A
Billion Reasons to Believe in Africa: A Rethink
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| Graphics courtesy |
“There are a billion reasons to believe in Africa,” states
Coca-Cola’s new commercial that attempts to capture the spirit of
“new” Africa.
Africa-optimism has in the recent past gained massive hype.
Ernst & Young in its May report on Africa’s attractiveness for
foreign direct investment (FDI) states that "…There is a new story
emerging about Africa; a story of growth, progress, potential and
profitability.” According to the African Developmental Bank, "Africa
has started to see an economic resurgence" as a result of stronger
demand for its commodities from emerging economies such as Brazil,
China, India, and South Africa. With the continent’s middle class
clocking 313 million people, the region’s consumer spending has
increased. McKinsey Global Institute projects that consumer spending
in Africa will reach $1.4 trillion in 2020, from about $860 million
in 2008. Over 616 million people out of the 1 billion people that
reside in Africa have a cellular phone. The average African drinks
about 8 liters of beer per year compared to about 70 liters on
average per year for Americans.
While the continent is bequeathed with flowery endearments, it
must guard against falling prey to the “feel good” trap and ask
fundamental questions. For example, how are the endearments changing
the lot of Africa's ordinary citizen? How is Africa changing
for the better? Is the renewed interest in Africa by emerging and
developed economies out to improve the continent's socio-economic
wellbeing? While Africa ought to embrace the old and new
suitors trooping to the continent, this must be done with caution
and on a win-win basis.
What happened in Malawi ought to make Africans rethink their
celebration. As long as Malawi followed donor dictates and allowed
multinational companies to control its agricultural sector, the
country was hailed as Africa’s success story on food security. Once
Malawi fell out with donors and multinational companies, the
country’s food security was crippled. This begs the question: who
was driving Malawi’s food security? Between Malawians and merchants
of patented and re-engineered seeds and fertilizer manufacturers,
who was benefitting most from the ‘success story’? Was this a Malawi
success story or a multinational company success story?
As global optimism in Africa is hyped, Africa’s land is being
grabbed by ‘investors.’ Investors from China and Europe are busy
buying land in Kenya and putting up 'Chinese only' and
'European only' real estate. As elegant edifices mushroom in
Nairobi and its environs, where is the revenue accrued heading?
Won’t we wake up one day and find ourselves legally landless and at
the mercy of the so called ‘investors’?What will happen twenty years
from now when our children find themselves landless? Isn't this
a prescription for a revolution and civil war?
Saudi Arabian investors have reportedly paid $100 million for
an Ethiopian farm. Uganda has sold 2 million acres to Egypt. Kenya
is leasing out 40,000 acres to Qatar. China owns vast tracts of land
in Zimbabwe and Algeria. Madagascar was in the process of leasing
out 1 million acres to South Korea. Millions of Africans
are dying from starvation as African governments lease and
sell millions of acres of land to feed populations in
China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Qatar among others.
Africa is busy working on internet connectivity. In fact,
growth in Africa’s Internet and Broadband sector has accelerated. By
December 31 2011, Africa had 139,875,242 internet users and
37,739,380 people who had subscribed to Facebook. As we consume this
service, do we ever question who is controlling the internet? What
would happen if the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), which basically holds the keys for any person or
business hoping to turn up in search results on the Internet, gave a
blackout to the continent? As more computers are dumped into the
continent, who is the ultimate beneficiary?
Africa, a continent that carries 25% of the world’s diseases is
dependent on multinational ‘investors’ for medical supplies. It
imports around 70% of its pharmaceutical needs from abroad. Two
thirds of global value of pharmaceutical products are produced in 5
countries; USA, Japan, France, Germany and UK.
In the banking sector, more than half of countries in Africa
have a banking market with either a dominant or a significant share
of foreign-owned financial institutions.The continent spends more
money servicing its debt, in other words, paying interest to
outsiders, than it spends on infrastructural development.
On the natural resources front, none of the natural resources
Africa is blessed with is under African control. While African
countries like Nigeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Gabon, Libya, and Equatorial Guinea among others possess oil in
abundance, they don't have the capacity to discover oil; drill for
the oil; refine the oil; transport the oil to the
destination where it would be refined; repair existing refineries or
have the vessel to transport the oil back to Africa for consumption.
Africa should not celebrate the “...billion reasons to believe
in Africa” craze while the continent is owned stock and barrel
by other people. We cannot talk of a thriving economy when we are
mere consumers and passive.
Before we celebrate Coke’s penetration to most parts of Africa,
we ought to ask why we are dying of preventable and treatable
diseases; why essential medicines cannot be accessed in African
households; why we don't benefit from our rich natural
resources; why we are not in control of our economies; why we are
food insecure in spite of a good climate; why it is easier to fly to
other continents but not our own; why intra-Africa exchange of goods
and services is low and why there is no African homegrown brand that
the world can celebrate.
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