Guinea-Bissau
Cashew nuts provide 90% of exports to population enduring four coups since independence; no president has completed a term.
Guinea-Bissau exists because Portuguese colonizers carved boundaries around a swampy coastal territory wedged between French possessions in Senegal and Guinea. The result: one of Africa's smallest countries, heavily forested, with limited infrastructure connecting dozens of ethnic groups to each other or to global markets. Independence came in 1974 after an eleven-year guerrilla war led by Amílcar Cabral—who was assassinated before seeing liberation.
What followed became a template for post-colonial failure. Since 1974, Guinea-Bissau has experienced four successful coups (1980, 1999, 2003, 2012), a civil war (1998-99), and numerous attempted coups and political crises. The 1980 coup installed General João Bernardo Vieira, who ruled until 1999, returned to power in 2005, and was assassinated in 2009. The 2012 coup prevented a presidential runoff from completing. No elected president has ever served a full term and peacefully transferred power to a successor.
This instability correlates with—and partly causes—extreme economic dependence on a single commodity. Cashew nuts comprise approximately 90% of export value and provide income to about 80% of the population, mostly smallholder farmers and harvest workers. Yet only 3% of raw cashew production is processed domestically; value addition occurs in India and Vietnam while Guinea-Bissau remains trapped at the extraction end of the value chain.
Cashew prices fluctuate with global markets and Indian demand; production varies with weather. When the 2012 coup disrupted governance, GDP contracted 1.5%. Tax revenues have declined since 2021 as cashew sector shocks transmitted through the fiscal system. Public debt reached 82.3% of GDP by 2024.
Despite these constraints, the economy showed resilience in 2024. Real GDP grew 4.8%, slightly above the 4.4% recorded in 2023. Cashew production reached a record 260,000 tons, though only 170,000 tons were exported by end of 2023 due to logistical and market constraints. Inflation moderated to 3.8% from 7.2% the previous year. The 2025-2028 outlook projects 5.1% average growth assuming favorable cashew production and infrastructure investment.
Geography creates additional complications. A poor national road network isolates farming regions; the seaport operates at low productivity; internet access remains costly. These deficits make diversification difficult. Guinea-Bissau has become a transit point for cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe—illegal flows that undermine governance while providing alternative income streams that substitute for legitimate development.
By 2026, Guinea-Bissau will likely remain caught between cashew dependence and political instability, each reinforcing the other. The institutions that could enable diversification cannot consolidate when coups remain viable paths to power, and the narrow economic base provides insufficient patronage resources to stabilize politics.