African Development in the Age of Pandemic and Climate Change: Navigating Economic Transformation, Migration, and Global Cooperation

Camilla Toulmin discusses the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on African development, framing it as both a daunting challenge and a critical opportunity for strategic reorientation. She highlights a widespread sentiment among African colleagues to "grasp this crisis with both hands" to build more resilient, inclusive, and productive economic pathways. This mirrors a similar awakening in Europe, where the crisis has underscored the need to rebalance economic growth with social and environmental well-being, prioritizing clean air, public health, and fair wages for essential workers. The core argument is that the pandemic unmasks existing structural vulnerabilities and necessitates a fundamental shift away from pre-crisis development patterns towards sustainable and equitable recovery.

Toulmin's work on Mali, detailed in her book "Land Investment in Migration," illustrates the complex interplay of urbanization, climate change (droughts, intense rainstorms), land pressure (population growth, government allocation to investors), and civil conflict. She distinguishes between patchy development that benefits a few (e.g., from aid, urban land development) and the neglect of the vast majority in rain-fed agricultural systems, leading to resentment and grievance. She also contrasts the traditional East Asian labor-intensive manufacturing model with Africa's current reality, where automation and global supply chains make that path less viable. Instead, she emphasizes the potential of the informal sector and the need for targeted education (STEM subjects) to foster employment-rich growth.

Practical insights include leveraging online education, particularly in rural areas, by addressing power and high-speed connectivity gaps, potentially through government subsidies for telecom providers. She advocates for regional cooperation, citing the the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, to align policies and tariffs and build continent-wide systems, including digital infrastructure. Addressing demographic change requires investment in girls' education, access to contraception, and fostering a "labor-rich, employment-rich pattern of growth" within the informal sector, coupled with state protection and tax contributions. For international support, she calls for a better balance between public assistance (aid for health/education) and properly targeted private investment that mitigates risk for investors while ensuring fair deals for local populations and environmental respect, contrasting this with past exploitative practices.

The discussion extends to the geopolitical context, particularly the US-China turbulence, and its implications for Europe-Africa relations. Toulmin suggests the European Union should play a "middle-of-the-road" third-party role, fostering a respectful, mutually beneficial partnership with Africa focused on energy, agriculture, and digital connectivity. She aligns with Rodrik and Stiglitz's view on the diminishing integrity of the nation-state in an era of globalization, advocating for stronger supra-national (like the EU) and sub-national (cities as innovation hubs) entities to address "problems without passports" such as climate change and pandemics. The overarching implication is that global challenges demand coordinated global action, moving beyond national self-interest towards a shared vision of sustainable and inclusive development, with Africa at the forefront of this necessary transformation.

"this crisis like all crises must be seized by us let's grasp it with both hands and make sure that we come out of this crisis going in a different direction taking a new strategic path that allows us to be less vulnerable more resilient better able as a continent to not only deal with these sorts of crises in future of which there will be many but also much better able to build that inclusive and more productive economic pathway that we've been talking about for so long but not really reaching"

"our current pattern of growth and development has got the balance wrong we should be privileging social and environmental well well-being more highly than than economic"

"what we need to make sure is that the political choices that are made now for our future recovery are ones that are taking us in the right direction rather than just rebuilding as we were before"

"the labor in the shadows we've shed light on the importance of these courageous people whether in hospitals or food preparation to be the people who help us when we're ill and the people who help the underpinnings of life life and health be perpetuated"

"very patchy patterns of development quite a lot of people getting rich from the aid process and from the development of land in and around cities but very little really going to the vast majority of the population"

"the world has changed since the 80s and 90s when east asia was able to um follow if you like a sort of classic economic growth path starting with light manufacturing and moving into more capital intensive patterns of production but now a lot of that space is is occupied globally and it's difficult to see how um africans can african economies can become dominant in many of those sectors"

"the big challenge is to see how you can help the informal sector become more productive start to benefit from the protections that the state can potentially provide and pay in return the taxes that the state needs in order to continue to play um a positive role"

"investment is good as long as it is gone about in the right way and deals with the costs and impacts of that investment in a way which is fair to people living around that particular site and also you know providing sufficient revenue back to the state to make sure that that was a an investment that brings real benefit to the nation"