From human to human capital : a challenge for Africa in the face of globalization

Abstract

Globalization offers opportunities, but also imposes new constraints on the countries of the South. In view of the barely discreet violence of the unethical competition it organizes, and the risks and uncertainties to which it exposes civilizations and nations, we defend the following thesis: a hidden face of the exacerbation of competition linked to globalization lies in the inequalities between nations in investing in the war of positioning and quality human resources. The resilience of each nation and civilization, and the reflexivity required by the ever-unstable international environment, depend precisely on their respective capacities to make optimal choices and produce the knowledge and know-how needed to meet the challenges of a changing world.

It is becoming increasingly clear that, in this war of positioning, the differences between civilizations lie more in their ability to acquire the differential value of human capital. This is what justifies, in development economic theory, the shift from the theory of comparative advantage to the theory of competitive advantage, resolutely based on the stock of available resources and skills. In the machine of international competition, investing in women and men by guaranteeing them better health, longer and more fertile life expectancy, and better education, becomes both a common-sense but hidden political issue, and therefore also a geopolitical one.

Seen from this angle, Africa's limitations are revealed not only by the continent's low contribution to world trade (production of knowledge, social, economic and cultural goods and services), but also by its structural difficulties in coping with the constraints of its own transformation, difficulties of which the weakness of health policies is an excellent analyzer.

These structural difficulties are compounded by the new, even less perceptible situation of health risks, which are consubstantial with the entry of certain sectors of African economies into the dynamics of globalization. These health risks are currently poorly assessed, yet have a major impact on people's health. We will show how, without the means to protect human resources, the perverse effects of recent economic growth trends driven by these most globalized economic sectors are discreetly helping to maintain this source of fragility of health capital in a situation of asymmetry of power between international capital and weak states.

Francis Akindès

Francis Akindès is a sociologist and Professor at the Université Alassane Ouattara (formerly the Université de Bouaké - Côte d'Ivoire). He is also program coordinator for the Unesco Chair in Bioethics at the same university. He has been a visiting professor at several universities, including Oxford University (UK) and Uppsala University (Sweden). He is the author of several books and journal articles on democratic transitions in Africa, forms of political violence generated by democratization processes, and public policies in the face of poverty.