by Fekadu Bekele, Ph D
On 25th February 2014 a one-day seminar was conducted by Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a foundation which is founded after the name of one of the legendary figures of peace movements during the 1970s and 80s, famous for his many critical works as a writer. The foundation intimately linked to the Green party, actively participating in ecological, democratic and peaceful movements is contributor to civil society organizations in Germany and civil society organizations worldwide. In this spirit, it actively promotes the aforementioned ideals in Africa and other underdeveloped areas in the world. After many years of active participation in Ethiopia, the foundation decided not to extend its activity under the current politically repressive conditions and was compelled to close its office in Addis due to the ongoing arbitrary arrests of journalists and civil right activists.
The idea behind this seminar was to examine and discuss the nature of economic growth in many African countries, and to scrutinize whether repeated statistical publications about the high performance of the economy in Africa South of the Sahara has a positive impact on the lives of the people. The event was host to many critical participants who provided the audience with assessments about the well-publicized economic growth in many African countries. While not all presented ideas were entirely new, I can say that we have learned a lot during the seminar.
Among those invited was Prof. Lorenzo Fioramonti, who is currently teaching international political economics in South Africa, at the University of Pretoria and who is well known for his very challenging books and articles about inequality and economic growth in Africa. Though he couldn’t participate physically, his well evidenced and thoughtful analysis transmitted by Skype to the audience was very remarkable and the message was clear for all of us. Prof. Fioramonti informed us that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a new concept, heavily loaded with ideology and does not reflect the realities on the ground. According to his analysis, GDP is a very misleading concept, and does not only reflect the realities on the ground and systematically neglects other economic activities that take place outside the formal sector. Accordingly, GDP considers only market transactions and no other aspects of human activities performed by the people in each country. Another misleading aspect of GDP is it does not take into account ecological damages, inflicted when mineral resources are exploited. According to his assessment the ecological, social and cultural damages are far greater than what the society gets from selling minerals. The revenue from selling the minerals goes into the pockets of those companies extracting the resources. That means foreign companies instead of creating social wealth for the people as whole steal African resources while destroying the environment and the entire social fabric of the continent.
Dr. Kumi Naidoo who is also from South Africa and is currently manager at Greenpeace made a vibrant speech, and told us that in South Africa almost 12 Million people are hungry every day because of lack of food. Though rich in mineral resources and relatively developed compared to other African countries, according to Dr. Naidoo, South Africa is the second most unequal country in the world next to Brazil where inequality is more apparent. He informed us that corruption is practically destroying the social fabric of the South African society. Dr. Naidoo has shown us that economic growth in many African countries did not improve the life of the people as the World Bank and the international community makes us believe, but on the contrary, increases inequality. In fact the continent is on the rise, but not Africans. According to his estimation, the number of poor people has increased from 175 million to 239 million people within 20 years. One out of four people in Africa is hungry. Those who benefit from the well-publicized economic growth are the political and the economic elite, while the situation for the majority of Africans is very bleak. Subsidies from the EU for its farmers, and poultry importation from certain European countries, such as Holland undermines the lives of the people in Ghana and elsewhere. In his statement, many African leaders do not understand what they are doing and are simply being manipulated by multi-national companies and consulting firms and are leading their countries to an unknown destiny. In such unequal continent it is not surprising that the criminality rates are very high.
Other participants, such as Dr. Franklin Obeng-Odoom, Ghanaian by birth and currently conducting research at the University of Technology in Sidney and Mr. Nimmo Bassely a Nigerian, who came directly from his country for the seminar, gave us very sad pictures about the conditions in many African countries, and how the resources of the continent are being plundered by multi-national companies and by the respective African governments without real contribution to economic development or to the improvement of the life conditions of the African people. Dr. Obeng-Odoom has stressed the need for understanding the meaning of economic growth in its broadest sense. Accordingly any healthy economic growth must also include the concept of well-being, and from this perspective the living standard of the people in each African country must be analyzed. By comparing economic growth in Mauritius and Botswana with that of Zambia, Angola and Nigeria, he explained to us that while inequality in Mauritius and Botswana reduced to a certain extent, this is not the case in Nigeria, Angola and Zambia. In these three countries economic growth and the rise of inequality are two sides of the same coin. In Nigeria, economic growth has even greater negative impacts on the environment. As a city planner and researcher in political economics, told us that city planning in many African countries is being planned from the perspective of market economic activities, and not as a place to live, where human values, culture, ethical norms are being integrated so that individuals develop a sense of belongingness and social awareness. Such cities in Africa and elsewhere which are being constructed from the perspective of pure market transactions produce aggressive individuals which become harmful for any society in general. On the other hand many governments will be compelled to be converted into police states to counter attack such aggressive individuals and groups which the system has produced. It is not therefore very surprising that many African states have become more militarized over the last 20 years to cope with such kinds of problems. In other words, globalization and neo-liberal economic policies inevitably produce overcrowded cities, and destroy generally all human values such as cultural, social, ethical and moral values that are the attributes of all human beings. In Ghana the economy has grown by about 14% with oil, and yet in the western region of the country inequality has risen dramatically. The fact that multi-national companies have free hands, and are doing whatever they like, exploit the resources without contributing to the social and economic developments in the respective countries. Mr. Bassely a Nigerian by birth and well-educated and articulated personality told us about the ecological damages that the oil companies have inflicted upon the environment, and according to the study conducted by his organization, it will take at least 25 years to clean the land, and another 30 years to clean the water, even more than that to get rid of the ecological damages already deep-rooted and widely spread in many areas of the Niger Delta. According to him, the oil companies are criminals and must be charged for what they have inflicted and are still inflicting on African societies and their environments. He is also very concerned about the situations in Lake Turkana, in Kenya and Lake Albert, in Uganda. As a humanist he reminded the audience to ask themselves about their relationships with nature. He told us, as we are part of nature, and since we need nature for our existence we have to ask ourselves about the meaning of life, and therefore we can’t be indifferent to what is going on around us. From this perspective we also have to define the essence of economic development, and since economic planning and economic development reflect economic and political power relationships that prevail in any given country, they are not value free. When foreign companies come to Africa in order to invest in the name of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), their main motive is to take out as many resources as possible without creating social systems that are conducive to live and would enable the people to produce high culture. Statistics show that 70-80% of FDI goes to extract mineral resources, and this number tells a lot about the main aim of foreign companies. Mr. Bassely further explained to the audience that Africa is still a controlled continent, and some countries in West African that were once colonies of France still don’t have their own currencies, and do not have the right to know how much currency reserves in the central Bank of France they possess. Since 60 % of the foreign earnings of the ex-colonies remain in France, these West African countries cannot control their own monetary affairs. As long as any country does not have the right to control and manage its own monetary mechanisms, it cannot control the movements of capital and can’t adapt monetary policies in accordance to the need of the economy.
Generally speaking, the participants gave us a very dark picture about the nature of political constructions and lack of knowledge that exist in many African countries, that are being exploited by those foreign forces which at the moment think and believe that they are omnipotent in many areas, and clever enough to take out huge amounts of resources and profits as much as possible without ever thinking about the damages they are consciously or unconsciously inflicting on various African countries. Though the picture is clear and the participants spoke in clear languages, it was unfortunate to see how the audience became reluctant and was very uncritical. Nobody dared to raise critical questions and it seems that many are either confused or are adapted to such situations. What do we learn from such analysis given by our African brothers? First, though the continent is nominally independent, in actual fact it is still a controlled continent. Second, the economic and political orders that were constructed after the Second World War do not favor the continent. The continent is still being considered by the so-called international community as exporter of raw materials. That means Africa must not use its own resources in accordance with the needs of its people. Third, since the continent does not have its own economic theory and policy it can easily be manipulated by foreign experts. Therefore all the economic policies that have been applied since the 1960s could not help the continent to create true national wealth. Fourth, the way out of this dilemma is that the people in each African country must be empowered to control their own resources and decide over their own destiny. Fifth, this requires strong political leadership form within that does not obey and accept economic policies of international partners.
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