From Nkrumah to NEPAD: Has Anything Changed?
by Catherine Schittecatte
Political Science and Global Studies
Program, Vancouver Island University, British
Columbia
Introduction
Kwame Nkrumah’s foresight lay in
his understanding that historical and global patterns of exploitation would not
be easily broken in post-independence Africa.
Given that understanding of Africa’s situation, many of his policies,
from domestic development plans to Pan-Africanism, were intended to gain not
only political but, most importantly, economic independence for Ghana and the
continent. These views were related to
Africa’s position in the global economy and, in particular, its economic ties
to the West. As such, a second aspect of
that vision was the ability of the newly independent continent to de-link
itself from past colonial masters and new neo-colonial ones. A third related and most significant
component was the strength and feasibility of a unified continent. The complexity, wealth and foresight of
Nkrumah’s analysis of Africa’s needs leave us a valuable framework with which
to understand the challenges and related solutions for Africa.
The paper explores several
questions related to that framework. As such, after providing some historical
background in terms of Nkrumah’s thinking and policies, the paper seeks to
assess ways in which the global context, foreign interests and related
responses in Africa have changed since his days in office. Where is the continent today, relative to
that analysis and Nkrumah’s related policy recommendations? Since the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD) was launched in 2001, many have praised or criticized the
extent to which this document would represent a break with the past. More specifically, the focus is on Sub
Saharan Africa, natural resource exploitation and foreign investments. The
paper begins with a brief discussion of some exogenous and endogenous factors
of underdevelopment and Nkrumah’s position relative to these. These highlights of Nkrumah’s responses and
visions for the continent are then compared to NEPAD’s process, objectives and
aspirations in the context of potential “new partners” in African
development.
Theories and Practice: Nkrumah’s
Foresight and Dilemma
Over the decades since the wave
of independence swept the Global South, two schools of thought have influenced
development analysis and related policies.
One is the historical structuralist school, associated with dependency,
world system and Gramscian theories (Cohn, 2008), and the other is the liberal
school associated with the 1950s and 1960s modernization theory of
development. Among the numerous
disagreements between the structuralist and liberal theories of development is
the impact of colonialism on the economic development of colonized societies.
Generally, theories lumped in the broad structuralist category take into
account history and the way in which countries have been integrated into the
global economy; colonialism is seen as one factor that resulted in North-South
inequalities due mainly to the initial dependency of the Southern “periphery”
on the Northern “core.” Unlike the
liberal school of thought which focuses upon current domestic impediments to
development such as “irrational or inefficient” policies and which sees
North-South relations as a “positive sum game” (Cohn, 2008: 85-86), historical
structuralist theories take into account the long shadow of colonialism and its
successor, neo-colonialism.
Nkrumah’s
understanding of Ghana’s need to gain not only political independence but also
economic emancipation brings his analysis of the challenges faced at
independence and beyond closer to the structuralist school of thought. Nevertheless, as explained in this section,
his analysis of the African situation at the outset of African independence led
him to call for a cautious but realistic approach that included policy
prescriptions related to both categories of development theories that is, one
that included welcoming foreign capital needed to modernize the economy while
at the same time shedding colonial and neo-colonial ties. Not only was this approach applied to Ghana’s
economic development, but Nkrumah also advocated that similar policies should
be applied simultaneously continent-wide.
As will be explained later, that objective could only take place through
continental unity. While some have
argued that Nkrumah’s downfall lay in his attempt to achieve too much (Beckman,
1976: 18), an ongoing question is whether a more restrained approach, one
limited to domestic considerations, was and is indeed realistic for Africa.
1
Economic Development and the Need
for Western Capital: A Catch 22 Situation
As Beckman (1976: 15) observes:
“Few African leaders have emphasized as strongly as Nkrumah the limitations of
political independence and the necessity to struggle for economic independence
if one kind of colonialism is not merely to be substituted for another.”
Addressing the challenges related to this structural understanding of the
integration of Ghana and Africa in the world economy was central to Nkrumah’s
vision and objectives not only for Ghana but also for Africa as a whole.
As he wrote in Neo-Colonialism,
The Last Stage of Imperialism (1965): “The result of neo- colonialism is that
foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of
the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism
increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries
of the world.”
Nkrumah’s dilemma can
be observed in the apparent contradiction between his writings and
policies. While welcoming foreign
investments to modernize and industrialize Ghana, he also expressed caution
regarding the potential negative impact of foreign capital on Ghana and Africa.
2 As he stated when commenting on his 1964 economic plan: “We welcome foreign
investors in a spirit of partnership (emphasis added). They can earn profits
here, provided they leave us an agreed portion for promoting the welfare and
happiness of our people as a whole....We expect, however, that such investments
will not be operated so as to exploit our people. On the contrary, we expect such enterprises
to assist in the expansion of the economy of the country in line with our
general objectives” (quoted in Howell and Rajasooria, 1972: 111).
However, in spite of these
warnings, foreign investments in Ghana were not to yield expected results. The most illustrative example of this
reality, and the related political consequences, was the Volta dam project. As Boahen (1987: 101) pointed out, “one of
the typical features of the colonial political economy was the total neglect of
industrialization and of the processing of locally produced raw materials....
Africans were driven out of the mining industry as it became an exclusive
preserve of Europeans.” Among Nkrumah’s
development objectives for Ghana was the reversal of this trend. This would have allowed Ghanaians to obtain
direct rewards from their own natural resources through jobs and the expected
development benefits usually associated with the production of value-added
products.
As Mikell (1989: 186) explained,
in order to reduce Ghana’s dependence on cocoa exports, the Volta Dam project,
which was proposed as early as 1952, was meant to use hydroelectric energy to
increase the processing of locally extracted minerals. Not only would the dam provide cheap
hydroelectric power to Ghanaians thereby raising standards of living and
fostering industrialization, but also it was also intended “to smelt bauxite
located in the eastern, western and Ashanti regions.” However, this was not to be as foreign
investors “only wanted cheap power to turn their own semi-processed aluminium
into refined bars in a way that would bring minimum cost and maximum profit to
North American industries and offered the leanest possible margin for Africa”
(Birmingham, 1995: 29). The first
difficulty encountered was the lack of good commercial terms for loans to
Ghana. In the end, the agreement through which Ghana obtained loans from the
US, Kaiser Aluminium and the UK, with “enormous debt- servicing costs” also
undermined African entrepreneurs’ access to the power produced by the dam
(Mikell, 1989: 186). Indeed, as Mikell
explains, not only was much of the expected supply of energy committed to
Kaiser’s VALCO aluminum processing plant prior to the completion of the dam,
but also VALCO's reliance on “ imported bauxite, and local ore deposits were
never developed.”
Most significant in this
“partnership” deal was the fact that Ghana’s loan from the UK, US and the World
Bank was dependent upon the government reaching a satisfactory agreement with
the private Western investors. The cost of the Volta River Project and the lack
of return were partly responsible for development failures and debt: “while Ghana dipped heavily into its cocoa
revenues and delayed other development projects to pay for the building of the
Volta River Project, it received little in return” (Mikell, 1989: 186).
The story of the Volta Dam points out a
typical example of the ways in which Ghanaians and Africans have been excluded
from the exploitation of their own natural resources over time. As many have commented, this project was a
remarkable feat for a young country that was looked upon by others who were
seeking or gaining independence: “Ghana thereupon became one of the world’s few
developing countries with more electricity than it could use” (Howell and
Rajasooria, 1972: 112). Yet, it was not going to reap the rewards of such a
feat, an example not lost on others. 3
As Birmingham (1995:29) pointed out: “In so doing the [Ghanaian]
government discovered just how little international influence a small
decolonized nation could wield and how strong were the financial and
engineering forces controlled by the ‘neocolonial’ powers.”
As this brief discussion highlights,
Nkrumah’s dilemma was that in attempting to move Ghana’s economy away from
reliance on mono cash crop exports so as to distance his country from colonial
patterns of economic development, he encountered the new mechanisms of neo-
colonialism and the beginnings of debt dependence on the West. The example also shows that African wealth in
natural resources was not going to be easily wrenched from Western
interests. A vicious cycle of lack of
capital that would enable Africans to benefit from their own natural resources
remains an important issue today. That
does not mean, however, that some Africans did profit personally from the
situation, an eventuality Nkrumah predicted.
Endogenous Challenges: Elites vs.
‘The Masses’
Nkrumah did not limit his
analysis to external causes of underdevelopment. He also looked at domestic dynamics. He warned against the potential for elites’
collusion with external interests and the importance of listening to the
African masses. As Mbonjo (1998: 34)
explains, the importance of the masses in gaining national liberation was at
the forefront of Nkrumah’s thought in his call for the “organization of the colonial
masses.” The masses were the ones who, contrary to the domestic bourgeoisie who
strived through colonialism, would prevent future neo- colonial
exploitation. Thus in a speech he made
at the May 1965 Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference that took place in Ghana
Nkrumah explained: “the mass of the people can never become the agents or
partners of neo-colonialism. The
function of neocolonialism is to exploit....It is the people, therefore, and
only the people, who can save an African or Asian State from neo-colonialism
and imperialism” (quoted in Mbonjo, 1998: 39).
This indeed, has taken place over
the decades since independence, albeit in diverse guises. From wealthy and corrupt dictators put in
place by foreign governments, to transnational corporations and clandestine
trade networks, a variety of exploitative dynamics have emerged, whereby
ordinary citizens are left strapped with debts while lucrative resources such
as oil, diamonds, cobalt, coltan, precious woods and gold are extracted from
the continent to enrich the few. In
these processes, a variety of local actors have colluded with outside interests
to enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary Africans. What is relevant to point out in these
domestic destructive dynamics of the past five decades, is the significant role
played by outsiders —a factor often omitted in liberal explanations of
underdevelopment (Caplan, 2008; Bond, 2006)
Without documenting and listing the numerous examples of such
collusions, suffice it to say that ample studies have demonstrated that, in
Caplan’s (2008: 69) words: “In almost every case of egregious African
governance, you can be sure to find Western influence playing a central
role.... For decades the continent was seen by the West, above all by the US,
as a major battleground where Cold War rivalries were played out.” Europe for its part “was particularly anxious
to call in all the imperial resources” to rebuild itself after World War II, and,
subsequently its relations with Africa through the 1975 Lomé convention “aimed
to protect European industry from shortages of tropical produce” (Birmingham,
1995: 89). The latter, was followed by
the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) under the Cotonou Agreement,
whereby an “even harsher regime of ‘reciprocal liberalization’ [is] to replace
the preferential agreements that tied so many African countries to their former
colonial masters via cash-crop exports” (Bond, 2006: 68).
These state-to-state neo-colonial relations
were facilitated by mutually profitable relations between domestic elites and
foreign interests. Caplan (2008: 76-82)
concludes his overview of these mechanisms by stating: “the collective
complicity of Western governments and banks, multinational corporations and
African business and political leader in this massive fraud is a perfect
example of the great conspiracy against the people of the continent” (ibid. p.
82). 4 A most recent example found
online involves the Anglo Gold Ashanti consortium in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo. 5
As illustrated by Bond’s
(2006:1) following choice of quotes, liberal analyses of Africa’s situation
tend to disregard such causal factors of underdevelopment. The first quote
reflects a “neoliberal” (or orthodox liberal) perspective and was extracted
from Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa 2005 report: “Africa is poor,
ultimately, because its economy has not grown.
The public and private sectors need to work together to create a climate
which unleashes the entrepreneurship of the peoples of Africa ...” 6 The second
one reflects a contemporary view closer to the dependency school of thought
which takes into account history and exogenous factors: “Africa is poor,
ultimately, because its economy and society have been ravaged by international
capital as well as by local elites who are often propped by foreign
powers. The public and private sectors
have worked together to drain the continent of resources which otherwise - if
harnessed and shared fairly - should meet the needs of the peoples of
Africa.”
As will be discussed later,
Nkrumah’s call for the inclusion of “the masses” into the decision- making of
the continent’s future is echoed today by African civil society’s critique of
its exclusion from the NEPAD process.
Delinking From the West
Given his analytical framework,
it followed that, for Nkrumah, economic independence also meant the ability for
the country to decide for itself which countries would be its trading partners,
based on its own interests and not dictated by external powers (Mbonjo, 1998:
95).
These choices required de-linking
from colonial institutions, diversifying trade relations and blocking some
corporate relations through which neo-colonial ties might continue past
patterns of exploitation as described earlier.
At the level of colonial institutions, one of the clearest examples of
this distrust of the old Western colonial ties was the Nkrumah government’s
withdrawal from the West African Currency Board. The Currency Board was identified as a
neo-colonial institution “through which the British Treasury would continue to
control the economies of British West Africa” including providing Britain the
ability to conduct economic sabotage, “should Ghana elect to pursue independent
policies” (Dumor, 1991: 75). 7
According to Dumor (1991), Ghana also broke up the West African Frontier
Force, disintegrated the West African Cocoa Research Institute and the West
African Court of Appeal, all seen as neo-colonial structures. Likewise, the Ghanaian government announced
September 3, 1960 that its own state agency would ensure cocoa buying, a plan
that included selling cocoa in both Accra and London rather than London alone
(Howell and Rajasooria, 1972: 64).
In
the area of trade, the Nkrumah government also acted on its intention to avoid
neo-colonial ties on several levels. Not
only were direct country-to-country ties altered, such as cutting back trade
ties with Britain while increasing ties with Eastern Europe, but indirect
neo-colonial ties through private business interests were also identified and
cut. As Dumor (1991: 89-90) observed,
“Ghana progressively reduced its concentration on Britain as a trading
partner....by 1962, the United States had become the largest importer of
Ghana’s cocoa, superseding West Germany and Britain....During the early part of
the 1960's, Ghana had simultaneously increased bilateral relations with USSR
and China.”
In addition, the Nkrumah
government implemented a deliberate economic boycott of Britain in protest of
Britain’s lack of response to Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of
Independence (Dumor, 1991: 78). Nkrumah
also identified “interlocking networks of ...companies [that] gave Britain and
South Africa extensive political and economic power by proxy” (Dumor, 1991:
76). An example he gives is that of the
link between Union Minière in Zaire and Tanganyika (today’s Tanzania)
Concessions Limited.
While the latter was registered
in London, it had “its nerve centre in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) under
the chairmanship of Charles Waterhouse, Leader of the English House of
Commons.” Similarly, the government began denouncing and blocking businesses
that used front names in order to hide their South African origins (Dumor,
1991:76).
These policies along with
Nkrumah’s announcements regarding a proposed socialist economy, his support of
Patrice Lumumba in the ex-Belgian Congo, his ties with Moscow, his writings on
socialism and his 1960 speech at the UN drew growing antagonism from the West.
Christian A. Herter, U.S. State Secretary at the time, is quoted as stating
that Nkrumah in his UN address had “marked himself as very definitely leaning
toward the Soviet bloc” and that he sounded as though he was “making a bid for
the leadership of ...a left-leaning group of African states” (Howell and
Rajasooria, 1972: 66). As some have
pointed out, economic retaliation from the West contributed to undermine
Nkrumah’s political future. The best
evidence of such Western manipulation is found in quotes from the then American
Ambassador to Ghana, William Mahoney: “Western pressures were having their
intended effect, exacerbating, if not causing, deteriorating conditions [in
Ghana]. Popular opinion was running
strongly against Nkrumah and the economy of the country was in precarious
state.” Mahoney is quoted by the same
source as saying that he had “supported the recommendation to deny Ghana’s
forthcoming aid request ‘in the interests of further weakening Nkrumah...and
the British would continue to adopt a hard nose attitude toward providing
further assistance to Ghana” (quoted in Owusu, 2006: 127). Others have suggested that the disastrous
cocoa prices which exacerbated the Ghanaian economic situation and development
plans in the 1960s might have been due “to real as well as engineered (emphasis
added) declines in commodity prices within the international market place”
(Mikell, 1989: 250).
As democratically
elected leaders in newly independent African countries such as Nkrumah and
Lumumba sought political and economic sovereignty, they ignited concerns in the
West that had more to do with great power Cold War competition than whether the
newly independent countries were democratic, well governed and fair to their citizens. In the same way that the trade of the
enslaved and the 19 th century scramble for Africa had more to do with European
power struggles and competition, the neo-colonial period of the 20 th century
was also about ways in which the African continent and its resources could
provide either some geostrategic and/or
economic advantages in the global power struggles.
To sum up in the words of Nkunzimana (2002:
135), Africa is (and has been) quite often “transformed into the theatre of
fights for geostrategic influences or a safe haven for outside opportunists
who, in complicity with some greedy African leaders, operate their ‘cynical
pursuit of private interests.” Nkrumah
saw the real potential for such outcomes on the continent early on and tried to
address this by, among others, de-linking from Western institutional ties and
private business linkages that would contribute to these exploitative
dynamics.
Not only did he do so for Ghana
but in solidarity for struggles taking place elsewhere on the continent.
Whether this was a realistic path at the time, given the context of the Cold
War, is questionable. Nevertheless,
today’s situation relative to such concerns, changes in African policies and
the changing global context need to be re-examined.
Nkrumah’s Views and NEPAD:
Continuity or Change?
This section examines the relationship of Nkrumah’s views, as discussed
in part A of the paper, to NEPAD. The
first question is whether NEPAD provides alternatives that address Nkrumah’s
concerns regarding the ability of Africa to gain economic independence from power
centers and lead to development that benefits all Africans? The second and third questions are discussed
jointly as they examine whether NEPAD promotes or promises true African unity
both in terms of inter-state relations and through more inclusive state-society
relations.
Financial Dependence on the West
vs. Others: NEPAD and Global Politics in Africa
One of the first aspects of NEPAD
that does not diverge from Nkrumah’s understanding of development is that it
also espouses the objective of modernizing the economy. In fact, some have identified NEPAD’s
theoretical framework as representing a combination of dependency and
modernization theories of development (Matthews, 2004) — an approach not
dissimilar to Nkrumah’s as stated earlier. 8
Although such an understanding of development has been criticized with
some merit, the present analysis will take such development goals as a
given. As already mentioned, the debate
between these theories is how to implement such development objectives. Therefore, the question of relevance remains,
as with Nkrumah’s Volta project, where is the financing going to be coming from
for such projects and at what cost?
Unfortunately, NEPAD does not offer much redress for this weakness. The first and most evident aspect is that the
document makes it clear that the “partners” to the renewed African development
plans are the industrialized West and multilateral organizations (Matthew,
2004:503; Abegunrin, 2009: 175; Biswas, 2004; Caplan, 2008; Bond, 2006). These
are jointly described as Africa’s development “partners” in Section VI titled
“A New Global Partnership” (Matthew, 2004: 503). Interestingly, as illustrated earlier in this
paper, Nkrumah also referred to foreign financiers as “partners” in his
announcement regarding the role of foreign investors in Ghana’s
development.
Given the nature of this
partnership, many question the likelihood of an equal relationship when one
partner is dependent upon the other’s resources to achieve her/his
objectives. As reported by Matthew
(2004: 505) and others, one of the critiques of NEPAD “is that it is the latest
version of the ‘age-old begging bowl, since its focus is about asking wealthy
nations for generous financial assistance.” As Schmidt’s (2002: 6) early
assessment of NEPAD pointed out: “The NEPAD envisages a bargain, whereby,
Africa delivers peace and good governance and adopts appropriate policies of
its own choosing, and the developed world delivers more resources, including
aid, trade, investment, debt relief and aid reform.” Included in the resources
requested and expected as part of the partnership, is US$ 64 billion of
additional investment per year.
Furthermore, the way in which NEPAD was presented to the “partners” has
also raised doubts regarding the notion of “partnership.” The four main African initiators of NEPAD,
Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo, Wade and Bouteflika, presented their strategy for African
renewal to the G8 leaders at the July 2001 G8 Genoa summit. Likewise Mbeki’s
attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he addressed the world’s
most powerful group of business and political leaders left little doubt as to
who NEPAD’s success was reliant upon and who would benefit from its
implementation (Bond, 2006: 125). This
African subservience to the West was not lost on African civil society and some
African leaders. Thus the Gambian
President Yahya Jammeh is quoted by Lokongo (2002: 18) as saying: “You come up
with a program and depend on nothing but begging.... If NEPAD is an African
project, why take it to the Westerners to approve it? ... Did G8 bring their
agenda to Africa for us to approve it?”
Perhaps not surprisingly, NEPAD has yielded little relative to the
expectations it had raised. The 2001 G8
promises seemed to have gained momentum and were repeated at the July 2002
meeting in Kananaskis (Canada). However
eight years later, on the occasion of the G8 and G20 meetings hosted once again
by Canada, the change in rhetoric was clear. Mbeki, now retired from the
presidency of South Africa, expressed his disappointment at the lack of
progress: “... in Canada in 2010, as opposed to Canada in 2002, the rich of the
world conveyed the message that Africa had once again drifted to the periphery
of the global development agenda” (quoted in York, 2010).
In this, unfortunately, Africa’s
situation is very similar to that of the early days of independence—its lack of
financial resources which might give it the ability to use its own capital for
the ends it sees fit render it vulnerable to outsiders’ exploitation. This ongoing hope in receiving outsiders’
respect is not only questionable given past experiences, but it is also problematic
given the multilateral organizations’ neoliberal approach to development, particularly their neoliberal approach and
the imposition of Structural Adjustment Policies since the 1980s, which have
been widely acknowledged as having undermined African development. Thus critics of NEPAD have warned that this
document is “merely a homegrown version of the Washington Consensus” (Bond,
2006: 124). As such, in terms of its
reliance on the West and the similarity between these policies and past ones
imposed by the West, NEPAD appears to offer little in terms of alternatives
that might offer a departure from past relations.
However, some hope that a number
of changes in the global context might bring long-awaited opportunities for
Africa. China and India represent
alternative partners for African development.
Taylor (2009: 2) reports that since the turn of the new century,
Chinese-African trade began to accelerate with a 40 percent increase between
2001 and 2006, “from US$4.8 billion in 2001 to US$28.8 billion in 2006,” and
that the exponential growth in this economic relation can be expected to
continue given the early stage of this trend.
Not only has trade increased but, according to Martyn Davies, director
of the China Africa Network at the University of Pretoria, the Chinese are also
the biggest builders of infrastructure in Africa and the biggest lenders (from
French 2010: 60).
Other indicators of
increased relations between Africa and these two emerging powers can be seen in
diplomatic relations such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in November
2006, the January 2006 Chinese “Africa Policy Paper,” and the China-Africa
Business Council. In addition to hosting
African heads of state, the Chinese have built sports facilities in Africa such
as the 60,000-seat national sports stadium in Tanzania, which was opened in
February 2009 by President Hu Jintao (French, 2010: 60). For their part, the Indians have, among
others, held the April 2008 India-Africa
Forum in Delhi, issued a US$200 million line of credit to NEPAD aimed at
promoting African economic integration and a US$1 billion investment in a joint
venture with the African Union to build a Pan-African e-Network for
telemedicine and tele-education (Naidu, 2010: 41).
Likewise, the diplomatic language and
exchanges seem to reflect a tone more reminiscent of partnership than that of
the West. As Cheru and Obi (2010: 4)
point out, the warm African welcome extended to the Chinese and Indians has to
do with more than economics and finance.
Not only is there a growing number of Africans disenchanted with the
West, but China and India refer to Africa as an equal partner and as a dynamic
continent “on the threshold of a development take-off, with unlimited business
opportunities that would serve Chinese, Indian and African interests”
(ibid.). There is no doubt that such
language and positive images of Africa will please Africans who have criticized
Western depictions of their continent.
Furthermore, the shared status of “developing country” and the success
of these Asian countries provide potential models of development and hope for
Africa.
However, as Cheru and Obi (ibid)
warn, such positive language may be more rhetorical than genuine respect. Many
wonder whether Africa’s relations with China and India will be any different
from past Western motivations, interests and resulting patterns of
exploitation. On one side of the debate
are those, both in the West and Africa, who warn against a repeat of history
and point to Chinese strategic interests that include its economic growth and
the connection with competition for global power with the West. As an illustration of such underlying
calculations some point to China’s desire to “circumvent the regional economic
powerhouse, South Africa, and ultimately control the markets for key African
minerals” (French, 2010: 64). Not surprisingly, South African President Thabo
Mbeki was quoted as saying in 2006: “China can not only just come here and dig
for raw materials [but] then go away and sell us manufactured products” (quoted
in Taylor, 2009: 2).
Or, as formulated differently by
a Congolese lawyer: “We remain under the same old schema: our cobalt goes off
to China in the form of dusty ore and returns here in the form of expensive
batteries” (quoted in French, 2010: 69).
As Taylor (2009: 1) summed it “the accusation that China is a new
colonizing power, exploiting Africa’s natural resources and flooding the
continent with low-priced manufactured products while turning a blind eye to
its autocracies is at the core of most critiques.” From this perspective, engagements with Asia
as a reaction to the West have its own pitfalls. On the other side of the debate are those
who see the growing relations with Asia as a promising departure from the
continent’s overreliance on the West.
One African who sees the Asian- African relationship in a positive light
is Dambisa Moyo, the London-based Zambian economist who wrote the book Dead
Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa. From an economic development perspective Moyo
believes that “China offers a way out of the mess the West has made,” particularly
through its “subsidized lending” (French, 2010: 60). From a diplomatic perspective others see the
emerging relationships as part of a global power shift termed “the rise of the
un-West” and Africa as a player who is accumulating "asymmetric power
“aimed at changing old exploitative relationships” (Samasuwo, 2007).
NEPAD and African Unity:
Inter-State and State-Society Relations
The issues and policies mentioned
in part A of the paper came together in Nkrumah’s belief in the necessity of
African Unity, another example of his foresight and long-lasting intellectual
impact. As he wrote in his 1961 paper titled I speak of freedom : “It is clear
that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only
be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one
of the greatest forces for good in the world.”
Today, this sentence and related questions resonate even more loudly
given the launching of NEPAD and its relationship the new organization of
African Unity (AU). 9 As Cheru and
Calais (2010: 222) remind us: “From the early days of decolonization to the
present moment, the aim of African unity and integration has been the same: to
end Africa’s marginalization in the world economy and to chart an independent
development path through collective self-reliance.” Even contemporary critics of Nkrumah’s
attempt at African unity recognize the ongoing relevance of this question: “By
evoking Nkrumah’s failed, yet noble and remarkable, attempt and juxtaposing it
with the intractable heterogeneity of Africa, my intention is to remind readers
that the question of how to foster African unity and reinforce Africa’s own
development capabilities and resources remains tremendously important and
unresolved” (Nkunzimana, 2002: 129).
As others have pointed out,
Nkrumah’s vision of African unity covered three areas: economic, military and defense strategy,
foreign policy and diplomacy (Owusu, 2006; Mbonjo, 1998). Given NEPAD’s relationship to the newly
created African Unity, its ability to provide a common African response to the
challenges mentioned above through common economic, foreign policy and
diplomatic relations needs to be examined.
The above begs the question as to whether NEPAD can provide the kind of
African consensus/unity in terms of common economic policies that will prevent
past patterns from reemerging. Thus two
questions related to NEPAD’s future role emerge: does it enable Africa to
negotiate from a common position of strength and does its development model
allow national economies to accumulate wealth and be protected from external
forces? Several paradoxes,
contradictions and fissure emerge when we look at NEPAD as a policy guide for
Africa and the reality of what is happening on the continent.
Many have pointed out the difficulties
related to NEPAD’s ties to the promise of “good governance” and the “peer
review mechanism” as these conditions have already created divisions within
Africa and difficulties in terms of delivering on Western expectations. Among these are the concerns related to
Zimbabwe and Sudan in particular. Not
only are there divisions related to the implementation of these political
objectives, but also the Chinese partnership with these countries has further
undermined African unity. As Taylor
(2009: 98) pointed out: “The PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] policies
arguably jar with Africa’s increasing attempts to promote human rights and good
governance, as crystallized in NEPAD.”
Taylor’s (ibid. 99) quote from the African Research Bulletin reveals
African concerns regarding this issue: “in some countries China’s involvement
appears benign, in others its approach undercuts the efforts by the African
Union ... and Western partners to make government and business more transparent
and accountable.” Division between “the old guard” such as Kadaffi, and Mugabe
and the initiators of NEPAD has been observed.
As Cheru and Calais (2010: 98) point out, the multiplicity of agreements
and multiplicity of partners are “hardly a sign that an authentic and unified
African development agenda is on the horizon.”
Once again Africa seems caught between two
polar sides while trying to secure capital for its development. How to navigate this dilemma without undermining
African Unity is a delicate matter that reminds us of the original stumbling
blocks Nkrumah faced: global power politics, state sovereignty, vested
interests and the balkanization of Africa.
Thus on the one hand the new global context provides Africa with choices
in partners, thereby diminishing its vulnerability in terms of the sources and
associated costs of capital, but on the other this new context also puts
pressures on its ability to remain united.
Furthermore, while the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has recommended that NEPAD become the
umbrella organization under which these multiple agreements should be
renegotiated as regional ones, Cheru and Calais (2010) argue that, at the
moment, the organization is too weak, both in terms of capacity and authority
to provide such a service to African unity.
These authors explain that NEPAD
does not have the ability to harmonize national policies at the regional
level. In terms of capacity, they
compare the European Union’s bureaucracy of 13,000 civil servants with that of
750 for the African Union and NEPAD.
Thus Cheru and Calais (2010: 227-236) argue that while it is not too
late for Africa to engage the multiplicity of external actors “on an equal
footing” through NEPAD, the organization will have to be transformed. Not only does NEPAD not provide the mechanisms
for strong African economic policy but also the philosophy that underlies the
program further erodes Africa’s ability to prevent a repeat of past
patterns. For critics of neoliberal
policies, NEPAD provides nothing new from the Washington Consensus. As such, they have dubbed the project as
“neocolonialism by invitation” (Chantu and Calais, 2010: 237). The critique once again relates to Nkrumah’s
policies in terms of seeking to develop a strong autonomous domestic economy
that would be able to compete on global markets.
The solution in this case would be a stronger
developmental state under the label of “strategic integration” which is modeled
after the example of East Asian developmentalism and Latin American
neostructuralism (ibid.). According to
such critiques, by minimizing the role of the state in the economy, NEPAD
further undermines African development.
Whether and how NEPAD could/would be transformed in that manner is
questionable.
More importantly, the
ideological debates that surround NEPAD polarize rather than unite Africa in
terms of two different development models.
Although the governance objectives of NEPAD can mean a more inclusive
role for “the masses,” the neoliberal approach to development espoused by NEPAD
has raised doubts regarding the inclusion of civil society. Many African civil
society groups have not only expressed concerns regarding the top-down process
through which NEPAD was arrived at, but they also argue that the type of
economic policies proposed leave little room for public debates in terms of
issues related to the environment, distributive justice, intellectual property
rights, health care and other issues of public interest.
Nevertheless, Samasuwo’s (2007: 75-86) optimistic
understanding of the new African diplomacy offers some hope. His analysis of African collective and/or
individual accumulation of “tools of asymmetric power aimed at changing old
exploitative relationship” deserves further examination. As he sees it: “increasingly, a number of
African countries, sometimes with the help of civil society or prompted by
internal resistance against the International Monetary Fund’s Structural
Adjustment Policies (SAPs) are starting to question the ‘received wisdom’ of
prevailing neo-liberal orthodoxy.”
Future developments and analyses will determine whether such
state-society relations eventually wins over inter-state divisions in terms of
disagreements over NEPAD’s economic and political model.
Conclusion
As Kwame Nkrumah feared, in spite
of achieving political independence, Africa’s aspirations have been impeded due
to external/global interests and ongoing neo-colonial patterns of
exploitation. This paper has focused on
the issues related to Africa’s challenges as it has had to rely on foreign
capital to exploit its resources. The
challenge has been how to respond to this reality “from a position of
strength,” to use Cheru and Calais’s expression (2010: 221). From independence onwards, the legacy of
colonialism-- in terms of the lack of African capital necessary to extract
continental resources-- has rendered its interests and aspirations secondary to
those of foreigners. The paper looked at some of the related challenges Nkrumah
had identified and some solutions he sought in order to solve this riddle of
post-independence Africa. The argument
made in the paper is that similar conditions are still present.
Nevertheless, global power
transformations and new policy formulations for Africa have been added to this
initial issue. These changes need to be examined in order to assess the
conditions that may repeat past patterns or provide opportunities to break new
ground. Among the new policy tools that
have been initiated in Africa the paper questioned whether NEPAD provided the
appropriate tools to deal with the new conditions in a manner that would break
past patterns and achieve African visions for its future.
On the one hand, the ongoing
patterns of global power relations that vie for African resources could
supercede, once again, Africans’ interests and goals. While the multiplicity of
new partners from the Global South may be used to Africa’s advantage, they
could also repeat the past. One such
challenge has been identified as “the new scramble for Africa” —will the need
for crucial African natural resources, such as oil and cobalt, mean that Africa
and its resources are once again pawns in a new global power game? Another challenge resides in the
disagreements that exist, within the continent and with its multiple partners,
regarding policies of economic and political liberalization as paths to
development. These disagreements render
Nkrumah’s desires of African unity and reliance on the masses as challenging
today as in post-independence. As is,
NEPAD seems too weak and too biased to be the bridge necessary to reconcile the
multiple new economic partnerships and approaches to African development.
Nkrumah’s identification of
challenges in terms of creating a continent that is not only politically
independent but also economically independent, given the lack of domestic
capital is still present. The wealth of
African resources and outsiders’ thirst has not waned. As French (2010: 69) recently observed in the
Atlantic issue of May 2010: “the question remains: How does [Africa] overcome a
pattern of extractive foreign engagement ... that is still discernible
today?” One thing that changed is the
relative weakening of the West. Is that
sufficient to transform African problems?
While optimism in terms of displacing past exploiters is completely
warranted, caution should nevertheless be exercised in terms of expecting
newcomers to behave differently given global conditions and in particular the
need for oil and other minerals.
NEPAD has been promoted as
African renaissance, an African-made solution for African problems that comes
under the new African Union. On the
surface then, Nkrumah’s beliefs in and aspirations for a united Africa are
still alive. Those who disagree with
NEPAD’s orientation reject it as the answer to African unity and
development. However, such rejection
begs the question: if not NEPAD, then what?
The discussion that followed the presentation of this paper at the Kwame
Nkrumah International Conference opened the door for more research and
discussion on these issues. How might
Africa develop an investment regime that fosters cross-border investments by
its own investors? Would such a
continental regime be less exploitative?
Related to the latter were observations of unique African values and the
need to tailor such policies to these values.
Are there indeed such common values that can bring about a unified
African vision and attendant policies?
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Endnotes
While Beckman and others (Berg, 1971) refer to the financial aspects
related to the number of economic development projects and the government’s
over-reliance on cocoa revenues for these, others refer to the drain on Ghana’s
finances related to the growth of Nkrumah’s executive office and related
Pan-African matters, such as supporting groups in other countries (Guyer,
1970), or Nkrumah’s foreign preoccupations and consequential inattention to
urgent budgetary matters (Kraus, 1970).
2 Lest we think that Nkrumah
lacked clarity in his thinking, this contradiction appears in development
theories as well. Indeed, as many have
observed, while modernization and dependency theories disagreed on many causes
and solutions of underdevelopment, proponents of both schools saw modernization
and industrialization as a desired long-term objective. How this was going to take place was and
still is the subject of much debate. For
liberal thinkers, the solution to Africa’s underdevelopment lies in opening up
African resources to foreign investors who have the capital and know-how for
efficient extraction, processing and marketing of such resources. Critiques of this approach, the contemporary
structuralists, warn against such policies as simply resulting in the ongoing
exploitation of Africa.
3 As Nugent (1995: 10) pointed
out: “Ghana has always exerted a greater influence over African affairs ...
than its limited size and population ... might lead one to expect. The reason is that the country has repeatedly
served as a social laboratory for the continent as a whole. During the 1950's,
Ghana was the testing ground for British strategies of decolonization. After 1960, Nkrumah’s efforts to break the
links of external dependency were regarded as significant for other African
countries similarly afflicted by the colonial legacy.”
4 One of these examples concerns
the smuggling of gold out of the Congo that implicates Ugandan officials and
multinational corporations using local rebel militias. “The Western companies
that were cited [in the 2005 Human Rights Report titled ‘The Curse of Gold”]
included high-profile giant mining corporations based in South Africa and
Sweden, which in turn are partnered with other resource extraction companies
based in the UK and Canada. The boards of these companies are chock-a-block
with the Western world’s political elites and retired politicians who are
household names” (Caplan, 2008: 76).
5 Ashanti Goldfields Company
(AGC) was established in London in 1897. AGC started underground mining in
Ghana, Obuasi in 1907. The planned DRC
gold mine project is undertaken in partnership with OKIMO the DRC state-owned
mining company under the joint venture called Ashanti Goldfield Kilo (AGK) in
Ituri a town recently ravaged by civil conflict. AGA holds 86.22 per cent shares while OKIMO
holds 13.78 per cent. For a critical
report of this project see the CAFOD report at
http://www.cafod.org.uk/news/anglogol
6 Other recent publications in
that vain include Martin Meredith’s 2005 publication of The Fate of Africa ; John Schram “Where Ghana
Went Right” in the July/August 2010 edition of The Walrus ; The Trouble with
Africa by Robert Calderisi published in 2006.
7 This kind of distrust is
further understandable given that, in the immediate post-war period, “large
bank reserves of colonial Ghana were not used to pipe water to African villages
but for metropolitan reconstruction, and the groundnut plantations of colonial
Tanzania were not aimed at enriching the farming poor in Africa but at
providing margarine rations in the British welfare state” (Birminghan, 1995:
89).
8
Thus NEPAD seeks to alleviate poverty and improve health and education
through wealth generated from the modernization of African economies. As an example of modernization projects cited
in NEPAD Abegunrin (2009: 179) mentions: “building a hydroelectric dam at Inga
on the Congo River, and the introduction of new farming techniques, especially
mechanized system.”
9 The New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is the product of a series of processes and
meetings among African leaders. NEPAD is
the result of a merger of two different plans. The Millenium Action Plan (MAP),
launched in February 2001 by South Africa’s President Mbeki, Nigeria’s
President Obasanjo and Algeria’s President Bouteflika, was merged with the
Senegalese President Wade’s OMEGA plan.
This merger was named the New African Initiative (NAI) and endorsed at
the July 2001 African Summit in Lusaka, Zambia (Abegunrin, 2009). Shortly after, on July 9, 2002 in Durban
(South Africa) the leaders of 43 African countries met to replace the OAU with
the AU. As Biswas (2004:793) and Bond
(2006: 126) explained, NEPAD is the new AU’s pragmatic counterpart and official
development plan. Although not yet fully
under AU wing, a recent meeting of the Heads of State and Government
Orientation Committee (HSGOC) in Kampala (Uganda) at the end of July 2010 was
to produce the document through which NEPAD would cease to exist independently
and would become an African Union entity (O’kademeri, 2010).
Source:
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