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Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum: Africa ‘Was A COUNTRY On The Brink’ WATCH (VIDEO)

Zeroing out foreign aid, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said at Tuesday’s debate, “is absolutely the wrong course.” He cited development money that went to fight the AIDS pandemic in Africa: “It was a country on the brink,” he said, adding that it was a ripe region for radical Islamists.

Africa, of course, is a continent, not a country. And we’ve heard this mistake before.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Santorum’s primary rival, also made a geographical mix-up about Africa at an earlier debate, saying “Now with the president, he put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa. We already were stretched too thin, and he put our special operations forces in Africa.”

Libya is, of course, part of the continent of Africa.

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The Eurozone Crisis and Africa-Analysis

Jolyon Ford

The timing of this first contribution to the blog made it seem fitting to go straight to what may be the most topical overall issue for business in Africa in 2011: what the Eurozone crisis might mean for African economies going into 2012.

With all the attention to the role of China and other ‘new’ players as economic partners for sub-Saharan African countries, it is easy to forget how significant EU markets are for many African economies. Take Mauritius – for many years now it has been a financial services corridor not just for investment into South and South-East Asia, but into parts of Africa. It aims to capture more of the Asian growth story. Yet currently Europe absorbs more than two-thirds of Mauritian exports, and still supplies 64 percent of its tourists.

We chose as the title for the Africa panel at our September ‘Global Horizons’ conference ‘Africa’s moment?’ and much of the discussion focussed on how prepared African policymakers and central banks were for the direct and indirect effects of slower growth in Europe. One issue we kept coming back to – and which 2012 may reveal – is the extent to which this millennium’s African growth narrative is partly about ‘secular’ growth somewhat independent of external events. This refers to the opportunities for African and foreign firms to explore the latent potential in multiple sectors and countries, whether in low-value, high-volume transactions, or addressing ‘middle class’ consumer demand, or seeing infrastructure deficits as opportunities for investment rather than obstacles to it, and so on.

In turn these debates frequently brought us back – as the Eurozone crisis now does – to two things in particular: the hard and soft infrastructural barriers to greater intra-African trade and business, and diversification within economies away from single-commodity dependence. Neither of these is new, but external crises (and the domestic political fallout these sometimes cause) can lend them greater urgency. The graph of Angola’s growth in the decade shows the serious impact the 2008-09 financial crisis had on its otherwise robust GDP figures. It brings home the need to constantly look behind the headline rates of growth to interrogate how deep, diversified and inclusive the story goes.

In Angola’s case, for example, despite some improved agricultural productivity and a post-conflict reconstruction boom, the non-oil economy has been largely neglected. Luanda continues to soak up disproportionate policy and spending attention relative to the hinterland. Most Angolans have yet to experience the economic dividends of peace that the country’s oil wealth might suggest were possible. The banking sector remains opaque and off-putting to foreign entrants. Last week’s Angola-Portugal summit was notable for the invitation to Angolans to invest in the former colonial entity. But the energetic activities of Angolan firms in Africa and beyond belie the relative lack of attention to developing (and harnessing the potential of) many parts of Angola itself.

Our September debates also brought us to a third issue the currency of which is unlikely to fade next year across much of the continent – not just addressing barriers to meeting growth potential, but the social, political and economic imperative of ensuring that more people have a stake in that process. The Zambian election showed how more closely attuned 21st century voters on the continent are to the management of their economy and resources. However, that country’s enduring reliance on copper exports shows how fulfilling popular mandates and addressing expectations requires policymakers to balance maximising obvious advantages with reducing reliance on single growth drivers and the exposure this creates. In the meantime, it may be about realising the limits of policies and policymakers – at the September conference RAS Director Richard Dowden noted how much of the energy around business activity in the continent happens despite, not because of, what government does or does not do.

Jolyon Ford is a senior analyst at Oxford Analytica, the global analysis and advisory

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Equal Citizenship: A Constitutional Bedrock under Imminent Threat and Danger

In this article, I present equal citizenship as a fundamental principle animating the 1992 Constitution. I also argue that the principle is under imminent threat and danger. The purpose of the article is to call for a united and sustained effort to protect the principle and to avoid becoming a society of unequal citizens.
I start by defining equal citizenship and describing its constitutional foundations. This is followed by a discussion of areas where equal citizenship is currently under severe attack. Briefly, the areas are: (1) some citizens are banned from holding certain unelected public offices; (2) some citizens are banned from holding certain elected public offices; (3) some citizens’ votes count more than others; (4) some voting laws are not enforced with the sole purpose of disenfranchising some citizens. I conclude with strategies that the citizens under attack must pursue to win this war on equal citizenship.

Read the Rest: Equal Citizenship

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Aids-related Deaths ‘Down 21% From Peak’, says UNAids

Aids-related deaths are at the lowest level since their 2005 peak, down 21%, figures from UNAids suggest.

Globally, the number of new HIV infections in 2010 was 21% down on that peak, seen in 1997, according to UNAids 2011 report.

The organisation says both falls have been fuelled by a major expansion in access to treatment.

Its executive director, Michel Sidibe, said: “We are on the verge of a significant breakthrough.”

He added: “Even in a very difficult financial crisis, countries are delivering results in the Aids response.

“We have seen a massive scale up in access to HIV treatment which has had a dramatic effect on the lives of people everywhere.”

‘End in sight?’

This latest analysis says the number of people living with HIV has reached a record 34 million.

Sub-Saharan Africa has seen the most dramatic improvement, with a 20% rise in people undergoing treatment between 2009 and 2010.

About half of those eligible for treatment are now receiving it.

UNAids estimates 700,000 deaths were averted last year because of better access to treatment.

That has also helped cut new HIV infections, as people undergoing care are less likely to infect others.

In 2010 there were an estimated 2.7m new HIV infections, down from 3.2m in 1997, and 1.8m people died from Aids-related illnesses, down from 2.2m in 2005.

The figures continue the downward trend reported in previous UNAids reports.

The UN agency said: “The number of new HIV infections is 30-50% lower now than it would have been in the absence of universal access to treatment for eligible people living with HIV.”

Some countries have seen particularly striking improvements.

In Namibia, treatment access has reached 90% and condom use rose to 75%, resulting in a 60% drop in new infections by 2010.

UNAids says the full preventive impact of treatment is likely to be seen in the next five years, as more countries improve treatment.

Its report added that even if the Aids epidemic was not over: “The end may be in sight if countries invest smartly.”

‘Promising moment’

The charity Medecins Sans Frontieres urged governments to keep up their funding.

MSF’s Tido von Schoen-Angerer, said: “Never, in more than a decade of treating people living with HIV/Aids, have we been at such a promising moment to really turn this epidemic around.

“Governments in some of the hardest hit countries want to act on the science, seize this moment and reverse the Aids epidemic. But this means nothing if there’s no money to make it happen.”

The International HIV/Aids Alliance said: “We welcome the ongoing commitment of UNAids to changing behaviours, changing social norms and changing laws, alongside efforts to improve access to HIV treatment.

“For bigger and better impact though, we must not be complacent. There is still much more to do.”

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At last, African Culture in Mainstream Thinking

Opinion/Ghana/Africa

 

The “City Forum on Culture and Development,” a policy orientated venture held in Accra to openly strategize the African culture for African progress reveal the increasing attention being given to the African culture.. For almost 50 years, the African culture, either because of colonialism or bad intellectual savvy by African elites, has not been purposely appropriated for policy development and bureaucratization.

Overtime, it has made Africa shamefully the only region in the world where foreign development paradigms dominate its development process to the detriment of its tried-and-tested traditional values. This has had psychological implications on Africa’s progress. A situation that makes African elites, as the central directors of Africa’s progress, not only rationally fragile but morally flimsy. Continue reading “At last, African Culture in Mainstream Thinking”

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The AGOA Problem: Africa’s Hidden Secret

Atim Oton

Designer and Co-Founder of Black Design News Network

For the last seven years in my travels across the African continent, I try to pay attention and listen to what things are troubling some African businesses and traders in retail and exports. AGOA is the one word that keeps coming up with excessive groans. In English and French, small African traders are complaining about it.

Created by the Clinton Administration, “the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was signed into law on May 18, 2000 as Title 1 of The Trade and Development Act of 2000. The Act offers tangible incentives for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets.” The U.S. Government intended that the largest possible number of Sub-Saharan African countries would get trade benefits of AGOA. The proclamation was the result of a public comment period and extensive interagency deliberations of each country’s performance against the eligibility criteria established in the Act.

My African exporter friends in West Africa usually give me an earful about AGOA — one called it an unpleasant experience and even came up with an expression Americans Getting Over on Africans, again. When I first heard about AGOA, I was attending a conference run by the Corporate Council of Africa in Washington D.C. At that event, I met Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture who wondered why I was interested in crafts and not oil, as he put it, after all, I was from an oil state in Nigeria. I went to that conference to learn about the craft sector and because a design colleague of mine was speaking. Continue reading “The AGOA Problem: Africa’s Hidden Secret”

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CDC Abstinence From The Presidential Election: A Strange Democratic Scenario in Liberia

Too many times in our political history there is always a strange scenario that many countries in the world cannot experience. The Liberian people organized themselves properly on November 8, to execute the mandate of democracy without any opposition contestant in the second round of the Presidential Election. The people demonstrated one of the cardinal virtues of democracy through a peaceful and well meaningful process. The National Elections of Liberia (NEC) has made some progress during the first round of the election despite some mishaps and controversies. Many of the International Community members like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) congratulated the Liberian people for the level of maturity exhibited during the course of the election. There were sixteenth Presidential aspirants that participated in the election.  President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the Unity Party had 530,020 votes with 43.9% and Winston Tubman of the Congress of Democratic Change (CDC) accumulated 39, 4370 votes with 32.7%. Every well meaning citizens and foreign nationals are concerned about stability of the nation-state which is the focus for such a fragile country.

Strangely, the opposition Congress for Democratic Change refused to participate in the election stating that the entire board of Commission of the National Election Commission must step down. But whatever must be their demand, the party abstained from the electoral procedure which is very good for our democratic process. Liberia has again made significant political history. The process of engaging in a political process left with the personality or institution to participate or not. The leadership of the CDC has chosen to avoid participation. Many will like to wonder why this process is so strange when in democratic process any candidate or institution can abstain from a process. This pattern exhibited by CDC is completely rare in many societies. Notably, Liberia is noted for creating strange history. For examples, Liberia had not been colonized by any foreign forces and we have produced the first female president in Africa. Liberia is remarkable for making significant history but the country is dearly suffering from poverty and other vices.

Substantively, the new government needs to work severely on illiteracy, decentralization, social order, work ethics, and religious tolerance.

  1. i. Illiteracy:

Ironically, the Liberian citizens were so jubilant about the democratic process but there is challenge of illiteracy in the society. Can you imagine out of 1.288,716 that marked 71.6% of the total registered voters, there were 82,074 (6.4%) of invalid votes.  It is so difficult to allow rationality to persist in the country because bulk of the people level of understanding is not good. Many times in some urban and rural communities people have conceptualized that once the information come from media institution it is always correct. The Liberia poverty reduction strategy has to be restructured and well defined to tackle the illiteracy rate in the country where every sector of the country can have some sampling of reading and writing skills. When this problem is not thoroughly tackle or improve, it could jeopardize the peace process or hinder the developmental pattern in the country.

  1. ii. Decentralization:

The question of decentralization is not settled. The concept is wrongly applied in some quarters in the country. Many times deconcentration is being used by present government apparatus. The type of decentralization some of us are speaking of is when the government completely devolves some of the powers to the local authority. This kind of decentralization has not been implemented and addressed. The National Policy on Decentralization and Local Governance has been developed by the stakeholders throughout the country with support from the national and international partners especially the Governance Commission, United Nations Development Program, Open Society Initiative for West Africa and the European Union.  The Government of Liberia will have to ensure the National Policy is strictly respected where it can be enacted into law and subsequently set for constitutional referendum. What is amazing is that the executive branch does not necessary need referendum before it can surrender some of the powers to the local people, it just need to be proactive and committed to put the decentralization issue into action. This is the new government challenge.

  1. iii. Social order

Social order is a cardinal virtue for building any vibrant nation-state like Liberia. It is true that we have come out of twenty five years of conflict ranging from political uprising to deadly civil conflict. There are so many learned and shared socialization processes that are detriment to the peace of the state. Some of those who are national leaders grew up through the process of deadly conflict and there is no other way for them to survive except of being gimmick in every practice. They have become the burden of society. It is so unfortunate to note that some Liberians will take the lid of the manhole out thereby creating the chaotic condition for drivers or pedestrians. The young traders used the lid to sell to iron dealers and there is no government agencies who have regimented those who are exporting iron like materials from the country. This is social disorder. It could create the condition where somebody will fall in the hole or a driver car could have terrible accident which could lead to some parts of his car to damage or so on. Today, most of the teenagers who are in secondary schools have become adult. Most of them have kids or living with friends who cannot even manage themselves. The election should not be the only point to show supremacy in the political realm of the country but rather it should serve as the means through which Liberia can be better than many countries in term of social order.

  1. iv. Work ethics:

The Liberian society is so volatile when it comes to people attitude for work. Many Liberians enjoy spreading their hands to beg for money other than getting to work on time and ensuring serious work is done. Most Liberia civil servant just work sometimes for thirty minutes and the rest should be lecture on political issue. It is so discouraging for a country that needs to be developed. I was once told by an elderly man that President Tolbert ensures that his cabinet members were at work on time. Can you imagine a Liberian public official goes for lunch and will not easily come back but will demand for his salary at the end of the month as though he has worked severely for it. For instance, sometimes the excuse for work in the month can enable the public servant to work even for ten working days. Work ethics is a serious problem for our country. In this strange history making country, where history making is peculiar, work ethics must be enhanced to make sure that civil servant or public servant comes to work on time and work seriously.  There are lot more need to be done to make our development visible. We must develop the spirit to work at all times.

Religious tolerance:

In a country where Christianity is the most dominant religion coupled with other religious affiliations and there is no trouble of religious practices, this kind of practice should be respected until the country vanishes from the surface planet. There should be no other religious holiday except for Christmas day and other Christianity holidays.  I hope this is not subjective but it has been shown that Christian religion is more peaceful and democratic as compared to any religion in the world. This is why the biggest in the world, the United States of America does not have no other holiday other than Christmas day which everybody including pagan worship and celebrate. To the incoming legislators or government, please don’t temper with religious holiday. Who can ever go in Indonesia and ask for Christian holiday? We must concentrate on substantial issue rather than Muslim or other religious holiday. Liberians are enjoying living peacefully with other religions. For instance, during the Ramadan season, every Liberian respects the loud noise in the early morning created by our Muslim brothers. They deserve the right to practice their religion. It is true that the country is a secular nation-state but it does mean that all the religions will have holidays. The practically of these religions make it germane and set into motion the issue of secular state. There are many Muslim state in the world where no one can stand up to practice their religion. Can you imagine the Christians allow their daughter to marry any religious group of people? But, it is so difficult for the Muslim and other religion. In deed, Christianity itself is democratic. I know we are noted for making strange history, but please be mindful in granting another religious holiday especially Muslim holiday.

Conclusion:

These analyses once considered as the new plan of the government of Liberia will help put the country in the right perspective. Let me congratulate those who participated in the electoral process of our country. Sorry to those who have fallen short of the bad history during the course of one of our democratic processes. Special congratulation to the Congress for Democratic Change for making Liberia to produce another unique history that many countries have not realized in their political process. Democracy is about participation, abstinence and other unique virtues.  Apart from those factors examined, Liberians must be committed to build their country and forget about creating confusion, living in the United States of America and other parts of the world because Liberia is the only country that they belong to. We must not be phantom bourgeoisie, which is taking our resources to other countries and allowing poverty to engulf our home land. Let me tell the new legislators that Liberia should be the first priority not the other way around. We are finding it difficult with those who are carrying the resources across the Atlantic ocean what’s more of creating law for dual citizenship. I hope that dual citizenship ideal should not be accepted and endorsed. In essence, in no way must the new legislators accept dual citizenship. It will not help the country. Liberians must make their country viable and accept a virtue of abstinence as a democratic value. The time is now!!!

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The 2012 Elections: The Juju-Marabou Games Gegin

Commentary/Ghana/Africa

It doesn’t matter if Ghana’s 2012 general elections is a year away; campaigning of some sorts is underway. Democracy-crazy, everyday appears to be campaigning day. The mass media is charged. Character, development issues, policies and programmes jumble easily with foul language and the irrational juju-marabou spiritual predictions. The past veers into the present and the present into the past.

While the unfolding political drama can be entertaining, it is sometimes awkward. The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) touts its incumbent President John Atta Mills as honest, and accuses the main opposition National Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate Nana Akufo Addo as once dabbling in marijuana. The NPP sells Nana Akufo Addo as having big development ideas, and charges Atta Mills as visionless.

Despite the universality of all this, it is the peculiar Ghanaian/African cultural sensibilities that disturb the infant democratic process: the appropriation of traditional spiritualists into the democratic politics that is expected to generate development thoughts.

A non-Ghanaian may find it weird to read headlines like “MOCTAR BAMBA: NANA ADDO’S ADVISOR ON JUJU AFFAIRS …Yes, I consult spiritualists in Mali, Nigeria and Benin” or “A Kumasi-based Spiritualist Predicts Atta Mills Will Win the 2012 Elections.” “Sheikh Mallam Musah had prophesized that the current leader of the opposition NPP Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has not been spiritually chosen to lead this nation after the 2012 elections … According to the renowned spiritualist the NPP will again suffer a painful defeat from the hands of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) come 2012 because the flag bearer is not spiritually ordained to rule the country,” the Accra-based The Al-Hajj newspaper reported.

As expected, the NPP responded, pandering for metaphysical attention. Its national organizer, Moctar Bamba, repudiated Sheik Mallam Musa’s prophesy. Moctar said he has been undertaking “spiritual consultations on behalf of Nana Akufo Addo which shows that Nana Akufo- Addo will win 2012 elections.” The spiritual consultations, Moctar disclosed to shocked Ghanaians, took him to some West African states such as Nigeria, Mali and Benin.

The leaks may seem like some sort of spiritual playact to score political mileage in a vastly superstitious society but some members of the political parties do consult and spend large amount of money on traditional spiritualists and prophets to determine whether they will win elections or not. And where appropriate, elaborate spiritual rituals are undertaken to turn predicted lose into win.

Whether false or not, both the NDC and the NPP are deliberately tapping into the mind-set of gullible Ghanaians, who are stuck with the spiritualists, and, like their politicians, find it difficult to extricate themselves from such absurd believes. The political spiritual battle between the NDC and the NPP is seen in the spiritual imageries that have quietly been projected by the Atta Mills presidency over the past three years. The effects are dramatic and intoxicating. The NPP occasionally counter it but the game rolls on, fast heating up as the 2012 general elections approach.

Dominic Nitiwul, the NPP Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, created a row recently when he alleged that “President John Evans Atta Mills was helped spiritually to win the presidency by a “magic ring” he wore during the 2008 elections.” Since becoming President, Atta Mills’ obsession with spiritualists is an open secret. Despite Dominic Nitiwul, with MBA and LLM degrees, expected to be exceptionally rational in dealing with juju-marabou spiritual issues, plays-on, pandering to the irrational juju-marabou spiritual sports. The popular Nigerian spiritualist, Temitope Balogun (TB) Joshua, founder of the Lagos, Nigeria-based The Synagogue, Church of All Nations, plays the spiritual game well with President Atta Mills.

Like Sheikh Mallam Musah, TB Joshua is alleged to have prophesized that candidate Atta Mills would be President of Ghana during the 2008 presidential election. Superstitiously, candidate Atta Mills visited TB Joshua before the 2008 presidential elections in Lagos. Like Grigori Rasputin, the Russian mystic who had immense influence on the Russian Emperor Nicholas 11, TB Joshua is said to have powerful control over Atta Mills, helping him participate in the political spiritual sports.

The NPP, bent on wrestling power from Atta Mills and his NDC, isn’t joking. In Moctar Bamba, the NPP is playing the political spiritual games with the NDC. Such excessive concentrations on the spiritual games have made scientific opinion polls less listened to. Few scientific opinion polls are independent; most are conducted by the political parties. Like the spiritual predictions, each poll appears coloured by where the polling organization is coming from. Each political party disagrees with any poll that doesn’t favour their forecasts.

The juju-marabou spiritual games undeservedly dominate the democratic space. Hardcore development issues, policies, programmes and intellectual discourse are supposed to dictate the democratic process and push the excessive irrational juju-marabou spiritual debates out of the democratic practices. The democratic process appears impotent in the face of the juju-marabou mediums, who still direct the politics of ideas, thus undermining wobbly development issues.

As an African development watcher, the preposterous Ghanaian political spiritual bickering, short of higher debates on development from the political class for Ghana’s progress, leaves me concerned.

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