Dear President Obama: A New Africa is Beckoning
A
New Africa is Beckoning
By January Makamba - 28 June 2013
Dear President Obama,
By January Makamba - 28 June 2013
Dear President Obama,
Welcome back to Africa – where all humanity
began. We have been expecting you for some time.
You are visiting the continent at its most
exciting time. We are in the middle of a transition from the old Africa that
most Americans know todate to the new Africa that Africans all along believed it
was possible. The narrative of a Hopeless Continent – a supplicant people in
need of saving - has given way to that of a Rising Africa. GDP has doubled over
the past 10 years. Africa’s GDP per capita has crossed the $1,000 threshold for
the first time in history. More children are in school than at any time in
history. Dictatorships are dwindling. Infant and child mortality rates have cut
by a half. The continent has more mobile phones than Europe and North America
combined.
As you arrive here, you will see a lot of things
– colours, bright sun, and wide smiles. It will be irresistible to beam these
photos back home. But, as you think about America’s partnership with Africa,
please consider how the following trends should shape the partnership between
Africa and America:
One, there are many of us: about one billion - a
little fewer than the Chinese and Indians. By 2050 we will reach 2.2 billion,
surpassing China and India by far. Also, of the one billion Africans today,
seven hundred million are under 30 years old. The median age here is 18.5
years. This scale of growth – about 2.2 percent compared to global average of 1
percent – will have implications on almost everything, not only in Africa but
also in your own country where the politics of global population control is
intense.
Some see this reality as scary. We see it as
an opportunity – so long as we make smart investments in our people. And there
is no smarter investment than education. As you think about partnership with
Africa, a partnership with lasting legacy, think education – skills and
competencies to contend with the challenges and requirements of the new
millennium. You have done it before.
Second, the association of Africa with a village
is gone. Africa is leading the world in the creation of a new Urban Millennium.
Within our lifetime, Africa will have more people living in urban areas (1.24
billion) than its entire population today (1 billion). Dar es Salaam, where you
will visit, will double its population in the next 15 years whereas the Gulf of
Guinea will become home to three hundred cities, each with over 100,000 people.
Why is this important? Urban Africa provides the fulcrum of Africa’s growth. The
40 percent of Africans living in urban Africa produce 80 percent of its GDP.
Cities provide hotbeds for political and social progress or instability. As you
think about partnership for Africa’s growth, think cities. The United States is
best poised for partnership with Africa in urban creation, planning, and renewal
and investments in urban systems – transport, housing, energy and sanitation.
Third, you will be photographed more by
cellphone cameras than actual photo cameras. This would not have been the case
just a decade ago. In 1994, 70 percent of Africans had never heard a telephone
ring but, today, of one billion Africans, there are 700 million mobile phone
subscribers. This has enhanced financial inclusion, facilitated service delivery
and helped lower the cost of doing business. While the mobile revolution has
been truly inclusive, broadband access has not. As you push for expansion of
broadband for Americans, partnership with Africa in this area will see Africa
leapfrog into a new digital age. For every 10 percent increase in broadband
penetration, the economy grows by 1 percent, and doubling of internet speed
yields an additional 0.3 percent GDP growth.
Fourth, as you drive around, you may notice a
lot of Chinese people and signage in our streets. Yes, they are here – in big
numbers. In the last 10 years, for better or for worse, over one million Chinese
moved to Africa – to settle and do business. Why? Because first, they ignored
how Africa is covered in the Western media and secondly they saw something that
Americans were late in seeing: Africa is not just a destination for volunteer
work and suntanning. It is also a place where returns on investments are almost
guaranteed. We are delighted that you will be bringing along with you planeloads
of American business people. American businesses can lead the way in showing
that foreign investments is not a zero-sum game and that it is possible for
businesses to succeed in Africa without paying
bribes.
Fifth, you will hear a lot about natural
resources and Africans’ quest to benefit more from them. You will hear murmurs
that Americans and the Chinese are competing in Africa over Africa’s natural
resources. These suspicions may be unfounded but they are a result of history.
Not long ago, when America was already free and a democracy, there was an open
scramble – among foreign powers – for Africa’s resources; there was King Leopold
in the Congo; African countries were business companies owned by dukes in
Europe. Some in the continent see this exploitation continuing in different
forms – a notion facilitated by the fact that very few Africans have seen the
benefits of extraction of natural resources in their countries. Partnership with
America should be grounded in building the capacity of Africans to harness their
own natural resources responsibly and for the benefit of their own people.
Finally, over the past 10 years we have seen some
good initiatives by American Presidents related to Africa: President Clinton’s
Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and President Bush’s President’s
Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge
Corporation (MCC), to name a few. We are delighted that you have decided to
continue some of these. But we are also happy that you have decided to take on
some critical issues for Africa’s progress: transparency, through Open
Government Partnership (OGP); energy through Power Africa; and agriculture
through Feed the Future. The beauty about these new programs is that they can be
executed without significant new money from the US government. OGP is about
getting African leaders to do what is obvious and that doesn’t cost anything:
letting people be informed, as much as possible, about what their governments
are up to and giving them a greater voice in influencing government choices.
Power Africa and Feed the Future can leverage the experience and capacity of
American agriculture and energy firms in partnership with African businesses and
governments to do what is clearly profitable and socially
good.
While the general trends of the continent are
encouraging, the reality remains that you are visiting a continent that is still
the last frontier of human progress. Our economies have grown fast but absolute
poverty and inequality stubbornly present. Over a span of 30 years – between
2000 and 2030 - our share of global GDP will climb from a meager 2 percent to 3
percent. Many people are still dying from preventable diseases.
High unemployment, particularly among the youth, even the educated youth,
endangers social and political stability. There is a huge skills gap. More
children are in school than at any time in African history but 50 million
children are out of primary and secondary school. We erect shiny skyscrapers
everyday yet 60 percent of city dwellers in African live in slums. Governance
institutions still need strengthening. The good news is that there is an
emerging crop of new, young African leadership – in politics, private sector and
civil society - able and ready to take on these challenges. They are the
midwives of a new Africa - a new Africa that understands that aid may be
necessary but should not be permanent, and that trade and investments is the
future, and that installing a fairer international trade architecture should be
Africa and America’s common objective. And we are glad that you have chosen to
meet with them.
For what it is worth, America’s global leadership
remains robust – at least for now. One way to retain and strengthen it in the
face of insecure world and a deepening economic and cultural competition is to
project it for the good of humanity. And this is the expectation of most
Africans – that America shouldn’t befriend a country just for security or
strategic concerns but because of advancement of shared values – of freedom,
equality, tolerance and human progress.
The Romans used to say ex Africa semper aliquid novi, meaning, Out of Africa, always something
new. So, Mr. President, welcome to our
Africa.
Mr. January Makamba is a Member of Parliament and
Deputy Minister of Communication, Science and Technology in Tanzanian
government. He is also the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader and
Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellow
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