The Challenge for Africa (14 page)

One of the ways in which the friends of Africa can help is by making education in science and technology, as well as the required technical assistance, available and affordable to African countries. African governments have a responsibility, too. Unless they nurture an environment that encourages creativity and innovation and supports the same, their countries will remain backward in a world where technology dominates—despite the huge amount of resources at their disposal. Achieving this will involve increasing the capacities of Africa's young people through education, in particular in the areas of science and technology. Investing in people and in relevant education can lead to the refining of gold or oil—something understood by the Asian economic “tigers,” who made education in science and technology a national priority while too many African nations invested in “security” and wars.

Nevertheless, the recent expansion of some African economies is a hopeful sign that Africa can move beyond aid toward self-reliance, and perhaps in so doing realign the imbalances in the international trading system. In 2007, domestic investment was a record 22 percent of GDP, while in 2006, according to the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, the $48
billion of private capital that flowed to sub-Saharan Africa—four times what it was in 2000—surpassed official development aid ($40 billion) for the first time.
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Greater private investment and capital flows, however, are not panaceas for underdevelopment. While Africans are using cellular technology productively to help facilitate business and transfer money,
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and a few African entrepreneurs are becoming very wealthy by establishing cell phone connections, even in remote areas, Africans as a whole are still only talking on cell phones and not making them; likewise, they are watching televisions rather than generating content for them or manufacturing the sets themselves. One way to ensure that African countries are more self-reliant and competitive is for industrialized nations to transfer technology—with a priority on green technologies—to those nations that are technologically less advanced. But African countries themselves should also invest in science and technology.

The clear need for capital investments to generate wealth for citizens and promote development does not obviate the equally clear need that the wealth created be produced and distributed in a manner that is fair and just. Investors must work closely with governments to promote businesses that benefit the people, and not take advantage of the weaknesses or corruption of those governments, or their laws and regulations, to exploit citizens.

Of course, one of the reasons politicians allow their people and the nation's resources to be exploited is because they have been co-opted—made directors of investors' businesses, offered opportunities to invest themselves, or given lucrative kickbacks. What more governments in Africa need to appreciate is that the inequities that characterize their societies, which are perpetuated by governance and economic systems that are inherently unjust, will only fuel violence and conflict. Sooner or later, the grievances of the local populations will come to
the fore, whether encouraged by politicians during elections or when the politicians themselves are aggrieved; injustices can be contained only for so long.

The repayment of debts, the realignment of trade, and the capitalization of African economies all depend on a rebalancing of globalization. One of its main arbiters, the World Trade Organization (WTO), doesn't operate on a level playing field: developed countries demand that developing nations open their markets, but they do not reciprocate sufficiently by opening their own. In the WTO, all countries sit as equals, even though it's self-evident that all countries are
not
equal.
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Each representative is, of course, trying to get the best deal for his or her country, but given that the combined GDPs of the East African nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda (with a total population of one hundred million) are less than that of the small American state of Delaware, with a population of fewer than one million, it's clear that African states, with limited bargaining power, can continue to be taken advantage of.

One of the ways for Africa to get a better deal at the WTO or in other arenas where trading rules are being negotiated is to band together, as a continent or in regions. President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana foresaw this need fifty years ago, when he called for a united Africa to offset the political power of Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Today, the axes have altered slightly. Outside the leverage supplied by the oil-producing states, it is now the European Union, the United States, and East and South Asian economies that exert the most influence over international trade.

During the Cold War, Africa tried to respond to Nkrumah's call through the Organization of African Unity. Various regional associations were also created. In 1967, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda formulated arrangements to create a stronger political
and economic union, the East African Community. It lasted for a decade before geopolitical interests and internal political conflict led to its collapse. If it had been nurtured, the East African Community could have taken the region very far by removing the artificial economic and political barriers created by the colonial powers and continued by the postcolonial African leadership.

In 2002, to meet the needs and opportunities of Africa in a rapidly globalizing world, the OAU joined with the African Economic Community to become the African Union (AU). Numerous regional trading blocs have also been created in recent years, such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Customs and Economic Union of Central Africa (UDEAC), and, in 2002, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
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Unfortunately, these have not performed as well as they should have, and many ordinary Africans are not even aware of them.

New efforts are being made to re-create the East African Community, this time including the original three members plus Burundi and Rwanda, with the objectives of expanding and strengthening cooperation between the nations. Regrettably, such efforts are, as they have been for years, riddled with suspicion and mistrust between both governments and citizens of the countries concerned, so movement toward the unity and development the community envisions is very slow. As a consequence, the imbalances in trade between Africa and the industrialized world remain.

Outside of Africa, other political-economic blocs have fared better. In the same year that Ghana became independent, the European Economic Community was founded, with France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg as member states. Today, its successor, the European
Union (EU), has twenty-seven members, with a total population nearing five hundred million, a GDP in 2007 of nearly $15 trillion, and a per capita GDP of around $32,000.
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As it has expanded, the EU has helped once relatively poor countries like Ireland, Spain, Greece, and nations in eastern Europe develop and stabilize. Although the political and economic integration of the EU has not been without its difficulties, it does demonstrate that with political will, and if leaders put their people first, much can be achieved.

For too long, Africans have been falsely divided and weakened by Cold War politics, Great Power rivalries, greed, petty squabbles, and conflicts trumped up by demagogues and tyrants. By raising their voices in unison at a regional and continent-wide level, Africans can both demand and achieve more in the negotiating rooms and halls of power. It is not too much to say that unless African leaders embrace their common goals and work together to make their individual nations and the whole continent stronger, Africa will remain a victim of globalization and unfair global trade rules, not a beneficiary.

The world is not going to wait for Africa. History suggests that it will move forward without her, and exploit her resources for as long as they are exploitable. Africa can no longer stand still; like the Angolan people with the flying fish of Luanda, she must grasp the opportunities that are right before her eyes.

In recent years, China and other Asian nations have been assuming a larger role in African affairs. Drawing upon common experiences with Africa as victims of imperialism, countries like China have begun to form bilateral arrangements, offering African nations development aid and construction assistance on the one hand, and seeking access to oil and
mineral deposits to fund its own exponential growth on the other. For instance, currently China gets nearly a third of its oil from Africa. Chinese development assistance to African nations is around $2 billion, while trade between Africa and China increased from $10 billion in 2000 to $70 billion in 2007. China's direct investment was $2.5 billion in 2006, a nearly fivefold increase since 2003.
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China considers herself a friend of Africa and works closely with the Group of 77, the largest intergovernmental organization of developing states in the United Nations, comprised of 130 countries, many of them former colonies of European powers. China, as one of only five countries with veto power on the UN Security Council, can, and indeed has, used this power to protect the interests of African states.

Some governments and civil society groups in the West, including human rights advocates, have been dismayed by the growing presence of China in Africa. They have accused China of doing business with African governments that turn a blind eye to human rights and environmental destruction. This is partly because civil society has largely succeeded in persuading the West not to support oppressive governments. In tandem with some Africans, they complain that China is not only flooding Africa with cheap, poorly made goods that threaten to extinguish local African businesses, but that the Chinese government and private companies are bringing in Chinese labor to finish projects.

It can be argued that Africa benefits from these new sources of investment; that along with its trade agreements, countries like China are building much-needed hospitals, roads, and even soccer stadiums in communities that haven't had such services provided by their own governments. Further, they are able to do so at competitive rates. So perhaps what really worries other trading partners of Africa is that the East, especially China, is entering their traditional sphere of influence and that their
long-standing economic power over African countries is being threatened.
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In the past, people entered Africa by force. These days, they come with similarly lethal packages, but they are camouflaged attractively to persuade Africa's leaders and peoples to cooperate. Of course, such packages are eye-catching to many African governments, not least because they may be free of “conditionalities,” such as respect for human rights, protection of the environment, and promotion of equity.

Some Africans are asking themselves whether the continent is being exposed to a new wave of colonialism. It was certainly a signifier that the African leadership considers China a great friend when no fewer than forty African heads of state traveled to Beijing in November 2006 for a China-Africa forum.
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It was perhaps also representative of the relative power of Africa in the world that so many presidents and prime ministers felt it was necessary to be there.

Like any would-be Great Power—and, indeed, like many other powerful nations today—China, South Korea, Iran, and others are seeking to advance their interests, acquire needed resources, find new markets for their products, and exert their influence in regional and global policymaking. Also, as with any Great Power, China's interests may be pursued at the expense of human rights—by, for instance, placing access to oil above protecting the population of Darfur by blocking moves to sanction Sudan in the United Nations; allying itself with Russia to stop more forceful action against the government of Zimbabwe by the Security Council;
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and conducting business with African leaders who still abuse their citizens or constrain democratic space. In this regard, China really is no different from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the colonizing European nations, which facilitated the rise of African strongmen in the postcolonial period and protected them, despite
knowing of their corruption and cruelty, and continued to extract Africa's resources unhindered.

The sale of arms to Africa illustrates how varied, and occasionally destructive, some of Africa's trading partners are. China, Israel, former republics of the Soviet Union, and more than twenty members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe supply illicit small firearms to Africa.
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The legal trade also thrives. The United Kingdom sold more than £125 million ($200 million) worth of weaponry to Africa in 2000. Between 1998 and 2005, the United States sold more than $157 million worth of arms to Africa, with China accounting for $600 million, Russia $700 million, and western European countries (excluding France) accounting for $1.2 billion. France's arms sales alone were worth $900 million.
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As with so many of Africa's challenges, it is up to the African leadership to stop internal conflicts powered by greed and to ensure that it no longer continues its inequitable arrangements with other regions. There is also opportunity for leadership at other levels—for instance, Africa's civil society reaching out to China's nascent civil society to share information and to try to hold each other's governments accountable for their actions, particularly as they affect human rights.

A good example of the possibilities for Africans to recognize common interests and act in concert arose in April 2008 when unionized dockworkers in Durban, South Africa, refused to unload a shipment of Chinese arms bound for Zimbabwe at a time when Zimbabwe was embroiled in a major political and humanitarian crisis. They had been alerted to the shipment by civil society activists in Zimbabwe, who were fearful that the reported cargo of some 3 million rounds of ammunition for AK-47s, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, and 3,000 mortar rounds and tubes might be used in the lead-up to a highly contested runoff election.
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The late Zambian president Levy
Mwanawasa, then the presiding officer of the Southern African Development Community, asked the fourteen states that belong to SADC not to allow the ship to dock and unload, fearing that delivery of the weapons would further destabilize Zimbabwe.
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