Millions of inhabitants 10000 West Africa Wor Long-Term Perspective Study 1000 Afr 100 10 1 Yea 1965 1975 1850 1800 1900 1950 1990 2025 2000 Club Saheldu 2020 % of the active population 100 90 80 AGRICULTURAL SECTOR 70 60 50 40 30 NON AGRICULTURAL “INFORMAL” SECTOR 20 10 NON AGRICULTURAL 3MODERN3 SECTOR 0 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Preparing for 2020: 6 000 towns of which 300 have more than 100 000 inhabitants Production and total availability in gigaczalories per day Import as a % of availa 500 the Future 450 400 350 300 250 200 A Vision of West Africa 150 100 50 0 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 Imports as a % of availability Total food availability Regional production in the Year 2020 2020 CLUB DU SAHEL PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE A VISION OF WEST AFRICA IN THE YEAR 2020 West Africa Long-Term Perspective Study Edited by Jean-Marie Cour and Serge Snrech ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ FOREWoRD ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ In 1991, four member countries of the Club du Sahel: Canada, the United States, France and the Netherlands, suggested that a regional study be undertaken of the long-term prospects for West Africa. Several Sahelian countries and several coastal West African countries backed the idea. To carry out this regional study, the Club du Sahel Secretariat and the CINERGIE group (a project set up under a 1991 agreement between the OECD and the African Development Bank) formed a multi-disciplinary team of African and non-African experts. The European Commission, the World Bank and the African Development Bank provided the funds necessary to finance the study. The Club du Sahel Secretariat, working in conjunction with the CINERGIE group in Abidjan, directed the group of experts in charge of the study. On several occasions, a Scientific Committee and various advisory groups were organised to help formulate preliminary findings and ideas. The group coordinators were in regular contact with the groups of experts from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in charge of the National Long-Term Perspectives Studies (NLTPS) in African countries. Undertaking a study of long-term perspectives in West Africa would necessitate taking a step back in order to see far ahead. CINERGIE and the Club du Sahel, not being bound by any short-term policy deadlines, were in a good position to do just that. However, since long-term developments depend on individual or collective short-term decisions, it is hoped that the study will provide food for thought and, if possible, some guidelines for day-to-day action. Such was the hope of the countries that commissioned CINERGIE and the Club du Sahel Secretariat to carry out this study. The purpose of the West Africa Long-Term Perspective Study (WALTPS) is to gain a better understanding of the main trends that have dictated change in the region over the past half a century or so, and to reflect upon the direction of change over the next three decades. The aim is to arrive at a set of hypotheses regarding the direction of future change, in order to develop a sketch of the region around the year 2020. The authors have confidence in scientific progress, human ingenuity, the entrepreneurial spirit and the will of West Africa’s people to live and live better. They are aware of the risks the future holds for West Africa. They have sought to sketch a picture that holds promise, despite the difficulties the region will encounter. This picture incorporates a plan, one which will have to be brought to maturity and carried out by Africans. That said, outside agencies wishing to assist should, in fact, be prepared to do so. A further aim of the study is to show that the West African population has made considerable efforts to adapt to the changes occurring in the region. In all probability, it will continue to do so. 3 A VISION OF WEST AFRICA IN THE YEAR 2020: PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ This adaptation has taken place under difficult conditions: traditional civilisations have been poorly adapted to the modern world; political and administrative leadership have been ill prepared to observe and to direct change; human resources have lacked education and training; and capital accumulation and financing capacity levels have been extremely low. Moreover, nation-building was prioritized over regional co-operation. For a certain period the aid to African development efforts was supported by the international context; then the situation destabilized. Foreign aid, though abundant for twenty years, has not managed to pull Africa out of its crisis and has kept the region in a position of dependence. The global economic crisis has undermined Western confidence in the future in general and above all in the future of Africa. Public aid has diminished substantially. The authors of the study do not underestimate the dangers that such extreme and very rapid changes represent for West Africa. But they are convinced that West Africans have learned a great deal from the opportunities and difficulties of the past thirty years and that, despite the exceptional constraints they will be working under in the coming decades, they will be able to benefit from these lessons. The authors take quite the opposite view to that of a region with no future. To describe past developments and future prospects, the authors have carried out a more detailed analysis than is usual in long-term studies of the changes that have taken place in the region’s human geography, i.e. in the relationship between its people and their natural environment. The study facilitators asked the research team (which consisted of African and non-African experts from a number of disciplines – statisticians, demographers, economists, geographers, agronomists, urban planners and political scientists) to focus upon human geography as the core discipline to synthesise their findings. Taken somewhat aback, at first, by such an unfamiliar frame of reference, the experts soon became accustomed to it and agreed that human geography has its advantages and sheds a different light on African realities compared to that of the more common approaches. It is a discipline well suited to describing one of West Africa’s most significant facets: the fact that it is still undergoing important population resettlement. It is also a visual discipline: it produces maps. It tries to grasp the direction of long-term trends. It encourages modesty, showing that unexpected upheavals make prediction hazardous. And it teaches patience. The human geography perspective entails an interest in large scale, long-term phenomena, and equal weight cannot be attached to the short-term. Detailed attention cannot be given to sectoral trends. The working papers on which this final report is based do not contain detailed analyses of trends in health, environment, industry, etc. Nor do they include any recipe for what should be done tomorrow. At most, they suggest certain priorities as well as a few promising directions to take. That is the particularity and the strength – but also the limitation – of this West African long-term perspectives study. WALTPS is intended to complement the many careful studies carried out by specialists in different disciplines. Its authors have sought to examine 4 FOREWORD ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ trends in West Africa, from a long-term viewpoint, and from which encouragement for continued action could be drawn. The study was directed by Jean-Marie Cour. Mahamane Brah, Director of the ADB/OECD CINERGIE Unit, Chérif Seye, CINERGIE’s Communications Manager and Jean-Marc Pradelle from the Club du Sahel, co-ordinated the study. John Igué, Director of the LARES in Cotonou, Benin supported the CINERGIE Unit in co-ordinating the team of experts from West Africa. Serge Snrech worked in close collaboration with Jean-Marie Cour to manage the members of the team based at the Club du Sahel office in Paris. This team consisted of Jean-David Naudet, Benoît Ninnin, Michel Arnaud, Mukanda-Bantu Kalasa and Laurent Bossard. Roger Pons and Vincent Leclercq also lent their expertise to the study. The team benefited from the advice and experience of Anne de Lattre throughout the duration of the study. Moustapha Dème co-ordinated the Mali case-study, with contributions from Bakari Sanogo, Ousmane Diallo, Sékouba Diarra and Bakary Sacko. Edmond Kaboré co-ordinated the Burkina Faso case study. Ibrahim Jibrin co-ordinated the study on social and political change in Nigeria, which was produced by D.J. Abin, B. Ahonsi, J.A. Ariyo, Z.A. Bonat, M. Mamman, A. Momoh, Adebayo Olukoshi, C. Obi and A.C. Onwumerbobi. J. Ebow Bannerman co-ordinated the Ghana case-study, with contributions from S.D. Addo, Kwassi Adarkwa, A.F. Arye, James Bok Abdan, George Botchie, John S. Nabila, Kwame A. Ninsin and Nii Kwaku Sowa. Mamadou Diouf co-ordinated the study on the dynamics of social and political change, with contributions from Albert Bourgi, Pierre Henri Chalvidan, Mamadou Diop, Elimane Fall and Pierre Weiss. A number of meetings were held, at which the WALTPS results were discussed by decision-makers and researchers from Africa, Europe and North America. 5 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ TABLE of contents○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Foreword 3 Introduction 11 Preface 19 Synthesis 31 CHAPTER 1 – WEST AFRICA UNDERGOING LONG-TERM CHANGE .............................................. 33 1.1 Two initial shocks: rapid population growth and brutal