Japan – Ethiopia: A ‘Royal Marriage’, Syndication Of The ‘Coloured Race’, and towards a New Development Partnership

       

The visit by PM Junichiro Koizumi to Ethiopia is an opportunity to adulate our era’s most successful economies and the Japan-Ethiopia relations in historical partnership terms. Notwithstanding its triple menace of debt, deflation and political deadlock, Japan is still the richest, most technologically advanced and culturally integrated nation in the world.

        The Japan Miracle: A much-adorned example of rapid development under intensive human capital development is what best describes Japan in the minds of those who jealously guard Japan’s position as one of world’s rich and industrialised nation. A superlative assertion of Japan of what it has achieved in the 1980s is its emergence as a country with much strength, especially a high average level of education, formidable technology, and great social coordination; experiencing one of the biggest asset booms in world history. Glowing with triumph and with ostensibly costless wealth, the nation’s economic powerhouses diverged uncontrollably – spelling the disintegration of the economic boom and ensuing recession after 1990.

        Not unexpectedly, The Economist asserts that: “no nation in modern history has moved so swiftly from worldwide adulation to dismissal or even contempt as did Japan, as the temple bells were tolling in the new year of 1990. These were met with flaccid responses. One, neither bureaucrats nor companies chose to admit what was really happening and two; massive public-works spending and an expansionary monetary policy were launched (anaesthetising the price mechanism that ought to have obligated fiscal discipline). As a result, Japan mutated from being the genesis of Total Quality Management to a recipient of economic lectures from Western pundits; with offers of recipes for its reform and revival. Nonetheless, the time for homily is over. Japan is springing back leading the elite nations’ pack under the able leadership of PM Koizumi. The resilience of Japan started with the emergence of a single imperial line in Japan probably dates from the 6^th Century AD, if not earlier.

        In 1192, Minamoto Yoritomo became shogun, and the shoguns were in effect Japan’s rulers until 1867. As Europe began to seek colonies in Asia, the Tokugawa shoguns (1603-1867) tried to preserve Japan’s culture by banning missionaries, expelling foreigners, ending almost all trade and even forbidding Japanese to leave the islands. The Meiji dynasty founded in 1868 transformed  Japan by abolishing feudalism and overseeing the creation of a modern economy, defence, a meritorious civil service and an elected parliament -- reaping forte at home and astounding Europe and the US by conquering China (1894-95), Russia (1904-05); besides Taiwan and Korea.

        Japan and Ethiopia: J. Calvitt Clarke III in a paper entitled Ethiopia’s Non-Western Model For Westernisation: a paper presented to ISA South asserts that “Foreign Minister Heruy Welde Sellasse’s (an accomplished writer and progressive thinker and one of Ethiopia’s most influential ‘Japanisers’) led a Mission To Japan in 1931. To the “exaggerated horror of many western powers, during the 1920s, a series of Japanese merchants came to Ethiopia with a view to expand trade between the two nations and later on, Japanese representatives attended Emperor’s Coronation in 1930. A Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was soon after signed and sealed. A year after this, Ethiopia promulgated a constitution modelled on Japan’s Meiji Constitution of 1889. 

        Capping this rapprochement, Foreign Minister Heruy, visited Japan, widely fêted. Heruy and his party examined many of Japan’s most important industrial and military facilities. Many of Japan’s most influential nationalist leaders eagerly greeted him hoping to find in Ethiopia an important ally in the struggle of “colored peoples” against white colonialism and imperialism. Heruy’s visit, however, signaled the high watermark of cooperation. Speaking with the French chargé d’affaires in Ethiopia at the time, Heruy praised Japan’s transformation and asserted, ‘you will see even more extraordinary things here than in Japan’.”

         J. Calvitt Clarke III submits that Araya, a member of the Imperial Court, played an important part in Ethiopia’s relations with Japan and soon to propose marriage to a Japanese Princesses, admired Japanese courtesy, development, and modernisation; while to colonial power Europe, the threat of Japanese political, commercial, and military intrusions into Ethiopia seemed sufficient to justify Italy’s military preparations against Ethiopia. In 1933 and 1934, Araya’s proposed marriage vexingly personified these intrusions. 

'One hyperventilated account argued that, plans have been made for effecting mixed marriages between the eligible 2000 Japanese settlers and Abyssinian women. This declared policy which is intended to produce a new race of leaders in the united revolt of the coloured peoples against the white races, was to have been inaugurated by the marriage of Princess Masako, a daughter of the Japanese prince Kurado [Kuroda], to the Ethiopian prince Lij Ayalé [Araya]. Europeans saw this as lying in Ethiopia’s wish to model its modernisation after Japan and in Japan’s romantic vision of Ethiopia’.

        How can Japan help Ethiopia project itself into the 21^st Century? Matrimony and the hegemony of the coloured race aside, firstly, Japan can expedite in the reform and development democratic rules and institutions in Ethiopia that have been launched in the recent past. Much of the discussion in political good governance has important economic dimensions as improvements in governance and an increased capacity to deliver these reforms leads to increased investment. Because investors respond to good governance, Japan can catalyse capacity for a virtuous cycle to that end.

        This augurs on the dialogue on governability and founding an ‘intelligent state’ –

(1)    security agenda to place political governance and participatory politics at the forefront of international diplomacy;

(2)    Developed economic agenda, rehabilitating and right-sizing the State in its core regulatory functions within the remit of globalisation;

(3)    Development agenda linking sustainable human development, human security and participatory democracy;

(4)    Leadership agenda – to shape dialogue and morality;

        The convergence of agenda reflects an emerging consensus on the mutually reinforcing role of governance and development, re-reemphasising the political context of development.

        Secondly, Ethiopia needs to have a solid Private Sector Development (PSD) agenda. Japan can assist Ethiopia in facilitating implementation of

(1)    a PSD social governance agenda: to achieve the MDGs, democratic citizenships, cultural democracy and the rise of the Arts, ethnic divergence and détente, graft and grand corruption;

(2)    Economic governance agenda: to develop state strategic and business plans for the 21^st Century, establish capacity for policy and strategic harmonisation, establish sound knowledge management systems, privatising and commercialising state activities, establishing credit and capital markets and

(3)    a leadership agenda: governance that promote business development through the founding of independent private sector think tanks whose agenda is to develop businesses concept of futuristic thinking, human security in a society in transformation, Communities of Practice and integration and mainstreaming.

These two trajectories of support to Ethiopia will invariably result in the creation of private sector and social institutions that can

(1)    independently (both human and material terms) set and pursue own goals and objectives;

(2)    effectively develop the organisation’s capacity at achieving its stated objectives;

(3)    Develop Complexity: the health corporate bureaucratisation of an organisation's internal structure and

(4)    Cohesion: the sharing of common values, goals and organisational culture among an organisation's leaders and members …

Critical Conjecture: Citizens’ acuity on Foreign Policy Operationalization in Africa

Citizens critical thinking is not an isolated goal unrelated to other important goals in policy research, policy practice and policy evaluation. Rather, it is a seminal goal which, done well, simultaneously facilitates a rainbow of other ends. It is best conceived, therefore, as the hub around which all other educational ends cluster. It is clear that there is no way to bring critical thinking successfully into instruction across the curriculum with a stand-alone one or two-day workshop. Critical thinking is a difficult thing to define with much precision. Academics across diverse fields such as pedagogy, cognitive psychology and curriculum development each have their own understanding of the term. The theme of the lecture augurs on challenges and opportunities in interfacing pathways for translating research evidence through policy to practice for sustainable citizen engagement in foreign policy formulation. The key research question is what research protocols and models of foreign policy formulation can be deployed to reform the research, policy and practice interface? The finding of the research portend the underpinnings of ideology and agency for the research, policy and practice nexus in Africa, uncertainty and complexity in foreign policy formulation and management. Analytical challenges to the foreign policy formulation research-policy- practice nexus are generally marked by a tendency to narrow the nexus to the terms and categories of immediate, not very well considered, political and social action and inattention to problems of articulation or production of global systems and process within local politics rather than simply as formal or abstract possibilities.

Key words: foreign policy, public policy, security, development, citizen participation

See paper here

‘Curbing Feminization of Poverty’ - Priming Women’s Sustainable Livelihoods

Strategies of gender responsive poverty reduction rest on singularizing models of dispossession: biological (lack of biological needs-food, shelter, clothing…) and social (powerlessness) and distinguishing between seven underlying forces of social change, or forms of 'capital' and making a distinction between five approaches (Shafer, 1998). Organizational adaptation to poverty is part of the globalization of public policy, an ad hoc process, which defines in outline the emergence of a new system of global governance, heralding the emergence of a system adapted to the process of co-evolutionary development that systemic crisis in the South has given rise to. Rich nations relations with the poor are now being shaped by the interplay of strategic concerns and aid market interests (Duffield, 1995) that raise the following questions (Costantinos, 1998). Does gender responsive poverty reduction and development enter societal processes in Africa as an external ideology, constructing and deploying its concepts in sterile abstraction from the immediacies of indigenous traditions, beliefs and values? Do these ideas come into play in total opposition to, or in cooperation with historic national values and sentiments? The unique contribution of the sustainable livelihoods approach recommended here is the synergy that is created by the outputs of the main “building blocks” of the sustainable livelihoods approach - human resilience, economic efficiency, social equitability and ecological stability. Adaptive strategies represent permanent change in community strategy and structure and organizational processes. These capacities are contingent upon availability, stability and accessibility of options, which are ecological, socio-cultural, economic and political. They are predicated on equity, ownership of resources and participatory and wise decision-making -- notions of sustainable development that incorporate the idea of change and uncertainty.

Key words: poverty, gender, poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods,

See paper here

Carbon-Tax-Credit Development & Environmental Preservation Program: Carbon-tax-credit program

The opening salvo of the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) vision states, “Uncertainty about the exact nature of future climate change must not be interpreted as uncertainty in the need to act now to minimize future damage”. It is based on Article 44 of the Ethiopian Constitution that underpins the fact that the Ethiopian people have a fundamental right to an environment, adequate for health and well being. Hence, Ethiopia has launched an explicit plan that ranges its remit from federal to community level to identify and act upon climate change challenges through policies, strategies, structures and participatory processes. Ethiopia is planning to develop the green economy strategy based on improving crop and livestock production practices, while reducing emissions;  protecting and re-establishing forests for their economic and ecosystem services; expanding electric power generation from renewable sources of energy five-fold and leapfrogging to energy-efficient technologies in transport, industry and buildings.

On March 19, 2011 the Verified Carbon Standard Association (VCSA), based in Washington, D.C. formally approved a method of forest management. This methodology, now formally known as VM0011, provided a United Nation’s approved way for REDD+ to calculate the carbon emission reductions that result from the creation of carbon credits, in the form of Verified Carbon Units (VCUs), derived from international forest conservation projects and that provide a direct economic incentive for landowners (Governments) to preserve forests.

The dramatic growth of the Carbon Credit market to date, according to World Bank figures, shows that the global trading market is now worth a phenomenal US $144 billion. EPI, through its management and guarantee program, has the ability to swap Ethiopia’s carbon credits for investment capital and collateral guarantees. The investment capital may be utilized by the Ethiopian sovereign state as the state sees fit. EPI has the capability to utilize its carbon credit asset values that you either own or control. Over a ten-year span, EPI could assist Ethiopia to triple these values for sovereign state investment improvements.

See lecture here

Shaping Epistemic Alliances: Trafficking in Persons and Forced Displacement in Africa

The 21^st Century has ushered in a time of unprecedented global wealth and extraordinary opportunities; but Africa is mired in human trafficking, a crime against humanity, where thousands of men, women and children fall victims to. While many proposals for remedial action have been formulated, real commitment to collaborative processes at all levels has always been limited. Hence, the need for collective learning about our responses and the responsibility to those whose suffering provided the basis for that learning will never be more urgent than it is now.

It requires novel partnership policies, strategies and tools, multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary institutional framework in tandem with stakeholder-driven multi-track advocacy, as a means of self-determination of epistemic communities. Strengthening synergies between international and national efforts would inform to prime the international partnership under a code of practice, mainstreaming responses and coordinated action. Africa already possesses most of the “tools” needed to change the course of human trafficking and displacement. Epistemic African communities have pioneered, developed and tested many adaptive strategies, with an impressive range of best practices, long before states came into the scene. Africans are not powerless against these ailments, but the magnitude of the disaster-triggering agents has become so cruel and trafficking agents so cunning, these systems are being outgunned. Advances in human thought towards justice and universalization of human rights guarantees are gathering momentum with the motive energy backed by demand for accountability of states. While this will set profound feat against human vulnerability, legalism shades mutual aid and sagacity of civic duty that rightly makes human beings unique.

          Key words: human displacement, human trafficking, international partnership, human rights, legalism,

See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/16828894/Shaping_Epistemic_Alliances_-_Trafficking_in_Persons_and_Forced_Displacement_in_Africa

‘New Deal’ for Africa ‘Ending Energy Poverty’ The Ethiopian Experiment

Energy development (increased provision and use of energy services) is an integral part of enhanced economic development. Advanced industrialized societies use more energy per unit of eco­nomic output and far more energy per capita than poorer societies, especially those still in a pre-in­dustrial state. As stated by the Obama Power Africa program, energy is a key ingredient for Africa’s development. The fact that AfDB has made it a pri­ority is welcome news for the sector. Development of the Inga Dam can produce 42 GW that will fuel the economy of the Great Lakes Region.

The case study augurs on Ethiopia, the water tower of North-East Africa. It was the epicenter of famines. Surface water flows in 12 major river basins, dis­charging an estimated 122.19 billion C³ of water an­nually. Ethiopia is the power­ house of Africa due to its high hydro power potential. The largest plant, Belles, began initial operation in May 2010. Contracts for five large dams have been signed and when completed this year, these dams would increase the installed capacity by more than 11 GW from less than one GW in 2008. The construction of more large dams is foreseen in a Master Plan that aims to bring capacity to 15 GW. Currently, it provides 150 megawatts electricity to Sudan and Djibouti. Ethiopia plans to increase its power exports to Dji­bouti, Kenya and Sudan and es­tablish grid links to South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Soma­lia and Yemen; fostering regional integration, peace and security. Ethiopia is aggressively investing in alternative energy sources: wind, solar and geothermal.

Key words: energy, hydro dams, wind, geothermal, solar, water,

See paper here

The Mighty Nile: Nascent Spurts towards Promises and Possibilities for Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan

The Mighty Nile:

Nascent Spurts towards Promises and Possibilities for

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan- Reporter Interview

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

School of Graduate Studies, AAU

Why do Ethiopia and the upstream riparian states want to harness the Nile?

Costantinos:   

         In 1984, a famine began to strike Ethiopia with apocalyptic force. Westerners watched in horror as the images of death filled their TV screens: the rows of fly-haunted corpses, the skeletal orphans crouched in pain, the villagers desperately scrambling for bags of grain dropped from the sky. What started out as a trickle of aid turned into a billion-dollar flood. The rescue effort was plagued by delays and controversy, and some one million Ethiopians eventually died, but more would have perished if the world had not responded so generously. Such were the horrors of famine perpetrated by rogue governments that toady we assert that famine is or should be history.

        Ethiopia, a nation known as the water tower of North-East Africa has been the epicenter of famines while surface water resources in Ethiopia flow in 12 major river basins. It is estimated that an average of 122.19 billion cubic meters of water is annually discharged from the Abay, Tekeze, Baro, and Omo-Gibe river basins with an estimated 3.5 million ha of irrigable land. Hence, the long-term objective is to establish once and for all a nation that can ensure its citizenry human security. Nile and Gilgel Gibe are just two of the many projects expected to contribute to this vision. Understandably, the Ethiopia has now launched major economic and social rehabilitation scheme to make famine history. Indeed, the economy has recently been growing at 10% and provides opportunities to finance development within. Development practitioners and pundits ensemble, believe that massive food production and the energy required to fuel such development is the only way that the nations can shed the stigma of famine.

Reporter – What are the essences of the Nile Controversy

Costantinos:  

        The Nile is a river shared by ten riparian States that are among the ten poorest in the world and that necessitate the development of the Nile Water resources by all riparian States. The 1929 agreement was signed between Great Britain (albeit representing its colony, Egypt) and Great Britain, which also represented at the time Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and Sudan. The document gave Cairo (under colonial administration by London) the right to veto projects higher up the Nile that would affect its water share. The treaty for the full utilization of the Nile, concluded between Egypt and the Sudan in 1959, divides the entire flow of the Nile between the two countries. Other riparian countries, notably Ethiopia - a country with a projected population of 88 million today and which contributes about 86% of the annual discharge of the Nile - to date use only less than 1% of it. Ethiopia could not develop its water resources to feed its needy population, mainly because of policies of international financial institutions (augured on formers colonial powers), which have made it difficult for upper riparian countries to secure finance without the consent of Egypt, have a significant contribution in this regard. Foreign investments for the development of the Nile waters have been almost out of the question. The downstream riparian States, therefore, have maintained the right to veto the development endeavours of the upstream States.

      The Nile status quo was such that Ethiopia, whose name has almost become synonymous with drought and famine, is condemned to be a bystander, while few downstream States have almost utilized the entire water flow. Moreover, to make matters worse, they keep on introducing new mega-irrigation projects even further. As a result, upper riparian countries are naturally left with very little choice other than to resort to a reciprocal measure of unilateralism even if as feared by many that it may trigger conflict, it indubitably is a better motive for cooperation.

What is The Nile Basin Initiative?

Costantinos: 

         Founded in 1999, the initiative brings together Nile Basin countries to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security. The Co-operative Framework was vehemently rejected by Egypt and Sudan on the basis of their claimed legal and historical rights over the full amount of water, as stated in the 1929/59 agreements. The Initiative is predicated on the fact all riparian states except Egypt and Sudan believe that the status quo was unfair, unreasonable, humiliating, exploitative and represent a threat to water security; only then they will be able to co-operate with other riparian states and seek a win-win settlement.

      The United Nations, the World Bank, and other international bodies, which were perceived by some riparian States to be part of the Nile quagmire for too long, have decided to be part of the solution. The facilitation by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program engendered two all-inclusive projects: the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and the Nile Cooperative Framework. Because they involve all the riparian countries, these projects are qualitatively different from their predecessors. Given the degree of mistrust characterizing the Nile, securing the participation of all these countries in projects dealing with the development of the Nile Waters should be considered a significant move in the direction of cooperation. The NBI vision to achieve sustainable socioeconomic development through the equitable utilization of and benefit from the common Nile Basin water resources-is endorsed by all riparian States. They have even gone beyond the statement of vision and attempted to articulate and translate it into project portfolios. This attempt at defining and articulating the vision and translating it into projects is a significant achievement.

       It is no secret that the unwritten but real strategy of NBI is to secure the consensus of all the riparian countries on the less controversial issues by postponing the key but difficult issues of the Nile to a future date or for succeeding generations. There is no disagreement on the fact that the projects under NBI essentially have confidence building as their main objective. Questions, therefore, arise on whether these “confidence-building” measures stand a chance to improve the chronic state of mutual mistrust and suspicion that have characterized the development of the Nile Waters. Institutionalization of cooperation on the Nile is imperative. With the view to address the legal and institutional aspect of cooperation, “a Cooperative Framework Project (D3)” was initiated in 1997. This pioneer, all-inclusive project is designed to have the “establishment of a functioning Basin-wide multidisciplinary framework for legal and institutional arrangements”, and the “development of a process with clear objectives that will lead to determination of equitable and legitimate right of water use in each riparian country”.

What are the possibilities for harnessing The Nile to everyone’s advantage

Costantinos: 

         A lot of progress has been registered under the Nile Cooperative Framework Project over the past few years. The panel, composed of three experts from the Nile riparian countries, has managed to identify, despite the prevailing sense of mistrust, key issues and articulate their differences. Attempts on attaining convergence on some of the important issues have been made. Ways and means to get around dividing issues were also explored. It is encouraging to note that the panel of experts has developed a draft Cooperative Framework Agreement, understandably marred by many square brackets. The fact that a new agreement has been signed by six states is a step forward. The differences between these States, especially that of Egypt and Sudan, on some of the important provisions of the draft agreement may be resolved if the experts' work can be complemented by the goodwill, determination and courage of the political leaderships of the riparian States and, of course, the positive outlook of the international community.

       The new dam to be built in Benishangul-Gumuz will have a reservoir capacity of twice that of Lake Tana. This will ensure constant flow of the Nile every during drought times in the Ethiopian highlands that provide the flow. On the other hand, the proper management of the Nile waters by downstream riparian states in Sudan and Egypt is essential. The technology to use the water efficiently (because the Aswan Dam looses an equivalent amount of water used by Egypt, to evaporation) must be a priority for Egypt. Protests that are not based on scientific facts and solid evidence should not hamper the regions fledgling development projects. Further transport of the Nile waters to the Sinai Peninsula and on wards to the Middle East, must also be thought-out carefully. It is in this way that Ethiopia and other upstream riparian states can also harness the Nile (without drastically affecting the effective water security of Egypt and Sudan).

        In conclusion, fighting economic insecurity requires development in the Nile by all riparian States, while addressing more systematically to the limit the impact of the reduction of the Nile discharge. Cooperation, therefore, may mean less water for them and, as such, it is not surprising that non-cooperation has remained the Nile modus operandi for no less than a century. Countries like Ethiopia have reached the stage where they are left with no choice other than to utilize the Nile Waters and are making it clear to all that the only viable alternative is cooperation; that is not a zero-sum game. In fact, a balance must be created between what is logically tenable in terms of the incessant dependency on international charity and ‘unsubstantiated’ militancy against such development projects, without which, that dependence will not be addressed. Notwithstanding colonial, economic, political and sundry rationale for the monopoly of the Nile waters, attempts must be made to identify the impediments and the need for strategic partnership and alliances. It can be done. Yes it can be done. A skilled and committed leadership of all riparian states can mitigate conditions that are hostile to achieving such synergy between states and equitable growth and prosperity among the region.

      Then and only then can we say that Egypt is the Gift of the Nile, and The Mighty Nile is the Gift of Ethiopia.