Dear Valentine: Be Mine. Oh, And About That Debt

This week demonstrators delivered more than 10,000 Valentine's Day cards to the US treasury department asking the United States to "have a heart" and cancel that long-beleaguered country's debts. Liberia is the country with the closest historical relationship to the United states, and even the normally Grinch-like International Monetary Fund is concerned with Liberia's debt burden. Africa Focus has several relevant stories here and you can see dcat's coverage of Liberia here. I believe that some form of debt relief or forgiveness is essential to African development. That relief can be coupled with sticks as well as carrots, but it is an issue that needs to continue to gain traction among policymakers.

China's African Dreams and The Potential Downsides

Over at the Foreign Policy Association Robert Nolan has a piece titled "China's African Dreams," which gives another viewpoint on this increasingly significant issue. Meanwhile the Mail & Guardian speculates that Chinese Aid to Africa may do more harm than good.

China, Railroads, Roads, and Africa

One of the issues that has captured my attention since my trip to China this past summer, and subsequent travel to Africa, is the role that Asia's behemoth is increasingly staking across the continent. I have written about the issue here, here, here, and here. In The New Republic Michael Currie Schaffer has an article exploring China's newfound interest in building railroads in Africa. His article is actually more a fascinating slice of travel writing than an especially astute geopolitical observation -- he is long on description and short on argument -- but his observations provide another example of how China has targeted Africa for development.