Interimperial and International Organizations and the Political and Economic Imagination of Africa in the Decolonization Momentum, 1940s–60s

No political and economic history of the post-war momentum can ignore the crucial role played by inter-imperial organizations, which were not reducible to imperial and colonial powers and their immediate political calculus and interests. Mobilizing multiple epistemic communities and authorities, acting in different arenas, and themselves competing for relevance and power, inter-imperial organizations dealt with various crucial subjects – from rural welfare to urbanization and from labor ‘productivity’ to the role of women in ‘underdeveloped’ societies – participating actively in the vibrant, and highly-contested, international debates about the conditions, aims, and (intended and unintended) consequences of developmentalism in Africa. A finer understanding of the international political and economic imagination of the late 1940s until the early1960s, including failed projects and unsuccessful alternatives, requires their incorporation in our analytical framework.

Accordingly, based on an ongoing multi-archival research in many countries (UK, Portugal France, Belgium, USA, and Switzerland), this presentation focuses on the inter-imperial organization Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa South of the Sahara (CCTA), exploring its fundamental intervention in the international debates about social and economic sovereignty and development, especially in relation to Africa, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. This paper recovers the technical, legal, and political and economic arguments and repertoires mobilized by imperial powers and within and by the CCTA, evaluating the ways in which they competed, in challenging times, with international bodies for the proper combination between political and economic rationales, formulas of planning and engineering, and forms of aid and technical assistance. More specifically, the paper scrutinizes the convoluted histories that led to the creation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and, also, to the (unsuccessful, and understudied) ‘Colombo Plan for Africa’, addressing their antecedents, motivations and aims, including their intersection with histories of the Eurafrican and European integration ongoing projects.