My Beauty Best Teacher

Brett D. Schaefer writes that"...To reach upper-middle-income status (gross national income per capita of $3,256 or higher), the average sub-Saharan African with an income of $536 would have to experience real compound growth in per capita income of over 5 percent for over 35 years.[11] To become as wealthy as the United States, the average country in sub-Saharan Africa must grow at 5 percent per year for nearly 90 years. Quite simply, without high, sustained levels of eco­nomic growth, sub-Saharan Africa will not close the gap with the developed countries..."He concludes that "...Foreign assistance alone cannot increase eco­nomic growth and development. Achieving these objectives requires the political will to implement policy change to expand opportunities and remove barriers to growth. Developed countries can assist development by encouraging good policy and opening their markets to developing country products, but success in development ultimately depends on developing countries’ adopting and implementing policies that promote economic freedom, good governance, and the rule of law. Only then will developing countries be on the path to economic development..."

Lucia Akosua Quachey writes(doc):

The fundamental importance of women entrepreneurs in promoting made in Africa goods is enormous. However, African governments and the private sector under estimate the crucial and important role women entrepreneurs play in production of goods and services and development of enterprises and the benefit to promoting made in Africa.
Entrepreneurship in all its diversity in Africa provides a dynamic and potentially efficient means of meeting the many of the emerging challenges of development and low productivity in Africa. The relationship between economic development and promoting the growth of the informal sector is in many ways symbolic. Entrepreneurial activity of the informal sector breeds innovation, injects competitive pressures and develops opportunities in economies. It is the foundation in many respects for broader economic development. African women entrepreneurs have a matured long standing tradition of entrepreneurship for centuries. In the context of promoting made in Africa goods, on-going reforms and rethinking of development will put women entrepreneurs in a pivotal position in relation to expectation

Africa has long been saddled with poor,even malevolent, leadership: predatory kleptocrats, military-installed autocrats,economic illiterates, and puffed-up posturers. By far the most egregious examples come from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zimbabwe—countries that have been run into the ground despite their abundant natural resources. But these cases are by no means unrepresentative: by some measures, 90 percent of sub-Saharan African nations have experienced despotic rule in the last three decades. Such leaders use power as an end in itself, rather than for the public good; they are indifferent to the progress of their citizens (although anxious to receive their adulation); they are unswayed by reason and employ poisonous social or racial ideologies; and they are hypocrites, always shifting blame for their countries’ distress. Under the stewardship of these leaders,infrastructure in many African countries has fallen into disrepair, currencies have depreciated, and real prices have inflated dramatically, while job availability,health care, education standards, and life expectancy have declined. Ordinary life has become beleaguered: general security has deteriorated, crime and corruption have increased, much-needed public funds have flowed into hidden bank accounts, and offcially sanctioned ethnic discrimination—sometimes resulting in civil war—has become prevalent. This depressing picture is brought into even sharper relief by the few but striking examples of effective African leadership in recent decades. These leaders stand out because of their strength of character, their adherence to the principles of participatory democracy, and their ability to overcome deep-rooted challenges. The government of Mozambique, for example, brought about economic growth rates of more than ten percent between 1996 and 2003, following the economic catastrophe wrought by that country’s civil war (which ended in 1992). And in Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki has strengthened civil society, invested in education, and removed barriers to economic entrepreneurship instated during the repressive rule of Daniel arap Moi.The best example of good leadership in Africa is Botswana. Long before diamonds were discovered there, this former desert protectorate, which was neglected by the British under colonialism, demonstrated a knack for participatory democracy, integrity, tolerance, entrepreneurship, and the rule of law. The country has remained democratic in spirit as well as form continuously since its independence in 1966—an unmatched record in Africa. It has also defended human rights, encouraged civil liberties, and actively promoted its citizens’ social and economic development.
GOOD APPLES
What has enabled Botswana to succeed where so many other African nations have failed? Some observers point to the relative linguistic homogeneity of the country. But Somalia, which remains unstable despite a similar uniformity, shows that this factor is far from sufficient.Others point to the century-old teachings of the congregational London Missionary Society—the peaceful, pragmatic outlook that is inextricably bound up in the country’s political culture. But this explanation also fails to explain why the same positive effects have not been witnessed in other countries with a history of Christian teaching, such as in neighboring Zambia. Nor are Botswana’s plentiful diamond reserves responsible:Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria all have abundant natural resources, but none has seen comparable returns for its people.It is Botswana’s history of visionary leadership, especially in the years following independence, that best explains its success. Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana’s founding president, came from a family of Bamangwato chiefs well regarded for their benevolence and integrity.
When Khama founded the Botswana Democratic Party in 1961 and led his country to independence, he was already dedicated to the principles of deliberative democracy and market economy that would allow his young country to flourish. Modest, unostentatious as a leader, and a genuine believer in popular rule, Khama forged a participatory and law-respecting political culture that has endured under his successors, Sir Ketumile Masire and Festus Mogae. Although operating in very differerent circumstances, Mauritius’ first leader,Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, held to the same leadership codes as Khama.Ramgoolam gave Mauritius a robust democratic beginning, which has been sustained by a series of wise successors from different backgrounds and parties.Both Khama and Ramgoolam could have emulated many of their contemporaries by establishing strong, single-man, kleptocratic regimes. But they refused to do so.Effective leadership has proved the decisive factor in South Africa, too: without Nelson Mandela’s inclusive and visionary leadership, his adherence to the rule of law, his insistence on broadening the delivery of essential services, and his emphasis on moving from a commandeconomy toward a market-driven one, South Africa would probably have emerged from apartheid as a far more fractured and autocratic state than it did.Too few African leaders have followed the examples of Mandela, Khama, and foreign affairs . Ramgoolam. Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, and Senegal are all showing promise. But in many other African countries,leaders have begun their presidential careers as democrats only to end up, a term or two later, as corrupt autocrats: Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, Moi of Kenya,and, most dramatically of all, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Other leaders, such as Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, may be heading in the same direction.
A BOLD INITIATIVE
To build on the positive leadership examples, a select group of prominent past and present African leaders who met over the last year decided to confront the continent’s pathology of poor leadership with deeds as well as words. At the conclusion of a series of private meetings(the final one of which was held in Mombasa, Kenya), they established the African Leadership Council, promulgated a Code of African Leadership with 23 commandments, issued a Mombasa Declaration promoting better leadership,and proposed a series of courses to train their political successors in the art of good government.Members of the council believe that absolute standards of leadership are both appropriate and attainable. Good leaders deliver security of the state and of the person, the rule of law, good education and health services, and a framework conducive to economic growth. They ensure effective arteries of commerce and enshrine personal and human freedoms. They empower civil society and protect the environmental commons. Crucially, good leaders also provide their citizens with a sense of belonging to a national enterprise. Conscious that Africa’s poor are getting poorer and that good governance is essential for successful economic development, the council sees itself at
the vanguard of fundamental reform in the continent. Its approach certainly goes far beyond the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (nepad) and proposals for the African Union. The Code of African Leadership, for example, says in its first commandment that leaders should “offer a coherent vision of individual growth and national advancement with justice and dignity for all,” implying that most leaders today do not. Other commandments demand that African leaders encourage “broad participation,” adhere to the letter and spirit of their national constitutions (especially term limits), encourage dissent and disagreement, respect human rights and civil liberties, strengthen the rule of law, promote policies that eradicate poverty and improve the wellbeing of their citizens, ensure a strong code of ethics, refuse to use their offices
for personal gain, oppose corruption, and bolster essential personal freedoms. This uncommonly bold agenda seeks to avoid renewed patrimonial leadership debacles, such as those presided over by Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Moi in Kenya, Idi Amin in Uganda, and Jean-Bedel Bokassa in the Central African Republic. The council is highly conscious,too, of the hijacking of Zimbabwe’s government by Mugabe, which has resulted in starvation and drastically reduced living standards.The council is chaired by former President Sir Ketumile Masire of Botswana and includes former Nigerian head of state General Yakubu Gowon,Vice President Moody Awori of Kenya, former Prime Minister Hage Geingob of Namibia, and a dozen other present and former prime ministers and cabinet ministers from Sierra Leone to Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. All are regarded throughout Africa as men of unusual personal probity and esteem and as accomplished proponents of good governance. The council intends to recruit additional members from the ranks of Africa’s outstanding democratic leaders, Francophone and Anglophone, female and male. Together they will serve the continent by advising international organizations, individual countries, and donor agencies on how to improve leadership. The group stands ready to assist civil societies in countries undergoing serious leadership crises. It will also urge greedy national leaders to attack corrupt practices and adhere to term limits (the current presidents of Gabon, Malawi, Namibia,Uganda, and Zambia, for example, have all had pangs of desire for illegal third terms). Next year(2005), it expects to begin holding special seminars for cabinet ministers and others. The council’s curriculum emphasizes constitutionalism, the rule of law, ethics, accountability,diversity, good fiscal management, coalition building, and the fundamentals of modern micro- and macroeconomics. Training courses will soon be launched.Whether the efforts of the African Leadership Council will reduce bloodshed,diminish corruption, and encourage more prosperity for citizens across Africa is by no means certain. But as a unique African response to the continent’s immense needs, this innovative endeavor is a promising, dramatic step forward.

By
Robert I. Rotberg

Reprinted with permission
Copyrighted 2004 Council on Foreign relations Inc. All Rights Reserved

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)

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong writes:
Prof. Ali Mazrui’s address at the 30th anniversary celebration of the Dakar, Senegal-based CODESRIA on the theme “Intellectuals, Nationalism and the Pan-African Ideal” reveals the growing talks, African-wide, about the implications of the African culture and the continent’s development process. The central theme of Mazrui, currently Chancellor of Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, address is twofold. Why African intellectuals are mediocre and why this informs their inability to appropriate Pan-Africanism ideals into Africa’s development process. I would prefer why African elites have not being able to appropriate African cultural values into Africa’s development process as other elites in other parts of the world have done in their development process.

Using the East African region as a continental reference, Mazrui, known globally as one of Africa’s leading thinkers, reveals how undemocratic political climates undermined Africa’s intellectual growth, and how, by extension, this impacted on the continent’s development process. Unlike other ex-colonies, such as Japan, of which Mazrui used greatly as an example to show how African elites failed to match their Western education with their African values in both their intellectual development and the continent’s progress, the trouble with African elites and the continent’s development process is that, the elites play with ideas are not informed by Africa’s innate, indigenous values or ideas by rather the Western ideas that they have had in formal schools.

Mazrui himself shows this contradicting and confusing state of the African elites in this statement: “Uganda had for Head of Government a person who had changed his name because of admiration of the author of the great English poem, Paradise Lost. Obote became Milton Obote out of admiration of John Milton.” While in the spirit of universal intellectuality Obote could admire Milton, his admiration for a non-African poet and the fact that he is a Head of State, may have let Ugandan and African youth to admire more non-African elites than indigenous Ugandan and African elites. The central issue here is role model, values, and inspiration in the development process. In this sense, Obote did not deeply help the growth of African values and her progress. If Obote had done so, and by implications of Mazrui’s own account of the mediocrity of African intellectuals, and greatly touted a non-African value not because he was educated in Western paradigms but, like most African elites, because either he did not understand African values deeply enough or was mesmerized by Western values or did not respect African values or was confused about African values in relations to the continent’s progress.

Still, Mazrui’s argument that “The capacity to be curious and fascinated by ideas has to start early in the educational process. The spirit of intellectualism has to be nourished from primary school onwards, but it can die at the university level if mediocrity prevails,” reveals that the problem of Africa’s intellectual growth is not only at the university level but also at the primary school level; where the values, images and examples which are heavily European-centred are formed. So, if the African primary education system is heavily Western structured, it flows and grows to the high school level, and then later to the university level; thus sowing a culture of mediocrity, in terms of African values not predominantly dictating the intellectual life of the African child early enough. It is in this sense, that Ghana’s Dr. Y.K. Amoako, the former UN Economic Commission for Africa executive secretary, has observed that Africa is the only region in the world where foreign development paradigms dominate her development process. Not only does this indicate that Africa’s development process is not “culturally close” to Africans, but also a revelation that African elites are mediocre in both their intellectualizing and their direction of the continent’s progress.

This has made the African elite mediocre in their own innate environment and in their development process struggles. The mediocrity has come about because Africa’s elites do not think deeply from within Africa’s values first and the enabling aspects of their colonial legacies second in the continent’s development process. Mazrui himself testify of the Japanese elites doing so in their country’s development process. “In this connection it is worth bearing in mind important differences between the westernization of Africa and the modernization of Japan after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Japan’s original modernization involved considerable selectivity on the part of the Japanese themselves (“Western Technique, Japanese Spirit”). The whole purpose of selective Japanese westernization was to protect Japan against the West, rather than merely to submit to western cultural attractions. The emphasis in Japan was therefore on the technical and technological techniques of the West, rather than on literary and verbal culture. The Japanese slogan of “western technique, Japanese spirit” at the time captured this ambition to borrow technology from the West while deliberately protecting a substantial part of Japanese culture. In a sense, Japan’s technological westernization was designed to reduce the danger of other forms of cultural dependency.”

This process should starts from childhood to adulthood based on a curriculum skillfully cast in African values first and any other borrowed ones second; more especially, in preparing African elites’ minds at an earlier stage: from primary and high schools levels. It is in this process that African elites, from their early formation to their university crystallization, will be “culturally close” to the African society, will be culturally close to the African’s progress in the continent’s development journey. By not being culturally close to the African society, African elites could not undertake the Japanese cultural selectivity in relations to their colonial legacies and the enabling aspects of the global culture, and, have, therefore, become both heavily technologically and culturally dependent upon the Western world despite their superb innate culture having huge technological and cultural values for progress. Writes Mazrui, “The nature of westernization in Africa has been very different. Far from emphasizing western productive technology and reducing western life-styles and verbal culture, Africa has reversed the Japanese order of emphasis. Among the factors which have facilitated this reversal has been the role of the African university as a vehicle of Western influence on African culture.”

The challenge for African elites today is how to overturn the contradiction they have caused in Africa’s progress by thinking first from within African values first, by matching African values with the enabling aspects of their colonial legacies and the global values, and by intellectually linking this “to the wider world of scholarship and science.”

The Nigerian Leadership Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit and non-governmental organization of Nigerians in the Diaspora. Its mission is to promote democracy as well as good, responsible, accountable, and transparent governance in Nigeria.
Its Objectives are:
* To promote a just, fair and stable political environment in the nation
* To empower our citizens to realize their economic and political potential
* To promote effective leadership development of our citizens in general and that of our political leaders in particular. This will emphasize high ethical standards, commitment to civic and social responsibility, appreciation and celebration of and respect for the diverse citizenry of our nation.
* To construct a platform for members to share their knowledge and expertise geared toward promoting good governance and economic development.
* To sponsor various activities which promote increased business and economic development as well as the political and leadership apportunities for our citizens through seminars, lecture series, annual meetings, etc.

As government becomes more and more involved with controlling the economy, specifically economic development, one has to wonder what this leads to. For example, Democratic Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm recently announced that her personally controlled economic council has decided to award $28 million dollars in tax payer credits for firms and businesses that her bureaucrats like and favor. This is all deemed 'economic development', and supposedly will 'bring in' $151M and create 1,254 jobs. How does this work in reality?

In reality, these politically connected companies were were successfully able to lobby government for special insider benefits will not bring in anywhere near that amount of money or jobs. In fact, I would question whether this $28M will bring in $28M in revenue for the state- I would be willing to give fair odds that the state will lose money on these investments, and the net result will be a transfer of wealth from honest tax-paying citizens to business interests, much as you see or saw in states as diverse as Syria (now), Germany (1930's), Italy (1930's), or Iran (now).

For example, Granholm was re-elected in 2006 on the strength of promises to rebuild Michigan's economy by supporting new and dynamic environmental companies. She said that under her direction, even though she had no experience in business or investing, she would direct state funds to build new environmental industries in our state by giving tax breaks to favored companies.

Take for example the solar energy company Energy Conversion Devices in Rochester Hills. This company makes solar fuel cells, and companies like this have had tax breaks and stimulus money thrown at it in spades. And yet, they are unsuccessful- which is why they weren't getting bank loans before the government stepped in. Today Energy Conversion Devices announced that it is laying off 70 employees and closing a plant. It's business plan, its means of being successful, it's only way to restore prosperity, is to get its hands on more government money and stimulus- not to be more efficient, not to produce goods that customers want, not to make our world better- but to get its hands on my money.

This is what the future looks like in a politically directed economy- it looks like Detroit. Look at these links for the sources for this post- here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: This is what a political economy looks like- federal stimulus money is flowing into Illinois because the President of the United States is from that state. 12% of all federal stimulus money has been sent to the politically connected state of Illinois, which is probably the highest percentage (I would guess that California gets a lot too because Pelosi is from that state, and Nevada probably got a lot too since Reid is from that state). Political connections=money in today's political economy.

Democrat President Barack Obama's economic programs can be best called "The Inside Deal." There is a long history of 'deals' in our nation, where the government expands unconstitutionally into areas where it is not supposed to be and crowds out human freedom and industry. These deals all have cool names- Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society- and as Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have jammed through considerable changes in our nation over the last year, it is appropriate that we give a name to Obama's economic policies. I hearby submit to the world that we call Obama's economic programs "The Inside Deal."

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. It is aimed to reward those groups that supported Obama's campaign for the Presidency in 2010, such as labor unions, public employee unions, teachers unions, environmentalists, anti-war protesters, Wall Street, and big businesses. Some of the programs that were passed by the Democratic Congress at the time to reward these groups include the stimulus bill, the healthcare bill, and massive annual budgets.

Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. Called by some crony capitalism, it is increasingly unpopular, and in the face of continuing recession in spite of (or because of) the massive deficits that marked the Inside Deal, this program was largely overturned by Republican Congressional majorities and Presidents from 2010-2020 (hopefully).

Hopefully someone will soon create a wikipedia article on this, describing Obama's Inside Deal in more depth.

The first 'deal' that was made between government and America where citizens traded their rights and liberties for the promise of 'progress' was the Square Deal. The Square Deal was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking the plutocracy and trusts through rhetoric and expansions of federal power while at the same time protecting business from the extreme demands of the rising communists.

Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had The New Deal. This was a series of economic programs passed by Congress from 1933 to his reelection in 1936. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. To see a list of some of the programs that comprise FDR's New Deal, see my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong.

The next 'deal' was offered by Democrat President Harry Truman, who presented a 21 point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare, including the call for universal health care. But in the face of peace and rising prosperity, the country decided that it didn't want to accept this deal, and the boom times of the 1950's and 1960's followed.

But Democrat Lyndon Johnson was inspired by the Fair Deal, and when he became President, he tried once again to make a deal between government and society whereby people would trade their individual rights and freedoms and liberties for some sense of 'fairness' in society. He called his 'deal' the Great Society. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The federal government has since spent trillions of dollars on these issues, and education, healthcare, urban areas, and transportation systems are now much worse today then they would have been if the federal government would not have stuck its nose into those areas and let human ingenuity and freedom and industry work unchained and untaxed.

Obama's Inside Deal represents then just the latest in a long line of usurpation's that have the goal of reducing our rights to life, liberty, and protection of property. Like our forefathers before, it is up to us to fight and overturn these injustices, least we be reduced to a state of tyranny.

Benard Wasow writes"...It was not access to foreign aid or special access to Northern markets that gave Asia its advantage over Africa...The external conditions facing these two great regions were similar. The North looked out for its own interests in its dealings with Thailand as much as with Kenya...Asian success was not made in Washington — nor in G8 summits. It was made in Asia. Likewise, we have to recognize that African success ultimately will be made in Africa...the burden of stimulating economic development, the burden of allowing economic development to happen without draining it away through corruption and authoritarian regulation, does not lie in Europe or the United States...The leaders of the G8 cannot bring democracy to the Middle East, nor can they bring prosperity to Africa..."

Amar Bhide and Carl Schramm write in the WSJ:

Mr. Yunus's ameliorative entrepreneurship however is very different from the transformative entrepreneurship that Mr. Phelps argues has been central to modern capitalism. Indeed, most of the ventures funded by microloans in Bangladesh (read Sub-Saharan Africa) are activities that were marginalized by modern entrepreneurs: They don't involve any economies of scale or scope or the use of new technologies capable of producing significant advances in overall productivity and incomes.
Economic development does wonders for peace, but what does microfinanced entrepreneurship really do for economic development?... A few small port cities or petro-states aside, there is no historical precedent for sustained improvements in living standards without broad-based modernization and widespread improvements in productivity brought about by the dynamic entrepreneurship that Mr. Phelps celebrates...In principle, microfinance does not preclude modern entrepreneurship. But in practice, we wonder if the romantic charm of the former might distract governments in impoverished countries from undertaking reforms needed to foster the latter.

Keith Hart writing in Memory Bank:

When I graduated to the field of development studies, the picture of West Africa’s cities was just as distorted as one you might get from boorowing a Manchester school perspective. Here the emphasis of the economists was on the new states’ ability to pursue a neo-Keynesian development program. How could ‘we’ (the politicians, bureaucrats and their academic advisers) provide the jobs and other needs of the hordes flocking into the cities at the time? It was assumed that such provision had to come through the bureaucracy and conform to state-made laws. My paper on ‘informal income opportunities and urban employment’ pointed to the wide range of economic activities that were invisible to bureacracy. But even I saw them through a statist lens (“seeing like a state”), hence the term ‘informal’, not regulated by the bureaucracy. At that time I assumed that the bulk of economic progress must come though public and private sector enterprise of a corporate type.
The informal economy was never adequately described or defined, but these days it is commonplace to read assertions that African economies are 70-90% ‘informal’. Certainly the deregulation undertaken over the last three decades of neoliberal economic policies have led to a radical informalization of the world economy, not least in Africa. But to label these activities ‘informal’ is to avoid identifying what they are positively for or how they are organized, by which social principles.
I would say that the last half-century has seen a massive transfer of population to the cities, where most people have been left to generate their own forms of commerce. The informal economy in this sense has been a holding operation allowing many people to survive in the city and some to flourish. Whatever is coming up next will draw to some extent on this sprawling self-organized economic activity. Our task is to find out more about the promising sectors spawned by such a development.

George Ayittey writes:

Economic development does not mean the wholesale and blind acquisition of the symbols and signs of modernity. Nor does it mean everything about indigenous Africa must be rejected in favor of alien systems. In fact, the true challenge for development practioners is how to use the existing so-called "primitive, backward and archaic" institutions to generate economic prosperity. These institutions can never be alienated from Africa's peasants. They are part of their culture. One cannot expect these peasants to suddenly renounce their age-old traditions and ways of doing things. Nor is such abjuration absolutely necessary, as demonstrated by the stupendous success of the Japanese. The Japanese did not have to become "Americanized" or "Sovietized" in order to develop.-Cheetah Index

CK Prahalad comments that China and India "...represent 900 million people in poverty, a larger number than the entire population of Africa. There are about 600 million in Africa who live on less than $3 per day. Why, then, do China and India evoke fear and anger, while Africa elicits pity and guilt?...Despite the magnitude of their respective poverty problems, China and India may have a chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals established by U.N. Their economies are following the lead of other countries that have raised their populations into a middle-class economic base. For example, between 1975 and 2004, GDP per capita in South Korea increased fourfold. Over the same period, Malaysian incomes rose threefold.
On the other hand, in those decades, per capita incomes in Nigeria declined by a tenth. Why? During the period 1955-2004, the West and multilateral institutions invested more than $1 trillion in aid and subsidies in emerging economies. But poverty persists. It would seem, therefore, that we need to challenge the role of aid and subsidies in promoting sustainable economic development. If poverty cannot be eradicated with humanitarian handouts alone, what is the alternative?...The G-8, led by Tony Blair and supported by Jeffery Sachs and Bono, believe that debt relief and a doubling of aid from rich countries to poor, especially in Africa, is the way to go. A less popular alternative focuses on the involvement of the private sector in poverty alleviation through the development of market-based ecosystems.
Irrespective of which route we take, we need to build an infrastructure to deal with poverty. There is an implicit aid overhead. According to Prof. Sachs, out of every dollar of aid given to Africa, an estimated 16% went to consultants from donor countries, 26% went into emergency aid and relief operations, and 14% went into debt servicing. How much of the remaining 40% escaped corrupt officials to benefit the intended recipients is not known..."
Via NextBillion

Basil Enwegbara asks "...Can Africans learn something from today’s Chinese and Indians? Can we learn that a strong market for goods and services is a leading cause of economic growth, and that market is itself a major cause of capital, investment, and technological advancement? Are we now convinced that economic growth is an organic process, involving many interrelated factors? What about understanding that even the banking industry and other financial institutions do not create the conditions for economic growth, since they are only important when an economy is sufficiently sophisticated to make efficient and creative intermediation between savings and business?...Have we now finally realised that a continent that does not educate majority of its young men and women in job-enhancing education (science and engineering) to prepare them as useful citizens is not building its future high-value carrying workforce? Are we still in doubt that Africa having the world’s single largest number of highly educated professionals in the US and yet they could not be made to work closely with their African counterparts—like their Chinese and the Indians counterparts—to help jumpstart continental economy is our collective sin future generations will find difficult to forgive us? Have we now come to pose the question: How come our well-trained scientists and engineers, those that refused to migrate are allowed to roam our streets without being fully mobilised? What about the understanding that the future of our economic development lies in the mobilisation of Africa’s entrepreneurs, especially our highly gifted men and women who have the psyche of economic warriors? Put differently, are we now fully aware that it is this lack of entrepreneurial dynamism that today separates us from the developed economies of the West and recently Asian economies..."

Franklin Cudjoe writes:

There is nothing egregious about the eight MDG targets. Halving poverty, increasing education, and reducing maternal and child mortality are desirable outcomes. The only problem is that in the poorest countries the goals will not be met because they are based on a failed development model of relying on external aid rather than internal policy change to facilitate economic development and growth. And internal policy change is resisted fiercely by the very leaders expressing anguish over the lack of progress because they and their families, friends and allies benefit richly from the current system, which focuses on securing foreign aid from Western nations to be spent on thousands of carefully schemed but wasteful interventions undertaken locally, in apparent pursuit of the MDGs.

For writers it is time to start exercising power with responsibility. The responsibility we owe the common people whose hearts long for development. We must focus on the real people and the real issues that confront them. We must make the economy strong and vibrant and empower the state to stand for what is right and make it responsive to popular needs and desires. The state must be a state for all. We cannot live these people perpetually at the backwaters of development. Sustainable economic development means that we must put these peoples at the radar of our developmental efforts. For writers, these issues must receive adequate exposure in our writings, be it fiction or non-fiction. We must write the biography of our country not as hagiographers

Continuing our focus on academia-industry linkages we take a look at the Makerere University Private Sector Forum. They describe themselves:

As a new vehicle for promoting value addition to the University products in addressing the Private Sector needs. It will serve as a central 'hub' for practical support and information dissemination, encourage and facilitate the University Departments by linking them up with the Private Sector in socio-economic development, initiate demand driven joint research and practice to influence development policy and curriculum review, technology innovations and projects at national and regional levels. Value for money based-practices to promote the Private Sector enterprise development is key in the partnership.

The marriage between the University and the private sector will ensure that both participate in the creation and running of academic programmes like training and research and stand to benefit from technological innovations generated by the academia.
This will also ensure that the University produces graduates who will fit the needs of the jobs market by being employment-focused student training, problem-oriented and demand driven research that include policy at the national and regional level.

For writers it is time to start exercising power with responsibility. The responsibility we owe the common people whose hearts long for development. We must focus on the real people and the real issues that confront them. We must make the economy strong and vibrant and empower the state to stand for what is right and make it responsive to popular needs and desires. The state must be a state for all. We cannot live these people perpetually at the backwaters of development. Sustainable economic development means that we must put these peoples at the radar of our developmental efforts. For writers, these issues must receive adequate exposure in our writings, be it fiction or non-fiction. We must write the biography of our country not as hagiographers

In PoliticalArticles:

At the time of decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s, the level of economic development in most of Asia was comparable with that of Africa. For instance, four decades ago, the per capita income of South Korea was comparable with that of the Sudan in Africa. However, since the 1960s, South Korea has achieved an incredible record of growth to become one of the 26 richest countries in the world and was able to join the trillion dollar club of world economies in 2004 while the Sudan is still one of the 33 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in sub Saharan Africa (SSA)...[continue reading]