2019/04/02 by Ian Taylor · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Global Financial Crisis and Policies
paper · doi:10.1080/01436597.2019.1585183
openalex publication_date 2019/04/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Over 50 years after 1960’s ‘Year of Africa’, most of Francophone Africa continues to be embedded in a set of associations that fit very well with Kwame Nkrumah’s description of neocolonialism, where postcolonial states are de jure independent but in reality constrained through their economic systems so that policy is directed from outside. This article scrutinises the functioning of the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA), considering the role the currency has in persistent underdevelopment in most of Francophone Africa. In doing so, the article identifies the CFA as the most blatant example of functioning neocolonialism in Africa today and a critical device that promotes dependency in large parts of the continent. Mainstream analyses of the technical aspects of the CFA have generally focused on the exchange rate and other related matters. However, while important, the real importance of the CFA franc should not be seen as purely economic, but also political.