The AOF federation was created to decentralize decisions and rationalize economic development

Evidence

One of the primary reasons for instituting an overarching authority in West Africa was to decentralize decision making from the metropole. Only a senior official on the spot, the Paris government felt, would be sufficiently aware of events and conditions in the colony to make informed policy choices. A second reason for federating the West African territories was to facilitate what the French called their mise en valeur-a term best translated as “rational economic development.” In France, policy priorities were shifting from continued expansion to the organization and development of the existing colonies. Most of the West African territories were poor and many were landlocked. Administered as autonomous colonies rather than a single unit, Paris argued, they would never prosper. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 91

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines mise en valeur, the core French colonial development concept.
• QUESTION: The claim that poor, landlocked territories ‘would never prosper’ as separate colonies — is prosperity defined solely on French economic terms, and did the federation actually achieve it? Worth checking against economic outcomes.