Editor's Foreword

training, technical and financial support to cooperative
governments in East Africa and the Horn (under
the East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative) and
predominantly Muslim Chad, Mali, Mauritania and
Niger in north-central Africa (under the Trans-Sahara
Counterterrorism Initiative), as well as helping to
coordinate the AU’s nascent ASF training and exercises
– as exemplified by AFRICOM’s 29-nation
Africa Endeavor inter-operability programme and its
bi-annual Natural Fire humanitarian relief joint exercise
in East Africa.
Although it has operational capabilities,
AFRICOM’s primary function so far has been diplomatic,
from the APS to CJTF-HOA’s civil-affairs
programmes in East Africa and the Horn, and to
efforts to build the command and training infrastructure
required to support the ASF and mount
multilateral military efforts. Indications of a stronger
Bureau of African Affairs under new US Assistant
Secretary of State Johnnie Carson also suggest
marginally greater prospective US engagement in
Africa. But President Obama’s July 2009 speech in
Ghana did hedge against an extensive American
commitment with its message that ‘Africa’s future is
up to Africans’.
Sub-Saharan africa – defence
economicS
Following an eight-year period during which
sub-Saharan Africa had enjoyed its best phase of
economic growth since the early 1970s, three negative
factors converged during 2009 that resulted in
GDP growth falling to just 2% compared to 5.2%
in 2008 and 6.2% in 2007. The main shock to buffet
the continent was the significant deterioration in
external demand resulting from the global slowdown.
Secondly, the sharp fall in commodity prices
(of around 50%) had a particularly negative impact
on resource-rich countries in the region (Angola
and Equatorial Guinea). And lastly, poor global
credit conditions led to a significant decline in
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and portfolio flows
to emerging and frontier markets (Ghana, Kenya,
Nigeria and South Africa). Not surprisingly, in the
face of dramatically reduced commodity-based
revenues the overall fiscal position of many countries,
notably Angola, Republic of Congo, Equatorial
Guinea and Nigeria, deteriorated significantly and
in its 2009 Finance and Development Report the IMF
warned that the emergence of budget deficits poses
Sub-Saharan Africa
289
an immediate threat to the macroeconomic stability
that years of economic reform have helped to establish.
The history of growth in Africa over the last 30
years has been characterised by episodic growth
phases followed by prolonged decline, usually as a
result of commodity booms and busts, but for the first
time in many years the region’s current economic
difficulties are largely the result of external factors.
Highlighting the sudden deterioration in sub-
Saharan economies, the African Development Bank
has calculated that to return to pre-crisis growth
rates the region would need US$50bn to finance the
gap between investments and savings. Furthermore,
to meet the Millennium Development Goals that
financing gap widens to US$117bn.
Though the IMF suggested that regional growth
may pick up during 2010, it also notes that the risks
to this forecast are firmly tilted to the downside,
identifying the main danger as a deeper and more
protracted global slump which would lead to lower
export demand for African goods, falling revenues
from tourism and a continued deterioration in FDI
and portfolio flows.
China’s enormous political and economic influence
in the region continues to grow and it has quickly
become one of Africa’s most important trading partners,
foreign investors and providers of foreign aid.
Trade between the two has grown by more than 30%
a year during the last decade and in 2008 reached
over US$100bn, a level that had not been expected to
occur until 2010. This means that China is now the
region’s third-largest trading partner behind the EU
and US. However, the trading relationship continues
to be unequally distributed throughout the continent
– in 2008, for example, Angola accounted for
25% of Sino-African trade, while in the same year
16 countries (including Uganda, Tanzania and
Ethiopia) actually experienced a drop in exports.
To date, the bulk of Sino-African trade has centred
on energy products, with crude oil being by far the
most important commodity. The involvement of
China’s national oil companies continues to grow
with new exploration projects such as the investment
in Sudan’s Unity oilfields. The importance of
other commodities such as wood, cotton and iron is
also growing steadily. For instance, in 2008 China
and the DRC closed a large deal covering copper
and cobalt extraction.
Most of the arrangements between the two blocs
are structured as basic resources-for-infrastructure
Sub-Saharan
Africa