Africa
A Miner’s Canary Into the 21stCentury
(Essays on Economic Governance)
By Ivor Agyeman-Duah
CONTENT
Acknowledgement
Introduction
Chapter One
Liberia: A Virginity that was De-flowered
Chapter Two
South Africa: Between Sainthood and Philosophy of Kinship
Chapter Three: Facing Mount Kenya
Chapter Four
Rwanda: The Beautiful Mountains of Kigali
Chapter Five
Ivory Coast and Ghana: A Re-visitation of the West African Wager
Chapter Six
Mauritius and Seychelles: Small is Beautiful
Epilogue
Introduction
By the first decade of the twenty-first century in January 2011, I had travelled extensively around the world. I had been to all continents, and in some I visited a number of countries. In Africa I had visited 20 countries of all geographic sizes--as big as Nigeria, as medium as Ivory Coast, and as small as the Seychelles Islands. If Africa was in a way going to claim part of the century as the so-called last frontier of development, the first decade was important then; important in the sense of seeing and feeling.
But it was also not an innocent decade—first there was the food crisis partly engineered by the rate of population growth in Asia; close to a decade drought in Australia, a world supplier of wheat, and the increasing price of oil and the production of bio-fuel using food crops. Since food is essential everywhere, shortage affected sectors of many economies.
Secondly, there was the financial crisis, its genesis being the inability of people to pay back loans contracted in the sub-prime mortgage sector (loans to even unemployed borrowers without any collateral or security) in the United States. Investment banks and mortgage brokers had devised complex and artificial mechanisms to keep the housing boom on course. Banks would fall,Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in the lead, between 2008 and 2009 and the shift to Europe starting with the Northern Rock (and the aftermath of almost weekly demonstrations in Italy, Spain, Britain, Ireland and Greece against austerity measures in the last quarter of 2010) would not be long in coming as well as the consequences of Asian investment in especially London restaurants and other European capitals. These were economies that were integrated and the consequences changed the debate and policy implementation of the global financial architecture.
Of the many important books published within the period two were remarkable and reflective of the contentious debate of the moment, whether Africa was relevant or otherwise in the unfolding global events. The first, Fareed Zakari’s The Post American World (2008) had argued about the ‘empire-ness’ of American dominance in especially post-Cold War world. Though he does not subscribe to America’s economic, military and cultural decline as some critics make of the emergence of China, India and some of the G20 members, he explains that, it is other countries that are emerging in the light of global economic growth against the tight of technology and other processes. Africa and its role is a footnote in his analysis. The second and probably more favorable analysis, to at least African affairs constituents, is Gordon Brown’s financial history of the decade published in 2010 as Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization. He is the first leader or ex-leader of a major economy to have devoted a chapter in a memoir to Africa in recent times of what he had done and what could still be done as the continent cannot be ignored for good or evil in the resolution of global crisis.
Africa, with limited integration in the global economy, could not escape the fall-out in terms of short-fall in billions of dollars of transnational remittance from nationals abroad, Aid, bilateral assistance as well as the multilaterals ( the World Bank and IMF) shifted attention to the European crisis. The continent still grew averagely between 4.5-5%. Some beyond this to 7 %. The figure was impressive and many pointed out quiet rightly that the growth was in specific sectors like the divestiture of dysfunctional state telecommunications, mining and increasing discoveries of hydro-carbons. These were and are still the sectors that connect to global interest because of their common economic integration value.
To someone travelling around that period, the consequences of the changing times again registered in the decline of the aviation industry through low traffic of flight reductions across Europe, Asia and Africa. Thus, there is no way Africa’s first decade of this century can stand in isolation of macro and micro analysis into the future because what affected it was not solely what was decided there or what happened there.
I had done these travels as a writer and later as a diplomat who served in his country’s two important missions- Washington, DC and London where many of the multilateral policies that affected Africa in diverse ways were formulated. But I had also done work in international development and at least considered myself to have a fair idea of how societies and cultures move towards development of many types.
Before January 2011 I worked with former President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana during (?) his eight year presidency, serving as his special assistant on international development co-operation . His presidency was very eventful. Domestically, he had done some good things with the economy- interventions in social, health and education sectors which had changed for the good the indicators – (GDP per capita, growth rate which had temporarily hit 7.2 percent by 2008; lowered interest rates at the banks and because of reforms in the sector brought competition from re-located banks from Nigeria, South Africa, Libya and elsewhere with which a modern economy is measured with). In fact his government had been right that the size of the economy was bigger than had been estimated and that the GDP was at least three times more than the $15 billion estimate. A re-basing done by the Ghana Statistical Services and the multilateral institutions in 2010 would confirm this and put the economic size at 40 billion thus an attainment of a lower middle economy status. But many Ghanaians would still tell you that they see little or no change in their lives whatever the figures say.
But he had, like all leaders, his low moments in governance, driven by questionable policies which became fodder for sometimes petty opposition politics. If the balance sheet is drawn, adding aspects of his his international relations profile, he will be credited for maintaining - good neighborliness (Ghana is bordered by Burkina Faso to the north, Ivory Coast to the west, Togo and Benin to the east, and Nigeria further east. All but Nigeria were former French colonies. They had from the 1970s experienced leadership challenges which got worst with the civil wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast by the 2000s) and peace-building . Whilst president of Ghana, he co-currently became the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, the chair of the African Union with the latter been particularly sensitive . His performance in these unions- mediation in the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia and his setting up of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities chaired by Kofi Annan that finally resolved the impasse in Kenya’s post election violence in 2007 had been appreciated. Not since the days of Nkrumah in the height of his Pan-Africanist stance had another Ghanaian leader had such accolades.
But the beauty of his exit from power as constitutionally mandated was to the international community less to do with his achievements since Ghana like many of the African countries that were doing well was still poor. It had everything to do with not interfering with the final results of the 2008 elections in which his former foreign affairs minister, Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo lost. Addo in the first round of balloting was leading with over 120,000 votes but that was not conclusive enough to give him victory. Surprisingly, when the next ballot occurred three weeks after, he was in vote deficit necessitating a third, a process unseen in the electoral politics of Africa before. The elections which could easily had led to another civil war in the eyes of the international community were also partly due to his tacit.
This recognition was reflected in his post-presidency international portfolios and engagements- from within Ghana and outside to assignments of the United Nations. Whilst he was president, I had been part of some of these travels. I had done a book of him, Between Faith and History: A Biography of J.A. Kufuor and had also been invited by The First Magazine ( to do a biographical essay on him) which with the Chatham House, published a commemorative edition to mark the award of Chatham Prize given to him by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007. He is someone I am therefore very familiar with- personally and in other capacities.
There was also the Interpeace- a peace-building organization based in Geneva which previously had strong attachment with the United Nations in fact, a baby of the UN operating in 17 countries around the world. For years, the former President of Finland and the 2007 Noble Prize laureate, Martti Ahtisaari was its governing chair. Scott Weber the Director-General of Interpeace persuade Kufuor to take over the chairmanship from Martti after he had done nine years. In between these major assignments was the one-off invitation from across the world- from inaugurating the annual lecture series at The Legatum Centre for Entrepreneurial and Development at MIT, Boston, to Ground Health Issues at Cornel University to Brazil .
As I travelled on many of these, I kept a diary to keep memoirs for a future historical construction. I decided that I will limit these to Africa. This book is therefore raw materials of personal encounters with players- African leaders, statesmen, politicians, economists and those who shape events and their implication on the people of Africa. It’s partly observation in meetings, contributor to policy discussion and as a reporter sometimes.
Six countries are covered - Liberia, South Africa, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mauritius, Seychelles and Kenya. These are different countries with different histories and cultures but reflecting the geographical map of the continent. Their economies are those of small islanders like Seychelles to those of medium size like Ivory Coast and of course the only emerging economy in Africa- South Africa.
Liberia in West Africa is a small English speaking country of 4million people. Though it was never colonized it has had a long association with the United States- slavery and return under US sponsorship of former slave descendants- Americo- Liberians to the motherland. The returnees, in one of the greatest ironies of political unfairness ‘colonized’ the natives and created a ruling class and division that would later bring about a prolonged civil war in Africa.
South Africa has a unique history of British and Dutch domination. Independent in 1910? it underwent apartheid or racial habitation until after liberation struggle by the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and to a lesser extent, the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko which helped to kill the system and the election of Nelson Mandela as president in 1994.
In the Chapter, Facing Mount Kenya for instance, I discuss one country with two economies- the Nairobi economy- modern and one of the few to have capital markets in post-colonial Africa long before its plural emergence in parts of the continent. I examine whether this functionary economy gives the type of growth that is broad based and not class induced; the other –more deprived and rural is inhibited in its growth by cultural attitudes. This is partly so because of the type of public policy encouraged by the country’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta.
Rwanda in Central Africa and the Great Lakes region was colonized by the French and the Belgians. It became independent in 1962 as an insignificant country in the affairs of the world but, a genocide in April 1994 against the small but the powerful Tutsi ethnic group which eliminated in months nearly 1million people brought it to world fame. It has since done interesting things for itself and gained the respect of the world. And then the Ivory Coast, the world cocoa producing ware-house and west Africa’s second strongest economy built by its France –loving, like all Francophone anti-colonial leaders of the 1960s, Felix Houphouet-Boigny who ruled for 32 years. The story of post-colonial state building in West Africa has always and fairly so, presented a scenario of Ivory Coast under Houphouet- Boigny and Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah- two countries with similar economic profiles- leading cocoa producers, coffee and other minerals and commodities as well as sharing historical and cultural practices. The artificial boarders divided its Nzeam ethnic group in two countries; the Asantes of interior modern Ghana whose ancestry go as far as Yamoussoukro, the home city of Houphouet-Boigny. I have compared the two countries which chose two post-independence development models and the consequences thereof.
In the last chapter, I looked at Mauritius and Seychelles, two small island countries which before the independence of Seychelles in 1976 was one country. With a population of 1.2 million (as at 2007) people as compared to the 90,000 of Seychelles, it is obviously the better of two economies in terms of global outlook. How it depended on nothing but services and its textiles industry is stimulating.
In the main I looked at contemporary leadership and how that kind of leadership has been or unable to create socio-economic development. Even that is broad for a work like this so it gets narrowed down to: growth in the dominant sectors of the individual economies and how they propel other drivers. There may be a bit of political economy here and there, revisionist history along the line, a portrait of a country and leader or other personalities to illustrate points and arguments or even to show off the human capacities of societies and people but the theme running through are: political leadership/ ruling class and socio-economic progress or otherwise.