Don’t Try To Do This

Don’t Try To Do This

Karen wrote:
Flying from Boston into Jburg SA the 3rd week in Nov, want to spend few days in SA, week on safari in Serengeti & end in Zanibar (approx 2 weeks total). Specific suggestions what to see/do that time of year? 2 women, 1 college girl & 1 12 year old girl. Need help getting stared. Thanks!

Jim Answers
Karen –

This is a tough one for me to answer. From about the beginning of November through the middle of December, most of sub-Saharan Africa is dry, hot, dusty and at its worst time of the year for game viewing. So let’s start with the truth of the matter: you’re going at the wrong time for game viewing.

But maybe you have no choice. Maybe your “college girl” is going or coming, and so it makes best sense to do it, now.

But, please, forget the Serengeti. The Serengeti is my favorite place in the world, and you want to visit it at its darkest time of the year. Besides, I’ve often said that trying to combine East Africa and southern Africa is a real mistake. It’s a mistake to budget, time and context. Stick with southern Africa.

November is a great time for the whales in Cape Town. The beaches of Mozambique are just as good if not better and cheaper than Zanzibar’s at this time of the year. And if you must do game viewing, try to get on one of the (cheap and exciting) ranger-led walks in Kruger National Park, which I know your kids will really love.

Hope this helps! Sorry to be so discouraging, but the fact is that you’re starting with the wrong idea, and if you adjust it slightly you’re going to have a great experience!

Enter Emperor Wadongo

Enter Emperor Wadongo

Genius Engineer, World Shaker, Kenyan Evans Wadongo
People just don’t get the social tsunami smashing the world right now. Obama’s Old News! Notwithstanding the media starred war in Libya, societies are changing at the drop of a text message. Billionaire industrialists and fat politicians aren’t the only ones running the show, anymore, in fact their days may be numbered. Meet Evans Wadongo.

Wadongo is currently sharing a world prize with Ted Turner (CNN) and Tim Berners-Lee, the man who in 1989 first made the Internet work. The three are the inaugural winners of the annual Gorbachev Award for “opening up society.”

What did 25-year old Kenyan-born, Kenyan-schooled, still Kenyan resident Wadongo do that elevated him to the table of stars?

He turned dark into light without using fossil fuels or electricity. He’s an engineer. But he didn’t invent gyroscoping drone bombing sensors, or infrared seeking document readers, or nano focused skyscraping beam protectors.

He invented a solar lamp that is cheap and efficient so that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of poor people can see at night without endangering their health and minuscule budgets with kerosene lamps and fumes.

Do you get it?

A simple, efficient, inexpensive solar lamp is as important as the WorldWide Web and CNN.

Because when the potential of millions of suppressed people is illuminated, the world will change, and I for one, think for better. That’s exactly what’s happening, now.

Whether it’s Wadongo, or Ory Okollah, or Wael Ghonim, the movers and shakers of the world today are increasingly:

1) Kids
2) Optimistic
3) Smart
and above all, 4) Compassionate.

It’s a new world, you old fogies! Not sure how we’re going to deal with these new parameters of life, but we better get ready, because it’s going to be a much different world from the one in which we prospered.

Lutheran Miracles in Tanzania

Lutheran Miracles in Tanzania

Is it faith that heals?
Does unmitigated faith cure, kill, lead or mislead to victory? Ask the tens of thousands of people flocking to a faith healer near the Serengeti. Or ask the ragtag fighters pushing into Sirte. It’s all the same. And who are we to interrupt the jihad?

An endless line of cars, bikes, walkers trekking into a remote mountain location near the Serengeti in Tanzania has caused turmoil in Tanzania’s government, eight traffic fatalities, more than 50 deaths of those waiting for the “miracle cure,” and raised serous questions about the role of traditional medicine in Africa.

It may be hard to believe 76-year old Lutheran pastor, Ambilikile Mwasapile, that he can cure everything from AIDS to diabetes to all forms of cancer for a 30¢ cup of herbal medicine “touched by God”, but nothing seems to deter an unprecedented pilgrimage into the Tanzanian bush.

Tanzania is a very superstitious society, and there are healers and medicine men everywhere. But to my knowledge this is the first time that established, traditional clerics have supported such an individual. Monday, Mwasapile gained support from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). Western trained Bishop Thomas Laizer told one of Tanzania’s major newspapers that he would begin raising funds to build a large healing center that could better serve the thousands of people seeking treatment daily.

This ideological breakthrough followed Sunday’s decision by the Tanzanian government to send paramilitary troops into the remote area to stop further lines of cars, trucks and helicopters from visiting “Babu,” as Mwasapile has been affectionately named. The government said this was only a temporary halt. Needed to bring some kind of stability to a pilgrimage clearly getting out of hand.

But the humanitarian move by the government may have backfired. Not only did the established Lutheran church then issue its unequivocal support, but Parliament got uncharacteristically rattled. Member of Parliament Steven Ngonyani told the government “Hands off!” the work of the healer.

“The government …should show its support to him and not break his heart by imposing modern methodologies… What has Tanzania Food and Drug Agency to do with regulating the works of a traditional healer?”

According to Nairobi’s Daily Nation 24,000 people were lined up and waiting for the cup of elixir Saturday night. The BBC said the line of cars, trucks and bicycles was more than 15 miles long.

People wait for days to pay Tsh 500 (about 30 U.S. cents) to drink a cup of tea brewed from a root more commonly used as a poison, personally handed to them by Babu himself. In fact, Babu claims that if anyone else brews the tea or hands it out, it won’t work.

There are no hotels or hostels in the area and sanitary conditions are appalling. Businessmen from the cities have set up tent camps offering bottled water and places to sleep at outlandish prices.

The deaths and injuries to those waiting forced the government’s hand. Most of the deaths are of persons who were dying and had been whisked out of traditional hospitals by relatives and transported into this rugged, remote and mountainous area of northern Tanzania.

Reports that all of Tanzania’s main government officials, including President Jakaya Kikwete, as well as officials from Oman and the Emirates had come to take the cure, remain unconfirmed yet strangely undenied as well. And helicopters do arrive regularly with persons who break the queue by paying ten times the normal rate (Tsh 5000, about $3.50).

I cannot find a single published testament that the cure works, despite my own employees in Tanzania recounting many stories of relatives and friends who have been cured of a whole range of disease. But no one will come on record. Neither will the President of Tanzania deny the widely circulated rumor that he’s taken the cure.

On record are physicians decrying the hoax (see YouTube below), but none have so far published their skepticism locally.

The 76-year old cleric has a Facebook page that is – remarkably – well serviced for an old man who is supposed to be handing cups of cure to supplicants for 12 hours a day. All the entries I could translate were requests for the cure; I didn’t find one testament to being cured.

Nor have journalists diligent to gather evidence found any that the cures are working.

On my safari last week into the Serengeti, we saw trucks and cars stuffed with clearly sick people in an unending journey into this remote wilderness.

Tanzania is a very superstitious place. The most educated Tanzanian remains worried all his life that he’ll be cursed. My Mzungu (white, European) boss for many years in Tanzania regularly visited Maasailand for herbs. Some of the finest tourist lodges in the country refer to themselves as “Spas” dispensing herbal remedies.

The tsunami of optimism breaking over earth at the moment comes not without the turmoil of death and destruction. It is this same dialectic that infuses the thousands of sick people making the pilgrimage to the Serengeti.

Wandering children run over by cars, dying patients left on the side of the road, children “wailing and flailing as they were forced by their mothers to swallow the concoction.”

What the heaven does this mean?

That faith heals?
That people are desperate?
That the spirits rattling the world at the moment are alive and well?
That freedom and democracy will follow the slaughter of Tiananmen Square. That transparent and uncorrupt government will now rule Egypt. That despots like Gaddafi will be replaced by Mahatma Gandhis.

That faith in the struggle is the single most important ingredient to victory?

Is there anything wrong with this?

Cote d’Ivoire in Context

Cote d’Ivoire in Context

by Conor Godfrey on March 28, 2011

So far on this blog we’ve discussed the humanitarian crisis in Cote d’Ivoire, and the merits of military intervention.

Our profile would not be complete without discussing the economic context in which all of this occurs.

This is also true in Libya of course: by Libyan nightfall yesterday, the rebels were back in control of two key oil towns and claimed to have found a gulf state buyer for the 100,000 barrels per day of production currently in rebel hands.

But back to Cote d’Ivoire.

At independence, there was a famous bet between the Kwame Nkrumah and Félix Houphouët-Boigny—the two fathers of independence for Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire respectively.

Félix Houphouët-Boigny

They bet on which country would lead West Africa two decades on. Cote d’Ivoire vigorously pursued economic integration with France and allowed capitalism to thrive.

Ghana on the other hand broke most ties with the metropole, and gave the state a much stronger hand in the economy.

We could write an entire piece on who is ‘winning’ in 2011, but the important thing to note for this piece is that Felix Boigny’s approach allowed cocoa production to soar as French investment and agricultural know-how poured into Cote d’Ivoire.

Cote d’Ivoire exports approximately 40 percent of the world’s cocoa crop, with the West African region, including Ghana (21 percent), Nigeria (5 percent), and Cameron (5 percent), accounting for about 70 percent of international production.

As violence continues to escalate in Cote d’Ivoire, international markets have responded by driving cocoa futures to their highest price in 32 years — $3,586 per metric ton for May delivery.

EU and U.S. sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the disputed November 28th, 2010 election currently forbid companies from conducting business with entities linked to the regime of the intransigent incumbent Laurent Gbabgo.

This includes critical actors in the cocoa industry such as the cocoa regulators and the ports of San Pedro and Abidjan.

On top of these sanctions, President Outtara has attempted to starve his rival of approximately one billion dollars in tax revenue by issuing, and then extending, a ban on cocoa exports.

Taken together, the targeted sanctions and the export ban constitute a virtual embargo on Ivorian cocoa.

The recent extension of the export ban comes at a moment when cocoa shipments from Côte d’Ivoire have all but dried up.

Major cocoa purchasers such as Cargill, ADM, and Barry Callebaut, have either dramatically scaled down operations or stopped exporting completely.

This means that approximately 25 percent of the Ivorian cocoa crop, equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s cocoa crop, is piling up in humid Ivorian warehouses.

Recent estimates suggest that 300,000 tons of cocoa have been stockpiled up-country and an additional 100,000 tons, at the ports.

Ivoirian cocoa is produced in large part by small holder farmers who do not have the funds for proper warehousing, and industry stakeholders fear that the remaining crop will soon spoil if the sanctions remain in place.

Recently less than 5,000 tons of cocoa has been arriving per week at Ivorian ports from farms in the interior, and even that meager flow will likely dry up completely as Ivorian banks shut down operations.

Predictably, the export ban and subsequent banking crisis have exacerbated social tensions in Côte d’Ivoire.

Approximately seven million Ivoirians rely on the cocoa industry for their livelihood. Already thousands of Ivorian farmers have symbolically burned portions of their crop to protest the embargo.

The crisis in Côte d’Ivoire will likely reshape the cocoa industry in ways that even the 2002-2004 civil war did not.

The recent sanctions crippling the Ivorian industry have led to a dramatic upsurge in cocoa being smuggled through Ghana: since the October harvest in Côte d’Ivoire, around 100,000 tons of Ivorian cocoa have left West Africa through Ghana.

The two countries share a 668 km border that runs through the middle of the most productive cocoa regions in both countries.

The Ghanaian government, which fixes the price for cocoa beans, has amplified this trend by raising the price paid to Ghanaian farmers by about 30 percent.

The Ivorian crisis also coincided with a natural increase in Ghanaian production capacity due to better use of pesticides and fertilizers.

This turbulence in the West African cocoa market comes at a time when experts predict a steady increase in demand for cocoa due to the emergence of consumers in India and China. During 2009-10, demand outstripped supply by 82,000 metric tons, according to the International Cocoa Organization.

Volatility in this market will continue, buoyed by uncertainty over the deteriorating quality of the cocoa stockpiling in Ivorian warehouses, and the threat of a price collapse as soon as a solution to the Ivoirian political crisis appears on the horizon.

In the two weeks between October 11 and October 31, 2002, when both sides discussed a truce in the Ivorian civil war, Cocoa prices sank from $2,405 to $2,040 per ton.

The banking crisis precipitated by the political instability and cocoa embargo is the final factor in prolonging the reining instability.

The consensus among analysts is that Mr. Gbagbo needs between $100-150 million per month to pay the military and essential civil service personnel.

His signature is no longer valid at the Regional Central Bank that prints Côte d’Ivoire’s currency, and Côte D’Ivoire missed $30 million in interest payments at the end of January.

Soon Mr. Gbagbo’s financial position will become untenable.

Facebook

Facebook

by Conor Godfrey on March 25, 2011

I hate to give Facebook anymore publicity then it already gets, but a post on Online Africa was interesting enough to bring to your attention.

In 2010, Facebook gained its 3 millionth member in South Africa.

That means that Facebook use has been growing at near 25% for at least the last two years. See this post by Eshaam Rabaney for a more detailed breakdown.

Predictably, this growth has been most intense among 18-25 years olds.

However, U.S. readers should remember how quickly Facebook spread from young socialites, to their parents connecting with old friends, and even to the grandparent generation connecting with their tech savvy grandkids.

African Presidents are even adopting Facebook! Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria is particularly active, as are a number of South African politicians.

Scroll to the bottom of this Online Africa post to connect directly to the FB pages of African leaders. I would go ahead and friend all of them with public profiles.

Presidential Facebook Shots:

Lets check out the two latest posts from President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria:

“In keeping with promising less and delivering more, I promised revival of our railways. If you live near tracks, you may have noticed that promise is now a reality. Trains are now gradually getting back on tracks. We met a rail service requesting attention and gave it support. It is the same way that we will bring life to every sector in Nigeria with your help. GEJ”

This post received 2498 comments, and 1798 “likes.”

“There are only two types of people in Nigeria: Good or Bad and not Northerners or Southerners.Assess people by their character which they control not by their place of origin which they cannot control. God made us and placed us in the locality where we were born. To discriminate against any human based on place of origin is to question the wisdom of God. And the wisdom of God is beyond the wisdom of man. GEJ”

This post received 3122 comments, and 3201 “likes.”

Embattled Ivorian Laurent Gbagbo has also been rallying the troops on FaceBook.

South Africa is far ahead of the rest of the continent in terms of usage (Egypt excepted), but some other countries are catching up fast—very fast. Ghana’s number of FaceBook users grew by 9.6% from February to March 2010! Morocco (7.6%) Tunisia (7.7), Nigeria (6%), Kenya (2.4%). As internet penetration increases these numbers are likely to increase dramatically. Find all the data here.

So what does this mean to Africa? Is it really important that South African teenagers are even more aware than they already were of the minute details of each other’s lives?

Yes – absolutely.

Anecdotally, the need to get Facebook is in many ways driving internet adoption among the younger generation.

These Internet and communications skills will make young Africans far more competitive in the information economy.

While the primary motivation for adopting Facebook may be social, the commercial implications of this trend are immense.

In more developed markets like the U.S or U.K. Facebook advertising is already drowning out traditional media.

The site is also more then simply a distribution channel.

Modern consumers want to feel a connection with the people behind the products they buy.

Facebook allows companies to post videos introducing potential consumers to their employees, or pictures and profiles that capture the company spirit.

Creating this type of connection with customers is no longer just a nice touch—its required.

The political implications of this type of media have already been discussed in this space, but I can’t resist one parting shot…look here for status updates from Monsieur Mubarak.

South Africa Makes BRIC

South Africa Makes BRIC

by Conor Godfrey on March 24, 2011

In two weeks, South Africa will be formally accepted into the BRIC grouping of Brazil, Russia, India And China at an economic summit in Beijing.

Just in case you don’t read US weekly—these are the new cool kids on the block.

Gone are the days when the EU was pinnacle of diplomatic achievement.

To be hip now is to be BRIC.

Does South Africa merit this social promotion?

That depends on the criteria.

When Goldman Sacks asset management chairman Jim O’Neil coined the term, he intended it to refer to countries of sufficient size, with favorable demographics, and with an economic environment that would facilitate high growth.

On these measures South Africa does not make the cut.

However …

Terms like these often escape easy categorization.

Do all the European Union member states share a similar cultural or geographic background? (Only if the term “similar” is stretched to the breaking point.)

Does the G20 contain the world’s top 20 economies? (No – South Africa, a G20 member, is actually the 27th largest economy in the world.)

BRIC is no longer merely an economic distinction.

The BRIC club is now a political grouping of countries based loosely on their relative economic influence among developing countries.

In this way, it has the same freedom to act, or to change membership, as any other political-economic grouping, such as the G20, EU, NATO, etc.

The BRIC leadership has shifted its membership criteria away from the founding mantra of large economies experiencing rapid growth to politically important countries whose membership would add value to the BRIC grouping.

This is a well trodden path.

Why did/does the EU extend membership to some of the Balkans?

The Balkans’ economies did not resemble the Western European founding members, nor did the mainly Slavic Balkans’ languages relate to the Germanic or Romance languages spoken in Western Europe.

The EU’s founding members offered membership to select countries in the Balkans in order to encourage the applicants’ respective governments to make the right social and economic choices, and to pacify the zone on traditional Europe’s borders.

Should Turkey be a member of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?

Similarly blatant political maneuvering is behind Chinese Foreign Minster Yang Jiechi’s invitation to Jacob Zuma to attend the next BRIC summit.

South Africa’s 50 million people and lackluster 3% growth may lead Jim O’Neil to shoot it down in favor of countries like South Korea, Turkey, Mexico, or Indonesia; but South Africa offers the resource hungry BRIC countries something those other options do not—access.

Access to a continent teeming with ore, industrial metals, and newly minted consumers.

Pundits have been asking the wrong question: they insist on questioning whether or not South Africa merits the BRIC designation based on its size, growth rate, population, etc.

The real question is – does South Africa provide enough value to all four of the current BRIC countries?

That is the ‘merit’ that matters for this lunch table.

Urbanization: The Rising Tide That Will Lift All Boats…or Sink Them

Urbanization: The Rising Tide That Will Lift All Boats…or Sink Them

by Conor Godfrey on March 22, 2011

When I lived in Guinea I would make a trip to my regional capital once a month to meet with other Peace Corps volunteers, chat in English, and buy beer and toilet paper.

A lot of volunteers would note that coming into the city felt like entering “real Africa.”

This is obviously a nonsense term, but let me explain why it felt reasonable to say it: while I loved my sleepy little agricultural village, there was not a whole lot going on.

The only thing that had changed in the previous century was probably the use of cell phones. Now you could climb a mountain 5 km away for spotty service.

But things were constantly happening in the cities.

Conakary

People watched the news on T.V. and talked about current events; entrepreneurs hawked any and everything on the street; people played live music at cafes and restaurants; and young, sharp looking men and women brimmed with self confidence.

It felt like the “real Africa.”

Statistically, this will be true by 2025, when ~60% of Africa’s population will live in urban areas.

Abijan
Africa is now in the grips of one of the fastest urbanizations in history.

From the turn of the 21st century to 2030, the continent’s urban population will increase by over 150%, rising from around 300 million today to over 740 million.

Read a great Afribiz article on this transformation here.

The economist Africa blog also ran an interesting map on the growth of African. Look here to find out which cities will overtake Cairo as the continent’s largest.

Luanda

Africa is just now reaching the levels of urbanization that fueled growth in China and India.

By 2025 some parts of Africa will actually be much more urban than their Asian counterparts. See the table on the 2nd page of this UN Habitat report for comparisons.

African cities are not ready for this influx.

Underserved slums will expand and get slummier.

Kibera
The classic examples of sprawling African slums such as Kibera in Nairobi, or this neighborhood in Kinshasa, will multiply.
Kinshasa Neighborhood

There is a chorus of experts who claim that urban design and city planning will top the list of Africa’s challenges from 2000-2050. Find another good blog entry from the Economist here.

The challenges posed by cities are obvious: how can relatively poor countries furnish new city dwellers with adequate health, sanitation, and security services?

How will all those people be fed and educated? And what will this mass of young, often unemployed men do when these services are not adequately provided?

These cities will be hotbeds of everything from HIV to insurrection. They will, however, also be hotbeds of innovation and investment.

One of the largest problems with investing in Africa is the fragmented nature of the markets.

It does not pay to bring a fiber-optic internet cable to a village of 500 people, but supplying the two dozen or so African cites that will be bigger than Rome in the next 20 years will certainly create viable revenue streams.

Dar es Salaam
Entrepreneurs will meet financiers in these new cities; financial services will expand to meet the needs of city dwellers; health insurance and other risk pooling schemes will function; technology will become more affordable; and ubiquitous, foreign companies that sell consumer products and services like purses and cell phones will set up shop (as they already are doing) and create jobs….the benefits of urbanization cannot be exaggerated.

The wave is already beginning to crash on underprepared African cities. But- If African leaders can mitigate some of the consequences of urbanization with forward thinking city planning, than I think urbanization on the continent will continue to drive a period of growth unprecedented in Africa’s history.

Intervention is Back on the Menu

Intervention is Back on the Menu

by Conor Godfrey on March 21, 2011

It’s happening.

If I had told you four weeks ago that U.S. forces would be bombing another Muslim country in less than a month, you would have said that I was out of my mind.

As I write this, U.S. carriers are beginning a second night of cruise missile strikes against Libyan air defenses to clear the way for Europe’s air forces to halt the advance of Colonel Ghaddafi’s forces toward the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

What made this ok?

Well, the Security Council resolution made it ok.

But beyond that- which aspects of the situation in Libya made intervention conscionable by all five permanent members of the Security Council?

As I understand it, the following combination of circumstances made intervention in Libya palatable to the powers that be:

1. Clear and present danger to large numbers of civilians. Of course, many of these civilians had taken up arms in a combination of rebellion and self-defense, thus slightly complicating the notion of ‘unarmed civilians’.

2. Acquiescence by the relevant regional/cultural body. In this case, the Arab League.

3. The speed at which events unfolded. Benghazi was going to fall and fall fast. The rebels were outgunned and outmatched, and it was too late in the game for indirect assistance.

4. Nobody cares. Libya, while an important crude supplier, does not have a powerful backer. China and Russia may not be happy about the precedent of interfering in another country’s internal affairs, but we are not talking about North Korea, Bahrain, or Belarus, whose fate is of great concern to China, Saudi Arabia, or Russia, respectively.

5. Plausibility. Libya does not have a nuclear weapon or a massive army. Concerted military action will halt Ghaddafi’s advance. Notice I said plausibility, not likelihood, of success. I think this will most likely lead to a stalemate and short term partition between East and West Libya.

So people were dying, the main regional body agreed with the international community on who the bad guys were, the bad guys were winning, nobody powerful enough to put the kibosh on the intervention had vital national interests at stake, and the Libyan army simply doesn’t have what it takes to shoot down too many Western fighter planes.

Lets apply these metrics to another conflict, say, Cote d’Ivoire.

1) Civilians dying, and likely to continue dying in greater numbers…..check. (500 to date and escalating.)

2) Agreement from major regional/cultural grouping on who the bad guys are…..check. (ECOWAS, and the AU have clearly stated the Gbagbo must step down.)

3) Violence escalating quickly ……..1/2 check. (Clashes are indeed increasing in pro-Outtara districts, but not at the rate that Ghaddafi’s forces were gaining ground in Libya.)

4) Nobody cares………check. (While many countries have major investments in Cote d’Ivoire, none of the Security Council members think of Gbagbo as promoting their most vital national interests.)

5) Plausibility……1/2 check. (Removing Gbagbo would likely require someone’s boots on the ground. In theory, the 10,000 U.N. troops in Cote d’Ivoire should be the ones protecting civilians, but they have not been that aggressive in executing this mandate.)

So what do you think?

Is it just a matter of degree?

Were there simply more people dying in Libya, and dying faster?

Was ECOWAS (West African regional grouping) more divided than the Arab league?

I think these are all reasonable arguments, but I worry that now, as always, ambiguity reigns when deciding when and how to intervene.

This ambiguity affects the strategic calculus of rights abusers like Gbagbo—I think he knows that African countries will not coalesce around major military action.

Yesterday President Ouattara called on the international community to “passer a l’action,” in order to protect civilians and to give him the means to govern the country.

I hope the Security Council can explain why warplanes aren’t on the way.

Is South Africa a “Welfare State or A Developmental State?”

Is South Africa a “Welfare State or A Developmental State?”

By Conor Godfrey, on March 18, 2011

Near the end of Jacob Zuma’s recent State of the Nation address, he made the point, “[South Africa is] building a developmental and not a welfare state..”

Welfare vs. Developmental State. This intrigues me.

Selling South Africa as a developmental state is tough; currently 30% of South Africa’s 50 million people receive some type of social assistance grant—this could be child support, old age support, veteran and disability benefits, etc…

The number of beneficiaries has skyrocketed in recent history—up 300% since 2000.

This led opposition politician Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, of the Inkatha Freedom Party, to claim that “South Africa is a welfare state which dreams of becoming a developmental state.”

But what is South Africa to do?

In 1994 when Nelson Mandela took his long walk to freedom South Africa was two countries—one was among the world’s most developed, and the other among the least.

That is still largely true.

In fact, South Africa is more unequal now than in 1994. (Commentators often point out that inequality usually increases as economic growth increases.)

The Two South Africas

How could the African/Colored/Indian populations just snap their fingers and compete with the white populations who had benefited for so long from schooling, finances, geography, access to political power, skills training—everything?

Thus the South African state began a long term black empowerment strategy that, in its current manifestation, is referred to as the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes (BEE for short).

This required, and still does require, a degree of intervention in economic and state affairs that would be unthinkable in most other countries.

Almost everyone—conservatives or liberal, Afrikaner or Black, Malay or Indian—agrees that South Africa is a special case, and needs to target previously disenfranchised populations with additional help.

The agreement stops there. How much assistance, for how long, and under what conditions, remains extremely contentious.

***(Last week I was speaking with a South African living in the U.S. who told me that South Africa has had ‘one man, one vote, one time’ for more than 15 years, and if Black business can’t compete yet, then they never will… If I may be allowed a slight exaggeration, that would be similar to telling a Black American family in 1878 that they had been free for 15 years, and now they should be able to compete freely and equally in business and society.)***

Americans have been sharpening their arguments on the role of the government for centuries, but I am not sure our tired tag lines on big and small government relate to a situation like South Africa’s.

There are certainly vulnerable, historically disenfranchised communities in the United States— but it’s all a matter of degree.

The side-by-side nature of South African inequality also makes the situation incredibly volatile. Black townships where most of the population lives far below the poverty line exist only kilometers away from affluent, mostly non-black neighborhoods (not unlike parts of the U.S.).

How can the ANC, whose control of the government depends on massive support from poor, black voters, withdraw social support from Black communities that see everyday how ‘wealthy’ the other South Africa is?

Even if the ANC government thought that money would be better spent on job creation initiatives, or education, or health, projects that might reduce dependency, I don’t see how it would be politically feasible for South Africa to transform itself from a welfare to a developmental state.

In that is the case, South Africa needs to achieve the 6% or 7% growth necessary to bring down unemployment without breaking the social safety net.

I’ll stop here, because at this point readers can just turn on CNN for the rest of the arguments. African political problems really aren’t that foreign after all.

So You Want to Write on Africa…

So You Want to Write on Africa…

by Conor Godfrey on March 17, 2011

I was going to continue exploring why some people, or states, support pariah regimes (this time with a more sympathetic view towards the supporters), but I was side tracked by a wonderful article from GRANTA magazine entitled “How to Write About Africa”. (The article is actually from a while back)

Please read it. It is not so long, and it will make you laugh, and maybe cry a little on the inside.

“How to Write About Africa” is a spoof how-to for would be journalists or novelists writing on Africa.

It offers advice like; “Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize.

An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these.”

These are taboos; “ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation”.

One last excerpt.

After forbidding would-be writers to discuss normal African family life or run-of-the mill dreams and ambitions, the author states that…”Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters.

They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires.

They also have family values: see how lions teach their children?

Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas.

Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla.”

You get the idea.

In the last few years I think serious journalists have begun to realize their Africa play book was not only out of date; it was absurd.

African authors, inventors, artists and other public figures have brought actual African perspectives to the fore, and BBC and RFI programs on Africa now routinely feature African commentators. From time to time BBCs African perspective podcast is quite good.

I remember the first time an African-American friend of mine took me through Disney movies and pointed out how all the lazy, slovenly but good natured characters with bad diction had southern African American accents, all the hyper, overly risky and violent prone characters had Latin American accents, and suspicious, shifty eyed traders inevitably sounded Middle Eastern.

I wondered how my entire childhood this blatant negative stereotyping escaped me….

(By the way- Disney heard this criticism loud and clear, their modern stuff has been much better. But if you haven’t been given this tour, go back and check out the classics like Jungle Book, Dumbo, Aristocats, Aladdin, the Little Mermaid…you will cringe.)

I get that same feeling now when I read articles on Africa that fit the GRANTA piece’s spoof advice.

But Africa writing has come a long way in the last five or so years…

This is what New York Times writing on health looked like in 2004.

This is the tone of 2010.

This is what an article on African education looked like in 2004.

This is what it looked like in 2010.

I am obviously cherry-picking from hundreds of articles, but in my opinion these are reasonably representative samples.

When you read the 2004 pieces you might say- “well how can someone talk about this awful situation, be it health or education, in a positive way?”

That is not the journalist’s job. The state of health and education in many African countries was, and still is, in need of serious work.

But in 2004 the journalists rolled around and wallowed in the helplessness and misery of it all.

The 2010 pieces touched on the barriers to health and education, and then went on to evaluate what people are doing about it.

In other words, I am not asking that people write only positive articles about Africa, simply that they use the same intellectual and investigative tools that they apply to other regions of the world.

A nuanced description of the problem- a 3d portrait of some of the people it affects—a briefing on the obstacles—and an overview of how people/institutions are dealing with it.

Spare me the wallowing.

As always, I am exempting the horrible situations in some conflict zones where misery over-rides other aspects of life. These are, thankfully, few and far between.

What Does Success Look Like?

What Does Success Look Like?

by Conor Godfrey on March 15, 2011

What do you get when you spend no money on defense, and instead funnel the vast majority of your budget into developing your population, including huge tranches on universal health care and education?

What if you also embrace intense multiculturalism, and reach out to historical trading partners in India, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Don’t stop there.

What if you also invest heavily in employment absorbing sectors like tourism, ICT, and light manufacturing, thereby creating jobs for your educated and diverse population?

Well then, you would be Mauritius, the African island nation of 1.3 million souls that sits approximately 800 kilometers off the coast of Madagascar.

This week award winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote an essay in Slate Magazine about the Mauritian miracle entitled, ‘The Greatest Country on Earth.”

In it he lauds the vibrant Mauritian democracy, their 30 year stretch of ~ 5% GPD growth, relative social equality, and above all, the choices made by successive Mauritian governments since independence from Britain in 1968.

Mauritius deserves the kudos. My only issue with Dr. Stiglitz’s essay was his framing of Mauritius’ successes in terms of U.S failures.

Although he recognizes that the U.S. cannot act like an island nation of 1.3 million (by forgoing a military for example), he spends a fair bit of the essay mocking the U.S. for its inability to empower Americans without causing some sort of financial meltdown.

This makes for provocative reading, but the comparison seems forced to me—scaling is not just a logistical obstacle, it changes the nature of the problem.

A health system that works for 10 people, will not necessarily work for 100 people, even if you increase all the inputs by a factor of 10.

Leaving that aside—what lessons can other African countries, and the U.S. for that matter, take from the Mauritian Miracle?

Versatility.

I have been combing a variety of sources, and talking to a few specialists at work, and it seems that more than any one decision, Mauritian nimbleness has been responsible for its success.

A few historical examples courtesy of Harvard School of Business:

When Slavery was abolished in the British Empire, Mauritian leaders encouraged indentured labor to emigrate from India.

When trade barriers sprung up to make sugar less competitive, Mauritius did two things:

1) They successfully lobbied the EU for trade preferences on sugar, and

2) they read the writing on the wall and immediately started diversifying their economy away from sugar and into light manufacturing.

When those preferential trade terms disappeared for sugar and textiles, Mauritius quickly lowered the corporate tax rate and took advantage of historical connections to India to encourage direct investment in new sectors.

Mauritius exhibits nimbleness in other ways too.

They are part of the Southern African Development Community, the Indian Ocean Community, la Francaphonie, and the League of Portuguese Speaking countries.

This openness creates opportunities that more insular countries do not have.

Mauritian investment in education and human capital means the population can easily re-tool for new sectors and new initiatives. (Though literacy is still only 88%; high for Africa, but not high enough)

The U.S. could use some of this international nimbleness…I read a great essay years ago in Foreign Affairs that argued that the United States’ biggest advantage in the 21st century would be immigration, if policy makers would only take advantage of it.

Immigrants not only start more businesses than non-immigrants, they also bring local knowledge of foreign markets, demand new goods and services from the U.S., and keep the U.S. from falling into a demographic sink hole like Europe.

If U.S. policy makers worked to empower immigrant communities in the U.S. and attract the best and brightest immigrants from other countries, we would vastly improve our international flexibility and competitiveness.

Other African countries have problems that Mauritius does not have—but that does not mean they can’t learn from Mauritius as well.

South Africa now suffers from an incredibly rigid labor market, with major industries surviving on government subsidies.

Their automotive sector is prestigious, but is it economically viable?

Maybe they need to look Eastward to their Island neighbor and invest in forward looking sectors. (I think their new budget attempts to do exactly that.)

Countries fractured by large cultural fault lines such as Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire could look toward Mauritius as an example of profiting economically from their participation in different cultural orbits.

The people groups in Northern Cote d’Ivoire could benefit from Southern Cote d’Ivoire’s historical associations with partners in Ghana and Togo, while the groups and businesses in Southern Cote d’Ivoire could benefit from Northern Cote d’Ivoire’s relationships with Mali and Burkina Faso.

Obviously this is far easier said than done.

Taking advantage of multi-culturalism requires a centrifugal force at least as powerful as the forces pulling identity groups away from each other.

Countries with economies dependent on a single resource could follow Mauritius’ lead and create incentives for FDI in diverse sectors.

I don’t mean to be glib- investing in the future while meeting the real needs of millions of current citizens is a nigh impossible task.

But that is why each and every success story deserves a good hard look, including small African Islands.

AU Finally Re-affirms Ouattara- Who Were the Hold Outs?

AU Finally Re-affirms Ouattara- Who Were the Hold Outs?

by Conor Godfrey on March 12, 2011

A few days ago the African Union finally issued a definitive statement on the situation in Cote d’Ivoire,

"Me and my warship are totally neutral...."
reaffirming Alassane Ouattara as the winner of the November 28th, 2010 elections.

Why did it take so damn long for the AU to come on board?

Well, up until last week eight African Counties were officially or unofficially supporting Laurent Gbagbo, the intransigent incumbent in Cote d’Ivoire.

Gbagbo’s Foreign minister described seven countries as ‘allies’; Angola, Uganda, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana.

I would also have added Zimbabwe to this list.

While Gbagbo’s Foreign minister would not normally be a credible witness, these countries have shown their support with their silence or their actions over the last several weeks.

GhanaWeb does a nice job detailing some of these instances.

Please do not misunderstand me; support in this case did not mean supporting murderous attacks on civilians (though some of those guys might very well have done so. Obiang in E.G, Mugabe in Zim—I’m talking about you)

They simply did not support coercive measures of any kind to force Gbagbo to step down.

In this case, I call that unequivocal support for incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

South Africa led the pro-Gbagbo camp in the weeks leading up to the AU summit last Thursday. I found South Africa’s claims to be a “neutral mediator in the political deadlock” rather ridiculous, especially when they sent a warship to the Ghanaian coast to act as a “neutral negotiating venue”. Give me a break

Alassane Outtara was the certified winner of the Ivorian election, and Gbagbo the recognized loser by the U.N. and a host of international observers.

This was not a conflict between two equal parties—that was what the election was supposed to be!

By treating both contestants equally, South Africa nullified Outtara’s biggest advantage—his international legitimacy.

So why did these eight countries fly in the face of the international consensus? I think the rumors reveal interesting nuances in pan-African politics.

First we have the autocrats who looked at Cote d’Ivoire and Laurent Gbagbo and saw the parallels to their own situations all too clearly.

Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Obiang in Equitorial Guinea were the clearest cases, but I would also include Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia, and maybe Joseph Kabila in the DRC.

These rulers did not want to see international actors coalesce around the use of force to remove an incumbent, because one day in the future it might have been them on the receiving end of a naval blockade or military intervention.

The next grouping included countries concerned with the growing Nigerian hegemony in West Africa. South Africa, Ghana, and Angola all fall into this category to varying degrees.

Nigeria was at the forefront of the group of nations (Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, and Burkina Faso) calling for military intervention, and Nigerian troops will certainly constitute the plurality of any multi-national coalition attempting to remove Gbagbo by force.

Nigerian and South Africa diplomats sparred repeatedly over South Africa’s role in mediating the crisis over the last several weeks.

To warp Baron Von Clausewitz’s old adage, I tend to think that politics is just a continuation of economics by other means.

South Africa has traditionally acted as launching pad to the rest of the continent for banks, major multi-nationals, NGOs, tourists, etc…

This is still true, but regional nodes like Nigeria are increasingly usurping this role.

Nigeria has more than 3 times the population of South Africa, sizeable oil reserves, and increasingly competitive multi-national companies.

South Africa sees the writing on the wall and wants to ensure that it retains a seat at the West African table.

If it doesn’t, companies may just start their forays into the continent from Nigeria.

The U.S. should recognize its own situation in South Africa’s dilemma.

The U.S. currently spends vast amounts of blood and treasure maintaining our seat at the table in Asia and the Middle East.

I think the value proposition for these foreign entanglements is becoming increasingly dubious to voters back home.

Is Foreign Aid as Hopeless as Republican Freshmen Say it is?

Is Foreign Aid as Hopeless as Republican Freshmen Say it is?

by Conor Godfrey on 11 March, 2011

The Republican wave has brought a new crop of development aid bashing freshman to the fore, and even among Suzie-Q public, cutting aid is much in vogue.

U.S. citizens appear to be all sorts of messed up when it comes to foreign aid; surveys report that, on average, Americans believe 21% of the total U.S. budget goes to foreign assistance.

The real answer: only 1%.

It is no wonder that 59% of Americans want to cut foreign aid; I would too if I thought 1/5 of my tax dollars were going to programs in faraway places with dubious reporting methods and vague long term goals.

Interestingly enough, those same surveys claim that Americans feel that spending 10% of the total budget expenditure on foreign aid would be justified.

As Winston Churchill famously said, the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. (I jest, I’m an average voter, please don’t ask me about tax reform or health care, I’m liable to give you just as poor an answer….)

These survey statistics have been fired off willy-nilly on Capitol Hill to justify the agenda du jour—in this case, funding cuts that Secretary Clinton claims will amount to a 16% reduction for the Department of State and a 41% decrease in funds available for humanitarian assistance.

Lets bring this discussion to Africa.

There is currently an extremely lively, and sometimes downright hostile, debate about the efficacy of foreign aid in Africa. As you have read on this blog and probably elsewhere, foreign aid’s detractors claim that most aid creates dependencies in African communities without ever boosting the communities out of poverty.

There are also a number of hilarious posts and whacky youtube videos mocking the self-righteousness of the development assistance world.

These parodies are often warranted, though totally one sided.

On the other side are the hundreds of thousands of reports and anecdotes supporting positive aid outcomes in Africa.

The problem with the these reports is two fold; one, how can donors determine if the outcome would have happened without the intervention, and two, often times the aid agencies themselves are responsible for reporting on the outcomes of their interventions.

Conflict of interest is an understatement.

An example of both fallacies:

1 (Did the intervention directly cause the outcome?):

William Easterly’s blog Aidwatch has ruthlessly gone after the Millennium Village Project (MVP) for misrepresenting the effectiveness of certain interventions.

MVP is a long term, high profile aid project that targets poor African villages with a package of interventions in health/sanitation, education and technology in an effort to accelerate their ascent from poverty.

One intervention was improving access to cell phones through financing and educational outreach.

MVP reported a significant rise in cell phone use in many of their target villages as a significant result of the project.

However, cell phone use has been rising exponentially in villages all over Africa, including tens of thousands of villages where no MVP interventions took place.

Follow this debate here on AidWatch.

2 (Conflict of interest in reporting data of aid effectiveness):

In December of 2010 the Academy for Educational Development (AED), a prominent D.C. based non-profit, was suspended with immediate effect from bidding on USAID contracts because of allegations of exaggerated reporting and other forms of corporate misconduct.

AED was previously a key contractor in Afghanistan and Pakistan, executing over $150 million in contracts across multiple sectors.

The D.C. rumor mill, fueled by former AED employees, claims that the organization’s reporting hadn’t been on the level for years.

This case got so much press because catching this type of misconduct is unfortunately quite rare.

I am sympathetic to aid’s detractors in so far as I believe that aid agencies are guilty of these fallacies quite often.

I also believe that altering international aid incentives, such as who gathers data and reports on outcomes, could transform development assistance into a more transparent, effective instrument of poverty alleviation and U.S. foreign policy.

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shaw, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former First Lady Laura Bush all seem to agree.

South Sudanese Safari Anyone?

South Sudanese Safari Anyone?

by Conor Godfrey on March 10, 2011

In the last month, South Sudan has asked neighbors and the international community for teachers to staff universities, for money and logistical help for demobilization, disarmament, and rehabilitation of combatants, for ideas on a new national anthem, for help with their financial sector and several hundred other large and small matters that require more or less immediate attention.

All of these requests did not surprise anyone.

One request did surprise me though– South Sudan also asked for $140 million to begin rehabilitating their game parks as a top investment priority.

North Sudan

When you think of Sudan, what comes to mind: inhospitable desert, war crimes, tense referendums, oil, refugees, weapons, etc….

Let me offer a few new associations for the soon-to-be-independent South Sudan—jungle, wetlands, teeming with wildlife, and a migration comparable to the Serengeti.

South Sudan is home to one the largest wetlands anywhere—the Sudd—or barrier, in Arabic.

South Sudan

This massive wetland and the Sahelian swathes that border it have traditionally supported all manner of charismatic animals including elephants, lion, hippopotami, and crocodiles, as well as lesser known (at least to a laymen like me) fauna such as the Nile Lechwe (an endangered species of antelope), Tian, Reedbuck, over 400 species of migrating birds, and amazingly, a population of around 1.2 million White-Eared Kob.

The Boma Plateau, adjacent to the Ethiopian Highlands, also supports important populations of wildlife.

In 2007, the United States Agency for International Development and several other international donors worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society to conduct aerial surveys of Southern Sudan, essentially to confirm that the 30 years of intermittent fighting had indeed decimated animal populations.

Against all hope, they found many populations alive and well. Elephants, hippos, and other meaty animals had indeed suffered, but many had weathered the storm.

Elephants have dropped from somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 to around 6,000.

Zebra are all but gone, and Heartebeest numbers dropped about 95% in total. Many of the animals that survived did so by hiding out in the Sudd, where swampy conditions provided a measure of isolation.

South Sudan needs tourism revenue worse than most countries.

Currently, 98% of South Sudan’s revenue comes from oil. Production will peak in the very short term before beginning a 20-30 year decline after which the wells will simply dry up.

I would value expert opinions on the viability of a real tourism industry in S. Sudan; is there an adventure market that will relish the ‘untapped’ feel of a safari in South Sudan, will private companies invest long term in such an unstable environment, will oil extraction finish off the animals the war never managed to reach?

Most importantly, how can a country with so much human need spend the required sums on wildlife preservation?

In late 2010 National Geographic ran an interesting short piece on the relationship between the multitudes of identity groups in S. Sudan and the wildlife.

The author claims that history has forged a deep bond between people and wildlife in South Sudan.

For centuries, slavers and poachers, often the same people, came into modern day South Sudan to take away slaves and Ivory.

This linked the elephant and human populations groups together as victims in the minds of the tribes.

More recently, both people and animals took refuge in the deep bush or in the swampy Sudd wetlands to avoid the violence, once again creating a bond between human and animal, this time as fellow displaced persons.

This claim interests me quite a bit—that story resonates emotionally, and has certain logic to it, but my experience in Africa has been quite different.

In West Africa, people viewed wildlife as a nuisance, and from my brief experience in East Africa, it seemed like farmers and pastoralists felt the same way.

I came away with the impression that romanticizing wildlife was a privilege for those whose crops weren’t being eaten.

I digress.

To wrap up, whether or not South Sudan can preserve this habitat for tourists seems immaterial to me. It is one of the most important wildlife habitats on the continent.

Send them the $140 million.

Winners in Burkina

Winners in Burkina

by Conor Godfrey on March 8, 2011

I have led everyone astray by failing to warn you that the bi-annual, Pan African Film Festival in Ouagadougou (FESPACO) opened Saturday, February 24th, and ended this past weekend.

FESPACO is the most important film festival in Africa, and I would go even further and say that the festival is the most important modern, pan-African cultural event on the continent.

Every year since 1969 FESPACO has gathered African and diaspora intellectuals in Burkina to discuss the major intellectual currents washing over the continent.

The festivals highest prize, the Etalon de Yennenga (Stallion of Yennenga), goes to the film that best represents ‘African realities.’

Recent winners include Heremakono, from Mauritania, directed by Abderrahmane Sissako,

Ezra, from Nigeria, directed by Newton Aduaka, Drum, from South Africa, directed by Zola Maseko , and Teza, from Ethipoia, directed by Hailé Gerima.

This year the Golden Stallion went to Moroccan Director, Mohamed Mouftakir, for his film Pegase (Pegasus—trailer only available in French and Arabic) I have not seen it, but the reviews are uniformly positive.

Over 340 films were submitted to the jury; here are a few of the other winners.

The Silver Stallion:
Un homme qui crie
(A Screaming Man), Chad, Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

The Bronze Stallion; Le mec idéal (The Ideal Guy), Cote d’Ivoire, filmmaker Owell Brown.

Best Actor; Sylvestre Amoussou, Benin, for his role in Un pas en avant, les dessous de la corruption.

Best Actress; Samia Meziane, Algeria, for her role in Le Voyage à Alger (Journey to Algiers).

The African Diaspora Prize; Les amours d’un zombie (The Loves of a Zombie), Haiti, film by Arnold Antonin.

I’m sorry, but youtube did not come through for most of these trailers. Worse still, the only two films above available via Netflix are Drum, and Un Homme Qui Crie, and neither of those are available right away.

That means that you would probably have to order them on Amazon.com if you wanted to see them.

Be sure to post a comment if you find a way to get a hold of any of these movies.

African film is on the rise from dynamic urban spaces to the smallest villages in West Africa. Read this EWT blog written in February of ’10 about the rise of local African films tackling local issues, especially in Nigeria.

You will notice that Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry that currently produces more films than Hollywood and Bollywood combined, was not well represented on the awards podium.

Most Nigerian directors shoot with handheld or inexpensive digital cameras using a local cast and set.

While these amateur films may not make the cut at FESPACHO, they do sometimes make one thing that most FESPACHO submissions do not—money.

The rampant piracy of African films makes large, expensive productions economically unviable.

This also inhibits the creation of a class of well renumerated actors and actresses, studios, and directors. This very issue was the official theme of FESPACHO 2011—how can Africa create a long term viable film industry.

I hope someone comes up with something soon so that come 2013 we can all see a well financed, professionally produced series of films on the revolutions sweeping North Africa.