Sub-Saharan Africa 2015: What To Expect

Link: Brookings Evaluates Sub-Saharan Africa 2015

When I consider the prospects for Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015, by habit, I always start with

political considerations.  But Africa has changed, evolving and adjusting to international economic trends much more quickly than I expected.  I don't think we can under-estimate the impact that communication has had on Sub-Saharan Africa.  The relative simplicity and low cost involved with cell phone networks has brought every dark corner of Africa into the light.  I remember the cell phone revolution as it arrived in South Africa.  It seemed as if overnight, everybody had one.  The real-time contact engendered by the presence of cell phone networks as instrumental in getting the continent reasonably wired on the net.  I remember being in Bangui, Central African Republic, sometime in 2001, and suffering from water shortages and no taxis or public transportation.  But the internet café was up and running, thanks to the world's first home-made satellite dish and a motley combination of modern and World War II-era French Army generators.  From my perspective, the arrival of the cell phone ushered in a techno-economic revolution in Africa.  We had BACP (Before the Arrival of the Cell Phone) and AACP (After the Arrival of The Cell Phone).  I think this date-differentiation can be accurately used when examining economic trends in the Middle East and the Indian Sub-Continent.  The cell phone has made that much of a difference, folks.

Africa in 2015 is connected.  Abidjan is connected to Maputo, and Yaoundé is chatting with Tokyo.  Sadly, the last bit of "African mystery" is gone.  An archaeologist can be digging in Mali and be interrupted by a phone call from Dublin.  But in this instance, there can be no doubt that the benefits of technology outweigh the negatives.  African banks and stock markets have real-time communication with the big guys in Europe, Tokyo and New York.  The western investments in oil and mining no longer have to wait for value-impacting information from on-site.  That information is available as it occurs.  Wow.  More so than in many years, I am optimistic for the future of Sub-Saharan Africa.  The days of military coups and brutal dictators seems to be ending.  Africa still suffers from the ass-boil that is Robert Mugabe, but everyone dies eventually, right?  Some folks see Museveni in Uganda as a dictator, and also young Kabila in Kinshasa.  But these guys seem to be out of touch and behind the times.  The world has become so much smaller, and the money to be made in Africa isn't limited to African money.  There is Euro to be made, and Dollars.  The Chinese seem to be all over Africa, but I think we will see a bit less of them in 2015.  I think the trend away from despots and one-party rule will continue, because there is more money to be made in a competitive system, and even the nasty guys will end up chasing the bigger $.

Let's start with China in 2015.  The Chinese started 2014 on a rampage, flying from capital

Dakar Railway Station;  Source: J.W.H. van der WAAL

to capital, promising all sorts of funding for development projects.  In the past, the Chinese have been good on their word.  They have built roads, dams, and blocks of flats.  Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, took notice when the Chinese offered to finance the rebuilding of the Dakar-Niger Railway.  This ambitious and absolutely overdue plan included building an additional rail line, linking Bamako, Mali and Freetown, Sierra Leone.  As things stand at present, the Dakar-Niger Railway is a mess.  It rarely is able to keep to a schedule and its ability to transport is limited.  Any rain or weather-related incident is likely to shut the rail system down for weeks.  The real problem is the lack of repair of the track system.  Why does this issue attract the attention of EVERYONE (as I stated earlier)?  Because this rail system transports the gas that keeps the various mines in Mali and Guinea in operation, not to mention the other materials it transports that are essential to those particular mining operations that basically belong to western investors.  Ideally, Mali should be able to rely on transport of goods in three directions: Dakar, Freetown, and Abidjan.  I have no doubt that in my lifetime I will see this develop.  But the anticipated rebuilding of the Dakar-Niger railway hit a huge snag.  The Chinese went back to Beijing, took out their calculators, met with banking and economic officials, and announced that "they had never actually agreed to finance the project....that it was all just conversation".  In the end, I think the Chinese will realize that the benefits outweigh the cost, and will provide a definite amount of invaluable goodwill. 

Now for some serious conversation.  African countries need to continue the move away from one-commodity economies.  Nigeria, that doesn't mean you continue moving towards being totally dependent on oil, it means to diversify your economy, so that when the price of oil tanks, your economy doesn't crash as well.  Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana have been successful moving away from a reliance on cocoa, as has Mali with cotton and Botswana with Diamonds.  I am concerned about the falling price of oil and its impact on juvenile economies such as Cabo Verde and Equatorial Guinea. I don't really have much sympathy for Nigeria.  They are sitting on a gold mine of resources, and all they can do in Lagos is fight their own cousins for every Dollar, while the nastiest of insurgencies terrorizes and brutalizes children all over the north of the country.  How does a nation with the resources and international connections of Nigeria, not have an army worth a damn?  All this may

Goodluck Jonathan
Source: World Economic Forum

change if Goodluck Jonathan losses the election in February (it ain't gonna happen, folks).  I would be willing to take a chance on the other guy just for the sake of change.  Ebola in 2015: I believe this outbreak of Ebola is winding down, and Africa learned some invaluable lessons on how to respond.  This particular outbreak could have been monstrous.  For Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, it was.  But the protocols that were put in place and followed worked exactly as expected.  This bodes well for the future.  Unfortunately, West Africa will take some time to climb out of the economic and social disaster that Ebola wrought.  The rest of Africa needs to step up, especially South Africa, who pretends to be a leader, but always seems to be missing at the table during a crisis.  I think China will revisit its commitments, and return with a smile.  The Dakar-Niger project will begin, and positive economic fallout will help with the Ebola recovery.

I think this subject was a bit heavy to tackle in one post, but wither way, as a lover of Africa, I'm looking forward to 2015.  I purposely left South Africa out of the conversation.  They seem to be chugging along just fine down south, on their own schedule and in their own little world.  Zuma had a tough year in 2014, and I anticipate that his enemies are smelling blood, so to speak.  South Africa has always been a bit obsessed with its own identity and importance in the world.  It's sad, because I believe that Nelson Mandela truly wanted South Africa to be the leader of the continent.  Heck, even Nigeria seems to draw more attention from other African states.  South Africa does remain popular for illegal immigration though, as people from all over go searching for jobs and opportunities.  I believe that the fall in the price of oil will be a boost to South Africa, which has always been so sensitive to that commodity.  South Africans have a tendency to worry when the Rand hits a free-fall against the Euro and the Dollar.  They shouldn't.  It directly impacts the all-important tourist industry, not to mention the increasing number of investors from the United States, looking for a good value for their Dollars.

The French In Africa Don't Mess Around

Links: A. French Colonial History In Africa
           B. French Military Presence In Africa
           C. French Anti-Terror Initiative in Africa

As you know by now, when writing these posts, there are some things I like to get out in the open.  I'm French.  Yes, I live in Texas.  I say, "Y'all" and "howdy".  And I'm an American citizen.  But my mother is a French national (dual citizenship) and I spent a great deal of my formative years in France.  French was my first language, and I am very proud of my heritage.  I am very close to my French family and I visit as often as possible.  In fact, in my soon to be released book, I spend an entire chapter highlighting the surprising and sometimes hilarious similarities between my French family and my Kentucky kin in Harlan County, KY.  During the summer of my thirteenth year, my parents decided to bring the two families together - but you'll have to buy the book for that story folks, and believe me, its worth it.  I have equal affection for both sets of relatives, and one day I hope to write a book detailing the history of my Kentucky family.  Today however, we are chatting a bit about France.  More precisely: France in Africa.

I included the first link in order to jump-start the memory back to high school world history.  For the most part, since the demise of the Roman Empire, France has been a major European power.  In 1781, thanks to the presence of the French fleet under Admiral De Grasse, General George Washington defeated British General Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown, and the United States gained its independence.  The French Empire, under the royal houses of Bourbon, Orleans, Bonaparte and Bourbon encore une fois, was determined to spread the culture and language of France around the globe (and also locate the odd gold and diamond mines in the mean time).  The French felt very comfortable in Africa, and developed an extensive colonial presence in west Africa in particular (although three million French would eventually make Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria their home, for the purpose of this post, I'm going focus on west Africa, separate from north Africa).  France divided its sub-Saharan colonies into French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa.  Once the drive for independence took root in the late 1950s and 1960s, the French did everything possible to encourage a peaceful and smooth transition.  In fact, during the colonial years, France had been very successful building schools and instilling French language and culture in its colonies.  France invested tremendous sums of money in building ports in Dakar and Abidjan that would act as a springboard to economic growth in the newly independent Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire.  The Napoleonic system of law is still in effect in most francophone countries.  Also in an effort to show the importance of keeping the former African colonies within the French family, France created a currency, the CFA Franc, whose deposits were (and still are) guaranteed by the Bank of France in Paris.  No doubt, the French ended colonialism a bit differently than the Brits, Belgians, Spanish and Portuguese.

For the most part, successive French governments in the 1960s and 1970s did not have to worry much about intervening militarily in the affairs of former colonies (let's not get started on Algeria, which is a subject for a post all to itself).  The francophone community consisted of Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), the Central African Republic, Togo, Benin, Cameroun, Congo-Brazzaville, and Gabon.

At one time or another, the French Foreign Legion was obliged to put down a coup or calm some event of civil unrest, but internal "policing" on behalf of France was expected in many quarters.  What came as a surprise to most, was the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in sub-Saharan Africa.  The late 1960s and 1970s introduced the world to terrorism with the blunt arrival of groups like the PLO, the Red Army, and Baader-Meinhof.  Along with the rest of Europe, France had to deal with the scourge of airline hijackings.  The resolution of the conflict in Vietnam, the Egyptian/Israeli Peace Accord, and the end of the Cold War seemed to usher in a time of peace, but it was to be unfortunately short-lived.  The idea that a ragtag army of mountain fighters in Afghanistan, trained and armed by the CIA, could defeat the Soviet military, raised a few eyebrows, to be sure.  The departure of the Russians in Afghanistan created a vacuum which led to the rise of the Taliban, and the inevitable birth of Al-Qaeda.

During the days of the Ottoman Empire, caravans of traders ranged far and wide across west Africa, spreading Islam where it did not exist, and strengthening it where it did. A very strong, traditional brand of Islam took root in the Oasis and desert towns of the Sahel.  The remoteness of places like Gao, Tamanrasset, Agadez and Tombouctou held to their conservative brand of Sunni Islam, which relies so much on discipline and the appropriate deference.  The bad guys moved in like bees to honey.  In the more populous communities of northern Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria, an aggressive, parasitic type of Islam has led to one civil war and appears determined to start another.  In 2013, The French Army was obliged to intervene in Mali, where a small Tuareg rebellion had been hijacked by Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQM), and had occupied Tombouctou.  Not surprisingly, France poured three thousand soldiers into the conflict and had smashed the uprising in a little over a month.    The French military was also obliged to intervene directly in a civil war in the Central African Republic (how can you have a civil war when you really don't even have a country anymore?).  France has decided to keep a permanent military presence in west Africa, which is welcomed by every francophone country. In fact, the only African leader who voiced opposition was Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (...whatever happened to that guy?).  France has created a military force which is just the right size, with just the right kind of soldiers, to react quickly and decisively in a west African environment.  And don't lose sight of the economic realities in place:  French businesses have billions of euro tied up in the mines in Cote d'Ivoire and Mali, and in the ports of Dakar and Abidjan.  West Africa also presents a security issue for France:  Aside from the fact that everyday Islamic Extremists in Africa use social media to influence their relatives who have emigrated to France, the Élysée Palace cannot afford to lose sight of the uranium that Niger provides, which keeps French nuclear reactors, nuclear submarines and nuclear aircraft carriers running.  The trouble in northern Mali that was quelled in 2013, appears to be reorganizing.  Mali has recently undergone a political transformation and is currently in a battle to keep Ebola at bay.  These extremist assholes always pick the best times to cause trouble.  Unfortunately for them, the French are on the spot, and just three days ago, twenty-four Al-Qaeda-in-training never made it to their first big terrorist attack.

If you've been to France, but have never experienced French Africa, you will have such a pleasant surprise.  The French language and culture appears to have seamlessly

strengthened the communities of Conakry and Niamey.  In downtown Abidjan, you can wake up in the morning to Café au lait and croissants and today's edition of Le Figaro (I'm sure le Monde is available as well).  The cars are Peugeot and Renault, and the roads are marked in kilometres.  Any Christian community is bound to be Catholic, and the children grow up with Tintin, Asterix and Obelix, and Lucky Luke.  At the same time, Mopti is Africa, as are Yamoussoukro and Bobo Dioulasso.  I find Africans to be the epitome of true artists.  They are so connected to nature, and forgive so easily.  I have always thought of France as a country of artists as well, although no doubt the line to disagree with me stretches around the block.  I think this is the reason France and her former African colonies have had such a long record of forgiveness and mutual admiration.

U.S. Troops Head To Africa To Fight Ebola

Links:  A. 3,000 U.S. Troops To Deploy To West Africa
            B. U.S. Troops To Africa For Ebola Mission
            C. U.S. Military Quarantined After Ebola Trip

I have been finding reasons to avoid writing this post because I'm not very clear on my own

emotions regarding this mission.  In September, when the Ebola virus was tearing a hole through Liberia and Guinea, President Obama anticipated the need for U.S. assistance and ordered the military to respond (I'm assuming that the military and not the President's staff, developed the deployment agenda).  A plan was created which would eventually call for three thousand troops from the 101st Airborne Division to deploy to locations in West Africa (see Links A and B).  The first group of U.S. military personnel, Army Major General Darryl A. Williams and his staff of ten, just completed a tour of Liberia.  During the tour Major General Williams and his crew observed the screening procedures and medical assistance measures in place in all areas of the country.  Its safe to say that they reached some level of exposure to the virus.  As is explained in link C, they will be isolated and monitored for twenty-one days, which is understandable.

As the first link points out, the military will be tasked with building a 25-bed portable hospital in Liberia.  It is expected that 17 treatment centers will eventually be built in the area.  Along with building facilities to treat patients with Ebola, the U.S. military will train up to 500 health-care workers a week to combat the disease.  My friends in the region tell me that currently "you can't throw a stone without hitting a white person".  I assume that many of the white people in question are Americans, as my cousin in Bamako tells me that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has commandeered the nicest hotel in town.  My close friend, who owns a luxury car business in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, is very impressed with the medical facilities that seem to be popping up all over the country.  Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) is there, and the World Health Organization is too.  The International Red Cross (IRC), which has permanent offices in all the capital cities of the region, has been active from the beginning, and are probably responsible for keeping the number of Ebola cases as low as they are.  In the Spring, with the first confirmed cases, the IRC began sending volunteers out into the rural areas of Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Cote d'Ivoire, to stress the need for sanitation and education.  Most importantly, the IRC took note of the local health facilities and what was needed to set-up screening centers and isolation units.  I am impressed with the response to date of the United States and European health communities.  So far the procedures put in place appear to be working.

I have heard it said that the true reason behind President Obama ordering troops to deploy to Africa is to assist in evacuations and crowd control.  I assume "crowd control" would include "riot control".  Orderly crowds being moved by authorities have a tendency to get out of hand in Africa (my comment is not racist; it is the product of my years of living in Africa).  Actually, orderly crowds can become quite "disorderly" anywhere, not just in Africa.  I believe the initial projections by the experts in Atlanta (CDC) forecast that the outbreak would have spread to Mali and Cote d'Ivoire by now.  Given the impossibility of adequately controlling border crossings (sound familiar?), the CDC probably assumed that infected persons who had not yet begun to show symptoms would be traveling as usual.  Keep in mind that many folks see the borders in African as more of a suggestion than anything else.  The valuable gold and diamond mines in

Diamond Mine in Sierra Lione

Mali, and other countries, traditionally employ workers from bordering states.  I believe that the CDC was correct in assuming that the situation would be much more serious than it is, hence the in-depth planning for mandatory evacuations and (if needed) crowd control.  This is in addition to the fact that some people will not voluntarily leave their homes, and in the instance of a deadly virus like Ebola, they cannot be left behind. The issue is not just the health of the resident; anyone who stays in the contamination zone becomes a potential carrier, who may find a way to rejoin healthy people and start the contagion all over.  At this point I haven't bought into the argument that the troops are really here to control people.  I'm not that cynical.  But then see me again next week.   

The Ebola Virus Disease At Its Source

Link: CDC Information On The Ebola Breakout

You know the old expression, "When it rains, it pours"?  I was unable to locate the origin of the expression, but I'm sure its one of the most popular in the English language.  Throw a dart at a map of Africa, and more than likely you will hit a country that is suffering from some event that justifies the use of "when it rains, it pours".  Liberia and Guinea are two nations located on the Gold Coast

(southwest coast) of Africa.  The name Gold Coast refers to the belief that in colonial times the region was rich in Gold deposits.  Other countries on the Gold Coast include Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Cameroon.  At present, the eyes of the world are focused on this part of Africa because of an outbreak of the Ebola virus in Guinea and Liberia.  Both Guinea and Liberia are attempting to rebuild and recover after decades of civil strife.  At one time or another during the same period, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire were also engaged in civil wars.  Recently, though, a wave of tremendous hope and optimism had been taking hold in west Africa.  Change was the order of the day, highlighted by serious efforts at reconciliation and fraud-free elections.  Aid was pouring in, and Chinese companies seemed to be everywhere, building dams and roads into the jungle.  Serious discussions were taking place which would hopefully result in the elimination of African debt, and there was talk of education, healing, national soccer teams in the World Cup, and creating a tomorrow that is better than today.

And then Ebola shows up to put a wrench into the works.  The Ebola virus is very contagious and has a mortality rate of 90 percent and higher. This particular outbreak first appeared in a small village in Guinea and has now spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone, choosing a target population that is ill-equipped to fight back. The people in this region are the poorest in the world.  The average daily caloric intake as compared to western nations is miniscule (and, for the western nations, shameful).  The body that is healthy is best able to avoid catching the virus, and the body that is healthy is best able to recover from infection.  Simply put, the people of Guinea and Liberia do not eat enough to stand a chance against this virus.  The governments of Liberia and Guinea, in concert with numerous international health organizations, have done a very respectable job limiting the outbreak to particular provinces.  Given the lack of resources available, this fact is impressive.  The best news for all is that for the most part the international community has reacted swiftly and without fear.  To the physicians, nurses, and other health workers who have traveled to Guinea and Liberia, the struggle is not only to limit and smother the outbreak, but to save the lives of those already affected.  During previous outbreaks, persons who had contracted the virus were frequently left to die.  A determination of infection was a death notice, because no one wanted to treat someone who was carrying such a highly contagious and deadly virus.  I'm relieved to say that my contacts in both countries report that persons who have tested positive are treated with respect and humanity, and every effort is being made to help their bodies fight the virus.

Currently, vaccines are being tested in Mali and Cote d'Ivoire.  There has been serious concern (and a bit of panic) that the virus would spread from Guinea and Liberia into Mali and Cote d'Ivoire; as of 12 October 2014, no cases of Ebola have been confirmed in either country.  The World Health Organization (The United Nations) has been highly visible in Bamako, Mali and in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, as has Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).  The United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) has also made its presence felt.  Finally, the international community is reacting to a health crisis as it should; with resources, manpower and sacrifice.  Earlier today (at Mass, no less), a friend asked me why the international community does not respond to famine and genocide with the same vigor and generosity.  The answer is quite simple.  Famine and genocide are not contagious.  Two million persons at risk from starvation in Eritrea and Ethiopia cannot result in even one case of hunger in the United States.  Warlords slaughtering innocent villagers in Somalia and Sudan does not lead to someone getting shot or stabbed in Copenhagen or Osaka.  In the United States, this current Ebola strain has resulted in the death of one Liberian national in Dallas and the positive infection of a health worker.  The degree of separation gets smaller and smaller, and people realize this.  So smothering this recent outbreak of Ebola at the source makes perfect sense.  The wealthier nations are happy to spend the money, and if locals are cured as well, then all the better.

I'm confident that this particular outbreak of the Ebola virus has reached its peak of infection.  Vaccines have arrived, and people are learning what they must do to avoid contamination. Although 4033 persons have died from this episode, I believe more and more infected persons will recover, as medicine and health care starts to take effect.  West Africa is a hot spot for all sorts of nasty diseases, and I'm optimistic that the current governments in this part of the world will make health education a priority.  The numerous companies involved with mining in Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire and Mali should not suffer too much from the slow down, and hopefully cocoa production will not be affected.  I realize I am being very optimistic, but doesn't it sound more pleasant than the non-stop media cacophony about one person with the flu in Baton Rouge and another person sneezing in Des Moines?  In 1994, Richard Preston wrote a fictional novel called "The Hot Zone", about a hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the United States.  For the longest time, it was all people could talk about.  I'm glad to say that Preston's book remained fictional.  But it did serve as a warning to our various health and disease-related organizations that we had better have a game plan.  I think this Ebola outbreak in West Africa has demonstrated that we do have a plan, both domestically and internationally.  Because we have fifty states and hundreds of international ports-of-entry, mistakes will happen.  But overall, I'm impressed with our response.