Africa: Facing Human Security Challenges in the 21st Century

Chapter 3 - Economic (In)security

49 Chapter 3 Economic (In)security Overview Poverty is the common denominator of economic insecurity. Globalization and poverty are two of the most pressing contemporary international development issues. Despite the enormous potential of globalization to accelerate economic growth and development, through greater integration into the world economy, the spread and transfer of technology and the transmission of knowledge, its impact on poverty reduction has been uneven and even marginal in some regions, especially Africa. Both the prevalence and depth of poverty in the continent remain unacceptably high, leading to economic vulnerability and attendant insecurity. Introduction From the oil fields of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, to the diamond and copper fields of Sierra Leone, Angola, and Liberia, to the rich mineral deposits of the Great Lakes region, to the mountain ranges, plains and tourist havens of the East African countries, the continent of Africa is undoubtedly blessed. From these blessings, however, much sorrow has flowed. According to the United Nations, Millennium Development Goals Report 2009 (New York, 2009, p. 7), the African continent starkly illustrates many of the paradoxes and failings of the current approach to international development. Despite being rich in natural resources and arable land, sub-Saharan Africa is the most aid-dependent region in the world, with 51 percent of the population living on less than US$1.25 a day. It is home to almost 15 percent of the world’s population yet has the weakest voice in international governance institutions. According to the World Bank’s latest figures, around 80 percent of the region’s population was surviving on less than $2.50 50 a day in 2005, a situation almost identical to that of 1981. The aggregate number of people in Africa living in poverty actually doubled over the same period, however, without even accounting for the extra millions currently falling into poverty as a result of the food, financial and climate crises. Economic globalization, propagated primarily through the policy reforms prescribed by international financial institutes (IFIs) in the past few decades, has not reversed but rather deepened Africa’s marginalization in the global economy. Based on the development paradigm commonly called neoliberalism, reforms imposed by the Washington-controlled World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) through conditional loans has resulted in African governments withdrawing protective trade measures, privatizing key industries, and cutting back on social expenditure, all in the name of encouraging economic growth. While an expanding private sector and increased international trade has led to greater wealth for large corporations in the Global North, analysts suggest there has been no ‘trickle down’ effect felt by Africa’s poor. Rather, Africa has experienced a consistent outflow of resources in the form of debt repayments, unfair trade, tied aid and ecological exploitation. The widespread poverty that exists in Africa today has deepened as a result of a system based not on meeting human needs, but on creating conditions where profitdriven corporate interests trump the demands of social justice. One of the shouting manifestations of this injustice is economic insecurity in Africa. Economic Security: Conceptual Clarifications Economic security requires an assured basic income for individuals, usually from productive and remunerative work or, as a last resort, from a publicly financed safety net. In this sense, only about a quarter of the world’s people are presently economically secure. While the economic security problem may be more serious in developing countries, especially Africa, concern also arises in developed countries such as the United States. In the past two decades, the number of jobs in industrial countries increased at only half the rate of GDP growth and failed to keep pace with the 51 growth in labor force. In both the United States and the European countries, nearly 15% of the population lives below the poverty line. In developing countries, for youth in Africa in 1980s for example, the open unemployment rate is above 20%. The unemployment problem constitutes an important factor underlying political tensions and ethnic violence. But what is the relationship between globalization today and economic security? Globalization and Economic Security in Africa is an incisive new engagement with this important question that uses detailed conceptual exploration and fresh empirical analysis. Viewing traditional neorealist conceptions of economic security as overly narrow, this new study suggests that any conception of economic security in the contemporary era needs to also pay close attention to the nature of global capitalism, and the insecurities it generates for...