Guinea-Bissau

Main article: Africa

Geography

The west coastline with wide deltas is the perfect natural cover for smuggling.

Population

Main article: Population of Africa

2023:2 million people

As of 2023, the population of Guinea-Bissau was just over 2 million people, 67% of whom live below the poverty line.

2018: 1.5 million people without a common identity

In 2018, 1.5 million people lived in the country.

At this time, Guinea-Bissau lacks a national identity that contributes to the formation of a national states one - the population is ethnically diverse, the country has a huge number of tribes separated by linguistic and traditional barriers.

The situation is aggravated by the geography of the state, the main feature of which is winding rivers throughout the country, which makes the area inaccessible and only strengthens the gap between the tribes.

Migration

2021: Net outflow over 4 years

Mortality

2018: High death rate in road accidents

2016: Low opioid deaths

Colonial dependence on France

For 2023, Guinea-Bissau is in colonial dependence on France, which exercises control over all significant processes in politics and the economy. For more on specific instruments of influence, see French Foreign Policy.

Economy

ECOWAS membership

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional organization established in 1975 to strengthen economic cooperation between West African countries .

GDP

2018

GDP $852 per person

177th in the world in terms of GDP

In terms of its GDP in 2018, the country ranks 177th in the ranking of 194 countries (according to the World Bank).

For 2019, in the country, approximately 20-30% of rural households are considered not provided with food.

National debt

2024: Russia wrote off the debt of $26.5 million to Guinea-Bissau. Its external debt is more than $1 billion

In March 2024, Russia wrote off the debt of $26.5 million to Guinea-Bissau. The country has accumulated debt since 2001, ceasing to carry out its actual maintenance.

The total debt to foreign creditors is over $1 billion with the country's GDP at about $1.6 billion.

The principle of redirecting funds to development. Technically, the debt is not written off, and is not payable to the lender: thus, this "targeted" money is preserved and should be used to improve the population's access to electricity, to the health care and education system, to purchase socially significant goods. At the same time, both local and Russian companies can act as their suppliers, and the government of Guinea-Bissau itself informs Russia about the implementation of these important social initiatives for a total of about $1 million.

The principle of comparability of the terms of the concluded agreement and all subsequent ones. Guinea-Bissau, in resolving its other debts to foreign creditors, will seek similar conditions. Thus, the implementation of this principle sets a kind of negotiation framework, and the conditions themselves create an illustrative precedent that can be shown, say, to the Paris Club in response to their often tougher conditions. In addition, we remember that in Western practice, debt repayment is often accompanied by certain political conditions.

And thirdly, it would be wrong to say that Russia simply wrote off the entire amount of the debt - part of it has been restructured and is still payable in accordance with the established schedule, although, judging by the text of the agreement, most of the payments could have already been made by June 2017.

Currency: CFA franc

Main article: Frank CFA (CFA)

Drug transit is the main branch of the economy

2019: A large cocaine transit point from South America to Europe

With the beginning of the 21st century cocaine , significant changes took place in the world market - the market USA began to oversaturate with all kinds of illegal substances, while cocaine use in countries Europe began to grow steadily. According to the Accounting of Charges and Payments, UN since 2013, drug trafficking has tripled in Western Europe by 2018.

Guinea-Bissau is located almost equally distant from the main ports in South America and Europe, and most people here live literally at the bottom of the world economy, respectively, they are ready to take on any, even very criminal, work.

Planes carrying drugs don't have to take steps to remain invisible to radar - often they simply aren't here, well, or the electricity they need to work is corny.

The military elite of the country is corrupt "from" and "to," so that soldiers for a fee are always ready to block all entrances to the airport so that no one prevents drug dealers from shipping goods.

The country completely lacks the Navy, capable of resisting fast boats loaded with cocaine, and people involved in the drug trade are very rarely brought to justice due to the impossibility of normal collection of evidence, the lack of the necessary legal norms or places of imprisonment.

By 2007, the annual transshipment of cocaine in the country was approximately 250 tons, bringing the drug business income of approximately 14 billion US dollars.

As of 2019, 13% of the world's cocaine flow passes through Guinea-Bissau, a country half the size of Khakassia. The cocaine trade is becoming an integral part of the governance of this state.

Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau has become institutionalized and so entrenched that it is in fact part of the state economy.

In the 2010s, South American dealers began to consider the region not just as a transit point, but also as a potential consumer market.

According to UN estimates, in 2011, about 400 kg of heroin and about 13 tons of cocaine worth $800 million were consumed in West Africa (almost equivalent to Guinea-Bissau's GDP). According to some estimates, 8% of the world's cocaine users come from West Africa, and this number is steadily growing.

2018: UN estimates drug transit through country at $2bn

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates the total cost of drugs transported through the country at $2 billion per year, that is, by an amount 4 times the GDP of Guinea-Bissau.

2013: US recognizes Guinea-Bissau as a drug state

In 2013, the United States recognized Guinea-Bissau as a drug state - a country that exists solely through drug exports.

Power

2020: Very low energy consumption per capita

and

2019: Electrification rate just 29%

Agriculture

2019: Low use of pesticides in agriculture

Foreign trade

2023:93% of all exports - cashew nut

The main sources of revenues to the budget of Guinea-Bissau are cashew exports (93% of all exports).

IT market

2022: No start-up industry

Consumption

2023: Kuryatina is the most consumed type of meat

2019: High rice consumption: 136.9 kg per person per year

2018

Vegetable consumption of just 22 kg per capita per year

There are no age restrictions on the purchase of alcohol

Education

2019

Percentage of people who can read

Literacy rate

For 2019, half of the population over 15 is illiterate.

Health care

2021: Maternity leave

in

2020

Duration of guaranteed paid sick leave 6 months or more

Part of the population defecates on the street

2016: Overweight

Culture

Cinema

Among the classics of African cinema, who revealed the talent after independence, it is worth highlighting the Bissau-Guinean Flora Gomish, whose works convey the spirit of the times and the dynamics of political processes in the country. Rejected by Death (Mortu Nega, 1988) is a classic example of patriotic cinema about the national liberation struggle and the fate of its ordinary participants, who often left to fight with whole families.

Only a few years pass, and Flora Gomish's romantic drama about the love triangle "Yonta's Blue Eyes" (Udju azul di Yonta, 1992) appears on the screens. She conveys completely different realities. Instead of building socialism, liberal reforms are on the agenda, and yesterday's revolutionaries are divided into those who learn to make money by becoming successful bourgeois, and those who did not fit into the market and feel betrayed. "There is progress, just he is not for everyone," one of the veterans who heads a fishing company tries to convince his comrade. But he seems unable to find arguments, even for himself, and plunges into depression.

The main character of the film - the young beauty Yonta - is trying to help him overcome the crisis and practically forms a national idea for all post-socialist Africa: "We respect our past, but we cannot live in it forever. I admire what you did, but I want to be free to be able to choose. Isn't that what you fought for? " Perhaps this is the most underestimated African film, despite the fact that it is quite drawn to the cultural manifesto of the generation, wrote Alexander Panov in his review of African cinema.

Crime

Prisons

2022: Minimum age for children to be jailed

2018: Number of prisoners per 100 thousand citizens

History

2024: President Umaru Sisoku Embalo's Russia Tour

In May 2024, Guinea-Bissau President Umaru Sisoku Embalo visited Russia, who first attended the Victory Parade in Moscow and then traveled to some Russian regions.

In Tatarstan, Embalo, accompanied by the head of the republic Rustam Minnikhanov, visited Kazan, where they discussed the participation of the Bisai delegation in the KazanForum 2024.

Then in Chechnya, the African president was met by Ramzan Kadyrov, with whom they agreed to train Guinea-Bissau military personnel at the Russian University of Special Forces.

The Russian leadership has yet to decide what kind of interest Guinea-Bissau is in terms of the economy. Being sandwiched between Senegal and Guinea, this country does not border the "Alliance of Sahel States" and is poorly suited for the development of logistics in the region.

But for Embalo, a tour of Russia is a chance to get investments from Russian regions, which in turn seek to show activity on the external circuit and establish cooperation with Muslim countries.

A serious prerequisite for such interaction was the decrease in French influence in Africa. Moreover, Paris began to put forward requirements for the leadership of Bissau to continue funding, the main of which is the holding of parliamentary elections.

2023: Parliament dissolved after coup attempt

Power in Guinea-Bissau is unstable and coup attempts often occur. A similar incident happened in December 2023, which was the reason for President Umaru Sisoku Embalo to dissolve parliament.

2020: Military coup in favour of President-elect Umaru Sisoku Embalo

In March 2020, in Guinea-Bissau, the military nevertheless decided to coup. True, in favor of the elected president and only then to "put an end to the banana republic."

In this small West African republic, for the fifth year everyone has been gnawing with everyone (so far without weapons). Probably everything, starting with the stupid constitution adopted in 1984. It guarantees approximately equal powers to the president, the National People's Assembly (unicameral parliament), the government and the courts. And they actively use this, bringing the country to the pen.

The military, intimidated by the international sanctions imposed on them back in 2012, was fastened to the last. But they could not resist and still supported President-elect Sisoku. Some of the top officers even flashed at his inauguration. Apparently, because in the government he formed a couple of days later, the balanta party received as many as seven out of 32 portfolios, including strategic departments of natural resources, local government, trade and fishing (in addition to Colombian cocaine, cashew and fish - the main income items of Guinea-Bissau).

It is reported that the military slowly occupied administrative institutions - the government house, parliament and courts, and then reached the Supreme Court building and did not let anyone there. In addition, apparently, the president personally asked them to occupy the radio and TV stations in order to buy time and calmly form a new government (the former prime minister refused to leave).

PAIGC has nothing left but to complain to the international community, while Sisoku snaps and asks the EU not to get into his own business - the white world threatens his team with sanctions for unconstitutional behavior. In general, having done the job and leaving one president and one - new - prime minister, the military returned to the barracks, and Sisoku firmly stated that "the banana republic is over."

2019

Umaru El-Moktar Sisoku Embalo is elected president. Dual power established in the country

According to the results of the December vote, a real steamer man came to power in the country: former prime minister, brigadier general, businessman, political scientist and polyglot Umaru El-Moktar Sisoku Embalo. The opposition populist, who defiantly wore a turban to please the rural public, defeated a "strong business executive" from the party of the old elite. According to some reports, not without the participation of Senegal, influential foreign businessmen and the problematic ethnic group of the balant, who forms the backbone of the army and is represented in big politics by the Party for Social Renewal.

The ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) immediately filed for the defeat of its candidate and filed a complaint with its friends in the Supreme Court, and the day after Sisoku took the oath, PAIGC deputies appointed Speaker Cipriana Kassama to the post of interim head of state. So for the whole two days already once again, dual power has been established in the country. True, soon Kassama nevertheless left "because of the threats he and his family received."

President Jose Mario Vash dissolved the Council of Ministers

The decision of Jose Mario Vash is due to "a serious political crisis that interferes with the normal functioning of the institutions of the republic."

In October 2019, Prime Minister Aristide Gomez condemned the "coup attempt." Police brutally thwarted an opposition demonstration, killing one person and wounding several others.

However, the resignation of the government plunges the country into even more uncertainty. The presidential elections scheduled for the end of November are in question.

Having gained independence from Portugal in 1974, Guinea-Bissau has since experienced four military dictatorships and 16 attempted coups.

2012

In 2012, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ranked Guinea-Bissau 176th out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index.

1973: Gaining independence

In 1950, the independence movement began in the country, which by 1963 had turned into a war, and after 11 years of hostilities in 1973 the state finally gained independence.

State-building in Guinea-Bissau somehow historically did not work out, since even after independence, the country remained tied to Portugal, being more integrated with the Commonwealth of Portuguese-speaking countries than with its natural partners in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Moreover, having gained independence thanks to the armed forces, the government exorbitantly elevated the military, which is clearly visible in the Constitution, where the Armed Forces are considered as the institution of the state, and is also contained in Article 5, which in every possible way praises "fighters for independence."

All this led to the fact that no elected president of Guinea-Bissau was in power during his entire presidential term - everyone was safely overthrown by the military, which has enormous influence in the country, since the defense sector accounts for more than 30% of the state budget.

1914

15th century: Colony of Portugal

In the 15th century, the territory of Guineas-Bissau was colonized by Portugal and was surrounded by the French colonies, which led to its isolation and extreme political and financial dependence on the metropolis.

Lisbon was not particularly interested in the development of Guinea-Bissau, but was exclusively engaged in pumping out resources. In fact, over five centuries, Portugal has failed to organize a stable political system of the country or even simply unite a huge number of tribes into a state with at least some national identity.

Sport

2022: The most popular sport is football

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