Indigenous Peoples of Africa: Prospects for Resilient & Sustainable Livelihoods

Indigenous Peoples of Africa: Prospects for Resilient & Sustainable Livelihoods - Costantinos, Published by EcoAfrica

Africa has been experiencing a major ground swell of social, economic, cultural and political changes. While the movement towards fundamental political change is remarkable, there are certain formidable challenges that will make the transition to a stable, political and pluralist system of governance very difficult. The cultural, historical, political and socioeconomic conditions of this troubled region are not simply too conducive to the emergence of strong political polity. It is indeed within this context in which the legal empowerment of the indigenous peoples has to be recognized.

Across countries and continents, many terms and definitions refer to indigenous peoples. The 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has not adopted a universal definition. While the prevailing view today is that no formal universal definition is necessary for the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights, there is in practice a large degree of convergence of views. Indigenous Peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of characteristics such as: having close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas; self-identifying and being identified by others as being members of a distinct cultural group, an indigenous language; or having customary social and political institutions and primarily subsistence-oriented production.

Africa’s indigenous peoples

• Algeria: Amazigh/ Berber;
• Angola: San/Bushmen;
• Botswana: San/Balala, Nama;
• Burkina Faso: Peul, Tuareg;
• Burundi: Batwa;
• Cameroon: Pygmy, Mbororo, Kirdi;
• CAR: Mbororo, Aka/BaAka;
• Chad: Mbororo, Peul;
• DRC: Pygmy;
• Ethiopia: Hamer, Dassenech, Nygagaton and Erbore, Nuer, Afar, Borraan, Oromo, Mursi, Agnwak, Nuer, Gumuz,
• Gabon: Pygmy;
• Kenya: Turkana, Rendille, Borraan, Maasai, Samburu, Ilchamus, Somali, Gabra, Pokotand, Endorois, Ogiek, Sengwer, Yaaku, Waata, El Molo, Boni (Bajuni), Malakote, Wagoshi, Sanya, Kalenjin;
• Mali: Tuareg, Peul;
• Morocco: Amazigh/ Berber;
• Namibia: San, Himba;
• Niger: Peul, Tuareg, Toubou;
• Nigeria: Ijaw, Ogoni, Yoruba, Edo, Igbo, Urhobo, Itsekiri, Isoko, Efik, Ibibio South, Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri, Nupe, Tiv;
• Rep. Congo: Bantu,Pygmy;
• South Africa: San (Xun, Khwe and Khomani), Nama/Khoe;
• Tanzania: Bantu, Cushite, Nilo-Hamite& San;
• Uganda: Batwa, Benet, Karamajong

Characteristics associated with indigenous claims in Africa

Africans founded the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) in 1997, as one of the main transnational network organizations recognized as a representative of African indigenous peoples in dialogues with governments and bodies such as the UN. IPACC (1977) identifies several key characteristics associated with indigenous claims in Africa:

• political and economic marginalization rooted in colonialism;
• de facto discriminationbased often on the dominance of agricultural peoples in the State system (e.g. lack of access to education and health care by hunters and herders);
• the particularities of culture, identity, economy and territoriality that link hunting and herding peoples to their home environments in deserts and forests (e.g. nomadic, diet, knowledge systems);
• Some indigenous peoples, such as the Sanand Pygmy peoples are physically distinct, which makes them subject to specific forms of discrimination.

In addition to the above-mentioned definition, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) describes indigenous people as nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists and hunter/gatherers who live in situations of marginalization and discrimination. While all these definitions capture some key characteristics of indigene populations, they do not fully account for some of the distinct traits of the population. Furthermore, these definitions pose particular problems in the African context where the term is constantly confused with pastoralism. Therefore, the initial task of this study was to set out criteria that will help in identifying the indigenous groups in Africa that the research/study should focus on. Clearly defining indigene populations in the African context will help development stakeholders to identify and document the size, location and grouping of indigenes in Africa and decide when and by reference to what criteria, they should receive differential treatment in Bank projects.

Indigenes Countries

• Pygmy - DRC, Gabon& Republic of Congo
• Mbororo - Central African Republic &Chad
• Peul - Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger& Mali
• Amazigh - Algeria, Morocco (Berber)
• Batwa - Burundi, Uganda Tanzania
• San - Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa

According to the information obtained from IWGIA and confirmed by the ACHPR, around “fifty million indigenous people in twenty one African nations, mostly nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists and hunter/gatherers live in situations of marginalization and discrimination. The major groups of indigenous people are the Amazigh/Berber in Northern Africa, the Pygmies in Central Africa, the Peul and the Tuareg in Western Africa, the Bantu in East Africa and the Sanpeople /Bushmen in Southern Africa.

The situation of indigenous peoples in Africa is daunting.

While discrimination of marginalized groups, mal-governance, corruption, impunity, violent conflicts and poverty is in general very high on the African continent, indigenous peoples are specifically among the groups suffering the most. Rural poverty in Africa is increasingly concentrated in indigenous and pastoral communities where they face economic, social, political and cultural marginalization in the societies in which they live, resulting in extreme poverty and vulnerability for a disproportionate number of them. Generally, their socio-economic and human development conditions are significantly worse than other populations. Caused by a number of factors such as dominating development paradigms favoring settled agriculture over other modes of production, establishment of national parks and conservation areas and natural resource extraction etc., this harms them in many ways. Indigenous peoples in Africa are often victims of violent conflicts. Indigenous peoples in Africa have limited access to justice and violations against their rights are often committed with impunity. In sum, indigenous peoples in African suffer from severe neglect, dispossession and human rights violations, and the general trend is that African states wish to assimilate them into dominant cultures and livelihoods.

Only few African countries have so far recognized the existence of indigenous peoples. However, this situation is gradually improving and several central African countries now recognize the existence of indigenous peoples in their countries. For example, Ethiopia’s Constitution provides for representation of every nation and nationality in the upper chamber of law making. Kenya a new constitution has been adopted which provides for considerable decentralization and recognition of historically marginalized groups to which indigenous peoples belong. In Burundi, the constitution provides for special representation of the indigenous Batwa people in the National Assembly and the Senate. Cameroon has a draft law on Marginal Populations. The Central African Republic has as the first country in Africa ratified ILO Convention 169.

Indigenous people’s poor representation in decision-making bodies at both local and national level and has very much limited their participation in decision-making processes. Mainstream populations have always discriminated indigenous peoples and looked down upon as backward peoples. Many stereotypes prevail that describe them as “backward”, “uncivilized” and “primitive, an embarrassment to modern African states. Such negative stereotyping legitimizes discrimination and marginalization of indigenous peoples by institutions of governance and dominant groups. Advances in human thought and action towards global justice and universalization of guarantees for human rights are gathering added momentum with the motive energy contributed by these unprecedented events. The ability of States to strip people of their rights to livelihood security, shrouded behind the thin veneer of non-interference in each other's internal affairs is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. While the dawning of this new era of political pluralism and economic growth is a welcome event, the stewardship, management and administration of social, political, and economic reforms is also marked by uniquely forbidding organizational-strategic issues.

Promoting indigenous peoples’ development

In the wake for Africa's renaissance, African scholars and practitioners must research and promote indigenous peoples’ development by connecting with the people, joining in on their aspirations, complementing their abilities with their resources and assisting to create true partnerships. Africans must commit to a common discipline of empowerment among all people, to a fundamentally new value system based on justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Indeed, it is a system recognizes the rich resources of indigenous peoples’ communities, their cultural and spiritual contributions and protecting the wealth of nature. It will be radically different from the value system on which the present economic and political orders function and which lies behind the current crises of indigenous peoples. We need to collectively define a new understanding of empowerment in which those who have been marginalized by reason of sex, age, economic and political condition, ethnic origin and disability, the homeless, refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants alike take their place at the center of all decisions and actions as equal partners.

Given time, the empowerment approach entailed in this new paradigm, can take root to become significantly enabling to African countries and peoples as they strive to meet their objectives. This requires among, other things, a fundamental paradigm shift in the identification of development challenges and a sustained effort to transform the way in which knowledge is currently constructed, organized and used as a basis for programming.

A new structure can emerge, which provides for a state agency that will administer assemblies, which will administer indigenous people’s lands. The institutional structure augurs on the principles already discussed in the previous section mindful of the following:

• that the structure should be Executive and its accountability should be to the people through a legislative organ, the Parliament;
• that the administration of land and participation of the people generally, and the land users participation matters should be conducted in a transparent manner;
• that land management and land delivery systems provision of professional service as opposed to administrative; institutional checks and balances should be built into the structure and prevented from developing into a monopolistic, bureaucratic entity

Needless to repeat, we can derive these principles directly opinions received from the people who argued that the present management was not close enough and accessible to the majority of the people. It was insensitive to the expectations and interests of the town dwellers; controlled effectively by a handful of administrative mandate to decide on land matters and who often abused their offices for lack of professional ethics and checks and balances. Hence, the recommended management and administrative structure maintains the principle of separation of powers at state level down to the village level. In particular, the Constitution guards the principle of the independence of the judiciary. The most dramatic advance in the history of human thought came about not because of the discovery of new answers for old problems but because of new queries for erstwhile problems. The thesis of this research is based on the need to elevate the discourse on people-driven in institutionalizing social ingenuity to a higher paradigm of institutional mainstreaming instead of trying to find new answers to justify emerging cerebral deprivation of the intellectual or the frustration of the state elite to explain grinding poverty in African rural communities.

Conclusion

The intrinsic difficulty of underpinning the reason for livelihood crisis is that an enormous number of physical, economic, social and political variables, at both national and international levels, influence the interplay between state and civil society, modernity and tradition, self-less nationalism and greed, knowledge based governance and ignorance, courage and fear of the unknown. At the level of civil society, problems manifest themselves in the form of insufficient and inadequate organizations and networks to develop responses to the challenges of vulnerability and its implications. The lack of institutional links between civil society and the public sector regarding livelihood security and obstacles and difficulties experienced by indigenous people in the process of developing adequate responses is a major hurdle we need to address. Furthermore, inadequate awareness concerning development and its implications, lack of a common will to mount a concerted assault from all quarters, and lack of resources has made the crisis even more demanding. Within a life span of something like five decades, African polities have exhibited an enhanced degree of coercive power. This has resulted in a pervasive military ethos through a long and painful process of ideological schooling. Hence, a major obstacle to efforts to install and consolidate systems is the all-powerful and hierarchical bureaucratic structure.

Even under democratically favorable contemporary global conditions, historical, ideological and strategic characteristics internal and external to the sub-Saharan Africa’s economic, social and political transition processes would still exist that make it a costly exercise. Characteristics and problems of this sort can be identified and understood through critical, yet constructive, analysis focused on certain key elements of the reform strategy; in setting the stage for the evolution of new social, political, and economic culture based on peoples priority, knowledge and practice. This has to change.

It is easy to follow the current trend within the interna­tional discourse and advocate community driven institutionalizing social ingenuity as a desirable form of adjustment for tens of millions of Africans; weathering in the storm of climate change; induced by reckless industrial growth and consump­tion. Nor is it difficult to make normative judgments about how states and societies should behave if institutionalizing social innovations in institutionalizing social ingenuity are to be the lead­ing paradigms of humanity. This is in sharp contrast to the accountability of developed nations and at the same time the demeanor of ‘development finance’ institutions in support such migration of social innovations into national and global rules of conduct.

The failed ideologies of the last century have ended, but a new one has risen to take their place. It is the ideology of Development-and it promises a solution to all the world’s ills. Nevertheless, Developmentalism is a dangerous and deadly failure, a dark ideological specter, haunting the world and as deadly as the tired ideologies of the last century, that failed so miserably, (but) it is thriving. Like all ideologies, (it) promises a comprehensive final answer to all of society’s problems, from poverty to violence and despotic rulers. It shares the common ideological characteristic of suggesting there is only one correct answer, and it tolerates little dissent. It deduces this unique answer for everyone from a general theory that purports to apply to everyone, everywhere. There is no need to involve local actors who reap its costs and benefits. It even has its own intelligentsia at the IMF, World Bank& UN (Easterly, 2007:1).

Nevertheless, it is not so easy to conceptualize local sustainable development innovations as working processes, which are balanced against strategy, to determine what makes for real, as opposed to vacu­ously formal, declaratory rhetoric of sustainable development and climate change summits of gov­ernments. This is particularly the case where corporatist states tend to view the relations of their particular SD agenda with their broader governing roles and responsibilities as relatively simple and direct, unproblematically reducing the latter to the former. The ultimate objective of sustainable development is to achieve a balance between human needs and aspirations in sync with the quality of life today and in the future. Common sense would thus exact an urgent need to bring to scale the destructive magnitude of industry, untenable demographic dynamics and frantic misuse of resources into equilibrium on the one hand and the desired outcomes in sustainable livelihoods on the other. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Devel­opment or Earth Summit, became one of the most effective means to reinforce the sig­nificance of environmental sustainability and generate global awareness of the environment–development rela­tionship.

The major outcomes of this Earth Summit, in­cluding the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Con­vention on Climate Change, the Rio Declaration and the Agenda 21, 1992, draw attention to the importance of some major dimensions of sustainability in pursuing so­cioeconomic development. Beyond platitudes and empty pledges, global covenants for a sustainable world have borne little fruit. The Rio+20 jamboree manifestly projected the mercerization of well-meaning global survival concerns by over-represented and powerful trans-nationals which, successfully coerced a dramatic barter of the human environment and life on the planet with admirable succinctness and brazen verve. From a policy perspective, therefore, any research should provide the normative and operative analytical treatise, which will enable leaders to identify the institutional gaps and potential opportunities that inhibit or promote the migration of social innovations in sustainable development into institutional praxis. It must draw on case analyses to underpin the technological reform discourse as a means of endogenous common resources management and in-depth restructuring of polity that manages this.

Demands by indigenous peoples’ leaders and rapidly evolving national and international normative frameworks on the rights of indigenous peoples have led to the adoption of specific policies by the World Bank (1991, 2005), the Asian Development Bank (1998, 2009), the Inter-American Development Bank (2006), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2008) and the African Development Bank (2013-2014). Over the years, these institutions have accumulated extensive experience in dealing with issues related to development and protection of indigene populations. While one must exercise caution because of difference of settings and context, but we can identify and learn certain best practices and lessons from these.

Priming regional integration in Africa: The vision, the mission and the practice

Priming regional integration in Africa: The vision, the mission and the practice - - - Costantinos, published by ECHOAfrica MAgazine

Today, humankind stands on an extraordinary, and perhaps, seductive sets of dilemma: a global lifestyle and value system in which the 21st century has ushered in unprecedented global wealth; yet, such a lot that is all lavishly squandered, while some African nations are haunted by an oppressive present -- an embodiment of diseases, famine, wars, and devoured natural environment. The interconnectedness of people and good governance locally and its impact on integration were manifested by how seemingly minor incidences can turn into genocides of mind boggling proportions that continue today two decades after Rwanda in DRC, South Sudan, Central African Republic; fracturing the foundations of social accord in distant communities.

According to UNECA, tremendous efforts have been exerted in Africa’s regional integration efforts in key areas. These include efforts towards continental market integration (the Tripartite FTA initiative involving COMESA, EAC and SADC, the AU Summit Decision to fast track a CFTA; the Minimum Integration Program (MIP); the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA); continental financial institutions; the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), the African common position on migration and peace and security). African states have also committed to mainstream regional integration at the national level as a vehicle for pulling off Africa’s regional integration. Developments in key areas across the RECs include free movement of people and right of establishment, but member States should still strive to ensure the fulfillment of their commitments to these supplementary continental positions and instruments on migration and the free movement of people. On the macroeconomic policy convergence arena, Africa is making progress in implementing monetary cooperation programs, highlighted by COMESA’s regional payment system to facilitate intraregional trade

African nations believe that infrastructure is vital to advancing Africa’s integration agenda, supporting economic growth, reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Africa’s prospects for transformation will be brightened by investments in infrastructure. According to a UNECA report, “The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) with the African Union Commission (AUC) has completed a study on the regional norms and institutional framework to foster the development of the various trans-African highways, which was reviewed by an expert group meeting in September 2011 in Addis Ababa. The meeting proposed an Action Plan, which was adopted by the African Ministers of Transport and subsequently endorsed by the AU Assembly. Many of the new railway development projects under way in Africa are based on the framework of the Union of African Railways, which encourages standard gauge railways. The Yamoussoukro Decision has increased air links among many African countries through operations of major African airlines. Its implementation was boosted by the decision of the third Conference of the African Ministers of Air Transport in 2007 in Addis Ababa to entrust to the African Civil Aviation Commission the role of executing agency.

African nations have also launched initiatives to promote regional cooperation in energy development, trade and capacity building. A baseline for renewable energy database has been developed for the region. MIP is a strategic framework to accelerate programs and activities of the RECs to boost continental integration. It was developed by the AUC with the RECs based on a study by the AUC in 2009. The concept of MIP was adopted by the African ministers in charge of regional integration at their fourth Conference at Yaoundé, Cameroon, in 2009. PIDA, which was adopted by the Heads of State and Government in 2010, contains a framework for meeting infrastructure demand. It has components addressing projected infrastructure gaps and bottlenecks based on supply and demand forecasts, institutional deficiencies and options for identifying, preparing and funding projects.

In line with the Abuja Treaty, the Heads of State and Government of the AU approved the hosting of the African Investment Bank, the African Monetary Fund and the African Central Bank, by Libya, Cameroon and Nigeria, respectively. AMV—a transparent, equitable and optimal exploitation of mineral resources to underpin broad-based sustainable growth and socio-economic development—was adopted by African leaders at the 2009 AU Summit

Nevertheless, much depends on the commitment and ability of states to transform the vision into practice. Developmental state advocates emphasize the stewardship role of the state while liberals and neo-classical economists are concerned with the state’s guiding functions. However, these are not only differences in political theory. At their heart lie different perceptions regarding the relation between knowledge and power. In the modern economic system, guiding often refers to policies and institutions that maintain the economic system and enable it to function effectively. Its underlying philosophy of governance, claiming its capitalist heritage, is that the state should be prevented from doing so, since it can never have enough information to undertake detailed guidance of economic activity. Guiding is restricted to macro processes and the international institutions that determine such policies and processes. These tangential issues raise several questions on Africa integration.

• Does governance of African economic and social integration 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 ideas of integration come into play in total opposition to, or in cooperation with historic national values and sentiments?
• In the struggle over the establishment of new gubernatorial norms and procedures for African economic and social integration, do leading institutions equate the articulation of their ideas and agendas with the production of broad-based concepts, norms and goals, which should govern their integration initiatives?
• Does governance of African economic and social integration signify change in terms of the transformation of the immediate stuff of partisan politics into a new kind of political activity - an activity mediated and guided by objective and critical standards, rules and principles?

The attention for governability of African economic and social integration is based on the concern about abject poverty and the sustainability of integration-based development supported by international financial institutions. If this is to happen, a predictable and transparent framework for policy design and all enabling environment for citizens' participation and private initiative, must exist. The institutional setting and the decision-making process in which this process takes place is essential, together with the norms and values on which they are based. Such integration hence connects the norms, procedures, and institutions that must exist for effective, efficient and open public policies on African economic and social integration.

Unanswered questions of African integration:

In 1991, I was invited to undertake the ALF/GCA study on political transition in Africa. Coming right after the Arusha Declaration on Popular Participation, a landmark contribution to the debate on the role of civil society, I took on the task with enthusiasm and vigor. Three years later, under the auspices of UN and EU, I took a task of two formidable responsibilities. One was to undertake studies to revitalize the role of African civil society in the UN new agenda for African development and to appraise what the future holds for the democratization process in Africa. These launched my engagement with integration talk in Africa in earnest.

Because discussions leading to African futures tend to be one of dejection, the so-called post-Cold War political history of the continent is fast replacing African economics as the morbid art or science not both. Nevertheless, caution, not cynicism, should be the craft as has been amply demonstrated by the recent growth episodes of the continent. While participants in the complex traffic web of African futures could be torn between professional caution and the genuine desire for a better future, repeated attempts to dispel the prevailing gloom of integration by pointing to the bright spots of the current episode of economic growth to check the overall drift towards ‘non-integration’ have not yielded to popular demands.

This raises some fundamental questions. What do we mean by African integration in the first place? Does integration have indigenous roots? Lurking in the background of all these questions is the rather disturbing one: is perhaps all this talk of African integration an academic or a public relations exercise?

Although Africa is lumped as a political community, it is also a continent, where various nationalities who speak over 2000 different languages, enjoy varied cultures, and inhabit their own territories. Africa is also a new continent modeled under the totalitarian rule of white colonialists and military regimes that were handpicked to replace them. They exhibited a degree of coercive power deployed both for intimidating their populace and territorial expansion. Carrying arms became a sign of an all-encompassing martial culture that brewed military discipline coupled with radical ethnic ideology to breed a culture of conformity and uniformity. The stark reality of the new concept of the fragile states also makes this last question less cynical than it would otherwise appear at first sight. African leaders are articulate in stating their integration aims and positions and in promoting them within and through their Governments and their regional institutions.

However, to describe the strategy is problematique for a number of reasons. African States cannot be expected to know all their political objectives and means-ends calculation openly when it comes to issue of integration and one cannot suppose that their formally declared aims and purposes exhaust their ideological and strategic intentions. The way in which they envision the concepts and goals of integration in specific contexts may be at variance with the global “meaning” or “sense” attributed to them. The specific mode of concern about integration may be more processual than revolutionary, more liberal than egalitarian, or more procedural than substantive. Alternatively, it may switch from the liberal code or structural model to the revolutionary code unpredictably - making the task of describing objectives difficult.

The articulation of ideas and ends of integration is not monolithic. It is modulated within the network of domestic and foreign participants - like the goal of securing peace and stability and prevention of balkanization in South Sudan and Central African Republic. However, it also includes discourses and associated objectives designed primarily, though not exclusively, for consumption by a specific public. For these reasons, it is not easy to give an exact account of African integration goals and ultimate political ends pursued by African states. The author has lingering doubts and questions about the status and mission of the dominant regional organizations and at the core of them the African Union, about the nature of the alliance that all point up the need for caution in taking declaratory goals of “African integration” at face value. Nevertheless, one can describe accurately the declared reform goals on the assumption that they are significant, if not exhaustive, indicators of real intentions. This is admittedly a simplifying assumption, but one which provides a point of departure for analyzing an involved and controversial strategy. What does this leave the transition to African integration? Practically nothing but problems to solve: African integration needs to be built virtually from scratch. Politically, its past is more a liability than an asset. In designing the methodology for studies leading to integration and in establishing the analytical foundation, it is important that that we understand the different permutations and trajectories of integration: society-led or state-led integration or a combination of both.

Regional integration is difficult. Eloquent testimony for this is the challenges faced by European integration where Germany is technically driving the process by bailing out the faltering economies. Ultimately, as the UNECA report concludes, “Regional integration initiatives require a large degree of public management and implementation at the national level. Without an absolute commitment at the national level, there can be little progress at the sub-regional level. Doing nothing or too little to implement agreed programs can severely hamper the integration agenda”. Indeed as President Museveni asserted, “Africans today are surviving at the mercy of others. Rationality would have propelled us to use the recovery of our independence to ensure that Africa stands up for the last time. Independence and post-independence African leaders need to bear the historical responsibility for the future tragedies that may befall Africans in the future”.

Agriculture: Increase water harvesting in Africa

• Johan Rockström
• & Malin Falkenmark

18 March 2015

Meeting global food needs requires strategies for storing rainwater and retaining soil moisture to bridge dry spells, urge Johan Rockström and Malin Falkenmark.

http://www.nature.com/news/agriculture-increase-water-harvesting-in-africa-1.17116

Is philosophy dead? | News | Times Higher Education

Is philosophy dead? | News | Times Higher Education

Shalom again, Barack Phone call, the sequel.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/01/shalom-barack-150128054346716.html

Netanyahu's decision may have shaken the balance of US-Israel ties [REUTERS]

About the Author

Marwan Bishara

Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.

@MarwanBishara

BO: Shalom Bibi, I didn't expect your call so soon…
BN: We hung up on a bitter note and I was hoping we could find a middle ground.
BO: I can't see a middle ground here. Besides you have an election coming up and we cannot seem to be siding with any one side.
BN: Mr President, I am preoccupied by Iran's nuclear programme, not the elections. I am driven by the solemn commitment to Israel's security, not politics.
BO: You don't say! Unless you're planning to leak our chat, I can't see the point of this lofty talk; we're all political animals dear Bibi … no shame in that, I just prefer if you did it in your own backyard.
BN: You must believe me. I won't say it if I didn't mean it.
BO: Look, I am not questioning your sincerity, I am questioning your judgement; coming two weeks before the elections can only be perceived as exploiting the nuclear issue for narrow personal or political end. Frankly, it stinks of opportunism.
BN: Barack, I am calling out of consideration not desperation. What makes you think I am worried about the elections or the visit? I can easily make the speech and get re-elected prime minister come spring time.
BO: Judging from our diplomatic cables and the media reports, you are becoming ever more isolated, no one supports your visit, not even your friends in the Democratic Party, as well as your advisers and lobbyists, all are asking you to back off and cancel the visit.  Your gamble has clearly backfired.

BO: Judging from our diplomatic cables and the media reports, you are becoming ever more isolated, no one supports your visit, not even your friends in the Democratic Party, as well as your advisers and lobbyists, all are asking you to back off and cancel the visit. Your gamble has clearly backfired.

BN: Perhaps you and your people pay too much attention to the liberal press. I don't exactly care for the NY Times and Haaretz; their readerships aren't exactly my constituency.
BO: Benjamin, I read the signs, and yours are bleak. You've bitten off more than you can chew. If you're seeking my help to avoid choking on your own ambition, I'll happily oblige, but only if you call off the speech. That's unless you've had a sudden change of heart and decided to support our diplomacy.
BN: I couldn't and wouldn't call it off. That would be a major slap to Congress and its leadership. There should be another way out that doesn't undermine the White House or Congress and I am hoping we can explore it together.
BO: There's no way out. The only option that I can think of - one that was suggested by one of your lobbyists - is for you to postpone until well after the elections. Since you are sure of winning, I suggest you come late spring or summer. And perhaps we could also meet then.
BN: You want me to come speak to both Houses of Congress about the threat of Iran's nuclear programme after you've signed a deal with President Rouhani! Who's disingenuous now!
BO: Either way you won't get your way, Mr Prime Minister. Senator Robert Menendez and nine other Democratic senators have already sent me a letter to say they had withdrawn their support for another sanctions bill until the diplomatic process ran its course. We are betting on a peaceful resolution to the Iranian issue.  
BN: I am sure this will not stop the Republicans from going ahead with a bill. Meanwhile, I am only trying to mitigate a potential crisis and see whether we could arrive at a compromise of sort.
BO: No compromises here. I am the Commander in Chief and I've decided to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear programme. The Senate Republicans might be able to pass a bill with a thin majority, but they won't be able to override my veto power. You are on the wrong side of the issue; worse, you're on the wrong side of history.
BN: Oh, history, right. Mr President many before have bet on peace and diplomacy in the Middle East, but they failed once and again. This region and its people only understand the alphabet of intimidation and the language of force. You'll fail like any of your predecessors who reckoned they could reason with these people.
BO: These people, as you call them, are your neighbours, not ours. You might have the illusions of being western, but you are a Middle Eastern nation whether you like it or not. And, by the way, "these people" say the same about you.
BN: Israel is a country of principle; a country that's fighting for its survival. We would never compromise on that. 

---

Part One: Hello Bibi, Shalom Barack

---

BO: Your neighbours and much of the world reckon that Israel is an occupier. That it's Israel that only understands the language of force. That you've withdrawn from the Sinai, Lebanon and Gaza only under the threat of force and war.
BN: Be that as it may, look where these withdrawals have gotten us. They certainly didn't bring us security or normalisation of relations. The Arabs and Muslims are hateful and won't make peace with us. Our only protection is our military.
BO: And the United States?
BN: Well, yes.
BO: You will never feel safe or even survive in the long run until you become part and parcel of the region. You need to make peace and normalise relations with your neighbours. Agreements are always better than war.
BN: We are a democratic Jewish State in a sea of chaotic Muslim countries. And the only way we can endure it is by maintaining military superiority and total control over the autonomous Palestinian areas. History shows that the Palestinians cannot be trusted. We've tried to work with them but they're not amenable to coexistence.
BO: You want to maintain control over them and treat them as inferior and still expect them to acquiesce to your dictates! I never said it to you in the past, and I won't say it publicly even when some have speculated about my thoughts, but I think your approach towards your Arab and Muslim neighbours reminds me of the European approach to Africa, just as your treatment of the Palestinians reminds me of America's past treatment of black people. It's racist if you don't mind me saying so. 
BN: Sorry Mr President but I won't allow you to say that about us, we the Jewish people have suffered from racism more than any other people and won't tolerate such criticism. We've already told Mr Kerry how much we opposed his reference to Apartheid in the absence of peace.
BO: You forget whom you're talking to. Let's not try and compare past suffering. The challenge here is not to compete over victimhood. Rather the challenge is to draw the right conclusion; to stand for justice and equality, or to project bigotry and or justify xenophobia and racism.
BN: Thank you for another sermon, but that's hardly the issue here. It certainly wouldn't mitigate the Iranian threat. If you care so much for the Palestinians why did you leave them at our mercy, we, quote, the occupier, unquote? Why would you barter their rights for our silence on Iran?
BO: Listen, eventually you must either separate from the Palestinians into two states, or you'll have to live with them in one state, as in South Africa. Remember, Iran represents no threat, nuclear or any other, if you and the Palestinians live TOGETHER in peace and harmony. Otherwise, it's Israel that will be isolated; it's Israel that will pay the price of choosing belligerence over diplomacy.
BN: I need to go Mr President, as I am getting reports that Hezbollah has just attacked our military on the northern borders.
BO: We shall condemn it.
BN: I rest my case.
BO: So do I...
Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

A ‘meritocratic’ state for Africa

The purpose of this think piece emanated from the deep conviction that an African renaissance can only happen with the development of each and every African and the collective skills, aptitudes and visions of our citizens. It is indeed timely and apposite to discourse on the subject of empowered professional self development. The piece hence seeks to explore the changing nature of international debates about empowered self-development and its implications for human empowerment to achieve our declared goals for the next five years and the MDGs.

        Do human qualities spur development? Yes they do; but… On the global arena, a consensus has emerged that a concerted massive action over a sustained period, on the development and utilization of a pool of critical human qualities at all levels and spectrum of society would provide the foundation and engine for gaining a respectable and beneficial place within the process of self-development and self-management. A disciplined, healthy, nourished, and motivated labour force is required to produce and distribute the goods and services needed for sustained human development. Leadership teams that are committed and willing with positive attitude to facilitate the process of opening up greater opportunities for every citizen are needed.

        With the groundswell of political consciousness and opportunities for political change that has emerged in Africa, the discourse on cultural democracy can and must take place to ensure its ultimate sustainability. It is also a challenge, because, for a third time in a generation, we are faced with the daunting task of building up new and equitable relationships; and hence the litmus test to our ability to participate in reshaping the future of a nation. It is also an opportunity for Africans to marshal their experience and knowledge to play a constructive role in national development.       As the march of meritocracy has now slowed to a crawl in Africa, and, on some fronts, has even turned into a retreat, the real threat to merit-based career development comes not only from within the government and the private sector but from society at large. The biggest risk to our development is the erosion of the competitive principle.

        Which world are we living in? Amid the turbulence of the divisions that marked the debate in the Cold War period, which was dominated by the great ideological differences between liberal-capitalism and socialism, and in which the contest was seen to lie in the competing claims of the primacy of civil and political rights on the one hand and economic and social rights on the other. At the heart of the controversy in self development was the role of the market in the organization of economy and the well known critique by Marx that established a better framework for rights in which economic and social rights were ensured to all people, enabling them to live a life of dignity and hence nations analyzed rights in class terms. Leaders hovered uneasily between these opposed views, reluctant to disengage from the rhetoric, which had been invoked extensively in the seventies, but also conscious of the difficulties of establishing political authority, especially in multiethnic societies, and increasingly driven to restrictions of rights. The end of the Cold War changed dramatically the context for the discourse of self-development widely represented as the victory of human right and Western (Mainly American) democracy. The discourse achieved a high salience. The west defined its mission the extension of rights and democracy to other parts of the world... followed by its dominance of Western culture. Soon Coca Cola and Hollywood became the icons of the new ‘cultural revolution’.

On our end, throughout African history, activists have worked in socially broad-based movements to challenge social injustice in oppressive eras, regimes, and faith aristocracies that challenged the very idealism of humanness and human dignity. The ethic that has brought about this change has been manifested in more ways than one; by emancipation-spirituality that inspired widespread grassroots renewal all over the world. The contemporaneous forms of inspirited social-change masterpieces that it brought deserve considerable attention in any discourse of human development, distribution of wealth and well-being; especially when it comes to building robust communities of faith, resilience, and ethics.

        Good enough never is - do a little more: No matter how common the task, it should be done uncommonly well. Such a choice is always wise; after all, the path of excellence is never crowded and is a highway that leads to the top. Excellence is not a destination we reach, but is an unending process of constant improvement. What better way to live than by growing better each day? Those who pursue excellence are not in direct competition with others, for they measure themselves against their own accomplishments. The real contest is always between what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else." Excellence is deliberate, not an accident that we stumble upon. It is about asking of ourselves more than others do; it is about harbouring thoughts of excellence in our hearts and minds. As long as we aim for a more ideal self, success will naturally follow. Moreover, the good news is excellence is within the grasp of all, for it is merely about doing our best at every moment. It is not about perfection, which is an illusive goal, but about becoming what we are capable of being. Those who stand by the sidelines and watch others succeed, know what is necessary, but are unwilling to devote the time and effort to bettering themselves. So, each of us have to make a decision.

        To do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way; to do some things better than they were ever done before; to eliminate errors; to know both sides of the question; to be courteous; to be an example; to work for the love of work; to anticipate requirements; to develop resources; to recognize no impediments; to master circumstances; to act from reason rather than rule; to be satisfied with nothing short of perfection. Those who are successful in their quest for excellence simply do what they do better and do more of it. They go about life always alert for better ways of doing things. Every endeavour they engage in is imprinted with their mark of excellence. They understand that if you do a job quickly, people will forget about it. But if you do it well, people will remember. Founder of IBM, Thomas J. Watson (1874 ~ 1956), in his work the Path to Excellence said that: Care more than others think is wise. Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. Strive more than others think is worthwhile. Do more than others think is necessary. Be more than others think is sufficient.

        Greatness is not power, wealth, fame, beauty, or talent. Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service, and character. (William Arthur) In other words, it is becoming someone you admire. Not because of egoism, but because of the innate desire to be and do one’s best. This is the single most powerful investment nations can ever make in life - investment in human ability to deal with life and to contribute. People are the instruments of their own performance, and to be effective, they need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw. The more proactive you are, the more effectively you can exercise personal leadership and management in your life. The more effective you manage your life, the more renewing activities you can do. The more you seek first to understand, the more effectively you can go for synergetic win-win solutions. The more you improve in any of the habits that lead to independence, the more effective you will be in interdependent situations. Renewal is the process of rejuvenating ones character, demeanour, and habits.

        The main reason for America's success lies in the organisation of its educational system asserts The Economist. “This is something other countries can copy... but they will not find it easy—particularly if they are developing countries that are bent on state-driven modernisation. America does not have a central plan for its universities….it does not treat its academics as civil servants. Instead, universities have a wide range of patrons, from state governments to religious bodies, from fee-paying students to generous philanthropists. The academic landscape has been shaped by rich benefactors such as Ezra Cornell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, and John D. Rockefeller”. This is something that can be emulated by our private sector however nascent or underdeveloped.

        Meritocratic governments (such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, and India), South Korea, Ghana, Tunisia, Singapore, Malaysia to name a few) and the corporate world stress talent, formal education, and competence, rather than existing social differences. Meritocracy is now often used to describe a type of society where wealth, income, and social status are assigned through competition, on the assumption that the winners do indeed deserve their resulting advantage. As a result, the word has acquired a connotation of Social Darwinism, used to describe aggressively competitive societies, with large inequality of income and wealth, and sharply contrasted with egalitarian societies. Social Darwinism is a form of contemporary socio-biology is natural selection applied to human social institutions; whose proponents often used the theory to justify social inequality as being meritocratic. Others used it to justify racism and imperialism and at its most extreme, it appears to anticipate eugenics and the race doctrines of the Nazis.

        In a plural soiety where power is theoretically in the hands of the elected representatives, meritocratic elements include the use of expert consultants to help formulate policies, and a meritocratic civil service to implement them. The perennial problem in advocating meritocracy is defining exactly what one means by merit. Hence, in devising a meritocratic state for Africa, we need to look at several of the state functions that must as a necessity be accomplished by well-developed teams and change agents. On the political governance arena, it is important that legislators understand their role with mechanisms whereby members of the legislature have sufficient access to research services, libraries, information and technical resources and staff to enable them to make informed decisions and not generally acquiesces to executive demands.

        In analyzing the Executive Arm’s ability to perform, the first question is whether there is a civil service, with appointments based on merit that has inter alia minimum entry requirements such as the Indian Civil Service and where large sectors of the population are not automatically guaranteed a job in the public sector, although it is important to tackle the unemployment challenge through a vibrant private sector. This is an important point of departure to evolve a clear system of promotion based on merit, and with checks and balances to ensure that this is implemented. This also enables the state to ensure that specific functions are clearly described, and chains of command clearly delineated and avoid widespread instances of promotion and appointment based on patronage.     Equally relevant arena for consideration is the compensation for civil servants i.e., the salary paid to civil servants is similar or even better to that which they could earn in other sectors (to prevent brain drain from the nation and civil service) and are there are benefits and access to government structures that afford significant attractions to join the civil service? Coupled with good remuneration and post-adjustment packages, the existence of alternative employment opportunities for civil servants can render the civil service a preferred profession. The necessity for a publicly acknowledged system of appointment, that encourages most senior positions to be held by career civil servants; has been time and again tested in those developing economies and emerging markets such as the The CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) that have successfully transited out of penury.

        Such a system of appointment based on merit will indubitably ensure that budgetary policies and priorities are set correctly. It also provides the incentives for government agencies and state owned businesses to develop more cost efficient ways of doing business and enhances decentralisation of resource generation and allocation. Thus under such a capacitated state, local authorities are able to collect revenue and programme it for human development and human security. It also means that local authorities develop their own budgetary priorities and programmes. The most significant of all is the existence of a favourable environment for private enterprise; with regulations and administrative procedures, which need to be followed, that facilitate private ownership of property. In the arena of participation and communication, it is significant that there is a range of well-developed countervailing intermediary civic organisations such as policy or political and economic think tanks and professional associations that function freely and openly, serving a variety of sectors of the population and can peacefully function as pressure groups, lobbying for specific interests.

The three essential capabilities for human development are for people to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable and to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living. If these basic capabilities are not achieved, many choices are simply not available and many opportunities remain inaccessible. Nevertheless, the realm of human development goes further: essential areas of choice that are highly valued by people, range from political, economic and social opportunities for being creative and productive to enjoying self-respect, empowerment and a sense of belonging to a community.

Thus, the achievement of the goals propounded and enacted in the five year development plans by the African legislatures is in many measures a decision that will launch growth trajectories into a new era of human development (and as much as I refrain to use the phrase – ‘poverty reduction’). Hence, a nation needs a work force with a sense of purpose, work ethic, vision, integrity, direction has to do with creating conditions for the existence of the broadest possible range of dialogue, opinions, and human sentiments to achieve the goals enshrined the vision of African legislature. Developing and maintaining such a work force implies acquiescing to a system of economic and social governance based on rule by ability (merit) rather than by quotas, connections, wealth, race, or other determinants of social position.

A Ravenous Dragon’s Unrelenting push into the ‘Dark’ Continent

With the spectacular Olympic Games held recently and the collapse of the WTO talks, due to its defiance of Western positions, China has projected itself into the world stage for a second time; since it acquired the status of a nuclear power. It influence on Africa has also been steadily growing. Sino-African trade has increased rapidly, rising to a towering $75 billion last year. Its economic might and tolerance of abuses by African polities has contributed to Beijing’s highly successful diplomatic move in Africa.

Initial efforts by the African leaders to develop and integrate Africa included the Lagos Plan of Action and the subsequent Final Act of Lagos and NEPAD - the most comprehensive programme yet adopted. Others are the outcomes of the Monrovia Symposium, Arusha, Khartoum, and Addis Ababa Declarations, African Common Market, Cairo Agenda for Action, Abuja Treaty, and Abuja Declaration… Yet, like many other efforts, these have not yielded the desired results.

Such a declaration notwithstanding, WTO came into force with new set agreements, negotiated, for the most part, without the effective African participation. The IMF, the World Bank and the WTO have evolved a common understanding and strategy with regards to the movement and management of international financing between them within the framework of the Washington Consensus. This is true particularly with those related to trade liberalisation and FDI that have found their way into the WTO articles of association. The complexities involved and the pains that await African countries are reflected by the increasing numbers of disputes referred to WTO; that included allegations of contravention of the national treatment provision of GATT - Article III.

“Threats, deception and manipulation are the underhand negotiating tactics used by rich countries such as in the current round of global trade talks”, warns ActionAid in a new report, 'The Doha Deception Round: How the US and EU cheated developing
countries'.  “Power politics, exclusive meetings, diplomatic arm-twisting and 'take-it-or-leave-it' ultimatums would have lead to a final trade deal that could have a devastating impact on millions of people worldwide. Hardball tactics are undermining the very goal of the current trade talks which is supposed to have the interests of poverty and development”.

Hence, not surprisingly,  China has become one of the voices for the poor nations and Africa's most audacious financier, “providing almost $12 billion in aid and soft loan, and buying over a tenth of SSA's exports (over $25 billion) and the China ExIm bank has facilitated loans to the tune $10 billion to African governments, albeit, on more commercial terms. While well managed economies have earned IMF’s blessing to take-on more debt even on commercial terms, badly managed economies have moved on to China, which is prepared to ignore such conditionalities. China bestowed $800m to Sudan in 2005 and a similar amount last year—as Sudan queued up to have its multilateral debts written off” (The Economist, May 17th 2007). When African nations went into internal political and military crises, China saw this as an opportunity to expand its influence. New aid grants soon rolled in, followed by bank credits for Chinese companies, which have today become a dominant force, building highways and bridges, power stations, mobile-phone networks, and exploring for oil”…(The Wall Street Journal, March 30th, 2005). In nations such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Angola, and DRC, China's tolerance for sleaze and political risk has met with warm reception; even as we witness that the plundering of public wealth directly hampers development and undermines trust in democracy and its institutions.

Indeed, 2006 was billed as "The Year of Africa" in China that culminated with the China-Africa summit focussed on securing Africa’s natural resources for its rapidly growing economy, market expansion for its cheap goods and gaining international political legitimacy with almost all 53 African countries supporting Chinese positions on literally all issues in the UN General Assembly.

In an age when globalisation has been heralded to have ushered in a time of unprecedented global wealth and extraordinary opportunities for human kind; largely stemming from the triumph of the market over the ideologically-loaded command economies; an important dimension that features prominently in the Africa discourse is the relative contribution and weight of competent leadership for developing negotiating instruments for partaking in it. After all trade-not-aid has become the slogan of African leaders. Beijing has come up with the answers and has moved in rapidly with the necessary resources for business and infrastructure development that have so far been the subject of lengthy negotiations, many times at the cost of project redundancy, and which hitherto marked African institutions relations with global funders. Beginning with the construction of the Tanzam rail link that opened up vast markets for Zambia’s produce and Tanzania’s services, China has indeed speeded up to fill a crucial gap.

Nonetheless, there is a mounting backlash from civil society and international watchdog agencies to some of such business practices. For instance, China is trying to balance its non-interference policy in Sudan and ensuring the stability of its investments. As long as its aid and loan packages can help African governments to get round some of the pressure from the Breton Woods institutions, Beijing can ensure its African leverage to grow rapidly and on its own terms.

With Chinese dominance of the African economic and political landscape, powerful forces and trends of chaos and order mark this moment of China-driven globalism; dissolving old boundaries in a network of flows of trade. Its style of ‘market liberalisation’ is creating one vast global marketplace in Africa. Considering the drive, characteristics and dynamics of the Chinese economic assault, the fundamental question facing African nations is not whether they have options for participating in a process of balanced benefits in the spirit of true globalism; it is indeed how they wish to integrate into the process as partners and actors and at which speed. Beyond GDP growth, performance anatomy is perhaps the most subtle trait of all economies - the interactions between leadership and strategy, innovation and technology, and human quality development and meritocracy that are critical to defining a high-performance market–driven development; that is the solitary course known to mankind to lift nations out of penury.

Can Ethiopia’s Resource Wealth Contribute to its Growth and Transformation?

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/01/26/ethiopia-extractives-mining-strategic-assessment-mineral-sector

Ethiopia’s resource wealth can be a key driver of the country’s growth
A recent study of the mineral industry developed by the World Bank Group (WBG) and other development partners offers recommendations to help the country develop its unrealized geological potential
The WBG is supporting the government with technical assistance to help build a competitive, predictable, and responsible strategy, legislative and institutional framework for the Oil, Natural Gas and Mining industry