Africa in the Global Economy: Between Integration and Marginalization?

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to examine the position of Africa in the global division of labor in the era of globalization by deconstructing the assumptions, institutions and tools that buttress the North-South and the South-South relations in general and by using the aid, trade and investment regimes in particular. The paper argues that Africa has been integrated in the global economy at least since the middle of the 19th century with the colonization of the continent, albeit in a different form and intensity, but it has been located at the bottom of the hierarchy of the integration ladder playing a marginal role mainly on account of two reasons – firstly, its development destiny has been dictated from afar by its old (Global North, like Europeans) and also by the emerging (Global South, like China and India) external powers, as each of them tried to fulfill their national interests; and secondly, it has been following protectionist and unwelcoming economic policies internally. The net effect of the external pressure on Africa is nothing, but the emergence of an asymmetrical economic relationship between Africa and that of the old and the new powers. Accordingly, at present, the continent is suffering from the multiple byproducts of economic globalization like low prices for its primary products, infant manufacturing and industrialization, limited and constrained market access, huge debt burden, and economic and political conditionality.