Why Ubuntu should underpin the post-COVID 19 International Co-operation.

By Alex Nkosi.

Introduction

The emergent of COVID 19 as a public health issue of global concern has triggered critical debates on a wide range of topics, including “international co-operation”. The pervasiveness of the virus has meant that the rich nations and their well off citizens on one hand; and the developing countries and their poor citizens, on the other hand, are all affected by this pandemic. It can actually be argued that for once, the entire human race has been forced to get united in facing a common invisible enemy.

Since the advent of the virus, many thought leaders and commentators have been humbled with the outpouring of generosity that countries and individuals have expressed to one another as the world fights the virus and grapples with its debilitating impacts on our social lives and the economy.

The Italian Senior Research Fellow with (ODI), Annalisa Prizzon, in her blog about the “COVID-19 and the future of international co-operation: consolidating a new approach” writes about touching “images of and articles about the technical assistance from countries like Albania, China and Cuba, among others." She observes that countries like China are often called ‘emerging donors’ and their assistance described as ‘non-traditional’. These descriptions derive from such countries often being perceived as having different modalities and priorities around aid compared to their Western counterparts; or simply because they are recipients of assistance.

Hitherto, the predominant narrative on development cooperation has been such that if you are a developing country, you are really not expected to offer much to the developed countries. This is why when Cuba offered to lend a hand to Italy and Spain through the technical expertise of its medical doctors, the gesture while being applauded, was at the same time clearly counter-narrative. It went against the grain and may have not sat comfortably with those that feel entitled to “helping” developing countries and not vice-versa.

But this feeling is simply understandable. Let's face it – for decades the world has been sharply divided between the 'halves' and the 'have-nots'. The existent of deep inequality means that the world is basically divided, with the rich curtained from the poor. While the lives of the poor are characterized by dealing with a never-ending litany of problems: pandemics, poverty, poor sanitation etc, the rich until COVID 19 emerged, had continued to live their lives gleefully, almost oblivious to the suffering of the poor who constitute the majority of this globe.

This is why for countries like Cuba, it comes naturally for them to want to help because they know what suffering and living in want really means. In Africa, we call this feeling, this worldview: Ubuntu.

Ubuntu defined

The word Ubuntu is derived from a Nguni (isiZulu) aphorism: Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu, which can be translated as “a person is a person because of or through others” (Moloketi, 2009:243; Tutu, 2004:25-26). Ubuntu can be described as the capacity in an African culture to express compassion, solidarity, reciprocity, dignity, humanity and mutuality in the interests of building and maintaining communities with justice and mutual caring (Khoza, 2006:6; Luhabe, 2002:103; Mandela, 2006:xxv; Tutu, 1999:34-35).

Nobel Prize winner and former president of the Republic of South Africa, Nelson Mandela describes Ubuntu as a philosophy constituting a universal truth, a way of life, which underpins an open society (Mandela, 2006:xxv).

The importance of Ubuntu in a globalised world.

Since the rise of globalisation, the world has now become like a small neighbourhood where people can easily interact with each other without facing any serious barriers. This has become both beneficial and detrimental to the social, political and economic sphere as far as the welfare of the people is concerned.

Basically this means that despite the free movement of people, goods, and services led by globalisation being the stimulus to social-economic development; it has also become a source of spreading diseases. As a result, due to the technological development factor of globalisation, an outbreak such as COVID-19 has turned into a major pandemic disease that has affected a multitude of people around the world regardless of their geographical location differences. Technological advancement which is one of the main forces for globalisation makes it easier for people to travel by land, sea and even air from one part to the other without facing any obstacles.

In practical terms, this means that human beings are now very much connected and linked to each other. “Our lives and actions are intertwined now more than ever” (Prizzon, 2020). This is what Ubuntu espouses. As the South African Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes puts it, “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life”. Thus, “a person is a person through other persons”. A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.”

Why international development cooperation should be premised on Ubuntu

Coronavirus has validated the importance of Ubuntu spirit of mutual solidarity. As Annalisa Prizzon (2020) puts it, “This worldwide “COVID 19” crisis is providing a painful reminder that many critical development challenges cannot be solved by individual countries working in isolation.” Professor Inge Kaul has also vehemently argued that “These global challenges will not be addressed by development agencies on their own, but will need co-operation”. I add to their voices that this is the time to embrace the spirit of Ubuntu, a tenet that recognises our interconnectedness, our common humanity, and the responsibility to each other that flows from our connection.

As Mzimakwe (2014) exhorts, “At the heart of Ubuntu is survival. Survival can be described as the ability to live and exist in spite of difficulties. The African people learnt how to survive through brotherly care and not individual self-reliance. As a result, Africans have developed a collective psyche. It is this psyche that allowed and still allows them to pool their resources, preserve, and creates the African communities. Through a collective and collaborative spirit, Africans have developed a shared will to survive”.

Conclusion

By way of conclusion, the world is already set on a path of increasing interdependence of the world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of commodities and services, the flow of international capital and the wide and rapid spread of technologies. Despite all these benefits, the economic growth driven by globalization has not been done without awakening justified criticism. The consequences of globalization are far from homogeneous: income inequalities, disproportional wealth and trades that benefit countries differently. In the end, it is clear that some actors (countries, companies, individuals) benefit more from the phenomena of globalization, while others are “losers” of globalization. In the spirit of “Leaving no one behind” as enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals, it is clear that development cooperation merits a re-think. To achieve that inclusivity and a human-centred development, I suggest that we develop a new approach to cooperation that is built on Ubuntu principles. The principles of Ubuntu, such as solidarity, sharing of opportunities, responsibilities and challenges, participatory decision making and leadership, and reconciliation as a goal of conflict management, remains an ideal because in the global village it often is not practised, but the ideal would be that the human race would care for one another as it has begun to so with the advent of COVID 19.