Brexit, EU & African Unity: Sovereignty Contests in Multi-Nation Union’s Public Management

Brexit, EU & African Unity:

Sovereignty Contests in Multi-Nation Union’s Public Management

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria RS-CXXXIX-I, MMXVI, Vol. X No. VII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

The only certainty in all this is uncertainty –Brexit breeds uncertainty on the markets and uncertainty over the future of trade relations between the UK and Africa. A few notes can be summarised regarding Brexit’s impact on Africa and the process of African Unity that is taking shape following the mirror image of the EU. The dysfunctional nature of the EU is what led to the Brexit. The African Union Commission shares (if not even worse) that dysfunctionalism. This may alert African nations that are already fed-up nursing a dysfunctional AU to halt their contributions. Brexit might also affect UK’s leadership in the EU to promote advocacy for African development. The same principle applies to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Over the years, African farmers have constantly criticised the CAP for the subsidies it affords European farmers, which they argue undermine the concept of a level playing field. The UK was possibly the loudest voice for CAP reform within the EU.

Africa faces the usual panoply of challenges endemic in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) with too few in­struments and too few resources, while also grappling with the perennial problem of non-integration. These are sequencing of policy reforms, all subject to the political constraints of containing the disruptive impacts of policy reforms to acceptable levels. This is a particularly important problem for Africa given the very narrow margins for manoeuvre imposed by fiscal and external deficits, subsistence levels of household income for much of the population and a complex political weave in the regions social fabric. Getting the priorities right and managing change are thus particularly vital issues for African integration. Hence, Africa should modify regulatory policies that inflate business costs and depress urban consumer incomes, go for bolder and more unconventional agricultural policies and put in place a smarter set of policies for the financial sector.

The Fourth EU-Africa Summit, Roadmap 2014-2017 held 2-3 April 2014, Brussels on the theme of Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace, committed to enhance Africa-EU cooperation for the years to come. They confirmed that the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES), adopted at the Lisbon summit in 2007, setting out the vision, values and principles to which we are committed, remains the strategic political reference for EU-Africa relations.

Key words: Brexit, Africa, EU, UK, Trade, aid, Union

See lecture here

Shaken Piers of the Middle East Peninsular Pipsqueaks and Hegemons - Vol. X No. VI, CXXI, MMXVI

Shaken Piers of the Middle East 

Peninsular Pipsqueaks and Hegemons

Public Lecture - Vol. X No. VI, CXXI, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

           Samuel P. Huntington in his work The Clash of Civilizations proposed that people's cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. In this, Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his classic The Anarchical Society, the scholar Hedley Bull argued that there was a perennial tension in the world between forces of order and forces of disorder, with the details of the balance between them defining each era’s particular character. This lecture is premised on ‘Shaken Stalwarts of Arabia, Western Islamophobia & Quo Vadis Middle East’ addresses the challenges faced by the Arab states in the brutal wars they are involved literally throughout the region. The Arabian pillars shaken today are the international community normalises diplomatic and trade ties with Iran, the US engages Iran as a partner toward restoring stability in the region and the US-Iranian nuclear deal moves forward. US legislators appear willing to mirror the anti-Saudi ground sentiment by passing a bill that opens The peninsular hegemon to lawsuits by families of the 9/11 victims. Another pillar that is being shaken is the Wahhabi pillar that has been inculcated as part of the Saudi national identity (Saleem, 2016). Islamophobia has become a significant factor driving politics in many Western countries. Islamophobia – fear of Muslims – is now highly visible among European populations concerned about terrorist responses from Islamic groups claiming Jihadi links.

Key words: Middle East, Shaken Piers, Islamophobia,

See paper here

Geo-Strategic Menaces: The Middle East & Greater Horn of Africa - RP Vol. IX No. XVIII, CXXII, MMXV

Geo-Strategic Menaces:

The Middle East & Greater Horn of Africa

Public Lecture, CX, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Summary

       

      The Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) is a multiplicity of geo-politics, a rich chronicle and abundance of art, music and literature. It is situated at the cross roads the main trading route between the east and the west. This has made the region so prone to conflict that people pluck what they wish from that variety to generalize that have allowed outsiders to play proxy politics with the region. The Horn is also a region that has been at an historical crossroads. Traders have travelled through the region, north to south and west to east. Empires have grown and subsided. Islam and Christianity embedded themselves in the region from the earliest days of each faith. The river Nile links nations in a mortal association for survival. Along the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, its people were engaged in trade for millennia. It straddles a geographical space of such strategic importance that those who treat it with indifference will one day pay a price for their neglect, whilst those who try to manipulate it will get their fingers burnt.

        Terrorism has intensified and the conflict in the Gulf has forged a shift in alliances with Yemen as an epicentre of a religious Armageddon. The GCC have unexpectedly converged in what many might think to be among one of the most unlikely of places. While it may have been difficult to foresee this happening, in hindsight it actually makes quite a lot of sense. The lecture ends by a discussion focused on the questions is the GCC’s move into Eritrea predicated on destabilising ‘Christian’ Ethiopia as much as silencing Shite ‘rebels’? Is the Saudi, Emirati and Qatari incursion onto one of the most contested regions as a staging point or is there a veiled schema that may strengthen the irredentist agenda of the pariah state and the Al Shabaab in Somalia against Ethiopia? (Korybko, 2015:1). Winning the hearts and minds of the people of GHA will steer a delicate path away from the caprices of clientelism; those from outside will do well to understand GHA history and politics, lest they contemplate it is an easy proxy.

Key words: GCC, Yemen, Eritrea, Somalia, proxy war, cannon fodder

See paper here

Addis Abeba: Is the Exuberance on Property and Real Estate Boom a Prescription for a Meltdown?

Addis Abeba:

Is the Exuberance on Property and

Real Estate Boom a Prescription

for a Meltdown?

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria XXII, MMVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business and Economics, AAU

       The most important factor driving estate development and rental rates is on the demand side: income. We have witnessed a growing number of rich people (although still in the minority) who want to live in only a few metropolitan areas, primarily those on the Bole; displacing hitherto wealthy underclass of the past regime. In addition to increasing demand for pricier homes, supply of new homes has been constrained. Focused on supply and demand factors for the rise of residential real estate prices, we turn our spotlight on spec­ulative investor sentiment. Since the early 1990s, the rate of growth for housing prices has risen every year. This has created an investor psychology in the nou­veau riche millionaires that crowd the trendy cafés and pubs of Addis and the raw meat alleys of Nazareth. For many Addis Abebans the real estate market has been the latest get-rich-quick in-thing. Indeed, a multitude pack of homeowners and investors have become wealthier as they watched their estate values increase or their investment properties sell for multiples of what they paid for them just a few years ago.

        Nevertheless, the run-up in real estate especially office buildings may be ending and the housing mar­ket's “extraordinary boom” may collapse as it has historically done in the infamous Florida Real Estate Craze. Indubitably, this will herald the transition from urban government to urban governance: two diametrically opposite approaches in urban administration and decision–making systems. Ur­ban government comprises city management on official state authorities. Urban Governance, on the contrary, is a process based on the interaction between official organisations and authorities, which lead city development on the one hand, and of the civil society or the public domain on the other.

Key words: urban government, urban governance, real estate meltdown

Addis view from Sheraton pool

See talk here

Ethiopia - Theoretical undergirding for ‘Statist’ Growth & Transformation Public Policies & Plans

Statist ‘Corporate’ Supremacy

Theoretical undergirding for

‘Statist’ Growth & Transformation

Public Policies & Plans

Sustainable Development & Poverty Reduction Programme (SDPRP, 2001-2005), the

Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP, 2006-2010) and the Growth and Transformation Plan I (GTP, 2010-2015)

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria XCXIII, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

    Notwithstanding Venezuela’s poster child of the perils of rejecting economic fundamentals - to achieve social goals, it is better to use – rather than repress – the market, Ethiopia’s statist ‘corporate’ supremacy is a tool used since 2006 to set a framework for state-led and private sector implemented infrastructure development. It is a broad and very complex process. The main hypothesis in addressing the public sector driven efficiency wave is that ‘in the absence of institutional investors in the major infrastructure works, more market contracting to the private sector by the state will lead to greater cost efficiency, without the welfare state having to loose monopoly of the means and instruments of production’. critical policy reflection: a seminal goal which, done well, simultaneously facilitates a kaleidoscopic of other ends, best conceived as the hub around which all other developmental ends cluster - skills, abilities, and values critical to success in industrialisation and robust ‘democratic’ rules, institutions, policies and practices.

     Ethiopia has recorded significant and sustained progress in economic and social development, pursuing a state capitalist public sector-led growth strategy that focuses on promoting growth through high public investment supported partly by low nominal interest rates. While the strategy has contributed to robust economic growth in the past, recent developments indicate a build-up of vulnerabilities, which need to be addressed in order to sustain this level of performance. The nation had placed MDGs & SDGs at the centre of its overall development context. The purpose here is to set forth a theoretical framework for public policy implementation by synthesizing the related and theoretically consistent concepts of public management, good governance and indigenous society directorial institutions. Liberalisation of the major economic sectors (finance, telecom, aviation, shipping, energy ), with the government holding on to majority shares, could trigger a process of virtuous change based on inward FDI and improvement and complementarities between public and private investments.

Key words: statist ‘corporate’ supremacy, critical policy reflection, infrastructure contracting

See paper here

Public Policy Tangents: El Niño scrunches Global Weather & Wreaks Havoc in Africa

Public Policy Tangents:

El Niño scrunches Global Weather & Wreaks Havoc in Africa

With the destruction in the global weather system that stuck, impacts both devastating and beneficial are being felt globally but more significantly in Horn of Africa

Public Lecture - CIX, MMXV, IDDS - ISSN 1018-1164

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Chair, Ethiopica Infrastructure & Tunnelling Co.

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

      El Niño is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures as opposed to La Niña, which characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. El Niño is an oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather around the globe. In the Horn of Africa, Southern Africa and West & Central Africa sub-regions drought is wreaking havoc on economies, a drought exacerbated by El Niño has directly affected the Horn of Africa region, leading to an increase in food insecurity and malnutrition. As of March 2016, the FSNWG reports close to 19.5 million people in the region are facing critical and emergency food insecurity levels. Some examples of short to long-term strategies that could be employed, particularly for building climate resilience in the agricultural sector: early warning and monitoring strategies, mitigation, adaptation and response strategies and long-term adaptation strategies

     What are the policy implications for the Horn of Africa? The Government of Ethiopia is strongly in the lead of the El Niño response, and has committed over US$838 million to provide humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable. While such assistance is very timely and apposite to save lives, the implementation will be premised on the fact that it is an opportunity for further development as it has brought out various gaps and weakness in development that needs to be redressed.  Any assistance to affected areas shall sub-serve the goals of socioeconomic growth and sustainable development. The economy should be able to recover quickly in order for the economy to withstand other future stresses and maintain sustainable livelihood security. The need to consider policy, legislative, human, natural and financial resources as well as motivational goals required for the successful attainment of stress prevention, preparedness and mitigation. Thus, the challenge in implementing this policy is to ensure that emergency preparedness becomes bridge to prevention and development. Preparedness should be a basis for sustaining life during emergencies and maintaining the morale of affected groups in order to create conditions for qualitative social change.

Key words:  El Niño, La Niña, ENSO, drought, floods, hunger, preparedness, prevention

See paper here

A Diplomatic Supremo in Africa: Priming International Relations Policy & Practice on Regional Integration, Peace & Security

A Diplomatic Supremo in Africa:

Priming International Relations Policy & Practice on

Regional Integration, Peace & Security

Policy Research and Analysis Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Abeba,

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria CCIII, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

       The philosophical underpinning of Ethiopia’s overseas, overland and national security policies augurs on diplomatic activities trained at advancing a pluralist society and serving the country’s rapid economic development. Challenged by poverty and El Nino droughts, Ethiopia is consciously pursuing structural transformation meeting the MDGs and successively implementing the SDGs.  Located in a turbulent region, new martial and security scenarios in the Greater Horn of Africa with Yemen as the epicenter, one may ask if the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) move into the greater Horn will have a destabilizing effect Ethiopia. Is its incursion onto one of the most contested regions (The Horn’s pariah state) as a staging point or will this embolden the irredentist agenda of the pariah state and Al Shabaab?”

       Regional integration and economic development is difficult. Eloquent testimony to this effect is provided by the list of advanced economies compiled by the IMF. There are functioning models to emulate, a consensus concerning the characteristics of economies that have successfully developed, and decades of experience with a wide range of policy prescriptions. Ethiopia has moved quickly to integrate the region with power supply, road and rail networks (Djibouti, Sudan, Somaliland, Puntland, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, etc.). Ethiopia’s move to allow Somalilanders to move freely with goods and services into Ethiopia in the early nineties has had immense contribution to peace in that unrecognized nation. The recommendations augur on a need for a clear policy and strategy on the GCC venture in the Red Sea and Chinese investment and branding Ethiopia. Unless the overall strategy rings true about its people, there is little chance that it will be believed or endorsed by the population, much more the rest of the world. Furthermore, in a digital era that could render diplomats irrelevant, but still make the core of international relations, a meritocratic strategy must transform diplomacy into the 21^st century.

Key words: diplomacy, international relations, regional security, regional integration,

See paper here

See presentation here

Devolutionary Refractions: The 21st Century’s Delusional ‘Democracy’

What is gone wrong with democracy? 

Democracy was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. Why it run into trouble? What can be done to revive it? (The Economist, 2015)

Devolutionary Refractions:

The 21^st Century’s Delusional ‘Democracy’

Public Lecture, CCIX, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

  Ivan Krastev challenge us by saying, you believe that the government is not sufficiently transparent. You are mistaken transparency hurts democracy. If we reflect on the most important concepts in political science vocabulary (democracy, liberalism, authoritarianism, transparency, etc.), it is apparent that they are used with so many different meanings that it is easy to prove contradictory theses simultaneously. This is a source of renewable energy in the humanities, but it is considered dangerous by some, or even contaminated. Hence, repeated attempts distil the language of the humanities so that in the patiently anticipated future it will become a substitute for formal logic notation. At pivotal moments in the past, altering the rules of the political has been a defining trait of the organised left, able to project a new social order out of latent concerns, as well as develop the means to alter the grammar of politics. If democracy means rule by the people for the people, it has broken down (Amin, 2012). Democracy is going through a difficult time. Where autocrats have been driven out of office, their opponents have mostly failed to create viable regimes (The Economist, 2015).

The Chinese Communist Party has broken the democratic world’s monopoly on economic progress standards of roughly once every 30 years. China has been doubling living standards roughly every decade for the past 30 years. The Chinese elite argue that their model—tight control by the Communist Party, coupled with a relentless effort to recruit talented people into its upper ranks—is more efficient than democracy and less susceptible to gridlock. Hence, the central hypothesis is that the relative strength of political organisations determines the rules of the political game that are installed. Democratisation requires a plural set of political organisations, which promote and protect rules of peaceful political participation and competition. Together, democratic institutions (plural organisations plus rules of accountability) ensure control of the state executive.

Key words: democracy, elections, economic progress, authoritarianism,

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/25575217/Devolutionary_Tangents_-_The_21st_Century_Delusional_Democracy

Rastafarianisim, Religion & Jamaica’s visit of His Majesty Emperor Haile Sellasse I

Rastafarianisim, Religion &

Jamaica’s visit of His Majesty Emperor 
Haile Sellasse I

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos

Ethiopian Patriots Diamond Jubilee CXVIII-II, MMXVI,

Talk @ Scouts, Addis Abeba, May 5, 2016

Above all, Haile Sellasse has created a general, warm and blind sympathy for uncivilized Ethiopia throughout civilized Christendom. In the wake of the world's grandiose Depression, with millions of white men uncertain as to the benefits of civilization, 1935 produced a peculiar Spirit of the Year in which it was felt to be a crying shame that the Machine Age seemed about to intrude upon Africa's last free, unscathed and simple people. They were ipso facto Noble Savages, and the noblest Ethiopian of them all naturally emerged as Man of the Year.”

TIME, Man of the Year, XVI, Nov 18, 1936

Summary

        Jamaica of Rastafarians received HIM Emperor Haile Sellasse’s memorable visit to Ja­maica on April 21 1966 as if it were the second coming of Christ. No other state visit has captured the triumph of hu­man spirit as this. This lecture is about religion, a set of beliefs vis-à-vis the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a super human agency or agencies, usually involving devo­tional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code gov­erning the conduct of human affairs. Calvinistic Methodists were born out of the Methodist Revival in 18th Century Wales (after John Cal­vin). They survive as a body of Christians now forming the Presby­terian Church of Wales. Wesleyanism is a movement of Protestant Christians who seek to follow the methods or theology of the eight­eenth-century evangelical reformers John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley. Martinism is a form of Christian mysticism and eso­teric Christianity concerned with the fall of the first man, his state of material privation from his di­vine source, and the process of his return, called 'Reintegration' or illumination. 

       So what is wrong with the Rastafarianism as a ‘religion’? Rastafarisim is an Abrahamic belief, which developed in Ja­maica in the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie I as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. Its adherents worship him in much the same way as Jesus in his Second Advent. The father of African independence and African unity is being dully remembered by the Rastafarians, who deserve credit for this at a time when our historic leaders are being denied recognition by present generations.

See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/25058491/Rastafarianisim_Religion_and_Jamaicas_visit_of_His_Majesty_Emperor

Messengers of Peace - African Scouts Scouting, Noble Citizenship & Youth Programme of Human Security

Messengers of Peace - African Scouts

Scouting, Noble Citizenship & Youth Programme of Human Security

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Chief Scout, Ethiopian Scouts, Professor of Public Policy, 
School of Graduate Studies, AAU

A panel lecture on Africa Scout Day

A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent

Summary

        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 unprecedented events following the end of the Cold War. Such developments notwithstanding, conflicts have displaced over 60 million people today. The Messengers of Peace initiative by some 40 million young scouts worldwide is taking on the task of human security globally. Our vision is that Scouting will be the foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. Scouting will continue to offer young people responsible fun and adventure; instill in young people lifetime values and develop in them ethical character as expressed in the Scout Oath and Law. 

        It is to train young people in noble citizenship, service, and leadership to serve communities and families with its quality, values-based programmes. We envision Scouting entering its second century as an influential, value-based enlightening movement focused on achieving its mission, attracting and retaining more and more young people coming from broader segments of society; in all cultures; as dynamic, innovative Movement with adequate resources and democratic decision making processes where organization, management and communication are effective at all levels. In this regards, scouts will engage in brave and direct action taking the bull by the horn in training and civic education on stemming human insecurity and domestication of international instruments, build coalition to ensure human security capacity building is undertaken by civil societies. They will promote integrated humanitarian and development projects, including income generating and self-reliance activities, education and infrastructure development; establishing human security research capacity, develop durable solutions and comprehensive response strategies to human insecurity.

Key words: messengers of peace, citizenship, youth development, empowerment, peace

See paper here