George Ayittey is a professor of economics at the American University in Washington D.C. He is from Ghana and champions the idea that since independence, Africa’s leaders have been deterrents of change whose main goal has been to maintain the status quo of the colonized countries handed to them as a way to keep money in their pockets. He calls them the hippo generation. Ayittey contrasts this group with the rising crop of young leaders today in Africa – the Cheetah generation – they are tired of the ineptitude of the hippos and are racing to transform the continent one initiative at a time.
I agree with you that our governments are a joke. What do people like you and I who may have very little by way of social or political capital do in the meantime?
What would save Africa are three things: reform, reform, reform. We need reform in many areas: political, economic, intellectual and institutional. Political reform requires the institution of real democracy (free, fair, transparent elections). Economic reform entails the re-institution of economic freedom (free markets, free trade, free enterprise, etc.) Intellectual reform involves removing the shackles on freedom of expression, of thought, of movement, etc. And institutional reform involves establishing an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), an efficient civil service (to provide basic social services), a neutral and professional security forces, etc. These reforms will help establish in Africa the enabling environment that you need for investment. It is fine to encourage Africans to return to their home countries but they won’t invest in a country that is riven with civil strife, massive corruption, or cannot supply basic social services such as clean water and electricity. In other words, such a country does not have an enabling environment.
But all you’ve mentioned still sounds like the individual is helpless and it’s all riding on the hands of the government.
No one person alone can successfully push for reform in all the areas I listed above. One must choose one area and work with others in civil society. In my case, I chose political reform in Ghana. What I found was that the political leadership was not only a failure but the opposition parties were utterly useless. This is a problem encountered in too many African countries. The opposition – or agent of change – is weak, fragmented and prone to bickering. I, together with a group of about 100 Ghanaians, managed to rope all the opposition parties into a formidable election alliance. That was how we managed to toss out the brutal Rawlings regime and establish true democracy in Ghana in 2000. If President Obama chose Ghana to visit as a model of good governance, I can partially claim credit for it. The former president of Ghana, John Kufuor, was a personal friend of mine. We helped put him in power. He offered me a cabinet post in his government but I declined it. I did not wage that struggle for my own personal benefit.
What exactly did you do?
For that effort, we mobilized Ghanaians in the diaspora into a group called Ghana Cyberspace Group (GCG). After the 2000 elections, we transformed this group into an investment club – to mobilize capital and invest in various projects in Ghana. Their current project is Gateway Technology Park that will take advantage of outsourcing. A group of us (about 12) formed the Alliance for Change with the sole objective of roping all the opposition parties into an alliance. We set up a corresponding group in North America, which morphed into the Ghana Cyberspace Group. Watch his TED Talk.
At the personal level, I have mobilized and signed up about 25,000 peasant farmers to produce palm fruit. I am raising investment capital on my own to establish mills and process the fruit into palm oil. I have registered a company and its name is – you guessed it! – Cheetah Palm Oil.
Yes, we need the enabling environment that only a reformed government can provide, but Ricardian ideas of political economy suggest that trade and commercial activity have historically led to political centralization and that this centralization then attracts even more economic activity. Is it far-fetched to think that regardless of the unfavorable conditions on ground, encouraging trade and investment – whether local or by investments from diaspora – will lead to the reforms we seek?
Of course, there are several ways to skin a cat. The Ricardian ideas about trade and commerce may work too as long as:
1. The government supplies basic social services such as electricity, clean water, sanitation, etc. Otherwise, your businesses would have to supply these themselves.
2. The country does not implode and descend into civil strife or war, in which case all your investments would be wiped out.
I am raising these possibilities because the political situation, as you already know, is tenuous in many African countries. Whoever thought Ivory Coast would implode? As long as you have a safe and stable African country to invest in, I have no qualms with your strategy.
