In the spirit of supporting and justifying further colonial efforts in Africa, there have been some arguments as to why colonialism has done Africa a lot of good.

In reality, global trade has not benefited African people. They have been used in the grand globalization of trade by way of being source of raw materials and manual labor, but nothing much translates to their participation eventually benefiting them. ‘Despite a flourishing market in most of the rest of the world, Africa remains a continent of poor villages and sprawling slums. So rather than investing in the continent’s businesses and ventures, these billionaires fund NGOs and government projects for health, education, and technology.’

Under colonialism, foreign businesses and governments exploited Africa while making themselves rich off the continent’s natural and human resources. It would be easy to surmise that new colonialism of Africa will only produce the same results. Some argue that foreign business interests made Africa richer and helped ease it out of poverty somehow. Reality reveals that the only ones that got richer are the African leaders and their cronies. The ordinary African still suffers from poverty and degradation.

One of the tried-and-true strategies of colonialists in the continent is microfinancing, touted to be the solution to Africans’ capacity building. ‘Microfinance loans are meant for small entrepreneurs whose operations aren’t yet large enough to garner the usual business loan.’ Unfortunately for the ordinary African microentrepreneur, he still cannot acquire a bigger loan even if his business has grown large enough to want to get a regular bank loan. Thus, the microfinancing strategy has not really been economically sustainable for African microentrepreneurs.

Hence, colonialism and all its tactics have not been beneficial to Africa. Proof of it is the still pervading poverty that overwhelms the continent. What new colonialists have done to Africa is to make it an aid-dependent continent, reeking of mendicant culture.

Via Foreign Policy