Africa and the World in 2004-2005

In 2005, the world focused on Africa through a number of developmental initiatives. Africa’s economy also performed well particularly in macroeconomic and structural reforms. The United Nations World Economic Status and Prospects Report, 2006, alleged that Africa was also politically stable. The operationalisation of the African Peer Review Mechanism in Rwanda, Ghana and South Africa was a step towards good governance. Peaceful elections signaled a deepening of democracy. And under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, fourteen countries were approved for debt cancellation. This article departs from Maxi Schoeman’s words that, ‘there are two ways of looking at Africa and the world. The one is to look back and bemoan Africa’s failures, challenges and weaknesses; the other is to list Africa’s achievements and celebrate them’. This article also celebrates Africa’s achievements, however, within the context of many challenges facing the continent. Equally significant is the contextualization of Africa’s relation with the world within ‘historical moments’. During the Cold War, for example, Africa was an important ‘attraction’ for the two superpowers. They wanted Africa for the spread of their ideologies: communism for the Soviet Union and democracy for the United States of America. Africa was therefore important in so far as it was a vehicle for the ‘contestation of ideologies.