Africa Up Close

On May 7, 2014, 17 million South African streamed to the polls to cast their votes for National, Provincial, and Municipal level leaders. Except for a few minor disturbances and one large protest in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, the day went without incident. The elections are being hailed as an “overwhelming” or “decisive” victory for the African National Congress (ANC). In fact, by almost any democratic standard, the ANC did blow its opposition away, taking 62.15% of the national vote and winning 8 out of 9 provinces, as well as the vast majority of municipalities. One can forgive the street celebrations that burst out in Johannesburg and elsewhere, and the speech the President Zuma made taking his naysayers to task with no small show of swag. The ANC is fully in charge, even though its parliamentary majority has been chipped down a bit, and shows every sign of striding into the next 5-year term with confidence.

Trade is a powerful engine for economic growth and development. Trade contributes to economic growth by creating incentives for governments to adopt less distortionary domestic policies and a more disciplined management of the macro economy. The world has become wealthier over the past several decades because of increased international trade. Global poverty has steadily declined, due in large part to the emergence of economic powerhouses China and India, and the lives of millions of people have substantially improved. Trade has contributed enormously to the development of industrialized economies and can be expected to make a similar contribution to those of less-developed countries.

But while many countries have benefited from increased trade, Africa has, in general, been left behind. International trade statistics indicate that its share in world trade has declined from around 6 percent 25 years ago to about 2 percent; less than 1 percent, if South Africa is excluded. This trend points to the continent’s increased marginalization in the context of world trade.

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The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is currently conducting a series of offensive operations against al-Shabaab forces across south-central Somalia. It is doing so in conjunction with elements of the Somali National Army (SNA) and with support from some militias aligned with the Federal Government. Al-Shabaab has offered little conventional resistance, instead usually preferring to withdraw, destroy wells, and try and sow inter-clan conflict in the settlements it has departed. With the imminent arrival of Somalia’s rainy season, the AU and government troops are rushing to gain as much ground as possible. Then attention will turn to whether the Federal Government and AMISOM can provide some form of effective administration and basic services in the newly captured areas.

Edna Adan at 76 years old has more energy than a woman half her age.  The nurse-turned-UN diplomat-turned former foreign minister of Somaliland retired to launch the Edna Adan Hospital in Hargeisa to provide competent medical care for those living in the region. She’s been likened a “Muslim Mother Teresa” and has received the French Legion of Honour. Edna Adan sold her car and poured her life savings into turning a former landfill into one of the better hospitals in rural Somalia that has a fraction of the mortality rates elsewhere in the country. Born the daughter of a Somali doctor, she was afforded opportunities that many of the other residents of British Somaliland were not. She didn’t hesitate in seizing them becoming the first woman to get a driver’s license and the first woman to become a nurse. Despite a bout of illness, she agreed to meet me in the modest office of her hospital.

The nation, like a garden, is never finished.

Whenever we hear about war and conflict in Africa, the perplexing response often begins with polarized conclusions, salient among them ethnicity and tribalism. This simplistic explanation allows for a reductionist interpretation of African conflicts and their root causes, and often leads to inaccurate responses from the international community. This was the case for Rwanda, Congo, Darfur, and currently in the Central African Republic, Mali, and South Sudan.  It must be understood that ethnicity is not a bad word and it is not an African predisposition: We are all ethnic at heart.

The tragedy of South Sudan has been years in the making.  And we are partly, but only partly, to blame.

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between Khartoum and the SPLA/M was as good an agreement as could have been negotiated at the time.  It gave all the Sudanese people a last chance to run their country fairly and effectively.  That opportunity was missed, due in part to lack of outside support for the concept of making unity attractive, but primarily because the South Sudanese leadership sought the spoils of office rather than development and nation-building and wasted the six year interim period.  I have never heard an SPLA/M leader express concern for the suffering of his people.

The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC) is a Nigerian non-profit organization that builds the capacities of Nigerian girls and women. It also aims to increase their economic power and ability to speak about issues affecting their lives. This is done through technology literacy training, mentoring, and research.

W.TEC was conceived and created in January 2008 in response to research that demonstrated that, although information and communications technology (ICT) significantly contributes to a nation’s development and growth, women – who comprise approximately half of Nigeria’s population – are severely lacking in their knowledge and use of technology.

A revered leader on the African continent and former candidate for the World Bank presidency, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a strong advocate for the empowerment of women, especially for female entrepreneurs. Her speech at a TED conference in which she encouraged investors to “help [African] women to stand on their own feet” and argued that “some of the best people to invest in on the continent are women” has begun to resonate throughout Africa.  As a female entrepreneur who has spent the past decade working with women-owned enterprises, as well as running my own business initiatives and having personally seen the accelerated and exponential payback that women deliver, I concur with Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. Investing in women-owned enterprises is no longer a nice thing to do; it has become an economic imperative for both the public and private sectors as there is increasingly solid evidence that shows that “Women’s economic empowerment is a prerequisite for sustainable development.”

Things in Central Africa are changing. The surrender of the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo is undoubtedly “a reason for hope”, after the continuous litany of violence brought by the M23 and its predecessors since 1998. However, the underlying conditions that fanned the flames of both greed and grievances are left unchanged – an anaemic state in a resource-rich region – and pending a settlement in Kampala, an estimated 2.500 soldiers remain at large, ready to be remobilized by the next commander in line. Moreover, Burundi and Rwanda, the two countries bordering the Kivus, are at risk. This may be surprising, as these are two countries that have put an end to a seemingly endless cycle of mass violence, episodes of which have punctuated their history since their independence, both in 1962.  And such a feat is not something that can be said of most countries affected by mass-scale sectarian strife, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Syria to Sudan.

Since the inception of the Organization of Africa Unity, now the African Union, African leaders have focused on the promotion of regional cooperation and integration in Africa. The leadership of the continent strongly believes that through the strategies, policies, programmes and activities of regional integration, the fifty-four fragmented economies on the continent could be integrated into one strong, robust, diversified and resilient economy, supported by a first-class trans-boundary infrastructure; a highly educated, flexible and mobile workforce; financial capital that is highly mobile; sound health facilities; and peace and security. The leadership of Africa continues to stress that the spirit of ownership and self-belief of national development policies, which gives sufficient policy space to member States to design strategies that address their specific needs with a view of ending aid dependency over time, must underpin the process of achieving these lofty goals.