Currency and imperialistic hegemony in West Africa

As engineers, we don’t often get the chance to reflect on history and economics. Today, our discussion, led by Aadhi, was centered on West African CFA Franc (XOF). The XOF is used in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. To contextualize this, we watched a video where Italian PM Giorgia Meloni accused of continuing French exploitation in Burkina Faso, where 50% of the production goes to French coffers.

We were also happy to welcome Dr. Aggrey Muhebwa for his first meeting as a post-doctoral researcher at the Osman Lab! He gave us some much-needed background on Burkina Faso and Rwanda, which had huge economic growth after cutting colonial ties with France.

We concluded by talking about the issues with creating niche environmental technologies that privilege high income countries, and the need to prioritize impact over innovation blind to community needs and long-term change.