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Apartheid, lack of economic resources, government instability, and war, issues affecting Africa in the postcolonial period, have all played a part in creating a difficult environment for continental games to take root in Africa.
The first attempts to organize games for the African continent occurred from 1925 to 1929. At the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Rome in 1923, a plan was unveiled to create regional games in Africa, to be held biennially. Algiers, Algeria, was to hold the first games in 1925, but this was too soon and the games were not held. The games were rescheduled for 1927 in Alexandria, Egypt, but facilities could not be prepared in time and once again the games were postponed, until 1929. Under the patronage of King Fouad I the games were set to open in April of 1929, when the British and French colonial rulers fearing that the games would prove dangerous to their power if African unity were to succeed, arranged for the games to be canceled at the very last minute. The new stadium in Alexandria was reportedly built in the same spot as Alexandria’s ancient Olympic stadium at the time of the Ptolemies.Though the stadium was not used for the canceled 1929 games, it made history when it hosted the first Mediterranean Games in 1951.Women were to be explicitly excluded from participation in the first games according to the published rules for the proposed 1927 games. However, women were to be included in lawn tennis in the 1929 edition. Over three decades later, after regional games such as the West African Games and the French-backed Community-Friendship Games were held in Africa, the African games idea was revived. On 12 April 1963, the organizers of the West African Games and the Community-Friendship Games of the previous three years met in Dakar, Senegal, and awarded the first All-African Games to Brazzaville, Congo. The original aim was to provide “a genuine means of fostering friendship, unity and brotherhood among African nations” (Mathias 1990, 16). South Africa and Rhodesia were specifically excluded from this gathering and would not be included in the games due to their apartheid policies.The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) originally protested this exclusion, claiming that the organizers would need to choose a name other than African Games if South Africa were not allowed to compete.
The organizers replied that the IOC had excluded South Africa from the 1964 Olympic Games over the issue of apartheid, and also noted that all of the nations of Africa could easily join the new Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) movement and not become part of the Olympic movement.The IOC took the threats seriously and began a closer working relationship with the organizing committee, in part so it could more closely control the preparations. China had planned a political exhibition in Brazzaville during the 1965 games, specifically to take advantage of the large crowds that would be present.
Games organizers made sure the exhibition did not take place as this would have been a violation of the rules set up by the IOC for regional games, which stated that regional games were not to be held in conjunction with other events or exhibitions, and “There must be no
extraneous events connected with the Games, particularly
those of a political nature”