AFRICA - From South Africa and Nigeria examples to re-launch collaboration among all the countries of Africa

Wednesday, 14 July 2004

Rome (Fides Service)- One of the evils of Africa is lack of collaboration among the states of the continent. This is due partly to the heritage of colonial times. Territories administered by Europeans were connected with the great cities of reference but very often there were no direct relations between the two. For example a French colony might have no contact whatsoever with a neighbouring British colony. Everything was directed from the periphery to the centre of the respective colonial empires. For example, telephone calls from one end of Africa to the other depended on telephone exchanges in London or Paris.
This situation of dependence continued even when, on the ashes of colonialism, new African states had been created. In fact it is impossible, without adequate investments not only economic but also cultural, to cut off in a day relations consolidated in almost a century of colonisation.
At last African nations are building a network of relations to go beyond regional environments. The most recent example is an economic agreement between South Africa and Burkina Faso, two countries apparently very distant. The first, an English-speaking, in southern Africa is the continent’s financial giant. The second, French-speaking, is one of the poorest countries in West Africa. The agreement is that South Africa will invest in Burkina Faso’s mining industry. Mineral resources of this country are gold, zinc and manganese.
South Africa is also intensifying its diplomatic activity in West Africa. South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki has announced he will attend the 29 July summit meeting in Ghana, convoked to settle the Ivory Coast crisis (see Fides 13 July 2004). It is to be hoped that this political and economic activity on the part of Pretoria aims for long term objectives and not only to pursue legitimate national interests but also and above all to create conditions for real development in Africa. South Africa can do much in this field, but it will certainly need help from the other countries of Africa (creating favourable domestic conditions, see the fight against corruption, for example), and from the international community on the condition that the logic of pure and simple profit is set aside.
Africa’s other giant, Nigeria, demonstrates growing protagonism in continental questions, for example at the humanitarian level. Yesterday, 13 July, the Nigerian government announced it was sending one million dollars worth of aid to the western Sudan region of Darfur (for the situation in Darfur see Fides 8 July 2004). The sum is modest but it is a signal that African solidarity is making headway, albeit with difficulty.
Nigeria and South Africa aspire to become reference points for the rest of Africa. It is our hope that there will be synergies and not rivalries between the two giants (one demographic the other economic) on a continent which has every right to hope it will rise up from its evils. On Saturday 17 July, see Fides Dossier “Why Africa is Poor”, on the Continent’s prospects for development. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/7/2004 righe 41 parole 518)


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