Climate Change and Africa’s Natural Resources: African Governments and Outside Powers must be Accountable by William Minter and Anita Wheeler*

December 10, 2009 at 12:15 pm (Africa, economic development, foreign policy, international relations)

* William Minter is the editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin. Anita Wheeler is a doctoral student at Howard University specializing in China/Africa relations.

On the eve of the climate change summit in Copenhagen this December, momentum for action still falls far short of that needed to avert catastrophe. Africa will suffer consequences out of all proportion to its contribution to global warming, which is primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions from wealthy countries.
But Africa can also make significant contributions to mitigating (i.e. limiting) climate change. Stopping tropical deforestation is one of the most cost-effective means to slow the growth of greenhouse gases. Ending gas flaring in Africa’s oil-producing countries could reduce carbon emissions and, as a bonus, also provide cleaner electricity.

Environmental activists in Africa—people like Nnimo Bassey in Nigeria, Wangari Maathai in Kenya, and Marc Ona Essangui in Gabon—are thus also on the frontlines against global warming. The damage from gas flaring and deforestation shows up both on the ground and in satellite photographs on the Internet. Reversing the damage will require both local and global action.

Africa’s Stake in Climate Change Action

In Africa, as around the world, awareness is growing that climate change is not a remote threat but an immediate danger causing more frequent “extreme weather conditions” of drought and flooding. Ice is melting at the poles and on Mount Kilimanjaro. The waters of Lake Chad are disappearing. Drought cycles in East Africa are becoming more unpredictable.

Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change, notes the International Panel on Climate Change. Factors such as dependence on rain-fed agriculture and the impact of warming on the spread of disease reinforce multiple preexisting stresses. Like AIDS, the threat is already here. The toll is rising. Even more damaging effects will play out over decades.

Yet global warming comes primarily from greenhouse gas emissions outside Africa. Much of Africa’s share, moreover, comes from extracting natural resources to be exported.

According to the latest estimates, the entire African continent was responsible for only 3.7% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions, compared to China with 21.5%, the United States with 20%, and the European Union with 14%. Comparing cumulative emissions, a better measure of environmental impact, Africa’s estimated 26.7 billion metric tons of emissions (1900-2004) were less than half the 55.1 billion tons from the United Kingdom, and only 8% of the 314.8 billion tons from the United States.

Africa, compared with selected countries % of world’s cumulative CO2 emissions. 1900-2004 % of world’s CO2 emissions, 2006
Africa total 2.5% 3.7%
South Africa only 1.2% 1.5%
United States 29.5% 20.2%
China 8.4% 21.5%
Russia 8.4% 5.5%
Germany 6.9% 2.8%
United Kingdom 5.2% 2.0%
Japan 4.0% 4.6%
India 2.4% 5.3%
Canada 2.2% 1.9%
Mexico 1.1% 1.6%

African countries have prepared a common position for Copenhagen, stressing strong targets for emissions reduction by developed countries and global responsibility to aid Africa in reducing emissions and adapting to change. But attention at the conference will center elsewhere. The United States and China are the two largest contributors to global warming, followed by Europe and emerging powers such as India, Brazil, and Russia. Africa’s leverage in the negotiations is limited.

Whatever is decided in global talks, the crucial test will be what happens on the ground. When it comes to Africa’s natural resources, the prospects for change depend squarely on African governments, on foreign companies and their home-country governments, and on the pressures that can be mobilized by national and international civil society.

Two sectors well illustrate the point: oil production with its by-product of gas flaring, and deforestation, the result both of local land-use pressures and the export of tropical woods.

Gas Flaring

When crude oil is extracted, it comes with natural gas which must be separated. If this gas is not captured for fuel, or reinjected into the earth, it is vented into the air or burned. Venting and flaring produce methane and CO2, both greenhouse gases. Gas flaring is one of the two largest sources of CO2 emissions in sub-Saharan Africa, second only to coal-fired power generation in South Africa.

Recent satellite studies show that Russia is by far the largest gas flaring country, with an estimated 40.6 billion cubic meters (BCM) in 2008. But Nigeria ranks second, with 15.1 BCM. Algeria, Libya, and Angola rank 5th, 7th, and 9th (see http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/interest/gas_flares.html for data and satellite images). Nigeria now exports liquefied natural gas to Europe, as well as to Togo, Benin, and Ghana. But about a third of the gas is still flared.  If all the gas instead used to produce energy, the country could gain as much as $2.5 billion a year in revenues, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and toxic effects on the local environment..

Stopping gas flaring, it would seem, would be a win-win proposition. Indeed the Nigerian government and even the oil companies have joined critics in recognizing this. The Nigerian government first outlawed routine gas flaring in 1979, imposing fines and setting a target to end flaring by 1984.

All the major oil companies in Nigeria, principally the Dutch-British Shell Oil, and American companies Chevron and ExxonMobil, are members of the World Bank-sponsored Global Gas Flaring Reduction Public-Private Partnership, as are Nigeria and the United States. The World Bank notes that “Capture and use of the flared gas is … a so-called low-hanging fruit relative to other carbon emissions reductions.”

But as Nnimo Bassey of Environmental Rights Action testified to Nigeria’s National Environmental Consultation in December 2008, both the oil companies and the government (which has majority shares in the major oil concessions) have again and again found excuses for delay.

Most recently, despite some reductions, deadlines to end flaring were missed in 2007 and 2008. A new deadline for the end of 2009 will also not be met. Meanwhile, fines for non-compliance are so low that the companies easily include them in the cost of production. In 2005, the Nigerian High Court, judging a case brought by the Iwerekan community in Delta State, declared gas flaring to be an unconstitutional threat to human welfare. It ordered Shell to stop gas flaring there, and mandated the government to impose meaningful penalties to stop the practice. The judgment has not been enforced.

Opportunities and Obstacles

The effects of gas flaring on global warming are, of course, only part of the damages from Niger Delta oil. Analysts have repeatedly documented corruption and distortion of the national economy, toxic effects on the local environment, marginalization of local communities, and militarization of repression, all with the complicity of international oil companies. (For a dramatic visual record and sharp analysis, see The Curse of the Black Gold, by photographer Ed Kashi and political scientist Michael Watts).

There is also an enormous opportunity cost in failing to convert gas to reliable electricity. More than half of Nigerians have no electric power. Power outages plague Nigeria’s businesses, leading those who can afford them to rely on fossil-fuel-burning generators. The gas lost through flaring could more than fill Nigeria’s electricity needs. In one community in the Delta, Bonny Kingdom, there is a local small-scale gas distribution system that provides power, in addition to the LNG export facility there. But many if not most of the oil-producing communities have no electricity at all. Nationwide, serious power shortages are predicted to continue at least through 2015. And expensive projects to export natural gas are still given priority over those to provide electricity within the country.
Local communities in the Delta have been involved in resistance for decades. The non-violent campaign by the Ogoni people was met with the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa by the Nigerian military regime in 1995. But non-violent actions by environmental groups have continued, as civilian governments since 1999 have also failed to satisfy the grievances of people in the oil-producing areas. Since 2005, a guerrilla insurgency under the banner of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has targeted oil installations, causing as much as $4 billion a year in lost revenues.

International environmentalist and human rights groups have documented the abuses, campaigned for accountability, and supported legal actions such as a suit by Ogoni activists that won a $15.5 million settlement from Shell in mid-2009. Yet pledges to resolve the conflict and clean up the environment in the Niger Delta have repeatedly evaporated, just as have the deadlines to end gas flaring. Vested interests have demonstrated their capacity to resist change.

Industry defenders argue that oil production must continue while ways are found to solve the problems. Niger Delta activists are now turning that argument on its head. “The truth is that indeed that is the best option: leaving the oil in the ground,” Bassey told the National Environmental Consultation. Such an option is unlikely, given the country’s dependence on oil revenues. But unless action is taken to reduce the damage, Bassey noted, the externalized costs will continue to rise.

Open conflict in the Niger Delta may be temporarily abating, as several key leaders of armed resistance have accepted a government amnesty. But there is still little evidence that the Nigerian government or foreign oil companies will confront the long-term issues. And so the damage continues to mount up. As the effects of global warming accelerate, it will not only be the marginalized communities of the Niger Delta that suffer. Lagos and other coastal cities around the world will face the dangers of rising sea levels and catastrophic floods.

Africa’s Carbon Sink
Africa’s oil contributes to global warming both when produced and when consumed. Africa’s tropical forests, in contrast, are among the most productive “carbon sinks.” Tropical forests store much more carbon than they produce, storing it in biomass or soil.
Globally, tropical forests absorb nearly a fifth of carbon emissions released by fossil fuels each year (Nature, February 2009). They also cool the atmosphere by putting moisture into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration (See the Annual State of the World’s Forests, at http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0350e/i0350e00.HTM).
The Congo Basin is home to the world’s second largest rainforest, second only to the Amazon. Africa’s forests help regulate both temperature and rainfall. But Africa is losing more than 4 million hectares of forests a year, according to the UN Environment Programme. This is more than three times the world’s average rate, equivalent to clearing an area the size of Switzerland every year. As a result, according to UN estimates, by 2020, some African countries may see a 50% reduction in rain-fed agricultural yields.
Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai won world renown for the Kenyan Greenbelt movement, becoming the first African women to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004. “Protecting and restoring forest ecosystems, and arresting global warming, are matters of life and death,” she stresses.
There is a clear international consensus that slowing deforestation is one of the most cost-effective ways to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Central African states have recognized the critical role of their forests, establishing the Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC) in 1999 to coordinate forest protection. COMIFAC works with the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, which also includes donor governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, scientific, and industry groups.
The U.S. Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, in a report released this October, stressed that mitigating climate change by preserving the forests of the developing world, especially the Congo Basin, was “a vital national interest.” Under pressure from international and local NGOs, China and the EU have committed to helping curb illegal logging in the Congo Basin. The May 2009 African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Nairobi also called for action against deforestation to be included in the new global climate regime.

Implementation, however, is difficult. There are multiple threats to Africa’s forests. There is competition for land with local farmers, rising demand for wood for fuel, and rising world demand for tropical woods, with China replacing European countries as the top importer of logs in recent years (see http://www.globaltimber.org.uk/africa.htm). Incentives for illegal logging and for cutting corners in legally approved projects are high.
In Africa’s second biggest wood exporter, Gabon, local civil society has pushed the government and foreign companies towards greater accountability in the timber industry, illustrating the possibilities for constructive action. But, as in other countries, there is still a large gap between policy and reality.
Chinese Companies and Gabon’s Forests

Gabon’s forests cover up to 85% of the country’s land area. Gabon was until recently relatively unaffected by deforestation because of its sparse population and oil wealth. Yet now that its oil reserves are diminishing, industrial logging by European and Chinese companies is expanding.

The government has laid out clear policies to control forest use. In 2002, President Omar Bongo declared 10% of Gabon’s territory national park land. Quotas were set to reduce the share of logs in timber exports to 25% by 2012, in favor of processed products. Companies must prepare “sustainable forest management plans.” The rate of deforestation, about 10,000 hectares a year, is still relatively low, compared to neighboring countries such as Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Yet nearly half of the nation’s forest is now under timber leases. Demand for tropical timber is increasing, particularly from China, where massive rural to urban migration has driven a surge in construction. Gabon has become the leading African supplier of timber to China, and China the leading importer of Gabon’s timber.
In this regard, greater environmental sensitivity in China has had contradictory effects. Domestic environmental activists, working with sympathetic scientists and government officials, have had some impact. Chinese banks have explicitly adopted environmental guidelines. China imposed strict laws banning logging in virgin forests a decade ago, winning praise from environmental groups. But the ban on domestic logging spurred imports linked to excessive logging in Southeast Asia as well as Africa. China thus stands accused of supporting policies abroad that it rejects at home.

News coverage of China’s rapid economic expansion into Africa, such as the reported deal with the military regime in Guinea, has stressed China’s willingness to disregard human rights concerns. But China is more sensitive to international and African criticism than generally acknowledged. The Chinese government wants to deflect criticism, especially on issues that garner international attention. This is particularly so in the environmental arena.
Thus the Chinese government has encouraged companies working in the Congo Basin to abide by local forest use laws In 2008, Chinese government and timber industry representatives visited with the government, private sector and civil society in Ghana, Liberia, DRC and Gabon, reiterating commitment to Sustainable Forest Management.
As in Western countries, the gap between national policy guidelines and the practice of specific companies can be very wide. In practice, in Gabon, Chinese as well as European companies are operating a significant proportion of timber concessions illegally. The burden is on Gabon’s government to enforce the laws. But the fact that the laws are in place does give environmental activists some leverage.
One recent case demonstrates the potential, even in a context where neither the host country nor foreign interests are inclined to transparency and democratic accountability. That is the case involving the Ivindo National Park, which includes 3,000 square meters of forest rich in biodiversity. In 2006, the Gabon government and Chinese-owned CMEC entered into secret negotiations on the Belinga Iron Ore Project in Ivindo, a violation of Gabon’s environmental protection laws.

Marc Ona Essangui, who leads the environmental NGO Brainforest, successfully pressured the Gabon government, CMEC and China’s Exim Bank to conduct an environmental assessment of the project.

Marc Ona Essangui / Credit: Rainforest Foundation

In late 2008, Essangui was temporarily detained by police for his activism. But the Gabonese government and China’s Exim Bank have put the project on hold to reassess its environmental impact.
Gabon, where 47 years of rule by strongman Omar Bongo has been followed this year by his son’s victory in a disputed election, may seem an unlikely place for such pressure to have much effect. And the outcome is still uncertain. Essangui notes that forestry laws are still vulnerable to “well-oiled networks of corruption.” Nevertheless, he told journalists after winning the Goldman Environmental Prize in April, “We have to protect our forests. It is our country, it is our duty.”

The Bottom Line
Decisions in Copenhagen will matter for Africa—what commitments the United States, China, and other countries are willing to make to firm targets on reducing carbon emissions, for example, and who will pay how much for mitigation of global warming and adaptation to changes already well under way.
It will make a difference to what extent international agreements mandate direct action or rely instead on complex “offset” schemes that fund climate action in one place by allowing pollution to continue elsewhere (examples include the international “Clean Development Mechanism” or “CDM” and the “cap-and-trade” provisions in the proposed U.S. climate bill). Depending on the details, the UN’s REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”) may end up as one way to pay poor people and countries to preserve the environment, or as another offset mechanism vulnerable to fraud and deceptive calculations.

Whatever the results from Copenhagen, the bottom line on climate mitigation is how to actually decrease carbon emissions. Priority measures include increasing efficiency and cutting back the dirtiest fuel sources, particularly in the countries most responsible for emissions. But “low-hanging fruit” such as curbing gas flaring and tropical deforestation must also be on the list for immediate action.
African governments can and should take action now. Foreign companies and governments can help or hinder. But overcoming resistance from vested short-term interests will not be easy. Local environmental activists have already taken the lead by actions such as targeting gas flaring in the Niger Delta and deforestation in Gabon. Global climate change activists must follow suit, using international platforms to connect local and global issues and demanding that change be measured against realities on the ground.

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UNWIRED AFRICA-The Continent’s Surge into the Social Networking Realm by Alvin Singh

December 10, 2009 at 12:11 pm (Africa, culture, economic development)

As of early 2009 recent studies found only 3.4% of Internet users in Africa, creating a digital separation from the Western world and its technology innovations.  With various digital media platforms available, civil participation and citizen journalism is uprising in Africa at a growing pace.  Many non profit organizations working in African countries are now using social media websites to fundraise, educate and share information across the world from rural villages to inner cities bridging the digital gap.

This article is part of a series on the growing demand for wireless communications and Internet usage in Sub Sahara Africa as a tool to provide virtual public engagement, alternative views and open media content and news.  With most of the influential digital activist living outside of Africa how do organizations engage with the masses of people unwired?

When micro blogging became popular with social media website Twitter, Afrigator was created in response to centralize African blogs, news and videos.  With micro blogging a user can send short messages quickly and openly using only 140 characters each update.  A limit on how long your message can be provokes each update to be thoughtful and calculated unlike lengthly emails that take up your inbox space.  The usage of new media platforms are providing Africans a opportunity to have their voices heard without government filters or former colonial media channels giving the power back to the people who desire it.  With Africa growing in the communications market with more citizens using mobile technology we can see the advantages that this brings to people in the rural areas.  Kenyan farmers are now using mobile phones to receive market updates faster than before when they would have to commute into the city to gain such information losing money rather than maximizing their profits.  They are also using mobile banking applications like M- PESA to send money to other cell phone users transferring shillings at the press of a button.

By providing Africa with affordable yet efficient technology we can expect to see social issues and democracy challenged in real time just as they were during this year’s Iranian election.  Protesters responded by uploading short videos of police brutality to YouTube while others sent Twitter updates through their mobile phones providing outsiders with real time journalism and perspectives.  The social media website was such an effective tool that the U.S. State Department ask Twitter to halt their scheduled maintenance so that Iranians could continue “tweeting.” If only this same global online community was witnessing the Zimbabwean elections maybe more attention could have been spotlighted just as they were in Iran.

Here is an excellent slide from Cameroonian blogger and digital media expert Dibussi Tande (www.dibussi.com) who delivered the keynote address at the 4th annual “Digital Citizen Indaba” in Grahamstown, South Africa.

You can follow the Unchain Africa Press Twitter feed at: www.Twitter.com/unchainafrica

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Where is Africa’s Feminist Thought? by Nana Kokoh

December 10, 2009 at 12:05 pm (Africa, History, culture, economic development)

I recently read a few papers on Black feminism. I was very excited when I saw the titles of the papers as I believed I would be able to relate to what was written. My joy was cut very short when I realised that Black feminism seems to serve the interests of African-American women in the USA and not Black women as a whole. Although Black, I found it hard to relate to the papers and the experiences of African-American women.

I could only conclude that it was probably due to my culture and that “race” could not be made the sole contender for understanding women’s status. Disappointment aroused my curiosity and I decided to see if there was a recognised feminist movement in Sub-Saharan Africa. To my greatest joy, there was and it is simply called African feminism.

Once again, my jubilation was cut very short as it seems that the literature (on the internet at least) is very limited and I cannot help but wonder why?

Although African women have been completely immersed in the fight to redefine the status of women since the 70s (e.g. Mariama Bâ, Ama Ata Aidoo etc…) when the feminist movement was born, the extent to which they have been involved transpires as negligible when compared to the fight their counterparts have been putting up for their rights and emancipation. It is true that the African feminist movement is divided and lacks cohesion. On the one hand you have the African intellectual feminists that draw attention to social conditions that shock the West (child labour, female genital mutilation, polygamy etc…). And on the other hand, you have the African popular feminists, who embark on various activities in an attempt to shuffle around the social order.

Could the gap between the two entities of this movement explain the lack of its presence in the literature dedicated to feminism? If yes, could and should the two merge or does the movement need a complete make-over?

To Be Continued….

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Designing for the Bottom Billion [Slides]

December 6, 2009 at 12:52 am (Uncategorized)

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President Obama, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, What is the future for AFRICOM? Reflections on “America’s New Frontline” Aljazeera Video Report by Evelyn Sallah

October 9, 2009 at 7:25 pm (Africa, foreign policy, international relations)

This article addresses one of President Obama’s key challenges concerning U.S.-Africa foreign policy inherited from the Bush administration and the U.S.’s Africa Command, widely known as AFRICOM.  A recent video report published by Aljazeera News’ America’s New Frontline focuses on the U.S. strategy to strengthen African militaries in order to combat underground militias. U.S. military officials state that those militias threaten global security. (http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/09/2009910121135544650.html).

The U.S.  has a problematic history in Africa, especially in regards to its military operations. For example, many recall several failed covert operations in Somalia prior to the country’s full state failure particular the deployment of 120 U.S. soldiers in October, 1993.    Furthermore, AFRICOM has undermined local liberation movements, as well as increased the military power of rogue governments whose policies stray far from democracy, transparency, or the provision of basic civil liberties. All of which are  prerequisites to good governance in a democratic political environment.

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Book Review-Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Illenin Kondo

October 9, 2009 at 7:19 pm (economic development)

Book Review by Illenin Kondo, PhD Student in Economics at the University of Minnesota

Dambisa Moyo. Dead Aid: Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. ISBN: 0374139563, 9780374139568. 208 pages

Summary

Nearly sixty years after their independence proclamation, most African countries have not achieved the goals of progress and emancipation that sustained their struggle for independence. In “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa”, Dambisa Moyo is revisiting this conundrum with a focus on the role of aid in Africa’s fate. Dambisa Moyo argues that the “aid model” is failing the African continent and suggests that African governments need to innovate – or at least replicate – a different model to finance long-term economic growth. This new model should fundamentally rely on international capital markets according to Dambisa Moyo.
While Dambisa Moyo convincingly correlates some well-known artifacts of Africa’s development path and its reliance on foreign aid, her theory of aid-hindered development is less compelling. Hence, international capital markets – “the better way for Africa” – may not be the best way forward. Overall, Moyo offers an unconventional view of Africa’s way forward. The originality of her contribution lies in the radical view that aid has be totally abandoned in favor of international capital markets because its disastrous effects. However, the text constantly struggles to establish causation between aid and failure on one hand and between international capital markets and growth on the other hand.

Below, I provide an overview of Dambisa Moyo’s text and conclude with some key limitations of the solutions outlined in the text.

Aid-hindered development

Dambisa Moyo begins her book by establishing two very simple facts. First, development assistance to Africa has considerably increased since the seventies. In particular, foreign aid as a percentage of African governments’ budgets has increased. Second, despite these large aid inflows, the poverty rate in Africa substantially increased over the same period. Based on this evidence, Moyo posits the unequivocal negative externalities of aid.  To support her hypothesis, Moyo notes that aid only worked when it operated as stimulus limited in time and commitment. The Marshall plan is the perfect example of such focused stimulus. Unlike the Marshall plan, the aid provided to African countries operates in fact as a constantly available grant source (and so are the loans because of the soft repayment conditions). Given the posited negative impact of aid, Moyo calls for the adoption of an alternative financing model.

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A Book Review of Graham Hancock’s “The Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business” by Anyango E. Reggy

October 9, 2009 at 7:14 pm (Africa, History, economic development, foreign policy, international relations)

Lords of Poverty is a controversial and comprehensive text in which British writer and journalist Graham Hancock critically examines the “self-serving behavior, arrogance, paternalism, moral cowardice and mendacity” of the 60 billion dollar a year international aid industry. In this book, Hancock highlights the glaring contradictions within the development business, in which multilateral and bilateral organizations claim to promote greater human and social development, but continue to support policies and programs that further poverty within the Global South.

While Lords of Poverty uses several examples of mal-development in sub-Saharan Africa, the book does not focus exclusively on the African continent. Instead it is an account of the catastrophic practices of international development agencies around the world which, as Hancock argues, is proof that foreign aid does not work anywhere.

Throughout the text, Hancock cites numerous examples of mismanagement and incompetence in the provision of international aid which has had a detrimental impact on the political, social, and economic well-being of impoverished communities across the globe. The reality is that Western taxpayers and the world’s poor are being duped; the international development industry is making large amounts of money with very few accountability measures in place. Instead, they are primarily answerable to other institutions and governments with similar ideas and philosophies on issues of development and underdevelopment.

Additionally, Hancock insists that not only is development wasteful and poorly planned, it can also be outright harmful to the individuals and communities that it is supposed to help. He maintains that “some humanitarian aid can kill”! For instance, through the building of large structures such as water dams which displace entire communities, or the provision of food aid which is often times provided too little too late.

Hancock is also skeptical of foreign aid’s laundry list of promises. He maintains that aid does not work; it is neither necessary nor sufficient. He further argues that in countries with little or no foreign aid, communities thrive, while in countries where aid is in abundance, communities “suffer the most abject miseries”. Additionally, foreign aid creates a cycle of dependency which stifles the creativity and self-sufficiency of poor countries. He asserts that aid “is possibly the most formidable obstacle to the productive endeavors of the poor. It is also a denial of their potential, and a patronizing insult to their unique, unrecognized abilities”.

Is aid inherently bad? Hancock’s argument is that aid is “utterly beyond reform”. Hancock’s solution is for foreign aid not to be decreased or redirected but to be cut off completely! According to Hancock, it is meaningless to continue with what he refers to as a charade; that is the illusion that foreign aid is working. For instance, Africa, “the world’s most aided continent” – which was self-sufficient in food production before the introduction of development assistance – is now “a continent sized beggar hopelessly dependent on the largesse of outsiders”.

In the end Hancock reiterates his main argument, that foreign aid hinders the ability of impoverished and vulnerable people to create their own ways of dealing with critical issues such as how to satisfy their basic needs, create sustainable political practices, reduce poverty, and attain equitable standards of living without destroying the environment.  

Although the text was written more than a decade ago, the issues the author raises are an invaluable contribution to the current discourse on the ethics of aid, a discussion that has been revived by African voices such as Dambisa Moyo in “Dead Aid”, and Binyavanga Wainaina (http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/ethicsofaid-kenya/) among others.

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Anita Wheeler’s Book Review of When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa by Robert H. Bates

September 1, 2009 at 4:05 pm (Uncategorized)

 
Robert H. Bates. When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xv + 191 pp. Graphs. Maps. Charts. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.
 
Theories of state failure have come to dominate contemporary studies on the political economy and governance of African countries. When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa by Robert H. Bates contributes to a well-established body of literature on conflict and state failure in Africa by applying game theory to explain the behavior of state actors.

 
Evoking a prominent theme in Chinua Achebe’s 1958 text Things Fall Apart, Bates presents the reader with a fable to illustrate the challenges of a ruler, his/or elite and the citizenry vying for economic and political security within their communities. The question Bates poses is whether political order can prevail amongst groups with differing interests. Bates answers with a hesitant yes; thus setting up the narrative of the text.

 
In the first part of the text, Bates elegantly distills a review of literature outlining the prevailing theories of state failure; proposes the use of game theory to explain the behavior of actors in creating political disorder, and; presents three units of analysis to measure the possibility of political order in Africa.

 
The theory attempts to explain why governments engage in predatory practices and why citizens take up arms in response. At the root of state failure, is the inability of states to collect and distribute revenues equitably among the citizenry. In a state of insecurity, communities take up arms and governments become increasingly authoritarian and repressive. Government leaders and civil servants extract money from the state revenues for their own survival and conflicts arise between the ruler, the elite and the citizenry.

 
Bates argues that the economic forces in Africa, driven by external and internal policies, have contributed to African states being a source of insecurity to their citizens. Factors such as the collection of public revenues, levels of democratization and natural resource wealth influence the possibility of political order. Political order is also predicated on the links between political competition, political conflict and political incentives. With this theoretical framework, Bates examines the choices made by state actors. Those choices, primarily the choices of “specialists of violence” or rulers and civil servants, often result in creating political and economic insecurity that induce state failure.

 
The second part of the text applies the theory periodically and thematically to a number of African countries, most notably Zambia. Bates has done extensive research in Zambia since the late 1960s. The study covers the period after independence, the Cold War, structural adjustment and the third wave of democratization (1960-1995). He uses cross-national regressions to measure and compare policy choice, political reform, and political disorder. Bates’ research concludes that changes in the global economy and economic mismanagement have led to political disorder in many African states. Even though Bates reluctantly indicates in the first chapter that political order will prevail in Africa, the data and analysis indicate that Africa has been caught in the “perfect storm.” In other words, the foundation of African states has been unstable from the outset– inevitably leading to state collapse.

 
This text expands the debates on the origins of conflict and political instability in Africa by clearly challenging the prevailing explanations of conflict– notably ethnicity, resource wealth, and democratization. Many Africanist scholars want to move beyond theories that dwell on either exogenous or endogenous factors, such as: government mismanagement, clientelism, patronage politics, corruption, state survival, and ‘big man politics.’ Bates’ theory offers a gradual movement away from the prevailing paradigms; by examining the damage, external economic shocks have on African systems. Instead of blaming individual rulers for the crisis of African states, Bates makes the case that the leaders are making choices based on the rationality of the African political and economic situation.

 
However, Bates’ analysis lacks an African perspective. This is a problem with most political science texts on Africa produced in the West. Bates’ analysis is disconnected from the complex histories and realities of African communities—most notably the detrimental role colonial policies has on the formation of the African state. Applying game theory to African politics further disconnects African peoples and communities as the primary units of analysis.

 
Bates employs a theoretical framework that reduces the complexities of Africa to rational choice based models. Fundamentally, there is no universal definition of rational choice. Nevertheless, Bates’ text is a contribution to the field because it factors in both external and internal forces in leading to Africa’s state failure. Africa does not fit neatly into a model originally designed to understand the nature of politics in post war Europe.[1] Bates offers no prescriptions to the problem instead he offers explanations. In conclusion, the text is concise, written primarily for scholars and students interested in a contemporary analysis of state failure and conflict in Africa.

 
 
Anita C. Wheeler
PhD Student
Howard University
Washington, DC

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Diana Duarte on Blackness and Cape Verde

September 1, 2009 at 3:59 pm (Uncategorized)

There is perhaps no issue as controversial in the discussion of Cape Verdean identity as that of race. 

As an experiment, someday I’d like to swing by one of the biggest Cape Verdean gatherings in the US—the 5th of July independence day celebration at India Point Park in Providence, RI—and conduct an informal poll.  Amidst the people enjoying the live music, playing soccer and eating katchupa, I’d pose a simple question: “Are Cape Verdeans … African?”  Or even, “Are Cape Verdeans … black?”

 I’ve never done such a poll, so my reflections here are anecdotal and certainly not scientific.  But in my limited experience, I have come across a wide range of reactions when it comes to Cape Verdean racial identity.  Colonized by the Portuguese in the 15th century and used as a colonial way-station for hundreds of years, the Cape Verdean people that emerged from this history were largely the product of Portuguese explorers and African slaves.

 Yet, for some Cape Verdeans, it’s as if the 375 miles of ocean between Cape Verde and the West African coast is enough to wipe any trace of African blood from their DNA.  The arguments tend to fall along similar lines.  Oh no, they say, you must remember the culture.  Cape Verdean culture, language, food is unique and unparalleled; but if you must draw a comparison, it would be much more European than African.

 At a library in the capital city of Praia, where I was studying documents related to the independence struggle, I once ran into an elderly man who insisted that the Cape Verdean language bore no resemblance to any African language.  In fact, he asserted that Kriolu, the term for Cape Verdean creoles, was actually a long-lost version of Portuguese, preserved as in a time capsule from the 15th century. 

 Or, they might accusingly point out, one must always remember to be proud of our Cape Verdean heritage.  It’s like a fingerprint, they seem to say—or ten fingerprints—in the middle of the Atlantic.  Nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and certainly not in Africa.

But then there’s those Cape Verdeans like my parents.  They immigrated to the US in the 1960s and 1970s and got caught in the heady moment of revolution.  On one side of the ocean, black pride was emerging, and they absorbed the words, “Black Is Beautiful.”  On the other side of the ocean, African revolutionaries were picking up their pens and their guns, and with both were saying, “This is our nation, our independence.”

In the jungles of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verdean leader of the independence movement Amilcar Cabral worked to create a political party of African unity, bringing together Cape Verdeans and Guineans to stand against Portuguese colonialism.  (You could write a dissertation on how well he succeeded or how dismally he failed.)

In that context, my parents embraced their blackness.  Growing up under their influence, it was almost without question that I embraced mine. 

I embraced it just as I embraced my other identities.  I would be a black woman, a Cape Verdean, an American.  I would confront anyone who told me that I couldn’t be any one and all of these things.  I would be a black woman, although my strange name and my strange origins often threatened to throw it into question.  A Cape Verdean, although I never learned to speak my parents’ Kriolu and have only visited the islands twice in my life.  An American, although I have spent only a fraction of my life in this country and so much feels foreign to me here.

Every identity I have embraced has been challenged at one point or another by those who feel entitled to categorize me.  So I realize the potential irony in making the argument that Cape Verdeans should embrace their black African identity, if they are not already so inclined.  Perhaps it’s because I believe in the intersection of experiences and lives – you don’t have to choose just one.

But the real urgency lies in this: when we cut ourselves off from our many identities, we deprive ourselves.  We lose the chance to make connections, to share experiences, to realize that our fortunes are linked and to build movements.  Our Cape Verdean community—whether in the islands or in the diaspora—can’t afford to lose these chances.

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First African Faces Charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC): Redemption for Sierra Leone and Africa? by Evelyn Sallah

September 1, 2009 at 2:51 pm (Africa, foreign policy, international relations)

This past July the International Criminal Court (ICC) case of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor was in the news for his role in funding the Sierra Leonean civil war that took place in the 1990’s.  As this case enters the docket and his fate is yet to be determined, this is an appropriate time to ask what significance does this potential indictment have for Sierra Leone and the rest of Africa?
 
There have been many perpetrators of massive executions, human rights abuses, and war crimes across the continent. Will Taylor’s conviction send a message to those accountable for atrocities in Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, and the DRC that their day is yet to come?
 
Is this a confirmation that African lives have become valuable enough for the international community to send UN peacekeepers to restore peace in less than 10 years after a conflict has claimed so many lives?  Is this a message that the international community is willing to try those accountable to war crimes in the international justice system?
 
Sierra Leone suffered over a decade of civil strife led by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) army led by Foday Sankoh.  Many in the western world are familiar with the conflict through the Hollowood blockbuster “Blood Diamonds” starring Leonardo diCapprio and Djimon Hounsou.  In addition the book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier written by Ishmael Beah received major exposure in the international journalist arena.
 
The war was sparked at a time of major economic woes in the small mountainous nation, known for its widely ethnic, and religious diversity.   Similar to many African nations, this economic failure was a result from the destabilizing impact of a colonial legacy, which resulted in weak national infrastructure, failing public institutions, and corruption.
 
National instability coupled with an undiversified export reliant economy, and a highly valuable natural resource (alluvial diamonds), inevitably sparked conflict.  The RUF funded by the diamond trade with Charles Taylor as their biggest client, and their principal arms dealer.  Today he faces charges for being implicit in encouraging the use of child soldiers, child brides, massive rapes, and numerous other war crimes. 
 
By the time the international community sent UN peacekeepers to the country, over hundreds of thousands of people had been killed from the violence, warranting the largest deployment of UN peacekeepers in Africa.  On the ground there was an ECOWAS (Economic Commission on West African States) created force, ECOMOG, primarily comprised of Nigerian troops.  Through military partnership, peace was finally restored.
 
As a very proud Sierra Leonean-American it brought nothing but joy to my heart to visit Freetown this past August, and see how much progress has taken place.  The cleanliness of the vibrant city streets, and large billboards displaying messages promoting positive thinking, were signs of the national effort to prosper in peace.
 
Despite these efforts, the nation still has a long way to go to fight poverty and improve social conditions.  Sierra Leone has some of the worst human development indicators in Africa and the world.  The country has many hurdles to overcome including reintegrating child soldiers and others who lost their entire families and social safety nets due to the war. 
 
Furthermore, high rates of infant and maternal mortality, unemployment, and the dangerous effects of the poor sewage system at Krou Bay, all are priority areas for the relatively new democratic government and its stakeholders.
 
Despite these challenges, there is hope for major improvements in “Salone’s” future. Although there were many traditional and judicial tribunals after war, if Taylor is indicted at the ICC, it sends a warning to all those guilty of the worst crimes across the continent.  Taylor’s prosecution will let them know that even all the money and power in the world will not make them untouchable in the court of law, in short, that they will reap what they sow.

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