Five Centuries Ago Africa Was Booming: it can rise again

by Emmanuel Akyeampong and Hippolyte Fofack

When Portuguese explorers first arrived on the east African coast at the turn of the 16th century, an anonymous recorder on the voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral noted of Kilwa (off the coast of present-day Tanzania): “This island is small, near the mainland, and is a beautiful country. The houses are high like those of Spain. In this land there are rich merchants, and there is much gold and silver and amber and musks and pearls. Those of the land wear clothes of fine cotton and of silk and many fine things and they are black men.”

The “Africa rising” story of booming economies and growing middle classes is important in correcting the global perception of Africa, for Africa has not always been in decline. The 500 years after the European arrival in Africa saw an increasing integration of Africa into the global economy, but often on terms which worked against Africa’s interests: the slave trade through the end of the 19th century, then European colonial rule to the 1960s. The challenge of development has been the story since, as Africa struggled with the legacies of colonial rule, its marginal share of global trade, and corrupt and dictatorial leadership.

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