My Beauty Best Teacher

Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie writes "...The western aid industry is a trap that locks Africans in the chains of dependency. Africans’ initiative, symbolised by diaspora remittance flows, is the key to liberation...The increasing aid flows to Africa that this industry advocates will, at least, “make northern-NGO poverty history”. Who else, after all, will implement all the new projects that will come? This conflict of interest, in which those arguing most loudly for increased aid flows are the aid’s biggest beneficiaries is inherently corrupt and corrupting. We disallow it in other areas of public life; so we should when it comes to the aid industry. The aid industry is helplessly dependent upon seeing an Africa that is incapable, lacking in agency, in permanent need of external direction. If all the flies photographed around those emaciated babies had demanded royalties for their appearances in northern media, Africa would have the richest flies in the world...",Opendemocracy.

In a recent interview development expert William Easterly stated "...Securing pledges for more aid is not going to make poverty history. What we should be examining is the aid industry’s plans to spend this new money because it has a track record of failure dating back to the 1940s and 50s. There’s been numerous and diverse attempts to buy the poor out of poverty but none of them have been particularly successful. So in 2005 we found ourselves ostensibly throwing more good money after bad. Above all, this is tragic for the poor...“There might be one billion people living on a dollar day but they are not a political constituency - they have no voice. They are effectively customers of this multi-billion dollar aid industry but lack the ability to give feedback and influence the type of aid they receive...At the same time, aid industry investors – rich country tax payers and the politicians writing the cheques – are ill-informed and far removed from the lives and daily challenges of the world’s poor. Therefore the disconnect that resides at either end of the development supply chain mitigates against change and reform to deliver the type of development the poor so desperately want and need..."
Via NextBillion

Richard Dowden a Director of the Royal African Society writes "...As the momentum for Live 8 gathers pace and the pressure on international leaders to deal with Africa's problems mounts, Richard Dowden argues that aid is not the answer.Many argue that aid creates a situation of dependency When a tsunami hits or war creates refugees, the victims can do with some help to get back on their feet wherever they are.Humanitarian relief aid will always be needed when disaster strikes.But the evidence that aid can transform whole societies and lift millions out of poverty is unconvincing.It can only speed up a process that is already happening.When we see scenes of destitution from Africa we assume that we can change things by sending money.But if aid could make Africa prosperous, it would have done so by now.Despite nearly a trillion dollars of aid since independence in the 1960s, much of Africa is worse off now than it was then.Much of that aid was spent by outsiders without consultation with Africans and with little understanding of Africa's ways or needs.Today the continent is full of abandoned projects: wells in the wrong place, factories without a fuel supply, roads that were not maintained.Impoverished by politics But UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown are proposing to double aid to Africa, promising a Marshall Aid plan, like the help America gave Europe at the end of the Second World War.The comparison is false.In 1945 there was peace in Europe and armies of disciplined and skilled workers stood ready to rebuild. All that was needed was the cash.Africa has rich resources but has been impoverished by bad politics - including our own policies.Africa's nation states that crammed old societies into artificially created countries have not produced effective governments.
It is impossible to deliver education and better health to Africans without working through those governments.The African countries that are well run, South Africa and Botswana for example, do not need aid.At the other end of the spectrum are countries like Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo which have collapsed as nation states and do not have any effective administration. It is impossible to use development aid there.Those in the middle that are not doing too badly, like Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda, are already receiving around 50% of their budgets from aid.That makes them more dependent on Western aid donors than they were in colonial times.Aid creates and sustains unequal relationships. Talk of partnerships is false.As one western diplomat in Africa put it to me recently: "We like it when they take ownership of the programme but we mean our programme. We don't like it if they start having their own ideas."No shortcut the aid business is an industry with its own dynamic.Much of it is spent in the donor countries in the form of consultancies and goods.For the recipient it creates dependency, undermines self-reliance and ultimately breeds resentment.There is no short cut to development. Only Africans themselves can bring change to Africa.States have to raise taxes and spend them productively in order for their countries to develop.Aid creates and sustains unequal relationships When state institutions are functioning in support of the people and the economy, there may be a case for helping with specific short term assistance but unless and until the local systems are in place and there is real commitment, aid will be wasted.At present lack of capacity and corruption prevent even basic services being delivered in most of Africa.Outsiders can run one-off projects like immunisation programmes but development has to be done by the people themselves.
Better alternatives Giving aid feels good but there are better ways to help Africa.We must pursue policies that create a fairer system of trade. Current policies and practices in Europe and America damage Africa's chance of earning its living in the world.We must end agricultural subsidies that distort prices allowing cheap food to be dumped in Africa and ruining farmers there. We must lower tariffs and trade barriers to allow Africa to trade more processed goods.We must stop encouraging Africa's brain drain, luring the best educated and talented out of the continent to fill jobs in the West.The British government could also do something about arms flowing into Africa.Weapons that kill in Africa's wars may not be made in Britain but arms dealers base their operations in London and are largely unregulated.
And London has become the laundry of choice for money laundering because Britain applies one of the weakest banking scrutiny systems in the world.We need to start treating money stolen by corruption in the same way as drug money or terrorism funds..."

Kurt Hoffman of the Shell Foundation makes the point that"...Poverty is about a lack of money. With a job and a stable income, the poor can access shelter, education and healthcare. Small enterprise is the vehicle to make this happen, but I'm not sure the aid industry alone can spur the creation of a responsible and flourishing private sector because setting up and running a business is not something aid professionals know much about"...Therefore the Shell Foundation makes the case for reforming the aid industry by applying fundamental business principles to enhance its performance and accountability. It calls on the aid community to give poor people real choice when delivering development, which in turn can be measured against tangible targets such as the number of pro-poor enterprises supported and jobs created..."

Samantha Spooner writes in the Daily Nation:

The critics of the aid industry have focused heavily on aid accountability on both the part of the donors and the beneficiaries, and on concerns over whether aid breeds poverty and is therefore not conducive to long-term sustainable growth.
While these analyses are both valid and widely recognised there is another insight into the potential inefficiency of the aid business which sheds light on an anthropological, more localised critique: Sometimes aid attempts to solve problems which are either created or misunderstood...[continue reading]

In the Kaufman Post

...the message from Obama during his current trip to Africa may also be properly interpreted as a wake-up call to the aid industry, which (with the exception of a few donors) has tended to depict a glossy and politically correct picture of what is transpiring in African governments, thereby masking a huge variation in governance performance across Africa, and, particularly in recent years, downplaying the priority of good governance and anticorruption for development.

Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie writes:

So, here we are again. Two years on from the July 2005 gathering at Gleneagles, Scotland, the acceptable face of African leadership is preparing to assemble on the steps of the Group of Eight (G8) summit at Heiligendamm, Germany for a photo-opportunity amid more heartfelt pleas to increase aid to Africa...Africans themselves - from the grassroots to the more enlightened governments - have similarly argued that their principal route out of poverty lies in the creation of more jobs, something the aid industry is largely silent about. Gordon Brown has been conducting his own, lower-level but evidently affecting, love-affair with Africa. We can only hope that, as Tony Blair strides off-stage to leave him the limelight, he will lay aside the temptations of celebrity to apply some of the medicine that has been good enough for Britain in the last decade.

Monique Maddy founder of Adesemi Communications and author of 'Learning to Love Africa' pointed out the lack of understanding the Aid Industry had (and still has) for wealth creation and entrepreneurship.In explaining the unsuccess of her then company she stated:

the real reason for Adesemi's failure and Africa's continental mire can be traced to the international development agencies that are designed to help the region. "Africa is worse off today -- in many countries -- than it was at independence, even though billions and billions have been spent," says Maddy, who herself served for five years as a United Nations Development Program officer. "As long as you have these kinds of institutions, you won't have any change."

for a radical departure from a system based on an international aid bureaucracy. "You basically have bureaucrats trying to develop countries," she says. "How many bureaucrats started Microsoft?"

As our nation descends into third-world dictatorships, I am increasingly finding myself unfamiliar with the overlords who control my behavior and distribute gifts and favors. I mean, I know who is elected into office, and I understand the bureaucracy and how that works. But who the heck is Ed Montgomery, what role does he play in our political system, and how does he get to be the one making major decisions and giving away money?

As reported by the Detroit News:

President Barack Obama's auto industry recovery czar, at the start of a two-day trip to a state ravaged by the auto industry downturn, unveiled Thursday an expanded business loan program he said will aid hundreds of auto dealers, repair shops and auto suppliers in Michigan.

Ed Montgomery also announced $10.3 million will be sent to the state for the redevelopment of aging manufacturing sites.

Earlier in the day, Montgomery toured Cascade Engineering, an auto parts supplier and wind turbine maker in the Grand Rapids area that has laid off 300 workers in the past four months. He announced that the Small Business Administration will expand a loan program to aid businesses like Cascade.

Montgomery also announced $10.3 million in new funding for cleanup and reuse of old industrial sites. He said it's the largest amount for brownfields redevelopment available to any state.

The money will come from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and will help communities to clean up sites known as brownfields, which may be contaminated by chemicals or pollutants.

Michael Holman writes in the FT about the Kenyan political crisis:

For the outside world, Kenya has been the acceptable face of Africa: a safe destination for a million tourists a year from Europe, Asia and North America to the country of surf and safari; a reliable base, in a tough neighbourhood, for a burgeoning aid industry; regional headquarters for the United Nations; and – less well-known – a country whose military pacts with the US and Britain have made it a crucial ally in the “war against terror”.

They did not believe it was ultimately in their interests to have a showdown with the barons of corruption. They did not want to upset what they saw as a regional “island of stability” from which the UN and other international relief agencies, including hundreds of foreign non-governmental organisations, operate – a thriving business that accounts for a fifth of Kenya’s annual foreign exchange earnings.

Dayo Olopade's

The Bright Continent will report a phenomenon that is not new but has been overlooked: that people are Africa’s most abundant natural resource, and that a long tradition of individual resourcefulness, creativity, and straight hustling is the best hope for the continent’s social and economic development.The book takes inspiration from the massive failures of the traditional aid industry—and from the promise of the guys selling Christmas trees in Lagos traffic.

Bunmi Oloruntoba of Bombastic Elements asks?:

...why Africans can't speak for themselves. Well, no African I know of has that degree of media enabled celebrity to combine with advocacy in order to amass the amount of soft power it takes to leverage and access political power in ways the Bonos, Geldofs, Brajelinas, Oprahs and others can. That's why they do the talking to the donors on our behalf and what I guess we find annoying, apart from them, is the how aid to Africa, under late capitalism, works better for them rather than us.
It's time to start thinking of the poverty fighting industry like we are learning to think of Wall Street, credit default swaps and the whole industry of debt creation; like the director of "Enjoy Poverty," Renzo Martins, alludes to, Africa's poverty is now a resource and it is those who have accumulated massive amounts of soft power that can leverage this resource to, on one hand, fight the same poverty, and on the other hand do with it whatever

"Cheap private schools are educating poor children across the developing world—but without much encouragement from the international aid establishment."
Clive Crook in The Atlantic writes about the research and experiences of James Tooley covered earlier.He poses the question, why have we not heard about this idea? :

This is not because his work is dull or unimportant. His findings are surprising, and they bear directly and profoundly on the relief of extreme poverty all over the world. (Name me a more important issue than that.) The reason you haven’t heard of James Tooley is that his work is something of an embarrassment to the official aid and development industry. He has demonstrated something that many development professionals would rather not know—and would prefer that you not know, either...On the whole, dime-a-day for-profit schools are doing a better job of teaching the poorest children than the far more expensive state schools. In many localities, private schools operate alongside a free, government-run alternative. Many parents, poor as they may be, have chosen to reject it and to pay perhaps a tenth of their meager incomes to educate their children privately. They would hardly do that unless they expected better results.

Better results are what they get. After comparing test scores for literacy and basic math, Tooley has shown that pupils in private schools do better than their state-school equivalents—at between a half and a quarter of the per-pupil teacher cost. In some places, such as Gansu, China, the researchers found that private schools serving the poor had worse facilities than comparable state schools; in Hyderabad, they were better equipped (with blackboards, desks, toilets, drinking water, and so on). Regardless, the tests so far show that private-school students do better across the board.

Carolyn O’Hara writes about China and India's rising economic involvment in Africa. "...The two Asian giants are pouring funds into the continent to find energy for their superheated economies and markets for their products...Why all the interest in the forgotten continent? A goodie bag of exploitable markets and exploitable resources. China has flooded Africa with cheap textiles, rice, and electronics. India has cornered the market in generic pharmaceuticals used to treat HIV and offers the hardware and software needed to get Africa on the information superhighway. Africa, in turn, is feeding the insatiable Asian thirst for energy: Both India and China have negotiated oil, gas, timber, and coal contracts worth billions of dollars...The burgeoning business offers African leaders an inside look at China’s and India’s enviable development models, which over the last decade have produced annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of more than 9 percent and nearly 7 percent, respectively. China offers a manufacturing model built around cheap goods for export that many African countries are eager to emulate. India brings other assets to the table. “India has shown that poverty can be reduced through the knowledge industry,” says Manu Chandaria, Kenya-based chairman of the Comcraft Group, a steel, aluminum, and computer software conglomerate run by Chandaria’s Indian family in more than 40 countries..." Worryingly so though "...neither India nor China pesters African governments about good governance or human rights. After Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Gabon last year, Gabonese President Omar Bongo remarked that, “It seems to me that the aid provided by certain countries is tied aid, [but] cooperation with China comes without conditions, with mutual respect.” This mutual respect often means looking the other way when it comes to repression and official graft...".Chippla recently expressed concerns on the the motives of the Chinese and in light of recent loans offered to the Zimbabwean govt by China the question needs to be asked on whose side are the Chinese, the peoples or the tyrants?

The Colonialism-Imperialism Paradigm Is Kaput
George B. N. Ayittey, Ph.D.
June 26, 2005.

Africas paradox is galling: immense mineral wealth yet inexorably mired in steaming squalor, misery, deprivation, and chaos. A few countries have sprinted ahead but Africas overall economic performance remains abysmal, lagging behind those of other regions in the Third World. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has warned that at the prevailing rates black Africa would take another 150 years to reach some of the development targets agreed by UN members for 2015. (Financial Times, July 9, 2003; p.1). Who ruined Africa?

The causes of Africas lack of development have always evoked heated emotional debates. On one hand are those who portray Africa as a victim of powerful external forces and conspiracies a group that may be described as externalists.On the other are those who believe that the causes of Africa's crisis lie mostly within African in the nature of government (governance) or how Africa runs its own affairs. This group may be described as the internalists.

The Externalists

The externalists believe that Africa's woes are due to external factors such as the lingering effects of Western colonialism and imperialism, the pernicious effects of the slave trade, racist conspiracy plots, exploitation by avaricious multinational corporations, an unjust international economic system, inadequate flows of foreign aid, the neo-liberal policies of the World Bank, IMF, and deteriorating terms of trade. Disciples of the externalist creed include most African leaders, scholars, and intellectual radicals. For decades, the externalist position held sway, attributing the causes of almost every African problem to such external factors.

In his book, The Africans, African scholar and historian Professor Ali Mazrui, examining Africas crises, attributed most of Africas woes to Western colonialism and imperialism. "The West harmed Africa's indigenous technological development in a number of ways" (164). Africa's collapsing infrastructure (roads, railways, and utilities) is due to the "shallowness of Western institutions," "the lopsided nature of colonial acculturation" and "the moral contradictions of Western political tutelage" (202). In fact, "the political decay is partly a consequence of colonial institutions without cultural roots in Africa" (199). Therefore, self congratulatory western assertions of contributing to Africa's modernization are shallow: "The West has contributed far
less to Africa than Africa has contributed to the industrial civilization of the West" (164). Decay in law enforcement and mismanagement of funds can be traced to Western colonialism too. "The
pervasive atmosphere in much of the land is one of rust and dust, stagnation and decay, especially within those institutions which were originally bequeathed by the West signal the slow death of an alien civilization" (204) and Africa's rebellion "against westernization
masquerading as modernity" (211). Western institutions are doomed "to grind to a standstill in Africa" or decay. "Where Islam is already established, the decay of western civilization is good for Islam since it helps to neutralize a major threat" (19).

Many African leaders also subscribed to and espoused similar views ascribing the causes of Africa's crises to external factors. In fact, since independence in the sixties, almost every African malaise was alleged to have been caused by the operation or conspiracy of extrinsic agents. This externalist doctrine totally absolved the leadership of any responsibility for the mess in Africa. The leadership was above reproach and could never be faulted. President Mobutu even blamed
corruption on European colonialism. Asked who introduced corruption into Zaire, he retorted: "European businessmen were the ones who said, 'I sell you this thing for $1,000, but $200 will be for your (Swiss bank) account'" (New African, July, 1988, 25).

In his address to the third Congress of the Democratic Union of Malian People recently, President Moussa Traore observed that, The world economy is passing through a period characterized by monetary disorder and slow trade exchanges. The worsening crisis is affecting all countries, particularly developing countries. Due to the difficult situation, which is compounded by the serious drought, socio economic life has been affected by serious imbalances
that have jeopardized our country's development growth. Debt servicing, characterized mainly by state to state debts are a heavy burden on the state budget. The drop in the price of cotton which accounts for much of the country's foreign earnings, has led to a great reduction in export
earnings" (West Africa, 16 May 1988, 876).

President Danial arap Moi accused the IMF and other development partners of denying Kenya development funds, thus triggering mass poverty (The Washington Times, June 3, 1999; p.A12). According to the Chairman of Ghanas ruling NDC, Issifu Ali, whatever economic crisis the nation was going through had been caused by external factors. He said the NDC has since 1982 adopted pragmatic policies for the progress of Ghana, adding that the macro-economic environment of 1999 has been undermined by global economic developments" (The Independent, Nov 18, 1999; p.3). Said the Zimbabwe Independent (April 27, 1999), Mugabe
rejects the criticism of those who blame the government for the economic crisis. It is, he says, the fault of greedy Western powers, the IMF, the Asian financial crisis and the drought (p. 25).

Naturally, African leaders would deny any responsibility and blame everybody else except themselves for the mess in Africa. The New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) echoes this orthodoxy when it claims that Africas impoverishment has been accentuated by the legacy of colonialism and other historical legacies, such as the Cold War and the unjust international economic system. Colonialism subverted the "traditional structures, institutions and values," creating an economy "subservient to the economic and political
needs of the imperial powers" (para 21). Colonialism, according to NEPAD, retarded the development of an entrepreneurial and middle class with managerial capability. At independence, Africa inherited a "weak capitalist class," which explains the "weak accumulation process, weak states and dysfunctional economies." (para 22). More recent reasons for Africa's dire condition include "its continued marginalization from globalization process." (para 2). NEPAD seeks $64 billion in investments from the West.

Frankly, this colonialism-imperialism card has been so overplayed that it has lost its relevance and credence. Even Africas children dont buy it. Chernoh Bah, president of the Children's Forum asserted that Africa's socio economic problems are a direct repercussion of incompetent and corrupt political leaders who usurped political office via the gun. "Some blame colonialism for Africa' plight while others blame the continent's harsh climatic conditions. I think the reason is the kind of political systems we have had over the past decades, he said. (Standard Times [Freetown], April 2, 2003; web posted). At the United Nations Children's Summit held in May 2002 in New York, youngsters from Africa ripped into their leaders for failing to improve
their education and health. "You get loans that will be paid in 20 to 30 years and we have nothing to pay them with, because when you get the money, you embezzle it, you eat it, said 12-year-old Joseph Tamale from Uganda (BBC News, May 10, 2002).

The Internalists

Internalists are the new and angry generation of Africans, who are fed up with African leaders who refuse to take responsibility for their own failures and, instead use colonialism and other external factors as convenient alibis to conceal their own incompetence and mismanagement.
Internalists believe that, while external factors have played a role, internal factors have been far more significant in causing Africas crisis. This school of thought maintains that while it is true Western colonialism and imperialism did harm Africa and continues to do so, Africa's condition has been made immeasurably worse by such internal factors as misguided leadership, misgovernance, systemic corruption, capital flight, economic mismanagement, declining investment, collapsed infrastructure, decayed institutions, senseless civil wars, political
tyranny, flagrant violations of human rights, and military vandalism. In fact, one can identify a whole lot of them but these will suffice. U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, himself an African, lashed out at African leaders at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Lome in July 2000. He pointedly told them that they are to blame for most of the continent's problems. Instead of being exploited for the benefit of the people, Africas mineral resources have been so
mismanaged and plundered that they are now the source of our misery (Daily Graphic, July 12, 2000; p.5). Earlier in the year at a press conference in London in April, 2000, Kofi Annan, lambasted African leaders who he says have subverted democracy and lined their pockets
with public funds, although he stopped short of naming names (The African-American Observer, April 25 May 1, 2000; p.10). During a brief stop-over in Accra, he disclosed in a Joy FM radio station interview that "Africa is the region giving him the biggest headache as the
Security Council spends 60 to 70% of its time on Africa. He admitted sadly that the conflicts on the continent embarrasses and pains him as an African" (The Guide, July 18-24, 2000; p.8).

Ordinary people are speaking out too. Said Akobeng Eric, a Ghanaian, in a letter to the Free Press (29 March - 11 April 1996): "A big obstacle to economic growth in Africa is the tendency to put all blame, failures and shortcomings on outside forces. Progress might have been achieved if we had always tried first to remove the mote in our own eyes" (2). Angry
at deteriorating economic conditions in Ghana, thousands of Ghanaians marched through the streets of the capital city, Accra, the economic crisis is due to external forces and therefore, beyond his control, then he should step aside and allow a competent person who can
manage the crisis to take over," Atta Frimpong demanded (The Ghanaian Chronicle, Nov 29, 1999; p.1). Appiah Dankwah, another protestor blamed the NDC government for mismanaging the resources of the nation.

By the 1990s, African governments had completely lost touch with their people; in fact, they were at war with their people. Citing "the credibility gap between the people and the leadership built up through years of mismanagement," Mr. Mohammed Boudiaf, the head of Algeria's
High Executive Council (HEC), lamented: "A large segment of the population has, I am afraid, lost confidence in the capacity of the leadership to provide jobs, housing, health care and its ability to combat corruption" (Financial Times, June 17, 1992; p. 4). Indeed, said Simon Agbo, a farmer in Ogbadibo, south of Makurdi, Benue state capital in Nigeria: "I heard we have a new government. It makes no difference to me. Here we have no light ( electricity), we have no water. There is no road. We have no school. The government does nothing for us (The
Washington Times, Oct 21, 1999; p.A19).

Rafael Marques, a journalist, jailed and convicted of defamation for a 1999 article in which he characterized President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola as a dictator, wrote: "The government has created a stateless state here in Angola. Each citizen is responsible for his own health and welfare while the government is accountable to no one. The MPLA and
UNITA are like two gangs and the people of Angola are innocent bystanders caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting" (The Washington Post, Sept 18, 2000; p.A1).

As a result of the failure to provide the basic necessities of life, the state and those in power have increasingly alienated themselves from those they rule and from whom they claim to derive their legitimacy. The growing gap between the leaders and the people has made the leaders increasingly insecure, sensitive, repressive and less responsive to the wishes of society. The mass of the people in turn regard the state and its organs with fear, suspicion and cynicism because as far as they are concerned, they are no longer legitimate or relevant in their lives. The government does nothing for them. Insecure African despots spend inordinate amounts on the military and security forces, subverting other state institutions squelch dissent, prop them up in power, and serve their parochial interests. The masses on the other hand, sensing their
inability to meaningfully influence the policies of the state and the behaviors of those in positions of power, develop apathy and withdraw from participation in the political process for safety reasons.

Government, as an institution that cares about its people and attends to their needs, has ceased to exist in many African countries. What exists is a vampire state, where the government has been hijacked by a phalanx of unrepentant bandits and crooks, who use the machinery of the
state to enrich themselves, their cronies and tribesmen, while excluding everyone else (the politics of exclusion). The richest persons in Africa are heads of state and ministers. Quite often, the chief bandit is the head of state himself.

At an African civic groups meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Nigeria's President, Olusegun Obasanjo, claimed that corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion (95 billion) from their people in the decades since independence (The London Independent, June 14, 2002. Web
posted at www.independent.co.uk). In August 2004, an African Union report claimed that Africa loses an estimated $148 billion annually to corrupt practices, a figure which represents 25 percent of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But these are gross underestimates. According to one UN estimate, $200 billion or 90 percent of the sub-Saharan part of the continent's gross domestic product was shipped to foreign banks in 1991 alone (The New York Times, Feb 4, 1996; p.4). Nigeria's past rulers stole or misused 220 billion ($396 billion) -- that is as much as all the western aid given to Africa in almost four decades. The looting of Africa's most populous country amounted to a sum equivalent to 300 years of British aid for the
continent (The London Telegraph, June 25, 2005; web posted). If this sum had been divided equally among Nigerias 120 million people, its income per capita would be at least $3,000, instead of the miserable $265, which is about the same as it was when it gained its independence in 1960. Between 1970 and 2004, more than $400 billion in oil money
flowed into Nigerian governments coffers. What happened to the oil money?

Eventually the vampire state metastasizes into what Africans call a coconut republic and implodes when politically-excluded groups rise up in rebellion: Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Burundi (1995), Zaire (1996), Sierra Leone (1998), Liberia (1999), Ivory Coast (2000), and
Togo (2005). Only reform intellectual, economic, political and institutional will save Africa but the leadership is not interested. Period.

Ask these leaders to develop their countries and they will develop their pockets. Ask them to seek foreign investment and they will seek a foreign country to invest their booty. Ask them to cut bloated state bureaucracies or government spending and they will set up a Ministry of
Less Government Spending. Ask them to establish better systems of governance and they will set up a Ministry of Good Governance (Tanzania). Ask them to curb corruption and they will set up an Anti-Corruption Commission with no teeth and then sack the Commissioner if he gets too close to the fat cats (Kenya). Ask them to establish democracy and they will empanel a coterie of fawning sycophants to write the electoral rules, hold fraudulent elections with opposition leaders either disqualified or in jail, and return themselves to power (Ivory Coast, Rwanda). Ask them to reduce state hegemony in the economy and place more reliance on the private sector and they will create a Ministry of Private Enterprise (Ghana). Ask them to privatize inefficient state-owned enterprises and they will sell them off at fire-sale prices to their cronies. In 1992, in accordance with World Bank loan conditionalities, the Government of Uganda began a
privatization effort to sell-off 142 of its state-owned enterprises. However, in 1998, the process was halted twice by Ugandas own parliament because, according to the chair of a parliamentary select committee, Tom Omongole, it had been derailed by corruption, implicating three senior ministers who had "political responsibility" (The East African, June 14, 1999). The sale of these 142 enterprises was initially projected to generate 900 billion Ugandan shillings or $500
million. However, by the autumn of 1999 the revenue balance was only 3.7 billion Ushs.

Now, their recalcitrance has transmogrified into extortion. Ask them to move a foot and they will demand foreign aid in order to do so. In 2003, some 30,000 ghost names were discovered on the payroll of the Ministry of Education, costing the government $1.2 million a month in salaries heisted by living workers. When Ghana demanded foreign aid to purge these ghost names, Japan ponied up $5 million.

The reform process has stalled through vexatious chicanery, strong-arm tactics, deception, and vaunted acrobatics. Only 16 out of the 54 African countries are democratic and fewer than 8 African countries can be described as economic success stories. Intellectual freedom remains
in the Stalinist era: only 8 African countries have a free and independent media. But without genuine reform, more African countries will implode -- Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Togo and Zimbabwe are already teetering on the brink

The slave trade, Western colonialism, imperialism and external factors have nothing to do with the naked plunder and wrong choices made by bad African leaders. The World Bank has nothing to do with monumental leadership failure in Africa. The IMF, which most African leaders relish
vilifying, has nothing to do with petrol (gasoline) shortages in Nigeria. Nor do Western agricultural subsidies have anything to do with why African governments cant supply reliable electricity and safe drinking water to their people. The slave trade has nothing to do with
Nigeria turning itself into the scam capital of the world.

The Flaws in the Externalist Position

The issue of Western culpability or complicity in causing Africas woes evokes such intense emotionalism that it often clouds rational analysis of our problems in Africa. Let us strip the issue of its emotionalism and examine it rationally.

Historical Wrongs Committed by the West

The Slave Trade/Colonialism

Everyone agrees that the slave trade was at once a brutally inhumane treatment that can ever be meted out to a people. The horrors of capture, the trans-shipment, the loss of millions of able-bodied men, the atrocities that were committed by European slave traders, etc. are all documented. We all agree to the humiliating experience of colonial subjugation. The discrimination against African natives, the exploitation of Africa's mineral wealth and artifacts, etc. -- we also agree on that.

Remedies

We may seek compensation (reparations) for the harm that slavery did to us. We may seek the return of the stolen booty. Ethiopia has just received its ancient obelisk, stolen by the Italian colonialists. But even here, African leaders have debauched the issue.

Back in August 1999, representatives of African governments met in Accra and issued a declaration: "Africa is demanding $777 trillion from Western Europe and the Americas in reparation for enslaving Africans while colonizing the continent" (Pan African News Agency, August 18, 1999). It added that the money would be demanded from ''all those nations of Western Europe and the Americas and institutions, who participated and benefited from the slave trade and colonialism''. Dr. Hamet Maulana and Debra Kofie, co-chairpersons of the commission, urged that worldwide monitoring and networking systems be instituted to ensure
that reparation and repatriation will be achieved by 2004. Problem is, U.S. GNP is only $12 trillion and amount asked- $777 trillion- exceeds the combined sum of the GNPs of the entire Western world! According to the British governments Office of National Statistics, The United
Kingdom -- that is England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland -- is officially valued at $8.8 trillion, a sum that includes all of its property and buildings, machinery, roads, bridges, planes, trains and automobiles. It also includes all the money deposited in its banks and other financial institutions. Plus everything on the shelves at Harrods (The New York Times, Jan 1, 2004; p.A4). So how do African leaders hope to collect $777 trillion?

We may argue all we want about the size of reparations but these historical wrongs cannot repeat, cannot -- be used to justify the cruel atrocities and grotesque misdeeds African leaders commit against their own people. Winning independence for their respective countries gives no African leader -- none of them -- the license to do what they want with their people and countries.

European slave traders or colonialists did not tell President Mugabe to raze down shanty-towns, destroying the propertied of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans and rendering more than 1.5 million HOMELESS. American imperialists did not tell President Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia
to order his security forces to open fire on student demonstrators, killing more than 40 of them on June 15, 2005. British racists did not tell President Isaiah Afwerki of Eritrea to shut down all the private newspapers in Eritrea and jail all their editors and journalists.

These leaders must be held ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. Historical wrongs by the West do not factor in here because they are a separate issue and CANNOT be used to excuse wrongful actions taken by African leaders TODAY.

Colonial Legacies

It is also agreed that the colonial legacies bequeathed to Africa were pitiful. What the Portuguese left behind in Guinea-Bissau, after 200 years of colonial rule, was a small brewery for their local servicemen. There was no social development; industry was not encouraged. African colonies were to serve as sources of raw material and cheap labor for the industrial machines of Metropolitan Europe. The colonial economies were based on export mono-culture: the export of one or two cash crops.

Colonial education was geared toward training male clerks for the colonial administration. The Belgians and Portuguese never encouraged university education as that would teach African natives of their political rights. When Tanzania gained its independence in 1964, it had only 4 university graduates.

Infrastructure was Spartan. Few roads and railways were built. Even where built in West Africa, they exhibited a dendritic pattern: Straight from the coast to the hinterland to evacuate some mineral or cash crop.

All this is true but heres the problem: After independence, we, African elites, did not maintain, let alone keep the little infrastructure we inherited from the colonialists. In fact, we destroyed them! Infrastructure crumbled in the post colonial period. The few universities we got in Ghana and Nigeria decayed. In Uganda, Makerere University used to be called the Harvard of Africa in the 1950s. By 1980, it was a shambles. In Zaire, the Belgian colonialists put down only 2,000 miles of paved road appalling for that huge country the size of Texas. By 1990, only 200 miles were usable. So who do you blame: the Belgian colonialists for not laying down enough roads OR Mobutu for failing to maintain the little that Zaire got? Later, we learned that Mobutu allowed the roads and infrastructure to crumble in Zaire because it made it difficult for the opposition to organize against him!
(contd)

Bryan Mukandi writes in the Mail & Guardian:

...the continent is notable for its underdevelopment. It is the focus of the bulk of the workings of the “development industry”. No other continent has as many development NGOs giving aid, conducting research, formulating policy and so forth. Africa also has a good number of solid universities, as well as some very good ones, many of which are staffed by people who could hold their own anywhere in the world. These thinking communities are meant to dwell on society’s problems and offer solutions. A huge problem in their immediate environment is underdevelopment. Why then doesn’t more original thought on development and economics (as well as other social sciences) come from Africa?

The sad thing about the bulk of sub-Saharan Africa is that very few of the ideas that are lying around at any given time come from within the region. Perhaps it is time that African institutions of learning stopped seeing themselves as being in the business of “training” people so they can find work in some company or another. Maybe their basic function should be to inspire thinking and alternative solutions to local and regional problems...[continue reading]

Yesterday Michigan lawmakers passed a school aid budget that slashes per pupil spending by $165, or about 2.3% from last year. That amounts to $2.6 million dollars for a school district like Warren Consolidated Schools. It is going to be devastating- that is a lot of money that school districts are going to be losing.

And yet, have school districts really been good stewards of the money they have already received from the state to teach students? Warren Consolidated Schools last year spent thousands of dollars that they are now desperate to have building a wind turbine for their magnet school in order to better indoctrinate students about green energy.

That's right ladies and gentlemen- even as a teacher it is hard to have sympathy for school districts that are facing horrible cuts to staff and programs when school districts around the state are blowing their money on projects like the Warren Consolidated Schools wind turbine.

And this turbine is not being built to provide cheaper cleaner power to the schools- at the cost of millions it will not even be able to power one single school in the district. Nope, this wasted spending is supposed to help the district with its plans to develop a curriculum on renewable energy for all grade levels starting next school year- and to make room for this curriculum, they have to cut from something- perhaps less science and math.

That's the full picture of what is going on in this nation now- the government kills all other industry in Michigan with high taxes, sends that money to school districts to build wind turbines, shoves environmental mythology down students minds, cuts teachers and programs, cries about having no money, and then tries to raise taxes even more.

Additional information may be obtained by contacting Mr. David Walsh, Administrative Consultant of Special Programs for Warren Consolidated Schools, at 586-698-4124.

I can only imagine what Africa must seem like to the outside observer, with stories of war, poverty, illness and so on constantly portrayed in the media. But to me and numerous other African entrepreneurs born into post-colonial Africa, these issues are merely a challenge that we must overcome in order to succeed.
Africa’s Cheetah Generation is ready to take the continent to the next level. We seek opportunities in commerce, industry, education, health and other sectors where we can actively and gainfully engage the rest of the world. We believe the days of aid are over, and are eager to prove our worth to our counterparts in other parts of the world.