Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. PHOTO/ FILE
By NATION Reporter
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Q: The Africa Progress Panel report launched this (last) week says that Africa is in the middle of a development crisis. How big a crisis is it?
Annan: It is a severe crisis. And what makes it particularly tragic is that while this global financial crisis is a creation of the North, it seems as if it will be Africa which is hit harder than any other region and will be least able to cope.
Let me give you just one example of the severity of the problems we are facing. The International Monetary Fund has reduced its growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa from 5.5 per cent in 2008 to just 1.7 per cent this year. Such a decline could result in millions of people being added to those living on less than $2 a day.
This would mean less food, poorer nutrition, more disease, children working instead of going to school and the creation of social tensions as unemployment rises. Combined with the on-going food crisis, the volatility in fuel costs and climate change, it threatens to reverse Africa’s recent, commendable progress and endangers its people’s lives.
Q: If the roots of the crisis are outside our continent, isn’t it the responsibility of the rest of the world to step in and rescue the situation?
Annan: The international community does have a big responsibility, not least to honour its aid promises. Indeed, there is a strong case, given the severity of the problems Africa faces, for this support to be increased.
But the main responsibility to protect the progress of the last decade and safeguard the continent’s people rests with Africa’s own leaders.
There are examples of bold African leadership but more is needed. The positive examples on the continent also serve to highlight the deficits in governance. Bold and focused leadership is needed to maintain stability and economic growth, to set and drive national development strategies which focus on job creation and addressing food security. We also need leaders who encourage and enable the active participation of their citizens in setting national goals and holding them to account.
Accountability of leadership is paramount to delivering good and honest government. It is also a tradition and practice that has long roots in Africa’s culture. But there are too many instances of corruption, growing inequality in wealth and opportunity, and the abuse of power. We need courageous leadership to put this right.
Alongside determined and accountable leadership at the national level, Africa needs a strong, united voice on the global stage. We can’t allow our continent’s needs to be pushed to the margins. For a start, there must be a forcefully negotiated common African position on climate change for the Copenhagen Summit.
There is no doubt that Africa faces major challenges. But big problems create the opportunity for big thinking. Africa’s leaders, who have already shown what can be achieved, now need to redouble their efforts to guide their continent through these challenges.
Q: But what about the responsibilities of the rest of the world? Surely the APP doesn’t ignore these?
Annan: It is true that the report makes clear that without effective leadership from African governments, outside assistance can’t safeguard the continent’s people or protect the progress already made. But this does not mean that the rest of the world can walk away.
If the right policies and incentives are in place private sector can make an enormous contribution to economic growth. The spread of mobile telephony and the boom of microfinance across the continent is inspiring, and there are many ways in which big business and smaller entrepreneurs can create jobs and reduce the cost of goods and services.
Africa’s international partners have a critical part to play both in the short and long term and share responsibility for tackling problems, not least the financial crisis and climate change. It is also in their own interests to ensure they do. This is not just about doing the right thing for Africa. It is also about doing the right thing for their own countries.
For in today’s inter-connected world where frontiers are no brake on problems, social tension and political instability in Africa will have clear international costs and consequences. So what does this mean in practical terms? When other sources of income and investment are dropping, G8 and donor countries have an even greater responsibility to honour their international aid commitments.
Aid, effectively used, can leverage other financial flows, strengthen capacities and meet urgent social and humanitarian needs. The richer countries must also ensure that global deals, whether on trade, climate change, intellectual property, illicit drugs, crime or migration, support, rather than hinder, Africa’s development needs.
There is an important role here for emerging partners — such as Brazil, China and India — who can become champions of development in Africa. Their development experience, particularly with respect to food security and health, gives partners from the global South a unique position to support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.
Q: The international media often focuses on crises in Africa, such as the conflicts in Zimbabwe and Darfur. How do we challenge negative perceptions of the continent produced by such coverage?
Annan: You are right that the many success stories in Africa in the past decade too rarely get media attention. We have seen, for example, the spread of free and fair elections, a dramatic increase in school enrolment rates and determined efforts to combat malaria. Just look, too, at the boom in mobile phones which has transformed communication and helped business. One of the ways we can change perceptions, as we have done in the report, is to focus less on challenges and more on opportunities.
So we have drawn attention to the vast scope for innovative investment in Africa’s infrastructure, renewable energy and agriculture. A drive for investment in these sectors will not only create jobs and increased trade in Africa, but also create important and growing markets for developed countries.
Our report points, for example, to the potential that Africa has to pioneer a new, low-carbon development model. The way our continent has seized the opportunities brought by mobile phones means we have no need to put in place an expensive network of landlines.
In exactly the same way, the continent can make use of its immense solar, hydro, wind, thermal and biomass resources to drive forward its renewable energy sector, leapfrogging the outdated, fossil fuel-based system.
Q: What is the overall message that you would like to give to Africa’s leaders and their partners to take away from this important meeting on Africa?
Annan: It is that Africa is enormously rich in potential. Clear-sighted African leadership, supported by effective international partnership, can turn the challenges Africa is facing into an opportunity. If we have the courage and vision to rise to the challenge, it will benefit the 900 million people who live on the continent and help provide sustained and valuable growth for the global economy as a whole.
Source: Daily Nation
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