Belgium began to plan for gradual decolonization of Congo through ten-year plans for economic development, aided by the commodity boom. The first plan was introduced in 1949. The pace of reform, however, remained very slow, and was overtaken by emerging nationalist movements.
Sixty percent of the doctors in the Cameroon were Africans. The Portuguese program of assimilating “Westernized” Africans into Portuguese citizenship proved a failure. Out of a population of 3 million, only 30,000 fit the Portuguese category of assimilado, which entitled them to escape the harsh labor and legal regime for Africans.
The Kitawala Movement, originally based on an Africanized version of the apocalyptic doctrine of the American Watch Tower movement, spread in the lower Congo.
