Destined to fail: Forced settlement at the Office du Niger, 1926-45

Mali's Office du Niger was conceived on a monumental scale to produce cotto n for the French textile industry after the First World War. Undaunted by t he conspicuous absence of both manpower and a viable crop, Emile Belime, th e scheme's originator and presiding genius, believed colonial authorities c ould compel people from all over French West Africa to settle there. Under pressure from Paris, local administrators became his recruiting agents, for cibly resettling some 30,000 Africans by 1945, when the colonial ministry p rivately declared the scheme an unqualified failure. In 1960, France recycl ed the project as a prototype of disinterested aid to a developing country.