AHC: Africa same GDP per capita as South America

[sirjackalot]

Is this possible with a 1900 POD or is this considered ASB?

For reference, the average GDP per capita of South America is around 7,200 USD. While Africa is around 1,500 USD.

 

[marathag]

Is this possible with a 1900 POD or is this considered ASB?

For reference, the average GDP per capita of South America is around 7,200 USD. While Africa is around 1,500 USD.

Not ASB, just really hard.
Like the need for a near perfect handover with decolonization, no flirtatious with Marxism or related kleptocracies.

 

[carturo222]

A scenario that occurs to me is having the Latin American independence armies travel to Africa to prevent the Scramble as it's beginning, sort of what Cuba did in real life when they sent soldiers to Angola.

 

[Gabingston]

A scenario that occurs to me is having the Latin American independence armies travel to Africa to prevent the Scramble as it's beginning, sort of what Cuba did in real life when they sent soldiers to Angola.

That's pre-1900. This is strictly looking for a POD in the 20th Century.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Massive nuclear holocaust combined with resource wars leads to global civilizational collapse. Both africa and south america have per capita GDPs of $100 to $300 on average.

 

[Sarthak]

no francafrique. French medding has directly led to many socio-economic problems in francophone africa

 

[Pyni]

By the time of your POD, Latin America was independent for 80 years, so that's a lot to compensate

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

Any chance of the European powers being forced to give up their colonies sooner? Like if World War I is as devastating to colonialism as World War II was. That may push things along faster, and theoretically Africa could industrialize faster and start catching up to Latin America. It’s not as if Africa is bereft of resources or anything; they’re just dealing with a lot of governments that haven’t exactly worked well. Of course, if Europe fucks things up for Africa earlier, that still slows things down, so more favorable borders and governments are probably the key there.

 

[Lalli]

Really hard. You would need very different colonial policy and decolonisation process. Futhermore you have avoid cleptocratic/tyrannic dictators (authotarians might are fine if not necessary but not exttremely corrupt/cruel ones). And avoid several civil wars.

 

[MrHappy]

Any chance of the European powers being forced to give up their colonies sooner? Like if World War I is as devastating to colonialism as World War II was. That may push things along faster, and theoretically Africa could industrialize faster and start catching up to Latin America. It’s not as if Africa is bereft of resources or anything; they’re just dealing with a lot of governments that haven’t exactly worked well. Of course, if Europe fucks things up for Africa earlier, that still slows things down, so more favorable borders and governments are probably the key there.

I'm not overly familiar with the use of colonial troops by the French and British during WWI, but didn't the French had 50k African soldiers in France during the GW? The Brits certainly had their own colonial African forces (but I don't know the numbers). Is there any possibility of returning colonial troops starting wars of independence during the immediate post WWI tumult? I'm not suggesting that the colonial troops, as a fighting force, would be on par with British or French units, but it strikes me that their time spent in France an Belgium [and England] could/should have fueled dreams of independence.

Does the viability of an African uprising improve enough to move the needle from "crushed quickly" to "successful" if the British and French were simultaneously dealing with a major, contemporaneous uprising in the Middle East? (After all, the Arabs were rather upset by their home turf being divided up.)

 

[comrade cat]

no francafrique. French medding has directly led to many socio-economic problems in francophone africa

No west and central African franc looks like a major good start. The whole is especially set up to tie former colonies to the French state.
They even obliged each member state to put majority of their foreign reserve inside France's central bank, which cause them major problems because they cannot access their own foreign reserve (that they supposed to own).