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Foreward
FOREWORD FOR THE INAUGURAL EDITION OF THE AFRICA POLICY JOURNAL
Over the past 3 decades, Africa’s economic growth has lagged behind other regions. Africans today are barely better off than they were in the 1970s, despite the best efforts of policymakers. This state of affairs has troubled Africans, development experts, and policymakers on the continent and beyond. To create a fundamental change in African development over the coming decades will require real innovation, wise leadership, and the serious and systematic analysis to go with it. As a publication, the Africa Policy Journal seeks to make an important contribution to the dialogue on effective policies to propel Africa’s development.
It is fitting that this journal has been produced by students at the Kennedy School. The Kennedy School, and Harvard University, have a palpable interest in Africa. Dozens of African policy-related talks, panels and conferences happen on the Harvard Campus every year, many of them at the Kennedy School. Recently elected Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is an alumni of the Kennedy School. Other African presidents have spoken on Harvard platforms. The ideas, breakthroughs and policy advice of the university’s pre-eminent development and medical scholars contribute to African development policy.
Nested in this community, the Africa Policy Journal has the potential to be an excellent and productive forum between the Africa-focused activity at Harvard, and the policy world. commend the students of the Kennedy School of Government for taking this initiative. Equally, I hope that you, the journal’s readers, find the contents of this inaugural volume valuable, challenging and entertaining.
David T. Ellwood
Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Note From the Editors
A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS
Dear readers,
We are proud to welcome you to the inaugural edition of the Africa Policy Journal, published by students at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. We not only hope that the contents are informative, but that they can be of practical use to you in your work and discussions.
The backdrop to this inaugural issue is a renewed momentum around efforts to spur Africa’s development. 2005 was a remarkable year in this regard. In September 2005, the Millennium Development Goals were reaffirmed by over 100 world heads of state at the UN World Summit. At their Gleneagles summit in July 2005, leaders of the G8 - the world’s leading industrialised countries - pledged to double aid to Africa to approximately US$50 billion by 2010. Rich nations also agreed a proposal to cancel the debts of up to 14 eligible African countries to the IMF, the World Bank, and the African Development Fund. ‘The Make Poverty History Campaign’ brought sell-out pop concerts to many of the world’s major cities in July 2005.
However, policymakers, activists and analysts in Africa and in the international development organisations still bear an enormous responsibility to take this momentum forward and help make the 21st century Africa’s century. The challenge for African nations is to achieve sustained, broad-based economic growth, and transform African living standards so the next generation of Africans is not preoccupied with extreme poverty, but can secure longevity, literacy, economic security and prosperity.
Achieving this prosperity will require, among other things, leadership, ambitious growth strategies and results-oriented policies. Moreover, these strategies and policies need to be informed by the best available evidence on what works and what does not. The Africa Policy Journal positions itself as a voice calling for more enlightened, coherent and context-specific policies in Africa.
Leadership is paramount. Professor Robert Rotberg starts with a comment on the central role leadership plays in different countries’ development, highlighting how Bostwana’s phenomenal, sustained economic success was largely due to inspired political leadership. The need for leadership is of course not confined to government or official positions. On The Frontier (OTF) director, Eric Kacou, showcases the leadership role that small-scale entrepreneurs have played in building successful new export-focused industries in Rwanda.
Still on the theme of leadership, we have the privilege of sharing with you interviews with two African leaders. First, we are proud to publish our interview of Kenyan 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai. Her leadership role in campaigning for environmental protection, democracy and human rights is an inspiration to us all. Secondly, we share an interview with one of the continent’s pre-eminent youth leaders, Cedza Dlamini. A Swazi prince and an emissary for the UN Millennium Development Goals, Cedza is a tireless advocate for the role youth can play in the continent’s development.
In our inaugural issue, we have not shied away from some of the most intractable policy challenges facing African countries. We are publishing an article by Todd Moss and Stewart Patrick presenting an ambitious strategy on how Zimbabwe might recover following what has been, over the last 6 years, one of the worst economic collapses in the world. Also, with Kennedy School alumnus, Madam Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, inaugurated as Liberia and Africa’s first democratically elected female president, we are proud to publish Varney Yengbeh’s article which presents practical policy recommendations on how to sustain the peace and promise Liberia now enjoys.
Near the top of any list of intractable African policy challenges is HIV, whose prevalence rates remain stubbornly high across vast swathes of the continent. HIV is an area where whether policies are results-oriented and effectively implemented can be the difference between life and death for thousands, if not millions. Eileen Stillwaggon’s article advocates a novel and more holistic approach to stemming the spread of the pandemic. Our fourth and final article by Tim Reid, concerns the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1996 and 2002, which it is estimated cost upwards of 3 million lives. The article analyses whether greater conditionality of donor country’s aid may have averted the worst of Rwanda and Uganda’s involvement in that war.
On a lighter note, we are particularly pleased to share with you a sterling arts review section. Beyond the newspaper headlines and research findings, a rich and distinctive artistic tradition opens windows onto aspects of life in Africa. Some reaches the mainstream international stage to be celebrated – as with Oscar award winning South African film Tsotsi – or mourned – like the passing of Malian music legend Ali Farka Touré. But many of the films, books, and songs from Africa do not receive their due recognition and analysis. In this section of our inaugural issue, we hope in a small way to reverse this. Covering themes from coffee trade and civil war to Elvis, this year’s book and film reviews feature Angola, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Nigeria.
Harvard is far from Africa yet close to it in many ways. Harvard’s podiums and conference rooms are regularly graced by African presidents, African CEOs, African Nobel Prize Laureates and other African leaders from all corners of the continent. The inaugural issue carries an article highlighting some of these events – we encourage you to let it bring ‘Africa at Harvard’ alive for you.
As chief editors there are many people we cannot thank enough. We have had the pleasure of working with 20 of the most inspiring, talented and hard-working staff. Not only have they made the work fun, but without their enthusiasm and sustained efforts the journal would not have been possible. We are also immensely indebted to our contributors and interviewees who have worked so hard with us, and allowed us the privilege of publishing their work and words. Thanks also go to our board members and the administration at the Kennedy School for their support and co-operation. Finally thanks to you, our readers, for visiting our pages. We hope you enjoy the inaugural issue, and visit the Africa Policy Journal again and again. Happy reading!
Yours sincerely,
Mutsa Chironga and Nishan Degnarain
Founding Co-Chief Editors
Africa Policy Journal
Commentaries
Archimedes Entrepreneurs: The Key to Africa’s Prosperity
Reviewing Global Leadership: Overcoming the Scourges of Africa
Interviews
Wangari Maathai - DOING THE DO-ABLE
Mark Canavera
In 2004, Dr. Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She is internationally recognized for her tireless advocacy over several decades for environmental conservation, human rights, and democracy. Dr. Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya in 1940 and in 1971 became the first East African woman to earn a PhD. As the founder of the Green Belt Movement, Dr Maathai has encouraged citizens, especially women, to plant over 30 million trees n their communities. Dr Maathai has received countless honors, including France's highest honor, the Legion d'Honneur, and being named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in 2005. She was elected Member of Parliament in Kenya in December 2002 and was subsequently appointed Assistant Minister for the Environment.
CEDZA DLAMINI DISCUSSES ‘UBUNTU,’ YOUTH LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AFRICA
Kobina Aidoo
Grandson of Nelson Mandela, Cedza Dlamini serves as a UN youth emissary for the Millennium Development Goals and was appointed Co Chair of the World Youth Peace Summit in 2003. He recently founded the Ubuntu Institute, which promotes social entrepreneurship across Africa.
Articles
After Mugabe: Applying Post-Conflict Recovery Lessons to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a country in deep economic and political crisis, but also one whose situation could change quickly. Waiting until the day after the fall of Robert Mugabe could be too late, so the international community should start preliminary planning now for responses to a transition in Zimbabwe. Given the war-like trauma experienced by the country and acute conditions today, any donor strategy cannot be limited to traditional development practice but must be informed by recent post-conflict experiences. This paper lays out a framework for an international effort and identifies priority actions to support a political transition and economic recovery. It also suggests some immediate steps that the US and other donors can take, including the formation of a Commission for Assistance to a Free Zimbabwe. Beginning the planning process now is not only prudent, but such a public effort could also be catalytic: letting the Zimbabwean people know they have not been forgotten and that the world stands ready to help once Robert Mugabe is gone could perhaps help to
bring about that day a little sooner.
Reducing Environmental Risk to Prevent HIV Transmission in Sub-Saharan Africa
HIV/AIDS policy fails to address the reasons why sex and birth are more risky in Africa. Malnutrition lowers immunity and increases viral load in HIV-infected persons, making them more contagious. Malaria also increases viral load and thus the risk of sexual and vertical HIV transmission. Schistosomiasis increases risk of sexual transmission of HIV by lowering immune response and by causing genital lesions and inflammation. The weaknesses of developing economies and governance structures also interact with health variables. Often the best investment for improving health and preventing disease is outside the health sector. HIV prevention must go beyond last-minute interventions, such as promoting abstinence or condom use, and address the economic context in which risky behaviors occur.
Liberia's Security and Foreign Policy Dilemma
After several prolonged conflicts, civil wars and a two-year political transition, Liberia is gradually emerging as a peaceful and stable democracy. Rightly so, much optimism and expectation has surrounded Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf recent inauguration as Liberia’s and Africa’s first democratically elected female president. However, Liberia still faces enormous development and nation-building challenges. This paper analyzes the current security and foreign policy dilemma in Liberia, and the challenges of postwar reconstruction and state-building in the country. The paper first examines the history, political struggles and the civil wars. The paper then presents eight policy recommendations that the new government, policy-makers and Liberian people can follow in addressing Liberia’s security and foreign policy dilemma.
Killing Them Softly: Has Foreign Aid to Rwanda and Uganda Contributed to the Humanitarian Tragedy in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
Despite Rwanda’s and Uganda’s invasions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1996 and the ensuing deaths, economic collapse, and cost of UN peacekeeping, Western Governments continue to provide
significant military and development aid to Rwanda and Uganda. Since aid accounts for the majority of these countries’ official budgets, donors could have had considerable leverage: the threat of aid withdrawal may have provided Rwanda and Uganda with the incentive to cease military operations in the DRC. Given the number of reports by the UN, international NGOs, and the press, it is impossible that donor countries were not aware of the activities being conducted by Rwanda and Uganda in the DRC. With the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a strong case can be made that knowingly giving aid to countries that will use it directly or indirectly to wage wars of aggression, would make donors complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Alien Tort Claims Act may provide some remedy in American courts.
Events
'Improving the Investment Climate in Africa' - Panel at Harvard Business School's Africa Business Conference
Nishan Degnarain
Panelists
Leke Alder, Principal of Alder Consulting, an image consulting firm based in Nigeria
Kofi Arkaah, Senior Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation
Koosum Kalyam, Senior Business Development Adviser, Shell and former advisor to Blair Commission on Africa
Joseph Evan LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania
Professor Patrick Okedinachi Utomi (Moderator), Director, Applied Economics, Lagos Business School
African Events at Harvard
Heather Dresser
African Events at Harvard - The Year in Review
Africa Publications at Harvard
Maria Demeke
Recent Harvard Publications on Africa
Conflict and Displacement: Breaking the Cycle - An Address at Harvard University
Dennis McNamara
Address given on February 7th, 2006 at Radcliffe Yard. This event was co-sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, in coordination with its Voices of Public Intellectuals series "War and the Displacement of People" and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
Dennis McNamara is Special Adviser to the United Nation’s Emergency Relief Coordinator and Director of the Inter- Agency Internal Displacement Division (IAIDD) with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) in Geneva. He reports to the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs.
More than 25 million people displaced by violence and persecution remain within their own countries. The plight of the 'internally displaced' is a human tragedy of immense proportions. Caught in a no-man's land between war and sovereign impunity their fate attracts little international attention and remains largely unreported. Dennis McNamara considers the consequences of mass displacement in contemporary conflicts.
Book and Film Reviews
Film Review: Tsotsi
Tsotsi (South Africa, Oscar-winning Film)
Release: 2006
Director: Gavin Hood
Film Review: Black Gold
Black Gold (Ethiopia, Film)
Release: 2006
Director: Nick Frances
Film Review: The Hero
The Hero (Angola, Film; Winner, Grand Prize, World Dramatic Competition, 2005 Sundance Film Festival)
Release: 2004
Director: Zézé Gamboa
Book Review: Graceland
Graceland (Nigeria, Book)
Chris Abani
Launch: 2004
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (NY, USA)
Purple Hibiscus
Purple Hibiscus (Nigeria, Book)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Launch: 2003
Publisher: Workman Publishing (NY, USA) 2003
Browse Volume 2
Note From the Editors
A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS
Dear Readers,
Following in the footsteps of the extremely successful inaugural launch, we are proud and thrilled to present to you the Fall 2006 issue of the Africa Policy Journal (APJ). Deciding to produce both a fall and spring issue has been a challenge but, nonetheless, one we hope that you, as a reader, find worthwhile and that this issue will leave you in anticipation for our upcoming spring content. We are humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response to the APJ, a response which bears testament to the momentum for Africa’s development and the need for sound policies to continually emerge. “Sound” does not necessarily mean “conventional.” In that respect, our role is to promote the most relevant, informed and analytically rigorous ideas, with a vision for better policymaking in Africa.
Africa is poised to take off. China’s eye towards Africa has given the continent new leverage on different economic and political levels. Whether Africa stands to gain or lose from such developments is yet to be seen. In this regard, we take our role as a clearinghouse for these ongoing discussions seriously. To that end, the preponderance of high-quality submissions makes our work as editors exciting, yet difficult; however, it also affords us the ability to be highly selective. Throughout the selection process, the committee considered relevance, timeliness, strength of arguments, quality of writing, and geographic diversity.
The Fall 2006 issue commences with a commentary from former U.S. Asst. Secretary of State George Moose examining China’s deepening relationship with Africa and one by Marianna Ofosu discussing ways of leveraging the African Diaspora.
It is our privilege to share with you two interviews, one with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia and another with former Prime Minister of Tanzania, Frederick Sumaye. President Johnson-Sirleaf discusses her strategy for rebuilding Liberia. Former Prime Minister Sumaye reflects on his tenure, why he decided to go back to school, and presents his opinion on some recent developments in African politics and policy, especially in Tanzania.
The five core articles comprise a diverse and interesting array of topics. A piece by Gompert and Stearns complement our interview with President Johnson-Sirleaf. Their article proposes a comprehensive security architecture for Liberia; one that is also relevant for many other African countries.
The two articles that apply to the entire continent are centered on NEPAD and the role of engineering in Africa. Calestous Juma and Bob Bell make a case for rejuvenating African economies through engineering while Francis Nwonwu proposes measures for making NEPAD live up to its aspirations. On the Central African front, Stephanie Hodge suggests measures for managing the Lake Chad basin. In his controversial article, Markus Scheuermaier asks if land should be returned to white farmers in Zimbabwe in a post-Mugabe environment.
Given the impact of Africa’s portrayal in the media, our arts reviews are equally important. In this issue, we review two books: Robert Calderisi’s “The Trouble with Africa” and William Easterly’s “The White Man’s Burden.” Our movie reviews are of the Idi Amin-based
“The Last King of Scotland” and “Live and Become,” a movie based on the airlift of Ethiopian Jews.
Besides the actual publication, APJ actively pursues a variety of activities towards better policymaking in Africa. As part of the launch of this volume APJ is organizing a panel of students from top public policy schools who worked in Africa in the summer to share their experience in terms of the relation between the classroom and the field. Keep coming back to www.africapolicyjournal.com as we continually share some of their insights with you. In addition, APJ will again host a policy-related panel at the annual Africa Business Conference in February at the Harvard Business School.
Nothing epitomizes the momentum of and for Africa more than this journal, produced with dedication and sacrifice by volunteer students—Africans and non-Africans alike—passionately committed to the development of the continent. We thank the contributors without whom there will be no journal. We also thank our Kennedy School student journal publishers for their prompt responses to all our questions, and our faculty advisory board for continuing to direct us. Special thanks to Sam Unom for his vision in creating the journal and his continued financial and moral support, and to the staff of the first volume for executing the vision. Finally, thank you continuing to read the journal.It is indeed a new day and it is Africa’s to seize.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Kobina Aidoo & Ms. Heidy Servin-Baez
Co-chief Editors
Commentaries
China in Africa- They're Back
Moving the Partnership Beyond Sentiment
Interviews
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf – Rebuilding a Nation
Kobina Aidoo, Proud Dzambukira, Natasha Hamilton, Oludamini Ogunaike, Karolina Dryjanska, Ouborr Kutando, Sando Baysah, Belay Ejigu,
On January 16, 2006, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as President of Liberia; the first woman to be elected head of an African state. Born and educated in Monrovia, she continued her studies in the U.S. in the 1960s, obtaining her Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. On Monday, September 18, 2006 President Johnson-Sirleaf discussed her strategy for rebuilding Liberia at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. There are several contributors to these questions, recognized accordingly.
Former Tanzanian Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye – Reflects, Discusses, and Projects
Haviva Kohl
Frederick Sumaye was Prime Minister of Tanzania from 1995 to 2005, making him the longest-serving in the East African nation’s history. He obtained a Diploma in Agricultural Engineering from Egerton College in Kenya and went on to head the rural energy department at CARMATEC in Arusha. From 1987-1995, he served as the Minister for Agriculture of Tanzania. In November 1995, he was appointed Prime Minister. The former Prime Minister is back in school studying Public Administration. This interview was conducted on November 14, 2006 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Articles
NEPAD: A New Agenda or Another Rhetoric in Africa’s Political Adventurism?
African states have passed through many stages of developmental metamorphosis since independence. Each stage has marked a political milestone for which a disproportionate amount of political inertia has dealt decelerating blows to development. This article examines the challenges facing the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). NEPAD was born against the backdrop of widespread political imbroglio involving civil wars, human rights abuses, and limited financial resources for development in Africa. NEPAD is perceived to have made considerable progress in agriculture, infrastructure, environment, and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) implementations. The development partners, however, are accused of having failed to meet their financial and other commitments, a condition that African leaders branded “a letdown by donors who failed to live up to their pledges.” This article argues that the ability of NEPAD to deliver Africa out of the current political and economic limbo depends largely on how well it can galvanize the political will of African state agents and the moral conscience of local and international partners to implement the NEPAD strategies.
Should Land be Returned to White Farmers in Zimbabwe?
This article discusses the Zimbabwean land crisis from a rights perspective. After reviewing colonial and postcolonial history, the article looks at the rights dilemmas generated by the land crisis. It concludes by suggesting policies that attempt to constructively engage all parties concerned.
Rejuvenating African Economies: The Role of Engineering in International Development
Africa’s ability to meet its human welfare needs, participate in the global economy, and protect the environment will require considerable investment in science and innovation in general and engineering in particular. This article argues that viable strategies for building competence in engineering should seek to link engineering training directly to infrastructure projects. The African policy community should launch a global review of the lessons learned from international development efforts over the last fifty years that could guide a new phase of international development cooperation with a focus on the role of science and engineering in sustainable development.
Ecosystems Management in Africa – Case Study: Lake Chad River Basin Commission
Drawing on the findings of a recent institutional assessment of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, conducted between September 2005 and May 2006, this case highlights the role of human capital and institutions in shaping the evolution of systems of innovation in Africa.
Making Liberia Safe through Comprehensive Security Sector Reform
Security-sector reform is critical for establishing stability in post-conflict African countries. From its first day in office, the Johnson-Sirleaf government made security-sector reform a high priority in Liberia, and the United Nations, the United States, and other supporters are helping Liberia build new police and armed forces. Yet Liberia and its partners need an overarching security-sector architecture and strategy. This article’s analysis and recommendations toward that end may help not only Liberia but also other countries struggling to create effective, legitimate, coherent, and affordable security sectors.
Book and Film Reviews
Book Review: The Problem with Africa: Why Aid Isn't Working
The Problem with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working
Robert Calderisi
Launch: 2006
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Book Review: The White Man’s Burden, Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest of the World has Done so Much Ill and so Little Good
The White Man’s Burden, Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest of the World has Done so Much Ill and so Little Good
William Easterly
Published: 2006
Publisher: The Penguin Press, New York
Film Review: The Last King of Scotland
Film Review: The Last King of Scotland
Release: 2006
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Film Review: Live and Become
Live and Become
Release: 2005
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Browse Volume 3
Note From the Editors
Dear Readers,
Following in the footsteps of the extremely successful inaugural launch, we are proud and thrilled to present to you the Fall 2006 issue of the Africa Policy Journal (APJ). Deciding to produce both a fall and spring issue has been a challenge but, nonetheless, one we hope that you, as a reader, find worthwhile and that this issue will leave you in anticipation for our upcoming spring content. We are humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response to the APJ, a response which bears testament to the momentum for Africa’s development and the need for sound policies to continually emerge. “Sound” does not necessarily mean “conventional.” In that respect, our role is to promote the most relevant, informed and analytically rigorous ideas, with a vision for better policymaking in Africa.
[...]
Nothing epitomizes the momentum of and for Africa more than this journal, produced with dedication and sacrifice by volunteer students—Africans and non-Africans alike—passionately committed to the development of the continent. We thank the contributors without whom there will be no journal. We also thank our Kennedy School student journal publishers for their prompt responses to all our questions, and our faculty advisory board for continuing to direct us. Special thanks to Sam Unom for his vision in creating the journal and his continued financial and moral support, and to the staff of the first volume for executing the vision. Finally, thank you continuing to read the journal.
It is indeed a new day and it is Africa’s to seize.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Kobina Aidoo & Ms. Heidy Servin-Baez
Co-chief Editors
Commentaries
Helping Africa Achieve Millennium Development Goal 1: A Hyperbole- Free US Genetically Modified Food Aid Policy
When Africans Save Africa
Interviews
Ishmael Beah: On being a Child Soldier
Haviva Kohl
Patrick Awuah – On building an Ivy League-caliber University in Africa Interviewed
Kobina Aidooa
Ashesi University is a private university, based in Ghana that differentiates itself from other universities in the country with its emphasis on professional development as well as leadership and how to be better citizens. Four years after it was founded, 100 percent of its first class of graduates are employed (90 percent within the first three months of graduation) and 80 percent of the second class had job offers before graduation. Students work and intern with top companies in Ghana and abroad, including major international finance organizations. The founder, Patrick Awuah, quit his job at Microsoft Corporation in Seattle to contribute to the development of his native country by helping to educate its next generation of leaders.
Articles
Legal Pluralism in Southern Sudan: Can the Rest of Africa Show the Way?
Southern Sudan is in the midst of a massive transformation from a society ravaged by fifty years of war to a democracy governed by the rule of law and a modern judiciary. But is the south at risk of destroying important and effective traditional systems of dispute resolution and restorative justice in its quest for modernity? While legal pluralism does not have a perfect track record in Africa there might be important lessons that can be applied to the Southern Sudan context. This article combines analysis of previous African experiences with a current assessment of Southern Sudan judicial systems to propose a system of legal pluralism to shape the Southern Sudan legal framework.
Primary School Is Not Enough: Proposal for Safe and Affordable Secondary School for Girls in Malawi
Girls in Malawi face innumerable challenges to their education and are far less likely to graduate from
secondary school than boys. Research shows that secondary education benefits girls, their future families, and their communities immeasurably. Still, there is no program in Malawi that makes secondary school affordable for disadvantaged girls. Having achieved near 100 percent primary school enrollment for all children, Malawi needs a campaign to promote secondary education for girls in order to capitalize on past progress, help girls break out of poverty, and promote a healthier and more productive nation.
Regional Politics, Human Rights, and US Policy in the Horn of Africa
This article addresses the mutual implications of US policy and regional politics among the Horn of Africa
countries of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, with respect to interpretations of human rights norms. Drawing
on perspectives in anthropology and political science, as well as approaches to human rights advocacy and
policy, we explore contemporary human rights concerns in the Horn of Africa and highlight an inconsistency
in US foreign policy in the region. Based on our analysis, we make several recommendations on how human
rights may be advanced in the Horn by proceeding with greater sensitivity toward regional political dynamics
and fostering critical understanding of the assumptions embedded in US foreign policy in the region.
Rwandan Gacaca Courts in Crisis: Is There a Case for Judicial Review?
The Rwandan Gacaca Courts are far from the success story that many believe them to be. There is legitimate concern about the form and function of the Gacaca Court system in the future. Through discussion of restorative versus redistributive justice, this article concludes in the post-genocide context the Gacaca Courts were the best opportunity for Rwanda to attain some semblance of closure. The community-based courts functioned as a pressure relief valve for a society facing an impossible task by facilitating restorative justice goals. However, in the future it remains unclear whether the courts should be reformed to include a formal judicial review of process. The article will outline some of the arguments for and against implementing a more formal judicial review of process. Concluding that while it is undeniable a better system of judicial review including review of the processes may not be possible, it would certainly be desirable.
Book and Film Reviews
Book Review: The Rwandan Tutsis: A Tutsi Woman's Account of the Hidden Causes of the Rwandan Tragedy
The Rwandan Tutsis: A Tutsi Woman's Account of the Hidden Causes of the Rwandan Tragedy
By Eugenie Mujawiyera
Published: 2006
Publisher: Adonis and Abbey Publishers, London
Book Review: The Wizard of the Crow
The Wizard of the Crow
Ngugi Wa Thiong'O
Published: 2006
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York
Book Review: What is the What?
What is the What?
Dave Eggers
Published: 2006
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Film Review: Lost Boys of Sudan
Film Review: Lost Boys of Sudan
Release: 2003
Directors: Megan Mylan & John Shenk
Browse Volume 4
A Note From The Editors
Dear Readers,
The Spring/Summer 2008 Edition of the Africa Policy Journal is the culmination of a year of a dedicated staff of public policy students at the Harvard Kennedy School. As the only legitimate scholarly journal on African policy we take our responsibility seriously and set out during our initial planning process with this in mind. We began the year with the objective of upholding the reputation and standards our predecessors established in previous editions, but also increasing our coverage by creating a hard-copy version of our journal. While we were unable to reach our goal of publishing a hard-copy version, we continue to explore means of raising funds for our endeavor.
This volume of the APJ has contributed to the overall sentiment that we are here for the long term. During the 2007-2008 academic year we were officially placed under the umbrella group, which supports our fellow Harvard Kennedy School journals. The knowledge transfer helped us as we progressed through the Call for Papers, selection process, and the final edits of our current edition.
We are proud of each section of the journal. From the interviews to the commentaries, the scholarly studies to the book and music reviews; we have managed to capture the spirit and voice of today’s African scholar, advocate, leader, and artist. We have made it a priority to present Africa in its entirety, not simply regionally. Throughout our process of reaching publication, our selection process remained consistent with the APJ’s vision: relevance, timeliness, strength of arguments, quality of writing, and geographic diversity.
The contributors to our Spring/Summer 2008 Edition are diverse in their positions, backgrounds, and influence. We had the fortunate pleasure to interview the former South African Opposition Leader, Tony Leon and publish an Op-Ed from revered former South Africa President F.W. De Klerk. Each contribution sheds light on an aspect of African history and politics that are rarely explored. Leon’s responses to questions about Opposition leadership in Africa, Zimbabwe, and the future of the ANC will leave readers questioning their previous conceptions. Former President De Klerk, similarly, reflects on his tenure while also contributing his perspective on the future of South Africa on the continent and in the world. Though objective in his views, De Klerk’s commentary is useful to those of us who continue to study the debilitating affect the apartheid regime had on South Africa, but also the contributions all South Africans have made to its current development and place as a regional and continental actor.
The cast of notable contributors continues as we present former Assistant National Security Advisor and current Special Advisor to the President of the International Crisis Group (ICG), John Prendergast’s, and perspective on the long-standing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Prendergast offers both recommendation and strategy for bringing an end to the tragedy. We also had the privilege to interview Former Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, Bishop Desmond Tutu who continues to shed light on his opinion of the root of Africa’s conflict and underdevelopment and the role clergy can play in addresses these shortcomings.
This year’s journal issue features the following eight articles covering a wide range of policy and development topics including agricultural policy, HIV/AIDS services in Africa, public partnerships, anti-corruption institutions and good governance:
- Integrated Approach to HIV/AIDS Services in South Africa: Private Pharmacies and Policy Recommendations (Joao L. Carapinha)
- Roles of Governance in Explaining Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (Fuje N. Habtamu)
- Climate Change, Subsistence Farming, Food Security, and Poverty: The Consequences of Agricultural Policies on Women and Men Farmers in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire (Grace S. Hemmings-Gapihan)
- Malawi’s Starter Pack: A Smarter Policy to Empower the Poor with Science-based Agriculture (Charles K. Mann)
- General Budget Support and the Incentives IT Creates to Improve Performance in Tanzania (Sagita Muco and Dimitri Stoelinga)
- The Ombdusman Phenomenon in African States Public Services (Dr. Akpomuvire Mukoro)
- Public Space in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg (Markus Scheuermaier)
- The Impact of Anti-Corruption Institutions on Corruption in East Africa (Rupert Simons)
In addition, this issue of the journal also includes a shorter piece entitled "Achieving Millennium Development Goals through Public-Private Partnerships" which was submitted by Charlie Feezel and Virginia Sopyla from the World Cocoa Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting cocoa farmers and their families worldwide.
Our book and movie reviews bring as much debate and internal discourse as our articles, interviews and Op-Ed articles. The review of acclaimed novel Half of a Yellow Sun by famed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is historical fiction chronicling a chapter in Nigerian history many have tried to forget. Set in the 1960’s during the Biafran War, Ngozi Adichie is able to use the inadequacies of her characters to personalize a war that many believe continues today. Similar subjective reviews were done for Paul Collier’s Bottom Billion, Michael Jennings’ Surrogates of the State, and John Le Carre’s Mission Song.
We are extremely proud of this year’s journal edition and we look forward to next year’s publication. Under the leadership of Ms. Dambudzo Muzenda (Master in Public Policy, Class of 2009) as Chief Editor, we are confident the legacy of the APJ will continue to permeate the discussion of African policy here in the U.S. and throughout the world. We hope you will continue to support the Africa Policy Journal and its mission to promote a rigorous, informed and influential policy dialogue that is relevant to the development of Africa.
Best regards,
| Dalia Rahman | Curtis Valentine |
| Co-Chief Editor | Co-Chief Editor |
| Africa Policy Journal | Africa Policy Journal |
Articles
Achieving Millennium Development Goals through Public-Private Partnerships
Africa’s achievement of the first United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG), eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, requires rural growth and development. Agriculture is a major source of livelihood for rural Africans and constitutes a significant percentage of exports, but the sector has not reached its full potential. Productivity and quality improvements are major drivers of rural income and sector growth, but, adoption of productivity and quality-enhancing technologies is often limited by education and access to information. Achievement of the second MDG, universal primary education, and the implied next step of retaining those students through secondary school, can provide a strong foundation for bridging this technology gap. However, it will take several generations before the benefits of increased educational levels will be realized. Cocoa is a vital commodity to many economies in West Africa, especially the world’s leading producers of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Unique public-private partnerships between U.S. government agencies, the chocolate industry, and African governments are strengthening primary and secondary education in such a way as to support the achievement of the first MDG in cocoa-growing communities. At the same time, these partnerships are supporting education opportunities for youth and adults in cocoa-growing communities who are no longer in school. This approach presents a valuable model that may be adapted and replicated in other countries and other sectors.
An Integrated Approach to HIV/AIDS Services in South Africa: Private Pharmacies and Policy Recommendations
This article explores the need for an integrated approach that includes private pharmacies to meet the growing demand for HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services in South Africa. The state of the epidemic is presented as are policy recommendations for an integrated approach. Five themes are discussed: public-private partnerships, HIV/AIDS resource centers in pharmacies, antiretroviral therapy, task shifting and task sharing, and interprofessional obstacles. The article concludes by providing policy recommendations for further research to facilitate partnerships and encourage greater research in this field. It also highlights the need for patient-centered partnerships and incentives for task sharing.
Climate Change, Subsistence Farming, Food Security, and Poverty: The Consequences of Agricultural Policies on Women and Men Farmers in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire
Agricultural policy in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire has failed to develop subsistence farming, which provides food security and employment for millions of Africans, particularly the majority of African women. Climate change is now threatening the livelihood of millions of farmers in the subsistence economy. This article argues that strengthening the subsistence economy will improve farmers’ capacity to mitigate the deleterious effects of climate change on fragile rural economies. This will require a change in the dominant agricultural policies as well as in the implementation strategies to orient them to adopt programs that can address micro-farming on a large scale.
General Budget Support and the Incentives It Creates to Improve Performance in Tanzania
This article attempts to clarify how public performance affects General Budget Support (GBS) decisions in Tanzania and how performance indicators and GBS-driven incentives shape public policy design, budgeting, and performance. On the first issue, we find that development partners fail to agree on a common way to monitor performance, that headquarter policies rather than country performance is the main determinant of aid disbursements, and finally that the incentives General Budget Support creates are weakened by the lack of explicit rules regarding aid disbursements and the increasing number of donor-specific triggers. On the effects of General Budget Support performance monitoring on public policy decisions, we find that the lack of prioritization between donor triggers confuses the signal donors send to government, that the effect of the triggers are limited to the act of cutting or increasing aid, which stirs a lot of debate but not the intended development outcome, and finally that because of capacity constraints, government’s ability to affect outcomes cannot be taken for granted. Based on these findings we recommend a number of critical steps to enhance the effectiveness of GBS-driven incentives.
Malawi’s Starter Pack: A Smarter Subsidy to Empower the Poor with Science-Based Agriculture
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa aims to develop and extend new technologies to benefit Africa’s poor farmers and make African agriculture more productive. In some cases, the World Bank indicates that it would support what it calls “smart subsidies” to assist bringing such productivity to poor farmers. In the 1980s Malawi demonstrated that with subsidies on hybrid seed and fertilizer and with reasonably good rainfall, it could produce more than enough maize for its own commercial demand, exporting the “surplus” to others in the region. Following a serious food crisis in 2005, Malawi has again demonstrated that relatively massive input subsidies and good rainfall can generate maize surpluses. However, the subsidies are too large to be sustained, and they do not meet a reasonable definition of “smart.” The real potential green revolution — truly increasing productivity for all farmers by changing input/output ratios and cropping systems — has yet to gain donor support. The Malawai government’s “Starter Pack program” demonstrated its potential but after two years was abandoned by donors in favor of a less costly nonrevolutionary safety net program only for the least able. Predictably, that failed to produce enough maize, and the current fertilizer subsidy approach was adopted — US $74 million annually compared to the Starter Pack’s $25 million. Analysis would show that the current brute-force use of fertilizer is far less cost-effective and less sustainable than a truly revolutionary approach that changes input/output ratios and not just raises inputs. In comparison to the current subsidy, the Starter Pack approach meets much more closely the World Bank’s definition of a “smart subsidy.” The current “surplus” is not a green revolution; it is simply a return to the subsidized surpluses of the early 1980s that coexisted with widespread malnutrition. As the Starter Pack program demonstrated, a “smarter subsidy” could produce better results at far lower cost and with the prospect of long-term improvement of agricultural productivity.
Public Space in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg
This article discusses the challenges of developing meaningful public space in Johannesburg, a city built on apartheid policies that separated White from Black residents. While the advent of democracy in 1994 has turned Johannesburg into one of the more integrated and vibrant South African cities, it has also sadly resulted in the decline of public space in the city, as soaring crime has forced wealthier residents to seek refuge in privately secured enclaves. Policy makers need to actively shape a public space to build the sense of commonness that will be essential to the success of Johannesburg as a “world-class African city.” The 2010 World Soccer Cup could provide an opportunity to do so.
Roles of Governance in Explaining Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been growing at very low rates over the past few decades. The roles of malfunctioning institutions, geographic misfortune, and lack of integration in explaining this have been the subject of much debate. This article assesses the role of institutions in explaining the slow growth of Africa. In addition, it explores one of the possible transmission channels — aggregate technical inefficiency — through which institutions affect economic growth. In order to evaluate the impact of institutions on economic growth, the classical growth models have been estimated using difference and system generalized method of moments (GMM) using data from thirty-five selected SSA countries from 1996 to 2005. Rule of law, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, political instability, and voice and accountability are found to influence the growth of SSA. However, control over corruption has no relation to growth in the continent. Using stochastic frontier analysis, this study found that only two aspects of governance —regulatory quality and government effectiveness — matter in influencing technical efficiency. Political aspects of governance—voice and accountability and political instability—have no relation to technical efficiency. Therefore, Sub-Saharan Africa’s poor economic performance (slow growth and aggregate technical inefficiency) can in part be attributed to bad governance.
The Impact of Anticorruption Institutions on Corruption in East Africa
Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda have all created special institutions to reduce corruption. Their formal and informal powers vary, but they have grown over time and launched many high-profile investigations. Perceptions of corruption have barely changed in Kenya or Uganda and only fallen slightly in Tanzania, which has the weakest anticorruption institution. Even when the agencies enjoy adequate formal powers, their informal powers are constrained so as to limit their impact. Moreover, corruption is sustained by the political system in East Africa and so creating an institution focused on criminal investigation will not be enough to reduce it.
The Ombudsman Phenomenon in African States Public Services
Over the years, the office of the ombudsman in the public services of African states has been wobbling in its performance. The reasons for this are largely a result of overcentralization of government, bureaucratization, and the unwillingness of government to become truly democratic. The resultant effect has been that many citizens in African states cannot meaningfully seek redress against maladministration nor can they complain about poor governance and services delivery. This article argues that public servants in African states should be perceived as existing to help citizens, not to make citizens’ lives more difficult; it needs to be clear that the office of the ombudsman must be strengthened so that all the tenets of a credible public service are seen to be present and working to the advantage of all. This will help to put a check on government activities in the interest of the citizens and thus help to address the problems of human rights abuses, lack of accountability, and the absence of good governance.
Commentaries
Creating a Peace to Keep in Darfur: The Architecture of a Revitalized Process
ENOUGH, associated with the American Center for Progress, is a project dedicated to ending genocide and crimes against humanity. All the authors work with the ENOUGH project in some form of capacity: John Prendergast is co-chair of the ENOUGH project, Omer Ismail is a general advisor and Colin Thomas-Jensen is a policy advisor.
The time has come to acknowledge that the emperor has no clothes in the Darfur peace process. The international community has finally recognized the inadequacies of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) and has moved to significantly enhance civilian protection efforts in Darfur through a United Nations (UN)/African Union (AU) hybrid force called UNAMID. When fully deployed, UNAMID will be the largest UN-led peacekeeping mission in history. Though there is still a long way to go to get that force on the ground, the effort is finally directionally correct. It is critical to do the same for the Darfur peace process.
The timing for a renewed drive for peace in Darfur is auspicious, for the following reasons:
- U.S. President George Bush’s legacy: Bush’s administration was instrumental in negotiating a 2005 peace agreement between Khartoum and rebels based in the south, and he wants to protect that legacy. The president’s naming of a new special envoy, Richard Williamson, indicates renewed seriousness in the White House.
- China’s Olympics deadline: In advance of the Olympics, China is more willing to engage in an international drive for a peace settlement.
- Khartoum’s cross-border assault: The failed attempt by Sudanese government-backed Chadian rebels to overthrow President Idriss Deby in Chad provides fresh motivation for France and African governments to end this spreading crisis.
- UNAMID’s momentum: UNAMID’s deployment will provide a catalytic call for an actual peace to keep, as additional force without political progress is a recipe for disaster for both the UN and AU, as well as for the people of Darfur.
- Civilians’ increased peril: The fresh fighting in Darfur and Chad is threatening more lives and creating more refugees and internally displaced persons.
This moment of opportunity demands swift action by the moribund UN/AU mediation and its international backers. Although the current effort has created a single process that is largely supported by the rest of the world, that process is now broken. Opinions vary on how to fix it, and there is no silver bullet to steer the process in the right direction. But there are ingredients for a revitalized process that ENOUGH has identified through our fieldwork, our consultations with key actors, and our own experience in peace processes in Sudan and elsewhere.
This article attempts simply to frame the overall architecture of a revitalized process. Details will be debated fiercely and emerge through resulting negotiations, but if the process isn’t fixed quickly, there will be no peace in Darfur for a long, long time.
The Ingredients for Revitalization
There already exists a model for getting a peace deal done in Sudan: the process that produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). A variation on that theme would serve Darfur well.
It is our judgment that the following three elements are required to achieve a peace agreement for Darfur that ends the fighting and allows the displaced to return to their homes: revitalizing the process, getting the substance right, and building and applying the necessary leverage.
Revitalizing the Process
One strong lead mediator must replace the dual AU and UN mediators that presently lead the process. That UN/AU envoy should have strong negotiation experience, particularly in Africa and preferably in Sudan. The envoy should have a full-time support team with expertise in all relevant issues being negotiated. As a means of jump-starting the process, the new lead envoy should produce the outlines of a comprehensive draft agreement that addresses the bottom-line issues of the people of Darfur. After the lengthy consultation process that has occurred over the past year, these issues are well understood and outlined briefly below.
The draft should be circulated to key constituencies for peace, including traditional leaders and community leaders in camps for internally displaced persons and refugees, Darfurian civil society groups, women’s organizations, political parties, and diaspora organizations such as the Darfur Leaders Network. Broadening the peace process is essential to create a sense of ownership among Darfurians; the mediation team must establish a formal process to solicit regular feedback from these critical Darfurian actors. Further, the lead mediator must show quickly that the revitalized mediation will address the core issues. Otherwise, the rebels will almost certainly continue to reject the process.
Given how biased past mediation efforts have been toward the government’s well-developed positions, rebel factions have understandably been reluctant to engage, and their position is backed by significant segments of Darfur’s civilian population, who also have lost faith in mediation efforts. A critical flaw in the current peace initiative is that a clear vision for an end state that resonates with the victims of the conflict was not established before the efforts to unify the rebel groups. Circulating such a document will help generate pressure from key constituencies and from the displaced camps on the rebels to participate in the process.
Citations in the press of dozens and dozens of rebel factions obscure the fact that a handful of factions or factional alliances have emerged from what appears to the untrained observer to be chaos:
- The Sudan Liberation Army/Abdel Shafie, or SLA/Abdelshafie, is an alliance of five factions that attended consultations in Juba, southern Sudan, facilitated by the SPLM late last year.
- The SLA/Unity alliance ironed out differences among its respective factions and is led collectively by Suliman Jamous, Adam Shogar, and Sharif Harir.
- The SLA/Abdelwahid faction remains mostly as a political actor, with minimal military impact in Darfur.
- The Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, is divided among two factions, one led by Khalil Ibrahim and the other, called JEM Collective Leadership, by his former confidant, Bahar Abu Garda.
Many Sudan observers have called for a cessation of hostilities as the first step in a revitalized process. ENOUGH believes this is unrealistic. As evidenced by a recent rebel offensive and renewed attacks against civilians by Khartoum-backed militia, neither side feels any incentive to stop fighting right now. However, a demonstration that the peace process actually has legs will help create some incentive for forward movement. Within the context of a revitalized process, at some point a cessation of hostilities agreement can be tabled with a more realistic chance of success.
The mediation team — accompanied whenever possible by special envoys from the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom — needs to take the draft agreement on the road and conduct shuttle diplomacy with the various stakeholders. Clear timelines should be set, confidence-building measures and benchmarks established, and close coordination with efforts to achieve the implementation of the CPA should be prioritized.
Getting the Substance Right
After multiple failed peace efforts and meandering consultations, the issues at stake in Darfur are well understood. The draft agreement referenced above should include proposals for the following:
- A substantial sum for individual compensation to be paid by the government
- International monitoring of a cessation of all forms of state support for the janjaweed militia structure
- International monitoring and support for encampment of all forces in Darfur (government, rebel, and militia)
- Administrative arrangements for Darfur
- Power sharing for Darfurian constituencies
- A comprehensive plan to address the humanitarian, livelihood, environmental, and developmental challenges that Darfur will face in the aftermath of the conflict
There will be contentious debates over the specifics of the wealth, power, development, and security arrangements of any lasting Darfur deal. But the first step for the mediation is to jump-start the process by taking a stab at solutions, with an understanding that much negotiation lies ahead.
Building and Applying the Necessary Leverage
The peace process that ended the war in southern Sudan finally succeeded because an African lead mediator was backed by a “troika” of countries — the United States, United Kingdom, and Norway — that brought leverage with the parties that the mediator did not have. The mediator and the troika worked hand in glove in a process that should provide, at least in general terms, a blueprint for how to succeed in Darfur. Indeed, what is and has been missing in the Darfur process is real leverage. Creating a troika-like effort to back up the mediator, which in turn would be strengthened by clear and focused incentives and pressures, would help give peace a real chance in Darfur.
Instead of a troika, ENOUGH, the Save Darfur Coalition, the Genocide Intervention Network, and others have proposed a “quartet” of countries with maximal external leverage that could work with the mediator and regional states in pressing for an agreement. The quartet we propose would consist of China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each has individual leverage and interest, but the combination would be decisive.
The quartet should consult closely with regional states with great interest in Darfur, including Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Saudi Arabia. Together, the three external elements — the mediator, the quartet, and the regional states — can use their comparative advantages, and if they coordinate closely could effect the calculations of the warring parties.
In order to exert the greatest amount of influence and effectiveness, each of the quartet countries should have full-time staff in the region to continuously engage the warring parties and regional states while supporting the work of the lead mediator. In the case of the United States, Bush’s special envoy, Richard Williamson, should have two full-time deputies working the Darfur and CPA issues as well as a field-based team with personnel in Khartoum, Chad, and Juba. Additionally, the French government, working closely with China and the United States, should invest more through the European Union in diplomatic efforts to resolve the political crisis in Chad.
Field-based diplomacy would be dramatically enhanced if the international community builds greater leverage through targeted punitive measures. For the five years that the conflict has raged on, there have been very few multilateral costs imposed on the individuals most responsible for violence targeting civilians. The UN Security Council — led quietly by the United States — must impose a consequence for destruction and obstruction in Darfur, in the form of targeted sanctions, a comprehensive arms embargo, and additional support to the International Criminal Court. Until we begin to effect the calculations of the warring parties, those calculations will remain unchanged and the war will continue.
Conclusion
A successful peace process in Darfur is merely one component of a comprehensive approach to lasting peace in Sudan. The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has time and again taken advantage of the international community’s inconsistent focus and failure to articulate a clear path toward peace in Darfur and — as promised by the CPA — the democratic transformation of Sudan. With laser-guided international focus on ending the war in the south from 2003 to 2005, Khartoum bought itself time to pursue its scorched-earth campaign in Darfur. Since then, facing international condemnation for crimes against humanity and haphazard diplomatic efforts to end the Darfur crisis, Khartoum has predictably undermined the implementation of the CPA. Unquestionably, the NCP maintains the initiative, runs circles around the international community’s efforts to resolve both crises, and continues to grind the people of Sudan under its heel.
The only way for the international community to break out of this deadly rut is by revitalizing the Darfur peace process, refocusing on the core issues, and building the coordinated leverage necessary to achieve a peace agreement for Darfur and the full implementation of the CPA. Another failed peace process for Darfur and an unraveling of the CPA could plunge the Sudan into unprecedented misery. This is entirely avoidable, but will take the kind of leadership the Bush administration demonstrated on behalf of the North-South peace process. Whether Bush musters the will for such an effort will be in part driven by the continuing commitment of the Darfur advocacy movement to a comprehensive peace for Sudan, and ultimately, the extent to which he cares about his legacy in Sudan.
From South Africa and Beyond: Challenges of the African Continent
F.W. de Klerk was the president of South Africa from September 1989- May 1994. He is most well known for engineering the end apartheid in South Africa, as well as beginning the process for a new constitution to be drafted, enabling a one-person, one-vote system for all South Africans. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Nelson Mandela, in 1993 for his role in ending apartheid.
South Africa’s relationship with Africa is much like the United States’ relationship with Latin America: it is by far the biggest kid on the block. Its economy is more than three times as large as that of Nigeria, the next-largest African economy, and twenty times bigger than that of Zimbabwe. South Africans consume twice as much electricity as the rest of sub-Saharan Africa combined. With less than 7 percent of the region’s population it accounts for more than 27 percent of its Internet users.
Unfortunately, South Africa’s block — sub-Saharan Africa — is in the poorest and most troubled part of the global community. International perceptions of Africa are dominated by the bad things that are happening up the street in Darfur, Sudan, as well as by the serious trouble that has broken out recently in Kenya, which had been one of the neighborhood’s beacons of hope. Problems continue in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although progress has been made in resolving conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Just next door, in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe continues to smash the furniture as he presides over the systematic dismantling of his economy. However, the quiet and steady progress that many other African countries are making does not generate international headlines.
The perception is that Africa is lagging further and further behind in the global race. It is true that between 1960 and 2005 the human development index in the developing world as a whole increased from 0.260 to 0.691 on a scale where 1.0 represents the highest levels of development. However, in sub-Saharan Africa it increased only from 0.2 to 0.493. It is also true that between 1990 and 2005 gross national product (GNP) per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa grew by only 0.5 percent per year, compared with an average annual growth of 3.1 percent for the rest of the developing world during the same period. However, according to the World Bank, average growth in the region last year was an impressive 5.4 percent. Too often, the world is inclined to look only at negative developments in Africa, which leads to “Africa pessimism.”
However, if we look at Africa with greater discernment we begin to realize how unfair this perception often is. The countries that conform to the stereotype of poverty, conflict, and tyranny do so not because they are African, but because poverty, tyranny, and conflict go hand in hand throughout the world and throughout history — and not just in Africa. The ten countries that have experienced the bitterest conflict during the past decade have one thing in common: nearly all of them are all poor. The average per capita GNP income of these countries is less than US $370 compared with the average income for sub-Saharan Africa of $845.
Poverty and the state of political development also go hand in hand: the average per capita GNP income of the sub-Sahara African countries that are classified as “not free” is $352; that of the countries that are regarded as being “partly free” is $552; and that of the “free” countries is $2,115.
The problem, accordingly, is poverty — not Africa.
The challenge for the world — and most notably for Africa itself — is to address the root causes of the vicious cycle of poverty, conflict, and tyranny in the continent. It is a challenge that Africa has accepted. In July 2001, African leaders assembled at the 37th Summit of the Organization of African Unity and adopted the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) “to consolidate democracy and sound economic management on the continent.”
How has Africa progressed since then in achieving these lofty goals? The African Union, with strong support from South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, has done much to address the remaining conflicts in the continent. It has achieved some notable successes, particularly in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, and southern Sudan. It continues to play a positive but less successful role in the Congo and Darfur but has, as yet, done very little to address the situation in Zimbabwe.
Africa has also achieved some success with NEPAD’s central goal of promoting democracy. Freedom House, a New York–based organization that monitors the state of civil and political rights in countries around the world, now classifies eleven of Africa’s fifty-two states as being “free” multiparty democracies (compared with eight only a few years ago); another twenty-three are regarded as being “partly free,” and eighteen as “not free.” Interestingly, despotism is not primarily a sub-Saharan phenomenon: four of the five countries north of the Sahara are classified as “not free.”
African governments also committed themselves in their NEPAD undertakings to creating an environment in which economic growth could take place. According to Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa, they needed to improve the integrity of their legal systems and upgrade their physical infrastructure. They had to address problems of poor governance and corruption and had to stop overregulating the private sector. They also needed to stimulate trade through greater regional integration and the lowering of tariffs and nontariff barriers.
How have they fared?
Corruption is still a major problem in most African countries. According to a survey conducted by Transparency International in 2006, 35 percent of Africans reported that they or someone living in their household had paid some form of bribe during the preceding twelve months. The comparative responses for North America and the European Union were 2 percent; for Asia and the Pacific, 7 percent; for the newly independent Asian and European countries, 11 percent; and for Latin America, 17 percent. Interestingly enough, the figure for South Africa was only 5 percent.
There are also continuing problems with macroeconomic policy and good governance.
According to the Economic Freedom Network’s 2006 report, Botswana has the freest economy in Africa. Nevertheless, it ranks only thirty-fifth in the world. Only three African countries are listed among the fifty freest economies. South Africa is placed at fifty-three. Nineteen of the world’s thirty least-free economies are in Africa. All this has serious implications for NEPAD’s commitment to good governance and to its goal of promoting development.
There are some facets of economic policy that African countries must address as urgently as possible. They must stop the flight of capital from the continent. Although Africa rightly complains about its crippling debt burden, the reality is that $285 billion left the continent between 1970 and 1996. Each year Africa loses another $20 billion, which means that for every dollar lent to Africa in recent decades 80 cents has returned to the developed world.
Africa must liberalize its own tariffs, which are among the highest in the world. It must expand intraregional trade, which now accounts for only 10 percent of its total trade compared with intraregional trade in Europe and North America, which accounts for 67 percent and 40 percent of their total trade respectively.
At the same time there is a great deal that the international community can do to make the economic playing fields more even.
Steps should be taken to increase Africa’s diminishing share in global trade, which has declined from 2 percent in 1980 to 1 percent in 1999. Although First World nations are quick to give lip service to the need to help develop African economies, they are often ruthless when their own interests are adversely affected. The tariffs that they impose on agricultural imports from Africa are four to seven times higher than the tariffs they impose on manufactured exports. More seriously, the developed countries continue to subsidize their farmers to the tune of $280 billion per annum. By so doing they make it difficult for Africans to compete in the one area where they have a competitive advantage.
Africa needs two things: a fair break from the rest of the world and the determination to address its own problems. NEPAD is designed to do precisely this. The challenge will be to give real content to NEPAD and to ensure that it does not deteriorate into yet another talk shop with a bloated bureaucracy.
One of the keys to Africa’s future success will be the development of strong, prosperous, and democratic hubs in its main regions — Nigeria in West Africa; South Africa in southern Africa; and Kenya in East Africa. However, the recent violence and failed election in Kenya show how very fragile this process can be.
Much will depend on the continuing success of South Africa — the biggest kid on the block. If it can continue to entrench its excellent constitutional democracy, if it can persist with the sensible macroeconomic policies that have brought 14 years of sustained growth, and if it can maintain harmony between its constituent races and communities, it will be able to play a pivotal role in promoting peace, development, and prosperity throughout its region — and ultimately throughout the continent.
Interviews
Addressing Africa’s Conflicts: An Interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Haviva Kohl
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African cleric, is widely known around the world for his activism and vocal opinions against Apartheid in the 1980s. He is also a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1984), and today continues to be a huge proponent for human rights around the world, focusing his advocacy work on Zimbabwe, Sudan and Palestine.
The interview was conducted by Haviva Kohl conducted via email in March 2008.
APJ: What is your vision for the new South Africa? What are your thoughts about contemporary South Africa?
Tutu: We have all shared the dream of a South Africa that is caring and compassionate, where everyone really matters. Nelson Mandela at his inauguration in 1994 said, “Never again . . . would South Africa be a place where others oppressed their fellow human beings for whatever reason.” We have achieved much. We have a splendid Constitution, the highest court in the land is our Constitutional Court, we have a Public Protector, a Human Rights Commission, etc. We have erased obnoxious discriminatory laws; we have outlawed discrimination based on race, belief, sexual orientation, physical ability, gender. Fantastic. But yes, we still have a long way to go to translate political freedom into social and economic equity for all. We have levels of poverty that are unacceptable, corruption, homelessness, crime — though which country does not have problems?
APJ: What are the roots of present-day African conflicts and underdevelopment (e.g., ethnic, tribal, economic, etc.)? What can be realistically done to address them?
Tutu: There are many causes: colonialism, for instance, the genocide in Rwanda was prepared for by the policies of the Belgians who deliberately fanned ethnic rivalry between Tutsi and Hutu. Europe drew a crazy map of history in the scramble for Africa. But we must admit that we have suffered from power-hungry, corrupt despots whom the West often encouraged as the surrogates in the Cold War. The international economic system is hugely flawed. How can developing countries compete with wealthy Western countries in agricultural production when these developed nations pay such high subsidies to their farmers and maintain a high tariff wall? What price so-called free enterprise where the powerful are the rule makers, players, and referees all at the same time?
APJ: What is the role of the international community (e.g., United States, United Kingdom, European Union, United Nations, etc.) in addressing Africa’s issues?
Tutu: There is a new consciousness arising; there are wonderful people such as the young idealists who conceived Make Poverty History. There are the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). Perhaps there is an awakening to the fact that we are interconnected, that the rich cannot quarantine themselves in their ghettos of affluence. We will never win wars of so-called terror as long as there are conditions in the world which make people desperate and so [they] use desperate methods. We have only one Earth home, and we will sink or swim together. We need to help African leaders to realize they exist for the advancement of their followers, to be rulers of integrity, working for the good of their people and not engaging in corruption and self-aggrandizement, to uphold human rights and democracy with an independent judiciary and a free and untrammeled media, etc.
APJ: How has the role of clergy and the church evolved in addressing global inequalities?
Tutu: Especially Christian leaders should work for the Kingdom of God, to hold leaders accountable, and to be the voice of the voiceless.
APJ: What advice would you give to tomorrow’s generation of leadership that would better prepare them to address the issues that they will face?
Tutu: I would say be a leader for the sake of the led — a servant leader working for the good of the people and not engaging in self-aggrandizement. Be humble and eager to listen to the people.
Opposition Leader Offers Thoughts on South Africa : An Interview with Tony Leon
Haviva Kohl
Tony Leon was the leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s Opposition Party, serving from 1994- 2007. Leon is currently a member of South Africa’s parliament and continues to maintain an active political role in South Africa today.
Haviva Kohl interviewed Tony Leon on December 7, 2008 in Cambridge, MA.
APJ: What are you most proud of from your time as the leader of South Africa’s main opposition party?
Leon: Well, I’m proud of the fact that we not only survived in very, very choppy and turbulent waters, but that we also carved out the space. So that actually, although it’s a very one party–dominant state, South Africa has a viable opposition. Now I have to say, if you look at other post-colonial, post-independent countries in Africa, generally that hasn’t happened. Generally, what’s happened is that one party has taken over, unchallenged, and been in power for a generation. And then there’s a huge eruption when that party finally gets chopped out, either through a military coups or through an election. And Zimbabwe’s a very, very potent and salutary example of when the opposition space closes down. When you try and open it up, as the NDC [National Democratic Congress] did in 2000, it’s too late. So, we’ve kept that space open. We’ve laid down, I think, some important precedents of parliamentary behavior in a newly democratizing state. But, more important than that, to me, personally having the chance to participate in the writing of, first, the interim constitution in 1993, and then the final constitution in 1996, and looking at some clauses there that, I know, if it weren’t for the efforts of people who I happened to meet, would not have been there at all — I think this is an accomplishment. Now, realizing that, there is going to be realizing the aspirations of that constitution, that’s a different set of authorities that still has not been achieved. But, the fact that there’s a yardstick that one can use to hold government accountable for its actions is a very significant accomplishment.
APJ: How do you see the role of the opposition party in South Africa today?
Leon: Well, I think it’s got a multidimensional role. It’s developed a democracy. So that means you can’t just assume that you’ve got a normal political contestation, in the sense that there’s a lot of history, there’s a lot of baggage. There’s a lot of institution-building. It’s sort of “learn as you go,” rather than having settled, for instance, opposition and government interaction and behavior. Having said all that, it’s absolutely critical, in my view, that the opposition presents an alternative and that it challenges the government on hard key issues, like corruption, poor governance, the overambitious reach of the majority party, which wants to conquer all the independent sites. But the constitution can’t be marked out for occupation by nonparty people. And so what I’m saying is, I think the opposition can’t just be opted or in the slipstream of governing parties. It has got to present some clear and coherent alternative — that is in a structural, functional sense. There tends to be a very close correlation between virtual identity and political “preferencing.” So, this creates an extra challenge. And the question is not just to speak for your corner but to reach out, even aspirationally, to the groups that you do not represent. But certainly, in South Africa, you would need to represent it, if you were going to become a viable alternative. Now, the third dimension . . . is obviously to find alternative sites; you can’t produce politics through a zero-sum game. In South Africa, there’s a very, very vestigial federal element to the constitution, where all nine provinces [are] very centrally controlled, á la Putin’s Russia. It’s a bit like that. The central government massively interferes with the provinces. A lot of the powers have been rolled back. In fact, what we’re trying to do is to establish alternative governing sites at a local level — best example, city of Cape Town, which has been very fiercely contested with. We have a majority at the moment. And we’re trying to use that as a delivery forum, or a delivery flagship, so that we can show that even if we don’t have power nationally, we have power locally: we can deliver more effectively, [be] cost-effective and less corrupt.
APJ: During 1994 to 1999, the opposition party gained a significant amount of support. What were some strategies that the opposition party used to garner that increase in support?
Leon: Well, to be honest, our growth, which was very high, compared to where we were — speaking of my party — we felt that we were the most effective opposition because we had a coherent liberal democratic platform. The default option of most minority voters in the 1994 election went for the national party because they were the biggest. But they were the outgoing government. They performed clearly in opposition. We were unencumbered with a lot of the baggage when it came to taking on the ANC [African National Congress] because we didn’t have the legacy or the albatross of apartheid around our necks. So, that was one thing. The second thing was that we had an opposition mindset. They did not. So, we set out to do what oppositions do, use question time of Parliament to tap into a lot of anxiety about emerging issues, like corruption, HIV/AIDS, the overreach of the governing party into various areas of society, from sports to the private sector, where we felt that government should know its place. And, by articulating that, and also because we didn’t have, what I call the drip-drip torture of the truth and reconciliation commission, we were not complicit in the apartheid atrocities, whereas the national party would spend so much time on the defensive in the first five years, that they couldn’t really look after their voters. So, this really helped us. We had a very aggressive campaign in 1999. The campaign was actually designed by some American political consultants, and I thought that it was fine. Let’s go with a strategy that’s going to maximize our support. And we did. And we grew, in one election, more than any other party has grown in South African history.
APJ: The “fight back” slogan that the opposition used in its strategy to gain more voters’ support was criticized as being counterproductive to social change. How would you respond to this accusation?
Leon: Yes. That’s exactly what the ANC said. We, of course, said it was fight back against corruption, against crime, against misgovernment. It was very contested. But I think it was necessary for a party that was on the periphery and on the edge to have some clear blue water, which we defined as a very, very crowded field. And we succeeded with that. You can always argue, retrospectively … but [the] most irritating signs are the signs of hindsight. And you can always argue . . . if you’d be more inclusive, it might have had a better result. The ANC, whatever its other virtues, is very, very intolerant of opposition — whether the opposition came from us, or a predominantly White party, from the Inkatha Party, which is predominantly Zulu party; they don’t like opposition. And I think they doubt the legitimacy of people who oppose their national project. But to me, what had to be fought back against is not the ANC, as such. They’ve got a very significant majority. They have some good leaders and very bad leaders. And they are very good deliberators. So they weren’t going to be troubled in one or two or three elections. It would take more time. But what I think is the most malicious and dangerous threat in South Africa, and remains so, is this construct of the government, the National Democratic Revolution, which goes way beyond the precepts and the confines of our constitution, and is basically a Gramscian — as in Antonio Gramsci — project of Germany, getting control of all elements of society, including the opposition parties, the business sector, and so on. Because, to me, that is a very, very dangerous red light that flashes. And it needs to be opposed. And we opposed it. So that, to me, was the essence of the fight. In fact, it remains so, today.
APJ: What do you see as the critical challenges facing South Africa right now?
Leon: Well, I think the biggest challenge on the economic/social front is, strangely enough, the paradox. Well, the whole of South Africa is a paradox. It’s a tale of two countries. On one hand, you had the GDP growth at a 20-year high. But actually, you’ve got unemployment at a 20-year high as well because the economic growth happened in the wrong places. It tends to be in the non-tradable sector, the professional services, government services, and so on. It’s not creating jobs for the people who are the most unemployed — that’s the poor, the Black, the youth. That’s the biggest area of unemployment. And the high level of growth has not dented that unemployment at all. And that’s because it’s been a vertiginous collapse in manufacturing and export jobs, and so forth. Now that has got a whole lot to do with skills allocation in South Africa. It’s also got to do with a lot of government interventions that, I think, affected sustainable growth, Black economic empowerment, which has created a set of iconic Black millionaires. And it massively “multiracialized” the ownership class. It’s done very little at the bottom of that to transform the economic relations. So, you know, you’ve got an army of unemployed people, one of the highest in the world. You’ve got a long-term problem. And, we [have] in the highest AIDS infection rates in the world — highest number of AIDS mortalities in one country. That’s another challenge. And then you’ve got, allied to that, that one is the cause of the other. And, you know, it’s not so much the volume of the crime, as [the violent nature]. South Africa has the most violent crime rates in the world. So, you’ve got these very combustible elements and the question remains, how does a government deal with them? Those are the challenges. Well, you deal with them by not . . . cutting off country or adversarial views. You have a real conversation, which the government doesn’t really have. It’s convinced of the perpetual righteousness of its own policies, even when they’re demonstratively failing. It attaches itself to certain constructs. And then it doesn’t depart from them when the evidence [proves otherwise]. So hopefully there will be more self-examination, more correction of the errors, and the realization that you transform it, or cost brings in its wake a set of negative consequences. Now I’m not saying it doesn’t need to be a racial transformation. But, when you pursue that, as you’re taught that [it’s] the only priority, meaning you push people out of the police force who are politically incorrect, you insist on the public service that is racially represented, rather than being skills-oriented, you’re going to get a certain set of results. And if you're going to have BEE —Black economic empowerment — as your lone star, then you are going to have to train it to the ownership class. But you’re not, necessarily, going to be able to create a dent on employment. So, I think you’ve got to be much more mixing and matching, and much less ideological “fetishization,” you know, making a fetish ideology. And maybe the next regime will do that. If they don’t we will carry on producing these dismal figures and putting ourselves at the top of the indices that we don’t want to be on top of, which is crime, unemployment, and skills flight. The biggest area of unemployment is the poor, the Black, and the youth. And the high level of growth has not dented that unemployment rate at all, and this is because there has been a vertiginous collapse in manufacturing and export jobs, and so forth. Now that’s got a whole lot to do with skills allocation in South Africa. It’s also got to do with a lot of government interventions that, I think, affected sustainable growth, Black economic empowerment, which has created a set of iconic Black millionaires. And it massively multiracialized the ownership class. It’s done very little at the bottom of that [pool] to transform the economic relations.
APJ: Do you think that South Africa could be the next Zimbabwe? If not, what is South Africa doing to mitigate the issues that are affecting Zimbabwe so they don’t affect South Africa?
Leon: If you go back to Mugabe, prior to 1980, it was a symbol of hope for us in South Africa, that we could also make a nonracial transition. Mugabe did not start off in power as a tyrannous monster that he now is, although some would argue that the signs were always there. But he developed that full throttle with his grip to advance and turn, with vengeance, against both the Black opposition and the White farmers and everyone else in society who stood in his way. The question is, what will happen? And you won’t know the answer to that until the ANC is threatened, nationally, with a loss at the polls. That has not yet happened. But, Mugabe also started all the corruption. First came the corruption and then came the intolerance for democracy. Well, we’ve certainly developed a huge amount of corruption in South Africa. We haven’t yet seen the mess, intolerance, or the official intolerance of democracy. We’ve seen some signs of it, but not as pervasively. Now the question, is that because South Africa is never going to be a Zimbabwe? Or is it because we haven’t faced a Zimbabwe-type situation yet? Probably a bit of both. I think the factors that could make South Africa like Zimbabwe are there. But equally, the fact is that [the forces acting] against it are there as well. One of them is, I think, South Africa has a more developed civil society than Zimbabwe had. We’ve certainly got a larger opposition than they had, at the time, that Zimbabwe saw its power there, but then became very, very powerful. There was no opposition. What Mugabe did was to actually co-opt the previous opposition into his government. And they went along, and there are, therefore, no opposition space at all. So we kept that space open. I also think the South African economy is much larger than Zimbabwe’s economy, and it’s quite easy to flatten. South Africa is like a skyscraper, compared to a little hut. That’s a comparison. So, what I’m saying is, I think it depends on how we respond to things. And our responses have been mixed. I don’t think Zimbabwe’s an automatic destination for South Africa, at all, but not an impossible one, either. And we’ve got to see how we manage over the next few years. But I suppose the most worrying sign is that we don’t differentiate ourselves in public from the excesses of Mugabe, and that’s got to do with the politics of solidarity, and the history of colonialism, and a lot of other bad things that have impaired good political judgments in the Zimbabwe issue.
APJ: What advice would you give to a member of an opposition party on how to impact change in Zimbabwe?
Leon: Wow. Well, I think the first thing is to be strategic. I think, often, the Zimbabwean opposition is more brave than it is strategic and smart. And I think more often than not, they’ve participated in elections that were rigged against them, before they ever started. And then crying foul after the election’s been stolen, when you know at once it’s going to be stolen from you, actually, to me, is just dumb politics. And they’ve tended to do that too often. It’s very difficult to give advice. The problem is, Robert Mugabe, you know, grows tobacco. He doesn’t have oil. So getting international interest in Zimbabwe is limited. But I think they’ve just got to keep up the pressure from outside the country, as much as they do inside. And thirdly, they’ve got to reinvigorate their supporters, which is very difficult. I’m not saying it’s easy, because people are coward, people are frightened. But I have to say that at the worst days of apartheid in South Africa, despite a lot of official oppression, there was a spirit of resistance kept alive in the country, either due to the ANC or not, because they were banned, officially. So I guess the same is true of Zimbabwe, that there is still a spirit of . . . desperate yearning for change. And their job is to feed that, however difficult it is and whatever the odds. I think the other thing that I might make so bold is nothing helps a government, especially one that’s the likes of Zimbabwe, in having a spirit of opposition, where the major opposition in Zimbabwe has allowed itself to become divided, in terms of any play to the advantage of the government. And I don’t think that’s helped anything. I also think they place too much faith in South Africa’s role as an honest broker. They’ve tended to accept, reluctantly, a mediation role for South Africa. I think they’re going to make the terms much more stringent for that. And, you know, none of these things are easy. But I think more fearsome odds have been overcome than those faced by the opposition of Zimbabwe. And I hope that they have both the wisdom and the perseverance to see it through. Because it certainly is necessary.
APJ: What are your future plans?
Leon: Well, I’ve got another year to spend in the Parliament until my term expires in 2009. I’ve really enjoyed my study group here at Harvard’s Kennedy School. I was amazed at how well it was attended. So I’d like to, perhaps, come back and do something like that, in a slightly different role here at Harvard or somewhere else. Because I think there’s a great yearning for, not just information, but for an on-the-ground analysis. Also, perhaps . . . it’s not just a simple morality play, of good versus evil, the complexities and subtleties of a developing democracy like South Africa and its neighborhood are more variegated than perhaps the superficial images flashed abroad suggest. And I think people want to explore that and tease it out. So I’d like to participate in it. I am also bringing out a book soon, which is a political memoir.
Reviews
Analyzing the Role of NGOs in Tanzania
Review of Surrogates of the State by Michael Jennings (Kumarian Press, 2008)
Surrogates of the State looks at the role that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played in the implementation of the Tanzanian Ujamaa decentralization program in the 1960s and 1970s. The Ujamaa program involved “the ‘villageization’ of the nation by the large scale relocation and consolidation in the rural areas . . . coupled with social change designed to promote development along a designated path [with] a renewed emphasis upon the rural sector.” The program has been described as a coercive and violent one in implementation.
Michael Jennings analyzes the NGOs’ role in Tanzania in the program’s implementation and finds that their level of cooperation with the state in perpetuating the destruction caused by the program was questionable. NGOs such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, and Catholic Relief Services, convinced that the overarching Ujamaa objectives of equality and economic growth complemented their mission, tolerated the brutality of the program for the greater good it promised but eventually did not realize.
In particular, he finds that Oxfam favored the development of “social machinery based on traditional forms [for the] restor[ation] of the traditions of the socialist African society.” Yet Oxfam was witness to the atrocities of autocratic and forced resettlement of the Tanzanian people and claimed it had to go along because there were no other options for action available. Jennings claims that of all the NGOs, Oxfam was “probably the most aware of the political realities and events on the ground.” Planned Ujamaa villages were attractive to Oxfam and other NGOs: villages made it easier to hold planning meetings and provide services compared to scattered communities. They also hoped the villages would raise productivity and reduce inequality while giving a voice to the “traditionally marginalized.”
Jennings is not generally critical of NGOs but insists that they must take a look at their past and learn from their mistakes in order to renew their operating methods. He also looks at the historical development of NGOs and their involvement in politics and government despite their “supposed apolitical character” in carrying out their mission. He finds that the context of the country within which these NGOs work can reverse this character, creating space for irretractable alliances with governments and the political machinery.
While academic in style, this book is still relatively easy to read. Indeed it is a must-read for those interested in analyzing the evolution of the NGO, the NGO’s role in international development, early involvement of NGOs and intergovernmental organizations in developing countries, and the Ujamaa program in Tanzania.
Despite Some Omissions, New Book Is Powerful and Thought-Provoking
Review of The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Paul Collier’s book is based on a glaring truth mixed with a bevy of insight and precisely focused recommendations — some original and some less so. The central argument of the book is contained in the title: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Collier points out that economic growth and convergence, especially in Asia, has ended the radical dichotomy between rich and poor countries, between North and South. Instead, the world is divided into a billion people in developed countries, four billion people in developing countries, and a billion people in countries that are stagnant, in decline, or disintegrating. The people in the latter group, who live mostly but not exclusively in Africa, are the bottom billion.
Collier’s research yields many fascinating insights into the state of the bottom billion countries. Their poverty and hopelessness is not new, but unlike the rest of the developing world, they are stuck there. The most original finding is the “conflict trap”: countries that suffer coups and civil war are mostly doomed to repeat them. Civil wars end only through exhaustion (consider, perhaps, Southern Sudan) or more happily through outside intervention (for example, Sierra Leone, Liberia). Unlike Jeffrey Sachs, whose The End of Poverty claims that “we have the solutions,” Collier is hesitant regarding what policies offer the best response to the situation of the bottom billion. Aid, Collier finds, is only marginally effective in stimulating development, though it may be necessary to stave off crisis. There is no easy path to growth, especially for landlocked countries. Corruption is always a problem but does not always stop growth (think of Indonesia); however, it is precisely in the resource-rich countries that depend on governments to redistribute their resource wealth that corruption most hampers effective government.
Collier is a native of Yorkshire, England, who has worked at the World Bank and throughout Africa. He currently directs the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. The research he has led there is controversial; political scientists and anthropologists feel his characterization of civil wars as “mostly a result of greed rather than grievance” is oversimplistic. Collier deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of economic research, but some of his calculations seem overambitious. For instance, he estimates the average cost of a failed state at something like U.S. $64 billion. This may be true, but it’s not very helpful to use the same figure for states as different as the Congo (population 45 million) and Guinea-Bissau (population 1.5 million); the cost per person or dollar of gross domestic product would be more interesting. In any case, the gravity of a civil conflict is about the number of dead or displaced people, not just the economic output foregone.
The book’s most glaring omission is a list or map of the bottom billion countries. Collier tells us there are 58 of them and calls them “Africa+”, but does not publish the list for fear of stigmatizing the countries and keeping them in their bottom position. This is sensible: African countries rarely benefit from being “named and shamed” by White Europeans. They might, however, benefit from being “named and shamed” by each other. In his enthusiasm for targeting aid to “good” governments and military interventions à la Sierra Leone, Collier does not consider how the West might support African solutions to African problems. If France is too embarrassed to intervene in civil wars directly, why can’t France fund and supply an African Rapid Reaction Force in Darfur? If good governance is so important, how can Western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which have a long record of forcing governments and business to respond to civil society, strengthen Africa’s vibrant media and nascent democratic institutions? Collier laments the economic illiteracy of Christian Aid and the antiglobalization lobby, but their passion and fundraising prowess can be turned to getting African governments to serve their own people better. Economists may advise governments on policy, but campaigners create the environment that makes radical reform happen.
Overall, this is a powerful and thought-provoking book. Multilaterals and NGOs should heed the call to focus on the people in the bottom billion, because the rest of the world will achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals without them. Activists and policy makers in developing countries should demand assistance but know that they are ultimately responsible for their own development. Collier’s book has little advice for them, save to “become more ambitious.” Collier’s work demands a sequel from a bottom billion economist, subtitled: “Why the poorest countries are failing and what we are going to do about it.”
Interpreting True Intentions in the Congo
Review of The Mission Song by John le Carré (Little, Brown and Company, 2006)
In the fiction book The Mission Song, John le Carré speaks through an interpreter — literally as that’s the profession of his main character — of the intricacies of Congolese politics and salvation.
In The Mission Song we meet Bruno Salvadore, or Salvo, the orphaned love child of a Congolese mother and Irish Catholic missionary father. Salvo is hidden within a secret school at a Congolese Catholic mission and connects to his birth mother and peers through their many African tongues. He has a skill in adopting these voices — for learning languages — and becomes an interpreter, a role which is often a nameless entity that is not really considered present but instead just a screen through which others are understood. His ambiguous and purposely clouded identity is mirrored in his work. His success as “l’interpréte” comes from his ability to switch seamlessly between accents, languages, and worlds; he is able to hide from his listeners, and also from himself, his true identity and true knowledge. Eventually he makes his way to England and gains British citizenship. He marries Penelope, a British journalist. Loyal to the Crown and to his British wife, Salvo soon finds himself betrayed. He loves his wife for all the things that, he finds, she does not want to be, and it may be that he loves the British government and in particular the powerful men that plot to prop up a Middle Road in the Congo for the same reasons. For while Salvo believes the men are planning for the same thing he wants — peace and prosperity with dignity for the country he loves — that’s far from the truth.
As an anonymous voice of indistinguishable origin, Salvo is the suave interpreter, the man at the top of his game. Faced with a true decision about something that he loves, he loses his anonymity and becomes unquestionably and irrefutably a man of Africa.
Love, Betrayal, and Resilience Set Amid the Nigerian Civil War
Review of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In the custom of her literary predecessors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie builds on the oral tradition’s unique contribution to African fiction. With the Nigerian civil war, popularly known as the Biafran War, as the setting of this, her second, novel, Adichie serves to elevate the lives and the circumstances of those who shaped a nation emerging from this turning point in Nigerian history. In a riveting, historical account of the birth of a nation, Half of a Yellow Sun is the story of lust, love, betrayal, and resilience.
Set in the 1960s in independent Nigeria, Half of a Yellow Sun uses timely character development, imagery, foreshadowing, and flashback to express the plight of these recently emancipated peoples and their quest for regional economic and political freedom. The better part of the story — to Adichie’s credit — is told through the innocent eyes of Ugwu, a “houseboy” from a rural village. Ugwu’s perspective is both naïve and pure, ignorant of his own potential and satisfied with his station in life. Enter Odenigbo, the politically conscious university lecturer in Nsukka who employs Ugwu and introduces him to a sophisticated circle of influence built on intense study and spirited debate with university colleagues. Odenigbo’s position — expressed when he communicated that “the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe . . . I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me the identity . . . I was Igbo before the white man came” — is reflective of the sense of isolation and tribalism that pushed the Igbos into war. Ugwu’s development begins with his exposure to Nsukka’s English-speaking elite, which serves as motivation: “Ugwu did not understand most of the sentences in the books, but he made a show of reading them. Nor did he entirely understand the conversations of Master and his friends but listened anyway.” Referring to him as “Master,” Ugwu’s fear of and love for Odenigbo’s intellect and courage propels him into the position of Master of the House. Unfortunately his position is compromised when Odenigbo’s well-to-do yet passive mistress, Olanna, takes her place as matriarch of the household. Throughout the buildup and chaos of forced relocation and extreme poverty, Olanna and Ugwu’s relationship evolves from antagonistic to friendly to protective.
Adichie’s development of the primary characters and their supporting cast, which include a scorned African American woman who was directly affected by the notorious Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing, do well to establish a sphere of influence and context for the tense existence of Black people living in constant fear of attack and persecution throughout the world. Juxtaposed with Ugwu and Olanna’s struggles to establish themselves in a culture dismissive of women and children are Olanna’s twin sister, Kainene, and her boyfriend, Richard. Kainene represents the alternative effect nurturing can have on Nigerian women. As an ambitious businesswoman and aggressive lover, Kainene possesses all the courage Olanna never had. Enter Richard, the inquisitive Brit whose insecurity appears to conflict with Kainene’s confident personality: “Richard was bewildered by Kainene’s busy life. Seeing her in Lagos, in brief meetings at the hotel, he had not realized that hers was a life that ran fully and would run fully even if he was not in it.” The love/hate relationships of Olanna and Kainene and their lovers mirror one another in their ability to forgive while reenlisting for future disappointment. Adichie is effective in sharing the tale of resilience Olanna and Kainene display — indicative of the character crucial to the well-being of Nigerian women during the war. Whether it be a village girl gang-raped by inebriated child soldiers, a poor teenager forced by her family into marriage with a rich army general, or the woman caught carrying the head of her dead child around with her, women’s ability to assist others in recovering and rebuilding in turmoil is central to the story’s message of extraordinary character in ordinary people.
This story of the Biafran War is not without its shortcomings; Half of a Yellow Sun’s abrupt ending, without alluding to the fate of a main character, is anticlimactic. Throughout the story, we become attached to characters and eventually trust them and identify with their decisions and circumstances. Adichie’s luring of the reader into a sense of trust, without full revelation, only leads to a sense of disappointment.
In spite of this small limitation, Half of a Yellow Sun will surely become the consciousness of an often misunderstood people and history.
Browse Volume 5
Articles
A Primer on Aid Effectiveness: Development Partners or Development Parasites? Evidence from Uganda
During the 1990s, and especially over the second half of the decade, Uganda experienced high economic growth, falling income poverty, and relative political stability. In this dynamic environment, donors’ contribution to Uganda’s effective implementation of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) can be conceptualized along a spectrum of aid partnership. At the extreme ends of the spectrum, while true development partners (e.g. DFID) support the government’s development agenda by welcoming a switch from projects to government budget systems, development parasites like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
remain foreign to Uganda’s dynamic development plan. Government and development partners share the responsibility to continue pursuing the effective implementation of Uganda’s PEAP, while applying political pressure to regulate the activities of development parasites, who have failed to keep up with the pace of the policy debate.
Somali Piracy: An Escalating Security Dilemma
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has grown exponentially in recent years. This article will explain the growing trend, which is the result of a number of factors including the unstable political environment, the collapsed economy, and the presence of Islamic terror groups in Somalia. The research concludes that only a unified stance by the international community that addresses a two-part strategy can facilitate the eradication of Somali piracy. If the global actors involved do not enhance cooperation in the fight against piracy while simultaneously enacting measures to improve stability in Somalia, global commercial trade will continue to suffer from extortion, and Islamic radicalism in Somalia will continue to thrive and potentially overtake the country
Test Child Page
The Short and Longer Term Potential Welfare Impact of Global Commodity Inflation in Tanzania
This article uses a computable general equilibrium model to assess the welfare impact of commodity price inflation in Tanzania and possible tax policy responses in the short, medium, and long term. The results suggest that global commodity inflation since 2006 may have had a significantly negative impact on all Tanzanian households. Most of the negative impact comes from the rise in the price of oil. In contrast, food price spikes are potentially welfare improving for all Tanzanian households in the medium to long term. In comparison with nonpoor households, poor households in Tanzania may be relatively shielded from global commodity inflation because they derive a larger share of their income from agricultural activity and they consume less oil-intensive products. Finally, the results suggest that tax policies encouraging greater agricultural production and consumption may help to reduce poverty. In contrast, policies discouraging agricultural production (such as export bans) bear the risk of increasing poverty in the long run. However, such policies would only affect poverty at the margin (in one direction or the other).
Through the Looking Glass: A Comparative Case Study Analyzing the Origins of Central Command and Africa Command
This article examines the impetus for the establishment of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in an effort to better understand how perceived threats to U.S. national security have evolved since the Cold War. The commands were created because new threats to American national security were inadequately addressed by the preexisting military organization. The Persian Gulf and Africa were considered strategically unimportant, thus there was a willingness to tolerate the awkward manner in which each area was divided between existing commands. As new threats emerged, however, each region gained strategic importance and new commands were established. Without a solid understanding of this process, AFRICOM’s planners risk making policy mistakes similar to those made during the creation of CENTCOM. Based on this study, there are five major areas from which AFRICOM can build these lessons learned: establishing unified command and control, ensuring a coordinated planning process, securing support from its African allies, properly funding the command’s needs, and clearly defining AFRICOM’s mandate.
Front Matters
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Front Page - Volume 5
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Table of Contents - Volume 5
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Editor’s Remarks
Acknowledgments - Volume 5
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Sponsors - Volume 5
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Staff List - Volume 5
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Commentaries
A Novel Approach for Empowering Students in Africa
Environmental Governance in African Development
The Central African Republic in 2020
Turkish Trade and Investment Promotion Strategy toward Africa
Interviews
Africans Living with HIV/AIDS Are Vital Partners - An Interview with Stephen Lewis
Jasmin Johnson
Stephen Lewis is currently the codirector of AIDS-Free World and the Stephen Lewis Foundation, two nonprofits dedicated to supporting and empowering Africans with HIV/AIDS. Born in Canada, he began his career as a politician in Ontario, rising to hold the leadership position in the New Democratic Party in the 1970s. He then served as the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations. From 2001 to 2006, Lewis was the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and he has received international acclaim for his effectiveness in bringing this epidemic to the attention of world leaders.
Chinua Achebe: Storied and True
Jasmin Johnson and Adibeli Nduka-Agwu
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe is a world-renowned Nigerian poet, novelist, and critic. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), is the most widely read African novel; it sold 8 million copies worldwide and has been translated into fifty languages. He has written four other novels, several short stories, collections of poetry, and a significant number of political commentaries. His thematic concerns are colonialism and its effects, clashes of value, and African traditions. He sparked international controversy when he delivered a lecture on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and criticized the novel’s inherent racism. He is now a professor of language and literature at Bard College in New York.
Desmond Tutu: Lessons from History - An Interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Dambudzo Muzenda and Andrew Silvestri
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He is also a human rights activist and the winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. He played a prominent leadership role against the apartheid regime in South Africa and then chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission upon its abolition in the 1990s. Tutu was elected the first black South African Anglican Archbishop in Cape Town. He is currently the chairman of the Global Elders (or “The Elders”), a group of twelve public figures with much experience in government, peace negotiation, and human rights.
Reviews
An Insightful Portrait of Living with AIDS in Africa: A Review of Breaking Stone Silence: Giving Voice to AIDS Prevention in Africa
A Review of Breaking Stone Silence: Giving Voice to AIDS Prevention in Africa
Paul E. Terry (Africa World Press, 2006)
E-Governance and Local Governance in Africa
A Review of E-Governance in Africa: From Theory to Action: A Handbook on ICTs for Local Governance Gianluca Misuraca (Africa World Press, 2007)
Postcolonial Development Aid: Between the Quest for Equality and the Persistence of Colonial Frames and Mindsets
A Review of the Paternalism of Partnership: A Postcolonial Reading of Identity in Development Aid
Maria Eriksson Baaz (Zed Books, 2005)
What If? A Review of Blonde Roots
A Review of Blonde Roots
Bernardine Evaristo (UK: Hamish Hamilton/Penguin 2008)