Britain and Africa: The search for new forms of engagement

Chafer, Tony and Cumming, Gordon D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2912-8908 2013. Britain and Africa: The search for new forms of engagement. Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique 18 (2) , pp. 167-184.

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Abstract

By the end of the First World War, Britain’s overseas empire covered a quarter of the earth’s land surface and included some twenty dependencies south of the Sahara. Given the sheer size of this empire, it is hardly surprising that Britain opted for a low-cost system of indirect rule in Africa and elsewhere. Yet, while Britain was reluctant to use taxpayers’ money to support its colonies, it was keen to prevent other industrialised powers from gaining a foothold in its dependencies. In essence, this desire to shore up influence meant that Britain had to develop its own approach to its colonies during the colonial era. In the early post-colonial decades, Britain maintained its predilection for a unilateral approach to its former African colonies but recognised the potential of multilateral agencies such as the World Bank. Britain’s appreciation of the value of multilateral, alongside unilateral, approaches increased in the post–cold war period but there was still no recognition of the value of joint or ‘bilateral’ approaches, where two donors would systematically get together to coordinate their policies for tackling the problems of Africa. This changed when, in December 1998, the United Kingdom, together with France, signed the Saint-Malo declaration, in which the two governments promised to enhance defence cooperation and ‘harmonise their policies towards Africa’. The shifting forms of British engagement in Africa over the longue durée have attracted scant attention in the literature, with most studies homing in on British Africa policy in the post-cold war years, particularly under recent Labour governments (1997-2010).3 This article is the first to show how and why, over time, Britain has grafted on to its traditional approaches a joint or ‘bilateral’ mode of intervention. It begins by outlining the United Kingdom’s unilateral and multilateral approaches to Africa over the colonial and post-colonial eras. It then sets out the driving forces behind Britain’s decision to add bilateral approaches to its existing armoury for tackling the challenges of Africa, specifically poverty reduction, democratic deficits and chronic insecurity. Next, it explores the institutional and policy changes that the Saint Malo declaration has entailed. Finally, it sets out the constraints on, as well as the significance and likely future of, Britain’s ‘partnership’ with France.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Global Humanities Schools > Modern Languages
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	27 October 2026
Last Modified:	27 Oct 2026 10:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/190438

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