Francis,
Thank you for bringing this up. I think the ratings are more to do with perception than reality. Most of the negative that make us rank so poorly is our own creation. What about thousands of NGOs taking pictures of slums, drought and starving children then run to western donors begging for cash to "HELP" the poor they "REPRESENT"! This has ruined the developing world's image beyond measure. Our own PRESS is also a major problem. I don't see western country publish widely sensationalizing their homeless, street gangs, mafia, and grand grand corruption, as we do ours.
In recent times, I have seen our leaders, including PS Ndemo insist on positive reporting from our media. That is the direction we should seek. If we instill cockiness in the direction of
narcissism, then the west will stop taking us for granted.
Self Love
On 21 June 2012 10:47, Francis Hook
<francis.hook@gmail.com> wrote:
Apologies this is not mainstream ICT but at the periphery some ICT
aspects need to be considered as well...(open access to information,
ICT enabling democracy/choice/transparency, ICT in corruption, etc) .
This index is by the US group Fund for Peace. I wonder what metrics
they are using or how they are weighting the values of the 13 indices
they use.
Kenya is ranked 16th...that's just 15 steps away from Somalia (???),
14 from DRC and shares the "teens" positions with Pakistan, Nigeria,
Niger among others. The lower the score, the more "failed" a state
is.
Anyway....the links:
1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_States_Index
(updated with 2012 Index)
2 - http://www.foreignpolicy.com/failed_states_index_2012_interactive
Personally I don't think Kenya should rate that poorly out of a 177 or
so countries...I suspect some of the 13 indices are weighted more
heavy than others (corruption, criminality, political situation etc) -
and if such were removed from the index, just for the sake of seeing
how it shifts the rankings, I'd like to think some EU countries would
be in the top 50 at least....social unrest, steep economic decline,
slum creation (US - housing/mortgage crisis has seen more people
living in the streets in the last couple of years than in the last
half a century), Wall Street demos, etc, ...."Suspension or arbitrary
application of law" (Guantano Bay still open for business, The
Patriots Act).
And "Intervention of external political agents" - I think in Africa's
case these "political agents" are usually from (or supported/fronted)
by some developing countries that would want to nurture certain
regimes in order to reap some economic gain...but that's an argument
for another day.
I'm also surprised the use of the adjective "primitive" by Korean
Airlines, to describe Kenyans, elicited more reactions than this lowly
ranking...should we get all hot and bothered about what is likely an
issue of translation or summon our national pride and repudiate this
"failed" states index?
Rgds
--
Francis Hook
+254 733 504561
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