The right to development has undergone profound shifts in its short history which starts during the period of decolonisation. Western development practitioners have had to come to terms with the ineffectiveness of initial approaches, and difficult choices between ensuring human rights and protecting the state as a motor of development have yet to be fully resolved. While these debates have continued, the wealth gap between the richest and poorest countries has widened still further, and COVID-19 has made the obstacles to sustainable development seem more daunting than ever before.
Yet the resources for achieving development are not exhausted or even, in some cases, even explored. Inter-African trade is one of them. This three-part series considers debt relief as a prerequisite for African development in the post-pandemic world, and looks at the potential of the African Continental Free Trade Area to increase intra-African trade. The third article gives a timeline of the history of the development idea – an idea whose time may finally have come.