Afghanistan

CNN is the only channel I get in English, so I watch a lot of it. Needless to say, I’m kind of sick of hearing about the global economic/financial crisis, especially since the reports of the end of the world as we know it have little relation to my day-to-day life.

Here in Benin, high unemployment and poor business prospects are not news. Home foreclosures and vanishing retirement funds would be news because it would mean that people had actually owned homes and had retirement funds. This is not to say that the crisis has not or will not have an impact here, but if it is, it’s not nearly as visible or talked about.

There has been a lot of speculation over what the crisis would mean for Africa. Some say that it will be felt less here because of Africa’s relative isolation from global markets and its already low levels of foreign investment and trade.  Others argue that many African countries’ already precarious economic states and their dependence on foreign investment, loans, and aid put them in a vulnerable position.