Promising growth rates, increased trade, and competition among major global players for African resources have boosted the development and bargaining power of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in relation to the EU. However, Africa's least developed countries remain vulnerable to external shocks. Academic analysis is still too heavily influenced by scholastic controversies. Neither the controversy over “big-push” concepts nor the blaming of African culture as an impediment to growth or good government do justice to the real issues at stake. Even beyond the aftermath of (neo)colonialism, and notwithstanding continuing deficits in good government in many African countries, the EU bears responsibility for the fragile state of many African economies. The self-interested trade policies of the EU and other world powers contribute to poverty and unsatisfactory development in SSA. This threatens to perpetuate asymmetrical power relations in the new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), to the detriment of regional integration and pro-poor growth. However, mounting competition between China and other global players for Africa's resources is resulting in windfall profits for Africa. The latter is leading to a revival of seesaw politics, already known from the times of the Cold War, on the part of African states. This could be profitable for Africa's power elite, but not necessarily for Africa's poor.
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Paper provided by GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in its series GIGA Working Paper Series with number
82.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration F24 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Remittances F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission F59 - International Economics - - International Relations and International Political Economy - - - Other N47 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - Africa; Oceania P45 - Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - International Linkages R11 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Analysis of Growth, Development, and Changes
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