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Seeking international justice in Africa with the ICC

Posted on by Ousmane Aly DIALLO

JPG_AfricanUnion060814-e1407316301744The African Union Summit held in July 2014 in Malabo has endorsed the establishment of an African court of justice and human rights. This Court was created in June 1998 following the Protocol on the African Charter of Human and Peoples' rights in Ouagadougou, which entered into force in 2004. Nevertheless, it takes place in a context of strong opposition between African political leaders, the African Union and the ICC. This « African criminal court » is seen as an answer to the ICC bias in Africa. However it suffers from the same shortcomings and will stay, just like this institution, under the influence of the political interests of the states.


Many people think that the ICC cares only about Africans. Since its implementation in 2002, the ICC has indicted about 30 people who were all African. As a matter of fact, the institution has often been accused of being an instrument of neo-colonialization used against Africa and its political leaders. This idea could have been considered as marginal and related to political partisanship. But, the African Union and many political leaders seem to go down this path in the past few months.
The indictment of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Vice-president William Ruto for crimes against humanity because of their financial support to 2007-2008 post electoral violence, seems to have reignited the latent tensions between the African Union and the ICC.
Actually, in 2009 after the indictment of the Sudanese President, Omar el Bechir, the pan-African organization had already declared that it would not collaborate with the ICC.
The Addis-Ababa Summit of October 2013 was yet another step towards the separation of these two institutions, since an eventual collective withdrawal of African States was on the agenda. And even if it did not happen, the implementation of the new Court of Justice, created to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression, is pulling the rug out from the ICC.


It is true that the weight of western countries on the organization funding (with 60% of the budget coming from the European Union) and on nomination of judges can give them a great influence on its activities. It is the opinion of Mahomood Mamdani, an Ugandan professor who considers that western countries have way too much influence on the ICC and that, in the light of historical relations between Europe and Africa, the place occupied by the black continent in this court gives an impression of « deja vu ».


However, this negative view cannot resist an advanced analysis. It is true that the ICC has several downfalls. The UN Security Council can ask the institution to address activities such as « war or aggression crimes and crime against humanity » although 3 out of 5 permanent members have not signed or ratified its founding treaty: the Rome Statute.
Thus, the United States, China and Russia influence or hinder, according to their political interests, the ICC's work, without acknowledging it legally. The recent struggles about the involvement of the ICC in the Syrian conflict within this Council shows the political importance of the institution as it is a passive instrument of these States.


In the African context, it is often forgetten that the ICC only took the Kenya case at its own initiative. The former prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, decided to investigate the implication of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto in the post electoral violence on his own initiative. It is true that Kenyatta and Ruto are not the only politicians in the world who are suspected of mass incitment to violence. For the vast majority of other trials against African citizens, individuals have been referred to the Hague Court by states themselves, because local jurisdictions are incompetent to prosecute these crimes.  Laurent Gbagbo has been charged by the ICC because the Ivorian government had transfered his case to the Court. The same goes for all the Congolese rebel leaders tried by this court. This would not have been possible without the collaboration of African states and leaders who vilify the ICC.


Besides, the ongoing charges against Kenyatta and Ruto is problematic since they are two of the highest state authorities in Kenya. Where does national sovereignty end and where does the right to justice start?
Just like the case of Laurent Gbagbo, the trials of these two statesmen are highly politicised and divide the citizens of their own countries. These three personalities are very different from what the ICC is used to handle. The first ones to be tried by the Court rarely had the same political capital to defend themselves against an international Court. The Court was more focused on principles than on the monopoly of violence because it depended too much on the states' will and their strategic interests to be able to genuinely deliver an impartial justice.


The recent creation of an African Court for justice and human rights seems to respond to this context of tensions between African state leaders and the ICC. This criminal court will become operational in a couple of years. The simple fact that it was voted almost unanimously (apart from Botswana) is a strong signal in favor of the ICC.
The ICC is, by virtue of the subsidiarity principle, the highest court for crimes for which national jurisdictions are incompetent. Thus, the African Union pulls the rug out from the ICC, but the commitment of African states towards a transparent and truthful continental justice can already be questioned.
A clause of this new Protocol gives immunity to Heads of states during their mandate and “High officials" in duty. Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Omar el Bechir shall not be prosecuted by this court, despite the serious allegations of crime against humanity they are facing. Moreover, given the Heads of States' tendency to hand over power only when they are forced to do so, it is feared that this clause will encourage them to stay in power longer.
This clause and this court could become obstacles to the democratic consolidation that started in Africa since the early nineties. Plus, African States did not stand out by their enthusiasm for an African international justice. The protocol on the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights was signed in 1998, but was ratified by only 15 out of 53 members of the African Union.


All this controversy brings us back to the debate on the possibility of a genuine international justice. Torn between legal considerations and morality, it finally depends on the political willingness of states and their power to implement it. The African Court of justice and human rights will face the same issues and criticisms as the ICC, to which it seems to be a substitute for Africa.
The political weight of states and leaders will always determine their position with this court. Ultimately, African states will repeat the same attitude that they reproached to the ICC. After all, partiality is inherent to any mechanism based on political considerations and national interests. 


Ousmane Aly Diallo
(Translated by: Olivia Gandzion)

 

Jumia Kenya – An Afro-European success

Posted on by Caroline Guillet

dresses jumia

In April 2013, I purchased a dress on Jumia. The reasons for my purchase were threefold; I wanted a dress, my flatmate was working for the company, and, needing a credit card purchase to ensure their system was working, he offered me a 20% discount. After an exhausting exchange of emails and phone calls, I eventually received the dress. The amount of human work involved – phone calls, emails and delivery – just for the purchase of a simple dress, revealed a company in the throes of start-up hell.

One year later, Jumia Kenya sells 5000 items per month and has become an unavoidable actor on the Kenyan reselling market. Such success is testament to the ability of Rocket Internet, the German company which owns Jumia, to apply its internet reselling business model in an economically booming country.

At heart of Jumia, The Cream of European Entrepreneurship

"Our companies succeed bjumiaecause we provide all they need: Great people, functional best practices, funding and ongoing hands-on support” (Alexander Kudlich, Group Managing Director of Rocket Internet). It is hard to argue with the model; seven years after its creation, Rocket Internet owns 75 ventures in 134 countries.

Africa’s large market base and rapid development of internet services were undoubtedly the primary factors behind Rocket’s decision to invest in the continent. A (THE FIRST?) beneficiary of this decision was Africa Internet Holding, the company that created Jumia in 6 African countries. Jumia Kenya opened at the dawn of 2013.

Kenya’s economic rise

Kenya – like several other countries in Africa – presents unique opportunities for growth. On the demand side, the demographic boom provides the company with a large potential market. With fast economic growth, a middle class is emerging, creating a large customer pool for Jumia. These people are starving to access western consumption and this is precisely what the company offers. Jumia sells everything from fashion items, to electronic devices – laptop, cameras and mobile phones -, to home equipment.

On the supply side, Kenya presents undeniable competitive advantages as both land and manpower are extremely cheap (the average wage is about 3 euros per day).

Yet, besides these intrinsic qualities for company development, Kenya is not an easy place to settle in. The country lacks basic amenities, notably low internet coverage in some regions and frequent power cuts. In addition, and more importantly, Kenya is characterized by high levels of violence and corruption which seriously hindered the work of Jumia’s co-founders and employees. All the equipment at the first Jumia office was stolen. The warehouse was constantly under threat, forcing the co-funders to implement drastic security measures._MG_7813_bis

Moreover ‘Nairobbery’, as some have dubbed the capital of Kenya, has a deserved reputation for pervasive scams, which seriously hindered the trust of customers. To reinforce the customer’s trust, Jumia is offering to pay cash at the reception of the items. Also, if the customer is not satisfied, items are exchanged for free or reimbursed.

 

 

A risky but fruitful Afro-European success

Despite these challenges, Jumia Kenya has experienced positive market development thanks to its ability to solve these issues, in a local manner. A capacity to deal with local issues and adapt to hardship lies in the nature of the company itself. As each venue is constituted as an independent company, the co-founders have all the power in their hands to deal with problems. This is how, for instance, they hired Maasai guards to watch over the warehouse, as the Maasai are the only tribe allowed to carry a weapon – their traditional spear. They are also in charge of their human resources which allows them to hire and fire people at will, to suit the needs of the company at best. This constitution frees the company from bureaucratic issues, and provides it with a necessary flexibility when dealing with local issues.

_MG_7924_bis

In that regard, entrepreneurship culture is at core of Jumia’s success as it allows the company to take advantage of Kenya’s economic features and deal with difficulties in a local and flexible manner. Their results speak for themselves. Opening a company in Kenya is a risky enterprise, as displayed by the numerous issues Jumia faced. Yet as Varun Mittal – former intern at Jumia Kenya puts it, “To start something in Africa can be a daunting task but the rewards will outweigh the problems”.

Impacts on Kenya

Jumia has demonstrated how a company can successfully take advantage of Kenyan market features. However, assessing the success of a company purely based on its profit margin could be considered reductive in a country still characterized by high levels of poverty and inequality. Jumia has successfully taken advantage of the Kenyan boom, but for the majority of Kenyans any positive results are yet to emerge.

Caroline Guillet

Pour aller plus loin : http://www.jumia.co.ke/

African weavers are mathematicians

Posted on by Touhfat Mouhtare

Picture 1 : Kente Fabric from Ghana

Picture 1 : Kente Fabric from Ghana

What do the kente (traditional fabric from Ghana) and algorithms have in common?
As odd as it may seem, mathematics have had a major importance in African societies. Weaving techniques were not invented out of the blue by some weaver who was chewing kola nuts out of boredom. They were actually the result of an analytic process to bring out mathematical values into the fabric. Mathematics, indeed. You will never look at sarongs in the same way again.

What is an iteration?
Here we have a weaver from Ghana. His job is to make a special fabric for a self-centered high dignitary. He is going to achieve his goal in a rather surprising way. According to mathematician Ron Eglash, the theory of fractals developed in Europe by Mandelbrot, consists in repeating a pattern on different scales and on the same surface in a specific order. It can be as simple as a square shape inside another square or as complex as shown in the picture below.

Picture 2 : Mandelbrot Set Picture 2 : Mandelbrot Set

Infinite scales
Scales are used to represent a pattern in different sizes and create an ensemble of patterns. In some African countries, scales are used by a lot of people in an almost spiritual way. Here is another weaver living in Senegal. He is in charge of the wedding ceremony of a Fulani couple. His strong belief in love will inspire him to create a pattern based on ideas of continuity and eternity. On the ceremonial fabric, he will make series of four diamond shaped embroideries of different sizes. Each one of them will be proportionally bigger than the previous one. He will repeat the same pattern on the other side of the fabric. This is what he calls the cycle of fertility and eternal happiness and what we call the symmetrical scales.

Picture 3 : Felani fabricPicture 3 : Felani fabric

It would be impossible to study all the geometrical patterns used in Africa in the fields of architecture, games, sculpture or even music. Ron Eglash and other researchers have contributed to this massive undertaking. However, it is a pity that some of them still call it « indigenous mathematics ». Mathematics, as we know it, is not the only way to perceive the world. Other societies have developed their own rational thinking. The only way to understand it to be aware of our own approach. In other words, if only Samba Diallo had known that the construction of his village was based on the fractal theory and the millet borders were built following the affine map model, he might have felt a little less like a stranger in Paris.

Touhfat Mouhtare
(Translated by : Bushra Kadir)

Sources :
Ron Eglash, African Fractals, Rutgers University Press, 1999.
For more information about fractals : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
Pictures :
Kente Image : www.diamonds-wood.blogspot.com
Mandelbrot Image: wikipedia
Fulani Image : Ron Eglash, African Fractals

Learning from the Sub-Saharan Africa global economic prospects

Posted on by Daniel SESSI

growthGone are the days when Sub-Saharan Africa was playing a minor role in the economic world. It’s been a decade now since Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing a positive growth and increasing its influence in the world economy. The World Bank confirmed this trend in its last Global Economic Prospects for Sub-Saharan Africa. In this particular report, the World Bank focused on the outlook of this region and found it extremely vulnerable to some downside risks. The purpose of this article is to discuss the factors that cause those risks and suggest some solutions that can help this region steady its growth and surpass East & Pacific Asia who are the best in terms of economic development.

According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa experienced a robust economic growth in 2013 and looks set to continue to expand against the backdrop of the global recovery but faces significant headwinds. As illustrated in figure 1, Sub-Saharan Africa is doing pretty well in terms of economic development. Its growth rate gets higher when we exclude South Africa whose growth rate decreased a lot recently.

Sans titre

As indicated above, Sub-Saharan Africa economic outlook is really sensitive to many downside risks. It is obvious that our region would perform well if only it can get rid of those problems. The downside risks faced by Sub-Saharan Africa are caused by both internals and externals factors.

The internal factors are related to the political and social instability, the fiscal deficit and the inflation. The external factors include the global market and the monetary conditions.

Political and social instability

Political and social instability is the most important problem faced by our region. It is closely linked to both domestic and foreign investment. South Africa’s growth slowed remarkably this year because of social unrest faced by the country. In South Sudan, the oil economy was seriously disrupted by the civil war that erupted through the end of the year. Another recent example would be the one of Nigeria where the oil economy is facing some serious problems because of the upcoming election in the country and the terrorist threat named Boko Haram.

Fighting political instability is such a difficult issue because it has to do with the mindset of our politicians. Elections in Africa have to mean something different from tribal conflicts and wars. Africa’s politicians have to start putting their institutions before their own interest. This way, they will strive for a fair distribution of the resources, which is the real cause of social instability.

Fiscal deficit

Fiscal deficit is a serious issue faced by many African countries. The main reason is that our governments keep borrowing from the domestic and international markets for unprofitable investment. For example, in countries like Mozambique and Senegal, the government recently issued short-term treasury bills at high interest rate to finance its expenditure. Most African countries based their investment on previsions,  which is not bad thing in itself but this needs to be cautious and to reach a level of self-reliability. In Ghana for example where oil and gas was found, the government has launched some investment projects even before the oil business becomes profitable.

Fiscal deficit can be prevented, it is just a matter of being cautious when it comes to government expenditure. It is a good thing to build infrastructure and develop our economy quickly but this must be done taking into account the capacity of the economy to avoid compromising its performance with a high level of debt.

Inflation

Many factors intervene when it comes to managing inflation. Developing countries especially the Sub-Saharan African ones usually find it very difficult to manage inflation because of the weakness of their currency and the instability of their economy. For example in Ghana, inflation rose to 14.7 percent year-on-year in april, and further increases are expected in terms of the vulnerability of the cedi.

Price raisings have to be managed and predicted by the government. Inflation should normally be used as a tool to support and implement government policies. In order to do so Sub-Saharan African countries have to firstly free their currencies so they won’t depend on any foreign currencies and secondly they need to come together to create stronger currencies.

Global market

The global market is the most important and the most sensitive external factor. By global market we mean the international market on which non-energy and energy commodities are sold or bought. The global market is really difficult to manage or foresee. In fact, the rise of the agriculture product prices was one of the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The only way to deal with the global market would be to adapt the supply to the demand. This solution doesn’t ease the task of Sub-Saharan African countries because things go really fast on the global market.

Monetary conditions

In the last Global Economic Prospects Report (January 2014) it was suggested that a sudden 100 basis points increase in U.S. bond yields could lower capital inflows to developing countries by about 50 percent, which could lead to lower investment and growth. This example shows how sensitive is Sub-Saharan African growth to the foreign capital market.

Normally a change in the foreign capital market shouldn’t have a huge effect on the growth prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our governments have to start relying on their own markets to develop their economies. They are many ways to increase the growth rate by focusing on the domestic market. For instance, the endogenous growth is one of those theories that encourages the enhancement of a nation's human capital to generate growth.

From the above analysis it’s clear that there are many means for Sub-Saharan Africa to decrease the effect of its headwinds on its growth. In doing so, the region’s growth would be strengthened and would increase faster. Further the region’s growth would finally be reflected on the population’s living standards. This means less poverty, less unemployment more business opportunities and a better Africa indeed.

Daniel Sessi

Islamic Finance: an opportunity for development?

Posted on by Foly ANANOU

148555584Facing development challenges and constraints related to the scarcity of financial resources through donations, African countries are trying to find cheaper alternatives to traditional funding mechanisms. To this end, they are more and more open to Asian financial resources: mainly Chinese and Arabic. If works on the Chinese strategy in Africa are in progress, the windfall represented by Arabic financial resources is not well known, whereas they seem to generate great interest among policymakers in the continent.  It is in this context that, on the 29 of March 2014, the Bureau of “Afrique des idées” Dakar organized a conference moderated by two specialists:  Dr Abdou Karim Diaw[1] and M. Rodolph Missihoun[2]. This article synthetizes the key lessons of this conference on Islamic finance and the role it could play in the development process of Africa.

Poorly known, Islamic finance has long remained the preserve of Muslim countries but there is a growing interest for this tool worldwide. Along with its own bank involved in development (Islamic Development Bank), Islamic Finance has others instruments such as sukuks (similar to conventional bonds) which interest many countries. London, world class financial centre, wants to position itself as a pioneer in the integration of this new way of doing finance in the West by issuing sukuks up to 233 MEUR. The regulation in this regard has been arranged and many specialized degree courses in Islamic finance are available in London. In Africa, Senegal is about to test the Islamic financial market by issuing up to CFAF 100 billion in sukuks. It has already received the approval of the Central Bank of West African States for refinancing. With hundreds of millions USD (nearly USD 1000 billion in late 2012 against USD 300 billion in 1990), the Islamic financial market is growing fast (its assets could reach USD 4000 billion in 2020) and therefore arouses everyone’s interest, particularly in Africa, whose financial needs are huge.

How does it work?

First, it’s important to remember that Islamic and conventional finance have the same characteristics. Hence, it does not defines itself as philanthropic. Islamic finance is based on the principles of Sharia, which considers illegal the perception of financial resources on financial investments through the mechanism of interest rates. Sharia principles assume that each gain should be motivated by the pursuit of an activity, which is not always the case in conventional finance. Thus, loans under Islamic finance rather take the form of an equity.

Leading stakeholders of Islamic finance play a role of multitasking entrepreneur comparable to an investment fund. Two cases are possible: financing a profitable activity (loans for business or a project completion) or a social project (loan to individuals or public entities). In the first case, if the stakeholders consider the project to be viable, they will participate as investors and not as bankers. In this context, the funds invested in the project will be remunerated depending on the benefits generated and the quota in the capital. The advantage in such a system is that the “Islamic” lender will be the one suffering the risks of the project. In the second case, the lender protects himself from the risks linked to investment.

The goal is to answer to an actual financial need while supporting risks and accompanying the borrower in its projects. To do so, the Islamic financial system relies on a banking group whose attributes are similar to those of the World Bank: the Islamic Bank of Development; and a set of Islamic commercial banks.

In the Islamic financial market, funds can be raised from commercial banks or the Islamic Bank of Development (whose activities are related to socio-economical development), or through the issuance of sukuks.  The sukuks are investment certificates working according to the same criteria above mentioned. For the holder, they consist in participating in the purchasing of a good to be resold to the client at a higher price, which then reimburses the investment according to the schedule on which both parties agreed. This way, he will receive the margin, depending on his level of participation, as a remuneration of the sukuk. 

Islamic Finance in Africa

The exercise of public finance is mainly due to the presence of the IDB. Twenty two out of the fifty six members of this bank are African, including 17 in sub-Saharan Africa (12 from West Africa).  In the third quarter of 2013, the commitments of the IDB in the world would have reach a hundred billion dollars. In Africa, these interventions are more concentrated in the Maghreb. To reinforce its presence in Sub-Saharan Africa, in 2008, the IDB established a program specifically dedicated to Africa: the Special Program for the Development of Africa, with a portfolio of USD 12 billion (including 4 billion from IDB and 8 from its partners) for the 2008-2012 period on areas such as agriculture, food security, water and sanitation, energy, transport, infrastructures, education, capacity building, health and communicable disease control. The results of this program reveal that a total of USD 13 billion have been committed through it, of which 5 billion from the Bank funds while 59%  of the total amount went to Sub-Saharan Africa.

The IDB itself is a solid institution, capable of mobilizing other donors who may finance development activities in Africa. The major rating agencies of the world attribute it a risk level of zero. Through the SPDA, the IDB could enable African countries to have an additional USD 8 billion, raised from its partners.

On the one hand, the IDB does not condition its intervention to socio-political criteria, very common in the African context and which can be a source of risk. On the other hand, its strength lies in the choices of the projects in which it operates but also in its principles of operation strongly rooted in Sharia’s principles.

The IDB has tools similar to the International Financial Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank: the Islamic Society of private sector development (ISPSD) and its Multilateral Investment Guaranty Agency (the Islamic Investment Insurance and Credits Export Company) destined to the private sector and very little known on the continent.

Some Islamic commercial banks are on the continent but are mostly concentrated in the Maghreb countries. Their emergence in the Sub-Saharan area is constrained by a lack of knowledge about the Islamic financial market, a regulation that does not encourage their establishment, but also by the particular debt conditions of African countries to which the IMF demands to have recourse only to financial resources comprising at least 35% of donations.

It’s obvious that Africa could benefit from the expansion of Islamic finance. The major stakeholder of this market alternative to conventional finance have already a strategy that should guarantee them a lasting presence on the continent, currently presented as one of the engine of the global growth. Some regional offices of the IDB have already been installed: in the Maghreb, West Africa and East Africa.

The IDB already works on a relaxation of the regulatory framework in order to encourage the implantation of Islamic commercial banks.  It increasingly directs states to sukuks. Africa, for its part, should try to appropriate this tool which has many advantages, in getting involved a bit more in its process of installation on the continent through regulation and by paying particular attention to the approaches used in the margin determination, but also by developing its capabilities in terms of negotiation, which so far, are a bottleneck in the process of development in Africa.

Translated by Olivia Gandzion

[1] Ph.D. in Islamic finance

 

[2] Chief Economist at the regional bureau of Islamic Bank of Development (IDB) in Senegal

 

Improving the economic prospects for Africa in 2014

Posted on by Brice Baem BAGOA

forecast

The IMF has predicted good economic prospects for 2014. A growth rate of 5.5% has been announced, as opposed to 4.9% last year. Growing investments in infrastructure and improving prospects in oil-exporting countries have fueled this growth. The IMF expects the stabilisation of inflation rate and improvement of budget balance. However, external deficit is expected to deteriorate. As a matter of fact, given that the local industry is not well developed, the import rate from direct foreign investments is rising as well as the investments in infrastructure. Here is a review of the IMF report published in April 2014 on the economic prospects. [1]

The short-term predictions should be maintained in the new global circumstances. They depend on the effects of the economic slowdown of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and the tightening of monetary conditions globally which will not deeply impact Sub-saharan African countries. But, how will the sub-continent react to the economic slowdown in developing countries and the improvement of the global monetary policy?

In the past few years, many emerging countries like China have witnessed a higher growth rate. As a consequence, the volume of trade with Subsaharan countries have risen. The growth rate in the continent was fueled by an increasing demand, higher costs of exported goods and higher investment flows. The economic slowdown in China means that the investment would also decrease to the benefit of consumption. Thus, this should impact prices and discourage them from investing in other countries. On the other hand, globally the financial circumstances have been alleviated to resolve the crisis. This has made a lot of capital available and they have massively been invested in developing countries, especially in Sub-saharan African countries. The upturn in global financial conditions will slow down direct foreign investments.

According to the International Monetary Fund, these new global changes will  have a limited impact in most countries. Actually, the improvement of global growth translating into the rise of external demand will create a favorable environment. Nevertheless, the budget and policies of some vulnerable economies might suffer from the adjustement of financial conditions. In order to sustain this growth, the macroeconomic politicies should focus on reinforcing the budget balance that has suffered from the crisis. The current conditions are favorable for these policies: preserved social safety policies, stabilisation of inflation rate and reinforcement of sub-regional integration.

The IMF prospects are focused on the short-term. Sub-saharan countries will have to find ways to provide a structure to develop a sustainable and inclusive growth. Since the past few decades, many countries in the region have achieved a 5 to 6% growth rate. Nevertheless, these countries have undeniable structural problems. Only a small part of the society reap the fruits of this growth. In order to promote an inclusive growth that will benefit to all, the IMF recomends to efficiently use the human capacity and improve financial services.

The political authorities should enhance the human potential by increasing employment opportunities which would be an efficient way to reduce poverty. Family businesses are very well developped in the subcontinent in the fields of agriculture and services. The authorities should create a positive environment to encourage the development of these activities. Thus, the underlying increase in productivity will orient the structural changes in the economy. The authorities should also allow easier access to funding in order to encourage entrepreneurship and set up of businesses. Reforms such as the use of NICTs in financial transactions will definitely help to reach that goal.

A good monetary environment is essential to attain macroeconomic stability. In the past few years, inflation rates in Sub-saharan African countries have risen above 10%. The authorities should take measures to limit risks of macroeconomic instability. They are challenged by the tightening of the international financial framework that results in higher costs and growing risks of outflow of fundings. These reforms are necessary for a better and more efficient monetary policy. They should focus on improving the quality and frequency of data which would allow to supply information accordingly. Moreover, the central banks should monitor the excess liquidity in circulation by improving liquidity management, broaden the range of instruments for the monetary policy and stabilise the financial sector.

In a nutshell, economic prospects in Sub-saharan African countries seem positive. However, they mainly depend on the evolution of the global economy. Although the impact of these adjustments may be limited, some states have very fragile budgets and policies. These countries have witnessed an accelerated growth. This does not imply though that the continent has had an accelerated growth. The authorities should take advantage of the current good economic performance to reach a stable macroeconomic structure through massive economic restructuring in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth. Policies should thus focus on using the human capacities available locally and improving the access to credit so as to foster entrepreneurship. For the IMF, monetary authorities should carry out reforms to improve the financial environment.

Translated by Bushra Kadir

[1] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2014/afr/eng/sreo0414.pdf

 

 

 

Three lessons from the Rwandan genocide

Posted on by Rayan Nezzar

This year will be marked by the commemorations of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Twenty years later, it is still time to mourn the dead but also to draw lessons from the tragedy. 

rwanda-genocide-memorial-tourThe first lesson to learn from the Rwandan genocide is taught by historians: their work disclosed that the political logic behind ethnic hatred not only led to dehumanizing the Tutsi minority but preceded the genocide of that minority. Hatred for otherness, exacerbation of difference until there is no longer room for living together have powerfully contributed, in both Rwanda and Nazi Germany, to making possible, if not unavoidable, mass murder. We must not stop contradicting the theories which tend to make ordinary the crime, or even to justify it, by seeing it as a spontaneous event following the murder of President Habyarimana. We do know today that the Rwandan genocide was not an accident of History but the product of a racist ideology and a murderous will.

The second lesson is addressed to the international community whose indifference and inaction appear today not only as a political mistake but also as a moral fault. That blameworthy attitude shows the civilizational complex of superiority of an international community still recovering from the Somalian fiasco of 1992 at that time. By allowing and reinforcing the sense of impunity nurtured by the opposing forces present in Rwanda, the abstention of foreign powers has also participated to the escalation of violence and the onset of the most horrible atrocities. This lesson resonates today with a singular echo in a context of mass murders perpetrated every day in Syria and the drama which is taking place in Central African Republic. This is the reason why the Rwandan genocide should raise awareness not only among those who tell the story, but also the people who hold in their hands the fate of entire regions. International justice alone, if it is to be relevant, will never replace the action of diplomacy, and sometimes the use of force to prevent the worst from happening.

Finally, the third lesson is that revisionism, with all its symbolic brutality, always prevent memories from finding root in people’s minds, survivors from mourning and honoring with dignity the victims. Revisionism banish the prospect of reconciliation between communities who once tore each other apart.  The accounts of the Tutsi survivors and their executioners, like those of Holocaust survivors seventy years ago, unveil the unspeakable suffering of people who prepared themselves to die and who had to learn to live again.  With the images, the nightmares haunting their nights and the memory of missing loved ones tearing their hearts apart. Commemoration is not only a matter of honoring the dead, it helps the living rebuild their lives.

Elie Wiesel wrote that he who chose to dedicate the rest of his life to tell the story of the Holocaust because he thought he was indebted to the dead. Not remembering them, he said, amounts to betraying them one more time. This is why we should, twenty years later, learn all the lessons from the Rwandan genocide.

 

Translated by Ndeye Mane Sall

Democracy without accountability: South Africa, Zuma and the « Nkandlagate »

Posted on by Vincent ROUGET

ANC-ZumaSouth Africa has lately become restless with a new scandal that is slowly stealing the limelight from the Oscar Pistorius scandal. The cameras have left, at least temporarily, the highly-mediatized trial of the murder-accused athlete to focus on a much more important issue to the South African democracy: the upgrade at an exorbitant cost of President Jacob Zuma's private residence. 

Zuma owns a private house in Nkandla, a town in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. One of his wives live in the estate, a kraal designed in accordance with Zulu traditions. When he became President in 2009, he decided to upgrade the Nkandla homestead, alleging the need for security improvements. This was the beginning of a huge scandal that is still making the headlines.

As early as 2009, South Africa's leading daily newspaper, The Mail & Guardian, broke the Nkandla story and disclosed its huge cost and its opaque financing, estimated at the time at 65 million rand (€5 million). Five years later, the expenses have quadrupled. Nklandla has cost at least 246 million rand (€17 million). In contrast, the security upgrades to former President Thabo Mbeki's private residence cost a mere €800,000. Among Nkandla's "security" improvements: a swimming pool, an amphitheatre, a full-sized soccer field, a cattle enclosure and a chicken run.  

Since the case was brought to public attention, questions have been raised about the origin of the money used to carry out these upgrades. For a long time, Zuma denied using public funds for his private benefit, claiming that only the security improvements which were required by his presidential status were funded by the state. This version of events, questioned by a series of media investigations, eventually collpased last week after the publication by South Africa's Public Protector Thula Madonsela of a damning report. In this 433 page document, Madonsela provided accurate details on how the President used public funds for works that had absolutely nothing to do with security, and she is now requesting the President to pay back "a reasonable percentage of the expenditure". The architect who supervised the construction happens to be a friend of Jacob Zuma: he was appointed by the President himself, in violation of tendering processes for public works. He reportedly took advantage of this connection to raise his fees and pocket about €2 million himself. Even more critically, the President is accused of misleading inquiries parliamentary inquiries on the subject with repeated false statements.    

This is far from Zuma's first encounter with the South African judiciary. In 2007, he faced 783 charges of corruption, fraud, extotion and money laundering, and his financial advisor was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. Given the seriousness of the accusations and the media coverage of the "Nkandlagate", he could face trial again. As the Public Protector's report was published, two opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) officially lodged a complaint against the President for corruption and misuse of public funds.

However, it is mainly through its political consequences (or non-consequences?) that the Nkandla scandal is raising issues. This new scandal confirms one more time the excesses of the South-African democracy that is considered to be one of the most robust democracies on the African continent. The (con)fusion between the state and the ANC which has characterised South African politics since the end of apartheid has worsened under Zuma. The President has built himself a business empire while governing the country: Zuma and 15 relatives now control more than 130 companies, three-quarters of which were registered in the past few years. Government decisions are increasingly influenced by the private interests of senior party officials or their entourage. With everyone trying to get the largest slice of the pie, the party is increasingly subject to divisions and factionalism. South Africa's political life is now largely determined by the balance of power between the ANC's different tendencies and the outcome of their internecine fighting. 

In many other democracies, a scandal such as Nkandla would have been enough to bring the downfall of the President and his government… but obviously, not in South Africa. The party in power is divided; the state is undermined by corruption; two years ago the police cold-bloodedly killed  34 minors while attempting to repress a protest and the investigation is at a standstill; the economy is struggling to recover from the economic downturn, the national currency has experienced one of its worst depreciations… And nevertheless, the ANC system survives and does not seem at risk of collapsing anytime soon. The party's popularity has waned over the past years and support at the polls is eroding. Yet, considering the recurrent scandals and the government's poor performance, the fall is surprisingly slow. According to the latest surveys, the ANC is expected to retain a comfortable majority (about 60 percent) at the May 7th general elections. Zuma is heading for re-election, and if the surveys are to be trusted, the Nkandla affair will have little influence over the election results.

Among the reasons most frequently cited to account for the ANC's resilience is the weakness of opposition parties. The Democratic Alliance may have doubled its share of the vote in the past decade, but it is still struggling to expand beyond its traditional Western Cape stronghold and to reach out to the non-white, non-coloured electorate. It will probably not reach more than 30 percent of votes in May. The Congress of the People (COPE), which had brought together in the 2009 elections dissident members of the ANC disappointed by Thabo Mbeki's ousting, has now collapsed. The new leftist party, the Economic Freedom Fighters is having a hard time rallying support, despite the charismatic personality of its president and founder, Julius Malema, the former president of the ANC Youth League: surveys predict that the EFF should not exceed 4 percent of the votes.  

The argument is obviously hard to disprove: voters need to be convinced by attractive alternative solutions to turn away from the ANC, and these alternatives are currently lacking credibility. However, there are two other deeper causes that explain why the party manages to maintain such a powerful position.

–          On the one hand, the widening gap within South African society between urban areas – where a more "cosmopolitan' electorate increasingly rejects the ANC's governance practices -, and rural areas, where the ANC has maintained an near-total control.

–          On the other hand, a peculiar historical context, which has deeply influenced the demands of South African citizens for government accountability.

Since the end of apartheid, South African society has changed radically, and studying social relations only through a racial lens is certainly not sufficient. it would be clearly simplistic to study social relations only through the racial lens. Since the mid-1990s, South Africa has rapidly embraced globalisation; yet, this integration was partial and mostly limited to the cities, who benefited from an influx of investors, tourists and migrants from all over the world. Cities like Johanesburg, Cape Town or Durban have become global metropolitan centres, well-connected and integrated to the world-system. Their residents, immersed in political and economic liberalism, are often very critical of the ANC's clientelist practices. Meanwhile, South Africa's rural areas have been largely excluded from globalization. The ANC, which was paradoxically an urban movement until the end of apartheid, has reached out to the countryside, where it now exerts a near-total control. In these isolated areas suffering from high unemployment, ANC officials have managed more easily to position themselves as local patrons and to develop clientelist systems, guaranteeing proper rewards for their loyal supporters and making sure that no other party would threaten their local control. These rural regions today guarantee the ANC's continued electoral success. 

Moreover, the attitude of South African citizens and taxpayers towards government and public management is still influenced by the country's historical legacy. In a society where inequalities are extreme, and still strongly related to racial issues, the population does not reprehend the accumulation of wealth by a black elite. Such practices are not seen as corruption or misuse of funds but rather as examples of self-achievement and individual success. Individuals such as Malema and Zuma, by becoming nouveaux riches, are viewed as attacking the issue of existing inequalities,throwing the first stone against the citadel of white economic domination, and that inspires respect. It does not fundamentally matter that their wealth may have been built by the misuse of public funds; and that is why some South Africans still believe that the Nkandla scandal should be regarded as a private issue, unrelated to the management of public affairs.

Rural areas have not been much exposed yet to Western principles of electoral democracy. They are not entirely familiar with the key notion of "sanction-vote". In mature democratic systems, people in power have to account for their actions. Voters evaluate government performance during its last mandate and decide whether they will trust the members of the government again or sanction them. This demand for results is a short-term requirement, which accounts for regular changes in power.

 In South Africa's young democracy, the memory of the apartheid is still vivid and the requirement for results does not the same frequency. Voters evaluate results on the long term, and not only with regard to the last presidential mandate. The past mandate of the ANC in power was undoubtedly tainted by a range of problems and excesses. However, in the past two decades, its results are undeniable: the situation has certainly improved for rural populations since the end of the apartheid. And many voters still consider that a good enough reason to continue voting for the ANC and Jacob Zuma, regardless of Nkandla, its swimming pool and its football pitch…

Translated by Bushra Kadir

Innovation: Is it in the eye of the beholder?

Posted on by African Antitrust Ressources

innovationIn my first short working paper (‘Innovation, competition and IP in developing countries: convergence or customization?’) I questioned whether the globalization of competition and IP laws was pushing developing countries in the sense of convergence, and whether this tendency was beneficial for these countries’ quest for innovation. I also posed five guiding questions and invited the reader to think about the trichotomy ‘innovation/IP/competition laws’ in the context of developing countries. This second post addresses the first question and the point of departure of this analysis:

What is innovation?

A mere definition of ‘innovation’ does not provide a satisfactory answer to this question. Therefore, I will also discuss a number of topics and try to provoke further discussion on (i) the concept of innovation, (ii) the context-specificity of the concept; (iii) and some key drivers of innovation in developing countries.

Let’s ‘begin at the beginning’ and ‘go till we come to the end:[1] the ‘innovation’ that should be stimulated or safeguarded by competition or IP laws (or both) in African countries.

(i) Innovation: what’s in a name?

In the legal literature, ‘innovation’ is often imprecisely associated with the development of ‘something significantly new’:[2] what ‘does something new’ mean? New to whom? How new is new enough? ‘Innovation’ should be distinguished from ‘invention’: the conception of a new idea, a discovery or a unique finding.[3] A genius idea or a cutting-edge invention cannot be automatically qualified as ‘innovations’ before they are introduced in the marketplace. In simple terms, innovation is the ‘process of putting ideas into useful form and bringing them to the market’.[4] The innovator is the one that successfully manages to successfully concretize an idea, commercialize it, or in the case of social innovation, externalize it to society. The innovative ideas included in the concept of ‘innovation’ refer to new products, processes, services and public policies, which may have either a commercial goal or simply an altruistic aim to solve social problems. The core element of the concept of ‘innovation’ I would like to point out is therefore (a) thesuccessful externalization and concretization of ideas. However,  an innovation must also be the (b) first concretization of these ideas.

(ii) Innovation: a context-specific concept?

How can we measure the newness element of innovation? Must this be the first externalization ever of a new idea translated into the commercialization of a new product? From an IP rationale, the answer would be yes: the first ever. However, we should ask ourselves whether this makes sense in Africa. Is the concept of ‘innovation’ context-specific? Is it in the ‘eye of the beholder’? Can we really expect poor countries to develop cutting-edge technology while their R&D spending is limited? We surely want to stimulate and safeguard the same type of innovation present in developed countries, but from a policy point of view, is this realistic?

Innovation as a relative concept?  

According to Srinivas/Schutz, innovation is contextual/sector-specific, i.e., innovation depends on the socioeconomic conditions it is embedded in and should therefore ‘meet the needs of the most people, especially in countries where innovation and poverty reside side by side’.[5] If we reflect upon this topic from the perspective of the stimulation and diffusion of the ‘innovation spirit’ and good innovation policies to African countries, we might want to adopt a less strict concept of innovation and content ourselves with a relative concept of innovation for these developing countries.

copyrtInspired in the literature on policy diffusion, we might perhaps want to perceive innovation here as something that ‘it is new to the states adopting it, no matter how old the program may be or how many other states have adopted it’.[6] The facilitation of innovation in a different context might still pose important challenges to a developing country even if it has been implemented elsewhere. According to this perspective, the ‘newness’ of the innovation in question is not assessed in absolute terms but related to the experience and knowledge of the jurisdiction in question. This may mean that African innovators are allowed to stand in the shoulders of other innovators, ‘imitate them’ (?) and concretize their ideas within a circumscribed territory. This is perhaps easily applicable to innovative programs or policies, but should African countries not be stimulated to develop innovative products with their own resources and adapted to their local characteristics, even if they are similar to existing products in developed countries? (Potential IP concerns shall be discussed a few weeks in one of my next posts) While this less ambitious perspective of innovation takes into account the socioeconomic conditions of developing countries, it almost goes against the globalization trend that is fighting for convergences of laws and policies. In addition, a relative concept of innovation opens the door to free-riding and may not give incentives to the development of truly innovative products and processes.

Leaving IP and other legal concerns aside for now, I would like to introduce briefly some of the relevant incentives or favorable conditions to the emergence of innovation.

(iii) The drivers of innovation

Ashford/Hall argue that innovation is determined by three decisive factors that should be present at the firm and governmental levels: (a) willingness to innovate; (b) opportunity/motivation to do so; and (c) capacity to innovate.[7] I would like to mention an additional external driver: competition.

(a) Willingness to innovate refers to how firms and individuals perceive changes in production, understand technological or social problems, develop and assess alternative solutions for it. While this ambition may easily be found in developed countries, underdevelopment, limited capacity of higher education, and profound scarcity may affect this willingness to innovate.

(b) Opportunity and (c) capacity to innovation are influenced by external factors, including the regulatory conditions faced by firms. Ashford has claimed that regulation, by taking these elements into account, can create ‘an atmosphere conducive to innovation’.[8] Innovators in African countries face however here significant hurdles. Although governments are aware of the need to enhance their R&D spending, they still have not been able to find the adequate mix of regulatory instruments that can create a sound regulatory environment for innovation.[9]

(d) Competition: in simplistic terms, it is often argued that competition drives innovators because companies feel, on the one hand, theCompetition pressure to be more cost-efficient notably through the development of innovative production processes; on the other, to stand out of the crowd of competitors, differentiating their products from the existing ones and offering consumers innovative and better products. Innovative companies are those that leave their comfort zone and strive for better products and processes. However, leaving your comfort zone implies taking risks that developing countries might not be willing to embrace. Although ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, innovators in African countries might need a helping hand from their governments to solve the ‘innovation chasm’ that often characterizes them.[10] This ‘innovation chasm’ is currently affecting these last three drivers of innovation. Can law—particularly Antitrust & Competition laws—play a role here? Can laws provide wings to African innovators to fly in the direction of innovation? Or will innovators feel imprisoned and palsied by these giant wings?[11]

Read the first part here.

An article by Sofia Ranchordas (Tilburg University, School of Law) initially published on our partner's website ATT.

 

[1] Adapted quote from Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

 

 

 

[2] Stefan Müller, ‘Innovationsrecht—Konturen einer Rechtsmaterie’ (2013) 2 Innovations- und Technikrecht 58, 60.

 

 

 

[3] Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (first published in 1939, Harper, 1942) Luke A. Stewart, ‘The Impact of Regulation on Innovation in the United States: A Cross-Industry Literature Review’, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, 2010, paper commissioned by the Institute of Medicine Committee on Patient Safety and Health IT, available at www.iom.edu, 1.

 

 

 

[4] Eugene Fitzgerald; Andreas Wankerl; Carl J. Schramm, Inside Real Innovation: How the Right Approach Can Move Ideas from R&D to Market and Get The Economy Moving(Kauffman Foundation, World Scientific Publishing 2011) 2.

 

 

 

[5] Smita Srinivas, Judith Schutz, ‘Developing Countries and Innovation: Searching for a New Analytical Approach’ (2008) 30 Technology in Society 129.

 

 

 

[6] Jack L. Walker, ‘The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States’ (1969) 63(3)The American Political Science Review 880, 881.

 

 

 

[7] Nicholas A. Ashford; Ralph P. Hall, ‘The Importance of Regulation-Induced Innovation for Sustainable Development’ (2011) 3 Sustainability 270, 279.

 

 

 

[8] Nicholas A. Ashford; Christine Ayers; Robert F. Stone, ‘Using Regulation to Change the Market For Innovation’ (1985) 9 Harvard Environmental Law Review419, 422.

 

 

 

[9] See, for example, the Report by the SA Department of Science and Technology, ‘A knowledge-based economy. A ten-year plan for South Africa (2008-2018)’ available at http://www.esastap.org.za/download/sa_ten_year_innovation_plan.pdf

 

 

 

[10] Department of Science and Technology, ‘A knowledge-based economy. A ten-year plan for South Africa (2008-2018)’ available athttp://www.esastap.org.za/download/sa_ten_year_innovation_plan.pdf

 

 

 

[11] Inspired in the English translation of ‘L’ albatros’ by Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs du Mal), by Jacques Le Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil  (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958). The original verse is ‘Le Poète est semblable au prince de nuées (…) ses ailes de géant l´empêchent de marcher’.

 

 

 

Three development lessons from Asia

Posted on by Emmanuel LEROUIEL

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Much has been said about the Asian “miracle”. Countries like South Korea and Taiwan had between the fifties and the sixties levels of development similar to those of Ghana and Nigeria, and the following decades the Asian “Dragons” and the “Tigers” initiate a forced march to catch up with the developed world economically. A number of analysts welcomed the “enlightened dictatorship” of Asian leaders like Lee Kwan Yew (Singapore) or Park Chung Hee (South Korea) as the decisive factor of the catching-up process. By contrast, Africa was plagued by malicious or obscurantist dictators (Bokassa, Mobutu, Idi Amin Dada, Robert Mugabe, and the list goes on) who have led the continent to its bankruptcy. Is development a question of leadership after all? This theory that is still being defended by many supporters is simplistic in many respects. It reduces politics, which is the conduct of affairs in complex societies, to a matter of individuals, ethics and good intentions…

The essay of the economist Joe Studwell, « How Asia works » should then be welcomed in more ways than one. The author gives an explanation to the success of North-eastern Asia (Japon, South Korea, China, Taiwan) and the relative failure of South Asia (Thailand, Malaysia,  Indonesia, Philippines) through three policies which are, in his view, pivotal in the development process of a Nation.

According to Joe Studwell the structural transformation of North-eastern Asia economies is the result of a recipe made of three ingredients: free the agricultural potential of a country by the redistribution of lands in order to set a rural capitalist agriculture, reinforced by an affirmative development of support services (access to inputs and loans, efficient storage and distribution infrastructures); upgrade without delay the industrial value chain with state-of-art technologies and techniques to modernize domestic industry, with a state-driven and proactive policy compelling national entrepreneurs to take part to that effort in favor of modernization and international competitiveness; to use finance as a tool in service of the achievement of the two previous objectives and overlook short-run profits, profuse in speculative activities (land rent, property speculation) to prioritize long-term objectives like  the mastering of state-of-art industrial technologies. Those lessons from Asia are in contradiction with certain dogmas conveyed by the liberal vulgate especially by pleading for a preeminent state intervention in periods of economic catching up at the expense of the invisible hand of the market, short-termist interests of shareholders of developing firms being potential barriers to structural transformation.

Joe Studwell sees structural transformation of agriculture as the first ingredient of that Asian magic formula since the agricultural sector is employing a large majority of the population in poor countries. The transition from agrarian feudal societies to modern societies generally  goes, according to Studwell, through the stage of an intensive and productive agriculture on small plots of land (market gardening, peri-urban or subsistence agriculture) conducted by rural modest landowners. It would permit to increase the productivity of the largest category of workers with an impact on the global productivity of the country´s production factors. The result will come as a first accumulation of capital by this class of rural growers which will fuel a first consumption market and permit the emergence of a more important class of entrepreneurs. This transition was made possible, in most cases, by ambitious land reforms splitting the huge fields, property of big feudal landowners (Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan) in plots of land (3 to 5 ha) redistributed to modest growers; conversely South Asian countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia still have not conducted land redistribution policies: hence big landowners are living from cash crops in large plantations (sugar cane, rubber trees, oil palm) enhanced by poor farm workers, with little effect on the economy and the emergence of a rural middle-class.

The second lever of success is the industrial transformation of the economic fabric, supported by a technological upgrading and added-value production processes. Joe Studwell pointed out that in the Asian cases, state intervention is crucial_ either by the means of creating state-owned corporations (China), either through the orientation and the framing of private firms (South Korea)_ in order to encourage, protect and drive the emergence of national industrial champions. The author brilliantly illustrates what makes the strength of Asian industrializing policies, in comparison with the failures of countries like Algeria. The condition for success of industry creation policies is to implement competition between several national operators and the inescapable export of their products (evidence of competitiveness in the international markets) both conducted by North-Eastern Asia.

Governments had no hesitation in forcing mergers of least competitive firms, later integrated to more viable groups.  For instance the growth of the electronics group Huawei went through the repurchase at a discount of less-seasoned competitors specialized in other market segments, and which thrived under the shade of Huawei.

In addition, State funding granted to domestic industries are linked to performance indicators indexed to industrial operators’ ability to sell their production abroad. The recipe for success lies in protecting domestic industries in their early years but also to establish an internal and external pressure to keep only the most competitive and not support lame ducks. Joe Studwell explains that the reasons why Soviet and Indian industries failed (before the reforms of 1991) are not to be found in public ownership of capital but in the lack of both competition in domestic markets and exports.

In the financial sector, Joe Studwell advocates a strong state control. In countries with low incomes, it is essential to allocate the little available capital to two main objectives: a rural intensive agriculture and an autochthonous modernizing industry, the two keys that put North-Easter Asia on track.

The examples coming from South Asia, by contrast, illustrate the noxious effects of a liberalized financial system, in the hands of a rentier class ( major landowners and oligarchs), either belonging to world finance or driven by easy and short-term profits which do not always meet development objectives. The volatility of foreign investments which led to the 1997 Asian crisis is distinct from long-term investments of national banks. As for the banks serving oligarchic interests, they particularly funded the housing bubble and speculative activities which did very little for the structural transformation of those countries.

The 1962 decree establishing the New Bank of Korea, under the tutelage of the Minister of Finance, had made this central bank a pivotal tool in the service of real economy designed according to development objectives, without falling in the trap of unrestricted money printing like many African countries. Preferential loans granted to domestic industries depended on the international clients’ credentials national operators were due to produce to prove their competitiveness on world markets. Banks which granted loans to those operators in order to fund their pre-purchased production abroad could refinance themselves from the central bank at below-market rates. Such measures will substantially contribute to the onset of a heavy industry in South Korea, followed by a state-of-art technology industry. The competitiveness of the South Korean operators-creditors permitted the sustainability of national debt. The 1997 crisis will eventually stabilize the South Korean economic landscape by sparing only the most economically and technologically viable operators.

 « How Asia works » is an essay which rehabilitates State action in the phase of economic emergence. Although the State is crucial in the process, it does not have a central and omnipotent role; it is stronger in its position as a regulator than as an economic agent. It is expected to make the rules fair, its strength should be oriented towards efficiency to take the best of private actors in order to reach the objectives of public welfare. An Asian lesson that could inspire several African countries striving towards emergence.

 

Translated by Ndeye Mane Sall

The World Bank economic prospects for Africa in 2014: Why are we still far from perfect?

Posted on by Foly ANANOU

forecastIn its annual report on global economic prospects for Africa, the World Bank projects that Sub-Saharan African countries shall have the best economic performance in 2014, more specifically in the short run. Growth is expected to rise up to 5.3% in 2014 and reach 5.5% in 2016. Excluding South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa's economy will grow on average more than 6% from 2014 to 2016. The reasons behind this growth are self-justified. Africa has one of the best preserved natural resources in the world, which attracts both public and private investors. According to economic theories, the continent's current performance brings about substantial structural change and institutional reforms which make Africa a very attractive place with a stronger economy. World Bank economists consider that Sub-Saharan Africa should make the most of the reinforcement of the domestic demand and export growth. Here is a review of the results of the 2014 Global Economic Prospects.

The World Bank economists believe that the good performance of Sub-Saharan Africa is due to an increasing demand from the population and the Government. As a matter of fact, the economic improvement of developed countries should translate into a higher transfer of migrants. Households will consume more and more goods as the funds are allocated to consumption. The demand will have to be met by an increase in either domestic production or imports, or both.

Given that the industrial structure is not very well developed, this new demand is most probably going to be far more profitable to business partners than to the local industrial sector. Moreover, although the report does not clearly mention this implication, it stresses that the increase in demand should be supported by the stability of food prices and exchange rate. This underpins the role of import in meeting the demand-driven growth that will be generated in Africa.

Many governments are committed to achieving some of the millennium development goals by 2015, which should lead to an increase in expenditures related to infrastructure.. Nevertheless, these expenses funded by loans (due to low performing tax systems) are carried out by foreign industrialists. Local entrepreneurs are very marginally involved.

The industrial sector should benefit from the improving economic situation in industrialized countries. As a matter of fact, direct investments should rise up to 47.8 billion USD by 2016. However, this information does not tell us the extent to which these investments would contribute to the diversification and industrialization of the African economy. Actually, they mostly contribute to expanding the mining sector as well as other related sectors such as transportation and financial services and to a lesser extent, tourism. As a result, there is an increase in exports (of natural resources in a context of increasing selling prices) compared to imports which are made of construction materials for infrastructures and food items.

Yet, the report specifies that the expected rise of exports could be limited by the declining prices of gold and oil internationally. It goes on to recommend the diversification of oil-exporting economies such as Angola and Gabon.

The growth expectations for 2014-2016 depend on the vagaries of nature such floods, droughts and climate related factors. Other factors such as security issues (maritime piracy in the Gulf of Guinea), terrorism in the Sahel region and political and social upheavals are one of the main challenges of the economic activity.

After all, if the World Bank casts a favorable light on Africa over the period 2014-2016, it does not emphasizes the role of Africa’s international economic partners in the growth performance. Actually, the growth performance in Africa does not accord well with some fundamental economic indicators. Typically, employment rates are stagnant, business opportunities benefit to a minority of the population, the industry is still nascent and the economies are not diversified. The performances of African economies are mostly driven by its international economic partners. 

However, it would be unfair and very pessimistic not to acknowledge the potential structural change that the new growth momentum shall bring to the African economies in the long run. The development of the mining sector encourages countries to invest in infrastructures (roads, railways, ports) and to initiate reforms for the improvement of business environment. The private sector could empower the growth process but governments still have to create favorable conditions to allow private firms to fully play the role of levers.

Africa is undeniably one of the most economically dynamic regions of the World. Unfortunately, this dynamism is not yet driven by massive increase in formal employment, a reduction in poverty and inequalities. Should this situation remain unchanged, the positive economic performance of the continent will not improve the living conditions of the population.

Translated by Bushra Kadir

Rwandan Genocide, 20 years later: Desperately in search of peace (2/2)

Posted on by Tity Agbahey

"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." Martin Luther King

Terangaweb_Gacaca RwandaGenocide is not a crime as any other. While the other forms of conflicts meet political and economic interests, genocide is a concerted plan in view of eliminating the members of a given group. Genocide aims to “purify” the social group by removing the elements regarded as unworthy to be part of it: Jews in Germany, Blacks in South Africa[1], Tutsis in Rwanda… Other countries have had the rather difficult task of reconciling a people torn apart by a conflict. In South Africa there were the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, in Sudan was chosen the radical solution of secession, in Ivory Coast we are crossing fingers for the maintaining of a flickering peace.  

Rwanda is (rightly) known to be the good pupil in the Great Lakes Area since it achieved its “resurrection” in various fields (See Le Rwanda, une Nation phénix (1ère partie) – L'Afrique des idées and Le Rwanda, une Nation phénix (2ème partie) – L'Afrique des idées). The country is being ruled with an iron hand by Paul Kagame who succeeded in inspiring the wind of development the country needed since 1994. What about the Rwandan society? The genocide has radically materialized a division that had been festering for a while in Rwandan society. The reconciliation between members of a society is not a matter of policy, it is nonetheless essential among people who are condemned to live together anyway. Thus forgiveness never can be an instruction given to the community but the state has the duty to ensure that anywhere, all members of a society feel like they are part of a group, otherwise it must enforce an official end to dissensions, in the absence of forgiveness.

That idea underlies penal law of all the countries which abolished death penalty: punish the culprit both to stop the cycle of violence then prevent any act of revenge and to ensure that the convict will be reinserted. The right to punish (or to avenge…) belongs thus to the state. The act of genocide involves necessarily all the layers of the society as it often concretize itself because “Some wanted it. Others committed it. Everybody let it happen.[2] If the act involves all the nation, the work of reconciliation should go further and deeper. It is about not letting subsist a vestige of animosity from one side or another, an animosity that could some day trigger new conflicts on the smoking remnants of the precedent.

The gacaca are scathingly criticized for not being professional courts and not responding to any criterion that defines a jurisdiction: impartiality, independence, fairness… but how could it be otherwise?

On the one hand, in the wake of the genocide, it was urgent to judge the hundreds of thousands criminals detained, the members of legal professions were either among the victims or among the accused…when they hadn’t fled the country. Qualifying the work of the gacaca as lacking juridical rigor would be a way to reproach Rwanda with not applying an ordinary solution to a situation that was anything but ordinary. Desperate times call desperate measures.

On the other hand, those courts, thanks to their popular dimension have helped to put together and confront people who never would have dreamt of this form of participatory justice in a classic legal framework. It would be indeed very naive to consider that, at the end of the trial, victim and offender end up hand in hand.  Besides the victims have been raising their voice to denounce a justice they consider expeditious and biased (how to believe an accused who ‘exchanges’ his remorse against the promise of a sentence reduction?) but following such a tragedy, there were not so many solutions. Except parting the country in two between the Hutus and the Tutsis, the only alternative solution was to permit systematic revenge which would have undoubtedly led to another tragedy with the same actors in reversed roles: the Tutsis as offenders and Hutus as victims. The chosen solution was certainly not the best but it is objectively the most adapted given the elements.

The genocide is only twenty years old, it is still too early to make an assessment of History and judge the progress in terms of social peace which will certainly take many years more to concretize. But Rwanda has started a process that should, in the very long term and, if it still followed, erase the divisions that should not exist. It could pass through (like in Nigeria) by a subtle power sharing between Hutus and Tutsis, an equal access for both ethnic groups to state structures, education, employment… in short concretize what the Constitution theorized: all Rwandan are equal.

Reconciliation is also and above all a matter of memory. Collective memory and individual memory. Maybe the second will be less acute in two or three generations and maybe time, failing to heal the wounds, will have eased the pain. For the time being, the dazed survivors are reintegrating as best they can that society which is still home to their offenders, and stoically bearing the plain view of their executioners, now allowed to walk free. Because “Amarira y’umugabo atemba ajya mu unda »[3]

 

Translated by Ndeye Mane SALL

Read the first part of this article here.

[1] http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/ARTJAJA2647p034.xml1/

 

[2] Citation de Tacite

 

[3] Proverb in kinyarwanda : The crying of a man remain in his chest.

 

Rwandan Genocide, 20 years later: Desperately in search of peace (1/2)

Posted on by Tity Agbahey

“I don’t believe those who say that we have hit the bottom of atrocity for the last time. If there has been genocide, there can be another one, at any time in the future, anywhere, in Rwanda or somewhere else, if the underlying cause is still present and we don’t know what it is.” A survivor[1]

rwanda-genocide-memorial-tourBetween April and July 1994, Rwanda, a country of Central Africa, suffered what is known as the bloodiest genocide ever known, taking into account the number of victims and the short duration of the terrible abuses: nearly 800 000 people (Tutsis and moderate Hutus) were slaughtered in three months according to the United Nations. As we are close to the twentieth anniversary of the genocide, what is the current situation in Rwanda?

It remains difficult to specifically date the origin of the divisions between the Hutu and the Tutsi ethnic groups. The term of “ethnic group” is even inaccurate in a country where Hutus as well as Tutsis speak the same language, the Kinyarwanda and both share the same customs and beliefs. In the thirties, the Belgian colons initiated the distinction between the two groups in official documents by creating ‘ethnic’ identity cards and giving to the Tutsis the power to rule the country under the tutelage of colonial administration. To the Tutsis was given access to education and power by the Belgian colonizer while the two other Rwandan ethnic groups, Hutus and Twas, were forsaken.

When Rwanda achieved independence, the gulf the colonizer had created turned out difficult to bridge: the Tutsis were more and more targeted in massacres meant to exile them in Uganda, Burundi or DRC. Rwandan exiles from Rwanda attempted several times to take power while fighting under the banner of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Hutu government never took long to strike back with massacres against the Tutsis remaining in Rwanda by way of revenge. On April 4th 1994, the Hutu Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana dies when his plane, which was about to land in Kigali, is shot down by a missile. For the Hutus, the Tutsis of the RPF are the obvious responsible of the attack.

The murder of the Rwandan president triggered a genocide which had been festering for a while. The following day marks the official beginning of the massacres. Organizing themselves in armed militias, the Hutus killed almost a million of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in few months. On July 4th, the Rwandan Patriotic Front enters the capital, Kigali, take power and install a government of national unity which symbolically has a Hutu as Head of State, Pastor Bizimungu. In 2000, the RPF won the elections and Paul Kagame, a leader descending from that generation of exiled Tutsis in Uganda, became President. He launched a process of justice and reconciliation to make all the Rwandan live together again, peacefully. Unity and reconciliation then became real policy objectives: a National Commission for Unity and Reconciliation is created in 1999, the mention of the ethnic origin disappears from the identity cards and the new Constitution explicitly specifies that all Rwandan are equal.[2] The work of the Commission is based on several approaches among which the ‘education for peace’ also known as Ingando, which aims at shedding a new light on Rwanda history, understanding the origins of the divisions among the people, encouraging patriotism and fighting genocidal ideology.

Nonetheless there cannot be no reconciliation neither peace without justice. Hence an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was set under the aegis of the United Nations to bring to justice the perpetrators of genocide and other violations of the international humanitarian law in Rwanda from January 1st to December 31st 1994. The ICTR aimed also at “contributing to the process of national reconciliation in Rwanda and maintaining peace in the region. »[3] For the time being, 65 people have received a final judgment, 10 cases are currently pending and an accused is awaiting an upcoming trial.

Beside the ICTR, another court is in charge of judging the hundreds of thousands people involved in the acts of genocide: the gacaca (pronounced gatchatcha) which are the Rwandan people’s courts. Traditionally reserved to civil litigations, the gacaca is based on the search of guilt admission and forgiveness. A law created in 1996 to better organize the prosecution of genocidal crimes or crimes against humanity attributed jurisdiction between the Tribunal and the gacaca. The former is in charge of prosecuting the planners, the organizers and the leaders of the genocide, those who acted in positions of authority, the renowned murderers as well as people guilty of sexual tortures or rapes (jurisdiction shared with regular Rwandan courts). And it is the gacaca’s responsibility to prosecute and judge the authors or accomplices of voluntary manslaughter or assaults that resulted in the death, and those who wanted to kill the victims but only caused injuries or committed other serious abuses without intending to kill the victims. In other words the masterminds are to be judged by the ICTR and the executing criminals by the gacaca. During the trials, each court brings together defendants and the victims’ families, the debate are open to the public and whoever confesses their crimes can benefit from a reduced sentence or even be pardoned. Whenever there is a sentence, it is often symbolic: the defendants are way too numerous and the prisons way too overcrowded.

The gacaca came to the end of their term on June 18th 2012, with two millions people judged.

As the consequences of this genocide have spread far beyond the Rwandan boarders (Rwanda – RDC: les dessous d’une guerre larvée – L'Afrique des idées ), it is legitimate to ask whether the widely acclaimed reconciliation have kept its promises.

 

Translated by Ndeye Mane SALL

Read the second part of this article.

[1] Dans le nu de la vie, Jean Hartzfeld

 

[2] http://www.un.org/fr/preventgenocide/rwanda/about/bgjustice.shtml

 

[3] http://www.unictr.org/AboutICTR/GeneralInformation/tabid/101/Default.aspx

 

Nigeria: Mister Goodluck and President Jonathan

Posted on by Mouhamadou Moustapha MBENGUE

Terangaweb_Goodluck JonathanGoodluck Jonathan is at the moment in a tight spot.  The past few months, the Nigerian president has been subjected to a fierce opposition amidst his very own party, The People's Democratic Party (PDP) which has been reigning since the establishment of the Fourth Republic in 1999. Leading a gigantic country in terms of economy and demography (Nigeria is the most populous country of Africa with 170 million inhabitants), President Jonathan has been in power since the death of his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010 and is becoming more and more unpopular. In addition to a questionable management of the clashes with the Boko Haram sect, he is suffering from a considerable lack of legitimacy in his party.

37 MP from PDP have joined the ranks of the opposition on last December 18th. This rebellion resulted in Jonathan losing his parliamentary majority, an unprecedented situation in Nigeria’s political history. Its consequences are unpredictable. On the one hand, it remains difficult to know how President Jonathan will govern without a majority at the Parliament; on the other hand the future is uncertain as to the presidential elections of 2015. This important setback is one more step leading to the mutiny firstly opened in September 2013 by six governors from the Muslim North who created the New PDP. The bone of the contention: the former President Olusegun Obasanjo made things worse when he stepped in the turmoil and wrote a scathing letter to his successor, accusing him of invigilating his political opponents along with hundreds of Nigerians using the State services. Even worse, police officers assaulted locals belonging to the same states as the mutinous governors, who consider those confrontations as bullying, and denounce dictatorial methods.

President Jonathan now finds himself in a very difficult situation, and the stake is the future of Nigeria, way beyond the future of PDP. Indeed, the present revolt against Jonathan is linked to the main political issue in Nigeria since the independence, namely the fragile and volatile balance between the Muslim North and the Christian South of the country. When PDP took power in 1999, the leaders of the party agreed on an informal sharing of the power: the president could only pretend to two consecutive terms (8 years) , the deal was that every two-term period of time, a Muslim president had to vacate the power for a Christian successor and vice versa. It was a tacit political alternation based on the religion and the region of the pretenders to the throne. Thus, after Obasanjo, a Yoruba from the South who reigned from 1999 to 2007, it was Umaru Yar’Adua (former governor of Katsina, a northern state) who took the lead. But his sudden death in 2010 jostled that subtle arrangement: Goodluck Jonathan, the vice-president from the South then became president; he was re-elected in 2011 and is now wanting to run for the elections of 2015. If he was to win the elections, he would govern until 2019, which means a presidential mandate of almost ten years. To put it bluntly, the power would have been to the North for only three years (2007-2010) on the twenty years of the PDP reign (1999-1919). It is merely unacceptable for most politicians from the North.

If Goodluck Jonathan maintains his authoritarianism, he takes the risk to worsen the bleeding of the PDP, which could lose the elections in 2015. However, it is still possible for him to limit the damages by winning back the militants, who have already started to leave the ship, and save the essential: the political unity of the party and the stability of Nigeria. The best he can do is not to run for a re-election in 2015.

We should pay careful attention to the political struggles going on in Nigeria because they have ethnic and religious overtones in addition to the economic stakes surrounding oil (Nigeria is the first African producer of oil). Goodluck Jonathan is facing a great social discontent since he took power in 2010. The increasing fuel prices rekindled the tensions between Muslims from the North and Christians from the South, tensions he failed to handle efficiently by the way.

The successive defection of the governors and parliamentarians who joined the APC (All Progressives Congress), the main opposition coalition, is a severe blow for President Jonathan. That is why he should pay great attention to the way he will handle this new situation while avoiding any measure of authoritarianism. He ought to win back those PDP leaders who joined the opposition and dispel any ambiguity on his potential candidature to the elections of 2015. The Boko Haram sore is way too crippling for Nigeria to enter a new cycle of violence. Especially if they come with ethnic and religious dimensions in a continent already scarred by that kind of conflicts.

 

Translated by Ndeye Mane SALL