Africa’s Post-Colonial Foreign Policy: Assessing History, Imagining the Future

Magu, Stephen M.

This chapter addresses some of the other issues that African nations face, that require regional and continental approaches, collaboration and joint actions, especially in the context of the future of Africa as a future global player. Many current issues manifest, including the COVID-19 100-year global pandemic affecting tens of millions, killed millions and devastated global and therewith, African economies. Africa’s foreign policy was driven, from the beginning, by purpose: ending colonialism in all its manifestations, neutrality during the Cold War, avoiding internal conflicts, civil wars, interstate wars and secession, leveraging global institutions to achieve economic development, regional integration and pursuing the long-cherished Pan-African dream of continental unity. Africa has also had to contemplate global changes, for instance the subtle changes in the concept of sovereignty into Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the resolution of conflicts that have seen millions killed through war and genocides such as Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, the Rome Statute and the ICC and external intervention in African nations, where African countries, the OAU and AU are unwilling or unable to halt conflicts. Libya’s 2011 experiences are a good example, given NATO’s involvement. The chapter finds, and argues, that Africa has also had to address—and will likely continue to—challenges of state failure that began with Somalia and persisted for half of the country’s post-colonial life, becoming a haven for violent non-state actors and imperiling other nations through terrorism and related issues. The chapter addresses other issues and their impact on Africa: climate change and global warming, global governance, population growth and global pandemics, and Africa’s responses to these.