a new approach to Africa

september'08

The social and economic statistics for countries in sub-Saharan Africa are nothing short of scandalous:-

77% of people live on <$2 (£1) per day; in the UK we earn $180 (£90) per day

only 55% of people have access to safe water and only 33% have proper sanitation yet the African development Bank calculates that just 3.8% of Africa's water resources are developed

34% of the population go to bed hungry every night yet Africa's farmers -70% of people are subsistence farmers - could grow 3 times more food if they had access to better fertilisers and improved seeds

33% of children are out of school

life expectancy is 47 years and falling; only 1 in 3 people have access to medical facilities

only 12% of roads are paved

78% of homes have no electricity

90% of Africans have no bank account

only 1 in 6 projects set up by the World Bank in Africa continue after funding ceases

Add to this list a lack of civil liberties - no freedom of speech, rigged elections, an emasculated media, no property rights and widespread flouting of the rule of law - and there is precious little for Africans to celebrate at a time when many countries on the continent are about to reach 50 years of being independent.

These are grim and shocking figures reflecting life so very different from our own on an entire sub-continent. But why has it come to this when so many poor countries in other parts of the world have done so much better?

It cannot be because of the lack of overseas aid given by rich nations for $500bn (£250bn) has been invested in Africa in the last 50 years along with substantial debt cancellation. It cannot be because of international trade barriers as almost all goods and commodities from Africa can now be freely exported. And it cannot be because of climate change or bad geography as other nations have managed to deal with these challenges. No the real reason for the continuing vortex of misery in sub-Saharan Africa can only be down to one thing - lack of leadership. The majority of Africans remain poor today primarily because of feckless, incompetent, venal and often repressive regimes which operate on the basis of retaining power and wealth at all costs instead of seeking to improve the lives of their peoples.

The international community divides the world up into DEVELOPED and DEVELOPING countries but as far as sub-Saharan African nations are concerned that is far too ambitious for both of these terms imply progress. With ever increasing mouths to feed the best that can be said for most sub-Saharan African economies is that they are STAGNATING. And incredibly even then this does not capture all countries in the region for some like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe are UNDEVELOPING having left their best days far behind as their economies implode.

There is no better example of this failure in development in Africa than to compare Ghana with South Korea. When Ghana gained independence in 1957 Gross National Income per head was on a par with S Korea. By 1982 the ratio was 5:1 in favour of S. Korea but by 2006 the ratio was an extraordinary 34:1. GNI per hd in 2006 in Ghana had crawled up to $522 against $18,147 in S Korea. And Ghana is one of Africa's better governed countries.

This then is the state of sub-Saharan Africa in 2008 as the majority of nations there are about to celebrate half a century of independence.

On past and present trends then unless a major rethink takes place, most Africans are unlikely to be much better off 50 years from now meaning that the majority will still be eking out an existence as subsistence farmers in lives little changed since Biblical times. And unless the international community accepts this the problems of Africa are going to remain unsolved.

Yet it could have been so different.

The potential for rapid progress on the continent seemed to take a turn for the better just 6 years ago in 2002 when African leaders set up the African Union (AU) comprising all the countries of Africa except Morocco. (Morocco is excluded due to its continuing claims to Western Sahara)

The AU was formed with three main aims - to seek peace, security and stability on the continent through a Peace and Security Council; to promote democratic principles, popular participation and good governance and to promote and protect human rights. In due course it is envisaged that there will be a pan African parliament, an African central bank, a court of justice and a single African army

Shortly after its inception the AU drew up a plan for economic development on the continent - the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). In drawing up NEPAD African leaders called for new co-operation between Africa and the international community. In return for more debt relief and ODA and better trade opportunities African leaders promised to take responsibility for eradicating poverty by moving their countries onto a course of progress and stability. To this end they would all work to achieve economic growth of 7%+, promote good government and human rights, strengthen the rule of law and consolidate democracy. They also promised to clamp down hard on corruption. And to hold governments to account an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was also envisaged where fellow leaders would seek to pass judgement on the economic and social policies pursued by each government.

With the setting up of the AU and the adoption of NEPAD the governments of Africa then at last seemed to be willing to grasp the nettle and to start to lay the foundations for a better future for African people. However, as with all things in life, actions speak louder than words and in the 6 years since the AU and NEPAD were set up, progress in the drive to promote social justice, good governance and economic development throughout the continent is failing to materialise.

For example, although the AU constitution spells out the goal of promoting democracy in Africa this commitment is continually found to be wanting. Most nations there do hold periodic elections for president and in some countries leaders are even limited to 2 terms in office but most elections there continue to be a farce. Close study of these polls show that due to a combination of excluding leading opposition figures, political harassment, vote buying and ballot rigging governing parties are singularly adept at holding on to power ensuring little if anything changes. Excluding the 6 island nations, the last time a ruling party stood and failed to get re-elected in sub-Saharan Africa was in Kenya in December 2002 when a 'rainbow' coalition of opposition parties led by Mwai Kibaki managed to thwart President Arap Moi's ambitions for continuing in office. (Ironically this almost certainly happened again in Kenya in December 2007 but Kibaki managed to cajole Raul Odinga, the leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, into a power-sharing agreement.) In total, so far, in the 40 years since independence swept through the continent, only on 8 occasions have governing parties failed to get re-elected in presidential elections.

At the same time, although every government in Africa agreed to the aims of NEPAD in principle, most of them are sitting on their hands when it comes to implementation. And now more than 6 years later only 28 African countries have signed up to the APRM and only seven countries, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria, Benin and Uganda have been publicly reviewed.

The entire continent also suffers when the AU is seen as weak and unwilling to censure wayward members. This can be seen in its inability to insist that Ethiopia abides by the UN ruling in its border dispute with Eritrea and when the AU refuses to suspend the government of Sudan for failing to protect the inhabitants of Darfur. And what kind of message does it send to the outside world when the AU allows Robert Mugabe to sanction economic meltdown in Zimbabwe leading to wanton fear and distress for his people. What is torn apart in a few years takes decades to rebuild but what the AU also fails to understand is that the harm done in one African country resonates throughout the entire continent sending potential investors elsewhere leaving not only Africans deprived of improving living standards but also the international community exasperated.

This paucity of effort by most African governments to implement their own (African Union) plans for more open government, economic progress and poverty reduction is the real tragedy for the people of Africa. For too many African leaders still appear to put their own interests and those of their families and friends ahead of duty to their country. And no government, not even Thabo Mbeki's in South Africa, seems to want to take a stand against this widespread dereliction of duty as there appears to be an unwritten rule that fellow leaders will not criticise their peers. This senile genuflection then leads to continuing abuse of power and staggering economic mismanagement leaving Africans paralysed in perpetual poverty.

Against this backdrop then can governments and people in the outside world do anything to encourage positive change in sub-Saharan Africa? Fortunately the answer is yes.

The first thing we need to do is to get right to the heart of the matter - to establish which governments in sub-Saharan Africa are at least trying to put in place the right policies for both economic development and social justice.

To this end, using a series of independent international *surveys available on the internet, just1WORLD has devised a league table based on four **criteria-

1) political rights/civil liberties,
2) economic freedom,
3) corruption perceptions
4) media freedom

- all of which ironically are measures strongly advocated in the AU constitution and the NEPAD plan.

As all four surveys are based on indicators of civil liberties and economic management, the score for each country is not dependent on how wealthy it is or even its position in the latest UNDP Human Development Index. Thus, if any government is serious in laying secure foundations for the advancement of its people there is no reason why even the poorest country should not figure prominently in this league table.

In order to compile this league table on sub-Saharan African governments the various scores given to a country in each survey have been converted to a score out of 10 and then all 4 added together to reach an individual total for each country (max score 40). The figures used are all based on surveys for 2007. And in order to compare progress in each country (or the lack of it) since the AU and NEPAD were set up in 2002 each country's score in that year is also recorded.

league table

This league table then opens the curtain on the dark continent and shines light on those African governments which are genuinely putting in place policies which should lead to progress. At the same time it flags up governments which are flagrantly disregarding the needs of their peoples. And this wide range of commitment requires to be taken on board by all in the international community - OECD governments, international NGO's, promoters of the Make Poverty History campaign, rock stars, church leaders and all who long to see justice for the world's poor - so that the causes of the enduring poverty in Africa are better understood.

So having gleaned this important information on individual governments in Africa how should we in the rich world use it to good effect?

1) OECD governments could immediately encourage more responsible government in Africa by using performance targets similar to those shown above in the way they distribute ODA. Taking the league table as an example OECD countries could agree to give untied aid in the form of direct budget support to any countries they wished to help which, say, score 20 or better whilst, at the same time, encouraging them to improve their score year-on-year. Countries below 20 could still receive ODA but only through aid given for a particular purpose e.g. teachers' salaries paid directly to each school, building classrooms, providing free school meals/ text books, training teachers etc; searching and sourcing clean water; helping to establish better telecommunications etc. Here again each country would be encouraged to improve their performance and once a country reached a score of '20', it, too, would qualify for direct budget support. (Relief aid e.g. for victims of famine and natural disasters etc would continue to be given to all countries whenever it was needed through UN agencies and NGO's)

By making it known that freely-available and transparent indicators would be taken into account in deciding how aid was allocated, rich countries would send out a strong message to governments in sub-Saharan Africa that their policies are going to be continually under scrutiny. This would then push countries there into starting to take more interest in the needs of their people. At the same time, knowing that the international community was backing more effective government, opposition parties and civil society throughout Africa would gain in strength and confidence.

2) Another positive way forward would be to encourage international companies working in Africa to implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

Revenues from oil, mining and timber in the form of taxes, royalties etc should be an important engine in economic growth and social development in Africa. But lack of accountability and openness in these payments often leads to inept government, corruption and conflict around the world. According to the World Bank overall living standards in countries with abundant natural resources given their per capita income are exceptionally low. This has come about because hundreds of millions of dollars in payments from international companies involved in extracting natural resources go straight to governments or government-owned entities in these countries and a lack of accountability and transparency has enabled large amounts to be redirected offshore.

In order, then, for people in poor countries to be better able to hold their governments to account all international companies with extraction interests in the developing world should adopt EITI and publish in the main national newspapers of each country the amount paid to that country's government in royalties. At the same time these international companies should also list the amounts paid every year to each country in the developing world in their annual report to shareholders.

These two steps can be used to influence positive government in the developing world and both ideas should be universally adopted by OECD governments and international companies.

But Africa, as we have seen, is now so far behind most of the rest of the world that more, much more, needs to be attempted if the continent is to break the mould of 50 years and start to rapidly advance.

So here is the final suggestion for constructively helping Africans attain a better quality of life.

If all the promises made at the G8 meeting at Gleneagles in 2005 materialise it is estimated that aid to Africa will double by 2010 and that EU member states will provide two thirds. At the same time the EU Commission has recently recommended that member states start to co-ordinate the delivery of aid. This then hopefully should see EU nations working together with ever increasing amounts of money to ensure a coherent and effective approach to international development. This is positive thinking. But what would be better still would be for EU nations to get right into the heart of African countries' development plans by offering the increase in ODA not in monetary terms but in expertise in administrative and technical fields.

Africa has had a brain drain in the shape of teachers, doctors and scientists for too long. It is time to turn round this huge loss of human talent from the continent by sending expertise there in the shape of engineers, scientists, agronomists, hydrologists, etc from EU states in order to help advise farmers on better seed varieties/ fertilisers, search and secure sources of water, exploit solar power, help to improve physical infrastructure and develop telecommunications. Assistance with advice on encouraging the growth of small businesses and cutting bureaucracy could also be considered along with support in the provision of health and education. And in carrying out these numerous tasks to help development nationals of each country could be trained in the various skills on the job.

(The loss of skilled people in Africa is no better demonstrated than in Zimbabwe. Although Mugabe portrays his farmland policy as land redistribution from Whites to Blacks it is in fact in economic terms a loss of 4,000 highly skilled farmers. As a result Zimbabwe has gone from being the bread-basket of all of southern Africa to being an economic basket-case where half the population of the country go to bread hungry every night.)

This provision of trained people should be co-ordinated through the EU rather than by individual EU nations to avoid duplication and to ensure that best practice is used. At the same time this practical help should be guaranteed for several years and certainly until all major projects undertaken by EU experts are completed.

Giving a large part of overseas aid in this way would be a major boost for poor countries and it would show international co-operation at its best with rich countries 'getting their hands dirty' in practical development in efforts to help the nations of sub-Saharan Africa reach the UN Millennium Development Goals set to be achieved by 2015. (see GLOBALISATION)

For far too long the lives of the majority of Africans have been made miserable by the poverty of leadership shown by too many governments on that continent which the outside world has ignored. And if the people of countries from Angola to Zimbabwe are sooner rather than later to put the debilitating effects of disease, lack of clean water, misery and famine behind them all of us in the international community - governments, international corporations, aid agencies, churches, Make Poverty History campaigners - must now play our part and together start to question the motives of those governments which singularly lack ambition. At the same time all of us should realise the enormous task involved in trying to attain the Millennium Development Goals and support not only increased overseas ODA, debt relief and fairer trade but also the idea that widespread practical assistance will be of paramount importance.

For then, and only then, can the war on poverty start to be won; then, and only then, will the people of Africa be able to look forward to a more prosperous future and then, and only then, will the international community be sure that it will no longer have to witness the harrowing scenes of destitution, hunger and oppression which today are so regularly thrust into our living space through the media.

==================================

* for POLITICAL RIGHTS/ CIVIL LIBERTIES we have used the 2 surveys produced under these headings by Freedom House and taken the average. They can be found at www.freedomhouse.org

* for ECONOMIC FREEDOM we have used the survey by The World Bank at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi2007

* for CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS we have used the survey by Transparency International which is found at www.transparency.org

* for MEDIA FREEDOM we have again used the survey found at www.worldaudit.org

**SURVEYS

1) The right to vote in free and fair elections - political rights - offers the people the opportunity to get rid of poor government. At the same time political rights allows political parties to campaign freely with equal access to the media. And at election time they should guarantee no intimidation and open and transparent counting of the ballots. In this way the people will get the government of their choice. And under this system of free and fair elections the government which is elected will know that it has to perform for all of the people if it is to get re-elected next time. At present little change occurs in African elections as governing parties through a combination of intimidation and corruption win time after time after time. (the last governing party to fall in mainland Africa was in Kenya in 2002)

Along with political rights, civil liberties will measure progress towards freedom of speech, free trade unions, free religious expression and gender equality. And these human rights should be enshrined in the rule of law which should be upheld by an independent judiciary and police force. Strong independent institutions like universities should also be encouraged.

2) Economic freedom. In his book 'The Mystery of Capital' Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian economist, suggests that the main problem for the developing world in trying to establish fast-track economic growth is the inability of people there to raise capital. Yet he states that the poorest people in the developing world are sitting on phenomenal amounts of savings. However, these savings are held in imperfect forms in the shape of homes built on land which are unrecorded, crops growing in fields with no title deeds and businesses set-up outside the law due to cumbersome bureaucracy. As a result most Africans still live as subsistence farmers which they have done for centuries as they are unable to inject life into their fixed assets as loans and mortgages cannot be raised against them. Governments in poor countries then must commit to private enterprise - the key to economic growth - by allowing poor people to own their land, making it easy to register their homes and businesses, enforcing contracts, fostering skills and encouraging the setting up of micro-credit institutions.

Cutting red tape is also paramount. For example, it takes 2 days to incorporate a business in Canada but 5 months in Mozambique; in Sierra Leone it costs 1200% of average income to start a business whilst in Denmark it costs nothing; in Ethiopia an entrepreneur must deposit the equivalent of 18 years average income in a bank account which is then frozen in order to register his own company and in Nigeria just to sell a property involves 21 procedures and takes 9 months. All of this red tape hampers inward investment and the creation of employment on a continent where it is estimated that every job supports from between 6-10 people.

Other factors furthering the goal of economic freedom would include the independence of the central bank whose dual mandate would be to set interest rates appropriate for controlling inflation whilst laying the conditions for fast economic growth. Governments should also look to establish fair taxation and a balanced budget.

3) Corruption is the curse of Africa. In a hastily withdrawn report by the African Union in 2004 it was estimated that Africa foregoes $150bn per annum through corruption - 18% of the continent's Gross National Income. Corruption hurts poor people most and comes in many forms - when health staff demand bribes for medicines, teachers for enrolling children in school or local government officials for providing water connections. As well as robbing people of their wealth, it undercuts the state's ability to raise revenues, leads to higher taxes, poisons human relations, paralyses initiative, discourages investment, encourages dealing in the black market, promotes conflict and destroys confidence in government institutions. Nothing then is more detrimental to a nation's economic advancement and it must not be left unchecked. In order to start to win the fight against corruption action needs to start at the top with the president appointing an independent body with the power to investigate any claims of misappropriation against any minister or top civil servant. And not even the president should be immune from investigation. Penalties should be harsh for wrong-doers and steps taken to recover the proceeds.

4) Where the state owns all or most of the newspapers and radio and TV stations and internet access is limited criticism of government policy is muted. Lacking this freedom of expression then governments will ensure that only the good news it wants the public to hear will be reported whilst bad news will be side-stepped. And in this way the electorate will be starved of the information necessary to form an unbiased opinion on government performance. Media freedom then is also of major importance in pursuit of sound government. Also in countries where there is a small opposition or no organised opposition a free media can take the place of the opposition by asking tough questions and highlighting injustices and by keeping government ministers up to the mark in the other key fields of civil liberties, economic freedom and corruption.

just1world@just1world.org
© 2001, 2002 Just 1 World - All rights reserved - Legal
Site Designed by IWS
Hosted on the IWSNET network