China’s ‘Silk Road’: A drive for Global Integration or simply a Metaphor for Hegemonic Quest

China’s ‘Silk Road’:

A drive for Global Integration or simply a Metaphor for Hegemonic Quest

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria– Vol. IX No. XXXVI, CXXI, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

The Silk Road or Silk Route was an ancient network of trade routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East from China to the Mediterranean Sea. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in Chinese silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. One of the most acclaimed Silk Road projects is the One Belt, One Road initiative put forward by China, a project, which was first formulated in 2013 during a trip to Central Asia, has resonated with both the region and the wider globe. It spans almost the entire Asian continent, even extending as far as East Africa and Europe and a Maritime Silk Road, covering Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Africa, and Europe.

Beyond being a simple transport corridor, it envisages economic integration of the countries along its path. The first of the five basic areas of cooperation envisioned in the project is based on the integration of transportation (railways, highways, airways, and ports) systems and the joint use of energy and natural resources as well as their extraction operations. China’s One Belt, One Road initiative has received the support of countries throughout the region, but some important players consider the project as an attempt by China to snatch regional and global hegemony, stemming from worries that Beijing wishes to increase its political influence by using its economic power. It is obvious that if the project becomes successful, the Chinese economy will be the first to benefit. If it fails, it becomes a disaster for China. In all this, Africa needs to assemble the required mettle to change power relations in its dealings with China.

Key words: Silk Road, One Road, One Belt, Integration, Security, Trade,

See lecture here or paste this  in your browser  https://www.academia.edu/28043870/Chinas_Silk_Road_A_drive_for_Global_Integration_or_simply_a_Metaphor_for_Hegemonic_Quest

Inductional Realism of Credit & Capital Markets in Africa

Inductional Realism of

Credit & Capital Markets in Africa

Synopsis of a Feasibility Study of Credit & Capital Markets in Africa

Based on a Consultancy Report to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa UNECA, Addis Ababa, Lecture updated 2014 Respublica Literaria CXIV, MMXVI –

 Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Abstract

An efficient and a development-oriented private sector provide the nourishment, which these markets require to grow and function effectively. The markets themselves provide the credit ingredients, which the private sector requires to grow, expand and contribute to development. Thus, there is a reciprocal and mutually productive relationship between the private sector on the one hand and credit and capital markets, on the other hand. The analysis further suggests that countries should incorporate the requirements of establishing capital markets and strengthening the private sector in the list of priorities on their macro-economic reform programmes. Primarily, the banking system must be firmly entrenched and functioning as efficiently as planned. This should take good care of the money market and hence the credit market needs of rudimentary private sectors. The consequential growth response of the latter should give a boost to capital markets, which in turn provide the capital for long-term and sustained development. The study provides ample evidence that this evolutionary process is well underway in several African countries.

The purpose of the study is to sensitize African countries on issues that are pertinent to the establishment of credit and capital markets. The dismal pace of developing credit and capital markets can be attributed to policies of colonial regimes where deliberately antagonistic to the evolution of a viable private sector, which was not intended to bring about the social and economic development and did not encourage the development and strengthening of capital markets. This study is predicated by the rationale that credit and capital markets can make positive contributions to the sustained and sustainable development of African countries. The aims of this study are to explore the feasibility of comprehensively developing and strengthening the capacity of financial and capital markets in Africa in order to promote entrepreneurship. The objectives of the study are to advance explicit clarification of the role of the private and public sectors in view of the interactive role of these sectors and the implications for capital markets development.

Key words: credit, capital, markets, finance, intermediation, banks, insurance, unions,

See paper here or paste the link https://www.academia.edu/27957778/Inductional_Realism_of_Credit_and_Capital_Markets_in_Africa

Analytic Dynamics in Engaging Crises-Affected Societies

    

Analytic Dynamics in 

Engaging Crises-Affected Societies:

Non-State Actors in Preserving & Advancing

Self-esteem Integrity and Innovativeness

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, Addis Ababa University

Trustee, Africa Humanitarian Action

costy@costantinos.net

A dialogue starter think piece - CX, MMXIII Vol X No IX

 Towards the implementation of the Common African Position (CAP) and the commitments of the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS):

The Role of the Non-State Actors for Effective Humanitarian Action

Sheraton Addis, Addis Ababa, 15 August 2016

    One outcome of the WHS is the ‘Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation that will accelerate transformative improvements in humanitarian action by creating a shared space for the development of innovative tools, approaches and processes’. The CAP too underscores that ‘effective and mutually reinforcing partnerships are of paramount importance in humanitarian action’. Far more critical in determining both the level and quality of dialogue and strategic humanitarian partnership is the political and economic context in which crises–affected societies find themselves. Hence new ‘rules’ of engagement must be based on the fundamental perception, that peo­ple can be the handmaiden of human secu­rity. While participation is a common strand used by humanitarian agencies, it is not used from the perspective of empowerment that leads to critical thinking, which is the main theme of this think piece.

      Nonetheless, beyond platitudes and good inten­tions, engagement of non-state actors and crisis-affected societies, is not premised in an ethic of em­powerment. True, humanitarian action has saved millions of lives, but the sustainability of its inter­ventions raise fundamental questions as they are not augured on indigenous adaptive strategies, that nurtured a survival niche long before institutional aid came to the scene. By a way of contributing to mend these infirmities, we may theorise such an engagement as a dynamic interaction of policy, strategy, organisation and process.

      This brings up the issue of conceptualising the engagement as a work­ing process, which balanced against strategy, determines what makes for real, as opposed to vacu­ously formulated sloganeering. It suggests itself, seems within reach only to elude, and appears read­ily practicable only to resist realisation: a tendency to narrow the endeavour to the terms and catego­ries of immediate, not very well considered, participatory action, naïve realism, as it were. Those who best understood the lessons of the 20th century were not the ideologues asking, what is to be done? They were those asking, how can people be freer to find their own solutions?

Key words: humanitarianism, WHS, CAP, non-state actors, crises-affected societies

See lecture here

The Proxy Cold War 2.0

Could NATO’s militarisation of the Caucasus, Moscow’s projection in Crimea and Syria, China’s claim to South China Sea & schisms in the Middle East ignite the CW2.0?

Public Lecture, Centre for Human Environment - CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. X No. VII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

            Russian statement at the Munich Security Conference - we are in a new Cold War and that this year, 2016 reminds us of 1962, sends unnerving signals of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world staggered on the threshold of atomic war. Edward Lucas's The New Cold War asserts that Moscow's new battle with the west is not about ideology but power. Painted in black and white, the anti-hero is a Kremlin with evil designs upon a naïve, disorganised ‘West’, while Russia accuses the North Atlantic Treaty of seeking to destabilise the Caucasus with upcoming joint exercises in Georgia. Russia views this consistent 'development' of Georgian territory by NATO soldiers as a provocative move, aiming to destabilise the military-political situation in the Caucasus region deliberately. On the other hand, South China Sea has become a contested region.

            A school of thought prevails that the West should not be afraid of Russian strength, but rather of its fragility because it still possess powerful arsenal. Rather, the US ought to be worried about Europe and the centripetal forces that seem to be pulling apart its closest pool of allies inexorably. The question is what is the best course for the US? Pundits urge caution in response to NATO's plans to deploy battalions to the Baltic States, warning it could lead to another Cold War. Moscow quickly responded that it would position brigades along its EU borders. Then the West continues to build up the eastern flank of NATO, with more battalions, more exercises, and more ships and more platforms, and the Russians will respond. Is it some real strategic thinking or a reaction? It is a tactical ricocheting from crisis-to-crisis, which has been much of what is in the Middle East.

   

      The paper analyses global security governance - the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority to manage inter-governmental affairs. It is the complex mechanisms, processes and institutions, through which states and citizen’s groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights and obligations and mediate their differences. The West with its support to an agglomeration of tin-pot dictatorships, Sha’ria tyrannies, banana republics and soon-to-be failed European states cannot lead the world alone any longer. The mono-polar, US-dominated world is history.  A multi-polar world has emerged before our eyes, not just in Russia but also in five or six capitals around the world (Cohen, 2015).

Key words: Cold War 2.0, Russia, US, Europe, nuclear, global security governance, multi polar world

see article here

The simmering Middle East Inferno Chronological Rendition of War, Defeat & Conquest

The simmering Middle East Inferno

Chronological Rendition of War, Defeat & Conquest

Public Lecture, CX, MMXIII Vol. X No. VII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

Arab nationalism emerged to prominence with the weakening and defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the 20^th century. It degenerated after the defeat of the Arab armies in the Six Day War. It aim was to end of Western influence in the Arab World, seen as a nemesis of Arab strength, and the removal of those Arab governments considered dependent for their survival upon Western powers. The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to the political tension, military conflicts and disputes between a number of Arab countries and Israel. The roots of the modern Arab–Israeli conflict are bound in the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19^th century. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I saw five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, the Mesopotamian Campaign, the Caucasus Campaign, the Persian Campaign, and the Gallipoli Campaign. There were also several minor campaigns: the North African Campaign, Arab Campaign, and South Arabia Campaign. The post-Ottoman period is rife with conflicts in the Middle East (the Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia), Levant, and the Delta of the Nile and neighbouring areas of Arabia, Anatolia and Iran). It currently encompasses the area from Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus in the west to Iran and the Persian Gulf in the east, and from Turkey and Iran in the north, to Yemen and Oman in the south. Furthermore, the Muslim split into two main branches, the Sunnis and Shia that originates in a dispute soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad over who should lead Muslim community. Due to the alarming gains made by the Shiats (Houthis in Yemen) who claimed the right of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and his descendants to lead the Islamic community, a Saudi-led coalition of nine Arab nations is already turning Yemen into a phantom state. Yet Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has indicated that the coalition’s mandate may be extended beyond Yemen?
See article here

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