AFRIPOL.ORG IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
Is Africa the sick baby of the world? July 10th,2008
By Luke Onyekakeyah
"Africa has enormous capital in the form of natural resources that include oil, hydroelectric power, diamonds, uranium, gold, cobalt, 70% of the world’s Coltan and 34% of its cassiterite. Coltan and cassiterite are strategic in the production of cell phones, laptops, and other portable electronic products. If Africans employed the power of reason, the global cell phone industry that churns out 25 cell phones per second would provide a huge source of revenue for respective countries; thereby widening their menu of choices.
Focusing on the African human mind as capital will help translate resources into wealth, thereby helping to solve Africa’s problems. Money’s usefulness and value will only spring from rational responses to the challenges that face the continent through exchange of products and services at the village, national, continental, and international levels." -James Shikwati
"In terms of natural resources, Africa is the world's richest continent. It has 50 percent of the world's gold, most of the world's diamonds and chromium, 90 percent of the cobalt, 40 percent of the world's potential hydroelectric power, 65 percent of the manganese, millions of acres of untilled farmland as well as other natural resources.” - Dr. Walter Williams of George Mason University
"The West have made foreign aid and corruption elimination as the epicenter of poverty alleviation in Africa. Aid is not necessarily the engine of development. As for corruption, no continent has monopoly on corruption. Liquidating corruption is more complex to be projected only on Africans. Foreign aid can be given via reduction of medicine price, pharmaceutical equipments and reduction of essential commodities needed for survival in the less technological nations. We cannot downplay the role of foreign aid when fully utilized and when it goes to the required projects and the needy. But it cannot be the cornerstone of poverty reduction."
- Emeka Chiakwelu
AS the 34th G8 summit holding July 7-9 2008, kicked off in Tokyo on the Japanese Island of Hokkaido, Africa, for the umpteenth time, has been spotlighted on the agenda of the meeting. Three years ago in Gleneagles, Scotland, at a similar G-8 summit, Africa took a centre stage in the discussions. At that meeting, the leaders of G-8 countries made pledges to double aid to the continent to the tune of $25 billion by 2010 and expedite action on debt cancellation of the most heavily indebted poor countries. What has happened since then?
There is need to assess the situation since the Gleneagles summit to determine to what extent these pledges have been met on one hand and how Africa has responded to the aid package. This is necessary to ascertain why the continent is featuring once again, prominently, so to say at the summit.
Ordinarily, one gets the impression that Africa is like a sick baby with chronic ailments that refuse to go. These include polio, measles, malnutrition, etc that manifest in form of bad leadership, corruption, mismanagement, mass poverty, etc. Its care givers cuddle year in year out the sick baby. The ailment persists despite all the care given. But the sick baby is not willing to give up.
The questions that need to be asked are: How much has Africa received out of the amount pledged three years ago in Gleneagles? How was the aid utilized? To what extent has the African leadership contributed in making the continent rise above the dependency syndrome? Will the baby be sick forever? When will it stand and walk like the other children and save the caregivers the pains and headache of babysitting?
Reports indicate that both the G-8 countries and African leadership have failed in one way or the other to keep to the terms of the commitments made at Gleneagles in 2005. For instance, the deal was reached on the basis of a mutual understanding that the G-8 on one hand would double aid to Africa to the tune of $25 billion by 2010. On their own part, African leaders promised to end the cycle of coups, corruption and other crisis that have blighted the continent.
These are clear and simple. There is no ambiguity on what each party is expected to do in order to achieve the desired result - to get the sick baby up on its feet for it to play like other children. Some progress has been made on the issue of debt cancellation but nothing has changed in real terms on the quality of life in Africa. Practically, no country has recorded any significant impact of debt cancellation on the wellbeing of its people. As a matter of fact, the situation of things has worsened in the past three years as new problems emerge.
According to Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa (DATA), a London based multinational non-governmental organization, collectively, the G-8 has delivered just a meager $3 billion pledged to Africa in 2005. DATA adds that while the United States and Britain were on track with their commitments; Japan, France, Italy and Canada have been largely unresponsive. They have so far failed to deliver on their promise.
To say the least, this is unimpressive and hardly expected. There is no way Africa would make much progress with such cold front from the major economic powers. This, among other things, explains why the sick baby remains down on its knees. One would expect that this baby would be relieved after it had received the appropriate medications prescribed for that purpose.
Unfortunately, the G-8 that is supposed to deliver on the treatment has so far fallen short of its commitments. There and then, the ailing baby remains bedridden. This explains why this time around, Africa is once again in the spotlight. Half medication is dangerous. Africa needs a full dose of all the pledges made by the G-8 for her to make progress on several fronts.
On its part, Africa has also failed to live to up expectations. Africa's promise in Gleneagles to end coups, corruption and other crisis has not been met. Although, there has been no military coup d'etat in Africa since 2005, there is another type of coup ravaging Africa - political coups in the form of election disfranchisement and rigging. Several of the elections held in Africa since 2005 have resulted in bloodshed and turmoil because the elections were rigged.
For instance, the dust raised by the elections held in Nigeria in April 2007 has not settled. The emergence of President Umaru Y'Aradua was adjudged the worst in the country's history by election observers. The opposition parties are contesting the result in the Supreme Court.
In Kenya, the elections in that country in December 2007 sparked off unprecedented political turmoil in a country that has remained an island of peace in a troubled region. President Mwai Kibaki had declared himself winner in the election that was discredited by the opposition as rigged. The ensuing crisis resulted in the killing of estimated 800, 000 people and destruction of homes and properties worth millions of dollars.
The most recent charade in Zimbabwe where the incumbent President Robert Mugabe of the ZANU-PF party took decision never to allow the opposition rule the country in his life time has generated international calls for sanctions against the impoverished country. The first round of the general elections held in March 2008 saw the opposition leader Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) clinching nearly 50 per cent of the votes. But the 84-year-old Mugabe who has ruled the country for 24 years and impoverished it insisted on a re-run to create way for him to manipulate the election process and perpetuate himself in office. Mounting violence and mayhem against the opposition and its supporters forced Tsvangirai to withdraw from the election thereby creating room for Mugabe to hold a one-man contest in which he declared himself president.
These and other similar unenviable happenings across Africa show that ballot coup has replaced military coup d'etat on the continent. Without political stability there can be no economic or social progress. The political instability stagnates progress in all fronts and leaves the people in a state of quandary.
Lack of popular political leadership is a major problem that truncates all other efforts to make Africa stand on its own. The G-8 and its allies should find a way of ensuring that the democratic governance being pushed in Africa is real. Nothing would work in a situation where the wrong people force themselves on the polity and govern with impunity.
There is also issue of soaring global food crisis. The fact that the international community have Africa on the agenda of food aid shows that the continent in unable to feed itself. Conflicts in most parts of the continent make it impossible for the population to settle down and cultivate food. Millions of people displaced from their homes live on the brink. They can only survive through food aid made available by the UN agencies and rich countries such as the United States of America.
It is now obvious that the millions of hungry people across Africa cannot perpetually be sustained on food aid. Something needs to be done to create conducive atmosphere for displaced populations to cultivate food to feed themselves. It is cheering that the G-8 among others is considering giving impetus to agriculture as a way out of the problem. Certainly, boosting agriculture remains the only viable solution to tackling the current food crisis.
The issue of biofuel production has been hotly debated in several quarters. While some attribute the food crisis to the diversion of agricultural land to produce crops for biofule, others think that biofuel would rather aggravate investment in agriculture. The truth is that Africa has abundant arable land that could be put into purposeful agricultural productivity. Large stretches of arable land are lying waste in Africa.
In Nigeria, for instance, over 60 per cent of the arable land is lying waste and uncultivated since agriculture was abandoned in the past three decades. Investment in biofuel would no doubt boost agricultural productivity for food and biofuel.
Climate change and its impact on Africa is also an issue before the G-8. Whereas the vulnerability of the continent to climate change has been stated, the continent, unfortunately, is doing little or nothing in that regard. Some how, this is due to lack of purposeful leadership. In another way, it is because the continent lacks the capacity to tackle the emerging issues and problems.
The continent is faced with multifarious problems ranging from failure of leadership to unfulfilled social, economic and political imperatives. The aid package is applied in tackling the scourge of AIDS, strengthening democratic institutions, encouraging accountability and transparency. Africa's development is critical to a stable world. The developed nations should do more to ensure that Africa is stable and can support itself.