Post-Cold War International Relations and Foreign Policies in Africa: New Issues and New Challenges

Abstract

AbstractThis paper argues that international relations in Africa have changedespecially in content since the abatement of the Cold War. These changeshave been accelerated by the pressures unleashed by the internationalenvironment, including the reality of Africa’s marginalisation and the forcesof globalisation. These, along with domestic factors, including debt, internalconflicts, the impact of the ubiquitous structural adjustment programmes(SAPs), HIV/AIDS and human insecurity in general have combined tounderscore foreign aid and economic assistance as key driving forces ofthe continent’s foreign policies and diplomacy towards the North. Yet, thenew thrust of foreign policies, informed by the need for foreign aid, has notoccurred without a price. Among other things it has elevated technocrats incentral or reserve banks and finance ministries to positions of prominencevis-à-vis officials from foreign ministries and in the process introduced extra-African actors into the foreign policy making process of the continent. Thisin turn has undermined Africa’s increasingly tenuous economic sovereignty.But above all, it has led to the strengthening of ties with the North andinternational creditors in particular at the cost of intra-African relations.The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the AfricanUnion (AU) recently inaugurated, promise to open a new chapter in Africa’sinternational relations. It is argued, however, that against a background of aconfluence of factors, these new continental projects will make only a minimalimpact in terms of mitigating the consequences of the aid-driven foreignpolicies and thus altering the donor-oriented postures of African states