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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Africa Action / ECA: Roundtable Report
Africa Action / ECA: Roundtable Report
Date distributed (ymd): 010710
APIC Document
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africapolicy.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
+security/peace+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains the foreword and selected quotes from the
just-released book-length report from International Policies,
African Realities, last year's Electronic Roundtable hosted by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC), in partnership with the
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and with assistance from
Bellanet. The 111-page report features selected contributions from
three of the Roundtable sessions, as well as brief reflections on
lessons learned.
Panelists with selected remarks in the report include Taoufik Ben
Abdallah, Paulina Makinwa-Adebusoye, Yassine Fall, Thandika
Mkandawire, Dominique Njinkeu, Jacqueline Nkoyok, Tade Aina, Dede
Amanor-Wilks, Ezra Mbogori, Patricia McFadden, Chidi Anselm
Odinkalu, Anatole Ayissi, Jakkie Cilliers, Mohamed Sahnoun,
Hussein Solomon, and George Wachira.
The report is available in both PDF and HTML format at:
http://www.africapolicy.org/rtable
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
International Policies, African Realities
Report from an Electronic Roundtable
Economic Commission for Africa
http://www.uneca.org
Africa Action
http://www.africapolicy.org
Foreword
Today's global issues, from HIV/ AIDS to global warming, and from
trade policies to the failure of international peace-keeping, have
their most immediate and devastating consequences in Africa. Yet
global policymakers rarely take adequate account of African
realities, or benefit from the full participation of African
voices. The resulting inappropriate or simplistic agendas have
often been imposed on Africa, with minimal consultation.
Changing this pattern, through consultation among diverse African
partners and through projecting African voices into the global
arena, has been a central priority for the Economic Commission for
Africa (ECA). The Africa Policy Information Center (APIC, now a
part of Africa Action), has in recent years been a crucial conduit
for making African policy perspectives accessible to diverse
constituencies in the United States and around the world.
Last year, from January to May, the two organizations co-sponsored
"International Policies, African Realities: An Electronic
Roundtable," which brought more than 500 people together, with
African panelists and participants from Africa and around the
world, in a structured on-line discussion on a range of African
issues.
We are now releasing this new publication based on the Roundtable
because we think it contains valuable lessons for the ongoing
process of making effective and innovative use of new communication
technologies to advance African shaping of continental and global
policies. It contains selected extracts from the Roundtable
proceedings brought together by moderators Dr. AbdouMaliq Simone
and Karin Santi, as well as reflections on lessons learned from the
moderators and Africa Action senior research fellow William Minter.
In recent years, on-line discussions have helped expand the range
of participation and multiply the impact of Africa-wide meetings:
notably the 40th anniversary meeting of the ECA in 1998 focused on
women in development, and the ECA's annual African Development
Forums highlighting information technology (1999) and HIV/ AIDS
(2000). The ECA/ APIC Roundtable showed that, despite Africa's lag
in internet connectivity, there is already a critical mass of
Africans--in almost every African country--who are sufficiently
well connected to participate actively in international electronic
debates.
But we are still only beginning to harness the full potential of
technologies already available to use to advance Africa's agendas.
In order for Africa to confront the enormous challenges it faces in
the years ahead, Africans must not only communicate with each other
across the national borders and vast distances of the continent. We
must also find ever more effective ways to put forward Africa's
distinctive voices and change the world's priorities on global
issues that affect our future.
We must do that for Africa, and for our common humanity.
K. Y. Amoako
Executive Secretary
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
Salih Booker
Executive Director
Africa Action
Africa Action wishes to acknowledge The Carnegie Corporation of New
York and The Ford Foundation for their generous support of Africa
Action's role in the Roundtable. The Economic Commission for Africa
and Africa Action wish to thank Bellanet for provision of computer
hosting and technical advice for the Roundtable.
Selected Quotes from Report
Mkandawire: Perhaps the first important thing Africans can do is to
reassume responsibility for plotting the paths of development in
their respective countries. The tragedy of Africa's policy-making
and policy implementation in the last several years is the complete
surrender of national policies to the ever-changing ideas of
international experts.
What is not often appreciated is that most of what appears today as
new insights about the imperatives of poverty reduction, investment
in infrastructure and education, the requirements of rapid
industrialization, and the structural and institutional bottlenecks
of Africa's underdevelopment are nothing but the rehearsal of old
but disparaged ideas of African scholars and policymakers.
Ben Abdallah: It is difficult to imagine Africa's integration into
the world economy based on specialization in primary commodities,
on scarcely diversified economies, and on devastated social
sectors. Rather, the foundation must be massive investment in
education and training and in economic and social infrastructure,
together with the construction of stable and democratic
institutions. Without these, no vision of sustainable development
stands a chance.
Fall: The centerpiece of Africa's struggle for equality,
human development and peace lies in one of the most profound
imbalances: the lack of equality between women and men.
African governments and international institutions are led by
conservative men with ideologies of the past. They surely deserve
a failing grade for the gender biased policies they have been
carrying out all over Africa. Women need and deserve more than
literature and rhetoric in this new century. They want to see
concrete, systematic and measurable change to reverse their
situation for the better.
Ben Abdallah: There is discrimination against those involved in the
informal economy. This is reflected in terms of economic discourse.
For example, the terms "investment" and "investors" generally apply
only to the so-called modern economy, and of course to foreign
investment. While many reforms are undertaken to attract foreign
investment and create an economic, judicial, and institutional
environment favorable to the private sector, the mass of small
producers largely depend on programs to combat poverty.
Kapijimpanga: Frankly, Africa has not been marginalized. We as
Africa (governments and institutions) and Africans (as people) have
marginalized ourselves. We have adopted or allowed our so-called
leaders to agree and to adopt policies that have led to this
marginalization.
We must turn our language around so that in every problem that we
have faced, we can see for ourselves new opportunities for change.
Odinkalu: Ben Abdallah's very rich and original contribution
unfortunately ends at the point where it was beginning to get
really interesting. ... he suggests that Africa "must, therefore,
demand from the multilateral trading system as much access as
possible for its products to the markets of the wealthy countries."
This is quite interesting but seems to me, on closer examination to
be based on a doubtful premise. For what are we going to be
demanding access? You only demand access for what you produce. It
doesn't help to demand access for the extracts from the earth
which, excepting a few exceptions, we don't control anyway.
Okigbo: We need to discuss how to break the thick walls of silence
in Africa. Our silence provides the manure for nurturing
inconsiderate leaders at all levels.
Mbogori: I would like to suggest that democracy is more actively
discussed today than has ever been the case before. Yet, there is
a more noticeable lack of democratic practice today than ever
before.
Let me try to illustrate this, beginning at the micro level. Take
a household in some rural setting anywhere in sub-Sahara Africa. In
whatever village we may want to situate ourselves, poverty will be
an ever-present. The notion of democracy, where this might be
interpreted to mean participation and the ability to exercise one's
free choice, would appear far removed from reality.
I am reminded of one such household in which I learned that a six
year old child was known to have asked her eight year old sister if
there was any way the sister could get her a job in the city, or
indeed anywhere away from home. ... in this household meals are
served only occasionally, and even then, most times amounts to only
a small cup of porridge. The desperation exhibited by every member
of the household sets fertile ground for violence, which is itself,
a common occurrence. No one in the household even thinks about
their rights, let alone respects those of others. Inevitably the
rights trampled upon are those of women.
Aina:In many African countries, governments and regimes flagrantly
breach the rule of law and human rights, which they have not only
sworn to defend, but, in certain cases, they had themselves
established.
Attacks also come from sources beyond governments and regimes. The
enemies of democracy are not only in governments. They are in
churches, mosques, temples and shrines, and also in homesteads,
kraals, shantytowns, high-income estates, communities and in civil
society. These enemies are everywhere that intolerance, exclusion,
injustice, domination and unmitigated exploitation and
victimization of others occur. They not only use the resources of
governments, but also use weapons such as guns, knives, clubs,
"pangas", petrol and other bombs, "necklaces" and lynching to
pursue their goals. As a result, we get the genocide in Rwanda, the
ethnic riots and killings in Burundi, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and
Uganda. This is why in Africa today, democracy and human rights are
not only about governments (though these are the greatest
culprits!).
Odinkalu: Across the continent, direct colonialism ended without
resolving or even addressing the explosive problem of power sharing
in the multi-national, multi-ethnic and, in some places, even
multi-civilizational masterpiece of cartographic arbitrariness that
became Africa. The elite of Africa's nationalists, who inherited
the raft of dictatorial powers, legislation and attitudes that
sustained colonialism, were quick to experiment with their newfound
powers with an impatience only matched by the enthusiasm of a child
trying out a new toy.
In less time than it took colonial administrators to leave the
continent, the high sounding, high-minded rhetoric of the
independence movement--perhaps, the second truly popular human
rights movement with its origins or inspiration in Africa, the
first being the anti-slavery movement--was replaced by the instinct
of political leaders to survive in power as the raison d'�tre of
government.
Amanor-Wilks: Zimbabwe's farm workers are a particularly acute
example of how easily a significant sector of a population can be
by-passed by worldwide trends towards greater human rights and
democracy.
Farm workers have remained outside the normal governance structures
available to other Zimbabwean communities largely because they have
traditionally been viewed as "aliens". This is the case even though
many of them are in fact Zimbabweans, and a good number second,
third or fourth generation Malawians, Mozambicans and Zambians who
have no other home but Zimbabwe. Because of high levels of
illiteracy and lack of political representation, they may not have
regularized their status in the country.
McFadden: Most Africans are not yet citizens, either in the manner
they perceive themselves (at the level of the individual with an
identity and an agency to interact with her/ his socio-political
reality) or in terms of inter-personal relationships.
Women in particular have been excluded from this process of
becoming "righted" ...
Through legal systems which continue to define women in relation to
sexist, supremacist notions of inferiority and subordination--each
of these mobilizing culture as a weapon and a resource that
excludes women from the most critical sites of social creativity
whilst privileging and pampering males as the "knowers" of our
societies--women still have to struggle to break into the most
critical sites of contestation in all African societies, without
exception.
Odinkalu: To many of our people, the "wave" of human rights and
democratization that "swept" through Africa only meant optimal
political turbulence and hardly a ripple of positive difference to
their well being. These notions offered a terminally endangered
middle and intellectual class a limited facility of protest, where
in the past, they were actively complicit in or indifferent to bad
government.
For them, democracy meant replacing existing power with a different
face, and human rights represented the prerogative to realize this
ambition as theirs. They prosecuted the project of democratization
"for", defended human rights "on behalf of", and sought power "in
the name" of the "people" rather than "with" them.
Aina: We must build the conditions for the rule of law and an
environment of social justice and equity. My honest view is that
most African countries have little space to avoid doing this for
too long. Africa today is not the Africa of the 1960s.
Communications, social awareness and a readiness to resist have
increased significantly. We must change or be destroyed through
endless conflicts, balkanization and the disintegration of states
and national boundaries.
Mamdani: My appeal is that there is an alternative to junking
custom as patriarchal and ethnic. It is to democratize our notion
of custom. Just as we recognize that democracy means recognizing
that there are choices within modernity, that modernity is plural
and not singular, so we need to extend the democratic perspective
to the past. The result would be to recognize that custom, too, was
the subject of contention, which gave rise to plural--and even at
times opposed--perspectives. Custom should thus cease to be the
political counterpart to the Structural Adjustment Program, and
Customary Authorities the internal counterpart to the Bretton Woods
institutions, whose writ we are supposed to either throw up or
swallow, but never to submit to a democratic process.
Aidoo: I was very intrigued by the issue of citizenship and all of
its trappings--identity documents, etc. Clearly on this issue, even
the best constitutional provisions for human rights in Africa are
inadequate, for they always focus exclusively on citizenship
rights. So-called "aliens", who are simply other African working
people, are simply disenfranchised.
Odinkalu: In the euphoria of the close results from the recent
election in Senegal ...I fail to see--not for want of trying--how
the prospect of a 75 year-old former law professor and minister
replacing his 63 year-old former boss and benefactor necessarily
represents the much-touted "change" on whose brink we are invited
to believe Senegal's `democracy' now is. Democracy in Africa will
remain a pie in the sky unless the project excites our
youths.Building a politically credible and ethically regenerated
leadership potential among Africa's young people remains one of the
eternal challenges of our democracy project.
Cilliers: Today, the surfeit of arms and lack of control over
national territories has resulted in much of Sub-Saharan Africa
being characterized not by the state's monopoly over the
instruments of coercion, but by a balance of force between the
state and the community. The result, in a highly armed and violent
continent, ironically, is the creation of a security vacuum. Within
Nairobi, Johannesburg or Luanda, security is available to those who
can afford it. To Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic
of Congo, war comes to those countries that have exploitable
resources worth fighting over. In both instances the vast majority
of the poor population are left to fend for themselves and forced
to arm and organize to prevent their exploitation by local
warlords, ethnically based politicians or criminals.
Ayissi: For many African people, the post-Cold War great
expectations of a bright new era of peace and conviviality blew up
at the very moment the rest of the world was celebrating the
dislocation of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron
Curtain.
Sahnoun: A whole generation of African children is being inducted
into a culture of violence marked by violent death and injury. Of
the 7-8 million fatalities in Africa's recent regional conflicts,
2 million were children. Four to five million children have been
disabled, another 12 million left homeless. More than 1 million
orphaned or separated from their families.
Wachira: In itself, the proliferation of arms throughout the
continent is of important significance to peace and security. As
states engage in wars or fight rebels, keeping track of arms
(especially those defined as "light" or "small" arms) becomes very
difficult as control regimes collapse. Arms that are today in legal
(government) hands easily become the illicit ones in tomorrow's
wars, car-jacking and bank robberies.
Africa's leadership must bear responsibility for peace and security
or its absence. There has been a tendency (mostly Western
media-driven) to assess the performance of Africa's leaders in
terms of how they compare to their predecessors or neighbors. From
this perspective, President Moi of Kenya is judged at how well he
has kept his country strife-free as compared to neighboring Sudan
or Somalia, while President Museveni of Uganda is judged by how
well he has kept Uganda together as compared to regimes before his.
Not too long ago, the leaders of Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea and
Ethiopia were hailed as a new-breed and visionary, a harbinger of
better things to come from Africa. Several years later, there is no
immediate evidence of any innovation on their part that could
provide long-term solutions to the problems of the Horn of Africa
and Great Lakes regions. On the contrary, the regions' stability
seems to have deteriorated and become more militarized.
Prah:I want only to underscore the fact that without economic
prosperity and social justice there cannot be peace in Africa. It
is for this latter reason that I find Anatole Ayisi's point that
"the United Nations repeatedly mentioned this self-evident truth:
there is no peace without a local genuine will for peace"
inadequate. Certainly without a will for peace there can be no
peace. But more importantly, the conditions for peace need to
exist; otherwise, there will be no will for peace. I do not think
Africans are inherently more peace-loving or less peace-loving than
any other group in the human community. The point is that people
resort to unpeaceful processes when peaceful solutions and
conditions elude them.
This material is distributed by Africa Action (incorporating the
Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the
American Committee on Africa). Africa Action's information
services provide accessible information and analysis in order to
promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa that advance
economic, political and social justice and the full spectrum of
human rights.
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