Last year I spent my summer holidays in Lyon, a town in the far centre of France. One of my discussions with a French friend was about how the aid given to African countries does more harm than good to the aided country. His response really opened up my eyes and shaped my way of thinking. In our café talk, he told me how some other people or countries become rich while others remain poor.

“Do you know that most of the money donated to African countries as aid has many times found its way back to Europe or in a large sense, the western world,” he asked me.

“No,” I replied.

“The West contributes lots of money to Africa. Most of it does not reach Africa as it is used to pay the donor country ‘experts’ and ‘consultants’ on matters that even Africans themselves are able to handle. Furthermore, equipment is purchased from the donor countries and transported using means from the same countries. Some of this equipment may be obsolete,” he continued.

“You mean this ‘assistance’ has not been out of the west’s benevolence?” I asked, with disbelief.

“You ought to understand how the world works. Our countries are not driven by benevolence but rather what they will get out of the deal. Nothing comes for free. The ‘help’ we give you is not always help. You pay for it in one way or another. Even if it may not be now, the payment is passed to the future generation. The payment is always inflated. Don’t be misled by the public relation and media glitz that produces a feel-good effect when you are aided,” he replied.

This brings to my mind an article in a previous issue of The African Executive entitled “France targets African princes.”  The writer talked about some few Africans in power who enjoy directly or indirectly the riches of their countries or the national cake yet their countries are still mentioned among the poorest countries in the world. They do this in collaboration with foreign powers. This is corruption!

On page 12 of the February 2012 issue of “LIBERATION,” one of the biggest newspapers in France, Thomas Hofnung in an opinion piece titled “La Françafrique bouge encore” revelas how the relationship between France and some French speaking countries in Africa is  “accepted” in spite of their dirty hands. Despite the International Transparency’s investigations into the illegally acquired fortunes of Denis Sasou-Nguesso, president of Congo Brazzaville, Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president still receives him for talks. In the article, the two presidents can be seen in a photo session with President Denis in the centre smiling. On his way to Lyon for a meeting organised by the International Organisation for the French speaking countries, Denis Sassou-Nguesso held talks with President Sarkozy.Two days later, he held talks with three French ministers; François Beroin (economy), Gérard Longuet (Defence) and Claude Guéant (Internal affairs).

In 2008, the International Transparency opened an investigation on the riches, including apartments, luxurious expensive cars possessed by three African presidents in Paris. It should be remembered that Paris is an international tourist centre and things are extremely expensive. In many cases, even the French people cannot afford possessing an apartment in Paris. Maintaining an apartment calls for billions of Euros. It is sad that some of our controversial African leaders own property in the expensive city. They include, the late Omar Bongo of Gabon who is also said to have given some money to Jacques Chirac, a former French president for his presidential campaigns; Denis Sassou-Ngueso of Congo Brazzaville and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. This is one way in which the West benefits at the expense of poor African countries.

Another way is the selling of weaponry to Africa. The west cares less as long as its ammunition industry reaps benefits. Sorry to say, the president of Ivory Coast on his visit to France last year asked for arms. Do his citizens need guns, bombs and tankers? I doubt. A big question remains, who are they going to fight with? I strongly believe that people need peace, Justice and more still, need to live together for a common good.

Reflecting on how rulers rise to power, stay in power, and make decisions in resource rich countries such as Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and Equatorial-Guinea, the foreign hand is explicit. The West will always maintain the status quo as long as its interest is taken care of.

The mandate of the two judges investigating African rulers who acquired or possess property in France using ill-gotten money: Roger le Loire and Rene Grouman, sounds more of employment than seeking of justice. The ill-gotten property is not a new phenomenon. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has stuffed a lot of money in USA Banks. The issue of money found in the RIGGS Bank, a bank in the centre Washington DC, owned by his son, is another untouched thing. But who cares?

If Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to repatriate money illegally stuffed in his country, he has all the powers to do so. It is however clear that developed countries are doing business using such monies. It is taxed and provides employment for their citizens. Developed nations are riding on miseries in Africa to enrich themselves. No wonder, Africa is turning to China.

By Frederick Meela, a France-based Tanzanian.

So much has been said of the “white man’s burden:” namely, how the collapsing American Empire and bygone British Empire have shouldered the burden of civilising Africa and driving the global economy for centuries. The opposite is true. The fact of the matter is that not only was Western civilisation invented by black Africans in ancient Egypt, Africa has driven global economic growth for centuries.

African natural resources, labour, land, slavery and skilled émigré – as any decent economic historian will tell you – have fueled the world’s economy for many, many decades. To this day, Africa is the world’s engine-room for growth. In short, driving global economic growth abroad, whilst benefiting little at home is the “black man’s burden.” That Africans know that there are immense riches just beneath their feet as well as just above their heads in High Office, only adds to the burden.

The roots of “Western” civilization, technology, religion, culture and science are to be found not in Greece, but in Black Egypt. Infact as early as 9,000 BC to 500 A.D. black empires, from the prehistoric Zingh Empire of Mauritania to ancient Khemet of Egypt, were at the forefront of development in technology, politics and culture. Far from “civilising the natives,” Europeans replaced communitarianism, cooperation and spirituality – that prevailed across Africa – with a corrupt, aggressive and inhumane form of civilisation.

First there was the brutal kidnapping of millions of Africans, so as to replace the indigenous Americans that Europeans had wiped out. The slave trade broke the back of African economies whilst creating capital for plantation owners that kick started Europe’s industrial revolution.

Africans were stripped of their land and forced down gold mines and onto rubber plantations. The naked theft of African land and minerals including gold, copper, rubber, ivory and tin continued ravenously throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This culminated in the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884, where Europe gleefully divied up Africa and formalised the “Scramble For Africa.”

After World War Two, Europeans were severely weakened by years of unremitting industrial slaughter of each other. To make matters worse, liberation movements were gaining momentum. This ultimately made the cost of containing “restless natives” greater than the benefits Europeans could extract from them. As British power wained the baton of colonialism was passed to American imperialism.

Poverty and disunity have been the essential ingredients that have allowed this neo-colonial exploitation to continue. But, thanks largely to soaring mineral prices and Chinese win-win investments, poverty levels are beginning to tumble.

Disunity however persists. America is making sure of it. Washington is fomenting disunity by funding reactionary neo-liberal political parties across the continent as well as the odd “good dictator.” A bad dictator however, named Muammar Gaddafi, was hunted down and assassinated by Washington. Not least because of his plans for an African IMF, gold backed Afro-currency and a United States of Africa. In essence, Colonel Gaddafi’s plans for African unity were as good as a hand written suicide note addressed directly to NATO. By losing Gaddafi, Africa may also have lost Libya. For, NATO will ensure that Mr. Gaddafi’s plans for African unity will be smothered in their crib.

Then ofcourse there is United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) which will almost certainly establish a military base in Libya. Infact any African government that America offered money to host AFRICOM, Mr. Gaddafi would offer double the amount to refuse.

Mr. Obama would have us believe that hundreds of highly trained US Special Forces are braving tsetse flies, dengue fever and are running around in the African bush to flush out Ugandan rebels. All for freedom and democracy. Coincidentally in one of the most oil rich enclaves on earth. Home to Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest onshore oil discovery in 20 years of two billion barrels.

The new cold war between America and China will be over resources, not ideology. Africa will take centre stage. Should America’s hard power and divide-and-rule approach triumph, Africa may descend into one large theater of war with many actors, chapters and a tragic ending. Should China’s soft power and win-win economic approach triumph, this may end up becoming a truly African Century.

To this day, Africans produce cheap, often slave labour and ship raw materials north for peanuts. In return Africans purchase finished products at a premium from the north. This skewed trade relationship is what helped build the west and underdeveloped Africa for centuries.

Reversing this trend would allow the black man to free himself of a centuries old burden. Reversing this trend is this generation’s struggle. That said, Africa’s future looks bright, for the ingredients are present for an economic boom, which actually benefits Africans: favourable demographics, a commodities boom, a burgeoning middle class and growing enthusiasm for technology with more than 600 million mobile-phone users—more than America or Europe.

If Africans resolutely build the capacity to refine their own crude oil, gold and platinum as well as the capability to cut and polish their diamonds, they will certainly turn this into an African century. If Africans staunchly defend their resources and turn them into finished products, they will finally turn the “black man’s burden” into Africa’s renaissance.

GARIKAI CHENGU

You must have heard of the viral video created by Invisible Children (IC), a U.S. organization that has launched a one-year campaign (expires December 31, 2012) to eliminate Joseph Kony, the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group in Northern Uganda that has been embroiled in civil conflict with the Ugandan government for 25+ years. The LRA has admittedly used atrocious tactics such as abductions to engage children in conflict, using boys as soldiers and girls as sex slaves. Needless to say, Kony and LRA must go. That’s where my agreement begins and ends with Invisible Children’s work. I appreciate the organization’s commitment to the issue and can see its good intent, but I strongly question the group’s approach, strategy, and work. Below are some of the reasons why.

Lack of context and nuance: in the video, the founder of Invisible Children tells his young son that Kony is a bad guy and he must go. Daddy will work on making sure he is caught. He goes on to state later, “if we succeed, we change the course of human history.” Such a humble undertaking! Simply, a long socioeconomic and political conflict that has lasted 25+ years and engaged multiple states and actors has been reduced to a story of the good vs bad guy. And if a three-year-old can understand it, so can you. You don’t have to learn anything about the children, Uganda, or Africa. You just have to make calls, put up flyers, sings songs, and you will liberate a poor, forgotten, and invisible people.

This approach obviously denies realities on the ground, inflates fantasies abroad, and strips Ugandans of their agency, dignity and humanity- the complexity of their story and history. The work, consequence, and impact are all focused on Uganda, but the agency, accountability, and resources lie among young American students. Clearly a dangerous imbalance of power and influence; one that can have adverse lasting effects on how and what people know of Uganda. It reduces the story of Northern Uganda, and perhaps even all of Uganda, into the dreaded single narrative of need and war, followed by western resolve and rescue. As we have seen from the past, without nuance and context, these stories stick in the collective memory of everyday people for years in their simplest forms: Uganda becomes wretched war. Whatever good IC may advance in raising more awareness on the issue or even contributing to the capture of Joseph Kony, it can never do enough to erase this unintended (I hope) impact.

Invisible to whom: these children have been very visible to their communities for years. After all, they’re somebody’s child, brother, sister, friend, niece, nephew, or neighbor. They’ve been visible to the shopkeepers and vendors in town who protected them. They’ve been visible to the family members who lost them and the community that cared for them. It’s because they’re so visible that Concerned Parents Association opened its doors in the 1990’s, after LRA abducted about 200 girls from a secondary school dormitory, to advocate for and bring to international light their plight. It’s because they’re visible that young people, including returnees from abductions, started Concerned Children and Youth Association. They’re visible to the people that matter, but apparently not to IC.  The language we use in social change often denotes the approach we take, even if subconsciously. Since the children appear to be invisible to IC, then perhaps it’s clear why they’re represented as voiceless, dependent, and dis-empowered.

The dis-empowering and reductive narrative: the Invisible Children narrative on Uganda is one that paints the people as victims, lacking agency, voice, will, or power. It calls upon an external cadre of American students to liberate them by removing the bad guy who is causing their suffering. Well, this is a misrepresentation of the reality on the ground. Fortunately, there are plenty of examples of child and youth advocates who have been fighting to address the very issues at the heart of IC’s work. Want evidence? In addition to the organizations I list above, also look at Art for Children, Friends of Orphans, and Children Chance International. It doesn’t quiet match the victim narrative, does it? I understand that IC is a US-based organization working to change US policy. But, it doesn’t absolve it from the responsibility of telling a more complete story, one that shows the challenges and trials along side the strength, resilience, and transformational work of affected communities.

Revival of the White savior: if you have watched the Invisible Children video and followed the organization’s work in the past, you will note a certain messianic/savior undertone to it all. “I will do anything I can to stop him,” declares the founder in the video. It’s quite individualistic and reeks of the dated colonial views of Africa and Africans as helpless beings who need to be saved and civilized. Where in that video do you see the agency of Ugandans? Where in that Video do you see Jacob open his eyes wide at the mere possibility of his own strength, as Jennifer Lentfer of How Matters describes here? Can we point out the problem with having one child speak on the desires, dreams, and hopes of a whole nation? I don’t even want to mention the paternalistic tone with which Jacob and Uganda (when did it become part of central Africa by the way?) are described, not excluding the condescending use of subtitles for someone who is clearly speaking English.

How many times in history do we have to see this model to know that it doesn’t work? Even if IC succeeds in bringing about short-term change (i.e. increased awareness or even the killing of Kony) it won’t eliminate Northern Uganda’s problems overnight. It won’t heal and sustain communities. In this era of protest and the protester, we have seen that change is best achieved when it comes from within. Let Ugandans champion their own, IC!

Privilege of giving: that was quite a 30-minute production? Where did they get the resources? How do they have that reach? Well, in the nonprofit world, the one thing that we have to learn, especially as Africans, is that privilege begets privilege. The IC video is another reminder of the ways in which privilege infiltrates the social justice world and determines the voices and organizations that are heard; simply those that can afford to be heard. There are several local organizations that could offer a nuanced and contextualized perspective on and solutions to the Northern Uganda conflict. They don’t have IC’s reach. They simple weren’t born into the world of financial, racial, social, and geopolitical privilege IC members are.

Lack of Africans in leadership: Invisible Children’s US staff is comprised exclusively of Americans, as is the entire Board. How do you represent Uganda and not have Ugandans in leadership? Couldn’t the organization find a single Ugandan? An African? Did it even think about that? Does that matter to current staff and board members? I understand that IC’s main audience is American and its focus is on American action. However, when your work and consequence affect a different group of people than your target audience, you must make it a priority to engage the voices of the affected population in a real and meaningful way, in places and spaces where programs are designed, strategies dissected, and decisions made.

Clearly, I think people should work across borders to address global issues. Obviously, there is a role for Americans in this issue. The problem here is the lack of balance on who speaks for Uganda (and Africa) and how. We need approaches that are strategic and respectful of the local reality, build on the action and desires of local activists and organizers, and act as partners and allies, not owners and drivers. When it comes to Africa, we have seen the IC approach play out time and time again, whether it was Ethiopia in the 1980s, Somalia in the early 2000s to date, Darfur in 2004, or now. History is on our side and it shows that these types of approaches often fail. At some point, we have to say enough is enough. Africans, raise your voice! Now and into the future.

For more on the IC campaign, please read:

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/horn-of-africa/uganda.aspx

http://ericswanderings.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/invisible-children-and-joseph-kony/

http://www.how-matters.org/2012/03/06/good-guys-bad-guys/

SOLOME LEMMA – @InnovateAfrica

The new trend emerging is to classify Europeans living/settling in Africa as “White Africans.” All those that deny their claim to African identity are now labeled as racist. However, the definition of racism does not accommodate in-group exclusion as a characteristic of being racist. And the power of definition like “who is a Jew”, “who is Chinese” belongs with the majority, not the minority. Africans cannot over night just say they are Chinese and then call Chinese racist if they do not accept them.

In the scrabble for linguistic real estate, why would these descendants of European colonialist who devastated and exploited the continent want to be called African? And in terms of self-determination who introduced these concepts? It would be very strange if a European, after 200 years in China or India, could be so powerful to alter the definition of Chinese just to be accommodated.

The fact that Europeans are sensitive to the politics of things suggests that they do not do anything for romantic reasons. It is very disappointing when senior African academics, so desperate to embrace the rainbow theory and share the “African burden” rush with open arms to embrace these pseudo concepts without any political or economic consideration. What is the objective of these claims? It is interesting to note Europeans (including Caucasoid Arabs) constitute around 10 million people verses the 800 million Africans.

Now, this negligible minority, by way of social influence, has caused the majority to need to refer to themselves with the adjective of “black” to separate themselves from a serious minority group who want to be “Indian Africans” or “white Africans.” Minorities of Europeans live in China, in India and in Arabia yet only in Africa has linguistic accommodation been given to these European minorities. Africans now must make room for those settlers who want to identify with the continent for capitalist reasons. Because once you identify with a continent then you have a legitimate claim to its resources. Thus, the saying and the philosophy of Garvey “Africa for the Africans” becomes usurped. In South Africa, the new trend of “Black Economic Empowerment” has seen the broadening, opening up of the borders of blackness so to speak. Indians are economically classified as ‘black’, and recently Chinese have been included in this definition. So again, we see the relationship between linguistics and economic profit.

What about people who are European who speak African languages, wear African clothing, eat African food, etc? With all due respect, the mistake made by Dr. Ali Mazrui in his accommodation was to confuse the empirical reality of being African with the cultural phenomenon of being Africanized. Just as most Africans in the west are to a large degree Europeanized Africans, it does not make them in anyway shape or form European. Studying everything about Chimpanzees and bonding into their social structure as Jane Goodal did, did not make her anymore Chimpanzee. It is clear the Chimpanzees were warmed by her attempts, but when it came time for mating there was no confusion.

Conclusion

According to Dr. Kimani Nehusi, identity should be a foremost consideration, for if it is not then subsequent work would not be grounded. Now we can see how the question of reparations, land ownership, citizenship, free-movement, African Continental union, African People unity, all hinge on a clear definition of African identity. We see all other groups, such as Jews in Israel, clarifying a definition of who is a Jew and denying “right of return” to those who do not fall into that definition. Open definitions allow those who have traditionally exploited Africans to continue to do so. It must be realized that our cultural immunity and cultural defense systems have been the most destroyed. As a group interested in self-preservation and self-determination, the question of who belongs to our group, who has that group’s interest, will be paramount.

Owen ‘Alik Shahadah
Scholar, Film maker and Pan – Africanist

What is an African youth supposed to perceive of democracy, elections and diversity in a continent where elections mean civil war, pain and suffering, displaced populations, women and children confined to camps of Internally Displaced People forever? A continent where, if a leader does not happen to come from my tribe or religion, he or she is not worth his or her salt. How would you explain, the happenings in my own country Kenya in 2007/2008? How would you explain the post-election crisis in Zimbabwe in the same year and worse off, Cote’ d’ivoire’s tragedy of 2010? One way to explain all these cases of post-election crises in various African countries is simply that African leaders do not know when to say goodbye. They do not appreciate the power of the ballot.

Elections in our perception are supposed to affect everyone, lift us up, give us hope, make us believe that all things are possible, that by the very act of elections and the spirit surrounding them, the world would be changed. But is this what elections do for Africa? African leaders are more interested in the votes than in the views of their peoples. They have not yet started putting the interests of their people above their own short term materialistic vanity. That is why it is sad, but perhaps enriching, that African Youth have discovered a different Language, their idea of democracy, the Language of revolutions as we have all witnessed in North Africa especially in Tunisia and Egypt.

Africa probably needs a different type of democracy suited to its own unique and peculiar politic-economic and socio-cultural context rather than mimicking liberal democracies of Europe and America. Perhaps the continent also needs a different electoral system that will satisfy diversity. Perhaps political party systems are irrational, counterproductive, stopping sensible people from co-operating to achieve sensible ends, and reducing complex problems that require thoughtful solutions to battles about slogans and supposed ideologies. Africans must  explore possibilities of crafting an African democracy that is sensitive to the continent’s various social diversities.

African countries have never bothered to seriously sit and develop home-grown democratic institutions. Unless this is done, we will never witness true democratic institutions emerging in Africa.  The only period in which Africans seriously showed that they preferred to be governed by institutions rooted in their own traditions  was during their fight against colonialism. In rising up against colonial discrimination, marginalization, forced labour, taxation, forced growing of cash crops, forceful removal from ancestral lands and other forms of oppression, Africans demonstrated that they value peace, justice and full participation in governance of their countries.

Africa needs to develop a formula of democracy that enables its citizens to fully and equally participate in all its governance systems. We do not need to copy any foreign system just because it is attractive and trendy. We should strictly filter out foreign ideas and borrow only the ones that serve our values and needs. Dialogue with other civilizations does not mean we should contaminate our African civilizations until we cannot recognize our African values anymore.

It is proving difficult to manage Africa’s social diversities partly because we have borrowed foreign governance systems which are not suitable to our own contexts. For instance, why would Algerians reach for fellow Algerian throats, why would the Somalis seek to experiment their choice of guns on fellow Somalis?  Why would Rwandese try the sharpness of their machetes on fellow Rwandese?  Something is not right with us.

It is disenchanting that Africa always plays a central role in the analysis of fragility, since it is in this continent that fragility is especially widespread. Indeed the European Report on Development (2009) is entirely devoted to the problem of fragility in Africa. In particular, the probability of a country having a fragile state appears to decrease with the level of civil liberties and to increase with the number of revolutions, while economic factors do not matter. It therefore perhaps means that if we as young people of Africa took over political power, in well-organized democratic elections, of course the odds are grave,  and we gave our citizens a bit more civil liberties then we might progress somewhat? Perhaps that is not right, because I am also informed that, it is necessitous men that dictatorships are made, so that we must struggle as a people of the African continent to do whatever it takes to liberate the status of our citizens economic social-cultural needs for what is free speech on an empty stomach! Maybe someone on a full stomach would appreciate that even though they have freedom of speech and other fundamental freedoms, the same are limited, as rights and obligations have a form of jural correlativity.

Africa needs honest leaders, not marionettes. Leaders who appreciate that life is finite and has to be lived with that sort of Knowledge. That life is no rehearsal. We may never be here tomorrow but we can choose to favorably shape our tomorrow and secure the competitive global position for the many African generations to come. Like Dr Martin Luther King Junior, we need to say that  even if I knew the world would go to pieces tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree. This is the least we can do for our people. We have to begin to act now.

After 50 years of various African Countries achieving independence, what do we have to show? We should be tired of the 50 years of zig zag democracies; economic slavery; corruption; economic mismanagement and above all, 50 years of wars and political instability.

I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders.  Opportunities will come knocking, but it will also be wise to know when to answer and not to answer. 2012 is our hope to get out of the mud of dictatorial rule, we must design the way forward, protect our Nationhood and together as young Africans struggle to improve our destiny. Let the African youth be like a movement connected by a single converging interest to chuck out the old and usher in the new. Let us learn the lessons of political courage, to think anew, to be prepared to lead and decide, and take calculated risks. We should really think, not just criticize, analyse and dissect the problems from their first principles, having deconstructed the problems construct the solutions. In 2012, we must begin to take Control of our destiny, and this is how:

1.Africa should develop new democratic models rooted in its people’s traditions that embrace such aspects as sharing, defending each other, protecting natural resources and respecting each other. In this way, peace and justice will flourish in Africa. The new democratic model should embrace inclusiveness. All political parties in Africa should be broad based and draw members across all tribes and religions in their countries. The zero-sum “winner-take-all” politics should cease. It should be replaced by the positive-sum and consensual politics. Opportunities should be based on merit instead of party loyalty and the big man syndrome.’

2.Since the consequences of holding elections especially in the quest to satisfy democratic credentials are nothing to write home about, it will be politically prudent if new research can be undertaken to investigate the viability of the current electoral models in use in Africa. Evidence abounds suggesting that the dominant First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system is not assisting our countries deepen democracy, widen representation for greater gender equality, manage social diversities constructively. While Botswana, Mauritius and Ghana could be exceptions to this trend, it is evident that fundamental electoral reforms towards adoption of Proportional Representation electoral models could be useful as in the cases of South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia, just to mention a few countries. My belief is that the limitations of winner-take-all elections are sky-rocketing, it is time sovereign states begin to re-draw electoral and party systems mindful of imperatives for broadening representation and ensuring inclusiveness in our governance systems.

3.And as vividly noted in the African Youth Report 2011, the destiny of this amazing continent is in the hands of young people. The Young African Citizens are the key to an African renaissance and they are critical players and partners in ensuring social transformation and development in many spheres. There is therefore every need to invest in the younger generation, in their education, employment, health care, empowerment and effective civil participation, if Africa is to realize its true potential and be able to stretch even further.

In his acclaimed 1968 book, ‘The  beautiful ones are not yet born,’ Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah lamented the dearth of a new generation of political parties and leadership, which are committed to the interest of the mass of  people. Armah’s beautiful ones – who are a new generation of leaders not corrupted by money and materialism, are the young people.

There comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time in my opinion is now. To our old generation, we live today with a renewed commitment to serve our continent. We do not want to have lived our lives fine examples of people who were right but irrelevant. Politics is for purposes of  improving the quality of lives of the masses.

If we are going to move Africa forward, if we can’t fly, let us run. If we can’t run, let us walk. If we can’t walk, let us crawl. But by all means, let us keep moving or just like Josh Billings in that Favourite quote, “Be like a postage stamp. Stick to something until you get there.”

By Caren Wakoli. | The author is a consultant on matters of youth and governance.

Africa – except as an immigration issue – is unlikely to feature prominently in the forthcoming French Presidential election.  But the continent remains a vital part of French politics. From independence Africa was the buttress for France’s claim to be a global leader. French Africa policy was conducted by the presidency. Like a parallel government, teams directly responsible to the president ran foreign, defence, finance and aid ministries for Francophone Africa, separate from the normal government ministries.

From the early days of independence many people said that France had been a more successful decoloniser than Britain because Francophone countries were more stable and prosperous. The fact was that France had never left. Behind every minister’s door would be a French official paid for by France making sure that the minister knew what he was supposed to be doing. And near every presidential palace would be a garrison of French soldiers or legionaires in case a mob (or the country’s own soldiers) decided to cause trouble. The currencies of the former French colonies were linked to and supported by the French franc and then the Euro. French companies treated Africa’s resources as their own and French presidents could summon votes at the UN with a simple phone call.

This non decolonisation policy worked well for France in the 1970s and 80s and countries like Cote d’Ivoire, Benin and Congo Brazzaville looked far more stable and prosperous than their Anglophone counterparts. But at the heart of the Franco-African deal was corruption. President Giscard d’Estaing accepted diamonds from the ‘Emperor’ of the Central African Empire, Jean Bedel Bokassa.  President Mitterrand appointed his son as the link person to Africa. In his office in rue d’Elysee which backs onto the Elysee Palace, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand ran French Africa policy for his father. In the corner of his high-ceilinged room, he had a safe from which he dispensed gifts or stored those brought to him. But in 2000 he was imprisoned for arms dealing and corruption and was in and out of court until the sentence was confirmed in 2006.

When the Cold War ended and there were the beginnings of democracy, France’s hand-picked African presidents were growing old and outrageously corrupt. Suddenly they found themselves forced to allow opposition and hold elections. And in France there was growing unease about the corruption created by the relationship – and the expense of supporting increasingly unstable governments.

In 1994 a brave French magistrate, Eva Joly, investigated Elf Aquitaine – France’s flag-bearing oil company which owned much of the oil in French West Africa. It was found to have a $200 million slush fund for its executives. The company was closed down and merged with Total. In the same year Rwanda exploded and Paris went on supporting the Habyarimana regime with military supplies long after the genocide was clear for all to see. Not long afterwards Cote d’Ivoire, the jewel in the crown, began to fall apart in bloodshed. The Franco-African relationship became a byword for murderous dictatorships and sleaze.

What emerged from these scandals was not just how France controlled parts of Africa, but how African presidents controlled French politics, giving money to French political parties and their leaders. When President Nicholas Sarkozy came to power he promised something different but before long it was clear that he too was running a separate chain of command on Africa though an informal advisor, Robert Bourgi, and his secretary, Claude Gueant. Bourgi has admitted to handling money given by African presidents to Jacques Chirac, the former president, Dominique de Villepin and – extraordinarily – the far right racist Jean-Marie le Pen.  All deny the allegations, but they revealed that elements of the Africa connection were still very much alive.

In Paris last week I spent time with French officials who were anxious, very anxious, to say how much things had changed and that French Africa policy was now run in an official, professional way and the days of diplomacy through personal links were over. The safe has gone from Jean-Christophe’s office which is now occupied by a professional diplomat.

Interventions in Africa are now only made with a UN Security Council Resolution – such as the mission in Cote d’Ivoire which eventually captured Laurent Gbagbo. As much as possible France wants a European Union African Union agreement on defence though regional frameworks but it is still willing to train African armies through new agreements.

France is also looking for partners all over the continent – not exclusively francophone. And the old commercial links? What about Total and oil? “We support Total when we can but we do not assume that Total’s interests are always French interests” an official told me.

Meeting Katumba Mwanke

The death of Augustin Katumba Mwanke, ‘advisor’ to President Kabila in Congo, will cause a political earthquake there. Katumba Mwanke was Kabila’s fixer but also decided who got the country’s mining rights and whose concessions were cancelled. He was close to Dan Gertler, an Isreali, who plays the same role in Angola.  Mwanke died in a plane crash at Bukavu last week. The circumstances were not thought to be suspicious.

I remember trying to interview him in Lubumbashi when he was governor of  Katanga in about 1999. He pointedly kept us waiting for nearly three hours. ‘Us’ was the Financial Times, The Economist and an upmarket Dutch newspaper called NRC Handelsblad. When he finally admitted us we received a lecture on the glories of Laurent Kabila’s reign in Congo and warned us not to take photographs of “naked market women”.  As we left we were detained by his bodyguard just for good measure.

Richard Dowden is Director of the Royal African Society.

Many African states have identities they CANT link directly to their own culture. How can you expect them to GROW as FREE men & women?

Let me share the highlights of these names, you’ll UNDERSTAND why it’s so difficult to break from this slavery. #MyAfrica

• Algeria, comes from Algiers (al-Jazair), means The Islands…
• Angola, comes from the title “Ngola” held by the kings of Ndongo, a tributary of the king of Kongo
• Benin, is after the body of water on which the country lies, the Bight of Benin.
• Botswana, comes from Tswana, an ethnic group making 71.6% of its population? Literally meaning “The Place Where Tswanas Live”
• Burkina Faso, means “the land of upright people”. A name in their own language adopted after Thomas Sankara’s revolution.
• Burundi, comes from the kingdom of Burundi, ruled by “mwamis” (kings) before colonial times.
• Cameroon, comes from the name Portuguese explorers gave to the area Rio dos Camarões “River of Prawns”… Cameroonians are PRAWNS?
• Cape Verde, comes from Verde “Green”, the name Portuguese explorers gave to one of the uninhabited islands in 1444.
• Central African Republic or Centrafrique, means just that… A republic in central Africa… No wonder the nation seems to be LOST… smh*
• Chad, comes from the Lake Chad, a kanuri name meaning “big space of water”.
• Comoros, comes from qamar, arabic for “moon”.
• Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), comes from their huge herds of elephants and the ivory trade flourishing at colonial time. Coast Of Elephants?
• Congo, comes from the kingdom of Kongo (DRC-Congo Bazza-Angola), a democratic & well organized kingdom destroyed by colonization.
• Djibouti, comes from a Somali expression Jab Buti “the fall of the ogre” or Gabooti “a set of baskets”.
• Egypt, comes from Hikuptah ‘Memphis’, a capital during the Middle Kingdom.
• Guinea, comes from an English gold coin issued from 1663 to 1813 using gold from Western Africa… IS THAT ALL????????
• Eritrea, comes from the Italian form of the Greek name Erythraía, meaning “red [land]“.
• Ethiopia, comes from Greek (Aithiopia), from (Aithiops) “charred complexion”, from (aitho) “I burn” + (ops) “eye,face, complexion”
• Gabon, comes from “Gabão”, Portuguese for “cloak”, which is roughly the shape of the estuary of the Komo River by Libreville.
• Gambia, comes from ‘Gambura’ meaning ‘place of the king’.
• Ghana, means Warrior King and was the title accorded to the kings of the medieval West African Empire.
• Kenya, comes from the Kikuyu, Embu and Kamba names for Mount Kenya, “Kirinyaga”, “Kirinyaa” and “Kiinyaa”.
• Lesotho, translates roughly into “the land of the people who speak Sesotho”. A Bantu language spoken in southern Africa.
• Liberia, comes from Latin Liber-ia, “the country of the free.”
• Libya, comes from the historical name for Northwest Africa, from Greek (Libúe).
• Madagascar, comes from the Malagasy language, the island of Madagascar is called Madagasikara.
• Malawi, comes from Chichewa “malawi”, flames, after the appearance of the sunrise over Lake Malawi; or from Maravi, an early Malawi tribe.
• Mali, comes from the Mandinka who called ther homeland Manden, the Mandinka people became the Malinke.
• Mauritania, comes from Latin Mauritania, from Maurus “Moor” (several historic populations from North Africa “Berber people”).
• Mauritius, comes the name of some Dutch prince Maurice of Nassau… Dutch named it so. Can you believe it? SMH
• Morocco, comes from medieval Latin “Morroch”, which referred to the name of the former Almoravid and Almohad capital, Marrakesh.
• Mozambique, comes from Musa Al Big/Mossa Al Bique/Mussa Ben Mbiki, an Arab trader who 1st visited the island&later lived there SMH.. So Mozambicans take their NATIONAL IDENTITY from some random Arab trader who had a Spaza shop / Ligablo on their land?
• Namibia, comes from Namib which is of Nama origin and means “vast place”.
• Niger, comes from the Tuareg name for Niger River “egerew nigerewen”, used along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu.
• Nigeria, was taken from the Niger River running through the country. Touaregs named Nigeria too…
• Rwanda… I know it comes from the kingdom of Barwanda? But Still havent found anything deeper than that.. HELP!!
• São Tomé and Príncipe, is named in honour of Saint Thomas by Portuguese explorers who arrived at the island on his feast day.
• Sénégal,comes from the Wolof phrase sunu gaal, which means “our canoe”. Senegal River?.
• Seychelles, the islands were named after Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Louis XV’s Minister of Finance. SMH Can you CHANGE it NOW?
• Sierra Leone, comes from the hills surrounding Freetown Harbour, Serra de Leão (Portuguese for Lion Mountains).
• Somalia, comes from Samaale, the oldest common ancestor of several Somali clans.
• South Africa, comes from ermmm a country in the south Of Africa… And that’s ALL? How random is that? South Africa is culturally too rich to have such a random name/identity…
• Sudan, comes from the plural of the arabic word “Aswad” meaning Blackman… (sudá:n)… So South Sudan takes up from them too
• Swaziland , as well as its people, are named after the 19th century king Mswati of the Dlamini clan? If I am not mistaken.
• Tanzania, comes from the names of the two states TANganyika and ZANzibar that united in 1964.
• Togo, comes from Togodo (The Other Shore), today’s Togoville, a German colonial town, first capital of the country east of Lomé.
• Tunisia, comes from the capital Tunis taken from the Phoenician goddess Tanith (aka Tunit)…
• Uganda, takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, also destroyed by colonization…
• Zambia, comes from the Zambezi River (River of God), God in my language Lingala is Nzambe
• Zimbabwe, is derived from dzimba-dza-mabwe, the Karanga dialect of Shona meaning “large houses of stone”.

Those are the names of African countries as far as I could find out for now. Some countries are messed up because they DONT HAVE an IDENTITY.

An IDENTITY is your PRIDE, the reason WHY you EXIST… If you get it wrong, whatever else you do is pointless & NEVER rewarding…#SELAH

Bentley Lumumba

You’ve heard about the African Renaissance, right? The Aid Bosses, once the unquestioned successors in Africa to the joint heirloom of Mother Teresa and Lord Clive of Chennai, are finding it harder and harder to get face time with the political grandees in our wheeling and dealing capitals. The Chinese are fawning all over our oil and copper, forcing once-aloof Westerners to write treatises about why China’s engagement with the continent isn’t all marshmallow candy. These concerns get polite nods here and there but, mostly, serious Africans ignore them and firmly redirect the conversation back to private equity, or franchise deals, or something along those lines. Bottom line: Are you game or are you out? And have you heard that we have more mobile phones than any other continent besides Asia?

The curious thing, though, is that Africans aren’t basking in a perpetual high. The fact that the continent is tired of being lectured to and treated as a curiosity to sate the intellectual pretensions of Westerners doesn’t mean that Africans are blind to the challenges they perceive as obstructing every aspect of their continent’s development.
Take any newspaper printed in Africa any day. Whether you are in Dakar or Asmara, the wailing and ranting brims over; doomsayers and purveyors of gloom compete for the prize of most pessimistic outlook all morning, noon and dusk on local radio, Facebook and — where such media has been cordoned off by overzealous political police — in the backseats of tightly packed mini-buses.

Most savvy Africa-watchers reconcile these two divergent narratives like this: The prospects are brilliant, but the infrastructure is lagging. They affirm the imminence of socioeconomic transformation, but express doubt that the physical carrying capacity is strong enough to support equitable growth, job creation, and social harmony.

But there’s a new, alternative narrative out there that can be summarized in one word: leapfrogging. The leapfrogging argument takes off where the stalemate between the infrastructure pessimists and the entrepreneurial optimists ends. It is rooted in the notion that infrastructure can be hacked.

In much the same way that Africa’s lack of significant telecom capacity was a boon rather than a hindrance to the emergence of mobile telephony, its lack of legacy infrastructure for everything ranging from waste management to energy utilities could provide the appetite — non-existent in the West — for genuinely transformative, future-friendly reconceptualization of the very notion of infrastructure.

Technology and new concepts of living, as well as progressive notions of urbanization, industrial capitalism, consumerism, ecotourism, and renewable systems, could meld to fashion a new shared-growth paradigm. Such a paradigm, proponents argue, can easily bypass the clunky, wasteful, inequitable, and socially non-scalable physical infrastructure legacy of the West, propelling Africa, uniquely among continents, into a true 21st Century style of civilization.

This is a concept way ahead of the crawling pace of empirical evidence. No wonder its exponents often sound and look more like New Age sages than Jeffrey Sachs. But it is possible to begin a preliminary examination by focusing on the narrow confines of one’s trade or cause.

I run a multinational enterprise with multiple partners and super-demanding clients. The technology systems that undergird this effort are far-flung. I am expected to integrate my tools into complex global supply chains of international drug producers to solve the local problem of counterfeiting. I have had to run worldwide social marketing campaigns in the past in order to attract attention to our work in what could be dismissed as obscure backwaters of the global system. I still spend much of my time traveling from conference to conference in the West to meet people who can help my work succeed (I started thinking about this blog post on a train bound for Davos).

I am required to do all this on a shoestring budget and a super-lean staff. And I do it from Africa. I have a dozen friends in rather similar situations.

Leapfrogging is the umbrella name for the systems available to us today that make all this possible. Cloud computing, social media, new professional paradigms such as social entrepreneurship, below-the-line marketing and a host of novel realities have transformed the global context for Africans with their eyes set on continental and beyond-continental scale.

Secondly, beyond opportunity and flexibility, the level of productivity possible in the operations I describe above has been boosted several-fold by the growing proliferation of next generational models in finance, banking, and logistics. The people whose activities I have described in the preceding paragraph are actually more efficient in their use of resources due to a fundamental change in the notion of value. They are indeed achieving more with less compared to their Western counterparts. This is genuinely world-changing in its potential.

So case closed then: Leapfrogging rocks, and once its full bloom encapsulates Africa the world is our oyster. Sadly, it isn’t that simple.

Let me give you an example. State-run lotteries are among the most moribund industries in Africa. In Ghana, the government tried to address the despicable mess its lottery found itself in by banning private lotteries. That, predictably, did not stem the decline.

Some new entrants smelled opportunity and moved in to carve a niche in mobile-based lotteries. The sweet spot was of course they needed no unwieldy agent network or cash redemption facilities. But just when the new system was on the verge of take-off it was quickly discovered that the entire legal and regulatory system as set up does not in fact allow mobile lotteries to function.

Despite the opportunity being so glaring, not a single mobile-driven lottery infrastructure has emerged in any African country. If this is the case with lotteries, think of the even more regulated sectors of health and education, or more politically charged sectors such as agriculture.

Quite clearly, while leapfrogging might contribute powerfully to hacking physical infrastructure, it is less useful when it comes to soft (cultural, social, regulatory etc.) infrastructure. Therein lies its limitation in driving the African Renaissance.

So what is my one big idea?

Leapfrogging is a set of tools and techniques, not a conceptual or ideological description of the socioeconomic evolution of Africa now or in the near future. What matters is how entrepreneurs and innovators, especially social innovators, employ this set of tools within prevailing constraints. That, and not the poetic power of a renaissance motif, will transform Africa, one entrepreneurial triumph after another.

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center The Next Generation of Global Leaders.

More transparency is needed in the oil, gas and mining industries to prevent the international scramble for Africa’s natural resources from fuelling still deeper corruption and instability, according to a new report from Global Witness published today.

Based on investigations in Angola and Nigeria, Rigged? highlights a risk that complex corporate deals for accessing natural resources could be used corruptly to benefit vested interests in these countries. The report also points to major concerns over opaque sales of mining assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo to offshore companies.

“Many resource-rich countries in Africa have suffered deeply from corruption, conflict and unfair foreign exploitation,” said Gavin Hayman, Director of Campaigns at Global Witness. “Their citizens have a right to know how oil and mineral deals are being done, who is taking part in these deals and where the money is going.”

Recent years have seen a big increase in public disclosure of revenue payments to governments from the extractive industries. But that positive trend has been cast into doubt as international oil companies threaten legal action in the U.S to stop the Securities Exchange Commission implementing strong transparency rules. Oil companies are also lobbying to water down plans for similar rules in the European Union. Despite ‘big oil’ calling for a global ‘level playing field’, it appears to be fervently undermining efforts to create just that – a new global standard for transparency of revenue payments.

The new report points to a corruption risk that small and obscure companies in Angola and Nigeria could act as fronts for government officials or their allies, in resource deals that often involve investments from major international companies. The report finds that:

In Angola, several small companies which have won access to the oil sector – sometimes as partners of Western oil firms – do not identify their ultimate owners or are owned by people with the same names as government officials.

In Nigeria, valuable stakes in oil blocks ended up with obscure companies, one apparently controlled by a senator and another by a businessman close to the country’s then-head of state.

Additionally, in the DRC:

The state mining company Gecamines sold stakes in four major mines to opaque offshore companies, at what appears to be a fraction of their value, according to most reported commercial estimates.

Global Witness is calling for:

The commissioners of the SEC in the United States to pass final rules that meet the intent of the Dodd Frank law, requiring companies to publish what they pay to governments for each project that they operate in the oil, gas and mining industries without exemptions.

Europe, China and other jurisdictions to pass strong laws requiring companies to publish what they pay to governments for each project that they operate in the oil, gas and mining industries.

International oil and mining companies to stop lobbying to undermine transparency laws while claiming to be in favor of transparency.

Full disclosure of the beneficial ownership of companies bidding for extractive rights to become an international norm via such mechanisms as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the domestic laws of resource-rich countries in Africa.

Global Witness

When entering one of the cosmetic shops in town, the sight that greets you is of rows of prod­ucts that are supposed to give smoother, lighter skin to the al­most exclusive female clientele. “I want my skin to be brighter and smoother,” one lady in the shop explains, confirming the persistent perception among some women that lighter-skinned people are more beau­tiful or have a better social and economic status.

The shop vendor meanwhile is mixing different creams and lotions without any measuring tools, seemingly expert on what to use. “We give people lotions according to their skin,” she says. Asked how they do that, she looks me up and instantly proposes the kind of lotion she thinks may work with my skin. Leaving the shop, I keep won­dering if any of the ladies there bother to ask what products are contained in the mixtures they are getting.

What people do not realize, according to Dr. Jeanne Kimo­nyo, a dermatologist at CHUK, is that many of these lotions have lightening products in them, even when it is not indi­cated on the containers. “I get quite a number of people who come to see me wondering why their skin is getting clearer,” Ki­monyo says. Most of them say they are just using a simple lo­tion that they thought was free of any lightening agents.

The lightening products com­monly used in Rwanda contain hydroquinone and corticoste­roids. Although these products are used in cosmetics, they are also used in dermatology when treating some illnesses. “Cor­ticosteroids are used to treat people with inflammatory skin conditions, people who have spots that are darker than the rest of their skin,” Kimonyo ex­plains.

Other people that are also treated with corticosteroids are those with a condition known as vitiligo – a skin condition in which there is a loss of brown pigment from areas of skin, resulting in irregular white patches that feel like normal skin. “Some of them feel really uncomfortable when there are only a few black/brown spots left, so we use corticosteroids to take them away. But it’s all carefully done.”

‘Psychological scars’

There are many products that are available for the purpose of lightening skin. Some of these work by decreasing the amount of pigment that the body makes naturally, others claim to actu­ally bleach the skin while oth­ers work by killing melanin, the substance that lends skin its pigmentation and protects the skin from the cancer-caus­ing ultraviolet rays of the sun. Everyone has melanin in their skin; the more melanin present, the darker the skin.

“Personally, I would not dare use them,” says Diane Uwera, another customer in the shop. “I prefer to use something that will not change me. In addi­tion, those products are really expensive, what happens when you can no longer afford them? I would be ashamed to get out of the house for people would be used to me being light and then I suddenly become dark.”

 “In short, when any chemical is used in large concentrations for long periods of time, there will be effects.”

The desire to change one skin’s color is more than physi­cal. “The non-acceptance of your skin color or an attempt to make it lighter shows deep, ingrained psychological scars that have transcended gen­erations and will continue to transcend generations unless we declare to ourselves that we are happy with who we are,” writes Derrick Johnson, a psychologist.

He continues: “The psycho­logical scarring is so deep that we don’t even recognize it as being alien to our mentality. Instead we accept the world’s perception of beauty and we despise our own. The accep­tance of feeling inferior is not recognized and so we harm ourselves in the pursuit of false beauty.”

Yet skin lightening has many consequences in the long run. “People are looking for instant gratification, forgetting that they come with risks,” says Ki­monyo.

As she explains, these prod­ucts can contain toxins such as mercury or potent steroids that can cause serious long-term adverse effects. “These effects can be especially significant be­cause of the large body surface that is involved. In short, when any chemical is used in large concentrations for long periods of time, there will be effects,” she points out.

Hairy skin

When people are lightening their skins, those products are not only causing skin depig­mentation – destroying the sub­stances which give the skin its coloring – but also taking away layers of their skin, making it thin. This makes the skin more sensitive to the sun and, as it is less protected, it is easily at­tacked by bacteria and viruses that cause skin diseases.

The thinness of the skin also complicates the healing of wounds, Kimonyo says. “If it takes 5 days for normal people to heal, it will take that per­son 15 days.” And the prod­ucts containing corticosteroids and hydroquinone can cause the skin to be more hairy, espe­cially the face. “They also cause acne and, in the end, lead to skin cancer,” the dermatologist warns.

Some people who want to stop using lightening lotions find it very hard, and at times think they are allergic to any other lotion apart from the one they were using. “It’s not al­lergies,” Kimonyo says. “They just have been using them for so long, they become addicted. Like any other addiction, if you try to stop it suddenly, you will start itching and think it’s be­cause you have changed prod­ucts.”

Therefore, Kimonyo advises to get guidance from a derma­tologist who will help to stop using the products gradually.

But as one writer put it, the best way to help everyone in­volved is “to discourage the er­roneous belief that skin color affects beauty.”

Marie-Brigitte Kabalira