The Dictators Handbook

Paul Collier in FP asks?:

Those of us who studied political systems presumed they must be right: Elections would empower citizens against the arrogance of government. And with the fall of the Iron Curtain, elections indeed swept the world. Yet democracy doesn’t seem to have delivered on its promise. Surprisingly often, the same old rulers are still there, ruling in much the same old way. Something has gone wrong, but what?...[continue reading]

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The Dangers of Populism & Jacob Zuma

From G. Pascal Zachary in Africa Works:

As a political tendency, “populism” seeks to challenge the wealthy, redress gaps between rich and poor, and improve the self-esteem and pride of the have-nots. Populists also tend to attack elites for looking down at the ordinary ban, and for using their superior education to make policies more complicated than they ought to be. Zuma is clearly populist in the traditional sense. The trouble with populism, historically, has been the abuse of the movement by its leaders. In practice,, populism can quickly slide into dictatorship...[continue reading]

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Environmental Defender-Marc Ona Essangui

From the Goldman Prize website:

Marc Ona led efforts to publicly expose the unlawful agreements behind a huge mining project threatening the sensitive ecosystems of Gabon’s equatorial rainforests. Ona’s efforts led to an unprecedented victory for civil society in Gabon, with the government adopting new environmental oversight regulations and significantly reducing the size of the mining concession...[continue reading]

Nominate Champions of Quality Education in Africa

From Changemakers:

Welcome to the “Champions of Quality Education in Africa” collaborative competition. We are building a network of innovative education entrepreneurs who are focused on improving the learning of African students. We are looking for entrepreneurial African educators and organizations who are working to ensure that pupils in Africa are learning the reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills that they need to succeed. If you are a successful and innovative teacher, administrator, or education organization, we invite you to apply...[continue reading]

via KenyanPundit

Is there an African cuisine?

Fran Osseo-Asare at Betumi Blog writes:

It is said that when the renowned South African food writer Laurens van der Post was approached in the 1960s to write the Russian volume of the ambitious Time-Life "Foods of the World" series, he was suffering from a medical condition that prevented him from using his hands to write. Instead, he offered the editors an alternate suggestion: that he travel the continent and do the one on Africa (dictating his notes, I believe). Apparently the editors of the series were stunned: they had no idea there was such a thing as "cuisine" in Africa, and had no plans for such a book in their "comprehensive" series. Van der Post assured them it existed...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of Betumi Blog

Distributed Leadership-Lessons for Grassroots African Democracy?

Marshall Ganz in an MIT lecture titled 'Distributed Leadership in the Obama Campaign' stated:

Leaders recruit, motivate and develop others, constructing a community around common interests, and building capacity from within the community. And unlike businesses, which tend to rely on rigid hierarchies, and systems and procedures, effective volunteer-based organizations must engage and enable lots of people to become innovators, adaptive in the face of uncertainty.

What could African democratic movements learn from the promise of organically grown grassroots organizations? Grandiose Parlor points us to a quote by Abba Kyari where he discusses options available to Nigeria's opposition parties:

There is no royal ride to success. The people properly enlightened, educated, mobilised and adequately led will reject and revolt against a situation that has all but enslaved them and condemned them to poverty. Sardines do not applaud their can.

Quick Hits

"Corruption kicked me out of Nigeria"-Nuhu Ribadu
The Movement of Movements the rise of 'Social Entrepreneurship'-The Yale Globalist
Politics versus the law in South Africa-The Economist
"Africa needs younger leaders"-Kofi Annan
"Yar'Adua administration is corrupt"-Nigerian Bar Association. Really?-via Turenchi
The Congo, too big to fail?

Curry, Cassava and Crossing Continents

In the Guardian Jeevan Vasagar reviews Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's The Settler's Cookbook:

I long for the day when an Asian history can be written without mentioning curry - but perhaps it can't be done. Here, food makes all the connections. For Alibhai-Brown's children, Africa is beautiful but distressingly violent and poor. Knowledge of its languages fades with time. But just as food crosses barriers between cultures, so it passes history down the generations to her son and daughter. The cuisine recorded here blends Africa and Asia: there are plantains with peanut curry, posho and rice. The first recipe is for fried mogo, cassava chips with salt and chilli, a hallmark of her people's cuisine. Its presence on an Indian wedding menu in Britain is a sure sign that the caterers are Ugandan Asians...[continue reading]

The Rwanda Genocide: A Reconciliation

From Walrus Magazine:

Emmanuel: Alice is the last person I cut. I cut off her hand and made a scar on her face. I thought I killed her. And then I stopped killing. Something had begun to bother me...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of Lionel Healing

Regional Impediments

Michael Cook at African Liberty writes:

The assumption is that dismantling so-called North-South trade barriers, cancelling subsidies by rich countries to their farmers and manufacturers, and an end to dumping their products on poor countries will provide a quick but enduring fix that will help the poor to trade out of poverty.
On average, sub-Saharan African countries impose a 34% tariff on agricultural products from other African countries and 21% on manufactured goods--the most protectionist region on Earth. International agencies estimate that eliminating such tariffs would generate immediate gains to sub-Saharan economies of $1.2billion...[continue reading]

Kabila's Excuses

Jen Brea at Global Voices provides us with a litany of excerpts that put the Congolese leader to task:

The Congolese blogosphere had harsh criticism for Congolese president Joseph Kabila's recent interview in The New York Times. In it, Kabila talks about Rwanda, AFRICOM, Chinese investment, and his passion for motorcycles.He also talked about how good help is hard to find; many bloggers have blasted him for it. Kabila blames corruption on Mobutu's legacy and the ineptitude of his own officials, rather than taking responsibility for his government's problems...[continue reading]

Failures of the Post-Colonial State

Ebenezer Obadere answers questions on post-colonial failure:

Discovering Anthills

Kwadwo Osseo-Asare writes:

While I was on sabbatical at the University of Ghana this year, I used to walk to and from work at the Faculty of Engineering Sciences (Torto Chemistry Building) on the Legon campus. One of the things that struck me was the several huge ant hills along the way. I realized that I had no idea how they were constructed...At the same time, I was thinking about how to convey to my students some of the central concepts of materials science and engineering: processing/structure/properties/behavior. How do you teach the concept of microstructure in an environment without microscopes?
Eventually, I assigned my students a project...[continue reading]

A Scientific Black Swan? And the potential implication for Oil producers

Three decades ago the then Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani was quoted as saying that “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” Ever since there have been false dawns on how if at all this would come about. The ever receding but endlessly promising nuclear fusion; renewable's in all forms ;silver bullet crackpot theories derided as 'junk science'. The list goes on and on...
In the past few months however one of those 'junk science' approaches along a number of parallel but somewhat related tracks seems to be re-emerging and gaining credibility (not that it ever went away). This science of LENR and or Cold Fusion (yes that Cold Fusion) is gaining traction and the attention of the US Defense Department amongst many others,something it seems is about to break. From the increased boardroom appointments at Blacklight Power (they choose to not characterize their process as CF) to the fact that 60 Mins is about to profile the resurgence of Cold Fusion one can discern the beginnings of a potential phase transition-A Technological Black Swan.
The potential implications for the oil dependent commodity producing countries-Nigeria,Gabon et. al. if this all came to pass might be construed as catastrophic (they derive over 90% of their revenues from black gold).More sensible folks should beg to differ though,if anything the removal of the Oil Curse would be a godsend for societies that hitherto have been warped and stunted in their socioeconomic development,chronic sufferers of the Dutch Disease or worse.
Update: watch full 60 minutes clip below.

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68 Million Congolese can't be Wrong

In a rebuttal to the FP's 'Does Congo Really Exist', Delphine Schrank writes:

No matter how dysfunctional or failed, Congo exists because the Congolese exist. A shared history of collective suffering, a fear of foreign influence, and a staunchly embedded nationalism have forged a Congolese identity that is real, if messy. On the ground, the country and its people exist, and there's no doing away with either...[continue reading]

Exporting Evangelism

Andrew Rice writes in the NYTimes:

Africa is the world’s fastest-growing continent, and Ajayi-Adeniran belongs to one of its most vigorously expansionary religious movements, a homegrown Pentecostal denomination that is crusading to become a global faith. In the course of just a few decades, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded in a Lagos shantytown, has won millions of adherents in Nigeria while building a vast missionary network that stretches into more than 100 nations. “The rate of growth,” Ajayi-Adeniran says, “is becoming exponential.”...[continue reading]

A Culture of Corruption-Daniel Jordan Smith

Reviews of Daniel Jordan Smith's A Culture of Corruption Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria :

The heart of the book concerns how Nigerians cope daily with the need to 'settle' with those who hold power, but are also experiencing a breakdown of the system that at least allowed for survival. -- Nina C. Ayoub Chronicle of Higher Education [Smith's] book offers a sophisticated and deeply troubling portrait of a contemporary Nigeria. -- Nicolas van de Walle Foreign Affairs Smith has written a sharply critical, yet finely judged, book that every student of African politics should pay heed to. -- Ebenezer Obadare International Affairs [Smith's] primary concern is with the perception of corruption amongst Nigerians and the impact this perception has on the behavior of Nigerians. Anyone who is concerned with the discussion of corruption and how it relates to the development of African economies should read Smith's book-Amazon

Materials Science and (African) Proverbs

Kwadwo Osseo-Asare of AqueouSolutions writes:

I was planning the first assignment for my course on "materials science and the future." It was an assignment that left the students, expecting a lecture on "advanced" or "nano" materials, bewildered. They were to select 6 Ghanaian proverbs with a materials connection, translate them into English, and explain the meanings and those materials connections...[continue reading]

Lessons for African leadership

Yao Graham of the Third World Network writes in Pambazuka:

...in the face of the global crisis many African governments are looking only outwards towards their ‘development partners’ rather than exploring the opportunities for deepening regional and continental cooperation and integration. The IMF is offering its pernicious advice that not much needs to change and there seem to be many in African leadership ready to listen. Meantime in the global North, pages are being torn from the rulebooks by which African economies have been run from Washington...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of the BBC

George Ayittey on 'Dead Aid'

At the TED Blog George Ayittey responds to questions about Dambisa Moyo's provocative book Dead Aid:

If you want to help American farmers, you ask them what sort of help they need and whether such assistance is working. Why don’t Americans ask Africans what type of aid they need and whether the aid Americans have provided is working? So what is wrong with an African, Dambisa, telling Americans that the foreign aid they are providing isn’t working and it is “Dead Aid”?...[continue reading]

The Need for a Knowledgebase

Paul Kagame states:

“Without a knowledge base, Africa’s imperative for agricultural and industrial development to create wealth will remain unrealized. Nor will we be able to develop and manage water, energy, resources, health, climate change and biodiversity, to name a few fundamentals.”

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"Looking for Crumbs"

George Katito writes in AllAfrica:

African leaders have, however, failed to inspire confidence in their ability thus far to develop "African solutions to African problems." Among a long list of well-meaning development and governance initiatives which Africa has come up with are 20 critical infrastructure programmes. But the continent has battled to raise and manage the financial and human resources needed to bolster them...if sustainable and meaningful solutions to Africa's most pressing problems are to be found, its leaders and activists should not look primarily to crumbs falling off the G20's table. They must rather push for the fulfillment of commitments to develop Africa which are already in place and, more critically, they must clean up government and governance.
...[continue reading]

Project Diaspora

From the Project Diaspora website:

We here by pledge to mobilize, engage, and motivate the African Diaspora to take an active role in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural revitalization. We believe the economic assistance and relief models provided by the World Bank, IMF and other monetary or relief organizations to Africa has spectacularly failed on it’s promises over the last 30 years.
We propose a new model. There are over 167 million Africans in the Diaspora. As of 2007, financial remittances by these Africans topped $40 billion annually. That’s capital that’s directly involved in the sustainability of lives—through the stimulation of education, finance, health, and social sectors. We believe this model is far more effective in changing the Africa’s economic landscape. The continued direct involvement of Africa’s Diaspora community is our solemn mission.

Cellphone Stories

From Marco Woldt at CNN

While the country's name implies freedom of speech, filmmakers in the country's capital are restricted by government censorship.To get around these problems, Siku(Kiripi Katembo Siku, an art school student ) came up with a novel plan.He attached his mobile phone to a toy car, set it to film, and gave it to a young girl to pull behind her on a piece of string as she walked through the streets of Kinshasa...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of Marie-Dominique Dhelsing

Is Africa is open for business?

Jean-Louis Warnholz at Bottom Billion:

Africa, all too often, is seen as a place do to charity, not business. Returns may be high, but there is a degree of discomfort to take profits out of the country amidst widespread poverty. Jeff Chu, Senior Editor at Fast Company Magazine traveled to Rwanda and sheds light on President Kagame’s investment strategy and the quest to change the country’s reputation. Rwanda’s development vision requires substantial foreign investment to create jobs and raise standards of living. This strategy rests on entrepreneurs taking the country seriously as an investment proposition...[continue reading]

Does Congo Really Exist?

Image via Wikipedia

Jeffrey Herbst, Greg Mills in FP argue that:

The international community needs to recognize a simple, albeit brutal fact: The Democratic Republic of the Congo does not exist. All of the peacekeeping missions, special envoys, interagency processes, and diplomatic initiatives that are predicated on the Congo myth -- the notion that one sovereign power is present in this vast country -- are doomed to fail. It is time to stop pretending otherwise...[continue reading]

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Naked Eye Astronomy

Commenting on Jose Antonio Abreu's "El Sistema" TED Fellow Alex MacDonald asks:

Could astronomy play a similar empowering role in the lives of young people in Africa? With minimal light pollution, Africa has some of the darkest skies on the planet making the beauties of our galaxy as accessible as simply looking up. Under African skies, an El Sistema-like approach to naked-eye astronomy could help plant the seeds of science in the minds of young Africans. Children and young adults could be taught and trained in the stories of the night sky; not the stories of the constellations but the stories of the stars and planets themselves...[continue reading]

Becoming Relevant

Mental Acrobatics asks What can the ordinary African citizen do to make Africa relevant on the Global Scene?:

As Africans we have to start focusing our energy on adopting strategies to counter this state of affairs beginning with a harsh reality check. We are under-represented at these summits because we are increasingly irrelevant. On the global scene African countries have very little influence, even less power and no force at all (except against other African countries).Relying on our current political leaders to draw up and implement a strategy to make Africa relevant in a positive way is a non starter...[continue reading]

The increasing irrelevance is the largely the result of incompetent,unaccountable,clueless leaders with a serious dependency syndrome. Herein lies the danger of the endlessly outstretched hand.Why would anyone take them seriously, would you?

Congo: Condition Critical

More on the crisis in the Congo from Condition Critical:

via Boing Boing

China Reappraises-The Dangers of Dependency

We have railed against the dependency syndrome in the past. China's reappraisal of their Africa trading relationship bolsters that stance. Lydia Polgreen in the NYTimes writes:

With a no-strings-attached approach and a strong appetite for risk, China seemed to offer Africa a complete economic and political alternative to the heavily conditioned aid and economic restructuring that Western countries and international aid agencies pressed on Africa for years, often with uninspiring consequences. Rising China, seeking friends and resources, seemed to be issuing blank checks.

Today, China’s quest for commodities has not stalled. State-owned companies are bargain-hunting for copper and iron ore in more stable places like Zambia and Liberia. But Chinese companies are now driving harder bargains and avoiding some of the most chaotic corners of the continent. African governments facing falling revenues are realizing that they may still need the West’s help after all...[continue reading]

Makerere starts turning itself around

Image via Wikipedia

In SciDev:

Makerere University is turning itself around. Change began in the early 1990s. Makerere devised a series of university-wide strategic plans. In 1992 it went semi-private, a pivotal move that generated much-needed revenue from students (although science benefited less than other subjects).It is the changes of the last decade, however, that are attracting international interest. As a result of them the university has started producing healthy numbers of PhD students and has created a vibrant research culture...[continue reading]

Aid and Sustainable Growth

Dambisa Moyo in the WSJ:

Few will deny that there is a clear moral imperative for humanitarian and charity-based aid to step in when necessary, such as during the 2004 tsunami in Asia. Nevertheless, it's worth reminding ourselves what emergency and charity-based aid can and cannot do. Aid-supported scholarships have certainly helped send African girls to school (never mind that they won't be able to find a job in their own countries once they have graduated). This kind of aid can provide band-aid solutions to alleviate immediate suffering, but by its very nature cannot be the platform for long-term sustainable growth...[continue reading]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Aid

Ayaan Hirsi Ali discusses development, Aid etc.

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