Why Africa Fails: The case for growth before democracy

Preface

Historians usually recount what happened. Political scientists link history to the political management of society. Sociologists explain the underlying role of culture, family and history, etc., in society. Economists produce models and theories, and make assumptions about situations and how they impact on society. And economic historians portray economic growth and development, but from a historical perspective. Although I cannot claim to conform to any of these disciplines, I have followed, worked on and observed the challenges that sub-Saharan Africa faces as it rethinks its future.

I have written this book from the perspective of my personal experience of more than 20 years as a practitioner in the field of development. However, I am also guided by theoretical work in the fields of international business, international trade, development economics and political economy. I have had the privilege of discussing issues that confront African countries with international leaders, development practitioners, politicians, ordinary people, academics and students. And through discussions, observations and reading, I have come to one conclusion: colonialism is no longer a viable excuse for Africa’s dismal performance in the global economic arena.

I believe that the solution to Africa’s economic woes will not come from heaven. Instead, the solution will be the result of home-grown soul-searching and critical planning and commitment to work for prosperity – although it will take a long time to yield tangible results. In my view, 25 years will be sufficient for Africa to develop from the last to the first world. To achieve this feat, however, Africa will require courageous leaders, committed men and women who have a vision to steer the ship in the right direction. And, in addition, if sustainable rapid growth and high levels of income are to be achieved, Africans of all walks of life will have to work harder, but in smarter ways. As noted earlier, economic salvation will not come from heaven. It is through strategic thinking and smart, but hard, work that the developed economies have attained economic success. Their policies were tailored to suit specific challenges and aspirations.

Acronyms

Introduction

Soon after gaining their political independence – several of them in the 1950s and 1960s – many African nations embarked on a struggle for economic independence. Fifty years down the road, the struggle is yet to deliver meaningful results. Millions of Africans still live in dire poverty; many lives have been claimed by curable diseases; many breadwinners have been maimed in wars; and others are unemployed. In turn, their dependants have been deprived of education and healthcare, among other basic necessities.

In tandem with the continent’s economic plight, many African states have failed infrastructure, and some depend on food aid. Although the economic emancipation struggle has been fraught with immense challenges, I, personally, do not buy into the repeated argument that colonialism is the main cause of Africa’s current economic woes. I believe that the continent’s plight is attributable to maladministration by its leaders. Many African nations have suffered long spells of poor leadership, dictatorship and gross corruption.

As explained earlier, this book is the result of my personal experiences and observation. Over the past two decades, I have represented Uganda – officially and later unofficially – at several development and trade engagements worldwide. I have interacted with bureaucrats and ordinary people from almost every part of the world. I have visited the rich and the poor, and seen how good policies can transform once feeble economies into great industrialised and stable nation states. I have interacted with officials from countries that were once poor but are now economically buoyant, thanks to good policies and leadership. Their countries achieved this as a result of enabling macroeconomic environments and government support. They pulled their scarce resources together. And sooner than they had expected, these countries were on the path to economic freedom. However, I have also seen economies crumble under the weight of bad regimes.

In this book, I argue that despite the effects of the colonial project (some Africans argue that the colonial experiment is yet to end), Africa should accept that its present malaise is largely due to its own mistakes: greed, poor policies and bad leadership. African countries must soul-search and find internal solutions to its problems instead of relying on Europe, Asia and the US. Although most African leaders continue to extend the begging bowl to Western administrations, there is nothing to write home about what they have achieved in their endeavours. In a nutshell, aid has not been useful in terms of enhancing economic growth for African nations. Free things can never build nations, period. Over the past couple of decades, much foreign aid that has been extended to various African countries has been squandered by officials in government. And the activities of non-governmental organisations are not a panacea for development. In my opinion, we need an aid exit strategy. Although I agree with Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo (2009) that the entire aid system ought to be disbanded, I do believe the last aid packages should be spent on enhancing trade infrastructure to open up international markets.

My other humble plea is that rich nations should allow free trade to blossom. This would be a meaningful alternative to aid, upon which Africa has grown dependent. The role of African leaders would then revolve round stemming corruption, building infrastructure, creating enabling business environments, marketing their countries, attracting investors and adding value to locally processed goods and services.

It is worth noting that in spite of the economic difficulties faced by Africa, the continent is nonetheless not a ‘basket case’, as often reported by the Western media. Most of their documentaries, press photos and stories give a false impression, namely that Africa is a continuing cycle of slums, squalor and poverty. There are, however, many positive stories – on governance, education and industrial growth, etc. – to report in various parts of Africa. And if these were accorded some decent air time or column space in the international media, several young Africans would be inspired to work harder.

Lastly, this book focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. It deliberately leaves out Arab Africa. The discovery of oil resources and their planning strategies have put the Arab African states in a different economic league from sub-Saharan Africa. And although they are yet to achieve their desired levels of economic development and good governance, they are nonetheless in better shape economically than their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Colonialism and the slave trade: Their impact on African economies

The slave trade robbed Africa of its strongest. Often, homesteads that had been raided were also razed. The strong were taken and, in most cases, the weak – women and children – were killed. There is no doubt that this affected African economies. The economic scars left by slavery remained visible long after African countries attained independence.

The questions we have long avoided asking ourselves as Africans are, were only the Europeans to blame for the slave trade? What about the Arab slave traders? And what about the African chiefs and kings who sold fellow Africans into slavery?

The Europeans needed labour and raw materials, and they came to Africa to obtain them. They worked out arrangements with African kings, chiefs and other rulers.¹ These rulers captured and sold their kith and kin either to the Arabs (who later sold them to the Europeans) or directly to the Europeans. In cases where rulers participated in selling their own people or those captured from less powerful neighbours, it is reasonable to say that these rulers betrayed their own. They sold them to buyers, who later turned them into slaves. We should also remember that these rulers² had domestic slaves whom they regarded as personal possessions, and saw no difference between slavery, whether it be on African or European soil. There has been a lot of silence surrounding these African betrayers. International fora and media continue to lay the blame on the white race as the only perpetrators of slavery.

We have to accept the reality that, in most cases, there was a willing seller (an African ruler) and a willing buyer (the whites or Arabs). The slave trade was commerce, an exchange via a transaction. Sadly, the transaction was the sale of Africans as slaves. It is also true that at times slave traders sailed to Africa to hunt for slaves, captured them and took them without paying.

The external slave trade took place across the Sahara, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. In some countries, slavery benefited Arabs, especially in the case of those slaves who were traded via the Red Sea and trans-Saharan routes. This book does not concern itself with enumerating the various slave trades. However, we can conclude that the slave trade, unfortunate as it was, involved players other than just white Europeans.

The European colonial powers ruled most of sub-Saharan Africa from 1885 to the 1960s (although some countries, such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola gained their independence later). Consequently, many sub-Saharan African nations, in terms of their historical, political and economic development, are still in their infancy as independent states, and are still heavily influenced by their colonial heritage. Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to secure its independence from Britain in 1957, celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence in 2007.

The boundaries and names of African countries were not created by Africans. With the exception of Ethiopia, Liberia (thus named because it became the land of freed slaves) and Sierra Leone (also a land of freed slaves), the names and boundaries of African states were coined by European imperial powers during the 1884 Berlin Conference.³ This forum was hosted by Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of Germany, at the request of Portugal. Critically, this partitioning of Africa did not consider the importance of ethnic and religious aspects of the people. And not a single African was party to this parcelling out of the continent. Consequently, colonisation separated families and communities, and people were forced to belong to two, or at times more, different countries.⁴ For example, today, Rwanda’s mainly ethnic Tutsis live in Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) instead of their own homeland, Rwanda. This considerably affected the wealth creation effort of the affected ethnic groups and undermined relationships that were an important ingredient of wealth accumulation.

The colonialists used a three-pronged approach.

Besides their military might (the gun), they also came under the guise of spreading religion, and their third strategy was the use of African collaborators. In Uganda, for example, the kings of the Buganda Kingdom (the Kabaka),⁵ who inhabited the central region, were viewed as collaborators (Sejjakka, 2004).⁶

The colonial economies had reached a higher level of industrial development and had markets. They also had revenue from taxes, as well as other sources.

However, they needed raw materials and labour. Some writers assert that the kind of institutions that were established by the European colonialists for the purpose of either protecting private property or extracting rents transformed some prosperous countries of the 16th century into the poorest economies of today (Acemoglu et al. 2002).

Often, we have ignored the historical significance of the colonisation of Egypt by Arabs. In Greek, Egypt means the ‘black land’. Indeed, some African leaders assert that the original inhabitants of Egypt, who built the pyramids, were black, not Arabs. According to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni,⁷ ancient Egyptians, like the Somalis, were part of the ancient African peoples. They were Cushites – part of the Nilo-Saharan group of peoples and languages. Some of their words are even to be found in modern Bantu dialects.

Colonialism and religion

Colonisation brought with it religion. In Africa, the two predominant religions are Christianity and Islam, both of which were introduced by the colonialists. The indigenous African religions were demonised and today they are regarded as backward and barbaric – forms of witchcraft.

There is a lot of politics associated with religion, but it is not appropriate to compare them all here. Suffice to say that religions are meant for the good of humanity, whether they are traditional African, Christianity or Islam, and they are important to their believers. We can say, however, that the colonial religions changed the way of life for Africans and, in the process, their art of survival. In Uganda the King of Buganda, Basamula Mwanga II, ordered the killing of his subjects who disobeyed his orders and converted to Christianity.

In the opinion of those who converted to Christianity, the king talked of in the Bible was superior to Mwanga. Many places that Africans have visited include places of pilgrimage associated with the imported religions – Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome and Canterbury, for example.

Colonialism and African economies

Most Africans who escaped being sold or forced into slavery in foreign lands worked in mines prospecting for minerals or were engaged in subsistence agriculture.

Decades later, when the colonialists introduced plantations of cotton, tea, coffee and cocoa, among others cash crops, Africans were forced to produce these commodities for the European and American markets. And for their sweat, they were paid a pittance. However, those African rulers who refused to collaborate with the colonial masters had their kingdoms decimated.⁸

According to Nunn (2003), during the period 1400–1900, no fewer than 12 million slaves from Africa were shipped abroad via the transatlantic route alone. Patrick Manning (1990) says that the effect of the slave trade was that by 1850, Africa’s population was only half of what it would have been had slavery not taken place. And these estimates do not take into account people who were killed during the raids or those who perished