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Between Muammar El-Gaddafi and the African Union

MUAMMAR EL-GADDAFI AND

Tales coming out of Libya, a country that has been under the leadership of one-man rule for the 42 years are those of anger, frustration, popular uprising and death. The world has been lured to believe that all is well with the Libya’s economy, but recent occurrences have shown the opposite. Gaddafi has been anti West since he came into power and established his Jamariya government in 1969. He has waged wars on several fronts with the West. He is an ardent advocate for one Africa, where all autonomous nations would lose their sovereignty for a united African state.

The early years of the last decade was spent by Muammar Gaddafi in touring many African countries canvassing for support of African Heads of state and Presidents for a United States of Africa. Reports had it that he single-handedly contributed US$1million to fund the formation of the African Union (AU) to replace the Organization of African Unity (OAU) founded in 1963. He wanted to be the leader of a body that would be the equal of the United States of America (USA), where he will wield unlimited powers above other countries.

Nonetheless, Gaddafi’s dream for a Pan-African body, just like Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, came to fruition. However, his personal ambition for a stronger union and weaker nation-states was dashed as Nigeria and South Africa opted for what some writers have referred to as ‘gradual incrementalism’( a situation whereby sovereign nations were allowed on their own to be integrated into the regional body but still retain their nationhood). This singular move clipped his ‘wings’ and tamed his fulsome ambition. They did this because he was never to be trusted.

Meanwhile, considering the manner he has conducted himself recently, does it show any sign of a leader who has his people at heart? He referred to the citizens as cockroaches, people under the influence of drugs and that he would fight streets to streets to live and die in Libya. What kind of leader is he; killing the same people he is now violently fighting to defend and protect? Ghaddafi should be told that patriotism is not by force.

Sordid enough, the leadership of the African Union has not yet led a high-power delegation to Libya to neither stop Ghaddafi nor condemn his scorch-to earth massacre using paid snipers. It is still unclear if he has some of these African leaders supporting him underground, because many of them are like him. Even the manner in which they are responding to the evacuation of their citizenry has left much to be desired. African leaders who are Ghaddafi-copies, who have made life miserable for their people over the years, should expect the Tunisia, Egypt and Libya-type of change soon.

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Africa Is in a New Era With so Many Success Stories to Tell

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

For too long, Africa has been defined just by war, corruption and poverty. It was so welcome to read “A fresh chapter is opening in Africa’s history” (Editorial). It is time the rest of the world recognised the amazing resilience shown by Africa.

The continent quickly recovered after the economic crisis. Growth is forecast at 5.3% this year and 5.5% in 2012, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing developing regions. Africa’s resilience was the result of years of hard work – a deep commitment to reform and economic stability over 15 years. Two-thirds of African economies brought in reforms during the crisis to make it easier for investors. Foreign direct investments in sub-Saharan Africa grew by 17% last year.

Africa still needs aid but it should be aid that targets real results – in education and health, with malaria an example. It should also be aid that leverages private investment and creates jobs.

Africa presents a market of 1 billion people whose potential buying power should make the continent an important contributor to global growth. Africa is coming of age in a complicated environment, marked by issues ranging from global imbalances to climate change. It must seize the opportunities to tell and sell its own success stories.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Managing director
The World Bank
Washington DC

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G20 Plans to Build Africa’s Infrastructure

Olusegun Obasanjo, Former President of Niggeria

Last week, my fellow members of the Africa Progress Panel and I joined president Nicolas Sarkozy of France at a meeting on what the G20 can do for Africa.

Our argument was simple: the G20 – which represents the richest nations on earth – can and should do a great deal for Africa, particularly in the area of infrastructure development.

Lack of sufficient and reliable infrastructure continues to weigh heavily among Africa’s many problems. Anyone trying to do business in Africa will tell you of their daily struggles with the continent’s deficient energy, transport and communication networks.

The lack of a dependable electricity supply hampers production, the absence of good roads slows transport, and insufficient access to modern technology limits industrialisation and integration into the global marketplace.

The resultant inefficiencies make Africa the most difficult and expensive place in which to do business; they also slow economic growth and frustrate general development.

However, the pivotal importance of infrastructure is becoming better understood in the continent. African leaders have agreed several plans and initiatives to close Africa’s infrastructure gap.

The African Development Bank is now spending more on infrastructure than any other aspect of development, and there is increasing regional co-operation on cross-border projects such as the trans-Africa highway and the West African Power Pool.

Africa’s partners, too, have recognised the need to prioritise infrastructure development on the continent.

As a result, they have created a vast array of policy instruments and initiatives, including the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa and the EU-Africa Partnership on Infrastructure. These initiatives are intended to co-ordinate and bundle assistance, and to channel private-sector investments into key projects.

However, despite the flurry of activism and proliferation of initiatives, we are still far from finding the $93-billion a year the World Bank believes is necessary to bridge Africa’s infrastructure gap.

Given the urgency, calls for a more comprehensive approach linking the various continuous efforts and creating synergy between them have become louder – and rightly so.

The G20’s multi-year action plan on development may just offer such an approach. Born of the group’s Seoul Consensus, it defines infrastructure as one of nine development priorities and seeks to build on the momentum created by existing initiatives to develop project pipelines, improve capacities and facilitate additional investments.

In practice, the plan calls for the formulation of comprehensive infrastructure action plans by the multilateral development banks. It suggests the creation of a high-level panel to look into ways to harness large-scale investments continentally in infrastructure.

The pressure is now on the French G20 presidency, which has to translate the plan into purposeful action by November 2011 and avoid the pitfalls of past efforts – which include short-term thinking, destabilising capital surges, and carbon-heavy construction.

Success will be measured by the amount of capital generated, and the number of projects realised, as well as by the extent to which G20 activities complement and synergise existing efforts without supplanting or fragmenting them.

With the creation of the high-level panel, which is to be chaired by Africa Progress Panel member and businessman, Tidjane Thiam, Sarkozy has taken a step in the right direction – but many more must follow.

The multi-year action plan shows the way.

Obasanjo is a former president of Nigeria and member of the Africa Progress Panel. For more, see www.africaprogresspanel.org

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Is Kenyan African Silicon Valley?

CHRISTINE MUNGAI

Kenya is on the brink of becoming Africa’s ICT hub due to the continued growth in Internet and mobile technology use in East Africa’s biggest economy with investors flooding the country.

The recent Kenya Economic Update report by the World Bank states that over the last decade, ICT has outperformed all others sectors in Kenya, growing at an average of 20 per cent annually.

“The benefits of ICT are starting to be felt in other sectors, and have contributed to the conditions for the country to reach an economic tipping point,” the report says.

The report reveals that Kenya has opened 2011 with renewed and stronger than expected growth on the back of a new constitution, strong macro-economic policies, and a favourable regional environment.

Over the past three decades, Kenya has experienced only two short periods of economic growth that exceeded five per cent and was sustained for at least three consecutive years: 1986-88 and 2004-2007.

This has raised the question: Is Kenya on the verge of experiencing another growth spurt? Will it last longer and go deeper than the previous two episodes?

The World Bank researchers envision that this could indeed be the case, as the uptake of ICT throughout the economy could provide the impetus required for high and sustained growth.

Today, Kenya has the largest mobile money platform in the world. An estimated 15 million mobile phone users were using mobile money by the end of 2010, the equivalent of three out of every four adult Kenyans.

In East Africa, Internet access in recent years has recorded a significant growth.

The World Bank estimates that in 2004, there were 1.65 million active Internet users in the region.

By 2007, the number had increased to 4.78 million, and by 2010 the number of regular users had jumped to 6.78 million, a penetration rate of about 5.1 per cent of the population.

The introduction of data enabled smartphones, which allow internet access through mobile phones has boosted this area hugely.

Kenya’s active Internet usage stands at 8.7 per cent of the population, the highest in the region, compared with Uganda (7.9 per cent), Rwanda (3.1 per cent), Tanzania (1.2 per cent) and Burundi (0.8 per cent).

Paul Odhiambo, CEO of a Nairobi-based ICT consultancy firm, says that creating demand for locally developed software will provide a much needed stimulus for growth of the sector.

“If the government passed similar policy as was passed regarding local content on television—that a certain percentage of ICT solutions in government institutions must be home grown—this will go a long way in developing our local ICT talent.”

Mr Odhiambo says the region needs to develop confidence in its own human sources.

“What we need is to believe in our ability to make this sector really take off, and deliberately create demand for local solutions. We must invest in our own,” he says.

Those that actually need the Internet the most are the very poor people,” says Dr Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in the Kenya Ministry of Information and Communication.

He believes that the government should step in and make ICT infrastructure an open access platform, just like the road network. “This is the only way prices will come down.”

Last June, Kenya’s telecommunications regulator slashed the licence fee for third-generation (3G) mobile Internet services by 60 percent to $10 million to raise penetration, and announced that it would not charge for an upgrade to 4G.

The wider applications of ICT are starting to reshape the structure of the economy, especially in the financial sector.

In 2010, this sector benefited from a number of innovations, including Equity Bank and Safaricom’s M-Kesho, a joint venture allowing mobile phone users to earn interest on their mobile phone-based savings accounts.

In agriculture, for instance, an SMS platform is used to disseminate information on commodity prices allowing farmers to make better decisions regarding their produce.

The platform also allows disease tracking and consultation to enable communities isolated from healthcare infrastructure to diagnose and treat diseases.

Civil society organisations have also effectively used mobile technology to monitor social unrest and human-rights violations, mobilise voters and disseminate election results, and even track the management of local budgets.

All this is not without challenges. Last December, for instance, a number of fibre optic cables that run around Nairobi were dug up in the middle of the night and severed, causing communication blackouts.

The attacks were blamed by many on digital turf wars between rival firms, keen to seize any advantage in the emerging broadband market.

Others blamed disgruntled employees.

CHRISTINE MUNGAI, The East African

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South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are Top Three in Science in Africa

 

Gatonye Gathura

Nairobi — Kenya is ranked third in the production of new scientific knowledge on the continent.

 However, this is not enough to propel the country into a knowledge-based economy or out of poverty, says the 2010 Science Report to be launched in Nairobi on Friday morning.

Kenya was among the top three publishers of scientific publications from sub-Saharan Africa between 2005-09.

The country also rates highly in the application for patents with the US Patents Office and is third on the continent in Internet access after Sudan and Zimbabwe.

But a close scrutiny of the scores shows little cause to celebrate. While Kenya made 24 patent applications within the study period, the Unesco report shows South Africa as having acquired 465 patents.

South Africa publishes almost half of all scientific articles in the sub-continent, followed by Nigeria (11 per cent) and Kenya (six per cent).

This low performance in science and technology is blamed on poor university education, little investment in the sector and increasing cases of brain drain.

To check on brain drain, Kenya has been encouraged to borrow from Fifa, the world football governing organisation, which allows players in foreign countries to appear for their countries for national duty.

What is now being referred to as the “fifarisation” of brains was mooted in Nairobi in March.

Entitled by law

In such an arrangement, a Kenyan scientist or researcher working abroad would be entitled by law to return home to undertake a certain assignment of national importance.

“Once their mission was accomplished, they would return to their working stations.

“In this way, a team of medical professionals working in the US and Europe, for instance, travel home once in a while to share their knowledge and skills,” says the report.

A look at the subjects local researchers are publishing, the report reveals a narrow spectrum of study areas making the country a net importer of skills in the science industry.

“In Kenya, the life sciences, which include clinical medicine, biology and biomedical research represented as much as 93 per cent of scientific articles in 2008, compared to four per cent for earth and space sciences.

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CREATEing IDEAs for AFRICAn Development

Even though poor leadership is primarily responsible for the slow and epileptic development of the African continent, in my view, another factor responsible for Africa’s marginal position is lack of creativity and idea generation. Economically, African countries are known to be ‘consuming nations’, absorbing products or goods from Asia and the West for local consumption. Products ranging from automobiles, electronics, shoes, beverages and so on are shipped in tons annually to Africa countries. This is the reason the currencies of African nations are at the mercy of their foreign counterparts such as the dollar, the pounds sterling, and the yen. Moreover, developing economies are usually at a disadvantage economically with respect to the balance of trade and payments. Paradoxically, most African countries produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce. It is high time Africans and other developing economies learnt to proffer scientific, economic and social solutions to our challenges.

How can you revive the yearning for creativity?

To this end, I would like to share what I feel can spark up a deep yearning for creativity. I would like us to look at what we can learn from the letters in A.F.R.I.C.A, C.R.E.A.T.E and I.D.E.A.

AFRICA: A Land, Full of Resources, Intellectuals, Committers, and Achievers. The African continent is endowed with resources such as oil, gas, minerals; intellectuals such as Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, Wole Soyinka; committers as demonstrated recently by the people of Egypt in the ousting of the 30-year dictator Hosni Mubarak ; Achievers such as Barrack Obama, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and so on.

CREATIVITY: Conceive, Reflect, Expound, Articulate Think, In-depth, Visualize, and Establish. Regardless of your particular undertaking, your status in life or age, you must learn to be creative and the way you do this is by conceiving an idea, reflecting on the idea, taking time to expound on the idea, articulate on the idea, think on the idea in-depth, visualize the idea and finally establish the idea.

IDEA: I– in depth Deliberations, Endears and Actions. Ideas have been the basis for many creative writings in the world. Phrases such as ‘Ideas rules the World’ are commonly used by speakers and writers the world over to emphasize the pivotal role of idea generation in the development of an individual and nations.

As stressed earlier, it is important that as a people, we embrace ideas and creativity for the development of our continent. The development of the West and other regions of the world were built on IDEAs and CREATIVITY. A call goes out to African leaders, especially the African Union, to leave up to the expectations of the African people. Around the world, Africans are known to be exceptional people. However, the structures and the enabling environment required for this to thrive at home are hardly in place and this is the reason most African ‘brains’ end up in the Diaspora. The A.U and sub-regional bodies such as ECOWAS, SADC must formulate long-term developmental policies, especially in the areas of science and technology that are necessary for the development of the continent. We can take a clue from what the European Union and the Asian Tigers have been able to achieve in their respective regions. If they can do it, we can also do it with sheer determination and commitment. Similarly, the private sector, the media and NGOs must stand up to play their role. It is our collective responsibility as people to join hands and move the continent to where we would like to see it.

I resent a common school of thought that expects the government to do everything to meet the expectations of the people. It is imperative that we as individuals give serious thought to what we can give back to our nation and continent. Individually, we owe our respective countries our quota towards their development. Developments in the big economies around the world were built on the creativity of their citizens who believed in their countries and invested their ideas and resources in the development of their countries. It is time for all of us to rise up and wholly embrace the concept of IDEAs and CREATIVITY for mutual development. Long live Africa, Long live our Mother Land.
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Cameroon and Arsenal Alex Song Puts a Different Song in My Heart

Cameroon and Arsenal's Alex Song

Arsenal footballer Alex Song’s car was impounded by police after he was caught speeding in Hertfordshire.

The 23-year-old was pulled over for speeding in Radlett last Thursday but drove away from police after allegedly refusing to give his details.

Police pursued him and seized his car. The Cameroon international has been given seven days to produce his driving licence and insurance documents.

He was allegedly doing 50mph in 40mph and 30mph zones.

“The driver was unable to verify relevant documentation requested by police,” a spokeswoman said.

“Following checks the vehicle was seized on suspicion of the driver not being insured to drive the vehicle.

“The driver has until midnight on Thursday to produce the relevant documentation after which police will consider whether any further action should be taken.”

Arsenal had just beaten Barcelona in a Champions League match when Song, who was travelling in a Range Rover with his wife and another woman, was stopped.

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Getting Pregnant Together With Your Buddies, Oh How Cool

Mass teenage pregnancies are becoming a fashion

Earlier this week, a news story containing a disturbing statistics came to light that will shock most readers. Nearly, 5000 schoolgirls in Johannesburg, South Africa, became pregnant in just one school calendar year. Before you attribute this mass teenage pregnancy to rural illiteracy, lack of electricity, lack of television and all those excuses, let us call to mind that, three weeks ago, it was also reported that 90 girls were known to be pregnant in a single school in Tennessee, United States. This did not happen in a slum in Nairobi, Accra, Abuja, or Harare. It happened in the heart of the United States.

I am neither a sociologist nor a psychologist and so I will not attempt to ascribe rationale for these mass pregnancies. Some have referred to them as Pregnancy Pact, Pregnancy Covenant, and others.

The unfortunate situation is that some (may be most) of these girls would never become what they dreamed of becoming: teachers, pastors, parliamentarians, ambassadors, or doctors. Those who will ever get there will do it by the hard, tortuous way.  As for the boys, on other hand, no problem. They can achieve whatever they want to achieve in life with minimal drag from the children who will result from these pregnancies. Some of them will later look down upon these girls as failures and fools.

I need to admit that I do not have data to base this on, but from my personal experience and assumptions, I would assume that most the boys or men involved in the adventure that led the girls into these situations knew of the plastic material called the condom. The never used it. On the other hand, and of course, this is my personal assumption; it is likely that most of the girls were oblivious of whatever options they had that could have prevented what they carry in their immature wombs.

How do we help young girls avoid these situations?

Give Women The Necessary Information:

As usual, many of the parents of these girls perhaps assumed their children were innocent. Well, they are not. In an interview with one of the South African to-be moms, this is what she said

“It’s fashionable to have a baby. You are like a fool if you don’t have sex”

As I have said here a few times, it is vital that parents, teachers and authorities provide young girls and women with the information they need and tell them they too have an option.

  • They can say NO and IT IS OK TO SAY NO!
  • If they cannot or do not want to say no, then they have an option, the female condom. The female condom is over 95% effective in preventing HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancies.  Most women have never heard this nor seen it. It’s shame and irresponsible that several years of campaigns have focused solely on the man and the options he has in sexual encounters. In the above unfortunate situation, it is easy to focus only on the teenage pregnancy, but it is important to realize that some of these girls that are not lucky may contract other STDs like Human Papiloma Virus/HPV, Herpes Simplex Virus/HSV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Syphillus.

By equipping these girls with ignorance, we are in essence, cursing their the futures.

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