DAKAR: France is wrestling with a burden of debts and public deficits that led Standard & Poor's recently to downgrade its credit rating. Even as the risk of recession looms, the country has been forced to implement a drastic austerity program. But (...)
DAKAR: How did Ivory Coast come to this? After gaining independence from France in 1960 with Felix Houphouet-Boigny as President, the country became the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans and a significant exporter of coffee and palm oil. (...)
DAKAR: The slump in prices for Africa's natural resources, which led to chronic deficits in the past, has been reversed. Consumption, fueled by huge Asian demand for African commodities, is on the rise across the continent. For much of Africa, this (...)
DAKAR: The world economic downturn and financial-market tremors have strained budgets across Africa. With the exception of Ghana, and a few other states, in 2009 most African countries' fiscal balances deteriorated. But, thanks to prudent management (...)
DAKAR: There is something dismally familiar about the tide of news reports concerning Africa's increased suffering - more poverty, malnutrition, civil strife, and death - in the face of the recent global financial crisis. Almost everywhere, the (...)
Karl Marx predicted that states would wither away in anticipation of an idyllic communist society capable of auto-regulating economic imbalances and empowering the masses. So he would have been flabbergasted to see his prophecy realized, not by (...)
