Is Africa ready for the new pattern of economic development and new models of leadership in the aftermath of Covid-19?

Is a new pattern of economic development, led by emerging power investment and robust political engagement, transforming not only Africa but challenging the established conventions which framed the continent’s relationship with the rest of the world after COVID-19? How are African interests aligning with new global actors and what are the areas of divergence? What are the implications of this global power transformation for African development and security on the continent? In order to understand the burgeoning relationship between emerging powers and Africa, we need to recognize the range of economic, diplomatic, and security rationales behind emerging power engagement with the continent.

Are emerging powers progressive forces for African development or potential hegemons? How can Africans best leverage the economic opportunities presented by emerging powers? How will these new modalities on aid and development affecting African economic practices and democratic principles? What are the security implications for fragile states and those emerging from conflict? Is South Africa’s role in BRICS transforming its aspirations and position as a continental leader?

Sub-Saharan Africa has been going through a period of rapid social, political, and economic change since the beginning of the new millennium. Notwithstanding these changes, the dominant perceptions of Africa have not equally transformed. This is an interdisciplinary course that seeks to examine these changes by locating the dynamics in historical context and addressing the following questions: What are the key social, political and economic challenges that occur from the process of transitioning from a traditional agrarian society to a modern industrial (mixed) society? How are Africans responding to these challenges, and how should we assess these changes? Are the changes being experienced in Africa today beneficial to African society? Are they leading to an Africa Rising scenario or the opposite?

One of the central themes in Africa’s transition is the management of Africa’s natural and human resources, and this course will discuss both the persisting challenges and the prospects for a successful transition to better resource management outcomes. Secondly, the course tries to identify the main drivers of change in Africa and what this entails for African communities.

Nowhere in the world is the rise of the emerging powers more evident than in Africa. From the multi-billion dollar investments in oil and minerals to the influx of thousands of merchants, labourers and consumer goods, the growing political and economic reach of emerging powers like China, India, and Brazil are redefining Africa’s traditional ties with the international community. At the same time, mobilized in part by this accelerated interest from abroad, the African continent is experiencing unprecedented growth, a rising middle class, and signs of a new international assertiveness on the global stage.

The question is how can Africa uses its vast mineral resources to under-pin social economic challenges? Clearly not an easy one to solve. I think it's going to take a multidisciplinary approach and stakeholder dialogue to develop a long term strategy and plan with appropriate leadership and collaborative teams that help deliver the master plan. An appropriate reward mechanism and consequence management framework must go hand in hand with this. Development banks AU and other NGO' should be part of the dialogue and help accelerate through politics and bureaucracy. Getting a few landmark projects off the ground that leverage local skills and services to demonstrate to Africa and the world that this can be done would help disprove the skeptics.

Africa definitively need to change our economic models; Africa will want to adopt the blue ocean strategy that countries like Singapore used to be where they are today: We need to maximize on the beatification of our raw materials. It is no longer a secret that Africans are only concerned with the lower end of the value chain in our mining industries thus we need to participate in other areas where we can produce finished goods that are ready for retail, in that way downstream jobs, taxes and other forms of revenues remain in Africa.

As it stands, the continent is a political and social wreck. Until there is stability and the residents move through their own learning curve, any stability in the region is impossible. We can talk about it all we want. South Africa was the best example of success but it is heading towards implosion, as is the northern Mediterranean region. This is mainly because the South African economy is so connected to its mineral that any smaller disturbance in the mining sector will affect thousands of lives as seen in Maricana case in South Africa that caused millions of job lost, country's economy being downgraded by Moody's.

Someone may think that i am going off the topic because when we are talking of mineral development we should concentrate on it. It is ministry of education who has to frame policy on this matter. Or perhaps my heading should have been how education shall play the role of improving the mining industry? Or even further I think most African countries embraced Capitalism without prior preparations of it since by nature most (if not all) Africans are socialist, we used to live communal and that's makes us less aggressive or ambitious to these capitalist companies. I would suggest we add values to our resources before taken away from there, all processing or refinery should be done in Africa before the end product taken to market. a topic for the next post...

Many attempt have failed and many more will fail if we don't start looking for solutions at the grassroots level. Let's have a look to the last African Development Forum (ADF VIII) held in Adis Abeba: “Governing and Harnessing Natural Resources for Africa's Development”. More specifically, the Forum reviewed the following key aspects of natural resources management and development: Knowledge base, human and institutional capacities; Policy, legal and regulatory issues; Economic issues (taxation, investment, benefits, linkages and value creation);Governance, human rights and social issues; Participation and ownership; Environmental, material stewardship and climate change... bla bla bla bla bla... no consensus was attained and no real agreement was reached. Just talk and talk and more talk, wasting tax payer's money..

If Africa does not work with the west in an honest and transparent platform then our mineral resources will remain where they have been for billions of years. Out of reach of Africans. That being said, miners also need to respect the opinions and beliefs of the people of the land regardless of their own opinions, recognizing that nations' natural resources belong to the citizens of that nation. An imposed vision is just another version of the imperialistic claptrap that got Africa into this position in the first place. The notion that a mercantilist structure might work is refuted by history. To take one example, Zambia's copper mines were a source of wealth and employment prior to independence, nationalization reduced them to a burden on the state, a burden that was only removed by privatization. The history of state-run resource companies has been ignominious failure graduating towards dependency on state subsidies.

What about corruption in Africa? My answer again is, there is corruption everywhere. Yes! we all know that money from mining must get to the public but in so many countries this is just not the case. Oil has made Nigeria one of the richest in Africa, but a recent corruption survey by Transparency International shows that nine out of ten of the countries with the highest reported bribery rate in the world are in Africa. Nigeria did not make this year's top ten, yet 44% of respondents admitted to having paid a bribe. Let's invest in Competency Examinations and Accountability: Leadership must be subjected to competency examinations, rigorous evaluations, and continuous education in core competences and engineering and moral ethics for the effective and efficient discharge of duties and responsibilities. 

I believe that while many African are pointing fingers on the foreign companies for their lack of sustainable approaches, Africa’s social-economic environment is very different as it faces numerous entry barriers and a dearth of capacity. Yet fundamentally, Africa has to shed focus from simply mineral extraction to much broader developmental imperatives in which mineral policy integrates with development policy. The continent’s vast mineral resources can play a transformative role in Africa’s development only if it builds appropriate social and economic development linkages that meet national and regional development objectives. Such linkages are of course diverse- whether this is with regard to improving equity and transparency in revenue collection and distribution; integrating small scale mining into rural economies, thus improving people’s livelihoods; or linking mineral extraction to infrastructure development and the manufacture of products that support societal needs.

What is your perspective on this???