Are Western and Asian Countries Re-Colonizing Africa?

On the BBC today, Africa war journalist Alan Little asks, "Can Britain Lift Sierra Leone Out of Poverty?" He reflects on this tendency in post-Colonial environments for many locals to lose confidence in their nation's ability to develop. Many call for more aid and investment from other countries. Some even call for neo-colonialism.

"What?" you might ask.

For context, take a ride through Sierra Leone through Adam Cohn's photo essay, "Freetown's Diamond Road," or read Memunatu Pratt's reflection on post-war peacebuilding in "Bringing the Peace Back to West Africa".

What happens is that most people throughout Africa just want what all humans want: jobs or better jobs so they can provide for their families and have a little peaceful space. The great numbers of people unemployed, under-employed, or displaced and homeless put extreme pressure on local entrepreneurs who, in poor developing countries, have serious trouble getting investment or loans so that they can grow, trade, and employ. Those traders and entrepreneurs put pressure on the elite and the government. Top officials, many of whom cannot figure out how to speed up development in a resource poor or crisis-affected country, or who are corrupt and keeping oil revenue to the elite, tend to call on foreign aid donors like the U.S. or U.K. to help them solve the issues.

You knew that much, right? Well, often local aid workers and elite get impatient with their government officials and the slow pace of development, so they first look for foreign companies to invest. That failing, many feel the only way to recover is to have a foreign government basically "sponsor" the country, leaving the government and the county reliant on that revived colonial power.

There are many ironies and contradictions here. And no one feels it more painfully than the local working class and seasonal laborers. Many good-faith aid planners among the donors and local partners do honestly endeavor to empower local traders and link them to foreign partners and investment. But as the development blueprint is handed out to thousands of people in the human chain meant to make it happen, many interpret that plan differently and by the end, much of the effort falls back on traditional patterns. What are anti-colonialists to do to finally defeat this tendency?

Photo credit: Adam Cohn