African development crisis and global thinking: Collapse of the periphery, decay of the core

This paper used the core-periphery concept of underdevelopment as a theoretical framework to analyze the African development crisis and the collapse of African initiatives with the development of the Global thought. The paper observed inter alia, that the force of Globalization in which the policies of the core centers have led to the collapse of local (African state) initiatives in all spectrums of the region’s developmental question has not only created more domestic problems of underdevelopment but is also gradually exporting the accompanying pressures in a scale that would ultimately lead to a decay of the core-controlled global system. It recommended among other things, a rethink by the core in its development policies by shifting emphasis (through investments, divestments or aids) towards the periphery in an effort to mitigate the heavily-tilted developmental gap between the north and south.


INTRODUCTION The nature of African development crisis
The development crisis in Africa is hydra-headedimpacting virtually on all the major sectors of the region's domestic economy-namely the governmental, agricultural, industrial, trade and service sectors.Thus, if it is not an issue over corrupt leadership or an abused electoral process high-jacked by some self-styled messiah whose actions are geared towards truncating due process of genuine democratic progress in their state, it will, in another segment of the region's economy, be that of drought or other harsh climatic conditions ravaging the production of crops and farm animals.Within another economic prism, the development crisis can also be deciphered in terms of ailing or failing industries working with a continuously dwindling capacity due to unfavorable domestic economic policy or uncompetitive international trade and foreign exchange disposition.Yet with the domestic service sector of most part of the African economy (that is, power, communication, transportation/ shipping, insurance, banking among others) bowing to poor public policy, it becomes much easy to visualize the nature of the region's economic and social predicament even prior to the factoring of globalization.
Discussions on African development crisis are often as important as they are intriguing, especially in the light of the region's dire economic and political predicament.Yet as it may seem, analyses on the development crisis in Africa may probably have been overstretched by contemporary authorities on the subject matter of African political economy.
Much of such analyses seem to compare the African region with (now incomparable region of) Asia on the path to social growth and development as perhaps what was obtained in the 1950s and early 1960s.The latter undoubtedly has long surpassed Africa since its successful launch to modern development in the late eighties and early nineties, (Stiglitz, 1996;Ito, 1997).Based on the concept known as the Flying Geese Hypothesis introduced by a Japanese economist, Kaname Akamatsu, the East Asian countries of Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan (China), Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand adopted a horizontal growth pattern to gradually but steadily develop their economies from the crumbs of the Japanese technological breakthrough picking on the advantages (such as those of economic externalities) arising therefrom the Japanese success (Akamatsu, 1961).By drawing on this hypothesis, and directly referring to African states, Ito (1997) writes: The growth experiences of Japan and other Asian countries share some common features.In the first stage the economy starts to grow, often reaching double-digit rates, and the growth is accompanied by structural changes, with resources shifting from agriculture to simple manufacturing and then to more sophisticated manufacturing… African countries can draw lessons from East Asia's experience by identifying their stage of development and the factors that are important at that stage… However, after over a decade gone in the twenty-first century, development structures in Africa still remain a far cry from other regions of the world (Goran 1983).Luckham (1986) particularly underscored the role played by the spate of military coups d'état and incessant change of power (owing to the poor economic policies of erstwhile regimes) in exacerbating the development crisis in Africa with many states in the region falling into the bracket of the -failed states -phenomenon described by authorities notably; Gaye (2000), Masland and Bartholet (2000), Mason (2001), Okoh (1998), Rubin (1995), Khan (2000), Steinberg (1997) and Zartman (1995) among others.
However, the failure of several attempts to create a collective forum where African socio-economic and political problems are jointly assessed and addressed such as is found in Addis Ababa (1963), Lagos (1975), Abuja (1991) and Abuja (2001) among others provides prospective recipes for academic concern against the background of the continent's continuing predicament of being lost deep in the mire of economic disorientation, political in-description, social dislocation and strategic Sanubi 93 insignificance.Technological advancement especially in the area of information technology -the nucleus of the present European (albeit Western) economic supremacy -has further widened the gap between the North and the South (Power and Klee, 2000).This is further compounded by the inequalities created by forces of globalization.Cohen (2002) writing on "Globalization and Inequalities" noted quite sharply that globalization has "created fears that the market could rend the social fabric of societies".Anti-globalization protesters proclaim, "the world is not safe for sale".Former French prime minister Lionel Jospin was quoted to have drawn a line in the sand, saying that he would go for a "market economy but not for a market society".Cohen indicated quite frankly that: …many more quotations, from all quarters, would point to the same idea: globalization, these days, is not being warmly welcomed.And quotations from centuries past would show that fears about globalization have long been prevalent… This brings up the argument in some academic circles, that the rising inequalities in the South can be understood in terms of the debates originating in the North (Robinson, 2000;Di Nardo, Fortin and Lemieux, 1996;O'Rouke, 1999).In Robinson's analysis of Latin American inequality with the North, the assertion is that the rising inequality should be interpreted in the context of the inequality first created in labor markets in the North.The simple model of North-South trade developed by Stopler and Samuelson (as cited in Cohen, 2002) posits that globalization is potentially a vector of rising inequalities in the North but of declining inequality in the South, because it drives down the demand for unskilled labour in the North and the demand for skilled labour in the South which also represents an old concept of north-south economic relations developed by Viner (1950) in his customs-union analysis premised in international integration theory.According to Viner, horizontal south-south understanding between developing nations can only be explained in the context of their vertical relationship with the north such that if the north-south relationship does not favour this south-south initiative, then the latter would be a fragile understanding.During the heydays of the moribund Cold War between the East and West (USSR and USA), Viner's hypothesis was sustained by the prevailing violent ideological divide, which created international allies from all over the world including among African states.
In the present international economic dispensation where the world trade organization (WTO) dictates the course of international trade and finance, globalization has further estranged African states from the realities of modern world economic spectrum.Former commonwealth secretary-general, Don McKinnon (2003) remarked in early September 2003 at a pre-summit ministers' conference of members of the British Commonwealth in Abuja, Nigeria saying that, "the states in the commonwealth have neither anything common nor any wealth to share".He was apparently referring to the ravages of globalization on membership of the body.By alluding then to the disagreement between developing countries and members of the G-8 over the issue of the huge agricultural subsidies granted by members of the European union (EU) to their farmers, he painfully remarked that such huge agricultural subsidies granted by the rich countries to their farmers have not only made African food dependence to heighten but also has subjected them (African states) to the unfavorable effects of world trade imbalance.McKinnon made a casual metaphorical statement: A cow in Europe receives one dollar ($1) per day as agricultural subsidy from the government while an average African lives on an income that is below one dollar ($1) per day.
By implication, an average African can live better as a cow in Europe than as a human being in Africa.Even while South-South initiatives such as the G-77, the OAU Lagos plan of action and very recently, the new partnership for African development -NEPAD-and the Busan partnership for effective development cooperation (otherwise called the Korean 2011 initiative), try to create a local understanding in solving common development problems, other factors seem to consolidate the development problem.Ihonvbere (1989) sees a mixture of external and domestic issues constituting the African development crisis.He writes: We recognize the fact that while the contact with imperialism must be taken as the root cause of the African crisis, the post -colonial interplay of class alignment and re-alignments have equally contributed to the crisis.Because of the tendency to use the state for public accumulation as well as the limited autonomy of the state and the limited coordination of production forces, the continent has remained incapable of responding to the contradictions, crisis and conflicts emanating from its historical experiences.
By factoring in globalization itself to the development crisis, we foresee not only a blurring of the hope of domestic initiatives in creating economic and social transformation but also a more complex web of economic and social policy challenges (perhaps too complex for most of the domestic leadership in the region in their present disposition) to contend with.One objective in reconciling the region's domestic development challenges therefore with the globalization impact which is currently at a high level of profusion means that policy makers and analysts of the African region have relatively more peculiar developmental issues to grapple with than perhaps their contemporaries elsewhere.An attempt therefore to do this reconciliation is to identify and define the nature of the relationship of the African region with the West.This study provides a little direction in this attempt by defining the significant place of the Core-North in the determination of the development predicament of the Peripheral-South.Without blaming the region's development crisis entirely on this Semitic hypothesis -that is, the role of Europe and rest of the West -the study uses the historical research framework to examine in the historical, contemporary and the futuristic contexts, the implication of globalization to the development crisis in Africa and draws on the significant responsibility of the Core not only in formerly (or perhaps, at present) accelerating it in the first place but also in taking leadership now (or presently) in providing global solutions as domestic initiatives alone would undoubtedly falter in yielding the expected developmental proceeds.

Background issues: Globalization and the African development question
The peculiar nature of African development crisis is epitomized by failing developmental initiatives occasioned by failing political and economic institutions/structures accentuated by the globalization of the world economy.By the adoption of the prevailing global thinking it must be said that a lot of the failure is accounted for by globalization.Industries continue to work down below capacities while others wind up due to poor market results.The only industries that thrive are the few multinational / transnational companies which are able to dare the prevailing harsh social and economic conditions and having enjoyed some form of monopoly or collusive oligopoly are able to reap the gains of a poorly competitive environment.Thus, the only key players found in the few available African investment sectors such as oil and gas, communication, construction and manufacturing are foreign with their rigid operations, control and staff recruitment policies and control.
Given the failing political structures under which they operate these foreign multinationals are able to arm-twist the African politicians to buy off any form of harsh regulatory policy on their operation.With highly competitive technology on their side, the foreign firms call the shots in the economy with the politicians and the few privileged local businessmen/investors remaining complacent with mere rent-seeking behaviours (Orubu, 2013).The effects are colossal: massive domestic unemployment, decaying social infrastructure and increased social pressure on few existing resources.With globalization at its full bloom, any hope of African development coalesces into despondency, misery and vices.Such is the nature of Africa as the periphery collapses.
The widening gap in the development continuum between the Core-North and the Semi-peripheral or Peripheral-South has thus been deepened by the modern thesis of Globalization.Globalization presents us with a world with no borders (Benhabib, 2004).In some respects, globalization makes international relations irrelevant as the state boundaries which define the entry point of international (foreign) relations vanish with the global phenomenon.The ideal of globalization is precisely the erosion of international relations because in globalization, domestic policy equals foreign policy.In a global world, states are named only as a geographical expression and not as contemporary centers of political, social and economic business partnerships as international relations would suggest.From a global point of view therefore African development initiatives would only find international explanations and rationales.
Globalization according to Holton (1998) occurs when an organization extends its activities to other parts of the world, actively participates in other markets, and competes against organizations located in other countries.With Globalization, African regional competitiveness becomes insignificant as all her domestic developmental initiatives are eroded by surging demand for international economic, political and social goods and services.International specialization (if you like capitalism) emasculates domestic investment initiatives through a pervading force of irresistible international brands.The strong force of international brands covers basically all spectrums of domestic consumption goods ranging from electronics, automobiles to household appliances, clothing and all forms of music and entertainment.A Samsung ® plasma television set produced (or assembled) in Europe or America can now be found in remotest homes in Nigeria or Kenya.Product sophistication in the North due to advanced technology creates global trade outlets that "kill" local tastes in domestic goods and services.Rebranded Toyota ® cars annually modified with marginal cosmetic features titillates the consumption sensibilities of the average African middleman who would do all he can with his relatively weak financial net-worth to acquire these luxury cars sometimes by jettisoning morality and good counsel just to belong to a class.There is thus, a new trade creation in Africa for European goods (Viner, 1950) which in turn leads to the erection of new trading preferences and hence loss of economic and social welfare among members of collaborating African integration schemes (Bhagwati et al., (1998).It may appear hyperbolical to observe that Africa may now have more English premiership football viewers/supporters (fans) in Nigeria and South Africa alone than probably England itself.Crucial matches between major league contenders like Manchester United and Chelsea often create tense moments in major cities in Nigeria where soccer fans can even stab each other over winnings and losses.That is globalization.In fact, the taste for foreign goods is so strong that locals can abandon free viewership of local Sanubi 95 football matches for more expensive pay-per-view English premiership or other European star football matches.The international and club soccer business itself is now very robust in the eye of many local businessmen.Global branding has greatly affected the consumption choice of the population in the Periphery so much that one can rudely propose a ratio of ninety to ten on the propensity of an African to consume a foreign good to a locally-made one.This assumption may be challenged as being hyperbolical though.In such scenarios, even the poor spend more of their "poverty income" to acquire the product of the "already rich"thereby continuing the outflow of local capital.Pitiably most of these developing states hardly had any state apparatuses for evaluating this pervading force of globalism as majority of them are grappling with state failures.Robinson (2006) expresses the transformational role of globalization on world markets and how it has weakened the ability of nation states to regulate economic activity and govern transnational corporations.With domestic corruption of public officers pervading all facets of government policy, the outflow of capital becomes even much more expedited.The periphery collapses.
In a global setting, the benefits that developing countries derive from international understanding become minimal if anything.Others believe that developing countries even subscribe to the growth of international institutions (such as the United Nations) so as to insulate them from the discretionary actions of more powerful states (Shadlen, 2003) while there is also the thinking that certain kinds of international engagements such as in multinational institutions can help provide developing countries with a form of limited political protection against opportunistic behavior on the part of developed countries (Haggard,1995).
Justifiably, under a polarized world as was depicted by the divide between the East and West in the Cold-War era, such developmental framework may help sustain a measure of attention from the major protagonists of the Cold War itself: the NATO and Warsaw pact leaders.However, under a post-cold war era it would be natural to expect that attention would be diverted away from Africa (as with other flashpoints of cold war prosecution in Asia and the Americas) as its economic and strategic significance in the post cold war period would ossify and become irrelevant.The dawn of a new consciousness that Africa's global position has been acutely affected by the ending of the cold war in which the destiny of its people is no longer subject to the often shifting vagaries of superpower interests resulting in pigments of rivalry and conflict all over the globe also meant that from the economic perspective, "the shift in attention away from Africa has grave implications for further marginalization of our continent" (African National Congress, 1994) From the point of view of dependency theory, African development can then be explained within the context of its relationship with the North.Thus, most of independent It must however be said to the credit of globalization that the periphery has been exposed to cheaper form of technology and with the communication explosion in terms of cable media-broadcasts and the internet among others, globalization process itself has massively accelerated peripheral global awareness and interests.These phenomena have strongly contributed to the critical rethinking among local peoples of their hitherto traditional political, social, religious and even cultural practices most of which are being jettisoned in a wide scale.Sociocultural isolationism albeit, no longer commands acceptance within most African societies and the strong push for modernity continues to mount irresistibly on the existing institutions.For instance, the growing force of civil society advocacy in Nigeria and Ghana on several public policy issues lends credence to the ever-growing force of globalization of the society and the continuing awareness that things will no longer be business as usual among the leadership class in the country.The upsurge of African students in higher educational institutions in Europe also provides additional credentials of the positive role of globalization on the African periphery.By the statistics released by the UK Council on international students affairs, African (particularly Nigerian) students ranked third in the academic period 2010 to 2012 in numerical terms in United Kingdom (UK) universities among foreign students in the country as shown on Table 1.
These positive sides of globalization on Africa notwithstanding, the give and take relationships in the "dependency framework" culminates in consolidating the strength of the North (core) while exacerbating the weakening of the periphery -a situation vividly described in Wallerstein's Core-Semiperiphery-Periphery analysis.

Theoretical framework: Revisiting the core / periphery paradigm
The Core, Periphery and Semi-Periphery treatise developed extensively by Immanuel Wallerstein in explaining the dependency relationships among developed and developing states presents us with a suitable theoretical framework for analyzing the nature of African development crisis from both the historical, contemporary (and perhaps futuristic) perspectives.From its simple paradigmatic tenets, the Wallerstein's version of the World System Theory (Wallerstein,1976) asserts: The basic unit of social analysis is the world-system as opposed to nation-states.In this view therefore, a state is an expression of a position in a world system, a subsystem whose actions and reactions transmits some form of messages (stress or energy) to the global system.From the point of view of systems theory, stress emanating from one location can gradually or rapidly introduce negentropy (dying down) to the whole system just as energies generated from any location can gradually or rapidly introduce entropy (rejuvenating) into it.
The world-system creates an international division of labor which divides the world into Core, Semi-periphery and Periphery countries.There is a natural lopsidedness in the resource endowment of nations and this provides some actors in the international system with opportunities of developing some unique capabilities that make them specialists in the production of some goods or services.Thus, Hawaii residents in the United States of America become specialist tourists that attract visitors from all over the world; South Africans become specialist gold miners and Germans continue to perfect steel structures for heavy metal engineering construction and automobile.Yet some others use the events or situations around them to develop new survival instincts which lead them to innovations.Japanese technological prowess was fired by the ferocious urge to develop after the nation's experience with Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings during the Second World War and today, Japanese electronic technology has placed that nation far above competitors.This international specialization creates international dependency as global market opportunities stimulate new choice of goods which tend to obliterate earlier patterns of consumption among international consumers.
Core countries focus on higher skill, capital-intensive production.Relying on economies of large scale production, core countries develop greater capacity in heavy metal technology that handle manufacturing with greater specialization and ease while the rest of the world focuses on low-skill, labour-intensive production and extraction of raw materials.Few manufacturing industries still existing in the developing countries rely greatly on inputs from abroad -the developed core nations -which also supply the basic technical expertise to run these industries.Majority of the crude oil exploits in Africa are for refining abroad with a large proportion of refined petroleum products re-imported at higher costs than Sanubi 97 would otherwise have been incurred if domestically processed.Britain paradoxically has become one of Nigeria's biggest exporters of refined petroleum products along with the Netherlands and India (The Guardian Mobile, 2014) with most of the crude oil inputs sourced from Africa oil wells.This constantly reinforces the dominance of the core countries and thereby consolidates the spiral of underdevelopment in the periphery.
Characteristically, the core has a most highly diversified economy, wealth, economic and military prowess.It also possesses a strong central government, controlling extensive bureaucracies and powerful militaries that could be mobilized within the split of a second.Core nations have highly complex and stronger state institutions that represent the interest, and carry the authority, of the people for which they are created and obeyed.The Core tax structure is sustained with a sufficient base.As a highly industrialized economy producing manufactured goods rather than raw materials for export, the core possess strong specialization in information and development technology (ICT), finance and service industries with very strong bourgeois and a very active and vibrant working class.In all ramifications, the core is typically characterized by a significant means of influence over noncore nations whose activities are subject to the discretionary actions of the former.
Conversely and on the other side of the spectrum, the non-core states are least economically diversified (highly economically mono-cultural with strong concentration on raw material extraction for exports).Their extractive industries also rely heavily on the dictates of the available technology conceded by the core or acquired very costly by purchase.The non-core states (comprising the periphery and semi-periphery) are characterized by weak governments with relatively weak institutions (most of which lack capacity of being obeyed or respected by their own people).These noncore states also have little tax base to support infrastructure due partly to poor administration and evasion.The noncore states are least industrialized and are thus, often the targets of investments from foreign multinational (or transnational) companies.They possess high percentage of poor and uneducated population with small bourgeois class often serving as agents of foreign multinationals and a sprawling labour class with largely unorganized leadership.The noncore nations are highly and extensively influenced by core nations (a form of neo-colonialism).Although the description of the core and noncore states may fit into some ready known developed societies (states) of the West, it is important however to observe that the world-system is dynamic in such a way as to providing opportunity for individual countries to gain or lose the core (semiperiphery, periphery) status over time.For instance, industrial revolution in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries created room for Central European countries such as Netherlands and the United Kingdom to become world-acclaimed hegemonies.Britain particularly enjoyed a Core position (in International Relations terms as a major power) for several centuries until it recently lost it to the United States of America becoming what Frankel (1975) in the opening sentence of his book British foreign policy,1945 to 1973 described as "the status of a major second-rank power".Furthermore, the experiences from the Far East among the Asian tigers particularly Japan, China and Korea also exemplify the possibility of status-transition between core and noncore states.
The import of Wallerstein's theory as a framework for analysis of the African development crisis in a globalized economic world situates in the perception of dependency theorists (especially from the developing world) that the periphery and semi-periphery states have so achieved their present status by the discretionary actions of the core.In such light, there are the notions, at least historically, of how Europe underdeveloped Africa and the other poor regions (Rodney, 1982).Under the present dispensation, the periphery remains as an appendage to the economic, political and diplomatic whims of the core as the world system balance continues to tilt in favour of the core.That is the turning point which provides a fresh impetus for canvassing a New International Economic Order.Three dimensions of this core/noncore relationship can briefly be deciphered.

The procedure: Analysis of three dimensions of Africa's core/periphery relationships with the North
In the historical context, the core North benefited from the African periphery in form of cheap raw materials, widening markets with gaping consumption capacity, untapped or fairly tapped human resource potentials, undeveloped local governments manned by uneducated or poorly literate political leaders and who additionally provided unmitigated economic loyalty to their colonial masters.The continued loyalty of African surrogates was the only guarantee of their de facto leadership positions and an acquiescence of the economic aspirations of the colonizing force from the core North.With political independence gained, the reality of nationalism and corporate governance dawned on the policy makers of the fledgling independent states most of which were visited with the complexities of ethnic heterogeneity and some risking civil wars.
In the contemporary context, Africa's Core/Periphery relationship tilts as the periphery now witnesses an era of depleting resource stocks accompanied by a bourgeoning urban population, an explosive social congestion crafted within a failing (or failed state) political structure, a collapsed economy with mounting international debts and warehousing an irresistible army of despondent youths and school leavers most of whom are half-baked academically with high rate of vulnerability to crime or terrorist recruitment.No thanks to the poor educational funding and ill-equipped educational institutions which continue to gape loudly for more attention from policymakers.Many children still walk several kilometers to get to the next school and return home in fatigue and hunger.Africa's debt profile stands at worrisome estimates.For instance Nigeria's total debt stock as at the end of March, 2012 was N6.8 trillion ($44 billion), according to the most recent data from the country's debt management office (DMO).Out of this amount, N5.96 trillion ($38.3 billion) is domestic debt while N919 billion ($5.9 billion) is external debt.Nigeria's current debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, at 17.45%, is lower than the international standard threshold for Nigeria's peer group at 40%.For example, South Africa's debt to GDP ratio for year end 2011 stood at 35.6%, while Egypt's stood at a high rate of 85.7%.The country, according to the DMO, has also been operating on a selfimposed more conservative threshold of 25% of GDP (BusinessDay.2012)From the foregoing premise, a futuristic relationship can be predicted.Thus, in the futuristic context, the core withdraws from its engagement with the Periphery due to mounting pressure that it may begin to experience from domestic populations within.Core would seek a redefinition of the existing terms.For instance, core states continue to debilitate in granting relevant concessions in trade and environmental issues because of the desire to secure core economic interests -the Kyoto protocol continues to remain unsettled as negotiators continue to "play games" on environmental issues that affect lives.The call for more aids and development assistance have witnessed a lull in recent years as some members of the core state have begun to witness unprecedented internal economic challenges.Austerity measures which hitherto resonated loudly as a phenomenon among developing countries have emerged in Greece and Spain and these societies have begun to rethink their international engagements.Even the credit rating of the United States of America came under some threats in 2013 as the Obama government struggled to get congress's accent for government to redraw (or adjust) its debt ceiling and the Washington Times acknowledged this in its editorial that 'raising the debt limit is sign of failure' (Washington times, 2013).Economic strains also launched Ukraine into a civil crisis in 2014 in which Russia played a dominant role in determining the future of the troubled region of Crimea targeting it as her new European surrogate.Meanwhile, the Periphery continues to seek new levels of core responsibility in their domain being not satisfied with existing volume of assistance.
The call for debt cancellation and other developmental concessions assume more resonance and become much more strident from the periphery.Periphery engages in new domestic economic control measures in some cases demanding outright profit-sharing, joint-partnerships or even indigenization.Prevailing development assistance from the North would still not be enough to meet the yearnings of the local population (which continues to grow in geometric proportions).Africa's estimated 800 million people, with Nigeria alone warehousing one-fifth of that figure, provides enormous developmental challenges for the continent.Yet bulk of the African states belongs squarely to the global class with very low GDP levels.The World bank statistics for 2012 shows that apart from South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria which ranked 24 th , 25 th and 29 th respectively, no other African nation ranked anything higher than 43rd of the 179 countries provided for in the statistics (World Bank, 2013i).
If we further determine the income per capita (that is by deflating these GDP figure by the respective country's population, we have a more gloomy picture of the African States averaging roughly USD 5000 per annum (or USD14 per day) among the high income earners and USD 400 (or USD1.09 per day) among the low income earners in the 2012 financial year with Burundi, Congo Republic and Malawi ranking the least of a yearly average of USD 250 as against the G8 nations averaging roughly USD40000 in the same period (World Bank, 2013ii).Domestic state policy would become more and more incapable of meeting local clamours and yearnings and a section of the local population in the periphery would seek external redress to local misery and poverty.Explosive local population gives rise to unbearable domestic economic and social vices; insatiable absorptive capacity within the periphery makes core support no matter how large to vanish in an ocean of gaping consumption demand.
Not getting enough, the population in the periphery would seek external escape valves.With unsatisfactory attention being received from the North, the South begins to develop some self-help horizontal understanding with encouragements from donor North organizations.Thus, the Busan (Korea) Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation would articulate the need for horizontal (South-South) approach to their development challenges and harness the gains of partnership cooperation (OECD, 2012) -one of which is trade creation highlighted earlier in this study.With failing states structure and mounting domestic economic pressures, the collapse of the Periphery becomes realistic sooner than later.There is for example little wonder that the United States of America and other western nations have become even more worried about the intransigence of terrorist insurgents such as Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region of West Africa than probably the nations directly affected (Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria).The US technical and financial assistance promised (and being disbursed too) to these nations to fight the terrorists (Durham, 2014) lend credence to this hypothesis.Besides, the Core states have additionally mounted campaign of hope on behalf of the latter that "the terrorist would soon be defeated" -a campaign that populations in the affected peripheries are rather too pessimistic to believe.In globalization, stress of economic collapse in Sanubi 99 the South becomes inputs for systemic stress in the North and matter for concern for policymakers there.

The results: Implications of the collapse of the periphery on the core
Beginning with the best available human capital, the periphery would lose its last set of productive resources to the North in a massive episode of international brain drain.Systemic educational failure in the South has inspired the rising quest for foreign scholarship and admission spaces in Europe and America.Growing army of immigrants from the Periphery would pour into the Core on a yearly basis.Immigration challenges in Europe and America have increasingly become topical in contemporary international media and this is signal of systemic stress on the economy of the North initiated by the dynamic nature of the stress emanating from the South.Immigrants are at present seeking even legal avenues to be accepted into the Core societies and in France, placard-carrying immigrants protest their inability to secure residency papers after several years of temporary tenancy.Core reaches a congestion point and asks for a rethink of some of its domestic (including immigration) policies.Benhabib (2004) already problematize immigration to the developed world when he expresses: …But we are at a point when we have no way of dealing with the system of border crossing in terms of quasicriminal language.On the one hand, in the global world, we have an unprecedented mobility of peoples, we are aware of the needs of refugees and asylees, and not to speak of about the 30 million displaced persons as a result of civil wars within their own countries.And yet the map that we navigate literally is the map of the nation state, and so we have no way as a world community of addressing this problem of border movement and transborder justice, except through the categories of nation state.
Core would find it difficult to shed the harsh impact of the burden of the Periphery.Core would choose to increase development assistance to the periphery to persuade their populations to stay back at home.The quest for more assistance would make the periphery increase pressure on donor organizations/states and get even more involved in negotiating activities at multilateral levels.But the growing pressure may not help as this would backlash in form of despondency.Krasner, (1985) argues that if developing countries insisted on pressing collective demands in global forums, they would do so at their peril by reducing their commitment to multilateral institutions.Yet donor countries continue to provide development assistance.This is already evident in the official development assistance (ODA) disbursements to Africa during the last decade.
Source.Data extracted on 26 May 2012 19:41 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat@http:stats.oecd.org In the Table 2, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2011) report of its Development Assistance Committee (DAC) for the period 2003 to 2010 in USD (millions) shows that Africa got a lion's share US$204,061.34 (by summing up all eight columns in the African row) representing 34% of the total US$599,389.28 given to developing countries as official development assistance for the eight year period shown.The G-8 nations rising from a summit in Scotland in 2006 approved a series of economic concessions including some debt cancellation for a number of the world's poorest nations.The granting of preferential development assistance to Africa among other regions coupled with debt cancellation to some African states (most of which locate within the Highly Indebted Poor Countries -HIPC-prism) may be argued as being tangential to the developmental desires of the region though.However, such phenomenon as is evident in these moves is not entirely borne out of a humanitarian foreign policy disposition as may erroneously be believed in some quarters.Rather, this action represents a strong realistic response by the G-8 and other industrialized nations (waking up to meeting the challenges of a new economic, strategic and security pressure) to cure an ailing (and probably dying) African region.Donor organizations have realized that the poverty situation in Africa has become a global stress that needs to be tackled squarely and thus continue to pay some more concerned attention including the granting of more concessions on ODA to African recipients.
By increasing domestic pressure the Core would shift its domestic concentration to attending to portending danger in periphery's calls for economic assistance.Core institutions would face a dilemma of meeting the desires of people from two worlds (domestic populations in the core and the yearnings of the populations from the periphery).Social pressure at home in Core states would mount against presence of populations from the periphery.Racial intolerance among European countries has waned in recent years as sterner concerns about dwindling domestic jobs have heightened -"there are no jobs for our sons here anymore"-periphery populations have glutted the few openings.There would be increased social congestion in the core societies.Core decay is thus foreshadowed.

CONCLUSION/ POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
To assume that the developmental crisis in the African region (albeit collapse of the periphery) is entirely African and therefore should be a domestic concern of its policymakers is to accept a misnomer perception of the reversible impact of globalization on two divergent worlds -one advanced and the other still crude.For while the force of globalization opens the valves of the North-South flow of international trade and finance, of a global political and social world, it also certainly allows a South-North reverse flow of economic and social pressures which, though in its early stages now, would in the long-run catch up impressively with the North (albeit the decay of the Core would begin).
As implied earlier in this study, the early symptoms of worry have been depicted by current growing labour unemployment in Europe as regrets German Chancellor, Angela Merkel in her interview (Merkel, 2013) and as expressed in an earlier (Guardian, 2013).These early worries are further typified by the increasing racial intolerance, growing incidence of theft judging by the increasing number of criminals -caught on camera (Interpol, 2013) and corruption among not only citizens but also corporate and national political leaders in a scale that was unimaginable some fifty years back.Already, the insatiable competitive lust for foreign investment by the Core fired up by the growing domestic pressure and further exacerbated by the surging Chinese global trade and investment (not only in Africa but also in other regions) has become epitome of the new domestic economic pressures brewing up in the West from the harsh negative impact of globalization.The current battle against illegal (and even legal) immigrants who are becoming more desperate and vocal in their legal advocacy against their immigration denials and the more often modification of domestic immigration regulations in Britain and other Western states all provide strong indications of growing domestic pressures.
Those repeatedly applying for British travel visas from Africa in recent times would have observed that the design of the application forms and the requirements from applicants in completing them continue to become more and more complex and sterner respectively".These are symptoms of the desires of the Core to regulate influx of immigrants and also check on the infiltration of unwanted persons (albeit criminals or terrorists).The world is no longer safe anywhere no matter where you are.In light of the foregoing discussion, the North should provide leadership in international economic and political forums for the benefit of the South (by this, reference is particularly being made to Africa) in:

Fighting corruption
The North should intervene as if its own national interest is at stake.The United Kingdom has been doing a lot to help recover some of Africa's stolen wealth by repatriating and or trying African fugitives who have run abroad with the continent's wealth.This is a praiseworthy action from the United Kingdom in helping to fight corruption in the developing countries.The United States of America, Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and other Core-centers where stolen African wealth is still being harbored by these fugitives should follow the UK example.There are several African runaway politicians, corporate managers and other national criminals serving some specified terms of incarceration in European (particularly British) corrective institutions.Core states should quickly realize that these stolen wealth increase their burden towards African development assistance.Undoubtedly a phenomenal proportion of the continent's wealth stolen and residing in the core banks could provide meaningful domestic growth at home in the periphery.The first step towards redressing this anomaly is for the core to assist the periphery to repatriate its Sanubi 101 stolen wealth residing in foreign banks that were flown abroad through unorthodox fund transfer mechanisms.Besides, cancelling much of African's foreign debt and raising the level of new foreign aids through the ODA window may just be necessary but not sufficient in creating a sustainable development environment for the region in this globalized era.Core countries must ensure that these aids are received into political and economic structures that provide meaningful domestic growths and development.Core-intervention here is not used synonymously with re-colonization.Rather, intervention is explained in terms of the readiness of the Core-donors to ensure useful utilization of the development assistance they have given to the developing countries by preventing corrupt state officials in the periphery from engaging in capital flight (moving stolen funds) from their countries back into the core banks.What is the point after all in contemplating new programmes of development assistance (either in form of aids or foreign loans) if these funds will find their way back into the core societies as stolen wealth residing in the core banks away from the reach of the periphery.

Fighting Crime
Criminal activities in the South have reached endemic proportions that seriously overwhelm state security structures in most African states.The rate of armed robbery (not merely nocturnal but even daylight), kidnapping, piracy and other forms of onshore crimes is so alarming that local populations suffer continuous stress.Gun-trotting youths parade streets with levity unchallenged.Most of these youths believed to have been armed hitherto by politicians who used them to prosecute political missions, now with no political assignment on hand would go out to commit criminal activities with these arms.In the Southeastern and Midwestern part of Nigeria for instance where the activities of the Niger Delta militants have helped to ravage the political economy of the region, there are continuing cases of kidnapping incidence on a daily basis for which unrealistically huge monetary ransoms are demanded from relatives of captives or their employers (in the case of company staffs).The level of domestic insecurity reaches nervebreaking proportions that the average company staff (including expatriates) especially of multinational corporations now moves around in his daily business trips with hired official security personnel who are often heavily armed.All these translate into huge security costs on their company's operations in the region -situation that makes Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) very risky, expensive and hence discouraging for prospective investors in the periphery.

Fighting Poverty
The major challenge in Africa is the issue of poverty.(World Bank, 2011).The level of food insecurity alone is enormous in developing countries of the Sub Saharan region.The international fund for agricultural development (2010) has clearly demonstrated this in its report issued in 2012 saying that "food price trends have a major impact on food security, at both household and country levels.Many of the world's poorest people spend more than half their income on food.Price hikes for cereals and other staples can force them to cut back on the quantity or quality of their food".This according to the report may result in food insecurity and malnutrition, with tragic implications in both the short and long terms (International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2012).This implies that little, if anything, has yet been done to not only reduce the level of dependence on natural resources but also in meeting the local peoples' expectations of the public authorities in equitably distributing these resources for their collective subsistence.Social protection especially for the "poorest of the poor" is grossly inadequate where available and for many countries in Africa, there are no safety-net programs to help keep this category of people above the death line.Women have been worst hit by the effects of state social policies as Devereux (2011) has shown in his analysis of a group of South African women who became extremely vulnerable to eviction and casualization having lost their access to social security through unfavourable employment contracts.

Fighting Illiteracy
The relevance of literacy to national development cannot be overemphasized.A great proportion of the African population is uneducated and where schooling is available, not many who desire to have it can pay for it.
Education is a starting point of re-orienting the people towards self-consciousness and reliance.Increased foreign partnerships in the education subsectors will help promote domestic initiative that will drive local industrialization.Such partnerships in the education subsectors could encourage backward integration of schools.Opportunities of academic fellowships offered by renowned international organizations such as the organization for economic cooperation and development-(OECD) for non-OECD beneficiaries among others provide some salient platforms for creating new crop of development-minded leaders that would in future champion the much-needed realistic and sustainable development in their home country in an attempt to redress the failing state systems in most of the periphery.

Developing local capacities/ growing local technical competence
Most of the technologies used in the extractive, manufacturing and communication industries (as in other domestic sectors) in Africa are foreign.Foreign investors would argue that keeping this status quo guarantees their continuity in business because as soon as technology is transferred, ownership control may dwindle and would ultimately vanish.However, there is a great need to make some of the local employees in these foreign multinationals have new technical competence to develop on their own.International partnership in the development of new local competence among domestic investors would provide local impetus for sustainability in domestic investment and management.By a complete collapse of the periphery, for which Africa is a major representative, the import of such collapse is a serious economic and social pressure on the core-north -a referable beginning of some Core decay!

Table 1 .
Number of foreign Students in UK universities Then on this weak framework comes the factoring of globalization.Globalization, as earlier observed presents us with a world where state boundaries become irrelevant.In globalization, the world becomes a global village.
Africa is expected to still hook up with (or at least look up to) erstwhile colonial masters for some startup-initiatives toward self-development.In response, the North would seem to accept the responsibility of providing that initial impetus and in furtherance of this responsibility, a relationship -North/South in nature -is created through a bilateral treaty or convention.However, this would soon collapse out of pessimism (or incontinence) on the part of the North such as EEC-ACP Lome Conventions(Hill,1986).Such understandings have witnessed periodic inertia and then momentary docility.Momentary pessimism from the North helps to further widen the already existing development gap between it and the South.For instance, little capital flows into African, Carribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations especially of Africa created much development pressures in most of these African partners in the last years of the twentieth century that some of these nations notably Francophone West African countries slipped into internal crises.Mali and Cote D'Ivoire are yet to recover from these crises while Guinea Bissau and Mali have just drifted into military interregnums in 2012.North/South talks then end up in little, if any, tangible input into Africa's development desires exacerbating the weakening of the periphery.
Africa is the world's second largest continent after Asia.It has a total surface area of 30.3 million km 2 , including several islands and an estimated total population of 888 million (UN: 2005).The vast Sahara desert, covering an area greater than that of the continental United States, divides Northern Africa from Sub-Saharan Africa.Poverty in Africa is predominantly rural.Among them are rural poor people in Eastern and Southern Africa, an area that has one of the world's highest concentrations of poor people.The incidence of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing faster than the population.Overall, the pace of poverty reduction in most of Africa has slowed since the 1970s.Current volume of international aid to Africa should be raised.More than 70% of the continent's poor people who live in rural areas depend mainly on agriculture for food and livelihood, yet development assistance to agriculture is decreasing.In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live in extreme poverty(International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2010).Food security in Africa alone remains a monumental issue of concern as over seventy percent of its population lives in abject poverty.According to the World Bank, during 2010 and 2011, rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people worldwide into extreme poverty.Particularly, it reports that rising food prices have driven an estimated 44 million people into poverty in developing countries as food costs continue to rise to near 2008 levels.The World Bank's food price index further shows a rise by 15% between October, 2010 and January, 2011, which is 29% above its level a year earlier, and is only 3% below its 2008 peak