Examining the Obstacles to McDonald’s Growth in the African Continent | Analytical Essay Example

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Gilbert Taylor
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The Challenges of McDonald's Expansion in Africa
The Challenges of McDonald's Expansion in Africa

Abstract:

McDonald’s is the oldest fast food restaurant in the world. The company was founded in 1940 to fill the gap in the evolving fast-food consumer goods market. Although the company is headquartered in the United States, yet it has a presence in almost every nook and corner of the world. The company is currently serving nearly 69 million people in more than 100 countries every day [1]. As of 2018 MacDonald’s has a global food chain comprising more than 37855 food outlets[2]. However, it has an almost negligible presence in the Gender differences in aspects of psychological well-being. South African continent. Africa is home to more than 1.2 billion people in the world still MacDonald’s restaurants are present in just four countries in the African continent namely South Africa, Egypt Morocco, and Mauritius[3]. The study intends to implement the theoretical frameworks elaborated by different sociologists, anthropologists, economists, and historians in their studies on the situation of McDonald’s on the African continent. The dissection and implementation of these concepts depict that multiple factors collectively contribute to discouraging McDonald’s management from investing in the African region.

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McDonald’s: In a Nut Shell:

American fast-food company, McDonald’s, had a very modest beginning in the start. The company was founded in 1948 by two siblings Maurice and Richard McDonald, in San Bernardino, California. However, with time, its network of restaurants expanded to such an extent that it has around 37855 outlets in the world serving nearly 6.9 billion people every day. Moreover, in 2018 the company had a net income of a whopping US$5.924 billion[4].

McDonald’s specialty is its hamburgers. However, in addition to this McDonald’s is also known for its watery cheeseburgers, French fries, chicken items, breakfast things, soda pops, milkshakes, wraps, and pastries. The company has gradually expanded its product base to meet the changing consumer demand of its customers and to offer them a variety of exceptional capital for individuals to venture into the grocery vending business using carts as advised by Michimi & Wimberl (2010). They would aid bring healthy food products. The McDonald’s Corporation’s incomes originate from the lease and charges paid by the franchisees, which it outsources to different firms in different countries. The company has nearly 1.7 million employees[5], which are offered competitive salaries and benefits so that the company can maintain its unique competitive advantage in the global fast-food market.

McDonald’s was ranked 131st on the Fortune 500 by revenue in 2018[6]. With the rise of its international and local competitors the company since 2013 is witnessing a sheer decline in its annual revenues. Its revenues fell from US$28,106 million in 2013 to US$22,820 in 2017. The downfall started in October 2012 when its month-to-month deals fell without precedent for a long time and the same was the case in 2014 too. For the financial year 2017, McDonald’s revealed an income of US$5.2 billion, with a yearly income of US$22.8 billion, an abatement of 7.3% over the past fiscal year. However, despite this downfall, the company is constantly developing its products to offer its customers quality and affordable products.

Even though McDonald’s is not making exceptional profits from its existing business, it appears that the company so far hasn’t made any efforts to exploit all available markets in the world. developing countries in Africa. Frank uses his own experiences to explain how technology has grown and is developing Africa is the second most populous continent in the world by populations and by area. It is home to more than 1.2 billion people and its average population is the youngest among all the seven continents in the world[7]. Therefore, it presents a quite attractive market to the food chain networks like McDonald’s Still the company is present in just four countries on the continent. This study intends to extensively explore the reasons and problems in expanding business on the African continent. The methodology adopted by the study is theoretical in nature in which different theoretical models will be applied to the McDonald’s business situation in Africa.

Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks:

The study will apply different theoretical and conceptual frameworks developed by economists, sociologists, anthropologists, etc in their studies to the market situation of McDonald’s in Africa. Each model is discussed below:

Anthropologists Assessment of McDonald’s Situation:

Wilk in his study argues that the traditional demarcation between the nation-states is gradually fading with each passing day[8]. Globalizations, transnationalism, and interdependence in the contemporary world are gradually reforming these structures and the world has now evolved into some cosmopolitan entity [9]. Although technologically advanced products such as television, radio, smartphones, etc. have reached every corner of the world yet, they have failed to create a uniform culture everywhere. In his study views this position from an anthropologist perspective. Anthropologists long argued that colonists in the past century used their elite cultural values as a means to dominate the backward parts of the world. Although in the contemporary world, certain material culture shock upon arriving in the United States.

These students must understand the cultural elements like transport, road, railways, etc. are uniform across the world yet the countries still have maintained certain aspects of their traditional cultural values. The nations are somewhat different in the existing world however these distinct non-material cultural dimensions are gradually limiting and a time will come when these differences would ultimately vanish. So the Wilk’s discourse on Miss Reagents in Belize[10] can be applied to the limited McDonald’s business in the African continent. African people are highly conservative. Most of the people in different regions of the African continent are highly skeptical of the Western world and its companies. They view them as something against the values of their forefathers. This is the reason for the limited corporate strategy has been to expand its operations since the 1960s. They had plans to establish McDonald’s outlets on the continent.

Alignment and Contradiction in Nationalism and Globalism:

Richard Wilk in another study tried to explore the nature of the relationship between the governments’ domestic policies and international media globalism. [11] Industrialization of the global market introduced the mass production of goods that cannot be absorbed by the state’s domestic consumers only. Due to this, the industrialized developed world has intentionally set up a unique international economic system supported by global institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO[12]. Under the premise of stability in the trade and financial market, these organizations promote free trade policies so that the industrialized West can dump its goods in these underdeveloped countries[13].

In addition to this through international media, these countries are trying to inculcate a exist subcultural lifestyles that are rooted in the level of education and personal characteristics that govern behavior. The culture of consumerism in the middle and upper-class sections of these societies. Wilk discusses the contradiction in the policies of government and strategies of the West. Governments through certain education and domestic policies try to align the thoughts and values of their ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse communities because uniformity and consistency in the thoughts of people can be exploited in case of external aggression. Wilk argues that sometimes these nationalist agendas align or sometimes contradict the international media efforts to develop the consumer market in these countries.

So In the case of MacDonald, it appears that it is the government that is indirectly responsible for the low restaurants in the continent. Some liberal countries like South Africa believe in globalism. Therefore, they have open, inclusive, and free trade and investment policies. On the contrary, some countries like Rwanda and Congo believe that globalism is basically the new form of colonialism. Therefore, these countries rely on protectionist and mercantilist economic policies which makes it difficult for foreign investors to invest in the country. The same is the case with the low presence of MacDonald in the African continent.

World Systems Theory Framework:

Dependency theorists try to explore the causes of underdevelopment in third world countries. Their counterparts, followers of development theories, long argued that it is colonialism which is responsible for the socio-economic backwardness of the third countries mostly concentrated in the global South[14]. This is because the colonists were only concerned with the extraction and transportation of raw materials from their colonies to meet the raw material requirement of their industry. So development theorists argued that after the decolonization process the countries would be able to accumulate wealth for themselves and would gradually move from underdeveloped to developed position[15],

Similarly, Adam Smith argued that prosperity and increase in the purchasing power of the masses is the positive outcome of globalization and free trade. Competition among firms provides a variety of affordable goods and services to the people. Similarly, he argued that through competitive advantages in a specific sector of the economy they can generate economies of scale for themselves. However, these all narratives are false. On the contrary, dependence, believes in the Marxist ideologies. Marxist theorists believe that the expansion of the market because of globalization is supplemented by the exploitation of labor by capitalists just to generate profit.

This exploitation is the unwanted byproduct of capitalism that must be overthrown. The dominant perspective is that there is that the contemporary world entrepreneur industry is heavily dependent on a division of work between rich nations and poor countries. After some time, the center nations routinely misuse the meager strengths of poor countries for their own benefit. Furthermore, it forces states towards an internal looking way to deal with advancement and an expanded job for the state as far as forcing boundaries to exchange, making internal speculation troublesome, and advancing nationalization of key ventures.

Dependency theories, like World Systems Theory, claim that it is the structure of the global economic system which is inhibiting the development in third world countries. World Systems theory claims that the existing global economic structure has three distinct regions: industrialized core, peripheral boundary, and semi-peripheral areas. The backward countries like those in Africa are concentrated in the outer periphery which exports their cheap raw materials and imports expensive finished products from the industrialized countries in the core. Whereas for the industrialized developed countries in the core the situation is the opposite. This is the reason that the purchasing power in underdeveloped countries is less.

Therefore this theory can be applied to the case of MacDonald too. It has been said that MacDonald is only present in four African countries: South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritius. The clear dissection of their economic parameters and industrialization level depicts that these countries occupy either core or semi-peripheral positions in the World Systems Theory. Every company exists to make a profit. The same is the case with McDonald too. In consideration of the purchasing power of the African region, MacDonald’s top management might be skeptical of investing in a country that may not generate profit for it.

Cultural Lag and McDonaldization:

People say that there is a certain level of consistency and homogeneity in all the domestic and international development initiatives in the countries [16]. However, the present reality is loaded up with ambiguities, cultural lag due to a relatively high rate of non-material cultural elements penetration. A new phenomenon has been adopted by the Western world to gradually inculcate uniform cultural values and beliefs in the countries which are “McDonaldization”[17]. It intends to develop a uniform customer culture throughout the world to benefit the western economies.

However there is a certain contention that rather than centralization, the present pattern is leading the world towards regionalization, fundamentalism, social fracture, expansion of mixed and blended personalities, multiculturalism, relocation, and hybridities. For a few, the world is turning into an inexorably uniform and homogeneous place, with a more clear focus, while for others a concise period of the present day is transforming into postmodernism confusion[18]. So the basic objective of massive marketing campaigns and event sponsorships is to overcome the cultural lag which is acting as a major obstacle in the evolution of the McDonaldized globalized world.

Through technological products such as television, radio, computers, CD-ROMs, etc. the West has developed a uniform material culture in every part of the world. However, to fully exploit the markets of these undeveloped countries West is striving to reform the existing traditional values, beliefs, mores, and folkways of the countries. Through TV programs, movies, and films the West is trying to overcome this cultural lag acting as a bottleneck in the emergence of a uniform McDonaldized world. In some regions, this transformation phase is faster whereas in others it is slow. So one of the probable reasons for the low presence of McDonald’s in the African continent is the cultural lag. This cultural lag is much higher in the continent compared to the rest of the world. McDonald’s doesn’t want to invest in such areas where it cannot generate profit because of the backward values and beliefs of the people.

Consumerism and McDonald:

Richard Wild in one of his study tried to develop a relationship and harmony between morality and consumption [19]. Wilk doesn’t outrightly reject the narcissist perspective of consumerism which is against the morals and ethics in most societies[20]. Morality is a tool that is routinely exploited by national political leaders who use it to stand against the prevailing socio-economic class structures in the world. Marxists and Lenin adherents strategically used morals and ethics to demolish the capitalist system in the world[21]. The roots of communist and socialist systems are entrenched in universal morals that are subjective. Sociologists tend to view excessive consumption in society as a sign of moral decay.

Countries use morals to debunk the wickedness, and it’s associated with the problems of all the factions of the country’s population[22]. Therefore, for McDonald’s, a certain internal resistance in the African population can be observed the basis of which are morals. Many Africans believe that Western products and services are the depictions of class structure. So consumers of McDonald’s hamburgers, french fries, and cheesy burgers belong to a specific section of the class as its products cannot be afforded by everyone. So on a moral basis, people prefer not to consume such products which may reflect the class structure in their society or which may in any way hurt the feeling of those who cannot afford these products. This is the reason that a certain resistance is experienced against McDonald’s and its products which discourages investment in African countries.

Clash of Civilizations in Africa:

To understand the Clash of Civilizations theoretical framework it is necessary to analyze the current state of terrorism in Africa. Terrorism is the byproduct of the current globalized and interdependent world. No doubt the technology and open borders have helped in improving the living standard of millions of people. Africa is the most suffered continent in the world due to terrorism. Its illiterate and poor population provides a breeding ground to the terrorist groups[23]. Africa right now has militant groups that share associations with the terrorist and fundamentalist ideologies of Al-Qaeda. They work over the huge territory of the Sahel in Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, just as in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Somalia, Mali, and Kenya. Since January 2019 around twelve African nations, including Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Libya, Mali, Cameroon, and Somalia, have endured dread assaults in which a huge number of people were slaughtered[24].

The gatherings executing these assaults are embryonic: their solitary perceptible trademark is that they declare radical Islamic propensities. Thus they regard neither political nor geological limits and the assailants don’t express clear nearby political objectives. In eastern Africa, armed forces from the countries like Ethiopia and Uganda are playing an instrumental role to counter Al-Shabaab group terrorist activities in the region. The nearness of territorial troops working under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has counteracted Al-Shabaab from assuming control over the nation. According to the reports of ISS, about 37% of the 39,286 viciousness deaths were recorded in Africa in 2014[25]. Most of these deaths occurred in Nigeria, predominantly because of Boko Haram terrorist activities. This is pursued intently by the level of such fatalities identified with assaults by group Al-Shabaab in most of the regions of the continent.

These radical fundamentalists have gradually inculcated in the minds of African people that the Western world is against Islamic values and beliefs. They argue that through their global network of companies operating in every region of the world these companies are trying to reform and impose their liberal values and belief in the Muslim world which is a threat to the Islamic world[26]. This argument and the existing situation of law and order in the world show that Francis Fukuyama’s Clash of Civilization hypothesis was correct. Fukuyama, in response to the End of History theories that erupted in the wake of the dismemberment of the Soviet Union in the past decade, asserted that although the US capitalist economic model has won against the Soviet communism yet it doesn’t mean that this is the start of an ideal period.

Fukuyama predicted that in the next century, clashes among civilizations will be the major cause of inter-state wars. He highlighted seven distinct civilizations in the world and said that the Muslim world would vehemently resist the Western world’s efforts to impose their culture in their countries[27]. Fukuyama’s prediction seems to be true in today’s world. Radical Islamist organizations are resisting the inclusion of the West in the culture and political situation of their countries.

This is the major cause of concern for McDonald’s. As McDonald’s is an American company therefore it is fearful of setting up its business in those regions of the world which are not safe. The UN and African reports explicitly explain that Africa is not safe for foreigners. Therefore the company hasn’t established its business in the African continent.

Food Crises in Africa:

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, in its latest report, narrates that Africa is the most food-insecure region in the world[28]. The intensifying pattern in Africa is because of the troublesome worldwide monetary situation and declining natural conditions. Global financial development somewhat eased back in 2016 because of frail product costs, specifically for oil and minerals. However, it was affected by the continuous floods and natural hazards in the continent, especially in Southern and Eastern Africa.

The jobs for Youth are a crucial problem in the continent. Nearly 10 to 12 million youth enters the continent’s job market every year[29]. In any case, the nature of employment is similarly vital as most youth right now work in the casual economy and 67 percent of youthful laborers live in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Rising salaries, urbanization, and changing ways of life present difficulties yet additionally speak to open doors for the private area to create the development and work expected to provide employment opportunities to people[30]. Governments must advance up endeavors to enable youth to gain aptitudes, assets, and the chance to partake in the decision making process. a

Global and inner movement influence a large number of Africans, a considerable lot of whom are youth, every year. The settlements they send home assume an essential job in diminishing destitution and craving. Worldwide settlements add up to almost $70 billion which is nearly 3 percent of Africa’s GDP[31]. These present an open door for national advancement that administrations should attempt to reinforce. In the meantime, governments must advance better than average work, comprehensive development, and fortified family strength to overcome the food insecurity problem in the continent as all these things are interlinked.

McDonald’s is an American company and like all companies, the purpose of its existence is to generate profit for its investors and shareholders. Therefore, it cannot afford to invest in a region where people can’t even afford the necessities of life. As McDonald’s products are a bit costly that’s why in Africa it only has restaurants in those countries where the purchasing power of people is high.

Critical Assessment and Recommendations:

McDonald’s in Africa is not very popular. The dissection of its minute presence in the continent depicts that it has multiple dimensions. Economically, the position of African countries in the outer periphery of the World Systems Theory and the dilapidated state of food security in Africa are the two major bottlenecks in the expansion of McDonald’s business. On the cultural level, there seems to be certain resistance from the inside in African countries against the West-sponsored McDonald Company. Contrary to anthropologists’ assessment, these internal factors resist any change which they feel contrary to their ancestral cultural values.

Also, nationalist leaders intentionally inculcate hatred among them for petty partisan and personal political goals. Also, some writers like Richard Wilk touch that consuming expensive products by middle and upper class is against the morals and standards of classless society so certain well-off people in African intentionally avoid consuming McDonald’s products. The meager presence of McDonald’s in the continent has a security dimension too. The clash of civilization thesis of Francis Fukuyama seems to be true in the contemporary world where radical and fundamentalist groups such as Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, and Al-Shabab group create an insecure environment in the continent. This is the reason that the management resists launching its branches in the terrorist prone areas in the continent. Based on the assessment of McDonald’s business in Africa a couple of recommendations are as follows:

  • McDonald’s can lower the cost of its products so that all the sections of society in the continent can afford them. This would help in overcoming the moral resistance to consuming McDonald’s products.
  • McDonald’s can assert that introducing its branches in the continent will help countries in moving to semi-peripheral or core areas of the System theory as it would generate business in the continent.
  • McDonald’s can reform its internal functions and operations system and can align it with the cultural elements of African people. This way people will not take McDonald as something which is challenging their cultural value.
  • With globalization and technological advancements, the world has transformed into a global village. Whether its the United States or Uganda terrorist today is capable of launching attacks in every corner of the world. No doubt security of staff is most important for management but with extensive collaboration with the security forces the management can sort out this issue.

Findings and Conclusion:

McDonald’s is the most established fast-food company on earth. The organization is now serving about 69 million individuals in more than 100 nations regularly. Starting in 2018 MacDonald’s has a worldwide evolved way of life containing more than 37855 sustenance outlets. McDonald’s was positioned 131st on the Fortune 500 by income in 2018. With the ascent of its universal and nearby contenders the organization since 2013 is seeing a sheer decrease in its yearly incomes. Its incomes tumbled from US$28,106 million out in 2013 to US$22,820 in 2017. The defeat began in October 2012 when its month to month bargains fell unprecedented for quite a while and the same was the situation in 2014 as well.

For the budgetary year 2017, McDonald’s uncovered pay of US$5.2 billion, with a yearly salary of US$22.8 billion, a decrease of 7.3% over the past financial year. Despite expanding its business the company has a practically insignificant presence in the African landmass. Africa is home to more than 1.2 billion individuals still MacDonald’s eateries are available in only four nations on the African mainland which are South Africa, Egypt Morocco, and Mauritius. The basic objective of this study was to analyze the McDonald’s business in Africa in the light of various theoretical frameworks developed by theorists. Concluding remarks of each framework are as follows:

  • Richard Wilk’s in his study of beauty pageants depicts the anthropologist’s perspective of culture. Anthropologists claimed that colonists in the past century used their elite cultural values as a means to dominate the backward parts of the world. However, in the current world, certain material cultural elements are uniform across the world yet the countries still have maintained certain aspects of their traditional cultural values. So because of their conservative attitude, African people do not openly accept the interference of the West in their cultural values.
  • Richard Wilk in another investigation endeavored to investigate the connection between the government’s domestic policies and worldwide media globalism. Wilk contends that occasionally the nationalist policies of governments sometimes adjust or sometimes negate the worldwide media endeavors to create a custom market in these nations. So For the situation of MacDonald, it gives the idea that it is the administration whose policies are a bottleneck in the McDonald’s business in Africa.
  • According to World Systems Theory, most of the countries in the African continent are present in the outer periphery of the existing economic structure intentionally developed by the Western world. Due to this, their net income is always negative. This directly impacts their purchasing power as the people cannot afford the expensive food products of McDonald’s.
  • Cultural lag is yet another bottleneck in the emergence of the global McDonaldized world. Through innovation, the West has built up a uniform material culture in all aspects of the world. However, in the non-material culture, the West is facing some resistance which is creating a cultural lag. As in certain areas this change is quicker whereas it is moderate in others. So one of the plausible explanations behind the low nearness of McDonald’s in African landmass is the social slack.
  • The little presence of McDonald’s has a moral dimension too. Africans asserts that Western items are the portrayal of class structure. So consumers of McDonald’s burgers and other products belong to certain social classes as its items can’t be afforded by everybody. So individuals lean towards not to expend anything on the products which may mirror the class structure in their general public or which may in any capacity hurt the feeling of the individuals who can’t bear the cost of these items.
  • Francis Fukuyama at the end of the Cold War stated that even though the US financial model won against Soviet socialism yet it doesn’t imply this is the beginning of a perfect period. Fukuyama anticipated that in the following century, conflicts among human civilizations will be the significant reason for wars between states. Fukuyama’s expectation is by all accounts valid in this day and age. Radical Islamist associations are opposing the incorporation of the West in the way of life and political circumstance of their nations. So McDonald’s is facing the threat of terrorist activities from these organizations on the African Continent.
  • Africa is the poorest continent in the world. More than 70% of its population is suffering from food insecurity. So McDonald’s doesn’t expect to earn anything from a region where people even can’t afford the necessities of life. This is the reason that McDonald’s business is only limited to high profile countries on the continent.

The theoretical frameworks in the study helped in analyzing the reason for the low investment of McDonald’s investment in the African continent. These frameworks have multiple dimensions such as economic, social, cultural, and ideological.

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  1. Phil Rosenthal, “McDonald’s: 60 years, billions served,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 2015 ↑
  2. Sara Gilbert, ed. The Story of McDonald’s (The Creative Company, 2008) ↑
  3. Janice Kew, Jason Folkmanis, “McDonald’s to Upsize in Africa,” The M&G Online, February 10, 2014. ↑
  4. “Is Africa, and Nigeria, Finally Ready for McDonald’s?,” Verdict, December 20, 2017 ↑
  5. Gilbert “The Story” ↑
  6. Ibid ↑
  7. Janice Kew, Jason Folkmanis, “McDonald’s to Upsize” ↑
  8. Richard Wilk, “The local and the global in the political economy of beauty: From Miss Belize to Miss World,” Review of International Political Economy 2, no. 1 doi:10.1080/09692299508434312 (1995) ↑
  9. Richard R. Wilk, “Beauty and the feast: Official and visceral nationalism in Belize,” Ethnos 58, no. 3-4 (1993) doi:10.1080/00141844.1993.9981479 ↑
  10. Wilk, “The local and the global” ↑
  11. Richard Wilk, “Miss Universe, the Olmec and the Valley of Oaxaca, “Journal of Social Archaeology 4, no. 1 (2004):  doi:10.1177/1469605304039851 ↑
  12. Nora Haenn, Allison Harnish, and Richard Wilk, The Environment in Anthropology (Second Edition): A Reader in Ecology, Culture, and Sustainable Living (New York: NYU Press, 2016) ↑
  13. Ibid. ↑
  14. Nicola Tannenbaum, “Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology,” American Ethnologist 26, no. 2 (1999):  doi:10.1525/ae.1999.26.2.519.  ↑
  15. Haenn, Harnish, and Wilk, The Environment. ↑
  16. Elizabeth Shove, Frank Trentmann, and Richard Wilk, Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality, and Culture(Oxford: Berg, 2009) ↑
  17. Tannenbaum, “Economies and Culture,” ↑
  18. Richard Wilk, “Consumption embedded in culture and language: implications for finding sustainability,” Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 6, no. 2 (2010): doi:10.1080/15487733.2010.11908048.  ↑
  19. Richard Wilk, “Consuming Morality,” Journal of Consumer Culture 1, no. 2 (2001):doi:10.1177/146954050100100211.  ↑
  20. Ibid ↑
  21. Richard Wilk, “Consumption, human needs, and global environmental change,” Global Environmental Change 12, no. 1 (2002): doi:10.1016/s0959-3780(01)00028-0.  ↑
  22. Richard Wilk, “Emulation, Imitation, and Global Consumerism, “Organization & Environment 11, no. 3 (1998):  doi:10.1177/0921810698113003.  ↑
  23. Christopher Clapham, “Terrorism in Africa: Problems of definition, history, and development,” South African Journal of International Affairs 10, no. 2 (2003): xx, doi:10.1080/10220460309545424. ↑
  24. “From Clash of Civilizations to Interdependence,” African Arguments, January 24, 2011, http://africanarguments.org/2011/01/24/from-clash-of-civilizations-to-interdependence/.  ↑
  25. Ibid ↑
  26. Gary Sands, “A Clash of Civilizations in the Central African Republic? (Part 1 of 2),” Foreign Policy Association, May 22, 2014,
  27. “The ‘clash of civilizations’: Who’s to blame? – Africa & Middle East – International Herald Tribune,” The New York Times, June 22, 2026 ↑
  28. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations et al., (Rome: 2018). ↑
  29. “Food Security in Africa,” AGRA, last modified September 19, 2018, https://agra.org. ↑
  30. “Four Things you should know about food security in Africa,” The Washington Post, n.d. ↑
  31. “SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: Growth Slows, Food Insecurity Rises, “Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical Series 52, no. 9 (2015):  doi:10.1111/j.1467-6346.2015.06653. ↑

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