Africa Rising 21st Century

Why Only Part of the African Diaspora?

2011-03-19T10:05:00.000-04:00

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of the World Bank, has presented a dynamic plan whereby the African Diaspora can buy into bonds that can accelerate the continent’s development. She cites, for example, the fact that 50% of the world’s arable land is in Africa, but African farmers lose up to half their produce due to poor roads and lack of storage. The so-called “Diaspora bonds” would be sold by governments, private companies and public-private partnerships to raise funds to correct this problem and others limiting African development, but under her plan, these bonds would be sold only to native-born Africans living abroad.

What’s wrong with this picture?

When the African Union sponsored a conference on the African Diaspora in Washington in December 2002, the conflict over how many African viewed the Diaspora and how the descendants of Africa saw the Diaspora was highlighted. Until then, when the AU spoke of its Diaspora, they meant only those born on the continent who live elsewhere. However, as members of the traditional African Diaspora – those whose ancestors were kidnapped into slavery long ago – made clear during that conference, we are a part of that Diaspora too. When the AU soon thereafter declared the African Diaspora to be the continent’s sixth region, many of us thought this conflict had ended. Apparently, we were wrong.

Many native-born Africans may say they believe the traditional Diaspora is part of the global African Diaspora, but their actions and sometimes their words – such as Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s – belie their continued belief that only native-born Africans really qualify.

On this side of the Atlantic Ocean, members of the traditional Diaspora continue to reach out to our brothers and sisters in and from Africa. This is increasingly due to the African Ancestry DNA tests that link people like myself to Africa (in my case Cameroon), but our links to Africa much predate such scientific evidence. It dates back to the 1800s when freed slaves and their children returned to Africa. The links have included Diaspora missions to provide health and education assistance and Pan African conferences to outline terms of engagement. It included such projects as Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line. More recently, it included Reverend Leon H. Sullivan’s summits in Africa. Today, it includes Congressman Bobby Rush’s African Investment and Diaspora Act (H.R. 656).

H.R. 656 recognizes and offers to build on the potential of Diaspora investment in Africa. Investments on the continent have averaged nearly 30% annually over the past several years, according to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development study. For Diaspora and other American investors, whose investment portfolios have taken a beating in the bursting of the various tech and housing bubbles in the past decade or so, investment in African companies offers a potentially more profitable means of growing our money. While investment in Diaspora bonds could be one way of making such investments, H.R. 656 is not limited to any one vehicle for investment.

Congressman Rush’s bill calls for the appointment of a Special Representative for United States-Africa Trade, Development and Diaspora Affairs; directs the establishment within the Department of State of the Office of United States-Africa Trade, Development and Diaspora Affairs headed by that Special Representative, and mandates the establishment of five regional centers of that office to conduct public outreach, education and liaison.

Since 1996, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has sought to encourage both U.S.-Africa trade and American investment in Africa. To date, much of the trade still involves the extractive sectors, although non-extractive trade admittedly has grown as well. But the American investment in Africa still focuses on the extractive industries, and without the encouragement offered by vehicles such as H.R. 656, it may remain focused on those industries.

As Congressman Rush points out in his bill, the combined consumer spending of Africa is projected to reach US$1.4 trillion over the next decade. Much of the rest of the world – from China to India to Brazil to Turkey – sees the potential of African economies. Unfortunately, Americans still haven’t completely caught on to the financial rewards Africa already delivers to its investors. When you factor in the anticipated US$1.24 trillion in consumer spending by African Americans alone by 2013, you have an economic explosion waiting to be experienced.

H.R. 656 is an example of the interest and willingness of African Americans to engage with the rest of the African Diaspora and Africa in the coming years. More of us realize our common heritage and destiny every day. First- and second-generation Africans in the Diaspora increasingly work collaboratively with us. Relationships between members of the African Diaspora and Africans have been built over more than a century and continue today. What we need to know is: does official Africa accept us as member of the family?

Why Hasn’t AGOA Worked Better for Africa?

2011-03-12T17:15:00.001-05:00

Since 2000, the African Growth and opportunity Act (AGOA) has been America’s main vehicle to enhance U.S.-African trade. If you look merely at the numbers, trade between the United States and the AGOA-eligible African countries has increased significantly. However, growth has been uneven and has not benefitted the bulk of African entrepreneurs and their societies as was intended.

When AGOA was crafted, the textiles and apparel sector was predicted to be the key to sparking African industrialization as it had been previously for Great Britain and other currently industrialized countries. Unfortunately, the process of vertical integration, synchronizing several stages of production from raw materials through the finished product, never widely took place in Africa. Cotton producers in countries like Benin and Mali looked to sell their product to America rather than other African countries, although the latter was an easier market to crack.

Under AGOA, African textile and apparel producers were originally intended to buy their raw materials from their neighbors or from the United States. Because this was either impractical or unworkable, a third-party fabric exemption was granted to allow the purchase of inputs from other sources. This has not helped African producers nor sped the development of vertical integration, which has been a source of frustration for American lawmakers who created and must maintain AGOA.

If you travel by road in Africa, at some point you will see old, abandoned factories left behind by the colonial powers. Breweries still operate, but many cereal production facilities and other manufacturing plants no longer operate. Partly, this is due to inconsistent or non-existent electric power in places where production would be most efficient. It also may be due to the lack of financing for such facilities because of disinterest in local banks in financing large, long-term projects under favorable terms. Whatever the reason, Africa lags behind the rest of the world in industrialization and remains dependent on the production of manufactured goods by other nations when it could be creating jobs and selling its own products to the rest of the world.

This is especially critical in the agriculture sector, which should be Africa’s most productive sector. During and just after the colonial period in Africa, many of its countries were not only self-sufficient in agricultural production, but also sold their products internationally. Due to war and unrest, many areas became non-productive. In Nigeria, the discovery of oil diminished interest in agricultural production. Without value-added agricultural production, its nations are vulnerable to a volatile world market for primary products. The massive leasing of African land to foreigners is ostensibly meant to be mutually beneficial, but it does not involve African farmers and doesn’t increase the indigenous capacity to produce value-added agricultural products. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be strategies to grow more valuable crops such as gum Arabic, even though desertification is increasing the land most useful for its production.

In America and other developed countries, there is engagement between government and the business community that allows for impediments to trade to be identified and eliminated. This process is far from perfect, but it is helpful. In Africa, there remains far too much mistrust and lack of mutual understanding for such a process to be established or last even if it is. I have helped such public-private partnerships be created, as have some of my colleagues, but it is an uphill battle to maintain them. In no country is government good at business, and if there is no effective input from the private sector, too many logjams are created, and investments in infrastructure can easily be misdirected. African executive and legislative branches work together far worse than they do in America even in this time of political discord. This is a recipe for disaster in creating a productive export industry in any African country.

Finally, we in civil society promote the “three-legged” stool concept of government-private sector-civil society cooperation, but in far too much of Africa, civil society organizations lack the information and understanding of the trade process to be of much help in this. Thus, their influence on policy is minimal in far too many countries. If you think mistrust between government and the private sector is rampant, you should see the lack of trust between government and civil society. Not only do thin-skinned government officials resist constructive criticism from civil society organizations, but many of those organizations are considered way stations for would-be politicians. Consequently, what could be useful sources of information for government and the private sector go unheeded, even when such information comes from the many functional, and even exceptional, think tanks on the continent.

U.S. government policymakers have expressed frustration over the lack of progress by Africans in enhancing their own machinery of trade. Moving forward with the next AGOA bill, or whatever its future vehicle will be, this disappointment on the part of American lawmakers could limit future trade benefits for Africa. The American government clearly needs to do more, but that may not happen if African governments and their private sectors and civil societies can’t meet us halfway.

U.S. Federal Budget Should Reflect Africa’s Importance

2011-03-05T17:48:00.000-05:00

Amid all the talk of federal budget cuts these days, spending on foreign aid of all sorts is a prime target. Public opinion polls have consistently shown over the years that voters believe our government spends far more on assisting other countries than we actually do. So that brings on talk of drastic cuts – even consideration of eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In all these deliberations, many members of Congress and even some Administration officials may see aid to Africa as particularly ripe for cutting back. We have seen corrupt African leaders fall and others desperately hold onto power in lands so far away to many Americans that they might as well be on the dark side of the Moon. But America is linked to Africa in many ways that are too important to ignore, and our social investments on the Africa continent are not just favors we do for foreigners for whom we have sympathy; it is spending to protect allies, save lives and safeguard our own future.

In the last few weeks, unrest in North Africa has caused oil prices to rise steadily. We face the prospect of US$5-a-gallon gasoline not only because oil supplies are interrupted, but also on the fear of potential interruption. The United States gets nearly one-fifth of our oil from West Africa, and with increasing oil finds in Uganda, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe and other locations on the continent, Africa has become too important a petroleum source to hope that the supplies will not be interrupted. Energy security has long been a concern of the U.S. government – even before the creation of the Africa Command.

Failed states provide safe havens for terrorists and now pirates, who threaten commerce and lives. Somalia and Sudan have long been well known as sites for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to train and harbor their minions. The Horn of Africa in the East is home to Islamic fundamentalists, some of whom perpetrated attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. As we watch government after government fall suddenly or crumble under the pressure of popular uprisings, there is concern that Islamic militants could seize power and create enemy states where allies now exist.

Failed states or even weak states can become bases for international crime cartels. International drug trafficking is increasingly using African countries as transshipment points. In fact, since 2003, West Africa has been the source of 99% of all drugs seized in Africa, and those seizures have increased by a factor of five during that period. The United Nations has dubbed Guinea Bissau, one of the world’s poorest countries, as Africa’s first “narco-state.” The War on Drugs has shifted from Central and South America and that fact cannot be ignored.

Health care concerns in Africa have limited the life spans of Africa, but beyond the basic human concern for the welfare of other people, Africa’s health issues impact others in the world, including Americans here in our own country. Globalization has accelerated the linkage of the world and allows people – and sometimes the diseases they carry – to leave one country and arrive in another in less than a day. Scientists tell us that West Nile virus has existed in Africa for 1,000 years and has been identified as one of the possible causes of the death of the legendary Alexander the Great. Now this disease is loose worldwide. West Nile virus was first identified in the United States in 1999, and it has been identified in locations across the country.

The very air we breathe is partially created by the world’s rain forests. While the role of rain forests in oxygen generation has been somewhat exaggerated, they are realistically estimated to be responsible for the production of 20% of earth’s oxygen. Cutting down the rain forests in Africa is not merely a local problem for African countries; it is a global issue for all of us. We debate the concept of global warming, but climate change is indisputable. We just don’t know yet what impact it has on the global ecosystem. Certainly, we know storms in West Africa contribute to hurricanes in our hemisphere, so mitigating the negative impact of climate change in Africa is our problem too.

The rise of food prices in recent years is a global problem. Scarcity of food produced in Africa means the worldwide shortage causes our prices to rise too. The Food and Agricultural Organization says the global food price index has hit a record high for the third straight month. Even if we produce enough for ourselves, the market for food is not limited to one country alone. The demand for staples such as rice, wheat and corn affects everyone, and the lack of money to buy such agricultural products means American farmers have their market opportunities limited.

I have said before and repeat now that nearly 80 percent of the strategic minerals we need originate in Africa. An estimated 97 percent of the world’s platinum is from Africa, as well as 90 percent of the cobalt, 80 percent of the chromium, 64 percent of the manganese, half the world’s gold reserves and as much as a third of all uranium. In recent years, the mineral coltan, largely coming from Africa, has enabled the development of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. We would be hard-pressed to construct jet aircraft, automobile catalytic converters or computers, cell phones and iPods without the minerals found in Africa, and in some cases, almost nowhere else in the world.

The health, security and well-being of Africa and its people must matter to us. So when we look at the necessary task of cutting the federal budget, we must be careful to consider the implications of cuts in aid to Africa. Such aid is not just a kindness to others; it is a favor we do for ourselves as well.

Cote d’Ivoire Impasse Threatens African Unity

2011-02-25T18:26:00.001-05:00

In the aftermath of the disputed elections in Cote d’Ivoire late last year, the African Union suspended Cote d’Ivoire from all AU activities until presidential challenger Alassane Ouattara was seated as the rightful winner. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also took a forthright stand in support of the election results as certified by the country’s election commission, even going so far as to threaten military action to remove sitting President Laurent Gbagbo for refusing to accept the election results.

For awhile, it looked as though Africa was united in insisting that the long-delayed election in Cote d’Ivoire had finally come to a definitive end. African envoys visited Washington and other capitals to confirm their stand against what is generally believed to be the refusal of one of the continent’s leaders to accept defeat. Unfortunately, this united stance seems to be unraveling as time goes by.

First, the threat of using “legitimate force” to remove Gbagbo evaporated when Ghana refused to send troops to such an intervention. Then Nigeria, facing April elections, had to decline to participate. With two of the largest regional armed forces standing down, no effective fulfillment of the military threat was possible.

Next, the High-Level Panel asked by the AU to resolve the Cote d’Ivoire standoff began to splinter in its resolve to maintain a united AU stance on supporting Ouattara’s widely accepted victory. At the January AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Nigeria and Burkina Faso stood firm on the AU position, but they clashed with Angola and South Africa, who are urging a resolution of the electoral dispute in a less confrontational manner.

Then, South Africa sent a warship, the SAS Drakensberg, off the coast of Cote d’Ivoire, ostensibly on a training mission that didn’t require notification of its Parliament. ECOWAS strongly criticized the presence of the South African vessel, even as the South African government explained that it was there to possibly evacuate the South African embassy or be used as a negotiating venue. The presence of the ship only further highlighted the growing split among African leaders about the proper response to the deadlock in Cote d’Ivoire.

South Africa has never endorsed the election of Ouattara, and instead backs Gbagbo’s insistence that the votes be recounted. The presumed pro-Gbagbo camp also includes Angola, Uganda, Gambia and Zimbabwe. Nigeria and Burkina Faso are joined in their support for Ouattara’ victory by Senegal and Kenya. The majority of African nations appear to favor a negotiated settlement, including Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Cameroon and Tanzania.

Meanwhile, Gbagbo apparently is playing the waiting game, trying to hold out against robust international sanctions. About 90 prominent Ivoirians and 11 parastatals, including the electric company, the Abidjan port and the bodies that manage trade in coffee, cocoa and rubber, are under international sanctions. However, sanctions will take time to work effectively, and in the case of cocoa, they may have been instituted too late to make much difference. Approximately 40% of the world’s cocoa is grown in Cote d’Ivoire, and 895,000 tons of it had been shipped by the end of January. Moreover, significant cocoa smuggling into Ghana is being anticipated. Nevertheless, as cocoa represents 90% of the country’s export earning, it has to hurt at some point.

The question is: will African resolve be worn down by that point?

The West has been quick to call for governments of national unity in countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe when an election is highly questionable with no easy resolution at hand. This is partly because of the cost and logistical problems inherent in re-running elections and also the intransigence of leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. The lesson learned by such leaders is that if you can wait out the international community, you can hold onto power with a fig leaf of a coalition government. Ask Kenya’s Raila Odinga or Zimbabwe’s Morgan Tsvangirai whether their coalition governments work well. They will surely recommend against following their experience.

There are reports that Gbagbo has made off with US$500 million worth of CFA francs from the Central Bank of West African States, so he has some ability to hold out. Meanwhile, violence and human rights abuses reportedly are increasing. In the face of suffering and lack of movement by either side, a coalition government could look like the best alternative at some point.

But when will we reach the tipping point at which the various African camps coalesce into agreement on an expedient solution that ends the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire? Few except the fanatics have the stomach for allowing Ivoirians to suffer long so we may reach that tipping point sometime this spring at the latest.

Lending Africa a Helping Hand

2011-02-17T17:01:00.002-05:00

Do you care about Africa? If so, what have you done to help the continent?

The Leon H. Sullivan Foundation has developed concept of the “Afripolitan” to describe the swelling ranks of those who care about Africa and are engaged in efforts to advance the continent and its people in joining the global economy of the 21st century. The term is a melding of “Africa” and “metropolitan.” Africa, of course, centers this concept on those who see the continent’s importance to the world at large. The metropolitan aspect conveys the sense of worldliness that understands the interconnectedness of all societies and the need to ensure that no society is left to languish. But the Afripolitan does more than see Africa; he or she makes an effort to help in whatever way they can.

In short, Afripolitans act, while others merely watch.

Now that we have established what an Afripolitan is, who is an Afripolitan? Certainly members of the African Diaspora who realize the importance of their motherland and take the next step to help would be Afripolitans. However, the young person who volunteers for the Peace Corps or the Teachers for Africa Program of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH), no matter what their ethnic heritage, also is an Afripolitan. Current and former government officials whose work in Africa has led them to make an enduring tangible connection with the continent and its people would be Afripolitans. Those who have donated to and who continue to sustain humanitarian efforts and church missions would be Afripolitans. Students who learn about the world and want to make it better are Afripolitans.

Two notable Afripolitans are the late Reverend Leon H. Sullivan, who established the African-African American Summits (now the Leon H. Sullivan Summits) to build a bridge between Africa and America, and organizations such as Opportunities Industrializations Centers International and IFESH, which have helped tens of thousands of Africans to achieve self-sufficiency. Ambassador Andrew Young, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. Congressman, is another Afripolitan whose interventions on America’s Africa policy are still felt in countries such as Angola.

There are many other notable Afripolitans – from Ron Dellums, the former U.S. Congressman who fought apartheid and then waged a campaign to help victims of HIV-AIDS on the continent that led to programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), to Oprah Winfrey, who built a model school for exceptional girls in South Africa, to Bono, the U2 lead singer who has had such a significant impact on developed world policies on African debt and development to Angelina Jolie, whose work as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has brought much-needed attention and assistance to people worldwide, including victims of genocide in Darfur.

Afripolitans are not just people of African descent. They are not just the rich and famous who make public contributions to Africa’s wellbeing. They comprise millions worldwide who care about the present and future of Africa and are willing to give of their time, talent and treasure to help Africans in their ongoing effort to reach their great potential.

The Peace Corps, an independent federal agency established in 1961, is an example of a mechanism by which Americans can provide tangible help for African people. Tens of thousands of Peace Corps volunteers have participated in programs to help African governments, schools, civil society organizations and entrepreneurs in areas ranging from education to health to business to agriculture. The Peace Corps currently operates in 25 African countries – from Benin to Zambia.

Church missions and individual evangelical organizations have sent thousands of people to African countries to provide food and medical supplies to those in need. From Pentecostals to Lutherans to Presbyterians to Catholics, men and women of all races in America have contributed to giving from their resources to make life better for African people – be it establishing feeding programs to building schools.

Dozens of people contributed to the US$50,000 the Sullivan Foundation sent last year to Manyatta School outside Arusha, Tanzania. Many more have contributed to the millions of dollars worth of books and school supplies the Sullivan Summits provided to various African nations through Books for Africa and the millions in medical supplies sent through MedShare. Future projects are being planned through these organizations and others.

The ranks of the Afripolitan grow each day. Are you ready to join them?

Does Black History Month Serve the Diaspora?

2011-02-11T07:54:00.000-05:00

Historian Carter G. Woodson initiated Negro History Week in 1926 in order to integrate the history of African-Americans into American history as a whole. From the beginning, Woodson intended for this week to raise the status of the contributions made in the creation of America by the descendants of Africa and gain full acceptance as part of the fabric of history as taught to all students. Instead, it has become a specialized celebration of events in the history of the African Diaspora that remains outside the general history all students learn.

During what is now Black History Month, African American history is taught to students across the country in elementary, middle school and high school classes. College students can study about the African Diaspora in elective courses. But what do black and white students think about this history in other months? Do they take seriously the history of the descendants of Africa otherwise?

Critics of Black History Month point out that February is the shortest month of the year and that this month also is American Heart Month, International Boost Self-Esteem Month, International Embroidery Month, Library Lovers Month, National Cherry Month, National Children’s Dental Health Month, National Snack Food Month and even Return Shopping Carts to Supermarkets Month.

If you watch cable television, you already know that black American films (and sometimes African films) are segregated into this month. To be sure, some black films make it out of this celluloid ghetto, but your best chance of seeing films, documentaries and other programming featuring Diaspora people is during February. This is also the best time to find Diaspora products in places they don’t normally appear or where don’t appear with prominence or regularity.

I would submit to you that this specialized treatment sets aside the history of the African Diaspora as something apart from “real” history. If human beings originated in Africa, how can history be taught properly while ignoring this vital fact? Every so often, some scientist or researcher tries to show that human beings originated in parallel places, only to be subsequently refuted. Perhaps the reason it’s so hard for some people to accept the common African origin of mankind is that it still has not fully become part of everyone’s history curriculum.

I recall going to a forum at which scholar Mary Lefkowitz denied the Egyptian influence on the Greeks, even though the Greeks themselves acknowledged where they gained some of their learning. She said Cleopatra was not Egyptian, but what she failed to acknowledge was that the Cleopatra with whom are familiar, while part Greek indeed, was not completely so. Despite all the African features on statues of Pharaoh Akhenaton and even the Sphinx, many people still want to deny the African presence in Egypt. This seemed foolish to me standing in Giza looking at the pyramids built so long ago by Pharaoh Menes and other early Egyptian rulers, who were from the south of Egypt.

The great Carthaginian general Hannibal has been played by white men in the movies, so his African origin is often bypassed. So many other famous Africans from history are not well-known to be African, such as St. Augustine of Hippo in what is now Algeria. But what is truly sad is that the great African kings and queens of antiquity have faded into anonymity because they are only taught to those who look for them. They are a part of our common history. We know of the European explorers of Africa, but not so much of the rulers they encountered, such as Queen Nzinga of what is now Angola.

Closer to home, we have developed a celebrity orientation to black American history. We are so fixated on the most popular figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., that comedian Chris Rock once quipped that when asked for the name of an equally notable black woman, a child might likely suggest “Martina Luther King.”

As silly as that sounds, without a solid basis for understanding the roles played by Africa’s descendants throughout history, non-Diasporans will always be inclined to believe we have contributed little of value to the world. An ancient Roman reportedly once asked: “What good can come from Africa?” If you know little of African history such an opinion is to be expected.

So many of the inventors who are of the Diaspora are not identified as being black. Therefore, the mass of Diaspora contribution to science is not well known. Perhaps more Diaspora children would consider science as a career if they knew more about their ancestors’ role in the development of science throughout the ages.

Some progress has been made in developing curricula to teach Diaspora history, but so long as it is considered apart from “real” history, it will always be seen by some as a gimmick to enhance the self-esteem of black people and not knowledge that completes the picture of our common history. For this, we all suffer a deficiency in our education.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

2011-02-04T07:28:00.001-05:00

African leadership is often challenged, but few measures accurately examine how well Africa’s leaders perform. There is the African Leadership Prize from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, established in 2007, but even the world’s richest prize (US$5 million) does not adequately reflect the progress that has been made on the continent among the presidents and prime ministers of Africa.

The Nation Media Group, publisher of the EastAfrican magazine, has created the African President’s Index, which rates the continent’s leaders using several measurements: the Nation Media Group’s own political Index (35%), the Mo Ibrahim Index (15%), the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (15%), the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index (15%), Transparency International’s Corruption Index (15%) and the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (5%). What they arrived at is five Africa presidents who were given an “A” rating for their governance.

Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam of Mauritius received an A+. Son of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, known as the “Father of the Nation,” the Prime Minister presides over one of Africa’s most highly-developed countries. Mauritius has been named the best governed African country by Mo Ibrahim’s index since it was initiated.

President Pedro Verona Rodriques Pires of Cape Verde is a hugely respected figure in his country, having been so since independence from Portugal was achieved in 1975. He was the country’s first Prime Minister from 1975 to 1990, and after remaining active in politics, he returned to power in 2001. Pires’ country is one of the few African countries that is on track to meet the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.

President Seretse Ian Khama of Botswana is the son of the country’s revered first President Sir Seretse Khama. The current President worked his way through the political system before assuming the presidency in 2008. Botswana, already a democratic model to the international community, President Khama has worked to expand his country’s circle of admirers. The country has been beset by HIV-AIDS, but under Khama’s rule 92.5% of those needing anti-retroviral drugs are receiving them.

President John Atta Mills of Ghana, known throughout the country as “The Prof,” is one of Africa’s best educated leaders. The former Vice President under President Jerry Rawlings, Mills won the office vacated by President John Kufour when he stepped down after two terms. President Mills is now responsible for developing the country’s oil sector and will have royalty revenues with which to extend the development of an already advanced nation.

President Hifikepunye Luca Pohamba of Namibia is the former Lands Minister who successfully sped up the transfer of land from white farmers to black citizens. One of the founding members of the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), he won office in a landslide in 2004. He received the 2010 Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network Food Security Policy Leadership Award for creating responsible fisheries policies in Namibia.

Just missing this group with a B+ was President Jacob Zuma of South Africa. Zuma is a longtime leader of the ruling African National Congress who served time in jail with other party leaders such as former President Nelson Mandela. Zuma received much kudos for his successful conduct of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He missed an A by a fraction of a point despite leading a major nation struggling to overcome the lingering aftermath of apartheid.

Five other African Presidents received a B grade: President James Alix Michel of Seychelles, President Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. All have significant accomplishments that may have been somewhat dimmed by unresolved issues or laws seen as not fully upholding full civil rights.

Even those rated with a C have laudable accomplishments. For example, President Rupiah Banda of Zambia has provided treatment for 90% of HIV-AIDS victims and allowed Angolan refugees to remain in his country after residing there for many years. Kin Mohammed VI of Morocco has hic country on track to exceed targets for water and sanitation services under the Millennium Development goals thanks to greater government spending on water supply and sanitation infrastructure.

Several leaders, such as President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, were considered to have been in office for too short a time to be rated.

So leadership is alive and well in Africa. Kudos goes to the Nation Media Group for its index, which allows a fuller view of African leadership than even the Mo Ibrahim Index. Attention is too often focused on those African leaders who violate human rights and fail to meet the needs of their people. It can make us forget that there are many others who do serve their citizens and earn the respect of their nation and the international community.

Youth Unemployment: A Danger for Africa’s Future

2011-01-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

The International Labour Organization (ILO) just released a frightening report on unemployment worldwide. It said that more than 1.5 billion people, or half the world’s working population, are in vulnerable or insecure jobs and that 205 million workers were unemployed last year. According to the ILO, the official figure is probably an underestimate because many people have given up trying to find a job. The most unsettling aspect of the report is that 77.7 million young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are unable to find work. This is a particular problem for countries in Africa.

There are 200 million Africans in this age range, comprising more than 20% of the continent’s population. Worldwide, youth are 43.7% of the total unemployed people even though they account for only 25% of the world’s working population. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 60% of the unemployed are youth, and an average of 72% of youth live on less than US$2 a day.

Young Africans have tried to seek better opportunities in urban areas, but too often find themselves stuck in slums with little or no way to make a survival salary. Many of them end up being paid as thugs by political parties or joining militias – not because of an ideological compatibility, but because they need to eat. Criminal enterprises also recruit from this pool of the unemployed, hopeless youth. This large, desperate and restive population poses a danger for many African countries. One of the underlying causes of the sudden revolt in Tunisia was high youth unemployment. While the overall unemployment rate in Tunisia is 13.3%, it is much higher among the young.

It is still higher in many other African countries, whose base unemployment rate is high to begin with:

Zimbabwe: 95%
Liberia: 85%
Mozambique: 60%
Djibouti: 59%
Namibia: 51.2%

With rates that high, the entire population is having trouble surviving, and youth are three times more likely to be unemployed than their elders, so there are veritable armies of unemployed youth eager to make a living doing whatever they have to do to survive. An increasing number of unemployed youth are college graduates. While some do leave for the developed world, many are stuck without the funds to go abroad. They are dissatisfied with what their governments have done for them and have the smarts to connect with others to channel their discontent into action.

The Tunisian example spread to Egypt, whose population is comprised by two-thirds under the age of 30. They make up an estimated 90% of the unemployed. Even though Egypt’s official unemployment rate is 9.4%, university students facing the prospect of no jobs and ever-rising prices are the moving force behind the Egyptian demonstrations that are demanding change. The wave of youth-motivated demonstrations for change in government have reached Yemen, and though the focus is now on the Arab world, African governments should be very concerned about what their youth will do given their economically dire straits.

If unemployment of less than 15% in North African countries boiled over into demonstrations, what might be the case in Africa, where more than 20 countries have equal or higher unemployment rates?

Poor governance, corruption and systemic economic problems certainly cause much of the unemployment in African countries. However, a lack of investment in enterprises that could create jobs also is at fault. If African countries can attract more investment – both domestic and foreign – then the problem of unemployment gradually can be minimized.

Many of Africa’s countries are sitting on a powder keg. More and more youth leave school each year, whatever the grade, with little prospect of honestly earning a living. They will not tolerate being kept in such a situation forever. With a window on the world provided by the internet, young people know how their status matches that of their counterparts elsewhere, and they now see that young people elsewhere are taking steps to remedy their predicament.

If you are a government leader in Africa, don’t wait too long to tackle this issue. Young people are notoriously impatient. Ask the Tunisians and Egyptians.

A Twitter Revolution in Africa?

2011-01-17T22:07:00.001-05:00

Africa is a large continent with more than four dozen countries. It is difficult for any government to keep track of what is happening in all its countries. That is, of course, quite obvious, but it also is an explanation for why surprising things happen so suddenly on the continent. Such was the case a few days ago in Tunisia.

Tunisia has been an American ally in Africa and was considered safe enough to host the African Development Bank when Cote d’Ivoire became too turbulent. Little has been said publicly about Tunisia’s government being unstable. In fact, Tunisian President Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali was only the second president in the country since independence from France came in 1956. He had governed the country since 1987 and was most recently re-elected in 2009 with 89.62% of the vote. Yet Ben Ali has been forced to step down as president and flee the country.

So how did he come to be deposed within weeks of street protests and anti-government Internet activity being launched?

Corruption was perceived to be rampant in the Tunisian government. I use the term “perceived” because the government has been quite successful in keeping a lid on information. The media has not reported much of the negative side of Ben Ali’s rule and has made a strenuous effort to clamp down on the Internet, especially social media. Despite leading North Africa and the Arab world in the level of Internet access, Reporters Without Borders ranks Tunisia 164th out of 178 countries in its press freedom index. Tunisia is listed as one of the group’s “15 enemies of the Internet” and says it has established a “very effective system of censoring” the web.

However, its system apparently was not effective enough. BBC News reported that a steady flow of protest videos, tweets and political manifestos have made their way into Tunisian homes and offices in a variety of languages: Arabic, the Darija Tunisian dialect, French and English. In addition to informing Tunisians of the depth of misrule by their government, social media were used to coordinate demonstrations. Most of this activity was generated by Tunisians, though some came from abroad. Moreover, while unions and opposition political parties have played some role in the uprising that has now deposed the President, much of the anti-government content has come from average citizen bloggers.

In yet another example of unrest insufficiently tracked by Western governments, an ally was forced out without warning. I give credit to our intelligence services who may well have known how bad things were, but if their information was taken seriously by those who make our foreign policy, they surely kept it to themselves. The U.S. government now has issued a travel warning, but if the situation was looking as dire as it now is, why wasn’t there some prior warning for tourists and business people caught in the midst of the current unrest? A group of Swedish wild boar hunters were arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in Tunisia, and I’ll bet they wish there had been some prior warning for them.

Ironically, some North African leaders, such as Libya’s Muammar el-Quaddafi, believe American intelligence services deliberately leaked information detrimental to the Tunisian regime to Wikileaks in order to bring it down. This belief also is catching on within the remaining government operatives within Tunisian. This conspiracy theory comes despite the American government’s battle with Wikileaks on other leaked cables that have proven embarrassing to the Obama Administration. Those who buy into this conspiracy don’t say why America wanted Ben Ali deposed and
Tunisia thrown into chaos; they just believe America is too all-powerful to get caught unaware by an Internet site.

Arab and North African leaders are becoming increasingly concerned that the Internet and social media could lead to their downfall as well. But little is said about how sub-Saharan Africa leaders may be taking the Tunisian example. Governments like Zimbabwe’s have made every effort to crack down in the Internet and social media for some time. The Tunisian example and the Wikileaks tales about U.S. views of their government leaders will undoubtedly lead to more repression on freedom of speech elsewhere in Africa, but we have gone past the time when that could be completely successful, as Tunisia has now shown.

Wireless Internet allows video and commentary to be distributed worldwide immediately, forcing transparency on government dealings when none is wanted. So if our intelligence services uncover weaknesses within foreign allies, those who execute American foreign policy need to take heed. Governments who replace those overthrown by the release of secret information will not be so friendly to an America complicit in their misery.

Building the Links to African Unity

2011-01-12T21:43:00.001-05:00

There is a famous 19th century drawing of adventurer-businessman Cecil Rhodes standing like a colossus with one foot in South Africa and the other in Egypt. It symbolized his dream of a Cape to Cairo land connection. The British Empire that he represented wanted a road, but Rhodes preferred a railway. More than a hundred years later, that land connection is still not fully realized, and in the failure to complete it lays the explanation of why Africa’s transportation infrastructure remains inadequate.

The British saw this land connection as the key to advancing their commercial and military interests on the continent. The road (or highway) would link the British colonies of Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Nyassaland (Malawi), Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Zambia and Zimbabwe) and South Africa. Unfortunately for the British, Tanzania (then Tanganyika) was a German possession until after World War I, but soon after the so-called Great War, Egypt became independent.

Then there were the problems of climate and terrain. Furthermore, French ambitions to link their territories in West Africa to Djibouti in the East and Portuguese ambitions to link Angola and Mozambique also interfered with the land connections the British sought. After World War II, the struggles for African independence put a final cap on British ambitions (as well as those of the French and Portuguese).

What the colonial powers left behind when their African empires finally ended in the last half of the 20th century was a conflicting collection of roads that didn’t connect neighboring countries, railroads of different gauges that could not be linked, ports that were too shallow or too small for significant cargo handling and air traffic designed to serve the colonial powers but not the Africans themselves. All too often, to get from here to there in Africa, you run into dead ends, impassable rivers, vast deserts and other natural and man-made obstacles.

Now that we are entering the second decade of the 21st century, it is long past time to identify and correct the problems that hamper transportation linkages on the continent and allow more efficient movement of goods and people. In his book “Guns, Germs and Steel,” author Jared Diamond explains that Africa’s geography has led to its fragmentation. He writes that the continent’s north-south orientation, as opposed to Asia, Europe and North America’s east-west orientation did not facilitate the sharing of culture and intermingling of people that allows unity.

But we now have the technology to overcome the obstacles that prevented Africa’s forefathers from learning from one another and becoming stronger for this sharing of knowledge. The question is now: Does there exist the will to create transportation infrastructures that allow for progress in the modern world?

There are efforts underway to address the obstacles to freer transportation in Africa. For example, the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program is a partnership of 35 African countries, eight regional economic communities, the United Nations Economic Community for Africa (UNECA), the African Union’s New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Development Bank (ADB). The aim of this partnership is to better enable African governments to integrate their transportation strategies into their poverty reduction strategies. The driving force behind this partnership is a commitment to regional planning and cooperation.

The German Marshall Fund and the Hewlett Foundation are working on a Development Corridors program to stimulate the expansion of existing and creation of new transportation structures to allow African products, especially those produced by smallholder farmers, to be brought to market. The plan is to encourage public-private partnership that will allow currently underutilized economic potential to be realized more fully.

By the way, the Cairo – Cape Town Highway – envisioned by Rhodes more than a hundred years ago – has been taken up by UNECA, the ADB and the AU. When completed, it will link Cairo, Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Nairobi, Lusaka, Harare, Gaborone and Cape Town and smaller cities and towns in between. Only this time, the road known as Trans-African Highway 4 will serve the needs and interests of Africans and not just those of foreign powers.

The positive cost-benefit ratio of investing in transportation infrastructure in China has demonstrated the wisdom of investing in roads, for example. At the G8 Summit in Gleneagles back in 2005, world leaders highlighted Africa’s lack of infrastructure as the main constraint on economic growth and development. The World Bank and other international organizations pledged create a diagnostic to determine the state of the continent’s infrastructure, but while we now know far more than we did before then about the limits of Africa’s transportation infrastructure, the financing of projects has been slow to materialize.

The World Bank estimates that US$93 billion in infrastructure investment is needed annually for African infrastructure to be brought up to date, but only US$45 billion are arriving. Now that African governments and regional institutions are cooperating in creating the necessary policy structure, perhaps lenders and investors will loosen the purse strings.

As the old saying goes: “God helps those who help themselves.” Apparently, international lenders and investors live by that motto as well.

Africa Predictions for 2011

2011-01-04T17:32:00.000-05:00

When I looked ahead last January to important African developments in 2010, I focused on elections because they seemed to offer the most important events that could be foreseen. This new year is little different in that election issues are important, but there are non-electoral developments that loom large for the continent as well. The following are my five top forecasts for Africa in 2011.

1. The results of next week’s referendum on the independence of Southern Sudan could produce the world’s newest country or a renewed North-South conflict in that country. According to a recent article in the New York Times, neither the National Congress Party government in Khartoum nor the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement government in Juba wants a return to war because each has too much to lose. Both North and South depend on oil for most of their revenue, and renewed war would be devastating in that regard.

While that is true, and while Northern leaders have sounded accepting lately of the upcoming referendum’s likely results, the Khartoum regime has not taken any action in recent memory that didn’t have loopholes allowing it to renege on promises. In this case, the government has not removed its troops as required by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, continues to support rebels in the South and has prevented the full level of voter registration as required in the 2005 peace accord. That sounds like the government is hedging its bets. However inevitable independence of southern Sudan is, this will not be an easy process, and problem likely will linger beyond this year.

2. My next forecast is that for the more than two dozen African elections scheduled for 2011, the international community’s response to serious discrepancies could be different from what it has been -- depending on the outcome of the deadlock in Cote d’Ivoire. The usual international community response has been to complain about election irregularities when it involves an ally and sanctions when it is not a friendly government. Most often, the preferred solution has been to call for a government of national unity to smooth over problems. In the current Cote d’Ivoire case, though, there has been pressure on the presumed losing party to step down rather than accept the winner as a partner.

Having set this new precedent, it will be difficult to go back to taking the easy way out of electoral deadlocks in the future. Perhaps it also will encourage more international support for earlier training of parties and election officials and monitoring of the pre-election environment. It is much easier to prevent bad elections before they actually happen than to correct them once they have taken place. Elections in Nigeria, Egypt, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries are too important to rely on cookie cutter approaches to electoral problem solving.

3. In the largest change of land ownership since the colonial era, more than 50 million hectares of African land has been leased or is in the process of being leased by 20 African countries. This modern land grab is displacing African farmers and failing to create jobs for African workers. In 2011, the trend toward leasing massive amounts of African land will accelerate due to the continuing global food shortage and dwindling supplies of water. This shortage is especially acute in the Middle East, which happens to be the main source of African land leasing arrangements. In Madagascar in 2009, a government was displaced largely due to reports of a land deal with foreigners. Perhaps as early as this year, there will be other citizen eruptions because of what they see as negative consequences from these land deals.

4. African societies, especially in rural areas, cling to traditions that are sometimes millennia old. One of these traditions is the disdain for open homosexuality. Those who keep their sexual orientation to themselves usually are ignored, but in recent years, evangelical activists have taken their war against what they describe as the gay agenda to Africa to warn of foreign influences drastically changing African cultures. Some point to Zimbabwe, where gays there were encouraged by outsiders to be open about their sexuality. Unfortunately, African societies are not as tolerant of behavior celebrating what African spiritual leaders largely find as being n violation of religious standards. Apparently, these American evangelicals did not realize that African governments would not react as the U.S. government has. Gays have been arrested and prosecuted in countries like Zimbabwe and Malawi, and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, speaking to supporters in November, called for gays to be arrested and jailed for their behavior. Pressure from the international community forced Uganda to back down from a law that would in some cases have sentenced homosexuals to death sentences. In 2011, the clash between modern views of human rights and traditional views of acceptable sexual behavior in Africa may come to a head, provoking court challenges to laws and rising harassment of openly gay citizens in African countries.

5. Finally, a hopeful sign in 2011 will be an increase in foreign investment. The continent as a whole is expected to see a growth rate of 5% or more this year. The fall of interest rates in many African countries is caused by lowered rates of inflation. Along with the anticipated rise in the level of bank credit on the continent, one can expect renewed interest in the more than two dozen African equity markets. Various economic analysts say the fastest-growing areas will be telecoms, banks, retail outlets and manufacturing. With the broad use of advanced telephones in Africa, many on the continent are in a position to take advantage of tele-banking. Members of the recent African Diaspora have been increasing their transfer of funds to Africa, and remittances now outpace foreign aid. Moreover, traditional elements of the African Diaspora, some of whom have been linked to specific countries through DNA testing, are taking a closer look at the African equity markets and see opportunities for profits that exceed what traditional Western stock exchanges are offering.

I see a mixed picture for Africa this year, with some progress and some challenges, but even the challenges provide opportunities for advancement.

Why Not Africa?

2010-12-21T18:04:00.000-05:00

Progress means that countries that produce simple products often move onto more complex products. Low-skilled jobs are transferred to countries down the economic ladder whose labor costs are less, while the original producers find new products requiring more skilled workers. Thus far, the economic phenomenon of comparative advantage hasn’t worked for Africa as it should have. For example, products no longer being made in America still are not being made in African locales.

For example, the United States stopped making Rawlings baseballs – the ones used in the major leagues, college and high school games and sandlot ball – back in 1969. The St. Louis factory’s production was shipped first to Puerto Rico, then to Haiti and now to Costa Rica. Why not Africa?

Remember the toy Etch-A-Sketch? It used to be made in Bryan, Ohio, but since 2000, it has been produced in Shenzhen, China. Similarly, Mattel toys have been made in China since the last California factory shut down in 2002. Those Converse athletic shoes – know as Chuck Taylors for the All-American high school basketball player – are no longer being made in Massachusetts. Since 2001, they have been made in Indonesia. Levi Strauss & Company shut down its U.S. production of jeans in 2003, and production was outsourced to Latin American and Asian locations. Why not Africa?

For some products, Asian and other locations are still more competitive than African locations for a variety of reasons. No televisions have been produced in the U.S. since 2004. Cell phones stopped being made in America in 2007. Just this year alone, Dell computers, canned sardines and even kitchen flatware (forks, spoons and knives) stopped being produced in America. Complex products can be produced easier and cheaper in Asian countries, but there are still opportunities for African manufacture of products no longer economically feasible for the developed world.

Then why isn’t Africa taking advantage of these opportunities and becoming the destination of choice for the manufacture of products no longer made in America or often other developed countries? I could mention the lack of road and rail infrastructure, or the lack of consistent electric power that forces producers to rely too heavily on generators. The small production capacity of so many countries makes them less competitive on a global scale.

The failure of neighboring countries to cooperate in bundling goods at ports and airports, which also suffer from a lack of security and efficiency, make them less attractive sites for shippers. The dearth of shipping alternatives makes prices too high to be competitive on the world stage. All these and other reasons are certainly the cause of African countries as a whole failing to compete more effectively in the global marketplace, but there are African countries that have made the jump into a position of enhanced global competitiveness.

For all developing countries, it is estimated that manufactured goods account for more than 80% of their exports. That’s up from only 25% thirty years ago. What happened was that many of the resource-rich developing countries invested revenue from resources in the enhancement of infrastructure, the development of human capacity and the employment of new technology. At the dawn of the wave of independence for the developing world in the late 1950s and 1960s, several African countries were economically stronger than their Asian counterparts. However, the discovery of oil and the presence of commodities such as diamonds, gold and cobalt in Africa discouraged much lasting investment in manufacturing. Where would Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria stand among world economies today if they had pursued such policies as the so-called Asian Tigers did back then?

Instead, too many governments relied on a policy known as “import substitution,” under which production was encouraged in domestic goods instead of exports. This can work if you have sufficient infrastructure, internal markets, skills and technology, and oh yes, if you don’t depend on imported goods to make it work. Unfortunately, this policy, which seemed sound at the outset, was not positioned to work effectively.

Yet countries such as Mauritius, South Africa and Botswana have employed far-thinking policies to diversity their economies and compete well with their more resource-blessed neighbors because of it. One hopes that oil won’t spoil Ghana, Sao Tome and Uganda and lead them to get so comfortable with the production of oil that they neglect other sectors of their economies that produce more jobs than does the oil industry.

It is possible that African countries can take their place among countries attracting outsourced sectors from the developed world. None of the obstacles facing Africa today are insurmountable, and with sound policies keyed to tomorrow and not today, African countries can realize their competitive potential.

The 20th century is often referred to as “American century” because the United States used its natural and human resources to become the sole superpower by the turn of the century. China and India are off to a great start at the beginning of the current century. Still, with better planning and collaboration among African governments, the 21st century can become Africa’s century.

What to Do About African Elections?

2010-12-15T16:27:00.000-05:00

In Cote d’Ivoire, the long-awaited presidential election ended with the two top candidates both declaring victory and being sworn in. In Egypt, the main opposition party accused the government of committing widespread fraud and preventing their observers from monitoring the vote in the recent legislative elections. In Guinea, the June elections resulted in a runoff that had to be postponed due in part to the conviction of election commission officials for vote-tampering in that initial election.

Since the wave of elections that brought multi-party democracy to Africa in the 1990s, there have been significant advances made in consolidating democracy and the resulting good governance in African countries. However, there continue to be forces that try their best to frustrate the political will of the African people, and the international community seems to lack understanding or will to make the long-term investment to help prevent abuses that frustrate a broader advance of democratic elections in Africa.

After working on African elections for nearly 20 years – observing them, analyzing them and training people to prevent fraud in them – it is clear to me that whatever the intentions of the past three U.S. presidents and the current one, too many bureaucrats within the American government don’t fully understand the complexity of the electoral process. I always thought that officials in the U.S. Agency for International Development in the early 1990s associated the political process with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, whom they hated. So despite what I and others working to help elevate political process in Africa told them, they didn’t enable us to do what was necessary from the start to make elections acceptable because they saw the political process as inevitably flawed.

What former U.S. President George W. Bush called “the bigotry of low expectations” also comes into play. There just doesn’t seem to be the ability by too many American or other international officials to accept that Africans are capable of world-class elections. So the mood of “it’s good enough for Africa” seems to permeate the reaction to African elections. Whenever an African election is troubled, the first reaction is to call for a Government of National Unity. Somehow, these international leaders think, by putting opponents together in one government, trouble can be put behind them since all the African politicians want is a share of power.

Arranged Governments of National Unity are not really the way things work in the developed world. If the voters choose divided government, so be it, but who puts a viper in his or her own nest? In America, Democrat and Republican presidents usually appoint a member of the other party to their cabinet as a sign of cooperation. But when has the losing presidential candidate ever been given a major role in the winner’s government, especially if that losing candidate is a viable future candidate for president.? Under what circumstances would President Barack Obama ever have given Senator John McCain a major role in his government? It was a surprise when Obama appointed his primary opponent – Senator Hillary Clinton – as Secretary of State.

American and other international officials must understand that elections are often won or lost long before the first ballot is cast. For example, the Kenyan African National Union created a majority of small constituencies for itself and larger, fewer constituencies for the political opposition and used this tactic to hold onto power in the transition to multiparty democracy in the 1990s. In Cote d’Ivoire in the 1990s, one of the current presidents, Alassane Ouattara, was declared ineligible to run on the bogus charge that he wasn’t a citizen. In the historic 1992elections in Angola, entire segments of the population were not registered to vote. Tactics called “wholesale fraud” are used to prevent parties, candidates and voters from participating in elections. Election day can be scrupulously clean if the election has been won in advance. Unless those trying to guarantee free and fair elections pay attention to this phase, nothing done on election day will matter.

Then there is the voting process. African governments to often wait until late in the day to train election officials and find qualified election workers. Polling places are often poorly chosen. For example, I saw polling places in Equatorial Guinea in Mongomo a few years ago that had no security of the ballot as there was access to voters while they cast their ballots out of the sight of election officials. You don’t usually see ballot boxes being stolen and ballots being stuffed nowadays. What you do see (if you pay attention) is manipulation of vote counting as was the case in Ethiopia in 2005 and Kenya in 2007.

Rather than trying to find an expedient solution to an electoral crisis as was the case with the international community in both cases, why not make a more concerted effort to prevent the crisis before it develops?

Since the wave of African democratic elections crested in the 1990s, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute have worked on all phases of African elections. Unfortunately, their efforts have been hampered by U.S. government officials who delayed funding until almost too late, required equal treatment for all political parties even when they were parties on paper only and asked for favorable public assessments in the face of blatant election manipulation.

Permanent, professional electoral commissions with input from political parties, political parties prepared to effectively contest elections on behalf of their supporters, timely funding of election mechanisms and the application of new technology, such as biometric voter identification systems, must be applied to African elections to put governments, political parties and voters on a more secure road to lasting democracy.

There are important elections coming up in 2011, including in Sudan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Cameroon. For some of these process, particularly Sudan, it is too late to make the investment in setting the stage for free, fair and transparent elections. We can only hope that what interventions are made at this late date can be helpful.

In those African elections where timely interventions may help guarantee the accurate expression of the will of African voters, efforts must be made now to ensure that the goal of a fully functional democracy is served. Trying to clean up a preventable mess must no longer be the option when it comes to African elections.

Dimensions of the African Diaspora

2010-12-07T10:17:00.000-05:00

A little while back, I wrote as blog post about Africa reaching out to its Diaspora. Although this outreach could be more robust, it does exist. But what about the Diaspora’s outreach to its own disparate parts? We generally know very little about who the other members of the African Diaspora are or where they live today.

As African Americans, we consider ourselves the preeminent sector of the African Diaspora. However, in terms of size, we are only number two. Brazil has nearly 86 million people of African descent who comprise 45% of that country’s population. African descendants comprise about 13% of the American population and about 38 million people. Of course, the African liberation and civil rights movements in America have enabled Diasporans living here to flex their political muscles and impact the continent far more than black Brazilians have been able to do.

In Brazil, people we would consider to be Diasporans are divided into pretos (blacks) and pardos (mixed race or brown). Centuries of racial mixtures means that many Brazilians have African ancestry that is not easily recognizable, thus the invention of the term moreno (tanned or of olive complexion). The result of Brazil’s ethnic history is that many Brazilians don’t really consider themselves to be African descendants; they are as likely to describe themselves as Brazilian descendants.

This was only the case with a smaller portion of American Diasporans – those who were quadroon (one-quarter black) and octoroon (one-eighth black) back in the 1800s when those were distinct racial categories. When those classifications were nullified by U.S. law that declared anyone with one drop of black blood to be black, many of the lighter ones passed as whites to avoid the bitter discrimination faced by those more easily identified as black. Over time, they intermarried with whites and are the ones surprised to find they have African heritage when they take the DNA tests.

We know about the Diasporans who live in the Caribbean. Countries such as Haiti (8.7 million), the Dominican Republic (nearly 8 million) and Jamaica (2.7 million) have large Diasporan populations who we see in America. They are very obviously black, and we associate those countries with being largely black. Yet there are other countries in this hemisphere with significant black populations: Columbia (11.7 million). Venezuela (2.6 million) and Ecuador (680 thousand). Most of the islands of the Caribbean are, of course, majority black countries: Saint Kitts and Nevis (98%), Antigua and Barbuda (95%) and Grenada (91%).

But did you know that the Cayman Islands, the noted destination for offshore funds, is 60% black? French Guiana is 66% black, and Suriname is 47% black. Have you ever met a black person from one of these countries? Perhaps you did, but didn’t know where they were from, or you thought they were a small minority in their country of origin.

Europe is only 1.2% black, but France has 3 million Diasporans, and the United Kingdom has 2 million. The Netherlands has 507 thousand Diasporans, and Germany has 500 thousand. People from Africa and the Caribbean are playing increasingly visible and important roles in these countries. Famous black people from Europe include NBA player Tony Parker, who was born in Belgium, and former heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis, who was born in the United Kingdom. They are but two of the many Diasporans born and raised in Europe.

We may know about the 200 thousand Diasporans (mostly from Ethiopia) who live in Israel because of the famous airlift of Jewish Africans, but what about the other black populations in the Middle East? Egypt and the rest of North Africa, which are considered part of the Middle East, is African, of course, but there are significant, identifiable black populations in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman.

I used the term identifiable because while they may look black, many Afro-Arabs do not identify themselves as African descendants. Being African is akin to being identified as slaves. That remains a persistent issue in countries such as Sudan today. Nevertheless, Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are believed to have their origin in Ethiopia, which at one time in history controlled territory on both sides of the Red Sea. Swahili, the widely popular east African language, contains much Arabic and was once the language used by traders in the region.

Although many scholars doubt the claims of African ancestry among people in the Pacific, it is quite clear that Melanesians and many other Pacific Islanders have strong African features. There are the Australian aboriginal people, the Semang people of the Malay peninsula, the Aeta people of Luzon and the Ati of Panay. Again, these people have little connection to Africa today and likely do not identify themselves as members of the African Diaspora.

The dimensions of the African Diaspora are broad, but the linkages in practice are tenuous. We may look alike, but we don’t all identify ourselves as having the same ethnic origin. So while some members of the African Diaspora are reaching back to a connection with Africa, many others don’t for many reasons. Still, they are our brothers and sisters whether they know it or accept it or not. What becomes of that truth remains to be seen.

Africa’s Next Nation or Next War?

2010-11-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

When the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, settling the long civil war between North and South Sudan, it offered hope that this troubled country could become a source of benefit to East Africa and not the constant drain and threat that it is now. Unfortunately, competition for resource control and ethnic divisions have kept this agreement from having the full positive impact that had been hoped for. We are now at the eve of its final prescription – the referendum on southern independence – and far from providing a final end to the war, it may lead to a resumption of armed hostilities.

The attention of the international community is increasingly pointing toward Southern Sudan and its January 9, 2011, referendum on independence, which also include a vote on whether the provinces of Abyei, Nuba Mountain and Blue Nile will join Southern Sudan in independence from the North.

The North faces the distinct possibility that it will lose not only a third of its territory in that vote in January, but also a significant portion of its income, which largely comes from oil. Approximately 56% of the North’s revenues are generated by oil, and 75% of Sudan’s known oil reserves lie in the South. The North does have some minerals, but agriculture is constrained by its largely desert terrain. There is about a two kilometer-wide swath of alluvial land in which agriculture is possible, and that depends on the annual Nile River flood. Consequently, Northern Sudan is definitely not looking forward to a successful referendum that frees the South from its control.

Of course, even if the referendum goes as anticipated, the North has several choke points to use as leverage over the South to force revenue sharing on oil. For one thing, some oil fields span the still-unresolved border between North and South Sudan. Currently, any oil pumped from southern soil must go through northern Sudan for export. As for water resources, the current international agreement on the Nile water allocates 80 billion cubic meters of water to Sudan, but only 18 billion cubic meters for the South.

Since 2005, Northern Sudan has refused to cooperate in implementing the CPA. The international community has been so focused on the continuing crises in Darfur, there was inconsistent attention on the failure of the CPA process. Rather like a magician, the North distracted from the CPA breakdown by maintaining the world’s attention to the West. The possibility of losing the South has far more immediate implications for Sudan than does the desert region of Darfur.

The demilitarization of the South has not been completed, and there is a significant force of northern troops and weapons remaining in the South despite the CPA plan. The North is ready for renewed war in the South and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) is trying to catch up. As it has since the days of the long civil war, the North supports southern rebel movements to cause confusion and to create potential allies in any new conflict.

Right now, some of these rebels are busy leasing land in the South to foreign interests. One-time warlord Paulino Matiep Nhial’s family leased 400,000 hectares in Unity State last year, and in late October, militia leader Gabriel Tanginya entered into an agreement with Jarch Capital, the company that leased the Unity State land last year. The GoSS has not agreed to recognize these deals, though.

The most immediate threat to a peaceful transition lies in the voter registration process, which began in mid-November. This process is filled with possibility for voter challenges. There is no computerized registry. The entire process is dependent on hand registration using carbon paper. Given the many similar names and lack of street addresses, the likelihood of confusion, if not fraud, is rampant. Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party recently expressed its suspicion of the voter registration process and said its complaints to the South Sudan Referendum Commission have been unaddressed. Consequently, the Khartoum government has said it would not recognize the outcome of the registration process if problems are not corrected.

Furthermore, the Khartoum government continues to strongly urge that the referendum be postponed. For the South, that is a non-starter. GoSS President Salva Kiir calls the referendum date “sacrosanct.”

In order for the referendum to be officially recognized, a minimum of 50% of the voters plus one must vote for independence, and 60% of those eligible must have cast their ballots. Since there remains a serious gap in the estimates of southern voters living in the North, many of whom are not now registering to vote, there is a very broad loophole the North can use to disqualify an independence vote. Still, there is every sign that there will be secession no matter what the official vote tally records.

Despite a serious lack of governmental capacity, Southern Sudan has great promise for its future as an independent country. Approximately 80% of land in the South is arable, though only 10% is now under cultivation. A Japanese plan would create an oil pipeline to the port of Lamu, Kenya, with would be beneficial for the Sudanese and the Kenyans. Southern Sudan has the second highest per capita count of cattle. Gold, which supported the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army for years, is but one of its mineral resources. An of course oil will continue to provide 98% of the South’s revenue for some time.

China, Japan, Uganda, Kenya and even Iran are counting on the new nation to be born in the next few weeks. However, no one should be foolish enough to discount the strong possibility that that birth will take more bloodshed to occur. The United States, Great Britain and Norway – the triumvirate who negotiated the CPA – as well as the African Union, the United Nations and the World Bank are all engaged in a furious effort to make this process conclude nonviolently. At the same time, hardliners in Khartoum and Juba, the southern capital, won’t make that outcome so easy to achieve.

The next few weeks will tell whether the African Union will celebrate a new member or prepare to deal with yet another African war.

Reaching Out to Africa’s Descendants

2010-11-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

With the growing interest among Africa’s Diaspora in reaching back to the Motherland, the question arises: is Africa reaching out to its descendants worldwide?

The answer is yes. As we reach out to Africa, many on the continent are reaching out to us, and there is a history behind these efforts.

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, as President of Ghana, invited members of the African Diaspora to join in the efforts to build his newly independent nation in the late 1950s. The late Pan-African leader W.E.B. DuBois became a Ghanaian citizen and is buried there. Many other Diasporans followed him to Ghana and live there today, although citizenship has come hard for them despite their length of stay. This reluctance to extend citizenship to members of the Diaspora belies the “Joseph Project,” an invitation to members of the Diaspora to reconnect with the land of their ancestors.

A decade later, Mwalimu Julius Nyrere, President of Tanzania, extended an invitation to members of the Diaspora to come to Tanzania and participate in building his new nation. In addition to the leaders of African liberations movements, Tanzania became a beacon for Diasporans, especially Black Panthers, Vietnam War resisters and others who felt the need to leave the United States. Many of those who relocated to Tanzania still reside there. Now Tanzania is exploring whether to allow dual citizenship for Diasporans who want to continue their ties to the land of their birth.

An expanding list of African countries are offering or considering offering citizenship to members of the Diaspora, including Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. In fact, Sierra Leone provides an example of the enthusiasm of the people for a reconnection with the Diaspora and the obstacles that have prevented the flood gates to dual citizenship from being opened.

Research on the descendants of slaves brought to America from West Africa has long provided solid evidence of ties as exemplified by similarities in traditions, culture, language and even food. The Gullah people of South Carolina and Georgia have long been known to have come from Sierra Leone. James Madison University Professor Joseph Opala was instrumental in bringing 13 Gullah community leaders to Sierra Leone in 1989 for a “Gullah Homecoming.” A week of national celebrations ensued. Still, Sierra Leoneans wanted to see a Gullah family who could prove descent from their country.

Opala researched the matter, and eight years later, he was able to bring Mary Moran from Harris Neck, Georgia, who sang a song in the Mende language she learned from her mother. When a Mende woman in one village recognized the song, it connected the Moran family to that village. The “Moran Family Homecoming” was indeed a miracle caused by Opala’s dogged research. Yet Sierra Leoneans wanted to identify the descendants of a specific person taken from their land. Opala likened the challenge to “winning the lottery three times in a row.”

Great research trumped luck in this case. Opala, with the help of writer Edward Ball, combed through slave ship records and slave auction accounts and found references to a young girl given the name “Priscilla,” who had arrived in Charles Town, South Carolina, in 1956. Through plantation records, they were able to trace her descendants to the Martin family of Charleston, South Carolina. The paper trail from Sierra Leone to America was remarkably intact, and when Priscilla’s descendant, Thomalind Martin Polite, visited Sierra Leone in 2004, there was no doubt where she was from and to whom she was connected.

While there are Africans whose shame over their part in the slave trade lead them to reject the reconnection with the descendants of those taken from their land, many other are overjoyed at having ancestral ties confirmed. Nevertheless, African societies tend to be family oriented. Those who live in the cities are still usually expected to be able to tell which village their families came from. This pride in heritage is at once a bond that strengthens African society and a barrier to newcomers.

Until recently, it was often impossible to make such a connection. The family of Alex Haley was able to make such a specific connection due to the deliberate transmission of his family’s African history through the generations. Many Diaspora families are not able to do so with specificity because not all slave traders and slave owners kept good records and not all families managed to maintain an oral history as accurate as the Haleys.

A desire to identity with an African country only works when that country accepts you without requiring you to document your linkage. Not even DNA evidence would be sufficient if a strict lineage test is used as it had been in Sierra Leone. Evidently, that country’s government has accepted that specific ties can be created from the blood connection established by DNA testing. On the country’s 50th anniversary of its independence on April 27, 2011, dozens of members of its Diaspora will be given citizenship.

If a blood tie to a specific family cannot be established, then we can make an adopted tie. For too long, time and distance have divided us. We must now be creative enough to make the dotted lines of lineage into solid lines of acceptance. Family, after all, is really about accepting one another as kin whether we have all the paperwork or not.

African Women Need Broad Status Uplift

2010-11-14T18:22:00.000-05:00

Did you hear about the United Nations request for an investigation into reports that hundreds of women refugees from Angola into the Democratic Republic of Congo were subjected to sexual abuse? It was just revealed a couple of weeks ago, but it may have faded into the many reports of sexual violence against African women you hear all too often.

The status of women in Africa is a series of paradoxes. On the one hand, women have an exalted role as mothers and nurturers of their families. On the other hand, they are not accorded many of the economic rights women have in other parts of the world and are still forced into marriages and subject to female circumcisions. Women and their children are the main victims of the various wars and civil conflicts in Africa, but they are historic peace makers, leading efforts to end these conflicts. In African countries with the most diamonds, oil, gold and other mineral resources, such as Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and others, women are at their most vulnerable. Women comprise an estimated 70% of economic activity in Africa countries, but they only own an estimated two percent of the land.

There are prominent women in Africa, such as Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Zimbabwe Vice President Joice Mujuru, as well as numerous female ministers. There is World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. There is Kenyan Nobel prize winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai. One might think from their examples that the status of Africa women has taken a great leap forward. Unfortunately, these women are the exceptions to the rule for most women in Africa, who live busy lives building their families and their societies with little of the help one would expect for the glue that holds Africa together.

There is a saying: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” True though it has always been, even in the developed world, women had to struggle to achieve equal rights to men. Actually, it took the suffrage movement and the factories that were needed to feed the war effort in the 1940s to open the door that allowed women to break free from limited life choices. Still, that liberation did not spread to women in African countries, which for the most part remained as European colonies. While their sisters in Europe and North America had a choice as to the direction in which their lives would flow, African women continued to toil on with no discernable difference in how they could shape their futures.

Thomas Sankara, the late Pan-African theorist and military President of Burkina Faso, once said, “I can hear the roar of women’s silence.” Without being prompted by women demonstrating or boycotting, Sankara made adult education mandatory for rural women in his country. He was the first African leader to appoint women to government positions, including cabinet posts. He banned forced female circumcision, forced marriage and polygamy. Unfortunately, his Marxist ideology discredited his views generally among the Western governments who should have supported his enlightened position on equality for women. When he was assassinated in a coup, his policies were almost all reversed, including the status of women. Today, Burkinabe women are ruled by tradition and unprotected by constitutional law.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International reported that discrimination against women in Burkina Faso was responsible for a high rate of maternal death during pregnancy and childbirth because they were unable to access adequate health care. This situation is not confined to Burkina Faso, though. A thousand women in the world die each day from pregnancy-related causes, and 570 of them are African. While these deaths are preventable, they are not prevented. Reducing maternal mortality was one of the Millennium Development Goals, yet the level of African maternal mortality is actually rising.

African women more than carry their share of society’s burden and should be assisted far more than they usually are. The light of hope in this situation stems from those women who have broken through to become leaders in their countries and internationally. It also lies in the young men who have been educated to see beyond the boundaries of the culture in which they and their ancestors were reared.

We are entering the second decade of the 21st century, and communications technology allows us all to see how life is lived throughout our world. Even rural women in Africa are seeing past the limits placed on them by societies holding desperately onto the past. Young women on the continent will not be held back by the conventions of the past, and young African men are increasing less willing to try to hold them back.

There was a time in many societies on the continent before the colonial powers took control that African women and men had an equitable distribution of responsibility and walked side by side in partnership. Perhaps history is about to repeat itself – albeit in a more modern way.

Postelection: Africa Still Matters

2010-11-07T08:39:00.001-05:00

The lamentation over what the incoming Tea Party Republicans will do to American government has begun. The concern over what will happen to U.S. Africa policy has not yet ginned up, but it will. There is every reason to be concerned that, in a budget-cutting Congress, funding for Africa will suffer. However, that need not be the result of last Tuesday’s voting.

The fiscal conservative wing of the Republican Party has long viewed spending, perhaps especially spending on foreign affairs, to be an often unwarranted drain on national resources. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Minority Leader in the Senate, once called aid to Africa “money down a rat hole.” He changed his tune after the Constituency for Africa convinced his constituents to protest this view. In recent years, the national security wing and the social conservative wing have had control of the party’s policies, but the fiscal conservatives found the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to be too costly and the fights against abortion and gay marriage to be distractions. Their resurgence puts funding levels for everything squarely in the target zone of legislators.

So now there will have to be battles to justify spending on Africa. The byword for the new American political landscape on aid programs is self-sufficiency. The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) grants have provided hundreds of millions of dollars to developing countries, largely in Africa, so that major projects can be undertaken. The point must be made that the MCA process forces governments to work with their private sectors and civil societies to devise a plan that is broadly beneficial with benchmarks to determine progress.

When fiscal conservatives last took over Congress from Democrats in 1995, they approached welfare reform much in the way they are likely to approach foreign aid. The goal was to set a limit on the funding going to welfare recipients by building their capacity to work and even providing day care for their children. Therefore, a time limit could be set on how long one could receive welfare payments. In this case, the MCA model of having government bring in the private sector and civil society to devise plans that help build the country in the long run with the funding provided will likely be favored. The incoming members of Congress will tend to look more favorably upon countries that use the funding wisely and don’t have to repeatedly receive funding for the same unresolved issues.

This expands accountability and puts the burden of making the grants work on not just government, but other segments of society. If we are to avoid a resumption of the “rat hole” view of aid to Africa, accountability and transparency must be a significant part of the message to Congress. President Obama has signaled them as major elements of his Africa policy, so he won’t be caving in to fiscal conservatives to promote that policy.

The Obama Administration currently seeks to shift the burden for HIV-AIDS services to African health care systems which unfortunately are not yet prepared to undertake that burden. Congressional budget cutters will find such a policy almost irresistible to support. If the Administration is ready to push responsibility onto African governments, preparing those governments to shoulder that burden must be a priority. That will not be easy unless it is described as enabling the shift in burden to take place.

Not much is being done yet to curb the current land grab trend in Africa, but if it is not opposed soon, there will be a terrible price to pay down the road for Africans without food or jobs because of their governments’ short-sighted policies. The mid-2008 food price spike led many countries unable to feed themselves to secure available land in Africa to meet their needs. The promises of enhanced infrastructure and shared food products to their African hosts remain to be fulfilled. If prices rise further in the future, such generosity will be unlikely to be honored. Moreover, if jobs are denied Africans due to the importation of foreign workers who then stay on to compete with African entrepreneurs, then the economies will be too weakened to benefit sufficiently from any new infrastructure or food sharing. This must be effectively explained to Congress as helping to prevent humanitarian disaster in the future.

There has been support for assisting in the recovery of African countries coming out of conflict, such as Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Continued aid will have to be tied to measures of success. Yet what about countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and the new Southern Sudan? They will need help to get back on firm footing, but you can be certain that their natural wealth will be held against them. Some formula must be considered to justify outside help for those countries who have oil, gold, diamonds or other resources of value. It will no longer be possible for generosity to countries who fail to use their existing resources to help themselves.

At the recent Africare dinner, World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the audience that “Africa does not want to continue to be dependent.” This is true, but Africa’s supporters also must accept this principle and use it to maintain aid for Africa in this time of budget cutting. An Africa that wants a hand up rather than a handout can still get help.

Finding a Path Back to Africa

2010-10-31T09:46:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I received the results of my DNA test back from African Ancestry, Inc. I had wanted to receive the results in time for a DNA reveal ceremony at the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation Africa Policy forum in Atlanta, Georgia, in September. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the materials to the company in time. That may have been best, though, since I wasn’t really sure how I felt about the results, and receiving them in private has given me time to think about it out of the spotlight.

I am not saying I am disappointed, because I’m not at all. The test results reveal that I am descended from the Tikar, Hausa and Fulani people now in Cameroon. I say now in Cameroon because no one can say with certainty where my ancestors were when they were kidnapped from Africa. This is where they are today. That’s close enough for me.

Unlike some who have gotten their DNA results and been disappointed because it wasn’t what they thought it would be, I had no results I was hoping to receive. Actor/Africa activist Isaiah Washington, whose DNA linked him to the Mende and Temne people of Sierra Leone, says that DNA has memory and once asked me and some other people where we felt most connected on the continent. My immediate answer was Kenya because of the work I have done there and the many friends I have. Also, I have been asked by Africans elsewhere on the continent whether I was Kenyan.

Of course, I also have been asked if I was Nigerian, and for awhile I did wonder if I was Yoruba like so many Nigerians I know. Upon further reflection, it occurred to me that I have done a lot of work on Angola and that I might be Umbundu because I have a connection to Angola. Talking to Isaiah, I once wondered if my results would lead to Sierra Leone, as they have for so many of us in the African Diaspora.

Learning that I am of Cameroonian heritage has been a revelation and a relief. It is a revelation because I didn’t expect it, and research shows that my people (at least the Tikar and Hausa part) migrated from Sudan long ago. So I am connected to a land on which I have spent much time helping to develop and implement policy.
These two groups are Bantu, while the Fulani are Nilotic. Thus, I am linked to the two major African ethnic ancestral groups.

It is a relief because I am adopted and always wanted to know about my heritage. However, I had no one who could tell me since my natural mother is deceased. I met my natural mother, but at the time it did not occur to me to ask her about our family history. I was nine years old at the time. Still, she did tell me in a way because I used the matrilineal test to find my path back to Africa. As African Ancestry officials will tell you, going through your mother’s line has a greater than 90% chance of leading back to the continent, while going through your father’s line has only a 65% chance of doing so. There are many reasons for this disparity that I will not go into at this time.

This 65% chance means that many who trace their heritage through their father’s line (only men can do this by the way) find that it often leads to Europe. This is what happened in Atlanta when Martin Luther King III and Dr. Julius Garvey (Marcus Garvey’s son) had their DNA tested. Their matrilineal tests led to Africa – King to the Mende people in Sierra Leone and Garvey to Fulanis with traces from various countries. But their patrilineal tests both led to Europe. Martin Luther King Jr.’s line led to Portugal, while Marcus Garvey’s led to Spain.

For some, this news about Diaspora heroes was deflating. There was concern that it could discredit the tests in the sense that many Diasporans would be discouraged from taking it. Had we known earlier, certainly we could have located a female relative of King and Garvey to test their matrilineal lineages. In future, this will be the prudent course for celebrities when we are trying to determine their parents’ lineage.

Nevertheless, any member of the Diaspora who finds a link to Spain or Portugal quite possibly is linked to the Moors, the Africans who conquered and ruled the Iberian Peninsula for centuries. Even so, we in the Diaspora have to acknowledge that most of us have European heritage as well as African. We should let no one tell us we should be more proud of the European linkage or more ashamed of it either. It is what it is. We determine ultimately who we are – not our ancestors. They and our parents give us the building blocks on which we construct our lives.

Whether we fail or succeed is mostly up to us. People have succeeded with problematic genetics and/or troubled upbringings. I hope that I have used well the genetics my birth mother gave me and the lessons my adopted mother provided.

So I am pleased to finally have my link definitively established to Africa. Knowing that you have African heritage generally is not the same as knowing specifically where your people are on the continent. Being a member of the African Diaspora feels more tangible to me now. I am proud to be of Cameroonian descent, although I feel no different today about championing the cause of Africa as a whole. I will continue to write about and advocate for Africa generally, as well as Cameroon specifically.

I guess that’s just the way I am.

Putting Foreign Investors Above Nationals

2010-10-25T13:20:00.000-04:00

Last year, I wrote about the long-term leasing of African land by governments who brought in foreign investors to cultivate agricultural land for the benefit of foreign citizens at the expense of locals. In the wake of global food price increases, these foreign investors are protecting the interests of their people through “agricultural outsourcing” schemes, but the African governments leasing their land expect that there will be benefits produced by these deals that aren’t as apparent to their countrymen.

The procurement of African land by foreigners isn’t new, of course. The European colonial powers appropriated entire countries in the 19th century. African economies were programmed to produce basic products for the colonial powers. The Industrial Revolution passed Africa by because Great Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Germany and Spain had no interest in enabling their colonies to produce their own value-added products, especially in agriculture.

The 2008 world food price rise – reaching the highest levels since the 1970s – led many nations unable to grow sufficient food to look for avenues to provide for their own food needs. Certainly, there were African governments who also feared being unable to produce sufficient food. Nigeria and Zambia brought in displaced white Zimbabwean farmers and their production skills, but many other African governments evidently felt they needed outside expertise. It would seem that making a deal to let outsiders produce food for their own market was acceptable to African governments because of the portion to be provided for African markets and the anticipated infrastructure improvements that would result. According to the Oakland Institute, which produced a report on the global land grab crisis, 50 million hectares of African land have been leased to foreign investors.

Unfortunately, those assumptions fail to allow for capacity building for African farmers and exclude local investors from buying and cultivating land in their own country. A case in point is the Government of Ethiopia, which is in the midst of a massive leasing of its agricultural lands to foreign interests. According to the Indian Ocean Newsletter, about 600,000 hectares of Ethiopian land (approximately 1.48 million acres) has been leased to foreign investors and the plan is to lease more than three million hectares of Ethiopian land by 2013.

The newsletter states that the land, largely in the southwestern Gambella region, was listed as wasteland, but it was useful to the Anuaks who live there. The Anuaks have been at odds with the Government of Ethiopia for some time. In December 2003, 424 Anuaks were killed in Gambella by government security forces. There almost no accountability of the government forces involved in what was described as a massacre. Actually, over the subsequent two years there were allegations of government extrajudicial killings, rape, imprisonment and disappearances. According to Anuak sources, more than 1,000 Anuaks were killed during this period.

Now it seems that Anuaks are being targeted again as they are reportedly being moved off their lands so they can be leased to foreign interests. Karuturi Global Ltd., the largest Indian company operating in Ethiopia, reportedly is negotiating the lease of 300,000 hectares of land in Gambella to grow corn, palm oil, sugar cane, etc. Saudi magnate Mohamed Hussein Al Amoudi has sold the Ethiopian government on a plan to produce cereal s such as rice to minimize imports. His company, Saudi Star Agricultural Development wants to cultivate half a million hectares of Ethiopian land within the next ten years.

The Indian Ocean Newsletter reports that the government in Addis Ababa has withdrawn from regional governments the right of conveying leases of more than 1,000 hectares. Ostensibly, this is to address the problem of corruption, but it also happens to take away any local involvement in the allocations of land. Meanwhile, Anuaks are being moved off their lands to other areas, and arrests of those who oppose these leasing arrangements reportedly have started.

As the Oakland Institute points out in its report, Africa needs investment in agriculture, such as better seeds and other inputs, extension services, education on conservation techniques and the enhancement of farming techniques generally. However, what Ethiopia and other African countries are doing is bypassing the African farmer in favor of foreign farmers operating on plantations. In the short run, production will certainly increase, and unless the deals are completely one-sided, African governments surely will receive agricultural products and likely enhanced infrastructure. However, the people of these countries will be bystanders in this process and will not develop better skills at growing food for their own families or for their countrymen and neighbors in surrounding countries.

Unless African governments insist on the employment of African farmers and allow Africans the opportunity to buy the land they would lease, the largest share of the benefits from these deals will be enjoyed by foreigners. That is a very short-sighted plan on how to develop one’s country.

When the colonial powers seized African lands in the 19th century, they did so at the barrel of a gun, often through divide and conquer strategies. This time, African governments are voluntarily signing away their land and the future of their people. The world’s hungriest continent will rue the day that it turned over its agricultural production to outsiders whose main interest is in producing food for their own people.

What will these leasing governments do during the term of these 50-year or 99-year leases when their foreign partners are unwilling or unable to provide the amount of agricultural products due to a slumping global economy or another food price spike?

Walking Apartheid Avenue

2010-10-16T12:00:00.000-04:00

In Washington, D.C., there is a subway station known as Farragut West, it is two blocks from the World Bank headquarters. World Bank employees of African descent call this two-block stretch “Apartheid Avenue” because the white World Bank managers who leave this station to go to work there in one building, while black employees go to another building. Whites and Asians at the World Bank have little limit to their ability to advance, but the blacks stay in the positions they are given and are expected to be happy to be there at all.

Now you might say that there are blacks in high positions at the Bank, and you would be right. Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is Managing Director at the Bank, and Obiageli Ezekwesili is Vice President for the Bank’s Africa region. However, to say that such high-level appointments mean that the World Bank has a color-blind environment is like saying the United States has achieved a color-blind society because Barack Obama was elected President. Very few of us would believe the latter, and there is no more reason to believe the former.

Three decades ago, the Washington Post ran an article that documented underrepresentation by black employees at the World Bank. In June 2009, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) issued a subsequent report on racial discrimination at the World Bank that showed very little progress has been made since then, and internal mechanisms to redress racial discrimination grievances were found to be part of the problem.

“GAP reviewed the Bank’s Tribunal decisions since 1996 in racial discrimination disputes. Our review found that the Tribunal failed to find discrimination in any of the 21 racial discrimination cases it reviewed over the past 12 years,” the report stated. “Given the fact that a series of studies have found systematic discrimination within the institution, and that the Bank’s own data reveal the racial differentials cited earlier, this record at the Tribunal is disturbing.”

According to the Bank’s data, between 1996 and 2009, a cutback led to three out of five black employees in just one department being let go, and neither of the two remaining blacks were promoted. Meanwhile, only four of 18 Asians were let go, while five were promoted. Only one of 12 whites was dismissed, and seven were promoted. Even looking at these numbers in just one department, World Bank grievance hearing officials see no pattern of discrimination.

GAP’s Beatrice Edwards, writing in Foreign Policy in Focus last year, said the failures to properly investigate and adjudicate racial discrimination at the Bank “translate into an environment of lawlessness and impunity where breathtakingly racist incidents can still occur.”

Dr. Yonas Biru knows that all too well. Until earlier this year, he was performing managerial duties at the Bank. His supervisors had brought back a retired white employee rather than allow him to head the project that he was partially managing. When the white manager proved incapable of doing his job, Dr. Biru was assigned more of his duties than he already was performing. When the man retired again, Dr. Biru was once more denied the promotion. The original excuse was that an outside agency made that decision, but it was discovered that this explanation was untrue.

When Dr. Biru protested, Bank officials apparently decided to get rid of him. Scholars working on his project were scheduled to deliver their reports in June of this year as contracted, but he was asked to summarize these reports weeks earlier. When he couldn’t comply, he was fired.

In his racial discrimination grievance, Dr. Biru noted that he had performed managerial functions and was qualified for the job. He cited his uniformly outstanding reviews and the testimony of the scholars that he had managed their work. At the Administrative Tribunal hearing, Bank managers said they only rated Dr. Biru so highly as an encouragement for him to do better. They said the scholars couldn’t be believed that Dr. Biru had managed them because they were biased by being managed by him. Dr. Biru faces a final decision on his case by Bank appeals officials next Friday.

The World Bank has declared that Africa is the Bank’s top priority, and of the requested US$50 billion plus in funding for the Bank’s International Development Association financing facility, half will go to Africa projects. With Western donors cutting back on aid because of the global recession, the World Bank is becoming increasingly important to Africa. But if Africa’s children are treated so poorly by Bank officials, how much faith can we put in any programs supposedly intended to help the continent?

Immunity should not be confused with impunity. We may not be able to sue them in court for such blatant discrimination, but we are not without recourse. No agency that depends on donor funding should take that funding for granted. Racism should never be rewarded, and World Bank officials should keep that in mind. For anyone who wants to voice their opinion to the Bank on this issue, call 1-202-473-1000 or send an e-mail to investigations_hotline@worldbank.org

Palm Oil Policy on Slippery Slope

2010-10-08T17:18:00.000-04:00

When governments and international institutions make policy on where spending will be directed, they must take a number of factors into account. Sometimes these factors conflict to the detriment of one policy goal or another. Such is the case with the World Bank’s investment policies affecting palm oil production. Health and environmental issues clash with poverty reduction strategies. In this case, Africa stands to lose because of the perceived sins of others.

World Bank officials created in 1991 a strategy to reduce deforestation in developing countries. This policy has been unable thus far to achieve balance between alleviating poverty and facilitating environmental stability. Environmental activists have long noted environmental problems and biodiversity losses due to the palm oil business in Indonesia and Malaysia, the top two global producers of palm oil. Together, they produce 83% of global palm oil supplies.

Oil palms are an industrial plantation crop in Indonesia and Malaysia and are often grown on cleared rainforest land or in peat-swamp forests. Over the past four decades, the area planted with oil pal in Indonesia alone has expanded more than thirty-fold. In Malaysia, this area has grown twelve-fold. Moreover, Both countries have seen their lists of endangered animals balloon. In Indonesia, of the more than 400 land mammal species, 15 are critically endangered and another 125 are threatened. In Malaysia, of the nearly 300 land mammal species, six are endangered and 41 are threatened.

In the case of Africa, it has not been shown that environmental degradation due to palm tree cultivation is such a threat. Nevertheless, a global shift in palm oil policy would impact Africa as much as any country growing palm trees for palm oil trade. The World Bank is the largest single donor to sub-Saharan Africa’s agriculture sector, providing US$1 billion in assistance this year. With at least two-thirds of African engaged in the agriculture sector, any product abandonment could be disastrous at a time when African countries are struggling to weather the global downturn that has hit commodities particularly hard.

Several African countries currently produce palm oil on a commercial scale. Nigeria is the largest African producer of palm oil and the world’s third leading palm oil producer behind only Indonesia and Malaysia. Even so, Nigeria is still a net importer of palm oil, which is a common cooking ingredient in much of tropical Africa.

Early on in the colonial era, palm oil was considered of lower quality than olive oil, which was available from European sources. Consequently, its use remained largely confined to West Africa. However, the Industrial Revolution led British traders to seek out palm oil as an industrial lubricant. Palm oil later came to be used as an ingredient in soap, such as Unilever’s “Sunlight Soap” and American brand Palmolive soaps.

As one of the few highly saturated vegetable fats, palm oil has increasingly been used in food products outside Africa, including not only cooking oil, but also mayonnaise and salad oil. That attractive color in your French fries likely is due to the use of palm oil. The debate about its health implications is pretty much a wash.

A 2009 study at Universiti Sains Malaysia indicated that of all vegetable oils, palm oil is “a healthy source of edible oil.” The World Health Organization and other health groups have alleged that palm oil contributes to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, but a joint University of California-Nestlé Research Center study concludes that research on how specific saturated fats contribute to coronary artery disease is inconclusive.

Palm oil has been found to have the lowest production cost of the major oils. It is estimated that by 2050, the global demand for edible oils will be about 240 million tons – nearly twice the 2008 level of consumption. Palm oil has the added benefit of being useful in the creation of biodiesel fuel. Heightened production of palm oil in Africa could satisfy both food and fuel demands.

Thus, the benefit of palm oil as a job producer in Africa is enormous.
Unfortunately, at a time when African countries, such as Uganda and Liberia, are expanding cultivation of palm trees for palm oil production, support for such projects may dry up (so to speak) due to decisions made for reasons not fully borne out by the facts. In Benin, the non-governmental organization Nature Tropicale continues to make the claim that biofuels will compete with food production and contribute to drainage problems in sensitive lands without convincing proof of either allegation. Programs such as Sierra Leone’s use of palm oil profits to finance Magbenteh Hospital in Makeni are ignored or downplayed.

The Institute for Public Policy Analysis (IPPA), a Nigerian think tank, has done a report calling on the World Bank to come down on the side of increased African palm oil production for both food production and job creation. IPPA organized a letter to World Bank President Robert Zoellick urging the Bank not to abandon support for palm oil production.

“We believe the surest way to cut poverty and protect our natural environment is by raising living standards and creating economic prosperity in poor countries. By cutting off much needed funding for palm oil producers, the World Bank threatens to generate poverty and economic dependency, instead of reducing it, a strategy that goes against the very ideals of the institution,” the letter states.

One hopes the Bank will listen to reasoned appeals from the continent and make the distinction between documented problems in Asian palm oil production and mere speculation about what increased African palm oil production could cause. Reality should trump possibilities for the sake of African people and global consumers.

Three Paths to Dual Citizenship

2010-10-01T21:24:00.000-04:00

For the past six years, I have worked on the issue of dual citizenship for members of the Africa Diaspora. Anthony Archer, an attorney and professor at the University of California Dominguez Hills, who became interested in the issue as the result of attending a Leon H. Sullivan Summit, has been with me on this journey from the beginning. He wrote a paper on the subject that provides background on this increasingly relevant subject. He joined me in the task force I organized a year ago for the Sullivan Foundation, along with Faruq Muhammad and I. Nia Rogers of the UNIA/African Communities League; Dr. Lisa Aubrey of Arizona State University; Paula Coleman, Tendai Johnson and Eurica Huggins of the African Diaspora Ancestral Commemoration Institute, and more recently, Dr. David Horne of the University of California Northridge.

What I have found through this work is that there are three predominant and equally legitimate paths for the pursuit of citizenship in an African country, while maintaining citizenship in the United States. Each of us has our preferences, but on our task force, we respect the decisions made by individuals unless their concepts are so unworkable that they would not only fail, but could lead others to failure as well.

For example, during the second of our two workshops on dual citizenship in Atlanta, Georgia, the other day (the first was in Washington, D.C., two weeks earlier), a woman identifying herself as an “ambassador” said all one needed was a letter from the president of an African country or even a governor to travel to any African country and to obtain land.

First of all, what airline would allow you to get on a plane from America or Europe these days with no visa where required from the country to which you are visiting? Even if you did manage to take the flight to a country with no visa (one can obtain them sometimes at the airport), no letter will get you into a country without permission. Ask yourself this, all countries have a process of obtaining a visa to enter unless they require no visas for residents of selected countries, so why would a government circumvent their own visa system?

As for land, yes, members of the Diaspora were dispossessed of land their ancestors owned or might have owned had they not been kidnapped into slavery. However, to imagine that you can walk into a country and claim land from a government or from people who legitimately own it is not only absurd, it is incredibly selfish.
This kind of magical thinking is why our task force pursues three paths we consider legitimate and reasonable.

First, with the introduction of DNA testing by companies such as African Ancestry,
members of the African Diaspora can now pursue citizenship in countries in which those from their ethnic group now reside. The test, which draws on DNA data from throughout Africa, shows you where the specific branch of your ethnic group resides today. It will not tell you where they were when your ancestors were stolen away, but then the borders established by the colonial powers were and are artificial and do not reflect the normal migration patterns that have held for millennia.

We believe this DNA testing can be further certified by African scientists if necessary so that African governments will find the results conclusive for the purpose of honoring the Right of Return. This international code was codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, giving any person the right to return and re-enter his country of origin. Without conclusive evidence that we came from a specific country, it has been difficult for members of the traditional African Diaspora to successfully invoke the Right of Return. Now we have science in our corner.

Second, African leaders have called on members of the African Diaspora to come to their country to help rebuild for the future. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana made this call in the late 1950s, and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made the appeal this year. For more than 50 years now, members of the Diaspora, without any proof of ethnic linkage to Ghana, went there to become a part of Ghanaian society. Others went to Tanzania because of their respect for what then-President Julius Nyrere was trying to accomplish.

While many in those countries appreciated their efforts at building businesses and employing people, most Diasporan émigrés have not been able to become citizens in the country to which they have devoted so much of their time and energy. That is an injustice that must be corrected.

Third, the UNIA/African Communities League is following the path set by the late Honorable Marcus Garvey back in the 1920s. At that time, only Liberia, Ethiopia, South Africa and Egypt were free from colonial rule. Mr. Garvey was the only leader at the time working to unite Africa and its Diaspora, and his organization has built a tradition over time on that. To abandon tradition because there are new alternative methods of approach is like walking on the beach and having your footprints washed away by the time: you have no record of where you came from and your successors have no path to follow.

The UNIA/ACL approach is to continue to represent the African Diaspora, especially the traditional Diaspora, in pursuing citizenship, land and acculturation for those becoming part of an African society. For any Diasporan who wants organizational support along the way in pursuing dual citizenship, Marcus Garvey’s organization offers that guiding hand.

The Sullivan Foundation dual citizenship task force recognizes that there is more than one path to a goal, and we intend to achieve our goal by any means necessary that are legal, ethical and effective.

Why Is Dual Citizenship So Difficult?

2010-09-18T18:07:00.000-04:00

Since the wave of African independence in the 1950s, members of the African Diaspora seeking a genuine connection to the continent have sought the goal of attaining dual citizenship that is gaining citizenship in an African country while maintaining their citizenship in the country of their birth. For some, this goal has met with success, while others have done all they could but still failed to gain the legal sanction they sought in their country of choice.

Ghana has been considered the most likely to grant dual citizenship because of the generosity of spirit of the late founding President Kwame Nkrumah, who did grant citizenship to a limited number of Diasporans. One of his successors, former President Jerry Rawlings, also sought to make it legal for Diasporans to gain citizenship in Ghana. Unfortunately, the desire by Ghanaian leaders to follow through on his promise has not been present.

The law created to enable members of the overall Diaspora to hold dual citizenship was flipped to focus only on those born in Ghana who left to take residence in another country. In order to even apply for citizenship in Ghana, a Diasporan would have to give up their current citizenship first, but with no guarantee of being granted Ghanaian citizenship. A law of abode is the only consolation for those in the Diasporans seeking dual citizenship in Ghana – an empty gesture for those who have lived as model citizens in the country for decades.

The Government of Benin apologized to the Diaspora for the sale of our ancestors centuries ago. An annual commemoration of the slave trade and the restitution of relationship between Africans and members of the Diaspora was initiated, linking Porto Novo, Benin, to Liverpool, England, and Richmond, Virginia, in the United States. But then Benin’s government pulled back from the process of legalizing dual citizenship. They are now emphasizing the need for Diasporans to develop an understanding and a relationship with Benin with no definition of what that actually means.

In 2003, the African Union, impressed with the passion and interest of members of the Diaspora in establishing linkages, declared that the African Diaspora was the sixth region of Africa. Widespread jubilation among the Diaspora eventually gave way to disappointment when it was discovered that this declaration was another empty promise. There is no specific definition of who the sixth region is nor how the 6th region can attain representation in the counsels of the African Union. The Africa passport being issued by the African Union is intended only for current African citizens, with diplomats receiving them first.

So why is the increasingly intense courtship of the continent by the African Diaspora so often spurned? It seems there are several reasons. In Ghana’s case, as is likely elsewhere as well, ethnic chauvinism leads African officials to disregard the pleadings of those still considered foreigners. There is a recognition that the Diasporans did originate in Africa, but there appears to be little acceptance of us as deserving of permanent legal status. The DNA test used, for example, by African Ancestry to establish blood ties to African ethnic groups and countries, is not accepted by the Ghana government as proof of lineage from Ghana.

Another issue Diasporans may be ignoring is that as people able to travel internationally and buy or rent homes in African countries, often with servants, we are seen as the rich foreigners who want to come and go as we like – as many Africans are unable to do. It seems many African officials don’t want to have to explain why they are extending rights to foreign-born individuals when their poor countrymen can’t exercise all the legal rights they were extended at birth.

A related issue is the ethnic conflict that roils so many African countries – from the genocidal Hutu-Tutsi conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi to the political sparring between Kenyan Kikuyus and Luos. Adding yet another layer of ethnic rivalries to this mix is not widely popular and may be considered political poison for leaders already taxed with establishing equity in contentious ethnic disputes.

At a panel on dual citizenship I moderated the other day, someone mentioned a reason I had not considered before. It was suggested that the example of the Americo-Liberians – the returned slaves in the 1800s – still looms large in the minds of some Africans. The Americo-Liberians established Liberia as a nation, but in the process, they diminished the rights and political influence of indigenous Liberians. The contention is that some fear a wave of wealthier, more educated and internationally influential Diasporans could pose a similar threat. We in the Western Hemisphere, especially the United states and Canada, consider the Americo-Liberia example to be a relic of the past, while in the African view of time, spanning millennia, 150 years ago was like yesterday.

The task force on dual citizenship established by the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation last year with the UNIA/African Communities League and the African Diaspora Ancestral Commemoration Institute among other organizations and individuals, is taking all obstacles to dual citizenship into account and is addressing this issue legally, diplomatically and culturally. We have proposed levels of citizenship based on the mutual needs and interests of Africans and Diasporans. Contacts have been made with African governments to begin the process of working out legal details of how dual citizenship could be enacted through legislatures across the continent. A process of cultural sensitivity and education has been put together to ensure that the new African citizens understand the societies they wish to enter. All that remains is the good will of African governments. The U.S. government has no problem with dual citizenship, except for issues that must be worked out in the legal process of extending dual citizenship.

No issue raised as an obstacle to dual citizenship cannot be resolved if there is mutual cooperation and commitment. The question is: does Africa want her long-ago cast away children to return with their skills, finances and eagerness to help Africa. We bear no grudges for the past. Does Africa?

Africa’s Debt Constraint

2010-09-11T22:49:00.000-04:00

For the second time in four months, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week said that America’s external debt is a national security issue that weakens the nation.

“It undermines our capacity to act in our own interest, and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable,” Clinton said.

Quite true. China is a major holder of U.S. Treasury debt, and even though the level officially declined to US$755.4 billion last year (just below Japan), it is believed that a significant amount of the US$170 billion U.S. debt increase to the United Kingdom was financed by China, which means the Chinese directly or indirectly remain our largest debt holder. As Secretary Clinton declined to say directly, this impacts our ability to press China on major international issues of concern.

Of course, African and other developing nations have had to live with such constraints in operating in their own national interests since independence. In many cases, developing countries were required to assume the colonial debt or pay to become free. France, for instance, required Haiti to start its independent existence with a 150 million franc debt back in 1804.

As we celebrate the 50th year of independence of 17 African nations this year, we must keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of Africa became independent during the Cold War era. During this period, their strategic importance to the United States and the rest of the West was based on two things: their vital resources and their willingness to join our side against the Soviet bloc. Consequently, odious regimes were sometimes tolerated and even supported in running up a debt they either likely never intended to repay or ended up not repaying due to their lack of longevity.

When Nelson Mandela took the helm of a majority rule government in South Africa in 1994, he started out having to pay debt accumulated by the apartheid regime to prolong itself for Cold War benefits. That very same government had imprisoned him for nearly 30 years and had threatened to cause an unstoppable social explosion in a major world diamond and gold producer, hence the international support. The South African debt also included paying for the funding of the apartheid regime’s unwise and/or illegal military operations in Namibia and Angola.

Now really, when former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha borrowed international funds, was there ever any serious belief that he intended to do the right things with that money and pay it back in full and on time? Surely not by any reasonably aware lender. Because of the intransigence of Nigerian leaders and unforgiving lenders, a US$5 billion debt ended up being more than US$32 billion in debt when former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo turned on the light in his office on the first day even though the country had paid back US$16 billion.

Some of the loans reportedly had technical deficiencies, meaning they were bum deals from the start. Some were dollar-based, meaning that they had to be repaid at the U.S. dollar rate rather than based on the value of local currency. Other loans were necessitated by world events over which African governments had no control, such as rapid increases in oil and food prices.

Certainly, there is enough blame to go around for this debt burden, which has been as high as US$15.2 billion annually and remains in the neighborhood of US$14 billion even now. Too many African leaders have shown little commitment to developing sustainable programs to expand their economies and increase the collective wealth of their citizens, which would produce higher tax revenues that could replace donor assistance. There also is insufficient skill among some African governments in handling loans efficiently to avoid penalties and in understanding the many issues involved in debt.

Still, a 2004 World Bank study showed that African countries who qualified for debt relief generally used the break wisely. According to the study, Tanzania used debt savings to eliminate school fees, hire more teachers and build more schools. Burkina Faso reduced the cost of life-saving drugs by a significant amount and increased access to clean water for its citizens. Uganda used its debt relief to facilitate the doubling of school enrollment. So why are so many international financial institutions, major international banks and donors still so reluctant to agree to a sweeping round of debt forgiveness?

The theory of “moral hazard” espoused by many economists speculates that if debt were broadly forgiven, it would motivate countries to default on their remaining debt or deliberately borrow more than they could repay in hopes of another round of debt forgiveness.

But if an amateur like myself can offer a solution based on the current practices of the Millennium Challenge Account and other international aid programs, why not negotiate debt forgiveness based on a debtor’s public-private plan to use the monies saved to benefit its citizens. If the money is tied to agreed-upon benchmarks and timetables and paid out in tranches, what would be the genuine risk to lenders, who collectively give aid with one hand and take back more in debt repayment with the other?

The harm of not doing so for the African debtor nations is this: for every US$1 African countries receive in grants, they pay US$13 in interest on debt. What if China forced us to repay our debt to them under the kind of terms under which Africa is forced to repay its debt?

That puts this matter in a very different light, doesn’t it?

The Forgotten Madagascar Crisis

2010-09-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

If you ask most Africa watchers what is the most urgent crisis on the continent, you’ll likely get answers ranging from Sudan to Somalia or even Congo. It is not likely that Madagascar will rise to the top of the list even though there is a perfect storm of calamity there due to the March 2009 military-backed coup.

Efforts to negotiate a political solution have thus far failed, but the regime of former Antananarivo mayor Andre Rajoelina has alienated the international community and the country’s political community. Donor nations, including the United States, have cut off all but humanitarian assistance, which is particularly damaging to Madagascar since the country’s budget was dependent for more than half its revenue from donors. The cutoff of foreign aid has caused health clinics to shut down. A quarter of the country’s health clinics have shut down, and the distribution of essential drugs has collapsed.

More than half the country’s children are considered malnourished. UNICEF resumed funding of centers with severe acute malnutrition in June, but other donors are unlikely to resume their total foreign aid funding.

The economy also has been heavily impaired by the reaction to the coup. The United States suspended Madagascar from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade process. Madagascar had been one of AGOA’s success stories, earning US$600 million annually and accounting for 60% of the country’s exports. The closure of factories servicing the U.S. market has caused 50,000 to lose their jobs, exacerbating an already problematic economic picture.

Another level of damage has been largely unseen by the outside world, except for environmental groups monitoring the devastation of Madagascar’s biodiversity. “Paradise Lost?” a U.S. Agency for International Development report states that Madagascar’s unique biodiversity could be lost, possible forever, and will harm not only Madagascar, but also the world at large. The report, written by the International Resources Group, estimates that the country’s flora and fauna, 80% of which is found nowhere else on earth, is seeing the loss of rare lemurs and tortoises. These animals are either being captured for export and for food at rates seen as ensuring their extinction.

“Slash and burn” agriculture is being practiced by poor farmers oppose a significant threat to Madagascar’s forests, but the report says the forests likely can’t be protected without addressing “fundamental economic issues that maintain rural people in abject poverty.” Over the 25 years covered by the report, Madagascar has seen its forest shrink from 11 million hectares to 9 million hectares and its population grow from 11 million to 20 million.

“Environmental preservation is hostage to economic development, and economic development is hostage to good governance,” the IRG report states.

Systemic corruption has become part of the normal landscape, benefitting transient leaders but not the population as a whole. It is this corruption that the deadlock is maintaining and which donors point to as their rationale for ending all but emergency aid to Madagascar.

The prospects for a resolution of the current political crisis may have waned because Rajoelina seems to have overestimated his leverage. He set this past August as the month in which a constitutional referendum would be held with the presidential election in November. However, the main opposition parties refused to take part in the elections, which have now been reset, with presidential election in the middle of the year and the constitutional referendum on November 17. Even those dates are in doubt, though, because the main opposition parties still refuse to participate in any election not organized by all major parties. Thus far, the
interim government has reached agreement only with minor political parties.

Meanwhile, a Madagasque court has sentenced former President Marc Ravalomanana and two others to life imprisonment with hard labor for the part they played in the deaths of about 30 protesters before he was forced from office last year. This is Ravalomanana’s third conviction by the country’s courts, which are considered not to be independent. The convictions are seen as preventing his return to the country to run for office. But they also represent yet another sign that dialogue on resolving the political crisis is going nowhere.

In scanning the continent, we must not forget the spots not at the top of the news because they have their significance as well. This crisis is having a long-term environmental, economic and humanitarian impact that will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome without a more attentive response.
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What To Do About Sudan?

2010-08-30T21:04:00.000-04:00

It wasn’t that long ago that mass demonstrations and civil society lobbying provoked strong U.S. action on Sudan because of what we defined as genocide in that country’s Darfur region. However, frustration with the continuing stalemate over the punishment of those involved in the genocide and the inability of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take action against those charged with crimes against humanity in Sudan means not much is on the table to move past the current deadlock.

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice reportedly blew up in a principals-level meeting at the White House a few weeks ago because the Administration’s Special Envoy to Sudan, retired Major General Scott Gration, was making headway in gaining support for his gentler, more diplomatic approach to the regime in Khartoum. Rice, who previously held the posts of Senior Director for Africa at the National Security Council and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, has had long experience in dealing with the Sudan government. Her position is that absent strong sanctions against the government of President Omar Bashir, no progress will be made in safeguarding Sudanese in Darfur or elsewhere, and the referendum on the status of South Darfur could be marred, leading to renewed violence.

General Gration has from the beginning of his tenure called for a more cooperative relationship with the Khartoum government in order to positively influence its behavior. He also supports a de-emphasis on public criticism of the regime despite its continuing violations of international law and human decency. According to Save Darfur, one of the leading civil society groups appealing for strong action to safeguard Sudanese, since April alone the Khartoum regime has:

• Restricted humanitarian aid to the internally displaced persons in Darfur,
• Expelled humanitarian aid workers and threatened to expel peacekeepers,
• Jailed members of the political opposition and human rights activists,
• Censored the Sudanese media and harassed journalists,
• Rigged national elections and
• Failed to cooperate with the United Nations Security Council and the

International Criminal Court regarding the outstanding arrest warrants against President Bashir and other accused of international criminal acts.
On that last point, Bashir and his government evidently don’t see any reason to honor the indictments. After all, the ICC has no police or military and must rely on member nations to carry out arrests. Bashir is reluctant to travel to any country that might honor those warrants, but Arab and African countries don’t seem to be among those willing to do so. The Sudanese leader has travelled to Chad, and most recently, to Kenya and has been accorded the welcome expected of any Head of State.

Despite pleas from human rights groups for the Kenyan government to bar Bashir from the celebration for its new constitution, Bashir was welcomed to the ceremony and even escorted to his seat by Kenya Minister of Tourism Najib Balala. When asked why an indicted violator of international law would be welcomed to the ceremony of Kenya’s advancing its own democracy, Kenya Minister of Foreign Affairs Moses Wetang’ula gave a telling response:

“He is here in response to our invitation to all our neighbours and the sub-region to attend this historic moment. He is a state guest. You do not harm or embarrass your guest. That is not African,” the foreign minister said.

Actually, it is becoming clear that it is not African to respect the authority of the ICC. The African Union has criticized the warrants and urged that they be suspended. While many of the AU’s members are signatories to the ICC, there is growing sentiment on the continent that only Africans are being targeted.

In fact, the record shows that the ICC is only actively investigating crimes against humanity and war crimes in northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Kenya and Sudan. This has occurred despite the fact that as of three years ago, there were nearly 3,000 complaints of alleged crimes in at least 139 countries. African governments wonder why their past cooperation has resulted only in Africans being indicted, and an increasing number of them are likely to welcome Bashir to future meetings.

With the United States seemingly paralyzed by frustration and, it must be admitted, not much room to levy further sanctions except on gum Arabic, which is vital to our economy, at least some U.S. officials seem willing to try another approach. But as Ambassador Rice so correctly points out, we already know what the Bashir government will do. To do nothing or to take a softer approach to Sudan will only embolden an already shameless government to facilitate the killing of more Sudanese and America’s reputation in Africa as well.

Rwanda’s Extraordinarily Popular Leader

2010-08-20T18:06:00.000-04:00

Last year, I questioned whether Equatorial Guinea’s presidential election results could be justified. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was reelected in November 2009 with 90% of the vote. It is beyond the ability of the international community to accept that such universal popularity was possible through legal, fair means. As I said then, even winning margins in the 70s seem suspicious to us in a competitive race anywhere. Now another African leader has won reelection with the support of more than nine out of every ten voters.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front received 93% of the vote last week in his bid for a second term. The three leading contenders – Jean Damascene Ntawuhkulirayo (Social Democratic Party), Prosper Higiro (Liberal Party) and Alvera Mukabatramba (Party for Peace and Concord) – all conceded defeat. However, none of them were considered Kagame’s most competitive rival.

That would have been Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza of the Unified Democratic Forces (UDF) a coalition of Rwandan opposition parties with a large base of active members in Rwanda, Europe, the United States and Canada. Unfortunately, she was unable to run for president as her coalition wanted because she was placed under house arrest earlier in the year on charges of funding rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and espousing a genocidal philosophy.

Despite giving a speech upon her return to Rwanda in January criticizing the largely-Tutsi directed genocide and condemning war crimes, she was accused of minimizing it instead. Ingabire questioned the ethnic makeup of the government, which is considered dangerous in a nation in which hundreds of thousands were killed in genocide in 1994.

If Ingabire’s detention were the only action limiting the opposition’s chances in the election, that might be explainable under the circumstances. But it wasn’t. André Kagwa Rwisereka, vice-president of the Democratic Green Party was murdered. Jean Leonard Rugambage, deputy editor of the newspaper Umuvugizi, was shot dead. Bernard Ntaganda, a potential presidential candidate was arrested and held in detention. Theogene Muhayeyezu, Ingabire’s attorney, was arrested and held in detention. Hundreds of other opposition party members were arrested and detained weeks before the election. Given that the campaign period was only 20 days, these killings and arrests prevented much of the opposition from effectively organizing and contesting the election.

The Economist magazine recently accused Kagame of allowing “less political space and press freedom at home than Robert Mugabe does in Zimbabwe.” That view is confirmed by various human rights reports. According to the U.S. Department of State’s current human rights report on Rwanda, “Citizens' right to change their government was effectively restricted. Violence against genocide survivors and witnesses by unknown assailants resulted in deaths. There were reports of abuse of suspects by security forces and local defense members, and prison and detention center conditions remained generally harsh. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained persons. Prolonged pretrial detention was a problem.”

Human Rights Watch noted that over the six months leading up to the August elections, they found “a worrying pattern of intimidation, harassment and other abuses - ranging from killings and arrests to restrictive administrative measures - against opposition parties, journalists, members of civil society and other critics.”

American attorney Peter Erlinder was held in jail in Rwanda for three weeks in connection with his defense of an opposition politician. He has accused Rwanda of being a “police state” supported by the United States, which has provided Rwanda with approximately US$1 billion in aid over the past decade.

Indeed, Kagame was once considered one of Africa’s up-and-coming young leaders, and he has been supported by the U.S. and other Western nations for leading the fight against genocide in 1994. His increasingly authoritarian rule has been tolerated because he has been considered a strategic ally. However, the strains on the relationship seem to be fraying it. The National Security Council (NSC), in a somewhat unusual step, expressed concern over “a series of disturbing events prior to the election, including the suspension of two newspapers, the expulsion of a human rights researcher, the barring of two opposition parties from taking part in the election, and the arrest of journalists.”

In Equatorial Guinea, Botswana and some other African countries, the ruling party wins largely because of the weakness of the opposition, albeit with some help from ruling party fiddling. In the case of Rwanda, the fiddling seems to be a greater reason for the Kagame landslide.

So what is to be done in this situation? To be fair, even critics acknowledge the progress made in Rwanda since the 1994 genocide. Transparency International has ranked Rwanda as the least corrupt country in East Africa. The World Bank describes Rwanda as a one of Africa’s top economic reformers. Rwanda has already achieved some of the United Nations Millennium Development goals for 2015.

Rwanda poses one of those foreign policy conundrums governments constantly face. An ally has some obvious problems, but has much to commend it. The country’s strategic value remains the same this week as it did before the election. Quiet diplomacy would seem to be the answer, but that has often been lost on a government that continues to use the genocide card to explain away opposition and its overreactions. The NSC statement may be the first in a louder display of diplomacy aimed at preventing a valued ally from going completely off the rails. Let’s hope it is not too late already.

The Father of African Nationalism

2010-08-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

On this date, 123 years ago, a great world leader was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. At one time, he was the most talked-about Black man on the planet, but he died in 1940 a largely forgotten figure on the world scene. Nevertheless, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the “Father of African Nationalism,” remains one of the most influential sons of Africa in all history.

His influence can be seen in the organization of the Nation of Islam; the inspiration for leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya (as well as the colors of their nations’ flags); the African-African American Summits and self-help philosophy of Reverend Leon H. Sullivan, and even non-African leaders such as Ho Chi Mihn of Vietnam, who observed Garveyism during his time in New York City.

Marcus Garvey arrived in America in 1916 at a critical time in our history. The post-civil War freedoms won had been eroded by racist government officials who created laws limiting the rights of Black Americans and vicious white mobs that lynched and otherwise killed thousands of Black people. There was an effort to win the freedom of Black people, but it was split among those who wanted to play down political rights to concentrate on economic self-sufficiency and those who believed a “talented tenth” could be the vanguard of a resurgence of Black political power.

Like Prince Hall, Martin Delaney, Edward Wilmot Blyden and Henry Highland Garnet before him, Garvey advocated the involvement of the entire African Diaspora in the affairs of Africa, most of which was under European colonial rule at that point. However, Garvey took that view further, espousing a Pan-African mass movement to free Africa and create a universal Black nation. “Africa for the Africans…those at home and those abroad,” he said.

Like the Hebrew patriarch Moses, Garvey would lead his people to the Promised Land, but not get there himself. He died in 1940, more than a decade before the wave of freedom that swept across Africa and saw all of its nations become independent. In this year in which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of 17 African nations, how many of us give due credit to the man who stimulated both Africans and the Diaspora to seek freedom?

He had come to America to raise money for a Jamaican school to be modeled after Tuskegee Institute. However, America and its Black crisis attracted him. He began a series of speeches on the race problem that started slowly in New York, but by the time he had gone down the Atlantic seaboard and over to New Orleans, he had created a legend. In 1920, his Universal Negro Improvement Association claimed four million members. Garvey’s International Congresses in New York drew tens of thousands of delegates from across America, the Caribbean, Central and South America and Africa.
While some focused on the educated, professional class, Garvey spoke to the average Black man and woman. His economic ventures, including a shipping company, factories, restaurants and other businesses were initially well-received and successful among Black people. In fact, he was the first Black leader to get our people to invest in their own future. Unfortunately, there were those among us who saw him as dangerous.

The focus among the existing Black leaders of America was on incrementally gaining rights and fighting the hated Jim Crow laws. While this was a laudable goal, the established leaders considered this Jamaican interloper presumptuous and criticized what some would consider his “folderol and glitter.” The grandiosity of the Garvey trappings at his mass meetings was part of what attracted his many supporters. They wanted to be part of something larger than themselves, something that spoke of the grand history of the African people. They responded to his credo: “Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will.” Garveyism resonated then with Black people and continues to do so today, even if many of us don’t realize it.

There is a misconception that the entire focus of Garveyism was on a “back to Africa” movement, but he said he never intended for all Black people to return to their ancestral home. Garvey believed the Black nation should know no boundaries and should embrace the Diaspora worldwide. Still, he supported those who wanted to return to Africa and help build the continent.

In Garvey’s day, Black people didn’t normally work in concert across organizations, regions or social status. That is not the case today. African nations are working slowly, but surely, on a plan to create a United States of Africa. Here in America, the Black Leadership Forum was created in the 1970s as a clearinghouse for Black organizations and continues to join the strength of dozens of Black organizations to press for solutions to issues of concern to our people. In the 21st century, the African American Unity Caucus was established to join dozens of Black-led organizations focusing on Africa and the nations of the Diaspora. Cooperation, not competition, has become the byword of the African Diaspora.

“Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm,” Garvey said. Indeed, the winds of change are blowing ever stronger, as the Black world Garvey foresaw nearly a century ago is now taking shape. It is the mark of a great leader that his vision carries on after he is gone and resonates with those who never knew him. To borrow a portion of a great speech by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, for Garvey “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Taylor’s Celebrity Enabler

2010-08-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

The war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor has dragged on since July of 2009, nearly forgotten by all but his many victims and supporters until a burst of celebrity brought the trial back into the spotlight.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell had tried her best to avoid testifying at Taylor’s trial about a troublesome gift Taylor allegedly gave her, but in the end, the Special Court for Sierra Leone at The Hague issued a subpoena she couldn’t ignore. This trial is intended to bring justice to a man who had brought turmoil to the entire West African region. He is charged with numerous crimes – from enslavement to rape to torture to murder. Yet Campbell had no desire to provide testimony that could help bring Taylor to justice.

Taylor had reportedly given Campbell what are called “blood diamonds” because they are mined with the blood, sweat and tears of those who were forced to locate them and give them to the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, which Taylor is accused of funding and from which he reportedly profited. Linking him to the transfer of uncut diamonds helps to connect the inhumanity of the forced diamond mining to his ability to bestow these gems to whomever he fancied or wanted to reward.

Now one might have concluded before the trial that Campbell had nothing pertinent to add and that she wanted to avoid any damaging linkage to Taylor for the sake of her career. However, the testimony proves otherwise.

Campbell, actress-activist Mia Farrow and Campbell’s former agent Carole White all testified and gave conflicting accounts of Taylor giving diamonds to Campbell through his emissaries. Yet they all agree that Campbell was given rough stones or a stone that she knew had value.

Campbell and Farrow testified that Campbell was awakened by a knock on her door from men who gave her a pouch with something of value. Campbell said they were “very small dirty-looking stones,” while Farrow recalls Campbell bragging the next morning at breakfast about being given a huge diamond by Taylor. White said Campbell had been expecting the diamonds and was excited.

Campbell said there were two or three stones, and White said there were five or six. Farrow said Campbell told her she received a diamond, not stones.
Campbell said she didn’t know the stones were diamonds because she was used to seeing them “shiny in a box.” White said Campbell was disappointed that the diamonds were neither shiny nor large.

Campbell acknowledged at her breakfast the next day that the stones were from Charles Taylor after Farrow and White said that’s who they were from. Farrow and White both say Campbell already knew who gave her the stones.

Campbell said she didn’t want to keep the stones so she gave them to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, which is corroborated by both Farrow and White, although White said Campbell had to be talked into the donation. Jeremy Ractliffe, head of the Fund was said to be reluctant to take the diamonds.

Clearly, Campbell knew this gift valuable, and she certainly would not have opened her door to strangers at night nor taken something from them. She certainly must have known what the gift was and who it was from. Being charitable, you could assume that she was ignorant of world events and was unaware of how such diamonds were obtained. Nevertheless, by now she would have known the importance of what she was given, and one would think she would want to bring to justice a man who had caused the misery of so many people for those “small dirty-looking stones.”

At best, she came off looking like a vapid airhead who would accept bling from anyone willing to gift her, and at worst, she looks like a greedy, jewelry-hungry woman who only cares for what she can get no matter how it was obtained. Either way, she is not a woman who has any apparent care for the misery fellow members of the African Diaspora have suffered, and even at this late date, cares more for her own image than for what she could do to help those whose lives have been destroyed by Charles Taylor and his compatriots.

In the end, if her image is damaged and she is no longer the darling of the fashion world, it will be her own fault. No one could blame her for Taylor giving her a gift she did not solicit, but she failed to seize the opportunity to give the gift of justice to those Taylor has harmed. As the saying goes: to whom much is given, much is expected. Too bad no one implanted that concept firmly in her mind and heart along the way to stardom.

Obama’s Africa Outreach

2010-08-10T07:05:00.000-04:00

When Barack Obama became President, he inherited two wars and a global economic meltdown. He also inherited an Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that has stagnated in terms of broadening the benefits of trade for buyers and sellers in African countries, as well as in the United States. The AGOA Ministerial was held last week, but President Obama “flipped the script” so to speak by importing two delegations of Africans who may play a major role in helping to achieve the promise AGOA has always held.

The Obama Administration brought in 35 women business people from AGOA-eligible countries. They own and/or manage agriculture companies, communications companies, textile manufacturers and firms in other sectors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has long championed the concept of empowering women, which is critical in the African economic sphere.

“Economic marginalization of women across Africa has left a void in this continent that undermines progress and prosperity every day,” Clinton said while in Kenya during a 2009 visit.

Indeed, it is a widely accepted fact that African women comprise two thirds-of the economies in their countries and that genuine economic development cannot be achieved without taking into account the welfare of women entrepreneurs. So the Administration’s plan was to encourage their involvement and that of their networks as part of their national and the global supplier systems and to challenge the AGOA ministers to promote more inclusive legislation and practices for women by next year’s Ministerial. This is why they were made a part of this year’s Ministerial so that these ministers would be confronted with the need to move on enhancing the role of women in the AGOA process in their countries.

Similarly, though the young African leaders from about 50 countries were not brought in specifically for the AGOA Ministerial, their visit did coincide with this event, as well as the advent of the United Nations International Year of the Youth. Africa’s younger generation is less ethnically divided, better educated and more aware of Africa’s position on the global stage. They provide yet another nudge to the African officials that we are not entirely dependent upon them to make the reforms necessary to enable African progress, as President Obama told the young leaders prior to the start of his ground-breaking town hall meeting with them last week.

“You reflect the extraordinary history and diversity of the continent. You’ve already distinguished yourselves as leaders – in civil society and development and business and faith communities – and you’ve got an extraordinary future before you,” the President said.

The potential for change represented by both the women entrepreneurs and the young leaders is tremendous. That was clear to anyone who had the privilege of speaking with them over the two-week, overlapping period in which they were in the United States. Their respective programs allowed them to meet and learn from various government agencies, business people and civil society organizations. However, if these innovative contacts are to be maximized, there will have to be substantial follow-up activities that build on what must be acknowledged as a good start. This is why members of the African American Unity Caucus (AAUC), a coalition of dozens of Diaspora organizations focusing on American policy toward Africa, have accepted this challenge.

Members of the AAUC made a presentation to the women entrepreneurs about accessing the American consumer market through AGOA. As impressive as these women business people are, many of them had not understood what AGOA was or how to utilize it prior to that presentation. Given the prominence of African women in the continent’s economic sphere, such a lack of knowledge about the premier U.S. trade process cannot be continued. Furthermore, a better understanding of the specific limits faced by these business women regarding access to land, credit and education can only help in the effort to remove them. So programming is now being developed to enhance their ability to take full advantage of AGOA to access the world’s largest consumer market.

The AAUC as a coalition participated in the networking session with the young African leaders and is itself developing a project to provide either mentoring or peer-to-peer engagement for those leaders contacted. This AAUC project is being developed in partnership with the Black Leadership Forum, an alliance of Diaspora organizations focusing on advocating for the legislative and policy interests of the Diaspora nationally and internationally. This unprecedented coalition of coalitions provides resources across a broad spectrum of dozens of American organizations.

The Administration has offered a follow-up one-day conference in multiple regions in Africa, but the AAUC believes ongoing sharing of information and mutual advocacy on an individual basis would be more beneficial to both sides in the long run.

It was inventive of the Administration to create connections with women and young people in Africa. The old guard has not broadly distinguished itself in empowering the continent to realize its destiny. Better integrating women and youth to create a more productive future is critical. However, the AGOA Ministerial has become a talk shop with no plan to remove obstacles that continue to be identified each year. Creating new talk shops for women and youth will serve no useful purpose. Those of us who can help the Administration achieve its stated goals through plans for action should step up and make a way for this to happen.

Enhancing African Commercial Environments

2010-08-03T18:34:00.000-04:00

In opening the African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum this week, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk listed several elements that comprise a positive commercial environment that would attract foreign investment. The one most misunderstood is the sanctity of contracts.

According to the World Bank, African countries collectively have made progress in improving their business climates. For the first time ever, an African nation leads the rest of the world as the “top global reformer.” Rwanda ranked number one in the 2010 Doing Business Indicators, while Liberia finished at number 10 and Mauritius moved into the top 20 reformers. Still, Africa’s private investment rate collectively is below 15% of Gross Domestic Product, and eight of the ten countries judged as having the most difficult environment for starting a business in the world are African.

Despite the problems in some countries, much of Africa remains increasingly attractive to foreign investors, not only because of the reforms so many African countries have accomplished, but also because African investments have provided higher returns on investment than most other parts of the world at around 30% annually before the current economic crisis. Global emerging giants such as the so-called BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – increasingly seek Africa’s resources, which increases commodity prices. China last year became Africa’s largest investor. Nevertheless, the sanctity of contracts and reasonable negotiations will always remain critical elements to foreign companies doing ongoing business in Africa no matter what their resource base is.

In a free market, there are economic calculations that determine for companies whether it is viable to do business in an environment or not. When you change those calculations, it may no longer be possible to make a profit doing what you have done previously. Such financial decisions have nothing to do with how a multinational company feels about a government or the country in which it operates. The business math is either favorable or it isn’t, and when the latter is the case, the foreign company may have to cease operations. No one – not even the smallest vendor on the corner – can afford to pay higher production costs than the price for which he or she can sell the product.

In difficult negotiations with a foreign government, American firms appeal to our government for assistance. It is the policy of the U.S. government to safeguard American investment abroad because of the positive impact it has on our economy. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nearly half of all revenue earned by the 200 top U.S. companies comes from their foreign subsidiaries and provides the funding for innovation and creation of better jobs here in America. U.S. companies that invest abroad create an estimated 2.3 jobs in America for every one they create overseas. Consequently, the profitability of American firms abroad is vital to the economic interests of U.S. companies and the United States itself.

This is why U.S. government agencies such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which makes loans and loan guarantees to support U.S. business abroad will become involved in business disputes and may, as they have in more than one situation, put a hold on such activities in a country. It is not merely to pressure a government to yield its national interests, but rather a matter of fulfilling its mandate to protect U.S. interests. The American government and the U.S. companies it is required to protect have an abiding interest in investing in Africa, but the cost must be calculated and found to be worthwhile.

In the real world of commerce, decisions about where to do business and under what circumstances business is conducted can be difficult ones for both sides. African countries possess much of the world’s valuable natural resources, but in many cases, these resources have not been tapped because the economic calculations are not favorable for doing so. Either the transportation costs are too high, or there is insufficient electric power to conduct manufacturing or the political risk is too great due to conflict. Or perhaps some other complication makes the cost of doing business too much to operate there.

American companies increasingly believe that corporate social responsibility projects benefiting the communities in which they operate are good business, but the cost of doing business there in the first place may be too high to operate. Such costs can change when contracts are renegotiated without regard to the bottom line of the foreign investor. That is a factor that African governments must consider as they engage in negotiations to attract or hold onto foreign investment.

The Reality of Dual Citizenship

2010-07-28T18:02:00.001-04:00

In 2004, Hope Sullivan Masters, Founder and President of the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation she established to continue her father’s work, asked me to head a project to develop the concept of dual citizenship. The interest in citizenship by African Americans in an African country had steadily risen after Reverend Sullivan was given citizenship in Cote d’Ivoire at the inaugural Africa-African American Summit in 1991.

When he created the bridge between Africa and America through his Summits in Africa, Reverend Sullivan sparked a passion among many in America for a genuine connection to Africa. There have long been African Americans who have worked for African liberation from this side of the Atlantic Ocean and those who have taken up residence on the continent. This year we honor the independence 50 years ago of 17 African nations. It was not until the wave of African independence that began in the 1950s that dual citizenship was even widely possible. Even so, real citizenship in another country carries both rights and responsibilities. Merely being given another country’s passport is not the whole story. That is what Reverend Sullivan knew from the beginning, and that is the gap that Mrs. Masters wanted to finally bridge.

Beginning with the first wave of African independence of countries such as Ghana, there have been Americans who repatriated to Africa because of their disgust with the blatant racism they experienced in America. Subsequently, there were those who repatriated because they simply felt more culturally akin to Africans. In many cases, however, they changed citizenship rather than took on an additional citizenship. The current dual citizenship effort is intended to build on the ties many feel either because of their longstanding interest in their ancestral homeland or because of a DNA test that linked them to a specific ethnic group in a specific country.

Technically, no country can give you dual citizenship. It results from acquiring citizenship in a new country and your current country not revoking your citizenship. Most dual citizens in America are from Mexico. The British have indelible citizenship that cannot be revoked. Jewish American can acquire automatic citizenship in Israel by virtue of their Jewish lineage. It is not something our government actively opposes.

“The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause,” says a State Department policy paper on dual nationality.

In fact, in order to lose your American citizenship, the State Department says you would have to freely and intentionally relinquish it. The government doesn’t take it from you; you have to give it up.

Potential problems include dual taxation, military service requirements where applicable, divided loyalty in the case of armed conflict, jurisdiction over crimes committed in one jurisdiction or another and extradition of those fleeing arrest in one of the countries. Some of us who are interested in a level of citizenship in Africa think more about their rights than their responsibilities and give no thought to how Africans may feel about an influx of Diasporans into their country. Think of how you would feel if even dozens of people suddenly showed up in your neighborhood without fully understanding the culture and unexpectedly changed the character of local elections and how life is lived.

All these challenges can be addressed, but we all need to recognize that they exist and not pretend this is all so easy. If that were the case, it would have been accomplished by now. Because of the complexities, we sought the advice and assistance of California attorney Anthony Archer, who researched and wrote a paper on dual citizenship that was presented at the eighth Leon H. Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008. Archer proposed three levels of citizenship that would allow governments to offer the benefits of citizenship on a graduated basis for Diasporans who wanted a certain level of involvement in their new homeland. We see this as mutually beneficial and an equitable method of developing a relationship that is meaningful in the long term.

Some people only seek to travel to Africa without current restrictions while they learn more about their proposed new homeland. Others want to do business or own property and be treated like a local businessperson. Others want the whole experience and intend to live at least part of the time in their new home.

Dual citizenship must be negotiated. One size does not fit all. Many of us would be unprepared to become full citizens in an African country we only discovered we had a tie to last week; others only want to be privileged regular visitors.

African leaders such as Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf have expressed interest in developing closer ties with the African Diaspora, but the details still have to be worked out. We’ll all need to have some patience and understanding if this process is to work for both sides.

The Brain Drain and African Governance

2010-07-21T20:34:00.000-04:00

I attended a meeting at the World Bank this week to assess Africa’s needs and to suggest what the Bank’s response should be. Over and over, the topic of governance (or lack thereof) came up. Those who most mentioned governance as a problem were Africans themselves. These are, by and large, people who decided that their countries weren’t being run properly and decamped for America, Europe or elsewhere.

Young Africans, those born in their homeland who left for education purposes or opportunities elsewhere or who came with their families, also don’t feel obliged to return in large numbers. Selected situations like Ghana and Angola are seeing young people come home to start businesses where opportunity seems ripe. Still, the brain drain has struck Africa hard.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has estimated that Africa has lost a third of its human capital and continues to lose skilled personnel at an alarming rate. IOM and the Economic Commission for Africa gathered statistics showing that between 1960, when 17 African countries became independent, and 1974, when most had achieved independence, an average of 1,800 skilled Africans left their homelands for developed nations. Between 1975 and 1984, the rate had jumped to 4,000a year. Between 1985 and 1989, 12,000 skilled Africans each year left for what they thought were greener pastures, and since 1990, the rate has skyrocketed to 20,000 annually.

When many of us think of governance, we look at the African presidents and their cabinets. However, it is the middle management that provides information for policy decisions and implements those decisions once made. Is it any wonder, then, that decisions are made that seem puzzling to outsiders? Certainly there are smart people remaining, but they are not always in positions to provide sage advice, or their advice is not heeded. There just isn’t a critical mass of skilled personnel to carry the day in many of the councils of government. Those who remain in their homelands are heroes for wanting to give something back despite often trying circumstances.

There are people like the late Manute Bol who gave all he had to help his native land of Sudan, and there are many others who contribute to the progress of their countries while keeping a foot in their developed country home. IOM has managed several programs to allow them to do just that. But what I’d like to know is why so often when Africans talk about the Diaspora helping Africa, it is clear they mean only those born on the continent and not those of us whose ancestors came here centuries ago? I thought when the Organization of African Unity declared the African Diaspora the sixth region of the continent in 2003 that divide was eliminated. I guess not.

Members of the historic Diaspora also have made significant contributions to Africa because of their feeling of kinship or just because they want to help those in need. Through church missions, adopt-a-child programs or individual donations to a family they come to know, historic Diasporans have provided what could be considered remittances. Members of the Diaspora have created businesses in African countries or invested in African exchanges. Finally, through programs such as the Teachers for Africa program created by Reverend Leon H. Sullivan through the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, members of the historic Diaspora (as well as non-Diasporans) have contributed their time and talent to the elevation of African societies.

So why is there still reluctance on the part of the recent African Diasporans in the developed world to join with us historic Diasporans to pool our talents and resources for the betterment of Africa?

African governments spend an average of US$4 billion a year to hire about 100,000 Western experts to handle functions considered to be technical assistance, which could have been performed by the African technicians, scientists and other professionals who no longer live there or their counterparts in the historic African Diaspora. Those Western experts, unfortunately, too seldom include a significant number of non-African born Diasporans.

Columnist Nicholas Kristof recently was forced to defend his coverage of Africa as portraying the situation in Africa as white knights coming to save the continent, but when you look at it, aren’t African governments paying them to do so? Is it the fault of white experts that they take the money they’re offered – either by African governments or developed country governments – to provide assistance to Africa? Both African and developed country governments could provide more opportunities for the African Diaspora to help Africa, but change doesn’t seem very likely on either of their parts.

So it’s up to the recent and historic Diasporas to band together to provide what help Africa needs. I don’t begrudge organizations such as Doctors Without Borders or individuals such as actress Angelina Jolie for stepping up to help Africa. God bless them for their generosity of spirit. But shouldn’t we in the Diaspora feel ashamed that someone else feels the need to carry the burden of our people when we are perfectly capable of doing so ourselves?

Shining the Light on African Revenue

2010-07-19T20:23:00.000-04:00

The Senate last week approved a measure that will greatly benefit the cause of resource transparency in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The House of Representatives passed the measure last month, which now awaits President Barack Obama’s signature. Once he does, the provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (also known as the Financial Reform Act) will help reduce corruption by forcing oil, gas and mining companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to publicly disclose their tax and revenue payments to governments in countries in which they operate. There are numerous beneficiaries to this legislation.

First, the officials fighting corruption will have access to information comparing what companies have paid governments to what governments report. Billions of dollars have been stolen by corrupt government officials who underreport what companies have paid them. Now those engaged in the battle against corruption have more ammunition, making it easier for cases to be prosecuted against those who plunder their country’s natural resources.

Second, the American companies who make their tax and revenue payments to governments will be able to demonstrate to the people of the countries in which they operate that they have contributed to the common good. Too often, corrupt officials claim that companies have withheld payments as justification for not carrying through with promised social investments. By being required to reveal their contributions, American companies can justify their revelations as forced by U.S. law. Hopefully, other foreign companies will follow this practice and not place American companies at a competitive disadvantage.

Third, civil society organizations and the media who attempt to reveal corrupt government practices involving natural resources now have access to a public source of information that cannot be denied to them by corrupt officials protecting their schemes. Honest government officials who have provided such information have risked their careers and their lives for divulging such information. Now the media and civil society organizations can point to an international source for the information they cite.

Fourth, donors will have more accurate information on which to base decisions about which governments deserve and truly need development assistance. Without the information provided by this legislation, African governments have claimed to be more cash-poor than they really are, forcing American taxpayers and other foreign sources to meet the needs of African citizens that their governments could well afford to meet on their own.

Finally, the citizens of natural resource-rich countries have greater hope that their governments will use revenues from these resources to build roads, hospitals and schools and provide a real safety net for those citizens who need government help. Too often, it has been a hollow hope that paths will be turned into roads, the ill will find medical treatment and the young will have access to education. Resource-rich countries have failed to make progress toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals largely because available funding is diverted for selfish purposes.

This has been as long time in coming. Back in 2006, then-Africa Subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith, along with Congresswoman Diane Watson, introduced a resolution calling for transparency of natural resources in resource-rich countries. However, at the time, pressure from the corporate community led the Republican-controlled House to shelve the measure despite support in Congress. This time, Senators Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and other Senators, as well as Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Howard Berman (D-CA) and Jim McDermott (D-WA) refused to let this opportunity pass them by.

Even before he was elected, President Obama has stressed the need for transparency among governments who seek our help. Now his administration and Congress have the information required to make sound judgments on justified foreign aid.

It is said that information is power, but in this case, information represents money not wasted, not stolen and not denied African people who have deserved better from their governments for so long.

Africa Is a Tempting Target for Terrorists

2010-07-14T23:02:00.000-04:00

The three bombs that ripped through a festive night in the suburbs of the Ugandan capital city of Kampala were further proof that Islamic radicals on the continent have no problem using African civilians to make their point in the ongoing global war on terror. This time, more than 70 innocent people paid the ultimate price for an act of revenge by people for whom being African is only a coincidence. They apparently couldn’t care less that their fellow Africans had to die in order for them to establish their credentials as the latest group of world-class killers.

Al-Shebaab, or more properly Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahedeen (Movement of Warrior Youth), has long targeted outsiders daring to meddle in Somalian affairs. They struck out at anyone who stood against their effort to convert Muslim Somalia into a more strident Muslim Somalia. The last estimate of their strength was placed between 3,000 to 7,000 fighters. They control most of the central and southern parts of Somalia, including a large part of the capital city of Mogadishu. However, they apparently want to join the big leagues of terrorist groups who can strike at the “enemies of Islam” outside their borders.

At least a dozen terrorist bomb attacks in Africa have claimed innocent lives in just the past three years, including:

• Twin explosions killed at least 28 people in a Mogadishu mosque, while another 50 were wounded on May 1, 2010.

• An explosive-packed car detonated outside the Algerian prime minister’s office in Algiers, along with another bomb exploded in the suburbs of Bab Ezouar, claimed the lives of at least 24 people and wounded more than 220 others on February 16, 2010.

• Four suspected Islamic terrorists and a Moroccan police officer were killed in three explosions in Casablanca on February 15, 2010.

• A suicide bomber killed 57 people, including three Somali transitional government ministers, in Mogadishu on December 3, 2009.

• At least 21 people, including 17 African Union peacekeepers, were killed in two suicide bombings at the peacekeeping force base in Somalia on September 17, 2009.

• Somali National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden and at least 20 others were killed in a suicide bomb attack in the central Somalian town of Beledweyne on June 18, 2009.

• At least 43 people were killed and another 45 were wounded in a bombing near a military school in Bumerdes proving in northern Algeria on August 19, 2008.

• Two car bombs in Algiers, targeting the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees and the neighboring United Nations Development Programme, killed at least 60 people and injured many others on December 11, 2007.

Perhaps the most infamous terrorist attacks happened on August 7, 1998, when hundreds of people were killed in bombings at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Although the reason cited by al Qaeda in this case was revenge for the American role in the extradition and alleged torture in Egypt of four members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, only 12 Americans perished in those bombings, and 211 Africans lost their lives, with more than 4,000 others wounded. These bombings were the first incidents that brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to worldwide attention.

These terrorists are not fighting for independence from an oppressive colonial power. They do not struggle against those who would prevent them from worshipping God in their chosen way. They are not even fighting a war for survival. Were they not constantly engaged in killing people indiscriminately, they would not be hunted and killed as they are now.

They offer no justification for killing the worshippers in the mosque they destroyed. There is no apology for the innocent children caught in a bomb blast. No one sends flowers to the funerals of the parents whose deaths leave orphaned children. No explanation is offered for how this mayhem will make Africa stronger or better.

Africa’s future is in the hands of governments struggling to protect their citizens and those of their neighbors whom they seek to protect, like the Government of Uganda is doing in Somalia. In addition to the troops they have lost in a peacekeeping operation in Somalia, Uganda’s government now has civilian deaths on their home ground to explain to their citizens wondering why their lives are forfeit for people who apparently have no appreciation for their effort to help save the lives of others. Now some Ugandan legislators are considering pulling their troops out of the Somalian peacekeeping operation.

Unfortunately, you don’t actually have to actively do anything to earn death in the eye of these cold-blooded killers, and being an innocent fellow African is no protection from their wrath. Their idea of African unity is to join them or die. Not exactly what Haile Selassie, Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Senghor and others had in mind when they established the Organization of African Unity in 1963.

African Unity: The Dream That Persists

2010-07-10T16:34:00.000-04:00

The concept of the unity of Africa’s nations became possible after the wave of independence in the 1950s and 1960s, but it began long before then. The plan for the cooperation and integration of the African continent was embodied in the Organization of African Unity Charter in 1963 and made more explicit in the OAU Summits in 1973 and 1976. In 1991, the Abuja Treaty, established the African Economic Community program, has been in force since 1994.

The African Economic Community plan lays out steps that are to culminate by 2028 in an African common market:

By 1999, Regional Economic Communities were to be created or established. For all practical purposes, this has been completed. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) is not participating in the Arab Mahgreb Union because Morocco still claims control of the territory, and Somalia understandably is not participating in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) it helped to establish in 1986 or the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) it joined in 2001.

By 2007, cooperation among and within the Regional Economic Communities was supposed to have taken place. While there has been progress, this phase cannot be said to have been completed because the IGAD not yet coordinated and harmonized activities of member states nor removed tariff and non-tariff barriers. This process is made more difficult by the fact that IGAD members also belong to other RECs, such as CEN-SAD, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) rules and regulations.

By 2017, a free trade union and customs union is to be established in each REC. This is now fully in force in the EAC, as well as the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). The process is still stalled in IGAD and CEN-SAD, although there is progress elsewhere.

By 2019, a continent-wide customs union is to be established.

By 2023, an African Common Market is be to be established.

By 2028, a continent-wide economic and monetary union and currency union is to be established, along with an African parliament.

Only when all this is accomplished can discussion of the United States of Africa be realistically undertaken.

This economic union plan is an ambitious one, and while possible, it will be very difficult to achieve. Supporters of African unity often overlook the difficulties of similar efforts worldwide. There are European countries that still refuse to submit their economic and political policy decisions to the European Union structure or their currencies to the Euro. The very thought of increased union among the North American Free Trade Area countries (Canada, the United States and Mexico) send some people into fits of fury over conspiracy theories about usurped sovereignty.

The African countries attempting the colossal feat of economic and political union must bridge not only varying languages (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and numerous ethnic dialects), but also differing legal systems and currencies. Moreover, the RECs have varying degrees of financial and human resources to put into accomplishing this task. There is dependency among some on outside funding.

The goal of harmonizing infrastructure is daunting. Transportation links were created to serve the colonial powers that put them in place and don’t serve the purpose of a united Africa. Overcoming that historic legacy is not easy to say the least. It is still easier to go through Europe to go from one part of Africa to another than traveling direct. Even when you can avoid going through Europe, it is often necessary to go through a third country before getting to the one next door.

Corruption, inadequate pay and lack of full government control over security forces and military means that unofficial checkpoints make inter-country transportation more costly than it should be. There is persistent conflict among countries regarding tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade; it’s as though the people in charge can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Then it must be acknowledged that some governments just don’t want to open up to free trade among their neighbors for various reasons – some short-sighted, but some valid. There are, after all, legitimate concerns about international criminal activity being aided by open borders.

All of us who want to see the goal of African unity realized must admit the difficulty of this effort and try to help identify the challenges and help devise means of overcoming them, taking into account political obstacles from inside Africa and from without. We also must acknowledge that the lack of unity makes Africa attractive to those who make money from the lack of cohesion among its constituent parts. African unity is not in everyone’s interests, and there are those who have frustrated its progress and will continue to do so.

The African Union can become more than the name of an organization, but buckle up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride to get there.

King Down, Women Up

2010-07-06T07:56:00.000-04:00

The Ondo State government in Nigeria recently took a historic step as, for the first time ever, a traditional ruler was removed for committing domestic violence against his estranged wife. This represents not only an achievement for the state government, but also for women in the state, the country and indeed the entire continent.

The Deji of Akureland, Oba Oluwadare Adepoju, was deposed, arrested and banished by the Ondo State government and taken by police to an undisclosed town in the state pending the final report on the allegations of wife battering against Mrs. Olori Bolante Adepoju. The Deji and his entourage (including new wife Remi Abiola) reportedly burst into his ex-wife’s apartment, dragged her outside onto a busy street and beat her in public. If not for passerby stopping the beating, it is believed that Oba Adepoju was about to give her what is known as an “acid bath” – an unfortunately popular African punishment for wayward wives. Some acid was poured on Mrs. Adepoju.

Reports did not initially provide details on what instigated the Deji’s attack on his wife, but Oba Adepoju subsequently accused his former wife of adultery and collecting money in his name. She has filed a court action to declare that her two sons by Oba Adepoju – Adeboyega and Adesimbo – are his biological offspring.
The removal of the Deji was unprecedented. In tradition, obas are not only the heads of their towns or kingdoms, but are the personification of deities, representing ancestral authority. Their appointment is partly by divination made by the high chiefs of the jurisdiction in question. Ironically, obas are usually the ones dispensing justice.

The incident sparked protests by women’s organizations, such as the National Council of Women’s Society of Nigeria and Women Arise, who called upon traditional rulers in Nigeria to condemn the Deji’s actions. Indeed, leaders including Alhaji Akeem Yayi Akorede, the Chief Imam of Akureland; Chief Reuben Fasoranti, the Chairman of Afenefire; Chief Olu Falae, Prince Dayo Faloye, Honorable Justice Dare Aguda, Reverend Luyi Rotimi; Chief Femi Adekanye; Chief Sanya Oyisan, and other leaders all joined in condemning Oba Adepoju for what was called unbecoming conduct that “has eroded the sanctity, dignity and respect of the stool (chieftainship).”

The action of the state government and the concurrence of so many traditional and community leaders surely raised a cheer among women of Ondo State and Nigeria as a whole. Human rights reports indicate that as high as 50% of Nigerian women are victims of domestic abuse. The percentage could well be higher, but tolerance of violence against women in Nigeria may suppress the number of attacks reported or recorded.

According to tradition in many African societies, women are expected to take a subservient role to their husbands. African societies, unlike those in the West, are not built on individual rights, but rather on the family and its interests. The reproductive capacity of women is generally considered to be controlled by the husband and his family after marriage. Because of the bride price often is still paid by the husband’s family to his wife’s family, many wives are unable to leave an abusive husband unless her family refunds the bride price.

Injustice against females is ingrained in practices such as female circumcision, denial of widow inheritance, widowhood rites and female religious bondage. Matters involving domestic abuse are widely considered an internal matter for the family and not a public issue. That this case became public was partly because the offense was handled so publicly.

African societies are now in transition from being largely rural to becoming increasingly urban. Women who had previously stayed home or tended to family farms are more often now found in the workplace. Domestic researchers are finding that the increased interaction of women with other people in the workplace and the inability to keep to meal and other domestic schedules that had been established causes growing friction.

Modern African women are more educated, have money they earn on their own and are less willing to remain silent while being bossed or abused. It is a new day in Africa, and men must adjust to the modern African woman. The old days are gone and will not return.

It is even more heartening that governments like Ondo State can take actions to protect all of its citizens and not just men. In speaking with current and former residents of Ondo State, though, it is clear they do not yet realize the magnitude of what has been done. Women throughout Nigeria and Africa now have a precedent on which to base their own liberation from unjust traditions.

The new African woman – hear her roar.

Africa’s Next Generation

2010-07-02T07:04:00.000-04:00

The Obama Administration is bringing to Washington next month several young African leaders from various walks of life in celebration of Africa’s independence. Rather than bringing in government officials or long-accomplished African figures, young men and women in their 20s and 30s will come representing Africa’s hope for the future.

This reminds me of the many times I have seen Africa’s future stifled or misled while on the continent. One prime example was the profusion of young politicians who emerged after Kenya declared multi-party democracy in the early 1990s. The Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) was a movement that brought together numerous young lawyers and activists to press for an end to one-party rule. Unfortunately, once that was achieved, the ego of older leaders couldn’t bridge ethnic divides, and FORD split into FORD-Kenya and Ford-Asili. I met some promising young leaders such as the late Michael Wamalw; Mukhisa Kitui, who became Minister of Trade, and Raila Odinga, now Prime Minister of Kenya.

I watched these young men plan and execute campaign strategy and win seats in Kenya’s Parliament from the then-ruling Kenya African National Union. However, older leaders such as Oginga Odinga and Kenneth Matiba could not overcome their political enmities from the past and split the vote in 1992, allowing President Daniel arap Moi to win reelection. The ethnic animosities prevented FORD from reassembling even after these leaders left the political stage.

Yet another set of young leaders formed the Democratic Party of Kenya, which produced women leaders, such as Martha Karua, who became Minister of Justice, and Charity Ngilu, Kenya’s first female candidate for president. This was a party established by young men and women who believed they needed an elder to give them gravitas at the outset, and they asked former Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki to head their party. He ran for president several times before winning in 2002. In the process, it became clear that he had no intention of stepping aside for a younger candidate.

What would have happened if the younger politicians who successfully achieved multi-party democracy in Kenya had been given a chance to collaborate and field a candidate in the 1990s?

In Mali, I met the family that ran the Bank of Africa – Mali. The father had sent his son abroad to learn business, but he wouldn’t accept the son’s advice on current accounting and finance practices. Rather, he trusted the Frenchman whose office was near his. Decisions went through the French adviser, not the trained son nor any other young Africans with degrees at the bank.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, young Islamic scholars in Guinea were sent to the Middle East for religious training, but came home radicalized. The imams they followed before they left no longer had their respect. The moderate brand of Islam practiced in West Africa was now too accepting of the Great Satan (the United States) or of Guineans who were seen as too Western in dress or social practices. Apparently, the imams and the parents of these young men hadn’t noticed that young Muslims in the Middle East were of a different strain of Islam than themselves.

In Zimbabwe, young men from rural areas – often under-educated and underemployed – were used as political thugs to beat opposition political party leaders and supporters and violently break up demonstrations. They were among the first wave that tore down houses in the hateful Operation Murambatsvina (Take Out the Trash). Supposedly, this operation was intended to be a sort of urban renewal program, by removing illegal structures. However, many of the houses had been built according to local regulations. And some even belonged to families of soldiers and policemen.

Perhaps the most horrific examples of the misuse of youth are the child soldiers in Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Young men become fighters, and young women become concubines. The boys become murderers before they become men, and even when they are rescued, they are feared and often unable to reintegrate into the communities from which they came. The girls become mothers, sometimes multiple times, and they are no longer desired wives once they are returned to their former homes. These young victims continue to be victimized by their training and treatment long after they are free. One wonders if they will ever be able to overcome their victimization and lead a life even slightly resembling the one taken from them.

In contrast to the tragedies and disappointments of those who came before them, the young men and women coming to America in August represent a brighter day for Africa. They have achieved admirable records in business, civil society and religious life. They are the ones who will lead their legislatures and executive branches, run multinational African companies, manage institutions of higher learning, advocate for the welfare of their people and guide the spiritual life of thousands, if not millions.

Mark well the young leaders you see next month. Among them could be the next Goodluck Jonathan.

A Tale of Two African Elections

2010-06-28T13:43:00.000-04:00

In this year of important African elections, two elections have taken place in Africa that have provided hope – both to their people and the international community.

In Guinea, for the first time since independence, voters had a free choice that wasn’t predetermined by political manipulation or military power. The late longtime ruler Lansana Conté died in 2008. The military government that replaced him was led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, who badly overplayed his hand while in power. After first pledging to lead a transition to civilian government, he began talking about running for office himself. His rambling television monologues were known to many as “The Dadis Show.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back for Guineans and the international community was last September’s massacre of protesters and the mass rape of women. Although there was evidence that Camara had not given the orders for the brutality, as leader, he was blamed for it and pressed to make accountable those who had given orders in the matter. One officer, fearful that Camara would make him the scapegoat, shot Camara, sending him to medical treatment and exile outside Guinea.
The next leader of the transitional government, General Sékouba Konaté, agreed in the Declaration of Ouagadougou that no member of the military or the transitional government could run in the elections last weekend.

That agreement opened the way for 24 candidates to contend for the presidency. The top three were former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, an 11-year holder of that office who is from the main Peul ethnic group; former Prime Minister Sidya Touré, the member of a minor ethnic group who is credited with bringing water to the capital for the first time, and Alpha Condé, a longtime political opponent of the late President Conté who has been in exile in Paris. A runoff election is expected between the top two vote-getters.

Voters widely told the media they felt elated at making a free choice at the polls, many voting for the first time in their lives. Some are skeptical that any one of the contenders could keep their promises of progress. There may be discontent in the future, but for now, the people of Guinea and the international community are optimistic – nine months after a massacre that was Guinea’s low point in recent history.

In Somaliland, voters defied threats and warnings and enthusiastically went to the polls to vote for a new government they hope will result in international recognition. Although Sheikh Muktar Abu Zubeyr, the Ameer or supreme leader of Al-Shebab in Somalia condemned the practice of democracy and elections, voter in Somaliland still turned out reportedly in large numbers. Al-Shebab is the strongest Islamic militant group in Somalia and is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda.
Sheikh Abu Zubeyr said democracy and elections are copies of Christian and Jewish governments and therefore are incompatible with Islam.

“Every individual should fight democracy verbally, (and) if necessary use his hands to fight democracy or leave the area where democracy is practiced,” he said.

His opposition to elections and a democratic form of government are not even promoted in many other Islamic governments. Even Iran has held elections, questionable though they were. Meanwhile, the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia is experiencing a serious split between President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharma’arke that not even newly elected Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden has been able to mediate.

In Somaliland, there is a functioning government, an army, a national flag, and anthem and its own currency. There are five private airlines, several electricity providers and as many as five telecommunications companies. There are thought to be oil deposits in Somaliland’s coastal region. While there are no formal banks, money traders buy and sell the Somaliland shilling. However, foreign investors are inhibited by Somaliland’s lack of recognition, which makes insurance for facilities and equipment all but impossible.

The former British Somaliland seceded from union with the former Italian Somaliland in 1991. The former British territory has more of the attributes of a functioning government than does its renounced partner. Clans still determine the political landscape in Somaliland, but constitutional reforms look to change such a divisive policy. Voters look to the new government to reduce unemployment, fight poverty, strengthen business laws, end corruption and reach out to the grassroots. Most of those questioned seemed more than willing to hope that such changes by a new government are possible. The question is: will the rest of the world find that those changes warrant formal recognition of Somaliland?

In the midst of troubled elections across Africa and the world, it is heartening to see voters embrace their political choice and look to the future with optimism.

From the Gulf of Mexico to the Niger Delta

2010-06-25T07:39:00.000-04:00

The United States is blessed with abundant natural resources, including petroleum, as has recently been emphasized by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That this nation is able to decide that it will not exploit the petroleum deposits onshore and off coastal areas is made possible by the supplies of oil coming from other countries. Americans are justifiably concerned by the environmental dangers of oil spills, such as the estimated 2.5 million U.S. gallons of oil pumped into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico each day for more than two months now. However, supplying oil always poses some risks, and if Americans don’t take such risks, that means someone else is – for example the residents of Nigeria’s Niger Delta.

The Gulf oil spill is the largest in U.S. history and has engendered tremendous worldwide coverage and international offers of help for an incident that could affect countries far beyond the United States, depending on where the ocean currents carry the oil into international waters. Yet the people of the Niger Delta have lived with smaller, but more frequent, oil spills for many years now.

According to reliable estimates, between 1970 and 2000, there were as many as 7,000 oil spills in the Delta area, and some believe that is a serious underestimation of the number of oil spills that actually took place. There are about 2,000 sites in the Delta that leak oil continuously and are considered major spillage sites. Last year alone, there were 132 oil spills. The annual average is 175 oil spills.
But while British Petroleum (BP) has agreed to pay out at least US$20 billion in damages to Americans, Shell has acknowledged spilling 14,000 tons of crude oil into the Delta last year, and there is no record of any kind of payment to those negatively impacted. Unlike the U.S. government, the Nigerian government’s ability and willingness to set and enforce safety and environmental rules and regulations is highly inadequate. We debate here in the United States whether President Barack Obama and his Administration has acted swiftly enough or overreached his authority in pressing BP to create a compensation fund. The residents of the Niger Delta would be thanking their Maker if their government took such strong action to defend their interests.

The seafood and tourism industries in several Gulf states stand to lose billions in business due to the results from the oil spill. Over the past two months, the media has carried stories of watermen who can no longer earn a living from the seafood from contaminated waters. We see restaurants and hotels nearly empty, as tourists avoid what they believe is a contaminated area. Formerly pristine beaches are empty or littered with tar balls and oil-covered animals. The devastations from oil spills is certainly familiar to residents of the Niger Delta.

In 1983, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation issued a report about the impact of what they saw as negligent operations by oil companies in the Niger Delta:
“We witnessed the slow poisoning of the waters of this country and the destruction of vegetation and agricultural land by oil spills which occur during petroleum operations. But since the inception of the oil industry in Nigeria, more than twenty-five years ago, there has been no concerned and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with the industry,” the report stated.

The negative impact of oil spills in the Delta includes not only the killing of current marine life, but also the eggs of next season’s sea catch. Oil is stored in coastal soils and released later during floods, damaging the land on which farmers grow crops and on which people live. Rare forms of cancer are seen in the Delta area, believed to be caused by continuous exposure of crude oil. Militancy by groups outraged by uncompensated damage from oil spills has been met by an often violent government response that places residents in the middle of gun battles and subject to reprisals they do not deserve.

In the Niger Delta, as in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil spill prevention and cleanup is the joint responsibility of the oil company involved and the government of the country in which it occurs. Lax or non-existent rules and regulations on oil operations invites problems, as local managers will always look for ways to cut costs, especially when revenues drop due to lower petroleum prices; some authority has to make sure that cost-cutting doesn’t come with increased risk of pollution. Oil companies are corporations with stockholders who expect dividends to be paid if revenue warrants it. If there is no system to require that damages be paid, these companies will be reluctant to offer damage payments on their own. The failure of government to effectively monitor oil operations and put in place in advance a plan to minimize environmental damage cannot be overcome easily in retrospect, as we see with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The United States has tremendous technical and financial resources with which to meet environmental disaster, and still we suffer from the ongoing spillage of oil in our coastal waters. How much more then would the Government of Nigeria and its people grapple with how to deal with less dramatic but more frequent oil spills? Even with all our capability, the United States has foreign allies offering help in cleaning up our Gulf oil spills. Where is the international help for the Niger Delta oil spills?

We can decide not to allow oil drilling off our shores because we have the luxury to do so. However, the oil we use comes from somewhere, and that decision on our part merely shifts the burden from us to some other people. As we decide what to do about the Gulf of Mexico spills, let us not forget our responsibility to help address the short-term and long-term impact of oil spills from areas that are the source of our oil. In the case of Nigeria, the United States consumes 40% of Nigeria’s oil output.

The Deepwater Horizon incident should be a reminder that there is often a high price to pay for the gasoline we use, and that can be much higher than the one listed on the gas pump.

The United States is blessed with abundant natural resources, including petroleum, as has recently been emphasized by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That this nation is able to decide that it will not exploit the petroleum deposits onshore and off coastal areas is made possible by the supplies of oil coming from other countries. Americans are justifiably concerned by the environmental dangers of oil spills, such as the estimated 2.5 million U.S. gallons of oil pumped into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico each day for more than two months now. However, supplying oil always poses some risks, and if Americans don’t take such risks, that means someone else is – for example the residents of Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
The Gulf oil spill is the largest in U.S. history and has engendered tremendous worldwide coverage and international offers of help for an incident that could affect countries far beyond the United States, depending on where the ocean currents carry the oil into international waters. Yet the people of the Niger Delta have lived with smaller, but more frequent, oil spills for many years now.
According to reliable estimates, between 1970 and 2000, there were as many as 7,000 oil spills in the Delta area, and some believe that is a serious underestimation of the number of oil spills that actually took place. There are about 2,000 sites in the Delta that leak oil continuously and are considered major spillage sites. Last year alone, there were 132 oil spills. The annual average is 175 oil spills.
But while British Petroleum (BP) has agreed to pay out at least US$20 billion in damages to Americans, Shell has acknowledged spilling 14,000 tons of crude oil into the Delta last year, and there is no record of any kind of payment to those negatively impacted. Unlike the U.S. government, the Nigerian government’s ability and willingness to set and enforce safety and environmental rules and regulations is highly inadequate. We debate here in the United States whether President Barack Obama and his Administration has acted swiftly enough or overreached his authority in pressing BP to create a compensation fund. The residents of the Niger Delta would be thanking their Maker if their government took such strong action to defend their interests.
The seafood and tourism industries in several Gulf states stand to lose billions in business due to the results from the oil spill. Over the past two months, the media has carried stories of watermen who can no longer earn a living from the seafood from contaminated waters. We see restaurants and hotels nearly empty, as tourists avoid what they believe is a contaminated area. Formerly pristine beaches are empty or littered with tar balls and oil-covered animals. The devastations from oil spills is certainly familiar to residents of the Niger Delta.
In 1983, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation issued a report about the impact of what they saw as negligent operations by oil companies in the Niger Delta:
“We witnessed the slow poisoning of the waters of this country and the destruction of vegetation and agricultural land by oil spills which occur during petroleum operations. But since the inception of the oil industry in Nigeria, more than twenty-five years ago, there has been no concerned and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with the industry,” the report stated.
The negative impact of oil spills in the Delta includes not only the killing of current marine life, but also the eggs of next season’s sea catch. Oil is stored in coastal soils and released later during floods, damaging the land on which farmers grow crops and on which people live. Rare forms of cancer are seen in the Delta area, believed to be caused by continuous exposure of crude oil. Militancy by groups outraged by uncompensated damage from oil spills has been met by an often violent government response that places residents in the middle of gun battles and subject to reprisals they do not deserve.
In the Niger Delta, as in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil spill prevention and cleanup is the joint responsibility of the oil company involved and the government of the country in which it occurs. Lax or non-existent rules and regulations on oil operations invites problems, as local managers will always look for ways to cut costs, especially when revenues drop due to lower petroleum prices; some authority has to make sure that cost-cutting doesn’t come with increased risk of pollution. Oil companies are corporations with stockholders who expect dividends to be paid if revenue warrants it. If there is no system to require that damages be paid, these companies will be reluctant to offer damage payments on their own. The failure of government to effectively monitor oil operations and put in place in advance a plan to minimize environmental damage cannot be overcome easily in retrospect, as we see with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The United States has tremendous technical and financial resources with which to meet environmental disaster, and still we suffer from the ongoing spillage of oil in our coastal waters. How much more then would the Government of Nigeria and its people grapple with how to deal with less dramatic but more frequent oil spills? Even with all our capability, the United States has foreign allies offering help in cleaning up our Gulf oil spills. Where is the international help for the Niger Delta oil spills?
We can decide not to allow oil drilling off our shores because we have the luxury to do so. However, the oil we use comes from somewhere, and that decision on our part merely shifts the burden from us to some other people. As we decide what to do about the Gulf of Mexico spills, let us not forget our responsibility to help address the short-term and long-term impact of oil spills from areas that are the source of our oil. In the case of Nigeria, the United States consumes 40% of Nigeria’s oil output.
The Deepwater Horizon incident should be a reminder that there is often a high price to pay for the gasoline we use, and that can be much higher than the one listed on the gas pump.

Eritrea: The Shining Example Gone Wrong

2010-06-22T12:03:00.000-04:00

Eritrea was once the little country who succeeded despite the odds due to hard work and perseverance. When Eritrea pressed for its independence from Ethiopia in the early 1950s, the United States supported Ethiopia’s continued control. During its 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia, first the United States and then the Soviet Union took Ethiopia’s side. Eritrea finally became independent in 1993.

The country was the darling of the United States and other Western nations initially, cooperating in addressing regional issues and promoting self-reliance. There was an active and independent media. Troops active in the long war for independence were demobilized. In 1997, the National Assembly ratified a constitution that enshrined democratic principles and basic human rights. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki was counted among Africa’s new young leaders who would raise the continent to new heights. When he visited Capitol Hill, his Congressional fan club treated him like a rock star.

But from its early days of independence, Eritrea had hostile relations with all its neighbors: Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia and even Yemen across the Red Sea. Hostilities caused by mutual support for rebel movements or territorial disputes led Eritrea to pugnacious relations with everyone it seemed. Initially, this was considered the result of a stiff-necked government that wouldn’t back down before those it considered its adversaries. However, things would take a darker turn in Eritrea by the late 1990s.

In 1998, a border dispute with Ethiopia accelerated into a bloody two-year civil war that cost Eritrea between 70,000 and 100,000 casualties and millions of dollars in property loss according to various news reports. The war began with an Eritrean incursion into Ethiopian-controlled territory and ended with Ethiopia holding all disputed territory and having advanced into Eritrea. Ethiopia deported an estimated 77,000 Eritreans after confiscating their property.

The tensions over the border were supposed to have been resolved by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission that was a part of the Algiers Agreement ending the war. Eritrea was awarded the highly contested Badme area, but Ethiopia refused to accept the decision of the commission. When the international community broadly failed to take Eritrea’s side and enforce the ruling, Eritrea became increasingly hostile. Some referred to their increasingly combative position on the border dispute as “seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Eritrea became increasingly uncooperative with the United Nations peacekeeping force on the border with Ethiopia. It expanded its support for Ethiopian rebels and supported Islamic extremists in the Somalian conflict. Last December, the UN imposed sanctions on Eritrea for backing Somalian rebels.

U.S. relations with Eritrea, always problematic due to America’s relationship with Ethiopia, deteriorated further after the war. In the previous year, the State Department designated Eritrea a country of particular concern due to allegations of pervasive religious discrimination. A year later, commercial export of defense articles and services to Eritrea was denied. Eritrea’s response was to step up its arrests and detentions of clergy and ordinary church members. Eritrea called for the end of American foreign aid, and the U.S. Agency for International Development mission was closed in 2005.

According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Eritrea is broadly persecuting religious institutions – from Sunni Muslims to Pentecostals to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Religious leaders and their followers have not only been jailed without charge, but have been held in poor conditions and even reportedly tortured. I am aware of one case of a woman who fled Eritrea because she was sought by authorities wanting her information about home churches. They made numerous attempts to have her returned to Eritrea, but the Kenyans and the international refugee authorities refused to do so because of concern over what would happen to her.

After the war, Eritrea became increasingly repressive. The constitution was put aide, elections were cancelled, and a new national policy was instituted that required national service. The Warsai Yekalo Development Campaign required statutory national service of 18 months, but that term was extended so that all male and female adults must work at the direction of the state in various capacities until the age of 40, but in practice often until 50 or 55 years of age. The prevailing wage under this program is a survival wage insufficient to meet basic needs of those with families.

Not surprisingly, Eritrea is leaking more refugees per capita than almost anywhere in the world, according to United Nations statistics. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 100 Eritreans leave the country every day. Over the past few years, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans – out of a population of less than five million – have voted with their feet.

Yesterday’s hero is now today’s villain. It is unclear whether this situation could have been avoided, but we certainly should be much more careful before anointing a leader and his government.

Intra-African Trade Not As Easy As it Seems

2010-06-17T10:22:00.000-04:00

In a speech on U.S. policy toward Africa earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated a point she made at the 2009 African Growth and Opportunity Act Ministerial in Kenya: African countries have not focused sufficiently on expanding intra-African trade and are missing out on an excellent method to grow their combined gross domestic product. Clinton offered American assistance in opening markets. “We stand ready to provide technical assistance, we stand ready to help, but we can’t help if nobody is asking for help or if nobody is accepting help.”

There should be no doubt that Secretary Clinton is sincere in this offer. The U.S. government has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to trade capacity building in African since AGOA was signed into law in 2000. However, there does not seem to be a full understanding of the complexity of the issue of intra-African trade. Consequently, we are making little or no headway on this because we are not fully taking into account all the factors that have contributed to only 10% of African trade being internal to the continent.

Secretary Clinton mentioned tariffs and customs issues that hamper intra-African trade. She described it accurately as both a corruption problem and a capacity problem. Traders between countries acknowledge that they often are delayed long hours by customs officials, police and soldiers seeking to force them to pay bribes to pass through. Governments without the capacity to control far-flung officials, some of whom aren’t paid regularly, are hard-pressed to end this obstacle to intra-African trade. Until this situation can be reversed, it will continue to plague those who go back and forth between countries buying and selling goods.

The high tariffs Secretary Clinton mentioned also are a disincentive for cross-border trade. Not much progress has been made in eliminating these tariffs as required in the plan to establish the African Economic Community except in parts of a couple of regions. This is in part due to a miscalculation in which African governments used high tariffs to discourage imports and encourage local production. However, structural adjustment as demanded by international financial institutions and World Trade Organization requirements made that policy obsolete even though some governments still cling to this notion of development.Trade reform in Africa has taken hold.

Twenty years ago, the International Monetary Fund classified 75% of sub-Saharan African countries as having restrictive trade policies. A little more than a decade later, only 14% of these countries were considered to have restrictive trade policies. More needs to be done, but certainly African governments have responded and are not refusing to make reforms.

Secretary Clinton mentioned transportation as a major impediment o intra-African trade. Forty percent of African countries are islands or landlocked, so effective transportation links are critical for them to trade with other African countries. Under colonialism, transportation linkages served the needs of the colonial power so that what roads, rail lines and other infrastructure that existed were intended to carry goods to the ports so they could be sent to Europe. Roads that linked countries evidently were seen as promoting independence and therefore not desirable. Today, only 30% of African roads are paved because transportation within rural areas and between countries was not of interest to those who built the roads. Correcting this situation is estimated to cost many billions of dollars African governments don’t have.

The reason it’s easier to get from Lagos to London than from Lagos to Nairobi is that air linkages between the colony and colonial power were arranged that way because Nigeria and Kenya were intended to trade with the United Kingdom and not each other. This situation is slowly but surely being addressed, but old habits die hard, and African regional airlines have not been successful in competition with stronger European airlines.

It isn’t that there are no efforts to trade between African countries, but that trade which exists is plagued by four trends. First, there is a narrow pattern of trade involving unprocessed primary products. What incentive is there for one country to buy fruit from its neighbor that it already produces? Second, Europeans still dominate African trade. Gambia has historically traded almost exclusively with the United Kingdom even though it is surrounded by Senegal, whose major trading partner is France. If the former colonial power buys most of your products, how much do you have left to trade with your neighbors? Third, much of the intra-African trade that exists is done so informally and is untaxed and unregulated, so we really can’t say what the true level of intra-African trade is beyond estimates. Fourth, African payment systems are inefficient and costly. Electronic fund transfers taking minutes facilitate international transactions elsewhere, but checks for payment in Africa can take a month to clear. Given this discrepancy, who would you rather do business with?

One phenomenon that is involved in lower than possible intra-African trade may be the practice of transfer pricing. By over-pricing imports and under-pricing exports, multinational companies transfer profits, revenues or monies out of a country in order to evade taxes. This may seem to be solely a tax issue, but if neighboring countries aren’t in on these deals, wouldn’t they be locked out of trade in the goods in question? The OECD estimates that nearly two-thirds of global trade in goods and services takes place not on the free market, but rather between subsidiaries of the same multinational company. Global Financial Integrity, an organization that tracks illegal fund transfers, estimates that sub-Saharan African countries lost more than US$800 billion through techniques such as abusive transfer pricing between 1970 and 2008.

Incompatible legal systems, different currencies, regional conflicts and other issues add to Africa’s problems in establishing successful intra-African trade. I do not excuse African governments for not correcting this situation because these problems can be fixed, but a better explanation of the challenges they face would provide those who want to help with a more comprehensive understanding of what the problems truly are.

I believe the U.S. government wants to help, so I urge officials to take into consideration all the factors involved in low intra-African trade and provide targeted assistance to both governments and private sectors. When the help provided does not meet the need, it is bound to fail.

An African Leadership Vacuum?

2010-06-14T18:34:00.000-04:00

For the second consecutive year, billionaire Mo Ibrahim’s foundation has declined to award its Mo Ibrahim Prize to an African leader. Last year, the foundation’s prize committee said it had considered credible candidates, but couldn’t select a winner. This year, the committee said there were no new candidates or developments that would break last year’s deadlock. Does this mean African government leadership is declining? Not necessarily.

The Ibrahim Prize is awarded to a democratically elected former African Head of State or Government who served in office within the limits of his or her country’s constitution and has left office within three years of the awarding of the prize. Past winners were former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano (2007) and former Botswana President Festus Mogae (2008). Former South African President Nelson Mandela was made Honorary Laureate in 2007.

“The standards set for the Prize winner are high, and the number of potential candidates each year is small. So it is likely there will be years when no Prize is awarded,” said a committee statement.

The committee does not say they feel that African governance is lagging. “Many African countries are making great strides not just economically, but also in terms of their governance,” the committee stated.

So why has there been no winner since 2008? The answer lies in their statement about the number of eligible candidates.

Of the African Heads of State who have left office since 2007, five died in office: Omar Bongo (Gabon), Lansana Conté (Guinea), João Bernardo Viera (Guinea Bissau), Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Nigeria) and Levy Mwanawasa (Zambia). Of the others, Marc Ravalomanana (Madagascar) was forced from office after he had forced his predecessor out. General Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritania) had seized power before seeking election in tainted balloting. Mamadou Tandja (Niger) tried to illegally extend his term. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was long suspected of involvement in corruption during his rule. That leaves former Ghanaian President John Kufuor, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and former South African President Thabo Mbeki.

The executive face of South Africa’s government from the time of majority rule in 1994, Mbeki caused serious concerns internationally due to his unorthodox views on how HIV-AIDS is transmitted and refused to accept the standard view on this. He was forced from office by his political party, largely due to clashes with his successor Jacob Zuma, even though the economy grew at 4.5% during his term in office.

Despite his role in bringing into government successful reformers, Obasanjo unsuccessfully tried to push a constitutional change to vie for a third term, and the Nigerian parliament indicted him in 2008 for questionable energy deals. Nevertheless, he has had a stellar post-presidency period.

That leaves Kufuor, and what has many puzzled (especially in Ghana) is why he hasn’t made it over the top either last year or this year. When he won election in 2001, it marked the first peaceful, democratic transition in Ghana since its 1957. He was a moving force behind the creation of the New Partnership for African Dev elopement (NEPAD), and Ghana became the first country to undergo assessment by its Peer Review Mechanism. His country’s governance convinced the United States to award Ghana a US$500 Millennium Challenge Account grant.

So why didn’t Kufuor get the Ibrahim Prize? Good question, and one the Ibrahim Foundation has not revealed. There are rumors that his son’s business dealings may have been a problem or that successor John Atta Mills, a political rival, may have influenced the decision to withhold the award. Neither reason should have denied Kufuor this award.

The Ibrahim Prize consists of an award of US$5 million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life. With such a significant financial investment in the winner, it is appropriate to be careful and not make an award when there is question about some development unfolding after the award is made. Still, to deny leaders on the basis of rumors can only serve to frustrate those who have assembled an admirable record in office. Not being selected says the rumors must be true and taints an otherwise commendable record.

Losing to another candidate is the cost of competition, but the collateral damage from not winning when you appear to be the logical choice is an unnecessary slap in the face to someone who has followed the rules.

Aiming Too Low on Africa?

2010-06-11T17:43:00.000-04:00

Chatham House, the operating name of the Royal Institute of International Affairs of the United Kingdom, recently issued a report warning that Western nations will lose out to emerging nations, particularly those from Asia, if we don’t change our paradigm for relations with African countries from a primarily humanitarian and crisis mode to one of facilitating long-term partnerships. If you look at the Asian commercial advance on the continent, that view is a valid one.

• In 2007, the China-Africa Development Fund, a US$5 billion initiative to support business partnerships between Chinese and African entrepreneurs, was established. In its first two years, the fund facilitated more than 20 investments in Africa, amounting to nearly US$400 million.
• Indian firm ONGC Mittal Energy Ltd. Agreed to a US$6 billion infrastructure deal in 2007 in Nigeria in exchange for extensive access to some of the best production blocs in the country.
• Japan increased its development assistance to Africa to US$2 billion, up from what had been US$962 million, as well as US$4 billion in soft loans for African infrastructure improvement.
• Two years ago, the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists hosted a Turkey-Africa Foreign Trade Bridge that drew about 1,000 African business leaders from three dozen African countries. Three subsequent agreements will bring US$220 million in Turkish investments to South Africa.

These countries and others recognize and believe that African countries are making significant economic advances. They read the same World Bank and International Monetary Fund reports predicting high growth rates in Africa, including 4% in Cote d’Ivoire, 5.1% in Botswana, 5.8% in Kenya and 7.7% in Ethiopia. All these countries have serious issues, but their Asian partners see past current problems to tomorrow’s promise of profit. Western countries are too fixated on what is wrong now and fail to fully acknowledge what is going right going forward. We recognize that Brazil is becoming an international energy power due to biofuels, but we fail to give full credit to Congo’s advances on biofuels.

Continually, Asian deals that look good to some African leaders becomes a net negative. A South Korean deal to buy nearly a third of Madagascar’s farm land contributed to a revolt that toppled that African nation’s government. African governments that don’t honor human rights, such as Sudan, allow countries like China to freely exploit their resources.

The new scramble for Africa, Asian-style, is abetted by our borderline demeaning view of Africa, which puts Western governments in the role of saving Africa rather than working with Africa for mutual benefit. We say we want to partner with the continent’s countries, but our actions belie our words. The African Growth and Opportunity Act, the main process by which the United States engages Africa economically, was not instituted as a negotiated trade deal that met the expectations of both sides. It is, in fact, more designed along the lines of a gift to those African countries that qualify. If you give someone a gift, it does earn you the right to determine if they deserve it. However, that’s not how partners behave toward one another.

This is why African countries are increasingly turning to Asian partners. The Asians aren’t telling them they have to jump through hoops, no matter how justified those hoops may be. Now Asian countries are mostly taking advantage of African interest in not being told what to do, but their engagement is all too often more beneficial to them than their Africa partners.

Have you ever seen the work crews on many Chinese infrastructure projects in Africa? I have, and they are almost exclusively Chinese. After many projects, Chinese workers are left behind to go into business, pushing out African entrepreneurs. Asian loans are real loans and not destined for forgiveness as so many Soviet arms deals were.

African leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan Omar Bashir use Asian and other non-Western investment and aid as a lever to back off Western countries from insisting on conditionality on aid and investment. But even generally friendly African leaders such as Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade and Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are turning East. This should be a disturbing development that causes us to look inward and reassess how we deal with Africa.

This second scramble for Africa could leave African governments in charge of the apparatus of power but not in control of the reins of their own resources. That would be too bad for the Africans, but also too bad for us.

South Africa Scores with World Cup

2010-06-07T10:01:00.000-04:00

When the 2010 World Cup opens later this week, the Republic of South Africa will be center stage in a global tournament that will highlight the progress of Africa’s leading emerging market. Its modern cities and advanced infrastructure will impress those who have never visited the country, or Africa at all, before now. However, what visitors and viewers will not notice is how much South Africa had to overcome in order to host the world’s 19th soccer tournament.

When South Africa beat out Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process in 2004 to become the first African host of the World Cup, its struggles were just beginning. Only two years into preparations, FIFA, the sanctioning body for international soccer, began to become concerned about South Africa’s planning process, and there was talk that the games could be moved to another country.

Even after such talk was dismissed by FIFA, South Africa was faced with the task of building five new stadiums and upgrading five existing venues on time at an estimated cost of US$1.07 billion. Then labor troubles struck as 70,000 construction workers went on strike, claiming they were underpaid at US$313 per month. Although the immediate strike was resolved, some unions have threatened to strike during the World Cup itself. The Congress of South African Trade Unions has said the federation and its affiliates reserve the right to take industrial action at any time despite the blow to the country during its day in the spotlight.

The next challenge came from al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb, which threatened to attack South Africa during the World Cup. The terror organization crowed about the prospect of an attack during the live televised match between the United States and the United Kingdom when the stadium is full of spectators and of the impact “when the sound of an explosion rumbles through the stands, the whole stadium turned upside down and the number of dead bodies are in their dozens and hundreds, Allah willing.” France, Germany and Italy also were announced as al Qaeda targets during the tournament.

Last October, South Africa announced that its security forces had foiled an al Qaeda attempt to mount a World Cup terrorist attack. A joint operation by South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency, senior police forces and American intelligence agents conducted what was called a successful joint operation, arresting suspects linked to al Qaeda in Somalia and Mozambique said to be working on a bomb plot scheduled for the World Cup. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security has been training South African police on anti-terror techniques, and the United States has sent inspection barriers, x-ray machines and other equipment to South Africa.

Although some terrorism experts believe the al Qaeda threats may be a ploy to stir up publicity and cause problems for target nations before and during the tournament, the South African and American governments have taken the threat seriously.

Yet another international concern is the rise of human trafficking during the World Cup. An influx of prostitutes from such countries as China, Pakistan, India, Hong Kong and Venezuela have been noted pouring into the country, although the primary source of incoming sex workers is from Zimbabwe. Contrary to the traditional pattern of cross-border buses from Zimbabwe carrying mostly men, in recent months such traffic is mostly female. However, a significant percentage of the prostitutes aiming to service many of the estimated 373,000 soccer fans will not be arriving on a voluntary basis.

South African President Jacob Zuma has urged parents and care givers to be extra vigilant to ensure the safety of children during the World Cup. In opening Child Protection Week and announcing the launch of the Children’s Act in early April, Zuma warned that school closure for mid-term vacation would leave large numbers of children with limited supervision. As many as half of the reported six to eight hundred thousand trafficked persons worldwide are minors.

FIFA has provided additional police officers from all participating nations, although no connection has been made to the trafficking issue. The International Organization for Migration launched an initiative last month to support anti-trafficking organizations during the World Cup and initiated a nationwide awareness campaign, all paid for by the U.S. Department of State.

Only days before the World Cup is to begin, South African authorities have asked Interpol to alert its members to stop companies worldwide who have been illegally selling tickets for the event. Match Event Services, granted the exclusive right to sell World Cup tickets, has identified 122 companies violating their franchise. South African police are concerned about an influx of people coming into the country with bogus tickets and say they will arrest and prosecute anyone found selling tickets without authorization.

South Africa will justifiably reap the rewards of all its hard work in getting the World Cup and staging these games, but most observers had no idea of how difficult this process has been. Now they do.

Let’s hope the roar of the crowd is for a well-played match and not a tragedy in the stands.

Africa’s Infrastructure Challenge

2010-06-03T07:04:00.000-04:00

Sub-Saharan Africa has perhaps the world’s least sufficient infrastructure. In addition to being sparse, it is much more expensive that other regions of the world. However, investment, including that from the continent itself, may change this picture significantly over the next few years.

Less than 30% of African roads are paved. In fact, according to the World Bank, in 1992 approximately 17% of sub-Saharan African roads were paved, but by 1998, the percentage had dropped to 12%. At about that time, Africa below the Sahara desert (with the exception of South Africa) had 18% less paved roads than Poland.

There is great concern over the decline in Africa’s share of world exports, and while World Bank studies cite non-competitive prices as responsible for approximately a quarter of the decline, the rest is due to non-price factors such as poor infrastructure and information services. Those studies also show that a 10% decrease in transportation costs could mean as much as a 25% increase in total African trade.

In her assessment of African infrastructure, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Katherine Sierra told the 4th annual U.S.-Africa Infrastructure Conference in April that:

• Every US$1 of delayed road maintenance costs US$4 to restore the existing road.
• Only 20% of Africa’s population has access to electricity or modern forms of energy, compared to 50% in South Asia and 80% in Latin America.
• The entire capacity for electric power in sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries with more than 800 million people is no more than Spain with about 40 million people.
• The cost of infrastructure services in sub-Saharan Africa are at least double those in South Asia and in some areas is five times as high because of a lack of large-scale economies, the high cost of electrical power and a lack of competition.
• Railways in sub-Saharan Africa have declined in significance partly because of poor maintenance and other adverse economic and infrastructural factors.
• The volume of cargo in African ports has tripled in the past decade, normally a hopeful sign of expanding economies, but such hope is frustrated by the low incidence of containerization and weak transportation linkages.

The World Bank assessment of African infrastructure is not all gloom and doom, however. Sierra noted the great progress made in telecommunications. She said only 5% of Africa’s population lived within range of a mobile phone signal in 1999, but today, that percentage is 60% and could rise to 90% soon if there is deregulation and greater competition. Increased access to information about prices and markets already has boosted the prospects of African producers.

More good news is that African countries are responding to the infrastructure challenges they face. In light of statistics indicating that passengers flying in Africa are 75 times more likely to die in a crash than fliers in North America, African countries are joining regionally to establish common aviation regulation bodies, such as the Banjul Accord Group in West Africa. Better coordination of safety efforts should reduce risk and increase efficiency significantly.

The ZIZABONA project, involving Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia, is creating new power transmission lines to link the four neighboring countries, making it easier for them to trade power with one another. Another regional power project will make Zambia a strategic power linkage between the five nations of the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community.

Given the dearth of international development funding due largely to the current global economic downturn (as well as donor nations failing to fulfill promises of development funding), the key to financing African infrastructure projects will be attracting private funds for infrastructure development. This will include multinational corporate investment, but also local companies and the growing possibilities for remittances. Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Chairman of the NEPAD Business Group, said the African private sector has tremendous capacity to develop infrastructure “if there is a transparent and supportive policy environment.”

The same is true for non-African investors. The public-private partnerships necessary for this to succeed will only work if there is accountability, transparency and some guarantee for return on investment. This is being accomplished now in some parts of the continent where public-private boards for road development, often including road users, are subject to external audits on the money raised from vehicle licenses and user fees. Jobs are contracted out to private developers rather than parceled out to government cronies or phantom workers.

The African Diaspora can get in on the potential enhancement of African infrastructure and even earn profits from their efforts. Doing well by doing good is more than a motto. It is a reality that can be realized by those willing to take a calculated risk for the greater good. It’s also called putting your money where your mouth is.

Any takers?

Meddling Without Understanding in Africa

2010-05-31T18:00:00.000-04:00

Last year, a group of American evangelists went to Uganda and convinced leaders there that homosexuals had a plot to change the laws and customs of their country to promote homosexual behavior and presumably turn heterosexuals into homosexuals. Such overblown fears don’t really take root in America, which is more tolerant of behavior many people feel is not in line with the majority’s views. We fulminate in letters to the editor, cable debates, protests and the like. Some go farther, but at heart, Americans don’t really believe in killing people whose sexual preferences differ from their own. Such is not necessarily the case in Africa.

Sexuality in Africa is not a subject that is usually publicly debated or discussed. Most traditional African societies do not accept homosexuality, but because African homosexuals haven’t historically tried to push their views into the open, little is usually done about it. I have seen homosexuals in African countries, and from what
I have witnessed, they are tolerated as people in the community who are different, but who don’t make an issue of their variance from the norm.

Unfortunately, there are two strains of activists in America and other industrial countries that make African homosexuality a phenomenon that will no longer be quietly tolerated. One strain is the conservative activists who oppose homosexuality anywhere and believe in a homosexual agenda that seeks to change society toward its image. The activist homosexual community in America may indeed be seeking to change the way our society views them. However, the clash of ideas here and in other Western countries remains mostly non-violent. If you take that confrontational view to Africa, though, the consequences can be much more dire.

The Ugandan parliament is considering legislation that would punish homosexual behavior with harsh punishment, up to and including the death penalty. It also would punish with jail time those who decline to report homosexual behavior. Ugandans, stirred by the thought of homosexuals taking over their society, reacted swiftly and harshly to the threat evangelists told them was before them. The Americans should have sought to better understand African society before rushing to the “rescue” of societies of which they had no working knowledge.

Subsequently, the Zimbabwe government, not known as a tolerant society under President Robert Mugabe, arrested two employees of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe. Police claimed to have seized pornographic material and posters insulting Mugabe.

In Malawi, two homosexual men were arrested, tried and sentenced to the maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment for “carnal knowledge against the order of nature.” The pair had been arrested in December following a traditional engagement ceremony.

The nature of their arrest points to the other strain of Western activists – those who believe that homosexuals should be equal to heterosexuals in all things and feel they should assert their rights at every public opportunity. This view fails to take into consideration the fact that African beliefs opposing homosexuality are widespread and entrenched, and public actions contradicting these log-held traditions will not be met with the relative tolerance they are in America and other Western nations.

Pushing African homosexuals into the spotlight on the continent is setting them up for treatment foreigners don’t understand. The two men in Malawi have been held at a prison known for its deplorable conditions. Is it fair to subject others to such harsh treatment without understanding what their actions will subject them to? Wouldn’t there be a safer way to press for a change in the African view of homosexuality if that is one’s goal? Direct confrontation in the manner that is done here is more than a non-starter in Africa – it is dangerous for those who pursue that route.

When President Mugabe says he considered gay people as “lower than dogs,” one might find his words despicable, but it should alert anyone hoping to change such attitudes that it wouldn’t be easy to do so and that trying to provoke the regime carries danger.

Here in America, even those who oppose homosexual marriage and equality in all matters for gay people do not accept their mistreatment. When the Ugandan law surfaced, some of the country’s officials were surprised to learn that some of their evangelical and conservative allies in America reacted strongly against what they were considering. Such is not necessarily the case in Africa by and large.

Homosexuals who attempt to imitate confrontational tactics used in America find themselves on their own. Newspapers and television stations, often government-controlled, do not wage campaigns aimed at supporting their cause. Leaders otherwise known for their support for democratic principles, such as Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, have public expressed their opposition to homosexuality. Given their views and those of many of their countrymen, which other African leaders do you suppose would speak out in favor of homosexual rights?

Pushing Africans in one direction or another on the sensitive issue of homosexuality requires a better understanding of the social environment in African countries. Otherwise, the consequences for those so influenced can be dangerous and counter-productive.

Hope for Africa Despite the Gloom Bringers

2010-05-27T16:22:00.000-04:00

Back in the 1990s, there were Africa policy people who were labeled “Afro-pessimists” because of their unrelentingly gloomy outlook on Africa’s future. Given the continuing conflicts, denial of rights, manipulation of elections and other negative trends, one could look at the glass as half empty and getting lower. However, you would have to ignore strong positive trends that cannot be easily cast aside.

Even though the global economic crisis crippled economies across the planet and even caused a dip in commodity prices and timidity in investment that slowed African economic growth, the continent has survived with bright prospects moving forward. According to the African Economic Outlook issued by the African Development Bank Group, the average annual gross domestic product growth for 2010-11 is estimated to be 4.5% this year and 5.2% in 2011. That’s up from 2.5% last year.

East Africa is seen as leading the way with 6% growth, while North and West Africa are each expected to grow at 5%, while Central Africa is expected to grow at 4% and Southern Africa at just under 4% because it was the hardest hit region. The African agriculture sector generally experienced good harvests due to favorable weather, but sectors such as mining and manufacturing were hard hit by the drop in commodity prices and aren’t expected to rebound quickly.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of the world Bank, recently said that sub-Saharan Africa grew faster that both Brazil and India during the first decade of this century and will continue to grow faster than Brazil during the first half of the second decade of the 21st century. Given the need for fiscal retrenchment in the industrial countries of the world, African countries can benefit from the rebalancing of economies and serve as a new source of global demand.

In Liberia, a nation devastated by a long, brutal civil war and a subsequent uprising that chased into exile then-President Charles Taylor, current President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf recently said her country’s private sector is being stimulated to create jobs to absorb the many young Liberians who are without work, and her government is introducing literacy programs to enable those young people to develop skills to fit the evolving marketplace. Confidence in Liberia, she said, has risen to the point that it is attracting foreign investment. In fact, President Sirleaf predicts that in 10 years her country will be self-sufficient and no longer in need of international assistance.

In the face of continuing attacks from the Lord’s Resistance Army and other rebel groups, Uganda has had to double its power output in the last five years because of the country’s booming economic growth. New power plants have been added in Tororo, Namanve and Mutundwe in Kampala that add to the existing hydroelectric power generation. Moreover, Uganda is pursuing renewable energy sources, such as the production of electricity from sugar cane waste.

Stories of blossoming African companies abound across the continent. Even formerly strife-ridden countries like Angola are seeing an economic resurgence due to a foreign-trained young entrepreneurial class. Madagascar had been a rising economic star until the recent political wrangling led to the overthrow of successive governments. It is hoped that when the latest political upheaval is resolved, the country can resume its upward economic trajectory.

Several African countries are usually listed among the world’s frontier emerging markets. They include Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Certainly, there is plenty to criticize if you’re looking for reasons to do so, but Africa’s countries have mostly proven to be more resilient than some had supposed.

Lying ahead is a demographic surge that has already seen Africa’s population grow from 672 million in the year 2000 to 820 million by 2008. Africa is soon expected to join the one billion population club now inhabited only by China and India. Of Africa’s enlarged population, more than 43% is under 14 years of age, making Africa the world’s youngest continent.

Africa has faced wars, tyranny, corruption, short-sighted leadership, pestilence, famine, droughts, floods and any manner of other challenges and continues to rise in spite of them. Not all African countries are succeeding nor will they all succeed in the years ahead. Still, those who do will experience the kind of economic growth and wealth creation that transforms societies.

On the floor of the Senate of Imperial Rome centuries ago, it was once asked: “Can anything good come from Africa?” The answer was yes on that day so long ago, and it is still yes today.

Wait and See on Ethiopian Election

2010-05-24T12:49:00.000-04:00

Now that Ethiopia has held its 4th national elections since the removal of the Marxist Dergue government in 1991, Ethiopians and the international community must wait as long as June 21st to see confirmed results. There has been much made of the relative calm of the pre-election period (more on that shortly), but it must be recalled that the violence last time took place after the election, was provoked by a questionable release of election results and was spurred by government troops who killed nearly 200 election protesters.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is predicting a win for himself and his ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party. However, he also predicted a clear win in the last elections in 2005, and the surprisingly strong showing by opposition parties led to a delay in the announcement of results and suspicion of vote rigging by the government. All is quiet now, but if a similar result occurs when the results are announced next month, there could be further unrest.

Of course, some observers think the electorate expects there to be vote rigging and probably feels that protests are futile. Perhaps, but the voters also may be disappointed in an opposition that has fallen apart since its strong showing in 2005 after the jailing of opposition leaders and other factors causing previous parties to realign. There are three new opposition electoral coalitions in 2010: the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Forum (also known as “Medrek”), the All Ethiopian Unity Organization and the Ethiopian Democratic Party. Birtukan Mideksa, leader of the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice party remains in jail.

Mideksa isn’t the only opposition party official who was jailed – just the most notable one. While the international focus has been on restrictions on media coverage of the election and on the ability of foreign embassies to observe the voting, there have been reports of government harassment and abuse of opposition parties. The All Ethiopian Unity Party reported that its candidates and supporters were beaten, arrested and prevented from voting in their constituencies in eastern and western Ethiopia.

Human Rights Watch also accused the government and EPRDF of harassing voters and using “repressive legal and administrative measures that the Ethiopian ruling party used to restrict freedom of expression during the election campaign.” According to the human rights organization, local government officials went house to house to intimidate citizens into registering to vote and casting their ballots for EPRDF. They reportedly were threatened with losing their homes or jobs if they failed to follow through.

The international community, including the United States government, finds itself in a difficult position. Human rights reports, such as the annual one released by the U.S. Department of State, consistently show government and ruling party efforts to disrupt the political opposition – to the extent of beatings and jailing of opposition officials, candidates and supporters. Nevertheless, criticism of the Ethiopian government and ruling party never produce strong action because of the alliance of the West with Ethiopia across a number of situations critical to global security.

Ethiopia is a major contributor to United Nations peacekeeping operations (the fifth largest African contributor and the 12th largest contributor overall). Ethiopian peacekeepers have been present in the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), the AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMDI), the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI). Moreover, Ethiopian intervention in Somalia is seen as a means of bolstering the Transitional Federal Government there without necessitating the presence of Western troops. Furthermore, Ethiopia has gained at least tacit support from the international community in its ongoing border dispute with Eritrea.

Most Western aid to Ethiopia bypasses the government or funds peacekeeping or other vital operations the international community is not interested in seeing ended. Consequently, the United States and other Western countries feel hard-pressed to force electoral or human rights reforms by the Addis Ababa government. Still, repression can only continue for so long without an explosion of some kind. The violence in 2005 was mostly on the part of Ethiopian security forces, but what if Islamist extremists or Eritrea begins to recruit and support Ethiopian militants to overthrow the government?

The Prime Minister already has accused ethnic Somalis in the east and Oromos in the south of being supported by outsiders interested in a violent change of government. Rather than mutely support the Ethiopian government, the West would be better served by using all means of helping Ethiopia move past its current handling of elections and human rights before it is too late.

There are three phases to elections: a pre-election period in which the environment is made either fair of skewed toward the ruling party, the election day voting and handling of ballots and election materials and treatment of voters and the post-election vote counting and release of results. Before we issue that sigh of relief over having dodged a bullet as regards electoral violence in Ethiopia, let’s see what the election results bring this time.

African Women Face Increasing Insecurity

2010-05-20T18:09:00.000-04:00

When Susan Brownmiller wrote her seminal book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” in 1975, she made the point that when there is insecurity in countries, such as war or civil unrest, one of the first social impacts is a rapid rise in the incidence of rape against women. A collapse of law and order has made women vulnerable since classical times. Now the phenomenon of rape in Africa seems to transcend what we normal y consider social unrest, with potentially significant damage of Africa societies in the years ahead.

Despite the official end of the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2003, the country is now considered by the United Nations to be “the rape capital of the world.” Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in DROC, urged the Security Council to punish rapists in DROC, but the perpetrators all too often escape punishment. Last year, more than 8,000 women were raped in DROC, most of them victims of gang rape.

The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative did a study showing that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu were gang raped by armed men, but an increasing number of rapes were being carried out by civilians. The assaults more often than not took place in the victim’s own home.

And this is not a phenomenon limited to DROC. In Kenya, rape was one of the effects of the election-related violence following the flawed December 2007 elections. The incidence of gang rape in the weeks after the elections rose sharply. The Nairobi Women’s Hospital reported at the time that rapes shot up from about four a day to as many as 10, and in one month, there were 140 cases of rape and defilement reported. Half the cases involved girls under the age of 18.

The potent ethnic issues the election of 2007 stirred up did indeed lead to widespread violence, but the rising level of rape was an issue long before that election. An April 2002 article in Kenya urged officeholders in the upcoming election to give more attention to the cultural indifference to rape in Kenya. Women’s activists at the time estimated that perhaps 10% or so of the women raped in Kenya reported their assaults, and that was long before the social explosion of late 2007-early 2008.

South Africa has long since moved past the violence of apartheid, achieving majority rule through peaceful elections in 1994. Nevertheless, in the 16 years since then, the country has experienced the highest rate of rape of any country not in armed conflict. Rape in South Africa is fueled by the practice known as “jackrolling,” named after a gang known as the “Jackrollers” who forcefully abducted women in black townships in 1987-88. This mostly youth phenomenon is almost always committed out in the open, and the perpetrators want to be seen.

Rape as an act of war in Rwanda is well documented. Numerous testimonies document the rapes, gang rapes, sexual torture and sexual slavery, in which women were held for days or even years and repeatedly raped. Many of the armed groups intended for their victims to become pregnant so that they could contaminate the ethnic genetic pool. The result involved husbands who survived the genocide rejecting their wives due to the shame of their carrying a child of rape. Unmarried women, including virgins prior to the rapes, became unmarriageable. Once can understand how this affected the Tutsi and Hutu communities.

Unfortunately, these situations are being seen again in today’s DROC. Clementine, a mother of eight, was given an ultimatum by her rapists, and she chose to accept rape rather than the murder of her husband. Her husband’s response was to leave her for another woman. Yvone, another wife and mother in the country, was gang-raped in front of her husband, who still lives with her but has in effect ended their marital relationship.

The cases of non-war rape by civilians who somehow feel free to rape on the rise on the continent and the strong traditions in many societies that causes rejection of raped women will split families and prevent many new families from being formed. If serious attention is not paid to preventing rape and dealing sensitively with its aftermath, social systems in African nations will be negatively impacted for years to come. The rise in single-parent families never signals social advancement, and indeed often leads to longstanding social ills. The strength of Africa is its family and social networks. If that is destroyed, so will the countries in which this happens. That must be taken more seriously by governments, donors and anyone else who can make a difference.

Heroes of the AGOA Struggles

2010-05-17T17:43:00.000-04:00

At last week’s celebration of the 10th anniversary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), there were well-deserved kudos for former House Ways and Means Committee Chairmen Charles Rangel and William Thomas. They both successfully used their positions over the years to support U.S.-Africa trade. Congressman Phillip Crane, as head of the committee’s Subcommittee on Trade as well as his staff, helped improve the legislation. At the time the original AGOA was being considered, there hadn’t been major trade legislation for several years, but these gentlemen were determined to make AGOA reality. Still, there were others who should be considered heroes for the role they played in putting U.S.-Africa trade on the front-burner of American foreign policy.

Some object to calling Congressman Jim McDermott the father of AGOA, but without him, there would be no AGOA bill. If the leaders of the Ways and Means Committee correctly saw the benefit of McDermott’s legislation, they did not invent it, though they did help to refine it. McDermott, a psychiatrist, had an interest in Africa, but admittedly little expertise. Nevertheless, when his chief of staff, Mike Williams, presented the case that Africa was being short-changed in terms of U.S. trade policy, McDermott quickly saw the benefit of the legislation Williams wrote. The mark of a politician who truly believes in the legislation he introduces is that he can put his own ego on the side so that it can succeed. On the day his bill was being debated and voted on, McDermott stood at the back of the room so as not to make himself the issue so his bill could pass, and it did.

The floor leader of the McDermott bill was Congressman Ed Royce. Once the concept was presented to him in the mid-1990s, he latched onto it and became AGOA’s biggest and most active supporter. It was Royce who convinced then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to support AGOA, and the Speaker went to the well of the House chamber to speak on behalf of the legislation, which is an unusual move by the leader of the House. Royce not only convinced Republicans and Democrats in the House to support AGOA, but he also went to the Senate to successfully work the bill there. Royce staffers Tom Sheehy and I worked on enhancing the policy language and worked with other staff to overcome obstacles to the bill’s passage.

Congressman Donald Payne is often lauded for supporting AGOA, but I’m not sure if that many people realize the critical role he played during the initial vote on AGOA. Witnesses that day saw the debate on AGOA take a nasty, partisan turn at one point as some Democrats, who had not yet accepted the benefits of trade and suspected any legislation supported by Republican leaders, began to question the wisdom of the bill. As fragile bipartisan support began to fray, Congressman Payne quietly spoke to members on his side of the aisle to calm their concerns. Had he not been able to stop the political hemorrhaging at that time, there may not have been an AGOA because political polarization would have set in.

I still recall the work former Congressman William Jefferson did to promote U.S.-Africa trade under AGOA. When he was indicted for bribery and later convicted, many of us lamented the loss of such an energetic supporter of trade and entrepreneurial activity. It is not possible for him to appear at any celebration. Even were he free to do so, his legal problems make it politically incorrect to mention him, but he played a major role in the legislative success of AGOA, and we should remember his efforts in that regard.

Rosa Whitaker has become a controversial figure in the AGOA story, but you have to ask why. When the position of Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa was made a provision in the original AGOA, her patron, Congressman Rangel, helped her assume that role even before the bill itself was passed. If she had taken the position merely to pad her resume, you could understand the criticism, but she defined the position for all who would follow her and advanced U.S.-Africa trade through her relentless efforts. She subsequently sponsored a vibrant private sector-civil society coalition in support of AGOA.

The late David Miller of the Corporate Council on Africa led reluctant corporate leaders to support AGOA and put his organization’s prestige and resources behind seeing AGOA and its enhancements passed by Congress. The support of the corporate community involved in business in Africa was vital to building support in Congress. Since becoming CCA’s president, Steve Hayes has continued his organization’s support despite his criticisms of AGOA’s implementation. CCA members such as Tony Carroll of Manchester Trade have devoted their time to helping both the private sector and civil society advance AGOA and its goals.

Civil society leaders such as Mel Foote of the Constituency for Africa, Fred Oladeinde of the Foundation for Democracy in Africa and the late Leonard Robinson of the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa were all leaders within the group of organizations who came to believe that AGOA offered significant benefits to small and medium entrepreneurs in Africa and America. The role civil society played was indisputably critical in gaining passage of the original AGOA bill and subsequent enhancements.

The late Ray Almeida consistently promoted the voice of Africans in U.S. trade policy deliberations at Bread for the World and the African Development Foundation. AGOA was created as a helping hand to Africa, and while the African diplomatic corps did weigh in on what would make AGOA Effective from the standpoint of government, Ray represented the smallholders whose livelihoods depended on increased trade.

It has been my honor to collaborate with these supporters of AGOA. Working together, we have seen Congress take unprecedented steps to advance U.S.-Africa trade and witnessed African businesses create jobs and build wealth for themselves and their communities. AGOA will only work better if we continue our cooperation across sector and political affiliation lines.

AGOA: Ten Years Later

2010-05-13T18:01:00.001-04:00

Ten years ago, Republicans and Democrats worked together across the political divide to pass the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) – the first major piece of legislation exclusively devoted to Africa and the first major trade legislation in several years at that time. Ten years ago, African diplomats abandoned their traditional aloof posture regarding legislation involving African affairs and reached out to Congress to approve AGOA. Ten years ago, corporations and non-governmental organizations worked in concert to see AGOA passed and implemented.

With all the collaboration AGOA engendered ten years ago and in years since then, one must ask, why hasn’t AGOA worked as we all hoped it would?

African exports to America have nearly tripled since AGOA was passed, and American exports to Africa have doubled. Looking solely at the numbers, one would say AGOA has succeeded. However, that would ignore the face that more than 90% of U.S.-Africa trade under AGOA involved the oil or mining sectors. That’s not success in the way it was intended. Members of Congress and their staffs (including me at the time) and all of us who have worked for AGOA’s success then and now meant for small and medium enterprises in Africa and America to benefit, which hasn’t happened to the extent intended.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has made clear on numerous occasions that the U.S. government has done all it can to make AGOA work and that it is now up to Africans to take it further. They are partly, but not completely, right.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told participants at last year’s AGOA Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, that the U.S. government has extended AGOA more than once and provides more than 6,500 items that Africans can export to America duty free. At the 10th anniversary celebration, he reiterated that “95% (of the tariff lines under AGOA) are not used.”

What Africans have said is that the extensions were all for relatively short periods, which our business people also have said does not provide the certainty they need for long-term, extensive investment. As for the number of items covered under AGOA, the U.S. government continues to focus on training their counterparts in Africa rather than the producers of goods. Like the overall trade statistics, the numbers would make you think we have devoted a lot of resources to capacity building, but in reality, much of that has been wasted like rain in the desert because we aren’t training the right people.

Congressman Dave Camp, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee emphasized this latter point: “The most generous preferences don’t matter if countries are unable to use them.”

Certainly, African governments could do a better job of working with their private sectors to identify and eliminate barriers to trade, but that isn’t happening to the extent it needs to happen. It must be said, though, that our capacity building efforts have not sufficiently targeted this disconnect between African public and private sectors. If it were so simple and easy for Africans to resolve these issues, they would have done so themselves already.

There are efforts to extend AGOA-like benefits in textiles and apparel to Asian countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which already out-produce African countries. This would undermine current non-oil benefits for AGOA producers without enhancing sectors in which Africans could be more productive, especially agriculture. In the past 10 years, very little, if anything, has been done to successfully enhance U.S.-Africa agricultural trade. We are not much further on this than we were in 2000. Without a bustling agriculture trade sector, giving textile and apparel benefits to Asian countries will mean the non-oil, non-mining portion of AGOA will shrink further than it is now.

Watching the members of Congress gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of AGOA, it reminded me of the bipartisan campaign to make the legislation as comprehensive as possible without being so broad that it stymied Congressional action. In all the time I have covered Congress as a journalist, worked as a staff member or worked with Congressional offices on Africa issues, I have never seen as much across-the-aisle cooperation as I did during those days. Congressman Ed Royce said the effort to pass AGOA was the highlight of his career.

We will need another bipartisan campaign to figure out how to transition Africa for the time when business people on the continent have to focus on items other than textile and apparel. In the trade preference reform process, we need cooperation and understanding. This is about helping people in developing countries to create wealth and move away from dependence on foreign aid. AGOA can help do that if the right changes are made. For that to be done, the bipartisan Congressional coalition that passed AGOA must be reconstructed.

How Real Is Africa’s Rebound?

2010-05-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

The International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, currently is in the midst of his third trip to Africa in the last year. He told a gathering of Kenyans that Africa is rebounding from the recent global economic crisis quite well. “All across the continent, we can see signs of life, with rebounds in trade, export earnings, bank credit, and commercial activity,” Strauss-Kahn said. The IMF’s 2010 World Economic Outlook found that “sub-Saharan Africa is weathering the global crisis well.”

So things are looking up for African people, right? Well maybe not as much as the statistics would indicate.

While the IMF anticipates overall growth in Africa to reach 4.5% this year, that will depend on the global economic recovery. That means the economic crisis in Greece that the European Union and the World Bank Group are trying to avert could reduce that figure. However, it turns out that even if the save-Greece package just approved does work and prevents an economic domino effect, Africa’s long-term recovery may be in danger from another source – African governments themselves.

Oxfam research indicates that developing countries, such as those in Africa, are cutting spending vital for long-term recovery. Budget data from 56 poor countries shows that poor countries are cutting spending on education, health, agriculture and social protection. Overall, budgets in developing countries this year are being cut on average by 0.2% of gross domestic product. Meanwhile foreign aid is not filling the gap because development aid fell by US$3.5 billion last year, and revenues for 2010 are expected to remain below what was received in 2008 before the economic crisis fully took hold.

So how do these cuts affect Africa? Oxfam estimates that 50,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa died last year because of funding shortfalls caused by the global economic crisis. If you cut medical treatment, people will die for lack of medicine and trained medical personnel, especially in vulnerable poor or rural areas.
Since 2000, African countries have voluntarily entered into agreements to boost social spending for the benefit of their citizens. African governments over the years committed themselves to spend up to 20% of their budgets on education, 15% on health, 10% on agriculture and 0.5% on water and sanitation. But some African governments lament that these agreed-upon targets limit budgetary flexibility and should be stricken from future agreements.

At the recent annual African Union and Economic Commission for Africa Conference of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, delegations from South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt argued successfully that any reference to the budget targets should be removed from the conference report.

“These targets do not make any sense,” said Cecil Noel, South Africa’s chief finance director. “I shall be asking my head of state to propose a review of these targets in the AU Summit in Kampala in July.”

Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Finance Hany Dimian echoed that sentiment. “The heads of state have made a colossal mistake. These targets straightjacket the process of budgeting in our countries.”

On the other side of the argument, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi and Cote d’Ivoire fought to retain the targets in the official document. “I worry about the precedence we are setting where we make commitments and drop them when it is expedient,” lamented Nigerian head of delegation, Ambassador Nyoko Toyo.

The African Monitor, a non-governmental organization established in 2006 to monitor and advocate in relation to G8 commitments to Africa, reports that last year 44 countries on the continent continued to import at least a quarter of their food, retention of girls in education and overall quality of education remains weak and people living with HIV-AIDS too often lack access to life-saving medicine. The refusal of African governments to spend to upgrade their education, medical and economic systems will keep them dependent on donor aid, which has been declining for years and will continue to decline.

The G8 nations have made promises to deliver certain percentages of aid to African countries and have failed to honor their commitments. How will African governments credibly demand that donor countries keep their word on development aid when many are in the process of breaking theirs for the very same issues?

This situation seems akin to eating one’s seeds rather than planting them. The Bible says you reap what you sow, or in this case, what you refuse to sow.

Draining African Finances

2010-05-04T15:27:00.000-04:00

The longstanding charge that African leaders too often drain their country’s financial resources is once again surfacing because of a U.S. Senate investigation, but this time an American accomplice is under the spotlight as well.

The Senate inquiry, being joined by the Gabon Ministry of Finance, is looking into a failed deal by the Government of Gabon to purchase cargo airplanes that allowed US$9.2 million to be transferred to the private bank account of the late President Omar Bongo in Malta. Bongo, Africa’s longest-serving head of state with 41 years in office until his death last year, apparently amassed millions in diverted U.S. funds through that Malta account, along with his son, Defense Minister Ali Bongo.

A French magistrate also has been investigating Bongo’s assets in that country, which include more than 30 properties, nine luxury cars and cash in more than 70 bank accounts. Under Bongo’s government, French companies dominated Gabon’s economy through the widespread use of kickbacks and bribes. Meanwhile, Bongo’s people are among the world’s poorest.

In the Malta case under investigation, an American lobbyist has been implicated in laundering millions in “suspect funds.” According to the Senate investigators, lobbyist Jeffrey Birrell, using a corporation he formed known as The Grace Group, funneled funds to the personal account of then-President Bongo. Birrell allegedly used other foreign accounts as well to transfer money to Bongo or his cronies. For his efforts, he allegedly was paid approximately US$1 million.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of money siphoned from the accounts of an African country. Global Financial Integrity, a program of the Center for International Policy, released a report entitled “Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development,” covering 1970-2008. That report estimates that US$854 billion in illegal capital flows left the continent during that 39-year period, and correcting for current reporting techniques, the total could reach US$1.8trillion during that period.

So much attention is paid to bribery and theft by government officials, but the report found it to total about 3% of illicit flows. Criminal income from drug trafficking, racketeering, counterfeiting comprise between 30-35% of the total, while commercial tax evasion, mainly through trade mispricing, constitutes 60-65% of the total. The report found that this illicit flow is facilitated by an international network of tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, disguised corporation, anonymous trust accounts, fake foundations and money laundering techniques.

Corrupt African officials are not working alone in this effort; there is a cadre of people in the international community only too eager to make money off the misery of people in the countries from which money is systematically drained. Aid money and other income come into countries through one door and go out another into personal bank accounts. For a long time the blame rested solely on corrupt African leaders, but it is all too clear that many others make this corruption possible. Recognizing the destructive nature of this corruption, 34 nations signed the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions in November 1997.

However, of the 34 signatories and nations that have conformed their laws to prevent bribery and other corrupt practices, neither China, nor India nor Malaysia – major economic actors in Africa – are included. Where there is a willing buyer, there is a willing seller, and gaining business advantages and avoiding costs are major incentives for foreign financial interests to corrupt African officials or facilitate already-corrupt officials.

“The enormity of such a huge outflow of illicit capital explains why donor-driven efforts to spur economic development and reduce poverty have been underachieving in Africa,” states the GFI report, which estimates that developing countries lose US$10 through illegal capital flows for every US$1 they receive in external assistance.

The criminals who bankrupt governments and deny African citizens services to which they have a right must be stopped if the Millennium Development Goals and other development benchmarks can ever be realized. Here’s a hint in the effort to find them: they’re not all Africans.

Africa’s Essential Nation

2010-04-30T12:24:00.000-04:00

It has become commonplace to criticize Nigeria for its electoral shortcomings, its corruption and, more recently, its leadership crisis. But focusing on these negatives, however they may be based on truth, ignores the vital role Nigeria has played on the continent over the years of African independence. It is not inaccurate to say that Nigeria has been Africa’s essential nation. This point was hit home in comments during the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation’s Nigeria Today forum on May 29.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo reminded the crowd of the interventions –militarily through peacekeepers and diplomatically – that have changed the history of Africa. Obasanjo, who was appointed Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, recalled his service among the United Nations organization in Congo in the early 1960s. Led at one point by Nigerian Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the UN operation helped stem the tide of chaos that seemed ready to blow this giant nation apart and helped consolidate its transition to independence.

When the civil war in Angola threatened to undo the country’s independence from Portugal in the mid-1970s, it was Nigeria’s endorsement of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola government that consolidated African support and later international support for the liberation movement that held control of the capital. American and other support for the coalition of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola faded away in short order due to the broad African support for the faction the Nigerians endorsed. In the late 1980s, when a Cuban pullout from Angola was complicated by concern over a withdrawal by the South Africans from Namibia, Nigerian diplomacy was instrumental in both situations being resolved.

Nigeria played a major role in the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. At the height of the bloody civil wars in both countries, Nigerian forces took the lead in establishing order. ECOMOG’s success in Liberia creating conditions that allowed for the presidential and legislative elections in July 1977. In Sierra Leone, ECOMOG restored constitutional legitimacy by reinstating the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in February 1998.

It should be remembered that Nigeria went further in both cases by arresting and detaining Foday Sankoh, the leader of the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone, and allowed Liberian leader Charles Taylor to be exiled in their country. Both moves were calculated to create space for a lessening of violence and a restoration of peace in these countries. Nigeria later arrested Taylor when he was determined to be in violation of the exile agreement and turned him over to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where he is on trial today.

When São Tomé and Principe President Fradique de Menezes was briefly overthrown during a visit to Nigeria in 1995, the Obasanjo government, acting in concert with other African governments, restored Menezes to power Obasanjo personally escorted him back to his capital in São Tomé and Principe.

There are countries with military power and countries with economic power and countries whose leaders have the clout to make an impact internationally. However, no other nation has combined all three as consistently as Nigeria.

In the history of the Nobel Peace Prize from 1901 to today, there are nine people of African birth or descent who have won: four South Africans (Albert Lituli, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Frederik De Klerk), three Americans (Ralph Bunche, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama), one Ghanaian (Kofi Annan) and one Kenyan (Wangari Maathai). You’ll notice that no Nigerians are on that list, even though peace could not have come to several countries in Africa without Nigerian intervention.

Again, Nigeria is often placed in a bad light for developments inside its borders or for the crimes of a relative few involving others in the international community. Nevertheless, when things get tough in Africa, who do we call?

Given Nigeria’s important role in maintaining peace and allowing for development in Africa, why do we so often stand back and watch problems develop in Nigeria and not try harder to help the continent’s bulwark to overcome its challenges. It is true that Nigerian pride often sees outside intervention as interference, but we must make them understand that our helping hand is not aimed at taking control of the levers of power, but rather an attempt to steady a friend experiencing difficulties.

The U.S. should remind its friend Nigeria of the Ibo proverb: “Emergency overtakes a champion but then it’s that same emergency that makes a true champion.” Nigeria has been at point zero of some of Africa’s most troubling crises, and has proven its value in them. Still, a champion does not have to operate without the help of friends.

What Now for U.S. Policy on Sudan?

2010-04-28T16:34:00.001-04:00

Now that Omar al-Bashir has been certified as the elected President of Sudan, despite having won in an election boycotted by his main rivals and tainted by alleged fraud, how will the United States government deal with a national leader under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity? By early indications, the conciliatory strategy of Special Envoy Scott Gration will continue.

In a post-election interview with National Public Radio, Gration proved to be the master of naïve understatement: “We learned a lot. There were things that weren’t good,” he said. “There were restrictions to freedoms of assembly and freedoms of speech, and individual freedoms. And there was a bit of incompetence. All these things have to be fixed, and I believe they can.”

This is the same blue sky attitude he expressed prior to the election when he proclaimed himself sure that the government could and would run an acceptable election. We now know that the Sudan election suffered from serious problems. In the assessment by the Carter Center election team, the election “falls short of international standards.” Carter Center observers found “important flaws” that included inadequate protection of political freedoms, problems in the voter list, a range of logistical troubles on the election days, insufficient transparency in the electoral process, voter intimidation in the south and the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

A group of northern domestic election observers were even harsher in their assessment of the election. They said the entire election – from the electoral census through voter registration through the campaign and voting was deficient. This was the view of the major presidential candidates who withdrew from the election before it took place.

America’s Ambassador to the African Union, Michael Battle, said the Administration would reserve judgment on the election until discussions are held with the AU. “If you read the report from the European Union observers of the elections in Sudan, they acknowledged that the elections were not perfect, but nobody expected them to be perfect” Battle said.

This unrealistic measuring rod essentially makes light of serious problems in the Sudan elections. No election anywhere in the world is perfect, and of course no one in his right mind would expect any election to be perfect. Battle’s statement shrugs off election problems that could be a dangerous foreshadowing for the prospects of the 2011 referendum on southern Sudanese independence.

Make no mistake about it, the southerners weren’t invested heavily in voting outside their region, which is why they trumpet their heavy support in the south and played down results in the north. However, Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement leadership has been looking forward to the 2011 referendum since it was set by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. Irregularities of the kind witnessed in the national elections will not go down so easily in February. An already shaky CPA could blow apart completely if the referendum process doesn’t go more smoothly. Not perfectly, mind you, but not as ragged as the election just passed.

Meanwhile, President Bashir is looking to use his election (however questionable the circumstances) to legitimize himself and perhaps get out from under the ICC indictment. Sudan activists are pushing President Obama to take a hard line on Sudan. U.S. officials may believe the ICC indictment is leverage to be used in pressuring Bashir to cooperate with making the referendum more successful. However, the reverse may be more likely, as Bashir uses the referendum and his government’s cooperation in making it work to hold off or remove the indictment. The ICC surely will not withdraw the indictment, and the U.S. government certainly could not ask them to do so without losing credibility with other national leaders accused of crimes against humanity or some variation of that charge.

It always was likely that Bashir would win the national election because his strongest rival, the SPLM candidate, fronted a party that had its eye on a future election. His government still tried to boost his win margin and manipulated the process from start to finish. How much more will Bashir’s government try to fix an election that will deny his government billions in oil revenue and other income and divide his country’s territory? It would be dangerously naïve to believe that this next election will be a step toward better elections with so much at stake and such a poor foundation on which to build.

Slavery’s Dirty Secrets

2010-04-26T07:43:00.001-04:00

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times last week that has begun to stir a controversy because he has dared to extend the blame for trans-Atlantic slavery to more than the Europeans who kidnapped unwilling Africans into servitude in the Americas. It is uncomfortable to examine the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade because the truths are inconvenient and terrible to contemplate. However, at a time when the African Diaspora is growing closer to the people of the continent, it is critical that we see and understand the truth.

Professor Gates stated correctly that African kingdoms, such as the Akan of Asante in what is modern-day Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern-day Angola and the Kongo of today’s two Congo nations trafficked in slaves. In fact, the economies of kingdoms such as the Yoruba of Nigeria depended on income from the slave trade, and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania built an economic system by exporting slaves from the interior.

To state these facts does not absolve the Europeans, who systematically kidnapped and exported human beings on long sea voyages many would not survive. Those who did survive were dehumanized in ways to which slaves had not been subjected in the history of slavery on Earth. Their language, culture and very names were taken from them. Families were prevented from forming or later destroyed, and punishments were devilishly inhuman.

Nevertheless, despite the effort by African government and traditional leaders to take responsibility for the part their people played in this dehumanizing system, many of us among the African Diaspora would prefer to maintain that it was all the fault of white people. To hold this position is to say to those Africans who have accepted the responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that their apologies are meaningless. That is not only disrespectful, but it prevents us from truly understanding people with whom many of us now say we want to establish kinship.

In this history of misery, let us not ignore the role Arabs played in the trans-Saharan and Red Sea legs of the international slave trade. They added to the degradation of the African people as well.

“The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic,” wrote Congolese historian Elikia M’bokolo in Le Monde in April 1998. “Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Sahara caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.”

Another reason we must be honest about the trans-Atlantic slave trade is that on this side of the ocean there were African Americans who added to the misery of their own people. The late historian John Hope Franklin once wrote that by 1860 in the city of New Orleans, more than 3,000 free Blacks – 28% of the free Black population in that city – owned slaves. Throughout slave-holding states in the South, free Blacks were slave owners, and not just those who bought slaves to gain their freedom.

Records show, for example, that William Ellison, a freed Black man in South Carolina was the state’s largest Black slave owner in 1860. After his owner had him apprenticed to learn a trade and then emancipated him, Ellison first hired slaves from local owners and then became a slave owner himself. Using the free labor of a rising number of slaves, Ellison’s cotton gin manufacturing company actually put some white competitors out of business. To make matters worse, Ellison became a slave breeder, selling male and female offspring, including his own daughter with a slave woman.

There is much blame to go around for the centuries during which Africa was drained of her people, some of whom might have become the leaders, scientists and inventors who could have allowed Africa to join the Industrial Revolution and compete on an equal basis with the rest of the world.

So who is more at fault? Is it the Arabs who started the international trade of slaves from Africa and reportedly continue that trade in a different form even today? Is it the Europeans who took the international slave trade to new lows in the New World? Is it the Africans who went out of their way to find their own kind to sell to foreigners? What about the African Americans who dehumanized their own people and used their free labor to become wealthy?

As I said earlier, there are many of us who would establish our blood and legal ties to Africa today, but how will this linkage become real if we pretend that white people alone came from the skies and made our kinsmen disappear into slavery on another continent? Someone else sold African slaves in the first place, someone else also bought African slaves and someone else also owned African slaves when they got here.

At the eighth Leon H. Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008, Benin’s Ambassador to the United States, Cyrille Oguin, speaking in a forum on Diaspora-African linkages, asked this question: “How can you say you love me if you don’t know me?” By refusing to acknowledge all of the guilty in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we create a false history. That is a poor foundation on which to build family ties.

Slavery’s Dirty Secrets

2010-04-26T07:43:00.000-04:00

Sirleaf Resurrects Liberia

2010-04-24T12:14:00.000-04:00

Liberia, a West African nation that was calm, prosperous and the envy of its neighbors for more than a century, spent the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s in turmoil. First, Sergeant Samuel Doe led a bloody 1980 coup following food price riots. The coup displaced the Americo-Liberians, the ruling minority of descendants of African-American who returned to that land in the 1800s, and unleashed ethnic hatreds. Doe’s arbitrary rule and the economic decline of the country encouraged a long civil war begun in late 1989 that eventually saw Charles Taylor take power. He led the country further into economic and social collapse, while supporting rebels bent on destruction in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf lost her first race for the presidency against Taylor in 1996, but after his forced resignation in 2003, she became Africa’s first elected woman president after winning the second round of a 2005 contest.

These facts are certainly well-known, but what may be overlooked is how much progress Sirleaf has made since her election in regaining her country’s international stature. At home, schools and clinics are reopening, and agricultural production is picking up. Certainly much remains to be done in restoring water and electric power to all parts of the country. Corruption has not yet been tamed, and infrastructure is still being put in place. However, whatever the pace of reconstruction in Liberia, the once pariah of West Africa is now able to credibly reach out to the world beyond its borders and offer help and solidarity.

When Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called for the partition of Nigeria due to what he saw as irreconcilable religious cleavages, the Nigerian government reacted quickly and angrily withdrew their diplomatic representation. When Nigerian officials cited the fact that Christians and Muslims lived in peace in many Nigerian communities, Gaddafi refused to change his prescription, except to say that Nigeria be divided along ethnic lines. A major diplomatic conflict seemed to be in the making that could fracture African unity and peace. Then in stepped the Iron Lady of Liberia.

President Sirleaf intervened in the dispute and got the leaders of both countries to agree to meet to resolve their dispute. A private meeting between Libyan emissaries and Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was arranged by Sirleaf, and both sides praised her for her initiative in the matter. The Libyans lauded Sirleaf as being “elevated among Good and Great leaders of modern day Africa.”

Acting in her capacity as third Vice President of the African Union, Sirleaf was said to have conceived this effort on her own and pledged to continue until both sides had finally resolved the matter.

This is a far cry from the country that Nigeria and other member state of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had to save from self-destruction and prevent from destabilizing the region. Liberia under President Sirleaf now has become a force for peace and reconciliation in Africa.

Meanwhile, this nation built with the input of free Blacks and freed slaves from America had long been a client state of this country. Liberia modeled itself after the United States, naming cities and counties after American presidents and copying the American flag among other elements of linkage. One might say the African-Americans “Westernized” indigenous Liberians to a great extent, a process accelerated by the presence of American missionaries over the years.

Still, African-Americans remained indifferent to the fate of Liberians, who are generally seen as no more akin to Americans than any other Africans. This is despite the obvious ties of so many who left this country, leaving family behind, and the fact that Liberia is among the top African nations identified as being linked to African-Americans taking the African Ancestry, Inc., DNA test. But now Liberia is reaching out to its kin in the Americas.

In a speech in Brazil, President Sirleaf, speaking before the predominantly Black University of Salvador in Bahia State, said Diaspora Africans are “an important segment” of the African family.

“The Government of Liberia is calling upon all Africans everywhere to bring their talent, their skills and their expertise to join us in our Liberian odyssey,” she said. “We want you to be a part of the rebirth of the Liberian nation, to pursue the vision of our forbearers, in creating a nation that will be a haven for all people of African descent.”

So the continent’s first Black republic is now in the process of regaining its previous stature as an international example of diplomacy and a beacon on the continent for the African Diaspora. Not bad for a country that less than a decade ago was in ruins.

Addressing Violence in Eastern Congo

2010-04-15T20:54:00.000-04:00

Following a civil war that resulted in the overthrow of notorious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, the Democratic Republic of Congo experienced another war beginning in 1998 that some called “Africa’s World War” because of the involvement of troops from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, Chad and Zimbabwe. Although a peace agreement in 2003 resulted in the withdrawal of most foreign troops from neighboring countries, violence continues in eastern Congo even as most Congolese have seen relative peace come to their areas.

The driving forces behind the entry of neighboring countries have been rebel groups launching attacks from Congolese territory and the presence of valuable minerals such as diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt and zinc that foreign interests covet. More recently, though it is columbite-tantalite (also known as coltan), tin and tungsten, which along with gold are the vital elements of popular electronic devices such as iPods, laptops and cell phones. Their availability in the largely lawless eastern region of DRC has empowered warlords to continue their plunder despite the presence of what at one time was the largest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world at 20,000 troops.

UN peacekeepers have failed to stem the violence that plagues DRC. According to an extensive Harvard Humanitarian Initiative study in DRC, 60% of rape victims surveyed were gang raped by armed men with more than half such assaults taking place in the family home and often in the presence of the victim’s husband and children. Even more shocking was the finding that rapes by civilians have increased from less than one percent in 2004 to 38% by 2008. This indicates a lawlessness that the UN peacekeepers were supposed to prevent.

Only days ago, fighting between the “Enyélé” rebel group and the Congolese army in northwestern DRC resulted in 18 deaths and the displacement of people from Mbandaka, the area’s largest city. In addition to the violence, people hoarding goods there in anticipation of widening conflict have doubled or tripled prices for necessities. A report commissioned by the UN itself has said that the peacekeepers have done nothing to quell the violence rippling through the country.

DRC President Joseph Kabila has said he wants the UN peacekeepers out by the end of June, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has endorsed a pullout, although not that soon. The first contingent of UN peacekeepers is set to begin withdrawal by the end of June. Of course, if the violence persists and expands, the withdrawal could be put on hold.

Here in the United States, the Enough Campaign has been encouraging the private sector companies that use the conflict materials from DRC to be more discerning about the origin of their purchases to cut down on the revenue to rebels and militias. They are now pushing legislation introduced by Congressmen Jim McDermott and Frank Wolf (the Conflict Minerals Trade Act – H.R. 4128) that would create an audit system indentifying conflict minerals and the mines from which they come. The bill would verify the chain of custody of these minerals and verify information provided by suppliers through investigators in the DRC and other countries involved in processing and selling these materials.

Unfortunately, the bill, which was introduced last November 19th has gone nowhere since its referral to three House committees that same day: Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means and Armed Services. Referral to such disparate committees usually means a bill has little chance of moving absent cooperation among committee leaders. The legislation has the benefit of two influential Republicans – Wolf and Congressman Ed Royce, but in today’s poisoned Congressional environment, even they might not be enough to garner significant Republic support. Even if they did, there is no companion bill in the Senate and little if any indication of Senate interest. The last senator to successfully push a DRC bill was Barack Obama in 2006.

More than five million people have died in conflict in DRC since 1998, and an estimated 45,000 people are believed to die each month from violence or the resulting humanitarian crisis. The Kabila government has restored law and order to much of the country, but it is not likely that Congolese troops alone can restore and maintain order in a country the size of Western Europe that borders nine neighbors.

DRC is a case of the international community failing to live up to its task of protecting the people its peacekeepers were sent to save. When and if the UN peacekeepers leave, DRC could be plunged back into war. Its natural blessings have become its greatest curse. The world’s insatiable appetite for the very minerals fueling this conflict will require measures presented in the Conflict Minerals Trade Act. If you can’t stem demand, which you won’t in this case, then you must control supply.

The lives and social order of millions of Congolese depends on some movement being made on their behalf – soon.

Will Foreign Aid Reform Help Africa?

2010-04-12T06:22:00.000-04:00

In September 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Foreign Assistance Act, which established the U.S. Agency for International Development and set the framework for American foreign aid globally. Since its creation, the foundation of America’s foreign assistance has articulated 140 goals and 400 specific directives based on its precepts, but no clear or coordinated methods for their implementation. As a result, it has been acknowledged that aid to Africa has had little success, and in fact, Africa has fallen behind in its development when compared to its status in the 1960s.

An effort is underway in Congress, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and his staff, to revise the nation’s mechanism for delivering foreign aid such that it sets clear and achievable goals, designs a delivery process that makes sense and produces measurable results. To achieve this worthy ambition, I would suggest the following for African assistance.

Poverty in Africa is the cancer that eats away at progress in all areas. Poor voters find that a bag of meal to feed a hungry family outweighs a vote for a government they never see in a system they can’t follow. Bureaucracies fail when workers must use time at which they are expected to be at their jobs in search of pay their regular jobs don’t provide or other needs that cannot be met after work hours. Democracy and governance cannot thrive in the face of persistent, widespread poverty.

Police and military officials, who also are husbands and fathers, resort to bribery when their pay is insufficient or non-existent. Crime seems a more efficient means of earning a living for anyone when jobs are scarce and becomes easier to accept when one starts small. Conflict over dwindling resources is at its root based on poverty, even when it appears to be ethnic or religious in nature. Rule of law is not possible when people cannot meet the needs of their families by working within the established order.

Professionals – be they scientists, health care workers or college professors – will not remain in a failing system if earning a living becomes so difficult it prevents one from practicing one’s hard-earned craft effectively. Consequently, professionals have been pouring out of African countries at an alarming rate, creating a brain drain that only further retards development. This vicious cycle defies efforts to jump-start African development and must be addressed if any foreign aid can achieve even modest goals.

To make U.S. foreign aid to Africa finally work, the U.S. government must work with and not on behalf of African governments in designing development programs that will work, taking into account the regional impact of what is designed. We cannot expect African governments to feel beholden to a plan they had no part in creating. Help is only valuable if it meets the real need as perceived by those requiring help. Moreover, the development plans must use the Millennium Challenge Account model of creating an ongoing public-private partnership among African governments, business sectors and civil societies to ensure broad cooperation and accountability.

Direct funding of projects through implementing organizations would help bypass bureaucracies that might slow down or frustrate the effectiveness of development programs because of officials who either don’t understand the goals or who want to siphon off easy money. The African Diaspora, whether the recent one having left Africa on their own or the historic one taken involuntarily centuries ago, must be engaged in the effort to rebuild African societies.

Actually, most African countries don’t even fully utilize the skills and experiences of women and young people who remain within their borders. No society can maximize its success if its female and youth populations are not fully integrated into the decision-making process. How much innovation would we see in America, Europe and elsewhere in the developed world if our women and young people were ignored or unable to contribute to the greater society?

In our future efforts to deliver timely, effective foreign aid that meets our intention to do good for Africans, we must adhere to five principles: 1) consultation with Africa and its people must be at the heart of whatever we try to do to make development aid applicable to the true situation at hand; 2) wealth creation will build strong and enduring societies that can resist corruption, avoid conflict and overcome unexpected crises; 3) public-private partnerships that meaningfully include women and youth are critical to achieving sustainable success that benefits all of society, while maintaining transparency; 4) very little, if anything, that enhances development in one African country will not affect development efforts in neighboring countries, so regional strategies for development are not only wise, but also unavoidable, and 5) the African Diaspora is a powerful tool for reversing the negative impact of Africa’s brain drain and leveraging citizen-driven foreign aid efforts that will multiply the impact of any government foreign assistance.

The current effort to revise and streamline America’s foreign assistance process is laudable. Chairman Berman seems steadfast in his determination to make meaningful, positive change in our currently complex foreign assistance formula; Africa Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne and Ranking Member Chris Smith have demonstrated their commitment to African development. We must hope that all means of achieving our country’s goals will be on the table and fully explored before final decisions on aid mechanisms are approved. To achieve this, those of us who care about Africa and its people must present our best case to those considering changes to the Foreign Assistance Act. Complaining later when we’ve done nothing in the present is a waste of everyone’s time.

But let us recall that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If we are to avoid continued failure for the sake of Africa and its people, we must make the most of the opportunity before us.

Sudan's Elections Going Awry

2010-04-08T07:02:00.000-04:00

Of all the nearly two dozen African elections this year, none is more important in its implications for U.S. policy toward Africa than the one this coming weekend in Sudan in which a national president, a southern president, governors, national and local assembly representatives will be chosen. Unfortunately, these elections have been going in the wrong direction since their inception, and the United States and other members of the international community have abetted a skewed process that is likely to anoint an accused mass murderer as the legitimate leader of this East African giant.

The Carter Center, not known for its rigorous criticism of flawed elections around the world, is the lead organization observing the Sudan elections. Even they stated that the “possibility of a genuinely open, inclusive and secure campaign environment” had been undermined by the government’s actions. Human Rights Watch said both the ruling National Congress Party and the Government of Southern Sudan have put in jeopardy the fairness and credibility of the elections by limiting freedom of expression and assembly, while intimidating journalists and providing unequal access to the media. The International Crisis Group calls the Sudan electoral process “fundamentally flawed” and considers the elections rigged.

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir two weeks ago threatened to dismember observers, according to one report, but he has since eased his tone in recent days and has offered observers total access to polling places across the country. Why the change in tone? Apparently, Bashir smells victory and wants it as untainted as possible. After all, why spoil your coronation when everything is going your way in an election you need to legitimize yourself?

A few days ago, all the leading presidential contenders withdrew from the election. Yasir Arman, the candidate of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement and the strongest challenger to Bashir, pulled out after internal party struggles over contesting a troubled election when southern Sudanese leadership is really focusing on next year’s referendum on independence for the South. Although Arman cited election irregularities as his reason for dropping out, he apparently also was increasingly seen as a traitor in his native northern Sudan for running as the presidential candidate of the leading party of the largely Christian South.

Arman was quickly followed in his withdrawal by other leading presidential candidates, including Sadiq al-Mahdi of the Umma Party, Ibrahim Nagud of the Communist Party and Hatem al-Sir of the Democratic Unionist Party. There are now only five candidates running against Bashir, and they are all from small parties with little chance of gaining significant percentages of the vote. Consequently, talk of a runoff election has faded. Some, like Arman’s party, will contest races at other levels of government, but some are withdrawing from the elections altogether.

The Umma Party had particularly attempted to obtain an election postponement in order to correct flaws in the process, but they received little support from the international community. Haile Menkerios, the head of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), as recently as late last month continued to call for Sudan elections to be carried out on time and emphasized that any decision to delay the elections should be made by the Sudan government and the election officers it has appointed. Needless to say, their decision was to go forward with the elections regardless of the problems that exist.

While a U.S. State Department spokesman acknowledged that Sudan opposition leaders have “legitimate concerns” about the election process, General Scott Gration, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, has been much more accepting of the electoral process. He said he expects credible elections despite the longstanding criticism of the process and the withdrawal of the major presidential candidates. “They (electoral commission members) have given me confidence that the elections will start on time, and they would be as free and fair as possible,” Gration said in Khartoum.

As I have stated in an earlier blog, when an election is rigged in advance, there is no need for election-day manipulation. It is clear that Sudan’s election process is out of kilter, and the withdrawal of candidates is an indication that the opposition understands that the game is fixed. Therefore, allowing a dishonest government to set the terms in advance is negligent at best and predicting an acceptable election is ludicrous.

In 2008, the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir, among others, for alleged human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. We called their actions genocide. Now we are aiding and abetting Bashir in becoming elected as his country’s president in a race we know is flawed. How will our government and others subsequently say they don’t accept his presidency as legitimate when we are helping him to achieve it?

African Electoral Conundrum

2010-04-05T17:15:00.000-04:00

Now that Togo has held its election this year, there are 21 more African elections to come in 2010. Some of them have critical importance for U.S. policy formulation, such as the ones in Sudan, Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire and Madagascar. However, it has become clear that American policy is skewed by policies on electoral assistance that too often are a day late and a dollar short.

Recently, Almami Cyllah of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and I testified before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on overall American policy toward Africa, and he made the point (with which I concurred) that we too often intervene too late in the electoral process to make a positive difference in African countries. Cyllah reminded legislators of the long-complained about charge that decisions about U.S. election assistance – whether it is training for election commissions or observers or election observations – is often made so close to the balloting that it is not as effective as it should be.

Back in the 1990s, I worked on African elections under the African Regional Electoral Assistance Fund program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). From the beginning of that program in 1992, it was clear that those making decisions in Washington were ambivalent about whether any intervention could help. Certainly, there were those who set the bar for African electoral systems quite low. So when those of us working on proposals requesting funding for everything from election observer training to election observations, decisions were delayed almost until the last moment. I was set to leave for Guinea for a multi-level democracy program for the first time on a Saturday . I didn’t get final approval until Friday at 4:58pm.

The point I made to the subcommittee on this was that there was always ambivalence about what to do about political parties. Guinea had 44 registered parties, and my USAID handlers insisted that I train each party – even though most consisted of a couple of people who had filled out paperwork. In the end, there were only 18 parties at most who showed up for training at any of the five locations. Several years later, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute managed sophisticated programs in Mozambique and South Africa that provided for all-parties training as well as individual teams for the major parties. It is the lack of development of political parties that lies behind the continued overwhelming success of ruling parties in Equatorial Guinea, Botswana, Namibia and other countries, and this trend will continue until the situation is properly addressed.

Still, the U.S. government continues to provide electoral assistance too late to prevent pre-election manipulations. It is in the months leading up to elections during which political parties and candidates are disqualified. Long before election day, districts are established that unfairly favor ruling parties and disadvantage the political opposition. If governments can rig elections by committing what we call “wholesale fraud” through creating an unfair electoral environment, then they don’t need to commit the “retail fraud” on election day by stealing and replacing ballots, miscounting ballots and intimidating voters. African civil society groups and Africa voters already smell a bad election long before it is held. When we fail to recognize unfair pre-election conditions and then complain when an election destined to go bad does so, they look on us as either naïve or part of the fraud.

In countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia, U.S. national interests have trumped the impulse to take serious action to punish cheating governments. In some cases, such as South Africa in 1994, we overlooked serious deficiencies because it was important to encourage the peaceful transition to majority rule and even opposition parties accepted the system’s shortcomings to enable the elections to go forward.

However, after the troubled 2005 elections in Ethiopia, the Bush Administration did everything it could to prevent Congressional sanctions brought on not only by vote counting irregularities, but also the election violence by government security forces. It seems Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia and the still-unresolved border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea were considered too critical to endanger by taking action against Ethiopia no matter how egregious the violations of human rights were.

In Kenya and Zimbabwe, we pushed Governments of National Unity when tainted elections seemed to cheat opposition parties out of earned victories. This is only a surface solution, though, because forcing mixed governments don’t work when neither party has an incentive to help the other achieve success. They remain competitors, not allies. At best, such solutions are remedial remedies for problems that should have been addressed long before the first ballot was cast.

Before this next round of elections in Africa, the powers-that-be in our foreign policy apparatus need to think ahead in terms of helping in a timely way to make those elections it can more effective and considering what can be done in the aftermath of a failed election to make the situation in that country significantly and genuinely better.

Elections shape the future of countries. We cannot afford to miss these opportunities to make African futures more hopeful.

Witchcraft is No Joke in Africa

2010-03-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

Here in America, we enjoy funny, cute witches on television and in the movies. The Harry Potter kids have grown over several movies, and audiences can’t wait until the next book or movie. However, witchcraft over the ages has not been fun and games, and in Africa today, being accused of witchcraft can mean imprisonment, torture or even death.

For centuries, churches and mostly rural communities have blamed bad weather, failed crops and the sickness or death of family on someone summoning the powers of darkness. We tend to look on societies that believe in what we consider superstitions to be less than completely civilized. However, this fails to take into account such excesses in our nation’s past as the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th century. As recently as the late 20th century, there was a wave of reports about satanic cults and child sacrifice throughout America.

Here in the 21st century, Africans, mainly children, are victimized by people playing on fear, ignorance and desperate poverty. As a result, various international agencies and organizations report that thousands of children are losing their homes and even their lives each year across the continent.

· A United Nations study reported in 2009 that half the people in a local prison in the Central African Republic were being held because of accusations of witchcraft, which is a criminal offense punishable by execution if the accused is charged with causing the death of another person.

· An Africare official in the Democratic Republic of Congo, discussing the growing number of children accused of being witches in May 2009, said they are often subjected to violent exorcisms in which they are beaten, burned, starved or even murdered. The official added that accusations of witchcraft “have become socially acceptable reasons for why a family turns a child out on the street.”

· The Associated Press reported the story of a nine-year-old Nigerian boy whose family pastor had denounced him as a witch last October, leading the boy’s father to try to force acid down the youth’s throat, instead burning away his face. According to AP, the boy, who died a month after the incident, was one of about 100 cases out of 200 interviews in which a pastor had accused a child of being a witch.

· Amnesty International reported in March 2009 that about 1,000 Gambians accused of being witches were locked in detention centers and forced to drink a dangerous hallucinogenic potion.

There are numerous other examples I could cite. Over the past few decades during which I have travelled to African countries, there are few instances in which during my trip there was not some report of witchcraft suspected or punished. Like many, I came back with tales of published reports such as the campaigns against people believed to have shrunken men’s sexual organs. Some of these reports I took to be cultural curiosities, often not amounting to more than discrimination caused by ignorance and fear. But now this fear and ignorance is leading to the deaths of those too weak to defend themselves.

Accusations often are made by so-called Christian preachers latching onto Biblical texts from the Old Testament warning against allowing witchcraft in one’s midst. Exodus 22:18 states: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” These unschooled, uncompassionate leaders claim to hear from God that some child or adult is practicing witchcraft and must be punished for the good of the community. In so many cases of the spiritually blind leading the spiritually blind, desperation caused by uncontrollable situations leads even relatives to denounce their children and either cast them out or turn them over to those whom they believe represent the justice of God. Sometimes, it is said, these relatives just seek to escape responsibility for another mouth to feed when times are hard.

Lest we continue to blame these people and turn away from an unpleasant and embarrassing situation, we must look in the mirror and acknowledge that our silence on this human rights tragedy is partly our fault. By doing and saying nothing, we allow children to be turned to the cruelty of the streets or the absence of mercy of those who receive payment for their vicious treatment of the weak.

I had to think long and hard about writing this blog because of concern over contributing to a negative view of Africa, but my continued silence on this issue is no longer possible for me. The lives of people are more important than the reputation of countries.

Cain asked God in the Book of Genesis if he were his brother’s keeper. The answer then is the same as the answer now: Yes. Let us never forget this responsibility for the wellbeing of others.

Where is U.S. Policy Toward Africa Heading?

2010-03-26T14:30:00.000-04:00

For many years, the United States had no Africa policy beyond that connected to policy involving the colonial powers – our European allies. During the period in which African nations were gaining their independence, American policy was guided by the policy of the European colonial power in question, except, for example, Liberia and South Africa. Later, it was the Cold War that dominated our view of the African continent.

Then-Vice President Richard Nixon came to support U.S.-Africa trade as the result of his late 1950s visit to Africa for the Eisenhower Administration, but not much resulted from his suggested initiative. The end of colonialism provided an opening for more direct engagement with the new African governments, but that opportunity was not taken advantage of at the outset.

When President George H.W. Bush became president, few would have expected him to do anything much to benefit Africa despite his extensive foreign policy expertise. As it turned out, his Administration came to power at a point in history when the Cold War influence on U.S. policy toward Africa was about to end and colonialism was already finished. Now America could consider relationships with African nations that had nothing to do with European colonial powers or the former Soviet Union. Under the first Bush Administration, the United States fielded a large humanitarian operation in Somalia and created the Africa Regional Electoral Assistance Fund, which would make significant technical contributions to the wave of African elections and transitions to democratic systems in the 1990s.

Moreover, the Administration of the first President Bush issued National Security Review 30, a paper that outlined a broad policy of increased U.S. engagement with Africa. That policy initiative came too late in his Administration to be enacted, but fortunately, President Bill Clinton did enact it. Clinton had no Africa experience to speak of coming into the presidency, but building on the Bush plan, he produced a robust engagement of Africa that has set the tone for his successors. He signed into law the first African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which realized the increased U.S.-Africa trade Nixon had spoken of decades earlier. Many of his Cabinet secretaries visited Africa and involved their departments in Africa programming.

The second President George Bush came into office with no Africa experience as well, but he assembled a remarkable record of achievement on Africa policy, including his Administration’s greatly expanded contributions of funds to combat HIV-AIDS and malaria on the continent, his steadfast advocacy of AGOA, his support for African education (especially for girls) and his partnership with African governments on mutual security issues. His Millennium Challenge Account process has provided billions in development grants to African countries.

We expect President Obama to continue the growing engagement with Africa that his immediate predecessors championed and take America’s relationship with Africa to a new level. Unfortunately, like all Administrations, President Obama faces crises that distract from longer-term planning and implementation of development policy for Africa. There are countries in Africa with active violence underway, such as Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as simmering tensions in countries such as Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, there are long-term issues that also must figure into American policy. Good governance, enhancing agricultural production, creating adequate infrastructure, stemming the tide of disease, raising the level of education, reversing the impact of the brain drain and many other issues pose a challenge in executing an effective Africa policy.

Despite a heightened attention and some solid accomplishments in the last couple of Administrations, a thorough, integrated plan on African development was not among their achievements. The overall framework of Africa policy always seems to depend on several points on which policy will hinge or several pillar countries with whom our government will partner. At some point, one hopes one Administration will put together a comprehensive plan in which development, human rights, trade, security, governance, transparency and humanitarian issues will all mesh so that its successors will have a blueprint from which to work.

One can only hope.

Nigeria at a Crossroads

2010-03-24T09:29:00.000-04:00

Nigeria is the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, the economic engine of West Africa and a major supplier of peacekeeping troops internationally. But despite its economic and military power, Nigeria has reached a crossroads in its history that could decide its future course. So precarious has the situation in Nigeria become that an African leader has openly called for splitting Africa’s most populous country in two – something that would not have happened publicly until now.

In the past, there were coups, a civil war, rigged elections and other crises, but Nigeria always managed to muddle through. Military men handed over to civilian control (even if another seized back power), the civil war was concluded, and complaints about elections faded into the background. Now, however, a leadership struggle has placed governance in this West African giant in question and delayed action needed to keep Nigeria functioning.

For more than three months, President Umaru Yar’Adua was in a Saudi Arabian hospital for treatment never made clear to his countrymen, and several delegations of government officials were turned away when they sought to see him. In his absence, concern grew, but his loyalists fought off efforts to replace him with Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.

The strong U.S. reaction to the so-called underwear bomber caused significant concern among official Nigeria, and there was no president to defend the country’s interests. Increasing violence that appeared to be due to religious disputes created gruesome headlines and rising body counts. Jos, the so-called city of peace, has been at the epicenter of the horrific events. Again, leadership was absent in either acting to prevent such violence or apprehend the perpetrators. The Federal Government issued a report condemning the role of the Nigeria Police Force in dealing with the situation.

Northerners wanted Yar’Adua to have his two full terms before a southerner took the reins of power; the unwritten political arrangement in Nigeria calls for regional “sharing” of the presidency. However, the long absence of the president finally led the National Assembly to pass a resolution calling for Jonathan to assume the role of acting president in early February, which he did shortly thereafter. A little more than two weeks later, Yar’Adua returned to Nigeria, but came back under the cover of darkness and retreated to seclusion, amid rumors that he is in a coma.

Nigerian activists were not satisfied with a caretaker President. Thousands marched to demand that the entire cabinet be fired and that President Yar’Adua appear in public. They got part of their wish. Acting President Jonathan at first fired the Attorney General and then let go the entire cabinet. As you would expect of politicians everywhere, many immediately began lobbying to get their jobs back through their state governors. Abubakar Muazu, Pioneer Youth leader of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, warned Jonathan that northern governors were not operating in his interest. There is continuing concern that Yar’Adua’s political allies want to subvert Jonathan.

When Libyan leader Muammar Ghadaffi stated that the conflict between Christians and Muslims could be solved only by dividing Nigeria into two nations, there was immediate outrage among Nigeria’s politicians, who immediately disparaged Ghadaffi for meddling in Nigeria’s affairs and recalled Nigeria’s ambassador to Libya. Yet the Libyan leader was voicing what some have suggested quietly for years. The unequal distribution of natural resources leaves the south in possession of the country’s oil resources. The atrophy of agriculture and mining would put the north at an immediate disadvantage if such a radical move were taken, which is extremely unlikely anyway.

Still, the reaction by religious leaders in Nigeria is interesting in their different takes on the situation. Ahmadiya Muslim Jama’at Nigeria labeled Ghadaffi’s statement uncalled for, while recommending true federalism for the country. Dr. Mashood Adenrale Fashola, head of the Islamic organization, said the bloody violence experienced in parts of Nigeria is more ethnic than religious. Meanwhile, some Christian leader supported Ghadaffi’s call for splitting the country. In fact, Bishop Joseph Ojo, the immediate past National Secretary of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, said the British amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 has been a hindrance to the country and suggested that Nigeria be split not in two, but into six different nations. Other Christian leaders echoed his sentiment.

Too many Nigerians see themselves as members of regions or ethnic groups rather than truly accepting a national view. The supposed sectarian violence in the country reportedly is due to ethnic clashes and revenge raids, reportedly instigated by politicians using the violence for political purposes. Nevertheless, if you allow people to believe a thing is true, it can become so even if it doesn’t begin that way.

Nigerian leaders must act to resolve this disparity between their countrymen soon, or Nigeria will be de facto split if not in law. President Jonathan faces some difficult decisions, and the Yar’Adua faction can either cooperate to save their country’s future or act in their own selfish interests as so many other Nigerian leaders have done before them.

Good Cop-Bad Cop on Sudan?

2010-03-19T07:03:00.000-04:00

Recently, two top Obama Administration officials gave conflicting views on Sudan policy, and the contradiction was pointed out as proof of confusion within the Administration about how to address the continuing problem of Darfur specifically and Sudan generally. However, it is just as possible that the two divergent views are an indication of a good cop-bad cop strategy as a way of dealing with a complex, difficult situation.

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice said in a news conference that the Khartoum government was responsible for the continued military over-flights and offensive actions in Darfur. “We continue to receive reports of offensive military actions by the Government of Sudan in Darfur,” Rice said. “If these reports are true, this behaviour does not suggest a new willingness on the part of Sudan to fully engage in the peace process.” Ambassador Rice also signalled frustration at international community violations of Sudan sanctions and the failure of the U.N. sanctions committee to stem the tide of weapons into Sudan.

Meanwhile, Special Envoy Scott Gration hailed last month’s signing of a peace accord between the Government of Sudan and the main rebel force, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), as a “landmark” agreement. Gration also has been working steadily to bring together other disparate rebel factions and engineer a similar peace accord signing between the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) and the Sudan government. However, he has downplayed mention of the government’s offensive in Darfur in recent weeks, which reportedly has claimed hundreds of lives.

Rice was previously Senior Director for Africa at the National Security Council and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the Clinton Administration. She has had to deal with the Khartoum government before and has experienced their repeated duplicity on peace agreements. In her position at the U.N., she has to keep her fellow representatives focused on pressuring Sudan to finally end the Darfur conflict, while at the same time conduct acceptable elections next month and a referendum on southern Sudanese autonomy next January. She cannot afford to look past Khartoum’s refusal to cooperate with international mandates on the restoration of peace and an end to human rights abuses in that country.

Gration, on the other hand, faces different actors having variant aims in this situation and a window of opportunity for peace that could close soon and lead to all-out war in Sudan. Neither the United States nor the North Atlantic Treaty Organization want to intervene militarily in Sudan if war breaks out, and the combined U.N.-African Union force has not and will not be effective in stopping conflict in Sudan. U.N. peacekeeping forces act to maintain a peace that the warring parties agree to end. They have not shown the will in recent years to intervene in an active conflict, which could be on more than one front in Sudan. Gration is a military man and not trained to see life through rose-colored glasses so one would think his position must be tactical.

The Government of Sudan, which lost control of Darfur several years ago, has now re-established its authority in advance of elections, and by resuming cooperation with neighboring Chad, is putting all rebel movements in a more difficult position. Both JEM and the fragile LJM are not likely to be in a better position than now to negotiate a peace agreement. Meanwhile, the United States, which has been the main peace negotiator for the past several years, has seen Libya continue to supply rebel forces and Qatar become an increasingly important player in peace talks on behalf of what they apparently see as Arab unity.

The elections are in slightly less than a month from now. JEM has said it will not run candidates, and the LJM would not have time to enter the elections. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, southern Sudan’s ruling party, is only partially contesting the elections; much of the party is focused on the 2011 referendum on autonomy. The Khartoum government stands to do well in the elections, which they undoubtedly believe will legitimize the regime.

Given the combustible mix that is Sudan, the U.S. government must try all tactics – even if some seem to signal hopelessness about a negotiated peace in Sudan while others see light at the end of a long tunnel. Neither tactic has worked alone in the past, so perhaps the Obama Administration is trying more than one path to the same goal at the same time.

We won’t have long to wait to see whether either approach or both will succeed.

Jacob Zuma – Statesman

2010-03-17T09:21:00.000-04:00

South African President Jacob Zuma, the former soldier in the military wing of the African National Congress, has emerged as a significant African statesman, both internationally and domestically. His newly-realized skills in that regard are challenged by his current effort to mediate between Zimbabwe’s ruling party and its opposition partners in the Government of National Unity.

Zuma, who has led South Africa since May 2009, was asked by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to mediate between President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front and the two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Despite a 2008 Global Political Agreement that led to a unity government, Mugabe has refused to fully implement it. Recently, Mugabe stripped opposition ministers of their power, leading to a deadlock in continuing with the unity government. Zuma has been asked to put the process back on track and is in Harare this week to do just that.

Although he has his work cut out for him in dealing with a recalcitrant ruling party and a fractious opposition, Zuma is in a far different position in dealing with Mugabe than his predecessor – Thabo Mbeki. Zuma is a veteran of the armed struggle against the white minority regime in South Africa and spent time in the prison on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela. Mbeki is the son of an anti-apartheid hero – Govan Mbeki – but lived in exile for much of the time until the ANC was unbanned. Zuma is a supporter of trade unions in South Africa and in Zimbabwe, which have opposed Mugabe’s rule. Mbeki was hated by South Africa’s unions and had no relationship with or apparent sympathy for unions in Zimbabwe.

Lasting success in Zimbabwe remains to be seen, but Zuma, the leftist supported by the South African Communist Party, evidently has worked his charms on the British government and business community. He impressed the Queen and even an initially skeptical media with his stamina and constant good humor. Zuma overcame even the disagreement with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on lifting sanctions on Zimbabwe. He stressed education during his state visit and offered to use the power of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa to benefit education. The business community likely breathed a sigh of relief at his assurances that his government would not nationalize mines or mineral resources. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the enduring memory of his United Kingdom visit “will be his broad smile.”

Back home, Zuma also is employing his charm and his authority as President. At the request of the Afrikaner community in South Africa, Zuma had a private dinner with Afrikaner leaders at his official residence in Pretoria. The President assured his guests that he understood the need for all South Africans to be a part of the larger community. The meeting was necessary because of statements by ANC Youth League President Julius Malema, who called one white political leader a “Satanist” and urged nationalization of South African mines, among other incendiary statements.

Malema’s divisive statements are symptomatic of tensions within the ruling ANC. BusinessDay reported that the party’s National Executive Committee has been forced to instill discipline among its fractious elements. While cushioning the blow to Malema, who is favored by his base in the ANC’s leftist elements, Zuma did support warnings by party leaders to halt public spats by party figures.

Thus far, Zuma has been successful in at least beginning détente between his government and the United Kingdom public and private sectors, supporting internal peace within his ruling party even at the expense of offending his political base and reaching out a hand of cooperation to those who jailed him. Whatever his previous political problems he may have had or the humility of his background, President Zuma is becoming an African statesman to be reckoned with.

Africa's Human Rights Slide

2010-03-15T07:39:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Department of State’s 2009 human rights report was released the other day, and it showed disappointing trends toward human rights abuses in counties in conflict; restrictions on freedoms of expression, assembly and association and discrimination and harassment of vulnerable groups. Countries such as Iran, Iraq, China, Russia and Cuba were among those singled out for their human rights abuses, but African nations also received criticism for their violations of international standards of human rights.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan led the way in human rights abuses in conflict situation. In Sudan, “government-sponsored forces bombed villages, killed civilians and supported Chadian rebel groups.” Women and children in Sudan continued to experience gender-based violence, according to the State Department report, which calculated that 2.7 million civilians have been internally displaced , about 253,000 have sought refuge in eastern Chad and more than 300,000 Sudanese have died since the conflict in Darfur began in 2003.

Meanwhile, in DRC, “counter-insurgency operations by government security forces resulted in the killing of more than 1,000 civilians; the displacement of hundreds of thousands whose government did not adequately protect or assist them; the rapes of tens of thousands of women, children and men; the burning of hundreds of homes; the unlawful recruitment or use of thousands of children as soldiers by the DRC military and various armed groups, and abductions of numerous persons for forced labor and sexual exploitation, both domestically and internationally,” the report stated.

Nigeria’s national police army and other security forces were said by the State Department to have “committed extrajudicial killings and used lethal and excessive force to apprehend criminals and suspects.” Moreover, “violence in the form of killings, kidnappings and forced disappearances; mass rape, and displacement of civilians attributed to both government and nongovernment actors continued in the Niger Delta.”

The State Department report charged Egypt with failing “to respect the freedom of association and restricted freedom of expression” and said the country’s freedom of religion remained very poor. “Sectarian attacks on Coptic Christians mounted during the year,” the report stated. “The government failed to redress laws and government practices that discriminate against Christians.” Egypt also was cited for the airing of a television show that acknowledged the Holocaust of Jews, “but instead glorified it, praising the slaughter and humiliation of Jews and calling for future Holocausts.”

Eritrea also was cited by the State Department for serious restrictions on the right to practice religion, among other human rights violations. “Only the four religious groups whose registrations had been approved by the government (Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Catholic, and Lutheran) were allowed to meet legally during the year. Security forces continued to abuse, arrest, detain and torture members of nonregistered churches; at times such abuse resulted in death,” the report charged.

Uganda was cited because gay Ugandans faced arbitrary legal restrictions. “It is illegal to engage in homosexual acts, based on a 1950 legal provision from the colonial era criminalizing ‘carnal acts against the order of nature’ and prescribing a penalty of life imprisonment.” While no Ugandan had been charged under the law, the report described a bill introduced in the Ugandan legislature “providing the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ and for homosexual ‘serial offenders’” that has resulted in increased harassment and intimidation of gays in 2009.

There are many more citations of African human rights violations in the State Department report, but the dismal human rights record of some African countries obscures the generally good human rights record of others, such as Botswana, Cape Verde, Lesotho, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone and South Africa. These governments were described as respecting the human rights of their citizens, except for some issues.

All the world’s nations, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, have some human rights issues caused by government action or inaction to right wrongs done to people. However, the excuse that everyone does it won’t free political prisoners, house the displaced, heal the wounded, unrape women or raise the dead. Furthermore, as the colonial period fades ever further into the past, so too does the excuse that the colonial powers set Africa on a path of disrespect for human rights.

Whatever other nations may do, Africa should reach back to its pre-colonial past for principles and practices that once allowed men and women, various ethnic groups and religions to coexist more peacefully. Conditions were not perfect in Africa’s past, but many situations were better then than now. This should be a requirement for Africa to enjoy the physical blessings with which the Creator has endowed the continent.

A U.S.-Africa Trade Disconnect

2010-03-10T18:33:00.001-05:00

When I attended the August 2009 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, I heard complaints from African participants that AGOA was not as effective as it could be because its term needed to be extended, and its coverage of products needed to be expanded. U.S. government officials responded that AGOA had already been extended to 2015 and that relatively few of the more than 6,400 tariff lines were being used currently by Africans. This disparity is the result of a disconnect on the how and why of AGOA that must be corrected.

African producers aren’t taking full advantage of AGOA, but we have made it unnecessarily difficult to do so. The U.S. government has extended AGOA, but what officials see as a long extension is too short for business people asked to make longer-term investments. African governments have been too slow to make the necessary adjustments to enable their producers to better compete on the world market, including trade preference compliance issues and internal trade process issues.

The reason we and other developed nations deviated from the fundamental principles of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (and subsequently the World Trade Organization) was that colonialism had crippled the ability of newly independent developing countries to produce and sell world-class products and market them in a globalizing economy.

Some of the developing countries were able to utilize initial assistance and grow their economies, such as the so-called Asian Tigers: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In Africa, however, obstacles prevented many economies from taking off. These obstacles included continued neocolonial foreign economic interference, disastrous national leadership decisions, the until-recently slow pace of regional economic integration, non-existent or ineffective infrastructure and over-reliance on basic, non-value added products.

The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and AGOA, which was built on a GSP foundation, were meant to give a boost to African countries by providing benefits such as special tariff reductions to make them more competitive. However, our efforts, though well-intentioned, have been just enough off the mark that they have not accomplished our desired goal of enabling African countries to become more self-sufficient through more successful international trade. There is joint fault for this incomplete success. Neither the United States nor African governments have done the most effective job of working in concert to achieve our mutually desired goal in this regard.

I think the basis of the disconnect here is that AGOA was presented as a “gift” to African nations: the United States believed enhanced access for African products to be brought into the U.S. market was a significant benefit. While that was a correct and generous conclusion, AGOA was a process that was designed by Americans, protected American businesses and allowed only certain African products relaxed access to the largest consumer market in the world.

In reality, only petroleum and minerals would initially benefit fully from AGOA. Textiles early on benefited significantly until the international Multi-Fiber Agreement expired in 2005, which allowed Asian giants such as China and India, and subsequently developing nations such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, to become major textile producing countries. Manufacturing is taking place in some African nations, but a lack of consistent power is a major impediment.

Again, we too often forget that the colonial powers designed their various African empires to be independent of the rest of the continent. Francophone countries were programmed to trade with and build travel links to other Francophone countries. The same was the case in Anglophone and Lusophone countries. Even within colonial zones there often are no transportation links. A 2009 trade mission from Maryland found no direct connections between Senegal and Cameroon – both in the Francophone sphere.

To make AGOA work, there has to be a realization of the difficulties in removing remaining obstacles to intra-African trade that also limit international trade. American government, business and civil society are increasingly working together to facilitate U.S.-Africa trade, but we need to work with our counterparts to form a similarly cooperative alliance.

Blaming Africa is no solution to this problem. Only more successful cooperation on both sides of the Atlantic will work.

Our Liberian Kinsmen

2010-03-01T17:18:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, I listened to His Excellency Nathaniel Barnes, Liberia’s Ambassador to the United States, give a keynote address at a conference. It reminded me of the many Liberians I have known during my lifetime. I have been touched by their feeling of connection to the United States and its people and simultaneously saddened by the general lack of indifference with which even African Americans receive Liberians. Actually, Liberians and African Americans have family linkages, but only one side realizes that fact.

Liberia means “the land of the free” because it is a nation founded by free African Americans and freed slaves from America. Initially, 86 immigrants from our shores settled in Christopolis (now the capital city of Monrovia, named for U.S. President James Monroe) in 1820. Thousands of others eventually followed thanks to the assistance of the American Colonization Society, which was an alliance of white clergymen, abolitionists and slave owners who had varying motivations for support of a return to Africa by black people in America. In 1847, the new inhabitants of the land called Liberia declared their independence.

If the returnees to Africa stayed there, the story might hit a dead end. However, Liberians apparently maintained their ties to the land of their captivity and oppression – though not always in a positive sense. The so-called “Americo-Liberians” formed an elite that ran the country as a one-party state from independence until Sergeant Samuel Doe overthrew the government of President William Tolbert, Jr., in 1980. This expatriate elite had excluded indigenous people from citizenship in the land of their birth until 1904. It seems they learned the worst from their American experience.

Things were so good for the Americo-Liberians and at least stable for indigenous Liberians that there was negligible emigration to the United States in the first few decades of their independence. By the first half of the 20th century, though, Liberians started trickling into the United States. For example, in the last half of the 1920s, 27 Liberians came to America, and during the 1930s, another 30 Liberians arrived. In the 1940s, only 28 Liberians were recorded as coming to America, but by the 1950s, the number of Liberian immigrants reached 232. In the 1960s, the number more than doubled to 569 and then jumped to 2,081 in the 1970s before doubling again in the 1980s.

During the 1990s, more than 13,000 Liberians fled to the United States to escape a bloody civil war in their country. Many of the children of these more recent immigrants had their education disrupted so they found themselves behind in school, and it was difficult for them to fit in as older kids in lower grades with what Americans would consider strange accents. Those Liberians you would have noticed, perhaps feeling uncomfortable with their alienness. However, the Liberian elites who emigrated here or maintained dual citizenship were usually professionals or business owners. They could have been your doctor, lawyer, dentist or accountant, and unless you asked where they were from originally, you might never really know they were from Liberia.

But whether the Liberians you met were among the Americo-Liberians or indigenous people, they had a connection to America, and African Americans have a connection to them. Many of the descendants of the early African Americans who remained and the Liberians have blood ties of which many of us are still unaware. Those ties are not limited to the Americo-Liberians; after all, they left Africa and then returned so they were separated from the indigenous people by class and not necessarily by blood.

The sad part for me in all this was that when Liberians appealed to the United States for help during their civil war, African Americans did not respond broadly with the empathy Liberian expected. They felt a kinship to us we didn’t feel for them. Even now, Liberia is considered by many African Americans just another African nation, while Liberians feel they have historic and kinship ties to this country.

African Ancestry, the company that has pioneered DNA testing of African Americans, finds that as high as 10% of the matches are from ethnic groups in Liberia. So of the 500,000 or so Liberians in America, you may have a family member among them you don’t know you have.

Think about that next time you hear some a story about Liberia. Perhaps if you’re African-American, it will matter to you more.

Africa Faces Water War Threats

2010-02-26T09:37:00.000-05:00

Africa – a continent already plagued by conflict – can look forward to even greater discord in the years ahead due to the lack of sufficient water for growing populations. Our government, other donors and international organizations must do something about this issue to prevent problems that will at some point affect us all.

Potential “water wars” already are showing signs of gathering critical mass in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by countries. Thirteen African countries already experience water stress or water scarcity, and 12 more are set to join their ranks by 2025. The most likely flash points are around the Nile, Niger, Volta and Zambezi basins.

The Nile runs through Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, and their combined populations – at current growth rates – could rise from today’s 150 million people to 340 million by 2050. Long before then, however, the long-running conflict over the Nile’s water could spark warfare. As far back as 1991, Egypt warned that it was ready to use force to protect its access to the waters of the Nile. Less and less of the Nile’s water remains once the river reaches the sea.

The Niger River, which flows from Guinea through Mali to Nigeria, is vital for food, water and transport, especially to Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries. Pollution is making the Niger’s water increasingly unusable.

Southern Africa’s Zambezi River is one of the world’s most overused river systems. Nations such as Zambia and Zimbabwe compete fiercely to harness its water power, although at times there is heavy rains and flooding. Zimbabwe caused the region to experience the worst floods in recent history in 2000 when it opened the Kariba dam gates.

Ghana, a star among African countries, is dependent on the Volta River for its hydroelectric output, but regular droughts make its production of electricity from the Akosombo Dam erratic and limit Ghana’s ability to sustain its economic growth. Less output from the dam not only constrains Ghana’s ability to produce its own power, but also its ability to provide power to neighbors.

In some ways, economic development worsens limited water situations. Nearly two-thirds of Africa’s people earn their living in agriculture, which is the sector that uses the most water in Africa, accounting for an estimated 88% of water use. Since its takes about a thousand tons of water to produce each ton of grain, any progress in agricultural output in Africa will further stress limited water supplies.

There are two other sources of conflict involving water in Africa. Thanks to colonial boundary-setting, which used rivers to mark national borders, shifting of rivers due to dwindling water flows can change borders and cause war. Several years ago, Eritrea and Ethiopia engaged in a destructive border war, and shooting broke out a few years later over the Bakassi Peninsula, whose territory has long been disputed by Nigeria and Cameroon. Botswana and Namibia managed to avoid a shooting war over the disputed Sedudu/Kasikili Island in the Chobe River that divides them by resorting to, and so far accepting, a ruling by the International Court of Justice assigning ownership of the island to Botswana.

Water projects are among the largest public works projects known, and like any public works projects, they attract corruption. Unfortunately, corrupt water practices not only rob governments of income, but also prevents citizens from having access to water that should be available to them. Corruption is estimated to raise the price of water services between 10 and 30%. Such unanticipated increases in the cost of providing safe drinking water means fulfilling the Millennium Development Goal of cutting in half the number of people without access to safe drinking water in African countries may not be reached.

When people become desperate for drinking water, even tainted water is seen as a source of life. Unfortunately, drinking unsafe water leads to waterborne diseases such as botulism, cholera, e. coli, dysentery and typhoid fever. These diseases affect large numbers of citizens and can retard economic development, divert government monies that could be spent in profitable pursuits and diminishes the productive population of countries.

American civil society and the business sector must do all we can through our own efforts and through advocacy aimed at our government and international organizations to prevent Africa from drying up before our eyes. We need to support projects to provide drinking water, policies to coordinate the use of shared water, preservation of existing water by eliminating pollution and programs to efficiently use the water that exists, including recycling water where possible.

We must act now or a thirst that cannot be satisfied will overtake societies now poised to join the global economy.