Strategic Choices for Africa in the 21st Century: The Promise of Peace and the Opportunity for Shared Prosperity

Theogen Rudaswinga

By Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

Berkeley, Calif. — My personal journey is not unique in many African countries. I am slightly older than Africa's independence (most African countries obtained their formal political independence in the early sixties). My father was killed in the first massacres that took place in Rwanda in the violent transition to "independence" from Belgian colonial rule.

My mother, a young illiterate African woman, crisscrossed five central African regions in search of a place to settle and find decent education for our family. She finally did, in Uganda, where four of us, her children, grew up in a refugee camp over a period of three decades. To earn a living and put us to school my mother worked as a laborer. My siblings and I worked as laborers in plantations owned by local Ugandans and the Catholic Church.

My first days at "school" are still vivid in my mind: under a tree, without book or pencil. We wrote on sand, or better still on our thighs, using thorns. Whenever it threatened to rain, our teacher would tell us to go home. But our home was a small hut that five of us shared. We had no running water, and fetching it from long distances was a daily chore. Firewood, used for cooking and lighting could only be obtained by traveling far from the hut that we called home. Later, when a few schools were built, the nearest was five miles away. The closest health centre was 10 miles away. One aging bus shuttled between this area and the nearest south western Ugandan town, Mbarara.

Thanks to my mother's tremendous self-sacrifice, support from good Samaritans and the Government of Uganda, I ended up studying Medicine at Makerere University, in Kampala. I worked briefly in Mulago Hospital in Uganda. To them, I owe a debt I could not possibly repay.

Then on October 1, 1990, I became part of the struggle against whose background, genocide took place. I was a contributor to the efforts by ordinary Rwandese people to stop the genocide when the international community betrayed its collective responsibility to protect. Since 1994, I have worked with other leaders and people in Rwanda to rebuild the country in the aftermath of an unparalleled human tragedy that claimed the lives of over one million innocent people in a span of a hundred days. Rwanda has the unique distinction of being small, landlocked, densely populated, and dependent on exports of coffee and tea, and aid.

My personal account is simply to illustrate that Africa's current problems are neither new nor entirely African. Out there, a story like mine and my mother's is replayed time and again. In my lifetime I have discovered how women, even though illiterate (my mother taught herself how to read the Bible) and marginalized, are the most entrepreneurial in our families and communities. And I have seen how every young woman or man empowered through education becomes a powerful force for change.

The powerful interplay of external and internal factors have, over the last one hundred years produced the Africa we have today. There is a lot that African countries share in common: being the cradle of humankind; slavery; colonialism; post-colonial poor governance; pawns in the cold war game; incredibly high and unacceptable poverty levels; high infant and maternal mortality rates; high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases; dependency on aid; massive debt; gender inequality; poor infrastructure; low scientific, technological, and managerial knowledge and know-how; limited trade and foreign direct investment (Africa's contribution to world trade is less than 2%, and share of global FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) less than 2%). It is a picture that can easily make you pessimistic.

But Africa is also a continent of many faces that illuminate the hope for the future. First, Africa is beginning to respond to its own challenges. The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) is one such response, at a continental level. This vision and strategic framework has, as its objectives, eradication of poverty, empowerment of women, integration into the global economy, and sustainable growth and development.

Second, the international community has responded with various initiatives, including the latest to cancel debt for the poorest debtor nations, a pledge to increase aid up to 0.7% of GNI of rich countries. Through bilateral and multilateral arrangements, there is a renewed commitment to help Africa rise above the failure and predicament that has characterized the continent for so long.

In order to succeed, clearly NEPAD, the regional groups, and the international efforts will all have to continuously and innovatively seek to root the development endeavor on the efforts of people, in their families and communities. To get Africa out of poverty and the undignified habit of being the perpetual beggar, there are seven strategic choices we as Africans have to make:

1. We have to change our mindset to fully grasp the opportunity of the moment. There is nothing naturally inherent among Africans that makes it impossible to afford dignified and full lives for our people. Prosperity is not only a product of hard work but more importantly, smart work. Prosperity is a choice that a nation and its people have to make.
   
   
2. No amount of aid will solve Africa's problem, until and unless Africa does first things first. The first thing is to recognize that your people are the most important asset, among other forms of "capital" (natural endowments, infrastructure, institutions, knowledge, culture, and financial). African leaders must invest in our people's livelihoods, in their freedom and liberty to imagine, the power to invent options, and to make informed choices that serve as indispensable conditions for development.
   
   
3. Africa must add value to what it has, to build its competitive and collaborative advantages. Just exporting raw materials and other undifferentiated commodities to global markets has proved to be a failing strategy. Exporting cocoa, coffee, tea, minerals, oil, timber, and other natural resources might provide a temporary windfall, but it is ultimately likely to be a race to the bottom. Similarly, marketing Africa as a destination of cheap labor may work for a while but twenty or thirty years from now, it too will bring us no victories. One of the leading minds on competition, Michael Porter, informs us that central to being more competitive is how to constantly increase productivity. Shaping Africa's competitiveness requires looking beyond the political, legal and social contexts to what actually the firms, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as multinational companies (MNCs), are doing. It requires looking at the quality of factor inputs, the local and international demand conditions, the status of industry, especially the related and supporting industries, and the firm structure, strategy, competition and collaboration. In short, let's embrace science and technology to drive innovation across the whole spectrum of opportunity in Africa: human capital, environment, agriculture, forestry, water, gas, oil, minerals, manufacturing, services, infrastructure (transport, energy, ICT, water and sanitation). Investment in R&D is critical to this effect.
   
   
4. Africa must have an exit strategy from dependency on aid. No society has been able to develop on the basis of charity from good Samaritans all the time. Africa can learn from its own past, and from others. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan have able to graduate from the "third world" status in a span of thirty years because they invested in their people and physical infrastructure. They have also, to differing degrees, developed effective and efficient bureaucracies, and focused of exporting to sophisticated markets. Not surprisingly they have high savings and investments rates. More importantly government in these countries did not shy away from being a strong partner with the private sector. The solution lies in Africa building its capacity to trade within itself and within global markets. On the one hand, we must build capacity to trade; on the other rich nations should not build protectionist walls in form of tariffs and subsidies.
   
   
5. Start promoting and doing business with the poor. In his book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C.K Prahalad says, "If we stop thinking about the poor as victims or as burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up." Going forward means a full fledged engagement with all the stake holders within communities. This requires working on several fronts, to create an enabling atmosphere to do business. This is not only important to attract foreign investors, but more importantly, to build local business capacity. Whether in starting or closing a business, dealing with licenses or paying taxes, hiring or firing employees, protecting investors or enforcing contracts, registering property or trading across borders, the end goal should be to make it easy for the wealth creation process to advance. We need to popularize the idea of doing business, and making profit, with social responsibility.
   
   
6. Build transparent, accountable, lasting, and great institutions. The disease of corruption is one that is very often cited as the cause of Africa's myriad problems. It is a big problem indeed and it must be combated by every stakeholder.
   
   
7. Search for and build a sustainable process of developing your leadership and managerial potential. The 21st Century global landscape is beset with numerous threats, some old, others new: war between nations; violence, civil war, human rights abuses, and genocide within nations; overwhelming poverty and its many dimensions, infectious diseases and the environment; weapons of mass destruction; terrorism and organized transnational crime. Africa will not be spared the full force of these threats. In fact, without doing what we must be doing now, some of these will become "African diseases". To navigate the complex, difficult and dangerous environment Africans will need to discover the opportunity, seize and turn threats to advantages. Leaders and managers who will discover their people's innovative and entrepreneurial energy, and harness it for the common good will succeed. I cannot think of a very unused potential than that of women, and the young of today, as leaders and managers. Forty years from now, Africa will shine when it has learned to harvest this enormous potential.
   
   

Africa has the opportunity to overcome the above threats. To overcome the obstacles to development, Africa will have to come to terms with its own history, to learn from it but not to be hostage to it. Peace for all and shared prosperity are achievable. The past cannot be changed, but we can shape the present and the future.

AMD, and the rest of the corporate world, has a responsibility to be part of this difficult yet noble and exciting journey. I am glad AMD has boarded Africa's train to the future through its 50x15 initiative.

There is enough space and plenty of chores aboard the AfricaTrain. Would you like to join us? Welcome aboard the Peace and Prosperity train.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa is a Visiting Scholar for Management of Technology at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He is also a GMAP Student at the Fletcher School of Business, Tufts University, Boston. He can be contacted at either truda@berkeley.edu or at theogene.rudasingwa@tufts.edu. Dr. Rudasingwa was a featured panelist at Austin PBS affiliate KLRU's sixth and final installment in its 2005 Distinguished Speaker Series called "50x15: A Global Commitment."