That the AfDB has been around for roughly the same
number of years as many African countries have been independent reminds
those who old enough to remember and those who have read the history,
of the heady days of the early post-colonial period.
Newly freed from the indignity of being ruled by
foreigners, Africans generally believed everything was possible, now
that their own compatriots were in charge. With a dedicated financial
institution to provide much-needed financing, what could be too
difficult to achieve by way of development?
Well, for the most part it took less than 10 years
for the euphoria of Independence to turn into a rather long nightmare
of one-party political monopoly, military coups and counter-coups,
maladministration, and economic mismanagement. And so Africans
discovered that in the circumstances a great deal was impossible.
Not even their own development bank could prevent
the slide into chaos, economic collapse, and the resulting consignment
of millions of Africans to poverty. The tide, however, began to turn
when the “international community” decided it was time to do something
to save Africa.
In came the World Bank, the IMF, and a host of
external experts tied to specific aid programmes, to help fix not only
economies, but also the continent’s politics. In came free markets in
place of state capitalism, and competitive politics to allow for
contests for power to be settled without resort to violence.
It is a fairly familiar story that needs no
detailed retelling. Suffice it to say, however, that as things settled
down, Africans began to discover how, while they had been busy messing
around or being messed around by leaders who had promised a great deal
but delivered very little, the Asians, the East Asians at any rate, had
been steaming ahead, leaving poverty decisively behind them.
The Asians had done it in only about 30 years.
Could the Africans also follow suit within 30 years given the new
context? The optimism unleashed by free-market orthodoxy and the end of
one-party and military dictatorships had once again made many feel the
sky was the limit.
It is nearly 30 years since the onset of
structural adjustment and the return to multiparty politics. And yet,
arrive we haven’t. At least not yet, possibly not any time soon, despite
the “Africa Rising” chorus.
Not that it is all doom and gloom. African
economies have been growing rather quickly in recent years, as has
investment by both foreign and Africa-based businesses. The middle
class, the AfDB has been telling us, is growing too, with profound
potential economic and political implications.
Natural resources
At the same time, however, Africa remains poor,
with limited capacity for turning its vast natural resources into
prosperity generators for its vastly expanding population.
Economies may be growing and GDP rising, but as
AfDB president Donald Kaberuka told his audience in Kigali, “You cannot
eat GDP.” Much of Africa remains hungry, with millions of people unable
to afford two square meals a day.
Meanwhile, their governments persist in paying
only lip service to the imperative to invest in agriculture, especially
smallholder agriculture, the very sector that undergirded East Asia’s
foray into industrialisation.
And as if persistent poverty were not bad enough,
violence, much of it born of power monopoly and associated exclusion,
remains very much part of the political landscape.
Granted, we have fewer wars, but the few still raging and
breaking out every now and then simply augment the picture of Africa as a
continent of perennial lawlessness and instability.
Yes, Africa has done rather well in the past two
decades or so, but over all, the past 50 years have been decades of much
failure and shattered aspirations. In many ways this fact is captured
in the theme of the AfDB’s Kigali meeting: “The Next 50 Years: The
Africa We Want”. So what is the Africa we want?
I don’t know about you, but the Africa some
Africans I know want, and perhaps the African we all need, is one where
the lessons of the past 50 years, those from Africa itself and those
from, say East Asia, are re-examined through a new pair of lenses, not
the old one Africans have been sold by purveyors of instant solutions
without regard to history as such, or the history of development.
Consider this, for example: if East Asia built its
prosperity on a foundation of highly productive and prosperous
smallholder agriculture, why do Africans rush to industrialise against a
backdrop of struggling agricultural sectors?
If East Asia privileged political stability over
competition and state intervention in the economy over free markets, why
do Africans rush for conflict-inducing and potentially destabilising
adversarial politics and embrace free-market fundamentalism?
Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and
Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs.
E-mail: fgmutebi@yahoo.com
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