My Beauty Best Teacher

Ian Taylor writes

Clientelism is central to neo-patrimonialism, with widespread networks of clients receiving services and resources in return for support. This relationship may be likened at the highest (presidential) level to that of a father and his children whereby political legitimacy rests on the idea that government stands in the same relationship to its citizens as a father does to his children. Essentially, the father serves as the nurturer, teacher, and most importantly, provider to the nation and in return he receives love and support from his children. It is when he can no longer perform this function that the system starts to fall apart.
Crucially, resources extracted from the state are deployed as the means to maintain support and legitimacy in this system, with the effect that the control of the state is equivalent to the control of resources, which in turn is crucial for remaining a Big Man. That is what lies at the heart of the profound reluctance by African presidents to hand over power voluntarily and why almost all African regimes end in controversial circumstances. In most cases the democratic option is either absent or is not respected by the loser; the stakes simply are too high, as once one is out of the loop regarding access to state resources, the continuation of one's status as a Big Man becomes virtually impossible. Politics in Africa thus tends to be a zero-sum game.

Alex Steffen reports on Market-Based Strategies that Benefit Low-Income Communities. It lays out"...various challenges ("poor understanding of the human and social capitals of low income communities") and various approaches ("design products and services that tap into the wealth of poor"), it showcases nine solutions that seem to be working (such as, in this case, the solution of "acquiring technology through micro-leasing (pdf)..."

Ethan Zuckerman writes:

For Africa to succeed economically, Birdsall(director of the Center for Development Economics) suggests, nations need to trade with each other more, creating larger, more attractive markets and reaping economies of scale. It makes very little sense for each state in Africa to build their own garment industry… and even less sense for each country to protect their industry against their neighbors with tariff barriers - if trade between countries was easier and cheaper, nations could specialize in sectors of the economy, begin trading to neighboring states, then grow and trade with the wider world. But at present, Sub-Saharan African nations levy tariffs on average of 17% on trade with each other; OECD nations have dropped these tariffs to an average of under 4%.

Rosemary Ekosso writes:

I think a lack of dignity in adversity does not help our case. It causes us to lose credibility.I am not saying that noble abnegation and a quite acceptance of suffering are the right attitude. I do not aspire to sainthood, especially on behalf of other people. But we need to get out of this whining routine.
Things were done to us, true. We should remember them so that
1)We can recognise and fight them if any attempt is made to repeat them,
2)We will know why we are the world’s unwashed armpit, and
3)We can assess honestly where we went wrong.
Yes, we did do wrong. Though we did not invite the evils, and our own faults do not necessarily justify the evils being committed, our inability to counter these evils is also based on failures on our part. Did our chiefs not sell rivals and prisoners of war into slavery? Did we ourselves not own slaves? Do we not treat our women in much the same way as more powerful nations treat us?

Ferial Haffajee writes:

Increasingly we must realise that aid is not the answer -- or at least not all of the answer. There is no argument for immediate self-sufficiency. Not for the hungry people of Zimbabwe. Not for the displaced people of Darfur. Aid for humanitarian purposes is and will be necessary in Africa for the foreseeable future. But securing stability and sustainable wellbeing must come through other means.
What might those be? Fair trade and debt relief offer a far more sustainable path towards security and development...This will require much better terms of trade...If the barriers to entry into wealthy markets are lowered, investment could increase and employment could grow...In addition, our continent needs to harness its diaspora as India has done...Remittances should be leveraged: every year a whopping $100-billion is transferred by migrants to their home countries. In some areas, these remittances are paying a development dividend.

Dennis Matanda at the Sub-Saharan African roundtable comments on the Mo Ibrahim prize:

In a classic case of “African solutions for African problems,” Mohammed “Mo” Ibrahim, a successful London-based Sudanese entrepreneur and multimillionaire with more than $ 500 million to his name - he owned Celtel in Uganda until last year - is offering present and future African leaders the richest annual prize in the world. Announced on October 25, 2006 in London, the prize challenges African heads of state to govern and lead their people properly, which is where the Professor Rotberg index will come in...I agree that there is need to reward honesty, but to reward an African leader to do his job is like pouring milk on a fire when you can use water!

Calestous Juma makes a case for strenghthening engineering education he
"...argues for more engineering academies to engage young engineers and practitioners and generate innovative solutions to sustainable development. Africa has 12 national science academies, as well as a continental one, but only one engineering academy,Nationmedia.
via Scidev and TheGuardian


photo courtesy of the Guardian