Post 2 Gabon: Language, International Participation, and Economics

Published in

Sub-Saharan Africa/Mizzou

7 min readSep 10, 2018

In the 1839 France officially gained control over the area that is now known as Gabon, in which colonies were formed thereafter, and Gabon later gained independence in 1960[1]. The effects of these colonial efforts are still very present in the modern day, with roughly 80% of citizens able to speak French, and about one-third of people in Libreville, the city capital, being native French speakers[2].

Gabon is very diverse in regards of language, as 43 languages are spoken in Gabon, 3 of which are not native to the country including French as well as ASL[3]. Most of these languages have roots in the Bantu language family, Fang being the most commonly spoken language with 32% of people nation-wide speaking the language, closely followed by Mbere and Sira[4]. There are different categories for the languages in how they are being used, in which six categories are applicable to Gabon, those being Dispersed, Developing, Vigorous, Shifting, Threatened, and Moribund according to the disruption scale. Dispersed languages are those that are fully developed and people have access to a standardized form and literature but is not institutionalized in schools. Vigorous languages are used in face-to-face communication by all generations. Developing languages are used commonly and have literature in a standardized form that is used by some but is not widespread. Vigorous languages use face-to-face communication by all generations, in which threatened languages are the except in that they are consistently losing users. Shifting languages are languages that are used by the child-bearing generation amongst themselves but are not being passed to children. Lastly, Moribund languages are those of which the only remaining users of the language are members of the grandparent generation and older. Currently, 1 language is Dispersed, 2 are Developing, 26 are Vigorous, 1 is Threatened, 7 are Shifting, and 5 are Moribund. This relates to current concerns with indigenous languages in Gabon as many of the languages are minimally supported, especially online, and as a result, more people have begun using other languages that are supported commonly online such as French, and this is especially apparent in rural areas[5]. As a result of colonial efforts to discourage the use of indigenous languages and instead institutionalized the French language in schools, French is, of course, taught in secondary and higher education, but courses are not taught in any other language, and no other languages are offered for enrichment and because of this most indigenous languages are only spoken, which could lead to further decline[6]. Ultimately, this is a cause for concern because with people speaking less of these indigenous languages, the culture surrounding those languages disappears, and to many this presents a stigma; a lot of people claim that their language is a large part of their culture and identity, and now there are debates over the issue of what it means to be “a true African” which revolves around being able to speak an African language, and through this people are put into an “us” or “they” category depending on if they can or cannot speak an African language[7]. There has been increasing resistance to speaking French, however, and while it does not address the issues just mentioned, there have been calls to introduce English as an official second language. President Ali Bongo claimed that he wanted to introduce English as an official second language out of recognition that English is increasingly being used globally, stating, “When you leave the French-speaking space, if you don’t know English you are almost handicapped. It’s a question of diversifying our partnerships, ensuring that the people of Gabon are armed and better armed”[8]. As Ali Bongo seems concerned with French limiting the government’s connections with other parts of the world, let's move on to see how well the country is doing on the global stage, more specifically, a comparison of what international organizations Gabon is a member of as well as taking another look at Gabon’s economics. Gabon is currently a member of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the WTO. The United Nations dedicates itself to maintain world peace, develop relationships among nations, and to encourage cooperation between nations to find solutions to economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian international issues[9]. Gabon joined the United Nations on September 20th, 1960.

President Ali Bongo at 72nd General Assembly for the United Nations

While Gabon is not a big player on the international field, during the General Debate for the 72nd Session of The United Nations President Ali Bongo publicly recognized multiple international issues and stated that, “Peace at the international and national levels” is “essential to ensuring the development and the participation of all in democratic debate”, and went on to note the need for reforms for elections, voting systems, and electoral procedures within the state of Gabon , although some may find this ironic due to the accusations of abuse of power by the state, especially when considering the claims that the 2016 election results were tampered with. Ali Bongo also emphasized that he would like to integrate African economies which would “allow countries to better handle vacillations of the global economy”[10]. The International Monetary Fund’s primary purpose is to maintain global monetary cooperation and financial stability as well as enable international trade, encourage high employment rates and sustainable economic growth, and to reduce poverty globally[11]. Gabon became a member of the IMF on September 10th, 1963. Gabon’s primary relationship with the IMF is to borrow money, in which its most recent loan was in 2017. Gabon recently went under a review for a previous loan and was granted an extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility which was approved by the IMF executive board for 642 million USD in support of Gabon’s medium-term economic recovery[12]. The goal of this extension is to put Gabon on a more sustainable path, in which the Gabonese government intends to push reforms that will mobilize non-oil revenues, although more budget and cash flow management will need to be enforced to avoid losing creditworthiness. The purpose of the World Trade Organization is to ensure the smooth operations of global trade and that it is free and predictable[13]. Gabon joined the WTO on January 1st, 1995, and its most recent activity is the ratification of the Trade Facilitation Agreement along with the Kyrgyz Republic. Currently, there are 102 other members, and only 8 more are needed to put the FTA into force. The agreement is an international trade agreement that is separated into three sections. Section one entails provisions for expedited movement and release of goods. Section two states that Developing and Least Developed Countries are to categorize goods so that they can determine when they will implement provisions of the agreement. Section three outlines the creation of a permanent group that will work to enforce the agreement[14]. It is evident that Gabon is still an active participant on the world stage and plans to expand its connections, so now let's scrutinize Gabon’s economic standing in comparison to other international actors, more specifically focusing on the GINI coefficient as well as GDP and PPP. The GINI coefficient measures the separating the rich and poor, in which an index of zero represents perfect equality whereas an index of 100 represents perfect inequality. Gabon’s GINI coefficient index is 42.20, which is comparable to the United States with a score of 41[15]. The purchasing power parity, or PPP, is an economic theory that compares different countries’ currencies using a ‘basket of goods’ approach, and two countries’ currencies are equal when that ‘basket of goods’ is priced the same in both countries[16].

For GDP at PPP Gabon is ranked 121st while the United States is ranked 1st[17]. When compared to the United States, Gabon’s GDP at PPP is 36.75 trillion USD, while the US is 19.39 trillion USD[18]. To stay true to the ‘basket of goods’ theory, let's compare the price of bananas in Gabon and the United States. One pound of bananas cost about .56 USD[19] in the US while it costs about 775.58 CFA[20], which is the currency used in Gabon. When converted, one pound of bananas cost about 1.36 USD in Gabon, which means you would have to buy about another pound and a half of bananas in the United States before the prices would be the same. Here we may conclude that the United States’ economy is more developed than Gabon’s, but we can see with the evidence provided that Gabon is working to further develop its economy through more global trade connections as well as promoting the diversification of its economy instead of just focusing on oil-revenue.

[1] http://www.discoverfrance.net/Colonies/Gabon.shtml

[2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-languages-are-spoken-in-gabon.html

[3] https://www.ethnologue.com/country/GA

[4] https://www.revolvy.com/page/Languages-of-Gabon?

[5] http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/07/03/internet-access-yes-but-in-my-mother-language

[6] http://www.studycountry.com/guide/GA-language.htm

[7] https://africanarguments.org/2013/04/08/what-kind-of-african-doesnt-speak-any-african-languages-me/

[8] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214994/Gabon-set-ditch-French-English-nations-second-language-bid-improve-opportunities-people.html

[9] https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-united-nations-definition-history-members-purpose.html

[10] https://gadebate.un.org/en/72/gabon

[11] https://www.imf.org/en/About

[12] https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/06/25/pr18225-imf-staff-completes-review-mission-to-gabon#_ftn1