Category: Governance

Managing Africa’s ticking youth time bomb – the case from Kenya

In June 2024 Kenya’s youth, thousands of Gen-Z, did something extraordinary, they had enough. They came out onto the streets demanding the government drop a punitive tax bill, the finance bill, and tackle corruption and waste in government spending instead. In events, that shocked Kenya and the world the police response to the protests was heavy handed and tragic resulting in multiple fatalities, and protestors stormed parliament. Despite calling the out the army, President Ruto had to concede and withdrew the finance bill and later fired his cabinet, but the young protestors have not stopped demanding fundamental changes in the way their government is run.

The events in Kenya are not unique, Africa has seen youth revolts in North Africa (the Arab spring), Nigeria (End SARS) and in South Africa (Fees Must Fall). More importantly, the underlying conditions that led to the protests exist across the continent. A young and growing population, frustrated by economies that offer no jobs, no prospects, run by unresponsive and corrupt governments, with old men in charge. Many of these governments, are heavily indebted, having borrowed irresponsibly when money was cheap, and are now reliant on the IMF and others for support. The conditions of that support require more tax revenue, resulting in punitive taxes that over burden already struggling people.

The Finance Bill in Kenya was the trigger that set off the time bomb of disaffected youth without realistic prospects, who are angry at a government that will not listen and is wastefully corrupt and opulent while they struggle. Where to next, how do we avoid this happening again, in a way those young people don’t loose faith in democracy and turn to more radical and destructive.

Ironically the answer to the ticking time-bomb, lies in the grievances that drove it. African governments need to focus on developing and driving a radical agenda for growth that creates jobs and opportunities. As well as evolving systems of government to be more democratic, more engaging and more accountable.

Radical growth

Africa needs growth and jobs. If we are to ensure that African citizens can have dignified lives, we need to create jobs, livelihoods and incomes. As I wrote in a previous post, with jobs individuals and households have incomes, the ability to pay for housing, healthcare, recreation and invest in the future. In short with jobs come agency and dignity both for people and the nation, and dignity is at the core of any viable definition of development.

African governments must be laser focused on creating the growth and jobs needed if any significant headway is to be made. This means

These are not new ideas, or revolutionary ones. However, doing them well requires African governments to shake off their normal way of doing things which has not worked for the 70 years and focus. Not on what will enrich them as individuals or what will please donors, but what will create jobs and growth.

Engagement – responsive democracy

Our systems of governance are not fit for purpose. Most of them are jerry rigged versions of whatever colonial system had been left to us. Most post-independence leaders were focused on maintaining control of fragile post-colonial states, and thus centralised power. The democratic resurgence of the post-cold war era, focused largely on holding elections, rather than creating democratic systems that engaged with citizens and were responsive to their needs.

It is now critical that Africa create governance systems that engage and involve everyone, especially, young people who feel disenfranchised. At the core of this is three critical things.

  1. African governments must communicate. Not just when they have made decision, but their decision-making process. Tell people what the issue or choice is, the trade offs, and the options. When they intend to do some thing and when it has its impacts. Too much policy and government action on the continent is a surprise. With the rationale a complete mystery and its impacts unexplained. Kenya’s Finance Bill was never properly explained to its populace, the thinking behind it was locked in the heads of the National Treasury’s senior directors. Thus, it is no surprise that Kenyans rejected a bill that was going to make them worse off without it being explained to them why.
  1. African governments must engage with their citizens as a matter of course, in the conception, development and implementation of policy. Thus its time for governments to consider ideas such as participatory budgeting, where people are intimately involved in budget conception and development ensuring that money is spent on citizens priorities.
  1. Strengthening democracy and accountability. It is clear that voting is not enough. That our current systems of democracy, does not properly hold our leaders to account and moreover the incentives inherent in the system are skewed towards people getting into to politics and leadership for the wrong reasons.

A wake-up call

The Gen-z protests in Kenya are both a wake-up call and a reason for hope. A wake up call in that its clear that young African’s do not have unlimited tolerance for hopeless circumstances. African governments must be more engaged and responsive, and most importantly focus on the growth and jobs that our young people desperately want and need.

The protests are also a reason for hope. The young Kenyans who have come out to march and braved police brutality, are not looking to burn the system down. Rather they were looking to make it work, to make it accountable, to reset our governance processes to so that they work to ensure dignity for all rather than wealth for a few.

African governments must be proactive, and respond to their young people, or they may lose patience, and rather than make the system work, choose to tear it all down.

Public Service Reform – Making African Governments Work

A key element in development is effective government. Lots of countries around the continent have policies, plans and blueprints coming out of their ears, many of them fantastic. The problem is actually implementing these policies. Furthermore, governments are not just implementing agencies they also provide a range of public services to their citizens. However actually using these services often means navigating a minefield of corruption, bureaucracy and inefficiency that is both demoralising and dehumanising. Effective service delivery is just as important as effective development policy implementation and at the centre of both is the public service and its failings.

This is not a new problem, and over the last three decades, we have seen multiple efforts (usually donor-funded) around the continent aimed at reforming the public service, to be more efficient, effective, relevant and cost less. The problem with many of these efforts is that they are top-down, often designed externally that do not properly consider the people that they are trying to reform or the people in whose name the reforms are being pursued. To effectively reform the African bureaucracies, we have to rethink how we think about public service reform policy.

What is the point?

As with any policy, public service reform must have a goal at its core. Goals that are understandable to the wider public and local in their origin.

Most public service reform efforts are highly technical focusing on cost driven issues around wages, performance tracking and enhancement and efficiency. These things are important, but they are not visible. And when reforms are not visible, they cannot be seen and felt by the public at large, which means the reforms will run into political and institutional resistance. Most studies of public service reform efforts emphasise the need to depoliticise the public service and get political support for reforms. However, while political support is useful it is not a necessary condition for reform. If the reforms are visible, understood and can be felt by the public then political support can be formed from public support rather than the other way round.

With this in mind, it is crucial to ensure that the goals of public service reform are not purely back office, metrics-based ones but goals that have an impact on citizen-facing services. This ensures that you can bypass political resistance and that the reforms are rooted in local concerns.

Reforming bureaucracy is about people

Often, when public service reform is talked about in terms that dehumanise it. It’s about reforming systems, and structures, the target is a faceless bureaucracy, which no one likes. That’s all good and well until you remember that those bureaucrats are people, with concerns and aspirations of their own, families to support and careers they wish to protect. Too often public service reform is something that is done to people rather than with them. If you want your reforms to stick you need to get the buy-in of the people you are trying to reform. The public sector has decades of experience in appearing to comply with or blocking action. If you want compliance and reform, then it requires that reforms be done with the people in public agencies and departments. They must have a voice, feel that their concerns are taken seriously and have the goals of the reforms explained to them. In short, you cannot do public service reform without the buy-in of a key stakeholder, the public servants themselves.

The second area in which public service reform is about people is culture. All organisations and institutions develop a culture, which informs how people view and do their jobs, and the goals of their organisation. The public service has a culture, an ethos. For sustainable public service reform, you need to change that culture and ethos. The first key to that is making the public service something to be proud of. Explain and emphasising the role that public servants play, and its potential to make a positive impact. Working in the public service shouldn’t be something that causes others to roll their eyes or make jokes, it should be something people can be proud of. In doing so you can start to create a new culture of service and excellence, and that is precisely the culture we want in the public service.

Efficiency is fine, results are key, transparency is a must

As stated earlier, often civil service reform efforts focus on efficiency, which is important, but results are key, particularly results that people can feel and see. I know I have made this point previously, however reforming bureaucracy to be more efficient is useless when citizen facing institutions are services are terrible. Thus, efficiency is fine, but visible results are key.

On top of visible results. Public accountability and transparency are key to reform. If the government remains a black box, reforms will never take. In addition, it discourages bad behaviour by making those actors and agencies accountable to the public and their peers.

The best, the brightest… and the youngest

If public service reform has people at its core, the recruiting the right people is critical and recruitment can take advantage of Africa’s young people who are driven to solve problems and build a better future. Taking advantage of our best and brightest, of talented young professionals and university graduates. Recruiting and integrating them into the public, creating a new generation of motivated, professional and skilled public servants who can form the core of a reformed public service.

A great example of this is Liberia. After fourteen years of civil war by the time, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became president the country was a mess, and the public service was a nearly broken institution. Recognising this, President Johnson started the President’s Young Professionals Program a two-year program “that recruits and places recent Liberian university graduates in important government roles and provides them with training and mentorship as they support the government’s top priorities”. A 2016 report by Princeton University showed that program had been immensely successful, and that “About 90% of the program alumni continue to working government and or are studying abroad on government scholarships. A few fellows have risen to become departmental directors or assistant ministers.” The Liberian example shows that attracting young talent into the public service is not only possible but with the right mentorship and training, they can make a real difference. Around the continent, we produce over 10 million graduates a year, half cannot get a job. While the government cannot employ all of them, the government can hire the best and brightest without nepotism or political consideration but on merit. One feature of public service reform is hiring on the basis of merit, whether it was the introduction of exams in imperial China 2000 years ago or U.S. Civil Service reform in the 1880s. There is no reason we cannot follow suit and recruit the best and brightest of our youth not just to help drive reforms but incubate them for the long-term.

Africanising public service reform

If we want to implement our development programs, we need an effective public service. If we genuinely want public services to be accessible and effective, they do require reform. These reforms must not only cut costs and improve efficiency but improve accountability, transparency, with people, their culture and most importantly results that positively impact the public at its centre. In other words, we need to Africanise public service reform policy itself because after years of trying we have learned that copy-pasting solutions without contextualising them to Africa never works.

Other than a policy aimed at hiring young people, I have tried to stay away from advocating specific policies. This is because while the challenges facing public service reform may be similar in many African countries the local context also makes them wholly different. What’s needed is a policy approach from which solutions can follow. An approach that recognises that public servants are citizens and stakeholders in the process of reform, that the culture of public service needs positive change, that the public needs to see concrete results if they are to support reforms and that transparency is crucial if the reforms are to stick. Despite all the failed attempts at public service reform, I don’t think it’s hopeless, I think we just haven’t tried the right approach yet.

 

Getting African digital government right: Making Govtech work

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” – Richard Feynman

Disruption, the favourite word (and activity) of the technology industry is not just changing the private sector it is also changing government. Technology that has changed the way we communicate, hail a cab, date, manage our finances etc is coming to government. Across the world civil servants and politicians are enthusiastically embracing tech trying to bring the ease, cost efficiency and speed of tech services to public services and information. Driving this change is the rise of Govtech, which we can loosely define as new technologies applied to public services and/or specifically designed for government purposes.

In Africa, Govtech has been seen by many as a way to leapfrog old, corrupt, and sclerotic government systems to deliver services directly to citizens and bring new efficiency and accountability to government procedures and systems. The proponents of Govtech in Africa are right. It has exciting potential to deliver services and enhance governance, and more citizens around the continent are demanding better services, at lower costs with better accessibility. However, the proponents of Govtech must also realise, that for that dream to become a reality, the way governments design and implement these solutions must be grounded in a set of principles and policies that will help ensure that there is genuine transformation and success.

Principles for African Govtech

If you were to formulate a set of principles for African governments looking to use technology, what should they keep in mind? I think there are four basic principles that government should keep in mind when considering tech solutions, to ensure that they do not fall into the trap of overpromising, overspending and under delivering.

  1. Technology is not a magic bullet. It cannot fix broken systems, cultures or norms, rather it is part of the solution. One great is example of this is in action Kenya’s Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS). It is a set of technology solutions aimed at enabling the government to plan, execute and monitor the public budget on a centralised platform that reliably records all of the financial transactions by government on a real-time basis through a central accounting system. Where it has worked in other country’s it has improved transparency, accountability and helped stop corruption. However, there have been multiple instances where IFMIS has been compromised, broken into, illegally accessed and various transactions executed that have lost the public large amounts of money. Tech alone cannot fix the culture and norm of corruption that plagues Kenya’s public service. If IFMIS had been implemented alongside other anti-corruption efforts and reforms (e.g. proper investigations and convictions, cultural change efforts, training etc) it might have worked. However, by relying on tech alone, the government only ensured that the culture of corruption and the cartels that perpetuate corruption had the opportunity to subvert the new system.
  2. Tech must be married with genuine service delivery – there would be no point in having the Uber app on your phone if the majority of the time the driver showed up late, was a clueless navigator and was rude. Similarly, if governments are going to try and improve service delivery with tech it must be matched with actual improvement in the delivery of that service. If I can apply for my passport painlessly online, then do not make it an excruciating process to go and collect. If I can file my taxes online, then make dealing with tax issues (refunds, fines etc.) just as easy.
  3. It must be designed with African’s in mind – one consistent way in which Govtech in Africa fails is when governments design a solution to be used in a certain way then it turns out people do not use technology that way. It is not enough to copy a system from somewhere else or design a solution for an ideal situation. If you are designing a solution to help farmers access information and market prices make it with the African farmer in mind, who may not have access to a 4G network but uses USSD or SMS based solutions to access information and financial services. Conversely, do not assume African’s are simpletons either, many more farmers have smartphones and data services and that number is growing. In short, do what the best tech companies do, research and know your target audience and if you are making Govtech for Africa it must be designed by or with African’s in mind.
  4. Tech is complicated and expensive and needs project management just like large infrastructure – the great allure of tech solutions is that they are not only are they more accessible they are also simpler and cheaper than complicated bureaucracies. However, this is not always the case, what may seem simple for front end users like us, can be incredibly complex. Such as government portal where I can see and access day to day mundane government services like applying for licences, documents, paying fees etc. A system like this requires a number of different databases to be digitised and linked. A user-friendly web-based portal (that works on phone and computer) to be built and linked with robust security so it can’t be hacked. Real-time integration with government systems so that it can actually process your requests. Hosting and backup. Constant maintenance and patching etc. This is neither cheap or simple, but with proper project management it is entirely achievable

A policy for Govtech

With these principles in mind, it is possible to develop a policy approach for Govtech that African governments could use to separate good projects from bad, ensure that the projects they do invest in have a positive impact and give a boost to the technology sector.

Project management

As per the 4th principle laid out above tech is complicated. To ensure that Govtech projects have a chance at success governments need to invest in acquiring and training the people and skills who can manage tech projects. By manage, I am referring to the ability to assess a problem, break it down into its component parts. Then research, design, develop, test and deploy a solution. All while managing a budget, multiple stakeholders, government bureaucracies and public expectations. Housing these skills within government and empowering them with the ability to help various agencies and departments implement digital projects is key to making this possible.

In Singapore the government created the Government Technology Agency with a mandate to “to create and deliver a citizen-centric user experience that makes things easier”. The agency acts as reservoir of skills and know-how, which all government departments and agencies draw on when they are implementing projects from geospatial mapping, to tax filing, to social security payments. This ensures that every Govtech project is implemented efficiently and effectively and skills and lessons learned from past projects are applied to new ones. They recruit top talent from universities and the private sector ensuring that the country’s best and brightest can spend part of their careers working on solutions with a broad social good. Countries such as Italy, with its famously inefficient idea have taken a similar path creating government Digital Transformation Team that coordinates, develops and deploys Govtech projects across the government. Rather than the current state of affairs in most countries where, each Govtech project is isolated in its own ministry or department, running the risk of running over budget or not succeeding at all, and if it does succeed, that know-how stays stuck within that ministry or disappears entirely from government. African governments should consider doing the same. Recruiting talent from the private sector and the pool of young talented computer scientists and engineers in our higher education institutes. And creating and empowering a core team within the government to assess, drive and coordinate the implementation of digital projects. That, like in Singapore, will be able to drive transformative citizen-centric Govtech.

Smart criteria

Governments do not have infinite resources and cannot fund every digital transformation proposal that comes across their desks. Added to that not everything is ripe for digital transformation and often needs more time and groundwork before they are. What’s needed is for governments to create a clear set of criteria with which they can assess digital project proposals, and which will identify the projects with the best mix of a chance of success and genuine impact. In addition, a clear set of criteria will give government agencies, departments a clear idea of what is required of them and development partners a better idea of what they should be funding.

Incubate

One of the defining features of technology sector in Africa is its ingenuity and adaptability, with innovators across the continent coming up with tech-based unique solutions for the issues that affect them. Why not give them the opportunity to come up with solutions for the problem’s governments across the continent face and reward them if they are successful. In a previous post I advocated for policy that would give entrepreneurs a leg up, the incubation of tech companies and entrepreneurs coming up with Govtech solutions is the perfect opportunity to do so. Why not give local companies or individuals working on a service delivery issue some money and a deadline to invest in developing a solution. Which, if successful (if it works as advertised) they could either sell to the government or give the government a stake in the company, a contract to deploy its solution in the country and a share of the profits if they manage to sell their solution abroad. There will be failures, and that’s all right, as the money would be going into local talent and enterprise. Where there are successes, homegrown solutions to government inefficiencies that make citizens lives easier would be worth their weight in gold and if those solutions are commercial successes the benefits would accrue on multiple levels. Government doesn’t have to do everything, even in Govtech, incubating local innovators and entrepreneurs with a bit of money and the prospect of commercial success would spur private innovation for the public good.

Getting digital transformation right

In Kenya, in 2013 when the current Jubilee administration came to power, they styled themselves as a new digital type of government. They have endeavoured to digitize everything from education, to the land registry, to common government services and even government accounting. Some of these efforts like the e-citizen platform which has digitized a number of common services like applying for various licences and certificates, have been a success making citizens interactions with the government easier. Others like the centralised digital accounting system IFMIS, have not only failed in its mission to improve governance and lessen corruption, it has been used in large corruption scandals. The Kenyan experience points to both the potential benefits and pitfalls of Govtech in Africa. That tech is part of the solution not the solution. Designing Govtech for Africa must be built around that key principle alongside a holistic policy approach to implementation that institutionalises knowledge and skills and lays the groundwork for future innovation.

Applied smartly Govtech can help transform African’s interact with and view their governments. Making the service aspect of public service a reality. To take advantage of this potential, African governments must develop an understanding of the limitations and enablers of Govtech. And put in place the right structures, policies and mechanisms that can identify, develop and deploy genuinely relevant and impactful Govtech, designed around the needs and aspirations of their citizens.

 

African Land Reform: the need for courage, clarity and inclusivity

Land. It is quite possibly the most emotive and explosive political issue on the continent. Today in South Africa, where approximately 67% of commercial arable land is owned by white farmers politics is consumed by the question of land expropriation without compensation to resolve the historical land injustices which have left the majority of the population landless. In Kenya the spectre of historical land injustice and contemporary land grabbing constantly haunts politics. In Nigeria, Benue state has seen conflict between pastoralists and farmers over resources and land. And these are only examples of a continent wide problem, which will only be exacerbated as foreign governments and corporations buy up huge tracts of land on the continent.

The land issue is a difficult and painful one, but from a policy perspective it is not an impossible one. The rise of the East Asian Tigers (namely Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) was built on the foundation of land reform, which sparked agricultural and industrial transformation. With smart policy Africa can untie the gordian knot of land, but to do so policy makers will have to have courage in confronting vested interests, clarity of purpose and be committed to constructing an inclusive settlement.

The East Asian example

African leaders are fond of stating their desire to replicate the rapid industrialisation and development of the East Asian Tigers and have sought to initiate industrialisation and export policies with that goal in mind. However, often glossed over are the policies upon which rapid industrialisation was based, namely land reform. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea all pursued pro-poor land reforms, aimed at giving peasant farmers legal title to smallholder family farms. In South Korea after the Korean war the government redistributed land held by the former Japanese colonial government and obliged large landholders to divest most of their land which was then given to smallholder families. Similarly, in Taiwan in the 1950s the nationalist government redistributed land held by large landlords to smallholders. And in Japan land reform had been doing away with old feudal laws since 1873 but in 1947 they carried out their most radical reform called Nōchi-kaihō (emancipation of the land). 38% of the country’s arable land was purchased from landlords and sold at low prices to the 3 million farmers who worked them. The results of these reforms were revolutionary. In Japan in the decade after the land reform agricultural production increased by 50%, in Taiwan rice yields increased by 60% and in South Korea (after they had recovered from the Korean war) rice paddy yields doubled. This set the stage for industrialisation, as well as providing food security, rising incomes among farmers were spent on domestically manufactured goods which provided crucial demand for emerging industries that later became exporters, increased savings from farmers were used by banks to fund the growing industrial sector, and the increased tax revenue allowed the government to invest in public goods such as education and infrastructure. Land reform was a critical foundational pillar of the East Asian miracle and if Africa is going to try and conjure its own economic miracle it cannot ignore that.

What’s Past is Prologue – inclusive, historically sensitive process

“What’s past is prologue’ is a phrase that Shakespeare invented, over time it has come to mean that the past is a preface to the future, in other words we can’t forget the lessons of history. When it comes to land in Africa, we cannot forget the past, in fact we must actively address it. Any policy that intends to solve the land problem must have as its first action, a process that listens and learns. Listens, to the voices of those who have been dispossessed by colonialism, development, conservation, profit, corruption conflict or any other of the myriad of reasons that African’s have been chased off their land. And learn from that painful past, where possible making recommendations that could provide restitution and at the very least making those voices heard, these stories and the pain of them part of our common history and experience and recommending concrete policy measures to prevent them happening again. Starting a comprehensive land policy with an inclusive process that engages with its painful history is the only way to ensure that the policy does not become just another chapter in the all to often tragic history of land policy in Africa.

Clarity

What are we looking to achieve? That is the question that must be at the centre of land policy and must be answered plainly. In the case of the East Asian Tigers land reform had two clear goals. First to break the power and wealth of the old feudal structures, by doing away with large feudal land holdings. Second to boost agricultural production by giving farmers ownership of the land and the incentives and where necessary help to make their land more productive. What is the goal of land reform in Africa? As with most things on the continent it will differ from country to country, but will most likely be one or a mix of the following:

  • Addressing historical land injustices,
  • Addressing socio-economic inequalities,
  • Relieving social tensions over land,
  • Increasing agricultural productivity.

With an issue like land, ambiguous goals will create outcomes that are both dissatisfactory and ineffective. Whatever it happens to be, the goals of land policy must be well defined. From clear goals, clear policy actions can be extracted. For instance, if the primary goal is increasing productivity, then policies similar to those pursued in Japan where land was redistributed to existing farmers (those with existing knowledge, experience and skills in farming) and they were supported through investment and subsidy programs, would be at the centre of land reform. If relieving social tension is the core goal then alternative modes of land ownership, access and use such communally owned land, trusts etc, would be the focus of your policy actions.

Courage

Courage is not a word you hear often in policy circles, but when it comes to land reform policy in Africa it is a requirement. This is because there are multiple groups who have a stake in land reform and the policy process requires confronting all of these interests, in full recognition that you may not be able to make all of them happy. In most cases there are large land owners who are economically powerful and automatically dislike the idea of land reform as it carries the prospect of reducing their own land holdings. There are the landless and land hungry who by their sheer numbers are the gallery that politicians play to in their hunt for votes, making wild promises or statements that often fuel tensions. In many countries there are pastoralists or nomadic communities for whom access to large tracts of land are vital to their survival. Inclusivity requires listening to all these interests and having the courage to confront the pain of generations. Clarity requires having the courage to set goals and make a clear case for them. Finally, policy formulation and implementation require the courage to actually confront all the interests and politics around land. Most of all land reform requires the courage to acknowledge that we have ignored this vital element of socio-economic policy for too long. Land is the foundation of an economy and society, how you use it and who has it has a massive impact on economic development and social cohesion, and since independence most African states have let rapacious private business and political interests decide those crucial questions rather than come up with a coherent policy.

Land reform will not look the same in every African country, that is why I have not tried to suggest specific policies. We can learn from each other’s experiences and contexts but on our diverse continent, the land question stems from a variety of issues that are not the same across the continent. What is clear, is that across the continent for there to be comprehensive, coherent, beneficial land reform we must be willing to confront the injustices of the past and include everyone in the land reform conversation, we must be clear about what it is we are seeking to achieve, and we must have the courage to confront the vested interests. Doing so would yield some novel approaches to land reform, but they would be effective and set the foundation for fairer societies and economic growth.

 

Africanising Development

Development is about more than money, or machines or good policies – it is about real people and the lives they lead – Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda

Development in Africa is largely determined outside the continent. The ideas of modernisation and socialism that dominated post-independence thinking and policy were western in origin and backed by the ideological agendas of the cold war superpowers. The triumph of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s in the west pushed developmental liberalism upon the continent, embodied in the policies of free markets and Structural Adjustment programs. Recently the millennium development goals (MDG’s) and sustainable development goals (SDG’s) did not originate on the continent but rather in the meeting rooms of think-tank’s and multilateral institutions such as the UN, World Bank and OECD.

When Asia embarked on its extraordinary development journey it did so not only by adopting the ideas of others but also by localising them. Focusing on what they saw as the appropriate goals and focus of development. As the world moves into an ever more uncertain 21st century Africa remains in thrall to foreign ideas of development. If the continent is to move forward, if Africa’s development story is to be successful, then we must develop African centred ideas of development and the policies to pursue them. To do that we have go back to the start, ask ourselves what and who development is for and what our priorities are, on that we can build development policies that are for Africa, and made by Africans.

A brief history of development

In the 1960’s as most African nations were gaining independence, one key aim was socio-economic development. With the aim of bringing African economies and standards of living up to 20th century standards. At this time the primary thinking in the development world (aid donors and development institution) and in governments was modernisation theory. The theory holds that modernisation is a prerequisite for development, and that developing countries must evolve from traditional to modernised societies in order to develop. This entails the transmission of capital (aid and FDI) and the replication of economic, social, political and legal values and institutions from the developed world to the developing world. Thus policy makers attempted to copy the modern institutions of the west and rapidly industrialise. This was not very successful as the failed development policies and strategies of the 1960’s and 1970’s show. Merely copying modernity did not replicate it, as it fails to account for the conditions that led to that modernity and the fact that the same conditions that existed in the developed world did not exist in Africa.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s in line with the rise of free market neoliberalism, and the end of the Cold War, liberalisation democratic political reform because the focus of development, driven by the nations of the West. The idea was that African economies had failed to grow because they did not have free markets and the liberal democrat institutions to ensure that those markets functioned fairly. Thus Africa was subjected to a series of market liberalisation structural adjustment programs where aid and debt assistance was made conditional on downsizing the governments role in the economy, privatising services and state companies and opening up countries to international trade. This again obviously did not work, many would argue that it took away the little government protection and safety nets that African’s had and subjected them to whims of international markets and allowed a rich few to get even richer by buying up cheap state owned companies under the guise of privatisation.

Thus in the 2000s recognising the failure of market liberalisation and modernisation before it the MDG’s emerged. The UN, OECD and World Bank had been working on a set of ideas and goals to reduce global poverty, and they combined their efforts to come up with 8 key development goals with which to pursue this goal. While there has been some progress under the MDG’s and later the SDG’s they still bear the hallmarks of the two previous development initiatives. They are driven by donors and international development institutions and have little local ownership by the countries they are intended for.

Thus the story of development theory and policy in Africa over the last 50 odd years has been essentially foreign, with abrupt shifts in thinking and focus when political and ideological views shift in western capitals and development institutions. What this has meant is that as African’s we have had little ownership of our own development. It has been something defined elsewhere and either thrust upon us or unthinkingly adopted without taking into account the views, history, culture and aspirations of the people it is intended for. Thus to Africanise development we must break this pattern, we must start thinking of development as something that comes from within rather than, an act of copying those who have gone before or accepting ideas without question.

Who is development for?

In all the talk one hears about industrialisation, jobs, infrastructure and even development, what one rarely hears is the voice of the people for whom it is all supposedly intended. At the core of development must be the people and their needs and wants. Africa’s development policies should not start in think tanks, ministry meeting rooms or development bank boardrooms, but with Africans. We must start with broad conversations both within and across nations by asking ourselves, what is it that we as Africans want? What future do we imagine for our children, what are the key challenges facing Africans as individuals and as communities. There are a number of ways of doing this (which I suggested in previous post) from town halls, to online comments and hangouts, to kgotlas and barazzas. These questions would serve to ground Africa’s development in the aspirations and needs of its people. If development is meant to better the lives of citizens then their concerns must be at it its centre, and then only way to ensure that is by asking them.

What is development for?

Development is about numbers. Or at least one could be forgiven for thinking so. The MDG’s and SDG’s are replete with goals and targets. Politicians and policy makers are always quoting GDP growth numbers, job numbers, kilometres of roads or railways built. You could be forgiven for thinking that development is a statistical exercise. This misses the fundamental point of development. It is, or at least should be, about the people, their quality of life and their dignity. If development continues to be about the numbers or the shiny new roads and railways rather than how they positively impact the lives of the people, then those numbers will continue to be largely meaningless. Those numbers must be rooted in what they mean for people. Are the jobs that have been providing a viable income, are the roads and railways built opening opportunities for ordinary citizens, is increased food production putting more food on tables and is GDP growth being felt at all levels of society.

Numbers are great, they can help measure progress and expose problem areas. But they are not what development is for, and when using those numbers, we must be careful to ensure that they are rooted in reality, the reality that development is about improving people’s lives.

What are the priorities?

At the core of economics is a simple concept, scarcity. How best are goods, services, labour and resources used and distributed within society when it is not possible to provide for everyone’s needs and wants. Development policy is similar, it is impossible to do everything at the same time and this necessitates choices. Do you invest more money in education or healthcare, which region do you build roads in first, which industries do you choose to promote etc. The East Asian tigers chose to prioritise traditional industrialisation, while a country like Costa Rica has chosen to prioritise environmental sustainability, healthcare and education alongside economic growth. The question is what are Africa’s priorities, what is our development focus. Over the last decade the priority has been the SDG’s, closing the infrastructure gap, industrialisation, jobs, intra-African trade, agriculture and energy provision. The problem is when everything is the priority nothing gets properly done, it is simply an impossible task to do everything well at once. Thus, policy makers have to prioritise, pick a development focus and do it well. That focus should be informed by the previous questions of what people actually want out of development.

Africanising development

Africanising development is not about discarding all ideas and theories of development if they do not come from an African source. Rather it is about grounding the continent’s development policy in the aspirations of its people, taking ownership of it. The three questions of who is development for, what is development for, and what are our development priorities would help better define development in African terms, ground it in the aspirations and needs of its people and better focus the efforts of governments and policymakers. For too long development in Africa has been about what other nations, institutions and experts think is best for Africa, rather than what African’s think is the best path for themselves. Africanising development means taking responsibility and ownership of the future of our continent and to do that we need to approach it from the bottom up, give all African’s a stake in it by making them active participants and owners of their continents future.

Time to Give African Judges Some Teeth

“A court is the guardian of justice, the cornerstone of a democratic system based on the rule of law. If the state does not abide by court orders, the democratic edifice will crumble stone-by-stone until it collapses, and chaos ensues”- Dunstan Mlambo – Judge President of the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa.

African governments have a bad habit, when it is not in their interest they ignore the law, specifically they ignore the courts. Governance and the rule of law is well recognised as a crucial component of development, the African Union even has the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. One of its core objectives is to ‘Promote and enhance adherence to the principle of the rule of law premised upon the respect for, and the supremacy of, the Constitution and constitutional order in the political arrangements of the State Parties’. Although tellingly only 10 African states have actually ratified this particular charter, symbolising African governments commitment, or lack of, to the rule of law.

The rule of law is crucial, it is the foundation upon which stable societies are based. When it works it is how criminals are punished and injustice is rectified. It provides for trust in contracts so that people can do business with each other and it keeps power in check, restraining government from abusing its citizens. The primary arbiter of law and order is the judicial process, the courts not only need to be independent, but their orders and rulings need to be adhered to, if not they may as well not make them.

When governments ignore court orders, they send a signal, that the law is not for them that the law is tool to be used to benefit of those with power rather than to protect all.

Development on the continent will require the rule of law that applies equally to all including the government, the problem is the police that courts rely on to enforce their orders are controlled by the government. To enforce the rule of law, courts in Africa will require more than the hope that government will respect the independence of the judiciary. Rather Africa should give its judges some teeth, the ability to enforce its orders whether the government likes it or not.

The Rule of Law – Except for the Rulers

‘Rule of law’ is a statement that gets used a great deal, African presidents, civil society, global institutions and development economists are all fond of using it and outlining its importance, but what does it mean?

The Secretary General of the UN has defined rule of law as “a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards”[1]

Its importance to development is crucial because it covers several areas. Preventing and mitigating crime and insecurity, protecting the environment, labour, property, creating a trustworthy commercial environment with security of contracts and protection from fraud, protecting human rights, reducing corruption and holding power accountable all rely on the rule of law. Without a system where everyone is treated equally by fair and independent adjudicators, they become arbitrary, those in power exercise impunity, doing business becomes an exercise in avoiding getting screwed (or screwing over the other guy first) and people’s rights, property and persons are under constant threat. Unfortunately, across much of Africa the rule of law does not hold as it should, and often it is the government at the forefront.

When governments ignore the law, they send a dangerous signal to the whole country. That the law is a tool of domination for those in power to get what they want and that the law is a mere suggestion rather than a restraint. This creates the flagrant disregard for the law and impunity that enables corruption, criminals and the everyday behaviour (such as disregard for traffic laws) that has become the norm. And it is why often people resort to mob justice rather than trusting the police and courts.

Development is hard under conditions where the powerful exercise impunity and basic security cannot be ensured. Thus, the question becomes where do we begin with restoring law and order? It is not likely that those in power will conform to the rule of law without significant pressure or incentive, it is also not likely that the general populace will suddenly conform to law and order when the police cannot be fully trusted, and those with power and wealth continue to display impunity. Thus, it is to the courts that we must turn and give them the ability to enforce the rule of law, particularly for those with power and wealth.

Enhancing Judicial Power

The courts are the adjudicators of the legal system and when sufficiently independent from the rest of the government they can make fair and reasoned judgements. The last couple of years has seen African judges show that they can hold power to account, and two momentous decisions showcase this.

In 2016 the Constitutional Court of South Africa told the president to ‘pay back the money’[2] for the upgrades to his home in Nkandla, on a continent where presidents have regularly used taxpayer money as their own it was refreshing to see a court put a stop to impunity. In 2017 the Supreme Court of Kenya[3] stunned the continent when it nullified a presidential election because of anomalies and irregularities in the results. Africans are no strangers to rigged and disputed elections to see a court find against a sitting president, say that it would not accept a tainted election and force the holding of a new election was novel and inspiring.

African courts can step up to the challenge if constituted properly as independent and fair. However, they rely on the government for their decisions to be enforced. Presidents and Ministers must respect and obey court orders and then the police must enforce them, unfortunately this is where the system tends to fall apart.

This was graphically shown earlier this year in Kenya when the government flagrantly ignored court orders and shut down TV stations and deported an opposition politician making a mockery of the rule of law.

This sort of thing happens around the continent such as in Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa, and to put a stop it we should give judges the power to enforce their orders and decisions, to do that they will need their own enforcement agency, a judicial police force. This force should be placed under the control of the judiciary alone, with a guaranteed budget, and a narrow but important mandate to serve and enforce court warrants and orders where the police prove incapable or unwilling to do so. Creating this independent judicial force would have three goals.

First, it will be a tangible force behind the authority of an independent judiciary giving it the ability to challenge impunity. Secondly, it bypasses the political control and rationale behind the police which in Africa are usually centralised and controlled by politically appointed ministers, meaning that the police answer to their political masters first rather than the law. Thirdly, it will help restore confidence in the courts and the law, if people see the law being enforced it is a powerful incentive to place their trust in the law and not to break it. It is not a replacement for the police, nor is it a power grab for the courts rather it is a way of strengthening rule of law by enhancing the ability of the adjudicators of the law to make sure that its legal orders are carried out.

Giving Judges Teeth

It may seem like a bit of crazy idea, police that answer to the courts. However, that is a function the police are supposed to serve but typically do not in Africa. The courts have shown that when judges are chosen in an independent, public and multi-stakeholder process they can make fair and independent decisions, but when those decisions are ignored or not enforced it enables impunity and criminality.

If African leaders and policy makers are truly in favour of law and order as they are fond of declaring, then they must take steps to ensure that the decisions of the courts are enforced. A potentially effective solution is to give the courts their own police to enforce those orders, bypassing politically compromised police and giving them the ability to tackle impunity. The laws governing society are the foundation of stability and good governance. Ending impunity and enforcing the rule of law will provide a firm foundation for development, when people trust the law and power is limited by the law it ensures that all can be treated equally in a secure society. The courts are at the core of this, if Africa is serious about law and order it is time to give our judges some teeth with which to enforce it.

[1] https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/what-is-the-rule-of-law/

[2] http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2016/11.html

[3] http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/140478/

The African leadership problem

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the land, climate, water, air, or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership… We have lost the twentieth century; are bent on seeing that or children also lose the 21st? God forbid – Chinua Achebe

Afriwonk is a policy blog, my broad aim is to stimulate conversation and thinking about new approaches to development policy from an African perspective. I try to stay away from the politics as it can turn readers off or introduce bias, rather I try to approach development policy as a people centred issue. However, the fact remains, no matter how good your policies are, if you have bad or ineffective leadership those policies are useless, and Africa has a leadership problem.

If you look around the continent democracy seems to be receding as more leaders seek to extend their time in office, corruption and poverty seem to be as stubborn as ever, and the challenges of development such as healthcare, education, joblessness continue to grow. These issues are not intractable, I firmly believe there are solutions. However, those solutions require effective leadership, leadership that has a clear vision and agenda and that leadership will only come about if Africans themselves demand it and provide it.

A clear vision and agenda or lack thereof

In my first blog I tried to outline what development means, that for me development is people centred ,aimed at improving the lives and livelihoods of the African people. Yet we rarely hear a clear articulation of what development means from leaders on the continent. African leaders constantly promise development, but what does that mean, when they campaign they have manifesto’s hundreds of pages long but without a clear agenda or sense of priorities they are just empty promises. In South Africa the ANC is struggling to find its voice, due to the fact that while the politics of South Africa may have been transformed its economy has not, and far too many people still live in poverty. Yet, other than empty sloganeering and symbolic votes in parliament the ANC is yet to present a clear articulation of what economic transformation means to them and the agenda they will pursue to achieve it. In Kenya the Jubilee administration campaigned on a manifesto full of goodies in 2013 and just last year after his re-election the president announced a new development agenda the “big four”, but the fact remains that both the original manifesto and new agenda came from consultants who were formulating an agenda to please crowds and win votes. In Ethiopia, the governments idea of state led development has come into conflict with the desires of its people who want more than just impressive GDP growth. Vision is an essential part of good leadership. Not only have we had leaders without principle or a sense of responsibility, they lack vision. There is no clear idea of the country/continent we want, and this is how we plan to get there. Franz Fanon whose work has inspired liberation movements for decades warned that the “gravest threat to Africa’s future is not colonialism but the ‘great appetites’ of post-colonial elites, and their ‘absence of ideology’”. The lack of vision with a clear agenda has and continues to hobble the continent. It means that we have haphazard badly thought out policy that is aimed not at improving the lives of people but rather at enriching a select few at the top or winning an election. It has been part of the problem that has led to the tragic cast of thieves, despots and psychopaths that have undone the hope that independence brought. If Africa is to develop clarity of vision and well-defined agendas are needed from its leaders.

L’etat est tout de nous – the state is all of us

King Louis XIV of France was known to say ‘L’etat c’est Moi’ or ‘I am the State’, it was his way of saying that he was the absolute ruler of France. It is easy to criticise African leaders, the lack of vision, the non-existent agendas, the corruption, ethnic politics etc. but leaders are nothing without the people who follow them. If Africa is to get better leadership, it will not magically appear it must be demanded by the people. Professor Bimpe Aboyade the first woman in sub-Saharan Africa to gain a PhD in English Literature once wrote “Our problem [in Nigeria] is not just that we are unlucky to be saddled with leaders without vision most of the time, but that majority of the citizens have no idea as to what they really want out of governance except the basic necessities like food, drinkable water, shelter and good roads. You therefore have people praising to high heavens corrupt and incompetent leaders for merely patching few kilometers of road”

In many countries we spend the years between elections complaining about our leaders, decrying the corruption and poor service delivery, and yet when it comes to elections we continue to vote for them. Whether it be for ethnic reasons, or religious reasons or some form of as yet undiagnosed electoral masochism among African voters we continue to return these same leaders to office. Africa’s leadership problem starts with its people, if we as a continent want better leadership we must vote for it, to encourage the genuinely gifted and valuable leaders across all walks of African life to run for higher office and back them when they do. Fundamentally we must realise that the state is all of us, we as Africans must have a better idea of what we want as Africans and demand it from our leaders.

 The curse can be lifted

There is an Angolan anecdote, that at creation God blessed Angola with abundant mineral wealth, other nations of the world complained at the favourable disposition towards the  country, in response God told them: wait till you see their leaders. Maybe God should have also added that we should see the people who will follow these leaders.

I do not think Africa is cursed with bad leadership, there are extraordinary leaders around the continent who lead families, churches and mosques, neighbourhoods, villages, businesses, schools etc. and yes even some politicians. If Africa is to find solutions to its problems it will take leaders willing to implement them, there is no government policy that can do that. Africa’s leadership problem will require its people to take responsibility, though that is easier said than done, it is not impossible.

 

Ending the African debt trap: A developmental debt policy framework

“We have been indebted for fifty, sixty years and even more. That means we have been led to compromise our people for fifty years and more.” – Thomas Sankara OAU July 1987

In 2005 developed countries wrote off billions in debt accumulated by Highly Indebted Poor Countries many of those in Africa. Debt relief gave many countries some breathing space from crushing debt and structural adjustment programs that saw public services decimated, and development expenditure minimised. Over a decade later much of the continent is walking into the same trap, accumulating foreign currency denominated debt with very vague ideas of how we are going to pay it back (figure 1)[1].

If we are not careful many African nations will find themselves where they were in the 1990s (some like Ghana already have); cutting spending and services to get IMF bailouts so that they can pay their debts.

As Thomas Sankara alluded to in 1987 this is no way to develop a continent, because in the world of international finance, banks and bondholders do not care about your people, they just want to be paid back on time. When it comes time to pay back this current binge of debt of what African nations are accumulating, just like in the 1980s and 1990s it will be the people who suffer, making the claims of leaders justifying this debt in the name of development a cruel joke.

African governments need to learn how to borrow smartly and use the money prudently. In my view African governments need to develop a framework through which borrowing is assessed; based on a set of principles that benefit Africans rather than burden them. Ending the African debt trap doesn’t mean ending African debt, it means making it work for us.

Debt: Bonds, Loans and Guarantees.

Governments in Africa borrow and accumulate debt in three primary ways. First, by issuing bonds, where investors lend money to the government by buying the bond who in turn promise to pay investors back in full, with regular interest payments[2]. Loans are straight forward, and work in the same way as a bank loan you would get. The main sources of government loans are international banks, multinational institutions like the IMF or World Bank and direct loans from individual states. Guarantees are slightly different, the government does not borrow directly but guarantees the debt of a company, usually a state-owned company, so that if it fails to repay its loans the government has to repay them.

Debt is not inherently a bad thing. It allows you to access funding that you do not otherwise have to invest in growth. For companies, debt is used to fund expansion, new machinery, hire more workers etc., to grow it is revenues. For countries debt can be used to fund investments in the country beyond what is available from tax revenue. It gives government the ability to invest in areas such as infrastructure, education, industrial or agricultural initiatives that give people and wider economy a higher capacity for growth and development. Put simply if you use debt to invest areas that create more value than the value of debt then you are fine, as the debt will pay itself back.

The problem with African debt

Debt becomes a problem when you have trouble paying it back. As your debt load increases you start borrowing money simply to pay for earlier debt, like using a credit card to pay off another credit card. Eventually you are forced to ask for help, going cap in hand to your creditors and asking for a bit more time or to the IMF for a bailout and as Africa discovered in the 80’s and 90’s, when that happens your fate is no longer in your hands.

In Africa bad debt falls into 3 broad categories. The first is corruption and misuse, where money borrowed is not even used in any form of gainful investment but essentially stolen. Mozambique was one of the success stories of the last few years with 7%+ growth rates even as it borrowed heavily (Figure 2).

Investors were not concerned with the debt levels because of Mozambique’s huge gas reserves. In 2013, Mozambique borrowed $850 million dollars to invest in a new tuna fishing fleet meant to jumpstart the countries fishing industry. However, Mozambique did not buy fishing boats, it bought gunboats, and shortly afterward it emerged that the government had been hiding an additional $1.4 billion of in loans whose use is shrouded in mystery. By 2016, Mozambique was unable to pay its loans and it defaulted on its debt. Mozambique is now in the arms of it is creditors and the IMF. When its gas fields start producing commercial gas in 2023, the money will go towards paying its loans first before it goes to the people of Mozambique.

The second way African debt tends to get out of hand is through investment in misguided projects, otherwise known as white elephants. These projects are often pursued for political reasons such as being in the part of a country the minister comes from, or connected people getting the contracts rather than development objectives being main goal. Today there is a building frenzy across the continent as governments invest in infrastructure to boost economic growth. This infrastructure is expensive, and governments have to borrow to fund it and it is a large part of the significant increase in debt on the continent over the last few years. If these roads, railways and dams are white elephants and provide little value to communities and countries they are in, Africans will be saddled with debt for vanity projects.

The third way in which governments accumulate debt is through providing guarantees to state-owned companies who take on debt for a variety of purposes. However, many state-owned enterprises in Africa are poorly run, with spotty oversight and take out debt for poorly conceived expansion plans or to fulfil poorly thought-out political directives. Eskom is South Africa’s publicly owned electricity monopoly, but it is in dire condition. Mismanagement, corruption, old power generation plants, expensive construction of new plants and a failure by the government to let it raise tariffs has put Eskom into a precarious position. Eskom has over the years borrowed to cover the gaps using government guarantees. According to figures provided by the power utility, total debt amounted to R359 Billion (29 Billion Dollars). This amount of debt, as the finance minister recently conceded is a threat to the South African economy. And Eskom is not the only state-owned enterprise in South Africa in trouble. Government guarantees to state owned enterprises stood at R467 billion at the end of 2015/16. Standard & Poor’s forecasts they will swell to over R500 billion by 2020 – 10% of South Africa’s current GDP, adding to South African debt that is already worth over 55% of GDP.

The problem with African debt is that too much of it is ill-considered, too much of it is stolen and most of it is not put into smart investments which will improve people’s lives and create value.

The trap closes – International control.

A key feature of international debt markets that puts the continent at a distinct disadvantage is who controls the debt. Creditors are not usually terribly concerned with what governments do with debt as long as it is paid back. Thus, when governments get into tight monetary circumstances, creditors usually demand that actions be taken to ensure that the debts are paid. The vehicle for this is usually the IMF, the multinational institution charged with securing global financial stability and debt defaults are bad for stability. When the IMF comes in to bail out a government it comes with conditions and as Africans found out in the 80s and 90s (and as Greeks are experiencing now) those conditions are painful. They usually involve a mix of cutting government spending and services, raising taxes and cutting subsidies, privatising public services, selling public assets, cutting the number of government employees and limits on development, spending and investment. With African governments piling up more and more debt we are getting closer to being subject to IMF conditionalities again, and the pain and protest seen in Greece will become a feature in Africa.

A Developmental Debt Policy Framework

The question becomes, how do we make sure any money we borrow is good debt. How do policy makers, politicians and the wider public decide what is worth borrowing money for? If Africa is to end the debt trap cycle it must change the way it decides to borrow, if African countries need to borrow money to fund development expenditure, then we must have something that guides that process. This requires a developmental debt policy framework, that is based on a set of principles that guides various actors as they decide whether the government should be borrowing money. The principles upon which responsible developmental debt would be based are simple. It must be sustainable, valuable, and accountable. These three principles would answer the key questions of why we are borrowing, how are we borrowing, can we afford it and will it create value for the country.

Sustainable

Put succinctly, sustainability in debt is about the ability of country to afford the debt. Can the money borrowed, both the principal sum and interest, be paid back by either normal revenues or by the revenues generated project being funded, without requiring extra burdensome measures, such as additional taxes or cutting of existing government services. Ensuring debt meets this requirement of sustainability will ensure that African states can afford the debt they take on.

Valuable

The principle of value is aimed at ensuring that the areas the debt funds have value to the nation. Value can come in two forms. First, value to people, improving the living conditions or opportunities of people. If it can be demonstrated that a policy, initiative, service or project that requires funding will demonstrably improve the lives of the public, it is not money wasted, as fundamentally development is about improving the living conditions and opportunities available to Africans. Secondly, value for money, which is simply, can the project, or initiative generate enough revenue to pay for the money being borrowed. These two forms of value do not limit the options for governments, rather they ensure that the money borrowed will go into something of importance. For instance, improved healthcare is key to improving the lives of millions around the continent and this requires that Africa train and deploy many more healthcare workers, as doctors, nurses, lab technicians etc., but this is an expensive undertaking. However, the training and deployment of a significant number of healthcare workers is not cheap. If the government can develop a program that trains and deploys healthcare workers in a way that benefits the majority of the population, borrowing to fund this can be justified. In terms of value for money this would be aimed primarily at infrastructure projects and guarantees to state owned enterprises, if it can be demonstrated that these projects (e.g. a new railway) or state corporation (e.g. an airline) can reliably pay for itself then borrowing to fund the investment can be justified.

Accountability

The principle of accountability is simple, the public finances must be public. Transparency in public financing creates accountability. Accountability in public debt transactions would require governments to open about what the borrowing is going to fund, the terms upon which the money is to be borrowed, how they plan to pay the debts back and tracking the use of the borrowed funds to ensure that unlike Mozambique’s gunboat tuna fleet, it goes where it is intended.

These three principles are interrelated. Debt that creates value is far more likely to be sustainable and being open and accountable about the terms on which the money is being borrowed allows for sustainability and value to be accurately and properly assessed. Having a developmental debt policy framework based on these three principles, would help ensure that Africa takes on debts that serve a developmental purpose. Furthermore, these principles can be developed into more detailed project and policy assessment frameworks, which policy makers, politicians, civil society and the wider public can use to access the government’s borrowing and hold it to account. Unlike the conditionalities imposed by the IMF or bond holders using these principles to guide African debt would be aimed at development not just paying back the money, they would give Africans agency over their own debt by requiring responsibility on the part of African policy makers. To end the cycle of African debt traps where development and vital services are sacrificed on the altar of fiscal responsibility, will  require Africa to adopt policies that better guide how the continent borrows and what it uses for.

[1] IMF, Regional Economic Outlook Sub-Saharan Africa: Fiscal Adjustment and Economic Diversification, October 2017 https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/REO/AFR/2017/October/pdf/sreo1017.ashx?la=en

[2] http://guides.wsj.com/personal-finance/investing/what-is-a-bond/

Development or democracy? A false choice that creates bad policy

“We spoke and acted as if, given the opportunity for self-government, we would quickly create utopias. Instead injustice, even tyranny, is rampant”. – Julius ‘Mwalimu’ Nyerere

There is an ongoing debate fuelled by the perception that democracy has not delivered the development that was promised during the 1990’s and early 2000’s when many African countries bowed to domestic and international pressure and instituted multiparty democracies. The argument centres on the fact that while many countries have seen some economic growth it has not been nearly enough, and the continent continues to be plagued by persistent poverty. That if you look at the fastest growing economies on the continent, such as Rwanda and Ethiopia, they have strong leaders, who can push through big reforms and policy without all the political horse trading and gamesmanship that usually kills them. They then point to East Asia, pointing out that China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore all developed under some form of authoritarian regime. In short, the argument is that by putting democracy before development Africa has put politics before development.

This, in my view, is nonsense, development at its core is about improving the conditions of people so that they may live their lives with dignity (I develop this more fully in this post). For that to happen policy and policymakers have to be responsive to the needs of their people and the people need to able to hold those wielding power to account. It is the only way to ensure that development remains the goal rather than the personal goals of the benevolent dictator in charge.

The arguments against democracy, and why they don’t apply

The argument most often trotted out in favour of benevolent dictatorship in the development vs democracy debate is what I call the Lee Kuan Yew argument after the former authoritarian prime minister of Singapore who charted the city state’s extraordinary development path. The argument is; that like Lee Kuan Yew, authoritarian leaders can commit to policies that ensure political stability, the rule of law and economic transformation. My response to this is simple, while Lee was ruling Singapore the vast majority of Africa was being run by a succession of autocrats, dictators, and despots. From Mobutu, to Amin, to Houphouët-Boigny, to Moi etc. (one could go on for quite a while with such a list), none of them brought long-term political stability, rule of law and economic transformation to their nations. Almost all of them were corrupt, saw the law as a suggestion, fostered division rather than national identity and enacted haphazard polices that privileged short-term personal and political interests that slowed, stopped or reversed development. The evidence from authoritarian rulers in Africa, Latin America and Asia shows that Singapore is the exception not the rule and Africa cannot afford to return to that.

The second argument brought to bear is that of East Asia. Many point to South Korea, Taiwan, China and Singapore who all achieved significant development under some form of authoritarian regime. However, this argument ignores the significant differences between these states and their African counterparts. First, apart from Singapore these states are relatively ethnically homogenous with a cultural and national identity that goes back centuries if not millennia, with a common history, culture, identity and language it is easier to forge a national consensus. Secondly South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore were all key strategic U.S. allies in the cold war. This meant that not only did they get significant economic assistance the West was willing to turn a blind eye to policies that they would have (and have) lobbied against in other countries that were key to the East Asian economic miracle, such as import substitution and the protection of domestic industries. Third, they all had ways of keeping leaders accountable in some way or form, in China for instance one must rise through the party and when in leadership you are accountable to the party. It’s not perfect but it enforces discipline and has broader goals than a singular despot.

Democracy as policy

So, what does democracy have to do with development policy? In my view the link is clear, democracy makes policy makers and political leaders accountable to the people. Thus, to gain and retain political power they must respond to the needs of the people. However, this does not seem to be the case, as voters on the continent are more frequently mobilised by ethnic or religious politics than by debates around the best path to development. However, the answer to this is not to get rid of it, rather it is to make democracy better. For the past 30 years democratic reforms on the continent have tended to focus on the man (it is almost always a man) at the top or the elections themselves, rarely on citizen participation, particularly informed participation. For development policy to meet the needs of people it must be responsive to the people themselves, and the answer to this is to look beyond elections. Elections, the act of regularly choosing our leaders in a fair process, are vitally important to democracy but they should not be the only feature. When that happens, it leads to what we see in Africa today, where the political debate and climate is focused on winning the next elections. Regular citizens tend to be forgotten until the next election campaign comes around. Thus, to my mind what is needed is a way to ground policy in views and needs of the citizenry.

In Botswana they have something called a Kgotla. A public meeting usually headed by the village chief, in which deliberations are conducted and decisions are arrived at by consensus. All residents in a village are entitled to attend and can speak. The results of these deliberations are then used to form the basis of district development plans and the 5-year National Development Plans, which are then passed by parliament as legislation that guides government policy. Since independence Botswana has not only experienced stable democracy but has also been the African economy that has grown the fastest and most consistently since independence. This has been in large part due to good leadership, which holds itself and its policies accountable to the people they govern. Unlike election campaigns where politicians promise things to people and we have to hope they can follow through while in office, this system of citizen participation ensures that the voice of the people, their concerns and their priorities are not only heard but are an integral part of the policy making process.

Vox populi vox dei – the voice of the people is the voice of god

When it comes to the democracy vs development debate, I do not see a debate, I see the wrong question. The question should be, how does Africa improve its democracies to make them more responsive to the needs of her citizens. One clear way to do that is to proactively ground the policy making process in a democratic process. To create a process, which doesn’t just invite people to comment on legislation (which some countries have) but actively seeks the views of the people whom the policy will affect. For instance, if a country wants to come up with a new agricultural policy it will actively go out and seek the views of its farmers from the subsistence farmers to the industrial farmers in an open and deliberative process that allows farmers to explain the challenges that face them and their ambitions for their farms, families and communities. This would help create a policy in which they have a stake and are willing to work for and with. More broadly by grounding the policy process in a democratic process it could make policy in Africa something that is done with, by and for the people rather than to the people, and achieve real development.