ABSTRACT
The first decade of the twenty-first century for the global political economy was that of the BRICS as well as of financial crises especially around the North Atlantic. Africa like much of the global South weathered the US and EU contractions better than most as the BRICS’ demand for its natural resources, especially energy and minerals, boosted its economies. A decade of unprecedented growth, however uneven, has led the continent to be able to anticipate the establishment of a set of “developmental states,” as advocated especially by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA 2011, 2013), to balance the continuation of several “fragile” or “failed” states (Brock, Holm, Sorensen and Stohl 2012).
