Tsoeu Petlane
14 January 2009
guest column
For more than a decade now, Africa has been trying to address its developmental and political problems through an approach favouring home-grown initiatives.
These range from mobilizing and using African institutions to deal with specific African crises – such as the mediation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Zimbabwe, of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development in East Africa and of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) in Liberia and Sierra Leone – to developing grand continental reform projects – such as the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), intended to improve Africa's economic and governance performance respectively.
As we enter a new year, we have to acknowledge that the "African solutions for African problems" approach has had some glaringly painful failures. The continuing crises in Somalia, in Zimbabwe, in Darfur and in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the surrounding Great Lakes region all demonstrate the weaknesses of the way "African solutions" have been implemented in 2008.
These weaknesses must be addressed in 2009. The year ahead should be one of rethinking how Africa deals with problems in a manner that is effective and restores the continent's image and initiative.
How have African solutions in these regions failed? Simply put, all four represent scenarios in which the countries concerned are either not being well governed, or not governed at all, and where African leaders and institutions have either taken the responsibility or been mandated to resolve the crises but have failed to restore stability, resulting in continued or increasing misery for the peoples concerned.
These failures exacerbate the perception that the continent cannot fashion and implement effective and thus credible solutions. This diminishes the continent's image, despite notable successes like the recent Ghanaian election.
In principle, Africans and their leaders should seek to take their destinies into their own hands and provide solutions that allow them to run their own affairs. Yet there is no in shame in acknowledging the fact when homegrown formulas do not work, and in seeking outside help. This is particularly important in today's globalised world. It is an approach followed – with much difficulty - in the hybrid United Nations-African Union force in Darfur.
There are three key reasons for failure: an almost unquestioning adherence to protecting state sovereignty, dependency on forces outside the continent and lack of leadership. Together, these stifle innovation, limit the effectiveness of proposed solutions and alienate potential allies.
First, the continent's endorsement of the leaders of collapsed or collapsing states such as Zimbabwe, Somalia and the DRC, far from promoting sovereignty, negates it. Sovereignty resides in the people, who only delegate it to leaders. In a situation in which the expression of this sovereignty is denied the people, such as in Zimbabwe; where those entrusted with it are unable to exercise it practically, such as in the DRC; or where the institutions supporting it are in question, such as in Somalia, protecting a government makes no sense – it allows a regime to maintain a veneer of statehood only on the basis of recognition by others. Thinking beyond this paradigm is urgently needed.
Second, while African leaders appear united in calling for indigenous solutions, few have demonstrated a conceptual or practical commitment to the notion. Their initiatives and solutions have depended on Africa's "partnership" with the nebulous "international community". A major component of this "community" comprises the very same former colonists who, we claim, have (i) "created" Africa's problems by colonizing them, (ii) "interfered" in Africa's internal affairs, (iii) shaped the international system to serve their own interests (in trade, economy and international relations), (iv) dictated values of good governance and economic performance that are "foreign" to Africans, and (v) "abandoned/marginalized" Africa by withdrawing aid and political support after the Cold War.
This kind of dependency – developing solutions on the basis of actions of others, and blaming them when things don't work - points to our lack of good leadership. Many initiatives have been developed to move Africa forward: Nepad, the APRM, regional conflict mediation and regional economic blocs. The factor critical to the success of these initiatives, as matters currently stand, appears to be the availability of "international support" to make them work: for example, "international" pressure on President Robert Mugabe to implement an agreement in Zimbabwe reached through African mediation, "international" logistical and material support for African-designed peacekeeping in Darfur and Somalia, "international" pressure on the Sudanese government to stop killing its own people, and "development partner" resources to undertake APRM assessments and implement their recommendations!
Is it not time for African leaders to begin thinking innovatively and demonstrating commitment by putting their resources where their agreements are?
A few examples may point the way to rescuing African solutions: Nigerian-led peacekeeping missions in West Africa, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, SADC's intervention in the Lesotho crisis of 1998, and Ghana's conduct of the December 2008 election. If initiatives like Nepad and APRM are to succeed as concrete manifestations of African solutions, peer learning and support for the principles of good governance, and not upholding the sovereignty of discredited leadership, will need to be demonstrated.
Pressure to change and to pursue the interests of Africans should come primarily from African leaders in their SADC, Ecowas and AU forums, with international support doing only that – supporting. Only then will Africans and the world take African solutions seriously.
Tšoeu Petlane is researcher for the Governance and APRM Programme of the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg.
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Let Africans be allowed to mess up. Europeans would not be what they are today had they not gone through worse mess.They later learn t how to get out of the murky waters.Soon,Africa will get tired of her own filth and clean up. Incidentally,I wonder what the fuss on poverty eradication is all about when two great gentlemen had it all figured out years ago.Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, on September13th, 1974 in a non-alignment meeting in Georgetown, Guyana had the solution,"... the real economic partners of the poor’’ said he, “are the other poor." ----------------------------------------------- And in 1972, the then Minister of Finance in Kenyatta Government, Hon. Mwai Kibaki, (now Kenya's President) while speaking at the Kenya Institute of Management had a self-help solution, ..''It is time poor nations realized that unless they take measures in the right direction to improve things for themselves” said he, “they will for a long time remain victims of big power decisions.'' Any wonder fellows in some quarters were uneasy when the self-help " tujitegemee" advocate became the occupant of the white mansion up the hill. These fellows were afraid Kibaki might actualize this self-help “nonsense”.
The title "African solutions for African problems"is an empty slogan; as much as "European solutions for European problems".
The lack of accountability to the public by politicians is the the cornerstone of most of our problems in Africa. By extension, the absence of relevant institutions to enforce accountability is what is seriously undermining Africa's development.
Imagine murderer Mugabe bribing judges with luxurious cars to enable them to visit their illegally acquired farms and a week thereafter his appeal to judges to read extensively case laws before making their judgements! Imagine Ethiopia calling desperately for food aid during famine while politicians own more than one luxurious cars that they drive on dilapidated roads!! Imagine a foreign investor who has to bribe politicians before being allowed to invest in a project that can give thousands of jobs to natives?
We do not need African solutions. We need just to respect basic rights of citizens to a transparent management of our countries, coupled with a separation of powers of the legislative, executive and judicail branches of governments.
Simple but very difficult to achieve because interest groups, national and foreign, ceaselessly poke their nose in trying to gain an upper hand in influencing matters behind the scene.
TIME will no doubt help improve our lot, but people are restless for immediate change. Pressure from the streets and organised groups should continue to harrass politicians all the time. That's where the NGOs play a very important scavenging job.
Unfortunately, in Zimbabwe, murderer Mugabe has undermined them all. For whose benefits? Lunatic Mugabe ha just printed a trillion Dollar note?? Wow!! Who could be more lunatic than criminal Mugabe? Is that an African solution to an African problem? Where else on earth there is a trillion Dollar note in circulation?
Yet this criminal Mugabe has an army of people praising him? Is that African mentality? No, I refuse to buy it. It is just greed of an animal nature!!
" .. The lack of accountability to the public by politicians is the the cornerstone of most of our problems in Africa. .. "
Beware of sweeping statements, my son. Pproblems are all over.
1) Obviously you don't blame your western friends for the destitution, starvation and deaths known to have been brought about or exacerbated by the west's imposition of economic sanctions on Iraq? Or Cuba? Or Zimbabwe?
Maybe not .
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2) You'd rather blame the victims for their victimization. You'd blame the victim of rape for having been raped. You'd even blame the Africans for having been invaded by whites, colonized and sent into slavery in the west. And you would blame the Kenyans and South Africans for their lot - but not the whites who control them, their politics, their banking systems, their psychological conditioning in the education system, their manufacturing sectors, their social life (by way of the foreign-funded NGOs) - and squat on commandeered prime ancestral lands of the child of Mother Africa.
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3) "the cornerstone of most of our problems in Africa."?
The lack of accountability is a problem all over - especially in western countries.
a) Note how president bush, ex-prime creep blair, the americans and the british are going about feigning innocence regarding the crimes against humanity that occurred in Iraq, Guantanamo and Afghanistan.
b) It has been said the the amount of corruption in USA government's defense department dwarfs the amount of corruption in all of Africa. And that is before we consider the scams in USA's health and insurance sectors. It seems as if that is a problem all over - especially in western countries. And the current financial meltdown and economic recession that has engulfed the world is a reminder that when it comes to corruption and accountability (regulation, oversight, monitoring, prosecution) and strict economic/financial management, the west - and its political and business leaders - is not THE shining example.
And neither is the east, nor the north nor the south.
And Africans, of the ancient kingdoms and the inheritors of the noble and veritable traditions of governance, need not look over their shoulders or take instructions from foreigners - just because the vicious foreign murderers have guns and do impose sanctions that kill natives.
This is a good subject!!! by chance i listened to a white MP complaining of a kenyan mp who drove a mercedes Benz to a dinner hosted for the visiting delegates still saying to the white visitng MP that the AID MONEY RECEIVED WAS NOT ENOUGH - WHAT A CHEEK
N/A, you make so many comments at once. You are essential talking to yourself. Is there room for people to comment about your comments or counter-points? A debate is always better than dictating to others. Could you try and debate issues in the future?
Give me an African leader whose children go to local schools they are flown abroad to study to secure the top positions when they come back and just fool the poor ones!!
I am just wondering if all these african forums have codes of conduct for corrupt practices amongst their member states - i really dont think they do when u just see how most of them became leaders and it has to come through educating their people about change for the better
See all comments (23).
Give me an African Leader who will admit that they have put their dirty fingers in the coffers after begging!!! So anti-corruption laws should be in place for your GREEDY LEADERS!!!