Tanzania Launches Bank For Women

Tanzania has launched a bank aimed specifically at women in what officials say will be an empowering move.

The bank says women need only an ID card or passport to open an account, unlike other banks which require title deeds or other proofs of wealth.

And applicants need only 3,000 Tanzanian shillings ($2) in savings - much less than other banks.

Although the bank, which is based in Dar es Salaam, targets women with its services, men can also open accounts.

The bank's management says it will give women expert help and advice.

'Too shy'

Margareth Mattaba Chacha, the managing director, said: "We know some women hesitate to come forward - they are too shy and think they don't know anything.

"But here we're going to have a big group of professionals to take women through step-by-step until we really reach our women."

The BBC's Zuhura Yunus, in Dar es Salaam, says 110 people had opened accounts at the Tanzania Women's Bank by the end of the morning.

Officials hope there will be 200 more people coming in every day and say the Dar es Salaam branch is just the beginning of a countrywide network.

Margaret Sitta, Minister of Community Development, Gender and Children, said the bank would empower women, but stressed that the accounts were open to all.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Phoney Choice Between Life and Death

By Kristin Palitza

Failure to sustain funding for HIV/AIDS treatment programmes could lead to a rising number of deaths, particularly in Africa.

"We need 17 to 18 billion dollars per year, or a total of 123 billion dollars over the next seven years (to fund HIV programmes worldwide), but all we have is $20 billion, leaving us with a funding gap of $103 billion," warned Eric Goemaere, head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa.

Goemaere was among thousands of researchers, clinicians, policy-makers and community activists attending the Fifth International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Cape Town which ends Wednesday.

The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which contributes more than $3.7 billion to HIV prevention and care globally, has not increased its budget this year, despite president Barack Obama's promise of an annual increase of $1 billion.

Another key global donor, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has announced it is facing a budget shortfall of between three and four billion dollars.

Goemaere said the funding shortfall was particularly tragic because with seven million people in need of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment worldwide, "the need is still increasing, and we promised universal access. It is unacceptable for us to say there is no money internationally."

According to Goemaere, the threat to HIV funding has less to do with the global financial crisis than with a general lack of commitment from some rich nations, such as France and Italy, who provide 0.4 percent and 0.1 percent of all global HIV/AIDS resources, despite the size of their economies.

In Southern Africa, one of the regions hardest hit by the pandemic, the results of the funding cuts from major international donors have already hit home. The Tanzanian government, for example, had to reduce its HIV budget by a quarter, while Swaziland lowered its 2011 treatment coverage target from 60 percent to 50 percent, which will affect about 40,000 HIV-positive people.

Uganda was instructed to stop enrolment in treatment by some PEPFAR-funded non-governmental organisations, and Malawi is expecting national drug shortages and in the process of putting into place an emergency plan.

Hoosen Coovadia, Victor Daitz Professor for HIV/AIDS research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal summed up the situation succinctly: "You can't make phoney choices between life and death. You have to find money."

Coovadia believes that there would be enough money available worldwide to fight the pandemic if governments were implementing health programmes more efficiently. "We have wasted money by not planning and targeting properly. As a result, our services are collapsing. We need real leadership and cost-effective interventions."

Vuyiseka Dubula, general secretary of South African HIV advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), agreed with Coovadia that lack of political will in Sub-Saharan Africa is a major stumbling block to treatment access.

"Health budgets are not prioritised. There is poor health planning and spending, combined with poor accountability," she lamented. "Our leadership could do more."

Goemaere called for renewed commitment from international leaders. "We need national and international funding security through five-year plans to create sustainability and ongoing pressure to sustain political will (to support HIV funding)," he said.

"In 2000, [Ugandan HIV specialist Peter] Mugyenyi said treatment exists, but not where the disease is, and unfortunately that’s still true," Goemaere added.

Shortfalls in funding will directly affect HIV disease and mortality rates in developing countries. "We can’t afford to backslide. If we don’t keep up existing programmes and increase coverage (of ARV treatment), we will see tremendous mortality," warned Professor Robin Wood, director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in Cape Town.

"Funding may not dry up. Otherwise we will see drug stock outs, which will lead to viral suppression and we will lose the viability of first-line treatment," he said.

First-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are a set of three, highly efficient drugs to treat HIV. If patients default from their treatment regimen due to drug shortages, they may become immune to some of the first-line drugs and have to rely on a second-line treatment, made up of different drugs, which are less effective, have more side effects and are six times more expensive than first-line ARVs.

"Delays of putting patients onto treatment has dire consequences. Almost a quarter will not come back [once ARVs are available], 22 percent will die and the cost of health services will increase because they will fall ill," warned Wood. "That’s a disaster."

This year, temporary ARV stock-outs have already occurred in numerous Sub-Saharan countries, including South Africa, Uganda, Malawi and Nigeria.

"Stock-outs are a management failure and a human rights violation that is unacceptable," said Anglo American chief medical officer Brian Brink.

"The economic recession cannot be an excuse to slow down on treatment. If we don’t continue to provide treatment, it's going to cost a whole lot more in the long-term."

Why US Businesses Are Not Investing In Africa As They Should - Report

American businesses are not investing in Africa as they should due to a number of reasons including corruption, lawlessness unstable governments and inadequate infrastructure.

They are also hesitant to put their money in African countries because of the apparent lack of political will by African governments to curb corruption, a report released Wednesday May 20, 2009 by Baird’s CMC, a communications marketing consultancy together with the US Chamber of Commerce.

The report a copy of which was made available to ghanabusinessnews.com indicates that, overall, US businesses do not view Africa as an attractive place to invest.

The businesses take into consideration, the image of lawlessness, corruption, unstable governments, an inadequate infrastructure, uneducated or untrained people, and an unwelcoming government attitude toward business.

The businesses believe that these practices handicap those who will not or cannot “play the game” by these rules.

In addition, returns are not reasonably ensured or sustainable because costs can often escalate for reasons unrelated to business operations and the rules can change unexpectedly. This means that the time and resources already invested could be lost, the report said.

The report which is titled ‘The conversation behind closed doors: Inside the Boardroom: How Coporate America Really views Africa’ is in two parts, the study for the second part is ongoing.

The US Chamber of Commerce which is the world’s largest business federation has a membership of more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector and region as well as 112 affiliates in 99 countries around the world.

One of the objectives of the qualitative survey was to examine why US companies hesitate to invest in Africa. It also looked at what American businesses and African countries can do to increase US investments across the continent.

Ten industries were looked at in the survey and these are, aerospace/defense, agribusiness, consumer goods, health care and information and communications technology.

The others are, infrastructure, media, petrochemical/extractive, pharmaceutical and transportation.

Top management decision makers in 30 leading U.S. multinational corporations participated and majority were executives of U.S. Fortune 100 corporations.

The executives who were interviewed, the report indicated, do not yet believe that they are at a competitive disadvantage because they are not investing in African countries.

According to the report, with no competitive traction, there is no sense of an opportunity being missed. Furthermore, since Africa is not selling itself overtly by asking for investment, the continent does not attract enough attention amidst competition for investment from other developing countries or regions. The only exceptions to this are China and India.

While the report recognized the fact that African countries are marketing themselves and creating the environment to attract investments, the lack of the following is a disincentive:

The fact that the rule of law does not prevail to the degree required to make Africa an attractive investment destination. This applies to corporate, societal, and criminal law.

Africa, the businesses observed, does not offer a sufficiently large middle class of consumers or show consistent economic growth that could promise a future market. Most African countries are small and have poor markets, and there are barriers to regional markets—such as taxes and the freedom of movement of people and goods.

According to the report however, if African countries want to position themselves, to attract a lot more foreign direct investment (FDI), from America, then they should do several things including the following:

• Invest in the health and education of the African people to create a large pool of skilled and productive human resources.

• Invest in and maintain infrastructure—transportation, communications, electricity, and security—so that there will be a reliable society in which to operate.

• Build a functioning legal system to ensure the rule of law, transparency, and fair play.

• Create a positive climate for foreign investments by reducing bureaucratic processes, eliminating corruption, and reforming tax systems, irrespective of country of origin.

• Ensure stable political environments—that may or may not be based on western democratic principles—that work toward the common good of all stakeholders in society.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Obama's Trash Talk

BY ANDREW M. MWENDA

On his recent visit to Ghana, U.S. President Barack Obama condemned war, corruption, tribalism, and all the other ills that have bedeviled our continent. Many Africans in Africa and the diaspora were moved by the speech, as were many Africa observers in the West. The speech captivated imaginations because it appealed to people's basic common sense.
That is where its positive contribution ends.

Rather inconveniently, all the attention Obama's speech has gotten disproves his opening remark: "We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans." It is not the speech of an African leader on the future of the continent that is exciting debate in the media and finding space on the blogs; it is a speech by the U.S. president. This very simple contradiction reveals the world's collective tendency to seek Africa's solutions from the West.

Beyond its many good phrases and populist appeals, Obama's speech did not deviate fundamentally from the views of other Western leaders I have read throughout my lifetime -- on aid, on civil wars, on corruption, or on democracy. Obama repackaged the same old views in less diplomatic language. He had the courage to be more explicit on Africa's ills because, due to his African heritage, Obama can say as he wishes without sounding racist -- a fear that constrains other Western leaders when talking about Africa.

Even so, Obama said nothing new. He assumes that African countries have been mismanaged because leaders on the continent are bad men who make cold hearted choices. His solution is thus to extend moral pleas for them to rule better. Yet it is not the individual behavior of Africa's rulers that demands our closest attention, destructive as that behavior may be. It is the structure of incentives those leaders confront -- incentives that help determine the choices they make.

Using this logic, we can start to ask more-useful questions. If the choices made by Africa's rulers have destroyed their economies, under what conditions can they develop a vested interest in growth-promoting policies? If Africans are going to war much more often than other human beings on the planet, what causes them to do so? When is peace more attractive than military combat?

Governing is not about making simplistic choices on who is right and who is wrong. It requires making complicated trade-offs, some of which might be costly in the short term. Take negotiated conflict settlements, for example, a policy that has stabilized Liberia and Sierra Leone after the two countries' brutal civil wars. That same policy wouldn't have worked in 1994 in Rwanda, where it would have produced an unstable power-sharing arrangement between victims of genocide and their executioners. The lesson: We cannot have one blueprint for all of Africa's problems. Even "good" moral decisions, such as those so often urged upon us by the West, can be bad sometimes.

Obama assumes that the fundamental challenge facing Africa is the lack of democracy and the checks and balances that come with it. But how does he explain why authoritarian Rwanda fights corruption and delivers public services to its citizens much better than its democratic neighbor, Uganda? In fact, the Ugandan brand of democracy has spawned corruption and incompetence more than it has helped combat them. The country's ethnic politics makes patronage and corruption more electorally profitable than delivering services.

Obama's preferred models of successful development, Singapore and South Korea, were not democratic when they rose to prominence. His proposals on ending corruption -- "forensic accounting, automating services strengthening hot lines and protecting whistle-blowers" -- are technocratic in nature. But the real challenge is how to give Africa's rulers a vested interest in fighting corruption. In most of Africa today, corruption is the way the system works -- not the way it fails.

The lesson for Obama is that Africa is likely to get better with less meddling in its affairs by the West, not more -- whether that meddling is through aid, peacekeeping, or well-written speeches. Africa needs space to make mistakes and learn from them. The solutions for Africa have to be shaped and articulated by Africans, not outsiders. Obama needs to listen to Africans much more, not lecture them using the same old teleprompter.

Andrew M. Mwenda is managing editor of The Independent, a newsmagazine based in Kampala, Uganda.

Where Are Africa’s Political Role Models?

Since Abraham Lincoln became the role model for President Barack Obama, I wonder which African politician President Obama could have picked as a role model if he had run as a candidate in any African country. Currently there are about 53 presidents and prime ministers whose countries form the Africa Union. It should therefore not be difficult to find role models among such a large contingent of leaders.

A google search for possible role model candidates led to Mobutu Sese Seku, Sani Abacha, Iddi Amin Dada, Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, Samuel Doe of Liberia, Charles Taylor, Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Central Africa, Ibrahim Babangida, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Lansana Conte of Guinea, Museveni- Uganda, Milton Obote of Uganda, Bakili Muluzi, Laurent Kabila, Kwame Nkrumah, Jerry John Rawlings, Blaise Campore, Arap Moi, Hosni Mubarak, Omar Al Bashir, Gaddafi, Omar Bongo, Obiang Nguema, Sassou Nguesso, Eduardo dos Santos, Francois Bozize of Central Africa, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, Iddriss Deby of Chad, Valentine Strasser of Sierra Leone, Mwai Kibaki, Mengistu Haile Mariam and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.

After a careful examination and analysis of their record President Obama may find it difficult to settle for any of the above. The reason is that almost all of them have been accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to their poor countries. Again all of them have demonstrated poor leadership, political immaturity, are insensitive to the plight of the people and have shown no understanding of issues affecting the people including fighting poverty.

Additionally, nearly all of them established one party dictatorship; killed, imprisoned or exiled their opponents; aggressively destroyed press freedom, freedom of speech and association; banned their opponents from contesting elections; kept their people in perpetual poverty while living opulence and extravagant lifestyles.

Furthermore, virtually all of them were or are dictators who have committed human rights abuses against their countrymen including murder, torture and force imprisonment.

Besides, almost all of them were or are military or rebel leaders who illegally ceased power through the barrel of the gun and subjected their people to inhuman treatment including torture, extrajudicial killings and murder. Those who came to power through the ballot box have become anti-democrats and the International Criminal Court is seeking to put a number of them on trial for human right abuses and war crimes.

Moreover, a good number of them have spent decades in power and are unwilling to relinquish it despite their huge failures seen in the form of poverty, diseases, homelessness and wars. Example Omar Bongo of Gabon has ruled for 42 years, Gaddafi of Libya 39 years; Dos Santos and Sassou Nguesso 30 years each; Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and Robert Mugabe 28 years each, Hosni Mubarak 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 23 years, Omar Al Bashir of Sudan 20 years, Iddriss Derby of Chad 18 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia 14 years.

What is more, despite years in office none has been able to build a successful economy for their people. Despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in loans and grants from the IMF, the World Bank, USA, Japan, China and European nations; and also receiving trillions of dollars in revenue from oil, gas, gold, diamond, timber, copper, coltan not a single one of them was able or has been able to put their economies on the level equal to that of the Asia Tigers or even the smallest economy in the European Union. Out of the 53 countries making the Africa Union only one was invited to take part in the G20 Summit that ended in April 2009. Their failure to eradicate poverty has prompted questions as to whether Africans can ever build a prosperous society devoid of abject poverty, blatant official corruption, mismanagement and tyrannical rule.

The Who is Who of Africa’s corruption ranking feature Mobutu at the top. He is followed closely by Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Omar Bongo, Eyadema, Hosni Mubarak, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Eduardo Dos Santos, Obiang Nguema, Lansana Conte, Arap Moi, Gaddafi, Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria, Blaise Campore of Burkina Faso, Museveni of Uganda, Paul Biya of Cameroon, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, Charles Taylor of Liberia, Iddriss Deby of Chad, Bakili Muluzi -Malawi, Frederick Chiluba of Zambia, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Jacob Zuma of South Africa. There are many whose corruption status has not yet been determined. Among them are Joseph Kabila, Paul Kagame, Robert Mugabe, Kenneth Kaunda, Francois Bozize, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia and a host of others.

Corruption, malfeasance, tyranny, mismanagement, nepotism, cronyism, human rights abuse, incompetence and media censorship run through almost all the countries in Africa.

Ghana became the first territory south of the Sahara to gain independence in 1957. In 1966 the army ousted Nkrumah who had ushered in a one party state and was on his way to become a dictator. Nkrumah introduced the Prevention Detention Act in which his political opponents were arrested, tortured and imprisoned without trial. Others were murdered and those who had the chance to flee sought asylum in foreign countries. One coup in 1979 and a second one in 1981 brought Jerry Rawlings to power who spared no effort to annihilate his perceived opponents. He ruled till 1992 when he changed his military uniform into civilian and ruled for another 8 years. Jerry Rawlings, the longest ruling tyrant in Ghana killed all the former heads of state by firing squad leaving only Dr. Limann who lived a miserable life till his death. His administration was largely corrupt and marred by nepotism. He is discredited for sowing the seed of tribal animosities in the country especially between the Akans and the Ewes. In 2000 after 19 years in power and under pressure from the West and the people, Rawlings unwillingly handed over power to an opposition government when his party the National Democratic Congress lost the elections to the New Patriotic Party. The Fourth Republican Constitution drawn up by his regime has a lot of clauses that make him unanswerable to the abuses committed during his regime.

Since independence in 1960 Gabon had known only two leaders. Leone Mba who was elected president in 1961 and ruled till his death in 1967 and was succeeded by Omar Bongo who has since ruled the oil rich but socially and economically impoverished nation for 42 years. He is widely seen as one of the wealthiest and most corrupt rulers in the world. Bongo was a subject of French police investigation that uncovered that he owned at least 33 luxury properties. In February 2009 his nine bank accounts were frozen by a French court. He was implicated in the trial of former Elf Aquitaine executives for accepting bribes to the tune of $40m annually in exchange for oil concessions. A US Senate report of 1997 accused him of spending $100m annually mainly from his Gabon coffers. A US Senate inquiry in 1999 revealed that the giant Citibank held private accounts for Bongo who transferred US$100 million, into it. French News Papers including Le Monde have uncovered about 59 properties owned by him and his family including one bought in 2007 at the cost of 18.8 million Euros. He was sued by Transparency International for stealing Gabon’s resources.

Jomo Kenyatta became Kenya’s leader at independence in 1963 and ruled till 1978. As usual Kenyatta’s Kenya Africa National Union (KANU) was made the only official political party which controlled Kenya for four decades. Kenyatta was replaced by Daniel Arap Moi who also ruled till 2002. Moi’s 24 year reign was a dictatorship marred by official corruption and nepotism. He was accused in a report by Kroll International of having banked £1b in foreign banks. He and his family are known to own several properties in Britain and Australia among others. He avoided prosecution for corruption in 2003. Mwai Kibaki who succeeded Moi in 2002 faced a re-election battle which was marred by violence. He has been accused of sheltering Moi and his cronies and not doing enough to fight corruption which cost Kenya at least $1b a year.

Since independence in 1958 Guinea has known only two leaders Sekou Toure who ruled from independence till his death in 1984 and Lansana Conte who seized power in a coup in the year Sekou Toure died. Conte ruled from1984 till his death in 2008. He is seen as one thee most corrupt leaders ever to have ruled an African state. He has been accused of pocketing 70% of all revenues coming from the sale of bauxite in Guinea. A dictator for a quarter of a century he can only be remembered for bringing poverty, misery, deprivation and cronyism to Guinea. After his death army officers led by Capt. Moussa Camara have also seized power and there is little sign that the poverty stricken country will ever taste democracy.

The presidency of Equatorial Guinea has been dominated by two men from the same family since independence from Spain in 1968. Mr Obiang Nguema the current president overthrew his uncle, President Francisco Nguema, in 1979, had him tried and executed. Since taking power Obiang Nguema has presided over a corrupt government. He has curtailed rights and freedoms of his people; allows no opposing views and has dealt mercilessly with the media. Human rights abuses in his fiefdom are widespread and head of the opposition is in exile. Many of the 600,000 inhabitants of his country live in poverty despite billions of dollars of revenue from oil. He and five other corrupt leaders were sued by Transparency International over allegations of corruption and embezzlement.

In Uganda after independence in 1962 and short period of democratic governance the country became a hot bed for coups and counter coups that saw Milton Obote toppled twice; Iddi Amin becoming life president; invasion by Tanzania and a civil war that brought Colonel Yoweri Museveni into power in 1986. Museveni has since ruled till today, he has been in power for 23 years. Like many of his contemporaries his government is very popular in promoting corruption, nepotism and cronyism. Museveni’s government is nothing more than an oligarchy. In Uganda Museveni is the president; his wife Janet Keinembabazi Kataha Museveni is the First Lady, MP and a Minister; his son Major Muhoozi Kainerugaba is an army commander of his elite group and a possible successor of Museveni. Museveni’s younger brother, Caleb Akandwanaho, is senior presidential advisor on defence. His daughter Natasha Karugire is private secretary to the president. He has vehemently resisted all calls to introduce democratic reforms in Uganda.

In South Africa after the brutal regime of the apartheid government came to an end, Nelson Mandela took over and successfully handed power to Mbeki after just one term in office. However, Mbeki was forced out office in September 2008 after a bitter power struggle with Zuma. Mbeki refused to embark on campaign to curb the menace of HIV/AIDS which killed several people under his watch. Crimes of all categories have increased and it seems the nation is slowly joining the rest of the continent as a poor developing country. Jacob Zuma who is likely to become President is embroiled in corruption allegations and a rape case against him was dismissed by the court. His reputation has been badly damaged by the rape and corruption charges brought against him.

In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda ruled from 1964 the year of independence till 1991 a total of 27 years. He embarked on one party rule that barred opposition parties from actively engaging in politics. Despite being a major copper producer, Zambia under Kaunda’s watch slipped from being a potential economic power house into one of the poorest countries in the world. He was accused of corruption by Chiluba’s government and spent a few time in jail. His major contribution was to the independence struggles of South Africa and Zimbabwe but he is most remembered for failing to use the huge mineral wealth to better the lot of Zambians. His successor Fredrick Chiluba is battling corruption allegations and parliament has voted to remove his immunity. A High Court in Britain ruled in 2007 that Chiluba and four of his aides conspired to rob Zambia $46m. The elections that brought Rupiah Banda, the current president into power were decried by the opposition as not free and fair.

In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere ruled as the sole leader of the country from independence in 1962 till his retirement in 1985. Under his leadership all political parties were outlawed except the Party of the Revolution which happened to be his party. His social and economic programmes (ujamaa) were a total failure he is however credited for deposing Iddi Amin. Since he left office the country has chalked a lot of successes in the field of democracy and governance and the economy is showing signs of growth. Ex-President Benjamin Mkapa who became president in 1995 successfully transferred power to Jakaya Kikwete in 2005 after 10 years as head of government.

Burkina Faso formerly Upper Volta got her independence from France in 1960. Six years later the army as it has always been were in power. A series of coups in the 1980s saw Thomas Sankara taking over power in 1983 but he too was ousted in 1987 by Blaise Campore who was a close. Campore has since ruled the country as his personal fiefdom he has been in power for 22 years. He is one of the Corrupt Five who were sued by Transparency International for having amassed wealth at the expense his poor people majority of whom live on a dollar a day in this semi-arid country.

In Tunisia, Ben Ali has changed the constitution of the country in order to run for third term in office.

In Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika has won a third term after using the rubber stamp parliament to change the constitution of the state. He has been battling fundamentalists who were denied election victory in the 1990s.

In Togo, after the assassination of the country’s first elected president in 1963, Gnassingbe Eyadema took power in a bloodless coup in 1967 and ruled till his death in February, 2005 after 38 years as head of state. His son Faure Gnassingbe was quickly installed as president by the army but international outcry resulted in an election in April 2005 which the army said Faure won 66%.

In Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Chad the norm has been corruption, mismanagement, election violence, torture, dictatorship, murder, imprisonment of political opponents and the use of security forces against the people. In Africa and the rest of the world the names Mobutu Sese Seku, Sani Abacha, Omar Bongo, Denis Nguesso and Dos Santos are synonymous to blatant corruption, nepotism, cronyism, murder, incompetence and mismanagement. The word Kleptocracy was first coined to describe the nature of Mobutu’s government which was nothing but a government of thieves.

However despite the negativities there are some few shining examples. Botswana, Africa’s most successful economy is also the continent’s only true democratic country where multi-party democracy has been in place since independence in 1966. It is the least corrupt country in Africa and has a good human rights record. It is the only country in the continent where the leaders have used revenue from the natural resources mostly diamond to benefit the people. It is the world's largest producer of diamonds and the trade has transformed it into a middle-income nation. The current president Seretse Khama Ian Khama came to power in 2008.

Gaining her independence from South Africa in 1990, Namibia has joined the community of democratic nations after Sam Nujoma handed over power to his chosen nominee Hifikepunye Pohamba, after three terms as president. Like Botswana the leadership of Namibia are using revenue from diamond to improve the wellbeing of the people. In Benin an independent candidate won the presidency and in Liberia Johnson Sirleaf, a woman has become president the first in history of the continent.

Nelson Mandela is the only ex-president to have willingly stepped down as president after just one term in office. He is a Nobel Peace Laureate, a statesman, a freedom fighter and a hero not only in South Africa but also around the world. He has a monument erected in his honour by the government of Britain. Another respected personality in Africa is Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu who is also a Nobel Peace Laureate, a Statesman, peace activist and powerful anti apartheid campaigner.

The last of the possible role models is Kofi Annan, a former UN Secretary General who has recently being playing a leading role as a peace mediator and a critique of political corruption and anti-democratic governance in Africa. Since Tutu and Annan are not politicians and therefore out of the political equation, Obama will have no choice but to scream with the question, “Where are Africa’s political role models?”

By Lord Aikins Adusei
Political Activist and Anti-Corruption Campaigner

Ending An Endless War

By Alan Doss

The UN's special representative sets out what can be done to end the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bad news travels fast: my BlackBerry has become the messenger from hell. With growing frequency, UN teams in the Kivu provinces of eastern Congo report vicious attacks on remote, undefended communities. Houses are being burned with children trapped inside; wives and daughters, and sometimes fathers, are being raped and murdered in front of their families.

Most of these brutalities are the work of the Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a group with roots in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. But humanitarian groups also point to crimes committed by Congo's national army (FARDC). Some observers have even urged the UN to withdraw from all joint operations against the FDLR until the government puts its military 'house' in order.
But such a move would not end the brutality and might well perpetuate it. Time and time again, warlords and armed groups have re-emerged when they sensed hesitation and vulnerability.

So what is to be done to end the violence?

First, the government must ensure discipline and end impunity within its own forces. The government promised action last month. The UN Mission in the Congo (MONUC) and other partners are helping to improve military justice. Prosecutions have begun. They must continue, and they must be transparent so that victims see justice done.
But army discipline will not improve if soldiers are left to live off the land. So, second, the government must improve conditions for troops in the field. This means barracks, sufficient food, and wages paid in full and on time. Unfortunately, though, plunging mineral prices have caused a dramatic drop in the state's revenues. Donors need to dig deeper to help fund reform of the army.

Third, the international community must take urgent action against FDLR leaders based outside the country. UN experts recently presented the Security Council with evidence that some leaders – some of them in the West – are directing operations from abroad, communicating via satellite phones to commanders in the Kivus. These leaders may include individuals implicated in the Rwandan genocide.
The FDLR today includes many young people who were not involved in the genocide and do not want to spend the rest of their lives as outlaws. Already this year more than 1,100 FDLR combatants have quit and been repatriated. We should ramp up incentives, to encourage others to follow suit.

MONUC itself needs more help. The Security Council mandated MONUC to protect civilians, and it is doing so every day in the highest-risk areas of the Kivus, often in very remote areas. But we are thin on the ground. The reinforcements authorised by the Security Council last year are urgently needed. Our teams are working to prevent and not just react to violence. They are working with traditional chiefs, community groups and NGOs to promote reconciliation and to resolve grievances, many of them long-standing and many not solely related to the presence of the FDLR.

Part of MONUC's task is economic, because the absence of economic opportunity is the best recruiting sergeant for armed groups. So MONUC, government authorities and donors have committed themselves to a recovery and stabilisation package to repair roads, re-build schools and clinics, create jobs, and expand the police presence in the east of the country. Early action and quick funding is vital.
The international community has long wanted action taken against the FDLR. Late last year, the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda took decisions that ended one rebellion – by Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) – and started concerted action to deal with the FDLR. It was a breakthrough that must not be squandered. Vigorous intervention against the FDLR both in the Congo and abroad, backed by credible reform in the national security forces, could make that breakthrough lasting.

Alan Doss is the UN special representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Global Warming...?

It has been assumed that global warming would cause an expansion of the world's deserts, but now some scientists are predicting a contrary scenario in which water and life slowly reclaim these arid places.
The evidence is limited and definitive conclusions are impossible to reach but recent satellite pictures of North Africa seem to show areas of the Sahara in retreat.

Interview With Women On Crisis In Africa

Specialists Debate How U.S. Aid to Africa Can be More Effective

By James Butty

As both the Obama administration and Congress discuss reform proposals in U.S. foreign aid and development assistance, experts at a panel discussion in Washington have called on the United States to make U.S. foreign aid more supportive of effective governments and citizen-led institutions.
In his speech to the Ghanaian Parliament and Africans in general a week ago, President Barack Obama promised substantial increases in U.S. foreign aid to Africa.
Thursday’s panel discussion in Washington among development professionals and aid recipients offered some suggestions how U.S. foreign aid can be more beneficial to recipients.
Paul O’Brien, director of the Aid Effectiveness Team at OXFAM America, an international relief and development organization said local ownership of aid was one of the key ways toward smart development.
“For many of us who focus on development exclusively, we think the best way to serve U.S. national interests - our defense interest, our diplomatic interests - would be to focus on development as an end in itself. Yes, we need to give information, yes we need to build capacity, but ultimately if we want responsible leadership in the field, we’re going to let countries lead,” he said.
O’Brien described what he called “a control paradox” in U.S. foreign aid policy in the form of legislative earmarks.
“They are a function of the fact that the executive branch on the one hand and Congress on the other don’t trust each other. And so they feel that if they are going to get impact for their money they’ve got to decide exactly what that money is going to be used for. The consequence of that break down of relationship is that we can’t give any control out in the field to the development professionals who supposed to be listening to what people are doing on the ground,” O’Brien said.
Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda, a regular critic of Western aid, said African countries should think more about how to do away with aid rather than how to make it effective.
“Rather than deal with their own citizens, governments in Africa find it more productive to enter into negotiations with the international community for aid. The consequence of that is of course ineffective public institutions,” he said.
Mwenda said if African governments were to depend more on their own citizens for revenues, they would be driven by self-interest to listen to their citizens about policies.
He said aid should be given to African countries or institutions that are succeeding rather than to those who are failing.
“Once you have identified those nations, aid should go to those nations that are effective.If you have a country that can use aid effectively, then you do not need conditionalities from the West, and you do not need lectures from the West,” Mwenda said.
Liberia’s Minister of State for Development and Reconstruction O. Natty Davis II said international aid has been helpful to his country’s reconstruction efforts following years of civil war.
“We’ve increased the number of school children going to school. We’ve now put in a school feeding program. We’ve increased health service delivery. Over the course of the last three years we’ve been able to rehabilitate some of the principal roads within the capital, and that is now been extended out,” he said.
Davis admitted corruption is systemic in Liberia but said the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has taken steps to fight corruption.
“We have set up the Anti-Corruption Commission; we are investing more heavily in the justice system and the justice ministry. We are working to try to improve the court system. We are putting in those kinds of reforms, particularly in our public financial management system that reduces the space and the opportunity for corruption,” Davis said.
He denied local news reports that Liberia was on the brink of losing its eligibility status for the Millennium Challenge Corporation Funding because of the lack of political will to fight corruption.

African vs. African American

It's a tension Unspoken; a love-hate relationship that often pits the African experience against the African American experience. It often lurks undetected but like a Mamba slithering through the tall wispy blades of our black sub-conscious when provoked it strikes with an indiscriminately potent and unforgiving venom. Its a tension born out of misunderstanding; a tension rooted in misconceptions; and a tension fueled by a misguided interpretation of each others' values.
We often reduce each other to mere stereotypes and caricatures as we assign characteristics that are ill-conceived and uncomplimentary; stereotypes that are further reinforced by the media. The African at times may see the African American as nothing more than a sell-out, an "uncle Tom" or "Menace to Society" while the African American reduces the African to nothing more than those "Hakuna Matata", "Blood Diamond", dashiki-wearing stereotypes. I trust your intellect and so I need not explore or submit a plethora of examples that expound on what I am talking about primarily because I believe that if you're black then you're not blind to it and if you're anything else you can often see it play out with your own kind, the Mexican vs. the Mexican American; the Asian vs. the Asian American and so on.
You see, there is a tension that often forgets that we are a people who share a common legacy and although we were separated by a common injustice, it is this shared heritage we should celebrate. It's a legacy and heritage that predates Michael Jackson and Bob Marley, a history bigger than Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela, Miriam Makeba or Rosa Parks; a history with more talent than Kobe Bryant, Pele, Okocha or Brian Lara; a legacy and heritage more tragic than colonialism & slavery and yet more monumental and awe-inspiring than the Pyramids of Giza or the Great Zimbabwe.

Sincerely yours,
Kwapi
Copyright 2009

China Provokes Debate in Africa

By Walden Bello:
At the Seventh World Social Forum (WSF), held in Nairobi, Kenya, in late January, the most controversial topic was not HIV-AIDS, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, or neoliberalism. The topic that generated the most heat was China’s relations with Africa.
At a packed panel discussion organized by a semi-official Chinese NGO, the discussion was candid and angry. “First, Europe and America took over our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy,” Humphrey Pole-Pole of the Tanzanian Social Forum told the Chinese speakers. “You don’t even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labour.”
Stung by such remarks from the floor, Cui Jianjun, secretary general of the China NGO Network for International Exchanges, lost his diplomatic cool and launched into an emotional defense of Chinese foreign investment, saying that “we Chinese had to make the same hard decision on whether to accept foreign investment many, many years ago. You have to make the right decision or you will lose, lose, lose. You have to decide right, or you will remain poor, poor, poor.”
The vigorous exchange should have been anticipated since many Africans view China as having the potential to bring either great promise or great harm. If African civil society representatives were hard on China, this was because they desperately wanted China to reverse course before it was too late, so that it would avoid the path trod by Europe and the United States.

Beijing’s High Profile in Africa

The debate at the WSF took place amid a marked elevation of Africa’s profile in China’s foreign policy. In early February, President Hu Jintao made his third trip to Africa in three years, following the success of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which took place November 4-5, 2006. Attended by 48 African delegations, most of them led by heads of state, the Forum was the largest international summit held in Beijing.
At the start of the summit, Beijing unveiled a glittering trade and aid plan designed to cement its “strategic partnership” with Africa. The key items in the package committed China to doubling its 2006 assistance within three years, providing $3 billion worth of preferential loans and $2 billion worth of export credits, and canceling all interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 and were owed by the heavily indebted and poorest African countries. In addition, the two sides agreed to raise the volume of trade from $40 billion in 2005 to $100 billion by 2010 and set up of a China-Africa Development Fund that would be capitalized to the tune of $5 billion to support Chinese companies investing in Africa.
If not yet the biggest external player in Africa, China is certainly the most dynamic. It now accounts for 60% of oil exports from Sudan and 35% of those from Angola. Chinese firms mine copper in Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville, cobalt in the Congo, gold in South Africa, and uranium in Zimbabwe. Its ecological footprint is large, says Michelle Chan-Fishel of Friends of the Earth International, consuming as it does 46% of Gabon’s forest exports, 60% of timber exported from Equatorial Guinea, and 11% of timber exports from Cameroon.

Contrasting Images of China:

China is popular with African governments. “There is something refreshing to China’s approach,” said a Nigerian diplomat who asked not to be identified. “They don’t attach all those conditionalities that accompany Western loans.” Adds Justin Fong, executive director of the Chinese NGO, Moving Mountains: “Whether accurate or not, the image Africans have of the Chinese is that they get things done. They don’t waste their time in meetings. They just go ahead and build roads.”
An African development specialist working with a western aid organization claimed that Chinese projects are low cost affairs compared to western projects. “Labor costs are low, they integrate African labor, so some transfer of skills takes place, and the Chinese workers live in the village, and this means living like the villagers, down to competing with them for dog meat.”
While they might dispute this characterization of China’s impact, most NGOs are nuanced in their assessments. They acknowledge that China has a different trajectory in Africa than Europe and the United States. Whereas the West began by exploiting Africa, China initiated its relations with Africa with “people-to-people” medical and technical assistance missions in the 1960s and 1970s, the most famous of which was the building of the now fabled Tanzania-Zambia (Tanzam) Railway. But with China’s rise as a modernizing economic superpower after the definitive decision in 1984 to use capitalism as the engine of growth, the old solidarity rationale has been replaced by a dangerously single-minded pursuit of economic interests -- in this case, mainly oil and mineral resources to feed a red-hot economy.
If African governments were accountable to their people, say NGO critics, Chinese aid could play a very positive role, especially compared to World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans that come with conditions to bring down tariffs, loosen government regulation, and privatize state enterprises. But with non-accountable, non-transparent governments, such as those in the Sudan and Zimbabwe, say the critics, Chinese loan and aid programs contribute instead to consolidating the rule of non-democratic elites.

Crossing the Line in Sudan:

Where China has definitely crossed the line is in Sudan. Using its veto power at the UN Security Council, China has prevented the international community from creating and deploying a multinational force to protect people in Darfur who are being killed or raped by militias backed by the Sudanese government. Even one African diplomat sympathetic to China asserts, “China’s strong backing for the Sudanese government has discouraged African governments that are trying to push it to accept an African Union solution to the problem.”
China has very substantial interests in Sudan. These are set out in detail in an important collection of studies launched at the WSF entitled African Perspectives on China in Africa, edited by Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks. China obtained oil exploration and production rights in 1995 when the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) bought a 40% stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, which is pumping over 300,000 barrels per day. Sinopec, another Chinese firm, is building a 1500-kilometer pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where China’s Petroleum Engineering Construction Company is constructing a tanker terminal. Author John Rocha estimates Chinese investment in oil exploration to reach $8 billion.
Chinese interests go beyond oil. Its investment in textile mills is estimated at $100 million. It has emerged as one of Sudan’s top arms suppliers. In one particular barter arrangement, China supplied $400 million worth of weapons in return for cotton. It is active in infrastructure, with its firms building bridges near the Merowe Dam and two other sites on the River Nile. It is involved in key hydropower projects, the most controversial being the Merowe Dam, which is expected to ultimately cost $1.8 billion.
The construction of the Merowe Dam has involved forced resettlement of the Hambdan people living at or near the site and repression and an armed attack on the Amri people who have been organizing to prevent the Sudanese government’s plan to transfer them to the desert. Local police and private agencies now provide 24-hour security to Chinese engineering detachments, but civil society observers say the aim of these groups is less protection of the Chinese than repression of growing opposition. As Ali Askari, director of the London-based Piankhi Research Group, puts it, “The sad truth is, both the Chinese and their elite partners in the Sudan government want to conceal some terrible facts about their partnership. They are joining hands to uproot poor people, expropriate their land, and appropriate their natural resources.”
Chinese and Sudanese officials tend to dismiss such criticism as the machinations of western powers. Such powers are alarmed at China’s becoming the top international player in a country long treated as being in the West’s sphere of influence. But, according to Beijing and Khartoum, the West’s dismal record of colonial plunder deprives its statements of any moral authority. Defending its close relations with the Sudanese government, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Zhai Jun, noted the contrast in African governments’ reception of China and the West: “Some people believe that by ‘taking’ resources and energy from Africa, China is looting Africa...If this was so, then African countries would express their dissatisfaction.”
Chinese officials are, however, wrong to think that African NGOs are merely parroting the rhetoric of self-interested western governments. In fact, civil society groups also consider such western criticism hypocritical. Commenting on the remark of a World Bank official to the effect that “Chinese handouts without reforms” would not be beneficial to Africa, John Karumbidza, a contributor to the China in Africa volume, acidly remarks, “It is the case...that this same bank and Western approach over the past half century has failed to deliver development, and left Africa in more debt than when they began.”

Other Problematic Partnerships:

These criticisms are unlikely to go away, not only in Sudan but in many other countries where Chinese involvement with controversial regimes runs deep. With relations with the West and even South Africa deteriorating over his political record, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has increasingly turned to China, which one of his key ministers has characterized as an “all weather friend.” Chinese investment in mining, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, and other sectors was estimated at $600 million at the end of 2004, with another $600 million pledged in June 2005. The price, however, has been high, according to critics, who claim that Mugabe’s government has handed de facto control of key strategic industries to the Chinese. A contract with China to farm 386 square miles of land while millions of Zimbabweans remain landless has come under fire, with rural sociologist John Karumbidza blasting it as “nothing more than land renting and typical agri-business relations that turn the land holders and their workers into labor tenants and subject them to exploitation.”
The Nigerian government is another problematic Chinese partner, according to civil society activists. China has extensive interests in Nigeria, particularly in oil exploration and production. The China National Offshore Corporation (CNOOC), notes researcher John Rocha, has acquired a 45% working interest in an offshore enterprise, OML 130, for $2.3 billion; the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has invested in the Port Harcourt refinery; and a joint venture between the Chinese Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the L.N. Mittal Group, plans to invest $6 billion in railways, oil refining, and power in exchange for rights to drill oil.
These interests have led to an increasingly tight alliance with the faction of the ruling People’s Democratic Party dominated by President Olusegun Obasanjo. This relationship has a controversial security dimension. As Ndubisi Obiorah, another contributor to the China in Africa volume who is director of the Center for Law and Social Action in Lagos, notes: “The Nigerian government is increasingly turning to China for weapons to deal with the worsening insurgency in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The Nigerian Air Force purchased 14 Chinese-made versions of the upgraded MiG 21 jet fighter; the navy has ordered patrol boats to secure the swamps and creeks of the Niger Delta.” Not surprisingly, the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND) has warned Chinese companies to keep out of the region or risk attack.
With their integrated political, military, economic, and diplomatic components, China’s “strategic partnerships” with governments such as those of Nigeria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe increasingly have the feel of the old U.S. and Soviet relationships with client states during the Cold War.

Will Civil Society Make the Difference?

Nevertheless, many civil society activists do not discount the possibility that things may yet be turned around. Though critical of current Chinese policies, Humphrey Pole-Pole of Tanzania appealed at the Nairobi meeting for a “win-win-win” strategy -- that is, “a win for China, a win for African governments, and a win for African people. This is not impossible.”
The key to such a change may be the growth of Chinese civil society organizations, some of which are increasingly independent of and indeed critical of government policies within China.
But closer ties between Chinese and African NGOs are not enough, says Justin Fong. Mechanisms to ensure Chinese government accountability are needed. One point of vulnerability he identifies is the practice of Chinese government entities, such as the China Export-Import Bank, of going for co-financing for their Africa projects to international banks such as HSBC and Citigroup. When it comes to controversial projects, pressure might be indirectly placed on the Chinese by lobbying these institutions, which are more sensitive about their image than Beijing. Such tactics, which sometimes worked with western governments and firms, may not, however, succeed with China.
But whatever their differences, civil society activists, African and Chinese, agree on one thing. It will be a hard, uphill struggle to change the Chinese juggernaut’s direction in Africa.

FPIF columnist Walden Bello is executive director of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South.

Denouncing Dictatorship in Uganda

By Beth Tuckey
Three years ago, I would get into long discussions with a friend in Uganda about the United States, global political affairs, and the situations in African countries. On Ugandan politics, he delivered impassioned speeches about democracy and responsible governance, and I often thought I was looking at Africa's next great leader. He knew the rules of Ugandan politics but refused to accept them. Instead, he advocated for a higher standard in government, one that put the interests of the country's citizens ahead of political gain.
When I visited him in Uganda this February, we shared our excitement over the election of Barack Obama, and he described the depth and breadth of expectations for the new president with regard to African issues. But as we continued talking, he narrowed Obama's agenda down to one request. "If Obama would just denounce dictatorship, that would be it," he said. "Nothing else."
In other words, after years of seeing Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni rewrite the constitution to run for yet another term, my friend wants something different. He, too, wants change.

Undemocratic Allies

In the Great Lakes Region, Uganda is one of the most important U.S. allies. For years, Uganda was an aid and investment haven, and one of Africa's rising stars. Today, State Department officials continue to receive critical intelligence information from the Ugandan government, and its military is trained and deployed for peacekeeping in Somalia. Additionally, Museveni is still sometimes cited as an exemplar on HIV/AIDS in Africa, despite recent years of increasing prevalence rates — largely a result of Bush administration pressures.
And yet Museveni isn't a responsible democratic leader. He has been in power since 1986 and plays political favoritism with those from his alleged birthplace in western Uganda. Perhaps most notoriously, he has marginalized the people of the north, cheating them of development aid and prompting the formation of a brutal rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Human Rights Watch has cited Museveni's military, the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF), numerous times for committing serious crimes against the civilian population. The UPDF also invaded and occupied the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during Museveni's rule, which led to the killing and torture of Congolese civilians, as well as the pillage of Congo's mineral wealth.
The LRA terrorized northerners for 20 years without any serious action from the Ugandan government. In 1996, rather than effectively dealing with the LRA problem, the government forcibly displaced much of the population into camps. There they were vulnerable to mass attack by the LRA and died of disease, hunger, and inadequate sanitation. International pressure eventually became so strong that Museveni could no longer ignore the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in his country. A peace process was initiated in Juba, South Sudan in 2006 with buy-in from the LRA, the government of Uganda, and the United States. It was the most comprehensive process to date, although it lacked any serious measures of accountability for the atrocities committed by Museveni's government.
The peace process failed in December 2008, when LRA leader Joseph Kony refused to sign the final peace agreement. The International Criminal Court warrant against the LRA might have been the primary reason for Kony's absence. Or perhaps he was never serious about the peace process and simply used the opportunity to re-arm. Whatever the reason, the failure of the talks prompted the Ugandan military to wage a disastrous attack against the Lord's Resistance Army in the DRC. AFRICOM, the U.S. military command for Africa, supported the attack, though the Pentagon tried to deny any responsibility for its failure.
Another intervention, some argue, would end Kony's violent rampage. Among the many reasons to oppose another military strike is that the United States would be repeating its Cold War mistake of supporting an undemocratic regime's armed forces. Northern Ugandans have innumerable stories about the abuses committed by the UPDF in their communities. Although the UPDF's behavior has been slightly better in recent years, it would be a mistake for the United States to train and equip such a force for combat. Museveni has shown no interest in relinquishing his presidency, and yet the United States continues to shower his so-called democracy with aid and military support.

Obama's Move

None of this should negate the good things Museveni has done for Uganda. But it's important to recognize that many Ugandans — particularly those not from southwestern Uganda — question the legitimacy of his multi-decade rule. They highlight corruption, the violence in the north, and his ethnically unbalanced approach to governance. Museveni's oppressive actions and dictatorial attitudes to the presidency effectively rob his government of the "democratic" title.
Obama said in his inaugural address, "to those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." But what happens if the United States has already extended that hand so far that it resembles an embrace? It may be difficult for Obama to rescind his predecessors' undying affection toward Uganda, but he should know that people like my friend are expecting a firmer stance.
If he is bold enough, Obama will heed my friend's advice and denounce undemocratic governments such as Uganda during his trip to Ghana this week. If he does not, African civil society will continue to face regimes that, despite outside support, remain hollow at their core.

Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Beth Tuckey is the associate director of Program Development and Policy at the Africa Faith and Justice Network in Washington, DC.

Race In Arica - Ethnicity

Ethnicity and Race in Africa - Ethnicity Debates In Africa
The tensions in these approaches have polarized studies on ethnicity in Africa. Okwudiba Nnoli, for example, takes up the primordialist position, accepting that ethnic groups do exist, are real with clearly defined interests, and play a pervasive role in African politics. Arguing along the same lines that ethnic conflict needs to be taken seriously, Ibbo Mandaza ends with an entirely different conclusion, suggesting that the persistent danger of ethnic conflict imposes a necessary reconciliation of the elites of the various groups (he includes tribes) in the nation-building project of postcolonial Africa. In response to this widespread position among African leaders and scholars, Mohamed Salih advances the opinion that recognizing rather than denying ethnicity may be the key to the democratization project in Africa. Taking the ethnic basis of political mobilization at face value, Salih argues that this reality rests awkwardly next to the public denial of ethnicity manifested in the banning (across Africa, except in Ethiopia) of political parties that are explicitly ethnically based with an unambiguous ethnic constituency. On the basis of an impressive array of empirical evidence, Salih makes the point that most African political parties are ethnically based in any case, and it is time to simply recognize this reality to allow for it to play a positive legitimizing force in contemporary African politics. While it is clear that ethnicity is endemic in Africa, Salih does not elaborate on how to overcome the inevitable problems of exclusion and inclusion in a political process that is ethnically based. Put bluntly, if ethnically based political parties win an election, then they would have to deliver to an ethnic constituency that would obviously define the winners and losers in ethnic terms. It is extremely difficult to imagine how this could translate into a legitimate polity.
Archie Mafeje scolds Nnoli and others for not providing an analysis of ethnicity and for treating ethnic groups as things in themselves, following the empiricism rife in American political science. Instead he dispels the idea that there are discrete, naturally occurring entities of belonging that may be called ethnic groups in Africa. He draws a distinction between social groups and social categories, where the former are characterized by inevitable patterns of social interaction such as lineages or associations, and the latter does not imply such regular interaction at all but is rather defined by common identity, such as members of the same religion. Mafeje's argument is that ethnicity is related to the national competition for scarce resources in response to the centralization of power rather than to local particularistic conflicts. In this sense, ethnicity has a recent derivation since it refers to an ideological ploy used by political elites to yield the benefits of power and wealth. In this view, ethnicity does not represent some preexisting African cultural essence but a convenient means of political mobilization for elites.
In a paper delivered at the Networking with a View to Promoting Peace conference in 1999, Dan Nabudere attempts to reconcile these two perspectives by drawing a distinction between positive and negative aspects to ethnicity, where the former refers to the notion of self-identification, self-expression, and enjoyment in membership of a stable entity in a "posttraditional" manner capable of coping with the demands of modernity. The negative aspect of ethnicity accommodates Mafeje's concern with elite manipulation of ethnic sentiment for narrow political ends of positions in the state.
In the postcolonial period, there was a flurry of scholarly activity as the new elites tried to redefine their pasts in ways that placed the ambivalent significance of the colonial period in its proper perspective. The question of race and ethnicity was crucial, especially in the southern African settler societies. History was being rewritten just as history was being made. New myths were invented in an effort to construct united national cultures since separate ethnicities were regarded as threatening to the nation-building project.
According to Mahmood Mamdani, one of the key challenges of the process of independence from colonial rule was to break down the barriers between ethnically defined rural subjects and racially defined urban citizens. However, Mamdani argues that decolonization did not have "an agenda for democratising customary power." Michael Chege provides a very critical review of Mamdani's thesis, arguing that it is simplistic in its dualism and does not appreciate the nuances of rural African society. Chege is particularly scathing about Mamdani's use of tribe, tribespeople, tribalism, and customary law "as concrete categories of political behaviour.
South African historiography, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, was dominated by endless debates on the relation between race and class in attempts at explaining the nature of the apartheid regime. For some there was a contingent relation between the two; for others the relation was an instrumental one, with race being used as a convenient tool for the class exploitation of blacks; for still others race had an independent existence. The race/class debate in South Africa provides a useful historiographical glimpse of an important era in the evolution of social science thought.

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