I have come to a few of my own conclusions as to why we cannot even get the basics right on the African continent. We have no pride, accountability, sense of responsibility and ownership. This includes politicians, citizens and civil society in our continent. We are mediocre and accept mediocrity instead of demanding excellence. We have no benchmark to measure ourselves against. Let's stop blaming: slavery, apartheid and colonisation for our mediocrity. We have nobody but ourselves to blame. It is 2010 and many African countries are celebrating more than 40 years of independence. We have, however failed to achieve anything tangible in this time. Let us foster some pride and take responsibility for the poverty, hunger, corruption that prevails in our countries. Our continent’s success solely rests on every African’s shoulders. We as Africans need to create the standards we deem acceptable for Africa. Africans should hold politicians who plunder our resources for self-enrichment accountable. If someone tried to steal or take advantage of your family, you would be outraged. This is the same principle we need to cultivate as Africans. This continent has so much potential, we all need to start believing and actively striving for excellence starting from the way we treat each other as Africans, our work ethic and how we use state and public resources.More here
A society that imports her gods, has offered to live under the caprice of foreign pestilences. She has mortgaged her destiny to the insular enclaves of alien theologies. Her doctrines and dogma are overthrown by derivatives of alien thought patterns, rendered canonical by capricious and absentee conclaves. In such a theatre, foreign metaphysics rises to displace local values. Irreverent incoherence isolates and devastates local cosmologies. Local mores are alienated to make way for the import to march to supremacy. Such is the trajectory of the contact between an occupying power and native reality...[continue reading]
“We can’t stamp it out, not yet,” Sirleaf said to me, clenching her fists in frustration over the country’s bone-deep corruption. She spoke of being torn between firing every transgressing official and keeping enough ministers and staff members at their desks so the government can go on operating, no matter how badly it is compromised. And meanwhile, unemployment in the country, whose population shifted heavily to Monrovia during the war, stands as high as 85 percent by some estimates. Instilling faith that Liberia’s economic wasteland can be redeemed, however gradually, may be the only way to ensure long-lasting peace, especially with the U.N. troops expected to start pulling out after next year’s elections. Over the radio, Sirleaf put the emphasis on gradually. “I beg you I no magician,” she said, letting a plea seep into her lecture. “I can’t just wave a magic wand.”Regarding the country's options from a value-add perspective:
Liberia’s natural resources just aren’t in high-enough demand around the world to spur the economy and generate much public revenue. Firestone is providing the government with $4.7 million this year, Sirleaf estimated. To truly take advantage of its iron, rubber and timber, Liberia would have to manufacture things with them; it would have to export finished products rather than raw materials. And it can’t; the country is all but preindustrial...[continue reading]We would disagree on this last point of being "preindustrial". Liberia does have innovation assets that lie in plain view. Like every other African country its makers and innovators are largely overlooked while emphasis is placed on largely unsustainable initiatives. From building up is nascent market gardeners, training a techie workforce to building its tourist assets we dispute the uninformed claim that that salvation lies in oil based resource extraction.
...in Nairobi I sat down for curbside soda with a local street vendor to chat politics and theology. Because of his liberal politics, I expected to hear a liberation theology, so I was surprised when he offered a simple prosperity Gospel message asserting, to paraphrase him, that God does not desire poverty for anyone, and that those who have faith can lift themselves from poverty. At its core, these beliefs are a statement of autonomy and upward mobility placed into theologized language.More here
This is a discovery I am not alone in. Peter Berger, father of American Sociology of Religion, went to South Africa and found the same core message as the Kenyan street vendor driving prosperity teaching there, leading him to pen a scathing sociological piece against the prosperity Gospel's opponents in The Wall Street Journal. And the late David Martin, of the London School of Economics, demonstrated in his comprehensive studies of Pentecostalism in Latin America that church-goers who believe in God-given prosperity are more autonomous, economically responsible, self-confident, and optimistic about life outcomes than their Mainline Protestant and Catholic counterparts. He called this belief "betterment" and argued that it bore itself out in greater chances for upward mobility into the emergent Latin American middle class. A belief in one's own prosperity, Martin suggests, is often a self-fulfilling prophecy.
More hereAccording to cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict, shame differs from guilt in that it is a violation of social and cultural values rather than personal values. Shame is an important tool for socialization as it is often used to regulate behavior, and is an important pillar of punishment in most societies. A shameless society therefore, implies a complete breakdown of social values that compel individuals of that society to exercise some degree of responsibility towards each other. How does one appeal to the conscience of a man who is impervious to disgrace? This is a trait that characterizes not just our political class, but even average citizens. Shamelessness is the disease that has permeated every aspect of our consciousness, from our schools to our churches to our institutions of government. It is everywhere and it is destroying us as a people.
The legacy of colonial rule and the earlier ravages of slave trade forever changed the “trajectory” of African development. That is the biggest cliche of African studies, however axiomatic. What is less appreciated is how “independence” from colonial rule was constructed in order to promote personal rule of a sort that, however unique to the sub-Saharan, exhibited parallels with forms of personal rule elsewhere in the world, notably in China (under Mao) and the Soviet Union (under Stalin)...[continue reading]Quoting a recent Chanda Chisala piece:
Let our history books be reset. The struggle for African independence was not always as hard (or perhaps even as urgent) as our old "freedom fighters" and their "historians" claimed. What has been really hard is the struggle against tyranny – after independence.
In an interview he gives his reasons for making the movie:
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Taking a very European and somewhat retrospective approach, tropes that are familiar to many Nollywood productions – prostitution, corruption, ritual slaughter… get the nouvelle vague treatment. The narrative is far from being dialogue heavy and, with regard to performances, it must be said that Gideon Okeke as the quiet, introspective loner, Obi, gives a perfectly sublimely restrained and understated performance. And for her first film performance, Nigerian songstress, Nneka (Nneka Egbuna) doesn’t do a bad turn as the prostitute, Honey, although her performance isn’t quite as nuanced as it could be. But while, the acting is somewhat uneven, the melodrama prevalent in your average Nollywood film is practically non-existent. In fact, existentialism and introspection are key themes that run throughout the film, and long, quiet takes are interspersed with rapid, short cuts symbolic of the underlying chaos of both Lagos city and the lead character’s inner turmoil. And in a country where continuous electricity supply isn’t a given, that the filmmaker committed to using natural light is no mean feat. No doubt, his use of 35mm film and an adept cinematographer is what gives the film in visual depth and texture...[continue reading]
I wanted to make something that is aesthetic, a true reflection of Africa today and how we go about our normal everyday lives without any exaggeration or apology. A lot of what is out there doesn’t project the real Africa in my opinion. I also wanted to showcase how the history and politics of the place affect normal citizens going about their every day lives.Read the entire Catch a Vibe Interview here
A science cafe, known around the world as café scientifique “is a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology. Meetings take place in cafes, bars, restaurants and even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context.”...Science cafes are slowly and steadily spreading across the African continent. Regular cafes are being held in South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Ghana, and Morocco. It began in 2007 at a workshop on African Science Cafes in South Africa supported by the British Council.via Communicating Science,the African way
British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria.More here
More hereI often listen to Africans speaking and boasting about how many European countries they have been to, they however fail to mention one African country they have visited. Have you ever heard of anyone mentioning that they have been saving for a trip to visit Timbuktu in Mali, which was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th century...We travel to France to get a taste of French bread and wine; Italy to experience their pasta and pizza; and Switzerland for their cheese and chocolate. What cuisine are African countries celebrated for having?
Whichever bright public-relations firm advised the unappealing president of Equatorial Guinea that he could spruce up his international image by throwing $3m the way of a UN agency must now be licking his wounds. Obiang Nguema, the despotic president of the tiny (but oil rich) African nation since 1979, is best known for the nastiness of his rule (especially in his prisons), the clumsy way he rigs election results (typically claiming the support of nearly 99% of voters) and the breathtaking corruption which sees the ruling family syphoning off a large share of government cash for its own ends. After achieving some notoriety in 2004, when posh British mercenaries bungled a coup attempt against him (the Wonga coup), Mr Obiang set about trying to improve his image. The latest wheeze was to offer cash to UNESCO...[continue reading]
Image via Wikipedia
President Obiang Nguema
via LoomnieWithin development circles, conventional wisdom has it that successful manufacturing sectors often develop in low-income countries thanks to identity-based social networks made up of producers working together. These networks are said to generate the social capital that can be used to overcome many of the shortcomings of underdevelopment. Meagher's careful study of two such networks in southwestern Nigeria -- of small, undercapitalized garment and shoe manufacturers -- suggests that the advantages for producers within the networks are being undermined by an increasingly dysfunctional state. Meagher shows that these networks, whose roots go back to the colonial era, bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and export their goods to states throughout West Africa. But in recent years, they have proved vulnerable to Asian imports and have largely failed to develop economies of scale, invest in new machinery, or generate new lines of production; these networks, it turns out, stifle innovation and consolidation, even as they protect their members. Informed by theory as well as sustained fieldwork, Meagher's study is a useful antidote to the purveyors of magic-bullet solutions for African development. It should be read by anyone interested in Africa's industrialization.
Image via WikipediaIn the WSJ, Carlos Slim on charity:“The only way to fight poverty is with employment,” he said. “Trillions of dollars have been given to charity in the last 50 years, and they don’t solve anything."...Now Mr. Slim isn’t un-charitable. He has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to his foundation and has funded millions of dollars in joint-venture projects with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.So he clearly isn’t against charity entirely. His point seems to be that society would benefit more if the wealthy channeled their creative energies and talents toward building job-creating businesses rather than doling out cash. It is the 21st century billionaire version of the old adage, “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”More here
The Ethiopian government is using development aid to suppress political dissent by conditioning access to essential government programs on support for the ruling party says Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch urged foreign donors to ensure that their aid is used in an accountable and transparent manner and does not support political repression.The 105-page report, "Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia," documents the ways in which the Ethiopian government uses donor-supported resources and aid as a tool to consolidate the power of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)...[continue reading]
...suggests that pre- modern, non-state societies were neither utterly anarchic, nor frozen in static order, but rather utilized an adaptive flexibility that took advantage of the nonlinear aspects of ecological dynamics. How might this potent formulation of indigenous knowledge be applied to problems in education and development? One method is to encourage its dissemination in development agencies. But decades of research have shown that a top-down approach to development, even that making use of indigenous knowledge, is often less effective than a bottom-up, "grass roots" approach. This project will create a framework in which to test the possibility that indigenous knowledge can be used in a boot-strapping approach to development. The term boot-strapping is typically applied to computer systems ("boot up the disk"), where a small program is able to self-install a larger system (from the phrase "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps"). Similarly , we view a boot-strapping approach to development as one which begins with indigenous knowledge under local control, and self-installs modern technological abilities.
Fractal design for Kitwe community clinic
More here...the African private sector needs to embrace the concept of good governance and democratic governance, and realize that it would be one of the beneficiaries of systems that allow for more clarity and more transparency. And so they don't need to form organizations like NDI; they can be supportive of private initiatives by civil society organizations in their respective countries.Civil society across Africa has become very vibrant, especially in the last 10 to 15 years, and a lot of these organizations are launched by men and women who have ideas but who need resources and sponsorships that can allow them to conduct programs that would benefit people in communities that are outside of the reach of government.
...“we can make it happen” in Swahili. It is a new citizen-centered initiative, focusing on large-scale change in East Africa. Twaweza believes that lasting change requires bottom-up action. We seek to foster conditions and expand opportunities through which millions of people can get information and make change happen in their own communities directly and by holding government to account.
...the Islamic faith is associated with the use of Juju, charms, and amulets-another practice very common in Africa. Muslims and Africans believe these fetishes and concoctions scare away evils and misfortune, to kill one's enemies, and to enhance one's progress and success in life. In Nigeria, Muslim spiritualists are reputed for their extraordinary feats in Juju and the production of talismans.By sanctioning many traditional African practices, Islam, unlike other alien religions, has been very instrumental in the continuation of these customs. Islam is one of the greatest obstacles to the efforts to eradicate harmful and inhumane traditional practices in AfricaMore here
I have enormous tracts of land and vast volumes of water, but cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion on milk. I produce rice, but don’t eat it. I have millions of cows but no milk. I am 50, please celebrate me
I drive the best cars in the world but have no roads, so I crush my best brains in the caverns, craters and crevasses they crash into daily. I am in unending mourning, please celebrate me...[continue reading]
Today, there is strong consensus among African leaders that regional integration is indispensable to unlock economies of scale and sharpen competitiveness. And promoting intra-African trade has emerged as a top priority, in recognition that the African market of one billion consumers can be a powerful engine for growth and employment.More here
Yet despite the introduction of free trade areas, customs unions, and common markets within the Region, the level of intra-African trade remains among the lowest in the world -- only about 10% of African trade is within the continent, compared to about 40% in North America and about 60% in Western Europe.
Somali’s have been using the Hawala form of money transfer for centuries, to the tune of approximately $1.6 billion annually. Somalia, per capita, has one of the largest diaspora populations in the world. One in eight Somali’s live abroad. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the remittances they send make up approximately 40% of urban household income, averaging out at $132/per.While the political ramifications of Hawala are hugely important and interesting in the post-9/11 world, what I find more pertinent are the mechanics and how technology is changing the way it works.
"...Last night I dreamt that 33 Nigerian Miners were trapped underground and the govt sent a capsule down to rescue them one after the other, but the rescue had to be called off as the trapped miners could not agree amongst themselves on who goes first. Zoning was suggested but they could not agree on which zone will go first. Eventually in a struggle to all board at the same time, the capsule was :leading to the attempt being called off...[continue reading]
Listen to talk hereThe struggle against corruption in Africa has come to rest partly on the initiatives of individuals of great convictions. However, the struggle for a fair, just and equitable humanity risks losing direction if it relies primarily on individual initiative at the expense of collective action and on modernizing institutions at the expense of transforming their internal work cultures for better state-society relations. John Githongo’s presentation will reflect on the essentials to transforming institutions and the role local level ideas and participation can play. He will illustrate this using the Zinduko and Twaweza initiatives that he currently co-ordinates...[watch accompanying video here]
Courtesy of Ottawa Citizen
The internet enables dramatic change in the way that businesses can operate – this is what I have called the new ‘physics of business’.But in any given sector, if that change is going to happen, a number of forces need to be working together. The most critical of these is a healthy cadre of entrepreneurs.Indeed, the commercial story of the internet is also the story of how a remarkably small number of entrepreneurs have caused a remarkably large amount of upheaval, and reated a quite spectacular amount of value as a result.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Jerry Yang and David Filo, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Reed Hastings, Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), Andrew Black and Edward Ray (Befair), Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, Natalie Massenet (Net-a-porter),Tony Hsieh (Zappos.com), Evan Williams and Mark Pincus.
The list could fit on the back of a napkin, but this gang have between them created hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder value. Just as importantly, but they have done so by disrupting the sectors they operate in – from advertising to gambling; high-fashion retail to enterprise software; movie rental to telephony – none will quite be the same again...[continue reading]
More here“For me, it was important to portray a different Africa than the one of war, natural disasters and diseases,” said Mr. Mollica, who is based in London. “I wanted to portray an everyday Africa, one that has to deal with the major issue of development.”
courtesy of Mimi Mollica
The biggest challenge to creating a science culture in Africa is the widespread public perception that science is foreign-led and irrelevant to people's daily needs.Making science-based strategies recognise and address the real needs and economic situations of local people is central to persuading them to engage more with scienceContinuing:
Science for development requires an interdisciplinary approach, and many of the failures mentioned might have been avoided if the projects had addressed the social and economic dimensions that influence human behaviour.More here
Instead, people are left comparing 'science' that they can neither understand nor use, with tried-and-tested local experience. It is perhaps not surprising that they choose to trust the wisdom of their forefathers over foreign science.
...To increase the Universities’ contribution to develop and transfer technologies in an effective way that would stimulate industrial development, Kenyan [and other African] universities need to transform themselves into developmental universities. To achieve this, other participants, such as industry and government must be prepared to take on new responsibilities that would challenge Universities to open up for the necessary linkage with industry, Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) and the government. Well crafted dialogue within and outside universities must be initiated.More here
In Africa, Universities have the highest concentration of highly trained human resource capacity that should spearhead research, innovate, develop and transfer technologies. This potential has not been adequately exploited due to a number of factors: To begin with, industrial investment in the country is spearheaded by international companies who are dependent on their parent companies’ research in the developed countries. Secondly, universities in Africa tend to work in isolation. Thirdly, there is lack of proper policies that encourage local research and participation of the universities in national development. Finally, low funding. High-level research is costly, and governments are reluctant to funds research.
continuing:In my view, the solution to this problem is not money; rather, the government should obligate large-scale investors to give a part of their shares to us in exchange for our land,” -Ahmed Simba, a Kigoma-based farmer
(Photo: REDD.net)
He said the investors should give villagers time to relocate to new places close to such investments. He added that the land lease agreement should cover a few years but be subject to renewal under certain conditions.“We can benefit from large-scale investment in agriculture if we stop leaders from imposing their ideas on farmers, believing that what is in their interests (leaders) is in the interest of the nation,”More here
....we need answers to is how the candidates hope to reconstruct our public finance and put it back on the path of sustainability. How can they rein-in the obtuse and rapacious federal bureaucracy in particular, and the state bureaucracies, balance our budget during this period of oil boom, and yet spend at least 40% of the budget on capital expenditure as required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act? Personally, I am not convinced that we need more than 10 ministries and 10 ministers at the Federal level. They should explain to us their contingency plans in case oil price crashes tomorrow. Candidates should also let us know their views on, and framework for, borrowing (when to borrow, for what, and how it will be paid back?). Without clarity on these issues, much of the talk about government providing power/electricity and infrastructure on a sustainable basis will remain a joke as funding will always remain a binding constraint. In other words, candidates should tell us their plans to shrink the domain of the public sector to free resources to enlarge the domain of the private sector— to truly have a private sector-led, market economy. For example, I have always believed that company profit tax rate should not be more than 10% (down from the current 30% plus education tax of another 2%) especially at a period of oil price boom, and where the businesses provide their own infrastructure. For businesses to expand and create jobs, the tax rate needs to go down significantly. We need to debate this.More here
Dance in Africa has since been expressed in many interpretive styles and techniques, but now, in this post-modern day, there are two types of contemporary dance in contemporary Africa; the European-inspired and the non-European-inspired. The former is also known as contemporary African dance while the latter is simply contemporary dance. This magical aggregation takes me back to the wonders of my discovery of a certain elementary mathematical magic, which says anything multiplied by one remains itself, but anything multiplied by zero is zero...[continue reading]
Courtesy of Gloria Eve
...let each group choose their leaders and place them in a National Assembly. Next, let each province or state choose their leaders and place them in a National Council.Choose the president from this National Council and avoid the huge expenditures on election campaigning that comes with Western-style democracy. Those resources can be better put to development in poor African countries...Next, let the president and National Council take their decisions by consensus. If there is a deadlock, refer the issue to the National Assembly. This type of democracy is in consonance with our own African heritage.More here
There is nothing egregious about the eight MDG targets. Halving poverty, increasing education, and reducing maternal and child mortality are desirable outcomes. The only problem is that in the poorest countries the goals will not be met because they are based on a failed development model of relying on external aid rather than internal policy change to facilitate economic development and growth. And internal policy change is resisted fiercely by the very leaders expressing anguish over the lack of progress because they and their families, friends and allies benefit richly from the current system, which focuses on securing foreign aid from Western nations to be spent on thousands of carefully schemed but wasteful interventions undertaken locally, in apparent pursuit of the MDGs.More here
As Nigerians celebrate 50 years of nationhood today, the promise of independence- a nation of free people living at peace with itself and neighbours, undergirded by individual and economic well being is still a distant dream. The President and his Governors may cut mammoth cakes and pop champagne and toast to success, perhaps personal success. Yet, this artificial success is derived from plunder and supervised penury foisted on the poverty industry and fueled by years of bad governance.
Little wonder remnants of the disaggregated development plague us; dysfunctional educational system, bad energy policies, bad roads, offensive electricity supply, armed rebellions in resource-rich regions, religious and tribal wars, kidnappings and a habitation for corrupt political grand masters and scammers. Clearly we are a nation of perpetual anomalies. Yet, we are one of the richest oil-producing nations on earth able to dish out billions of Naira for the wasteful jamboree in the name of Independence...[continue reading]
Up to 35% of the world's mangrove forests have been lost since 1980, many of them along the fragile African coast, and the numbers keep shrinking. They won't, if tens of thousands of Senegalese have anything to do with it.Over the past three years, the dynamo Senegalese NGO Oceanium - helped by financial backing from French water company Danone - has employed thousands of local villagers to take back the swamps.Last year, they planted over 30 million mangrove trees. This year, they're redoubling their efforts: the target is a record 60 million trees in three months.More here
