User:Lasallebm/Economic history of Africa

Cold War Economics
Many African countries were retained by their colonial leaders because of the potential economic implications at risk if these countries fell into the hands of the Soviets. The discovery of uranium, an important element in building nuclear bombs, was discovered in many Central and Southern African nationals. Western countries feared what might happen if the uranium and the uranium mines fell into the hands of the Soviets, so they held onto these colonies.

The United States also needed uranium. In 1952, only 28% of the United State's uranium supply domestically or Canadian harvested. In the coming years, estimates put between 20-50% of all of the West's uranium was harvested in Africa.

The British
The British wanted their African colonies to be cheap for their government to function, with the overall goal of all of their colonies being economically sufficient. Their ultimate goal was for the colonies to pay for themselves. By the time World War II ended, however, political policies changed, as the British soon began to focus on the overall development of their economies, not just for the purpose of exploitation.

Each colony had its own economical purpose to the British. The British discovered in their colony South Africa of the huge gold and diamond reserves in the country. In order to ensure profit from these valuables, the British forced many South Africans to work in the mines for cheap, unsafe labor. The Gold Coast was similar. In the early to mid 1900s, the Gold Coast was used primarily used for gold mining, and the planting of cocoa.

The French
The French, similar to the British wanted their colonies to pay for themselves. The goal was to never lose money with these investments, but to increase governmental revenues or break even. In the post-World War II landscape in Africa, the French were still making more money from the tax revenues in Africa than of that they were spending to keep their many colonies.

The French exploited West Africa for its own economic benefit. West Africa had a plethora of exports, some being groundnuts, palm oil, coal, petrol. These exports were sent all over the world so the French could make profit off of them. Many of the products were often even sent to France, and acted as cheap products for its citizens.

Focus
I want to focus on the Cold War economics for this section, and see how Cold War policies affected the economic decision making. This section of the paper does not have a lot of information, so I think I can add a lot.