|
|
The G8: Africa Must Rethink Development
Model
James Shikwati
July
1, 2009
The global market system as currently constituted favors G8
countries and is not designed to enable Africans to develop
their economies. My recent visit to a farming village in Zambia
triggered questions in my mind about the elusive goal of
development in Africa. The village resembled my childhood one of
1977 in western Kenya. That was the period where one had to walk
through forests and thickets and cross over river Lusumu on tree
logs to access Mumias town. Land was plenty; what one needed to
do was to scratch the soil and he would have food.
Over 30 years later, my village is now 4 kilometers away from
the closest tarmac road. Electricity is 100 meters away. The
village is surrounded by 6 primary schools, 3 high schools, a
series of churches and one mosque. The route I used to trek to
Mumias over 20 kilometers away is now a feeder road complete
with a bridge; one can now access Mumias town using boda boda (
both motorized and human powered) bicycles. Hundreds of my
village mates have accessed education and speak "good English."
The use of a hand held hoe no longer guarantees food security in
my village. We are running out of land.
Sons and daughters seek employment in order to subsidize the
economy of my village. The majority end up in Nairobi's Kibera
slum to work as casual laborers in construction sites, security
guards and house helps. Some end up working in tea estates,
flower and vegetable farms whose products are mainly for export.
Those who remain at home will work as laborers in Mumias Sugar
Cane out-growers outfit either as cane cutters, weeding and
tractor drivers. The highly educated type are high school
professors, salesmen, priests, lawyers, think-tank type like
myself whose principal activity seems to be to inadvertently
perpetuate the global economic order! The older generation's
major farming activity here includes rearing free range chicken;
rearing a cow or two as well as planting maize, beans, bananas,
vegetables and sweet potatoes for subsistence. Coffee production
was abandoned in the late seventies. Little ingenuity is evident
as we all seem to be running predesigned activities, whilst
sustaining the old production methods.
While driving past grass thatched huts in Zambia, I found myself
exclaiming prophetically to my hosts that in thirty or so years
to come; they will have a scenario similar to my village. Will
they have developed? In my village, one is confronted by three
things: high crime rate; over 100 idle youth by the roadside who
demand for money and a growing sense of disillusionment about
the education system. High unemployment rates in my village make
the economic model currently being pursued akin to the infamous
pyramid scheme on the verge of collapsing. That is, only those
who joined the scheme earlier benefitted, and late comers loose
out!
A similar predicament faced in my village is played out
nationally in Kenya where marauding youth popularly referred to
as mungiki violently tax villagers and business people in order
to earn a livelihood. Kenya is now faced with a scenario whereby
the country dreads its own children. Kenya mirrors Africa in its
population structure that has close to
65% aged below 25. Yet again, if one visited Nairobi, the
capital city, he/she will be impressed by the growing city's
skyline and good highways. A peep at the city's backyard will
reveal a sprawling shanty that is home to over 700,000 people
living in deplorable conditions.
Kenya, as many other African countries, looks forward to the
upcoming G8 Summit to be held in L'Aquila Italy with the hope
that great economies of the world will help bail it out of
negative effects of the global financial crisis. The G8
countries boast of membership that commands over 65% of Gross
World Product; have leadership in global exports; host the
largest stock exchanges by market value and also posses the
world's most powerful military hardware. These are economies
that thrive on promoting the culture of measurements, knowledge
and ingenuity among its people. Unfortunately for Africa; these
economies do not find it of strategic interest to give freedom
to Africans to exercise similar approach to development - they
simply opt to lull African minds using aid money.
The current global market system is designed to create labor and
simply increase "purchasing power" of under developed nations in
favor of the G8 economies. The youth in my village are idle
precisely because the education system that was designed to get
labor out of them has not adjusted to the new job market
requirement. To illustrate how relationship with the so called
developed countries have suspended thinking in Africa; I came
across a program that trains Zambians how to use a hoe and time
rainfall patterns in order to outwit weeds. Over 45 years of
independence, African school graduates are yet to figure out how
to increase farm yields, outwit weeds, and make use of idle
farmland.
Development is the Ability to interpret/understand the World and
creatively/efficiently respond to the challenges that confront
humanity in order to increase the levels of human comfort on
earth. The current development model sustains Africans on the
"scratch the soil" level while they (G8 and re/emerging
economies) import raw materials and add value to them. Adding
value to African raw materials enables importing countries to
grow their industries, financial and knowledge sectors while the
African is left with hoe in hand scratching the soils for
minerals and crop. Please note that even chicken in Western
Kenya scratch the soil. Little ingenuity is needed in the
scratch the soil model!
Africa should not wait for the G8 group; they should open up
their countries to free movement of people on the continent.
Movement coupled with legal safeguards to promote individuals
keen to be original, imaginative, inspired, ingenious and
innovative enough to put their dreams in practice will spur a
wave of real development. The G8 is only keen to throw money at
our challenges, but that will not help change our century old
attitude of applying "monkey see - monkey do economics." As my
village illustrates, Africa indeed needs infrastructure, but
focus too must be on developing the people - and this is not
synonymous to access to Western education.
Development is not highways and skyscrapers. Development is
about people (and not G8 on Africa's behalf) creatively
responding to nature in order to enhance their levels of living
comfort on earth.
I look forward to adding Zambia to my ongoing intra Africa
exchange program currently targeting Uganda, Tanzania and
Zimbabwe!
By James
Shikwati
James Shikwati
james@irenkenya.org is
Director, Inter Region Economic Network
|
