Disunity: Africa’s Achilles Heel

 By Archbishop Njongo Ndungane

Africa has entered and passed the half way mark of the attainment of the MDGs in 2015 still with critical challenges characterized by profound poverty, spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, marginalization in the global economy, civil war and conflicts. Poverty is the greatest challenge faced by African countries. It is estimated that more than half of the African population lives below the poverty line. Africa lags behind in addressing all the dimensions of poverty. African development prospects 2003 and 2004 reports issued by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa suggest that the continent needs to take more strategic and proactive measures if it is to effectively fight poverty and pave the way for its sustainable development. Despite the many difficulties, Africa has made notable inroads towards actually taking its own destiny in its hands, writes President and Founder of the African Monitor, Archbishop Njongo Ndungane.

African countries have taken measures to address poverty including the establishment of regional integration commissions to benefit from the economies of scale that can help the countries to tackle poverty and accelerate their individual and collective development. Some of the examples are the recent formulation of Poverty Reduction Strategies as part of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiatives, the adoption with the international community of the Millennium Development Goals that derive from the 2000 Millennium Declaration, the endorsement in 2001 of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) by African Heads of States and Governments, including such instruments as the African Peer Review Mechanisms (APRMs) which articulated a new vision for the renewal and an effective development for Africa. Other initiatives such as the Pan-African Infrastructure Development Fund and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are other pointers to the fact that Africa is indeed taking the issue of the continent’s underdevelopment seriously.

The Pan-African Infrastructure Development Fund is a good example of such initiatives by Africa. The fund, which has investment agreements worth $625m seeks to plough the money into energy, technology, transport and water projects on the continent against a backdrop that Africa’s development infrastructure are either in a state of neglect or stagnated growth and this produces unpleasant effects on the quality of the environment in which the people live. The vision for the Fund is to create a financing platform for infrastructure development that will accelerate Africa’s growth. The Fund is set to play a vital role in assisting African economies to meet the capital requirements in financing infrastructure investments to enable the continent to achieve its sustained growth target of 7% per annum.

There is also the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) which is designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent. NEPAD was formed against a backdrop that issues such as the escalating poverty levels, underdevelopment and the continued marginalisation of Africa needed a new radical intervention, spearheaded by African leaders, to develop a new vision that would guarantee Africa’s renewal. The NEPAD Programme of Action is a holistic, comprehensive and integrated sustainable development initiative for the revival of Africa, with the objectives of eradicating poverty, placing African countries on a path of sustainable growth and development, halting the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process and enhancing its full and beneficial integration into the global economy as well as the acceleration of the empowerment of women.

Initiatives such as the AGRA, headed by former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan are notable and are examples of Africa’s attempts to change the direction and the rate of development in the continent. Koffi Annan rightly said in announcing his appointment as chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, “Africa should rely on African solutions — local labor, seeds and markets — without seeking imported biotech “magic bullets” or the promise of more open foreign markets.”

However, despite all these cardinal commendable and well intentioned initiatives, a lot still needs to be done by Africa to ensure that there are effective measures and steps taken that will translate into tangible results on the ground. It is clear that simply sopping up ink by forming organizations and institutions to accelerate development will not deal with Africa’s underlying problems. Creating platforms and organizations to ensure that Africa’s rate of development is accelerated is just a step towards the right direction, but it is not enough in itself. As such, there is need for Africa to work out clear, practical terms of reference for these initiatives and ensure that they move from talk to real action. Africa should also create terms of reference to ensure that people or other institutions who want to work towards Africa’s development should be on Africa’s terms for example in the area of development of trade and extractive industries.

There is also need for Africa to take cross boarder infrastructure projects seriously by committing resources and efforts to ensure that these succeed. This means that it is imperative for the continent to put more emphasis on regional cooperation to build cross-border infrastructure that will help spur trade, development, and poverty reduction. The weak sponsorship of cross country projects is costing African countries in terms of lower productivity, high transport, and logistics costs, reduced competitiveness and slower growth and hence strengthening of such projects means overcoming several formidable challenges. The strengthening of political leadership of regional and cross country infrastructure projects would set the pace for effective regional economic integration for Africa. The continent therefore needs to invest in the promotion of effective regional economic integration, which would assist the continent to be self sufficient as well as move away from always depending on the developed world. In a presentation on the successes and challenges of NEPAD in November 2007 at the University of Pretoria, Prof. WL Nkuhlu noted that a prerequisite for Africa to become attractive to investors and to achieve economic successes is; “…strong political leadership…Without strong champions of regional economic integration in each of the regions, South, East, West and the North, the pace will remain slow…” Promotion of regional integration is hence an important economic and political goal in Africa and national governments and the Regional Economic Communities should play a major role to accelerate implementation of cross border projects in order to fast track regional economic integration.

A prerequisite for achievement of long lasting results would be for Africa to tackle the issues bedeviling the continent in a strategic and holistic manner. It is therefore imperative that Africa addresses the fundamental factors responsible for Africa’s persistent escalating poverty rather than just the symptoms. There is therefore need to work towards improved social and technological infrastructure and mobilize the enthusiasm, support and creative abilities of the people and grass-roots organizations.

Notably, it is ironic that Europe, the United States of America, Japan and China each have a strategy for Africa’s development, but Africa still needs to come up with a clear well coordinated strategy for itself. This is not to say that there are no initiatives- they are there but there is need to coordinate efforts and ideas so as to come up with a comprehensive and effective strategy for Africa by Africa. This is where such forums like the Accra Summit on Aid Effectiveness in September this year has relevance. The African Monitor and hopefully the rest of like-minded organisations hope that the forum will contribute a lot in taking stock of where Africa is in terms of development as well as help in crystalising and inviting comments and views from various circles working towards accelerating the rate of Africa’s development. We also look forward to the summit rendering a forum for mapping ways for effective monitoring of development and affording the opportunity for effective engagements and dialogue on development issues.

The welfare of the grassroots must drive any strategies that claim to work towards alleviating poverty but raising the welfare of the people means, in essence, that people including the poor and the vulnerable have access to the goods and services that are essential for their survival and well-being- food, housing, education, health and transport must be available and affordable. This entails that a lot still needs to be done to ensure that the MDGs are met by the whole of Africa by the set date of 2015.

It is therefore safe to conclude that Africa still continues to make efforts to accelerate the rate of development. On the other hand poverty continues to escalate in the continent. It is commendable for Africa itself to take initiatives to come up with solutions. Yet a lot still needs to be done in order to ensure that all the initiatives bear tangible fruits on the ground and to ensure that at the end of the day, the general populace, specifically the poor and most vulnerable’s lives are improved for they deserve nothing less than the best.

*This article appeared in The Star Newspaper of Thursday 21 February 2008