Africa’s unequal balance

SUMMARY Using flows of biophysical resources between countries, new research has defied conventional methods of analysing trade in terms of cash flows. Labelled ‘ecologically unequal exchange’, this research quantifies net resource transfers from global South to global North countries. This article explores the unequal exchange implications for Africa as a primary exporter of physical resources, and hence one of the biggest losers from ecologically unequal exchange. As well as ecologically unequal exchange, the article employs the Prebisch–Singer hypothesis and the Growing Smile model to argue against export-oriented industrialisation models of development, and for the political restructuring of the uneven global value regime.