WEST AFRICA CONJUNCTURE A Conjunctural Analysis of West Africa, 2024
STUDY REPORT No.6
Accra Centre for Applied Research
WEST AFRICA CONJUNCTURE
A Conjunctural
Analysis of West Africa
Prepared by
the staff team of ACAR
Kafui Kan
Senaya
Esther Kharis
K. Yiadom
March 16, 2024
All enquiries
should be channeled to:
The Head of
Research, #96 George Walker Bush Highway, North Dzorwulu, Accra. Ghana or
+233558193179
/ kharis.stars@gmail.com
All rights
reserved. No part of this report may be cited or reproduced without a written
permission of ACAR.
ACAR
ACCRA CENTRE FOR APPLIED RESEARCH
WEST AFRICA CONJUNCTURE
A Conjunctural Analysis of West Africa, 2024
STUDY REPORT No.6
Accra Centre for Applied Research Study Report No. 6
WEST AFRICA CONJUNCTURE
A Conjunctural Analysis of West Africa
Prepared by the staff team of ACAR
Kafui Kan Senaya
Esther Kharis K. Yiadom
March 16, 2024
All enquiries should be channeled to:
The Head of Research, #96 George Walker Bush Highway, North Dzorwulu, Accra. Ghana or
+233558193179 / kharis.stars@gmail.com
All rights reserved. No part of this report may be cited or reproduced without a written permission of ACAR.
Introduction
This essay offers a brief
overview of West Africa’s geographical, social, political and economic landscape.
It is based on investigation and evaluation completed between July 2023 and January
2024. This assessment of the current moment is revised, updated and expanded by
the research team every six months.
The essay focuses on the
cross-cutting issues confronting West African countries. The past year has been
a difficult one for most West African countries with weighty debt crisis, poor
economic performances and subsequently, erosion of standards of living. Civil
unrests and political tensions have increased and so also general insecurity
stemming from jihadist insurgency. Global Capitalism has been steadily
escalating the exploitation of resources; particularly, labour employing
tactics like the casualization of labour. The resultant effects have been increased
poverty, weakening of social safety nets, rises in social unrest, armed conflict
and ethnic warfare. Elections are also becoming conflict hotspots as a result
of elite power struggles.
Geography
West
Africa has a land area
of approximately 6,114,862 km2 which includes Mauritania but excludes
the island of Saint Helena. The West
Africa's territory is bordered in the south by the Gulf of Guinea, to the west
by the Atlantic Ocean and in the north by the Maghreb Union. It has to the east
the Central African Economic Union States of Chad and Cameroon. The southern
part of the region has a typical two maxima rainfall equatorial climate with
humid and high temperatures of 28°C as well as a relatively narrow diurnal
range. Tropical weather with dry spells is experienced in the Sahel with
average daily temperatures typically above 35°C accompanied by a wider diurnal
range. There is a single extended period of rainfall each year, lasting from
May to October. The portion of the region bounding the Sahara Desert
experiences average daytime temperatures of over 47°C with low temperature around
20°C at night. There is little or no rainfall in these areas.
The vegetation zones of the region
range from equatorial rainforest to semi-deciduous forest, guinea and Sudan
savanna, Sahel, and finally Sahara Desert. The Sahara covers two-thirds of the
surface areas of Niger and Mali. The region is drained by five major rivers
namely the Niger, Volta, Senegal, Gambia and the Mono. There are also numerous
streams, lakes and lagoons and of course the Atlantic Ocean. In 2023, the population of West
Africa is estimated at 443,437,966 giving a population density 72.52 per km2.
Males constitute 49.7% of the population and females 50.3%. About 48.4% of the West African population is found in Nigeria
alone.
Source: wikimedia commons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/West_Africa_map.gif
(with modification)
Natural Endowment and Extraction
The West African territory is endowed with numerous natural
resources, including minerals, forests, arable lands, wildlife, several rivers
and streams. The major mineral endowment includes gold, bauxite, diamonds,
uranium, phosphate, lithium, iron, limestone, nickel, clinker, kaolin, lead,
copper, cobalt, chromite, gypsum, and marble in addition to such precious
stones like garnets, quartz, and carbonates. It is also rich in crude oil and
natural gas deposits. The mineral wealth are owned and controlled by foreign
interests from the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, United Arab Emirate,
India, Japan, Spain, Russia, Switzerland, and Australia.
The major foreign multinational companies in the gold mining
industry are Barrick Gold, AngloGold Ashanti, Aureus Mining, IAM Gold, and Nord
Gold SE. These companies control between 80% to 98% of the gold mining sector
in Ghana, Mali, La Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. In the case of the
high-grade manganese ore, iron ore, and zinc mines of Burkina Faso and Liberia,
they are owned by Timis Mining Corporation of Australia. Also, ArcelorMittal and
China-Union Investment Company, which is
the largest steelmaker in the world, control the iron ore mining industry. Until
the close of 2023, the French multinational corporation ORANO was the primary
player in the uranium ore reserves market of Niger owning some 63.4% of the
uranium mines in Airlit, Tamou, Tagora, Akouta, Teguidda, and Azelik. In a
similar vein, the upstream oil and gas extractions have been largely taken over
by transnational energy corporations from the United States, Canada, United
Kingdom, France, and Norway leaving the various crude oil endowed nations in
West Africa with a stake of some 13%.
Agriculture and Food Security
West Africa faces
various degrees of food insecurity issues. Seven out of the region’s sixteen
countries have been severely hit by food deficit. These countries are Nigeria,
Niger, Senegal, Mauritania, Liberia, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone. Since
the end of COVID-19, the issue of food insecurity has extended into coastal
countries such as Liberia. In similar vein, challenges of famine in conflict
areas of Burkina Faso and Mali had arisen to further aggravate food insecurity
in West Africa. Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Liberia, and Niger are also known
to be increasingly vulnerable to issues of climate change and environmental
hazards. According to the latest
“Cadre Harmonisé” (CH) analyses, some “16.5 million
children under 5 were set to face acute malnutrition in 2023” with another “4.8
million children” projected to “suffer from the debilitating severe form
(SAM)”.
Several
factors have combined to contribute to the deteriorating food security in West
Africa. The most important ones are food availability in the critical
quantities required, access to food, affordability and conflict/population
displacement. The contending issues affecting food availability range from soil management,
misapplication of synthetic fertilizers, abandonment of traditional methods of
soil protection and management. Technology barriers aside, too much or too
little water concentrated over short periods further act as main constraint to
food production in West Africa especially when there is a near absence of
irrigated production. Despite the regional storage strategy developed by
ECOWAS to address production, markets and price volatility, crop
production continues to be seasonal in many ecological zones further
constraining household food security.
Accessibility to
food continues to be the bane of many communities in West Africa owing to
impassable transportation and distribution networks and the absence of modal
transfers and interchanges. These networks remain a challenge to downstream
distribution and consumption of food throughout West Africa. The resultant
effect is that the West African population with irregular access to safe and
nutritious food has been projected to rise to 48 million in 2023. Remunerative
pricing issues and income levels gravely influence the issue of food
affordability throughout West Africa. All over, prices for food and
agricultural products are highly unstable if not unpredictable, be it Benin or
Senegal, Ghana or Niger.
Owing to non-complementary development of the supply chain, farm gate prices are low and are most often below cost. Finally, the persistence of armed conflicts and their attendant population displacements remain the key drivers of acute food insecurity in West Africa particularly, in the Liptako-Gourma Region and the Lake Chad Basin.
Infrastructure
The
region’s economic infrastructure is fragile due to non-integration of national
and transboundary links in the road, railway, air, and maritime sectors.
Consequently, farmers and firms produce and trade in highly localized
non-networked markets. There is also proliferation of trade barriers for custom
goods along national corridors and at international borders which tend to
disrupt region-wide supply chains and movement of peoples. Other challenges
include non-tradability of national currencies and high reliance on family and
informal sources of financing of investments. The low levels of integration of
non-bank and financial institutions further frustrate internal mobilization of
large domestic financial resources and financing for investment and trade
including payments and settlements schemes. In most countries, this void is
left to the traditional actors to take the lead in such schemes and markets.
Despite
abundant endowment of renewable energy resources (water, wind, solar), large
uranium and fossil fuel[1]
deposits (crude oil & natural gas), West Africa continues to have one of
the lowest rates of electricity penetration[2]
and access due to inadequate or insufficient power generation, transmission and
distribution. Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire continue to
account for more than 80% of electricity generation and consumption. This
narrow energy security diversification base has led to some of the countries to
rely heavily on ‘expensive diesel or heavy fuel’ to generate their needs. As a
consequence, frequent power shortages are endemic. Although West Africa has clean energy sources, its regional energy
market is still highly fragmented, undeveloped, with very little integration of
national grids and other utilities’ systems.
[2] Penetration rates vary from less than 20% in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Niger, Burkina Faso (21%) to 45% in Nigeria, and 50% in Senegal and over 86% in Ghana.
Organisation of the Society
Fundamentally, the various States of West Africa are
dependent peripheral neo-colonial states with governing political elites and
their local comprador class being the hegemons representing and furthering the
main interests of foreign capital. As class societies, the comprador bourgeoisie,
petit bourgeoisie, and the precariat are the three major socioeconomic classes.
Though, workers in the formal and informal sectors of the
West African economy make up the majority of the working class, its militant
and radical industrial workers segment was decapitated in the 1980s.
Consequently, the West African proletariat is small and undeveloped owing to
unbridled privatization pursued as part of the neoliberal policies by West
African governments in the 1980s. As a result, the proletariat as a class is
weakened and no longer able to assert its agenda in the political arena.
Nonetheless, its main organs, which include trade unions and political
instruments (such as the socialist and communist parties), continue to be
effective vehicles for waging the class struggle. Currently, the working class
has low levels of social consciousness as a result of the undue influence of
religion, western capitalist propaganda and lifestyle, and insufficient access
to popular educational methods.
The precariat is a distinct social class because of its
inherent precarity which is defined as a state of being uncertain or having the
likelihood of worsening. As an emerging social class, the "Precariat"
is characterized by precarious employment, housing insecurity, and a general
lack of confidence in the future. Members of this social class are found and work
in the unorganized sectors of the economy in West Africa. The majority of their
members have higher professional and academic educational qualifications but
despite this, they frequently encounter inconsistent job flow, sporadic
unemployment, status frustration, and financial insecurity. They consist of
independent contractors, consultants, business owners who work for themselves,
craftspeople, traders, and other part-timers. Due to the lack of opportunities
and flexible nature of the work performed by this social class, the level of
social consciousness among its members is very low because they have a
propensity to see jobs or the production process as peripheral to the very
material existence of life and its reproduction. So, they tend to suffer from class
loyalty and general indifference to social events; the precariat class, in
general, is difficult to mobilize.
West Africa, like any other class society, is experiencing inter-class and intra-class tensions and conflicts. In countries such as Senegal, there is inflamed political and social tensions and heightened unrest. Several recent intercommunal violence has also been recorded in Nigeria mostly involving farmers and pastoralists.
Conflicts & Insecurity
Conflicts
in West Africa are reflections of abuse of constitutionalism, corruption,
impunity, and neocolonialism. They are also a conscious attempt by non-state
armed actors to establish theocratic state in the Sahara-Sahel Region of West
Africa. The genesis of the current conflict and insecurity in West Africa could
be traced to the NATO intervention of Libya in 2011 and the subsequent civil
war which led to dismemberment of that country. The aftermath of that conflict
led to several enclaves or ‘no-go’ areas ruled by tribesmen/armed fighters and
the inflow of small arms & light weapons into the Sahara-Sahel regions only
to be followed by incursion of armed fighters.
It
was therefore not surprising that by 2012, the Tuareg insurgency emerged in the
region led by the National Movement for the Liberation of AZAWAD (MNLA). This
insurgency was actually an alliance led by MNLA with the full participation of
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Movement for Unity and JIHAD in West
Africa (MUJAO) and Ansar Dine which quickly occupied northern Mali and declared
an independent state of AZAWAD. This alliance did not last long owing to the
bellicosity of AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar Dine to establish a caliphate and impose
sharia laws. MNLA faced with no choice entered into a peace deal with the
Government of Mali in 2015 alongside other Tuareg groups fighting for autonomy.
AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar
Dine, after the expulsion, moved its operations to central Mali after capturing
Konna from where it spread to Burkina Faso. In 2017, these al-Qaeda affiliated
groups merged to form JNIM (Jama’at
Nasral-Islam wal Muslimin) and moved into Liptako-Gourma Region. Since then,
the centres of extreme violence, humanitarian disaster and insecurity are
concentrated in the Liptako-Gourma, Ménako, Boucle du Mouhoun and Lake Chad
zones of West Africa. These regions have become hotbeds of complex social and
economic crises owing to prevalence of communal tensions, growing competition
over dwindling resources induced by lack of economic opportunities, demographic
pressure and climatic variability.
Prevalence of Small Arms and Light Weapons
In the last three decades, thriving regional markets for
assault rifles, machine guns, automatic rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades
have emerged in Kidal, Gao, Mopti, and Timbuktu as a result of Mali serving as
the primary destination for the region's arms trafficking. Additionally,
indigenous gunsmiths in Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Mali,
Niger, and Nigeria have increased their illegal production of firearms, which
added to the criminal availability and spread of small arms in the region.
Criminal networks and the presence of foreign terrorist
organizations in the Sahel have aided in the development of these markets and
regional armament production. These organizations take advantage of the porous
borders and vast, non-contiguous political and economic spaces of West Africa
to smuggle small arms and light weapons across national boundaries. Another
contributory factor is the presence of robust light weapon and small arms
industries in Mali and Nigeria spawning low-intensity wars in the Niger delta,
the Casamance region of Senegal, and Biafra in southeast Nigeria.
Illicit
trade in light weapons and small arms contributes to fuelling conflict in the
sub-region
Image source: Citinewsroom
Foreign Military Presence
West Africa, like the rest of Africa, is at the centre of
geopolitical rivalry and competition between the major powers. There are several foreign military bases (FMB) in West
Africa owned and controlled by the United States, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and other West
European nations. Their
presence started as a consequence of the NATO’s intervention in Libya. It would
be recalled that the end of the conflict led to the incursion of Islamic State
fighters into the Sahara-Sahel Region which was later followed by establishment
of terrorist cells throughout the region. To counteract them, France, in 2013,
sent its expeditionary forces into Mali under Operation Serval. The objective of that operation was to rout
out the various cells before they took a presence. Operation Serval was not
successful and became superseded by Operation Barkhane. The latter was superseded
by the UN Peacekeeping Forces under MINUSMA.
The United States also followed up by setting up
military bases in Niger. Currently, the
US has 7,000 military personnel on rotational deployment in three potential
African theatres of war. Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso constitute one of these theatres.
The other two are in Central-Southern Africa and the Horn of Africa,
respectively. Out of the 34 Foreign Military Bases (FMBs) that US has in
Africa, 5 are located within the territorial spaces of Niger, Ghana, Burkina
Faso, Senegal and Nigeria in West Africa. Foreign military bases (FMBs) are now
hosted by eight out of the sixteen West African countries and they are located
in Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Senegal, Benin and
Liberia. These FMBs are mostly used for intelligence collection, covert
commando raids, and drone attacks.
France, on her part, has FMBs in four countries at the end
of 2023 in West Africa: Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso.
The French military formations, the FFCI (Les forces Françaises en Côte
d'Ivoire) and the EFS (Les eléments Français au Senegal), are housed on bases
in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, respectively where they are engaged in
counterterrorism, intelligence gathering, and surveillance operations against
Islamic extremist groups. In addition, France has land and air bases in Mauritania
and Burkina Faso to support its army, conduct surveillance and terrorism
operations.
The French Expeditionary Forces
pulled out in October 2022 bringing Operation Barkhane to an end. With
the pull-out of French Forces, a military and security vacuum were created in
the theatre of operations. To stymie
insurgency in those areas, the Malian military junta turned to the Russian
Wagner Group to assist its security forces to defend and protect the
territorial integrity of Mali. French and UN Peacekeeping Forces (MINUSMA) were
also withdrawn by the close of 2023 and plans are well afoot for the US to remove its military
bases and AFRICOM forces from Niger in 2024. It is
worthy of note that the eventual withdrawal of French and UN Peacekeeping
Forces (MINUSMA) from West Africa was precipitated by the recent strength of
the popular forces which mobilised the population to resist and confront the
imperialist forces.
France & US Interference
French meddling in Francophone West Africa is a matter of
state policy and its objective is to keep all of her colonial assets within its
area of influence. Such meddling takes the form of France controlling and
carrying out regional monetary policy, confiscation of national financial
reserves, retaining the first right of preference over any raw mineral reserves
found within the territorial States and ensuring all public procurement serves
the French’ national interest and businesses in terms of precedence. Mali had
cause to complain to the UN Security Council over such France's meddling which
was overtly done to undermine its unity. Even while France vehemently refuted
the allegations, it is well known that her true goal is to undermine Mali’s sovereignty
and uphold the status quo in the Sahel region.
It has become commonplace for US foreign policy to meddle in
general elections across the region. The objective of this foreign policy is to
meet the US's expanding population's energy needs and as a subsequence has led
to the weaponization of foreign aid and technical assistance.
The Wagner Group
The Wagner Group is a Russian private military auxiliary force
consisting of ex-servicemen with extensive combat experiences who offer their
services for money. As a quasi-state armed group, it has several presences in
Africa notably Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Sudan
and it is oftentimes used by the Russian Government to executes its
geopolitical objectives. The Wagner Group has some 1,000 mercenaries deployed
in Central Mali where they are currently fighting insurgency groups. For the
meantime, there are no Russian boots on the ground.
In Conclusion
Foreign ownership and control of West Africa's productive
forces remain pervasive. Capitalists and their imperial institutions in Europe,
the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Canada continue to own
and control the means of production. The region's technology barrier remains largely
crude, with very limited mechanical automation and a technological, scientific,
and information-driven foundation. Unskilled or non-technical labour dominates
the human resources churned out yearly especially with the educational system
disconnected from the needs of business and industry. The result is a low level
of development of the region's production forces. Hence, West Africa is still a
producer of primary commodities that are exchanged for manufactured goods with
the rest of the world.
While the current nature of the region's productive forces
poses a significant challenge to further growth and development, the
corresponding production relations continue to be a stumbling block, leaving
West Africa’s society paradoxically paralyzed and heavily exploited. However,
we are aware what the primary contradiction is at the moment. Of course, it is
imperialism, as represented by the comprador bourgeoise and their allies. The main
aspect of the contradiction we face as a region is the conflict between
imperialists and the people and yet the class struggle within the region is
hampered by a crisis of class identity supported by cultural nuances and
traditional traditions. The time has come to intensify the class struggle and
fight against the low levels of social consciousness.
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