Wikipedia says they are also looking to create an Africa currency.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Continental_Free_Tra...
It seems the news today is Nigeria (the biggest African country) signing it
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[0]: https://medium.com/@evantaxi/6-years-ago-today-the-us-helped...
[1]: https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/CFA-franc-Franc...
As your own source notes, France does not control the policy of either of the two separate CFA franc zones, but does have preferential access to resources resulting from the deal setting up the currency arrangement, which is the actual benefit it gets from the deal.
The two CFA franc zones have zone central banks (which aren't exclusively controlled by countries in the respective zone, since France has a seat on each), it's not individual national central banks issuing currency or managing the peg.
Like Zimbabwe did.
>Food production halved in the 1990s as a result of [Mugabe's] decision to strip white farmers of their land and hand it to members of the black population who, in many cases, had no farming experience.
before the inflation kicked off. https://news.sky.com/story/how-zimbabwes-economy-has-collaps...
Same brilliant policy in Venezuela pretty much.
>> Participation in the currency is voluntary.
>> In 2018, Guinea was the largest country of origin [for European migration], followed by Morocco - both former French colonies that don't use the CFA franc. Cote d'Ivoire and Mali are the only countries of origin using the CFA franc that have contributed significantly to migration across the Mediterranean, accounting for 14.4 percent of the total last year.
The data in the article runs counter to the complaint against CFA currency, that it causes poverty and therefore migration into Europe. Two of the highest migration sources were ex-CFA members who now use their own currency and only 14.4% came from CFA members. Ending CFA is not some panacea.
But that said I very much favour local control of currencies in almost every case as it's one of the great benefits of global capitalism being (voluntarily) given away by these countries. Currencies and market value should be tied closely to local market conditions rather than orchestrated and centrally balanced across a massive network of countries with stark economic differences.
Trade deals (plus reducing protectionism and corporate welfare in general) are sufficient to lower barriers to entry into markets which is where it pays off to be liberal and global. Giving up control of your currency should be at most a temporary measure when local state bodies aren't stable enough to have a healthy market. Not some long term arrangement. Inefficiencies of currency conversion are problems that can be solved by healthy financial markets (futures) and technology.
Plus there are better examples of bigger economies having a strong monetary influence over smaller countries governments without the whole colonial image that putting a European bureaucrats directly on central banks gives off. The best example is governments taking on massive amounts of foreign loans - which is still in de jour for some reason. For ex: China controls significant amounts of debt across Africa and Latin America which is arguably a stronger lever of influence than France has in Africa.
They can be withdrawn whenever the country leaves the CFA franc. But in the recent past, countries have been more eager to join than to leave.
Hmm. That’s a strange form of colonialism
I'm not competent to judge whether the CFA Franc is a good currency or not for the countries using it. No doubt it is a compromise with good sides and bad sides. The obvious good side being that it certainly makes trade easier within the CFA Franc zone. The obvious bad side is that the Euro top priority being fighting inflation, it can hinder exportations from countries that are not very competitive. A complaint often heard about the Euro from European countries (especially France, sweet irony).
Hopefully African nations will manage to create their very own currency, and will manage it well.
You're assuming the main cause of migration is poverty, that people from poorer countries emigrate more, and that since emigration is lower the countries are less poor.
The former might be justified, but the two latter arguments are definitely false[0], in fact 'richer poorer' countries have larger emigration!
"Just the opposite: Those richer countries have three times the average emigration rate of the poorer countries.... Somewhere roughly around $7,000–$10,000 per capita, there is a turning point: Emigration from the average country starts to fall with greater economic development, as we might expect. Today’s poor countries are generations away from that level."
So the data cited does not contradict the CFA criticism that it causes countries to be more poor than they otherwise would be. Another criticism might wonder what 'voluntary' means with such power differential and historical relations.
[0] https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2016/10/31/dev...
Still the 'poverty leads to migration' theory is not quite true (in fact arguably the reverse in these particular circumstances), and therefore the fact some CFA countries have less emigration than some ex-CFA countries does not show that they are less poor or that the CFA is beneficial compared to non-CFA case.
Firstly even to migrate you have to have access to information and brain cycles to process it. Real poor are too busy to have that kind of time at hand.
Secondly even illegal immigration requires spending some money upfront and of course poor don't have it.
If you in the middle income range, it does make sense to move up the ladder by immigrating to a better place. If you are super rich, you can just buy citizenship.
Nothing is fair in life it seems.
There was a lot of brouhaha in the mass media about "liberating" them, then nothing.
Instead of waging War, international negotiation for the succession of power with guarantees of safety should have been performed painstakingly - with lots of carrots offered, but there are just too many warmongers in the US and even the UN.
Most are about the migrant crisis, but the rest are about the ongoing war.
Not every violent conflict has to be the fault of the US and the UN, and the argument they ought to have intervened more to stabilise the country afterwards is at least as plausible as the argument that they intervened too much. (The conspiracy theory that Western intervention had something to do with Gadaffi's gold dinar idea doesn't have much to rest on either. Round about the time Gadaffi was talking up one of the oldest ideas in Islam as part of his vision for Africa and not getting anywhere even when he was the African Union president, a Malaysian state actually introduced one and was roundly ignored, even by the Malaysian government.)
This is just my personal opinion - but military intervention should be only used for self-defence and the defence of one's allies. And for nothing else.
In a democracy we as the electorate like to pretend we have no involvement in this decision making, yet we pride ourselves on the system of government that apparently represents 'the people' the most. "Don't blame us, it's just our government!"
Oh well, that's alright then. Does Mussolini get a pass because he made trains run on time?
Albeit long before being removed from power.
The other point is that the people desperate to emigrate are non-Libyan Africans using Libya as a port of departure. These people have suffered rape, mutilation etc at the hands of the various warring factions.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...
Ignoring Libya is more of a regional thing as well. Being seen as part of the middle east / North African mess which the whole American public got their fill of for two decades.
If there was still airstrikes happening in Ukraine it’d certainly get more coverage than Libya.
This lead to the start of the second Libyan civil war. The newly elected House of Representatives, (from now on, "Tobruk government") wanted to take power, but the parties that lost the elections refused to yield it, passing a measure that granted them temporary special authority, and formed the "National Salvation Government". The various Islamist groups in the country declared that neither government represented them, and took the black flag as many different factions, most important of them being "The Libyan provinces of ISIL" and "The Shura council of Benghazi revolutionaries".
The war from then on had many twists and turns, with the UK, US, France, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Jordan, Belarus, Italy, Germany, EU, Qatar and Iran supporting a faction or another at any time. The only really consistent part of this was that the western powers were stumbling over each other to bomb ISIL and other Islamists.
The end result was that a shrewd Libyan-American warlord named Khalifa Haftar (his tagline being that he fought with and against every major faction at some point or another) essentially took over the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Tobruk Government (they still exist and maintain all the trappings and procedures of democracy, but do so in a building where the security is provided by Haftar, and would never go against his will), and conquered most of the country, including most of the economically significant oil and water resources.
Haftars winning strategy was largely realizing that the western powers would support anyone fighting Islamists, so instead of directly challenging his main opponents, he cleared out all the Islamists he found and took their territory. He might have "encouraged" areas that would not otherwise have flown the blag flag to do so, before crushing them.
He had a lot of western support on the way, but his policy of not taking Islamists prisoner and just having them summarily executed seems to have cooled those ties. Since 2016, he's been courting for Russian support, and seems to have gained it.
If you asked this question in early April, I'd have said that it seems like Haftar will be the next Gaddafi, as his forces were finally moving on the capital and the remaining territory not held by him, but this offensive seems to have failed because of strong Turkish support. LNA withdrew for a time, and Haftar ordered LNA to target any Turkish ships, companies and arrest Turkish nationals found in the country. It seems like he's building up for attempt two.
Also, Haftar is 75 years old, and no-one has any clue what would happen to his forces if he died.
Ghadaffi wanted to trade oil for Euros and we all know how it end up.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/20/nicolas-sarkoz...
Instead of converting from Krone to Euros and vice versa, you convert into the largest, most stable, most liquid currency on the planet. What is insane?
>Ghadaffi wanted to trade oil for Euros and we all know how it end up.
Ah yes, Ghadaffi, Sadam Hussein...good men overthrown because they wanted to "trade oil for Euros".
Wait; why couldn't they again? What, precisely was stopping them from dealing in Euro, besides the seller or buyer of oil demanding to be use USD? Right, nothing.
The idea that the US forces people to trade in USD as opposed to it working out that way because it's a stable currency of a powerful nation is a fallacy that won't die. Just like within the country, you are free to trade in whatever the hell currency you want...if you can find a willing counter-party.
Due to getting hanged, shot, or stabbed, probably.
The west still controls the most powerful entities in Africa and also the Chinese are pushing forward with their "belt and road" strategy.
I've always felt that was the real reason the he was ousted. Other national leaders, both in and outside Africa, have done far worse than him yet have never been invaded.
For european corporations and shareholders, that is. It would probably be better for the majority of people, because higher stabilityand prosperity in Africa will result in fewer refugees, which results in fewer issues with rightwing nutjobs.
Thats not how political dynasties work.
Newer history of Africa is almost exclusively defined by consequences of external manipulation, driven by financial interests.
In general, you can look up the definition of "neocolonialism".
It was the Arab Spring and internal strife which kicked off Ghadaffi's downfall with the events at Benghazi getting the international community - lead by France, ISTR involved.
The UN kicked Libya off the Human Rights Commission, following a report by Amnesty documenting warcrimes on the government and rebel sides and it all degenerated into a nasty civil war. I don't think it is correct to say that he was "ousted" by Western forces in any particularly meaningful way.
>I would say it is not only a moral obligation that the better-off countries have to tackle poverty in our world when we still have over a billion people living on less than a dollar a day, but it's also in our interests that we build a more prosperous world.
Ever try to compete with a dream? And it's good for people to have dreams. Don't misunderstand me. I think we in the West need to offer Africa an equally attractive dream. Because right now all we've been slogging the past 60 or 70 years has been "democracy will make your life better". We shouldn't be too surprised that they are starting to run off the reservation.
You could argue we don't even have rule of law in the US ourselves, since we definitely live in a place where laws will be enforced against some but not others. At least we have the democracy we've been trying to sell them on. So in the case of slinging democracy, regardless of what you think of the health of our own democracy, we're able to give a message consistent with deed.
This comes after they did the same last year in Fiji, when they kidnapped and flew out 77 people without trial.
African nations had better be careful. Their sovereignty is at risk.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2019/07/08/secrecy-veil-over-de...
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pacific/336583/77-fraud-suspects-...
The title for one of your sources says that they were Chinese nationals:
> Secrecy veil over deportation of six Chinese nationals raises key questions
Their nationality outside of the State of Vanuatu is irrelevant. They are Vanuatu citizens, had not been charged with a crime in Vanuatu. Countries don't just deport their own citizens.
Also, all of these suspects are Chinese nationals who applied for Vanuatuan citizenship. Four out of six of them were granted citizenship. One out of the four forged his criminal record check form in order to obtain citizenship [1]. It sounds as though they were trying to use Vanuatuan citizenship as a shield against criminal deportation, which clearly the Vanuatuan government wants no part of. Vanuatu has been quite blatant in citizenship-for-money exchanges [2][3][4] in recent years and many Russian and Chinese crime syndicates have been taking advantage of this.
In addition, all of this has been done with the explicit cooperation of the Vanuatuan government, legally, under Vanuatu's Immigration Act which gives them the right to deport without notice [5]. All this is not to argue that there should or shouldn't be some kind of due process, but it's far from the extra-judicial kidnappings which you are insinuating. I would view it more as an informal, case-by-case extradition treaty.
[1] https://asiapacificreport.nz/2019/07/05/some-detained-chines...
[2] https://www.economist.com/international/2018/09/29/selling-c...
[3] https://fortune.com/2017/10/10/vanuatu-accepts-bitcoin-for-c...
[4] http://dailypost.vu/news/sale-of-vanuatu-passport-degrading-...
[5] https://www.abc.net.au/radio-australia/programs/pacificbeat/...
Otherwise... who wants to live in a world where e.g. every single jaywalker gets fined? If you require enforcement of existent rules, you reduce rule of law to something that pretty much nobody wants, rendering it a pretty poor concept to define in the first place.
I don't know? But I'd bet you could sign the vast majority of people up for a world where every single child rapist goes to prison.
But debating behavioral extremes as we did right there is useless. The real issue is whether or not all people are treated equally under the law? If all people aren't, then the law does not rule. Those people who are above the law rule.
There is no such thing as part time rule of law. Again, the best you could do is put it on a spectrum. This one is more rule of law oriented, this one is less.
It's like being pregnant. A girl can be further along, or less far along in her pregnancy.
But I mean really, she can't call herself a virgin because she didn't do doggy. That's not really how virginity works.
Depends how many innocent people also go to prison, doesn't it? At one end of the scale you have Benjamin Franklin's "That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved" and at the other end you have China's pragmatic take that a few broken eggs is the price of an omelette.
But you're still arguing at the extremes and evading the central question of whether everyone is treated equally under the law. If the law rules, then everyone will be treated equally under it. Yet we find that in nearly every place on Earth, the law does not rule, because not everyone is treated equally under it. (And I only say "nearly" because I'm not 100% sure that there isn't some society out there that treats everyone equally. I'm 99.99% positive there is not, but I've not been everywhere in this world. But I'm 100% sure we don't have such a system in the US, because I'm an American, and I know America.)
All that said, even debating the extremes, I mean, how many times you see some old black guy getting out of prison after 31 years or whatever because he didn't do it? You say, "See! He got out. So there must be Rule of Law!" But that's not how it works, because if there was Rule of Law, it would have been illegal to put him into prison in the first place. It was not.
So again, we, ourselves, don't practice the whole "...better 100 guilty persons escape..." maxim. You can say, "Well, there are racial complications." or "Well, there are financial issues that go into legal representation too." or etc etc etc. But that's the same as saying that the law is not paramount.
The thing that has exploded in size since the 1960s no one talks about is the size of nation states across the western world and their direct involvement in countless markets. From education to big banks to defence contractors to Boeing, they are some of the worst examples of mixed state-capitalism and a great way to become wealthy while providing little value to the population.
Not to mention the explosion of private equity in gov projects leeching off tax payers. We need less mixing of the big players with gov force and have either public companies (ie public health insurance) or markets. The direction the US is going in by continually mixing the two has done little to help the “little guy”. Yet the markets and rich get all the blame, but there’s no way universities can charge 4-20x more for the same product without cheap gov backed debt, nor the housing market boom that generated tons of poverty.
There's a hierarchy of needs, and only China is contributing (not without return) on the bottom parts.
China contributing is potentially a good thing (or potentially bad for reasons others have debated). This trade zone doesn't need their contribution to be successful, but it helps.
There wasn’t an argument to counter, it was a throw-away piece of hyperbole. It didn’t vote either way, but I can see people down-voting simply because it looks like trolling.
If you want to make a proper argument about Facebook taking over African economics, go ahead. But so far the main ‘argument’ seems to be that it must be evil, because Facebook.
As it's written now a lot of that focus and nuance is gone, which is a shame because it was a very good question IMO.
This might blow your mind to hear but the continent of Africa is comprised of many countries, several of which have had electricity for a long damn time, my friend.
Some even have, wait for it, CITIES. That people live in. With houses made from brick. And internet access. The fast kind even!
You'll have to do better than acting as if Africa can be sufficiently defined by its least developed nations.
Or, at least, you should have actually read the link--at least then you would have seen how the "many people in Africa live in huts" line isn't really a helpful assertion to the discussion the rest of us were trying to have about Pan-African economics.
I think that Facebook's less of a threat than it would like to be.
They've spent decades eroding their education system, they're increasingly moving towards the privatisation of state assets and services and their media largely consists of a great propaganda machine.
Maybe it is a threat to the African states. Not to the people, though.
Africa is poor thanks to statism. Not due to some "evil american corporates".
That can be rectified. It could very easily be poor thanks to both.
Spain, Portugal and Greece's crash were going to happen with or without Euro, the only thing problem is how the Euro afected their recovery.
I can tell you Spain hasn't recovered, and won't be, they are still managed by idiots.
Up until recently with the rise of Vox Spain was the only major Western European country without a far right party. Catalan nationalism is marked by its close association with anarchism, syndicalism and willingness to accept any immigrant who’ll speak Catalan and join the fight against the Castilians so on that level at the least it’s not exactly right wing.
> And besides, during the crash the major resurgence was in the left, extreme-left.
Again, Vox.
> Spain, Portugal and Greece's crash were going to happen with or without Euro, the only thing problem is how the Euro afected their recovery.
That makes joining the Euro, if not a disaster, a mistake.
The root cause is widely agreed to be that putting vastly different economies like Germany and Greece on the same currency without have a unified economic policy etc, made the whole construct a disaster waiting to happen.
More generally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis
> The European debt crisis (often also referred to as the eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis) is a multi-year debt crisis that has been taking place in the European Union since the end of 2009. Several eurozone member states (Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus) were unable to repay or refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks under their national supervision without the assistance of third parties like other eurozone countries, the European Central Bank (ECB), or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).