Africa

Report on the International Situation and the activities of CADTM International since May 2020

1 December 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, CADTM International, Jean Nanga, Christine Vanden Daelen, Sushovan Dhar, Maria Elena Saludas, Omar Aziki, Rémi Vilain

This report was presented by Éric Toussaint at the biannual meetings of CADTM Belgium on Tuesday 17 November 2020. The text was completed in the annexes by an addendum on the action of the coordination of feminist struggles written by Christine (...)
Illicit Financial Flows: Africa is the world’s main creditor

5 November 2020 - by Milan Rivié

In its latest report on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) in Africa, UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) discloses that 88.6 billion US$ from the continent go up in smoke every year. Not only must we ask questions about the (...)
Putting an end to the EU’s neo-colonial policies in the field of trade and investment: Economic pressures from above, social reaction from below

22 September 2020 - by Patrick Bond

Summary: The European Union and Africa have had exceptionally conflictual relations even after slavery and colonialism ended. Still today, African-European civil society relationships from below are often arrayed against a nexus of state and (...)
President Macron never intended to cancel African debt

4 May 2020 - by Pauline Imbach

Had we been born yesterday, we would have been tempted to believe that the question of African debt was finally going to be taken seriously. Emmanuel Macron, wielding a magic wand, was about to cancel the continent’s debts, once and for all. Yet, (...)
The African Continental Free Trade Area: What Kind of Pan-Africanism?

6 April 2020 - by Jean Nanga

In Kigali, Rwanda, on March 21, 2018, five years after the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)/African Union (AU) – considered in the Newspeak of the AU as “fifty years of success” – 44 of the AU’s 55 member (...)
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement: Loss of Sovereignty, Lack of Transparency

19 August 2019 - by Jonathan Cannard

The African Union’s Assembly of Heads of State and Government conceived of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) in 2012 with the goal of creating a Continental Free Trade Area by 2017. In March 2018 the majority of AU member (...)
Illicit financial flows thwart human rights and development in Africa

5 February 2019 - by Imani Countess

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights turned 70 each year; losses that in many countries exceed foreign direct investments and development assistance. Funds that could be used to secure basic economic and social rights, for example the (...)
African governments’ debt payments double in just two years

8 October 2018 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

• Debt problems on the African continent are increasing, with external government debt payments doubling in two years • The private sector is the largest source of loans, accounting for 32% of debt owed and 55% of interest payments • China (...)
The Long March to Post-Capitalist Transition: Pan-Africanist Perspectives

29 August 2018 - by Ameth Lô

The centenary of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, a world-shaking historic event, was an occasion for celebration throughout the world. Many diverse interpretations are advanced as to its success in achieving a radical transformation of (...)
Philanthrocapitalism: The Gates Foundation’s African programmes are not charity

24 August 2018 - by Philip Bereano

The activities of the Gates Foundation are a major example of what has come to be called ’philanthrocapitalism’. Philip L Bereano argues that philanthrocapitalism is an attempt to use market processes to do good, and therefore problematic as (...)
CADTM successfully holds Citizen Debt Audit Training in Nairobi

19 August 2018 - by David Calleb Otieno

The Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts (CADTM) successfully held a three days training on Citizens Debt Audit in Nairobi, Kenya. The training that attended by delegates from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi was organized by the (...)
Africa : Strengthening the anti-debt initiatives in Kenya

15 August 2018 - by Sushovan Dhar

CADTM collaborated with Kenyan social movements to organise a training on debt audit and also a meeting to strengthen the anti-debt activities in Kenya. This programme held from July 29-30 at Nairobi (in the slums of Kangemi) witnessed the (...)
Small–scale farmers of Africa and Denmark reject free trade agreements

27 July 2018 - by La Via Campesina

Representatives of La Via Campesina in Southern and Eastern Africa (LVC SEAf) and in European (ECVC) small-scale farming agree that free trade agreements (FTAs) on farm products benefits primarily transnational corporations and furthers the (...)
BRICS in Africa: “You are either at the table or on the menu”

5 June 2018 - by Patrick Bond

At a Johannesburg BRICS think tank, scholars get drunk on their own rhetoric South African academics and think tanks met on 28-31 May 2018 for deliberations leading to the July 2018 BRICS heads of state summit to be hosted by South Africa. (...)
China vs the US: The new imperial scramble for Africa and global rivalries

4 June 2018 - by Lee Wengraf

Lee Wengraf writes that the rush for profits, economic volatility and militarization across Africa promises only instability, rising exploitation and violence. Since the start of the new millennium, sub-Saharan African economies have undergone (...)
China-Africa relations without Africans’ contributions

28 May 2018 - by Daouda Cissé

The piece relates that, at times, Africans are not invited to debates, conferences and other key platforms on Africa-China relations even though the topic is about Africa’s and Africans’ relations with China and Chinese. Recent discussions and (...)
The EU caught in the trap of Nigeria’s refusal to sign the West Africa Economic Partnership Agreement and the Continental Free Trade Area

9 May 2018 - by Jacques Berthelot

The EU caught in the trap of Nigeria’s refusal to sign the West Africa Economic Partnership Agreement and the Continental Free Trade Area On April 9, 2018 President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria very explicitly stated to the new Ambassador of the (...)
Senegalese economist Ndongo Samba Sylla: “the Continental Free Trade Area is a mistake” (Interview)

4 April 2018 - by Ndongo Samba Sylla, Maghreb Emergent

The economist Ndongo Samba Sylla is the author of the following books, among others: The Fair Trade Scandal: Marketing Poverty to Benefit the Rich and La démocratie contre la République: l’autre histoire du gouvernement du peuple. He tells Maghreb (...)
International Women’s Day Declaration, 2018

1 March 2018 - by World March of Women

On the 8th of March2018, International Women’s Day, we from the World March of Women, diverse women from all peoples, races and ages, come together once again to reaffirm that we will keep marching until we are all free from all the oppression (...)
New Evidence of Africa’s Systematic Looting, From an Increasingly Schizophrenic World Bank

5 February 2018 - by Patrick Bond

A brand new World Bank report, The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign (...)
The Bamako Seminar, The CADTM network reinforces the struggle against illegitimate debt !

27 December 2017 - by Nathan Legrand, Fatima Zahra El Beghiti

The CADTM International network delegations met in Bamako, Mali, from 15 to 25 November 2017 to follow several political training and coordination activities. Indeed the third “women, debt and microcredit” seminar, the annual CADTM training (...)
The revival of the Commonwealth: an opportunity for further exploitation or a time to correct past wrongs?

22 December 2017 - by Mary Serumaga

The Origins of the Commonwealth ‘Commonwealth’ is a word being heard with increasing frequency in the post-Brexit era. It had always been used to refer to the British Empire – first to Australia in the 1890s and later to other territories. From (...)
‘Africa Rising’ in retreat: Signs of new resistances

29 September 2017 - by Patrick Bond

Capitalism is bleeding Africa to death: illegal financial flows, legal financial outflows, FDI flows, foreign indebtedness, sub-imperial accumulation, new subsidies for infrastructure financing and uncompensated mineral and oil and gas (...)
Colonialism’s new clothes: The EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements with Africa

22 August 2017 - by GRAIN

Since 2002, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have negotiated a reciprocal free trade agreement known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU). While it was marketed as the magic bullet towards the (...)
African peasants highlight their struggles at Via Campesina global conference

4 August 2017 - by Boaventura Monjane

Peasants across Africa are intensifying their struggles against land grabs and other harmful policies that promote industrial agriculture. At a recent international conference organized by the world’s largest peasants movement, Via Campesina, (...)