allAfrica.com: Africa: Africa And the Global Agenda (3) (Page 1 of 1)

According to writer Tony, "Debts are generally incurred by undemocratic Western-supported governments to pay for infrastructure that benefits multinationals and military expenditure to protect their investments. [There are] many self-congratulatory pronouncements about debt relief, but the amounts involved are no more that a drop in the ocean and are conditional on the implementation of poverty-increasing privatization and austerity".

In reality, for every $1 of US aid to Africa, $3 is taken back in debt repayments. The social cost of this is, for example, illustrated by Zambia which spends twice as much on debt repayment as on education. Or in Malawi, where the government spends more on debt repayment than on health. In Nigeria, the government took $12.4 billion in one financial year to get out of the Paris club of creditors. Only $5bn is needed to revitalise the country's railways and less than that amount is needed to put its educational institutions in good shape. Europe exploited Africa to develop. America exploited Africa to develop. Asia is exploiting Africa to develop. Which continent is Africa going to exploit to develop? None because none is richer than Africa and none is available to be exploited. Thus, Africans have to look inwards and to overcome self-doubt. Whatever disabling and unjust external intentions and actions, the desired socio-economic change will be done by Africans themselves, or it will not be done.

However, there seems to be a reluctance to think along those lines. Disheartened by the challenging external and internal factors, most Africans seem to have lost faith in their ability to take control of their lives, their societies, their countries' economies and even their history. For instance, how can any historian think that the Igbo are descendants of Jews? If human existence and civilisation began in Africa, then that history must be the other way round. That is, Jews are descendants of these Africans and not vice-versa. This is the only logical thing.

Thus, as Africans, we must be proud of our heritage. And as AbdurRahman Mohammed Babu, the Tanzanian Professor of economics asserted, "we must reorder our economic priorities and place the self-reliant satisfaction of our internal needs at the top of the list – food, clothing and shelter. This is the real foundation of developed economies. We must aim not at sustainable growth, but at self-sustaining development". The logic of self-reliance is supported by the empowerment dynamics of local production, which are reflected in employment generation, know-how development and capacity building through the job.

Experienced engineers are necessary for developing local industrial production. In particular, African universities need to develop their capacity for conducting research in identified areas of national and/or regional interest – such as natural (water and land) resources management, semi-industrial production, biotechnology, energy-technology, information technology and other critical fields of modern economies. There is the remarkable example of Booker T. Washington, a son of a slave, who founded Tuskegee University soon after the abolition of slavery in the US and who inspired the setup of an agricultural resource centre for African – American farm owners at the time. From that same university, the African – American Professor, George Washington Carver, identified 108 derivatives from groundnut – used in oils, beauty creams, soaps, shoe polish etc – which now play a key role in the food, household and cosmetic industries.

The current initiative to set – up a "Cotton University" in Burkina Faso, with the purpose of enhancing the competitiveness of African cotton through improvements in technical productivity and marketing, is a very good example of such innovative strategy to manage and develop relevant knowledge for solving African problems.

As a matter of policy, education seen as a strategy for the development of human resources for change should be relevant and empowering. In other words, practical and theoretical training imparted in African institutions should be relevant to African societies. Training, on the one hand, should develop highly needed abilities of African students to think independently and address challenges in a problem-solving approach.

Education, on the other hand, should primarily target problems of the country, rather than preparing graduates to best function abroad, thus encouraging them to leave – as the curriculum is more relevant to Western societies, and the solutions taught mobilise resources which we don't have, therefore, often making graduates ineffective here. In other words, African institutions must be tailored to be more inward-looking, must be adapted to solve African problems.

If the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in America was the main foundation for an agriculture-led poverty eradication strategy in the US, I don't see how Nigeria cannot adopt the same. If Malaysia is earning $80bn annually from export of manufactured goods, I can't see how this great country of ours cannot surpass that. Agriculture is the foundation of industrialisation and every local government in Nigeria has potential in agriculture. Developing agriculture is the surest way to poverty eradication.

Population cannot be a problem. If not, why is China with 1.4billion people developing? Ethnic and religious diversity is not the problem. If not, why is India, with 500 ethnic groups and 15 religions developing? The human resource is here, the natural resources are here. What is lacking is the leadership to bring the two together for actual greatness. This we must have immediately if we are to remain relevant.

The possibility of an alternative approach to the "world market" is corroborated by the exit in May 2007 of Venezuela from the IMF and World Bank, and President Hugo Chavez' plans to set up a new lending structure run by Latin American countries called the Bank of the South. You see? Everyone is trying to find alternative to the oppressive global agenda. Can Africa, the greatest victim, continue to sleep?

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