My Beauty Best Teacher

G. Paschal Zachary writes:

The temptation to choose the path of gigantism is overwhelming, at least for an American business hero. Why Gates and his wife Melinda, who already have by far the world's largest foundation, with more than $30 billion in assets, would want an even better-endowed outfit, is understandable. Gates intends to cure some of the world's most awful diseases, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, that plague the lives of tens of millions of people across the planet...The Canadian health economist Anne-Emanuelle Birn has criticized Gates' foundation for taking the wrong approach on African health care by emphasizing technological fixes while ignoring the unequal distribution of resources common in African countries.
In a widely cited 2005 article in the Lancet,Birn wrote that Gates has "a narrowly conceived understanding of health as a product of interventions divorced from economic, social, and political contexts." She argues that Gates must inevitably deal with messy questions about government performance and inequities in African societies that contribute to the spread of illness as much as any technological failures do.

PSD Blog reports on enterprising ethnic minorities within African private sectors quoting Vijaya Ramachandran who has found that:

• The great anomaly is that in most cases African governments have, however inadvertently, created conditions under which ethnic minorities do better than African groups, who would otherwise appear to be in a favored position.

• It seems that network benefits from within ethnic communities substitute for a lot of the dysfunctional elements of regulation or poor government services, and other obstacles such as limited access to external finance, poor avenues for dispute resolution, etc.

• There is probably some degree of correlation with levels of corruption in general and the relative prominence of ethnic minorities in business, although I don't recall this being empirically demonstrated. This is not to say that they are more corrupt, but that in poor governance environments "outsiders" actually end up being able to deal more effectively in business over the long term. This may be partly because patronage networks change over time, or that ethnic minorities and foreign companies are not perceived as political threats, so their emergence as economic powers is less contentious.

• Ethnic minority-owned companies have tended to start larger, and grow faster, partly because they may possess some of the general characteristics associated with higher growth to a greater degree than other companies.

Larry Elliot writes about Africa's manufacturing challenges:

Textiles and clothing account for one fifth of Africa's manufactured exports (and in a country such as Lesotho, well over 90%), but competition has intensified since the scrapping of the multi-fibre agreement (MFA) in 2005 removing the quotas that had limited China's exports..."Development studies experts state that"...scales [of production] are low in sub-Saharan African plants, and many producers suffer from poor bureaucratic and physical infrastructure. But there is pervasive evidence that many SSA plants suffer from low levels of productivity arising out of organisational procedures, low levels of skill and inadequate management within plants."
All these factors are evident in Mali, one of Africa's biggest producers of cotton, which - in theory - could turn the raw material into finished garments. Yet Mali is one of the poorest 10 countries in the world. At a ginning factory an hour's drive south of the capital, Bamako, 97% of the cotton is exported to be turned into clothes. Marks & Spencer arrives next week to look at the potential for sourcing organic cotton from Mali, but will almost certainly take the raw material out of the country for processing.

George Ayittey of the Free Africa Foundation writes:

1) Never Forget Your Roots

Africa's traditions, institutions, and customs are integral part of your heritage. This heritage includes participatory democracy based on consensus, free village markets, free enterprise and free trade. You cannot reject this heritage and remain African.

2) Seek Ye First the Economic Kingdom in the Private Sector

There is nothing wrong in wanting to be rich, but nobody became rich working for a wage/salary, unless he was prepared to steal or embezzle, like the African kleptocrats. But that does not pay in the long run. Earn your wealth in the private sector by actually producing something, even charcoal. If capital is a problem, do as the illiterates do by pooling savings as in the revolving credit schemes.

3) Privatize the Universities

Africa's universities should be privatized. They may be given a fixed annual government subvention and then allowed to raise their own revenue and manage their own affairs. This way, they can uphold academic freedom, which is currently not possible with the head of state, often a military imbecile, as the chancellor.

4) Demand and Defend Freedom of statement/Media

Recall that the first critical step in problem resolution is the exposure of the problem. Without freedom of statement this is nearly impossible... "African governments are responsible for the underdevelopment of African literature. Among the four main problems inhibiting the development of African literature is the expulsion of prominent African writers . . . the absence of African writers in international debates, absence of integrative policies and lack of publishing infrastructure" . All African intellectuals must demand the right to free speech and defend the rights of others for the freedom to speak, publish and write...

5) Practice Intellectual Solidarity

Respect and assist members of your own profession, regardless of differences of opinion. If one is under siege, all wherever they may be --- in or out of government, in or out of the country -- must go his or her aid. You may need group assistance yourself in the future. And extend this solidarity to other groups fighting the same cause as well...
6) Demand National Conferences

When a national crisis erupts, demand that a national dialogue or conference be set up to resolve it, as is done in African villages. The national conference must be sovereign and its decisions binding on all parties, including the government...

7) Disband the Military or Cut It in Half

No African intellectual with an iota of intelligence and a modicum of Pan-Africanist spirit would support, much less serve, a barbarous military regime. Ever! All those African countries that imploded were ruined by the military.

8) Pan-Africanism

Pan-Africanism, originating from the belief that African countries share common problems, common solutions, and common destinies will remain a dream unless you learn more about African countries other than your own.

9) Set Up a Rival AU
The time has come for the useless OAU(nowAU) to be disbanded or for a rival body, the Organization of Free African States to be set up. It should be made up of strictly democratic countries. OFAS can be set up under the aegis of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

10) Selectively Repudiate Foreign Debt

Insist that foreign aid be given only to democratic African countries. Time and again, foreign loans are taken by corrupt, illegitimate and repressive African regimes without the approval of the people.

Guido Sohne writes:

In a connected world, indigenous knowledge is the extent to which one is connected to other people. Indigenous knowledge will create itself once those who can use it and those who can create it are connected today. Knowledge is also a function of education and prior access to information. Connectedness is a state of acquiring knowledge of all kinds

BusinessinAfrica reports on generalizations about corruption regarding the continent:

It does not take advanced training in economics to know that corruption is an inefficient method of allocating resources that also creates market uncertainty galore he says(John Mukum Mbaku). But corruption also has certain positive benefits. Corrupt practices are flexible and highly responsive to an uncertain political landscape and an often ossified bureaucratic structure. Corruption also bows to the reality that even mid-level public servants are supporting numerous extended family members, and that civil service salaries are inadequate to satisfy the many demands on a salaried official...If Africa is to have a well-functioning public sector, there needs to be a paradigm shift in how to analyse and build state capacity...“Specifically, African governments and their partners should move from a narrow focus on organisational, technocratic, and public management approaches to a broader perspective that incorporates both the political dynamics and the institutional rules of the game within which public organisations operate.”

G. Pascal Zachary writes about the Ghanaian film industry:

These populist films, while didactic and predictable, at least present an alternative to elite allegiance to the visual arts of former colonialists. In the quarter-century following Ghana’s independence from British rule in 1957, government subsidized filmmakers through a state agency modeled after the British Broadcasting Corporation. State financing led to the production of such minor classics as Love Brewed in the African Pot (1981) by director Kwaw Ansah.
In Francophone Africa, subsidies to filmmakers from the French government spawned a generation of well-trained and high-minded directors, including Ousmane Sembene (Senegal), Souleymane Cissé (Mali) and Idrissa Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso). These and other French-speaking directors made movies that were acclaimed by discerning critics in Europe and the United States, but rarely screened at home. The French justified African movie subsidies as part of a defense of the French language globally and the influence of France with its former African colonies, but African directors gradually began to mourn their alienation from their roots.

Aneel G. Karnani counters(PDF) C. K Prahalad's assertion about a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid:

We argue for the need to view the poor primarily as producers, not as consumers. Rather than emphasizing selling to the poor, we should emphasize buying from the poor. By far the best way to alleviate poverty is to raise the income of the poor. Even though the BOP proposition conceptually focuses on the poor as consumers, it sometimes cites examples of successful organizations that treat the poor primarily as
producers... In discussing solutions to poverty, it is useful to conceptually separate the role of the poor as consumers and producers...The poor often sell their products and services into inefficient markets and do not capture the full value of their output. Any attempt to improve the efficiency of these markets will raise the income of the poor.

Kishore Mahbubani author of "Can Asians Think?" offers his ten rules for developing countries:

I. Thou shalt blame only thyself for thy failures in development. Blaming imperialism, colonialism, and neo-imperialism is a convenient excuse to avoid self-examination.

II. Thou shalt acknowledge that corruption is the single most important cause of failures in development. Developed countries are not free from corruption, but with their affluences they can afford to indulge in saving and loan scandals.

III. Thou shalt not subsidize any product, nor punish the farmer in order to favor the city dweller. High prices are the only effective signal to increase production. If there are food riots, thou shalt resign from office.

IV. Thou shalt abandon state control for free markets. Thou shalt have faith in thine own population. An alive and productive population naturally causes development.

V. Thou shalt borrow no more. Thou shalt get foreign investment that pays for itself. Thou shalt build only the infrastructure that is needed and create no white elephants or railways that end in the deserts. Thou shalt accept no aid that is intended only to subsidize ailing industries in developed countries.

VI. Thou shalt not reinvent the wheel. Millions of people have gone through the path of development. Take the well-traveled roads. Be not prisoners of dead ideologies.

VII. Thou shalt scrub the ideas of Karl Marx out of thy mind and replace them with ideas of Adam Smith. The Germans have made their choice. Thou shalt follow suit.

VIII. Thou shalt be humble when developing and not lecture the developed world on their sins. They listened politely in the 1960s and 1970s. they no longer will in the 1990s. [still relevant in 2000s]

IX. Thou shalt abandon all North-South forums, which only encourage hypocritical speeches and token gestures. Thou shalt remember that countries that have received the greatest amount of aid per capita have failed most spectacularly in development. Thou shalt throw out all theories of development.

X. Thou shalt not abandon hope. People are the same the world over. What Europe achieved yesterday, the developing world will achieve tomorrow . It can be done.

NaijaBlog writes about the "Replication of Values":

If one takes a glance around the Nigerian elite, one finds that it is populated solely by corporate types who work in banking or have senior management roles within large corporate organisations.There aren't any other types of elite at work (for instance, there isn't an intelligentsia elite or a bourgeoisie chattering class). The more difficult trick therefore is how to lure back Nigerians who actually might improve the society with a different set of values - interested in ideas, culture, research and challenging social norms with more contemporary attitudes. I suspect this is a general problem in developing countries - how to create ideological development and inject fresh thinking into conservative societies.
The trouble is, those who are in power tend to select as advisors and thinkers those who share their values. So, in Nigeria, we have 'gender experts' appointed senior advisory roles who believe firmly in the evangelically motivated doctrine that women should be subservient to their husbands; or we have economists who hold that the way forward for Nigeria is to create sweat shops across the country. In other words, conservative, purely economically-motivated values attract their own. In societies such as this, people with fresh ideas will always be treated as outcasts and alienated, while mediocre talents with outdated views get rewarded.

Alex Steffen writes about Rwanda's Leapfrogging Vision 2020 project goals:

Transforming a nation's society and economy while building from scratch a new infrastructure is no mean feat. In some places, it may be that it simply can't be done in any short-term way, as Bono and the TED team learned in Ethiopia and some American entrepreneurs are finding in parts of Rwanda. Then, too, some of the kinds of problems that face many developing countries in adopting technology are particularly severe in Rwanda. The essential question is can basic improvements, from democracy-building to movement-building to transparent governance to the creation of a free press to the provision of essentials be better delivered in a nation with a focus on employing new technologies.

In Plowing the Sea "...Michael Fairbanks and Stace Lindsay argue that the tremendous advantages developing nations have in natural resources, inexpensive labor, and fertile soil have actually kept these nations poor. Their advantages — easily imitated in other areas around the world — have not been sufficient engines for growth. Billions of dollars have been spent to eradicate poverty; still these regions remain as dependent as ever on volatile natural resource exports and foreign aid. Plowing the Sea is the authors’ attempt to unearth and nurture the hidden sources of growth — knowledge, innovation, and human capital — that remain untapped in developing countries..."
via On The Frontier

Thanks Gilbert Porku!

The Open Book "...Building Businesses with Small Producers makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate regarding market- and demand-based provision of non-financial services to existing and potential small and microentrepreneurs and businesses in the developing world, a debate which originated in the success to date in standardizing and commercializing microfinance programmes..."

The Mont Pelerin Society has announced an essay competition titled, "Interested in Freedom"

Win a place at a conference in Nairobi on Freedom entitled

The Institutional Framework for Freedom in Africa

25th – 28th February 2007

www.mpskenya2007.org

This competition is open to Africans, living in Africa of 30 years old or
less on 31st December 2006.

Participants must submit an essay of between 1000 - 1500 words on one of
the three following titles which are taken from the condensed version of
The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek

• “The more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the
individual”

• “Private Property is the most important guarantee of freedom”

• “Competition is the only method of co-ordinating human effort which does
not require the coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority”

Entries must be submitted on an email attachment no later than 31st
October 2006 and the results will be posted on the web site
www.mpskenya2007.org before January 14th 2007. Everyone submitting an
essay by 31st October will receive a free copy of Imani's CD “Ideas for a
Free Society”.

The authors of the best two submissions will receive a fully funded
invitation to attend the Mont Pelerin Special Meeting in Nairobi, February
25th – 28th 2007. Hotel and registration fee paid, sharing a room
possibly, economy class flight plus $500

For further details please contact


Sandra Birago Duah
Administrative Assistant
Imani: The Centre for Humane Education
No. 231 Bari House
Flat Top- Achimota
P.O.Box AT 411
Achimota-Ghana
Tel+233 21 417 094
Mobile: +233 244 638 178/ 70 83 66
Email: sandra (-at-)imanighana.org
Web: www.imanighana.org

Nigeria Contact Details:
Tunde Oladosu
Research Fellow
Initiative for Public Policy Analysis
9A Adekunle Odunlami Crescent
Off Aina George
Ilupeju, Lagos
Nigeria
Email: tunde@ippanigeria.org
Web:www.ippanigeria.org
Phone: 01-791-0959
Cell: 080287 43607

Culled from the Financial Standard ,Nigeria Properties Online reports:

Property securitisation entails the raising of funds from the capital market for housing development, using the house to be developed as collateral security for the capital so raised. In other words, the houses to be developed serve as asset-backed securities (ABS) to which investors subscribe in the capital market. The investors are subsequently paid their 'dividend' when the houses are completed and sold by estate developers. In some types of property securitisation, the investors get annual dividends if the houses so developed are rented and the tenants pay annual rents...Through property securitisation, investors can trade shares held in properties built with their funds. This in effect means that an investor who wants immediate cash could sell off his shares in a securitised property. Property securitisation makes cheap and easy funding available for the housing sector.
This is because, through the capital market, individual investors could pool their resources together for development of property which would be sold or rented at market rates.
The scheme, if properly managed, could provide a positive turning point in housing development in Nigeria. It could lift the burden of housing finance off the government and private developers. Investors will now do it as a worthwhile venture, and housing development would no longer be seen as a social service which the government must shoulder. This implies that housing development would experience exponential growth, and the growing need for accommodation by teeming Nigerians would be assuaged.

Award winning Ngoma Miezi Kintaudi is the Director of the Sanru Rural Health Program he has been critical in "...helping the people of his homeland gain access to basic health care services, largely unavailable in much of the Democratic Republic of Congo..."In a speech at the Time Magazine Global Health Summit he stated:
"Today, the SANRU team is assisting the Ministry of Health to rebuild Congo’s health system of 515 health zones. We are supporting 75 health zones and providing health care for more than nine million people"

photo courtesy of Time Magazine

Jennifer I. Papin–Ramcharan and Richard A. Dawe write about Open Access publishing in developing countries:

For a number of researchers worldwide, publishing articles in OA journals is increasingly seen as an alternative to publishing in the traditional journals. In traditional journals, the costs associated with publication and peer review are paid for by the readers of those journals either through personal or institutional subscriptions. This traditional mode of funding the dissemination of research results has often been referred to as the “subscriber pays” model. But access to articles in these journals is restricted to those who can afford the costs of subscriptions, or the costs of acquiring copies of the articles by other means such as using interlibrary loan or document delivery facilities.

Alternatively, an OA journal allows all those who have Internet access to freely read, download, copy, distribute, and print articles and other materials. Of course, “free” availability on the Internet is only possible if “someone” pays for the cost of production and dissemination. OA publishers sometimes meet these costs by charging the authors (“author pays” a charge commonly referred to as a page charge). In other cases, open access journals are operated by researchers and/or volunteers and the publishing costs are absorbed by their employers/institutions and/or sponsors.

JSTOR the scholarly journal archive, has launched the Open Africa Initiative:

As part of JSTOR's mission to create an archive of scholarly literature and extend access to the archive as broadly as possible, we are proud to announce that JSTOR has adopted a plan to waive participation fees for any academic or not-for-profit institution on the continent of Africa. This plan affects new participants, as well as institutions that currently participate in JSTOR.
Program highlights include that:

• Access will be for the entire JSTOR archive, including all content added to the archive during the period of participation. Information about each collection may be found at Currently Available Collections and Journals.

• Access to JSTOR is provided via the Internet, using IP addresses that are authorized at the institution to have that access. An institution must have stable IP addresses in order to participate in this program. JSTOR will not be offering password-based access to Open Africa participants.

Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones make a case for a parallel 'Slow Race' in Science "...This 'slow race' emphasises pathways to poverty reduction that may involve science and technology, but are specific to local contexts.It recognises that technological fixes are not enough to achieve social progress, and that social, cultural and institutional inputs are also key. It sees science and technology as part of a bottom-up, participatory process of development, in which citizens take centre stage..."
via SciDev

A former Nigerian Attorney General, Bola Ajibola argues for a law on restitution to combat corruption:

Civil litigation based on restitution has its advantages, as the plaintiff needs not prove the case of unjust enrichment beyond any reasonable doubt because a proof of preponderance of probability is just enough, pointing out that it should be enacted as a law as is the case in England in which case the burden of proof does not lie on defendants to show that he had not unjustly enriched himself...the government must of course be the plaintiff because it is the public fund that the corrupt public officers are enriching themselves with, he said the concept of restitution may be traced to the development of the whole writ of assumption as far back as 1602 in the Slade’s case in England hence the doctrine of ‘indebitatus assumpsit’.

The Media Development Loan Fund:

In many transitional countries, independent news organizations are starved of affordable finance; credit usually comes at the price of compromising editorial independence. MDLF financing is often the only way a media company can access capital while preserving its autonomy. MDLF provides resources that empower its clients to make the most of their dedication to objectivity and accuracy, building solid businesses around the core values of independent journalism

In continuance of our focus on Diasporan Foundations we take a look at a report on the Mercy Foundation founded by Mercy Obeime, its mission is to "Restore hope through healthcare services and education". Imnakoya reports that on a recent trip:

All the participants paid their way to and from Nigeria, and despite the inconveniences and logistic hassles associated with organizing a medical mission of this scale; the morale and spirit of the participants was high throughout and they accomplished their mission successful. The turnout was massive; the personnel which included two American high school students, worked tirelessly from dawn till dusk attending to their 100-a-day patient workload.

The Economist reports on the suprising emergent success of Nigeria's Nollywood and the goverment's ham-fisted attempts at 'guidance':

Today, filmmaking employs about a million people in Nigeria, split equally between production and distribution, making it the country's biggest employer after agriculture...The industry has sales of $200m-300m a year...So far, the industry has grown with little or no help from Nigeria's government.

the government worries that Nigeria's film industry reflects badly on the country. “When I travel abroad, people complain to me about the voodoo themes and the poor technical quality compared to Western movies,” says Emeka Mba, director-general of the NFVCB.

Catherine Kuchta-Helbling writes

Emerging democracies and economies are struggling to provide their citizens with better lives marked by political participation and economic prosperity. Yet, excessively high transaction costs hinder such efforts. Making this aspiration a reality hinges on instituting democratic governance in the public and private sectors. Such a change will contribute to more responsive policies and will increase efficiency, transparency, accountability, and growth, as well as reduce corruption. Moreover, if citizens are granted a greater voice in the reform process, they will gain a sense of ownership over reform measures. This will strengthen democracy and help to build a broader pro-reform constituency essential to consolidate political and economic reforms.

Issa G. Shivji argues that:

The state itself has to be reformed and restructured. The despotic colonial and the authoritarian post-colonial state cannot play a popular developmental role. Its limits have been reached. The reformed state must have its roots in the people and must seek legitimacy from the people. It must seek a new social consensus and build its legitimacy not only on the economic terrain – development – but also on the political and legal terrain of popular participation, freedoms, rights and stable constitutional orders...Africa has to go beyond liberal to social democracy which would address not only the question of formal equality but that of social justice and equity as well...The experience of the liberalisation of the state over the last couple of decades does not inspire confidence or hope. Popular democracy, grassroots democracy , local democracy, new democracy, etc. are the new concepts being discussed and debated.