The Challenge for Africa (3 page)

Unless that farmer—and millions of others like her—acquires what she needs to develop her skills and educate herself
and her children, and is encouraged to make decisions that can take her on a different path, then future generations will look back fifty or a hundred years from now and shake their heads. They'll experience expanding deserts and degraded lands, and increased numbers of displaced people migrating in search of food, water, and greener pastures, sometimes across national borders. They'll suffer through the inevitable conflicts that occur when people scramble for scarce resources.

The Challenge for Africa
lays down a set of principles for what it will take to change the life of that farmer, who represents the 65 percent of Africans who continue to rely on subsistence agriculture; to avoid the crises of the future; and to ensure that Africans alive today experience good governance, basic freedoms that include respect for human rights, development that's both equitable and sustainable, and peace. Some of the measures I suggest to counter Africa's many challenges are practical—an engagement in grassroots democracy and the strengthening of civil society, so people's energies can be released to shape their own lives and development priorities, and governments can support them in realizing their vision.

Other measures are less tangible. Fundamentally, I argue, Africa needs a revolution in leadership—not only from the politicians who govern, but from an active citizenry that places its country above the narrow needs of its own ethnic group or community. Those in power—the presidents, prime ministers, politicians, and other elites—have to recognize that the way Africa has been conducting its affairs of state has neither protected nor promoted the welfare of the continent's citizens nor provided for the long-term growth and stability of its nations. This ought to be unacceptable to the new leadership in Africa.

The revolution I propose requires the development of policies
that work for the benefit of all citizens rather than the advantage of a few. It necessitates standing up to international interests that seek access to the considerable natural resources with which Africa is blessed for less than their fair market value. It entails implementing decisions that encourage the dynamism and entrepreneurship of African peoples, protecting them from unfair competition, and nurturing economies that add value to the commodities the rest of the world desires so much.

The revolution demands that its leaders not merely support honesty and transparency in government from the president and the highest ministerial level to the grassroots, but embody it in their behavior as well. No longer should African leaders or their supporters play politics with ethnicity, grab public lands, sell off national resources, and loot the treasury—or tolerate such actions by others. They must foster values such as fairness, justice, and working for the common good rather than turning a blind eye to violence and exploitation, or promoting narrow self-interest and opportunism.

Perhaps the most important quality that the African leadership needs to embrace, and which is desperately lacking across the continent, is a sense of service to their people. Too many Africans still live in hope that their leaders will be magnanimous enough not to take advantage of their weakness and vulnerability, and instead to remove the causes for why so many continue to live in fear.

The revolution in leadership and the need to instill a sense of service cannot be confined only to those at the top of African societies, however. Even the poorest and least empowered of Africa's citizens need to rid themselves of a culture that tolerates systemic corruption and inefficiency, as well as self-destructive tendencies and selfishness. They must grasp the available opportunities and not wait for someone else magically to make development happen for them; they must realize
that, no matter how meager their capacities and resources, they have the means to protect what is theirs. Africa's peoples, wherever they are in society, need to hold politicians and themselves accountable, value long-term sustainability over short-term gain and instant gratification, and plan wisely for an uncertain future rather than settle for an expedient present. Instead of milking the cow called
Africa
to death, everyone should feed, nurture, and love her so she can thrive and provide.

Africa has been on her knees for too long, whether during the dehumanizing slave trade, under the colonial yoke, begging for aid from the international community, paying now-illegitimate debts, or praying for miracles. At both the top and the bottom, all Africans must change the mind-set that affects many colonized peoples everywhere. They must believe in themselves again; that they are capable of clearing their own path and forging their own identity; that they have a right to be governed with justice, accountability, and transparency; that they can honor and practice their cultures
and
make them relevant to today's needs; and that they no longer need to be indebted—financially, intellectually, and spiritually—to those who once governed them. They must rise up and walk.

In confronting these challenges, the environment needs to be at the center of all decision making. Neither Africa nor the world can afford for the continent to continue to be solely the resource base for the industrialization and development of countries outside her borders—whether in Europe, the Americas, or Asia. Instead, together, African countries and the international community should enable the African peoples to protect their precious ecosystems—the land, wetlands, fisheries, rivers, lakes, forests, and mountains—and use them responsibly, equitably, and sustainably. Development practices must be conceived and implemented holistically.

If a critical mass of Africans adopts an attitude of preservation
over exploitation, collective responsibility over individual gain, and common feeling for the continent rather than narrow ethnic nationalism, they will have a chance to survive. They will also have an opportunity to experience an African revival such as what I believe Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, envisioned when he invoked the African Renaissance.

My concern for an African revival is personal. As I described in my autobiography,
Unbowed
, my life represents the aspirations—as well as the complexities—of the contemporary African citizen. Unlike many others who write about or lead large-scale efforts in support of Africa, I am not an economist, a social scientist, or a political theorist. I haven't worked on the staff of a donor agency or large international development organization. Just about all my life has been spent in Kenya. By training, I am a biological scientist and taught for many years at the University of Nairobi. For five years I served in Kenya's parliament, as well as in the government of President Mwai Kibaki as an assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources. But for more than thirty years I have remained a keen member of civil society, especially through my work with the Green Belt Movement.

I was raised in central Kenya in a rural village with no modern amenities. I grew up in the shadow of both Mount Kenya and colonialism's last throes. My community, the Kikuyus, was adversely affected by colonial expansion: traumatized by physical displacement, the gradual and systematic extermination of many good aspects of our culture, and the oppressive reaction to the Mau Mau struggle for self-determination and Kenya's independence. This history has challenged the community's ability to raise subsequent generations of children, many of whom have drifted onto the streets or are members of
the outlawed Mungiki sect. Many African peoples experienced similar assaults on their societies over the course of several centuries. Such deculturation has left many Africans ill-equipped to deal with the forces of modernity, principally political and economic systems that are still alien to them, and may not be in their, or Africa's, best interests.

Yet I'm also someone who benefited extensively from the opportunities provided by a Western model of education, introduced by the colonial administration. I know firsthand how the liberating self-determination of Western culture can act as a positive force in one's life. (Without it, I probably wouldn't be writing this book and sharing my thoughts.) Nevertheless, I believe passionately in the need for African communities to discover the value of embracing their
own
destiny and determining their
own
futures, rather than solely and passively relying on outside forces.

My dual identities—both “Western” and “African,” local and international, a member of the elite and someone from a rural background—capture the essence of what might be perhaps the deepest and most complex issue of all facing Africa: what it means to be an African today. Part of this identity is one not determined by Africans themselves. Too often, it seems, Africa has been seen as ungovernable, incomprehensible, and immune to the efforts of more enlightened nations' attempts to civilize it—in short, as unable to help itself. Africans too often have allowed themselves to be defined by these retrogressive stereotypes and have not seen themselves as they are: a spectacularly varied and dynamic cluster of what I call “micro-nations”—communities bound together by their environment, experiences, culture, and history that interact with other communities within the larger nation-state and region. Africans must reclaim and embrace their diversity if they are to flourish.

As the title of this book suggests, the work that needs to
be done will be hard, for those who lead as well as for those who are led. And while Africans should continue to welcome the international agencies, donor nations, and private ventures that have expressed an interest in helping the continent develop in a manner both sustainable and just, ultimately the fate of the continent depends on its citizens. It cannot be overemphasized: Africans must decide to manage their natural resources responsibly and accountably, agree to share them more equitably, and use them for the good of fellow Africans. Otherwise, they will continue to allow outside forces to seduce or bully their governments into arrangements that allow those resources to be removed from the continent for a pittance. It is for Africans to determine whether they will work hard to build up their own talents and abilities, strengthen their democracies and institutions of governance, and foster their peoples' creativity and industry. Or, instead, whether they will continue to nurture a culture of dependency through the acceptance of loans and development assistance, which has resulted in too many Africans waiting for outside help instead of unleashing their energies and capabilities and taking actions today that will improve their lives in the future.

Only Africans can resolve to provide leadership that is responsible, accountable, and incorruptible. It is they who must embrace their cultural diversity, restore their sense of self-worth, and use both to create thriving nations, regions, and the continent itself. It is they who must begin the revolution in ethics that puts community before individualism, public good before private greed, and commitment to service before cynicism and despair.

Of course, these challenges apply not only to Africa but to the world as a whole. It is a simple, although often overlooked, fact that the planet's biological resources are finite, and that the current development path is imperiling the ecosystems on which human life and livelihoods depend. Reimagining ways
of relating to the environment must become the major concern of the citizens of every country on this planet. This is especially important now that the scientific consensus is that climate change is already upon us and that Africa in particular will be negatively impacted. The challenge for Africa is, therefore, a challenge for all of us, too.

ONE OF THE
major tragedies of postcolonial Africa is that the African peoples have trusted their leaders, but only a few of those leaders have honored that trust. What has held Africa back, and continues to do so, has its origins in a lack of principled, ethical leadership. Leadership is an expression of a set of values; its presence, or the lack of it, determines the direction of a society, and affects not only the actions but the motivations and visions of the individuals and communities that make up that society. Leadership is intimately influenced by culture and history, which determine how leadership perceives itself and allows itself to serve: whether it has self-respect, and how it shapes public and foreign policy. I have no doubt that independent African states would have made far more progress if they had been guided by leaders motivated by a sense of service to their people and who therefore practiced better governance, creating opportunities for their people to prosper.

Of course, poor leadership isn't an African invention, or a solely African reality. Colonizers, oppressors, and violators of human rights are to be found throughout history. In the modern era, dictatorships, military juntas, oligarchies, kleptocracies, and “Big Men” have bedeviled many nations in the world, as they have in Africa. These regimes have betrayed the aspirations and violated the rights of their people with impunity; they plundered national treasuries and resources, often plunging their citizens into fruitless wars, both civil and cross-border.