Introduction: Africa’s Second Half-Century: Enhancing Capacity for Sustainable Human Development and Human Security

Abstract

Into the second decade of the twenty-first century, Africa faces an unanticipated ‘second chance’ (www.mckinsey.com): how many ‘developmental’ (Chang, 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Fine, 1999, 2006; Mkandawire, 2001; Weiss, 2003) versus ‘fragile’ states (ACBF, 2011) will it have by 2020? The interrelated prospects for both BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the continent are being transformed by the current global financial crisis: as the South expands and the North contracts, what will be the nature of South-North (S-N), even East-South (E-S) (Davies, 2011; Pieterse, 2011), relations in future? The 27 states of the EU now include the debt-shackled PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain): is this a disincentive to African regions to sign Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)? There are clearly new institutional forms and a shifting global order that require a rethinking of development cooperation (Davies, 2011; Leipziger, 2011). Indeed, the world economic crisis is generating new pressures that provide the global South with a new role as host to emerging powers and economies (Addison, Arndt and Tarp, 2010; Kararach, Léautier and Luhanga, 2011).

…the rise of emerging societies is a major turn in globalization and holds significant emancipatory potential. North-South relations have been dominant for 200 years and now an East-South turn is taking shape. The 2008 economic crisis is part of a global rebalancing process.

(Pieterse, 2011: 22)