The Great Debate

from Africa News blog:

100 years and going strong; But has the ANC-led government done enough for its people?

By Isaac Esipisu

Although the role of political parties in Africa has changed dramatically since the sweeping reintroduction of multi-party politics in the early 1990s, Africa’s political parties remain deficient in many ways, particularly their organizational capacity, programmatic profiles and inner-party democracy.

The third wave of democratization that hit the shores of Africa 20 years ago has undoubtedly produced mixed results as regards to the democratic quality of the over 48 countries south of the Sahara. However, one finding can hardly be denied: the role of political parties has evidently changed dramatically.

Notwithstanding few exceptions such as Eritrea , Swaziland and Somalia , in almost all sub-Saharan countries, governments legally allow multi-party politics. This is in stark contrast to the single-party regimes and military oligarchies that prevailed before 1990.

After years of marginalization during autocratic rule, many African political parties have regained their key role in democratic politics by mediating between politics and society. Multi-partyism paved the way for genuine parliamentary opposition and the strengthening of parliaments in decision-making. However, several shortcomings still remain: many African political parties suffer from low organizational capacity and a lack of internal democracy.

Dominated by individual leaders, often times lifelong chairpersons and “Big Men”, youth and women remain marginalized within party structures.

What we’ve learned from 25 years of famine

Mark Malloch-Brown

Aug 26, 2011 15:43 BST

By Mark Malloch-Brown The opinions expressed are his own.

Twenty five years ago, in the aftermath of a devastating famine in Ethiopia, remembered for better and worse for Bob Geldof’s Bandaid concerts, I wrote a book called “Famine: A Man-Made Disaster?” The question mark said it all. I ghostwrote the book for a group of African and other leaders who were more tentative than I was in declaring what had happened was largely the fault of African governments. So the great men added a question mark.

Yet while it was more convenient–not least for fundraising and handling a nasty regime in Ethiopia–to blame it on God and the weather, that famine was caused in large part by bad governance. A centralized regime in distant Addis Ababa, interested in its own survival, had little time for the development of far off rural areas where non-Amharic minorities were living. Its military background and Marxist pretensions also meant it had no interest in developing local food markets and viable peasant agriculture.

So the first big change is what has not happened. Most of Ethiopia and for that matter Kenya have escaped the famine not just because they were beyond the strict epicenter of the drought itself but because a long investment in rural food security in Ethiopia and a buoyant market economy in Kenya has enabled both to ride out sharply higher food prices.

It is no coincidence that the famine has taken hold where governance remains weakest in the region: northern Kenya where pastoralists are marginalized and have little voice in the capital, Nairobi; the Ogaden region, a similarly politically marginal area of Ethiopia, is struggling but in Tigre, the centre of the famine 25 years ago, a central government back in Addis led by Tigreans has built robust economic and environmental defenses as it has in much of the country. By contrast next door in Eritrea an unpleasant reclusive leadership may be hiding the extent of its failure to contain the famine.

The best example of why government matters is in Somalia, where there is no central government to speak of and the famine is principally in the area controlled by the ruthless Al-Shabab Islamic militia. By contrast semi-independent, better governed Somaliland and Puntland have weathered the crisis much more effectively. Following the logic that safety from famine follows good leadership and management it may be time for its neighbors and the world to hear Somaliland’s call for international recognition and independence. Its parent is a failed state that might do better broken up.

Whether it is terraced farming in Ethiopia, which conserves dusty highland soils that previously were blown or rained off the hill sides, or the extraordinary success of Bangladesh in recent years of cutting lives lost from tens of thousands to almost zero in the annual monsoons that flood down it’s funnel-shaped center, the examples of successful cheap disaster mitigation and containment are remarkable in poor countries.

Does everyone have a price?

Anya Schiffrin

Apr 7, 2011 16:36 BST

On Monday I went to Bloomingdales, the Gap and Starbucks but passed on a visit to Magnolia Bakery. Instead I  stopped by the St. Moritz bakery where you can order hot chocolate and sit by a video of a cozy winter  fire that overlooks the indoor ski slope and is just around the corner from the largest candy store in the world, which happens to face an aquarium that occupies an entire wall on one side of the world’s largest shopping malls. This by the way is opposite of what claims to be the world’s largest candystore whose mission statement is to make every day “happier’. Earlier, while exploring the watery depths of the bright Pink Atlantis Hotel (one of the white elephants of the property crash of 2007) I knew it was really the last kingdom because the fish swam around two cracked thrones and other kitschy stone artifacts.

Dubai is utterly overwhelming, the kind of  dystopia that blogger Evgeny Morozov sees in Huxley, a consumeristic paradise where mind-numbing shopping replaces real thought. Most of the I had no idea where I was except that my passport had been stamped Dubai  and many of the mall-going women were shrouded in black. After a few hours I sank into a state of ennuie. Given boatloads of oil money in the 1970s and the chance to build a whole new city, who on earth would decide to build a series of shopping malls?

It’s not like the developers didn’t have ambition, what with the architecture that demands superlatives — the gondolas, medieval stone houses and soaring illuminated sky scrapers and islands built in absurd never-before-seen configurations. But why not build a museum with, say, the most incredible collection in the world or a university with the finest research laboratories? With so much money why build this Disneyland? And what about the workers who make up most of the population?

Who would go to expensive old Harvey Nichols or French boulangerie Eric Keyzer? The answer is pretty much anyone who can afford it goes not just to shop but to eat. For Arabs living in the region, the malls are closer than a flight to London or New York, they are air conditioned in the sultry summer, they have indoor sports and entertainment facilities, and are safe and family friendly. They are the old village green and the public square that Jurgen Habermas wrote about though not as he imagined it, surely.

The choices are limitless: an ice skating rink, a swimming pool, cinemas, as well as Penhaligon’s, Haagen Daz, California Pizza Kitchen and Nando’s. Even a tiny artsy neighborhood in an even tinier industrial quarter that showed angry Iranian sculptures of war-time prisoners, some held by Iraqis and some by Israelis on their knees with their hands behind their heads. My favorite piece was a video of a row of colorful balloons bobbing on the water that were tied together and shot one by one. This piece was done by a Turkish artist, who also filmed the balloons being executed. Metaphor for the human condition, anyone?

Awakening Africa’s sleeping agricultural giant

Hans Binswanger is the former senior adviser to the World Bank on rural development in Africa. He is currently an independent agriculture and development consultant based in South Africa. The opinions expressed are his own.

The World Bank’s recent study of the prospects of commercial agriculture in Africa focused primarily on the Guinea Savannahs that cover some 600 million hectares, of which about 400 million can be used for agriculture. Less than 10 percent of this area is currently cropped, making it one of the largest underused agricultural land reserves in the world.

During the past four decades, two similar, backward, landlocked, and largely rain-fed agricultural regions developed rapidly and became international agricultural powerhouses: The Cerrado of Brazil and Northeast Thailand. The difficult agro-ecological conditions, remoteness, and poverty levels of the two regions were successfully overcome, and the same should happen in the Guinea Savannahs.

The study found that farm level production costs in Africa are competitive, with family farmers generally having lower costs than commercial farmers. African farmers are also generally competitive in domestic and regional markets, but not competitive in international markets. Logistics costs are much higher than in Brazil and Thailand on account of inadequate transport, processing and marketing infrastructure; lack of competition in vehicle import and trucking industries; cumbersome transport regulations; and the need to pay bribes at border cross¬ings and police checkpoints.

In addition to resolving these problems, awakening of this sleeping giant requires appropriate agricultural policy regimes, greater state leadership and greater development expenditures for family farmers, greater involvement of local governments, communities, and the private sector.

Despite recent efforts, mainly by foreign investors, to launch large-scale agribusinesses in Africa, the study found no evidence that the large-scale farming model is either necessary or even particularly promising for Africa. The apparently successful settler farms of eastern and southern Africa were nurtured by streams of preferential policies, subsidies, and supporting investments.

Nevertheless, large-scale farming, along with other alternatives, may be considered in Africa in three circumstances:

China and the world economy

Gerard Lyons

Jul 24, 2009 18:48 BST

Dr. Gerard Lyons is chief economist and group head of global research, Standard Chartered Bank. The views expressed are his own.

The world is witnessing a shift in the balance of power, from the West to the East. This shift will take place over decades, and the winners will be: - Those economies that have financial clout, such as China - Those economies that have natural resources, whether it be energy, commodities or water, and will include countries, some in the Middle East, some across Africa, Brazil, Australia, Canada and others in temperate climates across, for instance, northern Europe - And the third set of winners will be countries that have the ability to adapt and change. Even though we are cautious about growth prospects in the U.S. and UK in the coming years, both of these have the ability to adapt and change.

China is at the center of this shift.

The scale and pace of change in China is breathtaking. Against this backdrop of dramatic change, let me look at China’s impact on the global economy, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

It is now clear that the financial crisis was a result of three key factors: an imbalanced global economy; a systematic failure of the financial system in the West; and a failure to heed the many warning signs.

The world needs to move towards a more balanced economy. But that will take years. The imbalanced nature of the world economy led some to point the finger of blame at the savers, such as China. The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement placed no obligation on savers, countries with current account surpluses. The obligation to change was put on those countries with the deficits. This has to change.

Whilst China and other savers may not be the main source of the recent problem, they are part of the solution.

from The Great Debate UK:

Squandered oil wealth, an African tragedy

-Arvind Ganesan is the Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country of about half a million people on the west coast of Africa, but is the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.

Most of the investment in the country’s multi-billion dollar oil industry comes from the United States. ExxonMobil, Hess and Marathon are all there. Right now, the U.S. imports up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Equatorial Guinea, or about a quarter of the country’s oil production.

Oil money gives the country the means to be a model for development and human rights. The economy is nearly 130 times as big as it was when oil was discovered in 1995. But as a report released by Human Rights Watch today details, the government has squandered or stolen much of the money at the expense of its people.

It is a sad contrast, since the country has a per capita income comparable to Spain’s or Italy’s and development indicators more like Afghanistan’s. For just one sad example, infant and child mortality actually has increased -- from an already-dismal 103 deaths per thousand in 1990 to 124 per thousand in 2007. Similarly, under-5 mortality rates increased from 170 per thousand in 1990 to 206 per thousand in 2007.

The president and his family are doing just fine, though. They lead lavish lifestyles while most people live in crushing poverty.

A series of corruption scandals involving government officials and their families will give you some idea of how bad it is.

Africa at the threshold

– John Simon was recently U.S. Ambassador to the African Union and former Executive Vice President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.  He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC. The views expressed are his own. —

President Obama’s trip to Ghana highlights one of Africa’s leading success stories – a country that has held five consecutive democratic elections, recently transferring power peacefully to the opposition after it won a razor thin victory.

Ghana is not alone. Sub-Saharan countries made tremendous progress in the past decade. Freedom House ranks seven out of ten of Sub-Saharan countries as free or partly free. Through 2007, Africa experienced 10 years of uninterrupted economic growth, the last five at rates above 5 percent. Foreign capital inflows increased from only $7 billion in 2002 to $53 billion in 2007.

Yet continued progress is not inevitable.  If Africa is to realize its potential, the hard work Africans have exerted over the past decade to improve the continent’s governance and economic policies must continue, and despite the myriad of pressing issues elsewhere, engagement by the international community in general, and the United States in particular, cannot flag.

Supporting Africa’s progress is not just about providing additional aid.  Aid is an important element for financing Africa’s development, but aid flows to Sub-Saharan Africa have nearly tripled since 2000 and will quadruple by 2010 if donor commitments made at the Gleneagles G-8 Summit are met.  More important now are efforts to help Africa increase its trade, solidify democratic norms through its own institutions, and resolve its remaining conflicts.

The United States can lead the world to provide an immediate benefit to Africa through trade.  The stalling of the Doha Development Round of trade talks is a missed opportunity that would have been worth billions of dollars for Africa.  Yet all is not lost – the United States could agree to implement those aspects of the Doha package that will benefit Africa now without waiting for a final deal with all WTO members.

This means eliminating domestic agricultural subsidies. The U.S. has held out on conceding these economically unjustifiable programs for a comprehensive deal, which would offer our farmers greater access to emerging markets like China and India.  But with deficits exceeding $1 trillion, we can no longer afford these $20 billion programs that mostly benefit fewer than 200,000 large farms at the expense of millions of poor farmers across the globe.  Acting now will counter the impact on Africa of the global financial crisis, which threatens to stop Africa’s economic progress in its tracks, and give us standing to insist the EU follow by opening up its massive market to African agricultural products.

from The Great Debate UK:

“Green growth” strategy viable for African economy

-Michael Keating is director of the Africa Progress Panel. The opinions expressed are his own.-

After a decade of solid progress Africa is now facing the daunting task - at a time of economic crisis - of maintaining stability, economic growth and employment, addressing food security and combating climate change. No country on the continent is escaping the impact of volatile fuel and commodity prices, the drop in global demand and trade.

The global economic crisis, however, is serving as a wake-up call for both African leaders and their international partners. The Africa Progress Panel’s 2009 report, launched Wednesday in Cape Town by panel members Kofi Annan, Graca Machel and Linah Mohohlo, argues just this.

Africa is rich in potential and there is an, often overlooked, opportunity to be seized. More investment is needed in Africa’s real economy, particularly infrastructure, renewable energy, agriculture and communications. The explosion of mobile telephony and spread of financial services to the poor have shown the potential for innovative development models.

There is also an opportunity to set a low carbon growth and development agenda, investing in the Africa’s vast solar, hydro, wind, thermal and biomass resources. A continental "green growth" strategy might attract the financial and technological support of richer countries, not least as Africa can contribute solutions to the global climate change challenge. Investment in such initiatives will not only generate jobs and boost trade in Africa, but also create markets for the world.

To cope with crisis and to seize these opportunities, Africa needs determined and accountable leadership at the national level and concerted presence and negotiation capacity on the global stage. Sceptics see both in short supply and fear that crisis will unravel progress on governance and accountability.

But this does not mean that the rest of the world can walk away. Whilst the primary responsibility rests with African leaders, businesses can play a key role, as can Africa’s trading and donor partners.

from For the Record:

These pirates shouldn’t be punchlines

Dean Wright

Apr 15, 2009 20:27 BST

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

Kidnapping isn't funny.

Neither are extortion, hijacking or murder threats.

So why have some in the media been laughing—or at least winking—at people who have been doing precisely that—the criminals who have been hijacking ships and crews off the Horn of Africa and holding them for ransom?

I think it has something to do with what we've chosen to call them: pirates.

Perhaps we in the media have all seen too many cartoonish films with Johnny Depp portraying the charming and engaging Jack Sparrow. Or maybe we remember an earlier era when Errol Flynn played a charming and engaging Geoffrey Thorpe who fights for commerce and his country (England) and the affections of a Spanish princess.

Maybe we need a break from the mostly grim coverage of the financial crisis and evaporating savings, continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a tide of gun violence and unrest around the world.

Africa and the global economic crisis

- Jorge Maia is head of Research and Information for Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, established in 1940 to promote economic growth and industrial development. The opinions expressed are his own –

Serious shockwaves are hitting Africa’s shores as the global economic crisis unfolds.

The extent and depth of the damage is extremely difficult to assess or project, but it is clear that the pattern of financial flows associated with investment, lending and trading activity has been dramatically altered, with detrimental economic and social implications for the continent at large. The adverse impact has been gradually spreading from a regional perspective – a serious setback to Africa’s recent growth performance, which had averaged 6 percent a year from 2003 to 2008.

The effects will vary widely, depending on each country’s integration within the global financial system, its dependency on exports and tourism receipts, official development assistance and remittances from African citizens working overseas, among other factors.

Access to trade credit lines used to finance imports and investments is under threat due to the global credit crunch, while portfolio flows have been reversed and remain weak due to institutional deleveraging, pessimistic investor sentiment or extreme risk aversion.

Foreign direct investment flows are also expected to contract, although the rather long lead-time of typical projects could imply that some of the capital may have already been committed. The African banking sector is feeling the freeze in interbank lending worldwide from a funding standpoint, and may come under substantial pressure through its customer base should the economic slowdown intensify on the home front.

Where capital is still available, its cost is likely to have risen substantially, with implications for the viability of projects and for the debt repayment obligations of African countries. Such adverse trends are not only impacting negatively on capital inflows and national balances of payments, but also are resulting in greater volatility in foreign exchange markets.