can we say that the incorporation of Africa into a world economic order has been helpful to the continent?
Partly this conclusion can be considered correct. But in fact, we cannot say that Africa was in the middle of the global economic system.
Part of the economies of the important major countries in the world depends mainly on the wealth of the less fortunate ones, and of course Africa was and still is the most drained continent in order to build advanced civilizations in other places.
Another evidence is when the continent finds itself affected by climatic changes that were not the cause of it, nor even contributed to its exacerbation. Today, the major countries are mobilizing the whole world to confront the catastrophic changes on the planet that they were the cause of and that they are supposed to bear the consequences of on their own.
Despite the trifling reasons behind underdevelopment in Africa, it is the witnessed influx of foreigners and investors who took advantage of our intelligence and policies to enrich themselves that is also responsible for the weak state capacity it faces.
Am saying so because if African leaders were to converge and abide strictly to the laws and institute policies that engages and enriches its citizens by patronizing home developed products and technology, underdevelopment would become literally extinct from the African vocabulary.