West African social movements ‘against the high cost of living’: from the economic to the political, from the global to the national

Abstract

The globalisation of the market for basic consumer goods, speculation, and the success of biofuels production all underlie a recent return to the international agenda of the issues of food security, food sovereignty and the right to food. In 2008, the ‘high cost of living’ phenomenon sparked off numerous collective, urban, African protests movements: these challenged and took the governments in power by surprise, impelling them to react in different ways. This article describes and analyses the social movements brought into being by activist organisations (including unions, human rights organisations, and consumer associations) in two countries, Niger and Burkina Faso, and demonstrates how important it is to situate the movements in local temporalities and circumstances. One of the main issues highlighted by the findings of the research is the importance of local governance issues: the measures taken in relation to the price rises were aimed more at the symptoms than at the underlying causes, and had only short-term effects. The different temporalities of world events hence played a very minor role, despite the connection of a number of the actors, especially in Niger, to the international sphere via anti-globalisation movements.

Keywords:

• protest
• social movements
• high cost of living
• West Africa
• civil society

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Direction générale de la cooperation au développement (Coopération belge), who via the GRAP-OSC made it possible to finance the researchers in Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as in Benin and Mali. The authors also thank the researchers, Amadou Barry in Burkina Faso and Amadou Soufiyane in Niger, who took part in the gathering of information and documentation and analysis. Without them, this article would not have been possible.

Notes

The research on which this article is based is part of an inter-university and interdisciplinary research programme: the Groupe de Recherches en Appui à la Politique de Coopération fédérale sur le thème ‘Organisations de la Société Civile, économie sociale et coopération internationale’ (GRAP-OSC). The GRAP-OSC research programme is supported under Belgian development cooperation policy and concerns African civil society organisations, their diversity, their role, and their roots or their representativity, in sectors such as education and the social economy. For more information, see Pôle Sud, Université de Liège, at http://www.polesud.ulg.ac.be. The GRAP-OSC was financed by Coopération belge (DGCD) via the Coopération universitaire pour le développement (CUD). The views in this article are those of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of any of the above bodies.

This article was translated for ROAPE from the original French text by Clare Smedley. Email: [email protected]

‘dans l'assiette des plus pauvres.’

In Niger, these were: Makama Bawa Oumarou, anthropologist (Université Catholique de Louvain) and co-author of this article; Amadou Soufiyane, development officer, with a degree in development management (Université de Liège), who carried out research in Niger on social mobilisations, particularly in the field of education. In Burkina Faso, the researchers were: Amadou Barry, sociologist, development officer for INADES-Formation, and a specialist in food security issues, civil society and especially the peasant movement in Burkina Faso. See: http://www.inadesfo.net/

The legislative elections took place in November 2004, and the law once passed came into force on 14 March 2005.

The food crisis broke into the mainly international media (Tidjani Alou 2008), but President Mamadou Tandja refused to comment on the seriousness of the crisis which had to an extent been exaggerated by some international NGOs (such as Médécins Sans Frontières [MSF]), who objectified it and gave it media coverage through the famine–child malnutrition connection (Olivier de Sardan 2008). See Crombé (2007) and MSF (2005).

Mahamadou Danda, appointed prime minister on 23 February 2010 by the military, who carried out the coup d'état of 18 February 2010. According to Radio France Internationale (RFI) on 12 March 2010, Danda had been an adviser in the Niger embassy in Canada for the previous 10 years.

Taken from press release, ‘Plateforme revendicative de la coalition’ (Coalition protest platform).

UGEB consists of the Association nationale des étudiants burkinabè (ANEB) and of two sections outside Burkina Faso (in Senegal and France). For a history of student movements and the University of Ouagadougou, see Bianchini (2004).

Nouhou Arzica (manager, founder of a consumer association), Marou Amadou (jurist, activist, and at the head of the Comité de reflexion et d'orientation independent pour la sauvegarde des acquis démocratiques (CROISADE), Kassoum Issa (teacher, secretary-general of the teachers' union), Moustapha Kadi (considered by many to represent freedom – abolition of slavery, member of Timidria, an organisation to outlaw slavery – invested in human rights organisations) and Moussa Tchangari (journalist and founder of the Association Alternative Espaces Citoyens).

After the mobilisation of 2005 and the internal disagreements between organisations, some groups refocused on the existing structures or created new groupings, which took relatively different positions, each of these backed by a different leader. See Hubaux (2006) and Tidjani Alou (2006).

The ‘Tazarcé’ coalition was formed at the start of 2009 following the events around the campaign against the high cost of living. It brought together many actors who were against the government in power and to anti-constitutional measures (e.g. the referendum, elections) decreed by President Tandja. For information on the Tazarcé movement (meaning ‘continuity’ in Hausa), see in particular the Centre Tricontinental (CETRI) site: http://www.cetri.be [Last accessed on 26 April 2010].

The recent events and the way they were received suggest that it would be interesting to examine the relationship between the deadlock in the civilian opposition and the military initiative.

It should be added that solidarity within families and between rural and urban inhabitants add considerable difficulty to the analysis of the impact of the increase in the prices of food products.

See Le Républicain, a Nigerian newspaper close to the opposition, owned by Abou Maman, at: http://www.republicain-niger.com. See also the articles on the RFI site from 18 February 2010 and in the following days on the military's seizure of power at http://www.rfi.fr.

The Comité de reflexion et d'orientation independent pour la sauvegarde des acquis démocratiques – CROISADE, the Independent Reflection and Steering Committee for the Protection of Democratic Gains, is an organisation for the defence of human rights and the promotion of democracy.