Introduction

Since the late eighteenth century, economic interventions have been a crucial component of both voluntary humanitarian action and international interventions. From sanctions to wartime aid to developmental and state-building projects and specific humanitarian commercial campaigns, economic tools have been, and continue to be, used by international powers to undermine or bolster state sovereignty.

However, the use of economic tools of intervention, while offered as a peaceful alternative to military intervention, is often connected to the escalation towards military intervention, rather than forestalling it. Attempts at intervening economically in situations with defined ‘human rights abuses’ or ‘crimes against humanity’ have had mixed results, sometimes even exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. Equally confusing has been the conflation of democracy with human rights, which has allowed intervention to be cast in a humanitarian way in support of regime change when leaders have disregarded the results of elections or suppressed democratic rights.

By looking at the long historical record of humanitarian intervention in Africa, the connections between different forms of intervention – economic, military, capacity-building, humanitarian, individual, state and NGO – become clearer. Given the contingent relationship between economic, diplomatic and military interventions that can be seen in recent examples ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka to Syria, Libya to Ukraine, it should be clear to observers of humanitarian intervention that if economic development is a historical process, so too is humanitarian intervention. Thinking about economic interventions as one form of humanitarian intervention helps to bring these two strands of the literature together in ways that illuminate the messiness of intervention, and the relationships between intervention and power.

This chapter will explore the different uses of economic interventions and their interlocking relationship with the evolution of humanitarian intervention. It will specifically focus on examples from the African continent, stretching from the eighteenth century to the present, though the cases examined will share broader themes with developments outside of the continent.