The Scramble for Africa: A revisit?

In a recent TIME Magazine (March 2009) article titled, “10 ideas that are changing the world” a number of ideas are listed and perceived as changing the world.  Alex Perry argues in the sixth idea that Africa is the business destination of the present time. Various reasons are pointed out in favour of the latter argument, among which include: (1) Africa’s vast natural resources that many countries seek to exploit; (2) the massive foreign investment which has recently surpassed western donor AID (in 2006 it stood at $48 billion). (3) Africa also currently has the highest rate of return on investment since it escaped the effects of the financial crisis due to the continent not venturing into derivates or sub-prime mortgages. The IMF predicts that Africa will grow 3.3% this year and buck the financial crisis. Finally (4) China’s new love for Africa also signals the reason why the continent is the place for business. Trade between Africa and China has grown on average by 30% in the past decade, topping $106 billion in 2008.

It is natural to go where resources are and since time immemorial, countries always have.  During the scramble for Africa at the end of the nineteenth century, European powers staked claims to virtually every part of the continent.  According to Perry, in the new scramble for resources, China heads the list with mining copper in Zambia and cobalt in the DRC and tapping oil in Angola. Well off countries like South Korea that do not have enough land to grow crops to feed their own people want to rent huge tracts of land in poor African countries. The West is also investing in Africa and baying for the same resources as China. So what is the difference between the two powerful markets?  How is Chinese investment different from European colonisation? Perhaps as the article argues, the biggest difference is that China does not view Africa with pity - as a basket case. China views Africa as an equal business partner. Europe’s infrastructural investment on the continent involved building roads and rail links from the resource source to the coast – the fastest way to get the spoils to the colonial metropolitan power and markets. To buy its access into Africa, China has agreed to build a new infrastructure for Africa – building roads, railways, hospitals and schools across the continent and not just to the resource pools. China, according to one banker in West Africa (Ekpe, CEO of Ecobank in Togo):  “is not setting out to do good but to do business with Africa”.

The question is then: Is China prodding the new scramble for Africa with its perceptions (treating Africa as an equal business partner) and actions (investing throughout the continent)? If indeed it is, what form is this new scramble taking and what impact is it having on the West and the rest of the developed world? Is it time for the West to change its perception of Africa? And finally, has Africa’s time finally come?

To read the original TIME Magazine article, follow the hyperlink below:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884769,00.html

Molline Marume

Researcher and Consultant