Chapter 5 is based on the conviction that the problems dealt with in the preceding chapters need to be embedded into the larger multilingual ecologies in which they occur. Since language dominance has proven an important predictor of cross-linguistic influence, which, in turn, determines the acquisition of additional languages, including expectable benefits of previous multilingual experience, one needs to follow up on the factors that are responsible for language dominance. Evidently, these factors are related to or the result of various issues of language policy and planning – both explicit and implicit – that shape the language ecology encountered in a particular region, even down to the nuclear family. It makes a difference whether one studies these issues in traditional European monolingual ecologies where other languages are learnt as classic second or foreign languages, in de jure monolingual ecologies with high numbers of immigrant speakers of other languages, in bilingual territories where the two languages enjoy the same status, coexist peacefully, and where the number of balanced bilinguals is high, in bilingual or multilingual areas with minority languages or stigmatized languages, or in highly multilingual ecologies with a common lingua franca.

One of the root causes of the poor economic performance and fragility in Africa is the marginalization of the majority of the people, due to the absence of efficient and effective language policy and planning. Language policy and planning in Africa will need to focus on the management of multilingualism as a fundamental tool to achieve sustainable and long-term endogenous development. This chapter explores the nexus between language and the economy, and presents an economic situation that is directly impacted by the current language policies on the continent.