Preamble
The great African genius mind Philip Emeagwali wrote an interesting article published on the Africa Unbound Magazine Africa Must Produce or Perish. This is my response to that article.
An excellent article by an award winning African scientist Philip Emeagwali injects the much needed thought provocation in challenging the Africans to rethink their economic development strategies. First of all let me add my voice to a list of many in paying homage to brother Philip for his courageous article. It’s not easy to buck the trend and get people to think seriously about matters of their survival. In addition, brother Philip has been and continues to be an inspiring role model to the rest of us particularly the new generation. Thank you for being an ambassador of Africa through your achievements.
The commentator of Philip Emeagwali’s article added excellent fresh points, which increased the brightness of the light bulbs on this important top. Now that well deserved tributes have been expressed, we continue with the topic at hand. Brother Philip’s article raised at least for four points regarding developing Africa’s economy namely (1) reliance on exporting raw materials, (2) lack of intellectual capital (3) technological prominence and (4) “Made in Africa” solution.
Reliance on exporting raw materials
The juxtaposition of the question “When will Africa run out of natural resources?” with respect to “When will Africa be unable to export raw materials, either for lack of our own oil or because foreign markets have themselves dried up?” is instructive. This phenomenon has already happened among some countries i.e. Ghana (known before as the Gold Coast) and Mali were world's leaders in supplying more over two thirds of the world's gold at one time in history but not anymore. South Africa has captured that position.
What do we learn from this? Both Ghana and Mali never ran out of natural resources nor did the world’s demand decline as confirmed by South Africa’s current fulfillment. In fact Mali (poorest country) is the 3rd largest gold producer after Ghana and South Africa. What then are the reasons? Could it be that a change of post-independence dynamics and priorities resulted in these once African powerful empires losing their once dominant position in this area? Ghana moved on to become number one in exporting cocoa the position that has since been overtaken by Ivory Coast. Nonetheless, Ghana has recorded a series of impressive GDP growths overtime making her a shining example of Africa’s focused, creative and consistent development.
The fact that African countries export their resources to European countries in what is an exploitative relationship (not exclusive to Africa i.e. Iraq) where Africans get less for what their resources are worth is legendary in our modern history. Let’s make a hypothetical but real case about Ghana. Suppose it costs Ghana 2 cents to produce a cup of cocoa. She sells it for 5 cents where four cents go back to production and 1 cent builds the schools, hospitals and helps small farmers.
As a result of this Ghana produces the highest number of university graduates in Africa. Western countries now say, “We think 5 cents is rather steep for a cup of cocoa. We will give you foreign aid in exchange for giving us cocoa at 1 cent”. When Ghana protests this unfairness we hear that there has been coup in Ghana while Nkrumah was visiting abroad. The neighbors of Ghana watching this say “let’s not do what Nkrumah did lest it happens to us” which triggers a vicious cycle of underdevelopment. The organic intellectual capital of Ghana leaves the country. In the meanwhile Western countries shake their heads at a proverbial problem of African coups while they are part of the creation of this instability.
Exporting resources can be a profitable business that boosts the developments projects of a country a case in point being Canada, which has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest supplier of oil to the US. The result of that is the Canadian dollar that has become equal with the US dollar despite the market gyrations. Canada is not treated like a Third World country and she gets a fair price for her natural resources.
While foreign aid, as previously mentioned, is an instrument that has hampered and continues to hamper Africa’s development, it does not have to be. Israel receives foreign aid in the amount of five billion dollars each year and it’s a prosperous country despite the fact that the country does not contribute to the US economy in return. In other words foreign aid to Israel does not make business sense to the US as it does with an African country that supplies resources in return at a cheap price. I discuss this in my article Vice President Warns Israel Against Attacking Iran in my blog Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Even though the argument against relying on natural resources has merits, there are other forces at play, which may still frustrate Africa’s development efforts even when she has moved from her reliance on natural resources. What can Africa do to mitigate those intrusive forces that stymie her development efforts? This is one big question moving forward.
Reliance on Exporting Raw Materials
This is an interesting point. African countries have done poorly in attracting and retaining African intellectuals. The problem exists on three fronts (1) African government relying on European expertise and less on their own experts, (2) African governments not facilitating the return of the Africans living outside Africa and (3) the returning Africans often perceived as a threat to those living in Africa.
Relying on Western Expertise
There are lots of educated Africans inside Africa who get passed over for Western experts. Somehow some African governments believe that a European expert is better than an African expert. Some African countries advertise that they are experiencing an acute short supply of engineering talent and yet the locally trained African engineers roam the streets unemployed. Since European engineers are expensive this results in the shortage of engineering skill. Part of the problem is that some foreign aid stipulations force certain African countries to hire Western experts as part of the justification of foreign aid dollars to the taxpayers of the donor countries which results in the unemployment of locally produced African engineers. In Canada a Government development agency like CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) used to state the fact in their literature that seventy cents of every dollar was spent in Canada as part of the Government mandate. Part of this resulted in African countries having to employ Canadian experts to satisfy this requirement. Another paradoxical effect of foreign experts is that some of them (not all) do not share the sentiments and beliefs of African values as a result of being socialized to view Africans as less human than their Caucasian counterparts. This is like having an atheist build a place of worship on your behalf. What kind of quality do you think will be the finished product?
Facilitating Return of Africans Abroad
Not enough is being done to enable the return of African intellectuals from abroad. In the past, African governments have relied on UN and other European sponsored programs, which facilitated the return of Africans. In the absence of those programs we are back to square one. President Zuma of South Africa once made an interesting point that there were two kinds of Africans outside Africa i.e. those who had made it and those who had not but had skills. He said it was important to attract both and provide land for them to help develop Africa. It would help to know what is currently being done to facilitate the return of the Africans living abroad by African countries. Maybe some can shed a light on this important issue?
Outside Africans Wrongly Perceived
Some of our brothers and sisters living in Africa perceive Africans of the Diaspora as somehow a threat to them (wrongly or rightly). This problem persists to this day. As a result some Africans in the Diaspora feel unaccepted in their own countries. This may not be the case in every situation but there is at least a degree of threat perception associated with being an African in the Diaspora. Some Africans have returned to Africa only to go back to the Diaspora.
Technological Prominence
This issue is extremely important particularly we technology workers understand this better. One challenge is that some African countries rely on Western countries to determine their technology agenda particularly the foreign aid recipients. I once researched the idea of providing high speed Internet via satellite in Africa. I found that the companies doing this where Western countries based either in Europe or US. The cost of bandwidth was prohibitive and some were in fact providing very low download/upload speed ratios at exorbitant prices. It seemed their prices were based on the fact that African governments would be paying for the services hence their skyrocketing. The assumption of these Western satellite companies was that Africans didn’t know much about technology leading them to provide inferior services at very high cost.
The biggest challenge to Africa in this area is infrastructure. South Africa has partnered with Russia to launch their own satellite into space in order to make bandwidth available in the country. This is one positive step in attaining technological prominence since this gives an African country the ability to architect technological infrastructure without relying on others to do it for them.
Failure to architect Africa’s own infrastructure systems may in fact lead to another form of technological colonialism where African countries are subjected to inferior technology. For example African countries already rely on foreign technologies like Windows, which is an infrastructure system to store, manipulate and manage their mission critical data. Why can’t African countries sponsor a research in developing their own infrastructure technology like an operating system as well as an African computer? Moreover we have genius minds like Philip Emeagwali who is an architect of a super computer. Instead many African countries are looking for donated computers from abroad.
The premise of "intellectual capital" and "technological prominence" addresses the very core of Africa's problems. The problem fundamentally remains historical and it's the vestiges of economic and intellectual colonialism that consistently vary the parameters of this issue. Right now the number of Africans connected to the Internet is less than 5%. The main problem is lack of access to computer hardware. Another restraint is the cost of telecommunications. In many African countries, in order to for an African to call her neighbor the phone goes to some Western country who in turn routs the call to the neighbor. A number of people in Europe get paid each time two neighbors talk over the phone making telecommunication extremely expensive.
The big mover in the technological prominence must include, among others, attracting great technology talent currently living outside Africa such as Philip Emeagwali. What will it take for African countries to attract the sons and daughters of the African soil from the Diaspora?
“Made in Africa” solution
A Zimbabwean situation is instructive here. Zimbabwe achieved her independence in 1980. The Zimbabweans are among the most industrious and educated Africans I have ever known. At one time Zimbabwe exported food and other manufactured goods to the world marked “Made in Zimbabwe”. Today they are surviving on food parcels and South Africa is shouldering most of the economic burden of keeping Zimbabwe people alive. How did this happen? When both Mr. Robert Mugabe and Dr. Joshua Nkomo signed the Lancaster Agreement, it didn't have guarantees on the return of the land to the African natives and this fact was a harsh precondition as later described by the then President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda. As a result the people of Zimbabwe were given a landless revolution. Landless revolutions are not sustainable over the long term, as has been observed in the case of Zimbabwe twenty-nine years later. In my article Why The West Is Less Influential In Zimbabwe I analyze this issue.
The ability to achieve “Made in Africa” requires land in order to build and expand industrial capacity. It’s possible for Africa to attain this coveted status but first she must be able to subdue and prevail over those intrusive forces that have put her in a situation leaving her with a feeling of being robbed. The English system of racial capitalism treats non-English countries on a descending scale with Africa being at the bottom of the totem pole. Countries like India are successful partly because they are allowed to succeed.
When Mugabe agitated for change in order to empower his people, his administration was subjected to a variety of economic sanctions, which proved punitive to the industrial capacity of the country. We see here a classic case where, despite hard work and education, people going hungry in the streets. In my previously mentioned article Why Msholozi is the Greatest Leader of All Time I point out that Western societies regard education as an economic utility vis-à-vis the Africans who regard education as a form of prestige since it allows them to contribute to their societies.
Conclusion
The article of Philip Emeagwali has correctly challenged our thinking. The vestiges of colonial conquest continue to spook Africa’s developments by sometimes spitting harsh fire like a threatened dragon upon some like Zimbabwe. Courage is still a much-needed attribute and Africa needs to be in command of the agenda of developing, nurturing and empowering organic intellectual capacity and technological innovation moving forward. This means cutting loose the strings attached to development in order to turn a new page. Will the new generation heed the call or will status quo continue to keep Africa’s development agenda determined by the outside forces that have no Africa’s interests at heart?
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
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