The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the
palliative initiative of the United Nations endorsed in 2000 in New
York. The goal had a special focus on and target set for Africa to
reduce by half maternal and infant mortality, illiteracy etc. This is
in recognition of the fact that Africa is the only continent in the
world where poverty, ignorance and disease are soaring. There was need
to arrest the trend through planning and strategic intervention. What
does the real story on the continent tell us about the MDGs? Is 2015 a
realistic or feasible date? These are the two questions I set out to
answer.
Indeed, since the introduction of structural adjustment programs
(SAP) in most African states, development plans and planning have given
way to the rule of the market. This had devastating consequences for
social sectors such as education and health which served the public
good. Unfortunately, SAP failed to deliver on all the issue it promised,
this left both the state and the people worse off-the only
beneficiaries were the smart speculators who took advantage of the
policy. These hawks are still milling around the current global
financialization project that is at the heart of the activities of the
World Trade Organization (WTO)
The lesson learnt from SAP is that African states are unable to meet
the basic needs of their people when they externalize their economies
and/or embrace the market. Current so-called global economic crisis also
shows that there is no such thing as market determinism. There are
distortions in the market and there are crooks in the markets, they need
to be regulated and checked for transparency and accountability and
indeed the proper functioning of the market. The recent history of
global capitalism shows that there is a lot of fraud and racketeering
going on. In no small way, SAP was responsible for deepening the African
crisis, and hence deepening the poverty levels.
Quite enthusiastically, every African country embraced the MDGs and
this was for three reasons. First the donors, especially the Paris Club,
as a precondition, insisted that fresh loans to third world leaders
should go into development of infrastructure and manpower-this came in
the alarming context of social hardship suffered by the people. Second
the UN indicators showed that more people were falling below the US$1
per day benchmark. Third and more importantly, it became apparent that
in the uncritical embrace of structural adjustment and the market, many
African countries simply abandoned their social responsibility to the
citizens. They not only abandoned this programmatically, but also
philosophically. This marked the full transition from “mixed economy”
into what is euphemistically referred to as neo-liberal economy.
The neo-liberal economy has failed Africa; it has no philosophy of
development and it is more concerned about economic growth. It is more
concerned about the health of the market rather than the health of the
people, it is more concerned how commodities are sold rather than who is
able to buy commodities. The market ideology is rooted to the ideology
of “fend-for-thy-self”. As a result, more Africans were forced into
informal sector.
What is most damning however remains the fact that
most African leaders have no clue about how to govern their people; what
constitutes good social policies; how to formulate and implement good
social policies. Many of them have no clue about the priorities of the
people-what exactly do about the needs of the people? This is also
because they are completely out of touch with the ordinary
people-elections have become nothing but mere hijacking of votes-more of
a case of highway robbery. Citizens’ rights have been seen as obtrusive
and an anathema. Public opinion has been perceived as anti-democratic.
This mindset of the average African politician, and the unacceptable
and uncondonable visionlessness, the African leader is more concerned
about what attention he/she attracts from the media. How many people
were at his/her son’s or daughter's naming ceremony, his/her marriage
anniversary etc? To be sure, there is an amebo to take note of the top
dignitaries in attendance, and accordingly report to His/Her Excellency.
Or how his wife’s/husband’s shopping spree in Paris or Brussels or New
York was reported in the electronic and print media. The African leader
becomes a pure hedonist who enjoys nothing but opulence and the
vulgarity of power. Gossips and rumour become the main window to peep
into his/her private life.
NEPAD as a framework for bringing about Africa’s development has so
far not succeeded. This is because it relies on the old framework of
market to achieve its goals. The market has failed African countries and
people several times.
African states are still unable to achieve
the minimum internal unity, cohesion, and coordination over the
complementary primary produce they have. They have not explored the
potential of their internal market and the need for a collective and
onerous strategic approach in dealing with the WTO and western financial
cartels. Western donors and financiers have fed on this to undermine
many African economies. They have fed on this to negotiate their
strategic interest. The market logic emphasizes individual competition
rather than cooperation among states; as such it preaches the principle
of divide and rule. Today the US government is able to make security
inroads to Africa through the African Command (Africom) because NEPAD
has not put in place a coordinated strategic approach to the security
question in Africa, this is in spite of the CSSDCA championed by Gen.
Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd) and finally endorsed and established by the
AU.
The MDGs are core to the mandate of NEPAD, however when disaggregated
there is no national framework for achieving them in many African
countries. Little wonder that, so far, only six African countries have
been able to subject themselves to the African Peer Review Mechanism
(APRM), and only three of the six countries have done well, on account
of the assessment. Why are Africa countries afraid of a Peer review done
by African experts? This is because they know that a lot of them are
ill-prepared and ill-equip to pursue a development agenda; a lot of them
have not even made democracy a critical element I their pursuit of
social and economic policies. Yet, if the IMF and World Bank were to
come and assess those countries they are most likely to pass. Why
because the criteria and standard set by those institutions are on the
most part anti-people-read Joseph Stiglitz’s book on globalization to
appreciate this point.
The MDGs as embraced by NEPAD were meant to confer continental and
then national ownership on the project. But as it turned out more than
90% of the 38 Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) of the world are in
Africa. Many of these HIPCs are countries in Africa that are either
still in war, or post-conflict societies or countries with democratic
arrest/crises. Only a few are resource poor countries. Some of them have
resources, and indeed the resources are indeed sources of conflict in
some of those countries.
NEPAD has no leverage because it is seen as the political baby of
Thabo Mbeki, hence the resistance by the Mbeki group for NEPAD to
relocate to Addis Ababa and work directly under the AU Commission. The
case has been made that the Mbeki case is akin to a physician who could
not heal thyself, not with the grinding poverty, homelessness and
illiteracy in South Africa, a situation which could not be fundamentally
address by the Growth and Redistribution Programme (GEAR)-a programme
which was implemented haphazardly and hopelessly abandoned to the market
logic by the South African government with the sharp transition into
neo-liberalism under Trevor Manuel. To be sure Manuel has for long
remained South Africa’s Minister of Finance and a darling of the IMF
and the World Bank because of his financial and economic policies which
have continued to entrench what some have captioned financial apartheid
in South Africa.
The APRM has not resulted in much success as such, because the peer
review process is voluntary, there is no compulsion or forcible
compliance. What do Africa states need to do? A continental approach to
MDGs is certainly correct and wise one-but most African leaders do not
have the will, spirit, skills and capacity to embrace any
socially-relevant continental project beyond the rhetoric.
At the country levels there is need to creatively and ingeniously
develop policies and programmes that meet the needs and aspirations of
the ordinary people. What are the core needs of the people? We cannot
assume or wish a way this question. It partly accounts for why African
leaders design bad policies, because they are ignorant of the needs of
the people. In order of priority, how do the people want their needs to
be met? How are they involved in the prosecution of programmes that
affect their lives and those of their children? How are they involved in
Monitoring and Evaluating (M&E) programmes? If African governments
proceed in this manner, they will have the people on their side, and
they are most likely not to make fatal errors in programme-design; they
are more likely to achieve human development.
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