stagnation. In the last two decades or so several African countries have, however, shown rather impressive growth rates. The continent has received increasing attention in economic journals and the economic supplement newspapers, and it has quite often been coupled together with concepts such as “emerging markets”, i.e. future markets for private investors. The increasing interest shown by the business community is a clear indication that Africa has entered an era of significant economic and social changes. Yet several scholars argue that the current economic growth has

© The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_1

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1  On Writing Africa’s Economic History

2

NORTH AFRICA

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Map. 1.1  The African divide (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 1.1, p. 10)

not led to any major structural changes of the African economies meaning that there has been no emergence of new productive sectors. Their view is that the lowproductive service sector has grown more rapidly than either productive agriculture, industry, or capitalist services. While there has been a reduction in poverty, it is less than might have been hoped and the number of people considered as vulnerable, i.e. who are at great risk of falling into poverty, has not diminished in the last decade. Despite such challenges, the current general view of Africa is radically different from what it was at the turn of the millennium. At that time articles emphasised Africa’s economic crisis and even argued that Africa had historically always been an economically stagnant continent. Today the story has changed towards analysing the rapid changes and new opportunities on the continent. In this book we want to get away from simplified views of Africa, whether it is Afro-pessimism or Afro-optimism. Instead we want to throw light on Africa’s multi-faceted history and the dynamism of the long-term social processes. We take up important and complex questions such as: Were Africa’s pre-colonial economies static? Was colonialism good or bad for Africa? What was the part played by the post-colonial state in its economic development? Can one today assert that Africa is exploited by multi-national enterprises? There are no simple and unambiguous answers to such questions. The differences between and among countries

1  On Writing Africa’s Economic History

3

and regions are much too great. This is therefore not a book about Africa’s economic and social history but about its “histories”. If we consider Africa of today, the continent’s great variation becomes apparent. Sub-Saharan Africa now consists of 48 countries with a total population of approx. 1 billion, who speak 2000 different languages, which is more than on any other continent. Over the next 50 years we will see a continuing population growth, of perhaps as much as a further 2 billion people. There are significant political, economic, social and cultural differences within and between its countries and these do not always match our pre-conceived ideas about African poverty. How many people are aware, for example, that life expectancy in Senegal is 67 years, almost as high as in Russia, where it is 71 years? On the other hand, in Sierra Leone it is only 51 years. GDP per capita in Mauritius is fully four times higher than in Vietnam, but also approximately 25 times higher than in Niger. In Botswana 58% of the population live in urban areas. That is almost as high a proportion as in Poland. But in Africa we also find several countries that have degrees of urbanisation among the lowest in the world, for example Burundi (12%) and Uganda (16%). As these examples show, Africa can be treated neither as a homogeneous socioeconomic unit nor as an island, isolated from and substantively different from the rest of the world. The continent’s past must also not be perceived as a number of “histories” isolated from one another. On the contrary, different processes have been woven together and given rise to new dynamics. To understand Africa we must focus on these processes and their complexity.

1.1 On Writing History The past must be considered not merely as background knowledge about our present time: it constitutes the very kernel of our understanding of, and orientation in, the world around us. A person interested in current development problems in Africa must put them in their historic context, if they are to be comprehensible. There is, however, always a risk that history will be abused, in that it is altogether too easy to draw parallels between “then and now”. A common way of using history is to study it backwards: one begins with a current problem, and then tries to find the historic roots of its emergence and development. While this is a perfectly legitimate way to go about it, there are problems with it and in non-academic contexts it is often used in a very slipshod manner. An example of this was a quite long article published in The Economist in 2000 discussing the economic crisis in Africa and its historic causes. An assumption made in the article was that there is a connection between the hostile nature of the past and a disinclination to adapt in the present. The precise date in the past was not stated. Was it 150, or perhaps 500, or even 2000 years ago? Was it really the case that nothing had happened between then and now, to change the situation? Have people in Africa always, irrespective of when and where, lived in environments unfavourable to production and reproduction? The problem with this way of writing history backwards is that there is a risk of over-simplifying the

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past and then taking a shortcut into the present. The historic processes are stripped bare and the complexity of real historical change is disregarded in favour of simplified connections between two points in time. In the present book we instead strive to write history forwards. We begin in the past, without having a firm point in the present that we aim to explain and we put the main focus on historical change. We do not compress complex historical processes in order that they may fit into simple explanations for the continent’s relative poverty and underdevelopment in the present. Naturally, we too simplify the processes. By focusing on the material factors we exclude certain aspects of the history. But we avoid putting history into the straitjacket required, to enable one to draw definitive conclusions about the present and future challenges. We initiate our discussions with questions like: What was the relationship between man and nature like in a particular geographical area (e.g. West Africa) at a particular time (say 1750)? How did this relationship affect the social structures and production systems? Having once established this picture, it becomes possible to discuss the effects on society of other events, e.g. the access to labour in different production systems in the eighteenth century or the increased integration of global trade in raw materials from the end of that century onwards. Did the processes create new conditions that changed the relationship between human capital and natural resources? In this way a more complex picture of history emerges that cannot readily be linked together with simplistic contemporary policy recommendations. Throughout the book we will present empirical examples in support of our arguments. The examples are designed to show the great variations, both past and present, on the continent and we study these differences to illuminate the complexity of the processes. In our comparison we do not regard certain cases as normal and others as exceptions to be explained, instead use a method known as reciprocal comparison, i.e. all the cases studied are seen as deviations rather than one of them being the norm. For example, we can learn more about the effects of European settler colonialism on local communities in southern Africa by studying other areas in colonial Africa where the European settlers remained few in numbers. One does not then tie oneself to ideas about how things ought to have been, or could have been, but instead exposes the dynamics in what actually happened under a variety of conditions.

1.2 The Forces Driving Change To en economic historian, the basis of all human history is production and reproduction. Human beings’ opportunities to provide for and to reproduce themselves are a central motivating force throughout history. In our view they impact not only the economy but also the social and political relations between people. Figure 1.1. outlines the analytical tools we use in this book and the relationships between them. According to the model, the opportunities to maintain and reproduce oneself are affected primarily by the available economic resources, i.e. the production factors,

1.2  The Forces Driving Change

5

Factors of producon (land, labour, capital) Technological change

Instuons

Power arenas

Systems of producon

Fig. 1.1  Conceptual model (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 1.1, p. 15)

and by how these are organised in different production systems. We begin with a description of the relationship between these two concepts. We then problematise these relationships, by adding the concepts institutions and power arenas. There are three basic production factors—land, labour and capital. A production system is made up of the production factors and the economic and social relations between people regulate who controls them. For example, the use of paid labour is the defining feature of the capitalist production system, which also implies the existence of a large number of people who have no means of production of their own and who therefore sell their labour to the capitalist in return for a wage. Thus in the capitalist production system the relationship between workers and employees is regulated via labour markets. The worker is “free” to sell his/her labour to anyone he/she wishes. Through time, wage employment is a relatively recent way of regulating labour. The volume and quality of production factors determine their value relative to one another and this relationship determines how production is organised. The relative price, should be perceived as a purely theoretical concept. Production factors that cannot be bought also have a relative price. Let us take an example that shows how the relative prices concept may be used in a case where there is no market for a specific market factor. We have in mind a community where there is no lack of farmland. All who wish to do so may break new ground for cultivation, and

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in consequence there is no market in this natural resource. Despite the fact that farmland is not paid for, it still has a relative price. This price measures the access to farmland relative to the other production factors. In this case the relative price of farmland is low, since there is a surplus of land, in relation to labour and capital of which there is a deficit. Conversely, we can then also assert that the relative price for labour in the same community is high, because labour is in short supply in relation to the amount of land available for farming. How then do these relationships impact the creation of production systems? The surplus of farmland means that the risk that the land you cultivate will be expropriated is low or non-existent and there is no trade in land. Labour, on the other hand, is in short supply. Few people will wish to sell their labour, since they prefer to cultivate their own land. There is thus no market in which labour can be hired. The low population density thus inhibits the development of a capitalist production system. In such a situation it becomes important to try to obtain labour in some other way. The average farmer perhaps relies solely on family labour while those better off, who also have greater political influence, perhaps choose to establish a production system that relies on some kind of labour coercion. The relative price of production factors may change over time, which can also lead to changes in production systems. A rapidly growing population means that the availability of labour increases. Those who formerly used bonded labour, e.g. slaves, now find that it instead becomes economically rational to employ wage labour. By replacing slaves with wage labour the former slave-owners no longer need to give their labour force food and lodging, thereby reducing production costs. At the same time the population increase means that it becomes increasingly difficult to find unused farmland. The relative price of land therefore increases as does the interest in regulation of the use of farmland through a reinforcement of land rights. So far we have treated only the production factors land and labour, but capital also plays an important part. We often think of capital in terms of ready money (financial capital), but it also comprises machines, equipment, draught animals, buildings and so on. The more advanced and expensive the technology used in a production system, the higher the relative price of capital. An important driver as regards change in relative prices is the introduction of new technology. Technological change may be both endogenous and exogenous, and that is why in Fig. 1.1 we put technological change in a box of its own that in part overlaps the production factors. An endogenous technological change implies that it is changes in the quantity of the production factors that give rise to technological change. An increase in population in an agricultural community may, for example, create an incentive to begin to use the agricultural land more efficiently, which calls for new technology. But new technology may also come from external sources, e.g. via states, businessmen or aid organisations. It is then not necessarily a direct reaction to changes in the production factors. New technology often leads to more efficient production, as people (labour) are replaced by machinery and equipment (capital). The reduced dependence on labour results in a fall in the price of labour relative

1.2  The Forces Driving Change

7

to capital. The introduction of the plough in agriculture is an example. Ploughing technique saves labour, so that fewer people are required to prepare the ground for sowing. The relative price of labour falls at the same time as the price of capital increases. The design of the production systems depends, however, not only on the quantity and quality of the production factors but also on institutions and power arenas. The causal connection between relative prices and production systems is not definitive, because the effect of the changes in the relative price also depends on social and political conflicts. The conflicts we emphasise in the book are those that affect the economic and social rules of the game, what we call the institutions. These rules may be either formal or informal, thus ranging from national legislation to local customs. In any given community there are numerous different institutions and it is impossible to take all of them into account. We focus on those that affect the control of the production factors and how production is allocated and reallocated. In that regard a production system consists of a number of institutions that reinforce each other. The long-term effect of changes in the relative price of production factors and/or of technological change depends on how they affect existing institutions, i.e. how the changes affect the formal and informal rules that govern human activity. The institutions may be understood as a straining cloth, through which the changes in the relative prices are filtered. If an institution has once established itself in a given community, it does not readily and quickly change merely because of a change in the relation between the production factors. All institutional changes potentially threaten the existing economic, social and political order in a society. We stay with our earlier labour example. Those who earn a lot of money by selling slaves will seek to retain the system even though it would be more “rational” for society at large to begin to use wage labour to a greater extent. Economic change is thus often a conflictual process characterised by the efforts of various interest groups to advance their positions. Politics can also affect the available selection of production factors. For example, it is possible to apply political means to render the farmers landless and thereby to force them to enter the market for wage labour. By means of politics the pre-conditions have been established for the emergence of a capitalist production system. In this model human beings and their actions are central and it is always human actors who in the last resort determine what will be the actual effects on society of changes in production factors and technology. In the literature this is often referred to as agency. The economic, social and political conflicts take place in power arenas. These consist of social and geographical “spaces”, in which various special interests and social classes struggle and/or negotiate to gain control over the production factors and what is produced in a given production system. The competition over resources is intensified at every moment of change, because the change affords new opportunities to gain greater influence over society and the economic spheres. Long-term social and economic change must therefore be regarded as an interaction between economic, political and social factors.

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1.3 The Structure of the Book The first of the subsequent chapters consists of a summary of the development of the literature within the fields of African studies broadly and African economic history specifically. The aim is to both provide insights into the history of the scholarly development and to offer guidance to further reading for anyone who would be interested in exploring the field. The summary is followed by six empirical chapters divided up according to a periodisation which requires some explanation. All periodisation is a simplification of the passage of history, since it implies clearly identifiable breaks between distinct processes. While they may exist at an abstract level, they are commonly muddled in the empirical material. Yet a periodisation is necessary if it is to be at all possible to make complex historical processes comprehensible. Our focus on the economic and social history of Africa means that we periodise the continent’s history in a manner different from what is customary in reviews of its political history. We take our departure from what we regard as emerging new trends that have affected economic and social relations. These changes in trends may either be direct in the form of transformations of production systems, or indirect, e.g. that surrounding factors, such as politics, technology, institutions, etc. influence and reform existing production systems. From this perspective we do not see colonialism as a historic watershed. Nor does independence necessarily constitute a break in the trend. The empirical first chapter starts in the year 1000. This is not to be regarded as an exact point in time, and we deliberately move quite freely around it. Since the starting-point for our study is perhaps that which is least self-evident, we will briefly explain it. At that point in time the Islamic conquest of North Africa had been completed, which means that sub-Saharan Africa had more clearly separated, socially and culturally, from the northern parts of the continent. The various regions of sub-Saharan Africa had also in part become a little more homogenous, both socially and economically, since the Bantu peoples had now completed their migration southwards from West Africa. Subsequently, the use of iron had now spread throughout the continent, which had clear consequences for the local production systems. Regional trade expanded and the African civilisations and centrally governed states that emerged in areas where the pre-conditions were favourable became significant components in the international trade networks. The subsequent period in Chapter 4 begins in 1850 and concludes in 1920. Thus the period begins three decades before most parts of the continent were colonised and ends in the middle of the colonial period. We begin in the middle of the nineteenth century because that marks a period of rapid commercialisation of small-scale farming especially, but not only, in West Africa and deeper integration in the global raw material trade. These processes markedly affected local production systems, institutions and social and economic relations. It meant a redistribution of power, and made possible the formation of new states and the consolidation of already existing central states. Colonialism did not create these forces for change but must rather be seen in relation to them as they in part

1.3  The Structure of the Book

9

constituted a response to the ongoing commercialisation of the internal economies. Throughout the early colonial period it was clear how the colonial administrations reacted and adapted to local processes of change and pressure, rather than directly dictated them. In the absence of resources and clear visions the colonial administrations opted during this period to rely on free market forces. Around 1920 the first steps away from previous strategies were taken. Local markets were gradually regulated and the colonial administrations began to intervene in the local production systems, to prevent the development of capitalist production systems in the rural areas of African. The policy was a response to the continued integration of the local production systems in the global raw material market, but it also exposed an increasingly conflictual relationship between the local colonial administrations and the colonial authorities in Europe. The effect was that the colonial administrations developed into what became known as gatekeeping states and Chapter 5 ends in 1950 when, in our opinion, this type of state structure reaches its maturity. During the next period, 1950–1985, we see continuity between the late colonial period and the first decades of African independence. What units the period is both the relatively high rate of growth and the expansion and consolidation of the gatekeeping state. It is also the golden age of the commercially targeted, small-scale, African agriculture. During the years 1950–1985 the African states repeatedly attempted to take further steps towards reforming local production systems and diversifying the economies. Neither of these ambitions were, however, as successful as had at first been hoped. Although the states grew financially stronger, thanks to the favourable international economic climate, they lacked the capacity to influence the local institutional environment, even though they partially reformed the local production systems by spreading new technology. Chapter 6 concludes with a discussion on how the decline in the global demand for raw materials caused an economic crisis that in turn revealed the structural problems of the gate-keeping states. The economic crises that afflicted Africa in the early 1980s also constitute the starting-point for the next chapter, the period of which runs from 1985 to 2005. Structural problems made themselves felt in a number of African economies and this lead to economic stagnation or even decline. This general trend continued until the start of the new millennium when it was broken. The lengthy state of crisis created economic and political pressure for reform. The pressure on local production systems after falling prices on the global raw material markets, the ending of state support, unstable local markets and the spread of the HIV/Aids epidemic together led to institutional changes in which both property rights and working relationships were changed. The civil society and the non-government organisations became of ever-increasing importance, partly at the expense of the African states. Changes in the rules of the game created new power arenas and new alliances and while the states in Africa still played a central part, they were re-formulated. We begin the last empirical chapter, Chapter 8, with a presentation of the growth trend that has more or less established itself since the turn of the

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millennium and we ask whether this can mean that Africa at last is growing out of poverty. We investigate whether growth has led to structural change, meaning if new sectors in the African economies are in the process of taking over from agriculture. In addition whether a possible sectoral change implies new employment opportunities. The second major theme of the chapter is the discussion of the role of the African countries in an increasingly globalised world. The current period of growth is strongly connected with re-surging world market prices for raw materials, but we also follow other kinds of capital flows, such as foreign investments, international transfers and aid flows. We end the chapter with addressing the issue of new actors who are becoming increasingly important on the African continent. We see how Europe and the USA are losing their dominance that has existed ever since colonisation, and how instead South–South relationships with countries in Asia and Latin America are growing ever stronger. In the final chapter we first give a brief summary of the main statements of the book. We then go on to comment on some potential scenarios for the future of Africa. These “educated guesses” are based on the latest literature discussing the challenges and opportunities for Africa to grow out of poverty in the current era of high globalisation.

Bibliography Austen, Ralph (1987) African economic history: What is it? ASA Review of Books, 2: 147–153. Austin, Gareth (2008) ‘The “reversal of fortune” thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history’, Journal of International Development, 20(8): 996–1027. Bernstein, Henry, and Jacques Depelchin (1978) ‘The object of African history—A materialist perspectives’, History in Africa: A Journal of Method, 5: 1–19. Harris, John (ed.) (1995) The new institutional economics and third world development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ki-Zerbo, Joseph (ed.) (1990) Methodology and African prehistory, Berkeley: James Currey. Manning, Patrick (1987) ‘The prospects for African economic history: Is today included in the long run?’ African Studies Review, 30: 49–62. North, Douglass, C. (1990) Institutions, institutional change and economic performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Philips, John Edward (2005) Writing African history, Rochester: University of Rochester Press.

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Research on Africa’s History and Development—A Review

Historians and development researchers have over the years had various views about Africa’s past and patterns of development. The variations cannot simply be regarded as a linear process whereby research has constantly developed and improved. The political context the researchers have found themselves in has been equally important. This chapter provides a brief review of how the scholarly research and academic debates regarding Africa’s past has developed over time. We focus on general trends in research and put them into a broader socio-political context. We aim to make it easier to understand why a certain type of research is dominant at certain periods. Research on Africa’s history has always been multidisciplinary. It is not only historians who have taken it up, but also geographers, anthropologists, archaeologists, political scientists and development economists. The research has been characterised by many different theoretical and methodological approaches. This has given it a breadth seldom seen within the history discipline and which makes it difficult to give a wholly impartial picture of how it unfolds. Over time research on Africa’s economic and social history has become increasingly comprehensive and complex. In parallel with this development, we have seen fewer contributions that set the tone coming from researchers working at African universities. That reflects above all the different conditions under which researchers inside and outside Africa work, not the capacity of the individual researchers. Researchers working in Africa are forced by the meagre resources of their universities to spend the greater part of their professional life teaching and seeking alternative sources of income. They lack the funds to be able to attend the major research conferences in Europe and North America and do not have the same access to the latest findings in research. They therefore seldom have the same possibilities as those active outside Africa to develop new theoretical approaches and explanatory models. The fact that Africa’s history is consistently being written by non-Africans is creating serious challenges to the legitimacy of the research.

© The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_2

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2.1 In Europe’s Service During the first part of the 1900s, the scholarly interest in the history of Africa was meagre. One reason was that there was a widespread perception, above all in Europe, that in principle pre-colonial Africa lacked written sources. At the end of the nineteenth century the British professor of history, A.P. Newton, was of the opinion that before the arrival of the Europeans Africa lacked a history of its own that was worth studying, since “[…] history does not begin until mankind takes up the pen”.1 Oral history and archaeological findings had not yet been fully accepted as sources of historical knowledge. Africa was not treated at all in the mammoth work, the Cambridge Modern History, that was published in 1902 and at the time was regarded as the most distinguished survey of world history. Evidently, Africa was not counted as being “in the world”. Approximately 30 years later the Cambridge History of the British Empire was published, consisting of no fewer than eight volumes. One volume treated South Africa and its focus lay on the white settlers. Other parts of sub-Saharan Africa were not treated at all. It is true that there are very few written sources about Africa before the sixteenth century, but they existed only that European historians either did not know of, or ignored them. They assumed that Africa was primitive and underdeveloped and hence that there was no reason to spend time and resources in attempts to find written sources. In present-day Ethiopia there was, for example, a long tradition of written language, that stretches back to centuries before our own modern era. In about the year AD 1000 Ethiopian monks wrote several chronicles treating society, the economy and politics. In Timbuktu, in the West African savannah, the written language was likewise already widespread in about the year AD 1000. The access to written sources increased in step with the integration of African territories with one another and with the surrounding world. During the period 900–1500 the development of trade with Africa, both north and south of the Sahara, as well as between East Africa and the Arabian peninsula, enabled for Arab geographers and traders to visit what had for them been unexplored parts of the continent. They often published their observations in the form of chronicles. There were major variations in the quality of their sources. Among those depicting Africa was the Tunisian scientist, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who was also known as the founder of modern historiography. He not only wrote about Africa but also developed a theory of trade: a cyclical explanation of the rise and fall of the nomads as traders. His theory later inspired researchers who studied the European Middle Ages. There were also West African traders who wrote chronicles in Arabic during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was, however, not until the 1980s that these manuscripts attracted the attention of scholars at the main European universities.

1Ki-Zerbo,

ed. (1990) Methodology and African pre-history, Berkeley: James Currey, p. 12.

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During the sixteenth century, the volume of written sources increased, chiefly because European traders, explorers and missionaries began to travel regularly to Africa. They visited above all the west coast but there are also accounts from what is nowadays Ethiopia, South Africa and the lower Congo. Among these sources, it is the accounts by the missionaries that are generally reckoned to be the most reliable, since they tried to study societies and ethnic groups more systematically. Traders and adventurers, on the other hand, had a tendency to exaggerate greatly, describing eight-eyed elephants and giant, bloodthirsty lions. The view of Africa as being a continent without history was well-suited to interests in Europe, which from the mid-nineteenth century through to the end of WWII sought to legitimise the colonial projects. They wanted to create an image of the Africans as people who lacked the capacity to shape their own future. Pre-colonial Africa was said to be, unlike Europe, a place where no states had been formed. The people were loosely organised in tribes that often fought one another. It was therefore the white man’s mission to civilise the population and create peace and stability within the framework of a well-developed form of administration. Africa’s lack of history became a polar opposite of Europe’s history and the relationship of the opposites was exploited to demonstrate Europe’s strength and superiority. Europe’s expansionary policy at the end of the nineteenth century had the outcome that virtually the whole of Africa was colonised. Colonialism demanded increasing knowledge about African ethnic groups and their history. It was anthropologists and not historians who accounted for most of the studies. The early anthropology has also come to be known as “colonial science”. In Europe, people were still convinced that Africans were culturally, biologically and mentally different from the Europeans and were therefore curious about African culture and social structures. Quite frequently, studies by the anthropologists reflected growing racism in Europe. A classic example is Races of Africa, a book by the anthropologist C.G. Seligman 1930. It prompted quite a lot of criticism, but in Europe many regarded it as a masterpiece. Seligman asserted that, insofar as Africa had been civilised, it had been so by the “Hamites”, this latter being a term used to denote a number of ethnic groups settled at the Horn of Africa. The Hamites were regarded as being directly related with the Egyptians and, as a result, as being equipped with a superior intellect than other African ethnic groups. The conclusion was therefore that the Hamites had played a significant role in the civilisation of Africa, because they were not directly related with the “black Africa”. This gave them a higher status in European circles. The anthropologists were, in the 1930s, also to play a major role when the colonial authorities began to experiment with various forms of indirect rule, i.e. a form of rule that was based on the idea that the local rural communities should be governed based on the already existing local political structures (see Chapter 5). The implementation of indirect rule called for greater knowledge about local conditions and historical knowledge about local social structures and social hierarchies. The objective was to be able to identify the degree to which village chieftains enjoyed legitimacy among the local population. A number of studies of specific ethnic groups and/or local communities were conducted.

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They varied in quality, often because of time and resource limitations. However, as distinct from the more general studies they were less influenced by pseudo-scientific race-biological trains of thought. It was instead a matter of a conscious endeavour on the part of individual colonial authorities to document systems of regulations, property rights, authority systems, etc., among the conquered peoples. In Bechuanaland Isaac Schapera, a South African anthropologist, worked from the end of the 1920s to the mid-1930s on a study of the Tswana people. He was at that time an academic at the University of Cape Town and his best-known work is A Handbook of Tswana Law and Customs (1938). He was one of the greatest researchers in his field in Southern Africa and collected invaluable information from a time now gone. The problem for current historical research is that his investigations are unique and hence difficult to dispute. We know that Schapera worked close to the Tswana economic and political elites. How much did they affect the documentation and formalisation of the Tswana legal framework? What advantages could they thereby procure? We will probably never know. Interestingly enough, the historical works written during the colonial period that stands out for being of high quality were often written by Africans and unconnected with the colonial projects. Above all in West Africa, a number of African traders began to write the history of their regions, in English. We would like to mention A History of the Gold Coast and Asante (1895) by Carl Christian Reindorff as an example of this literature. These works attracted no attention when they were published, but they are nowadays regarded as valuable historical sources.

2.2 Independence and Nationalism The end of WWII came to be marked as the beginning of a more intensified struggle for independence in Africa. The Africans who had fought as soldiers on the Allied side returned to their home countries, where they held no rights as citizens. This disparity gave the relatively weak African social movements a new incentive to protest against the colonial powers. The strategies of the protest movements and their political position varied from colony to colony (see Chapters 5 and 6) but, as a general trend, the protests increased greatly throughout the whole continent. The political objective of the protests also changed: previously it had been a matter of ending political segregation within the colonies, now it was to achieve political independence. Historical research was to play a major role in this new campaign. Just as the colonial powers’ lack of interest in the history of Africa was part of a greater political project, now the research in the 1950s became intimately linked with a greater political idea, namely nationalism. Both African and European researchers joined in this new history-writing, the purpose of which was to show that pre-colonial Africa was not at all primitive and stagnant as previously

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assumed. Africa had a history of its’ own and Africans therefore had the right to its own future. The new writing of history became a way of giving a basis for the demands for political independence. It was dominated by studies of West Africa. This was a consequence of the greater investment by the colonial powers in higher education in that region, which meant that at the outset there were more African historians there than in East and Southern Africa. France was the colonial power that earliest began to invest in higher education in its colonies. For example, the Institut Français de l’Afrique Noire was established in Senegal in 1938. The other imperial power, Great Britain, was to start with less interested in setting up research institutes in its colonies. This situation did not change until after WWII, when several universities were founded, including in present-day Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana. Europe’s longer connections with West Africa also made that region a more natural object of study for European historians. In this new writing about Africa’s precolonial history, the Africans were, for the first time, depicted as people who had an influence over the historical processes. They became agents of change. If, during the colonial period, historians had often depicted the continent as consisting of loosely established communities, the new research highlighted precolonial state formations as having relatively complex bureaucratic systems. In Europe, the British historian Basil Davidson came to play an important part in the creation of a new view of Africa’s history. In his book West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850 (1998), he emphasises how sophisticated the precolonial political systems were, and in later works he linked pre-colonial policy with the advancement of the independence movements after WWII. Prominent contributions also came from Nigerian historians belonging to what was known as the Ibadan school. They published books on the pre-colonial administrative systems and emphasised also the negative consequences of colonialism. They described how the Europeans had destroyed dynamic local communities and state systems. One of the earliest contributions to this historical literature was Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta (1956) by the Nigerian historian, Onwuka Dike, who is regarded as Africa’s first professional historian. His work differed markedly from previous works, in that its point of departure was not Europe’s expansion in the area, but rather the local Nigerian opposition to it. Africans and their history were characterised by opposition to Europe’s own adopted mission to civilise the continent. In the Ibadan school, it was thought that Africa should be able to be re-united with its past once independence had been achieved. There were also those historians as Jacob Ajayi, who spoke of the “colonial parenthesis”, wanting thereby to emphasise the link between the pre-colonial communities and the burgeoning nationalism. Part of this research has been criticised for the tendency to romanticise the pre-colonial communities and states. Its authors ignored pre-colonial Africa’s political conflicts, social rejection, oppression and so on.

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2.3 Emergence of Development Economics The field of development economics emerged during the 1950s as a new branch in the economic discipline. Its origin lay in several historical processes. First, the high rate of growth in the world economy had created broad optimism about development. All countries could become rich, given increased knowledge about the structures of underdevelopment and how to break them. Secondly, an increasing number of colonies around the world became independent. These countries could now be expected at last to go forward to a bright future. Poverty and social injustices would be eradicated, and it was thought that economists would play an instrumental role in the process. The majority of development economists belonged, intellectually, to the liberal modernisation school. This latter was well-suited to the period after WWII, since it advocated economic systems characteristic of the majority of the victorious powers, namely a regulated form of capitalism. It was the economist Walt W. Rostow who, in his book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960), introduced a stage-theory that was soon recognised as the grand theory of the modernisation school. The basic idea of this theory is that all societies and countries go through similar phases as they develop—from agricultural communities to modern industrial societies. By analysing the economic development of the Western world it is possible to identify the different stages. The developing countries, such as the African states, could imitate this process of development. In that sense, this was a positive message. All could become rich industrial countries, but it demanded large-scale support from the rich world, in the form of capital. If given a major injection of capital and support for the establishment of a strong state these countries would achieve take-off and durable economic growth. Rostow’s theory was a product of the ideological clash between socialism and capitalism. It was intended to show that there was an inherent and positive force in capitalism, an idea which at that time was greatly questioned, above all by politicians in the poor world. While Rostow’s theory gained recognition, it was very imprecise and gave no direct answers to the question how the state should regulate the market economy. A development economist who achieved major importance as regards to the practical direction of economic policy was Arthur Lewis. His great breakthrough came with the publication of the article Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor (1954). In this, Lewis presented his concept that there existed a reserve of labour, because in the majority of poor countries labour was not effectively exploited in the low-productive agricultural sector. By releasing these people, for employment in highly productive capitalist sectors, lasting economic growth and a reduction in poverty could be achieved, without unfair consequences for those still working in the low-productive agricultural sector. Transferring the labour force would have the effect of reducing labour supply in the lowproductive sector, which over time would lead to increased productivity and higher wages in agriculture. It is important to point out that Lewis did not assert that a high-productive sector was synonymous with the industrial sector and/or

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the service sector. These sectors can also be low-productive, just as the agricultural sector can be high-productive. His main message was rather that there was an enormous potential in poor countries with high population densities and thereby a surplus of labour. Under such conditions, labour could be transferred from the low-productive agricultural sectors to more productive sectors without impoverishing the former. The idea that development could be explained as the outcome of different stages was partly contrary to the perception held by many African historians. They highlighted the continent’s own history and disliked the portrayal of pre-colonial Africa as “traditional” and the opposite of the modern nation states in Europe. They preferred to emphasise Africa’s diversity rather than arguing that all countries customarily follow the same path of development. Yet they also welcomed the optimism, and belief in the future, of the modernisation school. During the second half of the 1960s a re-evaluation of the school developed among Africanists. The original ideas that modernisation could only come about if “the old” was replaced by “the new” were re-assessed. For example, in his book The Politics of Tradition (1970) C. S. Whitaker Jr. expressed the opinion that in Nigeria modern institutions could evolve in accord with the existing African social structure. It was no longer a question of a choice between two systems, rather of preserving the positive elements in each of them and of re-enforcing and developing them in harmony with one another. The African institutions were described not as “irrational” and “reactionary”, but rather as a necessary basis for development. The British economic historian A. G. Hopkins also worked in similar revisionist tracks. In his book An Economic History of West Africa (1973) he puts forward the argument that African farmers in pre-colonial and colonial Africa were not at all conservative and backward-looking, but on the contrary were economically rational actors. In his work African farmers were regarded as agents who actively responded to market signals. Although the early development economists and historians had partly differing views about how the historical development was to be understood and interpreted, they had much in common. Both groups worked within a liberal tradition and fundamentally shared a very positive view of the possibilities of the emerging independent states.

2.4 Radicalisation During the 1970s the number of studies of regions in East and Southern Africa markedly increased in response to the major resources invested by the independent governments in the establishment of universities. The research became more theoretically sophisticated, and intensive debates were launched around various school formations. In general, it can be said that African history was radicalised, in part in reaction to the tendency in the 1960s to romanticise the pre- and postcolonial states and elites. This was also a part of a global political trend. This trend was characterised by an increasingly strong general criticism of capitalism

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as a system. The radicalisation was also a response to the modernisation school’s relatively simplistic view of economic development and historical change. A number of historians criticised the modernisation school’s assumption that everyone could be a winner in the process of economic development. Radically oriented historians were of the view that the advocates of the modernisation school ignored conflicting political interests at both the local and the international level. Criticism of the newly created African states, where injustices and poverty persisted, was also growing. Previously it had been taken for granted that political independence would lead to economic prosperity. Kwame Nkrumah expressed it in plain language in his installation speech in 1957 as the first president of Ghana. He paraphrased the Bible, saying “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all things shall be added unto you”. But quite soon it became clear that political independence did not always lead to economic self-management and development. Although many African states made significant progress during the first years, dissatisfaction grew both within and beyond Africa. There were many who thought that development was going too slowly. The campaigns for freedom intensified in the Portuguese colonies and in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and differently from the earlier independence movements, their vocabulary was significantly more radical. The criticism of the African states and the political classes continued to grow. Historians also began to criticise the idealised view of pre-colonial Africa as portrayed in the more nationalistic oriented historical research. The Kenyan historian, William Ochieng, for example, argued that the task of African historians must be to investigate the roots of underdevelopment and not to disregard the existence of oppression and injustices in pre-colonial societies. The radicalisation of history research therefore came to be synonymous with a clearer focus on the historical politico-economic processes as an explanation for current African economic and social problems. Initially, radicalisation was marked by the increasing influence of the dependency school and the world system approach. André Gunder Frank, the German economic historian and sociologist, is customarily regarded as the founder of the dependency school, and Immanuel Wallerstein, the American sociologist, as the father of the world system approach. These two schools are not identical but they both stem from the idea that development and underdevelopment are two sides of the same coin. They can only be understood through the study of how capitalism creates a centre and a periphery. According to the dependency school, capitalism demands constant growth via geographical expansion, which means that a few countries—the centre—become richer, while the majority of countries—the periphery—become stuck in structural poverty, The development of the centre takes place at the expense of the periphery. These points of departure stood in contrast to the modernisation school, which held that all countries can achieve the same degree of development. The development of capitalism was dependent on the constant finding of new ways of producing goods by exploiting labour, first at the centre and later at the periphery. Africa’s integration in international trade, first as an exporter of

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labour via the slave trade, and later of cheap raw materials, laid the foundation of Europe’s development while these processes cemented the economic underdevelopment in the rest of the world. The book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1973) by the Guayanese historian, Walter Rodney, is the most noted contribution on Africa within this research tradition. Also worth noting is the book by the Egyptian economist, Amir Samin, Unequal Development (1976), which describes in greater detail how the spread of capitalism created underdevelopment in Africa. Whereas the colonial powers’ version of history highlighted the positive aspects of the colonial expansion, the radical school maintained that it had led to underdevelopment in Africa. Even though the dependency school and the world system approach have played an important role, they have never come to dominate as a theoretical approach among more radically inclined Africanists. The two schools soon came to be criticised for having simplified the historic processes and ignored the fact that African actors and institutions also influenced the economic processes. This criticism came chiefly from Marxists, who were of the view that the dependency school and the world system approach put all too great a weight on Europe and its influence on Africa. The Marxist criticism maintained that it was instead necessary to study how every individual economic system in pre-colonial Africa was affected in the meeting with capitalism. African institutions and classes thus played a part as regards the effects of the expansion of capitalism on the African continent. In his article Rural Class Formation in East Africa (1977) the British historian, Lionel Cliffe, compared a number of different African production systems and how they interacted and were affected by the spread of capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century. He considered that the effects varied because pre-capitalist production systems varied across the region. The interaction between capitalism and pre-colonial production systems created new unique hybrids of the two systems. Nowhere had a pure form of capitalism developed. In the late 1970s, a number of historians began to criticise the Marxist line of research, as being much too theoretical. In their view, the Marxists rarely made use of detailed historical sources, and instead described historic societies in general terms, so as to make them fit into the theoretical framework. As an alternative, some historians and sociologists began to work on in-depth studies. The theories had to adapt to the evidence of the historic sources and not the other way around. It is difficult to summarise this research, since it is not based on common theoretical points of departure. Just as in the Marxist version of history, this new school sought to fit the actors’ behaviour into an economically structured context. Nonetheless, the fact that the historical sources were placed at the centre meant that this research had points of contact with the tradition of the 1950s and 1960s. Africans were presented in a broader context of colonialism and imperialism. Emphasis was put on a number of African actors and on how their various interests clashed with one another, or could chime with the interests of the colonial power. The Canadian historian, Joey Power, has for example shown in his essay Individualisation Is the Antithesis of Indirect Rule (1992) how the colonial powers

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shared political interests with sections of the African rural elite. They both wanted to prevent the small group of Africans who had been educated by the missionaries to achieve too much influence in the colonies. The colonial powers were afraid that they might organise themselves politically and demand increased independence. The rural elite was anxious lest the educated Africans should call in question their political and economic power in the villages. Africa’s colonial past was portrayed as more complex, a history where people could not be simplistically grouped into colonisers and colonised. Among both the Africans and the Europeans there were many different actors with different interests. Attention was, for example, drawn particularly to the conflicts between the European local colonial authorities in Africa and the officials in Europe with responsibility for colonial matters. Among other things the British historian, Leroy Vail, showed in his essay The Making of an Imperial Slum: Malawi and Its Railways, 1895–1935 (1975) how Great Britain forced the colonial administration in Nyasaland to become indebted in order to finance the construction of a major railway.

2.5 Institutionalism Entering the Scene The economic crisis that the majority of African countries experienced in the late 1970s (see Chapters 6 and 7) had a major impact on research into Africa’s history and development. It was in political science and economics that these changes were clearest. In Africa, they could be seen in the increased criticism of state intervention. Previous research, especially that which came from the radical quarters, had directed criticism towards the African political classes. Now it came instead from liberals and it was targeted against the idea of a strong interventionist state in general. Formerly the majority of liberal researchers had agreed that a strong state was necessary, in order to create the preconditions for long-term economic development. Now the state was thought of as an obstacle to sustained economic growth. It was argued that the economic crisis was been aggravated by ineffective economic policy. In 1981 the World Bank presented a report, known as the “Berg Report”, on the situation in Africa. It had been written by a group of the Bank’s economists, and was named after their head of research, Elliot Berg. Its message was that the crisis in Africa was generally due to mistaken economic policy with states intervening too much in the economy at the expense of the operation of free markets. It argued that the development problems of all African countries could be solved by the same medicine, namely economic deregulation. In line with this criticism of state involvement in the economy a number of political scientists also began to criticise African politicians for not being development-oriented. It was asserted that, instead of taking decisions favouring long-term economic growth, the main interest of African politicians lay in favouring friends and relations. While this line of research commonly did not greatly impacted professional historians, it did have an effect in the sense that historical research gradually moved into a more liberal tradition. Within this tradition neo-institutionalism

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became particularly prominent. It was as much a criticism of neo-liberalism as of Marxism. The tone in neo-institutionalism was set by Douglass C. North, a jointwinner in 1993 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. At the end of the 1960s, he began his work on creating an alternative to the Marxist approach to history. In The Rise of the Western World (1973), which he wrote jointly with the economist Robert Paul Thomas, he presented a model explaining the progress of North-Western Europe since the sixteenth century. He never studied Africa, but his work nonetheless influenced Africa-oriented development research and historians. North argued that one cannot understand a community unless one takes into account both the formal and informal laws and rules that govern human interaction. He termed these rules institutions. In his view, the Marxists lacked the tools to analyse long-term societal changes at the micro-level, while neo-classical economics lacked a historical dimension and hence was altogether unable to explain societal change. The creation and amendment of regulations over time is, according to neoinstitutionalism, dependent on both economic and political factors. Those who gain politically if particular laws and regulations remain of importance will endeavour to prevent institutional change, even if such change is economically rational. The characteristics of the institutions affect the power position of particular individuals as well as their opportunity and willingness to cooperate with one another. For example, in a community where rich large-scale farmers have strong political influence it proves very difficult to gain acceptance for calls for a redistribution of agricultural land, even though it would lead both to an increase in production and lower levels of poverty. The central message is thus that it is institutions that determine people’s ability to act in every given situation. One of the most important neo-institutional contributions in research about African history came from the American social scientist Robert Bates. In his book Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa (1983) he attempts, with the aid of different examples spread over time and space, to explain the rationale behind decisions reached by African politicians and economic actors. Using the examples he tries to demonstrate how they can be understood only by reference to the form of the local institutions. A well-known example that he takes up is that most states in colonial and post-colonial Africa have tended to tax the production of small-scale farmers very hard, while investing in various agricultural projects with limited outreach. The problem, according to Bates, is that taxation had a negative effect on production and hence kept the small-scale farmers in state of poverty. Would it not be more rational to stop taxing the farmers, while also ceasing to finance expensive agricultural projects? But African politicians (just like politicians everywhere), are governed mainly by political arguments and in that perspective it is logical to invest in particular projects, rather than carrying out macro-economic reforms. This is because individual projects can make a significant difference at the local level and as they live on in the memory of the local population they increases the popularity of politicians. Meanwhile, tax reductions would have a short-term effect on popularity, but soon the farmers would regard them as self-evident and the politicians would thereby lose popularity. What seems economically irrational is actually politically rational.

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During the 1980s historians remained sceptical to adopt neo-institutionalism, primarily because they considered it to over-simplifying complex historical processes. Meanwhile, economic and social history became increasingly marginalised. Economists and political scientists were critical of these disciplines, as lacking theoretical foundation. But there was also criticism from historians and anthropologists, who asserted that economic and social history relied excessively on theories and concepts that had been developed in Europe and were still influenced by the colonial inheritance. They advanced the view that this eurocentrism marginalised the African experience and knowledge. The historian, Nandy Ashis, argued in his article History’s Forgotten Doubles (1995) that professional historywriting can never free itself from its imperial past. We recognise this criticism from before. Then it was targeted against the history written in the colonial period, now it was aimed at professional history-writing at large. Irrespective of its theoretical direction, argues Nandy Ashis, political, social and economic history builds directly and indirectly on the idea of a linear history, for which above all Europe has been the model. He offers no concrete alternative but argues that one must create analytical concepts that have sprung from African experience instead of using those elaborated in order to explain the history of Europe. Research into African economic and social history experienced declining popularity in the late 1980s, even if the idea that all professional history research bears the stamp of an imperial past has never been wholly accepted. However, a number of those who earlier conducted research into material conditions now turned their interest towards questions of culture and identity. This latter was a reference to the way in which separate individuals or groups identified themselves in relation to their environment. People’s own descriptions of their identity became of greater importance than the use of various theoretical models, based on assumptions about their identity and rationality.

2.6 The Return of Historical Research Despite being increasingly marginalised the economic and social history of Africa survived. Social history resurfaced in the mid-1990s, while economic history would gain in importance first in the new millennium.

2.6.1 New Perspectives on Structures and Actors From the mid-1980s to the end of the 1990s most African countries undertook Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP), with a view to shifting the balance in their economies, reducing state involvement and instead allowing the markets to play a greater role in the allocation of resources. During the 1990s, however, it became clear that the results had been mixed (see Chapter 7) and this inspired a number of those studying their performance to call in question the interpretation of Africa’s modern history as either too much market or too much state.

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Many historians, who were critical both of Marxism and of neo-institutionalism, now presented alternative views. Two contributions are particularly worthy of mention, namely No Condition Is Permanent (1993), by the American professor of history, Sara Berry, and Labour, Land and Capital (2005), by the British economic historian, Gareth Austin. These two differ in theory, but the common element is that their works can in part be regarded both as a development of, and a reaction to, the institutional approach. Both study the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Africa putting the focus on how structures and actors mutually impact one another. Berry’s view is that African agricultural communities and economies have been much too complex to be able to fit into either the Marxist or the neo-institutional theoretical models. She includes both culture and identity in the analysis, but in a context of material conditions and economic and social change. Austin works more strictly in studying the economic aspects of local changes, even though he likewise does not present a uniform theoretical approach. It is rather an attempt to modify and further develop the neo-institutional approach, by testing it against existing historical sources. During the 1990s research on African history was increasingly influenced by environmental historians and historical demographers. The focus on demographic factors is not altogether new. As early as the 1960s there were scholars who maintained that technical development, or the lack of it, state systems and the relatively widespread use of slave labour in pre-colonial Africa, could be explained as a consequence of the low population density. But what emerged during the 1990s were efforts to integrate demography with environmental factors. One of the better-known books that focus on the relationship between man and nature is the British professor of history, John Iliffe’s Africans: The History of a Continent (1997). The book gives a description of Africa’s history as a process in which people slowly spread across the continent, trying to gain control over its nature. The Tsetse fly made cattle-rearing a risky business and the relatively nutrient-poor soils hampered surplus production. Iliffe’s chief argument is that the combination of low population density and the problem of mastering nature made it difficult for the African economies of the pre-colonial period to create long-term prosperity. Africa’s increased integration with the surrounding world from the sixteenth century onwards had both positive and negative effects, in the form of technology transfers and slave trade. But overall it did not impact on the fundamental problem, namely that Africa was so thinly populated. A further example comes from historical geographers who have studied how the use of agricultural land changed over history in East Africa. In their book Islands of Intensive Agriculture (2004), the authors Mats Widgren and John E.G. Sutton offer the view that as early as the mid-nineteenth century it was possible to identify areas, or “islands”, of more intensive agriculture in East Africa than previously supposed. They assert that this intensification was not a consequence of technical change in the form of new equipment and working methods, but that existing farming techniques enabled a more efficient way of cultivating the land. They thereby also touch on, even if only indirectly, the debate about sustainable agricultural systems is a very hot topic today.

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Historians were also inspired by gender research that showed that it is not possible to treat households as homogenous units. Anthropologists, in particular, have repeatedly highlighted that within household units are in constant conflicts and negotiations over the control of resources. The gender perspective had earlier been pursued by historians, but increasing numbers of those conducting research now began to use it more systematically in studies on African agricultural history. In distinction to earlier research, which often assumed that members of a household farmed land in common, gender research has not only brought out the significance of a gender-based division of labour, but also that in many cases there was a genderdetermined division of the management of farmland. Some farmland was cultivated jointly, and some was cultivated separately either by the man or woman. That means that within the household there were several actors and that the same person cultivated the land both as a member of a collective (the household) and as a separate individual. One of the more prominent researchers in this particular area is the British historian, Megan Vaughan. She has shown, in articles and books, that it is impossible to understand the agricultural systems in colonial and pre-colonial Southern Africa, or how they develop over time, without taking the conflicts between the sexes (usually married couples) over the control of land and labour into account. One example is the book Cutting Down Trees (1993), which Vaughan wrote together with the anthropologist, Henrietta Moore. It is a study of communities and agricultural systems in northern Zambia (1890–1990). The authors maintain that the negotiating positions of both women and men were influenced by both colonial and post-colonial policy and ecological changes. In that way, they show how economic, political and ecological factors, on both the micro- and macrolevel, affected each other.

2.6.2 The Quantitative Revolution In their article Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution (2002) the economists and political scientists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson used quantitative methods to demonstrate the existence of a correlation between levels of economic development today (i.e. 1990) and the number of Europeans settled in various parts of the Global South in 1500. They state that locations where Europeans settled in higher numbers experienced more rapid economic development in the long run. Their explanation is that in these areas Europeans demanded the implementation of growth-enhancing institutions. Their arguments deal with major global correlations and there has been debate about the extent to which their conclusions are relevant to an understanding of Africa. They have, moreover, received much criticism among economic historians, because they compress history and miss mechanisms that drive the processes of change. Despite that, their research has been of great importance in the development of African economic history. Their work has led to increased interest in history in general and in studies of the history of

2.6  The Return of Historical Research

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regions beyond Europe among economists specifically. It has also inspired economic historians to return once more to the classic economic history questions in the analyses of Africa’s past. Over the past ten years, the interest in Africa’s economic history has increased significantly and there is ground to say that the subject has never been as popular as it is today. The research during the past ten years has most clearly been characterised by the use of quantitative data and three trends can be discerned. One is to use existing data in order to, like Acemoglu and his co-authors, confirm a connection between a historic event and the current economic situation. Perhaps the best-known contribution is that by the economist, Nathan Nunn, who in 2008 published an article on the correlation between the number of slaves despatched from West Africa during the pre-colonial period and current differences in the levels of development among the West African countries. Nunn thought he could demonstrate that the greater the number of slaves exported, the poorer countries are today. This article drew criticism from economic historians, on grounds similar to those on which earlier contributions by Aceomglu, Johnson and Robinson had met scepticism. But this shows that economists still seek historical explanations in order to understand contemporary developments in Africa. In parallel, a number of researchers, often with a background in economics, have begun to use statistical analyses to identify correlations and causal links, with a shorter time-horizon. For example, an article by James Fenske tested the thesis by Robert Bates (see above) that pre-colonial African communities were more centralised in regions stretching across different ecological areas. He finds support for the thesis and argues that in diversified ecological areas trade is more extensive. Further, he states that trade is dependent on the existence of centralised states while it also enables the development of such states. But perhaps the most significant development is the research that builds on creating new time series, derived from historical archive material. In recent years we have seen an explosion of time series that cover everything from economic development, to inequality, the national accounts, welfare and the development of the state. These studies provide new information about Africa’s economic history, which inspires us to ask new questions. An example of this last-named is the work done by Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg on urban real wages in colonial Africa. They show that wage costs were relatively high compared to Asia, most likely due to labour scarcity. This could be used as yet another piece of information to understand European companies limited investments in Africa compared to Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Another example from pre-colonial Africa is Dalrymple-Smith’s work on West Africa’s external trade. Traditionally, it has been thought that it was only when Great Britain unilaterally banned the international slave trade that the commodity trade gathered pace. But Dalrymple-Smith shows that the commodity trade greatly increased as early as the eighteenth century and grew in parallel with the slave trade. He thinks that one of the reasons was the increased demand for African commodities in Europe, which led to higher prices. Maybe this does not sound revolutionary, but it puts Africa’s role in global trade in a new perspective and shows that the economic signals were quite as important as political decisions.

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2  Research on Africa’s History and Development—A Review

As regards colonial Africa, much research has been published in recent years about African standards of living, in a broad sense of the term. Here we can mention the economist, Alexander Moradi, and his colleagues who make use of data on the average height of sections of the population in various regions of Africa. The point of departure is that there is a strong correlation between average height and nutrition intake in childhood. The better the latter, the greater the average height as an adult. In one article he compares Ghana with Kenya and shows that in both cases average height increased significantly throughout the twentieth century, even though the increase was not linear and there were significant differences between regions within the countries. Hitherto, interest in creating time series for Africa also in the independence era in the 1960s has been rather slight. But that is now changing. Increasing numbers of researchers have begun to gather material, in order to re-evaluate the more recent economic and social developments. The research is so far in its infancy, so it will be for the future to show whether the quantitative revolution in African economic history will also give us occasion to re-evaluate the development process in Africa during the second half of the twentieth century.

2.7 Global History A development applicable to the subject of history at large is the emergence of global history. Historians are well aware that economic, political and cultural integration did not begin in the 1970s. Throughout history different phases of greater or smaller growth of integration between different parts of the world have been apparent. As the name reveals, the purpose of global history is to link together different parts of the world, in order to see how they integrated and were influenced by one another. This is not a theoretical approach but rather a research perspective. It differs from the dependency school and the world system approach which in the main focus on global hierarchies (the centre and the periphery). Global history instead emphasises mutual dependency among different parts of the world and how that dependency has changed over the centuries. Unfortunately, Africa still plays a marginal part in the majority of these studies. However, there are some exceptions. In his book, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England (2002) the Nigerian historian, Joseph Inikori, has shown how changes in demand among consumers in West Africa stimulated technical development in the British cotton industry. The relatively rapid economic development in West Africa during the nineteenth century meant that its role changed, from being a source of slave labour to offering new export markets for the British textile industry. The emergence of a relatively prosperous group of West African consumers created a demand for products adapted to these local cultures. British industries therefore had to modify their products to meet this new demand. Global history takes on a more dynamic form than the traditional dependency school and the world system approach. Africans are no longer regarded as passive objects that have only to adapt to developments in Europe, there is also African agency.

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As an element in the development of global history a growing number of researchers have suggested that more time should be devoted to the comparison of regions in Africa with regions in Asia and Latin America. Such comparisons must build on the principle of mutuality, that is to say that the comparison is used to illuminate all the examples compared. That means that one “ideal case” (often Europe) must not be used to explain a “variant case” (Africa). On the contrary, the point of comparing regions in Africa with other parts of the world must be to enable one to learn more about both of them. Africa increasingly attracts attention as being a complex and multifaceted continent, where the fact that its population shares a landmass does not make it a common denominator. Instead, we can find similarities with societies spread around the whole world. Social structures are not in the first instance created by what is specific in ethnicity, culture and heritage, but rather of what is common in such matters as the relationship between production factors, institutional and technical change, and power struggles. Within economic and social history the tendency to regard conditions in Africa as being unique in the world is increasingly being abandoned. The emergence of global history means that Africa is assigned a new place in historical research and it also stimulates broader cooperation among historians and those researching development. Africa is no longer studied as a variant of Europe, but has been given its own rightful place in social science research and economics. An understanding of the way in which different parts of the world have been linked together and influence one another is a central theme for anyone wishing to understand the present situation in Africa and future African challenges.

Bibliography Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2002) ‘Reversal of fortune: Geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4): 1231–1294. Amin, Samir (1976) Unequal development: An essay on the social formations of peripheral capitalism, New York: Monthly Review Press. Ashis, Nandy (1995) ‘History’s forgotten doubles’, History and Theory, XXXIV(2): 44–66. Austin, Gareth (2006) ‘Reciprocal comparison and African history: Tackling conceptual eurocentrism in the study of Africa’s economic past’, African Studies Review, 50(3): 1–28. Austin, Gareth (2008) ‘The “reversal of fortune” thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history’, Journal of International Development, 20(8): 996–1027. Austin, Gareth, and Stephen Broadberry (2014) ‘Introduction: The renaissance of African economic history’, Economic History Review, 67(4): 893–906. Bates, Robert (1981) Markets and states in tropical Africa: The political basis of agricultural policies, Berkeley: University of California Press. Bates, Robert H. (1987) Essays on the political economy of rural Africa (Vol. 38), Berkeley: University of California Press. Bayart, Jean-François (2000) ‘Africa in the world: A history of extraversion’, African Affairs, 99(395): 217–267. Berry, Sara (1993) No condition is permanent: The social dynamics of agrarian change in subSaharan Africa, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

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Burns, James M., and Robert O. Collins (eds.) (2014) Historical problems of imperial Africa, Princeton: Markus Wiener. Cliffe, Lionel (1977) ‘Rural class formation in East Africa’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 4(2): 195–224. Collier, Paul (1993) ‘Africa and the study of economics’, in R. H. Bates, V. Y. Mudimbe, and J. F. O’Barr (eds.) Africa and the disciplines: The contribution of research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 56–83. Cooper, Frederick (1993) ‘Africa in the world economy’, in F. Cooper, A. Isaacman, F. Mallon, W. Roseberry, and S. Stern (eds.) Confronting historical paradigms: Peasant, labour and the capitalist world system in Africa and Latin America, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Cooper, Frederick (2000) ‘Africa’s past and Africa’s historians’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 34(2): 298–337. Dalrymple-Smith, Aangus, and Ewout Frankema (2017) ‘Slave ship provisioning in the long 18th century: A boost to West African commercial agriculture?’ European Review of Economic History, 21(2): 185–235. Davidson, Basil (1998) West Africa before the colonial era: A history to 1850, London and New York: Routledge. Dike, K. Onwuka (1956) Trade and politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885: An introduction to the economic and political history of Nigeria, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ellis, Stephen (2002) ‘Writing histories of contemporary Africa’, Journal of African History, 43: 1–26. Fenske, James (2009) ‘The causal history of Africa: A response to Hopkins’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 25(2): 177–212. Fenske, James (2011) ‘The causal history of Africa: Replies to Jerven and Hopkins’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 26(2): 125–131. Fourie, Johan (2016) ‘The data revolution in African economic history’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 47(2): 193–212. Frank, André Gunder (1967) Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America (Vol. 93), New York: New York University Press. Frankema, Ewout, and Marlous Van Waijenburg (2012) ‘Structural impediments to African growth? New evidence from real wages in British Africa, 1880–1965’, The Journal of Economic History, 72(4): 895–926. Green, Erik, and Pius Nyambara (2015) ‘The internationalisation of economic history— Perspectives from the African frontier’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 30(1): 68–68. Hopkins, A. G. (1973) An economic history of West Africa, Harlow: Longman Group Ltd. Hopkins, A. G. (1986) ‘The World Bank in Africa: Historical reflections on the African present’, World Development, 14: 1473–1487. Hopkins, A. G. (2009) ‘The new economic history of Africa’, The Journal of African History, 50(2): 155–177. Hopkins, A. G. (2011) ‘Causes and confusions in Africa history’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 26(2): 107–110. Iliffe, J. (1997) Africans: The history of a continent, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inikori, Joseph E. (2002) Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A study in international trade and economic development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jerven, Morten (2011) ‘A clash of disciplines? Economists and historians approaching the African past’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 26(2): 111–124. Jerven, Morten (2013) Poor numbers: How we are mislead by African development statistics and what to do about it, London: Cornell University Press. Ki-Zerbo, Joseph (ed.) (1990) Methodology and African prehistory, Berkeley: James Currey. Lewis, W. Arthur (1954) ‘Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour’, The Manchester School, 22(2), 139–191.

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Miers, Suzanne, and Igor Kopytoff (eds.) (1979) Slavery in Africa: Historical and anthropological perspectives, London: University of Wisconsin Press. Moore, Henrietta L., and Megan Vaughan (1994) Cutting down trees: Gender, nutrition, and agricultural change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890–1990, Berkeley: James Currey. Moradi, Alexander (2008) ‘Confronting colonial legacies—Lessons from human development in Ghana and Kenya, 1880–2000’, Journal of International Development: The Journal of the Development Studies Association, 20(8): 1107–1121. North, Douglass C. (1990) Institutions, institutional change and economic performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. North, Douglass C., and Robert P. Thomas (1973) The rise of the western world: A new economic history, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nunn, Nathan (2007) ‘Historical legacies: A model of linking Africa’s past to its current development’, Journal of Development Economics’, 83: 157–175. Nunn, Nathan (2008) ‘Slavery, inequality, and economic development in the Americas’, In Institutions and economic performance, 148–180. Ranger, Terence (1978) ‘Growing from the roots: Reflections on peasant research in central and southern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 5(1): 99–133. Reindorf, Carl Christian (1895) History of the Gold Coast and Asante: Based on traditions and historical facts, comprising a period of more than three centuries from about 1500 to 1860, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. Rodney, Walter (1973) How Europe underdeveloped Africa, Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Rostow, Walt W. (1960) The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifesto, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schapera, Isaac (1994) A handbook of Tswana law and custom, Münster: LIT Verlag. Vail, Leroy (1975) ‘The making of an imperial slum: Nyasaland and its railways, 1895–1935’, The Journal of African History, 16(1): 89–112. Wallerstein, Immanuel M. (2004) World-systems analysis: An introduction, Durham: Duke University Press. Whitaker Jr., C. S. (2015) The politics of tradition: Continuity and change in Northern Nigeria, 1946–1966, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Widgren, Mats, and John E. Sutton (2004) Islands of intensive agriculture in Eastern Africa: Past & present, Oxford: Currey; Athens: Ohio University Press; Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na nyota; Nairobi: EAPH. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe (2002) ‘The politics of historical and social science research in Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28(1): 9–23.

3

Back in History—1000–1850

Let us conduct an intellectual experiment and cast an eye over the African continent in the year 1000 AD. There extends before us a variety of complex and differing production systems, social structures and cultures. In this chapter, we move freely over the centuries to about 1850. In our review of social development we find, for example, hunter-gatherer societies, which represent the oldest food supply strategies in the history of mankind. The great majority of people, however, live as pastoralists or farmers during this period, although there is also an urban population of shopkeepers, craftsmen and clerks. Some social groups live at the margin and wage a daily struggle to survive, but other areas are ruled by wealthy elites and established royal powers. While many groups live in simple mud-huts, other people reside in big stone houses. The reason for starting our journey in time by looking at Africa 1000 years ago is because many of the significant factors in the development of the continent had fallen into place at about that time. The Islamic conquest of North Africa had been achieved and, as a result, the linguistic, cultural and religious separation from sub-Saharan Africa had become clear. The Bantu people, who today are dominant south of the Sahara, had completed their great migration southwards from the Nigeria-Cameroon area. The production and use of iron objects had taken over and very few people still lived in the Stone Age. This decisive technological change also brought changes within the production systems, which in turn affected social structures. It was a time when the trade routes began to be seriously developed and both internal African and intercontinental trade stimulated economic, political and cultural exchanges. Even though Africa constituted a peripheral area in the global context, many African societies now began a long history of integration in international exchanges of various kinds. The African civilisations and centrally governed states that emerged in areas where the preconditions were favourable, became significant components in international networks.

© The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_3

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The end point that we set at around 1850 is to be explained by the fact that we see that Africa around that time entered a new period of economic and political expansion. There was growing participation in international trade, which led to increased economic and political strength in new groups and the weakening of a number of old elites. Further, some areas experience economic growth and others a certain centralisation of political power. Throughout the chapter we focus on the interplay between man and nature, or the interaction between labour and land as the primary production factors.

3.1 Man and Nature Although the African continent is the cradle of mankind, it was in general in 1000 AD very sparsely populated. It is impossible to know the exact size of the population, but we might estimate it at 20 million in sub-Saharan Africa at that point in time. The low density and modest growth of the population were signs that human beings encountered there natural obstacles that limited their spread. One explanation why the population numbers in Africa were held down was the threat constituted by a testing environment and a rich flora of diseases. There were also major climatic variations. In large parts of the continent, it was either hot and dry or hot and damp. Nature offered both enormous deserts and massive rain forests. The tropical zones were the place of origin of a mass of different parasites and diseases, such as sleeping sickness, bilharzia and malaria. The scattered population, together with the demanding and varied environment, also affected the spread of new production systems and agricultural methods. In regions where population density is low and communication systems are undeveloped, it is more difficult for people to connect to other societies, and this adversely affects the pre-conditions for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and new technology in the form of new types of crops, domesticated animals, tools and so on. Africa’s size and climate were also a factor in the relatively slow dissemination of new production systems, as compared with on the Eurasian continent. Jared Diamond is a scientist with a broad range, originally a biologist, who has produced this type of explanatory models. He has shown how the north–south extent of the African continent means that it is home to a number of different climatic zones that extend east–west right across the land mass. This is illustrated in Map 3.1. For example, areas with a steppe climate are separated by large zones of tropical rain forest and savannah climate. Diamond maintains that farming methods, crops, domesticated animals and so on, which are well suited to a steppe climate, therefore cannot spread easily across the whole continent. In that way, natural conditions become barriers to technical and institutional change. Low population density, a shortage of labour and low agricultural production have in different ways shaped the economic history of most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Many historians and experts on Africa, for example the British professor, John Iliffe, have had as their central theme in the analysis of Africa’s pre-colonial history, the population’s primary struggle to survive, followed by the aspiration

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S

D

S Tr

H S

Ts Tr

H

H

D

S Ts Tr

Tropical rainforest

Ts

Tropical savanna

S

Steppe climate

D

Desert

Ho

Hot tempered climate

H

Highland climate

Ho Ts S Ho Tr

S D Ho

Map 3.1  Africa’s climate zones (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.1, p. 25)

to increase in number and finally the efforts to produce a surplus large enough to feed a centralised civilisation. Problems in producing a longer-term agricultural surplus have in many places resulted in production systems and societies targeted on economic and physical risk spreading. In both the short and the long run this was the most rational strategy, as compared with increased risk taking and chasing after maximum returns. Giving priority to risk spreading is not, however, to be confused with stagnation. All production systems are constantly reviewed and adapted, so that they are fundamentally rational in relation to the ambient materialist context, i.e. the relative price between the production factors. As the context eventually changes, so too does the basis for rational action and with that comes changes in production systems. The purely materialist or economic rationality is nonetheless filtered through the institutional framework and there may arise institutional barriers to change, for example, it can be opposed by various interest groups or cultural norms.

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The shortage of labour and the relative surplus of land affected production systems and hindered state formation in certain regions. For example, West Africa’s savannah areas were throughout the whole period as a rule characterised by low population density. Attempts at centralisation were undermined by the good access to land. If, as a farmer, one was satisfied with one’s own household supply and had no wish to produce a surplus that was then seized as a tribute by a political elite, that possibility was available. When the authorities’ demands became too insistent, the farmers could choose to move and to cultivate land in the area which was beyond undesired political control. Instead of a centrally controlled state, it was the descendants of the first pioneers who constituted systems of authority. Politically independent local societies with production systems based on subsistence were, above all, commonly present in West Africa. There are also examples of African societies that have demonstrated other types of dynamics in the development of production systems. In some cases, intensification has been a driving factor in independently proceeding processes. In the north-east of Tanzania geographers have found evidence that complex agricultural societies, with advanced levels of cooperation over irrigation and terracing, have also emerged in areas lacking the population basis for a politically strong central power. In the centuries leading up to the nineteenth, these societies came under the sway of chieftains, on the basis of family relationships, whose agricultural methods distinguished them from neighbours whose political organisation was of the same type. Their investment in more advanced techniques appears to have been justified by the fact that over a long period of time agriculture was a source of significant income and wealth. Its profitability in turn derived from a number of factors, including contacts between these societies and international trading systems. There are also many examples of areas where population density was the main explanation for the emergence of various centralised states. The history of Ethiopia provides the example of one advanced culture succeeding another, as far back as the tenth century BC. These advanced cultures were characterised by relatively high population density as compared with elsewhere in Africa and by centralised power systems and intensive international trading exchanges. We have already distinguished the West Africa savannah area as underpopulated, but West Africa showed great variation in the matter of population density. We also find here several examples of societies that had a relatively high population density. These areas were also distinguished by significant urbanisation and emergent centralised states. It has been estimated that at the end of our period of study half the population of Hausaland, in the northern part of what is today Nigeria, lived in towns. The biggest town was Kano, which at the beginning of the nineteenth century had a population of 30,000. Further south lived the Yoruba people, who at that same time had some 20 towns, each with a population of over 20,000 inhabitants. These three examples show that there were a variety of causal connections between population density and changes in production systems and hence in social structures. The most common theory among present-day researchers is that good access to natural resources gives rise to a scattered population and a

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decentralised society, which lacks the motivation to achieve an increase in productivity through institutional and technical change. The opposite is the areas where population density raises the value of land as a factor of production and where changes in relative prices in turn drive processes of change both in production systems and social structures. On the African continent as a whole, the densely populated areas have been significantly fewer than those characterised by low population density, which could explain why most of the early agricultural societies were also characterised by extensive systems with low productivity and decentralised social structures. The example from Tanzania, where low population density and good access to land still resulted in technological change and the development of centralised social structures, may oblige us to reconsider our ideas as regards the causal connection between population growth and the intensification of agriculture. It was not necessarily a growing population, its need for more food and an increased relative price of land that dictated higher production. The causal connection can also be the opposite: an increase in the labour input resulted in increased production, which made possible a growing population as well as also increasing the value of land as the primary production factor. Box 3.1 A Short History of the African Population

Over 3 million years have passed since Lucy, one of our first human ancestors, left footprints in the soft lava stone of the Rift Valley. Subsequently, when the first Homo sapiens nomads left the continent approximately 100,000 years ago, there were about one million Africans and only a few hundred thousand emigrants. Until then the Africans were equal to the world population. Around the year 0 AD, emigrants from Africa had spread all over the world and increased to a total world population estimated at 200 million people. At that time, less than 10 million people lived in subSaharan Africa. In other words, the original emigrants multiplied more rapidly in their new environments than did the African population. While the Africans constituted only 5% of the total world population, the African continent is equal to 20% of the total land mass of the world. The relationship between the global population and the share of people in Africa stayed relatively constant until the start of industrialisation in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Because Africa is the cradle of humankind, the continent contains large genetic and linguistic variations. The common denominator for the vast majority of the African population today is that they are descendent of proto-Bantu-speaking settlers. “Bantu” is a linguistic denominator, not ethnic, and within it there has developed a multitude of separate languages. The Bantu-speakers originated in West Africa, roughly in present Cameroon-Nigeria and over 5000 years they spread over the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, displacing or absorbing pre-existing groups that they encountered on their way. The expansion took place in several phases and they reached the very south tip of the continent about the same time as the first European explorers in the late fifteenth century. In the south, they

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displaced and integrated with the indigenous Khoisan-speakers who still live there. In the north, Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan speakers who still dominate North Africa stopped their expansion. The Bantu brought not only new languages and culture, but also farming methods, crops, technological change and so on, the most important perhaps being the use of iron. Together these changes meant the introduction of new systems of production and socio-political structures.

3.2 Production Systems and Their Variations A common feature of the majority of African production systems is that there have been plentiful natural resources, relative to the size of the population. Famines and problems of under-nourishment, which have existed throughout centuries and millennia, have seldom been the result of a shortage of natural resources but rather of extreme weather or failings in the distribution of production factors and surpluses. A further aspect is that production systems have not burdened nature in any great degree. Local production systems might have on occasion over-exploited their resources, but then moved on and allowed nature to recover. The conversion from one production system to another seldom happened on the grounds that a system was environmentally unsustainable. It was instead due to the fact that it was economically and/or socially unsustainable, i.e. that it was inadequate to meet the needs of the population, which in turn gave rise to social stresses. Four principal groups of production systems are to be found in Africa during the period 1000–1850: (1) hunter-gatherers, (2) pastoralism, (3) crop farming, and (4) mining and handicraft. The various groupings are not essentially different from one another and they often include mixed forms. The transition from one production system to another is often a slow process, by stages, in which societies through gradual institutional and technical change encounter new needs that arise as the relative price of the production factors change. New customs that are seen to have advantages are adopted and eventually a restructuring takes place. By means of empirical examples, we will shed light both on what characterised selected production systems in the four groups, and on what drove a change from one kind of production system to another.

3.2.1 Hunter-Gatherer Societies The first production systems to arise on the African continent were hunter-gatherer societies. When there later came new ways to make a living, through pastoralism and crop farming, the number of hunter-gatherer societies diminished drastically. Despite this, it is a social form that has survived into the present time. It was once common to all, but today hunter-gatherers live as marginalised minorities in some African

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countries. Altogether they amount to only a few thousand individuals divided into three ethnic groups: the pygmies in the rain forest along the River Congo, the Hadza people in the Rift Valley in Tanzania and the San people in the Kalahari Desert. Many members of these ethnic groups no longer live as hunter-gatherers. Let us take a closer look at one of these groups—the San people. San is the collective name of a Khoisan-speaking ethnic group in Southern Africa. They are one of the two original peoples in the region. In about 500 AD the San people began to be displaced by southward-migrating Bantu peoples originating in what is today Nigeria. The strength of the Bantu peoples lay in the fact that they were both pastoralists and crop farmers. Already at the initial contact between the two groups some of the San people were incorporated in the Bantu society. The incorporation was not always voluntary. Members of the San people were kept as slaves and their labour was also exploited through other forms of coercion and dependency. After the early contacts, many San groups began to diversify their food supply strategies. They adopted technical and institutional changes, and created mixed hunter-gatherer supply systems or switched altogether to a combination of pastoralism and agriculture. They continued to adopt and incorporate new methods throughout the whole period up till 1850. In this section, we will nevertheless concentrate on discussing the San groups who in this period of time continued to live as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari Desert. They were subdivided into smaller groups, related by blood-ties or marriage. These local groups varied in size, depending on the access to food supply. When food was amply available each group might consist of 30–50 individuals, but then break down into groups of about ten when it was difficult to obtain food in the vicinity. The production or procurement of food was based on acquiring knowledge of the environment they lived in and on their ability to adapt to changes in the natural conditions. Instead of being settled and trying to tame nature the San lived as nomads. Their migrations were determined by seasonal changes, by access to food and water, by the movements of wild animals and so on. The surplus produced was small and the material standard was basic. There were both natural and technical limitations on increasing production and productivity in these desert regions, and the nomadic life-style made it difficult to acquire more than the most essential belongings. The small groups, combined with the elementary technology, meant that the San people had only a minimal impact on the nature around them. The San people sourced almost 80% of their food from plants. The fruit, berries, roots and the like, which they gathered, met their daily needs. Hunting was unpredictable and contributed only to a minor extent. Hunting was nonetheless important, both because it represented an important extra source of proteins and because it supplied certain tradable goods, such as ivory and ostrich feathers. As in the great majority of African societies, there was a clear division of labour between women and men. It was the women who were responsible for gathering and they spent several hours a day acquiring food. The women constituted the backbone of the production system. They kept themselves to the immediate vicinity of the camp, because they also had responsibility for the children and therefore could not move far away.

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The men were responsible for hunting. This was demanding because it took a lot of time and was physically taxing. Hunting was done on foot, the animals were tracked and pursued for long periods and the men moved far from home. Their weapons consisted of poisoned arrows, spears, clubs, and, in the latter part of the period, elementary firearms. Smaller animals were caught with the aid of traps. Trapping was a form of hunting which in certain cases was also carried out by women and which was more rewarding than hunting with bow and arrow. Hunting required great knowledge about the terrain and how animals react in different situations, plus great patience. After the hunt use was made of every part of the catch. Not only did it supply people with meat, but the hides and other parts could be sold or used to make clothes. Other animal parts were used as containers. It was women’s work to prepare these animal parts and make use of them. In connection with hunting the huntsmen ate more meat than did other sections of the population. It was then not only their contribution to production that distinguished men and women but also what they ate. Life as a hunter-gatherer in the Kalahari was not a life in isolation. Edwin Wilmsen, an anthropologist, has demonstrated that in the period up to the nineteenth century the Kalahari was an area that formed part of regional networks. The San were members of these networks, in which people sold goods such as ivory, ostrich feathers and ostrich eggs and in return bought coffee, sugar and tea. The opportunities for trade raised the material standard in the villages and gave some inhabitants a modest prosperity. Hunter-gatherer societies have often been described as egalitarian, but trade and the increased welfare also implied income differences among the members of San groups. The contacts with the Bantu people led to political tensions both between the San and Bantu groups and within San communities. In the mid-nineteenth century livestock rearing increasingly became the main source of income for the Bantu people and the trade in products that the San could hunt declined. The San groups that lived on as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari became increasingly isolated and focused more and more on gathering and less on hunting and trade. Perhaps it was as a result of this development that production systems increasingly reverted to a state more like that which existed before the Bantu expansion. While hunter-gatherers generally produced only a minimal surplus, which resulted in a low standard of living, their production systems did not demand much work. It has been calculated that the San people worked on average 12–19 hours a week to obtain food. The ready access to natural resources, the opportunities to join trade networks and the relatively low exploitation of labour meant that many San groups lacked the motives to increase labour input to raise production and productivity.

3.2.2 Pastoralists The transition from different forms of the hunter-gatherer system to livestock rearing was a process that slowly spread across the continent. The motive forces for

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change varied and so did the processes themselves. Also, by no means all societies changed in this manner. Various systems of livestock rearing are usually classed under the common term “pastoralism” and, strictly speaking, denotes an agricultural system focusing on raising livestock rather than cultivating crops. Pastoralists may be nomads or sedentary. Livestock brought communities greater access to the production factor capital in the form of animals and this capital could be exploited in various ways. Thanks to livestock the pastoralists had a good source of protein, in the form of milk or meat. In turn, this meant that people no longer needed to rely on such an uncertain enterprise as hunting using basic  equipment. Animals also gave nomadic pastoralists the advantage of being able to bring more, and bigger, things with them as they moved about and hence they could accumulate greater material property. Finally, livestock transformed the grass plains—a basic form of natural resource—into a valuable production factor. The increased food production that resulted from more intensive exploitation of natural resources and other assets meant that an increased investment of labour was required. Thus all the production factors—capital, land and labour—had increased in value. Africa south of the Sahara has no native animal species that can suitably be domesticated. Neither cows, goats, sheep, camels, donkeys nor pigs, which today are commonly found animals among pastoralists and farmers, come from their own continent. They have all been imported from Eurasia. The lack of domesticated animals meant that pastoral cultures developed later in Africa than in Eurasia. The earliest archaeological evidence of large-scale production systems based on pastoralism derives from the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt, roughly 6500 years ago. The new domesticated animals were imported from the Middle East. They came first to North Africa and initially spread over that part of the continent. The varying climate zones in the north–south direction initially constituted a barrier to their spread southwards. It was not until between 1000 and 500 BC that pastoralism had spread as far as East Africa and until 500 AD that the first pastoral societies arose in Southern Africa (see Map 3.2). By the time we enter the period 1000–1850, pastoralism has spread over the whole continent. More and more hunter-gatherer societies saw the advantages of abandoning their old supply strategies and switching to animal husbandry. The pastoralists relied chiefly on their livestock for their food supply, household utensils and clothes, though they could also complement these sources by gathering berries, fishing and hunting. Among the Khoisan in Southern Africa, there were certain groups that continued to hunt, while others decided to incorporate livestock in their production systems. Precisely when the first Khoisans obtained livestock is uncertain. Archaeological material suggests that it may have been as early as a couple of hundred years before our own era and that the cattle comprised of cows and sheep that had wandered down from areas that today constitute Zambia and Malawi. Several differences arose between those Khoisans who continued to live as hunter-gatherers and those who became pastoralists. One difference was their food intake, in that the pastoralist Khoisan groups drank milk and always had meat available. The livestock also provided for the first time a real opportunity for members of the group to acquire wealth, since the animals could reproduce faster

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Merimde 4200 BC Fayum 4300 BC

C

0B

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Shaheinad 3200 BC

BC 2000 BC 1500

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Ntereso 1400 BC

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Early agricultural societies Spread of iron Spread of livestock rearing

Map 3.2  The spread of animal husbandry, agriculture and iron industry (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.2, p. 35)

than people would eat them. These new opportunities resulted in the emergence of economic divisions among the groups. A further difference was that while the hunter-gatherers remained nomads, these pastoralists were sedentary, even though the herdsmen roamed with the livestock and their dwellings and other belongings could be moved. The fact that the hunter-gatherer communities and pastoralists lived side by side and belonged to the same ethnic groups suggests that there were advantages and disadvantages with both types of production system. For that reason, it is also difficult to define exactly what it was that induced communities to switch. Such transformations occurred both as a result of technical change in the form of the acquisition of livestock and through institutional change in the organisation of production and new ownership systems regulating the new assets. There appears to have been many different mixed forms and switching back and forth between the two production systems, as a result of changes in the relative price of production factors.

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Within the pastoralist group, there were additional subgroups that came about as a result of the different natural conditions in different regions. In dry and/or hot areas south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa and near Lake Victoria in East Africa it was necessary for the herds to move over quite large areas in order to be able to make use of the water resources and pastures, but without over-exploiting them. Since people had to move their animals over long distances in the quest for water and pasture, they largely remained nomads. They moved according to the seasons and their material standards were limited accordingly. In these areas, the pastoral people had milk from their tame animals as their main source of nutrition. They are therefore called milk pastoralists. The Maasai were a typical example of such people. In the fifteenth century, they began to move south, from what is today north-west Kenya, to the border between Kenya and Tanzania, where they remain in our own time. The Maasai state achieved its most advanced and established period and greatest expansion during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. People lived near their animals. Since these latter were obliged to be on the move, above all in search of water, and people needed the milk from the animals, they all had to move together. Because, in the first instance it was the milk that people exploited they wanted to create herds with many cows and few bulls. Male animals cost resources but gave nothing in return. Bull-calves were therefore either slaughtered young or got rid of in other ways. The consequence was that growth was slow and yields from the herds were low, because only half the animals were of interest, namely the cows. Tending livestock required fewer workers than crop cultivation, but for the individual worker it was a demanding activity. Those working as herdsmen had to defend the animals against predators, lead them to pasture and water, and tame them in order to be able to milk them. It was the task of women to do the milking and to prepare the products obtained from the animals, but it was the men who looked after them and herded them. There was also a clearer division of ownership, quite simply because there were more possessions to own. The men owned and controlled the family’s resources and the livestock, as the most important source of wealth, were bequeathed from father to son. While the milk pastoralists were limited by heat and the dry climate, which resulted in low yields, a high labour input and a nomadic life-style with a low material standard, there were better conditions for cattle herdsmen in Southern Africa. Here the climate resembled that which was found in Eurasia, where the cattle originated. It wasn’t as hot as it was further north, so that the animals did not need as much water and the pasture was juicier. In Southern Africa cattleraising was more profitable, both because of the favourable climatic conditions and because here the herdsmen concentrated on producing meat rather than milk. These meat pastoralists could retain all the calves that were born because their sex was of no significance. The relative workload was reduced because only some of the animals had to be tamed and milked. Since there was plenty of water and pasture, it was not necessary to drive the cattle over large areas, which in turn meant that it sufficed that the young men worked as herdsmen while the rest of the population had a sedentary life-style. That meant that people could invest more

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resources in their dwellings and raise their material standard. Just as with the milk pastoralists it was the older men who controlled the most important resources, because they owned the animals. The women worked for the family, doing the milking and household jobs, but in principle they had no opportunities to obtain resources of their own. The impact of the pastoralists on the environment has varied, depending on the number of cattle and people in a given area. Provided there were wide open spaces for the milk pastoralists and big pastures for the meat pastoralists, they could live in harmony with nature. When the production system could support a larger population, the numbers of both livestock owners and animals increased. Because in pastoral cultures the livestock was regarded as the main source of income and wealth people were interested in having many of them and consequently increase in herd size and improvement in welfare went hand in hand. These different processes had the combined effect of increasing the pressure on natural resources. In certain areas, where the conditions were right for crop-based agriculture, a mixed form—known as agropastoralism—emerged. The Tswana people in Southern Africa constitute a typical example of an agropastoral system of production and their settlement pattern has stayed the same from the eighteenth century until the present. Land was divided up into three zones distinguished by their different activities. In the centre lay the village with residential plots. It was surrounded by the arable lands where each household held land for crop-based agricultural activities and where family members could also stay on a temporary basis. Outside the arable areas stretched broad pastures, where cattle roamed under the supervision of herdsmen, who every evening led them back to enclosures, kraals, where the herdsmen also lived. The women were primarily engaged in agriculture nearby the village, while the young men, in particular, worked as herdsmen far away. The cattle were regarded as being of greater value, but agriculture contributed more to the daily livelihood. Growing population pressure led to an increase in the area under cultivation, while more and more cattle were put on the open pasture. If one compares the agro-pastoralists with the milk and meat pastoralists it becomes apparent how institutional and technical change led to a further increase in the value of the production factors and to the emergence of new production systems. This is also yet another example of the mixed forms that arose, the great capacity for adaptation and the readiness to make changes in farming methods in response to continuing developments in the initial conditions.

3.2.3 Agriculture By about 1000 AD African crop-based agriculture had been well established over the whole continent for at least 2500 years. The introduction of agriculture meant yet another stage of development on the way to the ability to supply a growing population and to create a more complex societal culture. Agriculture could give people a more nutritious and varied diet and that, in turn, implied the

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possibility of improvements in physical strength and health. The more intensive exploitation of the land brought an increase in its value as a production factor. Agriculture also created a greater need for labour, which meant that, as a production factor, it too increased in value. New crops, domesticated livestock, equipment, etc., also constituted increasing capital in the production system. Agriculture also allowed people to become settled and to acquire more material possessions. A greater surplus of food made it possible to feed groups such as craftsmen, soldiers and officials. The Neolithic revolution, when mankind began to rely on crop cultivation instead of hunting-gathering to feed themselves, began in Africa south of the Sahara as early as 5000 BC, in a broad belt stretching from the Atlantic, across the Sahel1 and the savannah, to the Indian Ocean. There is evidence that the development in this region was free from influences from other continents. The crops cultivated were native to the African continent. For example, millet and durra became very important and were cultivated together with many other fruits, vegetables, oil plants and roots of African origin. The development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa differed from the process that took place in Egypt and Asia. There the emergence of agriculture was concentrated in a core area from which it subsequently spread. The transformation of the production system was administered by a central power and was based on the exploitation of certain selected crops and animals. In the African case, agriculture seems to have arisen here and there in local communities, based on different plants, traditions and techniques. The outcome was that African agriculture encouraged local variation, diversification of usage methods, adaptation and continued decentralisation. Gradually Asiatic crops such as wheat, rye and lentils spread south from Egypt, even though this process was made more difficult and delayed by the different climatic zones and the varying natural conditions. The Asiatic crops were nonetheless superior to the African staple crops in that they produced greater yields and had a higher nutritional value. Since Africa was in general a sparsely populated continent, it was in most places the lack of the production factor “labour” that hindered agricultural growth, while land was in abundance. The outcome was that in most places extensive agriculture developed as it was the most rational farming system. That meant that, when it was necessary to increase production, e.g. in response to an increase in the population, new areas of land were cultivated rather than increasing productivity in the existing agricultural areas. Archaeological evidence also indicates that the tools used in this extensive agriculture were relatively elementary, i.e. that the technical level was low. Little is known about productivity levels in early African agriculture, but the combination of extensive agriculture, limited labour resources and the low technical level leads us to assume that in general productivity must have been low.

1Sahel means “The Sahara’s frontier” in Arabic and indicates a semi-arid geographical belt that stretches south of the Saharan Desert and north of the more fertile regions further south.

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Box 3.2 The Boserup-Malthus Debate from an African Perspective

Over the period from the 1960s to the 1980s the Danish economist Ester Boserup studied the development of agriculture in Africa. She was pointing to the connection between low population density, the low level of agricultural technology, and the low yields. Her claim was that in areas of major population growth the consequent pressure to increase food production provides an incentive to create more advanced, and hence more productive, farming techniques. This is a very positive view of the way in which population increase enhances the capacity of the production systems. The converse of Boserup’s positive view is represented by Thomas Malthus, a priest and economist who worked in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He maintained that human beings will always strive to increase in number, and sooner or later will reach the limits of the production system. When it can no longer supply the population’s needs, he foresaw that the population would diminish as a result of famine, hunger and war, until the balance between production and consumption was restored. And then the population would increase again. When Malthus put forward his theories over 200 years ago, they were based principally on European examples, but he also wrote about other continents, e.g. Africa. Malthus lived in an era of pre-modern agricultural technology and history has proven him wrong. He simply failed to foresee the technical change that brought significant increase in agricultural production during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The subsequent agricultural transformation instead proved Boserup right. Nonetheless, Malthus remains a source of inspiration. There are today neo-Malthusians who maintain that we are in various ways over-exploiting the earth’s resources, through overconsumption, which in time will lead to an unsustainable development. The old Boserup–Malthus debate, about whether population increase is a positive or negative factor in relation to levels of production, technical change and the exploitation of natural resources, continues. There also emerged enclaves in Africa where the increasing population density, in combination with external influence, was the driving force in an intensification of agricultural methods. These areas were also integrated in the international trade in agricultural products. Earlier in this chapter, in Sect. 3.1 Man and Nature, we gave examples of centralised agricultural communities characterised by high population density. This refers both to communities in present day Tanzania, where population growth appears to have been the result of increasing agricultural production, and of the examples we gave from contemporary Ethiopia as well as communities in West Africa where, instead, increasing population was the driving force behind increasing agricultural production. One might also mention other regions, such today’s Rwanda and Uganda in East Africa, where in the pre-colonial era there were agricultural communities with what, in African conditions, was a relatively high population density.

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Over the centuries it was not only crops from Asia that reached the African continent and developed the agricultural systems. Over the period 700–900 AD the Arabian empire expanded strongly—geographically, demographically, economically and politically. The Arabs embarked on voyages of discovery and trading expeditions both by land and sea, to Africa and elsewhere. They took with them new crops such as rice, sugar cane, bananas and other fruit and vegetables. This resulted in a technical change in African agriculture and these crops came to have great economic significance, both on the local markets and as exports. At the end of the fifteenth century new crops, such as maize, cassava, groundnuts, tobacco and cocoa were brought by the Europeans to West Africa from South America. These new crops also resulted in technical change in agriculture. The new methods of cultivation were accompanied by an institutional change, in the form of new ways of organising labour and production, changes in property rights over production factors, etc. Finally, the increased production and profitability in agriculture increased the value of the production factors. Over time, all these changes became motive forces in the emergence of new production systems. Below we cite examples both from the newly established plantation sector, which was run by European farmers, and of changes brought about as the result of new food crops which were integrated in the local small-scale agriculture. As early as 1470 the Portuguese reached an island, known today as São Tomé, which lies outside the coast of today’s Gabon. In the space of 100 years, Portuguese plantation owners developed there a successful production of sugar cane and the island became the biggest African exporter of this crop. Sugar production was a labour intensive process and the plantation owners’ success was wholly dependent on the import of slave labour from the continent. Over time, however, competition from plantations in the New World became serious and by the mid-seventeenth century, the island had instead become, above all, a slave port. In the early nineteenth century cocoa and coffee were introduced and the next major increase in the number of plantations was based on these new export crops. By 1908 the island was the biggest exporter of cocoa in the world. During this second expansion, the plantations were yet again run by the Portuguese and they exploited cheap African labour, even though slavery had been replaced by other forms of forced labour. While a few Europeans built up a plantation sector the African farmers saw advantages with other new food crops, since they were more profitable than, for example, millet, sweet potatoes and durra which were native to the continent. Above all, it was maize that came to have a revolutionary impact on consumption patterns, methods of use, production systems and even social structures. Per unit of land and labour, the profit on maize was higher than on the traditional crops. When missionaries, traders and slave traders took maize from America to the Atlantic coast of Africa at the beginning of the sixteenth century they started what some have termed “Africa’s green revolution”. Over the centuries, maize spread east and south and was incorporated in more and more production systems. In general, this crop thrived well on this new continent. It differed from the native crops, in that it was more sensitive to the changeable climate and it required greater water resources. This meant in effect that maize could not be cultivated everywhere, but

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these limitations did not constitute any major problems, particularly given that the yield was so good. From the sixteenth century onwards there are a number of travellers’ accounts that tell of maize cultivation along the Atlantic coast, in São Tomé, and present-day Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria and so on. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Dutch in the Cape Colony also began to cultivate maize and it spread from there northwards through Southern Africa. Despite the superior yield maize long continued to be cultivated together with native African crops. It was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century that maize took over as the principal staple crop in increasing numbers of African regions. In every production system property rights regimes are of decisive significance, since they determine both who controls the production factors and how they may be exploited. Changes in production systems among hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers also entailed a revision or revaluation of existing property rights. Before the European colonisation of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century there was, so far as is known, no extensive, large-scale agriculture, privately owned by Africans. There was agriculture on plantations, established by Arabs within the Islamic sphere of interest on the east coast and Europeans on the West coast, but these were few in number and constituted exceptions. The native African property rights systems that controlled the agricultural resources land and water were complex and differed from one community to another. It is therefore very difficult to generalise as regards property rights in agriculture. In a simplification, it can be said that natural resources were basically held in common among the local community. An individual might enjoy access to the use of natural resources via membership of the group. The community’s leader was regarded as being responsible for ensuring that natural resources were shared among the members of the group and that they were retained within it, ensuring the maintenance of future generations. It was also the leader’s task, either directly or via his representatives, to allocate to different individuals rights to cultivate specific parcels of land. In her researches into communities in pre-colonial Ghana, Kenya and Zambia the historian, Sara Berry, has shown how the ownership rights to agricultural resources were continually subject to renegotiations. The outcome depended on conditions in the local power arenas, and which groups and special interests were economically, politically and socially strongest. Property rights were embedded in the political and social networks within every community. A person’s right to land was determined by membership of the community and by relationship to kinsmen and authorities. After changes in community structures and the replacement of those in authority, the farmers were obliged to renegotiate their property rights. It was the head of the family who sought and was allocated rights to use land and water. In other words, this property rights system was characterised by communal ownership and private user rights. One explanation for the development of communal rights was the low relative price of land and the poor access to capital, which in turn meant that the farmers invested little more than their own labour in the land. Property rights systems built on communal ownership have in many instances been described as more egalitarian than those that build on private ownership. However, that is an altogether too simple conclusion. In the African

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systems of property rights, there were opportunities both for the already rich to enrich themselves further and for discrimination against various groups in society, including against women. The term for a social structure where the positions of power, ranging from the family level ruled by the father of the family, up to the highest political levels who are male, is patriarchy. Since the African communities were patriarchal in their structure, it was the leading men who allocated the natural resources and the male heads of households were granted the private user rights. Women were enabled to exploit land by virtue of the men sharing out responsibility for different parcels of land among their own family. In the cultures where polygamy (marriage to more than two; commonly one man having several wives) was practised, each wife was given a plot of land and made responsible for producing sufficient food to feed herself and her children. We have seen that in hunter-gatherer societies and among pastoralists there was a gender-determined division of labour tasks and responsibility within the family. The women were to a greater extent responsible for the daily food supply, while the men took on the major individual tasks and controlled the means of production. The same principles were repeated in the agricultural communities. Women and men belonging to the same family constituted different production units, that is to say they had responsibility for various forms of agricultural production. Traditionally women had responsibility for feeding their children on a daily basis and therefore cultivated food crops. The major investments in houses, land and cattle were the responsibility of men. They controlled the most valuable resources and in the nineteenth century, when the production of export crops spread within small-scale African agriculture, it was men who grew them and managed the monetary income from the sale of them. Because of these differences, we cannot treat the familial economy in African agriculture as a nuclear family unit. Instead it consisted of two separate production and consumption units, one for the wife and one for the husband.

3.2.4 Mining and Handicraft Mining, handicraft and occasional cases of textile production were to be found in the African production systems during the period 1000–1850. Iron was the most important metal and, differently from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa did not go through a bronze age. Evidence has been found of iron production from about the seventh century BC in today’s Niger and Rwanda. The new technology spread across the continent and reached Southern Africa some 2000 years ago. The origin of the art of producing and using iron has been the subject of lively debate. Some researchers maintain that it was an endogenous process on the continent, others think that the technical know-how was imported from Eurasia or North Africa and subsequently spread southwards across the continent (see Map 3.2). No unambiguous evidence seems to exist. Wrought iron was important in the manufacture of high-quality tools and equipment, which facilitated production especially in

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Iron Salt Copper Gold

Map 3.3  Important mining districts 1000–1850 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.3, p. 48)

agriculture. Without the knowledge of how to forge iron objects, African agriculture could not have developed as it did. Along with iron there were also early tin and copper mines. These metals were used to make everyday objects. Gold was, however, the most important metal for jewels and for amassing wealth. From ancient times until present different regions in Africa have been known for their major gold resources. The Nubian mines were the biggest producers of gold in the ancient world, while during the Middle Ages in Europe West Africa was the leading exporter of gold to Western Europe. In Greater Zimbabwe, which lies in what is today Zimbabwe, mining was for centuries organised by a centrally governed state. Calculations have been made showing that during the nineteenth century, Zimbabwe’s gold production amounted to 10 million kg, which would have made the area one of the biggest gold producers in the world. The gold reached the east coast of Africa through various trade networks and entered the trade across the Indian Ocean. Depending on the production system

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and the social structure in general, the mining of metals could be more or less centrally organised. Both women and men could work in the mines (Map 3.3). All communities, even those that primarily relied on income from livestock keeping and/or agriculture, also produced other wares. The livestock rearers and crop farmers alike need tools, clothes and household equipment. That created a need for people who specialised in handicraft and produced ceramics, wove baskets and made rope, leather products, furniture and much more. The goods they produced could subsequently be exchanged, or bought and sold, either within the local community or beyond it. The great majority of production systems that emerged included, to a major or minor extent, handicraft and trade in handicraft products. In cases where the trade was substantial and the handicraft class was significant, income from the production of luxury goods, consumption goods and tools became an important element in production systems. There was also conservation and processing of agricultural products. Beer and other alcoholic drinks were brewed, and dried, smoked and salted meat or fish were produced. The construction of family homes and community buildings could be organised and create job opportunities. While we highlight the development of handicraft and mining in pre-colonial Africa, we must be clear in stating that these types of production never became a major source of income. Mining, manufacturing, handicraft and agricultural processing created opportunities to diversify and extend production systems at both the household and the community level. In many communities, it was a question of seasonal production. During the low season in agriculture, people had time to devote themselves to wrought-iron work, weaving and other forms of manufacture. This was a way to optimise the exploitation of labour. As long as there was a surplus of labour in the agricultural sector, the market for handicraft products was limited and production was based on general knowledge and skills. Society at large had no great need for a group of specialised craftsmen. But in regions that took part in long-range trade and had a higher degree of commercialisation there emerged specialisation, for example, in groups of professional smiths and other craftsmen. Professional textile manufacturing must be seen as an exception to the picture we have just painted of very limited specialised handicraft production. Thanks to archaeological findings it can be shown that textile manufacturing has a long history in North and West Africa. There are indications that both the cultivation of cotton and the weaving of cotton cloths were introduced into West Africa by Moslem traders in the eighth century and that the region subsequently developed a manufacture of its own. There are also instances of textile manufacture in other parts of the continent, such as silk production in Madagascar, which we will return to in Chapter 5. Statistics of the extent of textile manufacture are lacking, but there appears to be no doubt that in some places it was considerable and organised on a small-scale industrial basis. For example, among the Nupe and Yoruba peoples there appear to have been professional full-time weavers. Textiles were traded locally and regionally and they formed part of the long-range trade. There were a number of advantages with textile production: the quality of the local products was high, and producers and consumers lived close to one another—clothes and style were part of the local culture and

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identity. The production itself could be found both at the household level, as part of the everyday household tasks, and be centralised in enterprises situated in one of the urban centres. In West Africa, weaving was often monopolised by Moslem tradesmen and entrepreneurs. The working tasks were strongly gender and age correlated, so that men, women and children had different fields of responsibility.

3.3 Socio-Political Structures If and when production systems change, the pre-conditions also arise for changes in the socio-political structures. Politics, social circumstances, religion and culture are very strong driving forces within all societies and they manifest their influence through different forms of legal frameworks governing interaction within society, through both formal and informal institutions. Changes in relative prices depend not only on changes in the amount of production factors, but also on how production is organised and on the institutional framework. Within production systems there may also be political and social institutional barriers to what from an economic angle is the optimal exploitation of resources. The outcome of local and national power struggles may result in cementing the activities of certain interest groups thereby either delaying or hindering changes in production systems that ought to be the result of changes in relative prices. Change can, of course, also take place in a reverse process starting off with changes in relative price. The shaping of the institutional framework is in turn affected, and in certain cases deliberately governed, by the special interests of various groups. Which group gains the greatest influence over the institutions is determined by negotiations and power struggles in various arenas. The transition from one social structure to another takes place gradually and is influenced by changes in both production systems and in the institutional framework. Few social structures are isolated. Instead they constitute parts of both major and minor networks established on an exchange of goods, labour, knowledge and so on. They change as a result of both external factors and endogenous driving forces. There is in African history no simple linear development of social structures and we find great variation during the whole period 1000–1850. The social structures that existed can crudely be divided into a smaller number of main types: (1) segmented political systems; (2) centrally governed kingdoms and tribute societies; and (3) other city states. Within these types, there are numerous variants and mixed forms.

3.3.1 Segmented Political Systems The most common social structures in sub-Saharan Africa throughout the period 1000–1850 were what the anthropologists call segmented political systems. The term “segmented” refers to the fact that these societies were organised through a decentralised political system, in which every local settlement was relatively

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independent, in consequence of the low population density. A small population dispersed over large land areas meant that political centralisation was not always feasible. Every day’s politics was instead conducted at the local level and it was here that individuals built their social networks. Political power was decentralised down to the parts (segments), which collectively constituted the whole (society). It was within the segments that the main power arenas were situated. Society, the political and social unit that held together the different segments, built on a common history, culture and language, and a common over-arching institutional framework. At the same time as the overall political power constituted a factor that united the society and it enjoyed legitimacy, it lacked having a direct link to the people living within the various social clusters. In the segmented political systems, family relationship constituted the fundamental structure in the organisation of production and in the allocation of, and control over, resources. Kinship here does not so much mean blood and family links, but rather membership of a group, which could be based on family. The most important thing, however, was to live at the same place and to share social networks. The extent of kinship and the social networks varied greatly among the different communities. Common to them, however, was the fact that neighbours and family members practised a constant exchange of goods, services, natural resources, labour, political loyalty and much else, and that this exchange formed the basis for both power relationships and the allocation of income and resources. Below we give examples of three different types of social structures within the group of segmented political systems. We have selected a variety based on the types belonging together with different production systems, the characteristics of which depend, above all, on the fact that the production factors, land and labour, have varying relative prices. The first example is communities where the availability of natural resources was in abundance in relation to the size of the population, and where it was common that individuals had relatively free access to these resources. At the same time as access to natural resources was ample, natural conditions in many areas could be demanding. In areas with a surplus of natural resources there was no need for detailed regulation of the exchange within the social network. The legal framework reflected the daily cooperation between family members, neighbours and friends. Groups were also quite loosely defined. This type of community often corresponded to hunter-gatherers and others who lived scattered in smaller groups, who were content to gather from nature instead of remodelling nature. We can here go back to our earlier example, the San people. With groups of from 10 to 30 people, a population density of about one person per square kilometre and a nomadic life-style, together with a small production surplus there were no basic conditions for anything other than a decentralised political system. In our second type of segmented political system, the access to natural resources was more limited. In these communities, also, the definition of kinship was stricter, because it was kinship that determined who should have access to what resources. This type includes, above all, pastoralists relying on milk and farmers in extensive agricultural systems who spread over wider geographical areas. The Somalis, an ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa, constitute one example. They were milk

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pastoralists who had a common culture, religion and language, but were politically divided among six major clans. These clans were in turn divided into smaller and smaller units down to the village level. At certain times they cooperated, but at others they were in a state of feud. It is even conceivable that certain meat pastoralists and agriculturalists practising intensive farming methods continued to live in segmented political systems, but the greater the surplus production and the higher the productivity, the more likely it was that urban and state formations developed. There was also a third type of segmented political system, consisting of autonomous towns or minor autonomous city states with locally strong central governance. The villages and towns might in turn join political unions based on common language, origin, history and culture, without there being any stronger central authority that governed them. The best known example was the cooperation between the African city states along the coast in East Africa. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, there was a belt here which stretched from Mogadishu in the north (Somalia) to Kilwa in the south (Tanzania) and which in time came to include Zanzibar and other islands. Trade eastwards was the basis of the welfare of these cities, their unity being founded on the Swahili culture and language as well as common religion, Islam.

3.3.2 Centrally Governed Kingdoms and Tribute Societies During the period 1000–1850 centralised political systems were well established in Africa and they demonstrated a wide variation. Common to them was the fact that there was a central authority that had sufficient power to implement its policies in a given sector and that the subjects of the central power showed greater loyalty to the central leaders than to those at the local level. That means that the central power arenas were of greater significance than the local ones, in distinction to the case of the segmented political systems. The underlying production systems in these centrally governed states could be some form of animal husbandry, but in most cases it was a matter of agricultural communities. As regards the segmented political systems, the centrally governed kingdoms and tribute communities demanded a constant production of surpluses. That in turn meant that they were based on a more efficient exploitation of the production factors. As a general rule, the centrally governed states were some form of kingdom, in which the king was the supreme leader, although his ability to govern autocratically varied. There was a political and economic elite around the king and, together, they controlled the means of production. As a rule, the members of the elite themselves produced nothing. Membership of the elite was determined by the production system and the institutional structure. In societies that specialised in slave trade, for example Oyo State in West Africa, the elite comprised of leaders who controlled their military resources and traders. In other societies in West Africa that relied on agriculture the political elite controlled the agricultural resources and labour. In major centralised states, such as Ethiopia, the king ruled with the aid of a nobility and a loyal army.

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Production was carried out by the great mass of craftsmen, farmers and pastoralists. These were able, to a varying extent to own or otherwise control means of production. The distribution of certain key resources, for example land, was controlled by the king and/or the economic and political elite and producers paid tribute to them, in return for which they gained access to essential factors and means of production. This division into a group that had overriding political and/or economic control over the means of production, and a grassroots level consisting of producers paying tribute or taxes to the elite, is characteristic of all tribute societies. The collection of tribute by the central power was made possible by its political dominance, which in turn rested largely on the monopoly over military force that the elite could use to impose its policy. Organising the military and gathering tribute required an organisation that by extension developed into a formalised state apparatus. The centrally governed states had an urban core as their economic, p­ olitical and cultural centre. There was a correlation between the emergence of centralised political systems and urbanisation. They were two linked processes that were driven by changes in the production system and the institutional structure. The initial urbanisation was possible only if there was a production surplus adequate to supply the urban inhabitants with food. That type of surplus was difficult to achieve for other than agricultural communities and we here see clearly how production systems and social structures were linked to one another. Furthermore, diversification and specialisation were needed in many varied trades. The great variety of tradesmen and production systems created ever more complex communities, which required an increasingly centralised structure of power and authority. The classic image of the pre-modern city is that of the architectonic remains which bear witness to the wealth of the community. The hierarchical social structure was manifested in the capacity to control and co-ordinate the population. The first centrally governed state with a high level of civilisation, south of the Sahara, which we know of thanks to archaeological findings, is Aksum in present-day Ethiopia (see Map 3.4). Aksum had already fallen before the end of the first millennium, but it was only the first of a long series of significant Ethiopian states with well-developed trade links with Europe and Asia. Aksum’s period of greatness was between the fourth and fifth centuries, when it stretched from the outer limits of the Sahara in the west, across the Red Sea, to the Arabian Desert in the east. Over a period of about 500 years, the city of Aksum itself had a population of 20,000. It was culturally sophisticated and many of the buildings in the capital were stone constructions. It minted its own coinage and traded with Egypt, the Middle East and Arabia. It was here that there also developed the only native African written language, Ge’ez, which constituted the basis for the current written language of Ethiopia. First the king and subsequently the rest of the state’s inhabitants, converted to Christianity in the fourth century. Aksum achieved prosperity thanks to a technical revolution, namely the introduction of the plough in agriculture. This made possible a substantial increase in productivity, giving rise to a major surplus that could be sold. This is an example of how a technical change that leads to changes in the production system may contribute to a change in social structure and to state development. The Ethiopian

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54

Takrur 800–1000 Djenné-Djenno Wadai Borno 250 BC-1400 AD Hausa Senegambia Kanem Mossi Nupe Mali Kwararafa Oyo Benin Asante Ibo

Funj 1400s Darfur

Aksum 200–700 Ethiopia 15001800

Adal

Rwanda Congo 1400–1600 Lunda 1500–1700

Burundi Luba 1500–1700

Mutapa Zimbabwe 1200s

Map 3.4  The most important centrally governed states in Africa 1000–1850 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.4, p. 57)

highland has throughout time afforded human beings good conditions. The land was fertile and there was a rich and varied plant and animal life. The climate for agriculture was good and the area was sheltered and secluded, while yet not too far distant from the Red Sea, thereby making it possible to maintain contact with other parts of the world. Aksum’s inhabitants exported goods that came from the Ethiopian interior, exchanging them for salt, iron and cattle. But the city and its elite increasingly consumed luxury goods and made inroads on the nearby natural resources. By 800 AD, Aksum had almost ceased to exist. The main reasons are presumed to be the over-exploitation of local natural resources and a collapse in the near-environment. Woods and trees had been felled to provide fuel for the production of iron, glass and ceramics and there was no longer any untouched land to cultivate. This combination of impoverishment, soil erosion and an increasing population to feed, proved unsustainable. The population of Aksum abandoned the

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city and moved to other areas in central Ethiopia, where ultimately they laid the foundations for modern Ethiopia. The greater part of the centrally governed communities on the African continent developed in the vicinity of trade routes both on land and by sea. Many of them are to be found in a broad belt south of the Sahara. Their wealth was founded both on the tribute they extracted from their subjects and on the fact that they constituted a link in trans-Saharan trade. Through the trade network, they supplied the demand for gold, ivory, ostrich feathers and slaves in other parts of the world. There were also other areas further south that flourished thanks to this trade. In the year 1000 AD our attention would have been directed towards Great Zimbabwe, in the present-day south Zimbabwe. The prosperity of the kingdom of Zimbabwe derived in the first instance from production surpluses from cattlerearing combined with agriculture and then also from mining and exporting gold. There were several stone-built towns in the country, of which Great Zimbabwe is the biggest and best known. The origin of this city state has been disputed and is not altogether clear. The majority of researchers are nonetheless agreed that it was founded by a Shona people who inhabited this area. They constructed up, in stages, an impressive stone-built town, which had its period of greatness between 1200 and 1500. At the maximum it had about 18,000 residents, which means that there must have been a successful production system that supplied it. The likeliest scenario is that the local ethnic group was at first successful meat producers, who later turned to crop-based agriculture, to increase their production (Photo 3.1). A later example of a successful tribute community is the Congo kingdom. This arose along the River Congo in Central Africa and achieved its period of greatness in the fifteenth century. It then occupied parts of the present-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This kingdom emerged during the fourteenth century, through the union of minor chieftainships located along the river. As a result of centralisation and the founding of the Congo kingdom, the former political leaders were replaced by a single king. The kingdom’s economy was based on trade in slaves, ivory and cattle-hides. It was, above all, the contact with Portuguese traders and missionaries during the last decades of the fifteenth century that brought great income. The Portuguese not only bought slaves from the Africans but themselves conducted slave trade in the area. The slave trade that had formerly been the foundation of the kingdom’s wealth was also the cause of its fall. Declining population numbers and political unrest led to an incipient internal dissolution at the end of the sixteenth century. In 1655 the Portuguese invaded the Congo kingdom and deposed the king. It was once again divided up into minor kingdoms, which then fought one another.

3.3.3 Other City States From the eleventh century onwards there were also city states that had other forms of political cooperation and economic and financial specialisation than the typical tribute societies. They had no strong central power and their inhabitants organised

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Photo 3.1  Great Zimbabwe (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

themselves on the basis of cooperation rather than subjugation—few resources were devoted to status symbols for an elite. In the Niger delta, in the currentday Republic of Mali, archaeologists have found the remains of a city—DjennéDjenno—that in its heyday around 800 AD had a population of up to 27,000 inhabitants. It was a civilisation that lasted more than one and a half millennia and had arisen several centuries before the first trading links across the Sahara Desert had been established (see Map 3.4). As distinct from most other known cities in this part of the African continent it was thus not part of the growing trans-Saharan network but had developed for other reasons. It was distinct from the more typical city pattern in that there were no clear signs of hierarchical social structures, a central state authority or more complicated major architectonic works. DjennéDjenno was perhaps an exception from the prevalent rules about the way in which a pre-modern city state should be organised. Or perhaps it represents a type of city that was more common than we have previously known. Since no buildings or architecture have been preserved in the form of archaeological remains there are few clues for posterity. To judge by the archaeological findings Djenné-Djenno was a peaceful place. There are no remnants indicating war, plunder or other violent conflicts or damage. It appears that this region had both good access to food for self-supply and

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Photo 3.2  Traditional building in Arlit, Niger (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

broad trade, within the delta, in its own products such as grain and seeds, fish, oil and meat. Against that, there are no direct traces of any major surplus production or trade-in luxury goods. In that way, the production system is distinct from the common tribute community. That apart we know little about its production system other than that it consisted of a mixture of agriculture, cattle-rearing, hunting and gathering. Since it appears to have been a very robust community, without over-exploitation of its resources, it is difficult to explain why it ultimately collapsed. At all events, Djenné-Djenno ceased to exist at some stage in the period 1100–1300. There is speculation but no firm answers. It may have been a matter of some kind of change in the climate that resulted in flooding, contributing to its collapse. The city can also have been struck by a devastating epidemic or plague (Photo 3.2).

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3.3.4 Kinship and Social Networks Kinship and position in social networks determined both social and economic/ financial status and political power in all communities. Those who controlled a wealth of natural resources could also be a patron for poor kinsmen and, in return, the latter became loyal subjects, in what is termed a patron–client relationship. By sharing his wealth and using his influence the “patron” could bind to himself lower-ranking clients. These latter offered, in return for this protection, both political support and labour resources. Thereby the poorest members of society were saved from penury, while the rich increased their status and power. It was by means of layer upon layer of patron–client relationships that the greater part of everyday authority and power-sharing was governed. Social events, such as funerals, weddings and initiation rites, were exploited by the better-off as opportunities to invite relatives and friends, in order to win their respect and bind them to themselves in mutual financial/economic relationships. The patron gave food, drink, clothes and other gifts, while the client contributed loyalty and reinforced his protector’s reputation in society. The patrons could permit clients to avail themselves of pasture, water resources, cattle and other assets, in return for which the clients invested their labour in the patron’s resources. There were above all three aspects of the relationship between people that formed the basis for control of the population in a kinship community. First, it was a matter of the women’s reproduction. Those who controlled the birth rate also controlled the new additions to the population and thereby the labour force of the future. Secondly, it was a matter of the parents’ control over their children and their activities, and finally the elders’ control over the young. It was as a rule a patriarchal system, in which the older men governed the women and the younger men, and thereby governed the population as a whole. This division of power also meant that in the first instance it was the older men, secondly the younger men and lastly the women who could exploit the labour resources and natural resources to enrich themselves. An example of the way in which the control of labour functioned may be drawn from commercial agricultural production in West Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the great majority of cases, production was controlled by the man in the household and the social networks functioned as a means by which he gained access to reliable, cheap and efficient labour. Women, children and younger relations were expected to work in his fields, but they were not themselves established within the commercial production. Instead, the institutional management of the labour force stipulated that members of the family could expect economic protection and assistance in establishing their own agriculture in the future. By means of their labour wives and children ensured their right to be fed and to share in the agricultural resources and income. This right also entailed that portions of the farm might be parcelled out and given to kinsmen who had been under the man’s protection.

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3.3.5 Labour Allocation and Leadership Within both the segmented political systems and the centrally governed states there was a strong emphasis on age structures. This institutional framework is customarily called an age grade system and it permeated both the production system and the social structure. The age grade system was based on a flat hierarchical structure organised around every individual’s membership of an age cohort. It was well adapted to the special economic, political and social conditions in every community. The age grade system included both men and women, but it particularly related to all men, assigned from birth to an age cohort, i.e. a number of year classes that were combined into a communal grouping. It was a classification that accompanied them throughout life. Every new stage in life was linked to specific social and political rights and duties in the community. Transition from one age category to the next most frequently took place through some kind of initiation rite that was common to the whole cohort, and as a rule it was a question of demonstrating strength when faced with natural dangers. In that way, the whole group of boys born between certain years were simultaneously adopted as men. For example, the classic initiation rite among the Maasai, for acceptance as a man, consisted of hunting and killing a lion, because lions constituted a threat to both people and livestock. In addition to the fact that the elder generation as a whole were deemed to possess social and political wisdom and experience, the most prominent of the male elders, those who enjoyed the greatest respect, were also deputed within their age cohort to serve as “wise men”. These men were the leaders who ran everything, from whole communities to local groups, thanks to the experience and knowledge they displayed in negotiations with other group members. The elders’ class system was thereby based on the appointment of leaders in accordance with their merits, even though potential leaders were drawn from a predetermined limited group or family. Rule by age and the emphasis on respect for the elderly resulted in a conservative system, which did not exactly encourage new ideas or innovation and which supported strategies to spread risks rather than to take risks and maximise benefits. A conservative society of that kind, which spread its risks, was often a consequence of adaptation to the high-risk environment that the group lived in. The Tswana groups in what is now Botswana and South Africa, for example, were led by a chieftain drawn from the group’s royal family. Despite being the chieftain he was not unthreatened as he could be replaced by another family member in the event that he was considered unsuitable. Although he had great power the chieftain was expected to consult an assembly comprising the group’s wise men and elders. These latter were appointed on the grounds both of their talents and of their political, economic and social status. But the decisions of the leadership were even more firmly anchored. Before major decisions by the leadership were taken, the chieftain held general meetings, known as kgotla meetings, to inform the population of them and to discuss them. Only men who were full citizens of the Tswana could take part in the meetings. In theory, they could all

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freely state their opinion at the meeting, but in practice many of the contributions were ruled by politics. Kgotla was the name of both the meeting and the physical arena where the various groupings conducted their disputes. Although the requirement for openness and compromise largely permeated Tswana politics, to call it a democratic system would be to go too far, since half of the population, the women, were disqualified from participation in the kgotla meetings because of their sex. Since the leaders were dependent on the support and respect that one could enjoy from other members of society, they for the most part relied on compromises and agreements rather than coercion and force. The low population density also contributed to the fact that, as far as possible, open and violent conflicts were avoided, because one could not afford to lose young men in battle. The fact is that on the African continent there was no real tradition of broad war-making until the eighteenth century. There was then an increase in the number of military conflicts in step with the widening of the slave trade and the emergence of African slavehunting societies. Despite this change, as compared with the situation elsewhere, for example in Europe, war between and within states has been unusual, until present-day times. The military conflicts have for the most part comprised of raids and minor skirmishes over local resources. The basic explanation can be found in the abundance of land combined with the shortage of labour. Instead of making war people conducted raids against their neighbours, stealing cattle, goods and in certain cases people, primarily women, in order to increase their own group’s population.

3.4 Trade and the External Influence Some form of exchange within and among various communities arose early on the African continent. The extent, breadth and variety of the trade in goods developed through the interaction with the underlying production systems. The more goods that are produced in an increasingly advanced production system, the more that can be sold. Growing demand also increases the incentive for further surplus production. There is thus an interaction between production and demand, and it is not always possible to determine the causal links. The purpose of trade has been to obtain the goods that one has been unable to produce oneself and to increase one’s own wealth by selling one’s own surplus. The income from trade has contributed to an increase in the value of the production factors that have been used in the production of the traded goods. Institutional and technical change can therefore have been both the pre-condition for, and result of, the demand from trade. Over time, production systems adapted in order to be able to efficiently produce the profitable traded goods. Certain regions had close and natural contacts with the Eurasian continent, which drew them into international trade. Although Africa’s internal and international trade were both of great economic importance during the period 1000–1850, it was limited in comparison with that of the Eurasian continent. The low population density and the varying climatic zones once again set up barriers to integration within the continent. The centrally

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governed states and their cities, which had specialised production, a wealthy elite and leaders who sought to increase their economic and political influence, gave rise to great demand for goods produced both locally and regionally. The centrally governed states were nonetheless relatively few. The great majority of the population of Africa consisted of farmers whose agricultural production was both small in scale and self-supplying and who lived in segmented communities. Their demand for commercial goods was relatively low. The inadequate infrastructure and the poor transport facilities constituted further barriers to the development of trade. The available means of transport were elementary, consisting of ox-carts, camel caravans and rather basic barges, which were ill-adapted for long-distance trade on a major scale.

3.4.1 Trade Networks Thanks to archaeological evidence and a research focus on dynamic African processes historians have shown how, in all regions of sub-Saharan Africa, regional and local trade was of significant importance. Because production in the various communities had not been standardised but was adapted to local conditions, trade was used as a way to acquire new goods and to allocate production among the regions. Trade thus had a direct influence on the division of labour, relative prices and production systems. The surplus from agricultural production, hunting, mining and handicraft formed the basis for the internal African trading systems. The products varied from region to region, as did the intensity of trade. In the more densely populated regions, such as in parts of West Africa, trade was more intensive than in the more sparsely populated Central Africa and Southern Africa. Local trade was most frequently conducted over shorter distances that could be covered in a single day and therefore required no great organisation or investments. One reason for this was that the goods traded locally were commonly a matter of bartering agricultural products. These products were heavy and cumbersome, and did not always remain fresh when transported over longer distances. The trading was lively and of importance in the local supply and production systems, but it did not lead to the creation of either a professional merchant class or brought substantial margins of return. Through the local networks, minor quantities of exotic imported goods could also be moved over long distances. The most significant trade network in the period 1000–1850 was the TransSaharan trade (see Map 3.5). Initially, the desert had constituted a barrier and trade did not take-off until the forebears of the current-day Tuaregs in the period 100–400 AD introduced camels and dromedaries as pack-animals. During the second half of the seventh century AD the Arabs gained control of North Africa and when the Arab tradesmen joined in the regional trade in the eighth century, it expanded further. This trade network was active and profitable, far into the nineteenth century, a high point occurring during the sixteenth century. From the start, it was the demand for salt that was the major driving force in the Trans-Saharan trade. Salt could preserve food and was important as a food supplement, and hence indispensable in the

3  Back in History—1000–1850

62 Map 3.5  Major trade routes and trade stations in the Sahara 1000–1850 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.5, p. 65)

Tunis Fez

Tlemcen

Marrakech

Wargla

Tripoli

Sijilmasa Aujila Taghaza Wadan

Taodeni

Djado Bilma

Tadekka Timbuktu

Awdaghost

Walata Djenné

Cairo

Ghat

Gao

Kano

majority of communities. The Sahara had the biggest salt deposits on the African continent and it was therefore a major asset. In addition to salt, the demand for gold was one of the most important driving forces in the long-distance Trans-Saharan trade, along with other luxury goods like ivory, ostrich feathers, pepper and, later, the firearms that were in demand among the political power-elites. These were goods that kept well, across long and hot distances, and had a high value-to-weight ratio, so that they could prove profitable despite the limited trade volumes. Trade became significant in the emergence of urban centres and centralised states in a broad belt south of the Sahara, down to the West African coast. Along the trade routes lay minor towns that lived on supplying the caravans with important necessities and also on other ways of servicing the trade. They were located both on the southern and the northern extremities of the Sahara itself and at oases scattered in the desert. When the goods arrived on the north coast of Africa they were reloaded onto ships and sent forward to Europe (Photo 3.3). Timbuktu was an oasis in the centre of present-day Mali, which developed into an important trading-hub thanks to the Trans-Saharan trade in salt, gold and slaves. Although it has today lost much of its earlier economic importance, it still has a romantic aura and prompts thoughts of caravans, consisting of hundreds of camels, merchants wrapped from head to foot in indigo-coloured material as a protection against sand-storms, and of an ocean desert stretching as far as the eye can see. Timbuktu was founded in the twelfth century by Tuaregs who have inhabited the Sahara for thousands of years, living as nomads from their camels and trade. The city had its period of greatness as a trading place and a seat of learning, in the fifteenth century. In the tenth century, the Islamic establishment continued, in the form of trading stations out along the coast of East Africa. They kept their settlements until the European colonisation during the latter part of the nineteenth century (see Map 3.6). Islamic interest on the coast of East Africa derived from interest in control over trade with the interior. In addition to the settlements along the coast there

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Photo 3.3  Tuareg tradesman crossing the Sahara (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

were trading districts reaching into the interior, where the merchants’ caravans proceeded. Out along the coast some of that period’s biggest African cities were founded—Mogadishu (Somalia), Mombasa and Malindi (Kenya), and Bagamoyo and Kilwa (Tanzania). These cities and others that lay along the caravan routes in the interior were born from the prosperity that was built up on the basis of the Islamic trade. The most important and biggest of the Arab trade centres was Zanzibar. The island was successively colonised during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in the mid-nineteenth century, an estimated 30,000 people lived there. The goods traded comprised of various cereals, rice, spices, fruit, vegetables, textiles, ivory, slaves, ceramics and much else. This trade was both regional and international and created a demand for products from the interior, which in turn influenced the existing production systems. For a long time, the slave trade constituted a major source of income for the island. Ethnic groups that lived as far away as the Yoa on the shores of Lake Malawi were in the early eighteenth century transported, as slaves, out to the coast and on, to be sold on the Zanzibar slave market. The caravan trade intensified and attracted increasing numbers of Arabian merchants during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During the early nineteenth century, cloves were introduced and a profitable plantation sector developed. Thereafter many of the slaves remained in Zanzibar to work on the plantations instead of being shipped off (Photo 3.4).

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Zeila Berbera

Mogadishu

Malindi Mombasa Zanzibar Kilwa

Sofala Spread of Islam1500 Spread of Islam 1800 Islamic trade routes Islamic slave trade

Map 3.6  Islamic areas of interest and trade routes in Africa (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.6, p. 67)

3.4.2 An Awakening European Interest From the mid-fifteenth century to the current-day European influence has been significant for economic, social, cultural and political developments in Africa. It is therefore necessary to analyse the changes in the relationship between Africa and Europe. We must understand both the forces driving the European interest in Africa and the reactions among African communities to the European influence. In the 1300s and 1400s feudal Europe found itself in the periphery of the world trading system. The continent was divided into many small kingdoms and principalities. The royal families and nobility competed with one another. There was also a quite important merchant class which in a contemporary international comparison had a very independent status. The royal power, the nobility and the merchants together gave financial and political support to voyages of discovery to Africa and elsewhere. These journeys were also assisted by technical change in the

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Photo 3.4  Sailing off Zanzibar’s coats (Source Private collection of Ellen Hillbom)

form of significant improvements in ship design and construction, and navigation instruments. This made ships more manoeuvrable and more stable, increasing their cargo capacity, so that they could make longer voyages. Trade was carried out via new routes, new trade centres arose, ships could carry greater quantities of goods and the big trading companies grew in strength. Long-distance trade was a hazardous enterprise, in which trade was combined with conquest and contributed to the coming colonial expansion in Africa. Spain and Portugal were the two European countries which, especially in the fifteenth century, became interested in voyages of discovery to regions beyond Europe. These two nations divided the world between them and Africa belonged to the Portuguese sphere of interest. Portuguese exploration of the African coast and their search for a possible sea route to India and the Far East went on in stages over the fifteenth century. It took them 70 years to reach the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa. After that, they continued up the east coast of Africa and then across the Indian Ocean, over to Asia. During this period the Portuguese established a number of ports and trading stations, but no colonies (see Map 3.7).

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66

The Azores (1431)

PORTUGAL

Madeira (1418) Ormuz (1515) Cape Bojador (1434) Rio de Ouro (1434) Cape Blanco

Cape Verde (1446) AS

T Y ME

EC O

HO

AV

DA

SL

T

AS

AS CO

CO LD

RY

GO

IVO

Sierra Leone (1460)

T

Aden (1514)

Fernando Po (1472) Mina (1481) Principe (1472) S˜ao Tomé (1472) Annobon (1472)

Malindi (1498)

Mozambique (1498)

Madagascar (1500)

Cape Cross (1484)

Cape of Good Hope (1488)

Cape Agulhas (1488)

Map 3.7  Portuguese voyages of discovery and landfalls in Africa (with dates) (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.6, p. 69. Based on Rondo Cameron [2001] A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present, Fig. 4.1)

Box 3.3 Cape Town

The first European who rounded the Cape of Good Hope was Bartholomeu Diaz, a Portuguese, in 1488. He was exploring the coast of Africa, but a more important aim was to find the eastern sea route to India. The Portuguese used the southern tip of Africa as an occasional stop on the long voyage eastwards but never properly colonised the area. Barely two centuries later the Portuguese were challenged by new European colonial powers as the Dutch East India Company realised that the area around the Cape of Good Hope was of strategic value. In 1652 Jan van Riebeck, a Dutchman, established Cape Town, at the foot of Table Mountain and it became the first permanent European settlement in Southern Africa.

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67

The Cape Town area was attractive as there existed a natural harbour and the surroundings were suitable for agriculture. Sea-going vessels travelling between Europe and Asia could thus tie up there and provision themselves. The European population was small—even a hundred years later only 1000 individuals had settled there. Since it was difficult to obtain sufficient African labour to develop the colony, slaves were imported from Indonesia and Madagascar. Over time, these formed a significant minority in Cape Town. Not only was Cape Town of strategic value in controlling the trade route eastwards, but the area also became a port of entry for further expansion into the southern areas of Africa. The British East India Company had its eyes on Cape Town for some time and in 1806 it finally took over the town and it became the capital of the new British territory, which was called the Cape Colony. Mercantilism governed the economic strategies that were elaborated and set the tone in Western Europe in the period 1500–1750 and it was the basis of the economic and political interests that were shared by the influential elites: the monarchy, the nobility and trading companies. Mercantilism was a new economic system on the rise which primarily attracted tradesmen and businessmen of the time. Feudalism was in decline, the first embryo of the future nation-state now existed, and there was a newly awakened interest in the way in which wealth, power and welfare were to be generated at the national level. The mercantilists wanted to be the economic advisors to those in power, to the kings, princes and nobility, and they wanted also to take part in shaping future economic policy. They assumed, as one of their fundamental points of departure, that the total wealth of the world was an eternal “given”. The question, then, was how this wealth was to be distributed. In the trading relationship between different countries, the gain of the one would match the loss of the other. International trade was a possible way to increase one’s own national wealth and at the same time to reduce that of one’s competitors. The balance of trade was therefore central. The more one could profitably export, in relation to how much one imported, the greater the national prosperity would be. The African continent was also incorporated in mercantile trade ambitions and over time its economic significance increased. At the outset, it was primarily the Portuguese who had trading posts along the African coast, but over time a growing number of European countries became interested in obtaining trading stations in Africa. Over the period 1450–1850 the mercantile focus on achieving a surplus in the trade balance resulted in colonial expansion. There were two main driving forces behind this early expansion. At a time when money and currency reserves consisted of gold and silver the first motive force was the search for precious metals. The other was to guarantee “self-sufficiency” in exotic products. The establishment of trading stations became an essential stage in both the mercantile economic strategy and the emergent nation-building. However, it was not

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68

Alger Tunis

MOROC

CO

Oran Tiemcen

Tripoli

Agadir

EGYPT

SAHARA

Arguin Saint-Louis R El Mina

Joal BENIN SIERRA LEONE ASANTE

OYO GOLD

COAST

Accra

Whydah Porto Novo

Lagos

Calabar

CAMEROON

CONGO

GABON

Malindi

Loango

Mombasa Zanzibar

Luanda

Kilwa

ANGOLA

MOZAMBIQUE

Cape Town

SCA GA MA

DA

Sofala

R

Tete Sena

SAN

Map 3.8  European and Arab trading ports 1700–1850 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.8, p. 72)

part of either the mercantile strategy or its ideology, to take over major territories. Hence, until the second half of the nineteenth century, the Europeans were content with relatively small settlements along the coasts, which were connected with trade networks reaching into the interior. Settlements reflected political and economic development in Europe. As new countries, such as Holland, Great Britain and France, gathered political strength and capital to move eastwards, these countries set up new trading stations or conquered old ones (see Map 3.8 for major European and Arab trading ports). European settlement along the coast had a varying impact on the African peoples and their production systems, depending on how integrated and commercialised the coastal areas already were. The West African production of commercial goods, for example, was already affected by the Trans-Saharan trade and, in the African perspective of that time, the region was well integrated in international trade. Here the Europeans became a complement in the existing trade network.

3.4  Trade and the External Influence

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The combined demand from the export-focused production systems increased. The European merchants obtained contacts among African merchants who transported goods to the coast. Over time, the latter derived new income from their new trading partners and the overall high level of commercialisation in the region meant that the new export revenues could spread out among the communities. The trading stations in East Africa came to play a somewhat different role, however. East Africa had long had trade contacts eastwards and the coastal strip itself was relatively densely inhabited. Also in the interior quite large populations could be found, but in between them population density was lower. The coastal strip’s isolation, in relation to the interior, made it easier for the European merchants to gain control over the trade, especially in the southern parts of the east coast, that is to say, in today’s Mozambique and South Africa. Here there were fewer African trade networks for them to compete with and they could therefore quite freely build up their own. Meanwhile, they came into conflict with the Arab traders further north, along the east coast. Over the centuries, however, there developed a mutually advantageous trade exchange between Europeans and Arabs.

3.4.3 The Slave Trade Even though trade in raw materials, handicraft products and agricultural products have been important for sub-Saharan Africa there is no type of trade that has had such an impact on the continent as the slave trade. Slaves were bought and sold within the continent, and went for export, both eastwards and westwards. Slave systems have been common, and have existed throughout the African continent, since far back in time. They are classic examples of the struggle for control over production factors (in this case labour) that have a high relative price. That is not to say that all, and perhaps not even most, communities made use of slave labour. There is continuing debate about how widespread slave systems were in Africa, and as yet there are no certain answers. It is nevertheless clear that nowadays the majority of researchers describe slave systems as being common but far from universal. It is also in other ways very difficult to make generalisations about the African slave systems, because they naturally varied among different cultural and religious contexts and were also dictated by the circumstances within the various production systems. It is nevertheless important to try to define some common features, because they were in character very different from the slave systems into which the Africans were sold via the European and Islamic slave trade. To start with, it is no easy matter to define what, in fact, constitutes slavery and how it differs from other kinds of control over the labour force. It does not suffice simply to contrast slavery and freedom with one another, because there are many production systems and social structures in all cultures and all times that, in different ways and to different extents, have limited the liberty and movement of labour. In the highly hierarchical systems in Africa that were founded on the principles of a patriarchal government by elders, children were obliged to obey not only their parents but all adults, while all women were subordinated to their husbands

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and their male relatives, and the older men ruled over the younger. This obedience meant also that the older men ultimately exercised control over the labour force. It has also been suggested that, in its freer form, slavery in Africa may be regarded as an extension of the patron–client relationships the freemen established within their social networks, in which labour and loyalty were exchanged for social protection and economic security. At the other end of the scale there were slave raids, kidnappings, war and exploitation. There were a number of reasons why individuals fell into slavery. It could be because their parents were slaves and that they were then born into a slave class, which existed more or less permanently in a community. Another common scenario was that those who became slaves had been captured during conflicts between different ethnic groups or were prisoners of war. This type of slaves could be integrated into society by marriage or could over time be recognised as free citizens. Criminals could be sentenced to slavery for a limited period, or for life, and could thereby serve out their punishment. If one was really poor, one could give oneself, another family member, or one’s whole family, into slavery in exchange for food and shelter. Closely linked with this was that a debtor could pay off his debt by offering his own labour, or that of other family members as payment. In these cases, slavery could be time-limited, until the debt was repaid. It was nonetheless a characteristic of the African slave system that people were not “objectified” to the extent that they were in the international slave trade. Just as there were variations in slave systems within the African continent there were communities that actively rejected it as a labour system and refused to trade slaves. The greatest opposition to slavery and the slave trade often came from communities with segmented political systems. The Jola people in the southern parts of today’s Senegal had no chiefs, very little surplus production and a very modest amount of material wealth. They rejected trade with Europeans, including the sale of slaves, until the end of the seventeenth century and themselves used no form of coerced labour before the nineteenth century. The Baga people (Guinea) and the Kru people (Liberia) are also examples of ethnic groups that refused to participate in the slave trade. People from these groups put up such violent opposition to it, including at times even killing their owners, that the Europeans ceased to enslave them. The Islamic slave trade stretched from the ninth century to the twentieth and comprised of three different trade routes: northwards across the Sahara to the Mediterranean area, across the Red Sea to the Middle East, Arabia and South Asia, and from the coast of East Africa, across the sea to South and Southeast Asia. In the eastern trade, it was primarily women who were sold, as servants and concubines, whereas the men were used as soldiers and plantation workers. The Islamic slave trade is estimated to have amounted to 14 million people (see Table 3.1) but, since it lasted for over 1000 years, it has not left such clear traces as did the Atlantic trade. Because it continued for a longer period of time and the slaves were sold over a larger area, there is not today in Asia the same concentration of minority groups of former slaves as, for example, can be seen in the USA. Nor did the Africans anywhere eastwards come to take over whole territories as a majority population, as was the case in many places in the West Indies and in parts of Latin America.

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Table 3.1  The slave trade westwards and eastwards Time period

Area Atlantic

801–900

Trans-Sahara

Islamic East-Coast

Red Sea

344,800

229,900

114,900

901–1100

2,000,000

459,800

229,900

1101–1450

2,143,700

804,600

402,300

Total (801–1450) 1451–1600

404,700

4,488,500

1,494,300

747,100

879,300

344,800

172,400

1601–1700

2,013,050

816,100

229,900

114,900

1701–1800

7,462,500

821,800

229,900

229,900

1801–1900

3,665,300

1,385,100

862,100

1,063,200

Total (1451–1900)

13,545,850

3,902,300

1,666,700

1,580,400

Sum total

13,545,850

8,390,800

3,161,000

2,327,500

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 2.1, p. 76 Based on Peter J. Schraeder (2000) African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin, Table 5.1, p. 90

The slave trade westwards, across the Atlantic, supplied the American continent with African labour. The European involvement in the slave trade started early in the sixteenth century and continued for about 350 years. Researchers have calculated that a total of over 13 million Africans were shipped from Africa in the Atlantic slave trade. This peaked in the eighteenth century, during which more than 7 million people were sold as slaves. The death rate during the journey was high and almost 15% of the Africans are reckoned to have died during the journey. The major part of the slaves were sent to what is nowadays South America and the West Indies, while only 4.5% were shipped to the present USA. Table 3.1 presents the estimates of the extent of the slave trade. However, it is important to emphasise that there are many greatly varying calculations and the empirical base is unreliable. During the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the European traders developed an intricate triangular trade (see Map 3.9). On the first leg, slaves were transported from Africa to America, as labour for the plantations. The ships were then reloaded with agricultural products. Coffee, tea, cotton, rum and sugar from the American plantations were shipped on to Europe for sale. Finally, the ships were loaded with arms and elementary industrial and consumption wares from the new industries in Europe and sailed back to Africa. In that way, they were always loaded and there were great opportunities to make a profit on every voyage. It is beyond all doubt that the profits from the slave trade were significant. However, it is undetermined how important they were to prosperity in the various European countries. There are those who are of the view that the slave trade was a basic financial pre-condition of industrialisation and that without this inflow of

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Liverpool Bristol

Prov ision s

Charleston

Toba cco Rom

Co tto n

Boston New York

Lisabon

Cadiz

r

a ug

S

ial

West Indies

London Nantes Bordeaux Marseille

tr us

s

od

go

d

In

Ivo

ry

Timber

co

ac

Bahia Rio de Janeiro

s ve Sla

b To

s Slave

Slaves

Tobacco

Map 3.9  The triangular trade (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.9, p. 77)

capital the production systems in Europe could not have been transformed. The majority view, however, is that although the capital made a significant contribution it was not a decisive factor in the transformation. What was it that drove communities on a continent where there was shortage of labour to become exporters of precisely this valuable production factor? We have already described how slavery was a well-known and widespread system for controlling labour in Africa. Here, in other words, existed already a commodity and, with the growing demand from foreign traders, it was increasing in value in a manner never previously seen. Although slaves had existed earlier, there had seldom been a trade in them and, when so, only to a very minor extent. Hence they had never constituted a significant source of income. Now slaves were valuable not only as workers but also as merchandise. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slaves became the African continent’s most valuable export commodity. This economic incentive fundamentally transformed the African slavery that already existed. Both European and Arab slave traders were dependent on recruiting African allies in the trade, who supplied them with people. A complicated barter trade was built up: slaves who had been rounded up by African slave-hunters were exchanged for firearms, luxury goods and basic consumer goods. These goods appealed primarily to the elite but could to some extent be spread to a wider group at large in the slave-hunting communities. It was Africans who chiefly captured slaves and transported them out to the coastal areas. There, people were sold to traders who then transported them onwards, overseas.

3.4  Trade and the External Influence

73

Saint-Louis Gorée WAALO Bawol KAYOR

MA

ND I GA FU LA SOSO

MA

HI OY

O

ARCHUKU

Bonny

BOBANGI

Calabar

LO

Anomabo Whydah Porto Novo Lagos

MEY

N

O DAH

NI

Little Sestos

ASANTE

BE

Isles de Los Sherbro

AN GO

Loango Bay Malemba Cabinda

Luanda Benguela

TEKE

A ND LU GO N Ujiji O C NGO KASANJE NDO

Stanely Pool

Tabora

MBUNDU OVIMBUNDU

Kilwa MA

KU

A

Ibo Mozambique

Quelimane

Map 3.10  Source areas for the slaves sold in the Atlantic and Islamic slave trade and chief ports used for shipping out slaves during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 2.10, p. 76)

Slave-hunting became a very profitable business for certain communities and groups. There are examples of communities where a growing proportion of the male population ceased to be farmers, herdsmen or hunters and instead became slave-hunters and traders. It was primarily the economic and political elite who greatly profited from the new source of income and it was also they who led the restructuring of production systems. Because they commanded the new technological innovation—firearms—and thereby could increasingly profit from control of labour, land became of less economic value to them. They employed an increasing proportion of the local labour force in their new enterprises. Ultimately the new source of income had taken over so large a proportion of the labour resources that, in practice, the traditional production processes were abandoned and there arose societies that lived on slave trade. This entailed changes not only in the

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local production systems but also in local and regional social structures and power arenas. The slave-hunting communities were militarily very powerful and they obtained control over other peoples by conquest, colonisation, kidnapping, threats and blackmail. Some existing states reinforced their power position, while new states emerged. The losers were most often the politically segmented communities, because they were militarily weak and therefore unable to defend themselves. An example of a state that over time came to specialise in slave-dealing was the Oyo state in present-day Nigeria. It was established in the fifteenth century by the Yoruba people and developed into one of the largest and most influential states. Its palmy days were concentrated in the mid-seventeenth century and the end of the eighteenth century. It enjoyed early economic, political and military success, having distinguished itself in the regional trade networks. Its royal power was relatively highly centralised and it was in the forefront in Africa as regards military technology, having above all developed its cavalry. Thanks to its military skill and early trading links the Oyo state-controlled large parts of the coast and during the late eighteenth century it became an important link in the slave trade. It both acted as an intermediary between slave-hunters further inland and European traders established on the coast, and also sold its own slaves to the Europeans (see Map 3.10 for major slave trading ports). The low population density and the shortage of labour were Africa’s major challenges. Against that background the slave trade naturally had a devastating impact on the continent’s development. The precise demographic effects of the slave trade are nonetheless difficult to reckon. One can of course take the number of people who were taken prisoner and sold, and then compare that with the combined population at the time, but that is itself an uncertain calculation. We know neither exactly how many slaves were shipped out, nor how many died during transport from the interior to the coast, nor even the actual size of Africa’s population. And besides, the problem is greater than that. Calculation of the number of those transported skims only the surface of the real consequences. How is one to capture the demographic development that would have taken place on the continent had the Islamic and Transatlantic slave trade never occurred? The people, both women and men, who were taken as slaves were above all young adults. These individuals were not only the most able-bodied but were also in the early stages of their reproductive life. Their children would now be born not in Africa but in the West Indies, in the southern States or in various parts of Asia. Even more difficult to measure are the effects on agricultural production. Taking the able-bodied men and women as slaves reduced the essential labour resources in the areas impacted by the slave-hunters. It left an imbalanced population distribution, with an excess of both old and young who had to be supported by a diminished number of able-bodied and productive adults. The people most severely affected by the slave raids were also driven from their homes and land, by fear of being taken prisoner, leaving for new areas that required major labour investment in breaking new ground and building new homes. The reduction in labour resources and the destruction and division of communities evidently resulted in a fall in agricultural production.

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In 1807 Great Britain forbade its citizens to engage in the slave trade and the USA followed with similar legislation in 1808. This, however, related only to international trade and did not ban slave-ownership per se and in many countries slave trading including exporting remained lawful. Great Britain tried to use its global influence and command over the oceans to hinder western slave trade, but it continued throughout the nineteenth century and the Islamic trade reached its peak in that century. The end of the eastward trade did not come until the final decades of the nineteenth century, when the Islamic areas were colonised by the Europeans. There are several possible explanations for the change in the Western world’s attitude towards the slave trade. One is that the economic rationality within the capitalist production system did not favour that form of labour control. Mechanisation meant that the production factor labour could be replaced by capital. Meanwhile, emerging economic theory emphasised the value of the mobility of labour, and trade was seen as the principal form of the division of labour. These were technical and ideological developments that contributed to changes in the relative price of production factors, which in turn changed production systems and institutions governing labour. Within capitalism both employers and employees preferred wage labour, whereas slavery was regarded as a thing of the past. At the same time as capitalism took over production systems in Europe, most European countries were losing their plantation areas in America. The USA became independent in 1776, the Latin American countries became independent during the first decades of the nineteenth century and one after another of the West Indian possessions were lost as the nineteenth century went by. In the European countries, people now began to wonder whether it would not be better to use African labour on the African continent instead. Industrialisation in Europe also gave rise to changes both in the social structures and in the economic and political power arenas. A nascent middle class, with Christian moral principles, who were opposed to slavery, emerged in Europe, especially in Great Britain. They adopted capitalist economic principles, including those relating to the mobility and freedom of the labour force, and they observed humanitarian ideals. In the battle against slavery, this conscious middle class and the new capitalist industrial class could find common ground. On the African continent, slave labour continued to be an element in many production systems producing export crops for the European market. In that way, the European countries indirectly continued to support slavery in Africa.

3.4.4 The Distribution of New Sources of Wealth Capital in terms of financial resources for investment, was scarce in most societies in sub-Saharan during the period 1000–1850. The great majority lived without, or had only very little contact with, any form of monetary economy, paid work was rare and trade for the most part was based on the exchange of goods. An exception to this was the elites in certain communities, who were part of the

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international trade networks, such as the Trans-Saharan trade or the slave trade, and had amassed fortunes from them. The inflow of new fortunes created parallel economic systems, because the new revenues were not regulated in the existing production systems. The new economic systems influenced, in turn, both social structures and the equilibrium of the power arenas. When trade with Arabic and European merchants opened up for new sources of income the established allocation system that prescribed how wealth should be distributed within society and what obligations and rights individuals had towards one another became obsolete. Since the value of natural resources was low, while the value of labour was high, it was also easy for people to gain control over land, without needing to be wealthy. Against that, it was a characteristic of a wealthy man that he controlled labour, for example that he owned slaves or in some other way drew his income from the work of slaves or clients. The political leaders, chieftains and clan leaders in the hierarchical patriarchal systems were permitted, thanks to their position, to control and organise the group’s common resources, both natural resources and labour. In economies that in general produced a very limited surplus that might be taxed and where capital was in very short supply, it was through political power and the accompanying control of the group’s common resources that prosperity was created. If one wanted to become rich, the only strategy was to invest in the social networks, that is to say, to develop patron–client relationships and thereby to build up one’s political status by obtaining a growing group of loyal followers. As the wealth from new external sources entered the existing economic and political structures it was commonly not regulated by the traditional principles of distribution and thereby it could easily be seized by a small elite. The result has by some been described as an alienation of the elites or the leaders from their own population and as the severing of the links of trust. The leaders controlled sufficiently large resources through the control of exports and no longer needed to derive their income from the domestic economy. Their incentive to develop the local production systems was thereby weakened. When the leaders no longer needed their subjects to retain their position of power and their incomes, the population for their part lost their opportunity to hold their leaders accountable. An example of how the African export of ivory and slaves, and the import of firearms, formed the basis for the emergence of a society governed by an exploitative militarised state is the Bemba State, in the northern areas of today’s Zambia, during the nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century, the chieftain and the political elite collected tribute from their subjects in the form of ivory that was then sold and, to avoid sharing the revenues with the rest of society, they converted the ivory trade into a royal monopoly. In that way, the chieftaincy controlled a source of income that was separated from and independent of their subjects’ agriculture-based production system. They were thus able to circumvent the institutions that regulated the apportionment of resources and income. In order to extend the control over their new source of income the chieftaincy purchased firearms and could then subjugate their neighbours by force. This not only produced further tribute in the form of ivory, but also prisoners of war who could be sold as

Bibliography

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slaves. The income from the slaves also accrued to the chieftaincy since it had a monopoly over war and military force. Bemba nonetheless represented a type of state that was an exception, taking into account the continent as a whole. Another larger, and growing, group of production systems that took advantage of the increased commercialisation of the African continent were the agricultural systems that produced and sold export crops. These became an ever more common phenomenon in the second half of the nineteenth century and came to play an important role in the economic history of Africa. Their development was most apparent in West Africa and in the next chapter we will show how these, as well as other colonial systems, were shaped by the pre-colonial structures.

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Inikori, Joseph E. (2007) ‘Africa and the globalisation process: Western Africa, 1450–1850’, Journal of Global History, 2(1): 63–86. Law, Robert (1978) ‘In search of a Marxist perspective on pre-colonial tropical Africa’, Journal of African History, 19(3): 441–452. Lovejoy, Paul (2000) Transformations in slavery: A history of slavery in Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCann, J. (2005) Maize and grace: Africa’s encounter with a New World crop, 1500–2000, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Manning, Patrick (1990) Slavery and African life: Occidental, oriental and African slave trades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osafo-Kwaako, Philip and James A. Robinson (2013) ‘Political centralization in pre-colonial Africa’, Journal of Contemporary Economics, 41(1): 6–21. Peters, Pauline E. (1994) Dividing the commons: Politics, policy, and culture in Botswana, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Reader, John (1998) Africa: A biography of a continent. London: Penguin Books. Rönnbäck, K. (2009) ‘Integration of global commodity markets in the early modern era’, European Review of Economic History, 13(1): 95–120. Schreader, Peter J. (2000) African politics and society: A mosaic in transformation. Chicago: Loyola University. Silitshena, R. M. (1979) ‘Chiefly authority and the organization of space in Botswana: Towards an exploration of nucleated settlements among the Tswana’, Botswana Notes and Records, 6: 55–67. Stiansen, Endre, and Jane I. Guyer (eds.) (1999) Credit, currencies and culture: African financial institutions in historical perspective, Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute. Thomas, H. (1997) The slave trade: The story of the atlantic slave trade: 1440–1870, New York: Simon and Schuster. Widgren, Mats, and John E. G. Sutton (eds.) (2004) Islands of intensive agriculture in eastern Africa, Oxford: James Currey. Wilmsen, E. N. (1989) ‘Those who have each other: San relations to land’ in We are here: Politics of aboriginal land tenure, 43–67. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe (1993) A modern economic history of Africa, Volume 1: The nineteenth century, Nairobi: East African Education Publishers.

4

Economic and Political Integration 1850–1920

The export of minerals and agricultural commodities from, especially, West Africa had already begun to grow during the eighteenth century. It continued to expand following the ban on the international slave trade in 1807. The structure of exports was diversified. This diversification made it possible for a growing number of communities to produce for the world market. The relative prices of the production factors changed, as a consequence of the increased value of land, which led to changes in existing production systems. As in all periods there were, of course, not only winners, but also groups and communities where dynamic processes of change did not emerge and where in consequence they lost their relative strength or even foundered altogether. We have opted to start this chapter in the conversion process in the mid-nineteenth century. In our view the new export conditions and the transformation of production systems had at that point reached a state where the evidence of change no longer rested on individual cases alone but revealed a break in the overall trend. The conversion process entailed recasting production systems in both the local and regional power arenas. It was a matter not only of transforming production systems but also of changes in socio-political structures. The economic expansion gave more and more communities economic opportunities for political consolidation and state-formation in Africa. As we showed in Chapter 3 the continent had a long history of state-formation. What was new in the nineteenth century was that they were founded on greater political integration. Some of them had far-reaching ambitions as regards economic, political and military development. This process of economic expansion and state-formation on the African continent led to growing economic and political interest in Europe. It began with initiatives taken by particular trading companies, geographical societies, missionary unions and individuals. Within just a few decades, however, it became a matter for the very highest European political levels. From the 1880s onwards this interest became equivalent to territorial conquest, by which the African continent

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was put under European territorial control. Imperialism constituted an epoch of multi-faceted economic and political driving forces at national, regional and local levels in both Europe and Africa. European conquest and establishment lasted right up to the outbreak of the WWI and the time just after this war is where this chapter ends. The European conquest of the African continent was a politically subversive, but it was also complicated, long-drawn and integrated with other internal continental and international changes. It did not automatically constitute a break with earlier production systems or instances of state-formation. On the contrary, we regard the conversion processes that began during the pre-colonial nineteenth century as having continued during the first decades of European control. The colonial administration had major problems in obtaining income from the African production systems and often lacked the resources to pursue projects of their own. This made them economically and politically weak and forced them to concentrate on creating an administration that primarily controlled the inward and outward flows of goods. Because of its dependence on export revenues the administration’s central objective was to encourage production of export goods. In West Africa they mainly relied on existing African exports. In East and Southern Africa the situation was somewhat different. The colonial authorities could to a lesser extent rely on existing trading patterns and therefore took steps to transform the economies by establishing European settler societies. Just as there were great variations in African economic and political interests, so the group of European actors was heterogeneous. There were often conflicting economic and political interests within the administration, between the administration and the European states, and between the administration and trading companies, missionary societies and other Europeans in the colonies.

4.1 Transformation of Production Systems and Socio-Political Structures The transformation of the African production systems and socio-political structures was based on changes in demographic, economic and political factors that in turn led to changes in the relative prices of the production factors. The population of Africa grew during the decades up to the European colonisation in the 1880s and 1890s, which meant an increase in the available labour force. The declining slave trade and the new opportunities in certain areas to increase income through greater integration in the global commodity trade seems to have started a positive spiral of population growth, increasing labour resources, expanding production and yet further population growth. These decades were also a time of major waves of migration. There were population groups that extended their territories in response to the growth in population and an increased need for natural resources. Slave raids, the taking of prisoners and enforced population movements diminished in extent as the slave trade declined. Instead young men, above all, moved to areas where wage

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labour was on offer, i.e. to mining districts and to areas producing export crops. If we examine the economic changes we see that agriculture was the sector that showed the most marked expansion in the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of colonisation. The expansion of both African small-scale farmers and of plantation owners, gave rise to increasing demand for imported labour. Workers came both from local areas and remote communities and consisted of a mixture of forced and voluntary labour. Production systems were also converted as a result of technical development, such as the spread of new crops, farm animals and equipment, and institutional change in the form of new markets, new labour regulations and changes in the regional and local power arenas. But agriculture was not the only sector that expanded at that time: the same applied as regards the mining industry and to some extent textiles. The conversion of production systems was both preceded and followed by changes in socio-political structures. The increased economic integration and growth in incomes formed a basis for the creation of new states. In turn, the new system of centralised authorities constituted a positive force for further economic development. New initiatives for more efficient production systems and diversification became possible.

4.1.1 Demographic Change According to the latest assessments, between 1850 and 1920 the African population increased from 123 to 158 millions. Yet even with these increases large parts of the continent remained thinly populated. Since Africa, apart from the Cape Colony, had no population census of its own in the nineteenth century, population growth statistics are based on regional estimates, assessments of the general economic and political situation, and reports of epidemic outbreaks and famine, and so on. One explanation given for this increase in population is the spread of new crops, in particular maize, rice and groundnuts, which had a high nutritional value compared with the traditional African crops. Increased international economic integration and the ever more intensive trade links within the continent spread new methods of cultivation faster and to more areas. Trade in food products increased, as did trade in tools, such as metal hoes, that eased agricultural work. Technical and institutional changes occurred that contributed to an increase in agricultural production that supported the increase in population. Another explanation was the successive reduction in the international slave trade during the nineteenth century. Great Britain unilaterally forbade international slave trade as early as 1807. Despite the fact that Great Britain was then the foremost trading nation, the ban had limited effect. Its immediate result was that the international slave trade moved east and south, from the British-dominated West Africa to areas such as Benin, Cameroon and the Congo. It then took decades before the extent of total slave trade diminished and certain researchers

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maintain that it even increased during the first years after introduction of the ban. The ban on the international slave trade still impacted the local African communities. Despite the population growth, labour scarcity remained a problem and now there was a growing demand for labour with the increased production of exports. In especially West Africa internal use of slave labour therefore increased during the nineteenth century and was common in the early colonial period. In certain regions an increasing population pressure, combined with the redistribution of political power among various communities, caused several waves of migration during the first 60–70 years of the nineteenth century. The most comprehensive and best known of these waves of migration was the Mfecane in Southern Africa. Mfecane means, roughly, “scattering” and it describes a period of political and demographic disturbance that occurred during the period 1815–1840, with subsequent reverberations during the second half of the nineteenth century. It progressed through Southern, Central and East Africa. There were a number of factors that, taken together, set the migration in motion. One explanation is precisely the population growth in Southern Africa, which came about because maize began to be cultivated in this region in the second half of the seventeenth century. While the transition to a production system based on maize had advantages it caused increased pressure on agricultural resources. The population growth called for further cultivation and more agricultural land for higher maize production. Furthermore, maize requires more water than the native crops, millet and durra. In communities where the lack of agricultural resources, such as land and water, became acute the need arose to expand geographically, and in certain instances that meant seizing agricultural land from other groups. Zululand, in what is today South Africa, is a clear example of a community where the population increased because of maize production. It solved its needs to expand by resorting to war and thereby contributed to the Mfecane. Their chief, Shaka Zulu (1781–1828), had built up a professional army and needed to be able to rely on his kingdom having adequate resources in the form of labour and land to produce sufficient food for it. Shaka had great political ambitions and wanted to expand Zululand. This expansion led to much suffering and death among its neighbours. At roughly the same time as Zululand expanded, large groups of Boer descendants of the Dutch colonisers in the Cape Colony began their Great Trek northwards (1830s–1840s). They wanted to get away from the British rule that had taken over in 1806. It was primarily Boers engaged in animal husbandry who went off in search of new grazing land and founded new colonies that were not subject to the British Crown. Zululand’s expansion and the Boers’ migration and search for new pastures were the two main causes of Mfecane. Together they had a domino-effect: the movements of one population group forced others also to move (see Map 4.1). These migrations in turn led to the formation of new states. The Ngwane is one example among several people who were forced to flee, to escape the Zulu expansion. In time they came to be called Swazi and their new territory today constitutes the central parts of Swaziland. Other peoples from the mountain areas of South

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Map 4.1  Migrations during Mfecane and the Great Trek (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 3.1, p. 91)

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Africa founded Lesotho, after fleeing the Zulus. Several Tswana groups moved into what is today Botswana. Others fled as far north as to the area between what are today called Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika. By the beginning of the 1880s these great migrations had ended. A new demographic stability had been achieved, but it was soon to be disturbed by the wave of European conquest. The great majority of the African population still lived in the countryside, though it is possible to detect a degree of urbanisation. For example, by 1850 some 20 or so towns with populations of 15,000–55,000 had developed among the Yoruba in West Africa. The urbanisation among the Yoruba was far from a unique case. There were increasing numbers of major towns in the region. Kano, in the northern parts of today’s Nigeria, is reckoned to have had 50,000–100,000 inhabitants at the end of the nineteenth century. In East Africa there had since earlier times been significant coastal towns that continued to expand. Towns grew in the interior, by Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. Present-day Ethiopia and Sudan saw continued urbanisation as the population increased, both in the old towns and those newly established. As regards Central Africa we lack information on the size of the urban centres, probably because there were relatively few of them and they have left little archaeological evidence. South Africa was most urbanised in the midnineteenth century Southern Africa. Cape Town was its biggest town, with 26,000 inhabitants. Urbanisation in Southern Africa got seriously underway with the construction of mining communities during the final decades of the nineteenth century.

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4.1.2 Development of Production Systems and Trade For several hundred years the continent’s major “export commodity” had been slaves. During the nineteenth century the slave trade was increasingly marginalised, in favour of “legitimate trade”, i.e. trade in goods rather than in human beings. Agriculture played a central role in this transition. The changes were most apparent in West Africa, the region where formerly the slave trade was dominant and which in the late nineteenth century began to establish itself as an exporter of agricultural commodities. The African small-scale farmers, as producers of the commodities being exported, were characteristically dominant in this trade. The motive force behind its development was largely the increased demand for African products in Europe. The chief export products from West Africa were palm oil, rubber, groundnuts, cocoa, honey and bees’ wax. The variation in the production system was based on differences among the various goods as regards the labour input, use of natural resources, capital investments, the level of technology, and so on. The most interesting aspect of the West African case is the way in which the existing production systems were adapted and reformed, in response to the increasingly profitable production of marketable crops. Palm oil was one of the ingredients in soap and margarine, and was increasingly used as a lubricant in machines. In 1810 West Africa exported 1000 tons per year to Great Britain, but this export increased, reaching an annual average of 50,000 tons between 1860 and 1890. In distinction to the slave trade, the palm oil trade required the establishment of regular contacts between the European trading companies and the African producers. The companies therefore increasingly began to send representatives into the interior, thus contributing to an extension of the European sphere of interest. Figure 4.1 shows the very rapid growth in the export of palm oil, between the end of the eighteenth century and the mid-nineteenth century. It was African small-scale farmers, above all from today’s Nigeria and Sierra Leone, who were responsible for the major part of the production. Production of palm oil had three advantages. First, it required no capital investment at the initial stage, because the palms grew wild. Secondly, it did not require much labour— which was generally in short supply in West Africa. Thirdly, palm oil production was no threat to the labour supply to produce food crops. The most labour-intensive periods, when the oil was being tapped from the trees and transported to the markets, were at times of the year when the demand for agricultural labour to grow food crops was low. On the contrary, the palms had a positive effect in relation to agriculture, both because the trees fixed important nutrients in the soil and because their shade protected the agricultural production areas and inhibited weedgrowth. The latter effect was important, because weeding was a relatively labourintensive activity. Palm oil production thus suited agricultural communities where there was a shortage of labour.

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30000 25000

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20000 15000 10000 5000 0 1790

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Fig. 4.1  Export of palm oil (in thousands of tons) from West Africa, from 1790 to about 1850 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 3.1, p. 93. Based on Bill Freund [1998], The Making of Contemporary Africa, p. 53)

Photo 4.1  Muscot from Zanzibar (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

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The other major export crop was groundnuts. This was a plant that had come from the continent of America in the sixteenth century. The oil came to be used in soap production and in the nineteenth century France was the chief trade partner. There was a significant and, from the 1830s, increasing export of groundnuts. Gambia exported 47 tons in 1835, which by 1851 had increased to 11,095 tons. Senegal exported an average of 29,000 tons per year over the period 1886–1890. In what was later called Portuguese Guinea there was a maximum export of 1,120,128 bushels1 in 1878, but the volume then diminished and by 1897 it was only 16,455 bushels. In general, the export of groundnuts declined during the last decades of the nineteenth century because of falling demand from Europe causing lower prices. Its cultivation brought greater changes than palm oil production. This crop was not specially labour-intensive, but the working season was the same as for food crops. There was thus a potential conflict between food production and production for export. Meanwhile, the advantage with groundnuts, exactly as with palm oil, was that no great initial investment was required, since groundnuts had long been cultivated, though only for local consumption. Crude rubber, another expanding export crop, was required for tyres in the new European and American car industries. This export had already started in precolonial days and continued both during and after them. Crude rubber was very profitable for a relatively short period when demand from Europe increased and Africa was one of the few places where it could be harvested, growing wild in large quantities. Northern Guinea, today’s Ghana, the coast of Congo and Angola were the places chiefly affected by the export boom. This continued to grow and by 1891 Ghana had become the leading producer of crude rubber within the British Empire and the third largest in the world. The Congo Free State, about which we will say more later in this chapter, was also a major exporter at the end of the nineteenth century. In East and Central Africa the expansion of commercial agriculture was not nearly so marked. Before the nineteenth century commercially oriented agriculture was uncommon in this region. With the exception of a certain amount of millet and coconut fibre, shipped out from the coast of present-day Somalia, export was virtually non-existent. The towns were also too small to give rise to local demand or trade in agricultural products. The picture changed to some extent during the nineteenth century. Arab, and in some instances African, controlled large-scale agriculture along the east coast began to produce for export. In the late nineteenth century the export of agricultural products was an economically more important branch of trade than the previously dominant export of slaves and ivory. Millet and rice were exported from the coast of present-day Kenya. Large consignments of coconuts were annually shipped out from Zanzibar. In parallel there emerged markets in food crops, arising out of the expansion of the caravan trade in the interior. The traders and their followers required food during their journeys and their needs were met, for the most part, by production from African small-scale farmers. (Photo 4.1).

1Bushel—measure

equalling roughly 36 litres.

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The development of new and existing production systems led to changes in income distribution, which in turn affected the balance in the power arenas and became a motive force in the transformation of the social structures. For centuries raiding and wars had been the chief means of acquiring slaves. It required political power to be able to stage these military enterprises and substantial economic resources were necessary to organise the slave-trade. Because of these special demands, only a tiny political elite, who had military control and a small group of influential merchants, had been able to establish themselves as major figures in the slave trade. These few became wealthy and influential and subsequently employed people from their own ethnic group. This type of income source vanished, as and when the international slave trade declined. The state of Dahomey, in what is today Benin, is an example of a community that had specialised in slave-hunting and the slave-trade and where problems ensued in the transition to the production of legitimate goods. The political elite, who previously had derived their income from their monopoly over the slave trade, now set up plantations to produce palm oil, using slave labour. The materials needed for producing the new export articles were readily available and could be hunted, gathered or cultivated by many people. This gave new encouragement to bigger groups of producers. For example, ivory could be obtained if one could get hold of a rifle and could hunt. Palm oil, crude rubber, honey and beeswax could be gathered in forest areas to which members of the community had access. The result was that the income from the new export goods was passed on to a larger proportion of the population. Some researchers maintain that this development produced a more equitable distribution of the income among the old slave communities. The old slave-hunting elite lost its old sources of income while other groups acquired new sources. There are strong indications that increases in the export of, for example, palm oil benefited growing numbers of small-scale farmers and that social stratification was thereby somewhat reduced in the palm oil producing regions. The increased and more diversified trade between Africa and the rest of the world was not only a matter of exports from Africa. Imports into Africa also grew. Africa imported primarily cloth, firearms, alcohol, metals and jewels. While there existed an African manufacturing sector that produced cloths and many other goods, it was technically comparatively basic and could not readily compete on price with industrial production in Europe. When labour could not be substituted by capital invested in labour-saving technology and mechanisation, the production that developed was based on relatively high labour costs and low productivity. It was above all African production near the coast that was damaged by the competition from Europe. The transport costs into the interior were still high and constituted a trade barrier that protected local African production. Despite the European competition, African production grew during the period of economic expansion up to the nineteenth century, thanks to the increased incomes among a growing proportion of the population.

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On Madagascar in the kingdom of Merina from 1825 to 1861 we find an example of an industrialisation process unique for sub-Saharan Africa in pre-colonial times. It was based on intensive and highly productive cultivation of rice and due to the profitability of agriculture, there was also an opening for professional workmen. The imperial state in turn built its industrial venture on their expertise. The pre-conditions of local surplus and skills enabled a development of production of textiles, then went on to manufacture small-arms and even began to refine agricultural products such as sugar and tobacco. In the absence of capital for major investments in machinery, reliance was placed on the optimal use of labour resources. Compulsion was used, including slavery, and the level of competence among the workers was increased through training. The industrial experiment in Madagascar proved not to be sustainable, for several reasons. The low wages paid kept the labour costs down, but also prevented the development of a domestic market. At the same time, transport costs were high because of the sub-standard infrastructure network. At the end of the day, profit levels in the industry were too low. Forced labour in industry caused many workers to flee from the industrial sector and to sabotage it, in protest. They even left the farming sector in an attempt to hide from the state and from forced labour, which in turn led to falling production in agriculture and this sector could form the basis industrialisation efforts. By the mid-nineteenth century the African continent had at last also been united by a trade network. Earlier North Africa and West Africa had been linked together via the Tran-Sahara trade, but there had been no trade routes between North East Africa and Central or East Africa. Nor were there, before the nineteenth century, any linking trade networks running through Central Africa. Southern Africa also constituted a trading zone of its own. During the nineteenth century African and Arab traders developed trade routes within the continent and connected its various areas. They exploited principally the major water routes, such as the River Congo and Lake Tanganyika. This expansion of trade proceeded rapidly over the decades 1850–1880 and by 1880 the whole continent had been integrated as far as trade was concerned. This had far-reaching economic consequences. Local trade networks could now be linked with international trade to a much greater extent than before, which in turn led to a growth in trade, specialisation and more advanced division of labour both within and between different communities. There was also an increase in cultural and linguistic exchanges, both regionally and over the whole continent.

4.1.3 State-Formation Economic integration within the continent and the global commodity markets paved the way for new political integration. The development of production systems and growing wealth in a number of communities led to changes in sociopolitical structures and political cooperation. In Chapter 3 we organised the socio-political structures in three main groups—segmented political systems, centrally governed kingdoms and other urban states. The segmented political systems

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remained in existence during the nineteenth century, but the more centralised socio-political systems became increasingly common and organisationally more developed. The late nineteenth century African state-formations became more stabilised and unified, as compared with their predecessors. Certain states strived, from above, to compel all the various ethnic groups included in the state formation to accept cultural and linguistic unity. The leaders and economic elites in these states were also very conscious of the technical and scientific progress that had been achieved in Europe during industrialisation and wanted to strengthen their economies by adopting European technology and thereby making their production more efficient. This led, during the decades prior to colonisation in the 1880s, to various attempts to start industries and mining. One example of successful state-formation is Ethiopia. There a number of kingdoms were united into an empire under Menelik II (1844–1913). In the upland regions existing crop production was stimulated and new export-oriented crops were introduced. Both regional trade and exports via Aden, at the point where the Red Sea joined the Indian Ocean, contributed to the growing prosperity that sustained this African state to achieve international recognition. Outside the agricultural sector Menelik wanted to introduce modern technology and administration. He started the first modern bank, the Bank of Abyssinia, and also a modern postal service and developed infrastructure such as railways and an electricity grid. Menelik was also interested in military technology and created a professional army, equipped with European weapons. He also founded factories to produce cannons and mortars (Map 4.2). A further example of a community that was successful in exploiting the opportunities afforded by the new international demand was the State of Asante in Ghana. During the 1870s it controlled an area equivalent to one-third of today’s Ghana and collected tribute, or taxes, in an area three times larger. It was an area that previously had been dominated by the slave trade. Now the export of slaves was replaced by trade in export crops. However, slaves continued to be very important, because they were used in domestic production. A third example is the Kingdom of Imerina that was founded in Madagascar in 1791. Its first king, Andrianampoinimerina, gathered together under his rule the rival Merina peoples who inhabited the island’s central highland. He founded, and settled in, Antananarivo (today the capital of Madagascar). During the subsequent centuries, up to the French colonisation in 1896, a number of regents worked to create a centrally governed state. Formal written legislation was introduced, political authority was centralised and the whole island was militarily conquered. The agricultural sector was made more efficient and new agricultural land was cultivated, trade with European and near-lying African states was developed, modern technology was introduced and efforts were also made to bring in industrialisation (see the previous section as regards the development of production systems and trade). There were also two particular states that had been created in West Africa— Sierra Leone and Liberia. They were established, in 1787 and 1820 by, respectively, Great Britain and the USA and were intended to be free states for ex-slaves. By the second half of the nineteenth century they had expanded, through conquest

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DAHOMEY

WADAI DARFUR

BORNU FULANI SOKOTO

OYO YORUBA IBO BENIN

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Map 4.2  Important African states and ethnic groups 1850–1880 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 3.2, p. 99)

of surrounding areas, and in the final decades of the century they were in the process of developing their respective national projects. Liberia was independent and, with the political support of the USA, remained so throughout the colonial period. Sierra Leone, on the other hand, was a British colony. Liberia was governed by an elite consisting of former American slaves and their descendants, who were characterised by American culture. They regarded themselves as having little in common with local African groups and acted as an independent colonial administration. However, in Sierra Leone there developed a dynamic cultural blend of Africa, Nova Scotia and Great Britain. Here lived many trend-setting African intellectuals and the inhabitants came to play a major part in missionary activity in West Africa.

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Alongside the fore-going type of state formations there were large areas where there were more decentralised political systems. They were affected by the political and economic changes that took place within the continent, but from what we know today these changes did not lead to any overall re-structuring of their production systems or socio-political structures.

4.2 European Conquest In 1850 the European territorial control in Africa was limited to a number of trading stations along the coasts and Cape Colony in the south (colonised by the Dutch in 1652). The first had been founded successively by the Portuguese during the fifteenth century, but they were soon joined by the Dutch, French and British. Initially, the main purpose of these coastal settlements was to constitute a base for the export of slaves and luxury goods such as ivory and gold. As the slave trade diminished they also became ports for shipping out new African commodities, such as palm oil, crude rubber and cloves. Many of the islands along the coasts of Africa were also colonised early. On a number of them Europeans ran plantations cultivating export crops, using slaves from the African mainland as their labour force. The East African coast, from the Horn of Africa down to today’s Mozambique, was controlled by Arab merchants. The British ban on slave trade (1807) was followed by a further European expansion, both along the coast and into the interior of the continent. British, and later French, settlers took control of more and more harbours and trade routes. The official reason was the endeavour to hinder the export of slaves, but the expansion also gave these Europeans a more direct control over both trade networks and means of production. While the export of slaves across the Atlantic declined during the mid-nineteenth century, the permanent European establishment on the African continent increased. Both the European and the Arab enclaves were, both economically and politically, relatively independent of their respective motherlands. The settlers developed production systems consisting of large-scale agriculture producing export crops and mining (see Map 4.3). A broader European interest in the African continent started growing. The pioneers were trading companies, explorers and missionaries. Gradually, these various processes of establishment developed into the European colonisation of the continent. The increased European involvement in the African economic and political systems naturally came to influence the production systems, power arenas and socio-political structures that they came in contact with. While the European presence brought changes, both military and political, they were nonetheless limited. The newly established colonial administrations often had to adapt to local conditions. From an economic perspective the early territorial expansion did not result in revolutionary changes in the daily lives of the local African actors.

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ALGERIA

EGYPT

SENEGAL BONDU MOSSI SIERRA LEONE

HAUSA FULANI

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KANEM WADAI

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GURAGE ASANTE GOLD COAST

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KAFA SOMALI

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LUANGO CONGO

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OVIABUNDI

KIKUYU

BUGANDA

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LUNDA MASIRI

BISA

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British colonies HERERO

French colonies Arabic spheres of interest/ Swahili culture

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TSWANA KHOISAN ZULU SOTHO CAPE COLONY

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African states and population groups

Map 4.3  European and Arab colonial settlements 1850–1880 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 3.3, p. 102)

4.2.1 Trade and Trading Companies For many centuries African states and communities had been both directly and indirectly connected to international trade. The long-distance trade had been conducted with the aid of caravans, with beasts of burden, oxen and camels, and of sailing ships. The means of transport determined how much, how quickly and how far goods could be freighted. We have already given an account of how the ban on international slave trade and the growing demand from the European industries

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and middle classes changed the selection of commodities shipped from Africa to Europe. Transport to and from Africa was also changed by steam power. This change is generally termed the transport revolution and had its origin in Great Britain. During the 1860s and 1870s steamships increasingly competed out the old sailing vessels. They were at first used for river transport and coastal traffic, later for ocean-going traffic. Steamships had several advantages. They were not nearly so dependent on wind and weather as the old sailing ships had been, and were in consequence more dependable and predictable. As the technology developed, they became faster and could carry larger cargoes. Their reliability, speed and cargocapacity meant lower risks and greater profitability even though the goods no longer had the same high value per unit of weight. Until 1920 steam was primarily employed for waterborne transport. The first railway lines on the African continent were established at the turn of the century, but it was not until the 1930s that the real growth in railways occurred. The railway network constructed in Europe, however, had a positive effect on African exports. The increased efficiency of transport, both to Europe and within Europe, meant that for European consumers the price of African goods fell, which led to an increased demand and consumption. From the 1860s onwards more and more trading companies were established and joined in trading with the European enclaves that gradually developed, especially in West Africa. So long as they financed their own activities the European powers saw no reason to limit or control them. The future growth in this trade meant that the value of legitimate exports from West Africa doubled between 1865 and 1885. In the mid-1870s came a reverse, as the world market prices of raw materials began to fall. This was a blow to the European traders who were challenged to rationalise exports and to find new tradeable goods. Improving the efficiency of exports demanded bigger trade volumes, reduced scope for middlemen and lowered transport costs. All this necessitated an increased territorial presence, making it possible to influence the African producers directly as well as invest in infrastructure. There arose questions about who should finance these investments, who should have the right to use the improved infrastructure and who should protect it against attack from both Africans and competing Europeans. There developed among merchants and trading companies an increased interest in territorial expansion and protection from the respective European states. In Great Britain, for example, the question was raised whether the state should assume responsibility for the administration of the territories in which companies operated. That provoked tension between the liberal British state’s requirement for public expenditure stability and free trade, on the one hand, and the need to protect financial interests and infrastructure investments, by means of territorial control, on the other hand. The result was a continual balancing between a more moderate policy, and a more interventionist policy based on the local and regional conditions. Trading companies were nonetheless not the only sign of an awaking European interest in the African continent.

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Box 4.1 The Royal Niger Company

The Royal Niger Company was one of a number of concessionary companies that were established in Africa during the last decades of the 19th century. Other examples are the British South Africa Company in today’s South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia and the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft in today’s Tanzania. These trading companies based their legitimacy on the concessions granted by the different European states. In the Royal Niger Company’s case it was the British Crown that gave its political support. The Company’s objective was to gather under it, and to represent, British financial interests around the River Niger in West Africa. The European powers, especially Great Britain and France, were eager to control the two biggest rivers in sub-Saharan Africa—the Niger and the Congo. These waterways gave the Europeans the opportunity to reach parts of the continent that were virtually inaccessible by land. Controlling the Niger River was the reason for the British government’s support to the Company. The objective of the Company’s business was to buy up export crops, such as palm oil and cocoa, from African small-scale producers and to transport the goods to the coast for export to Europe. The Company established its interests in the Niger area by signing financial and political agreements with the local population and it thereby bound the interior to British interests at the coast. The Royal Niger Company’s region was established as a freestanding colony with its own administration in 1886, but the military pressure from the neighbouring French and German forces was too great for the Company alone to be able to defend its territory in the long run. Instead, the territory was transferred to the British Crown and in 1900 this region, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, formally became part of the British Empire.

4.2.2 Explorers and Missionaries During the second half of the nineteenth century the European voyages of exploration into the interior of the African continent were systematised. They became, in time, part of the the European countries’ strategies of conquest. Richard Burton (1821–1890) personified the idealised European adventurer. He was an Englishman and began his career as a soldier in the Indian Army. As an explorer he gained a reputation thanks to journeys in the Arab world and India. He had great gifts as a linguist and learned 29 languages in all. Burton wrote a total of 40 books about his various journeys and explorations. The tales sent home by Burton and other Europeans were perceived by many in Europe as proof that Africa was peopled by inferior civilisations and that the Africans were ignorant, barbaric savages. It was the duty of the Europeans to civilise these peoples by means of colonisation. While the English spoke of “the White Man’s burden” when they talked of their task to civilise Africa, the French called it their “mission civilisatrice”.

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It was not only explorers who sought their way further and further into what were for them unknown areas of the African continent. The nineteenth century was also a period of extensive religious missionary activity in Africa, for both Islam and Christianity. The first wave of Islamic penetration had occurred in the midseventh century AD, via North Africa, and it had been well established for many centuries. During the first half of the nineteenth century a wave of Islamic revival spread south from North Africa, through a number of jihad. At the outset it was an urban elite that became Moslems, but as the decades passed this religion spread throughout the countryside. The Islamic mission in West Africa was first and foremost a religious and cultural movement, and it made little impact on the existing production systems. The Moslem leaders appealed primarily to a conservative way of economic thought, sometimes also to a return to former methods of cultivation and production systems. Islam was also spread by Arab traders from the coast of East Africa, along the caravan trails into the interior. In Ethiopia, Christianity had been established since 330 AD and here the Christian missionaries felt no urgent need to work. Their attention was instead turned to the rest of the continent. In the early nineteenth century the Christian missions were found only along the coasts of the continent and was represented by a handful of missionary societies. Towards the mid-century there was, however, a drastic increase in the missionary presence, from approximately 5 to 30 missionary societies being present on the continent. They expanded their sphere of interest into the interior and there were a number of Societies that were active outside the established bounds of the European political and military presence in Africa (Photo 4.2).

Photo 4.2  Old missionary church in the Congo jungle (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

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Their original purpose had been to spread Christianity among the Africans, but over time their tasks became increasingly practical, aiming to provide education and health care. The European conquerors long relied on the missionaries to provide these types of social services. As missionary activity grew, more schools were built and more African children had the opportunity of getting a Western education. But even though more children went to school, they still amounted only to a small group. Over time there developed a well-educated Christian elite, particularly in the west and south of the continent. The social divide grew, between those Africans deriving advantage from their political influence, economic resources and schools, and other groups in society, who were less exposed to the European influence. The Missionary Societies served not only colonial interests. They became a thorn in the flesh of many colonial administrations when they revealed slavery, forced labour, unreasonable taxation and cruel punishment of the African population.

Box 4.2 David Livingstone

David Livingstone (1813–1873) was a man who combined the task of a missionary with the role of explorer. He came from a poor, deeply religious Scottish family. When David told his father that he wanted to become a doctor, his father demanded that his profession must somehow serve their religion. It was therefore decided that he should become a missionary doctor. His original objective was to travel to China. However, the events leading up to the first Opium War (1842–1843) put a stop to his plans. Instead he applied to the London Missionary Society and was sent to Cape Town, where he arrived in March 1841. He remained in Africa until his death, apart from journeys back to Britain to report about his discoveries. At the beginning of his career he set up a couple of missionary stations in what is today Botswana, but the population appeared not to be especially receptive of his message. It is said that during all his time in Africa, Livingstone succeeded in converting only one person to Christianity. Throughout, he combined his work at the mission station with journeys during which he mapped various parts of Southern Africa. In the 1850s he gave up his missionary work and became a full-time explorer, supported financially by, among others, the Royal Geographic Society of London. During this time he devoted himself largely to mapping, he was for example the first European to reach the Victoria Falls, and he gave lectures about the Zambezi River. He continued to lead various river expeditions aiming at opening up new trade routes into the interior. Livingstone was convinced that integration, through trade, was necessary for economic development in Africa. Eventually he moved on to East Africa and he devoted the last eight years of his life to the search for the source of the Nile in contemporary Uganda and Tanzania. Livingstone is perhaps best known for the fact that during his last years he was thought to have been lost somewhere in the area around Lake Tanganyika. Several rescue expeditions were sent out to search for him. The best known was led by an American journalist, Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904).

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When Livingstone and Stanley at last met, in the town of Ujiji by the shore of Lake Tanganyika, Stanley made the famous remark: “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” Livingstone’s disappearance and Stanley’s search for him was typical of that era’s eurocentric view of the world. The reason why Livingstone was thought to have disappeared was quite simply that he had not bothered to write home to the Royal Geographical Society. As soon as Stanley disembarked the boat in Zanzibar he was able to learn from Arab traders that a man answering to the description of Livingstone was living in Ujiji. Thereafter it was “merely” a question of putting together a caravan, setting off and “finding” him.

4.2.3 The Scramble for Africa The struggle between the European countries for territorial control of the African continent began in 1879. Interest in the continent on the part of trading companies, scientists and Missionary Societies had been on the increase for decades, but in that year the situation sharpened as the European states began to be seriously interested in Africa. Both France and Belgium began to conduct a more expansionary policy in West and Central Africa, which worried Great Britain and Portugal. They were especially disturbed by the initiative from Belgium and France to send out the explorers Morton Stanley, and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza respectively, to map the River Congo in Central Africa and to strike agreements with the groups living out along it. In 1883 France adopted a similar strategy along the River Niger in West Africa, which created conflicts with, among others, the British Royal Niger Company. When Germany emerged as a new rival and attempted to appropriate Togo and Cameroon in June 1884 there began the real rush to seize African colonies. In central political quarters most of the major European powers wanted to gain African colonies, yet nonetheless wished to avoid open conflicts with one another. In consequence the attempt was made to prevent conflict by holding an international conference on how to divide up Africa. All leading Western countries with the exception of the USA and Switzerland took part in the Berlin Conference (15 November 1884–31 January 1885) held under the chairmanship of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. No African states or ethnic groups were invited when the fate of their continent was to be decided. It was clear to the European governments that the situation regarding the River Congo and the River Niger required a diplomatic solution, and that was the main subject of the conference. If that problem was not solved there would be a risk of collision among various European interests, which in turn could threaten the highly unstable situation in Europe. Agreement was reached at the conference, on a basic set of rules on the division of Africa, and it was hoped that confrontation thereby could be avoided. Earlier actions, during the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, together with the understanding reached at the Berlin Conference, resulted in practical guidelines on how to obtain an African colony. The first step was to reach an agreement with the local

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African leaders representing the groups inhabiting the area. The African leaders were promised support for themselves and their peoples in exchange for granting the Europeans trading monopolies and other similar benefits. Agreements could be struck by European states, or by trading companies that had been granted the rights by a European state, or by explorers acting as the representatives of a state. They were sometimes reached voluntarily, sometimes less so, when the African leaders were forced to sign them. Their meaning was often obscure and they were written in languages which the African leaders could neither speak nor read. European colonisation was not, however, always led by states. One of the most successful colonists was Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902). Being the son of an English clergyman, he emigrated from Great Britain to the Cape Colony in South Africa in 1870, at the age of 17. A few years after his arrival, when diamonds were found in Kimberley and diamond mining was started there, he moved there with his brother and they were swept along by the diamond fever. Over time he amassed a huge fortune from his diamond and gold mines. Together with a friend, he started De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd, which in 1891 owned 90% of the world’s diamond mines. He also founded the British South Africa Company, BSAC, (1889) with the aim of extending his mining business to other parts of the continent. After obtaining a licence to pursue territorial expansion for British interests he headed north maintaining his own army for colonial purposes. In return, BSAC was expected to develop infrastructure, schools and the like, to respect African law and freedom of religion, and to permit free trade. Nonetheless the company was chiefly interested in developing new mineral resources and all else took second place after that. In time, however, BSAC came to administer Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi). Rhodes had an enormous influence over British colonial policy in Southern Africa. Some would even say that it was he who largely shaped it. In addition to amassing wealth in diamonds and gold Rhodes had had political ambitions. The height of his political career was his time as the Prime Minister of Cape Colony, 1890–1896. With the exception of Liberia, which in practice a satellite state of the USA, and Ethiopia the whole of the African continent was colonised during the years between the Berlin Conference (1885) and WWI. By the time the conquest was over seven European states had obtained colonies (see Map 4.4). The two biggest colonial powers were Great Britain and France. Great Britain had the ambition to obtain colonies stretching north-south over the whole continent. In turn, France tried to build a corresponding series east-west. Belgium and Portugal had relatively large colonies in, respectively, Central and Southern Africa. Germany’s largest colony was German East Africa, consisting of Tanganyika, the mainland part of today’s Tanzania, and today’s Rwanda and Burundi. After Germany had lost WWI (1918) it also lost its African possessions. But instead of giving these colonies their independence the League of Nations put them under mandate, meaning that the task of ruling them was given to other colonial powers. For example, Tanganyika was from 1919 administered by the British. Rwanda and Burundi were given to Belgium. Italy had the colonies Libya and Eritrea, while Spain was the smallest of the European empires.

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SP. MOROCCO ALGERIA

MADEIRA

MOROCCO

TUNISIA

FR

FR

CARANY ISLANDS

LIBYA

RIO DE ORO

IT

SP

EGYPT

FRENCH WEST AFRICA

SENEGAL GAMBIA PORT. GUINEA GUINEA SIERRA LEONE

FR. EQUATORIAL AFRICA

TOGO

IVORY COAST

LIBERIA

NIGERIA

ABYSSINIA

GOLD COAST

Spain

IT

Italy

GR

Germany

IT. SOMALILAND

GR IT

UGANDA

BR. EAST AFRICA

BELGIAN CONGO GR. EAST AFRICA ( TANGANYIKA )

ZANZIBAR (GB) NYASALAND

ANGOLA NORTHERN RHODESIA

GR SOUTH WEST AFRICA

Portugal

BR. SOMALILAND

CAMEROON

FR. EQUATORIAL AFRICA

SP

FR. SOMALILAND

(ETHIOPIA)

AREAS CONTROLLED BY :

France

IT

GR

RIO MUNI

FR

ERITREA ANGLOEGYPTIAN SUDAN

SOUTHERN RHODESIA BECHUANALAND

MOZAMBIQUE MADAGASCAR

Belgium Great Britain

SOUTH AFRICA

Independent

Map 4.4  African colonies and colonial powers 1914 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] AfrikaEn kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 3.4, p. 113)

There were also colonial ambitions among the existing colonial possessions in Africa. The Cape Colony had become an official British colony as early as 1806. Throughout the nineteenth century the Cape Colony expanded northwards and incorporated several different territories and groups, both African and European, under its administration. It was an expansion that was governed by the local colonial administration and detached from the British state. In 1910 the colony achieved independence and formed the Union of South Africa. As an independent nation it was after WWI given the mandate to govern German West Africa which it did until 1990 when this territory became independent Namibia. (Photo 4.3).

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Photo 4.3  The Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

4.2.4 Opposition and Cooperation The European military forces were superior to the African. They were armed with the predecessor of the machine-guns of today, the Gatlin gun, which caused great losses among the African armies. The European states were also united in their colonial quest. They had already divided up the continent among themselves and no country wished to get involved in the spheres of interest of the others. There were thus no European allies from which the African states could seek assistance. Conversely, the Europeans could exploit regional conflicts among the various African groups, the old tried and tested policy of “divide and rule”. Their superiority did not, however, prevent the European occupation of the continent from meeting political and military opposition. Many kingdoms and communities with centralised systems of authority entered into armed struggle. One example is the State of Asante in today’s Ghana. Asante forces had come into armed conflict with the British army as early as 1823, and during the remainder of the century a number of battles were fought. Asante was a state that had a long tradition of centralised government and could maintain an army of its own. Its warriors were well trained and disciplined, but they had inferior military technology. In the final analysis it was inevitable that Asante was defeated and incorporated into the British Empire (1900). In West Africa, Samori Ture put up lengthy opposition to the French (1830–1900). He was a military leader whose kingdom, the State of Wassoulou, extended over an area from present-day Sierra Leone to the Ivory Coast covering

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the Guinea and Mali. Samori Ture and the French had strayed into armed conflict with one another several years before the Berlin Conference. The king, or the military dictator, had built up an army equipped with modern rifles that he had bought from British merchants. It took the French more than two decades to defeat Ture’s army. In 1898 the king was captured and, with that, France could take control of the west bank of the Niger River. Under the leadership of Shaka, Zululand had established itself as a significant power factor in Southern Africa and remained as a regional leader for decades. Eventually they clashed with the emergent colonial interests and the Zulu fought and lost to the British in the Anglo-Zulu war in 1879. After the death of their king Cetshwayo the same year, the independence of the Zulu Kingdom was over. However, the political, cultural and linguistic unit that then formed the Zulu nation still exists today. Opposition came not only from the African peoples. Great Britain’s seizure of Cape Colony (1806) had in the end driven the Dutch and German descendants, the Boers, into their great migration northwards, the Great Trek, to form new colonies and achieve independence from British rule. But the Cape Colony continued to expand northwards and soon caught up with the Boers, now in their newly formed territories, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The situation became even more explosive because the Boer states had made great discoveries of gold and diamonds and a large number of British subjects had moved to the growing mining districts. The British were denied citizenship by the Boer administration and Great Britain did not hesitate to defend national interests. The Second Boer War began with great success for the Boers but, with the arrival of British reinforcements, the fortune of war turned and the Boers were instead forced to change their strategy to guerrilla warfare. The conflict broadened, pitching the British Army against the whole Boer population and part of the British strategy amounted to imprisoning civilians. With a view to gathering together and controlling the civil population the British created the world’s first concentration camps. In the end the Boers were forced to capitulate and Transvaal and the Orange Free State lost their independence and came under British rule. Thousands of indigenous Africans also fought for both sides in the war and many were put in concentration camps. The people whom it took the Europeans longest to conquer and control were the pastoralists, especially those who lived in desert landscapes. It was not until in the 1920s that the Italians gained control over the northern parts of Somalia. The pastoralists in the border territories between Mauretania and Chad resisted French conquest well into the 1930s. In these regions the population was not only low in density but also nomadic, moving over wide and inaccessible areas. Politically they were organised in segmented systems, lacking a central authority that the conquerors could control. After all the attempts at resistance and all the defeats there at last remained as an independent state only Ethiopia (Liberia being de facto an American colony). There are many reasons why Ethiopia was recognised by Europe as an independent state, including the facts that it was centrally governed and had a long Christian tradition. A further reason was that the King of Ethiopia, Menelik II, had

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created a disciplined professional army equipped with modern European weapons. Between 1895 and 1896 Italy tried to conquer Ethiopia but failed. After a couple of battles, in which it sustained major losses, Italy had to be content with that part of the country known as Eritrea, while the rest remained independent. Menelik’s victory over Italy has been described as the biggest African victory over a European army since the days of Hannibal (247–183 BC). Even as the conquest proceeded there were instances of groups that saw that it was in their interest to place themselves under the protection of a European nation. During the general rush to acquire African possessions the British had annexed Bechuanaland (Botswana). The British interest in the territory was nonetheless limited and in the 1880s and 1890s there was discussion about the possibility that this protectorate might be taken over by either the BSAC or the Cape Colony. Both were considered to treat their African subjects badly and the indigenous Tswana groups, based in the limited options they had, reached the view that it was better to remain under direct British protection. That was the less bad of two colonial alternatives, independence not being an option. In 1895 the leaders of three of the eight Tswana groups in Bechuanaland travelled to Great Britain, to call on Queen Victoria. Their journey was arranged by the London Missionary Society and their mission was to secure continued British protection. The plan was to invoke humanitarian reasons why Great Britain should assume responsibility for Bechuanaland and not allow it to fall into the hands of the Cape Colony. The appeal to various Christian groups and to the politically and humanitarian aware British middle class proved successful in creating support for their request and winning a promise that British rule would continue.

4.3 Forces of Imperialism The wave of colonisation during the final decades of the nineteenth century had an impact not only on Africa but also on Asia. These global colonial ambitions that were coupled together with ambitions of the nineteenth century’s industrialised Europe have been termed imperialism. Both during and after this imperial epoch there has been discussion about what it was that drove the European countries to obtain territorial possessions far distant from their own continent. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the 20th there were a number of scholars who offered explanatory models for imperialism. For example, both the British economist, John A. Hobson (1858–1940), and the future Soviet leader (but at the time a professional agro-economist), Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), linked imperialism with the capitalist economic system. Their common point of departure was that, since capitalism was a successful economic system, more and more industrial capital and production were generated in Europe. At the same time profitability and the opportunities for investment declined. Lenin asserted that the capitalists therefore sought new investment markets where the profit margins remained high. Such markets were to be found in regions that were economically undeveloped and the risks were great, as in Africa. The liberal

4.3  Forces of Imperialism

103

economist Hobson pursued a somewhat different line of argument. His view was that the capitalist system sought new outlets for its industrial products, because the European working class were poor and hence could not consume all that industry could produce. The solution, according to Hobson, should be to raise wages or enlarge the market of consumers. Colonialism was part of the latter solution. Hobson judged capitalism to be a system that could be influenced and modified for the better, through political means. Lenin, however, did not see such opportunities. He maintained rather that capitalism was structurally bound to a track that made it impossible to escape given economic processes; therefore the only means of achieving reform was to overthrow it. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), an economist, was another major contemporary socialist thinker who, for her part, was of the view that the driving force behind imperialism was industrial capital’s need to control raw materials. Without access to raw materials industrialisation would come to a halt. Since there was no confidence that world trade could meet its needs there was anxiety that the necessary raw materials would not be available. Therefore the best solution would be to hold territorial control over the areas that produced them. In addition to these three explanatory models (investment possibilities, marketing outlets and control of raw materials) there was also a somewhat looser economic and demographic explanation. Some scholars maintained that the European states expected the African colonies to offer employment and land to the unemployed and land-less people of Europe, i.e. become a market outlet for Europe’s surplus labour force. In parallel with these economic explanations there also ran political arguments. The economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) was of the view that there was no economic rationality in imperialism. It was, instead, an outcome of a political trial of strength. In Great Britain, a pioneering country, industrialisation had arisen in the second half of the eighteenth century. Subsequently, one after another the European countries had followed suit—France, Holland and, ultimately, Germany. In all these countries there had been built up, thanks to industry, a never previously witnessed economic and military potential. Schumpeter’s opinion was therefore that colonisation was a competition over status: Who could be biggest and strongest, not only economically, but also politically and militarily? The Africanists, such as I.A. Asiwaju (1939–), argues that imperialism was the result of a combination of shifts in the balance in various power arenas, in both Africa and Europe. Asiwaju maintain that the old industrial countries, Great Britain and France, felt themselves threatened by the newcomer, Germany. When Germany wanted to acquire colonies in Africa, the other countries hastened to do the same, on an even bigger scale, in order not to lose their advantage. There was also political unrest in Africa as interests in the interior threatened the European trading stations along the coast, including their trading networks and their economic interests in general. The view was that the establishment of a colonial administration would serve to restore political stability. It was thus, above all, European interests in Africa, and not in Europe, that forced the pace in colonisation.

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Economic explanations are also found in more recent research, for example Anthony Hopkins and P.J. Cain, who have written in greater depth, particularly about British imperialism. Their view is that there were powerful interests in the London financial sector that drove the imperialist project. The financial sector had close ties with the old rural nobility in Great Britain and together they founded what Hopkins and Cain have termed “gentry capitalism”. They shared financial, social and political ideals and, together, controlled both British economic policy and the colonial administration. After the old land-owning class had been competed out in Great Britain by tradesmen, capitalists and industrial magnates they discovered a new niche in the colonial administration. They strove both to justify their own existence and to achieve financial and political power in the international community. They therefore sought funds for the colonial project and their wishes were met by the London financial market. The explanation advanced by Hopkins and Cain thus builds on the monetary strengths of financial capital, in contrast to Lenin and Hobson who focus on industrial capital. How well, then, do the various explanatory models stand up to examination? We begin from a macro-perspective, with Hobson’s and Lenin’s argument about the need to find market outlets for Europe’s surplus production and capital. In 1913 Africa’s share of world trade, at only 3.7% (see Fig. 4.2), was marginal. Nevertheless, as we described earlier in this chapter, many African production systems were transformed as a consequence of the increasing trade during the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the 20th. In Africa, where a majority of the population still relied on supplying their own needs on the basis of agriculture, and where monetary income was still uncommon, export incomes were of high relative importance. Meanwhile Europe accounted for 62% of world trade and its trade with Africa was limited compared to its relations with North America, Asia and Latin America. Furthermore, Fig. 4.3 shows that even though investments abroad from Europe had increased during the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, the greater part went to other countries in Europe and to former colonies in North America, Latin America and Asia. Only 9% of the total foreign investments went in 1914 to the African continent (including North Africa). So while colonialism had a significant impact for the indigenous populations it is difficult to see from the colonisers perspective that economic factors alone were the driving force of imperialism. The demographic explanation is also subject to a series of empirical problems. Only a minority of the African colonies attracted European labour and became settler colonies, for example, Cape Colony (South Africa), British East Africa (Kenya) and Southern Rhodesia. Nor were those who moved there chiefly members of the European working class or small-scale farmers, but colonial administrators and plantation owners, who often came from the old land-owning class in Europe. Europe’s poor, unemployed and land-less went, instead, to the American continent. As regards the explanation that comprises a European need to suppress African political disturbances, it is refuted by several Africanists. A. Adu Boahen points out that there were many other times and cases where there was political anxiety

4.3  Forces of Imperialism

Africa

Asien

105

Europa

Lan America

12%

North America

Ocaenia

2% 4% 11%

8%

63% Fig. 4.2  Regional distribution of world trade 1913 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] AfrikaEn kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 4.2, p. 121)

FOREIGN INVESTMENTS, COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland Germany

Great Britain

7%

5%

USA

France Other

FOREIGN INVESTMENTS, RECIPIENT REGIONS Africa

Asia

Europé

North America

Oceania 5%

12%

24%

Lan America

9% 16%

20%

43% 13%

19%

27%

Fig. 4.3  Distribution of foreign investments 1914, by investor countries (left) and by recipient countries (right) (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 3.3, p. 121. Based on Rondo Cameron [1997] A Concise Economic History of the World, Figs. 12.3, p. 375 and 12.4, p. 383)

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that did not trigger European conquest, and also that areas that neither experienced political disturbance nor were parts of the European trade network were conquered when the African continent was divided up. He also points out that it was not only the African continent that was subjected to the new wave of imperialist conquest, but also parts of Asia. Imperialism as a global phenomenon can therefore not be linked to specific African conditions. What argument can therefore reasonably explain the driving forces behind imperialism? It is quite clear that during the second half of the nineteenth century there was an economic and political power struggle in Europe and this power struggle was exacerbated when new countries industrialised and grew strong, economically and politically. Great Britain was in reality at the time the only real advocate of free trade. The other newly industrialised countries in Europe were anxious lest their newly started industrial sectors should have insufficient access to raw materials. Most countries therefore implemented protectionist policies at various degrees. This protectionism was aggravated when the first real economic crisis within the capitalist system struck Europe in 1873. European countries wanted then to protect themselves against the world economy that now found itself in crisis. This brought increased support for policies, to support the creation of bigger home markets by building empires. An important ingredient in the protectionist thinking was that one could control the supply of raw materials to one’s own industry and reduce the vulnerability of both industry and the economy (as Rosa Luxemburg had also asserted). That is the economic side of the argument, but it is linked with a political explanation. There is good support for Schumpeter’s explanation for imperialism. During the 1870s both Germany and Italy were “born” as united nations. Germany in particular stood out as a competitor to Great Britain and France for power within Europe. All these states bubbled over with industrial strength and nationalism. They fell into a power struggle that included the colonisation of Africa and exploded in WWI. The international political power struggle, together with the protectionist economic policy, constituted the political/economic framework. Within this Europeans acted on the spot at the regional and local level in Africa, with support from British financial capital. It was to a great extent here that the colonial strategies were shaped. In the course of this chapter we have given examples of a number of such regional actors such as the Royal Niger Company and the British South Africa Company as well as colonial administrations in the Cape Colony. Even though there were common fundamental motives driving the European actors during colonisation it is thus misleading to describe them as a uniform force. Instead they must rather be perceived as an amalgamation of a number of different political and economic interests that competed in the colonial power arenas. There were links between the colonial administration and financial capital that wrestled for wider colonial ambition in the corridors of power in London and within the British state administration. There were also individuals such as Rhodes who was carrying on his own lobbying activity in power arenas in both Great Britain and the Cape Colony for further colonisation, with financial support from his own mining income. Plantation owners and other European entrepreneurs likewise fought for

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further engagement, both political and financial, on the part of the European states. At the same time there were also struggles for power within the individual colonies, between trading companies, plantation owners and administrators. They fought over the shaping of local colonial strategies and to stand guard over their own financial interests. In sum, the motive forces within colonialism were multi-faceted.

4.4 Economic Continuity and Change During the relatively short colonial period before WWI the European powers were above all focused on establishing their territorial control by means of military presence, obtaining international recognition of the colonial policy and steering the income from existing African production systems into their own treasure chests. As yet there existed no policy of colonial development, no principles of colonial administration and no strategies for technical and institutional change. All this came later, after the end of WWI. The early decades of colonialism therefore represent an economic, social and political structural continuity, even though on the political macro-plane important changes occurred. Some political analysts have characterised the colonial period as a time when the Europeans only plundered the African continent. To make generalisations about European economic policy and to define it as simply plundering is nevertheless an over-simplification. It is true that certain colonies, for example the Congo Free State, was subject to downright plunder. But there were also other regions, such as West Africa, where to a high degree Africans were incorporated into the capitalist economic system by their own free will. What was positive or negative about that may be a matter of debate. The majority of colonies were developed into some form of capitalist hybrids. It was in the Cape Colony that the capitalist system was most developed and this process escalated after independence in 1910. It was not because the colonial authorities unselfishly protected the African economies that one-sided plundering was avoided. Capitalism builds on processes in which production must be made more efficient and increase in volume in order always to improve the possibilities of future profit. Then it becomes impossible, even short-term, to destroy the foundations of production systems through plunder. One may exploit and use compulsion, but it is irrational to destroy the assets. In many places where it was shown to pay, the new colonial administration instead decided to support existing profitable production systems. One example is the production of export crops that was established at various places in West Africa, based on African small-scale farmers who controlled their own means of production. The production systems that appeared to work were retained, in the hope that taxation of them would bring in sufficient revenue on which to base a future colonial administration. Because of a shortage of resources, both capital and skilled labour, the European administrations were weak at the outset. The European home countries had no wish to devote major financial resources to the local administrations. Consequently, there was neither competence nor the funds to launch any major

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development projects. The economic systems and strategies that developed during the colonial period were thus dependent both on the political and economic ambitions of the colonial authorities and on the structure and success of the existing African production systems. There was no uniform colonial economic strategy, whether within the African continent, within each colonial power’s combined sphere of interest or within individual colonies. Instead there were major variations governed by the availability and quality of various production factors, existing social structures and what competence the administrators had to assess the districts’ potential. Colonial policy was often characterised by pragmatism.

4.4.1 Colonial Revenue and Investments One of the first and most important tasks of an economically weak colonial administration was to ensure revenue on which it could base its own activities. The resources received from Europe were limited and in everything essential the colonies were expected to be self-sufficient. The problem was that the sources of state revenue in the colonies were also circumscribed. The administrations perceived that, of all possible taxes, one of the better ones was to try to get the export sector going and to tax production by means of duties on e.g. export goods. An export sector that raised substantial revenues was the mining industry. There were relatively few colonies where mining was conducted, but where it existed it was one of the chief sources of revenue (see Map 4.5). It was that production that attracted the greater part of the foreign investments. The European demand was substantial. Minerals such as copper and tin were used as inputs in European industry. Gold was for luxury consumption. Precious stones were also mined. The African states had themselves mined and exported minerals during the pre-colonial era. Now mining was taken over by the colonial administrations and concessionary companies. During the second half of the nineteenth century companies such as the BSAC and the Royal Niger Company obtained enormous land assets in Southern and West Africa and both during and after the colonial rush they were generating substantial profits. The great mine rush started when diamonds were found at Kimberley in what is today South Africa (1871). This created a diamond fever and many fortune hunters moved to the area. The diamonds were followed by the gold rush to Witwatersrand (1886). In 1895 Witwatersrand produced a quarter of all the gold in the world and production only increased. The Boer War interrupted mining between 1899 and 1902, but by 1906 it was back to its former capacity. Diamonds and gold continued to be the backbone of the South African economy after independence. Around the mining districts major cities developed, such as today’s Johannesburg. There were other examples of colonies that derived huge incomes from the mines. When the crude rubber from the Belgian Congo met cheaper competition from South East Asia producers, and later from artificially produced rubber, the Congo switched to mining. King Leopold had prepared this transition before the Belgian State took over the colony in 1908 and these plans were subsequently

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CONGO FREE STATE

Kasai

GERMAN EAST AFRICA

Katanga NYASALAND ANGOLA NORTHERN RHODESIA

MOZAMBIQUE

SOUTHERN RHODESIA

GERMAN SOUTH WEST AFRICA BECHUANALAND

Kasai and Katanga copper mining

SWAZILAND

Witwatersrand gold mining

BASUTOLAND CAPE COLONY

Kimberley diamond mining

Map 4.5  Important mining areas 1850–1914 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 3.5, p. 127)

implemented. During the early twentieth century the Belgian Congo was the biggest producer of minerals in sub-Saharan Africa. It possessed a number of different types of minerals, including copper in Katanga and industrial diamonds in Kasai. Just as in South Africa, the mining industry in the Belgian Congo had a great need for labour, which was not available in the vicinity. Initially, an attempt was made to solve the problem by means of forced labour, but that did not suffice. Then came attempts to attract labour: men were moved to the copper belt in Katanga from other parts of the Belgian Congo and also from Rwanda, Burundi, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Portuguese West Africa (Angola). In the 1920s new copper deposits were found in Kasai and an even greater demand for labour arose: men were brought from the Cameroons, French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. The migrants were expected to come without their families, to stay for a contractual period and then go home again unless they renewed their contracts. The mining companies wanted to keep down their wage costs and to take as little social responsibility as possible. The workers families had to manage as best they could, in their home villages. However, the increasing demand for labour during the growth in mining in large parts of Africa in the 1920s forced the employers to abandon some of these principles, in order to attract adequate numbers of workers. Families were permitted to move to the mining districts and churches were encouraged to offer basic education and health care. These improved conditions in the mining districts encouraged greater labour migration and the mining towns grew larger. The South African state also created special reserves, where the African workers and their families were gathered. These reserves were part of the state’s strategy to control the African workforce.

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A major step in the colonial powers’ efforts to obtain economic control over, and profit from, its African colonies was taken when a monetary economy step-bystep was introduced and taxes began to be levied on the population. African currencies and monetary policy had existed even before colonisation, but they did not meet the new needs. The earliest forms of African “currencies” were certain goods of value, that were used in barter and as a store of wealth. Examples of such currencies were cattle, metal ingots and cowrie shells. This form of payment and saving lasted in most places until the 1880s. But in certain districts, along the Swahili coast in East Africa, in Guinea and in parts of the Sudan, silver coinage had been introduced just before colonisation. At an early point in the colonial establishment the authorities replaced all these local currencies, in whatever form they were, with new currencies that were given a fixed rate of exchange against their own European currencies. A single currency in each colony was expected to simplify taxation and investments. It proved much more difficult to introduce a purely monetary economy than the colonial authorities had expected. The greater the distance from the administrative centre, the longer the old systems of barter lived on. The African populations were by no means unaccustomed to being taxed. They had earlier paid taxes to their African leaders, especially in the centrally ruled states. Now it was the colonial administrations, or African leaders at their behest, who collected taxes. These might take somewhat different forms, but the basic idea was that they should be simple to administer. The British, for example, introduced what was called a hut tax, levied on each hut or household. This system lacked a well thought out progression, everyone paid the same amount, irrespective of income level and assets. The major difference, as compared with the precolonial time, was that it should be paid in cash, rather than in kind. The great majority of African subjects lacked monetary income, since they lived in barter economies. The new demands for monetary income were to have major effects on local production systems and community structures. In West Africa, where a part of the peasant population were already integrated into the global raw material trade, it was usually easier for an individual to pay the new taxes. That also applied in other parts of the continent, where commercialisation had already spread to the African grass-roots level. In other regions people were forced to obtain new forms of income. In Southern Africa the new tax systems led to increased demand for formalised paid labour. Wages meant monetary income with which the taxes could be paid. However, wage-labour was not always locally available and the work-force, especially the young men, were forced to seek work far from home. Many men from Bechuanaland, Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia sought their way to the mines, in the future South Africa. It has, for example, been estimated that as many as one-third of all men in Bechuanaland might simultaneously have been absent from their native villages. With the exception of a small number of colonies, such as Southern Rhodesia, Mauritius and Zanzibar, the revenue from taxation remained modest, because the taxpayers’ income levels were low. That in turn meant that the administrations had very limited funds to invest in the economic and social development of the colonies. The most important and extensive investment that was made by all the

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various colonial powers was to develop transport systems. Even earlier in the nineteenth century the trade networks over the whole African continent had been integrated thanks to African and Arab traders. But these trade networks were above all adapted to trade in goods with a high value per unit of weight. They had not been constructed with the new technology, that lay behind the transport revolution, in mind. Only in exceptional cases had trading companies and others begun to modernise means of transport. During the early colonial period steamship traffic between Africa and other parts of the world was further developed. The colonial powers were interested in increasing the volume of production in the interior and better infrastructure was then needed to transport minerals and export goods to the shipping ports along the coasts. The construction of railways was initiated, even if the network was modest in the early days of colonialism. The very first railway towards the interior of Africa was laid down by the British, from the coastal town of Mombasa, in today’s Kenya, to the shore of Lake Victoria. It was a project that took five years (1896–1901) to complete and there were great hardships: 9000 km of railroad through deserts, malarial swamps, savannas and forests. Maintenance yards were built along this railway line and some of these places developed into towns. One such is today’s capital, Nairobi. Construction of the railways opened up the highlands for exports and favoured the European settlers who had started coffee plantations in the region. This first railway project would come to be followed by several across the whole continent. The colonial powers wanted the extension of the transport network to be swift and at the least cost. Given the then shortage of labour, forced labour was a basic condition for extending the transport network and the working conditions were hard. For example, the construction of the railway line, from the French side of Stanley Pool on the River Congo to the coast, is reckoned to have cost the lives of 20,000 workers. The colonial investment in infrastructure improved matters for the African economies in many ways. But it also had many shortcomings. The colonial infrastructure was suited only to facilitate exports, by transporting goods out to the shipping ports. The Kenyan railway, running between the inland and the coast, is a typical example, and it worked contrary to the needs of trade within the interior. The modern technology was not invested in the old trade routes and even worse was that the old transport routes were severed by the colonial boundaries. Ancient trade routes running through colonies belonging to different colonial powers could no longer be used and the integration of trade that had been built up by the African communities in pre-colonial times was undermined.

4.4.2 Further Commercialisation The colonial policy that existed in the decades up to WWI consisted chiefly of increasing the volume of exports and, thereby, also the revenue of the administration. Earlier in this chapter we have shown that increased export and integration in the global trade in raw materials, together with the commercialisation of existing

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Table 4.1  Agricultural exports (tonnes) from West Africa, 1890–1914 Colony and product

1890

1900

1914

Senegal (groundnuts)

27,221

140,922

280,526

Gambia

18,554

36,378

67,924

Ghana (cocoa)

0

0.5

53,746

Nigeria (cocoa)

6*

205

5018

Nigeria (palm oil)

–

46,236

73,659

Nigeria (groundnuts)

–

608

17,271

NB *Solely from Lagos Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 3.1, p. 131 Based on Gareth Austin (2009) Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa, International Review of Social History, 54, p. 4

production systems, were processes that were under way in many parts of the continent, particularly in West Africa, even before the European conquest. It was therefore not the European colonial powers that initially drove these processes, but rather the local production processes. After the establishment of colonialism, however, the local colonial administrations had an interest in the continuation of increased integration and in that way in guaranteeing their capital revenues. Certain investments were made, including in infrastructure, in order thereby to open up the interior for further export production. Table 4.1 shows examples from West Africa of how the export of crops such as groundnuts, cocoa and palm oil continued to increase during the early colonial period. The production of cocoa and groundnuts was conditional on the ability of the producers to obtain additional labour. Labour was scarce and land in abundance in the region, which hindered the development of a class of wage labourers. The transition from international slave trade to legitimate trade therefore initially had the paradoxical consequence that the local slave trade was intensified. The major institutional reform of the nineteenth century was de facto that slave labour became increasingly important in local export agriculture. Instead of selling slaves to the Europeans, traders sold them to African farmers. However, as the colonial powers succeeded in colonising West Africa the local slave trade was also banned and slowly declined. In about 1910, that is, 20 years after the colonial occupation began, there in principle no longer existed any slave trade in West Africa. This institutional change created a pressure on the existing production systems. It became more common for people in the countryside to use themselves and their labour as security for loans. If they failed to repay, the lender gained the right to sell that person’s labour for several years. In that way it was a system resembling slave labour. Far more important, however, was the use of migrant workers from the interior (see Map 4.6). Migrant workers were tempted by the opportunities to earn money and, above all, to be able in the near future to start their own export production. The expansion of commercial agriculture in West Africa thereby created a new form of geographic and social mobility.

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FRENCH WEST AFRICA NIGER

MALI

Dakar

SENEGAL

Banamba

GUINEA BISSAU PORTUGUESE GUINEA EXPORT CROPS:

Cocoa Groundnut Cotton Palm products Labour reserv areas

BURKINA FASO GUINEA GHANA

BENIN NIGERIA

Freetown SIERRA LEONE LIBERIA

IVORY COAST

TOGO

Lagos CAMEROON

Labour migration

Map 4.6  Export-producing areas of cultivation in West Africa and regions of labour migration (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 3.6, p. 132. Based on Gareth Austin [2009] Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa. International Review of Social History, 54, p. 4)

In East and Central Africa commercial agriculture looked rather different from that in West Africa. When the British and Germans established territorial control over these parts of the continent they found that commercial production of export crops was dominated by plantation agriculture. The plantations had been set up in the nineteenth century and were owned, not by Africans, but by Arabs and they lay within the Islamic sphere of interest along the east coast. For example, cloves were produced in great volumes on the Sultan’s plantations on Zanzibar, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. This plantation structure was segmented by the colonial occupation. The great difference from the pre-colonial time was that the Europeans soon took over as plantation owners. In British East Africa pioneers of European and South African origin also settled in what were known as the White Highlands, to grow coffee on big plantations. They did not want competition and demanded that African farmers should not be allowed to recruit labour from their district and that coffee should be a crop that only white farmers were allowed to grow. They themselves actively cultivated only 10% of the highland area. This was an economic disadvantage for British East Africa and many colonial administrators regarded these settlers as a hinder rather than an asset. The slave trade from East Africa was first banned in 1873, after the British had forced the Sultan of Zanzibar, who controlled all slave trade in the area, to sign an agreement prohibiting it. Despite this prohibition both British and Germans allowed themselves to use both direct and indirect forms of forced labour. The colonial administrations set taxation rates that compelled Africans to work on plantations, which was often their only source of income, for the amount of time that the plantation owners needed them. Use of direct and indirect coercion was not only a strategy to acquire labour for the European companies and farmers. Also the colonial states benefitted from such strategies. Recent research on French Africa show that the use of forced labour

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was a major source of revenue for the colonial authorities. The most extreme and classic example of this forced labour, for the purpose of extracting raw materials and export crops, is the Congo Free State (1885–1908) under Leopold II. Leopold was a powerful driving force behind the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885. Two decades before that conference he had sent Stanley up the River Congo, to map it and to conclude agreements with the various groups who inhabited the region. His objective was to obtain a personal colony for himself and he succeeded. The Congo Free State was the biggest colony in Africa and it became Leopold’s private possession, which is historically unique. To begin with, the export consisted, above all, of ivory but that was soon followed by crude rubber. Leopold sold monopolies on ivory and crude rubber production within his huge colony to concessionary companies, and he also had his own production and export. The companies arranged to be allocated areas which they themselves administered and where they could exploit the labour force as they wished. Both the companies and Leopold exploited forced labour. The African subjects were obliged to devote a large part of their time to hunting ivory and collecting crude rubber in the forests. Quotas were established for their collection and those who did not meet them were cruelly punished. A common punishment was to cut off the hands of those who did not fulfil their obligations. This example was to serve as a warning to others. In this way Leopold and the European companies developed production companies with extremely cheap investment goods while bringing in large export incomes. No-one knows exactly how much money the companies brought in. Current estimates assert that all told Leopold II earned about £1 billion in today’s monetary values, during the 23 years that he had his colony. The other colonial powers admired the Belgians’ forced labour system. The methods were copied by the French, Portuguese and Germans. These colonial powers also sold production monopolies to various companies that were left to administer big areas in the colonies. In a number of places the methods that were used were equally cruel. The situation did not improve for the Congolese population when the Belgian state took over the administration of the Congo Free State in 1908 and renamed it Belgian Congo. Over time there emerged more and more reports, many told by missionaries who were active there, about dreadful conditions. In Europe there arose a protest movement that in the end forced the Belgian state to change its methods, but that was not until the inter-war period. During the decades around the mid-nineteenth century there had been a slow increase in the African population. During the years 1880–1920 the African population in East and Central Africa again stagnated or even declined, which threatened the supply of labour. This development was a consequence mainly of three factors. First, the continued increase in the caravan trade meant that diseases spread over larger areas. Secondly, the compulsory movement of Africans as a consequence of the arrival of the European settlers meant that land was overexploited and diseases such as sleeping sickness began to spread to ever larger areas. Finally, the colonial policy that forced increasing numbers of Africans to cultivate cash crops meant that food production in some places declined. The increased integration in East and Central Africa thus had a negative effect on the African population, in contrast to the integration in West Africa.

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In Southern Africa, commercial agricultural production, exactly as in East and Central Africa, was relatively marginal during the first part of the nineteenth century. But from the mid-nineteenth century that was to change and it was European actors who, directly or indirectly, had the greatest impact on development. Clearest were the changes in the region that after 1910 was to become known as the Union of South Africa. Urbanisation and the discovery of minerals created increased demand for food crops that could supply the towns and the mining industry. White settlers responded to the increased demand by intensifying the production of maize. From 1870 onwards there was a marked increase in agricultural production in what has come to be called South Africa’s first agricultural transformation. While the Europeans controlled the agricultural markets, it was the African contract producers who accounted for the production: they early on showed themselves to be significantly more efficient than the white settlers. They freely exploited their biggest competitive advantage, namely the capacity to mobilise family labour. The white landowners quickly became aware of the superior efficiency of the African contract producers and were therefore careful not to drive them away by contracts that were altogether too disadvantageous. The mining interests also saw the advantage of African sharecroppers as foodproducers, because it reduced food prices and thereby the wages that had to be paid to mine-workers. Nevertheless, the growth of African sharecropping led to a number of conflicts among the white population. Those who to the greatest extent used sharecropping systems were relatively wealthy businessmen who speculated in the purchase of agricultural land. There were also a group of relatively poor farmers who tried to compete with the African sharecroppers, but failed, many of them losing their land and being forced to move into the towns, where they became part of a growing proletariat. The development in South Africa shows how different power arenas unite and create alliances among apparently irreconcilable interests. On the one hand we have the mine-owners, white speculators and African sharecroppers. On the other hand we find relatively capital-poor white farmers. In other parts of Southern Africa the changes in agricultural systems were more clearly linked with the colonial occupation. In South Rhodesia white settlers swiftly established themselves as an important economic factor and induced the colonial administration to drive out the African farmers and place them in labour reserves, so-called Native Reserves. This had negative effects for the African farmers who in part saw their agricultural production fall because they now had less total land, and less fertile land, to cultivate. Despite the repressive policy the African farmers showed a capacity to adapt swiftly. In regions where the ecological conditions permitted it, ploughs were introduced as a strategy to counter the declining soil productivity. In the region that today constitutes Lesotho the population that had lost valuable pasture responded by converting from cattle-rearing to crop production. The increase in the number of white settlers created a pressure on the African supply system that laid the ground for both technical change and the conversion of existing production systems. Nevertheless, it became increasingly difficult for the African population to maintain undiminished food production. That the period nonetheless showed no general decline in food production was primarily the result of a technical change

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applying to the region overall, namely the more rapid spread of maize as the chief food crop. In Chapter 5 we will continue our analysis of the competition between various production systems in agriculture, between African and European producers and between export crops and food crops. In the decades from the 1920s to the 1950s the colonial powers also went further in developing principles regarding how the administration of the African colonies.

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5

Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

During the period 1920–1950 Africa’s integration in the global commodity trade continued to grow. African small-scale farmers came to play an increasingly important role as raw material producers, while European settlers found it increasingly difficult to compete. Local production systems were modified rather than transformed and the struggle for control over the production factors intensified. The colonial administrations tried to navigate in this struggle, with the aim of reinforcing their own position, both financially and politically. It was a period when the colonial administrations could develop without either serious external or internal threat. It was in many ways the high point of the colonial experiment. The financial needs of the administrations meant that they gave priority to ventures that favoured the export sector. In regions where commercial production was relatively insignificant increasing numbers of Africans were obliged to seek low-paid jobs in the commercial centres in order to scrape together the means to pay taxes and buy essential consumption goods. The geographical imbalances increased. Within the commercial centres social stratification also increased. It was most marked among the African farmers. This development led the colonial administrations to change political direction. They wished to counter social instability in the rural areas because it threatened the administration’s political power position. The solutions varied but the common element in them was that they very largely built on social conservative ideas, in which cultural and behavioural differences between Europeans and Africans rather than similarity was the watchword. After earlier having emphasised liberal ideas and opening the continent up to market forces the colonial administrations now emphasised the need to protect the Africans from the very same markets. In varying degrees parallel administrative systems were created, one for the Africans and the other for European settlers. Conflicts were intensified not only between new and old elites in the African rural communities but also between Africans and the colonial administration.

© The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_5

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The administrations took a firmer grip on the colonial economies. From the 1930s onwards, governmental regulation was markedly increased. Nevertheless, a distinctive feature of the period was the colonial administration’s continued inadequate capacity to control production in general and especially African production. African producers remained relatively free. Instead, the colonial authorities began to control the market channels. The greater control over markets turned the colonial states into gate-keeping state that may be termed both weak and strong. It succeeded in constructing an extensive control over the trade links within the export sector. But this increasingly comprehensive control over trade was a consequence of the colonial state’s incapacity to regulate production. The gate-keeping state’s strength was thus born out of its weakness and the system that came to dominate African states’ policies up until the mid-1980s.

5.1 Economic Change and Development As in the preceding period (1850–1920), agriculture was the dominant economic sector during the period 1920–1950 in most parts of Africa. This was also the sector where the most marked changes occurred. African actors advanced their positions, while the Europeans encountered increasing difficulties in surviving the competition without direct support from the colonial authorities. The latters’ capacity to influence and control the local economies was limited because they lacked the financial means. The support from the home countries in Europe was very limited and the administrations were therefore dependent on finding strategies enabling them to accumulate revenues. The export earnings were an important source of revenue for the administrations and the rate of growth in the production of export crops by African small farmers continued to increase in many places. In colonies where large-scale European agriculture played an important political role, their interests were represented by relatively powerful lobby groups forcing the colonial administrations to continue giving their support.

5.1.1 Continued Economic Integration In West Africa, the expansion of commercial agriculture continued, while more and more Africans in eastern and southern parts of the continent began to produce for the global markets. The mining industry accounted throughout the whole period for an important element in the total export earnings in Africa and as late as the mid-1930s it amounted to more than half. Nevertheless, it was only in a few countries that there was an established mining industry, namely in Angola, the Belgian Congo (the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and South Africa. The increased integration in global commodity trade was general and applied as regards all minerals and crops (see Table 5.1). It occurred even though the international economic climate was not favourable. During the 1920s, demand

5.1  Economic Change and Development

121

Table 5.1  Annual production volume of major export goods for selected countries, 1890–1959 (mean figures, in thousands of tonnes, other than for gold, stated in tonnes) Ethiopia coffee Unit

Ghana cocoa

Congo copper

Mali groundnuts

South Africa Uganda gold cotton

1000 tonnes 1000 tonnes 1000 tonnes 1000 tonnes tonnes

From year

1909

1896

1911

1922

1890–99

–

0.3

–

–

1000 tonnes 1905

62.0

–

1900–09

4.0

9.1

–

–

107.9

1.1

1910–19

4.0

79.2

14.6

–

268.2

5.2

1920–29

9.4

204.3

74.0

38.4

287.6

23.9

1930–39

16.6

260.4

109.5

108.7

353.0

52.5

1940–49

23.8

229.1

155.0

62.4

392.9

46.0

1950–59

49.4

246.9

225.9

109.2

452.3

65.7

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 4.1, p. 142 Based on B. R. Mitchell (2003) International Historical Statistics, Africa, Asia & Oceania 1750– 2000. London

for African commodities was weaker than it had been before the outbreak of WWI. Moreover, it fluctuated markedly from year to year because of the recurrent economic crises in Europe. The Great Depression that affected the whole world in the early 1930s brought a marked fall in demand for African commodities. Although it picked up again in the mid-1930s, the outbreak of WWII had a further negative impact. It was not until the end of the War that demand again grew to above the pre-1914 level. The driving force behind the increased integration can be explained by falling transport costs that was a result of the continued infrastructure investments by the colonial administrations. Subsequently, the costs of producing for export declined.

5.1.2 Infrastructure and Debts The 1920s was a very expansive period as regards the creation of road networks in all parts of Africa. Exactly as with the railways, the majority of roads were constructed in the commercial centres, with a view to reducing freight costs for the export sector. The infrastructure investments favoured particularly those who were active in this sector, i.e. major European companies and farmers, African small-scale commercial farmers, as well as many Indians, Lebanese, Greeks and Africans traders. Meanwhile, infrastructure projects aiming to stimulate national integration were strikingly absent. The colonial administrations saw no major economic gains to be made from such projects. The geographical concentration of infrastructure investments created bottlenecks in the development of the domestic market economy (Map 5.1).

5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

122

Infrastructure investments were hampered by colonial authorities lacking capital. The home countries were unwilling to make any extensive investments in their colonies. This may seem paradoxical, but was a consequence of the fact that the territorial expansion in Africa had not in the first instance been governed by economic interests, but had been a political power game. The colonial powers were well aware that the financial gains from this game would be modest, but there was a strong belief among the colonial authorities that the inflow of private capital would increase, now that the Europeans “had opened up” Africa. The free market forces would furnish the poor colonial administrations the capital they needed (Photo 5.1).

Navigable waterways Railways Areas above 1000 m Asbestos Copper Diamonds Gold Iron Magnesium Phosphate Tin Chromium Lead Coal

Map 5.1  Important mining regions, watercourses and railways in Africa 1937. NB Minerals production is shown only if it exceeded £500,000 in 1937 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 4.1, p. 143)

5.1  Economic Change and Development

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Photo 5.1  Railway between Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Livingston, Zambia (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

Without direct assistance from Europe, the local colonial administrations were obliged to find alternative sources of capital. Three possibilities were on offer. First, they might finance new infrastructure using domestic financial resources. This was not feasible because of the modest tax base and the limited financial resources of the colonial administrations. The two remaining strategies were to try to attract private companies to build roads and railways, or to borrow money on the international market. At first, the interest shown by private companies was rather slight. The great gains were to be made in the geographic regions where lucrative minerals such as gold and copper were to be found. In the areas where agriculture dominated the profits were small and above all uncertain and the colonial administrations therefore had to tempt private investors with repayment guarantees, subsidies and the right to expropriate land. It was chiefly in the Portuguese colonies and the British colonies in Central Africa that this strategy was employed. In Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) private companies controlled the greater part of all land in the northern parts of the colony. Companies were financed by both Portuguese and British capital, which shows that the European interests in Africa far from

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5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

always followed the frontiers of the colonial territories. Relying on commercial companies was not without its risks. Sometimes territorial conflicts arose between the African population, on the one side, and the colonial administration and the private companies, on the other. The conflicts were damaging for the economically and politically weak colonial regimes because they risked creating lasting social instability. The fundamental problem was nonetheless that private investors remained relatively uninterested in financing infrastructure pojects in Africa, despite the favourable terms. Most colonial administrations therefore chose the third strategy, to borrow money from banks and states. This too carried risks. The chief problem was that it was a question of highly capital intensive investments that would not pay for themselves for several years. The result was that several colonies long had to devote their relatively modest incomes to paying interests and capital repayments on the loans they had raised to finance projects. Even relatively rich colonies, such as British East Africa (Kenya) and Nigeria spent much of their revenue during the 1930s paying interest on their loans. In British East Africa, for example, the proportion of revenue that went to interest payments doubled, from 18% at the end of the 1920s to 34% in the mid-1930s. In certain cases, investments in infrastructure also became part of a greater geopolitical game, in which the colonial administrations often had limited influence over how the railways were to be routed and their construction financed. The infrastructure investments were rather part of a greater imperial project, by which the European powers tried to consolidate their positions in Africa. The local colonial administrations had no access to the power arenas where these matters were discussed, and they were reduced to implementing and financing projects in which they had no special interest. Box 5.1 Railways, Geopolitics and Debts: The Nyasaland Case

Nyasaland (Malawi) constitutes a classic example of how investments in infrastructure could become an expensive matter for a colonial state. Early in the twentieth century, colonial officials in the UK had begun to discuss whether and how the transport costs of Nyasaland’s export sector might be reduced. Nyasaland had no coast line and therefore facilitating exports required a railway through Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) to the coastal town of Beira. Due to the country’s economic crisis, Portugal had in the late nineteenth century “let” large parts of Portuguese East Africa to various trading companies. The region for the routing of the railway was controlled by a trading company known as “Mozambique”. The British government bought shares in the company with a view to indirectly increasing its influence over Portuguese East Africa. The Mozambique company had financial problems, however, and when it sought to build the railway Britain saw an opportunity to reinforce both the Company’s finances and its own position in the region. To the British, controlling the company became more important than identifying the optimal route for the railway.

5.1  Economic Change and Development

125

Without consulting the colonial administration in Nyasaland, it was decided that it would stand as guarantor for the loan that the Mozambique Company needed to take to pay for the project. Nyasaland’s administration protested but to no avail. During the 1920–1930s Nyasaland’s colonial administration had to use half of its yearly revenues to pay for the debts created by the railroad project. In Nyasaland Times, the newspaper controlled by the European settlers, arguments were published claiming that the territory was being exploited by the colonial power. In the mid-1930s, the governor of Nyasaland described the time as an era of starvation. He was referring to the colonial administration’s lack of financial resources, which made impossible any investments in health care and education. Nyasaland was stuck in a debt trap that the country did not escape until the beginning of the 1970s, half a decade after it had gained its independence.

5.1.3 The Global Economic Crisis and the Recession in Agriculture The relatively favourable economic climate in Africa 1920–1950 and the reduced transport costs created opportunities for both new and old actors to increase their incomes. At the same time, the European large-scale agriculture in the colonies began to have increasing difficulties to withstand the competition from African small-scale farmers. Although the idea of the superiority of European agriculture was widespread during the early colonial period, colonial agricultural policy was characterised by a great deal of pragmatism. It was primarily in regions where African agriculture was not already involved in production for export that an active effort was made to attract European farmers. Only a small number of colonies could be counted as settler colonies. These included British East Africa (Kenya), French West Africa, Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). In Angola, the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia there were also a large number of Europeans but they were primarily employed in the mining industry (see Table 5.2). Even among settler colonies intensive plantation agriculture was seldom practised. It was only in independent Liberia and the French colony Cameroon, that really large plantation agriculture, owned by major companies, was to be found. For example, in Liberia, the U.S. enterprise American Firestone Rubber managed plantations that in 1926 comprised a total of 400,000 hectares of land. This type of agricultural management, with foreign capital, was unusual. Commonly, European agriculture was practised as family farms with limited financial resources. What distinguished the European family agriculture from the African was that the former was to a greater degree dependent on wage labour while the latter could to a greater extent rely on family labour. The European farmers often complained that it was difficult to find labour and above all that the labour force was unreliable. The view was that the workers came and went as they pleased. The taxation policy of the colonial administrations favoured the European ­farmers since it forced the Africans to seek monetary income (see Chapter 4).

5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

126 Table 5.2  The growth of the European settler populations, 1835–1953

1935/36

1953

Southern Rhodesia

55,149

160,000

Angola

30,000

78,826

Belgian Congo

18,680

76,764

French West Africa

19,061

62,236

Northern Rhodesia

9913

50,000

South West Africa

31,049

49,612

Mozambique

10,000

48,813

British East Africa

17,997

42,200

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 4.2, p. 147 Based on Bill Freund (1984) The Making of Contemporary Africa, p. 169

But in step with the fact that increasing numbers of African farmers themselves began to practise commercial farming (see below) their interest in selling their labour to the European farmers also declined. Over time it became increasingly difficult for the latter to pursue profitable farming without political support from the colonial administrations. Many of the European farming families had been tempted to come to Africa by advantageous offers to buy or lease land at a low cost. Up to the beginning of the 1930s, it was the general view in the majority of colonial administrations that European large-scale agriculture was superior to the African. This was not a matter that had been investigated, so much as a perception, later challenged when more European farming families fell into acute financial crises early in the 1930s. The direct cause was the global economic depression that began with the Wall Street financial crash in 1929. Global economic growth fell steeply and the crisis hit both rich and poor countries. World trade halved at the beginning of the 1930s and that hit the African export sector hard. But although the global depression demonstrated problems with European agriculture on African soil, it was not the cause of them. The fact is that in a number of colonies European agriculture had created more problems than opportunities for the colonial authorities. In addition to problems in regard to allocating and controlling the labour force, many of the European s­ ettlers lacked both the adequate skills and capital needed for efficient management of farms. Their knowledge of the local conditions was very often limited. They felt frustrated by the African population’s reluctance to work for low wages. They did not understand or rather showed no empathy to the fact that for the African population wage labour was in conflict with pursuing agriculture for oneself.

5.1  Economic Change and Development

127

The European farming families in Africa therefore found it difficult to survive without state support, which was a challenge for the financially poor colonial administrations. The European farmers often demanded monopoly rights to crops and agricultural land, to avoid being out-competed by the more efficient African smallholders. At the outset, demands of this kind had not been difficult for the majority of colonial administrations to accept. But starting in the 1920s, it began to be increasingly obvious to a majority of the colonial administrations how dependent they were on production by the African small-scale farmers. With the global economic crisis in the early 1930s, the problems of the large-scale European farms were revealed. World demand for African commodities fell drastically. Many European farms in Africa were knocked out and in those cases where they survived the Great Depression nonetheless contributed to a change in the previously very positive view of large-scale European agriculture (Photo 5.2). In the settler colonies too, the European farmers had problems in surviving the competition from African small-scale farming. In the Belgian Congo (The Democratic Republic of Congo) and French West Africa they scarcely survived the depression, even though they had access to African forced labour. In central British East Africa, large-scale European agriculture played a central political part

Photo 5.2  Mansion building at Château de Labourdonnais, old sugar plantation, Mauritius (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

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5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

and was, in addition, a major economic actor. The chief crops were coffee and tea, but the dominance in coffee production was due to the fact that the producers enjoyed political protection from the colonial state. The colonial regime gave the Europeans state-aids and direct state support in the form of agricultural extension services. Despite this aid, the Europeans had difficulty in competing with African and Indian growers. The European farmers therefore began to put pressure on the colonial regime to introduce some form of institutional segregation. Following pressure from the European farmers, the Africans and Indians were in 1916 forbidden to grow coffee. The African farmers thereby lost access to one of the most important power arenas, namely the one where the competition took place over production of profitable export crops. The ban on coffee-growing by Africans and Indians was not lifted until 1951 and then within just a few years, the African small-scale farmers succeeded in becoming once more a central actor in coffee production. The country where settler agriculture proved most successful was South Africa. As elsewhere in Africa, the South African large-scale farmers were hard hit by the depression. But they quickly recovered and after it their production continued to increase. For example, the production of cane sugar, a crop primarily grown by large-scale white farmers, doubled during the 1930s. Large-scale South African farming survived the depression and the competition from African small-scale farmers thanks to a combination of factors. They widely used tenants, i.e. they allowed Africans to cultivate their land, in return for which they paid the landowners both in cash and kind. This was an institutional solution that was superior both to the employment of paid labour and to forced labour. By means of contract cultivation, the white South Africans could exploit the black South Africans’ skill and knowledge of the local conditions. But above all, they were protected by a government that conducted a policy which was based on segregation and oppression towards African small-scale farmers. In principle, all white South Africans were in favour of some form of segregation, including those who opposed racism. As early as 1913, the Native Land Act was voted through by parliament. It forbade the Africans to engage in agriculture outside the areas allocated to them, the so-called Native Reserves (later on Bantustans). The Africans in the reserves found it difficult to compete with the Europeans as the reserves were less fertile and densely populated. South Africa was, however was one of the few exceptions. When the European large-scale agriculture in Africa in general, encountered acute problems during the Great Depression, the colonial administrations became increasingly reluctant to get on the wrong side of the African farmers, by one-sidedly supporting the European farmers. They instead began to be critical of European immigration and were increasingly unwilling to grant land rights to newly arrived Europeans. Slowly colonial policy turned, and the focus shifted from European to African agriculture. Despite this gradual change in policy, the inflow of European settlers increased throughout this whole period (see Table 5.2). This paradoxical development can be explained by factors in internal European politics. After WWII the European

5.1  Economic Change and Development

129

colonial powers offered some of their soldiers assistance, in the form of emigration grants, to leave Europe and settle in Africa. The colonial officials often protested since they thought that the increasing immigration might create political anxiety in the colonies. The protests from the local colonial administrations led to a slight reduction in the tempo of immigration growth in the colonies. But no administration was completely successful in persuading officials in Europe to put an end to emigration grants. The increase in the number of European settlers was therefore not prompted by the superiority of European agriculture but was a consequence of the internal policy of the European colonial powers, which was a power arena to which the African populations or the colonial administrations had limited or no access. What this shows is that it is not easy to see a clear line of conflict between the Europeans and the African population. The situation was more complex than that. In the local power arenas, there were cases in which the colonial administration and the commercially oriented African small-scale farmers had joint interests. In a number of cases, they shared the perception that the colonial administration should discontinue its support for the European settlers and its discrimination against the African farmers. But the colonial administrations were also present in another power arena, namely the one where they negotiated with the colonial metropoles. In that arena the local colonial administrations were the weak party. Because the European settlers’ economic interest coincided with the internal policy of the home countries, the local colonial administrations were often obliged to work against their own interests and to continue to support the local European settlers.

5.1.4 The Weak Manufacturing Growth Despite the relatively high economic growth, there were very few countries in Africa where the manufacturing sectors grew during the period 1920–1950. Mining, commercially oriented small-scale agriculture and large-scale agriculture all had in common that they created no internal dynamic that favoured growth in the local manufacturing. The technology used in mining and, to a certain extent in large-scale agriculture, could only be imported from Europe. The profits made in mining and agriculture were often invested overseas. This all means that the links between the commercial sectors and the rest of the economy were too weak to lead to a lasting spread of technology and capital. Strong growth in the mining and agricultural sectors created no lasting conditions for economic transformation, in the form of industrialisation. For industrialisation to pick up speed therefore required powerful special interests that forced the pace in such a process. A characteristic feature of colonial Africa was the absence of actors who had strong economic interests in promoting industrialisation. The colonial administrations not only lacked the resources for such projects but were also reluctant to promote them because they were fearful of the social and political consequences they might have. This applied especially to the British and Belgian colonial administrations, in which there was the utmost reluctance to support processes that

130

5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

might result in increasing numbers of Africans leaving the rural areas to become an urbanised proletariat. European companies were also unwilling to move capital from the trade in natural resources to risky industrial projects. There were a few African countries where there was some industrial growth, South Africa being where it was most significant. Other countries with some degree of prominence in the industrial sector were the Belgian Congo, British East Africa and Southern Rhodesia. In South Africa, manufacture growth picked up speed as early as during WWI when industrial production doubled. During the 1920s, the industrial sector continued to grow and production doubled during the decade. Despite this relatively impressive growth, the mining sector remained the basis of South Africa’s economy throughout the whole period. One of the main reasons why South Africa, in particular, became the country where the manufacturing sector grew most strongly was that it had been independent since 1910. As distinct from the colonies, South Africa could thereby pursue a nationalist economic policy. The nationalist direction, with emphasis on self-sufficiency and diversification of production, accelerated after the 1924 election, when the Nationalist Party, with its electoral base among poor white farmers, formed a government together with South Africa’s Labour Party. They put manufacturing growth at the top of their agenda, as a solution to the acute problems posed by an increase in the number of poor unemployed white Boers. They wanted to reinforce national independence by diversifying production. Import tariffs were introduced to protect local industry and a statecontrolled iron and steel complex came into operation in 1934. In addition direct support was given to industries producing agricultural equipment and technology. During WWII, when international trade drastically declined, there was a further increase in South African manufacturing. The number of employed in the industry increased by 60%. The manufacturing sector was revamped: the former handicraft production was converted to standardised mass production. The wages and working conditions for the white workers were relatively good. They were represented by trade unions which successfully advanced the workers’ interests through quite militant actions. They also based their activity on segregation. They opposed all proposals that would lead to an improvement in the wages and working environment for the black workers also. The latter tried instead to improve their situation by organising themselves separately and conducting protests. These were brutally struck down by the police and led to no positive changes for the workers. Politics thus played a central role in the initial phase of industrial growth. Not only politics explain manufacturing growth in South Africa. Economic factors also played a role. The existence of a relatively large number of quite wealthy owners of large farms created an internal demand for e.g. agricultural equipment. There was also demand for technical reform, the main objective of which was to save labour and thereby to reduce the large-scale farmers’ wage costs. The South African domestic market also continued to grow strongly, since the real wages of the whites increased, irrespective of class. This made the industry less dependent

5.1  Economic Change and Development

131

on mining and agricultural activities and it could diversify its efforts into the production of basic consumption goods. The nationalist policy created the conditions for this, by linking domestic demand with domestic enterprises, while the increased demand enabled the industrial sector to continue to grow.

5.1.5 The Growth in African Small-Scale Agriculture In most colonies, there was little need to attract Europeans settlers and in certain cases. Instead, it was African agriculture for export that that was the most important source of income for the colonial administrations. During the period 1920–1950 there were significant changes within African small-scale agriculture. Maize production continued to expand and it became a more important crop than the traditional millet and durra. The production of cassava also increased greatly and potatoes spread rapidly, above all in Central Africa. But the most prominent feature of the period was the continuing increase in the integration of production by small-scale farmers in the global commodity trade. Whereas European agriculture had difficulties surviving, African commercial agriculture increased production of cash crops. Periods of strong overall growth may be distinguished, namely 1920–1930, 1935–1940 and 1945–1955. The first period was interrupted by the Great Depression, but African farmers soon recovered, and went on to increase their production of export crops once again. This growth again declined during the first half of the 1940s, on the outbreak of WWII, but recovered after the end of the war. The distinctive feature of African commercial production was thus that it had the ability to rapidly recover after crises that the colonies themselves had not created. The rapid growth in commercial production by small-scale farmers in West Africa had already begun during the second half of the nineteenth century and in that way, the period 1920–1950 was a prolongation of the commercial revolution that had already begun during pre-colonial times. During the 1920s, the growth in production really accelerated. Most of it can be explained by the increasing numbers of commercial farmers. It was not driven by technical or institutional changes but resulted from the increase in the area of land cultivated, which was a response to the low relative price of agricultural land. In East Africa also, especially in Uganda, production by African small-scale farmers was significant from the beginning of the twentieth century. A distinctive feature of the expansion of production by small-scale farmers in East and West Africa was its dependency on migrant workers. Cocoa production on the Gold Coast and in Nigeria, groundnuts’ production in Nigeria and French West Africa and cotton production in Uganda, all to a large extent depended on a continuous inflow of workers from other geographical regions. The most common feature was that the farmers employed various forms of sharecropping, i.e. that the immigrants cultivated the farmers’ land and the profit was then shared. The fact that wage labour was a rather rare occurrence in African small-scale commercial

132

5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

agriculture may be explained by economic factors. First, the relative price of labour was high. Africa’s countryside was in general still rather thinly populated. The shortage of labour made it expensive and often the costs of employing wage labour were higher than the income they brought in. So long as the population density was low, institutional changes hindered the emergence of a purely wage earning class. Its use was also limited by the relatively uncertain gains to be made by commercial agriculture. The yield in African agriculture was highly dependent on the weather conditions. If the rains came a couple of weeks later than usual, this had a significant impact on the actual yield. As a result, production varied greatly from year to year, which in turn made it difficult to employ permanent wage labour, because in the event of a poor harvest one risked being unable to pay the labourers. That is why we find that the use of wage labour was unusual even in relatively densely populated regions. Sharecropping has long been regarded by historians and economists as a relatively oppressive institutional arrangement since the employer not only controls the production factors but also transfers part of the risk to the workers. In recent times the opinion has, however, become increasingly positive. In the case of West Africa, the system has been highlighted as advantageous for both employers and workers. By sharing the profit the worker is paid, even though rather little, also in the years of low production. In Southern Africa, production of export crops by African small-scale farmers had been modest, but during the 1920s it increased markedly. Exactly as in West and East Africa, the African producers were hard hit by the global economic depression. But they too recovered quickly and more and more African farmers went into commercial production. The growth in African small-scale farming came at the expense of large-scale European agriculture. In Tanganyika (Tanzania), for example, African small-scale farmers became during the 1930s bigger coffee producers than large-scale European agriculture. The same development could also be seen in Nyasaland (Malawi). In the mid-1930s, African small-scale farmer production in Nyasaland produced most of cotton and tobacco European agriculture accounted for less than 20% of total production. African agriculture’s capacity to survive crises depended primarily on two factors. First, African farmers were not fully integrated into the market economy, but combined commercial production with subsistence production That meant that they were never entirely dependent on commercial production for survival. In times of crisis they could reallocate the production factors, that is to say, could devote less land and labour to producing commercial crops, in favour of growing food crops. Secondly, they were rarely dependent on wage labourers. To the extent that it was employed, it was often a question of temporary labour that could quickly be released in times of crisis. However, the flexibility of African small-scale farming should not be exaggerated. It had obvious limitations. The African small-scale farmers were dependent on a continuing inflow of cash, both to pay taxes and to buy consumption goods, and to pay off debts. It was not unusual for them to be in debt to local traders. The

5.2  Economic Stratification and Inequality

133

strategy for meeting the sharply falling prices in the Great Depression was therefore most frequently to increase production further, at the expense of food crops. In that way, many small-scale farmers landed in a vicious circle. Falling prices were met by increased production, which further depressed the prices of their own products. Under such conditions, increased production was not always a sign of increased profits, but might rather be a response to ever lower incomes.

5.2 Economic Stratification and Inequality The continuing integration in the global economy created new possibilities for prosperity, but it also increased inequality. The gap increased between the commercial centres and the more marginalised areas. Certain districts were so far marginalised that there are grounds for calling them labour reserves. The only possibility available for those in these districts was to take employment elsewhere as wage labourers in order to earn enough to pay for their modest consumption and their taxes. Within the commercial centers inequality increased as well. In general, it may be said that those who were already relatively well off, in the sense that they had relatively good access to productive resources and the possibility of mobilising labour via social networks, benefited to a greater degree from the continued integration than did those who lacked resources from the outset. But the integration also created a certain measure of social mobility. There were, for example, cases where migrant workers themselves manage to get access to land and grow cash crops. For women, it was more difficult to became commercial producers, and they therefore more commonly tried to strengthen their situations by taking a more active part in the local trade.

5.2.1 Geographical Inequality The relatively rapid integration in the global economy increased geographical inequality. In the mid-1930s, a clear geographic division could be seen, in which certain areas became commercial centres while others were marginalised and became, to a high degree, labour reserve areas. Which role various regions would play depended, in part, on ecological factors. Where minerals had been discovered commercial production develop. Further, certain soils were better suited for export crops than others. Colonial investments in infrastructure cemented and deepened the regional inequalities that already existed. With limited resources, the colonial regimes devoted resources to extend the infrastructure only in those areas where commercial activity had already started. Subsequently, the non-commercial areas were further marginalised. Nevertheless, the colonial tax policies meant that all had to obtain some form of monetary income. For Africans living in marginalised regions there were few possibilities of earning cash income. They were obliged to continue to seek their way to the commercial regions, to sell their labour.

134

5  Transformation and Administration—1920–1950

There was migration both within and across the colonial borders it was no new phenomenon (see Chapter 4). At the outset of the colonial period an upswing in the number of migrants could be seen and migration continued to grow during the period 1920–1950. In Southern Africa, the mining industry continued to dominate as employer for migrants, although some also came to work on European owned farms in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. Also in British East Africa, European settler farms attracted labour. While in West Africa, people in the marginalised regions moved chiefly to the commercial centres that were dominated by small-scale African farming. Here they were employed on small-scale commercial farms. The effect of migration for the communities from which the migrants originated is a matter of debate. One can highlight the direct drawbacks, when sections of the population leave the countryside, particularly from areas where there is already a shortage of labour. The local agricultural production was adversely affected since there were fewer and fewer people (particularly male labour) to help with farming. The extent of emigration could be considerable. In northern Nyasaland colonial officials reported in the mid-1930s that more than 60% of the married men in certain villages had left the country, to work in South Africa. That may be compared with towns in the commercial centre in southern Nyasaland. There about 10% of the male population had left, to seek work elsewhere. In certain cases, migration also had ecological consequences. The shortage of labour led to farmland being left fallow, long term. The increase in undergrowth meant that the tsetse fly spreading sleeping-sickness began to multiply, which led to an increase of mortality among cattle. Migration reduced the possibility for African households to cultivate export crops. Quite simply there was not enough labour. Meanwhile, migration brought in welcome incomes. Although the wages were low, they were significantly higher than what small-scale farmers in marginalised areas could earn from their own agriculture. When the men returned home they had saved enough to renovate or build a house and to invest in cattle. It guaranteed a certain inflow of cash in areas where other sources of income were not on offer.

5.2.2 Economic Stratification in the Rural Areas During the 1920s, the relatively rapid commercial growth had not yet created any great political and social conflicts in the rural areas. The conflicts that existed were chiefly about inequality in the distribution of incomes and agricultural resources, above all land between Africans and Europeans in the settler colonies. Within the African communities the social conflicts were as yet limited. Earlier it has been assumed that the colonial economies based on African production were significantly more equitable than the settler economies, but research in later years has shown that in them too commercialisation created inequality and stratification between different groups in the countryside. In the 1920s social tensions could

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already be distinguished. They came to the surface as productive resources became increasingly scarce and were intensified by the Great Depression. Commercialisation benefited those who had better access to productive resources. It was equally important to have access to social networks that could furnish labour. In general, one may say that those who already had access to productive resources and social networks had great chances of being favoured by further integration in the global economy. The processes towards increased economic stratification looked different in different parts of Africa, but with a few exceptions stratification did not lead to the emergence of a small agrarian capitalist class and a majority of landless farm workers, i.e. it seldom created capitalist production relations of in the traditional sense of the term. The growth in African agricultural commercial production did therefore not create transformative institutional changes. At the same time, relations were not static, either. Most apparent was the way in which the control over the production factors changed over time. The Gold Coast and British East Africa may serve as two diametrically opposed examples of these processes. As we mentioned earlier, the cocoa farmers in the Gold Coast had increasingly become dependent on immigrants labourers. Before the cocoa take-off the majority of cocoa farmers had relied mainly on family labour. As the cocoa trees matured and hence brought increased returns, more farmers chose to use this extra income to employ extra labour. Wage labour and sharecroppers were the two most common sources of additional labour. Life as wage earners or sharecropper was at times very hard. During the Great Depression, when the cocoa growers incomes fell sharply, it was common that neither the wage earners nor the sharecroppers were paid. Those who lacked the means to return to their home villages suffered hard times of hunger and poverty. Their possibilities to protest were small. For the protests to have any effect they needed connections to the local elite, which they lacked because they often did not come from the district where they worked. They had no access to the local power arenas and were therefore excluded from the economic, social and political struggle for control over the production factors. A distinctive feature of the cocoa economy in the Gold Coast was that those who took employment did not do so out of coercion. Their motive instead lay in the hope of being able to establish their own cocoa farm in the future. Some, but far from all succeeded. One can infer that the system offered the possibility of upward mobility, in which employees and sharecroppers overtime had the opportunity to begin to plant their own cocoa trees. At times of rising prices, especially during the 1920s and after WWII, work on cocoa farms increased the opportunities for the workers to exploit the situation to establish a farm of their own and to become independent producers. Selling one’s labour could be the entry to setting up one’s cocoa cultivation and becoming a commercial small-scale farmer. Women’s role in the commercial expansion had long been to assist by working on the men’s land. They were not paid for this but many of them nourished a hope that in the future they would be given an opportunity to clear new land on which they might cultivate their own cocoa trees. Sometimes they succeeded.

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But over time it nevertheless proved to be a risky project, because they were obliged to defend their land rights in traditional courts and in the family, i.e. in power arenas where men had greater influence. During the 1950s, many Ghanaian women lost control over the land on which they had begun cultivation. A more successful, and for that matter, a more customary strategy among women in West Africa was to become active in local trade and sometimes also in refining the crops. In the case of Nigeria, during the 1930s women became increasingly active in local trade in groundnuts and occasionally they also began to invest in processing, by pressing the oil out of the groundnuts and then selling it in the towns. This increased their income and thereby their economic independence. But that did not challenge the basic patriarchal structure, in which men had control over the production of commercial crops, as well as over the income this production brought. What these examples show is how changes in relative prices created institutional changes. The increased profits from commercial agriculture enabled more commercially farmers to invest in additional labour, either in form of wage labour or share-cropping arrangements. These institutional changes, in turn, created a breeding ground for social mobility, when Africans who had begun work as wage labour ended by themselves growing commercial crops. Far from all migrant workers succeeded with this. Women workers had additional difficulty in advancing their positions and becoming commercial producers. Gender rather than social position seems in these cases to have been a decisive factor. There were also cases in Africa where already wealthy African farmers could exploit the opportunities that integration in the global economy brought, by increasing their control over the production factors, at the expense of the more marginalised men in the community. In British East Africa, a number of relatively resource-rich African farmers succeeded in gaining control over more land through their contacts with the colonial administration. It became more and more difficult for the poorer farmers to survive in the competition. Many opted to complement work on the farm by taking employment as day-wage workers for African producers. When wages and employment conditions became substantially less favourable during the Great Depression, more chose the alternative of leaving the countryside, to find jobs in Nairobi. Once they had done that they found it difficult to return because their land was cultivated by the richer African farmers. British East Africa is thus in part an example of a process of primitive capital accumulation, i.e. that richer farmers managed by economic and political means to take over the greater part of the agricultural land, leaving the poorer with no option than to sell their labour. In this geographically limited case, we thus see a development towards a new capitalist oriented production system. The increased integration in the global economy raised the value of agricultural land and thus created incentives among the more resource-strong farmers to increase their control over the production factor land. But the effect of the intensified conflict over the production factors would not have had such far-reaching effects had the resource-strong farmers lacked political contacts. It must be stressed, however, that the case of British East Africa was the exception that proved the rule. Primitive capital accumulation

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was, in general, most unusual in the commercially oriented African communities during that period. The case of British East Africa shows that one cannot understand the effects of the increased commercialisation by studying the economic factors alone. Exactly as in West Africa, the increased relative prices was the factor that created the breeding ground for institutional change. But the political context in which these changes occurred affected the processes. The political arenas to which the various actors had access, and their ability to get their interests through, were therefore of the greatest importance if one is to understand the developments.

5.3 New Colonial Policies and New Power Arenas The integration in the global economy increased the stratification in rural Africa, which at times created tensions between groups. The struggle over the productive resources intensified, both between Europeans and Africans and also among the Africans. The colonial administrations attempted, as far as they opportunely could, to handle these conflicts in line with their own interests, namely to increase their financial and administrative capacity. Their possibilities to influence the rural economic and institutional structures were nonetheless limited, both because the colonial metropoles in Europe often forbade the local administrations to act in ways contrary to home country geopolitical objectives and because the local administrations lacked the ability to affect local conditions to any great extent. Their limited financial and administrative capacity meant that they became increasingly dependent on cooperation with various African actors. New power arenas were created within which African actors could strengthen their positions vis-à-vis colonial administrations and the local communities. Despite the increased cooperation the colonial administrations’ capacity to control economic and social structures in the rural areas continued to be rather limited.

5.3.1 African Participation in the Colonial Administration During the period 1920–1950 the colonial administrations expanded, bringing greater demand for labour. The number of Europeans was far too small for them to be able to cover the increased demand. All colonies, therefore, began active recruitment of personnel from among the African population. It was above all in West Africa that the appointment of Africans began at an early stage. In 1931 there were 130,000 Africans employed by the colonial authorities in the Gold Coast. The majority of them carried out low skilled physical jobs or worked as assistants of the police. Barely 5% of the Africans employed were low-level government officials. In East Africa, on the other hand, the colonial administrations preferred to appoint Indians rather than Africans, because the former were regarded as more “civilised” and “reliable”. In Southern Africa, where the European population was greater, fewer Africans were employed.

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The employed Africans had a low status within the colonial administrations. But their appointments gave them reliable and relatively good incomes. Even more important, their appointments brought them greater authority and thereby increased their status in the local communities. Africans employed within the colonial administration became in that way a new type of African elite. They had double connections, with the African communities and with the colonial authorities. It was common for them to try to exploit this fact in favour of their own local community, relatives and friends. It was rare for them to align themselves exclusively with the colonial authorities. Many of them, above all those who were employed as office-workers, soon became active in various political and social movements that worked in support of the Africans’ political and economic interests. The majority of Africans employed by the authorities already belonged to a local rural elite, which had manage to acquire basic education. It was not until after WWII that the colonial authorities actively began to invest in basic education for the African population. Before that, education was, to a large extent, a task carried out by Christian missionaries and their schools were few in number. The opportunity of further education was thus granted to few people and those who were successful in receiving it were often the children of relatively influential people in local communities. Employment in the colonial authorities meant that the local elite acquired increased opportunities to favour their own interests. Their status within the administration was low, but the fact that they now could establish contacts within the colonial administrations came to play an important part in later stages when the struggle for independence began to gather pace.

5.3.2 The Colonial Administration and Village Chiefs Integration in the global economy and the participation of Africans in the colonial administrations meant that Africans who had earlier had relatively little influence in local communities now had the opportunity to become increasingly influential. In a number of places, they sought to advance their positions and to challenge the local ruling hierarchies. Successful farmers challenged the local chieftains’ authority by demanding individual rights to landed property. In other places Africans who had been educated by missionaries began to challenge the local village chiefs, calling in question their attributes of power. The increased tensions were a matter of concern to the colonial authorities throughout Africa. They were afraid that political and social instability should arise in the African countryside and it would be a direct threat to the survival of the weak colonial states. What caused them the most anxiety was the possibility that the increased economic stratification in the rural areas would lead to the breakdown of the “traditional” social structures. This was a perception that European missionaries had long been advancing. At the outset of the twentieth century, they had already warned about the social consequences of an increasingly commercialised African countryside. The conservative attitude of the missionaries was perhaps no great surprise. Many had grown up in a strict and tightly regulated Christian environment, in

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which private profit interests, market interests and consumerism were all looked at with critical eyes. They therefore wanted to check any such development in the African communities. But during the 1920s, this attitude began to be increasingly shared by the colonial authorities. Formerly the European colonial authorities and the local administrations had both motivated colonialism by liberal principles. Europe would open up Africa to market forces. Officially, their positive official attitude towards free market forces remained unchanged during the 1920s. Meanwhile, they became increasingly anxious about the fact that these forces seemed to create social maladjustment in the countryside. This anxiety, plus the fact that the colonial authorities lacked the capacity to administer their colonies without African participation led to a paradox in colonial policy. The authorities sought both to support African commercialisation and, at the same time, to hinder its effects on the social structure. They saw no problems in increased stratification as such, but wanted to avoid concentration of landownership going so far that poor Africans became landless. They wished to prevent a development towards capitalist production systems in which a small, wealthy, elite worked the land with the aid of landless paid labour. The reason was that they feared that this might result in more and more landless Africans moving into the towns, which might create social instability and increase demands for the colonial authorities to invest in urban planning. There was equal anxiety that this development might lead to political instability in the rural areas, in which the landless would enter into direct confrontation with those African farmers who were more resource-rich. The outcome of this anxiety was a policy that increasingly built on separation. Africans were declared to be culturally distinct from Europeans. Their natural homeland was the countryside and they should live there in the local communities that were governed by the “traditional African elite”. This policy found its clearest expression in the British colonies. The discussions initially centred around the question of how to develop an effective and cheap colonial administration. At the outset of the 1920s, the idea spread of indirect rule. This had been practised by the British in India since the eighteenth century. In Africa, it was first introduced in Natal (South Africa) during the nineteenth century. It was, however, the British Governor of Nigeria, Lord Lugard, who spread the idea of indirect rule more widely. He had introduced indirect rule in Northern Nigeria. In his book The Dual Mandate (1922) he argued that this was a system that ought to be practised in all African colonies. The idea of indirect rule quickly won acceptance in London and in 1922 London asked the colonial authorities to study the possibilities of introducing it. By the mid-1930s it had become the dominating admidnistrative system in British Africa. Under the indirect rule, the colonial administration appointed local chieftains with responsibility for law and order, for the allocation of farmland and in some cases for collecting taxes. Behind the introduction of indirect rule there were practical and economic motives. The colonial authorities lacked the personnel and financial resources to build up an integrated administration that reached out across the countryside. The appointment of local chiefs, as cooperation partners, reduced

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the expenses of administration. In return for running the local administration, the chiefs and their advisers received either fixed salaries from the local authorities or a fixed proportion of the collected tax revenues. The colonial administrations hoped that the chiefs appointed would function as reliable allies in the African countryside. Indirect rule meant in practice that the British formalised a system based on the principle of institutional segregation. British laws and British administration applied in regard to the Europeans, while a different legal system applied for the Africans in the countryside. The idea of institutional segregation was taken furthest in independent South Africa and in 1948 would culminate in the introduction of the apartheid political system. South Africa separated itself from the British colonies, because race became the basis of differentiation, whereas in British Africa the emphasis was on ethnicity. We showed above how the Native Land Act 1913 meant that the rural African population in South Africa could only own land only in special reserves, known as “homelands”. In 1923, the South African parliament ratified the Native (Urban Areas) Act. It provided that black South Africans could only live in urban areas to the extent that their labour was needed. They had to seek permission to visit the towns and were obliged always to carry the permit and to show it if the police required. Twenty-five years before the introduction of apartheid, the black South Africans had in principle lost their citizenship in their own country. In the French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies an administration was to a greater extent built on the principles of direct rule. The emphasis was on assimilation rather than distinction. Africans should be integrated into the French and Portuguese Empires. The French colonies went furthest, by setting up the objective that the African population should become citizens of the French Empire and thereby should in the longer term acquire the same rights as the French citizens. The ideas of citizenship never got much further than the discussion stage. In the mid-1930s only 2000 of the 14 million Africans living in French West Africa had citizenship rights. Despite these differences, the village chiefs also played a central part in the French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies, even though they were much more tightly tied to the colonial administrations. The powers of African elites was the weakest in the Portuguese colonies, where the colonial administrations not only made use of chiefs but also had local security forces to collect taxes or recruit Africans into forced labour. These security forces consisted of Africans appointed by the colonial administration and were to guarantee that nothing disturbed social stability.

5.3.3 Indirect Rule and Conflicts of Interest Direct and indirect rule had in common that they gave local chiefs the control over land distribution within their area of jurisdiction. Behind this policy lay in part a number of social conservative ideas about shielding the Africans from modernity. Africans were regarded as not being ripe for capitalism and the market economy.

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Private ownership was thought to be alien to Africans. Behind these ideologies there was also real anxiety about increased social rejection in the countryside. Therefore the sale of farmland was forbidden. In British East Africa, Tanganyika and Nigeria the sale of farmland among African small farmers had been relatively widespread until the 1930s, when the introduction of indirect rule put a stop to it. Thereby the colonial administration for political reasons interrupted bottom-up institutional change towards a capitalist oriented production system. Indirect rule gave Africans a right to cultivate the land if they could prove that they belonged to the local community. Normally this happened automatically in that those who lived in and farmed the land in a given area were also identified by the colonial authorities as belonging to the local community. But when people moved in, it was a matter for the local chiefs to decide who should be given the right to use the land. This gave the appointed chiefs considerable attributes of power that they often used to their own advantage. A number of chiefs were themselves often engaged in commercial production and they often had a direct interest in supporting local commercial interests. It was relatively common for village chiefs to grant land to arriving migrants who, in return, initially worked without payment on the plots belonging to the chiefs. The chiefs could also give their support to African commercial interests that worked against the colonial regime and European commercial interests. Such a case was the big cocoa strike on the Gold Coast (1937–1938). For a couple of months a total of 300,000 cocoa farmers refused to sell their cocoa to the private buyers because they considered the prices too low. The colonial authorities were on the buyers’ side and hoped that the chiefs would solve the problem. But instead of helping the colonial authorities the local chiefs organised protests and resistance. They did so for two reasons. First, they were themselves cocoa producers and therefore had their own interest in a price rise. Secondly, they did not wish to lose their local legitimacy and therefore did not dare to oppose the farmers’ protests. The paradox is thus that the colonial administration, by its indirect support, created new power arenas that enabled the local rural elite to oppose colonial policy. That was quite contrary to the colonial administration’s intentions. The social conservative ideas about distinction therefore failed in creating a robust system with chiefs as evident allies of the colonial administration. But the system had a great effect on economic development, in the sense that they forbade the evolution towards private property rights in the African communities. The ban did not mean that the Africans completely ceased to exchange farmland, though it was seldom a matter of outright sales. It was impossible, by political means, to altogether hinder the forces for economic change. In some cases, the appointed chiefs also encountered local opposition. Researchers have long discussed whether the elected chiefs were already recognised village representatives or whether they lacked legitimacy among the local population. The answer is that it varied. In some regions, the chiefs already had significant power before they were recognised by the colonial authorities. In other cases, it is more doubtful. It happened that the local inhabitants revolted against the appointed chiefs. In Uganda, the African commercial producers tried to get rid of the local chiefs who opposed them. Local disturbances occurred in

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Uganda in both the 1920s and 1940s, but these were struck down by the colonial administration. In Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau) the appointed chiefs also encountered opposition among the local traders. In both cases, it was a matter of commercial interests opposing local chiefs being accorded any influence over their business affairs. The colonial administrations’ increased use of and dependence on local village chiefs were thus far from always creating the social stability they sought. On the contrary, the policy often made apparent the contradictions that existed locally in the African countryside, both between different African actors and between Africans and the colonial administration.

5.3.4 Urbanisation and Strikes In parallel with the increased economic stratification in the countryside more and more Africans moved into the growing urban areas. Formerly quite small administrative centres grew rapidly and became both administrative and commercial areas. Between 1939 and 1956 the population of Nairobi, in British East Africa, more than tripled, from 65,000 to 210,000. During the same period the population of Angola’s capital, Luanda, grew from a modest 40,000 to 190,000 and in Leopoldville, in the Belgian Congo, it increased from 36,000 to 300,000. The colonial capitals were built according to the principle of racial separation. There were African, European and Coloured (Asiatic) districts. But during the 1930s, the number of Africans moving in from the countryside increased and town ships emerged. The attitude of the administrations to urbanisation was ambivalent. They needed the labour, but considered that Africans were rural people who should occupy themselves with agriculture. The short-term problems of urbanisation were linked with questions about sanitation and health. The longer-term problems were the anxiety lest urbanisation should increase the possibilities for the Africans to organise political opposition against the colonial administration. Urbanisation meant that people could more readily come into contact with one another and hence might become organised. These fears turned out to be right. The most widespread urban protests and riots in Africa’s colonial history occurred during the period 1935–1950. In Mombasa in British East Africa and Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika general strikes broke out in 1939 and 1947. In between, there were minor riots almost every year. In Nigeria, a general strike was declared among the African workers in 1945. In the Gold Coast, a general strike broke out in 1950. The main demands were higher wages and better working conditions. During this period, the protests were not primarily about political independence but rather about wages and the working conditions. But as we shall see in the next chapter, the increased protests were a sign that the African actors had become stronger, politically. They began to challenge the European settlers, companies and the interests of the colonial administrations. After the end of WWII, the towns became a natural centre, where new social and political protest groups were established.

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5.4 The Formation of the Gate-Keeping State In step with the increasing participation by Africans in the global economy, there was a growing interest on the part of the colonial administrations in seeking to regulate local production. The objective was to maximise revenues from exports by trying to control the quality of the export crops. It soon transpired that the colonial administrations were too weak to be able to guide local decisions about production. The dilemma was that they lacked the financial and organisational capacity needed in order to regulate internal production. At the same time, such regulations were an opportunity to strengthen the economic the capacity of the colonial administrations. Their ability of regulating the colonial economies proved instead to be limited largely to the control of market channels, above all in the export sector. They increased their financial capacity by establishing monopoly rights over trade with African agricultural commodities.

5.4.1 The “Gate-Keeping State” Concept Although the colonial states differed in their organisation and structure, it is our contention that they had certain common features. We use the American historian, Frederick Cooper’s, concept of the gate-keeping state to capture a common dynamic in the organisation of the colonial states. The “Gate-keeping state” denotes the type of state that in the main strives to control the market channels. The control in the colonies came to be exercised in connection with the internal purchase of crops from the African producers, their internal transport and lastly their export abroad. The structure of the gate-keeping state was an outcome of the colonial authorities the limited financial resources and their inability to regulate internal production, rather than by a conscious strategy. The administration was too politically weak, to be able to control European purchase markets, because the Europeans could always threaten to leave. The authorities also lacked the administrative capacity to regulate African agricultural production. Because of these limitations, the colonial administrations instead built up a system based on the taxation of imports and exports. One advantage of Cooper’s concept is that he in a way solves the contradiction between those who regard the African colonial state as having grown too big and strong and those who think it remained too small and weak to be able to influence the social economy in a positive direction. It is true that the colonial power built up a relatively large state bureaucracy and control apparatus that produced a certain strength but it was limited to the export industries. As regards direct regulation of what and how the African farmers produced, the colonial states remained weak.

5.4.2 The Colonial Regimes’ Dilemma More than anything else, the structure of the colonial administrations was characterised by their limited financial resources and insufficient administrative capacity.

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This created a dilemma that was very difficult to resolve. On the one hand, there was no capacity to build up an effective control of the economies. On the other hand, this particular control was a necessary prerequisite for the ability to increase the colonial authorities’ revenues and thereby their financial capacity. Until the 1940s, the relations between the local colonial authorities and the European colonial powers were at times very strained. In Europe, they were reluctant to invest in the colonies. The colonial authorities were obliged to finance their own business. They also forbade them to under-finance their budgets, with the exception of the major infrastructure projects as described above. The colonial officials regarded themselves as being given an impossible task. They considered that their possibilities to build up an efficient colonial administration and economy was limited by the policy of the colonial metropoles. At the end of the 1920s, there was already a partial change in the relation of the European colonial powers to their colonies. The causes mainly derived from internal politics in Europe as a response to the increased economic problems. There was a desire to increase the number of job opportunities in Europe by guaranteeing a greater supply of raw materials from Africa. This demanded greater investment by the colonial administrations in infrastructure. In 1929 the British Labour government decided to give increased support to the colonial authorities by offering them greater borrowing facilities. That same year the conservative government in France introduced a similar programme, but the ban on deficit budgeting by the colonial administrations remained in place. However, in the wake of the great depression new economic ideas developed in Europe. The state should in good times put funds into the reserves, to permit increased spending in worse times. The new ideas came to be called Keynesianism, after the best known of the theory’s originators, John Maynard Keynes. These ideas influenced not only the economic policy of the Western world. They also increased the acceptance by the colonial metropoles of the need of the African colonial authorities to access capital and the possibility of deficit financing. The most grandiose ideas came from France, but in practice, it was only Great Britain that gave her African colonies new possibilities of gaining access to favourable loans and subsidies. It was not until after WWII that the European colonial powers began to invest seriously in their colonies. The end of WWII brought great changes in the relationship between the African colonies and the colonial powers. An immediate effect was that the first tried to strengthen their ties with the latter, the reason being increased demand for African commodities and natural resources. The colonial metropoles tried to guarantee a greater inflow of African exports by means of regulating trade and buying up existing stocks. They also substantially increased public investments and annulled the ban on deficit budgeting by the colonial administrations. The full effects of these changes did not, however, manifest themselves until the mid-1950s and will be discussed further in Chapter 6.

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5.4.3 Attempts to Regulate Production Until WWII the colonial states in principle had to finance their activities without support from the metropole. The only ways in which they could bring in revenues were either to tax the population or the export sector. However, taxation of the African population raised only modest amounts of revenue. Instead, taxation and/or control of the export industry seemed an increasingly practicable route. It was nonetheless a strategy with certain inbuilt problems. Above all, the colonial authorities had no wish to get on the wrong side of the few European companies that were active in Africa. There was always an imminent risk of their pulling out, or ceasing to invest in the colonies. Instead of increasing the taxation of European capital the administrations often had to moderate their demands in order to ensure that the modest inflow of capital did not dry up altogether. European farmers in Africa could be taxed but, since they were often dependent on state support, European large-scale agriculture remained an ineffective source of income for the colonial administrations. What remained was to control the production and export by small-scale African agriculture. Since African small-scale agriculture had begun to play an increasingly prominent role during the 1920s, the colonial administrations had begun to discuss how they might regulate it, so that it further favoured export incomes. Major projects were in principle very rare. Instead, the colonial administrations began to use the local chiefs to encourage the African farmers to reform their methods. In reality, the authorities knew very little about the established farming methods. They lacked the resources to make more thorough investigations. The widespread perception in the mid-1930s was nonetheless that the farming methods led to soil erosion, and hence depleted the land of important nutrients. These ideas came from the USA and South Africa where, since the end of the nineteenth century, there had been growing anxiety about the increased soil erosion. This anxiety subsequently spread very rapidly, above all over Southern and parts of East Africa. The fear was that the erosion would both deplete the soil of important nutrients and lead to a reduction in the areas of land that could be used for agriculture. That would in turn damage the production of both food- and cash-crops and in the longer run lead to a growth in poverty in the countryside and falling revenues for the colonial administrations. Stopping the erosion was thus judged to be a necessary measure, not in order to achieve a short-term increase in production but to guarantee in the longer term that it at least did not fall. In most colonies, a number of anti-erosion programmes were started in the 1930s. Sometimes they were modest and meant in reality only that the local chiefs were invited to spread information about how to prevent erosion. In other cases there was a direct intervention to appoint agricultural specialists, who worked out in the African villages, spreading information about new methods. But antierosion programmes met with a good deal of opposition from the African farmers, especially from the women. They protested against the anti-erosion proposals,

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because these demanded increased labour inputs, while not producing any immediate increase in yield. In the mid-1940s anti-erosion methods were made obligatory in several colonies and the colonial administrations punished those who did not apply the new methods. But the protests went on. During 1947–1949, for example, African women in central British East Africa boycotted all proposals about changed methods. In Cameroon the women openly defied the advice of the agricultural specialists at the end of the 1940s. For three years they refused to follow the advice. The consequence for them was that they were both sent to prison and had to pay fines to the colonial administration. There were also instances where they not only protested indirectly, by refusing to follow the colonial officials’ advice and/or regulations, but even directly wrecked anti-erosion projects. In Tanganyika, there was an attempt to prevent erosion by planting trees. The farmers who saw how more and more farmland was covered by saplings, reacted by destroying them year in and year out. It became apparent also that the chiefs were seldom reliable allies in the work of regulating the African small-scale farmers production methods. Sometimes the chiefs lacked real influence over the local community, and their words made no impact on the local practitioners. However, what was more important was the chiefs reluctance to go against the local population. They were unwilling to run the colonial administrations’ errands. It was not simply by chance that it was the women who protested. They bore the ultimate responsibility to ensure that there was food on the table and often they did the greater part of the farm work. Demands from the colonial administrations collided with their economic reality. Anti-erosion programmes meant that households were obliged to increase the work-input in farming, while it brought no increase in yield. African farmers, who often lived at the margin, did not have the economic possibility to plan long term. Every extra hour needed on the farm, meant an hour less for other equally important activities, for example selling products on the local market, taking temporary jobs elsewhere, or simply investing in the local social networks, by helping friends and family with various tasks. It was also far from clear whether the erosion was as great a problem as the colonial officials believed. The increasingly repressive methods and political demands for institutional change had little effect when they collided with the local economic institutions. Attempts by the colonial administrations to force change were limited also because only a few of those who protested could be arrested. The small-scale producers were scattered over big geographical areas and they often acted spontaneously, without any real cohesion beyond the village. To directly regulate African production proved difficult. The African farmers continued to cultivate their crops in relative freedom as regards decisions affecting production methods. At the same time focus began to be put on controlling and regulating internal and external trade, i.e. the colonial gates. In this, the colonial authorities had much greater possibilities of increasing their influence and thereby reinforcing their position in the colonial economies. When the colonial administrations became gate-keeping states they challenged the local social and economic order, not among the producers but among those who were active in the trade in export crops.

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5.4.4 Local and Global Trade Before the Age of Regulation During the greater part of the 1920s and the early 1930s the local trade was relatively unregulated, with a larger number of minor actors involved in it. The exception was West Africa, where the export trade was dominated by a few major companies, namely the French-owned Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO) and the Société Commerciale de l’Ouest Africain (SCOA), plus the British-owned British United Africa Company (UAC) and the DutchAmerican controlled Unilever. They had at an early stage succeeded, either by financial or political means, to knock out the competition from African companies. For example, Unilever bought up the relatively large Niger Company that had previously been controlled by traders from Niger. The profits of these large companies steadily grew, as production for export continued to increase. They further strengthened their already strong position in West Africa. In Southern, Central and East Africa, the dominance of one or a few companies was less marked. European trading companies had initially shown rather little interest in the region because it was less well integrated into the global economy compared to West Africa. The big European conglomerates were also dependent on local traders who bought crops in the towns and transported them to various marketing centres. A distinctive characteristic of the local trade was that it was dominated by people of foreign origin. Greeks were established in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa and Indians were to be found all over the continent, although their role was particularly prominent in Uganda, British East Africa, Tanganyika and Nyasaland. As distinct from the African population they had greater access to the capital needed to participate in trade. Further, trade was often the only sector they could engage in as they lacked allies either in the African areas or within the colonial administration. In certain cases, especially in West Africa, there were in the 1920s a few influential Africans who by means of trade succeeded in accumulating relatively large amounts of capital. In Nigeria, in the 1920s there were, for example, a group of very successful African merchants. They invested their profits in the transport sector, bought motorcycles and cars and started competing with the colonial regime in the transport business. Sometimes the African producers organised themselves in cooperatives in order to gain increased influence over the trade. Local cooperatives were the most common in West Africa, where the trade remained very lucrative. The formation of the gate-keeping state as from the 1930s and onwards was at the expense of local merchants and cooperatives. During the 1930s, the Indians lost the influence they had had as local buyers in Southern Africa. The role of the Lebanese in West Africa was further marginalised and at the end of the 1930s African involvement in the local trade in export crops was minimal. The role of the African cooperatives also diminished. In the mid-1940s, for example, the formerly important African cooperatives in the Gold Coast and Nigeria controlled less than 5% of the local trade in cocoa.

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5.5 The Structure and Variation of the Gate-Keeping State In parallel with attempts to regulate domestic production, ideas emerged within the colonial administrations to increase control over the internal markets and strengthening the regulations on exports of commodities from the colonies. They had a limited influence on international trade since that was greatly affected by colonial policy in Europe. Having formerly advocated free trade, the metroploes in Europe began during the 1930s to conduct an increasingly protectionist policy. The Great Depression was an important factor behind this turn in the tide of policy. The protectionist policy was reinforced after WWII because the colonial powers in Europe saw their colonies as a means to rebuild their economies after the havoc wrought by the war. For the local colonial administrations, the option left was to control the domestic markets. By that means they could achieve two objectives. They could both control the quality of what was being exported, thereby influencing price, and they could assume control over a greater proportion of the profits in the marketing chain. The discussions about increased regulation intensified after the Great Depression and accelerated during the 1930s and 1940s. Increased control over the markets required rationalisation, either by replacing the numerous local buyers or extending the regulations governing their activities. The local buyers were in this way an encumbrance for the colonial authorities. Controlling them was both difficult and expensive, which meant that they could not be utilised as a means of achieving the gate-keeping State’s objective of increasing its influence over the market channels It should be stressed that the general objective was to regulate trade in the African small-scale farmers’ production. The European settlers, mining and the modest manufacturing sector were not regulated to the same extent and continued to sell their products on the free market. The formation of gate-keeping states thus meant that new relationships were created between the colonial administrations and the African producers, in which the former indirectly came to increase their control over the latter. In order to win support for this policy, the colonial officials began to accuse the private traders of having deliberately got the African producers into debt and exploited them by offering unreasonable prices. During the 1930s, this kind of language became common in most colonies. Behind this rhetoric lay the ambition to strengthen the colonial regimes financially. The ideas of regulating production were never abandoned, but regulation of the internal markets and tax exports became the chief strategy because it was the most efficient way in which the colonial authorities could increase tax revenues. There were two possible ways of rationalising the domestic markets. One was to give private companies monopoly rights, against payment, and the other was for the authorities themselves to establish market organisations that would operate on a mandate from the colonial administration. The major buyers, financed by European capital, were in contrast to the smaller actors not regarded as

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competitors. The colonial authorities chose instead to deepen their cooperation with them. Small private buyers were either forbidden to continue their activities or, more commonly, their business was indirectly limited by means of introducing compulsory licensing of them. The licences gave the colonial authorities greater control over activities by the local buyers, as well as increasing the revenue to the administration by introducing license fees. In parallel with the regulations, free price-setting was abandoned in favour of administrative price-setting. The gap between the buying and selling price minus cost of transportation became revenues to the colonial administration. The irony of the rationalisation of the internal markets was that the colonial authorities did precisely what they had previously accused the private actors of doing, namely they exploited the farmers by offering them prices that were significantly below the world market price. It is important to underline that there were great variations among the colonial administrations as regards the type of regulations. The concept “gate-keeping state” therefore does not describe a uniform economic policy that was common to the whole of Africa. What the colonial administrations had in common was that the control over imports and exports played an all-embracing role in the survival of these states and their capacity to grow in strength. The regulations came earlier and were more comprehensive in those areas of Africa where African agriculture was least integrated in the global economy, such as the Portuguese, Belgian and French colonies. The last to embark on tightened regulation of the markets were the British colonies in West Africa. There, as we have earlier shown, African small-scale agriculture had been deeply integrated in the global economy since the mid-nineteenth century. That meant that there had already been time to establish a market structure with farmers and merchants who would not readily give up their control over the local markets. It was not until the local actors saw that they could benefit from increased regulation that it became possible for the colonial authorities to adopt such measures. In the Gold Coast, the repeated cocoa strikes during the 1930s were a powerful contributory factor in the formation of monopolies. The private export enterprises demanded more stable conditions, and the colonial administration therefore proposed that they should establish a state-controlled organisation that had the sole right to sell the farmers’ cocoa to export enterprises. WWII began, however, before these plans could be put into effect. Instead, the colonial administration assumed control of the whole market channel, from local purchase to export. This was intended as a temporary solution that would be dismantled when the war ended. But the colonial administration made such big profits from it that not until the 1980s did the state relinquish its grip on the whole market channel. In those instances where the local buyers had less influence it was easier to disregard their interests entirely. In Nyasaland the British Cotton Growing Association was as early as 1923 given a monopoly over the local trade in cotton, in return for which the colonial authorities were given the right to half its profits. The local Indian buyers were forbidden to buy cotton from the African producers unless they under contract to the British Cotton Growing Association. Behind this

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monopoly lay the fact that the colonial authorities considered that the African cotton producers had for several years over-produced cotton of low quality. By reinforcing its control over the market channels the gate-keeping state could, even if only indirectly and to a limited extent, influence the production decisions by the African farmers. In 1926 a similar change was enacted in Nyasaland as regards the buying-in of tobacco when the state-controlled Native Tobacco Board was given sole right to buy in African tobacco production. The monopoly rights implied that the state could control the quantities sold and the quality of the crops. Meanwhile, the European farmers could still sell their tobacco directly to foreign buyers. The colonial authorities were prepared to overlook possible quality problems with their production because they did not wish to get into a dispute with them. In the French colonies in West Africa, a system was introduced which was different from the rest of Africa. It built on a more direct contact between the colonial administration and the African farmers. In the mid-1930s, local organisations were created at the district level, which were controlled by the colonial officials there. The farmers in the area were obliged to give a portion of their total harvest to the District authorities, who subsequently either sold it on or stored it. This became a form of direct taxation. In addition, the farmers could continue to sell the export crops to the big private buyers, the CFAO and the SCOA. In certain cases, the reasons for regulating the trade were not only financial but also political. In Tanganyika, the authorities were concerned over the fact that local Indian buyers had started to organise themselves in what might be described as informal associations. The local officials considered that they were beginning to act increasingly independently, sometimes without caring about the local chiefs. The buyers were thereby challenging the system of indirect rule. In consequence at the end of the 1930s, a discussion arose about the possibility of monopolising the trade and thereby getting rid of the local buyers. This was nonetheless a risky strategy, because a number of buyers had also begun to be politically active and there was a risk that the administration would land in direct confrontation with them. The situation was saved by the outbreak of WWII. The downturn in international trade gave the colonial authorities an opportunity to create central market organisations, controlled by the administration, and also to introduce administrative price-setting. At the end of the 1940s, most colonial administrations had taken a relatively firm grip over trade with African agricultural commodities. The path taken to it varied from case to case. The common denominator was that the control of trade was the available strategy for the financially and organisationally weak colonial administrations to raise revenues. It was easier and cheaper to control trade than the production processes.

Bibliography Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Robert H. Bates, Nathan Nunn, and James A. Robinson (ed.) (2014) Africa’s development in historical perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Bisten, Arne (1986) ‘Welfare and economic growth in Kenya, 1914–1976’, World Development, 14(9): 1151–1160. Bolt. J., and E. Green (2015) ‘Was the wage burden too heavy?—Settler farming, wages and the profitability of settler agriculture in colonial Malawi, C. 1900–1960’, Journal of African History 56(2): 217–238. Bolt, Jutta, and Ellen Hillbom (2016) ‘Long-term Trends in Economic inequality: Lessons from colonial Botswana, 1921–1974’, Economic History Review 69(4): 1255–1284. Cooper, Frederick (2002) Africa since 1940: The past of the present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frankema, Ewout, and Marlous van Waijenburg (2012) ‘Structural impediments to African growth? New evidence from real wages in British Africa, 1880–1965’, The Journal of Economic History, 72(4): 895–926. Frankema, E., E. Green, and E. Hillbom (2016) ‘Endogenous processes of colonial settlement: The success and failure of European settler farming in sub-Saharan Africa’, Revista de Historia Economica-Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 34(2): 237–265. Freund, B. (2007) The African city: A history (Vol. 4), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freund, B. (2016) The making of contemporary Africa: The development of African Society since 1800. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Gardner, Leigh (2012) Taxing colonial Africa: The political economy of British imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Green, Erik (2018) ‘Colonial Africa’, in Tony Binns, Kenneth Lynch, and Etienne Nel (eds.), The Routledge handbook of African development, London: Routledge. Hill, P. (1970) Studies in rural capitalism in West Africa (No. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jeeves, Alan H., and Jonathan Crush (eds.) (1997) White Farms, Black Labor: The state and agrarian change in Southern Africa, 1910–1950, Oxford: James Currey. Juif, D., and E. Frankema (2016) ‘From coercion to compensation: Institutional responses to labour scarcity in the Central African Copperbelt’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 2(12): 1–31. Kilby, Peter (1975) ‘Manufacturing in colonial Africa’, In L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan (eds.) Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960, vol. 4, The Economics of Colonialism, 1870–1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 470–520. Mitchell, B. R. (1998) International historical statistics—Africa, Asia and Oceania 1750–1993, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Moore, Henrietta L., and Megan Vaighan (1993) Cutting down trees: Gender, nutrition, and agricultural change in the northern province of Zambia, 1890–1990, London: James Currey. Moradi, Alexander (2008) ‘Confronting colonial legacies—Lessons from human development in Ghana and Kenya, 1880–2000’, Journal of International Development, 20(8): 1107–1121. Mosely, Paul (1983) The settler economies: Studies in the economic history of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parsons, N. (1993) A new history of South Africa, London: Macmillan. Ranger, Terence (1983) ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in E. J. Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.) The invention of tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 211–262. Spear, Thomas (2003) ‘Neo-traditionalism and the limits of invention in British colonial Africa’, The Journal of African History, 44(1): 3–37. Van Waijenburg (2018) ‘Financing the African colonial state: The revenue of imperative and forced labour’, The Journal of Economic History, 78(1): 40–80.

6

The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985

The gate-keeping state’s economic policy built on a focus on exports as its primary source of revenue, and hence on production systems that delivered a surplus of export crops and natural resources. Its authority was greatest as regards matters relating to the import and export of goods and the control over the internal market channels, while it was weak as regards its ability to influence local production ­systems and local economic and social relations. During the 1950s–1970s the gate-keeper states continued to grow economically, but then weakened at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, revealing signs of structural weaknesses that were to lead to a crisis as the period ended. In an international perspective, WWII was followed by a period when the industrialised world experienced the highest rate of continuing growth in history. In the world at large, there was great confidence in the coming of both economic and political development. Post-war reconstruction and the improved standard of living in Europe and North America created a demand for African natural resources and export crops. Export incomes increased and contributed to ­economic growth. The colonial powers resumed and expanded their economic and social development projects and also bound their African colonies closer to the ­metropoles. The colonial administrations initiated both institutional and technical changes with the objective of increasing production of export crops and natural resources, thereby also increasing state revenues. In this favourable international climate, the period from 1950 to the mid-1970s was a time of economic growth and social development for Africa. Despite the great population increase at the time, GDP per capita in Africa increased annually by 2.4% per annum between 1950 and 1975. The social conditions were markedly improved as more and more people achieved literacy and gained access to higher education. Infant and child mortality declined and life expectancy increased. During this period of new opportunities, the Africans’ demands grew, first for improved standards of living and later also for political independence.

© The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_6

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The independence movement spread across the continent and the majority of countries became free during the 1950s and 1960s. With independence came major changes in the national and local power arenas. This political change was not, however, matched by economic transformation. Instead, the growth trend that had begun during the late colonial period continued with the same characteristics. Because of the favourable economic climate there were no real motive forces for restructuring of the g­ ate-keeping state or its economic policies. Instead, it continued to expand during the first decades of independence and, so long as capital flowed to Africa in the form of export earnings, private investments and aid, there was no pressure for reform. However, the early progress was followed by a severe economic crises that began in the late-1970s and continued for nearly two decades. It led up to major economic and social challenges which confronted the African gate-keeping state at the end of the 1980s. In most countries, national development strategies had failed to combine sound national finances with improvements in the citizens’ living conditions. The wealth of natural resources had in many instances proved a curse rather than a basis for sustained economic growth and development. There were also problems as the gate-keeping state in some instances supported leaders who gave proof not only of inadequate ability and autocratic ways but also of corruption. Independent African countries pursued different ideologies, economic strategies and development policies. It was a continent that demonstrated great variation as regards economic objectives and political ideals. While it took different routes, the outcome was the same in almost all countries and the economic crisis revealed the limitations of the gate-keeping state.

6.1 Early Growth During the 1950s, the economic commitment of the colonial powers to the African colonies grew. Many of the projects carried out were a continuation of the policy initiated by their administrations during the 1930s. At that time the economic situation had been strained due to the Great Depression and later WWII had forced the European colonial metropoles to give low priority to their colonies. Now the industrialised countries found themselves in a phase of economic expansion, with resources to invest in the colonies. The new ventures won support in a growing belief among economic theorists in state-led economic and social development and modernisation. Development theory arose as a new strand within economics in the mid-1950s and focused on analysing pre-conditions for, and barriers to, the emergence of long-term growth, economic development and national prosperity in pre-industrial economies. Ideologically, the early theories of development accorded well with the belief in the capitalist ideal and market economics that characterised the economic policy of the Western world and the colonial powers. Africa also experienced a period of demographic expansion which the colonial powers were forced to address. Population growth had begun to accelerate as early as the 1930s and 1940s, and during the 1950s it continued at an ever-increasing

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pace. Mortality rates were on the way down, thanks to improved standards of living, awareness of good hygiene, mass-vaccination projects and antibiotics. Meanwhile, the fertility rate remained at a high level. Population growth brought development challenges to a head. How were regions like sub-Saharan Africa going to manage to board the global train of welfare growth, and moreover to do so while maintaining rapidly growing populations? The answer seemed to lie in state-led development and this suited the gate-keeping state. The gate-keeping states of the 1950s were thus characterised by growing economic ambitions, but it would have been impossible to execute them without capital in the form of export earnings, loans and private investments. After the war and during the major period of economic growth in the industrialised countries the demand on the world market for African commodities and natural resources increased. Industry clamoured for raw materials and the increased wealth of the European and American populations made possible new and more expensive consumption patterns. The increased demand drove up the prices of African exports and in turn brought economic growth. Figure 6.1 shows the growth in GDP per capita in a number of African colonies during the 1950s. These examples are not unique but they show the general trend in the great majority of the African economies. The high growth was reinforced by colonial investments, for example in the form of infrastructure development or technical and institutional reform within

8000 7000

rgdpnapc

6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959

Year Angola

Côte d'Ivoire

Ghana

Nigeria

Senegal

South Africa

Mozambique

Fig. 6.1  Growth in GDP per capita during the 1950s in selected African colonies and states. NB *The Geary–Khamis dollar is a constructed currency unit that has been accorded the same purchasing power as a U.S. dollar in a given year (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 5.1, p. 188. Based on Angus Maddison [2008] Statistics of World Population, GDP and per capita GDP, 1-2006 AD. http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/)

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the agricultural sector, which created pre-conditions for increased production and commercialisation in existing production systems. The increased export incomes permitted further colonial investments, and the growth also attracted private investors, to a never previously witnessed extent. During the period 1880–1939 Great Britain gave development aid to its African colonies, amounting to almost USD600 million at 1960 monetary values. The corresponding sum for the period 1945–1960 was more than double, totalling just over USD1.2 billion. As regards France, payments grew from just under 700 million in the period 1880–1939, to 3.5 billion during the period 1945–1960, expressed in dollars at 1960 values, an increase of 500%. This shows that there were huge increases in development aid from the two leading colonial powers during the late-colonial period. Even though the increases were substantial, the sums were nevertheless relatively small. To put them in perspective, they may be compared with the USA’s Marshall Aid to Europe after WWII, which over a period of four years totalled approximately USD13 billion at the then current values, i.e. four times as much, to a smaller number of countries and over a shorter period of time.

6.1.1 Re-casting Production Systems While the great majority of farmers were only partially integrated in the market economy, there had emerged groups of Africans who profited from the colonial fixation with export crops and who could produce them quite as efficiently, frequently more efficiently, than could the larger farms controlled by Europeans. Cocoa farmers in the south of the Gold Coast (Ghana) and western Nigeria, palm oil producers along the coast of West Africa and coffee-growers on Kilimanjaro in Tanganyika (Tanzania) are examples of such successful small-scale agriculture. Their production of export crops produced income, both for the colonial ­administration and for themselves, which spread further via local markets. The farmers could spend their capital on food crops from local producers and employ a labour force. In that way, the export incomes trickled down to the domestic market (Photo 6.1). The farmers in these areas had contributed to an endogenous agricultural development and influenced the colonial market, yet without the aid of any direct government investments. They showed themselves to be open to changes in their production systems; they were innovative and reacted to technical development and institutional change, including market incentives. They cultivated a range of crops, depending on the economic situation and prices. Income from farming could be complemented by the wages earned by various family members or minor business activities. Unlike the majority of African small-scale farmers, they had the good fortune to live near the infrastructure network and markets, in places where they were not out-competed by favoured plantations. The groups of African farmers, whose production was market-oriented and small-scale, and who owned their own means of production, attracted the attention of the colonial administration in the 1950s and became a target for colonial financial ventures.

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Photo 6.1  Irrigation furrow constructed by small-scale coffee farmers in Meru, Tanzania (Source Private collection of Ellen Hillbom)

The rest, the great majority of Africa’s farmers, were instead described in the colonial rhetoric as “traditional”, in a negative sense, meaning that they were not regarded as capable of adopting new ideas, and their production methods were bluntly described as environmentally harmful. The view here was that the pre-conditions did not exist for this group to participate in endogenous dynamic processes. When the progressive African farmers, the new, prosperous and well-educated African elite and the white large-scale farmers forged ahead from the risk-minimising African smallholders, the financial and social divides in the rural areas widened. This inequality was one important element in the escalation of the protests against the colonial system and, eventually, of the demands for independence and liberty. Throughout the twentieth century, colonial and post-colonial governments in Africa discussed how African farmers’ access and right to farmland was to be regulated. Up to the 1950s, most colonial governments focused on mapping ownership systems and formalising the existing ownership structures under Customary Law. In the 1950s, there was a change in political direction and in a number of places there was a wish instead to introduce forms of private property rights among the African societies. Often the colonial authorities in Europe urged the colonial administrations to work towards individualisation of property rights. The underlying arguments were economic. The view was that, so long as the individual household did not own its farmland, the farmers would not carry out capital-intensive investments. Such investments were desirable because they were thought to lead both to a gain in productivity and to more sustainable farming. The best-known attempt to embark

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on privatisation came in the central provinces in British East Africa (Kenya), where a new form of ownership was introduced by the British authorities in the 1950s. Individual farm households were given the opportunity to register as owners of farmland. During the 1970s and 1980s, similar attempts spread to several countries, including Malawi, the Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal and Zimbabwe. In Chapter 5 we described how the colonial authorities relied on the export of natural resources and agricultural commodities as sources of revenue. Through their monopoly on the purchase of agricultural products the administration could set low producer prices and take out the difference between producer prices and world market prices as a tax on the agricultural sector. This form of indirect taxation of exported farm products was fundamental for the survival of the gatekeeping state. During the 1950s much of the colonial development aid was invested in efforts to increase agricultural production, chiefly in veterinary services and animal care, training agronomists and agricultural extension workers, founding cooperative societies and setting up a minor agro-processing industry, such as slaughterhouses. There are many examples of how the colonial administrations encouraged existing processes or initiated technical and institutional change. It could be a matter of supporting existing production systems that developed thanks to local efforts. Or major financial investments transforming small-scale local farming schemes with limited market connections into large-scale projects for cultivating export crops. In some of the most successful cases the colonial reforms and investments might in many ways seem elementary to the outside observer, but nonetheless made a major impact. When, for example, the British East African (Kenya) administration removed, in stages from the 1930s and onwards, the ban on c­ offee ­production by African farmers, the result was that a large group of producers could contribute to export earnings. The small-scale farms increased their production of coffee by 7.3% per annum during the period 1954–1964, which in turn meant a considerable increase in the colony’s export earnings. At the end of the period, these African small-scale farms had out-competed the large-scale European ­farmers and become the dominant producer group in the coffee sector. With deregulation came opportunities for the two different production systems ­(small-and large-scale farmers) to compete on more equal terms. Since small-scale farmers were more efficient in exploiting their production factors, above all land and labour, they became of economic importance and became more influential in the colonial power arenas. In Bechuanaland (Botswana) we find another example of the way in which colonial investments aimed to increase the contribution of existing production systems to the colonial gate-keeping state’s export earnings. In Lobatse, in the south, the British administration built a new slaughterhouse in 1954, which met the European sanitary and veterinary standards. At that same point in time, investments were made in a veterinary fence up in the north which would protect the colony’s cattle against wild animals carrying foot-and-mouth disease and cattle-plague. More veterinarians were appointed throughout the Protectorate. These investments meant that beef from Bechuanaland could be exported to Europe. Meat exports soon

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Photo 6.2  Cattle rearing in Botswana rural areas (Source Private collection of Ellen Hillbom)

became the Protectorate’s biggest source of income. It was above all the big cattleowners in the region who benefited from the colonial investments and who could increase the income from their cattle, their pasture and their water resources and thereby the value of the production factors capital and land. The small-scale cattleholders occasionally slaughtered animals in the village, for the local market and their production system remained fairly unchanged. The fact that the investments favoured large-cattle owners contributed to an increase in income gaps in the rural areas was nonetheless no problem for the gate-keeping state, so long as the export earnings increased and as long as increased stratification did not cause social unrest (Photo 6.2). There were also investments that had less successful results, such as the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme. After WWII food was rationed in Europe and this project was started in 1946, in an attempt to provide Great Britain with vegetable oil for cooking purposes. After certain preparations, the British Government established a fund of £25 million, to clear and cultivate an area of 607 km2 over a period of six years. The project was to be carried out in a region of central Tanganyika, where African farmers had long cultivated groundnuts. The project leaders contracted local farmers and the preparations began. From the very beginning, major problems were encountered, with equipment out of order, inadequate infrastructure, wild animals, flooding, heat, water shortage and so on. After great difficulty planting was done, but the harvest failed. It was a crop unsuited to the natural conditions in the area. In 1951 the project was discontinued. It had cost £49 million and the only result to be seen was that arable land had been cleared

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and devastated. The groundnut scheme lives on in history as one of the British administration’s greatest failures. Can we explain the differences between success and failure in the colonial ventures? Successes were basically achieved by supporting established production systems and producer groups that had already proven their worth. In the case of the groundnut scheme, the colonial administration’s overriding wish to increase its export revenues blinded the officials to the fact that the natural conditions were unsuited to this type of large-scale project in this region. It was one of many examples of officials who were incapable of assessing the potential of the local production systems. There was often overconfidence in the potential for intensifying existing farming methods. The colonial administrations assumed, in accordance with the ruling economic development theory, that there was additional suitable land in the African countryside that could be cleared without major additional costs. It was also assumed that the production factor of labour was under-exploited. What was needed in order to increase the profitability of labour and land was an injection of capital. This was, however, not a general truth valid for all existing local production systems. Labour was in reality seldom an under-exploited resource and there were many natural obstacles, in the shape of diseases, parasites, lack of water resources etc. that limited the potential for agricultural production In their eagerness to increase production of export crops the colonial administrations, in some of their projects, resorted to coercion and control of the labour force. In groundnut projects in both Niger and Nigeria, for example, there was extensive resettlement of the African labour force. In the colonial period as a whole, industrialisation projects were rare, indeed in many areas non-existent. With the exception of projects for mining gold, copper or other metals, the industrial sectors had very little success in attracting foreign investment. During the post-war economic growth there was an increase in European enterprise investments in manufacturing in tropical Africa. The mining industry became a driving force within the African industrial sectors and attracted investments from both administrations and private actors. The export of minerals was for the gate-keeping state an ideal source of income. The labour force and the production were contained in defined areas and hence were more readily managed than the farmers scattered around the countryside. This concentration and the focus on exports made it a sector that was readily taxed and also profitable. Other potential industrial sectors were not nearly as attractive to the colonial powers or private investors and in consequence, they found themselves short of capital. It was only in the exceptional cases of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) that the mining industry gave rise to a wide regional industrialisation process (see Chapter 5). The European colonial powers all had well-functioning modern industries in their home countries and wanted to create complements to them, not competitors. The colonies were to contribute cheap natural resources, agricultural products and basic processing, and thereafter to constitute a market outlet for European industrial products.

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6.1.2 Human Capital Formation and Labour Control Before the late colonial period, extremely little of the colonial resources had been invested in human capital, in people. Physical ill-health manifested itself in high infant mortality and low life expectancy. The proportion of the population who were illiterate was high and the educational level for the rest was very low. During the 1950s the colonial authorities began investing mostly in social development and, above all, in education. These efforts became a great challenge, due to the 1950s being a period of increasingly rapid population growth. During that decade the annual population growth in Africa as a whole rose to an average of 1.6%. Formerly it had been the Christian missionaries who pioneered Western education in Africa. Their aim was to create educated Christian African. During the decades before and after WWII, when the colonial administrations took over the missionary schools and developed a system of primary education, school attendance levels were very low. In 1949–1950 only 6% of children of school age went to school in French West Africa, in Nigeria, it was 16%, in British East Africa, 26% and in the Belgian Congo, 33%. Only 1–2% went to grammar schools. Only a small number of Africans had university degrees. At the end of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s, new universities were established in Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Senegal and several other places. For from everybody gained equally from these investments. Taken as a whole, the increased access to education nonetheless contributed to social mobility within and among African communities. In step with the population increase, economic growth and the increase in wage labour, the urban centres in Africa grew. During the 1950s, the overwhelming proportion of wage workers and urban dwellers were still men, above all young men who temporarily moved into the towns and subsequently returned to their villages. There were several reasons for gender segregation. The jobs on offer were regarded as being primarily suited to the male part of the population since they consisted of mining, railway construction, heavy industrial work and so on. In most colonies, there was also a significant increase, in the post-war period, in the number of women working in European-controlled agriculture. The move by male labour into the towns and the consequences for production systems in both urban and rural areas have been treated in Chapter 5. During the 1950s, more permanent urban population established itself and more and more women also moved to the towns, to work in different parts of the service sector as housekeepers, waitresses, cooks or prostitutes. The women often ended up in the informal sector, outside regulated wage labour. Urbanisation occurred largely outside the control of the colonial administrations. This uncontrolled move into the towns has been described as the difference between the regulated town, planned and dimensioned by the state, and the real town, the one that grew spontaneously. Towns such as Lagos (Nigeria), Dakar (Senegal) and Mombasa (Kenya) spread over the surrounding countryside

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and the boundaries between urban and rural were increasingly erased. During the 1940s and 1950s, the growing towns were a source of worry for the colonial authorities. It was more difficult to control the new urban population, which had in part freed itself from the well-established social structures found in the countryside. Varied efforts were made to control the wage workers and the labour migration into the towns. South Africa went furthest in this and the African population’s freedom to move within the national boundaries was greatly reduced. Urbanisation, a growing trade union movement and improvements in the conditions for wage labour during the 1950s were all part of a modernisation and consciousness process, in which Africans to an increasing extent demanded their rights. It thereby became part of the run-up to the coming demands for independence. Box 6.1 The Apartheid system in South Africa

In 1948 only white South Africans had the right to vote. The Afrikaners, or the Boers, were descendants of the Dutch colonisers. They comprised 60% of the white population, and they felt repressed, both by the British and by the African indigenous groups. That year’s election was won by the Nationalist Party. With a programme for racial segregation, it attracted, above all, electors among the Afrikaners. Two years later the apartheid system was formally introduced. Apartheid means “segregation” in Afrikaans and the system was a racial segregation policy for social organisation and labour control. The basic principle was to divide the population into four groups: white, black, Asian and coloured. The groups were categorised according to skin colour and ethnic origin. These four groups were to live and work separately from one another. Homelands or Bantustans were created for the population at different places within the boundaries of South Africa. These Bantustans were smaller territories given autonomy by the South African state, in which the blacks were to have their citizenship. There were enormous population transfers of the black population to different Bantustans. There, blacks were to have their healthcare, education, infrastructure and social networks. However, white South Africa still needed the black labour force and, for its part, the black population needed work opportunities outside their homelands. Therefore, on showing their labour passes blacks could travel between home and workplace, but otherwise, they could not move freely in South Africa. Effective control of the labour force was created. By day, the workers were allowed out of their Bantustans, in the evenings they went home again. The advantages for the white regime in South Africa was multiple. The state had full knowledge of the movements of the black population. In addition, it was difficult for the black population to rebel as people needed the jobs offered in the white economy. The poverty and the social problems were kept within in the Bantustans, thereby allowing the white population to live in an undisturbed and well-ordered world.

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On 21 March 1960, the police went on the attack against demonstrators who were protesting against the pass laws in the black residential area, Sharpeville, just outside the town of Vereeniging, in Transvaal State. The police fired live rounds, killing 69 people, of whom many were women and children. Because of the Sharpeville massacre, the rest of the world at last became aware of the apartheid system and demanded that it should be abandoned. South Africa then opted to leave the British Commonwealth and go its own way. Despite economic sanctions and international political pressure, apartheid remained unchanged until 1994 when majority rule was finally established in South Africa.

6.2 Independence The period over which the African states achieved independence stretched over three and a half decades. The struggle for it took different expression in d­ ifferent countries and was achieved in a variety of ways. It was a great, and important, event for the African populations to regain their self-determination. Although independence was a path-breaking political event we prefer to tone down its ­significance as a breaking point in the economic and social structures. After independence, new leaders came to power and that changed the balance in national, regional and local power arenas. The new leaders intensified the attempts to develop economic and social development strategies that had been started by the colonial gate-keeping states. The government investments were made primarily in sectors controlled by the state and in the urban areas, while the local production systems in the rural areas, as before, lay mainly outside state control. These production systems were expected to continue to produce for exports and the state continued, as hitherto, to tax them by controlling the flow of goods. In most instances the new leaders took over the existing state administrations and, even if there were reforms, they lived on as the gate-keeping states that had emerged under the colonial era.

6.2.1 The Prelude The protests in the African colonies against the colonial powers had emerged as early as the 1930s and 1940s. France and Great Britain, the two dominant colonial powers, adopted different strategies after WWII to meet this dissatisfaction. France did not wish to consent to independence and continued to try to get its African subjects to remain within “Great France”, la plus grande France. The goal was that the colonies should feel loyal to France, accept the French language and culture, and thereafter they opt to remain within the French empire. The French imagined that the best educated Africans were also most inclined to France and

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should be assimilated into the French political, social and cultural sphere. These hopes were to come to naught, only a very small minority ever became French citizens. Great Britain, for its part, understood that demands for independence would come, the only question being when. The planning for the handover of political power began as early as 1946, with the intention of giving their colonies freedom at the end of the Millennium. The British administrations were surprised by the subsequent rapid implementation of independence. The work to achieve increased exports and social development, and to prepare for independence, did not always match the demands made by the African population. In certain colonies, such as British East Africa, Tanganyika, Uganda and Southern Rhodesia, a significant part of the fertile land had during the colonial period been distributed to white landowners. In certain regions, this gave rise to a shortage of good arable land that the African population could cultivate. Conflicts of interest between white settlers and the African population resulted in political unrest from the 1920s onwards (see Chapter 5). During the 1940s and 1950s, the African populations continued to demand a redistribution of the land but they were opposed by the white minority. The protests by the African populations and attempts to solve the problems over the shortage of arable land for small-scale African farms produced no results. No major land reforms were carried out by the colonial administrations during the last decades of the colonial period. The power position of the European large-scale farmers was too strong to be threatened by the African small-scale farmers. Demands for a redistribution of the land lay behind one of the best-known armed uprisings in the late colonial period, namely the Mau-Mau rebellion in British East Africa in 1952–1956. It was the outcome of dissatisfaction among sections of the Kikuyu people in central Kenya. A majority of them had been forcefully moved and their land had been transferred to white farmers. Many became landless and lived as squatters on the land of white farmers or moved into Nairobi’s slum districts. The conflict over who was to control the production factor land divided the Kikuyu. The traditional leaders, the landowners and the growing middle-class in Nairobi wished to seek a solution through negotiations with the British administration, while the landless in the rural areas and the urban poor thought violence offered the only solution. The result of this split was that during the uprising it was chiefly various splinter-groups within the Kikuyu who committed violent acts against one another. Poor and compulsorily transferred Kikuyu were urged by their local religious leaders to attack those members of their own ethnic group who were regarded as supporters of the British administration. It has been calculated that 13,500 Africans, of whom the majority were Kikuyu rebels within the Mau-Mau movement, and 95 whites were killed during the uprising. In the Belgian colonies independence seems to be a non-question so long as the colonies continued to generate incomes. In the mid-1950s growth in the Belgian Congo began to stagnate, the Belgian state’s economic interest declined and it became aware of the new political trends post-WWII. The preparations for independence began and, although there were certain tensions between various regions in the colony, the general view was that the process was peaceful and should be

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allowed to mature. This long-term and politically calm process came to an end in 1959, when Belgium announced that independence was to be brought forward to the following year, and conflicts between Africans and Europeans in the colony flared up. Later in this chapter, we will return to the events in this explosive situation. Meanwhile, in contrast to Great Britain, France and Belgium, the military dictatorship in Portugal had no intention of giving up their colonial territories. This reluctance eventually forced the populations of Angola and Mozambique to take up arms and fight for their independence.

6.2.2 Political Ideologies The inter-war period in Europe had been characterised by the spread of liberal, socialist and communist ideologies. They stressed the equal value of all people and the end of a world where a few could freely rule over the many. After WWII the working class in Europe was politically stronger than ever before. It had neither the same interest in, nor the same view of, the empires as the old landowning class and financial elites had. The working class had very little to do with the empires and hence saw no reason to maintain them. The workers also felt solidarity with the anti-colonial struggle. They themselves opposed the economic and political establishment and supported liberty and equality, and it was thus natural for the trades union movements and labour parties to work for dissolving the empires. The middle class too gained increasing political influence and it often supported humanist ideals and democratic values. For example, it argued against coercion and oppressive conditions in the colonies. Both the working class and the middle class in Europe began to think that it was time to abolish the colonial empires. In Africa, the new ideological awareness constituted the basis for the struggle for independence, nation-formation and the development strategies of the new states. More and more members of the young African elite had received their education in Europe, for example, the future Presidents Seretse Khama in Botswana, Léopold Senghor in Senegal, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Hastings Banda in Malawi. There they had both come to know a quite different life-style and had been influenced by liberalism, socialism and communism. These future leaders, who had lived in the USA or Europe during the period before WWII, experienced what they considered to be marked double standards: the allies warmly advocated the right of all peoples to determine their own fate, yet did not respect that right in regard to the populations of their own colonies. The colonies were embroiled in the war and fought on the side of their respective colonial powers, yet African politicians, who wished to speak about self-government and the values of the colonised peoples, were censored. The political ideologies that broke through on the African continent, both during the decades leading up to independence and after independence, were very varied. They were sometimes anchored in well-considered conviction, sometimes

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in the optimum pursuit of the anti-imperialist struggle and at yet, other times were adapted to suit the hunt by individuals for personal advantage. There were also links of varying strength between political conviction and development strategies. Independent Tanzania under its first president, Julius Nyerere, is the clearest example of how the leaders’ socialist ideals resulted in economic planning strategies, investment in state-owned enterprises, the build-up of cooperative movements and social development, with investment in education and healthcare for the whole population. In other countries, such as Botswana, Kenya and Uganda, it was instead liberal political ideals that won out, and here the leaders adopted for economic strategies that were inspired by the capitalist market economy. Nonetheless, these capitalist economies remained hybrid in form, because the development of a free market clashed with the gate-keeping state’s economic interests and its need of revenues from purchasing monopolies. Later in this chapter, we will give a further account of concrete development strategies and also of how the ideologies were powerfully influenced by the international political game.

6.2.3 Break-Out Ghana gained independence in 1957 and, after South Africa (1910), it was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to do so. Subsequently, in rapid succession during the 1950s and 1960s, one country after another broke loose from the British and French Empires. The Portuguese colonies Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Angola followed later in 1974–1975. Last out was Namibia, which was a South African colony and became independent in 1990. Independence did not necessarily mean that it was the indigenous majority that ruled these countries. In South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, the colonial oppression was replaced by white minority governments. (Between independence in 1960 and majority rule in 1980 Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Rhodesia.) These countries too were after a while obliged to introduce majority rule, but in South Africa, this did not happen until 1994. In certain cases, independence was preceded by a war of liberation. In the Portuguese colonies Mozambique and Angola, the war of liberation was caused by the incumbent military dictatorship in Portugual’s refusal to give up its colonies. In Mozambique, the liberation movement, Frelimo, was formed in 1962 and from its base in the neighbouring country, Tanzania, carried out raids into its own country. In Angola there were three different liberation movements that for fully ten years fought for independence. It required the overthrow of the dictatorship in Portugal (1974) for the Portuguese colonies to be liberated. In those states in Southern Africa, where the white minority refused to share power with the indigenous majority, as in South Africa and Rhodesia, some form of organised armed liberation struggle was also fought. It is nevertheless important to recall that wars of liberation were exceptional. In most countries, the transition to independence took place peacefully, on the basis of negotiations and referendums.

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In some cases, unfortunately, independence was instead the beginning of a violent struggle for power. The violent civil wars and bloody coups d’état that we have witnessed for decades after independence, including in countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Mozambique have amounted to power conflicts between African groups within independent states. They have erupted after the colonial powers had withdrawn, when it had become time for the various African interest groups to unite around the governing of the new nation and to share resources among themselves. The desperation with which politicians, freedom fighters and warlords have fought either to retain or to acquire political power is a distinctive outcome of the gatekeeping state. The country lays just one enormous golden egg, namely the state revenues. Consequently, control of the state gives control over all the meaningful economic resources of the country. The majority of territories and colonial administrations were constructed in accordance with the idea of the nation state, and their national frontiers have survived independence movements, power struggles and civil war. When one compares maps of Africa’s colonial territories (see Map 4.4) with Africa’s independent states (see Map 6.1) one sees how little frontiers have changed. One exception is French West Africa where the colonial provinces have provided the basis for seven independent states—Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauretania and Senegal. The gate-keeping state’s need for export revenues as its principal source of income has contributed to the new leaders of the independent countries fighting to maintain their borders unchanged. In particular, it has been impossible for regions rich in natural resources or export crops to break away and form new independent states. That would deprive the existing state of revenues far too big to lose. In conflicts between different ethnic groups, focus has been on fighting to take over the state and gain control of the national power arenas, rather than fighting for regional self-determination and secession. These power struggles have in the Western world been stereotypically described as “ethnic wars”, in which the conflict has been about ethnicity, culture and religion, but we claim that they have rather been a matter of power struggles to control the economic resources that have been found within the gate-keeping state. There have, however, been occasional attempts at secession. The best known case is perhaps Biafra’s struggle for independence from Nigeria. Nigeria was a colony with many minorities, but above all with three big ethnic groups—Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani—that competed for power. The Igbo lived above all in the eastern parts of the country and were known for the high standard of education. The Yoruba controlled the western region. The Hausa-Fulani, who were the biggest ethnic group, lived in the north and, unlike the other two groups who were Christians, they were Moslems. Ever since independence in 1960 Nigeria had tried in various ways to balance and share the political power among the three ethnic groups. These attempts were unsuccessful and, after a number of military coups, political assassinations and ethnic cleansings, which above all bore hard on the

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168

TUNISIA

1956

MOROCCO

1956

ALGERIA

LIBYA

1962 CAPE VERDE

1951

EGYPT

1922

MAURETANIA

1975

1960

MALI

1960

1960

GAMBIA

1965

GUINEA BISSAU

1961

GUINEA

1960

1958

GHANA

BENIN

1960

1957 LIBERIA

1847

1993

1960

CHAD

BURKINA FASO

1974

SIERRA LEONE

ERITREA

NIGER

SENEGAL

TOGO

1960

IVORY COAST

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

1960

1968

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE

1975

SUDAN

1960

1956

DJIBOUTI

1977

NIGERIA

1960

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

ETHIOPIA

1960

CAMEROON

1960

UGANDA

RWANDA

1962

1962

GABON

1960

CONGO

1960

BURUNDI

TANZANIA

1962

1962

COMOROS

MALAWI WAVES OF INDEPENDENCE:

First wave – 1950s

1975

Fourth wave – 1980–90s

MADAGASCAR

ZIMBABWE

1962

1980

BOTSWANA

MAURITIUS

1966

Third wave – 1970s

1976

1975

1964 NAMIBIA

SEYCHELLS

MOZAMBIQUE

ZAMBIA

1990 Second wave – 1960s

1975

1964

ANGOLA

Before 1950

1960

1963

REPUBLIC OF CONGO

1960

SOMALIA

KENYA

1968 SWAZILAND

SOUTH AFRICA

1994

1968 LESOTHO

1966

Fifth wave – after 1990s

Map 6.1  Post-colonial Africa with year of independence (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 5.1, p. 203)

Igbo, the Igbo-controlled eastern part of the country determined in 1967 to declare the independent state of Biafra. This attempted secession was not accepted and, after three years of war, Biafra was forced to capitulate and return to being part of Nigeria. For the Igbo population, the Biafran war was a humanitarian catastrophy. They were surrounded and enclosed in a territory that continuously shrank, as the Nigerian forces advanced. The State of Biafra had no resources either to pursue the war or to feed the big flows of refugees. Domestic agricultural production collapsed and the catastrophic famine that ensued in Biafra attracted international attention. It was the first such African famine, precipitated by war, that was widely noted and brought in foreign aid.

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169

6.3 The International Political Game During the period 1950–1985 Africa’s integration in the global economy continued. Changes in the international power arenas affected the African continent both economically and politically. As parts of worldwide empires, the individual colonies had lacked a political voice. Yet as a group they were very significant because they represented economic gains and political status for their respective colonial masters. Africa’s colonial history is anything but isolated from the power struggle within Europe or between Europe and other parts of the world (see Chapters 4 and 5). Just as the conquest of this continent had partly been a consequence of geo-political concerns the independence movement was also affected by international relations. If we consider the global power relation at the time, the real significance of independence can be a matter of debate. Were the new African states free only in name? It is clear that in different ways they remained dependent on the industrialised world, for foreign investment, aid, loans and other economic assistance. At the same time, their political value increased with independence. Both Great Britain and France retained their economic connections with their former colonies and by means of trade agreements, for example, also took them along when they themselves joined in European cooperation. In international organisations such as the UN it was a political asset for the great powers, the USA and the Soviet Union, to have the independent African states as allies. In exchange for their loyalty they were given economic and military assistance. This was a new era with a different sort of empire-building. The slave trade had spread Africans all over the world and African populations within and outside the continent were part of an increasingly active international networks. During the twentieth century, Africans also became increasingly integrated within their own continent. As an element in the aspiration for liberty and the battle against racism it was important for all African independent of where they lived to take pride in their common origin and to seek different ways to cooperate, above all politically. This formed the basis of the growing pan-African movement.

6.3.1 The Cold War The USA had based a significant part of its identity on the campaign against Great Britain for independence. An early decision was also that economic and political influence was of greater value than territorial conquests. In consequence, the USA had an ideological, political and economic interest in the abolition of the European empires. As early as WWII Roosevelt, as president of the USA, had demanded that the European countries should offer their colonies independence. As the USA, the biggest democracy in the world, took over the role of international leader in the West from Great Britain after WWII, the biggest colonial empire in the world, it

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became politically unsustainable for the European colonial powers to retain their colonies. In addition, there was a growing group within the colonial administrations and among leading politicians in the colonial metropoles who saw that territorial dominance and administration were inefficient, economically irrational and politically unsustainable. It would be easier to operate through economical and political influence over independent African states. Decolonisation cleared the international playing field and the USA had a golden opportunity to advance its own positions and bind the new states to it by new ties of loyalty. But there was yet another super-power, the Soviet Union. Its contributions during WWII were decisive for the Allied victory and, like its antagonist the USA, it strengthened its position in relation to the European colonial powers. The powerful, state-led, industrialisation carried out by the Soviet Union impressed the developing countries and it became a model that many tried to imitate. Tsarist Russia had also been a colonial power, but its expansion went eastwards, overland, within the Asian continent. This colonisation differed from Western Europe’s conquest of geographically distant territories. Because the Russian Empire was not equally clearly identified as a classic colonial power, the Soviet Communist Party pulled off the trick of retaining its old empire and yet being ideologically anti-imperialist. Box 6.2 From Congo to Zaire

There are many examples from Africa that show both the enormous rift that existed between East and West in the 1960s and how Africa was one of the battlegrounds during the Cold War. One of the clearest examples are the events in the Congo. Until 1958, political calm ruled in the Belgian Congo. In Belgium, this was taken as proof that the future would be peaceful and that no special preparations for independence were needed. But in 1958–1959 increasingly deeper political rifts divided the country’s ethnic groups into differing camps. The greatest threat to a united Congo were the demands for secession by the province of Katanga. Enormous copper deposits had been found in Katanga and the Congo derived most of its export earnings from the sale of copper. This made it impossible for the Congolese state to accept the secession of this valuable province. Internal strife between Congolese, insurrection against continued Belgian military presence and acts of revenge against the white population created violence and great uncertainty. A charismatic politician, Patrice Lumumba, emerged during this anxious period and managed to ensure his position as future prime minister. Only days after the official Independence Day in June 1960, chaos broke out in the country, when a number of different groups staged an uprising. The conflict between Belgium and the newly created Congo State escalated. In Katanga, the politicians continued to call for independence and civil war seemed imminent. The UN and its then Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, were called in by the new Congolese regime to mediate in the conflict but were unsuccessful. Lumumba accused the UN of running the errands of Belgium and the USA. He already sympathised, ideologically and

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politically, with the Soviet Union and in his disappointment turned to the eastern superpower. He asked for Soviet assistance and military presence as he was planning, with the aid of Soviet arms and military personnel, to drive out the UN, crush Katanga’s attempt to become independent and take control of the country. Since Congo was strategically situated in Central Africa and the region was very rich in raw materials, the Soviet presence alarmed the strategists in the USA. Within the CIA, and with indirect encouragement from president Eisenhower, plans began to be made to get rid of Lumumba. In September 1960, the army commander, Col. Joseph Mobutu carried out a coup d’état. The Soviet troops were ordered to leave Congo. The Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, accused the UN of discrediting the Soviet Union and obeying the USA’s interests. In turn, Hammarskjöld suspected the Soviet Union of trying to set up a power base in Africa and regarded it as his duty to prevent this. Mobutu subsequently handed power to Kasavubu who became the President of Congo. Kasavubu deposed Lumumba on September 14, 1960 and put him under house arrest. Lumumba’s supporters nonetheless continued to demand that he should be set free. Kasavubu therefore decided that Lumumba should be transferred to the Province of Katanga, which was governed by Lumumba’s enemies. On January 17, 1961, Lumumba and his military escort landed in Katanga, he was put in a military jeep and disappeared forever. Subsequent investigations have shown that he was killed by local soldiers from Katanga, together with Belgian Special Forces. Probably both Mobutu (who was governing Congo from the wings) and the CIA were informed about this action, even though they took no active part in the killing. Mobutu carried out his next coup d’état in 1965. This time he remained in power and during his reign, the country became known under the name Zaire. For at least three decades he had political and financial aid from the USA and was one of its most important African allies. After the major wave of independence in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s, the former colonial balance of power was replaced by the new balance of power between West and East, between capitalism and communism. The power struggle between the USA and the Soviet Union, the Cold War, was fought out worldwide, including in Africa, by economic and political means. In Africa, there were many new leaders who declared themselves as ideological supporters of either the one or the other camp, either by conviction or for base interest, whether financial or political (see Map 6.2). The Cold War was not only a matter of political and military support, but also of economic support. The political alliances created the conditions for foreign investments and a welcome injection of capital that assisted maintenance of the gate-keeping states. During the 1980s, the “dividends” from the Cold War gradually diminished. The Soviet Union and the Eastern European states had their own economic problems, which meant that they had less to offer their

6  The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985

172

TUNISIA

1962–69

MOROCCO

ALGERIA

LIBYA

1965–92

1969–

EGYPT

1953–70

CAPE VERDE

MAURETANIA

1975–90

MALI

1960–68

ERITREA

NIGER GAMBIA

SENEGAL

GUINEA BISSAU

GUINEA

CHAD BURKINA FASO

1958–78

1975–90

GHANA

SIERRA LEONE LIBERIA IVORY COAST

SUDAN

1983–87

1961–66 1981–87

DJIBOUTI

NIGERIA BENIN

TOGO

ETHIOPIA

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

1974–91 CAMEROON

1976–91

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE

1970–77

KENYA

RWANDA

GABON

1975–90

SOMALIA

UGANDA

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

ZAIRE BURUNDI

CONGO

1963–69 (socialist) 1969–91 (Marxist)

TANZANIA

1962–85

ANGOLA

SEYCHELLS

MALAWI

1975–91

COMOROS

ZAMBIA

1964–91 MADAGASCAR

1975–93

RHODESIA NAMIBIA IDEOLOGICAL CONVICTION:

MAURITIUS BOTSWANA

Socialist regime

MOZAMBIQUE

1975–89

Marxist regime

SWAZILAND SOUTH AFRICA

LESOTHO

Capitalist regime

Map 6.2  Africa’s ideological distribution during the Cold War (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 5.2, p. 211)

African allies. China focused increasingly on its own economic growth. When the Communist bloc became economically less active, the Western world’s interest in investing in Africa also declined. The African gate-keeping states thereby lost important sources of income, at the same time as they were threatened by a growing economic crisis, from the mid-1970s. We will deal with this topic in more detail at the end of this chapter. Can one detect trends in the ideological divisions within the African continent? Are there patterns that help us understand in which camp, East or West, different independent African states landed? Only very crude generalisations can be made and we must acknowledge that there are exceptions. The ideologies that

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173

characterised the political group that led the endeavours to achieve liberty were often the ideology subsequently in the lead after independence. In those cases where the independence movement was led by representatives of an already established African elite, there prevailed a favourable attitude to the economic and political system that existed in the old colonial powers in Western Europe. It was in other words likely that such a country would adopt capitalism and liberal policy. Examples of such countries are Botswana and Kenya. In those cases where the struggle for liberation had been led by trades union leaders and/or middle-class intellectuals, it was more common that social democratic ideas had taken root and there was sympathy either with social democratic countries in Europe, such as Sweden or with the Eastern bloc. Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and Sékou Touré in Guinea are, respectively, examples of such leaders and countries. In Southern Africa, where independence came late or where white minority regimes long held on, it required an organised, more or less military, struggle to force the emergence of majority rule. This armed struggle became more revolutionary and inspired by socialist and communist ideology. The African National Congress, ANC, in South Africa, Zimbabwe African National Union, ZANU, in Southern Rhodesia, and Movimento Popular de Libertacão de Angola, MPLA, in Angola, all received support from the Soviet Union during their long struggle for liberation. For many African countries it was the anti-imperialist struggle that was the basis of the economic and political strategies. The earlier colonies around the world had much in common as regards the colonial legacy and the struggle for independence. During decades of striving for liberty, solidarity among the developing countries in all continents was important. Since these countries were poor and had many internal problems to tackle, this solidarity was, however, of limited practical significance. There were only a few countries that transformed solidarity and revolutionary rhetoric into practical action. China and Cuba are two examples of countries which sent soldiers to Africa. Both countries were involved in Congo, where they unsuccessfully supported different fractions of old Lumumba sympathisers, who continued to resist president Mobutu after the death of Patrice Lumumba (see Box 6.2). Angola constitutes a good example of how the struggle for liberation could constitute a power arena in which multiple international interests attempted to assert themselves and to procure future advantages. During the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s there developed three rebel armies in Angola: Movimento Popular de Libertacão de Angola (MPLA), Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) and the Unita guerilla force (União Nacional para a Indepêndencia Total de Angola). All these had foreign economic and military support. The MPLA had allied itself with the Soviet Union and Cuba and grew into the communist alternative. The FNLA was supported by Mobutu in the neighbouring Congo, by South Africa, the CIA and China. Also, the Unita guerilla received military assistance from China, the USA and South Africa. The MPLA finally emerged victorious and assumed power (1976) and with that Angola came to belong in the communist/socialist sphere of interest.

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6.3.2 Pan-Africanism A further movement that influenced the political agenda in Africa was the work for African solidarity. Within the pan-African movements, there was a wish to show unity, not only among African countries but also in the African diaspora, that is to say, Africans who for various reasons, primarily through the slave trade, had been spread around the world. The old African ideal of cooperation based on kinship and building on consensus within the group should be honoured and constitute the basis for future strategies. A number of African leaders had great hopes about what the African culture and mentality would mean for future development strategies. Tanzania’s future president, Julius Nyerere, spoke of African solidarity in contrast to Western individualism. Setting up cooperation among the new African states, and thereby uniting the African continent, was regarded as the right path to development. In 1963, a meeting was held in Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia, among representatives of 30 African states. During it the Organization of African Unity, OAU, was created. The greatest advocate for a united Africa was Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah. When the OAU was formed he wanted to go much further, to create a United States of Africa, seeing himself as the new giant nation’s leader. However, no other head of state supported Nkrumah’s plans. Even though they were in favour of African cooperation, no-one wanted to give up the newly-won national self-determination. The OAU’s chief goal was to work for unity and solidarity among independent African states and for freedom and majority rule in those states that were still governed by white minorities. Further, it worked to spread human rights in the African states and to raise Africans’ living standards. The OAU also took on the responsibility to mediate among African countries, while maintaining the policy of not interfering in the internal affairs of others. This did not accord well with reality since the great conflicts on the African continent played out within states and not between them. It united the African states in other organisations, for example in the UN. It set up reception of organisations for receiving refugees and founded the African Development Bank (1964) to support various development projects throughout the continent. The organisation has nevertheless been criticised for not having stepped in, to defend Africans against the injustices committed by their own leaders. Apart from the OAU, which was primarily about political cooperation, there were also clear regional economic ambitions within the broad pan-African movement. The old French colonies in West Africa formed the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, where they cooperated primarily on financial and banking matters. As early as 1945, they created a common currency, the CFA-franc, which was given a fixed exchange rate, tied to the French franc. In East Africa Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda formed the East African Community, a cooperation project with roots going back into the colonial period. The first attempt lasted only for ten years (1967–1977), however, after which it collapsed, because of the inequitable allocation of resources among its members and

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because of political confrontations with Idi Amin1 in Uganda. In Southern Africa the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference, SADCC, was set up in 1980, after several years of discussion. The SADCC consisted of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (see also Chapter 7).

6.4 Expansion and Changes of the Gate-Keeping State During the 1960s and 1970s, international demand for African natural resources and agricultural commodities remained high. Investments in new technology had been made during the end of the colonial period and this continued after independence, including limited support to manufacturing. The technical innovation combined with growing demand stimulated increased production and exports. After independence, the colonial administrations’ investments were compensated by aid agreements and advantageous trade treaties with former colonial powers as well as other countries. Thanks to the inflow of capital from exports, private investments and aid, the gate-keeping state was able to achieve both economic growth and social development. This trend was sustained by favourable external factors and was not based on endogenous dynamic processes. When the capital inflow began to peter out, under the impact of the global economic crisis in the mid-1970s, the most important economic foundation of the gate-keeping state also vanished. When the growth tailed off, the structural problems of this form of state apparatus were revealed, and its limitations developed into a serious threat to its own existence.

6.4.1 The Golden Age of Small-Scale Agriculture The majority of independent African states continued to conduct an agricultural policy resembling that of the colonial authorities in the 1950s. The international economic boom sustained high demand for cash crops, including from Africa. The gate-keeping states lived on, unthreatened. The continuing high profitability of export agriculture made it rational for the state to maintain its harsh taxation of the agricultural sector. The first decades of independence were, however, not simply a period when agriculture was taxed but also a time when the expanding African gate-keeping states continued to bank on technical reform in agriculture. In Swaziland, for example, the state stimulated the sugar industry by offering improved machines and chemical insecticides etc. to new plantation enterprises. Most countries

1Idi

Amin was the dictator of Uganda 1971–1979. He was deposed by Ugandan rebels acting together with Tanzanian army officers. During his rule he persecuted and murdered hundreds of thousands of people, political opponents and members of the acholi and lango ethnic groups.

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invested in varying degrees in the training of small-scale farmers and in subsidies for various farm inputs such as chemical fertilisers, improved seeds, pesticides and so on. We can illustrate this by a number of specific examples. The Meru area in north-western Tanzania is one of a number of regions where small-scale farmers grow coffee. The export incomes from coffee had been important for the colonial administration and they continued to be of great significance for the Tanzanian independent state. During Nyerere’s era of African socialism the monopoly on buying the farmers’ production was transferred from the colonial purchasing monopoly to cooperatives. The system of coffee cooperatives prevented the emergence of competing enterprises. The farmers sold coffee to a fixed price set by the state. The state also used the cooperatives to sell subsidised input goods to the coffee-producing farmers. In that way, the small-scale farmers could also benefit from the monopoly. The new investments and the technical change affected production systems. The increased access to capital that was invested in farming led to continued increase in production, increased value in the production factor land, the spread of commercialisation and greater incomes for small-scale farmers. The changes and reforms in farming systems applied above all to technology, while the institutional structures changed less. Only in a few places did the independent states enforce institutional change in the form of a redistribution of property rights to land. In Tanzania, collectivisation of the land was driven through during the 1970s, but in former settler colonies like Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa, where the differences in landownership were greatest, there were no comprehensive land reforms before the mid-1980s. There were, however, examples of other institutional reforms. In Kenya, the bans on tea and coffee production by African small-scale farmers, which had been introduced during the colonial time to protect the economic interests of the white plantation-owners, had been successively lifted starting in the 1930s and was finally removed in the 1950s. Legislations were also developed. For example, Botswana introduced its first national legislation on water in 1968. Water was a specially strained resource in that country, with its dry climate and major areas of drought. During the colonial period the rural population had distributed water resources on the basis of customary law but, especially in and with the independent state’s efforts to develop both the mining industry and the cattle sector, a unified juridical framework was needed. The investments and the technical reform brought results insofar as agricultural production increased, albeit modestly and in varying degrees, in different countries. Even though investments were made, they were at a low level in relation to the taxation of the sector through taxes, duties and low producer prices. The investments that were made in agriculture focused on increasing surplus production of both export crops and food crops. Table 6.1 shows the value of agricultural production per capita in a selected number of African countries where agricultural products accounted for most export earnings. Although these economies were agricultural based, the value of production in the period 1960–1985 was modest. The table shows that the investments may have had a limited effect in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as production

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Table 6.1  Agricultural production value per capita in selected African countries 1960–1985 (in 2010 year USD) 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

Ghana

71

112

115

134

234

156

Ivory Coast

67

91

93

157

329

185

Kenya

35

32

44

76

126

88

Malawi

20

28

24

43

81

62

Senegal

58

57

58

126

105

102

166

127

133

176

225

44

50

95

160

118

Argentina Thailand

37

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 5.1, p. 217 Based on World Bank Indicators (2018)

increased modestly in countries such as Kenya, Malawi and Senegal, while it went better for the Ivory Coast and Ghana. These and other African countries had a fundamental problem in that they started from a low level, which made it difficult to reach high production figures, irrespective of improvement rates. In an international comparison, in this case, represented by Argentina and Thailand, we can see that Africa does well in relation to Thailand, but falls behind Argentina. While food production stagnated or even declined, there was a major increase in the population in the mid-twentieth century. Many from the growing populations moved into the towns. With urbanisation the number of consumers increased in relation to the number of potential producers living in the countryside. The result was that sub-Saharan Africa became a net importer of food crops during the 1970s. During the period 1970–1985 the population increased twice as quickly in relation to food production. Over time, one country after another was obliged to take on debts in order to be able to buy food for its citizens. Their increasing need to import food became an important reason why, by degrees, they landed in debt crises in the 1980s. We have here given a rather general picture of the evolution of agricultural production in African countries during the early period of independence. There were, of course, big variations and also extreme cases. One of the most noted investments in agriculture during the decades after independence, which had also been carefully planned, was enforced by president Nyerere, in Tanzania. As distinct from the majority of African leaders, Nyerere argued that it was of the utmost importance that agriculture should be developed at the grass-roots level, in order to be able to supply the poor rural population, who were growing in number. Nyerere considered it unrealistic to expect miraculous economic growth in Tanzania. In 1967 he launched a political manifesto, the Arusha Declaration, in which he laid down that Tanzania’s development should proceed on the basis of self-sufficiency rather than the achievement of major export earnings. Underlying it were the needs of the poor rural dwellers that not only constituted a large majority of

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the population, but also comprised the very poorest, who were in greatest need of improving their livelihoods. Development was a matter of the poor being able to ensure their own upkeep. The task of the state was to control and guide the major national means of production and to distribute the earnings to all. The core of his agricultural policy was to create villages where the rural population was to be gathered together. This rural policy was in Swahili termed ujamaa, which may freely be translated as “extended family”. The village should be like an African family in which the means of production were shared and people helped one another. This vision was based on the state’s provision, in all ujamaa villages, of infrastructure, clean water, healthcare, education and access to modern agricultural technology. By gathering producers, the means of production, technology, equipment and the provision of social benefits in one place, farming productivity would increase. In addition to private farmland, there should also be large areas of common land, farmed jointly by the whole village, where everyone might benefit from the advantages of scale. The increasing productivity, together with the state investments, would lead to higher living standards, and the village communities would be a guarantee that this development went hand in hand with an even distribution of resources. The rural population’s interest in the ujamaa villages was nonetheless limited. In mid-1973 only two million people, 15% of the rural population, lived in them and in many, there was no collective agriculture. The ujamaa experiment showed, however, that Tanzanian small-scale farmers were not interested in collectivisation and that the existing production systems were founded on individual farming of the land. Nyerere became impatient and at the year’s end, he announced that the remainder of the rural population would be forcibly moved during the next three years. Between 1973 and 1977 about 11 million people were moved, which was the biggest individual mass-movement of people in Africa’s history. In the end, 90% of the rural population lived in ujamaa villages. This movement was followed by a redistribution of the land and farmers were separated from their old plots. The result of the forceful redistribution of land and labour was a drastic fall in agricultural production. The antagonisms and problems associated with the institutional reform that ujamaa entailed could not be outweighed by any advantages of technical reform and social development in the villages. Instead of becoming selfsufficient, Tanzania became wholly dependent on the import of food crops and foreign aid. Only a small proportion, 5%, of total agricultural production came from cooperative agriculture. The Tanzanian state was incapable of changing the local institutional conditions in a sustainable way. The intentions were good, the policy was in place, but the newly created, state-supported, formal institutional change did not accord with the farmers’ production systems, informal institutional structures or wishes. In the absence of consensus, the state lacked the tools to force its policy through, against its own population. The Arusha Declaration, the ujamaa villages and the whole agricultural scheme were a failure. That is shown inter alia by the fact that real incomes in Tanzanian household declined by fully 50% between 1973 and 1984. Exactly as in other

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gate-keeping states, the state was dependent on export incomes; in Tanzania, they came largely from the farming sector. The collapse of the farming sector undermined the economy as a whole. Ironically enough it was another country, which had no deliberate state agricultural investment, where the most successful development in agriculture occurred after independence. Instead of seeking to diminish its ties with its former colonial masters and to strengthen its independence (as Tanzania did), the Ivory Coast had continued to cooperate very closely with France, on which it was dependent for aid, investments and technical expertise. In agriculture, there was a vigorous upturn in production and productivity during the 1960s and 1970s. New agricultural land was cultivated, coffee production doubled and cocoa production tripled. The production of food crops also increased, not merely in absolute terms but also per capita. Total agricultural production tripled, which was chiefly the result of a larger surplus produced in small-scale agriculture. But there were also big plantation owners. For example, the president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, became one of the leading cocoa producers in the country and earned a great amount of money. In the mid-1970s, the world market prices of coffee and cocoa were favourable. Since the Ivory Coast was the largest cocoa-producer in the world and Africa’s biggest exporter of coffee, the state had big export revenues. The expanding agricultural sector and the extensive export brought major returns to the gate-keeping state through taxation. That led in turn to major expenditures on large-scale capital investments and a big state administrative system was established. These were projects that, strictly speaking, the country could ill afford, and certainly not during the second half of the 1970s when cocoa and coffee prices eventually fell. A small political elite, led by Houphouët-Boigny, controlled the state and, thus also its earnings from agriculture. They took the opportunity to enrich themselves, both through their own plantations via state funds. Growth was accompanied by corruption and increasing income gaps, and no investments in development for the great masses were made. The Ivory Coast was a gate-keeping state which lacked the ambition to generate benefits for the population by means of social investment. The growth was an effect of the rise in raw material prices on the world market. When that tailed off, the positive growth enjoyed at the outset was brought to nothing. What can we learn from these two concrete examples? They are largely one another’s opposites, but the end result was nonetheless the same: an over-dimensioned and corrupt state apparatus that embezzled resources that should have been invested in agriculture. In the end, the farmers had no incentive to produce a surplus production either of cash crops or of food crops. Nyerere’s integrity, understanding for the significance of the agricultural sector and investment in infrastructure, healthcare and education, aimed at the poorer part of the rural population is easy to understand. However, the forced removal of people and top-down institutional change proved to be a failure. The Ivory Coast leaders were corrupt and wholly uninterested in the agricultural sector as a whole, and they overinvested public funds in excessively large national projects, such as power-station dams and ports. The modest state involvement in agriculture resulted nevertheless both in lower taxation and greater scope for market forces. The Ivory Coast also

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had good fortune, since at that time its major export crops had high world market prices. When these high prices were combined with a more deregulated agricultural sector it resulted in high producer prices and hence an incentive for farmers to produce a surplus. This is where the key to the temporary success lay: farmers who learned of high producer prices and were well paid for their individual work, reacted by increasing their production. Eventually prices will decline and production will fall. The growth of the agricultural sector will halt if the markets have not been able to promote institutional change during the booming years. Both countries show the gatekeeping state’s inability and, in the case of the Ivory Coast, lack of interest, as regards interacting with, and giving incentives to, profitable local production systems. In Tanzania’s case, it was the national policy that undermined functioning production systems by its attempts to reallocate the production factors. In the Ivory Coast, it was the downturn in world market prices that strangled the success of export agriculture. The export revenues supported the gate-keeping states and so long as it remained, there was no structural reform that might have served as the basis for an agricultural reform process. The economic failure of the agricultural sector contributed to the undermining of the gate-keeping state and was a step along the road towards its future decline and change.

6.4.2 Attempts to Industrialise After independence, the new African leaders became significantly more interested in promoting industrialisation than had been the case during the colonial period. The common final objective of the majority of African leaders and development economists was to leave the agricultural economy behind. Development theory in the 1950s and 1960s regarded industry as the natural mainstay of a modern economy and the guarantor of high productivity, employment opportunities and sustainable growth. Industrialisation was regarded not only as the path to consistent growth but also to modern social and political development. Mainstream development theory also carried the message that development and modernisation were possible for all countries. It was assumed that the developing counties could follow the same development curve, albeit at much faster paste. Thanks to better access to knowledge, capital and technology, the developing countries should be able to catch up with the already industrialised states. The process had to be state-led because only the state had adequate resources to drive a powerful and rapid industrialisation process. During the decades after independence, there were a number of countries throughout Africa which made unsuccessful attempts to industrialise. In Ghana, for example, Nkrumah tried to build up an industry to produce and process aluminium. Since Ghana lacked the expertise and technology it turned to multinational companies, a strategy that put a considerable part of the nation’s economy in their hands. In the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa was still the only African country that had succeeded in carrying outlasting, even if modest, industrialisation (see Chapter 5).

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The increasing demand for African natural resources and export crops during and after WWII enable the manufacturing to grow at an even faster pace. The major economic boom came in the 1960s, when industry grew very strongly. During that decade, the industrial sector’s contribution to GDP increased by 10% per annum. The assembly industry for passenger cars and lorries accounted for a major part of the growth and during the 1970s the arms industry also developed. Like other African countries, South Africa experienced a prolonged recession during the 1970s and 1980s, and it seriously needed to restructure the whole economy. Domestic demand fell, production costs increased and there was no investment. Exports were also restrained by international sanctions because of the apartheid system. The dominant industries on the continent, generally speaking, was extractive industries, i.e. mining. Africa had enormous assets of raw materials: uranium in Niger, oil in Nigeria and Gabon, diamonds in Botswana, iron in Liberia and Mauretania, phosphate in Togo and so on. These assets gave the extractive industry such a boost that the sector grew by an average of 7.2% per annum over the period 1965–1980. The problem was that these industries had a limited effect on the economy as a whole. The linkages between extractive industries and the rest of the economy were weak. They provide limited employment opportunities, limited demand for locally produced manufacturers and profits are often placed in banks abroad. The independent African states tried in various ways to encourage and protect emerging domestic industries. They made use of regulated protective duties, i.e. they put high import duties on certain products manufactured in their own industries and low duties on the input products which the industry demanded. This strategy is termed import substitution industrialisation, ISI. This strategy was also used by the Pacific Asian countries and Latin America. The advantages and disadvantages of ISI are debatable. At the outset, it is positive for the industry to be protected by import duties, since that provides opportunities to develop domestic production, without external competition. The duties make imported goods more expensive for consumers as compared with domestic goods. But if the domestic industry is protected too long, it gives rise to problems, because it never needs to become competitive on the global market. ISI is tempting, since it gives states the opportunity to diversify their economy and to industrialise. The question is whether it can constitute the basis for long-term sustainable industrialisation. The strategy was applied by all African countries to different extents, independently of whether the economic system was capitalist or socialist. It was well suited to the early policies of gate-keeping states, which used import and export duties and monopoly taxes to secure revenue by controlling the flow of goods. There was, however, also an ideological or political aspect in this. Attempts at industrialisation, the ISI policy and the importance of being able to produce domestic industrial goods were all part of the battle to achieve economic independence of the industrialised world. The attempted ISI policy in Africa did not last long since the global economic crisis in the late-1970s and 80s forced changes. It is therefore difficult to give

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an unequivocal account of whether it was a failure or not. Figure 6.2 shows that Kenya, with its ISI policy succeeded in maintaining and even raising the industrial sector’s share of GDP during the period 1960–1985. The outcome in Kenya does not seem very impressive, but we may compare it with Ghana, since the economies of both countries were highly dependent on the production of cash crops and their industrial sectors were of equal size in relation to their GDP during the 1960s. Ghana shows a significantly worse result over the period 1975–1985. South Africa, maintained a high and relatively even level. A final example is Mauritius, where one of the most carefully considered investments in industry in Africa was started during the period 1960–1985. Here, they began in the 1980s to imitate the Pacific Asian export-oriented model. The greatest investments and successes were in the textile industry. But despite progress in a few countries, the manufacturing sector remained small across the continent as a whole. When the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s hit, most parts of Africa experience de-industrialisation.

6.4.3 Welfare Schemes and Urbanisation Although the colonial administrations had devoted increasing resources to human capital during the 1950s, education and healthcare had lagged behind during the colonial period as a whole. All the African countries realised from the very outset of independence that it was necessary to invest in the development of both these sectors. They were inescapable and fundamental investments in their own 80 70

Percent

60 50 40 30 20 10 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

0

Botswana

Ghana

Kenya

Maurius

South Africa

Zambia

Fig. 6.2  The industrial sector as a proportion of GDP in selected countries, 1960–1985 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 5.2, p. 224. Based on World Development Indicators [2009])

6.4  Expansion and Changes of the Gate-Keeping State

183

people. During the decades 1950–1990 average life expectancy on the continent increased from 39 to 52 years. This was above all a result of the declining infant mortality rates. Over the years 1960–1990 the infant mortality rate fell from 284 deaths per 1000 children born, to 175 deaths. In the mid-1970s the average for the continent was that approximately 27% of all children died before they reached 5 years. These were nonetheless significantly better figures than had been the case a couple of decades earlier. The major explanations for the declining mortality rate in general, and specifically infant and child mortality, were that massvaccination schemes limited the effects of many epidemic diseases and that cheap synthetic drugs that had been developed were widely distributed and it was possible to combat diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, measles, pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea. The diseases that affected children worst. The falling infant and child mortality was also connected with investments in education, especially for women and mothers. Education was highly prioritised by all independent African states. It was a sector in which the colonial administrations had made certain efforts but which nonetheless lagged far behind. When Kenya became independent there were 900,000 children in schools for elementary education, 30 years later the figure was 5.5 million. The provision of grammar school and university education also increased. Nevertheless, the number of people with higher education was very limited, which created further problems for the new independent national administration. In Botswana there were only about ten university-educated Africans at the time of independence in 1966. Education authorities were built up throughout the African continent in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Table 6.2 shows the enrollment of kids and young adults to schools and higher education. Closely integrated with the development of healthcare and education was urbanisation, since it was above all in the urban centres that new schools and hospitals were built. Urbanisation greatly increased during the period 1960–1985 in most African countries. In 1960, 15% of all Africans lived in towns, in 1975 the figure was 20% and in 1990, 30%. The degree of urbanisation and the rate of increase differed from country to country. We can follow the progress of urbanisation in Fig. 6.3. The diagram shows a selection of Africa countries. There are examples of countries that are least urbanised, such as Tchad and Mali, as well as South Africa which was the most urbanised during this period. It is worth noting, as regards South Africa, that the level of urbanisation was constant. This stagnation can be traced back to the strict control of African labour under apartheid, and the requirement that the workers must live in special reserves and could not freely move into the towns. The diagram also includes Zambia, where urban areas around the mining industry developed early, and Nigeria, which had the biggest population in Africa. From these examples we can see that, as of 1985, the greater part of the population in the African countries still lived in rural areas, despite the strong trend towards urbanisation. The urbanisation process coincided with the increase in population and that meant that the increase in urban dwellers was significantly larger in absolute figures than in relative figures. The challenge from a growing urban population that could organise itself politically forced first

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184

Table 6.2  Percentage of school-age children enrolled in education in sub-Saharan Africa, 1960–1980 Elementary school Year

Boys

Girls

Total

Supplementary education (aged 11–18) Boys Girls Total

1960

54.4

32.0

43.2

4.2

2.0

3.1

0.4

0.1

0.2

1970

62.3

42.8

52.5

9.6

4.6

7.1

1.3

0.3

0.8

1980

88.7

70.2

79.

2.2

12.8

17.5

2.7

0.7

1.7

Higher education (grammar school) Men Women

Total

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 5.2, p. 226 Based on re-calculations of Frederic Cooper (2002) Africa since 1940, p. 111, Table 1

60 50

Percent

40 30 20 10

1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

0

Cameroon

Chad

Mali

Nigeria

South Africa

Zambia

Fig. 6.3  Percentage of people living in towns in selected African countries, 1960–1985 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 5.3, p. 227. Based on World Development Indicators Online [2009])

the colonial administration, and then the independent African states, to take seriously the conditions of the urban population including the wage workers. It became a strategy to favour the urban population at the expense of the farmers. By holding producer prices down by various forms of purchasing monopolies and by subsidising consumer prices in towns, the political leaders could afford to damp down the outbreaks of discontent among the urban population. When these leaders acted in national and local power arenas they themselves belonged to the urban population. Both the colonial administration and the independent state apparatus were urban based and consisted of people who identified themselves with urban life. When they prioritised the towns, they also prioritised themselves and

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their own life-style. The division between town and country were part of the ­gate-keeping state’s problem in interacting with its own population. The state was relatively strong in the urban areas but weak in the countryside, where social networks and patrons had to serve as economic safety nets. In return, rural local authorities could gain positions of economic and political power and thereby challenge the state.

6.5 The Limitations of the Gate-Keeping State During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the African gate-keeping state expanded, thanks to a continuous inflow of capital. At the outset, it was a matter of investments via the colonial authorities, increased export earnings and the inflow of private capital. During independence, demand for African export crops and natural resources remained high, which also continued to attract foreign investors, while the inflow of aid replaced the colonial investments. Thanks to this flourishing economic base the gate-keeping state experienced growth and developed social projects. On the surface, the future of Africa looked bright. Nonetheless, the expansion concealed many structural problems. In the course of this chapter, we have indicated the potential problems within agriculture and industry, and the growing but also inefficient state bureaucracy. In the mid-1970s the world economy as a whole entered an economic crisis and Africa was hard hit. Falling demand for export crops, increasing import costs of, above all, oil, failed industrial projects and growing populations that could not sustain themselves by their own agriculture—all this, taken together, put the gate-keeping state under great economic pressure. When the economic base for state growth disappeared, its limitations and structural problems were exposed. In many cases, it was a decade or more before the economic crisis forced reconstruction. But the downward trend had begun and it could not be turned around.

6.5.1 The Death of Development Optimism The early optimism about development and the positive political, social and economic development during the 1950s and 1960s was followed by major economic setbacks during the 1970s and 1980s. There were two rounds of increases in world oil prices, in 1973 and 1979. As in Europe and North America, African industrialisation and infrastructure development were founded on access to cheap oil. The majority of African countries were dependent on imported oil and oil expenditures consumed a major portion of their national incomes and currency reserves. Problems with paying the increasing costs of oil imports must also be seen in relation to what happened to the national export earnings, which declined simultaneously with the rise in the oil price. The oil crisis 1973 and then again in 1979 shook the world economy as a whole. Nations worldwide were obliged to give priority to oil imports. The

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demand for African natural resources and export crops, such as cocoa, coffee, tea or cotton, fell. The declining demand had the consequence that most countries received insufficient revenues and the former positive economic growth was succeeded by a negative trend. In Fig. 6.4, we have selected a number of African countries that with different economic structures. We can see that South Africa with its industrialised economy did not in general experience as large swings in GDP as the raw material-exporting countries. Nevertheless, even there the 1970s were a time of economic crisis. The worst affected were countries such as Ghana and Kenya, which above all exported agricultural products. But also oil-exporting countries like Nigeria had negative growth after an initial increase around 1973. Even in Botswana, which had a more stable economy thanks to its diamond resources and which was the country that, overall, survived the crisis best, growth declined during the 1970s and 1980s. The 1973 oil crisis was a trigger factor, but the reasons why the African economies were so badly affected and the crises were so long-lasting were weightier than that. The economic structures were basically weak. It was new ventures, development optimism and high prices of African exports that lay behind the boom during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. Optimism came to naught under the impact of the global economic crisis in the 1970s and its aftermath. It was a blow, both specifically for the economies of sub-Saharan Africa and for state-led development in general. Although the limitations of the gate-keeping state thus began to be apparent as early as in the mid-1970s, the institutional framework lived on for a further 15–20 years Attempts to restructure did not emerge until the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. During the 1970s and 1980s, it was rather a matter of short-term attempts by the African economies to get themselves out of the crisis. The stagnant production in the farming sector became an ever greater problem, especially given the growth in the African populations during the 1970s and 1980s. Even in times when there had been growth in the African countries they had not succeeded in diversifying their economies, which made the economies very vulnerable. For example, by 1980 Senegal’s export of groundnuts had fallen back to the same level at which it had been before WWII. Because groundnuts were of decisive importance for its export earnings Senegal could no longer pay for its oil imports and the whole Senegalese economy was in severe crisis. Diminishing production and falling market prices meant that export earnings fell simultaneously with a drastic rise in import costs because of the increased oil price. Taken as a whole this meant a big deficit in the balance of trade for many African countries. The effects of the crises depended on what goods the individual countries exported. Oil exporting countries, such as Nigeria, Angola and Gabon, first enjoyed higher export incomes during the initial crisis in 1973. Other countries, such as Guinea which exported bauxite, or Togo which sold phosphates, survived the economic crisis at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s better than the average. It was nonetheless a matter of how and when the process started and not of being able to avoid the negative economic trend altogether.

6.5  The Limitations of the Gate-Keeping State

187

Annual changes in GDP per capita, %

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

1970197119721973197419751976197719781979198019811982198319841985

-10 -15 -20 Botswana

Ghana

Kenya

Nigeria

South Africa

Fig. 6.4  Annual percentage change in GDP per capita in selected African countries 1970–1985 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 5.3, p. 229. Based on World Development Indicators Online [2009])

The African countries were in desperate need of foreign exchange. Whereas the African countries were in the midst of a severe economic crisis, the oil exporting countries in the Arab world, Western Europe and North America were earning more than ever. What were known as petro-dollars, incomes from oil exports, piled up and the banks were happy to lend them to countries in need. The international donor community, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, were all willing to provide loans for the developing countries. During the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, the overwhelming majority of these countries went into debt, the African countries being no exception. In 1970 sub-Saharan Africa had a total external debt of approximately USD5 billion. It rose to almost USD84 billion in 1980 and then to USD177 billion by 1990. Debts of this magnitude were additionally burdensome for countries, such as those in Africa, whose economies stagnated. Apart from covering oil imports, there were other sectors where the state was obliged to cover deficits by means of loans. For decades, the economic strategies had encouraged the agricultural sector to produce for export, so that the gatekeeping state could then tax agricultural earnings. The neglected agricultural ­sectors could not manage to also produce food for their growing populations and basically all African countries ended up becoming net importers of food crops. Above all, there arose the problem of feeding the increasing urban population. In addition, many of the independent countries had started education and healthcare projects, in order to set social development in motion. All this endeavours cost

188

6  The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985

more than was available in the national budget. Nor was there enough to pay the wages of those employed in the over-dimensioned public administration. But loans in themselves did not contribute to any restructuring of the economies or to a reversal of the economic crisis. The African states continued the same economic policy as before and settled the deficit in the state budget by means of borrowing even more money. In the end, it became impossible even to pay the interest on the loans. In 1982, Mexico was the first developing country to cease to pay the interest on its big debts. Several countries followed suit, and the international debt crisis was a fact. In Africa, the debt crisis paralysed the African economies because interest payments on the loans consumed a major part of state revenues. Very little remained to meet other state expenditure. The oil crisis in the 1970s and the debt crisis in the 1980s led to the collapse of all development projects. Development optimism was generally replaced by resignation about stateled economic and social development in Africa and a general critique of African leaders.

6.5.2 Good and Bad Leaders Sometimes, economic theories have been inadequate to explain why Africa found itself in such a deep economic crisis in the mid-1970s, or why this crisis became even worse in the subsequent decades. Many students of these events, policymakers and journalists have instead pointed to political explanations. There has been discussion of the role of violent conflicts, of failings in the social structures, autocratic behaviour and corruption. The focus has been on the African leaders and their actions. It has been asserted that in situations where legislation and the formal institutions can no longer protect the people, we cannot expect to find production systems that can give rise to economic growth. It is thus not only production systems that influence and transform social structures. The causal connections may be inverse, namely that when the social structures and political institutions break down there is a negative impact on production systems. One of the problems of the African countries has been that they, and their governments, have to a great extent been guided by the agendas of various interest groups. It may be a matter of favouritising one ethnic group rather than another, or town above rural areas, or that the political elite has been accorded greatly excessive advantages as compared with the grass-roots level, and so on. The problem of states governed by special interests is hardly unique to Africa, but that does not make it less significant. What was specific to Africa was that those who controlled the internal market channels, that is to say, those who controlled the purchasing monopolies, had great influence over the political agenda. The greater the proportion of the population excluded from economic and social development projects, by means of discrimination based on gender, class, ethnic group, religion and so on, the worse becomes. The gate-keeping state never had either the resources or the ambition to reach all parts of the community, and that rendered it incapable of being a motive force in a radical development process.

6.5  The Limitations of the Gate-Keeping State

189

In most African countries, the state bureaucracy were in general weak and in many cases, the leaders were synonymous with the state. One-party states were common and the leaders represented sections of the population rather than the population in its entirety, or at least the majority. There was no system for demanding accountability from the first generation of leaders after independence and it would take time before calls for democratisation gained momentum. That, combined with the structure of the gate-keeping state, made it possible for leaders and people within the state apparatus to enrich themselves by appropriating state funds. Nor did there exist opposite poles that might challenge the state, such as a powerful private sphere and industrial sector or strong social movements. Taken together this gave the African leaders great freedom of action, and the actions of individual leaders thereby attained great significance. Box 6.3 Sir Seretse Khama

Khama was born in 1921, in Bechuanaland, which was a British Protectorate. His father was the Chieftain of the Bamangwato, the biggest of the area’s tribal groups. Khama was given the best education available to an African at that time. He spent his childhood and youth at various boarding schools in South Africa and went on to university there. At the end of WWII, he left for Great Britain, where he began to study law. In 1948 he caused a scandal by marrying a white British woman—Ruth Williams. After being pressurised by the South African apartheid regime, the British government demanded that Khama would give up his inheritance of becoming the leader of the Bamangwato, in return for being allowed to return to Bechuanaland with his wife. Instead, Khama went into politics and in 1961 he was one of the founders of the Botswana Democratic Party, BDP. At its core were people who had worked actively within the African administration and who had great ambitions for Bechuanaland’s economic, social and political development. They were supporters of the capitalist economic system and liberal political ideas. Their first objective was economic development for the Protectorate within the British Empire, the second becoming independent and introducing a multiparty system based on the British model. In 1965 the BDP won the first election and in 1966 the new Republic of Botswana was declared, with Khama as president. He remained president until his death in 1980 and is today regarded as having played a decisive role in his country’s history, having been the man behind the principles of Botswana’s current economic and political development. Over the past 50 years, Africa has experienced both “good” and “bad” leaders. The bad leaders have attracted the most attention, because their regimes have been “spectacular”, thereby furthering the view that Africans are incapable of successful self-government. The great variety among African leaders

190

6  The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985

cannot readily be categorised. There have been those who have worked with the ­ interests of their own country and of their continent as their lodestar. Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana’s first president (1966–1980), was one of the most successful, as ­measured by his country’s success in achieving economic growth and political stability. Since becoming independent in 1966 Botswana has had a rate of growth on a par with that of the Pacific Asian miracle economies and a functioning multi-party system. Both the economic and political progress was founded under Khama’s leadership. He promoted a capitalist economy and liberal policies, in which market forces were accorded relatively free scope. The state invested above all in education, healthcare and infrastructure, and less in the redistribution of resources. A year after independence, in 1967, diamonds were discovered and since then it is diamonds that have been the basis of the economic growth. Many African countries have had plentiful valuable natural resources, but Botswana is unique in that the wealth generated by diamonds has not been squandered through corruption and over-dimensioned state projects. On the contrary, the state has pursued a moderate economic policy and kept the level of corruption in check. Striving for economic and social development does not always bring success. Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president, was in his time the most influential African thinker and author on the basis of his intellect and enjoyed great international respect in recognition of his ideological and political ideals. An important part of his work was to create a sense of nationalism and to prevent conflicts among the ethnic and religious groups in the country. He was one of the most idealistic and least corrupt leaders in Africa, but did not succeed in creating an effective development policy. When he realised the full extent of his economic failure, he resigned his presidency and handed over power in 1985. Other leaders have been corrupted when in power and exploited the opportunities of the gate-keeping state to enrich themselves. As an example, one can mention Jean-Bidel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic 1965–1979. He came to power in a military coup and at the outset, he was not more violent or corrupt than other leaders who achieved power by military means. But over time his rule came to be characterised by the murder of political opponents and extensive corruption. Furthermore, many leaders have been military commanders incapable of halting conflicts among different ethnic groups. Idi Amin, who exercised a reign of terror in Uganda during the years 1971–1979 was such a military leader. During his period of government, he presided over the persecution and murder of thousands of political opponents and members of the Achilo and Lango ethnic groups. Nonetheless, the most common accusation against African states and their leaders has not been that of political injustice and murder. Instead, criticism has been levelled against the prevalence of corruption and nepotism sanctioned by the leaders. Bribes have been a widespread lubricant in the state machinery and state enterprises and monopolies have been sold off cheaply to relatives and loyal supporters.

6.5  The Limitations of the Gate-Keeping State

191

6.5.3 Blood-Letting Through Corruption Over the decades since independence, African communities have exhibited widespread corruption irrespective of whether they have had good or bad leaders. There are those who are of the view that this has been an important explanation for Africa’s economic crisis since the mid-1970s and onwards. We maintain that, even though high levels of corruption have been, and still are, a major problem, corruption and its economic effects have been elements in a wider complex, with multi-causal connections. The corruption must be put into a historic context and the explanations can largely be found in the structures of the African gate-keeping state. To begin with, it might be good to get an international perspective on the levels of corruption in Africa. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to obtain reliable internationally comparable statistics for the period 1950–1980. Instead, we have been compelled to go outside the period of this chapter, as far as 2003, in order to obtain an idea of the relative levels of corruption and relationship between corruption and economic growth. Figure 6.5 shows the proportion of the population who consider that corruption has a serious negative effect on business life in their own country. The experience of corruption, rather than actual figures, is unfortunately the only statistical foundation we have. From the diagram we can see that, even though Africa shows high levels of (perceived) corruption, it is in company with many other regions. That applies both as regards certain industrialised countries like Italy and Japan and developing countries like Argentina and India which, economically, are relatively successful. It thus seems as if there exists no direct causal link between high levels of perceived corruption and low economic growth. The African gate-keeping state’s institutional framework and economic strategies have not merely facilitated, but have even encouraged corruption. In the gatekeeping state, where the public administration has a weak position, poor contacts with the public and a focus on taxation and export earnings, the state treasury has come to be seen as belonging to the political leaders controlling the state and not to the population. There has been a lack of systems for exacting accountability from the leaders as regards funds misapplied and not devoted to public development. Autocratic leaders have easily been able to enrich themselves in these structures. Within the gate-keeping state’s institutional framework, a mixture of the state sector and the private sphere and their revenues have developed, a phenomenon known as neopatrimonialism. This confusion has constituted the rational basis for much of the corruption and it has been found at all levels in society. Neopatrimonialism is linked with the need to build social networks and patronclient relationships. This need goes far back in time (see Chapter 3). The occurrence of patron–client relationships was thus nothing new in the independent African states and it was a system that had served rational financial and political purposes for a long time. The major problems arose when the existing strategies for

6  The Expansion and Crisis of the Gate-Keeping State 1950–1985

192

100

Share of populaon, %

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Fig. 6.5  Experienced corruption (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 5.5, p. 237. Based on Transparency International [2003])

exchanging financial resources for labour and political loyalty were combined with the gate-keeping state’s focus on control of the borders and the flow of capital and goods. Public resources were used by individuals in positions of power at all levels in the state apparatus, in order to buy political loyalty. Kleptocracy is a term that was created specifically to describe a deviant type of governance, based on extreme corruption, that arose in individual African countries. The leaders in the kleptocracies considered, and treated, the public purse and state revenues as their private property and had no scruples whatsoever about stuffing public funds into their own bank accounts. A high level of corruption does not, however, suffice to create a kleptocracy. In a kleptocracy there is a leakage of public funds to private individuals and theft from public funds does not cease until all national resources and all possibilities of accumulating have been drained. Only those economic sectors that brought large gains to the state finances were encouraged. The remaining sectors were undermined by corruption, the lack of public investment in infrastructure, and so forth. When the kleptocrats were dismissed, they left behind them high levels of poverty and economic crisis. A number of financial and political factors combined to create the conditions for the kleptocracies. The gate-keeping state’s control of the national boarders, together with the possibilities to tax the inflow and outflow of goods and services without any third-party check on them, created endless opportunities. Added to that, major natural resources and enterprises were nationalised in a number of countries after independence, hence the state had control over greater riches than before.

Bibliography

193

The focus on state-led development created good camouflage for the kleptocracy. It was expected that the state, and hence the leader, should control a large part of the economy. Aid and loans were disbursed to corrupt states, and the concrete demands, both national and international, on the leader and the state, were vague. The Congo, later Zaire, is one of the most classic examples of African kleptocracy. When Mobutu Sesse Seko seized power through a coup d’état in 1965 he was no more corrupt than many other leaders. During his first five years in power, he succeeded in putting an end to inflation, stabilising the currency, increasing the national level of production and avoiding the creation of excessive national debt. He nationalised the valuable copper industry, which guaranteed good state revenues. Mobutu was on friendly terms with the USA, especially, as well as with the other Western powers since he was considered able to guarantee political stability and a favourable economic climate. His good reputation internationally, in combination with Zaire’s enormous natural resources of copper, diamonds, cobalt and other minerals, attracted large foreign investments in the early 1970s. During his first decade in power, Mobutu focused on making himself a dictator and gaining personal control over the whole state. Thereafter, with the aid of his unthreatened position of power he obtained an enormous personal fortune. He nationalised enterprises owned by foreign interests and distributed them to himself, his family and his friends. He made use of the country’s biggest banks as his private property, controlled a number of state enterprises in the mining industry and was remunerated by multinational enterprises with interests in the country. During the 1970s, one-third of the country’s total revenue was at his disposal, to use as he chose. During the 1980s, his personal fortune was estimated at USD5 billion. As Mobutu’s private fortune grew, so Zaire sank into a profound economic crisis. During the late 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, foreign investors withdrew, the price of copper on the international market fell and with them state revenues. The blatant corruption spread from the political elite, down through the public administration. During the economic crisis, the conviction grew that the only way forward for Africa was via a restructuring of the state, bringing changes in economic and political strategies. These attempts at restructuring began in earnest during the 1980s.

Bibliography Austin, Gareth (2010) ‘African economic development and colonial legacies’, International Development Policy Series 1, available at http://poldev.revues.org/78. Bates, Robert (1981) Markets and states in tropical Africa: The political basis of agricultural policies, Berkeley: University of California Press. Birmingham, David, and Martin Phyllis (1998) History of Central Africa: The contemporary years since 1960, London: Longman. Bowden S. et al. (2008) ‘Measuring and explaining poverty in six African countries: A longperiod approach’, Journal of International Development, 20(8): 1049–1079. Cooper, Frederick (1996) Decolonisation and African society: The labour question in French and British Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Cooper, Frederick (2002) Africa since 1940: The past of the present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frankema, E., E. Green, and E. Hillbom (2016) ‘Endogenous processes of colonial settlement: The success and failure of European settler farming in sub-Saharan Africa’, Revista de Historia Economica-Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 34(2): 237–265. Freund, B. (2016) The making of contemporary Africa: The development of African society since 1800, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Gardner, Leigh (2012) Taxing colonial Africa: The political economy of British Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hillbom, Ellen (2012) ‘Botswana: A development-oriented gate-keeping state’, African Affairs, 111(442): 67–89. Hillbom, Ellen, and Jutta Bolt (2018) Botswana—A modern economic history: An African ­diamond in the rough, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Iliffe, J. (1979) A modern history of Tanganyika, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mamdani, Mahmood (1996) Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of ­late-colonialism, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Meredith, Martin (2005) The state of Africa: A history of fifty years of independence, Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Moradi, Alexander (2008) ‘Confronting colonial legacies—Lessons from human development in Ghana and Kenya, 1880–2000’, Journal of International Development, 20(8): 1107–1121. Nugent, Paul (2010) ‘States and social contracts in Africa’, New Left Review, 63: 35–68. Phimister, Ian (1988) An economic and social history of Zimbabwe, 1890–1948: Capital ­accumulation and class struggle, London: Longman. Schraeder, P. J. (2004) African politics and society: A mosaic in transformation, London: Macmillan. Sender, John, and Sheila Smith (1986) The development of capitalism in Africa, London: Methuen. Spear, T. T. (1997) Mountain farmers: Moral economies of land & agricultural development in Arusha & Meru, Berkeley: University of California Press. Tignor, Robert L. (1998) Capitalism and nationalism at the end of empire, Princeton: Princeton University Press. World Bank (2018) World Bank Indicators. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator. Wrong, M. (2000) In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the brink of disaster in Mobutu’s Congo, London: Fourth Estate Limited.

7

Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

The decades around the turn of the millennium were a turbulent period in the modern history of Africa. Most African countries had been in a social and ­ ­economic crisis since the mid-1980s. The poor increased in number, agriculture stagnated in several regions and the continent had been hard hit by HIV and Aids—the biggest epidemic in modern times. Many economists, politicians and policy-workers explained Africa’s lack of economic and social development by war and political instability, misdirected economic policy, meagre human capital, poor infrastructure, corruption and so on. We claim, however, that these factors were symptoms rather than causes, and that we must go deeper if we are to analyse the fundamental problems. In the 1980s it was clear that, in contrast to expectations at the time of their independence, the African gate-keeping states had not succeeded in creating a state-led process of development. Loan-providers and aid-donors, both old and new, began to advocate deregulation of the state and decentralisation of economic initiatives and political authority. It was said to be important to encourage market initiatives, to channel economic resources via non-state organisations, to protect private ownership rights and to empower civil society. There were also domestic processes at the grass-roots level contributing to a shift in the focus of the process of development from the national level to the regional and local. The increased problems of the African countries meant that trust in the state declined. For many citizens state-led development was a non-question in everyday life. We begin the chapter by indicating the pressure for change that arose in response to the international aid community’s demands for economic and political deregulation by the African gate-keeping states. New actors in the private business world, the civil society and non-government organisations (NGOs), all grew stronger, economically and politically, and challenged the structures of the state. Deregulation also affected production systems. The rural areas continued to be the home both of a majority of the African population and of the continent’s biggest development problems. Although it was in the process of transformation, parts of © The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_7

195

196

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

it had been hit by a crisis based on the lack of pre-conditions for technical and institutional reform within existing production systems. As they awaited successful national development strategies ordinary Africans continued to pursue their own livelihood strategies and created new ones in order to meet the current challenges. We devote the final section of this chapter to a closer examination of them.

7.1 Modified Economic and Political Conditions At the beginning of the 1980s the overwhelming majority of the African countries were economically weakened and in need of aid from the international community. This decade was characterised by a general critique of state-led development among development scholars and the development community in the Western world. The Soviet Union’s economy was in crisis and throughout the 1980s it was heading for political and economic collapse. The Cold War ended, with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The USA remained on stage, as the sole superpower. Irrespective of former alliances, political ideologies or economic policy all the African countries were now forced to turn west, to obtain loans and aid. Economic assistance came and with it came demands for change. These demands were above all for economic liberalisation and deregulation. Economic power increasingly shifted from the state to private actors. By getting rid of structural obstacles the market would become free and hence flourish. A successful market economy would lead to economic growth and increased prosperity for Africa. As the state lost economic power to the market, its political power was also weakened. The gate-keeping state’s political power was further threatened by the donors’ demands for democratisation. Formerly the emphasis had been on the state’s role as the driver of the development process, but now interest shifted to local communities and their formal and informal institutions. Civil society and social capital were now seen as a previously forgotten potential. By means of voluntary self-organisation people should identify their own problems and solutions locally.

7.1.1 The Debt Crisis and Structural Adjustment The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were the international bodies that gained greatest influence over economic policy in Africa. They were part of what was known as the Bretton Woods system that had been created by the allies at the end of WWII. Originally the task of the organisations was to give economic aid to post-war reconstruction in Europe. The two organisations were intended to complement one another: the IMF had responsibility for shortterm monetary policy, while the World Bank was to devote itself to longer-term projects for economic development. In 1982, when Latin America was hit by the debt crisis, the World Bank and IMF intervened by offering soft loans in exchange

7.1  Modified Economic and Political Conditions

197

of policy reforms. The collection of measures in this policy package later came to be known as the Washington Consensus and the recommendations were clearly inspired by the liberal politics of that time. Although these recommendations were originally created to deal with the Latin American crisis they came over time to be gathered in a general package of measures that were launched in all developing countries that turned to the IMF and the World Bank to obtain economic aid. Thus the Washington Consensus came to apply for the African countries too. The general perception in the IMF and World Bank was that, if one approved a loan without seeking to influence and change economic policy, it would be like putting the developing countries on life-support. Fundamental reform was necessary, to prevent a continuing economic crisis. It was therefore decided that loans should be coupled with demands that the recipient countries would carry out reform programmes, known as structural adjustment programs (SAP). Structural Adjustment Loans had been given previously. Senegal was the first country in Africa to receive them, as early as 1979. However, it was not until the 1980s that they were linked with the Washington Consensus and it became a requirement that the reforms had a definite character. The main reforms in the SAP that applied to economic policy are summarised in Table 7.1. There were two main groups of reforms. One was intended to bring about economic stabilisation, by means of reforms of financial policy, exchange rates and the balance of trade. The measures could, for example, concern the achievement of a balanced budget, the devaluation of an over-valued currency or the abolition of barriers to trade. In the second group were measures for the adjustment of economic policy. This adjustment concerned domestic regulation of the banking system, taxes, investments, agricultural exports and the foodstuffs market,

Table 7.1  Core economic policy reforms under the SAP umbrella

Type of reform Stabilisation

Adaptation of financial policy Regulation of exchange rates Balance of trade

Adaptation

Internal deregulation • Banking and credit systems • Investments • Agricultural exports • Food products markets Trade policy Reform of state enterprises Reform of the government administration

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 6.1, p. 245

198

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

which meant that monopolies were abolished and the state invited competition on the market. The adaptation also applied to trade policy, state enterprises and the state bureaucracy, with the object of increasing export and selling off state enterprises and increasing efficiency. Criticism of the Washington Consensus and the SAP has been widespread, especially during the 1990s. A main point has been that the reform package took no account of individual country level conditions and problems. Furthermore, it has been asserted that the policies were disadvantageous for the developing countries, because deregulation made it impossible for them to protect their own economies against competition from the economically stronger industrialised countries. It was further argued that the reforms favoured a small, wealthy elite in the developing countries while redistributive measures were neglected. The slimming down of the state meant that earlier processes of reform, with improvements in social indicators such as child mortality, life expectancy and education, came to a halt in many countries. Countries were forced to cut back on investments in education and healthcare, in order to eliminate the budget deficit, which in turn led to changes for the worse for some groups. Table 7.2 shows a number of African countries and the development of their social indicators in the early stage of the introduction of the SAP (1985), during the SAP (1995) and in the aftermath of the SAP (2005). During the first decades of independence all the African countries implemented programmes that led to great social improvements, particularly as regards infant mortality but also in life expectancy. We can see from the table that the general positive trend continued during the first period 1985–1995. However it tailed off during 1995–2005, and some countries even registered a decline in some indicators. The development nonetheless varied from country to country and from indicator to indicator. The most evident problem was the increase in mortality in several countries. For example, Kenya and Zambia showed rising infant mortality. In Zambia’s case, and to a certain extent also in that of Kenya, this was to be explained by the HIV and Aids epidemics. In Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya and Zambia life expectancy also declined. The level of education shown in the table is based on the proportion of the population of school age who attended primary school. This proportion was more than 100%, which is possible, because adults who had already passed the school age also attended. The fall in social indicators in the African countries becomes all the more apparent if we compare them with those from developing countries of other continents. For example, Chile and Thailand left them far behind. Even Pakistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, showed significantly better results. Although most scholars would agree that the SAP put right certain shortcomings in the economic policies of the developing countries, the measures did not bring the promised results as regards economic growth and development. Steady, but modest, annual growth figures averaging barely 2% for sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1980–1996 were not regarded as satisfactory, particularly if one has in mind that the annual population growth over the period 1965–1996

111

14 119

30

145

42

8

Chile

Pakistan

Thailand

Sweden

154

91

4

8

95

10

174

124

194

127

120

114

127

59

77

66

57

72

51

51

46

47

59

55

46

61

79

68

61

75

43

49

47

48

56

58

49

81

72

65

78

41

51

47

47

53

59

52

57

50

2005

98

102

48

107

100

76

111

58

71

36

160

96

2005

109 98

104

86

104

115

107

96

120

108

87

78

108

106

67

96

86

68

84

135

90

73

29

153

81

1995

1985

53

1995

1985 54

Proportion of the school-age population, in primary education (%)

Life expectancy (mean number of years)

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 6.2, p. 246 Based on World Development Indicators (2009), World Bank

5

20

178

160

151

Tanzania

230

202

111

Zambia

241

232

Malawi

Nigeria

142

100

Ghana

Kenya

178

91

102

206

Gabon

Ethiopia

151

147

Year

Cameroon

149

Child mortality (deaths amongst children under 5, per thousand individuals in the age group) 1985 1995 2005

Table 7.2  Social indicators in selected countries, 1985–2005

7.1  Modified Economic and Political Conditions 199

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

200

averaged 2.7%. All told, this meant negative figures as regards the annual per capita growth. Nonetheless, growth increased somewhat over the late 1990s. During the second half of the decade 2000–2010, thus after the end of new loans under SAP, a majority of the countries in Africa had greater economic growth, giving hope for the future. This is something we will return to in Chapter 8. Figure 7.1 shows a selection of African countries and their economic growth in the form of percentage changes in GDP per capita after the introduction of the SAP reforms. Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa all recorded low growth, in certain periods even negative. Botswana managed best. Its good growth is explained by its diamond resources. Botswana was also the country least of all affected by structural adjustment. Thanks to the diamonds and the country’s sound economy it had no need of loans or to implement SAP and existing economic policy already resembled the recommendations from the World Bank and IMF. For the African countries’ part the SAP signified a frontal attack on the national economic policy and the structure of the state. The economic crisis, in conjunction with deregulation under the SAP greatly weakened the African gate-keeping state, but many of its basic structures lived on. In Tanzania, for example, trade in the coffee sector was now made open to numerous private trading enterprises. All trading enterprises were, however, obliged to sell their coffee via the state export monopoly, the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB). It was the TCB that tested all coffee and determined which were of an acceptable export standard. The TCB also arranged auctions, through which all coffee had to pass and where foreign buyers and Tanzanian trade enterprises had to conduct, respectively, their buying and selling. Thus the state’s ambition to control and tax exports, via state monopolies, was weakened but not overthrown. 20

Percent

15 10 5

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

0 -5 Botswana

Ghana

Kenya

Nigeria

South Africa

Tanzania

Fig. 7.1  Economic growth 1985–2008, in terms of GDP per capita, for selected African countries (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 6.1, p. 247. Based on World Development Indicators [2009], World Bank)

7.1  Modified Economic and Political Conditions

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There were plenty of African leaders who were reluctant to adopt SAP, either because they did not think that it benefited their people or because it did not benefit their private interests. Nonetheless, sooner or later they were obliged to capitulate, because at that time it was the only economic aid available. President Nyerere of Tanzania was one of the African leaders most reluctant to accept the SAP. The whole reform package was opposite to what he had endeavoured to achieve with his “African socialism”, and Nyerere’s Tanzania had been quite successful in providing well-developed education and health services to its population (see Table 7.1). However, after the failure of the ujamaa policy for agriculture and of the industrialisation attempts, the country was in a serious economic crisis. The faithful aid-donors, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, ultimately also ranged themselves behind the IMF and the World Bank. In 1987 Tanzania too was obliged to sign up for an SAP loan. Did the SAP result in a restructuring of the African economies? We maintain that it did not to the extent that it is sometimes believed. To demonstrate this, we take a closer look at Uganda, one of the favourites of the World Bank and the IMF. Under president Yoweri Museveni, from 1986 and on to the present day, it has been portrayed as an example of how the SAP reform package transformed an economy in crisis into a growth economy. It was praised both for its high growth rate, averaging 6% per annum over the period 1987–2007, and implementing economic reforms efficiently. The combination of political stability and economic growth has by some been interpreted as success story. Others, however, criticise Museveni for wanting to stick to power at the expense of democratic reforms. There has also emerged criticism of the description of Uganda’s economic successes. Many researchers have maintained that the growth was not accompanied by structural reforms leading to a sustained transformation of the economy. Let us explain in somewhat greater detail what we mean by the lack of a transformation. Uganda constitutes a quite typical example of an African country where agriculture declined in importance for the national economy in the 1980s and 90s. Agriculture, as a proportion of the total national GDP, declined from 74% in 1978 to 27% in 2005. Over the same period manufacturing increased from 5 to 25% and the service sector from 21 to 48%. On the surface the country appears to have undergone major sectoral changes. The problem is that the growing service sector is largely low productive and that labour have moved from a low-productive agricultural sector to a low-productive service sector. We discuss this challenge in greater detail in Chapter 8. According to the critics, shifting the labour force without achieving greater efficiency hampered sustained growth and poverty reduction. Meanwhile, Uganda has remained dependent upon exports of tropical commodities such as coffee. Despite the increase exports in the 1980s and 1990s the national balance of trade suffered a major deficit due to diminishing terms of trade. In order to improve the trade balance Uganda needed to diversify its economy and thereby to acquire new and more profitable sources of export earnings. We maintain that economic growth and improvements in social conditions are possible in the gate-keeping state and that this happened in the 1950s and 1960s but, as we showed in Chapters 5 and 6, it lacks the institutional structure to

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promote structural change of the economies. This structural weakness was the reason why Africa was unable to recover after the economic crisis in the 1980s and 1990s. SAP programmes did not lead to any thorough transformation either of the African production systems or of the social structures.

7.1.2 The Democratic Africa From the 1990s the SAP contained demands not only for reforming the ­economic policy but also political reforms. The political reforms were far-reaching and included the introduction of democratic elections with a multiparty system. During the struggle for independence African leaders were enthusiastic about making the Africans’ voices heard. When they came into power, many of these leaders instead created one-party states. Their autocratic rule allowed them undisputed control of the national riches. Protests were deemed legitimate only against the colonial power, not against African leaders. An example of this mode of thought was president Sékou Touré (1958–1984) in Guinea. He had led the independence movement with significant assistance from trade unions. He regarded trade union activities, including strikes, as a progressive and just means of struggle against colonial rule. Later, it was unthinkable to use such means against his own regime. Post-independence it was the trade union’s mission rather to support the new government. When Touré came to power the trade unions were forced to show loyalty to the ruling party. Union leaders that protested were arrested. The hope that lay in the demands for democratisation within the SAP was that a multiparty system and free elections should be means by which the citizens should demand accountability from their leaders. The international community, including the major donors advanced demands for good governance. The democratisation process and the call for good governance further weakened the gate-keeping state. The external pressure for political change was combined with an increasing numbers of NGOs in- and outside Africa demanding human rights, women’s liberation, environmental awareness, etc. These organisations cooperated extensively with African political activists. They sometimes became part of the political opposition and of demands for democratisation. Not since independence had more political elections been conducted in Africa than during the 1990s. Not all the elections were democratic, but taken as a whole there had been a movement towards greater freedom and human rights, including the right to elect leaders. For the World Bank and IMF and other influential donors the demands for political reforms were not as absolute as those for economic reforms. For example, the government of Uganda largely succeeded in delaying the introduction of multiparty systems and democratic elections. The country that is most of all held up as an example of African democracy and where the democratic system was created long before SAP is Botswana. It won its independence from the British through election in 1966 and has since then held regular multiparty elections. Since then, the same party, the Botswana

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Democratic Party (BDP), has been in power. While Botswana has succeeded very well in achieving political stability and building a formal democratic structure, there have also been weaknesses. Among other things, the state has over the years been severely criticised for its discrimination against the indigenous population of the country, the San people. A further democratic problem has been the lack of competition in the political arena, which caused a long delay before the BDP was seriously challenged. The BDP’s strongest support lay in the rural areas, where poverty was widespread, the level of education was low and people lived far from the active political discussion at universities and in the media. Many in the countryside linked the BDP with independence and with public investment in clean water, education, healthcare and employment opportunities at times of crop failure and drought. This created strong loyalties. Political engagement nonetheless has become increasingly vociferous, especially among the well-educated in the towns and in the middle class. The BDP’s winning margin has declined with every election. Another example of successes for the democratic system is the introduction of majority rule in South Africa. After 46 years of apartheid, during which the black majority was controlled and oppressed, the first majority elections were held in 1994 and the African National Congress (ANC), the party that had stood up for the Africans’ struggle for liberty, won. Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), one of the ANC’s leaders who had won renown during his years as a political prisoner, became the country’s first president who was from the black majority. Having now been in power, unthreatened, for over two decades the ANC is increasingly challenged by other political parties, including the Democratic Alliance. When Jacob Zuma in 2008 was elected as the ANC’s Chairman the first formal split of the party occurred. Defectors from the ANC formed a new party, the Congress of the People. This defection was nonetheless not prompted by ideological divisions, but rather by dissatisfaction with Zuma personally. In the election in April 2009 both opposition parties had made progress, but could not threaten the ANC. The ANC had a clear overall victory, polling two-thirds of the votes nationwide, but in the Cape Province victory went to the Democratic Alliance. This victory can be seen as the end of a period in which the ANC dominated South African politics, and the beginning of an increasingly critical questioning of the top echelon of the party. The accusations of corruption ultimately became so serious that Zuma was forced to resign as president in February 2018. He was succeeded by the ANC’s new Chairman, Cyril Ramaphosa, the person whom Mandela named as his successor already in 1999. On the 8 of May 2019 he again manage to lead ANC to victory, although with a percentage of less than 60 percent of the votes, the lowest results for ANC since 1994. Box 7.1 Nelson Mandela and the ANC

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) was born in the Transkei region, now known as the Eastern Cape Region, where his family was closely linked with the local African political elite. After higher education at a South African university he worked as a legal assistant and lawyer.

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During his years at university Mandela came into contact with the opposition movement that called for the same economic, political and social conditions for the black majority as those existing for the white minority. In 1942 he joined the ANC, and early became a good friend of Oliver Tambo, later the ANC leader in the Transkei Province. At the outset he was engaged in the non-violent opposition from within the ANC. During the 1950s there developed ever more strident demands in the ANC that military means were required if results were to be achieved. After the Sharpeville massacre of black members of the resistance in 1960, Mandela joined the armed struggle and became a founder of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe— “The Nation’s Spear”. In 1962 Mandela was arrested. He was accused of having been involved in organising a number of acts of sabotage against the apartheid regime. Later he was charged with further cases of sabotage and high treason and was sentenced to life imprisonment. During the court proceedings and his time in prison he continued to defend the black peoples’ right to use violence against the regime in office as long as they themselves were subject to violence. It was during his time in prison that Mandela became a leading figure in the ANC and in the struggle against apartheid. Previously he had been a quite unknown middle-ranking leader and in the world’s eyes the ANC was a quite small opposition movement. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, awareness of the apartheid policy in South Africa grew. The international political pressure and economic sanctions contributed to Mandela’s release in 1990. After Mandela had been set free he became leader of the ANC and it was he who conducted the main negotiations with the sitting government. In 1994 the first free elections were held in South Africa and Mandela became the first president (1994–1999) of the country after the establishment of majority rule. In 1993 Mandela and President de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in negotiating the transition from apartheid to majority rule. During his term in office Mandela also took an active part in international politics. Until his death in 2013 he enjoyed the respect of the world leaders, acted in negotiations on African and international conflicts and personified the belief in peace in South Africa. One of his great contributions during his final years was that, as one of the few African leaders to do so, he drew attention to the HIV and Aids epidemic. Mandela was, however, also criticised for having done too little to reduce unemployment and poverty in the country. An increasing number of voices are now raised, accusing the current ANC elite in general of being corrupt and dictatorial, setting their own interests above those of the people. Even though Mandela’s economic policy has been criticised he has, however, never been touched by accusations of corruption.

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7.1.3 The Civil Society The political dimension of deregulation resulted in the accord of an increasingly strong position to the civil society, in relation to the state. The World Bank, the IMF and other donors wanted civil society, in the form of local unions and associations, to be given greater responsibility and influence over the local development processes, and the state to reduce its own influence. There was a tendency among parts of the development community to regard the civil society as fairly homogenous and unpolitical. Civil society should not become a radical force, but rather a partner ready to cooperate with the state. But civil society is not a homogenous unit of shared interests. Instead, it contains many different actors and interests, and its structure and agenda is usually a reflection of the existing material, social and cultural conditions in the local communities. One reason why we have depicted the African gate-keeping states as being weak has been their limited ability to control and/or influence local communities and local actors. Instead, the local civil societies have often played an important role for people’s ability to secure their livelihoods. In her book No Condition Is Permanent (1993) the historian, Sarah Berry, has shown how in pre-colonial and colonial times people in the countryside in East, Southern and West Africa invested much time and capital in creating and maintaining social networks. There has also been a long tradition of more formal organisations such as youth groups, religious groups, credit networks (both formal and informal) and so on. Since civil society has always been a very important ingredient in the African communities, several governments sought at independence to regulate and, in part, to limit its influence. These efforts were not related to specific political ideologies and/ or economic strategies, but were an ingredient in the efforts to centralise power. As a rule, the state tried to counter alternative forms of social organisation by ensuring that the government was represented in local organisations. Officially, this was done to avoid ethnic division, but it was for the governments equally important to increase their control of local communities, in order to stifle any possible political opposition. Sometimes the civil community cooperated with the government voluntarily. Kenya provides such example. Here, the idea of local organisation and help-to-self-help via voluntary organisation became state-ideology during the 1960s and 1970s. The paradox lay in that the gate-keeping state’s inability to offer welfare services to large sections of the population meant that people were heavily dependent on civil society. Exactly as Berry has shown, informal networks have played a central role throughout the independence period in people’s possibilities to obtain credit, to support one another in the event of illness and to establish trade contacts. The gatekeeping state tried, often with the aid of repressive legislation, to limit the extent of the civil society, but at the same time it depended on it for as long as lacked the financial means to offer alternative welfare systems. During the 1980s the control of most African states over the civil society diminished as a consequence of the introduction of the SAP. The civil society gradually gained a new role. It was no longer thought of as a complement to the state but instead the driving force of local development, although working in

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partnership with the governments. Thereby there would be increased opportunities for the poorest people, both urban and rural, to make their voice heard. The idea of the new role for civil society was based on the assumption that local organisations were relatively free from conflicts and special interests. The civil society was seen, not as a power arena, but rather as an institutionalised form of cooperation that built on the principle of consensus. The idea was not that the civil society should be autonomous, but rather that it should work in “partnership” with the African states and foreign donors. Both these two assumptions about the civil society’s inherent equality and disinterest in power were wrong. Societal hierarchies and discrimination on the basis of gender, age, ethnic group, etc. also existed within the social community. Ethnic groups’ pre-colonial and colonial systems of authority could survive or be revived within the framework of the civil society. After the turn of the millennium the supporters of these authority systems grew stronger and increasingly often came into conflict with other local interests including donors and governments. In that way new power arenas were created and power struggles were intensified. For example, in Uganda, the number of people who wanted to strengthen the Kingdom of Buganda’s influence over local politics increased. In September 2009 this led to a violent insurrection, which was put down by the armed forces and a number of people being killed. Another example is from Malawi, where supporters of the Ngoni society in the north begun to organise in order to increase the power of the Ngoni Chief M’mbelwas over local politics. The society was established in the mid-nineteenth century and in the colonial period its political elite attained relatively great power over local politics. After independence in 1964 the one-party state’s influence over local communities increased. Party functionaries, who reported direct to the Provincial Government, now installed all M’mbelwa’s advisory organs. M’mbelwa’s power became solely symbolic, since it was actually the party functionaries who determined the local agenda. When multiparty systems were introduced in Malawi in 1994 the party functionaries disappeared from the advisory organs and the Ngoni elite once again became a strong local political force. Its supporters organised themselves in local associations that aimed to disseminate knowledge of Ngoni’s culture and political structure. They also established themselves in various local development projects. But M’mbelwa’s power has not remained uncontested, especially among those who live in the region but did not belong to the Ngoni people. They often accused the elite of nepotism. International aid organisations and the Malawi government also came into conflict with Ngoni, because of their positive attitude to polygamy and critical stance on women’s participation in politics.

7.1.4 Non-Government Organisations A not wholly new, but rapidly growing, occurrence in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s was the establishment of NGOs. They became an important part of the civil

7.1  Modified Economic and Political Conditions

207

society and consist of both domestic and foreign organisations. They often had to substitute for the work for which local authorities were responsible, but which the latter could no longer manage to do because of the reduction in their funding. They were often regarded by the donors as less bureaucratic and corrupt than the state authorities and their establishment and presence were therefore applauded by politicians and activists in the rich part of the world. The number of NGOs in Africa increased dramatically, as from the 1980s. In Ghana there were in 1960 ten registered organisations. By 1991 this figure had increased to 350. In Tanzania the number of NGOs increased from 200 to 813 during 1993–1995 and by the beginning of the new millennium there was estimated to be over 2000. The greater part of this increase consisted of foreign organisations, although the number of national organisations also grew rapidly. A number of them were directly linked with major established aid organisations such as Oxfam. Others originated directly from local African bodies. Both the foreign and the national organisations came to play a central role in large areas of Africa. Even though they most often worked within geographically limited areas, many of them contributed to changes that influenced both production systems and social structures. Through their engagement at the local level NGOs pushed for both technical and institutional change, e.g. through the introduction of new crops and agricultural methods. Many NGO’s provided microloans which produced new opportunities to expand local production. One of the most important results was that NGOs succeeded in changing the attitude of international aid organisations and local authorities to the individuals and groups that were aid-recipients. Over time they were increasingly being allowed to identify their own problems and development agenda. The attitude of African states to NGOs has been ambivalent and largely depending on the work the NGOs were doing. In Ghana, for instance, the government had since the 1980s in general had a very positive view, especially about the foreign and resource-rich organisations. The reason was that they were regarded as a source of capital for the financially weak authorities. Cooperation with the NGOs could enable local officials to establish development projects, for which the central government took the credit, despite not having been involved in financing them. Tanzania pursued a similar strategy, by establishing separate investment funds in all districts. These funds, the purpose of which was to develop and maintain local infrastructure, schools and medical- and healthcare centres, were financed by local authorities, wealthy Tanzanian enterprises and foreign organisations. NGOs also offered educated Africans new employment opportunities. Employment by a foreign organisation was in many countries much sought after. They often offered salaries well above those employed in the public sector, especially after the World Bank and the IMF had forced most African countries not merely to freeze but even to reduce their pay. The private sector was usually too small to be able to employ the growing number of well-educated Africans. In that way, foreign organisations put a brake on the brain drain (i.e. of Africans who settled abroad after completion of their education), with which a number of African countries were struggling. But they could also constitute a problem. Local

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authorities, who for two decades had experienced dwindling resources, found it increasingly difficult to engage well-educated personnel. And far from always did they succeed in establishing cooperation with the international organisations, as in the cases of Tanzania and Ghana. When operating on their own NGOs did not always provide social services at a lower cost. It has been calculated in Mozambique that in the mid-1990s the costs of NGOs for providing basic healthcare in rural areas were six to ten times higher than those for the corresponding services provided in the public regime. NGOs had higher costs for wages and salaries and were more dependent on foreign personnel. It was not always the case that NGOs constituted a complement to the work of the authorities. Instead they have competed with one another and it was a competition that did not take place on fair conditions. This was not solely because the foreign organisations often had greater resources, but also because they chose to concentrate their work in geographically limited areas. This was a possibility not open to authorities, which had to spread their scarce resources around the whole country. In Tanzania a large proportion of the foreign organisations were active in the same relatively prosperous area around Kilimanjaro and Arusha. Aid workers, researchers and government organisations flocked to the malaria-free and relatively cool climate areas and to dynamic local business developments whereas it was less attractive to conduct one’s activities in other regions where the development problems were greater. A number of researchers criticised both foreign and domestic NGOs for behaving more like private enterprises than non-profit-seeking voluntary organisations. The rapid increase in NGOs meant that new actors could enter and in part challenge the state in power arenas where the state previously had a monopoly. On the one hand, the state was strengthened by the fact that NGOs carried out development projects. On the other hand, the new competition for power meant that the gate-keeping state was further weakened by the growing spread of the NGOs.

7.2 Regional Integration The depiction of the economic crisis during the 1980s and 1990s and the subsequent structural adjustment programmes may readily present an image of a passive Africa that had great difficulty in determining its own fate. While this picture may have some foundation, among African leaders there was an awareness of this and even concrete endeavours to reinforce regional cooperation, as a counterweight to the unequal balance of economic power vis-à-vis the industrialised North. The question of an African union had been on the political agenda since the African countries became independent (see Chapter 6). There was an awareness among African politicians that cooperation was necessary if the African economies were to develop. A union would strengthen Africa, both politically and economically, vis-à-vis the global economy. The dominant idea was that the process towards a union should be a gradual process guided by the establishment of various regional integration cooperations.

7.2  Regional Integration

209

Table 7.3  Major cooperation agreements in Africa Number of member states Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)

20

Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)

10

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

15

Southern African Development Community (SADC)

14

Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)

7 18

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 6.3, p. 261

In 2005 there were a total of six major regional cooperation agreements in Africa (see Table 7.3 and Map 7.1). In addition there were six agreements that had been created out of the major agreements or which applied as regards a smaller number of countries in geographically more limited areas. An example of the former type was the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) that had been created by the members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The East African Community (EAC) was an example of a geographically more limited agreement, signed only by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. There was an inherent problem in the strategy of gradually developing regional agreements. A number of countries signed more than one treaty. A total of 27 countries participated in two regional integration projects, while 18 were participating in three. This created conflicts, because from time to time the various agreements were at odds with one another. For example, Tanzania was a member both of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The long-term objective of the SADC was to create a free market among all its member countries, while COMESA wanted to create a common market, with common external tariffs. It was impossible for Tanzania to unite these two objectives because COMESA’s obligations meant the establishment of tariffs against the other SADC member states. The government of Tanzania therefore decided to leave COMESA in 2000. In addition to the inherent problems of parallel treaties there were structural political and economic problems that complicated regional integration. Let us begin with the political ones. Regional cooperation was until the 1990s hindered in part by political problems inherent in the structure of the gate-keeping state. This state relied on the taxation of border-trade. Regional integration meant deregulation of the borders and the gate-keeping state thereby forfeited essential revenues. Economic integration also demanded institutional changes that partly contradicted with the immediate interests of the gate-keeping state. Regional integration therefore remained utopian and it was trimmed back during the second half of the twentieth century by problems and failures. As late as the year 2000 regional trade in Africa comprised only 10% of total trade. Meanwhile, since the 1990s regional

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MAURETANIA

MALI NIGER BURKINA FASO

SENEGAL GAMBIA

CHAD

Ouagadougou

GUINEA BISSAU

Freetown SIERRA LEONE LIBERIA

DJIBOUTI

NIGERIA

GUINEA BENIN GHANA

ETHIOPIA

Lagos

TOGO EQUATORIAL GUINEA

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC CAMEROON

Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS

Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS

Bangui

CONGO

Libreville GABON

SOMALIA

UGANDA KENYA

Gisenyi RWANDA ZAIRE

Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa, PTA

BURUNDI TANZANIA

Economic Community of West Africa, ECWA Mano River Union, MRU Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries, ECGLC Central African Customs and Economic Union, CACEO Southern African Development and Co-ordinating Conference, SADCC

ANGOLA

MALAWI

ZAMBIA

Lusaka ZIMBABWE

MADAGASCAR

BOTSWANA

Gaborone

MOZAMBIQUE

SWAZILAND

Indian Ocean Commission, IOC Headquarters for ECOWAS, ECCAS och PTA Headquarters for ECWA, MRU, ECGLC, CACEU, SADCC och IOC

LESOTHO

Map 7.1  Regional trade agreements in Africa 1989. NB In 1989 neither South Africa nor Namibia were members of any regional trade agreement. Not until 1994, after its first democratic election, did South Africa become a member of the SADC. Until 1990 Namibia was under administration by South Africa and was therefore likewise not a member of any trade agreement in 1989. Rwanda and Burundi are members of ECCAS and the PTA. Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique and the Seychelles have observer status in the PTA (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Map 6.1, p. 262)

trade grew faster than the rest of the trade of the African countries. This indicates that regional trade may come to play an increasingly important part in the future as a source of growth and state revenues. The increased regional integration was partly an expression of the institutional transformation undergone by the gate-keeping state, initiated with SAP. When the states control over trade declined so did the costs of regional integration.

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211

Customs duties were gradually reduced, several countries allowed their previously ­over-valued currencies to float and in a few of them significant reductions in external debt could be seen. All this simplified regional integration. But the economic and structural problems persisted and in many respects they continued to be a major obstacle to regional integration. The basic problems were that many African countries produced the same type of goods, lacked capacity to refine them and had a small domestic market. All these factors hindered regional exchange irrespective of the politico-economic regime. Let us take the neighbouring countries Malawi and Zambia as an example. Both were dependent on the production of maize, which was their main staple crop. Malawi was also a tobacco exporter, while Zambia chiefly exported copper. Both countries sold maize to one another. However, this trade was irregular and primarily occurred whenever one or other of the two countries experienced a deficit in maize production. Meanwhile, Malawi could not export tobacco to Zambia, since it first had to be processed, which was carried out outside the African continent. Zambia exported a certain amount of copper direct to Malawi, but the volumes were small because of limited demand in the poor and agricultural-based Malawian economy. The establishment of sustained growing trade between these two countries would therefore be very difficult, requiring the production system in one of them to be reformed and made more efficient, thereby for example, making possible the export of maize at a lower price. Such a development could nonetheless make it difficult for local maize production in the importing country to survive. Given the similar production structures of the countries involved it was therefore difficult to see, in the short term, that regional integration would function as a driver for economic growth and structural transformation. Just as similar economic structures created problems for regional integration, differences in economic levels between countries that were too great could also bring problems. That became evident after the fall of the apartheid regime in the relatively rich South Africa. In 1980 the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) was set up by all the countries in Southern Africa except South Africa. The objective was to increase economic cooperation among them and in that way to counter the de-stabilisation policy of the South African apartheid regime. South Africa actively supported guerrilla groups in Angola and Mozambique, in the hope of destabilising not only these two countries but also the region as a whole. To achieve this target South Africa bombed, for example, roads and railways in Angola and Mozambique in order to complicate regional trade. South Africa’s de-stabilisation policy was relatively successful, in that it hindered increased regional integration. In 1981 trade within the SADCC accounted for 4.7% of these countries’ total trade, but by 1992 it had diminished to 2.8%. After the fall of the apartheid regime in 1994 South Africa became part of the SADCC, which was now re-named SADC. Its purpose was to create a dynamic regional market in order to increase regional trade and also attract foreign investors. At the end of the 1990s the regional trade had grown and now accounted for 18.3% of the countries’ total trade. South Africa was a very important trading partner for the other SADC countries, whereas they played only a marginal role of South Africa.

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7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

That was because South Africa’s economy was much more diversified and more efficient. It produced both consumption goods and basic manufacturing goods that it exported within the region. It was therefore difficult for the poor countries in the region to advance their trading interests in negotiations with South Africa. The latter’s dominance also created difficulties for local producers in the neighbouring countries. It happened that competition from South African investments elsewhere in Southern Africa knocked out the local entrepreneurs. For example, in Malawi, the South African supermarket chain Shoprite greatly expanded its business after 2000. In several places it knocked out the formerly dominant Malawi-owned chain, the People’s Trading Center (PTC). The basic problem was that the majority of the goods sold in Shoprite were imported from South Africa, including goods already produced in Malawi such as chicken, fruit and vegetables. This meant that local rural producers had increasing difficulties to sell their products and lost important incomes. Chicken-rearing was for many poor farmers a way of obtaining additional incomes. It required no changes in the local production systems and was no threat to crop farming, because it needed almost no labour or land. Regional integration created new conditions for trade and hence for production and redistribution. These new conditions in turn gave rise to tensions among and within countries. The urban population in Malawi naturally welcomed Shoprite, because there were more products on offer and the prices were lower. However, the local producers and store-chains saw a reduction in their incomes. Despite these problems the growth in regional trade since the beginning of the 1990s increased markedly as a consequence of the reform of the gate-keeping states. The idea of an African union once again climbed high up on the political agenda. The process began as early as the end of the 1970s when the African leaders met in the Nigerian capital, Lagos, where they signed the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA). This was an African alternative to the way in which the economic crisis should be solved. The recommendations were never implemented, because the rich part of the world unanimously backed the demands by the World Bank and the IMF for structural adjustment. But one aspect of the action plan was kept alive, namely that a serious renewed effort should be made to create an African union. The idea was that a common market for the whole continent should be established by the year 2000. The source of inspiration was the European Union. In 2001 all the African leaders met and signed an agreement which replaced the OAU by the African Union (AU). The African leaders also presented the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The message to the surrounding world was that Africa was ready to assume greater responsibility for the continent’s problems. South Africa’s former president Mbeki and the former Nigerian president Obasanjo took the led in this work. Soon after 2000 Mbeki launched the concept of African renaissance. His view was that there was a golden opportunity for the continent to bloom, politically and economically, through greater integration. Both Mbeki and Obasanjo represented regional economic great powers, and critics argued that their work for increased integration in essence was an attempt to consolidate their two countries’ influence on the continent.

7.3  Transformation of the Rural Areas

213

In reality the AU and NEPAD had little effect on the economic integration. However, the AU has became much more active in its attempts to mediate peace in conflicts on the continent and was often first to despatch peace-keeping forces. African governments showed a significantly greater willingness than before to cooperate politically and the number of armed conflicts diminished in number. The old, unfulfilled, economic development ambitions have now been replaced by Agenda 2063 which, according to the AU, constitutes a “strategic framework for socio-economic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years”.

7.3 Transformation of the Rural Areas At the beginning of the millennium, four out of five Africans lived in rural areas and more than twice as many poor people in the countryside than in the towns. After a couple of decades of diminishing terms of trade and limited public investment the agricultural sector in the majority of African countries were in a state of crisis. Agricultural development finally came back on the agenda in the first years of the twenty-first century. This was important if Africa was to grow out of poverty. Research and policy work on agricultural development largely came to be about how African agriculture, including the small-scale farmers, might be able to increase the production and productivity. This re-orientation culminated in the World Bank in 2008 devoting its most important policy document, World Bank Development Report, to the agricultural sector in developing countries.

7.3.1 Property Rights One of the mot fundamental demands in the SAP was for reforms in property rights systems. The agricultural resources of small-scale farmers, chiefly land and water, continued to be most frequently regulated under local systems of property rights, commonly consisting of communal ownership and private user rights. During both the colonial period and at the time of independence these were regarded by economists and administrators as an obstacle to economic development. This image was reinforced during the era of liberalisation in the 1980s. It was argued that privatisation of landed property would lead to more investments in land and consequently increased productivity. This strategy has, however, been questioned and later research has shown that the stereotype image of the African systems of property rights is built on faulty understanding and analysis. Property rights define who controls resources and thereby also who controls future revenues from them. For economists, property rights are therefore a central institution in all societies. Secure property rights are, of decisive importance as regards whether farmers should invest labour and capital in agriculture. Existing property right systems in Africa were criticised for not being formally regulated and hence open for expropriation. In consequence, it was argued that an institutional reform was necessary in order to increase long-term investments in land.

214

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

These arguments nevertheless rested on an incapacity to understand the incentive structure that lay in the African property rights systems and the basic mistake was to equate them with collective rights. Collective systems have historically, and up to the present day, been very rare on the African continent. Examples of collectivisation can be found only in a few socialist-oriented countries, such as Mozambique and Tanzania, where attempts were made during the 1970s and 1980s to create formalised collective ownership. The African property rights systems were instead made up of family-based user-rights. In these systems the head of the family, usually a man, would be allocated the user right to cultivate a plot of land that formally belonged to the village. The right to use land was in most cases strictly regulated and as long as population densities remain low and hence land in abundance there were no incentives to move towards private property rights. In crude generalisation it may be said that local elites, i.e. village chiefs, controlled the distribution and redistribution of agricultural land. This was combined with members of the individual household controlling production and the surplus generated. All households subject to the village chief were able to seek an allocation of land, which could then be used for self-provision. The allocation was made to the head of the family who, in the African patriarchal structure meant, in practice, the man of the family. He, in turn, was expected to pass on control of parts of the land to his wife or, in polygamous families, his wives. In African farming families it has remained common to assign particular tasks to the individual members (see e.g. Chapter 3). A man and his wife have often constituted two separate production and consumption units. This means that the man had his own fields, where he was responsible for producing crops for sale, and he was also responsible for the major investments, such as building housing or paying school fees. The woman was responsible for the daily provisioning of the family and, above all, for food crops on her fields. Since there in general there was no shortages of land all in principle had access to land, of more or less good quality. Once land had been allocated, it was rare to be expropriated by the chiefs or village headmen. In reality the only reason for recalling user rights was in cases where the farmer allowed the land to lie fallow for a long time. On death the allocation was inherited by the sons, so that the land in which the family had invested thereby remained in the family. This created a security for coming generations, which meant that farmers had an incentive to invest in their land. These investments have in turn reinforced their property rights. Most researchers today agree that the attempts from the 1970s onwards to introduce, from above, i.e. by the state, private (or alternatively collective) ownership, seldom achieved the effects sought. Both increased investments and increased productivity, failed to materialise. Few farmers seemed at all interested in documenting their property rights. These led economists at the World Bank to change their minds yet again and abandoned the calls for privatisation in the 1990s. It was considered better to try to formalise, in different ways, the existing systems. The same trends were to be found among several African governments that became increasingly concerned to strengthen local property rights systems.

7.3  Transformation of the Rural Areas

215

In a way, this was a return to the ideas of the 1930s—of formalising the existing African customary property rights, rather than replacing them. As an illustration, we present the example of Tanzania where there a new land law was implemented in 1999. The law consisted of two parts. First, village land was to be demarcated and classified. This offered protection for all villagers against expropriation by outside interests. Second, small-scale farmers cultivating village land could apply for a formal title, a so-called Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy, CCRO. This title could be left in inheritance, used as collateral for loans, sold, and so on. The CCRO was intended to be a formal title based on exiting customary rights. The implementation of the law has, however, never been done systematically and the spread of the CCRO has been limited. Property rights have always been altered in response to changes in the relative price of production factors, even though dramatic changes have been rare. The paradoxical element in the development at the turn of the century was that, while a number of African governments and the World Bank became increasingly sceptical about supporting private property rights, there were several regions in Africa where land was becoming a scarce resource. The latter meant an increase in the relative price of land, which sparked institutional change, in the form of privatisation. In some regions the changes were significant, and perhaps we saw the beginning of a comprehensive and endogenous institutional change. In densely populated regions in, for example, Lesotho, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania and Ghana households began to an increasing extent to transfer land among themselves without the permission of the village chief. At times it was not a question of outright sales, but more commonly it was a matter of rental agreements for longer or shorter periods to avoid future disputes about ownership of the land. It was striking how in several regions African states tried to maintain, even if in revised form, the old property rights structure, while local processes created pressures in the direction of private ownership. This demonstrated the way in which local economic factors could be a more important force for institutional change than state policy from above.

7.3.2 Government-Led Land Reform During this period of increasing land scarcity the unequal distribution of land in the old settler colonies became an increasingly acute problem. During the colonial period European settlers had already been granted private ownership to their land. These rights could not simply be changed by means of the grass-roots type of processes described above and state intervention was needed here, to bring about a redistribution of land resources. The need for state-led land distribution was most clearly evident in Zimbabwe and South Africa. In Zimbabwe’s case the land reforms came to be a political matter beyond the need to reform the agricultural sector. When the former president, Robert Mugabe, came to power in 1980 the population had been promised land reforms. Up to 1987 there was some redistribution of land, but the process then came to a halt. Under Zimbabwe’s legislation

216

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

the land was owned by the presidency and this gave Mugabe opportunities to exploit grants of land in exchange for political loyalty. Most of the land that was re-allocated therefore ended up in the hands of his close supporters. But there were also economic interests on the part of the Zimbabwe gate-keeping state to protect the white landowning class, in order to continue to derive revenue from agricultural exports. The overall result was that there were no serious attempts to redistribute land. In 2000 the political climate hardened and Mugabe was subjected to strong domestic criticism. It came primarily from the working class and the urban middle class, who opposed the rising food prices and the cut backs in the social sector. The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was founded in 1999 and became the collective force challenging Mugabe’s power. He was thereby forced to strengthen his powers. He did so by forcibly seizing land from white farmers and then sharing it out among his supporters, who often lacked both knowledge of, and interest in, agricultural production. The outcome for Zimbabwe’s economy was, to say the least, disappointing. After the land reform during 2000–2001 agricultural production fell by 60% in only a little over a year. This hit, not least, the cultivation of cash crops and in turn led to a drastic reduction in export earnings. When the white farmers were driven from their land, the workers on their plantations were also forced to leave and became a growing urban lower and often unemployed class of workers. When the ANC came to power in 1994 in South Africa it too had land redistribution as one of its major election promises. Despite its position as the party in office this work of reform went slowly. The ANC had no wish to see the same outcome of events as in neighbouring Zimbabwe: a fall in the production and export of agricultural products, unemployed farm workers drifting to the towns and violence against white farmers. Its policy was that redistribution must be brought about by negotiations, at a price agreed by both parties, and that the new owners must be clearly experienced farmers. This process was diplomatic, but because it was long-drawn out it created popular dissatisfaction with the leaders. In 2018 the South African parliament passed a bill allowing land expropriation without compensation. Analysts, however, has claimed that it is surrounded by so many regulations that it will make little difference in regard to land distribution.

7.3.3 SAP’s Effects on the Agricultural Sector Investments in the agricultural sector before the SAP had been insufficient because of the states’ limited resources, but there had been some assistance to the smallscale farmers. Through the purchasing monopoly there were possibilities to obtain credit for the purchase of inputs, such as chemical fertilisers and pesticides. These products were often subsidised by the state. As an example we can take the farmers near Arusha, in Tanzania, who used to sell their coffee to the local cooperatives, which acted as agents for the purchasing monopoly, the Tanzania Coffee Union. Payment for the coffee was made twice a year, once on its sale

7.3  Transformation of the Rural Areas

217

to the cooperative and then again, later in the year. The division of the payment made it possible for those farmers living in a region where there was no formal bank sector to save part of their income at the cooperative. These savings could be used to pay for investment goods such as insecticides and chemical fertiliser, which were most important in order to improve the coffee harvests. On the basis of the previous year’s coffee production and sales to the cooperative the farmers could also obtain credit in the form of input goods. The amount by which they had traded was later deducted from the price they received for their coffee harvest. The input goods were subsidised by the state so that the farmers could afford them, even when the monopoly held the producer price down. The SAP’s deregulations removed many of these programmes. Purchases were instead handled by a large number of private enterprises. The producer prices went up, which was a positive factor. But the uncertainty also increased because the payment was linked with changes in the world market prices. Further, deregulation of the market meant not only higher producer prices but also that the subsidies to the producers were removed. As the producer prices rose, so too did the prices of farm inputs. Taking these things together, the coffee producers considered that in total their conditions had worsened. More and more farmers decided to switch to other crops, while for those who kept with coffee the harvests declined because they could not afford the necessary inputs. However, examples are also to be found of deregulations that were quite successful. One example is Uganda’s abolition of the purchasing monopoly on coffee (1991). A number of private purchasers entered the market and they competed for the producers’ crops by raising the producer prices. This meant that the farmers received a significantly higher proportion of the market price, which contributed to a reduction in the number of coffee farmers living in poverty. In the case of Uganda it seemed as if the increased producer price succeeded in more than compensating for the increased costs to the producers of the inputs. Deregulation did not necessarily mean that support for the small-scale farmers disappeared permanently. In Zambia the SAP forced a reduction in the subsidies but at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s the subsidies were restored with renewed intensity, above all on chemical fertilisers. Even though the organisation and efficiency of the subsidy programmes have been called in question, it is clear that they brought about an increase in Zambia’s maize production. As a complement to the subsidies the Zambian state also set up the Food Reserve Agency (FRA), a state body that bought up maize at advantageous producer prices. The agricultural policy served as an assurance that Zambia was self-supporting as regards the most important staple crop. A chief problem for African small-scale farmers was limited access to basic infrastructure. At the turn of the millennium the World Bank calculated that 34% of African farmers were hindered by poor infrastructure in trying to reach a market with their products. The deficient infrastructure could be explained inter alia by the fact that many regions were thinly populated. When population density was too low the per capita costs for infrastructure development became too expensive for the financially weak African states. For example, at that time 68% of the rural

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

218

Table 7.4  Value of total agricultural production, 1985–2005, in USD million (2000) 1985

1990

Ivory Coast

1298

1766

1995 2044

2000 2522

2635

Ghana

1159

1268

1432

1755

2072

Kenya

2545

3134

3143

3645

4376

Malawi

285

301

386

621

534

Senegal

625

601

706

791

849

Argentina

9318

9744

12,236

13,300

15,357

Thailand

8121

9418

9881

11,073

12,427

2005

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 6.4, p. 275 Based on World Development Indicators (2009), World Bank

population of Ethiopia lived in areas with good or reasonably good rainfall. But the farmers lived on average 10 km from the nearest road and 18 km from the nearest means of communal transport. That meant that even though the farmers had good natural pre-conditions to produce a surplus, they lacked access to markets at a reasonable cost. Even if they invested the labour and inputs to produce a surplus, getting it out on the market was costly. Was the SAP in general successful in increasing both the production and the productivity of the small-scale farmers? There is no unambiguous answer to that question. Table 7.4 shows that, in round figures, agricultural production doubled in several African countries. Despite that, the value of agricultural production in the African countries was modest if one compares it with Argentina and Thailand, which here represent other developing regions. During the years 1985–2005 the agricultural sector in Africa showed growth of approximately 3% per annum. However, population increase translating into growing number of people working in the agricultural sector meant that the annual growth in agricultural output per person was less than 1%. Only Nigeria, Mozambique, Sudan and South Africa succeeded in showing a growth rate of output per person participating in agriculture exceeding 2% per annum. Many other countries instead had negative growth. We must also take into account urban growth. If we look at growth in agriculture in relation to the whole population, in both town and country, the figures turn negative for more countries.

7.4 Diversification and Integration Diversification of incomes, i.e. obtaining incomes from several different sources, was a very common risk-spreading strategy among small-scale famers in Africa. Diversification in agriculture meant farmers cultivated numerous different crops instead of specialising in one or two. This strategy created a margin of safety,

7.4  Diversification and Integration

219

since the farmer was then less exposed e.g. to meteorological problems and price fluctuations. Putting security before efficiency has been common among smallscale farmers in Africa. But this could also be seen as a strategy to optimise agricultural opportunities. By growing a variety of crops, the farmer became more flexible, adapted his/her production to price incentives and spread the work and the incomes more evenly over the farming seasons. In the cases where the farmer exploited the possibilities of diversification for market adaptation, it led to an increase in income and a higher standard of living. Studies conducted in Tanzania around the start of the new millennium showed that those farmers who best managed to escape from poverty were those who diversified their production. By growing staple crops for household consumption, cash food crops such as vegetables and fruit, and tending cattle, they obtained a broad marketadapted base with several income sources. In Malawi, the dismantling of the support for the plantation sector meant that as from 1994 small-scale farmers were allowed to grow burley tobacco to be sold on the global market. This new opening increased the total income for small-scale farmers, but the increased cultivation of burley tobacco meant also a growing domestic market for food crops. Greater incomes, and the fact that a smaller proportion of the land was used for food crops, led the tobacco-growers to demand food crops that could be grown and marketed by other farmers. This created a positive cumulative process. Other experience, for example from Niger, also shows that the diversification among small-scale farmers led not only to increased incomes but also to a more sustainable agriculture, since the land was not impoverished to the same extent as would have been the case with specialisation (Photo 7.1). The majority of African small-scale farmers have, however, ever since the 1980s been net consumers. This means that they bought more than they sold on the market and that they could not live solely on their agricultural production. This required that they could drive incomes from off-farm activities. Diversification within the household economy often built on a common family strategy, that is to say that different members of the family were responsible for different kinds of income. Even if the family stayed on its own land and continued to farm, some members obtained work in other sectors. They could work as farm-hands, or in a nearby town, set up a business of their own, and so on. This diversification meant that the family was active in several different sectors at the same time. Several studies have shown that this strategy had many positive effects. Agricultural productivity tended to rise, because work elsewhere meant that the family obtained greater knowledge and also capital that was invested in agriculture, or education. Table 7.5 shows that village households in the selected African countries obtained, on average, between a quarter and a half of their income from sectors other than agriculture. It was, however, necessary that household should not send away so many family members as to risk a reduction in agricultural production, because of a shortage of labour. Combining involvement in several sectors at the same time, in order to exploit the family labour force optimally was a difficult balancing act.

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220

Photo 7.1  Small-scale farmers drying their vanilla before it is marketed, Madagascar (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

Table 7.5  Rural households and their diverse sources of income Percentage share of income Agricultural sector Own business Wage labour activity

Other sectors Wage labour

Own business activity

Other

Ethiopia 1999

74

3

3

5

18

Ghana 1998

55

2

15

22

5

Malawi 2004

67

8

12

10

4

Nigeria 2004

55

13

19

12

1

Zambia 2003

65

6

6

10

17

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 6.5, p. 277 Based on World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development (2007). Washington: World Bank, Table 9.1, p. 204

7.4.1 Rural–Urban Interaction While rural households had alternative sources of income other than agriculture, urban households were no strangers to agriculture either. The boundaries between the countryside and the town were blurry. To begin with, the town was spreading out into the countryside in the suburbs and semi-urban settlements, where people

7.4  Diversification and Integration

221

worked in town but lived outside it. Especially in these areas, but also within the town boundaries, elements of village and agricultural production were to be found in the form of livestock and arable patches. As the rural and the urban came, economically and geographically, ever closer to one another and production systems blended, it affected the transformation of the countryside. The urban population often long retained strong connections with their original areas in the country. These contacts included sending remittances to the family in the village, or that the urban population regularly moved between the town and the village to combine urban work with farming. The capital that found its way back to the villages was often of great importance, particularly when the country-dwellers had problems in earning sufficient income by farming. For several decades Africa has had a rapid urbanisation rate. There are major differences from country to country as regards both its speed and its degree. We can see in Fig. 7.2 that South Africa was the most urbanised country in Africa. The explanation is that it had the longest spell of industrialisation and modernisation of its economy as a whole. During the apartheid period (1948–1994) the South African state tried to prevent free urbanisation, by means of pass laws and the establishment of Bantustans (see Chapter 6). Nevertheless in 2005, 60% of its population lived in the towns. That was a rate twice as high as in countries such as Mali and Tchad. Among the least urbanised countries was Malawi with less than 15 percent of the people living in urban areas. Many other countries were also still agrarian, that is to say the majority of the population lived in the countryside and were dependent on income from agriculture. High urbanisation rates posed challenges in a number of ways. It was not preceded by any agricultural transformation, which meant that the agricultural production systems still had great demand for labour, to sustain production. Moreover, it was the productive part of the population that was escaping the countryside, leaving behind the old and the children. In that way urbanisation was damaging agricultural development. The movement into the towns was taking place despite the lack of a growing high-productive manufacturing and/or service sector in the urban areas. Consequently, unemployment and a growing informal subsistence sector were a problem for the African towns. The labour force moved from one low-productive sector in the country to another in the town. Urbanisation thereby made only a marginal contribution to poverty reduction. (Photo 7.2) The demand for labour influenced the range of people moving into the towns. Formerly it had chiefly been young men who obtained work in urban or manufacturing centres (see Chapters 4 and 5). But in the 1980s and 1990s the labour force in the towns diversified. Both young men and young women chose to move to the towns. There were both advantages and disadvantages with urbanisation for the individual. Wage levels in the town were higher than in the country. The standard of living for those individuals who obtained paid work in the formal sector was usually higher. Living costs were also significantly higher in the towns and employment contracts short and uncertain. Many town-dwellers did a little farming inside the town borders, seeking the security that self-provisioning could provide. This applied to both permanent and temporary town-dwellers

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

222 70 60

Percent

50 40 30 20 10

Ivory Coast

Cameroon

Mali

Nigeria

South Africa

Chad

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

1986

1985

0

Fig. 7.2  Percentage degree of urbanisation in selected African countries, 1985–2005 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 6.2, p. 279. Based on World Development Indicators [2009])

In the towns there was also a wider range of services provided by the state, for example, education and healthcare. It was cheaper and simpler for the state to reach a population concentrated in a smaller area. Both the colonial administration and the independent states had for decades concentrated their investments in education, healthcare and, to a certain extent, infrastructure in the towns and that created inequality between town and country. Thanks to the higher level of service, there were individuals who appealed to manage better in town. Nonetheless, many of the urban inhabitants’ needs were not met. The emissions from factories and cars made air-quality worse, the infrastructure for water-supply and sanitation was often inadequate, there was a lack of housing, rubbish-collection services worked badly, and so on. Sometimes it was up to the inhabitants themselves to take care of the urban areas when the state failed to do so. In Lagos, the biggest town in Africa South of the Sahara, which at the time of the census in 2006 had approximately 8 million inhabitants, it was the Community Development Associations that took over much of the work of laying asphalt on the roads, installing water mains and combating crime. Box 7.2 The Todaro model

When we know that many people who move into towns become unemployed, or end up making a subsistence income in the informal sector, how are we to explain what it is that still tempts others to move? At the end of the 1960s an economist, Michael Todaro, constructed a model that came to be

7.4  Diversification and Integration

223

Photo 7.2  Shanty town in the outskirts of Cape Town (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

called the Todaro model. In migration research it is still the accepted fundamental explanation for how it comes about that individuals continue to leave an assured, but low, income in the countryside, for uncertainty and probable unemployment in towns. Todaro wanted to demonstrate that this migration is governed by peoples’ rational economic calculations of their estimated future income. The irrational element arises because these calculations are based on false information: they are founded on expected, rather than actual, income differences between town and country. The higher rates expected are in fact paid only to those who work in the formal sector, whereas the majority do not do so. The probability of obtaining well-paid work in the town is thus not as great as those who decide to move believe. All this is a complicated way of saying that the information available in the country is distorted. Those who succeed are much talked about, whereas less is said about those who do not. These sagas of success thus result in an inward migration that greatly exceeds the increase in new employment opportunities in the town. The decision to move is rational, but only on the basis of the information received, and the earnings if one is successful are great.

224

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

7.5 New and Old Problems Africa is the continent where the various countries have made least progress in their efforts to reduce poverty The rural population of Africa, especially, is in general very poor, and the old provisioning strategies therefore live on. So long as the African states are unsuccessful in constructing social security systems that cover their whole population, it remains important for households to invest in social networks and to diversify their incomes. Meanwhile, the informal service sector in the towns has grown, along with urbanisation, and provided major opportunities for new types of income sources. Increasing capital flows have flooded into Africa from migrants in other parts of the world, and also from the towns to the poor countryside. These new sources of income have become important for the household provisioning strategies.

7.5.1 Population Growth Migration from rural areas into towns is one explanation for the fact that the urban population has increased, another is the general increase in the population in Africa since the 1930s. In 1985 there were 444 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and in 2005 the figure was 765 million. Until approximately 2050 we shall see a continued population growth in Africa, both because fertility levels remain high in many areas and because there are today many children who will grow up and produce a family. The question then was how to feed and to improve the standard of living of a constantly increasing population. While the economists were anxious about the welfare of mankind, the environmental sustainability debate was more and more concerned about how the population growth and the industrialisation process in the developing countries affected our exploitation of the earth’s natural resources and consumption patterns. Despite the strong population growth it can still be said that Africa remains relatively thinly populated, by international standards. Within the continent, however, there have been wide variations among different countries. As we can see from Fig. 7.3, Burundi and Rwanda were in 2005 two of the continent’s most densely populated countries and they were also relatively densely populated by international standards. They were nonetheless far from the population density found in a country such as Bangladesh. Some of the world’s most thinly populated countries, such as Mauretania and Tchad, are found at the other end of the African spectra, and they were so even by comparison with the rest of the world. Box 7.3 The demographic transition

When a country is transformed from conditions with high mortality and high fertility, to a state with low mortality and low fertility, this is called the democratic transition. In the original stage the high mortality and high fertility

7.5  New and Old Problems

225

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200

1995

2000

Sweden

Thailand

India

Nicaragua

France

Brazil

China

Bhutan

Bangladesh

Uganda

South Africa

Nigeria

1990

Rwanda

Mali

1985

Mauretania

Malawi

Chad

Ghana

Angola

0 Burundi

Individuals per square kilometer

more or less cancel out one another, and the country has a very slow rate of population growth. Today only a very few isolated small societies are in this first phase. At the other end of the process we have the industrialised countries, with low mortality and low fertility. In these societies likewise, mortality and fertility cancel out one another and the population growth based on childbirth is often even negative. There are five stages in the demographic transition. Between the two extremes lie three transitional stages. The first thing that happens in the transition is that mortality rates fall. After a period of falling mortality levels there comes a new stage of equilibrium, with low mortality and high fertility. During this period the population increases rapidly. After a while the population reacts, and fertility rates fall due to low child mortality, general investments in human capital, urbanisation and overall economic development. We passed the peak of the global population growth at the turn of the millennium. On average every woman today produces two children and thereby previous generations are replaced. Nevertheless, the global population will continue to grow to 10–11 billion people in 2050 as the large young generations are still having children. The birth rates are nevertheless unevenly distributed. The great majority of the African countries still have birth rates among the highest in the world. Most countries in Africa are today in the second or third stage of the demographic transition, with falling or low mortality, and high fertility. Certain countries, such as Kenya, are in the fourth

2005

Fig. 7.3  Population density in selected countries in 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005. Persons per square kilometre (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 6.3, p. 285. Based on World Development Indicators [2009])

226

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

stage, with a trend of declining fertility. Hence in Kenya one can see a decline in the speed of population growth. Differences are also large within countries and enclaves of the African urban upper class and well educated middle class have even reached the fifth stage.

7.5.2 HIV and Aids In the mid-1990s it was estimated that 60% of all HIV and Aids-infected people lived in Africa, despite the fact that the population of Africa comprised only 10% of the world population. During the 1990s 12 million people were reported to have died of Aids in Africa but the actual number was likely larger as there was an under-reporting of Aids/HIV infections. At the end of 2007 it was estimated that approximately 22.5 million Africans were infected with HIV and in 2010 that more people had died of Aids than in all previous epidemics together. A consequence of this higher mortality rate was that the average life expectancy in certain parts of Africa began to decline. For example, in South Africa in 1990 average life expectancy was 63 years, but in 2005 it was 49 years. At the end of the 2000s it was estimated that 11 million children in Africa were orphans because their parents had died in the epidemic. HIV and Aids struck hard, both economically and socially, on the individual, local and national level. It was not a poor man’s disease, but afflicted all segments of society—rich and poor, the illiterates and the university-educated, both in the periphery of power and at its centre. However, it was especially destructive for the poor households, where the state did not have the resources to provide the needed treatment for their population. The diffusion of HIV varied greatly among different regions and countries. Somalia is an example with low diffusion statistics. Here only 1% of the population aged between 15 and 49 were infected in the 2000s. In the case of Somalia we can probably explain the low figures by the civil war that had ravaged the country since 1991 and that impeded contacts among people. This explanation shows something important, namely that the more mobile a population was, the greater was the risk of dissemination of the disease. In Table 7.6 we can see that during the period 1900–2005 East and Southern Africa was much worse affected than West Africa. The countries worst hit were Botswana, South Africa and Zambia, where 15–25% of the population in the ages 15–49 were infected. For East Africa’s part, represented here by Uganda, the early high infection figures were explained by the fact that the origin of the disease lay around Lake Victoria. The decline in the spread of HIV reflected Uganda’s success in its campaigns to halt the epidemic. As regards the spread to Southern Africa from the region of origin in East Africa we may speculate that historic contacts between the eastern and southern parts of the continent were an important part of the explanation. HIV was to follow the same patterns of spreading as those for trade, farming methods, technical change and so on, as discussed earlier (see Chapter 3).

7.5  New and Old Problems Table 7.6  The dissemination of aids in selected African countries, 1990–2005

227

Year

The percentage share of the population in the ages 15–49, infected by HIV 1990 1995 2000 2005

Botswana

5

19

26

25

Ethiopia

1

2

2

2

Ghana

2

2

2

1

2

3

3

1

6

16

18

Uganda

14

12

8

6

Zambia

9

16

16

15

Nigeria Senegal South Africa

1

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 6.6, p. 286 Based on World Development Indicators (2009), World Bank

In general, people living in towns and commercial centres have been hit by HIV/Aids to a wider extent than those in the countryside. Mobility once again can explain this pattern. One example from Mozambique was men who left the country to work in the mines in South Africa, came home with the infection, after having visited prostitutes. The statistics have shown that the proportion of HIVinfected was higher in the frontier towns with a lot of traffic between Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe than in other areas of the respective countries. People aged between 15 and 35 run the biggest risk of being infected by the epidemic, because they are the most sexually active. The double tragedy of the disease lies in the fact that, not only does it claim so many human lives, but that it is primarily those of productive age who have died, creating local shortages of labour and support. Malawi and Zambia had a shortage of elementary school teachers in the early 2000 because so many had died. Both private enterprises and authorities lost valuable colleagues. Poor farming families experienced acute labour shortages. In a number of cases, the young and even children became responsible for agricultural production after the death of their parents. At the end of the 2000s Uganda had a population of 28 million and it was then estimated that as many as 1.2 million children had been orphaned by the deaths of their parents from HIV and Aids. Uganda was one of a number of countries that had to cope with a growing number of so-called child-headed households. In Malawi in 2002, fully 14% of all those in the age range 15–49 in the countryside were carrying the HIV virus. The increased mortality rate created a shortage of labour, and in consequence agricultural land was abandoned; many farmers ceased to produce maize, turning instead to cassava-cultivation, which was less labour-intensive. But the higher death-rate also gave rise to new socio-economic relations. Among farmers in central Malawi it had long been common that relatives and friends helped with work on each another’s farms. This system of

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7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

labour exchange meant that also those without capital could access extra labour. After the mid-1990s it could be observed that this form of exchange of services was greatly reduced, being replaced by day-workers paid in cash. Many families found it increasingly difficult to survive by farming, especially the poorest families. To earn a living, the women and young were therefore forced to seek work as day-labourers for better-off farmers. Their situation was further worsened because the supply of day-workers exceeded the demand. This depressed their wages and weakened their bargaining position with the employers. This development u­ ndermined the previously existing networks, in which friends and relatives helped each other. A contributory reason why Africa was so hard hit by the epidemic was that a number of governments long put their heads in the sand, instead of combating its spread. The first case of HIV/Aids in Zambia was reported as early as 1984, but the government decided to try to hush it up. It was not until president Kaunda’s son died of Aids in 1987 that the government’s attitude changed. There were also instances of successful state interventions in the campaign against the further spread of HIV and Aids. At the end of the 1980s Uganda was generally considered to be the country worst hit by the epidemic. Only a few years earlier it had achieved peace, after several years of civil war and persecution. The country was poor, the state was still in chaos, ethnic groups were split after having been played off against one another by Idi Amin, and illiteracy was widespread. Thus everything suggested that it would be very difficult to mobilise and reach out with campaigns to counter the epidemic. Nevertheless Uganda turned out to be an exemplary country in the anti-Aids campaign. How could that come about? When the government started its first campaign in 1987–1988 the disease was already widespread in Uganda, but it had not been diagnosed as HIV/Aids. But people in general knew from experience that a new fatal disease was now spreading. This meant that they were receptive to the campaign and to information. The threat was already in their midst. An attempt was made to influence their life-style rather than to come with technical solutions to the problem. Instead of trying to induce them to use condoms, family solidarity and the importance of being faithful to one’s partner were emphasised. The campaign was run from many different quarters—members of the government, local leaders, churches, mosques and other religious communions, musicians and so on. More and more people spoke of their own experience and the disease was a matter that could be talked about relatively openly. The Ugandan government was also successful in attracting financial assistance for HIV and Aids-infected patients. But it was nonetheless the raising of awareness and the change in life-style that had a decisive effect.

7.5.3 The State of Poverty in Africa While relative poverty in the world as a whole halved, from 40 to 20% of the global population, over the period 1980–2000, in Africa fully 40% of the population still lived in poverty and after the millennium shift the proportion of the poor even increased. If one links that with the big increase in the population over the

7.5  New and Old Problems

229

same period, it meant that the number of individuals living in poverty almost doubled. These figures show that poverty problems in fact became worse in sub-Saharan Africa. There are significant differences between countries. In relatively wealthy Gabon 20% of the population lived on less than two dollars a day in 2005. At the other end of the spectrum, there were countries like Madagascar, which reported that as many as 90% of the population live on less than two dollars a day that same year. In the footsteps of the SAP winners and losers crystallised out ever more clearly. Small, very rich, elites were found in all countries, and often they were closely tied to the state and combined political and financial power to generate wealth. A highly educated urban middle class emerged in the economically most successful countries, such as South Africa, Kenya and Ghana. At the same time, the number of the poor in the towns also grew, individuals who had fled the poverty-stricken countryside but had not succeeded in finding work that gave them better incomes in the town. A small group of farmers were better off, but many still lived in low-productive agriculture. Particularly in regard to income gaps, Africa demonstrated enormous variations between countries and between groups within countries. The wealth-ceiling was significantly raised, but the poverty-floor remained at the same low level as before. The income differences between rich and poor in a country can be measured with the gini coefficient. A gini coefficient of 0 indicates a completely even distribution of income in the country, all earning exactly the same amount. A gini coefficient of 1 indicates a completely unequal distribution of income in a country, i.e. that one person receives all the income. The gini coefficient can be used to compare the income distribution in different countries. The countries with the most unequal income distribution in the world are located in Africa and Latin America. Botswana and South Africa, two of the strongest economies on the continent, had at the beginning of the 2000s a gini of about 0.60, which was the highest in the world. Other countries, such as Kenya, Mozambique and Madagascar lay just under 0.50. Tanzania, which since independence has had decades of a more or less active distribution policy, had a gini of 0.35. In an international perspective this can be compared with Sweden and Taiwan, countries that head the league with even income distribution, which had a gini of approx. 0.25 or the USA with a Gini of approximately 0.42. What these figures show is that the large number of poor in Africa was not only a matter of low economic growth and lack of resources, but could also be traced back to an unequal distribution of resources and incomes. An active redistribution policy should therefore be a possible means of combating poverty. When the African countries became independent many of them made efforts in many ways to improve the conditions for the poor part of the population. They invested in education, healthcare, clean water, infrastructure and so on. But such policies by the gate-keeping states should not be confused with a conscious re-distribution policy. The gate-keeping state’s construction and incentive structure was a factor that lay behind the warped distribution of incomes and resources in the African countries. Its dependence on export incomes meant that it gave economic support, directly and indirectly, above all to the commercial centres, leading to widened gaps between rich and poor.

230

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

In early 2000s combating poverty was put on the international policy agenda. In the year 2000 world countries agreed to work for the UN Millennium Development Goals. They consisted of eight goals by which anti-poverty work should be governed. They included the halving of poverty and hunger in the world, universal primary education, a reduction in child mortality, improved maternal health and combating HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. The agreement was that these goals should be achieved by 2015. Analysis of how well the various African countries have responded to them is still in progress and views differ. Some argue that major steps forward in poverty reduction were taken at the end of the 1990s and in the early 2000s. They point to examples, such as that the proportion of people living in poverty in Gambia and Ethiopia declined by a third in the respective countries during the period 1990–2010. Others assert that these are in fact only a matter of positive exceptions and in this chapter we have mentioned several problems in combating poverty during the decades around the turn of the millennium. It is clear that much remains to be done and there has therefore been a follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals. Currently 17 Sustainable Development Goals are to govern the continuing work globally on an improved standard of living, reducing the effects of negative environmental effects, spreading education and so on. The results are to be assessed in 2030.

7.5.4 The State and Social Networks During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when the African gate-keeping states were most successful, they worked to achieve economic growth and to provide fundamental public services in the form of education, healthcare and infrastructure (see Chapter 6). But these gate-keeping states were not and did not have the capacity to become welfare states. After the limited development projects there came the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s, and the economic basis for any further investments in building up social welfare declined. The great mass of the African population still lacked general security systems with sickness benefits, unemployment benefits, pension systems and so on. Citizens were economically exposed, particularly the poor, and must build up and rely on their existing local social networks instead of on the state. The social networks offered the poor section of the population economic security. Those who are better off could use these networks to obtain resources and they acted as patrons. By deriving benefit from their dependents they obtained access to labour and strengthened their political position in the local community. The system of patrons and clients in that regard manifests and cements social differences. An example, in which the relationship between patron and client continued to be an important part was the mafisa system in Botswana. The principles of mafisa went far back in time and constituted a well worked out system for the ­re-allocation of cattle. The major cattle-owners lent out animals to poorer family members and other dependents who took them into their herds. There were several

7.5  New and Old Problems

231

advantages for the patrons, that is to say those who owned many animals. The cattle that were leased grazed in different areas and therefore did not draw on the same natural resources, were not exposed to the same diseases and came to be tended by herdsmen who differed from one another in skills and working methods. Furthermore, the patrons could require a favour in return from their clients in the form of political support, labour and so on. In payment for taking care of the cattle the clients were permitted to keep the milk produced, use animals for draft power and keep some calves. Mafisa functioned to the advantage of both parties involved and provided better exploitation of the production factors land, labour and capital within the production system, as well as offering poor kinsmen economic security. Having said that, it reinforced social and economic inequality. Box 7.4 The definition and measurement of poverty

What is, in fact, poverty? How do we measure it? There are certain agreed indicators of poverty in the world. People living on less than USD 1.90 per day are regarded as being extremely poor. Since one can buy different amounts of necessities for USD 1.90, depending on where one live in the world, this is a relative measure, adjusted to match the level of costs in different countries. This way of weighing incomes in relation to costs is called Purchasing Power Parity. By dividing the price of a basket of goods in a local currency by what the same basket would have cost in US dollars, we learn the relative costs of the goods and can then make comparisons between different countries. With inflation and price increases, the level of absolute poverty has been adjusted over the years and the current level was set in 2015, increasing from USD 1.25. Since it is difficult, not to say impossible, to set an objective limit for absolute poverty—why USD 1.90 and not USD 2.50?—it is not an altogether straightforward matter to interpret the statistics on how large a proportion of the world population is deemed to live in poverty, or their living conditions, or how the proportion varies over time. But to measure incomes is only one way of calculating poverty. Many of the poor in the rural areas have assets in the form of land and other natural resources. By means of their agriculture they can ensure a basic daily provision of food. There are also further values for people that relate more to possibilities to realise their own full potential than incomes per se. Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner for Economics in 1998, has coined the term “capabilities” for taking into account a variety of assets and opportunities. He includes both basic preconditions for the individual to be able to improve his/her living situation, e.g. through education, and the value of not being discriminated on the grounds of gender, ethnic belonging, political views, and so on. By giving individuals basic opportunities for development, society at large also becomes a winner, because every individual will then be able to contribute to the society in a more productive way. Sen thereby integrates economic reality with ideas of moral justice.

232

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

7.5.5 The Informal Sector The informal sector may be defined as a part of the economy where activities are not regulated by the state. It means in practice that the sector does not pay charges or taxes to the state, does not fall under state legislation applying e.g. to labour law, does not have state-regulated wages and salaries, and so on. Large parts of the agricultural economy in Africa have always been informal. A major concern for the colonial administration and for the independent African states has been how to formalise the informal sector in order to capture the revenues created out of the informal activities (see Chapters 4 and 5). Estimates from a number of African countries assert that the informal sector in the 1990s was as large as, and very likely larger than, the formal sector. According to official statistics, at the beginning of the 2000s Tanzania’s GDP was about USD 17 billion but if one also includes the informal sector it ought to be at least twice as high—USD 34 billion or more. After the demise of the state-led development strategy, and during the wave of liberalisation during the 1980s and 1990s, the informal sector grew, especially in the towns. Scholars disagree about why informal sector advanced so strongly in Africa. Many, including political scientist Göran Hydén, maintained that the fault originally lay in the badly functioning African state. It had shown itself to be not merely unreliable, but in certain cases also exploitative. These ideas were later taken up by liberal economists, who maintained that the informal sector was preferable to the state-controlled formal sector, since it was regarded as being a place where free market forces could rule. Others regarded the growing informal sector as negative, because it marked a social process in which the working class was obliged to live under worse conditions without legislative protection and support. Many of the people that moved into towns in the 1980s and 90s ended up in the informal sector, for example, in shoe-polishing, selling telephone payment-cards or clothes, preparing and selling food by the road-side, taxis and other transport services, and so on. Recent research in Nairobi showed that farmers, who moved into the towns and ran small-scale enterprises in the informal sector, played an important part in the growing services sector. Instead of them demanding the resources of the city, their production systems contributed to the development of the local urban economy. At the beginning of the 2000s the labour force in Uganda accounted about 11 million people. Only 2.5 million of them belonged to the formal sector. The importance of the informal sector was especially evident in the major towns, such as the capital, Kampala. Despite belonging to the informal sector they were not isolated from the formal political and economic spheres. On the contrary, they had ongoing negotiations with the state and with the private enterprises that ran the majority of the market places. They cooperated through various interest organisations and cooperative movements, and also had close cooperation with trade unions representing the formal labour force. This example indicates an informal sector that had a very strong position in the community and within the economy.

7.5  New and Old Problems

233

7.5.6 A Strategy for Economic Assistance Remittances became a growing source of income for an increasing number of households throughout the continent in the 1980s and 90s. They normally consisted of foodstuffs or money and were intended to help families to acquire enough to eat, to contribute to school fees, to pay for hospital visits, as gifts at funerals and other ceremonies, to build a house or for business activities. The flood of remittances took many different forms. They were sent between households in the countryside, between town-dwellers, or between town and countryside. They were sent within the country, within the African continent or between African and nonAfrican countries. In this section we will deal only with remittances within countries, while in Chapter 8 we will look more closely at international transfers. Many economists, geographers and anthropologists have tried to follow and assess the flows of remittances. The results of investigations in Botswana, Mali, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon and several other countries have been very mixed. Some indicate that the remittances have made little impact on the economic development in the recipient regions, others that the receiving households derived great benefit from the additional capital that they had sent to them. Assessments from Ghana show that over 40% of all households were receiving financial help in the form of remittances at least once a year at the turn of the millennium and that these constituted 9% of the households’ total income. Another way of showing the importance of the remittances in Ghana is that the total sum (transfers within the country and from abroad) amounted to as much as USD 3 billion per year, or 20% of the country’s GDP. Remittances are part of the diversification strategies of households. Selected individuals were expected to pay back to their families by moving in search for higher incomes and then to remit resources home to the family members who remained behind. It was often not up to the individual to decide whether he or her would sent remittances. It was more complex than so. An example of a chain of events might be that the parents in a poor countryside household could afford to let only one of their children go to school. They chose to educate their eldest son and, when his schooldays were over, gave him a small start-up capital, in order to move to a nearby town and seek work. In the best case scenario, the family had relations and acquaintances in the town who could help the son to find work. His parents and siblings, whose incomes were very small, remained in the village. The parents could not afford to send any remaining sibling to school and since they stayed in the poverty of the countryside they had little prospect of any greater income. The whole family’s hopes of improving their living conditions, depended on the eldest son. He remitted money home, both because he had a moral duty to help his family and because his own success in the town was dependent on continuing good contacts with the family and village, and he wanted to have the possibility to return in the future. Transfers were of importance, to rich and poor alike, and how they were apportioned among different income groups might vary. In the study from Ghana, to

234

7  Period of Deregulation 1985–2005

which we have already referred, it appeared as if it was the richer groups who received transfers of the greatest value, as they came from people who had the means and opportunity to move abroad. Meanwhile, studies from Zambia showed that it was the poor who received most. Other studies reinforced the picture that the poor were widely dependent on transfers. Estimates from Lesotho showed that poverty would have increased by 15% had mine-workers in South Africa ceased to send money home to their families. There were also great differences between ethnic groups. The Soninke people who lived along the River Senegal in Mali, Mauretania and Senegal were one of many groups with many hundred years of experience of migration in the pursuit for work. Soninke produced and sold agricultural produce within the Trans-Sahara trade in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century they instead began to trade with French trading companies and colonial authorities. In the trading season the farmers moved to plots near the French trading-stations, later returning to their home areas. Over time, more and more Soninke obtained work in different sectors far from their home districts. There were Soninke spreading all over Africa, in Europe and parts of Asia. Through the contact-networks established it became increasingly easy for new generations to migrate. The plan was nonetheless always that the individuals should return home. It therefore remained important for the migrants to retain their contacts with home, to remit some of their income to members of the family still at home and to invest in business activity in their home villages. The Soninke are a small example of the long tradition of remittances in Africa and of African’s in international networks. In the next chapter we continue to discuss Africa’s new role in the global economy, showing how it initially led to high growth rates but also questions of how growth can lead on to diversification of the African economies and sustainable economic development. We ask ourselves whether Africa is at last growing out of poverty.

Bibliography Acemoglu, D., and J. Robinson (2010) ‘Why is Africa poor?’ Economic History of Developing Regions, 25(1): 21–50. Allen, T., and S Heald. (2004) ‘HIV/AIDS policy in Africa: What has worked in Uganda and what has failed in Botswana?’ Journal of International Development: The Journal of the Development Studies Association, 16(8): 1141–1154. Arrighi, G. (2002) ‘The African crisis: World systemtic and regional aspects’, New Left Review, 15: 5–36. Belshaw, D., P. Lawrence, and M. Hubbard (1999) ‘Agricultural tradables and economic recovery in Uganda: The limitations of structural adjustment in practice’, World Development, 27(4): 673–690. Berry, S. (1993) No condition is permanent: The social dynamics of agrarian change in subSaharan Africa, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Collier, P., and J. W. Gunning (1999) ‘Explaining African economic performance’, Journal of Economic Literature, 37(1): 64–111. Deaton, A. (1999) ‘Commodity prices and growth in Africa’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13(3): 23–40.

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Easterly, W., and R. Levine (1997) ‘Africa’s growth tragedy: Policies and ethnic divisions’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(4): 1203–1250. Englebert, P. (2000) ‘Pre-colonial institutions, post-colonial states and economic development in tropical Africa’, Political Research Quarterly, 53(1): 7–36. Ensminger, Jean (1996) Making a market: The institutional transformation of an African society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freund, B. (2007) The African city: A history (Vol. 4), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbon, Peter, and Stefano Ponte (2005) Trading down: Africa, value chains and the global economy, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Herbst, J (1990) ‘The structural adjustment of politics in Africa’, World Development, 18(7): 949–958. Hillbom, Ellen (2013) ‘Financial institutions in an embryonic agricultural transformation process: The case of contemporary Meru, Tanzania’, in Ellen Hillbom and Patrick Svensson (eds.) Agricultural transformation in a global history perspective, London and New York: Routledge, 184–205. Hillbom, Ellen (2014) ‘From millet to tomatoes: Farm intensification with high value agricultural products in Meru, Tanzania’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8(3): 400–419. Hillbom, Ellen, and Jutta Bolt (2018) Botswana—A modern economic history: An African diamond in the rough, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lewis, David (2002) ‘Civil society in African contexts: Reflections on the usefulness of a concept’, Development and Change, 33(4): 569–586. Meredith, Martin (2005) The state of Africa: A history of fifty years of independence, Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Mkandawire, Thandika (2001) ‘Thinking about developmental states in Africa’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 25(3): 289–313. Ndulu, B. J., S. A. O. Conell, J. P. Azam, R. H. Bates, A. K. Fosu, J. W. Gunning, and D. Njinkeu (eds.) The political economic growth in Africa 1960–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nugent, Paul (2010) ‘States and social contracts in Africa’, New Left Review, 63(May–June), available at http://newleftreview.org/?view=2842. Prowse, Martin, and Ellen Hillbom (2018) ‘Policies or prices? A gendered analysis of drivers of maize production in Malawi and Zambia, 2002–2013’, in Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, Fred Mawunyo Dzanku, and Aida Isinika (eds.) Agriculture, diversification, and gender in rural Africa: Longitudinal perspectives from six countries, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sender, John (1999) ‘Africa’s economic performance: Limitations of the current consensus’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13(3): 89–114. UNU-WIDER (2018) World income inequality database, https://www.wider.unu.edu/project/ wiid-world-income-inequality-database. Van der Walle, Nicolas (2001) African economies and the politics of permanent crisis, 1979–1999, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Bank (2007) World development report 2008: Agriculture for development, Washington: World Bank. World Bank (2018) World bank development indicators, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator.

8

Growth and Global Integration 2005–

In the year 2000, the respected journal The Economist published an article about the economic situation in Africa. It was described as hopeless. Halting economies, high levels of poverty and widespread inequality were said to be characteristic of the continent. The article also asserted that this hopeless situation was nothing new and that the African economies had been characterised by stagnation throughout its history. Only eleven years later the same journal published an article entitled “Africa Rising”. Now the continent was described in generally positive terms. High growth rates, new investments, democratisation and so on, were considered to be good signs that Africa was beginning to emerge from poverty and economic crisis. The Economist was not alone in changing its view of social and economic development in Africa. The majority of descriptions of the continent at the end of the last century were pessimistic. There was also a broad perception, especially among development economists, that the African economies had never shown real growth. Rapid economic growth over the most recent years gave way to a more positive account of Africa’s future potential to grow out of poverty. Some scholars argue that what we are now witnessing is that Africa is breaking with its past of economic stagnation. Others have remained less optimistic. They do not deny the high growth rates, but they question whether they are sustainable and will lead to a permanent poverty reduction. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the economic growth and social development that we have witnessed since the turn of the century. This growth began to accelerate during the years immediately after 2000, but we prefer to begin this chapter in 2005 because in our view it was not until then that we could be certain that what we saw was a distinct new trend. As all other chapters our periodization is nevertheless somewhat fluid and on occasion, our discussion of these themes lead us further back in time. We will provide a somewhat different picture of Africa’s growth than that most frequently given by economists.

© The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_8

237

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8  Growth and Global Integration 2005–

Our point of departure is that this is not the first time that this region is experiencing relatively rapid growth. Parts of Africa has experienced growth spurts in the past, but these have not been sustained. The question is whether the growth in recent years differs from that in earlier periods and whether there are therefore grounds to believe that it will prove sustainable. A further reason why we limit this chapter to the beginning of the years 2000 and onward, is that we see important changes underway in Africa’s role in the world economy. The era of globalisation in which we live today is generally considered to have begun as we moved from the 1980s to the 1990s. It marks the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the new global political order, with the USA as the leading superpower. Since then, the economic and political map has been ­re-drawn creating both new actors and alternative power arenas. The North–South relations between the former colonial powers and colonies are being challenged by growing South–South relations and economic exchanges between developing countries. The new digital technology and greater possibilities of communication create opportunities for new production systems, in which technical expertise and cheap labour no longer need to be in the same location. That opens the way to foreign investments and to situating production in low-technology countries with cheap labour to an extent not possible before.

8.1 Economic and Social Progress We begin this chapter by discussing recent trends in economic and social development in Africa. They have been substantial as Africa with its abundance of natural resource is one of the regions in the world that has profited the most from the recent commodity boom. Nevertheless, the question remains if this is the time when Africa will finally manage to turn growth spurts into sustained economic growth.

8.1.1 Growth and Poverty Reduction During the 2000s Let us begin with looking at economic growth. To put trends in the most recent years in perspective we compare it with the 1980s and 1990s. Figure 8.1 shows GDP per capita for Africa over the years 1980–2016. It clearly shows a break in the trend as from the beginning of the years 2000. Even though we can discern a small increase as from the middle of the 1990s it is not until after the new millennium that the per capita growth accelerates at a ­significant level. Africa’s growth has been impressive even in an international comparison. For example, during the period 2011–2015 the average annual growth in Africa was, for the first time in 40 years, higher than the average growth in Asia. It is that positive development that led a number of economists to take a more sanguine view of Africa’s future. But the statistics also show that GDP per capita has declined over the last few years and, with that, voices in the academic debate asserting that the growth may not prove sustainable have become louder.

8.1  Economic and Social Progress

239

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Fig. 8.1  Average GDP per capita in Africa 1980–2016 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.1, p. 303. Based on World Bank Indicators [2017])

Most scholars argue that the high growth figures since 2002 can largely be explained by high world market commodity prices as a result of growth in demand from the industrialising countries in Asia. The boom in commodity prices declined in 2013–2015, which quite closely coincides with falling GDP per capita. An increasing number of economists have warned that the positive development in recent years was a consequence of favourable external circumstances with limited effects on the structures of the domestic African economies. That seems to be true for many African countries, but there are important exceptions, to which we will shortly return. While it is encouraging to note the high growth rate, it is disturbing that it has still not led to any marked reduction in the proportion of people in Africa living in poverty (see Fig. 8.2). Let us begin by discussing those who live on USD 1.90 per day, i.e. the proportion who live in absolute poverty. There are certain weaknesses in the statistics. We lack reliable annual estimates and the latest assessments date from 2013. We can nonetheless see that, despite the fact that the proportion who live in absolute poverty has declined by approximately 10 percentage points, it is still high, fully 40%. That is higher than in any other part of the world. It is more disturbing that the proportion of people living on a maximum of USD 5.50 per day has remained more or less constant, at about 90%, over the last decade. The World Bank identifies the group living on between USD 1.90 and USD 5.50 per day as being vulnerable. They run a major risk of falling back into poverty, if economic growth tails off. On the basis of the discussion above one can conclude that although economic growth has been favourable over the last decade, its effect on poverty levels has been limited. It is of course a positive factor that the proportion of people living in absolute poverty has declined. But the reduction is relatively modest and, since the proportion of the population deemed to be vulnerable has been more or less constant, it suggests that it is too early to say whether or not Africa is on the way to grow out of poverty. Further, it is problematic that growth in Africa has come to

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240 100

Share of popula on, %

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1990

1993

1996

1999

2002

1,90 USD

2005

2008

2010

2013

5,50 USD

Fig. 8.2  Proportion of the population in Africa, 1990–2013, living on less than USD 1.90 and USD 5.50 per day (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.2, p. 305. Based on World Development Indicators [2017])

a halt in recent years, particularly because the population is still growing strongly. The latest estimates assert that the population of Africa may increase from 1 to 3 billion by 2050. If such population growth is to be combined with an improved standard of living it requires high and sustainable economic growth. The social and political consequences for Africa and the world can become a ticking bomb if these billions of people can see no future in their own region. One should, however, note that economic growth over recent years differs sharply between countries. In a few countries growth has been very modest, while in others the economy has grown very strongly. Figure 8.3 shows the changes in GDP per capita over the years 1980–2016 in six selected countries from East, West and Southern Africa. Among these countries, the majority of observers regard the development in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Ethiopian as positive, while Zimbabwe and Malawi are facing major challenges. The statistics partly confirm this picture, but the variation between successful and unsuccessful countries can be greater than is perhaps thought. Ghana is the richest country with a clearly rising curve that has not halted in recent years. Senegal and Kenya are also relatively wealthy but their growth is significantly weaker. Ethiopia, a country that most observers consider has shown very positive development, has almost doubled its GDP per capita over the last ten years; but is still as poor as Malawi, a country not regarded as having succeeded in profiting from high world market prices. Zimbabwe shows a trend all of its own, with a strong decline in GDP per capita during the period 2000–2008, in consequence of an internal political crisis and foreign sanctions. But after 2008 we can again see an upward turn and in 2014 it was almost as wealthy as Senegal. As from the shift

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1800 1600 1400

USD

1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Ethiopia

Ghana

Malawi

Kenya

Senegal

Zimbabwe

Fig. 8.3  GDP per capita in selected African countries, 1980–2016 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.3, p. 306. Based on World Development Indicators [2017])

in power in November 2017, when President Robert Mugabe was deposed by the military and Emmerson Mnangagwa took office as the new president, many hoped that the crisis would be over and that Zimbabwe would be able to resume its role as one of the more prosperous countries in southern Africa. Sadly, as we are writing this the economic crisis has deepened and that are at the moment difficult to see any positive developments in the near future. Looking at individual countries we find different developments for the group that is identified as economically vulnerable. On average the proportion has remained at high levels despite economic growth. There are exceptions, e.g. Ghana, where the proportion of the whole population who remain vulnerable diminished from 57% in 1980 to 29% in 2016. Senegal too shows a positive development, with a reduction from 68% in 1991 to just over 50% in 2011. At the same time, in less successful cases, such as Malawi, the proportion of the vulnerable has increased over time, from 64% in 1997 to 69% in 2010. It seems as though the question of how well individuals succeed in material terms is becoming increasingly dependent on which country they live in. While Africa as a whole has shown positive economic growth over the last 15 years, this development has so far had only a relatively modest impact on the proportion of people living in poverty, above all on those who are reckoned as vulnerable. If we compare national growth rates, we see significant differences. The economies of certain countries grow while those of other countries stagnate. Nor does it seem, on the national scale, as if there exists a clear and uniform connection between economic growth and changes in the levels of poverty. These conclusions indicate that it does not suffice to look simply at growth levels; we must also look more closely at the different types of development paths. We must examine

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Photo 8.1  Family compound in a contemporary Zambian village (Source Private collection of Ellen Hillbom)

whether it leads to a restructuring of existing production systems and the creation of alternatives, i.e. whether it leads to diversification and a transformation of the economy, and also whether as a result growth becomes sustainable in the longer term (Photo 8.1).

8.1.2 Towards Sustainable Growth? No one questions the fact that the average high growth in Africa in recent years contrasts with the generally low growth from 1980 to the mid-1990s This was much discussed by a number of prominent economists in the early 2010s. They were agreed that this was a positive development and that the new trend constituted a break with the continent’s history of economic stagnation. Some described this development in positive terms on the whole. As examples we may mention the global think tank, the McKinsey Global Institute which in a 2010 paper spoke

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of “lions on the move”, or the economist Alwyn Young, who in 2012 termed it a “miracle of growth”. At the same time, a number of economists were less enthusiastic. They recognised the high growth rates but identified worrying signs, possibly indicating that it would neither prove sustainable nor lead to a long-term reduction in the proportion of people living in poverty. They pointed chiefly to the fact that this economic growth did not appear to lead to any structural change in the economies, that is to say, to the emergence of high-productive production systems (neither, especially, in the manufacturing sector, nor in the services sector). Instead it appeared as if the greatest sectoral expansion was in the low-productive service sector. The African economies continued to be dependent on the export of unprocessed agricultural commodities and/or minerals. The fact that the majority of the African populations continued to be active in low-productive sectors, with low earnings, explained in turn why the fall in the proportion of the population living in poverty, or classified as vulnerable, was so modest. But if the more pessimistic economists are right, how can we explain the fact that the good economic development has persisted over the last decade? According to leading researchers, such as Dani Rodrik and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the growth may largely be explained by a favourable global economic climate, in particular the increased prices for African raw materials, due to increased demand from the growing economy of China. What is worrying is that periods of booming commodities prices are usually short, and so it was in this instance too. As early as 2011, the commodity boom came to a halt and three years later, in 2014 that average growth in Africa came to stagnate or even decline. Nevertheless, the question may be asked, whether we overestimate the significance of the role of the global demand and hence overlook the internal changes in the African economies? Differently from economists, economic historians do not regard the recent growth spurt as unique in African history. As we have been able to show in previous chapters, this is not the first time that Africa has experienced a period of relatively rapid economic growth. However, previous booms have not sustained over time. We have also shown that previous booms, just as the recent one to a large extent been have dependent upon the growth of commodity exports and rising world market prices. Our attention should not necessarily be on the growth levels per se, but whether we see signs of structural change in the domestic economies. The common way to estimate the degree of structural change is to look at the share of GDP of agriculture, manufacturing and services and how it has evolved over time or look at the size of the working population active in respective sector. Poor countries are commonly characterised by the dominance of a low-productive agriculture and service sector, whereas the rich countries’ economies are dominated by high-productive industry and service sectors. Theory holds that the road to sustainable economic development has been characterised by a gradually diminishing relative importance of agriculture and then first a growing industrial sector, followed by a broadening and largely highly productive service sector. Looking at Africa, the structural differences of the economies are significant. To illustrate these differences we take a closer look at developments in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Ghana. Two of the countries—Ethiopia and Ghana—are considered, as shown above by most observers to have a relatively bright future ahead

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of them as regards their economic development. There is greater uncertainty as regards Kenya, while Malawi is thought by the majority to have had weak economic development in recent years. As regards Ethiopia, agriculture has declined as a proportion of GDP from 80 to 50% over the past 50 years. But that is nonetheless still higher than in any of the other countries. In parallel with the decline of agriculture it is not industry but the service sector which has accelerated. In Ghana, where agriculture played a relatively modest part as early as the 1960s, we see that this sector continues to decline in importance, albeit slowly. The proportion of industry in GDP has also declined in recent years, while the transport sector has grown most rapidly, and mining has increased in the most recent years in consequence of the discovery of oil in 2008. In Malawi, in distinction to the other countries, agriculture has increased as a proportion of GDP in very recent years. Kenya alone, among our four selected countries, shows not only a reduction in agriculture as a proportion of GDP, but also an increase in the share of manufacture. When we go on to look at the proportion of those employed in the various sectors in our selected countries, the picture changes in part. In all four countries, the proportion of those employed in agriculture has diminished. In parallel with this development, the proportion of those employed in the service sector has increased. Only in Kenya and Ethiopia has employment also increased in the manufacturing sector. Our four countries show, both that it is difficult to speak of any common growth pattern, and that none of these countries shows clear signs of following classical structural transformation, comprising declining importance of agriculture and a growing industrial sector. In all four countries, with the exception of Malawi, agriculture as a proportion both of GDP and employment has declined, but it is only in Kenya that manufacture has increased as a proportion both of GDP and employment. For the other countries, it is the service sector, that is expanding. For Africa, in general, we have seen a reduction in the proportion of those employed in industry, while labour moves from agriculture to the service sector. What are the consequences of this for our understanding of the economic development in Africa in recent years? This is not an easy question to answer, for the simple reason that we still know too little about what types of activity dominate in the service sector. The increase in the proportion of those employed in the service sector is combined with relatively rapid increase in the population living in towns. This is a result of the growth of the people living in urban areas as well as a rapid growth in migration into the towns. The UN estimates that if this growth continues, half the population of Africa will live in towns by 2035 and we can even now see the emergence of what are known as megatowns. One example is Lagos, in Nigeria: in 2012, it had an estimated population of 12 million, which is calculated to increase to 30 million by 2030. The strong increase in the urban population is a challenge. The towns lack the capacity to provide basic social services for so many people. Much of the expansion of the towns therefore occurs in informal settlements which have very limited access to social services. Africa is currently the continent with the largest number in the world of people living in slum areas. They maintain themselves by carrying out simple low-paid services in the informal sector. It is difficult

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to explain why people chose to move from the countryside to slums in the towns. It may be because a major part of the rural villages is becoming overpopulated, forcing people to move in an endeavour to maintain themselves. If that picture is correct, migration into the towns and the increased employment in the service sector is not driven by increased labour productivity. It is rather a consequence of the shortage of farmland, forcing people to seek a better future. It is nonetheless important to point out that there are a growing number of exceptions. Both in Nairobi in Kenya, and in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, we have in recent years witnessed the emergence of a highly productive service sector, linked with IT and financial services. This may be a matter of setting up companies that furnish telephone services through call-centres or of building up banks. In Mauritius an Information Services Park has been established, the island state’s own Cyber City. This is a mini-town where incubation enterprises which are engaged in developing new services, using the latest digital technology, target the international market, receive state-support in the form of infrastructure and capital. This is part of a conscious strategy on the part of the Mauritian state to diversify the economy and create a highly productive and internationally competitive service sector. The increased urbanisation is also an effect of the strong growth in the population that Africa has experienced over the last 150 years. As mentioned in Chapter 7 there are scholars who argue that since the 1950s Africa has been experiencing a slow transformation from being thinly populated to being densely populated. This affects the economic and social structures of the economies. When a shortage of agricultural land emerges, there will probably be demands for stronger tenure rights. Some people will gain by that, while others will become landless. That will probably give rise to a further increase in urbanisation leading to increased labour supplies and reduced real wages. Theoretically, new opportunities to compete, on the basis of cheap labour and the development of labour-intensive industry, makes increased labour-diversification possible. Meanwhile, growing concentration among the population results in increasing contacts among them. Day-by-day meetings make it easier for people to organise themselves. It is not a matter of mere chance that virtually all strikes in Africa have occurred in towns or around major working places, where it is significantly easier to get people to join together in support of a mutual objective, as compared with the situation in the countryside, where distances are greater. It is thus not improbable that the increased urbanisation will create the conditions for more systematic protests against politicians and/or employers and for growing social mobility. What conclusions can we draw from these general patterns? Is Africa in the process of growing out of poverty? In certain countries, the signs are positive but in the great majority that is extremely uncertain. The lack of economic transformation means that the majority of countries remain dependent on commodity exports. Now that the rise in world market prices for African export products has come to a halt, a number of countries will face major challenges. How is an increase in productivity in agriculture, industry and the service sector to be brought about? How is an increase in the number of people, classified as vulnerable, who relapse into absolute poverty to be avoided? How are the major population increase, the

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rapid urbanisation and the spread of slum districts to be avoided? As a greater proportion of the population of Africa become concentrated in towns one can well imagine that more private enterprises will decide to invest in Africa, where the availability of cheap labour is increasing. But greater urbanisation may also lead to demand for decent pay. Box 8.1 Mauritius—structural change in an African island state

In the mid-1960s, the economist John Meade wrote about the future opportunities of Mauritius, and he was far from positive. The economy was dominated by tropical agriculture and export revenues came from raw sugar and assorted products. Population density was already high and the population continued to grow rapidly. In addition, the population was ethnically and religiously heterogeneous. When the Portuguese settled on the island in the sixteenth century it was uninhabited. Since then, centuries of immigration has created a mix of Europeans of French and British descent, Africans arriving as slave labour primarily from Madagascar, Indians and Chinese. The descendants of the Europeans and Africans are primarily Christian while the Indians were equally Hindu and Muslim. Meade thought that this ethnic and religious diversity brought great danger of conflict and political unrest. At the time of independence in 1968, the future seemed gloomy. Half a century later, Mauritius is the only country in Africa where the economy has gone through a structural transformation establishing highly productive sectors in agriculture, industry and services; population growth has stagnated with low mortality and low fertility, and the political system consists of a well-functioning democracy ruled by various coalition governments. How has this development been possible? The Mauritian transformation constitutes a schoolbook example of stateled development strategies and is similar to the processes experienced by the South-east Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. While the country has been ruled by numerous different coalition governments they have shared common development visions characterised by an ambition to improve the living of a large majority of the country’s citizens. While politicians have come and gone, the state bureaucracy has been consistent, autonomous and resourceful and it has been in charge of enforcing the development strategies. Everyone gaining from economic growth and social development has countered division and conflict and the transformation of the economy has created job opportunities. Concretely, the state established so-called Export Processing Zones, EPZ, in the 1970s to encourage the establishment of manufacturing, especially textile industry. Companies that established production in the EPZs receive support from the state in the form of tax reductions, infrastructure development, and so on. A large share of the foreign capital originated from Taiwan and Hong Kong and was funneled through the networks of the Sino-Mauritian minority. Manufacturing was characterised by low levels of technology and labour intense production creating job opportunities for the

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growing population. The fact that women were entering the formal labour market, in turn, resulted in declining fertility levels. The next state effort was the promotion of the service sector in the 1980s. Starting with the tourist sector and later taking advantage of the progress within the ICT sector and the opening up for offering numerous global services. The establishment of call centers and financial services, often initiated by entrepreneurs within the Indo-Mauritian majority contributed to a capitalist service sector. In parallel, Mauritius has become a tropical paradise and the booming tourist sector has offered many job opportunities. The success of the industry and service sectors eventually also pressured the agricultural sector to develop and become more efficient. Sugar remains the most important agricultural product and continues to be exported, but production is more efficient and there is a growing agri-business producing rum and other by-products from sugar. Alternative agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables are also becoming more important. The old “sugar barons”, the old European elite, has invested in modernizing the agricultural sector as well as in alternative sectors. The original challenges and diversity has been turned into purposeful strategies and dynamics. This turn of events was something that Meade could not predict (Photo 8.2).

Photo 8.2  Tropical beach holiday on Mauritius (Source Private collection of Niklas Hillbom)

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8.2 Africa in the Global Economy Africa has, in general, played a marginal role in the global economy, but the degree of integration has greatly varied from time to time, and country to country. The continent’s position in the global economy appears to have changed since the start of the new millennium and is gradually rising. The questions are whether this marks the start of a new trend, i.e. whether Africa is indeed leaving behind its traditional role in the global economy, as a producer of unrefined raw materials, and if new cooperation partners can furnish new opportunities. In Chapters 3–6 we have in different ways treated the question of Africa’s role in the broader global context, but in Chapter 7, where we discussed the economic crisis, we departed from this theme. Now we return to Africa’s role in the world economy. To fill the gap, we begin with a pair of background sections. First, we present the international trade agreements which developed during the period from WWII to the present time and on that basis we construct a summary of how Africa fared in international trade during the period 1960–2005. Subsequently, we return to the period of the current chapter, from the year 2005 to the present, and deal with current integration as regards both capital flows and new actors. Finally, we discuss the growing Chinese interest in Africa.

8.2.1 International Trade Agreements Between the end of WWII and 1994 international trade was largely regulated under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT. At the outset, it was thought that GATT would serve merely as an interim solution while an international trade organisation was formed. The idea was that it would become part of the Bretton Woods agreement, but it was not until 1995 that GATT was superseded by a permanent organisation. Within the GATT framework several treaties were drafted and the number of countries subscribing to them increased from 23 in 1947 to 133 in 1993. GATT built on the “most favoured nations” principles, which meant that if two countries agreed on tariff reduction it had to apply also to Third Parties. That is to say that, if countries A and B agreed on a tariff reduction, countries C, D, E and so on could also participate in the arrangement. The GATT arrangements were characterised by a high degree of political pragmatism. The countries that joined accepted that developing countries shaped their trade policy to address their own economic conditions and structural problems. For example, in 1954/1955 the treaties were revised, to permit the developing countries to introduce import quotas and duties, in order to protect their own industry. The majority of them chose to remain outside of the free trade agreements offered by GATT. Instead, the African politicians conducted a relatively independent economic policy. Under these institutional conditions, the gate-keeping states could consolidate their position.

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Agricultural products were not included in the GATT negotiations and therefore the USA and Europe could protect their agricultural sectors, both by giving direct subsidies and export support. The latter meant that American and European farmers could export their products at a price below the world market price. African producers were thereby forced to compete with producers who were able to hold their prices down. In parallel with the general GATT agreement there were, however, several separate treaties that applied to specific crops. Their purpose was to stabilise prices by introducing production quotas and/or special centrally financed stocks of goods that could be sold on the world market when production was lower than planned The treaties that particularly affected Africa were: the International Sugar Treaty (1954), in which seven African countries participated; the International Coffee Agreement (1962), which was signed by 22 African countries; and the International Cocoa Agreement (1972), which included eight African countries. Another important element during the GATT period was that a number of bilateral agreements were signed. For Africa, the most important was the Lomé Convention (signed in Lomé, in Togo), which entered into force in 1975 and lasted until 2000. This was an agreement between the European Communities, EC, now the European Union, EU, and 70 of the poorest countries in the world, known as the ACP States (Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific), of which 46 were African. The convention in principle gave these countries free access to the European markets, with the exception of a number of industrial products as well as bananas, rum, sugar and beef. In certain cases, exceptions were, however, made as regards these restrictions. For example, Botswana and Zimbabwe were permitted to export beef to the EU. These countries were given annual quotas that governed the quantities for export and the prices were set administratively. Most researchers agree that the treaties played a positive part, economically, for both Botswana and Zimbabwe. They also aligned well together with the structure and rationale of the gate-keeping state. A more important restriction in the Lomé Convention was that it applied only to non-refined commodities. Since the African states struggled with building up a processing industry to any great extent, the Lomé Convention meant in practice that the EU supported a continuing dependence on the export new commodities. In 1994 the World Trade Organisation, WTO, was set up and the GATT was incorporated in the new cooperation. The WTO was decisively different from GATT. First, most countries in the world became members, which meant that over time it came to apply to the greater part of world trade. Secondly, members were obliged to accept all the treaties formulated within the framework of the WTO. Thirdly, in principle, the WTO did not permit special agreements for developing countries, though it could give individual countries an extended time-limit before the agreement must be applied. That meant that structural differences between the economies of rich and poor countries were no longer considered in the trade agreements. Over the longer term, it would not be possible for any country to protect its own industries by means of customs duties and import quotas.

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During the WTO negotiations, it became clear how cooperation among the poorer part of the world had increased. For example, together with Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Thailand, South Africa played a key part in the demand by the G20 (the 20 richest countries in the world) that the EU and the USA should cease subsidising their domestic agricultural sectors. As individual countries their position at the negotiating table was weak, but together they were strong. Although they have achieved limited progress they continue to put very strong pressure on the EU and USA in the on-going rounds WTO negotiations. That having been said, South Africa cannot be regarded as a representative of African interests in these negotiations. The differences between these countries as regards their economic development and requirements in participation in global trade are altogether too great. For the majority of the African countries, the ACP States is the natural alliance. The objective of this group, quite contrary to the interests of the G20, is that the EU should continue to give special treatment to the poorest countries. They are thus against the EU opening its borders because that would favour those countries represented by the G20 Group, at the expense of the ACP States. In the year 2000, the Lomé Convention was replaced by what is known as the Cotonou Agreement (signed at Cotonou, in Benin), which runs until 2020. This new agreement has brought a broader ambition, in which the principles for trade have been complemented by ambitions for human rights and democratisation, as well as further economic cooperation. Agreements between the EU and the ACP States have nonetheless been influenced by the WTO principles and demands have been made that former European colonies should not receive any special treatment as compared with other developing countries. In response to this criticism, and on the basis of the principles elaborated for the Cotonou Agreement, Economic Partnership Agreements, EPA, were negotiated over the years 2002–2014. These are trade agreements between the EU and all or parts of the regional cooperation agreements in Africa, e.g. the SADC. The EPA agreements mean that if the African countries are to receive tariff-free access to the European market they must, in turn, agree to open up their own markets. That applies as regards both agricultural and industrial products. The African countries are nervous that they will not be able to manage this new open competition, that they will not be permitted to protect their sensitive sectors, especially in industry, and that they will stay reliant on commodity exports. It may also be questioned whether Africa really needs further trade agreements that regulate the exchanges between North and South and whether emphasis should not instead be put on more profound regional cooperation within the African continent. Since the agricultural sector is of major importance for GDP and employment in Africa, one of the most burning questions for trade negotiations is what rules are to apply to agricultural products. The EU and USA have promised to slowly phase out support and subsidies for exports. The existing rules for the EU’s CAP, including support for agriculture, were negotiated in 2013 and apply until 2020. The work of reform has meant that export support to European agriculture has markedly diminished. In December 2015 the WTO succeeded in reaching a decision on

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the abolition of export subsidies for agricultural products, with immediate effect for industrialised countries and after a three-year delay also for developing countries. A number of scholars argue that the new global trade agreements, together with the structural adjustment (see Chapter 7), have seriously challenged the power-base of the gate-keeping state, both locally and internationally. Deregulations and the breakdown of special agreements have made it more difficult to generate income by taxing international trade. The African states today have their gates wide open. It would be, however, an exaggeration to say that the African gate-keeping state and local African enterprises have yielded all influence to free trade and multinational enterprises. International policy and local political changes have created new forms for cooperation between African producers, states and foreign multinational enterprises.

8.2.2 Exports, FDI, Aid and Transfers, 1960–2005 At a general level it may be said that there were three factors that distinguished the economic integration of most African countries with the surrounding world during the second half of the 1900s. First, Africa’s share of world trade diminished and the majority of African countries continue to export a few non-refined commodities. Second, economic aid was a more important source of capital than Foreign Direct Investments, FDI. Third, remittances from Africans living abroad became increasingly important. Let us begin by discussing Africa’s falling share of world trade. Table 8.1 shows that Africa’s share of combined world exports fell from 1950 till 2006. This has led scholars to speak of the continent’s marginalisation in the global economy. This process continued both during both the late-colonial and the postcolonial period, and during periods of different national and international trading regimes and regulations. Since Africa’s share of global commodity exports diminished during different political regimes it appears that political factors played a secondary role in explaining this change. Africa’s ‘marginalisation’ during the second half of the twentieth century was instead a symptom of the real problem: the lagging behind of the productive capacity of African economies compared to the rest of the world.

Table 8.1  Africa’s share of the value of world exports (in percentage terms), 1948–2006 Year

1948

1963

1983

1993

2000

2006

Percentage of total trade

7.3

5.7

4.4

2.4

2.4

2.6a

NB Based on World Trade Organisation (WTO) statistics aHenry Flint (2006) Africa and Asia: Trade and Capital Flows Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 7.1, p. 320 Based on P. Gibbon and S. Ponte (2005), Trading Down—Africa, Value Chains and the Global Economy, p. 38

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A number of economists are of the view that it is misleading to judge a country’s integration on the basis of its share of world trade. Instead one should assess a country’s trade in relation to its productive capacity, measured as GDP. A small economy produces less and hence its total exports are small in relation to global trade. It therefore appears as if a poor country is less integrated than a rich country. Measuring a country’s exports in relation to the size of its economy gives a more just picture of its integration. Table 8.2 gives some examples of selected countries’ integration in the world economy based on such an approach, from the 1970s until the beginning of the 2000s. It shows both that these African countries were relatively well integrated and that there were significant differences among them as regards their respective degrees of integration. Botswana was more integrated at the beginning of the 1990s than in the 1970s, Malawi was largely unchanged and Zambia less integrated in the 1990s than in the 1970s. That there were differences among them is expected due to differences in the structures of the respective economy. To understand Africa’s integration in the global economy we must therefore consider both the size of the economies and to what is produced and exported. Botswana was significantly richer than both Malawi and Zambia. Its chief export was diamonds, which had not been struck by falling demand. Zambia’s chief export since the mid-1960s has been copper, and over the years the demand for copper has continuously declined. Between 1995 and 2006 the demand for copper from Zambia fell by no less than 50%. Malawi was the country most dependent on the export of agricultural commodities, above all of tobacco and tea, for which there has been an increased demand

Table 8.2  Africa’s share of the value of world exports (in percentage terms), 1973–2006 Year

1973–1979

1980–1989

1990–1992

2001–2006

Southern Africa Botswana

47

61

51

70

Malawi

23

22

22

55

Zambia

39

31

29

61

East Africa Kenya

22

19

14

45

Tanzania

15

8

15

34

28

18

14

76

West Africa Ghana Nigeria

23

20

36

49

Ivory Coast

33

33

29

71

Source Hillbom and Green (2018) Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Table 7.2, p. 321 Based on Richard E. Mshomba (2000) Africa in the Global Economy. Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc., London, p. 38 (for 1973–1992); World Bank Indicators, (for 2001–2006), www.worldbank. org/data/onlinedatabases/

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from neighbouring African countries but also from Asia. These are then three very different economies, in which different production systems led to varying degrees of integration in international trade. In East Africa both our examples, Kenya and Tanzania, experienced declining values for their exports. The cause of this common trend was that they were highly dependent on exports of coffee and they had lost significant market shares to countries in South East Asia. The picture for West Africa was more complex: an increase for Nigeria, a reduction for Ghana and stagnation for the Ivory Coast. Nigeria’s situation can be explained by the fact that it was chiefly dependent on oil exports, and oil was in continually increasing demand. Meanwhile, Ghana and the Ivory Coast were dependent on the export of cocoa. That Ghana and the Ivory Coast showed different trends suggest that it is not only the type of crop that is significant, but also that local politics, the local production systems and the integration of domestic actors and foreign enterprises were decisive. It is worth noting that, despite the major differences between them, all selected countries were highly integrated into the global economy and the integration increased over time. The modest absolute size of exports is rather a sign of them all being poor economies characterised by low-productive capacities and lack of diversification. So far we have focused on the exports as an indicator of the African countries’ participation in the global economy, but another way is to look at the size of the FDI. Many economists regard FDI as positive for the economic development of poor countries. The reason is that they comprise long-term investments that are assumed to increase both expertise and the technical level in the local economies, not simply the amount of capital. However, there are also those who are critical of all FDI in Africa. Some researchers consider that by investing in Africa foreign enterprises are exploiting African labour and natural resources. At a general level, we may note that FDI in Africa over the period 1970–1990 never exceeded USD 2 billion per year, which is in a global context a very small sums. For example, in 1998 only 1% of total foreign investments by American companies went to Africa. The development then turned and in 2005 the USA alone invested USD 15 billion. That was still a low level compared with other developing regions. The majority of investments were concentrated in a few countries and were employed in the exploitation of natural resources, such as oil and diamonds. For example, in 1999 40% of all direct investments in Africa went to oil production in Nigeria. Only in exceptional cases were they investments for the purpose of spreading new technology. As regards countries with economies based on agricultural production, FDI remained virtually non-existent (Fig. 8.4). A number of factors can explain the absence of FDI. During the 1980s and 1990s, the common explanation given was that African governments were pursuing a protectionist economic policy. But since then the regulations of foreign investments have been simplified and in certain instances, advantageous tax reductions have been introduced for investors. Nevertheless, FDI has not increased to any significant extent. This indicates that there are fundamental problems that cannot be dealt with short term. The relatively low population density and the

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1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 Africa

Lan America and the Caribbean

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Fig. 8.4  Relative inflow of FDI in selected regions, 1970–1997 (in dollars per USD 1000 of GDP) (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.4, p. 324. Based on United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [1999], Foreign Direct Investments in Africa, Performance and Potential, Report 15)

widespread poverty meant that there were few consumers with low purchasing power. At the same time, wage levels were relatively high. Taken together this meant that profits became uncertain and low. To ensure profitability, the investments went to extractive industries such as oil, diamonds and gold. For the African economies, these investments have had limited effects because they are not demanding much labour or inputs form domestic industries and the profits have ended up abroad. The most important source of foreign capital during the economic crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was therefore not FDI, but aid. In 1993, for example, FDI was only 12% of the corresponding capital inflow that came via aid. Although the gap later closed, the capital inflow channelled via aid was in 2005 still twice as great as the FDI. Here too there were naturally significant differences between countries. Conflict-ridden countries, such as Sierra Leone and Liberia were highly dependent on aid. But also in politically stable countries, such as Zambia, Moçambique and Tanzania, aid constituted a central element in the total capital inflow. More successful economies, such as South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana did not at all show the same dependence. It is a much-discussed question whether aid is good for development, or hampers it. The harshest critics of aid often maintain that it has a negative effect on growth, because the African states can rely on external resources instead of reforming their economies. A variant of this argument is that an altogether too great flow of aid allow African states to keep domestic taxes low. While this policy increases their popularity, it also means that they neglect to seek a long-term solution to the problem of financing the states’ activities. The thesis that aid cements growth-inhibiting structures is a gross simplification that ignores the reforms that were actually carried out by the African economies from the mid-1980s and onwards (see Chapter 7) and it lacks statistical

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support. But at the same time, we lack concrete proof that aid has promoted growth. During the 1970s, aid increased, while growth fluctuated from year to year. Subsequently, aid was at its highest when growth was lowest, namely at the beginning and in the middle of the 1990s. An explanation is to be found in the fact that periods of low growth make countries dependent on obtaining more aid, in order to assist their population. During the period 2000–2006 both aid and growth increased, which is a trend that continued until the present. We cannot with certainty interpret these trends as meaning that aid, of itself, has either a positive or a negative impact on growth. The total sums are, in context, rather small, reach relatively few people, and are spread out in a series of different sectors and directions. At the same time, we must remember that aid can be decisive for the survival of particular individuals and local communities. It thereby supports somewhat different processes compared to economic growth. Transfers from abroad also constituted a significant and growing part of the international capital flow to Africa. During the 1990s more than 20% of Africans with higher education were resident outside the continent, seeking a better economic future. Many have also moved because of war or political oppression. The majority of them regularly remitted money home, where it became an invaluable source for relatives and friends. It is very difficult to estimate how much money has been sent privately to different parts of Africa because about half of all transfers were made informally. But there is absolutely no doubt that it represented substantial sums. In Lesotho, foreign transfers are estimated to have been fully 25% of the country’s GDP in the early years 2000. In the Gambia, they amounted to barely 15% of GDP and in Swaziland less than 5%. Quite often the money was sent to friends and relatives in the towns, who later sent it on to people in the countryside. Foreign transfers were thereby linked to the internal capital flow (see Chapter 7). Research has shown that these transfers played an important part in combating poverty. The greater part of the transfers was spent on consumption and education. For individuals they were invaluable and could make possible a better life and a brighter future for the children.

8.2.3 Current Global Integration The last decade has been characterised not only by relatively good economic development but also by significant changes in Africa’s integration in the global economy. Asia, especially, and also Latin America have become more important both as trading partners and as competitors in the international markets. The USA and Europe are still Africa’s most important trading partners but there is much that indicates that their dominance is weakening. Figure 8.5 shows a relatively substantial increase in the inflow of FDI to Africa from 2000 to 2014. Thereafter it began to fall again. It is impossible to know whether the negative development during the most recent years will continue or whether it is just a temporary dip. But it is obvious that the pattern is similar to the

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overall economic development in Africa (see Fig. 8.1). Despite this increase, Africa’s share of world FDI remains comparatively small. In 2008, Africa received 2.1% of world FDI and although it increased in 2013 it still accounted for only 3.2%. The inflow of FDI to Africa is very unevenly shared. There are significant regional differences where West and Central Africa dominate while East and Southern Africa account for a smaller proportion. There are also d­ ifferences among the countries. In 2015–2016 Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia accounted for more than half of FDI. It is not surprising that Angola and Nigeria accounted for a significant part of it. Oil production plays an important role in both countries and Angola has, in addition, a gold mining industry. In Ghana, the major part of the investments goes to oil production and the increased share of FDI that it has received in recent years is in part accounted for by the opening of new oil wells in 2011. It is thus far from clear if the growth of FDI inflows to Africa is a sign of structural changes of the African economies. We have earlier indicated that access to valuable natural resources, such as oil, diamonds and gold, does not necessarily mean that there is a benefit to the economy at large. In the event that the investments are restricted to these specific sectors the positive effects for the economy at large are limited. Experience has shown that access to natural resources may create more problems than opportunities. The natural resource curse is the concept used to describe such a scenario. The natural resource curse appears when an extractive industry dominates and provide the state with the main source of revenue. The currency tends to become overvalued when exports from the extractive industry increases rapidly. The economy goes through a ‘wealth shock’ pushing up prices and wages generally. This causes other sectors to experience falling demand because their goods become

50 45 40

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35 30 25 20 15 10 5 2016

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Fig. 8.5  Net inflow of foreign direct investments in Africa (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.5, p. 327. Based on World Bank Indicators [2018])

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increasingly expensive in the world market. The natural resource curse thus entails a risk that countries become locked into dependency on the export of a single commodity. This phenomenon is known as Dutch Disease after the decline in the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after 1959, as a consequence of the discovery and expropriation of natural gas there. The problem is worsened by the fact that, politically, there are good grounds to give increased support to investments in the dominant industry at the expense of long-term investments that raise overall productivity. The Nigerian case can illustrate this. Nigeria began to export oil as early as the 1950s but it was not until the 1960s that these exports began to increase rapidly. By 1974, earnings from oil constituted almost 30% of GDP. Thereafter earnings fluctuated at a relatively high level, with a peak in 1993 when oil revenues constituted more than half of GDP. Oil thus gave the Nigerian state good opportunities to invest in social and productive projects, in support of economic development and to reduce poverty. But little was achieved. GDP per capita in 2010 was at about the same level as in 1970, that is, just over USD 1000. That was an effect of the natural resource curse. Instead of making long term investments in productive sectors, the capital was allocated to political prestige projects that brought no great economic benefit. During the years of military rule in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s a major part of the revenues from oil disappeared into private accounts abroad. The high oil prices in the early 2000s brought growth in the economy but, with the falling prices in very recent years, income from oil exports has fallen seriously and once again faced the Nigerian state with major economic challenges because the oil dependency remains. FDI does not only flow into the extractive industries. Among the countries currently accounting for the greatest share of FDI in Africa, we find mixed patterns. In Ethiopia, for example, it is investments in industry that dominate, above all in the light industry but also in more knowledge-intensive industries such as medicines. The country has in recent years attracted attention with its active industrial policy, in particular, its investments in labour-intensive industry and so-called Export Processing Zones, EPZ. In these zones, companies are offered targeted advantages, for example tax deductions, as incentives to establish themselves there. In Rwanda, the greater part of FDI goes to telecommunications, while in Kenya most investments go to the wholesale and retail trades. On the basis of these examples, it is difficult to give a unanimous answer to the question of what FDI means for long-term economic development in Africa. In cases such as Ethiopia it seems as if FDI can make a positive contribution in the creation of new production systems that would potentially facilitate structural transformation, while in countries where the economies have historically been dominated by extractive industries it does not yet seem to be clear whether FDI will contribute to the diversification of the economies or whether it will reinforce the natural resource dependency. We will probably see different development tendencies for different countries, depending on what opportunities foreign investors see and that will lead to increased stratification among countries in Africa in future. As we showed earlier, aid and international transfers constituted a significant proportion of the capital inflows during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite the relatively good economic development in the majority of African countries and the increased

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inflow of FDI, both aid and international transfers continue to be of importance to the majority of African economies. As Fig. 8.6 shows, the net inflow of aid to Africa has greatly increased over the past fifteen years. Although we have no reliable statistics, it is likely that a major part of the increase is a result of aid from Asia, which in turn has led to Europe and the USA also increasing their aid to Africa because of their anxiety, in particular, about China’s increased influence in the region. There are marked differences in the inflow of aid to individual countries. Contrary to the apparent views of many people, the inflow of aid is often higher to countries regarded as having relatively good prospects of a favourable economic development. Ethiopia is such a country. If one compares the aid flow to Ethiopia with that to countries where economic development has been weak and which are regarded as facing tough challenges, for example Burkina Faso and Malawi, Ethiopia receives significantly more money in aid and this difference has moreover increased over time. In very recent years Ethiopia has received on average four times more money in aid per year, as compared with Burkina Faso and Malawi. How are we to explain this pattern? There are no simple answers to that question, but part it lies in the Western world recently changing view on the link between aid and trade. During the WTO meeting in 1997, the governments of the poor countries advanced demands for structured and coherent support from the rich world to increase their capacity to participate in the global economy, on equal terms. Demands for change were in part a criticism of the structural adjustment programmes (see Chapter 7) and its one-sided focus on openness and deregulation. The governments and representatives of the low-income countries were of the view that in order to be able to compete at all on the world market they needed support to increase their capacity for trade. This criticism gradually won a hearing

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1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

0

Fig. 8.6  Net inflow of aid to Africa 1990–2015 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] Afrika- En kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.6, p. 330. Based on World Development Indicators [2018])

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and in 2005 a decision was reached in principle that the rich countries should support the poor countries’ capacity to participate in the global economy. This new objective has come to be known as Aid for Trade. The greater part of this form of aid goes to building up economic infrastructure but it can also give support for simplifying the regulatory structure and technology transfer. A greater part of this aid goes to sub-Saharan Africa, where it is Ethiopia which is the chief recipient. This explains in part why the net inflow of aid to Ethiopia is greater than that to other African countries. Aid for Trade differs from traditional aid, in that donor countries prefer to give support to countries where there are clear signs of economic change and one can identify growth in sectors which could benefit from greater integration. That means in turn that countries showing relatively high economic growth and incipient reform receive a higher amount. While traditional aid largely focuses on the poorest countries, Aid for Trade is concentrated on countries which are regarded as having relatively good economic prospects. We have in recent years also seen an increase in international remittances, which continue to constitute a more important source of capital compared with FDI and international aid (see Fig. 8.7). Nigeria is the most important recipient in Africa, but when discussing these figures it is important to point out that they to a large extent consist of estimates, because transfers are made above all through informal channels. In 2016, Nigeria received international remittances corresponding to USD 19 billion. Ghana and Senegal share second place each receiving USD 2 billion. Nigeria’s dominance explains the downturn in international remittances to Africa in 2015/2016. Because of falling oil prices Nigeria has in recent years introduced more restrictive capital controls, which make international money transfers more expensive. The consequence has been that an increasing proportion 10 9 8

Billion USD

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2013 2015 2016

0

Year

Fig. 8.7  International transfers to Africa 1990–2016 (Source Hillbom and Green [2018] AfrikaEn kontinents ekonomiska och sociala historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur, Fig. 7.7, p. 332. Based on World Development Indicators [2018])

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8  Growth and Global Integration 2005–

of remittances have been sent illegally. Thus the downturn shown in the figure does not necessarily represent a true fall. Which countries receive the most money via remittance depends on a number of factors. It is noteworthy that if one looks at the ten countries in Africa which received the greatest share of remittances in 2016, there were only three which were classified as being among the poorest in Africa. The rest, like for example South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia are either relatively rich or have experienced high growth rates in recent years. This may imply that remittances are sent back home for long-term investments like schooling, start up of family businesses and alike rather than being aimed to help in acute financial crisis of families.

8.2.4 Emerging Chinese Interests Africa has not only experienced an increase in FDI in recent years. There are also signs that South–South relations are becoming increasingly important. Investments and trade between Africa and Asia and Latin America are on the rise. Asia is here playing a key role. Economic relations between Asia and Africa is not a new phenomenon. Already in the fourteenth century trade between East Africa and India was established. Cities like Malindi (Kenya), Sofala (Mocambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) played a central role in this trade. Merchants from Gujarat (India) went there to exchange gold for textiles and ivory (see Chapter 3). As late as the midnineteenth century—just before the European conquest—Asia played an important role as a trading partner. A significant effect of European colonialism was the colonisers attempt to prevent trade with non-European partners. Consequently, Europe became Africa’s main trading partner throughout the twentieth century. That may now come to an end. Scholars point to the fact that quite soon China will become Africa’s most important trading partner. It is not solely a matter of FDI. The investments comprise everything from aid to the establishment of bilateral trade agreements. Chinese enterprises have bought, among other things, shares in Zambian mining. In Angola, Chinese enterprises play a central part in the restoration of the capital, Luanda, which was severely damaged during the civil war. China has long been involved in large-scale projects in Africa. During the 1980s China was involved in the financing of a railway from the copper mines in Zambia to the port in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The purpose of the project was to reduce Zambia’s dependence on the apartheid regime in South Africa, by making it possible to ship copper out from Zambia via Tanzania, instead of via South Africa. Then, however, these investments were an element in Cold War policies. Today their purpose is to reinforce China’s position as an economic great power. Here, oil plays a central part. China’s rapid economic growth has drastically increased its demand for oil. In 2005, Angola accounted for half of China’s total import of oil. Recently, Chinese enterprises offered to invest a total of USD 80 billion in Nigeria’s oil industry. Chinese investments in African agriculture must also be regarded as an element in a longer-term national strategy. China has to ensure

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its future ability to supply its growing and increasingly urbanised population. It is pursuing large-scale irrigation projects in West Africa, and in Kenya it has bought farmland that is to be cultivated by Chinese enterprises. In the public debate in the West, anxiety is often expressed that China’s increased investments in Africa are a new form of colonialism, that is to say, that they are made primarily in order to exploit Africa’s natural resources and not necessarily to benefit the African economies. This criticism is based on the false premise that the West does not devote itself to investment in the exploitation of natural resources. But let us put away this distorted Western self-image and ask ourselves whether there is sign of China concentrating on investment in exploitative industries. If we look at the number of new investments in 2003–2014 the picture is mixed. On the one hand, investments in extractive industries dominated. In 2013, investments in extractive industries constituted 31% of Chinese FDI investments, while those in industry were only 15% of the total FDI. But we also see signs that the pattern of investments is changing. In percentage terms, investments in industry are increasing more than those in natural resources. In countries such as Ethiopia, for example, China has been the major investor in industry since 2008 (followed by India and Turkey). These three countries also accounted for the investments creating the most jobs in industry. The majority of the investments are concentrated in the light industry, for example in textiles, clothes, leather and footwear. In the Ethiopia case, it therefore looks as if China’s presence may have a significant effect, in creating employment opportunities that can both reduce poverty and contribute to economic diversification and potential structural transformation. Much of the anxiety about Asia’s increased role as an investor in Africa has been about the purchase of farmland. Purchases of farmland increased in 2008 because of rising food prices on the global market as a result of a boom in the cultivation of bio-fuel and increased demand for beef and flour products in Asia. Africa, in particular, became of interest to international actors because it is the continent with the greatest unused area of cultivable land. It is very difficult to estimate how much land has been bought up. Those who protested against the purchases and refer to it as land-grabbing are sometimes criticised for exaggerating the area bought up or leased. They, in turn, think that more optimistic observers underestimate the area sold and that many sales take place under the radar, via corrupt officials. Irrespective of its extent, it is a harsh blow for small-scale farmers when they lose their land without proper compensation or alternative means of providing for themselves. In certain instances, planned purchases have led to political protests. In Madagascar, for example, the political situation was very tense in 2009. After two months of bitter clashes, a coup d’état by Andry Rajoelina, the former Mayor of the capital, and supported by the military, was carried out on 17 March 2009. A self-appointed transitional authority, with Rajoelina as chairman, dissolved the National Assembly and the Senate. After pressure by those who made the coup, the democratically elected president, Marc Ravalomanana, was forced to leave the country. This coup was supported by large sections of the population

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of Madagascar, but was condemned by both the African Union and the European Union. A decisive factor which precipitated the political disturbance was the previous government’s decision to lease half of Madagascar’s farmland to Daewoo, the major South Korean enterprise. This agreement runs for 99 years and is intended to supply South Korea with corn. Meanwhile, 70% of the population of Madagascar lives on less than a dollar a day, and the country is dependent on food aid. The new government cancelled the contract with the South Korean enterprise. Aid organisations also accuse China of giving support to African governments, without demanding that they should pay heed to human rights and care for the environment. Particular criticism has been levelled against China because of its trade with the former Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe and its investments in oil production in southern Sudan. But for African Governments and enterprises, China’s expansive policy means that they have in the short term gained greater opportunities to act more independently. China offers capital and expertise without making political demands. Many of the Chinese investments are moreover labour-intensive to a greater extent than the European. That means that they tend to have a more positive local effect, by creating new job opportunities in countries that have been hit by high unemployment. It is meanwhile impossible to know what will be the long-term effects of China’s expansive policy for the African countries. What is, at any rate, clear is that we can discern a new time when the European impact on the African economy and politics will diminish, while South–South relations will grow stronger.

Bibliography Bräutigam, D. (1999) ‘Mauritius: Rethinking the miracle’, Current History, 98: 228. Bräutigam, D. (2003) ‘Close encounters: Chinese business networks as industrial catalysts in sub‐Saharan Africa’, African Affairs, 102(408): 447–467. Bräutigam, D. (2008) ‘“Flying Geese” or “Hidden Dragon” Chinese business and African industrial development’, in China returns to Africa: A rising power and a continent embrace, London: Christopher. Broadman, Harry G. (2007) Africa’s silk road: China and India’s new economic frontier, Washington, DC: World Bank. Deaton, A. (1999) ‘Commodity prices and growth in Africa’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13(3): 23–40. Frankema, Ewout, and Marlous van Waijenburg (2018) ‘Africa rising? A historical perspective’, African Affairs, published online 15 June 2018. Gibbon, P., and S. Ponte (2005) Trading down: Africa, value chains, and the global economy, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Jerven, Morten (2010) ‘African growth recurring: An economic history perspective on African growth episodes, 1690–2010’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 25(2): 127–154. McMillan, M., and K. Harttgen (2014) ‘What is Driving the “African Growth Miracle”? African Development Bank Group’, Working Paper Series No. 209. Mshomba, R. E. (2000) Africa in the global economy, London: Lynne Rienner. Rodrik D. (2014) ‘An African growth miracle?’ NBER Working Paper, 20188. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (1999) Foreign Direct Investments in Africa, Performance and Potential, Report 15.

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United Nations Economic Commission on Africa (UNECA) (2014) Economic Report on Africa 2014, Addis Ababa. Von Braun, J., and R. S. Meinzen-Dick (2009) “Land grabbing” by foreign investors in developing countries: Risks and opportunities, Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Young, Alwin (2012) ‘The African growth miracle’, Journal of Political Economy, 120(4): 696–739. Whitfield, Lindsay, Ole Therkildsen, Lars Buur, and Anne Mette Kjær (2015) The politics of African industrial policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Bank (2018) ‘World Bank indicators’, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator. World Trade Organisation (2018) ‘Statistics database’, http://stat.wto.org/Home/WSDBHome. aspx.

9

Summarising the Past and Hypothesising About the Future

In this last and concluding chapter we do two things. First, we briefly summarise what we have learned so far about Africa’s economic and social history. Second, we take a point of departure in current trends and sketch some potential scenarios for the future.

9.1 Summary We started this journey through the history of sub-Sahara Africa by looking back in time some 1000 years. What we saw was a diverse continent where populations had organised themselves in a variety of economic, political and social systems. There were hunting-gathering nomads living primarily off collecting berries and plants and supplementing with hunting. Pastoralists either were nomads herding their animals over large areas in search of water and grazing or lived in sedentary groups combining livestock keeping with agriculture. However, crop farming was the most common system of production practised by societies that organised themselves socially in a variety of ways. Parallel with food production, handcraft was performed either as a sideline or by specialised craftsmen. There also existed occasional examples of manufacturing and proto-industries. These systems of production were combined with a variety of political systems. There existed both decentralised societies where each group had their independent local authorities and highly unified and centralised kingdoms with strict hierarchies. In between, numerous varieties of the extremes could be found. While the overwhelming majority of people controlled their own modes of production, primarily land and labour, and practised subsistence farming, the centralised states also included warriors, bureaucrats and elites, directly or indirectly living of tributes and taxes paid by the subjects. Independent of the political system, societies where stratified by age and gender and the leadership was commonly made up of a smaller group of older men. © The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3_9

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Through trade networks, the African continent was connected with Europe, Middle East and Asia exporting goods with a high value per weight unit such as gold, ivory and ostrich feathers. The trade having the most profound effects on the region was, however, the slave trade that was on-going for over 1000 years. Most detrimental was the height of the Atlantic slave trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the system took on almost industrial proportions in its scope and intensity. For a continent that was already characterised by low population densities and labour supply deficit, the export of some 30 million people combined with the destruction of local societies had far-reaching repercussions in terms of halted population growth and economic progress. The slave trade started coming to an end with the British ban of international trade in 1807 and during the nineteenth century trade patterns changed to an increasing focus on export crops and raw materials. The second half of the c­ entury consisted of decades of a build-up of European interests that culminated in the territorial conquest commonly called the “scramble for Africa”, taking place during the period from the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 to the start of WWI. Ever since the fifteenth-century Europeans had stopped along the African coast in their search for a nautical rout to Asia. They constructed forts and trading stations with the Cape Colony as the most elaborate example. However, they had not ventured in-land. In the mid-nineteenth century missionaries and explorers started to penetrate and map the widespread areas of which the Europeans knew very little. A combination of factors drove the new interest in colonisation. Africa was one of the few areas of the world still not under some type of European control and the European countries were caught up in power struggles that needed an outlet. Once it happened, conquest was fast. While African societies tried to resist they were at a serious military disadvantage. Establishing territorial control is, however, something different from ruling and during the early decades of colonialism the European powers were preoccupied with the build-up to and the aftermath of WWI. It was not until the late 1920s that they started taking more seriously the challenge of what they were going to do with the African additions to their empires. In the meantime, the colonial administrations identified the comparative advantages of the different territories and started to develop export sectors based on the extraction of minerals and/or the production of export crops. While the large majority of the population continued to be occupied with diverse livelihood strategies, primarily based on subsistence agriculture, the formal economy that emerged was narrow in scope usually focusing on only one or two products. The colonial administrations’ search for ways to tax the population engaged in non-monetary activities forced growing numbers of Africans to turn to either cash crop production or labour migration to the mining areas. This resulted in significant loss of male labour in the local systems of production. In parallel with the taxation of the population, the colonial administrations tried to extract revenue from putting levies on imports and exports. Establishing profitable export sectors and controlling the gate became the centre of their attention. Nevertheless, the financial base remained limited and by necessity so did the scope of the administrations’ development ambitions.

9.1 Summary

267

When the Great Depression hit the global economy in the early 1930s it undermined export revenues from commodities. While the epicentre of the economic crisis was in Europe and North America, it hit the African economies hard. It revealed European settler agriculture’s difficulty to become profitable without the colonial administration enforcing labour control as well as distortion of prices and markets. This created a rift between colonial interests as the administration ­primarily had to secure revenues for its own activities, whether incomes came from the settlers or from the increasingly commercialised indigenous agricultural sector. The crisis put pressure on all existing sectors but it brought limited change to the economic structures of the colonies. The administration did feel, however, a need to assert more control over the economies and secure revenues. The way forward was to focus their ambitions even harder on the administration of the settled areas and setting up monopolies for exports. The time period until 1950 saw the height of colonial rule and the establishment of the gate-keeping state. As the world woke up after WWII to enforced democratic values and unprecedented economic growth, the end of the colonial empires drew near. Both administrations and African subjects raised their expectations for development. Colonial powers increased their investments to achieve both economic and social development and Africans resisted foreign rule and demanded independence. Between late 1950s and early 1970s the colonies turned into independent nations. Most of them through peaceful processes although there were exceptions. Despite the colonial boarders being the result of European map drawing and forced on the African populations, they were mostly up-held. The end to formal foreign rule was replaced by new economic and political alliances with the capitalist and com­ munist epicentres of the Cold War. At the time of independence African was largely on par with other developing regions. While there were attempts in some countries at radical change, colonial economic structure largely remained the same and so did the principles of the gate-keeping state. The oil crises of the 1970s would expose, however, the weakness of the natural resource dependent African economies. As commodity prices fell on the world market and oil imports claimed an increasing share of state revenues African states borrowed money to cover their deficits and ended up in a depth trap. Together with many other developing countries, they saw their economies collapse and in the 1980s turned to get loans tied to Structural Adjustment Programs from the World Bank. The economies where restructured through forced liberalisation, social development came to a halt or even regressed and the gatekeeping state took a blow. Turning the crisis around took time and the 1980s and 1990s are known as “the lost decades” for Africa. In the midst of the crisis, the African countries had to struggle with various challenges. The majority of the populations were still engaged in lowproductive agriculture and despite efforts the agricultural sector could not take off. Alternatives for employment were lacking as industrialisation was limited and based on extractive sectors with few linkages to the rest of the economies. While the service sector was expanding it consisted of the public sector, hospitality and low-productive self-employment. Meanwhile, populations were booming putting

268

9  Summarising the Past and Hypothesising About the Future

even more pressure on economic growth and in search for a better life people moved to the cities only to end up in urban poverty. On top of persistent poverty and existing diseases, the AIDS epidemic hit especially Southern Africa. Many economists and policymakers saw Africa as a lost continent, but changes were happening. Liberalisation, despite all its drawbacks, opened up for new opportunities to diversify the economies away from the old structures set up by the colonial administrations. Also the political systems slowly shifted and democratisation in some shape or form spread. Collaboration and trade within the continent increased with the establishment and development of a number of economic unions. At the same time, Africa’s position in the global economy changed. Still heavily reliant on natural resources, the region advanced its relationships with other developing regions and somewhat reduced the old dependency on the former colonial powers. From the turn of the millennium the future started to look a little brighter.

9.2 Is Africa Growing Out of Poverty? No-one can call in question the fact that Africa as a region has experienced remarkable economic changes the last 15 years. The question is if this growth will be sustained, i.e. if Africa is finally growing out of poverty. As economic historians we are not keen on making projections. However, coming to the end of our journey through Africa’s multifaceted past we believe that there are some important lessons to draw from history. Economists are divided on the future of Africa. Some focus on the positive signs. Macro-economic stability, improved governance, increases in literacy rates, better access to basic infrastructure and sanitation and signs of productivity growth in agriculture make them believe that at least parts of the region are slowly moving towards sustained economic development. A growing middle class, rapid urbanisation rates and increased inflow of Foreign Direct Investments, FDI, are also mentioned as positive signs. Critics respond by arguing that despite these improvements the lack of growth in the manufacturing sector is a major concern. Further, while people are moving out of agriculture, the majority end up in low paid and low-productive jobs in the service sector. Prospect for sustained economic development is from that perspective meagre. Which of these two projections is the most accurate? The question is not so easy to answer as one may think. Most economic historians would agree that growing from poor to rich is a process characterised by a relative decline in agriculture and a rise of more productive manufacturing and/or service sectors. Initially, it was believed that the process was set in motion by increased demand for labour in the more productive sectors. People that moved into these emerging sectors experienced increased earnings. At the same time the loss of labour in agriculture stimulates the use of new technology that in turn drives up labour productivity in the primary sector and the farm workers could hence also experience higher wages. In the long run everybody gains and the economy grows. An alternative approach, which has dominated development circles the past two decades,

9.2  Is Africa Growing Out of Poverty?

269

is that the process is driven by reverse mechanisms. First there is increased labour productivity in agriculture through technological change which in turn creates surplus labour that can be absorbed by a growing manufacturing and high-productive service sectors. Economic historians have, however, in general viewed the opportunity for agriculture to be the engine of structural transformation in Africa with scepticism because despite popular beliefs, there are serious environmental constraints for surplus extraction from African agriculture. First, many of the soils in Africa are either of low fertility or fertile but easily eroded. Second, the high-yielding varieties that formed a central part of the Asian Green Revolution were water intensive. Meanwhile, Africa is the most arid continent in the world and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, forecast greater aridity due to climate change. That having been said, from a structural transformation perspective the relative decline of agriculture in Africa is not problematic as such. From the works of Peter Timmer we know that the end of the agricultural transformation entails in relative terms a small agricultural sector. It should be, however, a highly productive and commercialised sector and herein lies the failure of African agricultural growth. Also a number of economists are worried that the relative shrinking of the agricultural sector has so far not been accompanied by growth of the manufacturing sector. In most of Africa it is instead the service sector that is expanding. Is this a problem? While it is true that the development of manufacturing has been a key in most rich countries, the process has differed in time and place. What has been common, at least in the twentieth century, was that the service sector grew significantly as poor countries began to develop. Initially, it was the public sector together with the so-called “traditional” service sectors that were growing, domestic work, petty trade, hotels and restaurants and transport. Overtime, the economic significance of these type of services declined in relative terms. Instead, as countries moved from middle to high income, the service sector became increasingly associated with high productive and human capital intense services like insurance, modern banking and IT. What are the opportunities for Africa to follow such a development pattern? Some scholars argue that as the world is moving towards a post-industrial age the role of the service sector may be different today compared to previous times. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, has in a report from 2015 pointed at the importance of the service sector for Africa’s future growth. UNCTAD argues not only that the service sector is vital for the growth of the manufacturing sector, but that there are some signs that the sector itself can be a source of sustained growth in a variety of ways. For example, in the report logistics and distribution is identified as key to benefit African agriculture. UNCTAD also give examples of African countries providing high skilled services across the region, for instance, the emerging financial and banking services in Mauritius and Nigeria and the commercial cargo industry in Kenya. Sectors like this have, according to UNCTAD, the potential to become a significant driver for sustained economic development. What is the likeliness that Africa in the near future will

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9  Summarising the Past and Hypothesising About the Future

be able to develop high-productive service sectors that can compete on the global markets? While the development of IT and telecommunication in the last 20 years has been very impressive, Africa is still lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to developing the necessary infrastructure. The continent is also—and ­differently from Asia and Americas—facing the disadvantage of being located in the same time zone as Europe. This prevents Africa from using the time-difference as a strategy to compete with the major hubs of global financial services—Frankfurt and London. For both theoretical and practical reasons most economic historians and economists would hence conclude that sustained economic development while it can have productive services as a vital component should also include a growing manufacturing sector. The question is how this can be achieved? Considering the diversity within the continent in terms of amount and quality of the factors of production (land, labour, capital) the solutions must be multiple. One suggestion in line with experiences in the past is that Africa could rely on its natural resource wealth. Although, this time around, export incomes need to be better managed. There is a trend of economic nationalism whereby the individual states led by modern strong men, for example, presidents Magufuli in Tanzania and Kagame in Rwanda, are taking on increased control over the systems of production within the primary sector, both extractive industries such as mining and agriculture. They are aiming for putting an end to foreign exploitation of African resources. The sustained economic gains from these strategies remains to be seen. Another option is that Africa’s demographic transition may provide unique opportunities for the content to increase its global share of manufacturing production by following a labour-intensive path similar to that of Southeast Asia. In previous chapters we have shown that Africa historically has been characterised by low population densities. As long as land was in abundance, people had the possibility to remain as independent producers rather than work for others. Labour being a scarce resource has led to high cost of employing it. In the precolonial and to some extent also the colonial period authorities tackled this issue by using coercive measures to obtain sufficient amounts of labourers. For independent African states, the use of coercion has never been a realistic alternative for political and social reasons and they have found it difficult to compete for foreign direct investments with the much more populous regions in Asia. The high-levels of population growth throughout the twentieth century is about to change this. On an aggregate level there is still a surplus of arable land, but as populations continue to grow, Africa is in the transition from being a low densely to a high densely populated region, which means a decline in the relative price of labour. The rapid urbanisation rates further facilitate this process, as people are increasingly concentrated into smaller geographical units. While this is happening, the parts of Asia that since the 1960s have been the global centre of lighter industry is experiencing low fertility levels and increased relative price of labour. This potentially provides Africa with an opportunity to become the “workshop of the world” as long as African governments implement policies to make sure that investing in Africa

9.2  Is Africa Growing Out of Poverty?

271

remains an attractive option. This is a future envisioned for example by the former World Bank chief economist and senior vice president, Justin Lin. The economic historians Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg have recently assessed the likeliness for this to scenario and they are sceptical. They argue that cheap labour certainly enabled Japan—the first non-European ­country—to begin its path towards industrialisation in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, there was significant difference in real wages between England (London) and Japan (Tokyo). Despite increasing wages in Asia (most notably China) the current wage-gap between Africa and Asia is not nearly as high. They conclude that it is unlikely that the wage-gap alone would be sufficient to attract investments in manufacturing. To attract investments African governments would have to offer additional advantages such as strategic input monopolies, low transportation costs, etc. They further argue that the labour-intensive path towards industrialisation in Japan was partly facilitated by the widespread presence of proto-industries. These types of industries have existed in Africa as well, for example, textile, ironware, ceramics, etc. However, during the colonial era the economic strategy to deepen the specialisation in exports of commodities together with increased competition of textile imports from India, China, Japan and Great Britain curtailed the evolution of indigenous small-scale industries. In that regard, Africa is lacking much of the local infrastructure and institutions that would facilitate the growth of local labour-intensive industries. Nevertheless, Madagascar and Ethiopia are currently trying the labour-intensive path. In addition, there are challenges of achieving sustained economic development via policies that are inclusive and democratic and there is a potential tradeoff between policies and outcomes. Many development economists at the moment regard Ethiopia as one of the best examples of an Asian-like development model in Africa. Few would question Ethiopia’s recent achievements in terms of both agriculture and manufacturing growth but to label the policies as inclusive would be to go a step to far. On the contrary, the economic strategies pursued by the government have so far gone hand in hand with repression of parts of rural communities (who are left without land), urban workers (who have no right to unionise) and restrictions of the civil society. The lesson from this example, just as with history in general, is that it is very difficult to identify a development process where no one—at least in the short run—has lost out both in relative and absolute terms. The challenge for Africa and its governments is to find new paths, whereby ­sustained economic development is not associated with repressive policies. Finally, we need to be careful not to be so obsessed with past experiences that we lack the imagination to see what new opportunities lie ahead. For example, some researchers believe that Africa has a unique opportunity, because of its many hours of sunshine, powerful water courses and extensive land areas where energy plants may be cultivated, to be instrumental in meeting the future global need for renewable energy. This may be an unexploited comparative advantage, which can attract major investments from abroad. Another potential could be found in innovation of services developed to serve regional conditions, but with a potential to

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benefit other parts of the world as well. We have already seen examples of how this has come about with financial transactions via mobile phones such as Mpesa from East Africa. At the end of the day, we can only speculate what will come about and how it may contribute to structural transformation. What we have shown is that human agency drives history and that the peoples of Africa through time have demonstrated a great capacity to navigate through booms and busts and to find innovative ways to deal with ever-changing circumstances. We therefore, despite the many challenges that Africa is facing, would like to end on an optimistic note and we hope that in a decade or two we will talk about the “African development model” as a case of success for others to follow.

Bibliography Austin, G. (2015) ‘Is Africa too late for “late development”? Gerschenkron South of the Sahara’, in M. Andersson and T. Axelsson (eds.) Diverse development paths and structural transformation in the escape from poverty, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Esteban, J., J. Stiglitz, and J. L. Yifu (eds.) (2013) The Industrial Policy Revolution II: Africa in the twenty-first century, New York: Springer. Frankema, Ewout, and Marlous van Waijenburg (2018) ‘Africa rising? A historical perspective’, African Affairs, published online 15 June 2018. Lin, J. Y. (2012) From flying geese to leading dragons: New opportunities and strategies for structural transformation in developing countries, The World Bank. Thorbecke, E., and Y. Ouyang (2017) ‘Is Africa finally catching up?’, in M. Andersson and T. Axelsson (eds.) Diverse development paths and structural transformation in the escape from poverty, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Timmer, C. P. (2009) A world without agriculture, Cambridge: AIE Press.

Appendix

Table A.1  Current facts about African countries Literacy (% Life of popula- expectancy tion +15 (years) årb)

Country

Area (thou- Population sand km2) (million)

Algeria

2382

41.3

4123

75

76

24

Angola

1247

29.8

4176

67

62

81

Benin

113

11.2

830

69

61

98

Botswana

582

2.3

7596

81

67

38

Burkina Faso

274

19.2

671

35

60

81

28

10.9

320

62

57

61

475

24.1

1447

71

58

84

4

0.5

3210

87

73

17

623

4.7

418

37

52

122

1284

14.9

670

22

53

123

2

0.8

797

68

64

69

2345

81.3

458

77

60

91

23

1.0

1928

68

62

62

1001

97.6

2413

75

71

22

28

1.3

9850

88

58

90

118

5.0

583

65

65

43

Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of Congo Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea

GDP per capita (USD)

Under 5 child mortality (per 1000 children born)

(continued) © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3

273

274

Appendix

Table A.1  (continued) Literacy (% Life of popula- expectancy tion +15 (years) årb)

Country

Area (thou- Population sand km2) (million)

Ethiopia

1104

105.0

768

39

65

59

Gabon

268

2.0

7221

82

66

48

Gambia

11

2.1

483

42

61

64

Ghana

239

28.8

1642

72

63

49

Guinea

246

12.7

825

32

60

86

Guinea Bissau

36

1.9

724

46

57

84

Ivory Coast

323

24.3

1662

44

54

89

Kenya

580

49.7

1508

79

67

46

30

2.2

1182

77

54

86

Liberia

111

4.7

456

43

63

75

Libya

1760

6.3

7998

72

12

Madagascar

587

25.6

450

72

66

144

Malawi

119

18.6

339

62

63

55

Mali

1240

18.5

825

33

58

106

Mauretania

1031

4.4

1137

46

63

79

Lesotho

GDP per capita (USD)

–

Under 5 child mortality (per 1000 children born)

Mauritius

2

1.3

10,547

93

74

13

Morocco

447

35.7

3007

69

76

23

Mozambique

799

29.7

416

51

58

72

Namibia

824

2.5

5227

88

64

44

1267

21.5

378

15

60

85

Nigeria

924

190.1

1969

51

53

100

Republic of Congo

342

5.2

1658

79

60

48

1284

12.2

748

22

67

38

2

0.2

1913

90

67

32

Senegal

197

15.9

1033

43

67

45

Seychells

0,5

0.1

15,505

94

74

14

Niger

Rwanda São Tomé and Principe

Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa

72

7.6

499

32

52

111

638

14.7

500

38

56

127

1219

56.7

6161

94

63

37 (continued)

275

Appendix Table A.1  (continued) Country

South Sudan Sudan

Area (thou- Population sand km2) (million)

GDP per capita (USD)

Literacy (% Life of popula- expectancy tion +15 (years) årb)

Under 5 child mortality (per 1000 children born)

620

12.6

237

27

57

96

2506

40.5

2899

54

64

63

Swaziland

17

1.7

9900

88

57

54

Tanzania

947

57.3

936

78

66

54

57

7.8

617

64

60

73

Tunisia

167

11.5

3491

79

76

13

Uganda

241

42.9

604

72

60

49

Togo

West

Saharaa

–

–

–

–

–

–

Zambia

753

17.1

1510

83

62

60

Zimbabwe

391

16.5

1080

89

61

50

Source The World Bank Indicators (2018) aPart of Morocco. bVarying years between 2000 and 2016

Index

A Abolition, 169 Acemoglu, Daron, 24 Actors, 129 Addis Abeba, 174 Aden, 89 Administrative capacity, 143 Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) States, 249 African Development Bank, 174 African economic history, 8 African National Congress (ANC), 173, 203 African renaissance, 212 African rural elite, 20 African Union (AU), 212 Afro-optimism, 2 Afro-pessimism, 2 Age, 206 Age Grade system, 59 Agenda 2063, 213 Agricultural commodities, 79 Agricultural equipment, 130 Agricultural extension workers, 158 Agricultural transformation, 269 Agriculture, 42 Agronomists, 158 Agropastoralism, 42 Agro-processing industry, 158 Aid community, 195 Aid-donors, 195 Aid flows, 10 Aid for Trade, 259 Aids epidemics, 198 Ajayi, Jacob, 15 Aksum, 53 Aluminium, 180 America, 45

American Firestone Rubber, 125 Amin, Idi, 175 Andrianampoinimerina, 89 Angola, 55, 166 Antananarivo, 89 Anthropologists, 13 Anti-imperialist, 170 Arable lands, 42 Arabs, 45 Archaeological evidence, 39 Argentina, 250 Arusha Declaration, 177 Asante, 89 Asia, 10 Asiwaju, I.A., 103 Atlantic, 43 Austin, Gareth, 23 Autocratic rule, 202 B Baga, 70 Bagamoyo, 63 Balanced budget, 197 Bananas, 45 Banda, Hastings, 165 Bank of Abyssinia, 89 Banks, 245 Bantu peoples, 8 Bantustans, 128 Bartering, 61 Bates, Robert, 21 Bauxite, 186 Bechuanaland, 102 Beef, 261 Belgian Congo, 109 Belgium, 97

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 E. Hillbom and E. Green, An Economic History of Development in sub-Saharan Africa, Palgrave Studies in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14008-3

277

278 Bemba, 76 Benin, 81, 167 Berg Report, 20 Berlin Conference, 97 Berry, Sara, 23 Biafra, 167 Bilharzia, 32 Bio-fuel, 261 Boahen, A. Adu, 104 Boer, 82 Bokassa, Jean-Bidel, 190 Bonded labour, 6 Botswana, 166 Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), 203 Brain drain, 207 Brazil, 250 Bretton Woods system, 196 British, 26 British Cotton Growing Association, 149 British South Africa Company (BSAC), 98 British United Africa Company (UAC), 147 Burkina Faso, 167 Burley tobacco, 219 Burton, Richard, 94 Burundi, 98 C Cain, P.J., 104 Call-centres, 245 Cameroon, 81 Cape Colony, 46, 81 Cape of Good Hope, 65 Cape Province, 203 Cape Town, 83 Cape Verde, 46 Capital, 39 Capitalism, 16 Capitalist production system, 5 Caravans, 62 Caravan trade, 86 Cargo industry, 269 Cassava, 45 Catch up, 180 Cattle, 54 Cattle-plague, 158 Cavalry, 74 Central Africa, 55 Central African Republic, 190 Centralised power systems, 34 Centralised states, 34 Ceramics, 54 Cetshwayo, 101 Chemical fertilisers, 176

Index Chiefs, 141 Chieftaincy, 77 Chieftains, 34, 138 Child-headed households, 227 Child mortality, 183 Chile, 198 China, 173 Christianity, 95 Citizens, 140 City states, 50 Civil society, 205 Civil wars, 167 Class, 130 Cliffe, Lionel, 19 Climatic variations, 32 Cloths, 87 Cloves, 63 Cobalt, 193 Cocoa, 45, 141 Cocoa strike, 141 Cocoa trees, 135 Coconut fibre, 86 Coffee, 38 Coffee plantations, 111 Cohort, 59 Coinage, 53 Cold War, 169 Collectivisation, 178 Colonial administrations, 9 Colonial authorities, 9 Colonial expansion, 65 Colonial powers, 165 Colonial revenue, 108 Colonisation, 106 Colonised peoples, 165 Commercial centres, 133 Commercial companies, 124 Commercialisation, 8, 110 Commodity trade, 25 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), 209 Communal ownership, 46 Communism, 165 Communist ideologies, 165 Community Development Associations, 222 Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO), 147 Comparative advantage, 269 Congo, 55, 81 Congo Free State, 86 Congress of the People, 203 Conquest, 65 Consumer goods, 72 Consumers, 254

Index Consumption goods, 49, 131 Consumption units, 47, 214 Cooper, Frederick, 143 Cooperative movements, 166 Cooperatives, 176 Cooperative societies, 158 Copper mines, 48 Corruption, 179 Cotonou, 250 Cotonou Agreement, 250 Cotton, 71 Coups d’état, 167 Cowrie shells, 110 Craftsmen, 43 Crop-based agriculture, 42 Crop farming, 36 Crops, 43 Cuba, 173 Cultivation, 42 Currencies, 110, 174 Currency reserves, 185 Customary Law, 157 Cyber City, 245 D Daewoo, 262 Dahomey, 87 Dakhleh Oasis, 39 Dar es Salaam, 142 Davidson, Basil, 15 De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd, 98 de Brazza, Pierre Savorgnan, 97 Debt crisis, 188 Decentralisation, 43 Demand, 60 Democracy, 169 Democratic Alliance, 203 Democratic elections, 202 Democratic Republic of Congo, 55, 127 Democratic values, 165 Demographic change, 81 Demographic factors, 23 Demographic transition, 224 Dependency school, 18 Deregulation, 196 Deserts, 32 Devaluation, 197 Developing countries, 170 Development economics, 16 Diamond, Jared, 32 Diamonds, 98 Diarrhoea, 183

279 Diaspora, 174 Dike, Onwuka, 15 Direct rule, 140 Discovery, 64 Diversification, 253 Division of labour, 37 Djenné-Djenno, 56 Domesticated animals, 32 Durra, 43 Dutch, 46 Dutch Disease, 257 Duties, 108 E East Africa, 23 The East African Community (EAC), 174, 209 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 174, 209 Economic crisis, 20 Economic development, 25 Economic nationalism, 270 Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA), 250 Economic policy, 20 Economic stagnation, 1 Education, 166 Egalitarian, 38 Egypt, 39 Elders, 59 Elections, 202 Emerging markets, 1 Environmental factors, 23 Eritrea, 98 Erosion, 145 Ethiopia, 12 Ethnic group, 206 Eurasian, 60 Eurocentrism, 22 Europe, 10 European Communities (EC), 249 European settlement, 68 European Union (EU), 249 Explorers, 13, 94 Export commodity, 72 Export crops, 47 Export goods, 80, 108 Export incomes, 104 Export-oriented model, 182 Export Processing Zones (EPZ), 257 Export revenues, 80 Extensive agriculture, 43 Extractive industry, 181, 256

Index

280 F Fallow, 134 Family-based user-rights, 214 Famine, 168 Farmers, 46 Fenske, James, 25 Financial capital, 6 Financial resources, 143 Financial services, 245 Firearms, 62 Fishing, 39 Food crops, 47, 179 Food Reserve Agency (FRA), 217 Foot-and-mouth disease, 158 Forced labour, 113 Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), 251 Foreign investments, 10, 108 Formalised state, 53 Formal sector, 232 France, 15 Frank, André Gunder, 18 Frankema, Ewout, 25, 271 Frankfurt, 270 Frelimo, 166 French West Africa, 127, 167 Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), 173 Funerals, 58 G Gabon, 45, 186 Gambia, 86 Gate-keeping state, 9, 120 The Gatlin gun, 100 Gathering, 37 GDP per capita, 238 Ge’ez, 53 Gender, 24, 206 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 248 German East Africa, 98 German West Africa, 99 Germany, 97 Ghana, 15 Gini coefficient, 229 Glass, 54 Global commodity trade, 119 Global history, 26 Global market, 181 Global trade, 4 Gold, 48 Good governance, 202 Great Britain, 15, 68

Great Depression, 131 Greater Zimbabwe, 48 Great Trek, 82 Groundnuts, 45 Guinea, 70, 86, 167 Guinea Bissau, 166 Gujarat, 260 H Hadza, 37 Handicraft, 36 Hannibal, 102 Hausa-Fulani, 167 Hausaland, 34 Health, 142 Healthcare, 166 Historical archive material, 25 HIV/Aids epidemic, 9 Hobson, John A., 102 Homelands, 140 Hopkins, A.G., 17 Hopkins, Anthony, 104 Horn of Africa, 13 Hospitals, 183 Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 179 Households, 24 Human capital, 4, 161 Humanist ideals, 165 Human rights, 202 Hunter-gatherer societies, 31 Hunting, 37, 39 Hut tax, 110 I Ibadan school, 15 Ibn Khaldun, 12 Igbo, 167 Iliffe, John, 23 Imerina, 89 Imperialism, 102 Import duties, 181 Import substitution industrialisation (ISI), 181 Improved seeds, 176 Income, 42 Independence, 9, 162 India, 65 Indian Ocean, 43 Indirect rule, 139 Individualism, 174 Industrialisation, 180 Industry, 180 Inequality, 25, 133

Index Infant mortality, 161 Informal sector, 232 Information technology (IT), 245 Infrastructure, 93 Infrastructure projects, 144 Inikori, Joseph, 26 Initiation rites, 58 Institutionalism, 20 Institutional change, 21 Institutional segregation, 140 Institutions, 5 Intensification, 34 Intensive agriculture, 23 Interest groups, 33, 188 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 269 International Cocoa Agreement, 249 International Coffee Agreement, 249 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 187 International Sugar Treaty, 249 International transfers, 10 Investments, 108 Iron, 48 Irrigation, 34 Islam, 95 Islamic slave trade, 70 Islamic trade, 63 Ivory, 38 Ivory Coast, 100, 167 J Japan, 271 Jihad, 95 Johannesburg, 108 Johnson, Simon, 24 Jola, 70 K Kagame, 270 Kalahari Desert, 37 Kano, 34 Kasai, 109 Katanga, 109 Kenya, 26 Keynes, John Maynard, 144 Keynesianism, 144 Kgotla, 59 Khama, Seretse, 165 Khoisan, 37 Kikuyu, 164 Kilwa, 52, 63, 260

281 Kimberley, 98 Kingdoms, 50 Kinship, 51, 174 Kinsmen, 46 Kleptocracy, 192 Kru, 70 L Labour exchange, 228 Labour-intensive industry, 257 Labour Party, 130 Labour reserves, 133 Lagos, 212 Lagos Plan of Action (LPA), 212 Lake Malawi, 63 Lake Tanganyika, 83 Lake Victoria, 41, 83 Land, 43 Land-grabbing, 261 Land law, 215 Land reforms, 215 Large-scale European agriculture, 120 Large-scale farmers, 21 Latin America, 10 League of Nations, 98 Legislations, 176 Lenin, Vladimir, 102 Lentils, 43 Leopold II, 114 Leopoldville, 142 Lewis, Arthur, 16 Liberal ideologies, 165 Liberalisation, 196 Liberalism, 165 Liberia, 70, 90, 167 Life expectancy, 3 Livelihoods, 42, 178 Livestock rearing, 38 Livingstone, David, 96 Loan-providers, 195 Loans, 196 Local authorities, 207 Local trade, 149 Lomé, 249 Lomé Convention, 249 London Missionary Society, 102 Long-distance trade, 61 Luanda, 142, 260 Lumumba, Patrice, 173 Luxemburg, Rosa, 103 Luxury goods, 49

282 M Maasai, 41 Madagascar, 88 Mafisa system, 230 Magufuli, 270 Maize, 45 Majority rule, 166 Malaria, 32, 183 Malawi, 39 Mali, 56, 101, 167 Malindi, 63, 260 Mandela, Nelson, 203 Market organisations, 148 Marxist, 19 Mass-vaccination, 183 Mau-Mau, 164 Mauretania, 101, 167 Mauritius, 182, 245 Mbeki, 212 McKinsey Global Institute, 242 Measles, 183 Meat, 39 Meat pastoralists, 41 Mediterranean, 70 Megatowns, 244 Menelik II, 89 Mercantilism, 67 Merchant class, 61 Merina, 88 Metropoles, 144 Mfecane, 82 Microloans, 207 Middle class, 165 Middle East, 39 Migrants, 141 Migrant workers, 131 Military support, 171 Milk, 39 Milk pastoralists, 41 Millennium Development Goals, 230 Millet, 43 Mineral resources, 98 Minerals, 79 Mining, 36 Mining districts, 81 Mining industry, 81, 108 Missionaries, 13, 94 Missionary societies, 80 M’mbelwas, 206 Mnangagwa, Emmerson, 241 Modernisation school, 16 Mogadishu, 52 Mombasa, 63 Monopoly, 149

Index Moore, Henrietta, 24 Moradi, Alexander, 26 Mortality, 198 Moslems, 95 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), 216 Movimento Popular de Libertacão de Angola (MPLA), 173 Mozambique, 69 Mpesa, 272 Mugabe, Robert, 215 Multiparty system, 202 Museveni, Yoweri, 201 N Nairobi, 111 Namibia, 99, 166 National accounts, 25 Nationalism, 14, 106 Nationalist Party, 130 Nation-formation, 165 Native Land Act, 128 Native Reserves, 128 Native Tobacco Board, 150 Native (Urban Areas) Act, 140 Natural resource curse, 256 Natural resources, 4 Navigation instruments, 65 Neo-classical economics, 21 Neo-institutionalism, 20 Neo-liberalism, 21 Neolithic revolution, 43 Neopatrimonialism, 191 Nepotism, 190 Netherlands, 201 New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), 212 Ngoni, 206 Ngwane, 82 Niger, 47 Niger Company, 147 Niger delta, 56 Nigeria, 15 Nkrumah, Kwame, 18, 165, 174 Nobility, 67 Nomadic life-style, 37 Nomads, 37 Non-government organisations (NGOs), 195 North, Douglass C., 21 North Africa, 1 North America, 11 Northern Rhodesia, 98 Nubian mines, 48

Index Nuclear family, 47 Nunn, Nathan, 25 Nutrition, 26 Nutritional value, 43 Nyasaland, 98 Nyerere, Julius, 173 O Obasanjo, 212 Ochieng, William, 18 Officials, 43 Oil, 181 Oil crisis, 185 One-party states, 202 Orange Free State, 101 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 174 Ostrich eggs, 38 Ostrich feathers, 38 Ownership, 41 Ownership systems, 40 Oxfam, 207 Oyo, 52 P Pacific Asian, 181 Pakistan, 198 Palm oil, 84 Pan-African movement, 169 Pastoralists, 31, 38 Pasture, 41 Patriarchal system, 58 Patriarchy, 47 Patron, 58 Patron–client relationship, 58 People’s Trading Center (PTC), 212 Pepper, 62 Periodisation, 8 Pesticides, 176 Petro-dollars, 187 Phosphate, 181 Plantation owners, 81 Plantation sector, 63 Pneumonia, 183 Polio, 183 Political alliances, 171 Political control, 34 Political elite, 34 Political opposition, 142 Polygamous families, 214 Polygamy, 47 Population density, 6, 34 Population increase, 6

283 Portugal, 65 Portuguese, 45 Portuguese Guinea, 86 Poverty, 21 Power arenas, 5, 137 Power, Joey, 19 Power relationships, 51 Pre-colonial era, 44 Price-setting, 149 Private actors, 196 Private investors, 124 Private ownership, 46 Private user rights, 46 Privatisation, 214 Producer prices, 180, 217 Production, 3 Production factors, 4, 7 Production systems, 4 Production units, 47, 214 Productive capacites, 253 Productivity, 43 Proletariat, 130 Property rights, 46, 157 Property rights regimes, 46 Protective duties, 181 Proto-industries, 271 Public sector, 207 Purchasing monopoly(ies), 166, 176 Purchasing power, 254 Pygmies, 37 Q Quantitative revolution, 26 R Railroad, 111 Railway, 111 Rain forests, 32 Rajoelina, Andry, 261 Ramaphosa, Cyril, 203 Ravalomanana, Marc, 261 Raw materials, 4 Reciprocal comparison, 4 Red Sea, 53 Relative price, 5 Remittances, 221 Reproduction, 3 Residential plots, 42 Revenues, 149 Rhodes, Cecil, 98 Rhodesia, 166 Rice, 45

284 Rift Valley, 37 Riots, 142 Risk spreading, 33 Risk taking, 33 River Congo, 37 River Niger, 97 Robinson, James, 24 Rodney, Walter, 19 Rodrik, Dani, 243 Rostow, Walt W., 16 The Royal Niger Company, 94 Rubber, 84 Rum, 71 Russia, 170 Rwanda, 44 Rye, 43 S Sahara Desert, 41 Salt, 54 Samin, Amir, 19 San, 37 Sanitation, 142 São Tomé, 45 Schapera, Isaac, 14 Schools, 183 Schumpeter, Joseph, 103 Sedentary, 39 Segmented political systems, 50 Segregation, 130 Seko, Mobutu Sesse, 193 Sékou Touré, 173 Senegal, 15, 167 Senghor, Léopold, 165 Settler colonialism, 4 Settler colonies, 125 Shaka Zulu, 82 Sharecropping, 131 Ships, 65 Shona, 55 Shoprite, 212 Sierra Leone, 84, 167 Slave class, 70 Slave-hunting, 74 Slave labour, 45 Slave raids, 70 Sleeping sickness, 32, 134 Slum, 164, 244 Small-scale farmers, 21 Small-scale farming, 8 Smith, Dalrymple, 25 Social development, 166

Index Social history, 22 Social indicators, 198 Social instability, 124 Socialism, 16, 165 Socialist ideologies, 165 Social mobility, 133 Social networks, 51 Société Commerciale de l’Ouest Africain (SCOA), 147 Socio-political structures, 79 Sofala, 260 Soil erosion, 145 Soldiers, 43 Somalia, 52 Somalis, 51 Soninke, 234 Southern Africa, 15, 61 Southern African Development Community (SADC), 209 Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC), 175, 211 Southern Rhodesia, 18, 98 South Korean, 262 South–South relationships, 10 Soviet Union, 169 Spain, 65 Spices, 63 Squatters, 164 Stagnation, 33, 237 Standards of living, 26 Stanley, Morton, 97 Stanley Pool, 111 State bureaucracy, 198 State enterprises, 198 State-formation, 88 State-led, 195 State-owned enterprises, 166 Steel, 130 Stratification, 133 Strikes, 142 Sructural adjustment programs (SAP), 197 Structural transformation, 269 Sugar, 38 Sugar cane, 45 Sustainable Development Goals, 230 Sustained economic growth, 20 Sutton, John E.G., 23 Swahili, 52 Swazi, 82 Swaziland, 82 Sweden, 173 Switzerland, 97 Systems of authority, 34

Index T Tanganyika, 98 Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, 159 Tanzania, 34 Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB), 200 Tanzania Coffee Union, 216 Tax, 21 Taxation, 21 Tchad, 183 Tea, 38 Technological change, 6 Technology, 6 Territorial conquest, 79 Textile industry, 26 Textile production, 47 Textiles, 81 Thailand, 198 Timbuktu, 12 Time series, 25 Timmer, Peter, 269 Tin mines, 48 Tobacco, 45, 132 Togo, 97, 181, 249 Tokyo, 271 Trade, 84 Trade balance, 67 Trade networks, 61 Trade routes, 62 Traders, 13 Tradesmen, 61 Trade stations, 62 Trades union(s), 130, 165 Trade treaties, 175 Trading companies, 80 Trading expeditions, 45 Trading stations, 65 Trading systems, 61 Transatlantic slave trade, 74 Transfers, 255 Transport, 111 Transport costs, 93 Trans-Saharan trade, 61 Transvaal, 101 Triangular trade, 71 Tribute societies, 50 Tsetse fly, 23, 134 Tswana, 14 Tuaregs, 61 Tuberculosis, 183 Ture, Samori, 100 U Uban population, 184

285 Uganda, 15 Ujamaa, 178 Under-nourishment, 36 UN Economic Commission for Africa, 243 Unilever, 147 Unita guerilla force (União Nacional para a Indepêndencia Total de Angola), 173 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 269 United Nations (UN), 169 United States of America (USA), 10, 90 Uranium, 181 Urban dwellers, 161 Urbanisation, 3 Urban population, 31 Urban protests, 142 V van Waijenburg, Marlous, 25, 271 Vaughan, Megan, 24 Veterinarians, 158 Veterinary services, 158 Victoria, 102 Village, 42 Village chiefs, 138, 142 von Bismarck, Otto, 97 Voyages of discovery, 45 W Wage-gap, 271 Wage labour, 6, 80 Wages, 130 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 18 Washington Consensus, 197 Wassoulou, 100 Water, 41 Wealth, 42 Weather conditions, 132 Welfare, 25, 182 West Africa, 8 West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), 209 Wheat, 43 Whitaker Jr, C.S., 17 Widgren, Mats, 23 Wilmsen, Edwin, 38 Wise men, 59 Witwatersrand, 108 Working class, 165 Working conditions, 130 World Bank, 187 World Bank Development Report, 213

286 World market prices, 180 World system approach, 18 World Trade Organisation (WTO), 249 World War (WWII), 13, 128 World War I (WWI), 106 Y Yield(s), 43 Yoa, 63 Yoruba, 34, 167 Young, Alwyn, 243

Index Z Zaire, 167, 193 Zambia, 39, 98, 183 Zanzibar, 52 Zimbabwe, 18 Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), 173 Zulu expansion, 82 Zululand, 82 Zuma, Jacob, 203