Saturday 14 May 2005 – 09:30
“What rich countries must do; what Africa must do”
Introduction
Recent attempts to address poverty in Africa have taken on the form of partnerships between African nations and the leading nations of the developed world.
The first of these partnerships to be floated was the one spearheaded by South African President Thabo Mbeki and Senegalese President Maître Abdoulaye Wade, whom we are proud to have with us here at Liberal International.
The two leaders began with separate plans that were then merged in 2001 to form The New Partnership for Africa’s Development, or Nepad.
In Nepad’s founding document, African leaders committed to a set of principles and development goals, in the expectation that the developed world would respond by committing to new investment on the continent.
That is indeed what happened when the Group of Eight (G-8) adopted its Africa Action Plan at the Kananaskis Summit in 2002, which proposed new initiatives to support Nepad through investing in expanding markets, promoting peace and security, improving governance, building human resources and supplying additional aid.
Similar initiatives have followed, the most recent of which is British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa, whose report is being debated in Britain, in Africa and around the world this very week.
The Commission, like its predecessors, addresses the questions: “What must Africa do? What must rich nations do?”
The answers are consistent, from one plan to the next: Africa must reform its institutions, and the rich nations must increase investment and aid.
Basic Problems
Yet for all of their intrinsic merits and good intentions, most of these partnerships and proposals are still struggling to get off the ground.
A recent review by the African Development Bank of Nepad’s Short Term Action Plan (STAP), for example, reported that of 36 investment projects, only seven were starting to be implemented.2
As for the G-8, it has fallen behind on its aid commitments. A paper submitted to the Commission for Africa late last year noted:
“Despite the increased levels of aid for Africa, G8 compliance with commitments made in its 2002 Africa Action Plan averaged only 29% by the time of Evian summit [in 2003], and a slightly higher 39% just prior to the Sea Island summit [in 2004]—a lower compliance rate than for nonAfrican G8 commitments”.3
There seem to be four basic problems with these partnerships.
Just as the G-8 nations have been slow to meet their funding commitments, so, too, have the rich nations failed for many years to live up to their promise to devote 0,7 percent of their respective gross domestic product (GDP) to foreign aid.
Although Africa has vastly improved the number of democratically-elected governments, it has in certain key cases and areas failed to adhere to the basic principles of human rights, democracy, transparency and good governance it committed to in Nepad.
The continent’s virtual silence on the ongoing abuses in Zimbabwe, for example—a silence in which, unfortunately, South Africa has been complicit—has undermined the credibility of Nepad and has led to speculation that the G-8 nations might soon lose interest in the partnership altogether.
They provide a lengthy checklist of desirable policies and outcomes, without any real attempt to prioritise and decide where resources would best be spent.
The crafters of the plans simply declare that because Africa’s problems are “holistic”, they should be dealt with all at once—which leaves all of us wondering where to begin.
There also is no attempt to build a scientific approach into the design of these partnerships. Throughout the world, successful policies begin with a few critical interventions, whose results are measured by following key indicators of progress. These policies can then be changed or substituted according to their success or failure.
But the “shopping list” approach prevents us from learning from past mistakes and requires each partnership to start from scratch. That is not the way developed nations make policy for themselves; why should anyone expect such an approach to work in Africa?
In other words, they do not incorporate or acknowledge the possibility of change for better or for worse—political change least of all.
Read the entire text of the Nepad document, for example, and you will not find opposition parties mentioned once, though democracy and good governance are mentioned several times. It is as if the signatories could not possibly conceive of democratic changes of power in Africa, and do not see the need to make room for them.
From a liberal perspective, this is quite a significant problem. Each plan emphasises the role to be played by states and by institutions, but none focuses primarily on freeing individuals from the constraints of oppressive authority, whether political, economic or social.
No society has ever achieved long-term economic development without unleashing, to a greater or lesser extent, the power of individual men and women.
That is not to say that successful development plans must adopt a relentless individualism that would lead to cultural upheaval. And we should recognise that individuals are formed in, and sustained by, families and communities.
Yet if our development plans do not make room for individuals to choose their own destinies, these plans will fail.
Towards a liberal critique of the Blair Commission
The time has come for liberals who are concerned about Africa’s future, and about freedom and security in general, to engage in a liberal critique of Africa’s new partnerships, and to suggest improvements and alternatives.
Today I will focus on the Commission for Africa—both because it synthesizes many of the elements of earlier plans, and also because it is currently being formally debated in forums around the world. It is necessary that we, as liberals, make our voices heard in these debates.
Let us first look at the overall reaction to the Commission’s first report.
While the Commission’s work was widely praised, many observers noted that it placed less emphasis on African reforms than on increased aid from rich countries.
Whereas the G-8 had emphasised the importance of a “reform partnership”, the Commission suggests a doubling of aid—that is, an increase of $25-billion over the next three to five years— in advance of any real evidence of reforms being carried out by African nations.
Doubling aid, for all the noble aims of such a step, would be useless unless the capacity of African countries to spend that aid effectively were doubled first. Some are able to handle new aid, but others are not.
There is an additional risk that reforms will actually slow down rather than accelerate if African governments are showered with new flows of aid before they have fixed problems with corruption and mismanagement.
In that sense, the Commission may be sending mixed signals on reform.
On the positive side, many commentators have praised several of the Commission’s suggestions on ways to improve the way in which aid is used.
For example, it suggests that aid should be “untied”—in other words, that donor countries should not compel recipient nations to use aid to buy goods from the same donor countries.
Large proportions of aid flow back to donor countries this way. While “tied aid” may make foreign aid more palatable to voters in donor countries, it means that the funds provided are not spent as efficiently as they might otherwise have been.
What is still missing from this debate is a liberal perspective—one that focuses on the outcomes of the Commission’s policies for the freedoms, the choices and lives of individual Africans. It is that perspective which I now hope to provide.
Major policy proposals of the Blair Commission
Let us examine the major policy proposals of the Commission.
The goals of the Commission’s recommendations on governance are to build capacity—defined as “the ability to design and deliver policies”—and to improve accountability—defined as “how well a state answers to its people”.
It correctly observes that “Without progress in governance, all other reforms will have limited impact”.
Unfortunately, the challenge that some African governments face is not just a lack of capacity and accountability, but a lack of political will to address these problems, to enact reforms and fight corruption.
In his masterful treatise on democracy, Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria reminds us that governments that perform best are those that are supported by a broad array of independent institutions that exist beyond the reach of political control.6
A liberal approach would therefore suggest that efforts to improve governance and capacitybuilding should focus not just on government, but on organisations and institutions outside government itself.
The Commission recognises this, calling for donors to support “parliaments, local authorities, trades unions, the justice system and the media”.
However, in many African countries, all of these institutions may be under the control or influence of the ruling party.
Donors should therefore cast their net wider. Opposition parties, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society watchdog groups and even religious organisations should also be boosted with funds and assistance.
It suggests a number of steps that are aimed not only at ending conflicts in Africa but also at preventing future conflicts and helping post-conflict societies rebuild and recover from devastation.
Critically, the Commission encourages donors to support new institutions such as the African Union, which has already taken a leadership role in supporting peacekeeping and conflict resolution on the continent.
What appears to be missing in the Commission’s plan, however, is a focus on human rights, and a strategy for dealing with rights-delinquent states such as Zimbabwe, where there is no clash of opposing armies but a great deal of state-sponsored violence.
Any approach to conflict resolution in Africa should take note of the fact that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with each other.
Former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky reminds us in his new book, The Case for Democracy, that countries that do not honour the rights of their own citizens are more likely to send them off to fight.
“[N]ondemocratic rulers”, he writes, “find the threat of war a particularly attractive device for justifying the repression that is necessary to control their subjects and remain in power”.7
Liberal strategies for preventing conflict would therefore include plans for promoting democracy and liberal freedoms alongside efforts at conflict resolution.
The liberal alternative should also insist that pan-African and regional bodies apply stronger sanctions against abusive regimes.
These necessities include basic education; public health; water and sanitation; and the fight against HIV/Aids.
The lesson of the past several decades of experience in Africa is that throwing money at public services doesn’t necessarily improve them.
South Africa, for example, has expanded access to water and sanitation through the partial privatisation of these services. Yet in education, to which we devote a fifth of public spending, we continue to achieve poor results.
The question we must answer is how we can stretch our available resources to bring the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.
That will mean prioritizing among spending options—something that the Commission fails to do.
Liberal principles are relevant here in two ways. First, liberals prioritise the saving of human life above all other goals. Therefore, interventions to fight HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases should take precedence.
The second way in which liberal principles are relevant to the provision of essential services is that liberals value the role of the private sector.
We should allow private health care, private water services and private education to flourish on the African continent.
At the same time, we should introduce greater choice and competition into public services—by providing school vouchers to families to send their children to schools of their choice, for example.
Choice improves the quality of the services provided and frees poor people to make use of the best services available instead of the ones forced on them by bureaucratic fiat.
It recognises that rapid economic growth is fundamental to reducing poverty across the continent, and sets an average annual growth rate target of seven percent for sub-Saharan Africa by 2010.
To achieve this goal, the Commission recommends that Africa should double spending on infrastructure, with donor assistance; that African governments assist small businesses with better access to markets and finance; and that the public and private sectors work together to improve the overall investment climate across the continent.
Undoubtedly, most of the Commission’s proposals on economic growth and poverty reduction are good ones. But the Commission fails to draw appropriate boundaries between the public and private sector.
As Moeletsi Mbeki, deputy chairperson of the South African Institute of International Affairs, often reminds us, the major obstacle to prosperity in Africa has been the restrictions placed on the private sector by governments.
The challenge is to protect the emerging African private sector from government interference and elite rent-seeking.
There is not enough in the Commission’s report concerning the privatisation of state assets, for example, which would increase efficiencies, attract foreign investment and expand opportunity for local entrepreneurs.
A liberal alternative should propose several ways in which the Commission’s plans could be strengthened by encouraging private ownership, entrepreneurship and capital accumulation.
The Commission should, for example, propose ways to rescue the “dead capital”—land and other assets amounting to perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars—held informally by Africans.
The Commission notes that Africa is often its own worst enemy when it comes to trade barriers, and recommends that African nations take a number of steps including reform of customs and trade regulations.
Many of these steps, the Commission notes, would be fairly easy to implement and would involve small costs relative to the great potential benefits.
As for the developed world, the Commission calls on rich nations to dismantle trade barriers against African goods and to cancel expensive farm subsidies. It demands that the current Doha round of trade talks not insist on reciprocal concessions from African countries, and that donor funds be used to help African countries adjust to the global economy.
These proposals are all eminently sensible, and will certainly benefit Africa tremendously if they are enacted.
There is actually little that liberals could do to improve on them.
The challenge, as ever, is to muster the political will in developed countries—and in Africa—to enact trade reforms, which often means overcoming the objection of powerful interests in the government and private sector.
The best feature of the Commission’s recommendations on free trade is that African nations do not have to wait for help from the developed world before they act.
There is much that Africa itself can do, and is doing, to promote regional economic integration, for example, through organisations such as the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). Though progress has been slow, the benefits are already being felt across the continent.
The conclusion of the liberal analysis of the Commission that I have presented today would therefore be that while the Commission’s approaches to economic growth, poverty reduction, and free and fair trade are strong, there are serious weaknesses in its approaches to governance, security and social services.
Put another way, the Commission’s policies are sound with regard to the development of markets, but flawed when it comes to the reform of African governments and societies.
An African “Lioness”
There is another important element missing from the Commission’s report—namely, a recognition of the prospect that one or more successful African countries could actually take a leadership role on the road to democracy and development.
For example, the report suggests that the Asian rise from poverty to prosperity in the latter half of the twentieth century is one from which Africa should draw inspiration.
What it neglects, however, is the fact that Asian growth was led by Japan and “Tigers” such as South Korea before the sleeping dragon of China and the wandering elephant of India were finally roused in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Similarly, Africa could be led by an African “Tiger”—or, to be geographically correct, a “Lioness”—a country or countries that can hunt for the benefit of the whole pride.
African leaders have tended to avoid such approaches, preferring instead a politics of “inclusiveness” or solidarity that often means that collective efforts must be defined by the weakest link.
However, the time has come for a Lioness to stalk forward. And that Lioness, in my view, is South Africa.
Our democracy is not the oldest on the continent, to be sure, but it retains an inspirational quality to millions of Africans striving for freedom.
Our economy is not, by far, the fastest growing in Africa, but it is certainly the largest and has the greatest potential to lift other African economies as well.
Consider, for example, a recent working paper published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that concludes that over the past few decades—including the period when the apartheid economy was isolated—“a one percentage point increase in South Africa’s economic growth is correlated with a 0,5-0,75 percentage point increase in the rest of Africa”.8
South Africa has also become the single largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa, ahead of Britain, France, the United States and China. Our trade with the rest of Africa has quadrupled, as a percentage of GDP, since the fall of apartheid.
Politically, South Africa casts a long shadow across the continent, as our country hosts the PanAfrican Parliament and is considered the likeliest choice for one of the two permanent African seats on the United Nations Security Council.
We are also, as soccer fans around the world are aware, going to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
With further strengthening of democratic liberties and freedoms, and greater liberal economic reforms, South Africa could truly be Africa’s Lioness—a leader that pounces on opportunities, one that not only feeds herself but helps the rest of Africa to hunt as well.
South Africa’s challenges
There are, however, many challenges in the way of South Africa playing that kind of leadership role.
Only one of these obstacles is external: namely, the reluctance of African countries to accept South Africa’s prominence on the continent.
That resistance, fortunately, is slowly fading, thanks partly to the benefits Africans are enjoying from services provided by South African companies.
President Mbeki also deserves credit for his tireless advocacy for the continent on the international stage.
Certain of these constraints on South Africa’s leadership, sadly, are self-imposed.
Economically, for example, our nation is focused less on increasing growth and fighting poverty, and more on redistributing wealth along racial lines.
This is perhaps understandable, given the context of our history, but it is also indefensible, given that such redistributive policies have largely served to enrich the new elite and have provided little or no benefit to ordinary people.
Put another way, South Africa is more concerned with the advancement of a segment of our population rather than the success of the nation as a whole.
Most alarming of all has been the way in which South Africa has seemed to abandon the cause of human rights—not just in neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe, but at home.
The central government, controlled by the African National Congress, is currently trying to centralise and entrench its power. In the process, it is putting pressure on the judiciary, threatening the right to freedom of expression, and placing other liberties such as language rights at risk.
The ruling party has even launched an ideological campaign against liberal ideas and liberal opponents of apartheid such as Helen Suzman, who won the Liberal International Prize for Freedom in 2002.
Towards an opposition alliance
My own party, the Democratic Alliance, is the Official Opposition in the South African Parliament and is also the fastest growing party in the country. Yet we are still far smaller than the ruling ANC, which has a two-thirds majority.
We want to bring our liberal policies to the fore, and make South Africa the Lioness it ought to be. Yet to do so, we must still build a great deal more support.
Our difficulties are not entirely different to those faced by opposition parties throughout the rest of Africa.
Yet while there are countless forums and institutions linking African governments—and often, by extension, African ruling parties and elites—there are hardly any that bring together leaders and activists from African opposition parties.
We are fortunate, of course, to have a few institutions such as the Africa Liberal Network, which connects liberal parties across our continent, both those in government and those in opposition.
Our seventeen member parties include: the Angola Democratic Liberal Party; the United Party for National Development from Zambia; and the Civic United Front from Tanzania, among others.
And we are, of course, honoured to have a liberal party like the Senegalese Democratic Party represented here at Liberal International by President Wade.
It is also noteworthy that delegates from the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe are attending our conference today as observers.
However, the project of building responsible, democratic opposition parties in Africa is not one that can be confined to or that applies to liberal parties alone. There are many different ideologies and constituencies represented by the spectrum of opposition parties that operate in Africa’s emerging democratic systems.
What is important is that these opposition parties, regardless of their beliefs, must develop a common commitment to representing their principles and their supporters’ interests through transparent methods, and a commitment to contesting power through peaceful and democratic means.
If we are truly serious about building the strength of African democracies, we cannot just devote resources to building the bureaucratic capacities of governments, important though this is in terms of nation-building.
We must also build the political and administrative capacities of opposition parties. Doing so will guarantee that shifts in power will be more frequent, and less destabilizing.
The danger of massive increases in aid to governments in countries in which power rarely changes hands is that incumbent parties can use aid to strengthen themselves rather than the state institutions they are charged with upholding.
Support for opposition parties would contribute to preventing conflicts because it would reduce the costs of losing power in democratic elections and reassure unsuccessful parties that they can live to survive and fight future elections—not by claiming a share of government patronage but by strengthening their capacity to perform their democratic functions.
In addition, we also need to rebut and rescind the notion that is too often promoted by African governments that to oppose the government of the day is to oppose nation-building, and to engage in political disputes is to make an enemy of patriotism.
This sort of thinking leads directly to the rule of the one-party state, which belongs in the history of our continent and not in its present or its future. Opposition politics are as true an expression of African patriotism as any other politics—truer, in some circumstances.
The international community, and partnerships such as the Commission for Africa, should therefore treat opposition parties as a critical pillar of democratic political life on the continent.
Resources should be committed to building associations between opposition parties across Africa, within which these parties can gain maturity and learn to hold their respective governments to account in constructive ways.
Conclusion
And so we return to the question: “What must Africa do? What must rich countries do?”.
The initial answer we provided was that the two sides must form partnerships based on a mutual commitment to African reform and developed-country aid and investment.
However, the liberal perspective adds an extra dimension to the principles, policies and procedures that are to animate these partnerships.
Above all, we must never lose faith in the potential of Africa and African people. Our continent has overcome great adversity in the past.
We will do so again in the future, and make our contribution to freedom and security across the globe.
2 Herbert, Ross and Ayesha Kajee. “Nepad at the Crossroads”. South African Institute of International Affairs. URL: http://www.saiia.org.za/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=440
3 Labone, Ronald et al. “Action for a strong and prosperous Africa: the role of the G8 in global health equity”. Submission to the Commission for Africa. 2 Dec 2004. URL: http://www.globalforumhealth.org/forum8/forum8- cdrom/OralPresentations/LabonteUK%20Global%20Health%20Programme%20Submission%20to%20Oct ober-December%20Consultation.doc
6 Zakaria, Fareed. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. New York: W W Norton, 2003.
7 Sharansky, Natan. The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. 83.
8 Stoddard, Ed. “SA’s economic growth shows way for rest of Africa”. Business Day 11 May 2005. 2.
