Business
What Africa can learn from the on-going Eurozone crisis
The Eurozone crisis presents some critical lessons for developing countries, particularly in Africa.
As the European financial and economic crisis continues to dominate global news headlines, questions about how this will affect other regions of the world remain unanswered. From the Irish bailout to Greece, the world has watched as the pioneers of western civilisation struggle to keep their union afloat. The threat of a Eurozone collapse has overshadowed the frenzied attempts by Germany and France to prevent one.
Clearly, there is a lot at stake, not just for Europe, but also for the other regions of the world. In fact, the Eurozone crisis presents some critical lessons for developing countries – particularly in Africa. Europe and Africa continue to share intricate ties which are rooted in the latter’s colonial experience under the former. Many African countries amassed mountains of debt from their colonial masters in order to finance the acquisition of land and property from fleeing settlers.
As absurd as that may sound, it also means that Africans in fact paid double in blood and money for their freedom. In Kenya, for example, the Kenyatta government borrowed from the British exchequer in order to facilitate the willing-buyer-willing-seller system that was used to transfer property from settlers to African peasants.
