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6 - From Coast to Hinterland: Fiscal Capacity Building in British and French West Africa, c. 1880–1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

By
Ewout Frankema  and
Marlous van Waijenburg
Edited by
Ewout Frankema  and
Anne Booth
Ewout Frankema
Affiliation:
Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands
Anne Booth
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Summary

This chapter contrasts and compares the ways different colonial states in West Africa developed local fiscal capacity. We show that per capita revenues were higher in the more commercialised coastal export economies than in remote parts of the interior. We argue that British and French approaches to fiscal expansion differed partly because opportunities to tax trade were lower in French West Africa, where a larger share of the revenues were drawn from direct taxes, usually in combination with mandatory labour services or forced cultivation programmes. The imposition of a federal system in the French-ruled territories created tighter financial ties between the AOF and France than were seen in the British colonies, who enjoyed larger scale advantages in revenue collection based on higher population densities and lower barriers to transport and communication. Despite these differences, all fiscal regimes remained too weak to function as a solid basis for sovereign debt creation by the time of independence. This put the post-colonial states of West Africa in a precarious situation, especially when world market prices for their export commodities dropped in the 1970s, while interest rates on public debt shot up in the 1980s.

Keywords

French West AfricaBritish West AfricaFiscal CapacityGeographyPublic Debt
Type
Chapter
Information
Fiscal Capacity and the Colonial State in Asia and Africa, c.1850–1960 , pp. 161 - 192
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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