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Article

French

ID: <

10670/1.l0mwq6

>

Where these data come from
French and Belgian large African dam projects, 1954-1960. Nationalism, Eurafric or Pan-African?

Abstract

Refreshed after the Second World War, French and Belgian African dams’ projects stated the flagship initiative of both euro-African and properly African integration. This perspective paid tribute to an exceptional convergence of stimulating factors. But, due to their extroversion, and to the opposite interests of the forces involved that even the IBRD was unable to reconcile, they never led to any integration through hydroelectricity in Africa. Moreover, the Canadian and American neoliberal demands for political and economic stability of the colonies to guarantee their investments, the French and Belgian colonial capitalism concerns of sovereignty to protect the national interests and consolidate the Empires, basically neglected the African factor. However, when decolonization moved forward, the latter influenced profoundly the game, forced players to adjust their strategies. Independence threw away the dream of African integration through hydroelectric power, the international dams projects changed into instruments of unequal cooperation between the West and the newly independent African States.

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