Fifty years of deleterious external engagement with sub‐Saharan African states

Abstract

Since the end of the colonial era the majority of sub-Saharan African nations have stagnated or declined on key measures of stability and well-being. Despite numerous foreign interventions in the form of aid, trade, technical assistance, and military support, students and scholars of modern Africa must recognize that foreign powers have consistently failed in their efforts to prop up, stabilize, and maintain independent nation states. A holistic view of more than 50 years of support for dictatorships, inequitable trade deals, resource extraction, conflict intervention, debt entrapment, and attempts at regime change raises the question as to whether foreign interventions were intentionally disruptive. Modern African nations struggle at the bottom of demographic health and well-being indicators, and conflicting foreign involvements have often stymied the growth of institutions that serve the majority of citizens' democratic, legal, and financial needs for promoting equitable and sustainable growth.