By Jean N. Lokenga
Executive Summary
Africa is changing. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), a mere club of dictators, belongs to the past; the adoption in 2001 of the African Union is a cornerstone of change not only in international relations amongst African countries, but also in the way Africa interacts with the World. Sub-regional bodies such as Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) and the East Africa Community (EAC) play a crucial role in the free movement of people and goods between countries. With Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), ECOWAS and EAC form the foundation of a promising regional integration that Africa badly needs today. As a whole, African economy is growing at the average annual rate of 5%. African economy growth has been outpacing world growth since 2001, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Funds (IMF). While overall world growth has averaged 4.2% since then, African economic growth has averaged 5%.1 Politically, African people enjoy more fundamental freedoms today than during the post-colonial era of cold war.
However, the current macro-economic growth does not necessarily translate into better living conditions for the ordinary African people. The daily reality is that African poverty and stagnation is the greatest tragedy of our time2. The MDG 2006 progress report indicates that 44% of the African populations live with less than $1 a day compared to 44.6 % in 19993.. The continent needs to address some key priorities to tackle the current level of poverty. The first challenge is the infrastructure vacuum. Africa needs to build and repair its roads, ports, electricity, communication, education and health facilities, assets without which development is hardly possible in any part of the world. Unfortunately, there is often no link between the high level of unemployment that the continent faces on the one hand, and the lack of basic infrastructure on the other hand. Obviously building infrastructure would first absorb and reduce unemployment as it gives jobs to young people who remain idle on the African continent. The second challenge is to reform and build democratic institutions: reform economic policies and address unnecessary internal barriers to business community; institutional and law reform creates a foundation for accountable institutions: who accounts for oil, mineral, tourism revenue, and public funds in general in Africa? The third challenge is related to peace and security as three of the four sub-regions of Africa are affected by armed conflicts. Africa needs functional police and military services accountable to the people. Reform law enforcement agencies in post-conflict period remains one of the priorities in the continent. The fourth challenge is the mindset change needed in Africa: African leaders must change their mindset regarding their perceptions vis-a-vis public institutions. Politics in Africa is still the source of income for leaders. This mindset is not consistent with the development agenda. It must change for Africa to change in a sustainable way.
The last, not least issue, is that the international cooperation will remain fruitless in Africa unless it helps the continent to address the above mentioned key challenges and transform them to opportunities. Pumping money into Africa as China has done without much accountability requirements does not help Africa in a sustainable way, even if the funds are allocated to infrastructure building.
Challenges and opportunities: Africa’s missing links
Africa’s signs of change
From Organisation of African Unity to African Union: what has really changed?
When the Peace and Security Council of the African Union proposed an African Peace Keeping Mission in the Western Region of Darfur in Sudan in 2004, many thought it was yet another jock. What about the key principle of Sovereignity of States that used to stop any African State to interfere with internal affairs of another African State? Times have changed. When African Heads of States were establishing of the African Union (AU) in 2001, they knew that thy were entering a new era where some issues are no longer negotiable in particular carrying out a massacre against your own people. In this case, the Statutes of the AU indicate that other African Countries would intervene without the consent of the country in question to protect the lives of civilians. This could not possible during the time of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
In its 37th Summit, the Organisation of African Unity adopted in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia a new vision known as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). One year later, in July 2002, the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the OAU adopted a Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance stating that States participating in NEPAD “believe in just, honest, transparent, accountable and participatory government and probity in public life”. The Declaration also establishes an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) launched in March 2003 when a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the six first countries including Algeria, Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya. The African Peer Review Mechanism is a mutually agreed instrument operating as a self-monitoring mechanism to ascertain State’s conformity with political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards, among African countries.4 Any State member would agree on a time-bound programme of action for implementing the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance and undergo periodic reviews. More than half of the 53 AU countries are members of the APRM.
On the human rights aspect, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is becoming more effective and political independent as it holds governments to account for their human rights records. It is possible now than before to vote a resolution condemning worsening of human rights situation in a particular country , and calling for the country to invite and accept the visit of relevant special rapporteur. Zimbabwe, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo have been closely followed up by the Commission.
It is worth making two remarks regarding this progress at the continental (regional) level. The first one is that there are still some Heads of States in Africa who belong to the old school of thoughts, and who have ruled for decades and remain in power not necessarily by democratic and transparent means. They are to watch if Africa has to sustain the positive changes at the continental (regional) level. Countries such as Egypt, Libya, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe have regimes that have been there for decades and difficult to transform into democratic institutions.
The second remark is that the AU created various ambitious institutions such as the Pan-African Parliament, Pan-African Court of Justice, An African Central Bank and a Peace and Security Council. However, these institutions need resources to function properly. The Peace and Secutity Council inaugurated in May 2004 realised quickly that to be effective in Darfur, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) needed, not only soldiers, but also and mostly funds, military equipments and a stronger mandate to protect civilians. For these regional institutions to play their, African States must create wealth, mobilise taxes, and redistribute the resources to key sectors, and pay their contributions to AU as required. Africa must afford its projects: there should not be an African peacekeeping mission if Africa cannot afford it. Who will pay for the soldiers and resources? The good will is not enough; Africa must create wealth and combat corruption to be effective at the national and regional levels.
Sub-regional bodies, a foundation of a real regional integration
There have been attempts since the 80s to bring states together under the umbrella of sub-regional bodies to support governance in different African countries. Today East Africa is becoming an area without borders where an ordinary Uganda or Kenyan will travel to Tanzania without paying a fee, so will a Tanzanian cross to Uganda or Kenya without visa. The East African Community (EAC) has adopted a custom union approach. It is obvious that countries are giving away some of their powers and surrender them to sub-regional and regional bodies. The same roles have been played by other sub-regional bodies such as Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Free movement of people, and one single currency ( Franc CEFA) are among the signs of sub-regional integration in West Africa. This will soon be a reality in Southern Africa Development Community (SADEC) countries as well.
However there is a missing link between the regionalization process in the continental level and the lack of decentralization within a large number of African countries.. Kenya for instance is very much in favour of the establishment of a strong East Africa Community, but at the same time, the country is reluctant to agree on a system of devolution of powers with decentralised administration at the provincial level. In Kenya, as in most African countries, power still lies with the central government, leaving out or neglecting local governance institutions. How would Africa develop if villages, municipalities and provinces do no play a role in planning, resources mobilization and investments? For Africa to develop, there is no alternative to decentralisation and effective local governance.
Another missing link is obvious in Southern Africa where Heads of States of SADEC have many opportunities to discuss regional matters, but still do not put enough pressure on Zimbabwe, one of the SADEC countries with a very poor human rights and governance records.
Are there leading countries in democratic governance in Africa?
There are some countries that are today models of democracies in Africa. These include Senegal, Mali and Benin in West Africa; South Africa, Botwana, Mozambique, Namibia in Southern Africa; and Tanzania in East Africa. In these countries, it is hard to imagine today that someone will take up arms to seize political power. The above mentioned countries have regular, free and transparent elections. Democratic institutions and culture seem better established than elsewhere in Africa. Four of these countries including Botwana, Mali, South Africa and Senegal are among the least corrupt countries in Africa according to Transparency International5. Botswana, ranked 37, is less corrupt than Italy, Korea and Hungary ranked 40. This indicates that the values and standards promoted worldwide in terms of governance are also possible to be implemented in Africa. This contradicts former President Chirac’s famous sentence some years back that Africa was not ready for Democracy.
What about economic growth and the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs)?
Since 2001, statistics from International Monetary Funds indicate that African economy is growing at a rate of 5%. Some booming economies include oil and mineral rich countries such as South Africa, Sudan, Angola, Nigeria, Guinea Bisau and to some extent Democratic Republic of Congo. With the discovery of oil reserve, Ghana hoped to boost its economic performance. However, here again a missing link: the macro-economic growth is not necessarily translated into better living conditions for the ordinary citizen. The level of economic growth is not enough to lead to significant changes. According to NEPAD’s projection, African economy must growth at the rate of 7% in order to be able to reduce poverty by half in 2015. The MDG 2006 Report indicates a very slow progress. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day is 41.1% as opposed to 46.8% in 1990; achieving universal primary education is possible: the net enrolment in primary education has passed to 70% in 2005 against 54% in 1991. However, children in remote rural areas have limited educational opportunities. Progress in gender equality is very slow: there are about 32% of women who have employment in non-agricultural sector in 2005 against 32 in 1990. However, women’s political participation has increased to 16% in 2006 as opposed to 7 in 1990. Why is the progress slow?
Some reasons explaining the state of affairs include armed conflicts, corruption and unequal distribution of economic gain, and a demographic growth rate exceeding the economic growth rate in many African countries. In addition, African economy is not diversified. Africa depends hugely on extractive economy. The continent should diversify its economy and relies on service-based revenue to survive in the coming years.
Africa also needs to invest in physical infrastructure with effects on the overall economy. Roads linking villages to main towns serve as economic incentives for farmers Electricity is a rare commodity in Africa. While Sub-Saharan Africa has rivers and lakes, the continent has a serious energy shortage. Solar and other types of energies need to be developed in order to improve the quality of life. Communication facilities are just new fashion in Africa. Africa’s 900m inhabitants, thus 14% of the world’s population, have access to less than 1% of the worlds’ international connectivity. While Ireland’s 4m people have better international connectivity than the entire African continent. Bridging the digital divide in Africa is therefore critical to sustainable economic development.6
Peace and Security, Africa’s most immediate challenge
Africa is badly affected by armed conflicts, although generally there are fewer conflicts now than ten years ago. Armed conflicts are still active in Sudan, Somalia in the Horn of Africa; Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi in Central Africa are not totally stable although there have undergone a peace process. In West Africa, the peace process in Cote d’Ivoire shows signs of little progress; Sierra-Leone and Liberia are struggling to recover from years of conflict, while Chad is still facing an armed conflict with armed groups based in the Eastern border with Sudan.
It is clear that without peace and security, African countries will hardly embark on economic development as economic resources will be used to acquire military equipments. However, countries recovering from wars must invest in reforming the police services to make them professional and accountable to the citizens. In Africa, colonial masters had very repressive police services, recruited mostly from low educated people. The post independence governments continued the same policies of using police and the army as instruments of repression. Building unified national armies in post-war period is a big task: former enemies must accept to work together as elements of one army. The reality is that after armed conflicts, military tends to remain behind the political line of their former armed leader. This does not create sustainable peace.
Natural resources versus daily struggle for survival
This is an area where the missing link between challenges and opportunities is obvious. Many African countries have natural resources while its people have chronic nutrition problems; or are just poor. I attribute this to lack of visionary policies.
While the majority of African people live in rural areas, Agriculture is not given due priority: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for instance imports every single agricultural product (apple, rice, huile, orange…) undermining local farmer’s efforts in a country with huge forests where it rains ten months a year. There cannot be hope for development and poverty reduction if national policies do not benefit directly the majority of people living outside African capitals. The main source of income for this people is in the agriculture, yet, except countries such as Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, African farmers cannot dream to afford the school fees for their children, have access to health services, build a decent home, have solar electricity in their homes…There is an obvious lack of investments in small industries to transform agricultural products. Transforming agricultural products would not only provide job opportunities to people in rural areas, but will also give added value to agricultural products, hence more income to farmers and their families.
Africa needs right policies that benefit the majority of its people. Countries such as Nigeria and Angola are rich with important oil resources; however, the people of Delta Niger where the oil is exploited are living in abject poverty. Transparency in oil revenue is needed to allocate revenue to sectors that will benefit the majority of the people.
What about China?
China’s recent interests in Africa are linked to its needs for energy and natural resources in general. As a growing economy China also needs to expand its markets. As Africa does not have a well developed manufacturing sector, China is easily entering African markets, sometimes with products of dubious quality. However, China is investing in Africa in sectors that traditional partners of Africa in the West are no longer interested in. Beyond oil and mines, China is investing in infrastructure, roads, bridges, ports, and telecommunication. With poor human rights records, China may overlook host governments rule of law issues.
Human rights and rule of law
There is no alternative to establishing democratic and accountable institutions. African governments have established national human rights and anti-corruption commissions. Human rights commissions in Uganda, Ghana, South Africa, and recently Kenya have been functioning as independent watchdog institutions. However, in other African human rights institutions are not independent; they operate to justify the government’s poor human rights records. The justice sector needs serious reform to serve the African people. Countries where judges are manipulated by the executive branch of the government make it difficult for people to trust pubic institutions as they become part of the repressive machinery.
This is where civil society organisation, NGOs, church oriented NGOs such as Pax Romana play a crucial role in mobilizing the opinion on the need for democratic values and accountable state institutions respecting human rights. Government must reform to bring about rule of law and democratic governance in Africa
How to conclude?
Africa is changing; the change is not revolutionary but slow in many sectors. In order for the continent to change on a sustainable way, there should be a mindset change. African leaders must create wealth; create enabling environment for national and international investors; leaders must stop to behave as if they own State institutions. They should allocate resources in education as the continent cannot develop without a pool of trained human capital. Civil society organisations should play their role in creating awareness in the areas of democratic values, human rights and rule of law. However, even after putting the house in order, the continent still needs development cooperation. Africa’s development partners should not repeat past mistakes of the cold war period: supporting dictators in power no matter the way they treat their people. Africa needs investments that create jobs and limits the flow of illegal migration to western countries. The world needs to help Africa fight HIV/AIDS and malaria, and resolve armed conflicts. Three major challenges that hamper economic development7.
- The Africa Report, N8 October 2007. Groupe Jeune Afrique, Paris. p.12
- Commission for Africa, Our common interest. Report of the Commission for Africa. March 2005. p.13
- United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006, New York, 2006. p4
- www.au2002.gov.za/docs/summit_council/aprm.htm
- Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2006.
- Hamadoun Toure, “ Connecting Africa to the Benefit of ICT for all” in The Africa Report, No8, October 2007. P.73.
- The author is the President of Pax Romana MIIC/ICMICA, and Child Protection Advisor with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). The views expressed in this paper do not reflect the opinion of the United Nations.
November 2007