Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy's "Last Frontier" Can Prosper and Matter, By Kingsley C. Moghalu, Bookcraft, Ibadan 2013
Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy's "Last Frontier" Can Prosper and Matter is about the future of Africa in a broken and transiting world. The author blends his African heritage and multi-national training, work and life experience to produce a book that challenges conventional wisdom about Africa, its current position, its future trajectories, progress indicators, who is responsible for Africa's development, the international community, foreign aid, capitalism, markets, privatisation, growth, transformation, and so on. He cautions against what he terms "African optimism" -- a premature and exuberant belief that "the end of poverty and under-development in Africa is imminent and that the Continent is on the verge of an immediate breakthrough as a major global economic player".
Reading through, four key questions come to mind. First, what are the central argument and main message of the book? Second, how has the author justified his argument? Third, what substantive value has been added to influence the discussion on Africa's future? Four, how should the African stakeholder engage the book?
The core of the book is the philosophical foundations where the idea of "thinking it through" is developed. Part I, which contains three chapters, make up the core from which two extensions are developed. The first is prescriptive, covering much of Part II (Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) and Chapter 13 (in Part III). The second extension begins in chapter 4 [in Part II] with a conceptual analysis of transformation. It continues in Part III with the (1) argument that the "international community" is a myth (Chapter 10) and (2) an interrogation of the governance structure, interests and outcomes of the operations of the international society exemplified by the UN System and its core financial and trading architecture in Chapters 11 and 12 respectively.
In the Epilogue, Emerging Africa offers the promise of a sequel. It rightly recognizes that "a completely non-historical approach to Africa's challenges of economic development might be an important omission". The value of the sketch it offers is three-fold. The first is the recognition of Achebe's lesson of history: unless Africans tell their stories, they must live with a history that glorifies their conquerors and suffer the mental and psychological consequences. Second, civilizations rise and civilizations fall: Africa was not always the "south-end" of human civilization anymore than the Anglo-Saxon civilization was always at its "north-end". There is therefore, no historical justification for the deep-rooted inferiorities that paralyze the African mind and hold it in mental bondage, the so-called "colo-mentality". Third, a people that fail to learn the true lessons of history will relive it at increasing costs.
Central Argument and Main Message
In my view, the foundational argument is the following:
- Africa's current progress is an opportunity, not an arrival at the desired destination.
- Africans and not the "international community" have the responsibility for the future of Africa: it is the decisions that Africans make now that will shape the future of Africa.
- The absence of a worldview in African nations and in the region is the fundamental reason for the under-development of Africa.
- The sustainability of truly transformative progress in Africa is anchored in 'the mind-set, the mental framework, the "psychological infrastructures" that we as Africans have or lack. "Action that is not informed by a philosophical or conceptual compass is shallow and often unsustainable".
- Therefore, (i) proper reflection and development of a consensus by Africans about their future is necessary for truly transformational progress in Africa and (ii) if African countries take the first, essential step in upgrading their psychological and mental infrastructures with appropriate worldview, the potential trajectory can unfold in the next fifty years [by 2060]. If not, it will be nothing but a mirage ... [because] "an opportunity does not a transformation make."
Statements 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the fundamental premises that support the core claim [5]. If the argument is correct, as I believe it is, Africans cannot outsource the mental process that will shape the future of Africa or the hard work of consensus-building to some amorphous international community, "experts" or development partners that are neither interested in transformative development or in partnerships of equals.
Justifying the Argument
The argument in Emerging Africa rests on three pillars: conceptual analysis, logical deduction and inference. The conceptual analysis focuses on some of the familiar concepts in development discourse, exposing their true meanings and offering clearer conceptual foundations for productive discourse. The logical analysis isolates key cause-effects of development and involves what the author referred to as "thinking it through". The inferences are his interpretation of Africa's economic data in absolute terms and, relative to the world. He also presents his preferences on Africa's future trajectory and how to get there. This is commendable because in clarifying concepts, specifying the deductive and inductive processes and presenting his preferences upfront, the author enables enlightened and purposeful engagement.
Substantive Value Addition
From the onset, there is an expanding set of philosophical questions in the book. Samplers: "But what is Africa to Africans? More importantly, what should it be? What is the continent's likely future? And, are its economies truly on the rise?"
"Is this development, in which Africa has come to be regarded as the "last frontier of the global economy ... really a cause for celebration? Will it lead to the real rise of the continent as an economic power in the mould of Asia or the West? Is Africa engaging the world - and- globalization on its own terms? Or are we seeing another, more sophisticated-than-1885 Berlin scramble for Africa unfolding before our eyes?"
These questions are of substantive value because the dynamic global economic games and its associated pay-offs that set nations on differing development paths are won and lost by the ability to ask the right questions and to arrive at the right answers. An inability to see through the seen and the said to discern the unseen and the unsaid disables the mental process (also the senses of sight and hearing and, the heart) producing unsound ideas, unsound choices, unsound actions and unsound outcomes continually [P. K. Garba, 2012]. Therefore, in raising the questions, the author makes fundamental contributions that have the capacity to frame the discourse on Africa. Even if one does not agree with all the answers in Emerging Africa, one could appreciate the substantive value of correctly framing the discussion about the future of Africa.
The philosophical arguments and the prescriptions [particularly those about paradigm shift, condition precedent to progressive transformation, foreign investment, knowledge, innovation & human capital, strategy and risk management] are insightful with potentials to elicit productive and fruitful engagements.
Engaging Emerging Africa
Emerging Africa has elicited high commendation from internationally-respected academics and public officers [such as Professor Paul Collier, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Mr. Shashi Tharoor, Rt. Hon. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown and Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi). The point of agreement among them is that the book is insightful; which demands careful reading, deep reflections and wise actions in these times of challenging national, regional and global crises.
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The author asserts that the book "is written for all those with a voice in Africa's future and with the influence and authority to make the choices that will determine the future of Africa". African stakeholders are invited to purpose-driven "brainstorming and soul searching" sessions to reflect "and to develop consensus on how [Africans] can make truly transformational progress". The question is: are key African stakeholders willing to carefully read, deeply reflect and act to build truly transformational consensus and actions that will make Africa prosperous and matter?
To the mental process, we must add the Spiritual. In a broken and transiting world, knowledge is not enough. Knowledge must be anchored in wisdom and understanding. [Proverbs 4:7]." Moreover, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Proverbs 9:10). It is that fear that generates divine wisdom and understanding in which transformative knowledge is rooted.
That Dr. Moghalu is presenting Emerging Africa on his golden jubilee is spiritually significant; the jubilee year being one of freedom (Leviticus 25:10). Beyond these, Africans need to free themselves from mental and psychological bondage; from superstitions, idolatry, greed, vanity and self-centeredness if they are to form the type of consensus that the book argues is necessary to transformative progress in Africa. Indeed, Emerging Africa exemplifies the possibilities of "a mind in a progressive state of jubilee".
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. (Leviticus 25:10, KJV).
- Garba is of the Department of Economics, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
