Archbishop Njongo Ndungane's remarks at the Grassroots Focus Index Conference in Zambia

AFRICAN MONITOR’S CONSULTATIVE CONFERENCE ON IDENTIFYING, CLARIFYING AND CONFIRMING KEY PILLARS FOR DEVELOPING THE GRASSROOTS FOCUS INDEX

A Workshop hosted by African Monitor
18-19 August 2008
Zambezi Sun, Livingstone, Zambia

Remarks by Archbishop Njongo Ndungane, President and Founder of African Monitor

Ladies and Gentleman; what a pleasure, distinctive honor and privilege for me to welcome you all to Zambia, one of the many wondrous countries of Africa. I am extremely thrilled that you were able to accept our invitation. I am told that we have here with us participants from various parts of our continent and I would like to thank you for taking time out of your other schedules in order to be here for this unquestionably worthy cause.

I would like to begin by asking you a rhetorical question. When you think of Africa, what comes to your mind?

If you choose to be sentimental and appreciative of the beauty of the continent you would see among other things, the deep rain forest in Congo, the great desert of Sahara, the succulent karoos of the Cape, the awesome sand-dunes of Namibia, the amazing historical monuments of Egypt, the amazing Victoria Falls of Zambia and Zimbabwe, the beautiful beaches of Mauritius or the grass plains with thousands and thousands of animals as far as the eye could see? I could go on and on…

Then, think about the African people and African children because beyond the huge land mass with abundant natural resources, you would also be awakened to reality by encountering poverty, starvation, child soldiers waving fire arms larger than themselves, children and women dying of preventable diseases and children deprived of realizing their full potential because they cannot afford to attend school.
Again you would also see a continent with very high disparities between the rich and the poor and an incremental trend in which the rich continue to swim in more and more riches whilst the poor sink deeper and deeper into poverty. If you look closer to nature, you would also see a continent sitting on a time bomb as a result of climate changes and global warming.
These are not new images ladies and gentlemen because this situation has existed for years and years now.

But most importantly ladies and gentlemen, beyond all this you would also see a continent with a lot of potential and endowed with a lot of resources; human and financial, to get itself out of all these challenges. That is why we are here - to figure out, reiterate, confirm and deliberate on the potential that we have as Africa, to free ourselves from poverty.

We need to change this sad state of affairs. We need, somehow, to rise above this and take a look over the parapet. Somehow we must find that motivation and determination. We must find the determination to change the state of affairs as Africa.

In an attempt to find answers, each year is clogged with new development reports, policy strategies and action areas on how best to tackle poverty.  Every year, there are new social development summits, conferences and workshops with policy recommendations plans and more development. This is an indication of the fact that a lot of us development practitioners will not rest until there is a solution because meaningful development, especially at the local level, remains subtle. In many African countries and regions within them, deprivation and vulnerability continue to inflict many people.

As such, we are not here, ladies and gentlemen, just because it is trendy and fashionable to talk about poverty and how we can make development much more meaningful. Go to the grassroots communities as some of you here would testify, and you will find that there is nothing fashionable about being poor, deprived and neglected. As such we are here because we are serious about development. We are here because the hour demands it, but also because we believe that as Africa, we can make a lasting difference to the grassroots communities whose rights are long overdue.

History teaches us that poverty breeds violence. Each of us is challenged to reflect on the question of how the poor of Africa experience life on a daily basis and, from this circumstance, how they interpret reality. Moreover, we might ask how we can come to a deeper understanding of the contribution of the poor and marginalized to the building of a just Africa and how they are becoming architects of authentic solutions to their plight.

Moreover, many of the poor see their reality as something they want to change, especially for the sake of their children. Yet, others accept with fatalistic resignation the hardships of their world. Some simply despair. They are people who see life pitched against them and without any hope of change of their situation. Their reality is a struggle through one day at a time. Hope rarely appears on their horizon. Poverty grinds some to a lessening of their humanity. As such we are here because we all agree that failure, despair and hopelessness are not options for us as Africa.

In 1997, the United Nations in its Human Development Report, entitled, Eradicating Human Poverty Worldwide went to a great length to explain and address the causal and reinforcing factors for poverty.  In one of its chapters, the report raises the question, “What will it take to eradicate severe and absolute poverty the world over?”

The incidence of extreme poverty never seems to go down, despite decades of work by African governments and NGOs, outside NGOs, and foreign government aid programs. What causes this entrenched poverty, on a continent rich with natural resources?

Unfortunately, poverty in Africa doesn’t result from just one or two causes. There are a number of different factors at work, all interacting with one another, and making the problem of entrenched poverty extremely difficult to solve.

As African Monitor, we realize that Africa is disproportionately affected by poverty and hence we ask the same question and wonder how as the continent most affected by deprivation, starvation, disease and powerlessness, we can address the issue.

As a continental policy analysis and advocacy organization with a focus on grassroots development in Africa, African Monitor finds this question still relevant today as it was years ago. Is income poverty and deprivation in African countries largely a result of lack of development resources? Does scaling-up resources and more development commitments by donors and other actors necessarily provide a lasting solution to this development predicament? To what extent do policy choices address or recreate poverty and what role do power and politics play in resource allocation?  

We cannot help to think that Africa itself has a lot of resources to provide solutions and what is needed are concrete steps and political seriousness to tackle the problem. Think about the various initiatives and funds that are available for Africa- the infrastructure development fund, the Alliance for a Green Revolution, the various funds available within the countries and the various bodies, SADC, African Union, NEPAD and African Development Bank. All these and more are initiatives that are available, but the question is if they actually reach the grassroots communities for whom they are intended.

Our intention, ladies and gentlemen is not to appear like we are saying anything really new about national policies and strategies to tackle poverty. But rather, to provide an additional window for collective and honest reflection and echo what has been said many times before. Yet it’s also to offer a forum for all of us to look back and see where we are going wrong, where we are really beginning to make an impact and where we need to change our course of action.

The world has the resources and solutions to tackle today’s poverty. Whilst the rest of the world can afford to end at just acknowledging the presence of poverty in Africa and making glorious declarations with subtle substance, we as Africa cannot afford that. In fact, the biggest challenge for Africa today and the future is how to convert these verbal, written and declared commitments into tangible results that will translate to the improvement of the lives of the various grassroots communities in our continent.

In a quest to foster collective action and amplify local voices as a strategy of empowering the grassroots, the African Monitor and Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa, in May this year, organized a faith-based organizations and civil society organizations workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa.  The primary objective of the workshop was to deliberate on a strategy to mobilize local communities in Africa to take collective action in order to influence policy process and outcomes. This was in view of the way in which national governments deliberate on poverty and social change. The workshop also sought to contextualize poverty reduction strategies by directly relating them to local realities.

The key outcome of this workshop was the birth of an Inter-Faith Partnership Network for Grassroots Capacity Building for Local Monitoring and Advocacy. The agreed strategy is to work with and through a network of interfaith-based organizations transcending, civil society organizations, grassroots organizations and citizens themselves in demanding accountability in development programmes and service delivery at local level.

Last year African Monitor launched three products, the Development Support Monitor, the Grassroots Focus Index (GFI) and the Synthesis Report on a four country pilot study. It is for the Grassroots Focus Index that this gathering is about. We are hoping that the May initiative will find hooks with the GFI process because the partnership that was formed in May  is currently finalizing an action plan for moving the process forward, including developing a core tool for benchmarking and monitoring grassroots development.

Through such a movement and using the GFI in combination with other well-known indices, the African monitor and its partners will catalyse stronger and more knowledgeable voices for grassroots development. At the same time, we realize that failure to engage national, local governments and international stakeholders in a meaningful dialogue means that our interventions can deliver little meaningful results and sustain development impact.

It is within the spirit of taking that process forward, particularly motivated by the need to refocus global awareness and attention, especially of the African leaders, on their poor people’s priorities that African Monitor seeks to actualize the Grassroot Focus Index. The Index is expected to be an instrument for sustaining global awareness and momentum on the role of community self-mobilization and participation in influencing development policy outcomes and in eradicating poverty. As a tool for benchmarking and monitoring governments’ actions, it will assist in refocusing attention and ensuring that Africa’s actions aimed at politically empowering the poor to influence decisions and circumstances affecting their lives are taken.

Our intervention strategy is informed and  hinges on the firm conviction that creating strong local voices through raising awareness, training and advocacy, and through participatory monitoring and advocacy is likely to invoke a community spirit among grassroots communities, as rights holders to empower themselves and make governments, CSO, donors, private sector and other stakeholders accountable for their actions.

Yet such an intervention strategy does not occur in vacuum. It calls for deliberate and sustained efforts directed at developing wider collaboration and alliances with other interest groups, as by themselves, local communities may neither have the resources nor the time to engage in self-mobilization and collective action. Further, they may not have the capacity to secure financial resources needed to mount a sustained campaign in order to influence policy and strategy outcomes. 

Our expectation is that the GFI will serve as a nucleus tool for monitoring African governments’ development delivery by supporting local level analysis and actions by local people and putting first their priorities and development aspirations. In this respect, the GFI will be a conduit for reviving and sustaining awareness to the role of community self-mobilization and participation in influencing development policy outcomes and in eradicating poverty.

Our starting point is to identify key development principles through a stakeholder consultative process. These will serve as building blocks for developing the index.  These principles will then be presented to the Expert meeting for review and clarification in order to provide precise definitions and rationale for each one of these pillars.

All this ladies and gentlemen, is because we strongly believe in the potential that Africa, particularly the grassroots communities working together with various entities, have not just to hold governments and other development practitioners accountable but also to eradicate poverty.

So I wish you all fruitful deliberations and I urge everyone to be bold and courageous because all together we have immense potential and we can do it.

Thank you.

For more information, please contact Buhle Makamanzi on +27 82 898 844