Why have once dynamic and diversified economies been reduced to fragile monocultures, completely dependent on global capital flows, and bleeding to survive? Why is Africa sorely lacking in financial and technical resources to ensure its take-off?

Globalization has integrated African economies into the world order created since the end of the Second World War. Despite the handicaps that may be encountered, this system can offer opportunities for Africa.

Disabilities. One of the causes of the backwardness of development in Africa is the dependence of its economies on the international market through the globalization of the world economy. The other handicap is the lack of technical and financial resources. Added to this are the vulnerabilities of poor governance.

The wrong role. For Africa, globalization is the distribution of tasks in terms of the production of raw materials. One country produces coffee that is not consumed locally, another cocoa or copper and uranium to supply the international market. Globalization has destroyed local agricultural production while the financial lobbies are only concerned with large industrial groups, which have a sufficient financial surface. Africa is the weakest link in the chain.

Industrial weakness. None of these producing countries manages to process its raw materials on its territory. Even after several years of operation, countries do not have sufficient financial and technical resources to ensure self-reliance. To have the necessary resources, Africans must resort to borrowing on the financial market from capricious donors who impose humiliating conditionalities on them. If elsewhere, we can sell warplanes to an irremovable dynasty that violates women's rights, gives no perspective to the opposition, here we demand elections or negotiations with terrorists.

The solution for Africans would be to emancipate themselves by detaching themselves from the umbilical cord of these lobbies.

Opportunities. Several African countries are rich in raw materials that feed Western industries: iron, copper, aluminum, zinc, bronze, potash, bauxite, tungsten, cotton oil and wood. Not to mention the rare metals that now ensure the computer and digital supremacy of countries such as China, Israel, the United States, Korea etc.

To take advantage of these raw materials, it will be enough for Africans to process them locally in order to export finished products that generate more interesting income than raw materials. Example: wood that is exported from the Congo every year and whose income for the country does not seem interesting should be transformed entirely on the spot into semi-finished or finished products. The country spends several billions each year to import furniture into China and Turkey. This is because the wood processing industry is structurally incompatible with national development strategies. To do this, it is enough to train young people and set up processing units locally. Africa can benefit from globalization by making the best use of its resources.

Avoid the trap. This solution is not easy to implement because Western lobbies will always try to maintain this dependence. Countries that have tried the experiment to detach themselves from it have had to face harassment and sabotage.

This is the case of Congo, our country. In 1963, the leaders of the time, wanting to escape the industrial tutelage of foreign powers, had undertaken a vast operation of nationalization of production units in strategic sectors. The result was catastrophic. The acts of sabotage were reported to the Compagnie des potasses du Congo.

When the Congo wanted to acquire the necessary equipment to build its refinery, a Belgian company manipulated by French lobbies had sold incomplete equipment. Dragged to court, this company had to pay dearly and it was an unprecedented victory in the history of trade relations between an African state and a European power.

Globalization and the financialization of the world economy are not inevitable. But a mechanism that allows all countries on the planet to take advantage of the rules of international trade. Except that these rules are generally discriminatory. It is therefore time to rethink this system. Only compliance with the rules can ensure a fair partnership.