John Powers says:

We need to question our assumptions so all of us can begin to productively go about repairing the world and composing better ways of living.

here here!!

Dr. Ayittey wrote:

The important point to note is that the extended family is a PRIVATE ENTITY, completely separate from the chief or the tribal government. Thus land in traditional Africa has always been PRIVATELY-OWNED -- by the extended family -- as are the other means of production.

Obviously, if you do not understand the traditional economic system, ownership of the means of production, etc. you CANNOT develop traditional Africa, which was exactly the case with most of Africa's post colonial leaders.

Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda, for example, misread the native African ethos of communalism (not the same as communism)and the myth of "communal ownership" as signs that Africa was ready for socialism or communism -- that is, state ownership of the means of production. They were DEAD wrong.

(sorry I've yet to learn to do quoted text)

Clearly Dr. Ayittey signals points of importance by raising his voice. Something I don't understand is the construct that the extended family is a "PRIVATE ENTIY." The implication is that the extended family exists not relative to other things. I'm not sure how to imagine this? But clearly understanding the quality of relationships between extended families is central to understanding Dr. Ayittey's critique of Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda as "DEAD WRONG."

What is the nature of the traditional African relationship between extended families and to the broader society? What in this relationship did Nkruma, Nyerere, and Kaunda get so wrong?

Clearly Dr. Ayittey identifies socialism as being an improper relationship. It certainly seems as though global corporatism would receive a similar scathing critique from his perspective. But I get confused, because in speaking to Western audiences, Dr. Ayittey seems to embrace the rhetoric of free markets and anti-taxation of the global corporatism.

In the Western Liberal tradition freedom means individual autonomy. Thus we are used to thinking of freedom being a holding off of something else or others. The assumption is that at base we are all self-seeking. Wherever possible choices are reduced to cost/benefit analysis--rational actors and all that.

In general in the West, most of us rather take for granted the premises of the Liberal Tradition. One place cracks in the foundation are beginning to show is in our relationships to global corporatism. At least here in America recognizing these cracks has little to do with Marxism, as much as corporation PR raises the bogeyman.

It seems to me that Dr. Ayittey asks us to transplant the Western Liberal traditional notion of the individual whose primary relationship to society is defensive against it, with the extended family replacing the individual as the primary unit of analysis. In other words, to keep the relationship "against" and somehow we'll find freedom.

My view is that the quality of relationship between what is private and what is public is the essential part to consider and discuss. Are there ways of building upon our social nature as human beings which can envision freedom beyond the zero-sum contests of the Liberal paradigm?

Slightly off topic, but in re Ivan Illich's book "Gender" I was interested to see Chris Clarke link to it in his essay today. The essay is well worth reading.

I wanted to alert everyone that Andrew Mwenda's Ted talk is posted. A good place to see it is over at Eric Hersman's White African because he also links to Ethan Zuckerman's live blogging of it. Eric doesn't really link to the right Zuckerman post, but it is the right one for understanding the controversy with Bono, and that's important for the context of Mwenda's remarks at the conference. Right at the bottom of Zuckerman's post you'll see a link to his live blogging Mwenda.

I've read Mwenda in The Monitor for years and read so much about him too. It's so nice to actually hear his voice. Mwenda's talk is indeed relevant to this discussion.

John, for me the path to understanding the role of the private family unit is to understand the family's traditional relationship to land, people (labor) and livestock (tradable investments) as family owned assets.

In the west, a company owns assets, and the people employed by that company work together to see that the company's assets grow in value to serve employees and shareholders. In Africa, a family owns assets, and the people who are part of that family work together to see that the family's assets grow in value to serve the family members.

Asset owning companies are governed by corporate bylaws and national legislation. African families are governed by traditional structures. Both are active economic players in today's landscape - how they obtained their assets and how they operate internally is different, but they are essentially playing the same free market game.

Thanks for the link to Mwenda's stuff. In the last line of Zuckerman's blog he says

Asked point blank whether he opposes all aid by Chris Anderson, Mwenda makes an important distinction - he thinks it shouldn’t be given to governments and should be given directly to indigenous groups and entrepeneurs.

I would argue further that it shouldn't be given by governments or by institutions controlled by governments. I've always been a proponent of opening resource flows grassroots to grassroots, and IMO the best resources out there aren't necessarily financial. There is a fine line though, at which that can also spin out of control. Perhaps it is incumbent upon those of us who want Africa to be a part of the "better world" we imagine we are working toward, to try to understand where that line lies.

another one of Mwenda's rants I've heard about locally is about all the very young people (arrogant, inexperienced, primarily out to glorify their own experience & find themselves) coming to "volunteer" their wisdom about how the world should work, all in the name of helping Africa. Quite simply put, kids will often behave childishly, and today's young (post-high school/college age) volunteers are getting themselves labeled a pretty childishly behaving group as a whole.

I agree with Mwenda that the new fad in youth driven international grassroots "aid" is indeed showing itself to have some inherent drawbacks. Maybe the problem is in the premise that it's Africa who needs help - I don't really think it is. I think most of the Western kids who come to Africa today are looking for something, and they think they are going to find it here by "helping" Africa become more like them. Arguably what they really need to be doing is looking at what Africa has to offer in terms of lessons about what their own lives are missing.

It occurs to me the way to find the right approach is to reframe the question completely - not what can we do to help Africa and how do we make that happen, but what can Africa offer to help us improve our societies, and how do we make that happen?

Christina raises so many good points! Contrarian as I am I want to quibble.

She wrote:

Asset owning companies are governed by corporate bylaws and national legislation. African families are governed by traditional structures. Both are active economic players in today's landscape - how they obtained their assets and how they operate internally is different, but they are essentially playing the same free market game.

I take issue in the nature of the "free market game." We take for granted certain ideas about "the free market" but whose rules are increasingly dictated by large globalized corporations. Many of these corporations' primary customers are governments. They are often vertically integrated businesses of extraction, communications- especially with space-based capacity, weapons and private armies. These corporations embrace free market rhetoric, but hardly are playing the game by the rules we imagine as the "free market game."

In Mwenda's talk he bemoans the fact that Uganda hasn't attained sugar export quotas. Does the sugar business in Uganda operate in the same free market game that farmers in northern Uganda do? Does the sugar business operate under the rules of the traditional African institutions Dr. Ayittey regards as the solution?

Christina's point that corporations and African families are "both active economic players in today's landscape" seems a very important point. One reason is because the relationships between these "players" seems properly a political one. Criticisms of African governments is very important, but such criticism argues for political more political engagement not less.

Christina wrote:

I agree with Mwenda that the new fad in youth driven international grassroots "aid" is indeed showing itself to have some inherent drawbacks. Maybe the problem is in the premise that it's Africa who needs help - I don't really think it is. I think most of the Western kids who come to Africa today are looking for something, and they think they are going to find it here by "helping" Africa become more like them. Arguably what they really need to be doing is looking at what Africa has to offer in terms of lessons about what their own lives are missing.

I am genuinely moved by this. I like young people very much and I know that childish behavior is not the sole province of the young.

Christina Jordan's work in Webbed Empowerment is ground breaking, and often under recognized.

Blogger Phil Jones made a very important point a while back:

The more effective the internet and the web are at helping us communicate and co-ordinate, the less money will be involved. Because ultimately the economy is a communication network and money is its protocol

The network is not the means to the end of money.

Instead, money and IP are rival protocols in rival networks which are means to the same end : that of articulating human labour to create more wealth for humanity. Money isn't wealth, it's just a kind of signal which can be used to help identify good ideas and channel more resources to them. On the internet we are increasingly finding alternative ways of identifying and signalling what things are worthwhile.

And the better the network does this, the less need there is for money to be involved at all.

Most of us here at <Ned> take this idea of wealth creation via a communication network very seriously. And I think it's the heart of Christina's vision of Webbed Empowerment.

She is so right in pointing out that Africa holds lessons for our own lives. "Helping Africa" implies a linear direction: handing out or handing down. Webbed Empowerment implies multi-directional communications. When we engage we are prepared to be changed by the engagement.

Christina is right that resource flows are not just about money. How we invent ways of creating wealth by Webbed Empowerment will say much about how much wealth we can create together as people.

Mwenda asks us to consider reframing the challenges of Africa: From Despair: Poverty Reduction; To Hope: Creating Wealth.

If we take seriously Christina's ideas of Webbed Empowerment, we see that wealth creation is not only about money. Money as Phil Jones says "money is a kind of signal" and that the "peerosphere"--a term Jones coined elsewhere--is a rival communication network capable of creating wealth.

How can people of goodwill collaborate to make the world we want?

The first step is declare what "the world we want" is. The next step is to share that declaration with others such that they are inspired to declare the same thing. In that context, of two or more people declaring a shared vision that inspires them, the question of "how" answers itself.

Asking and answering "how" questions outside that context, with everyone wondering whether there truly is a shared and inspiring vision, is like spending lottery winnings before buying the ticket.

(For new users, if you type a space (" ") before a line it gets indented and the font is reduced, like the first sentence of this comment. This is a convention for quotations on ned.)

David said:

The first step is declare what "the world we want" is. The next step is to share that declaration with others such that they are inspired to declare the same thing. In that context, of two or more people declaring a shared vision that inspires them, the question of "how" answers itself.

I think it is a mistake to require a prior unanimity to action. The world has always been a stage of countervailing, conflicting and simultaneous agendas acted upon, precipitating these present moments. Would that it were tidier, but it is not. Good things can happen with provisional not fully articulated or understood alignments. Some have said that this is part of the power of public ritual -- that we act together and affirm together though we don't really know what it is we are affirming. This gives people space to connect without the insistence of perfection. Best then to begin, and discover as you go along.

(Of course, part of beginning is rallying partnership -- David's shared and inspiring vision)

: )

Back to Ayittey.

I agree with him, Trade not aid, attention to the traditional and informal sectors, investment in what works.

I would add attention to refinements of effective processes to allow them to scale better -- perhaps a management theory dealing with issues such as trust and collective affiliative social arrangements like extended families.

Also helpful I think would be ways to link together such efforts in a visible and praisable way. Know the Cheetahs! Feed the Cheetahs!

My question. How could Ned help with this?

I am going to take a risk of speaking out of lack of knowledge and reaction to written words.

I am currently working on a paper for the 3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness on evaluating development. As part of my research for that paper I have started reading a book "Maldevelopment - Anatomy of a global failure" Samir Amin, UN University / Third World Forum, Studies in African Political Economy. The title alone riled me. In reviewing the table of contents, Chapter 1: Africa's Economic Backwardness.

(As a bit of a disclaimer - that's not the correct word - I think the content in the book is going to wend its way to something much more constructive.)

My point is that measures of development have been defined by the west. As an example:

Some of you know that I have been studying Buddhist Economics and Sufficiency Economy. Thailand is a star in developing countries. On the HDI list for 2007, Thailand is #74 of 177 countries. The image below shows Thailand's HDI progress relative to other regions in the world. In 2001, agricultural products represented 11.7% of Thailand's exports and resulted in Thailand having the 10th largest trade surplus in the world ($4.5 billion).

Imagine what would happen if Thai farmers who are currently mono-cropping (at considerable risk), followed the suggested advice of the government and the King and converted a portion of their farms to sufficiency agriculture. The effect of that would be that the farmers would be protected against financial devastation in the situation of a crisis (such as 1997) and there would be a significant reduction in the GDP. Since per capita GDP remains a significant factor in HDI Thailand would fall in those ratings. The question then becomes, would Thailand really be less developed? And if so, less developed by what standards?

Relative world development has always been looked at through a lens of western neo-classical economics. This is what led to the development of GNH and many other alternative indicators. Many of these indicators have been criticized for having fuzzy standards (What is happiness? Who defines it? Does it mean the same thing to a Thai as it does to an American or a Kenyan?), and subjective rather than objective measurements.

Can we even develop a metric that allows international comparison of development when there are different cultural definitions of that? Is there a way that we can find a metric that allows us to indicate basic well-being? Does basic well-being have to be limited to physical well-being to allow international comparisons? Can we develop metrics that will help communities to evaluate their progress and help guide their development efforts and still be culturally sensitive.

For sure I have no answers but I think the questions are important in this discussion .... maybe not ...I am just a student!

Linda said:

Can we even develop a metric that allows international comparison of development when there are different cultural definitions of that? Is there a way that we can find a metric that allows us to indicate basic well-being? Does basic well-being have to be limited to physical well-being to allow international comparisons? Can we develop metrics that will help communities to evaluate their progress and help guide their development efforts and still be culturally sensitive.

I would be interested in working with you on this. I have been working with the concept of human needs and I think we all need and want the same things - cultural differences reflect the different strategies that have developed to meet those needs.

Gross domestic product (as your examples show) does not reflect the percentage of the population having their needs met. Market systems of production are designed to minimize cost and maximize profit and will provide for human needs to a greater or lesser extent as a function of the scarcity of labor.

Sufficiency agriculture is one way to utilize "excess" labor (now that is a phrase from a money centric world). Another way is to design systems that use that labor to provide for the otherwise unmet needs in the community.

I would also be interested in a metric for the degree that people felt they were in control of their lives and/or their expectation for improvement in their lives and that of their children. My experience with people who have resigned themselves to a life on government assistance indicates to me that the assistance may be necessary but it is not a contributor to human happiness.

This discussion has really drawn my attention to traditional African institutions--here I'll second Linda's observation of not having answers; I'm a student too.

It's easy to embrace the idea of supporting the informal sectors because my attention has mostly been on micro-enterprises anyway. One of my friend Nathan's projects in the Iganga district of Uganda is to help increase the incomes of widows caring for dependent children orphaned by AIDS through maize growing and marketing assistance. Something that's come up is Nathan pointing out to me that I don't have a clue what it means to live in a village. The point is that informal sectors of the economy are closely linked to traditional structures and institutions.

So the question this thread raises is the relationship between traditional institutions and the modern economy. It is useful to consider ownership; i.e. the discussion of the fundamental unit as the family versus the individual. But that isn't the whole of the disconnect.

I was quite interested in Linda's reading and the term "maldevelopment" because in trying to think more carefully about the relationship between traditional institutions and the modern economy, I was reminded of Ivan Illich. Yesterday I looked up an essay, Beauty & The Junkyard. In it Illich notes that we need a history of disvalue.

Illich points out that Aristotle observed something new when some merchant offer their goods in the market at a price varying by offer and demand. We are so used to "the law" of supply and demand, that we imagine it as an eternal verity. But Illich points out that Aristotle was surprised by these merchants' behavior, it was something new and previously unheard of. Illich observes:

Here I began to see the first lineaments of what today is called the economy--a system resting on scarcity.

Illich notes that this way of selling was unheard of because societies had generally been arranged so that scarcity would not emerge. We imagine that wealth comes from the economy, but Illich turns this notion on its head and questions whether the primary product of the economy is waste. He introduces the term "disvalue."

Illich observes that waste is not just entropy, rather it is a social program--a culturally determined pattern of behavior--which has a history.

Illich writes:

The expansion of economic relations into ever more aspects of everyday life does not produce values; rather, it concentrates privilge.

What money can buy in the economies of scarcity is escape from disvalue. What money can buy is the "luxury" of gated communities.

Illich sees Earth Wisdom as necessary for life: "the water cycle through the atmosphere, the topsoil and human culture, the earth live in a kind of open system. Now we see that the contribution of culture is decisive fot this system's life." In other words Illich makes the case that we cannot afford an economy whose primary product is disvalue.

Linda asks about a metric of "development" that can take into account different cultural definitions. Illich suggest that metrics of "development" as a measure of the spread of disvalue through the society.

I hadn't thought of Ivan Illich for a while; I'm happy that this thread has reminded me. I hadn't thought of him because to a certain extent couldn't figure where his ideas fit. Here the point about economics as scarcity as opposed to the cycles of materials--water and soil--necessary for life resonates. In economic terms, measures of progress are "more," the steady, and preferred steep, line upward on a graph. Life requires the circular actions of cycles to which our cultures are inextricably a part. The problem isn't just definitions of development, but the idea of economy rooted in scarcity.

In the situation we have here in Thailand, we are not talking about sufficiency agriculture to utilize excess labor. We are talking sufficiency economy that, whether you are farming or running a small business, or even a large business, provides people with a sufficient life style first and foremost and does so with wisdom and safety. Mono-culture for is not a wise strategy when you are near the poverty level. This approach suggests that perhaps it is wiser to start small and build a self-immunity system, i.e. being able to cope with shocks from internal and external changes, rather than going into serious debt. (And serious debt is not a lot when you are poor.)

Sufficiency economy entails three components:

1. moderation
2. reasonableness
3. a self-immunity system, i.e. being able to cope with shocks from internal and external changes.

and two underlying conditions are necessary to achieve this sufficiency:

1. knowledge (breadth and thoroughness in planning, and carefulness in applying knowledge and in the implementation of those plans are required)
2. morality (people are to possess honesty and integrity, while conducting their lives with perseverance, harmlessness and generosity)

In terms of metrics this Global Projection of Subjective Well-Being may be of interest; if for no other reason than for the citations.

The Happy Planet Index is also of particular interest because the measure show that resource consumption doesn't make people happiest; this "more" may be what we want but more doesn't guarantee happiness.

The Index doesn’t reveal the ‘happiest’ country in the world. It shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens.

Of course, Gapminder provides interesting insights with statistics. Hans Rosling's talks are particularly engaging.

Illich railed against "disvalsue" the social program of degrading the cultural patterns through which people have traditionally found joy and meaning in the name of a reified ideal called development.

The outlines of sufficiency economy might well be applicable everywhere in the world, but I have the feeling that the ways in which they are expressed are in some ways uniquely Thai. These qualities are hard to point to--especially for me who knows hardly anything of Thailand.

Ayittey also seems to be pointing to qualities which are uniquely African. Indeed these may follow from such fundamentals as the extended family being the unit of production. But these qualities are not defined by their roots alone.

Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade wrote a polemic published in 1928, "Manifesto Antropófago" (Cannibal Manifesto), that became a foundation for some Brazilian artists in the 1960's. Oswald de Andrade's manifesto exposes the metaphor of devouring--cultural cannibalism.

Obviously this is a Brazilian idea, but it strikes me that in this inter-connected world of real time communications, that the metaphor of devouring has some importance to everyone.

I don't post to my blog Bazungu Bucks very much, and I really can't imagine why anyone reads it. But one of the happy reasons for having a blog is meeting people. Recently I got a comment from a Ugandan Christian Rapper. Something else is going on than mere imitation. The metaphor of the Brazilians of eating and digesting as cultural encounter seem apt.

There's something of this "devouring" in what I pointed to earlier in how Ghandi's satyagraha took root among the American Civil Rights Movement. Or how a young Kenyan writer would tell me that when young he bounced back and forth between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. until he discovered satyagraha at last finding an idea to make his own.

Devouring and digesting is something different than the old game of Telephone where a message degrades whispered along a row of children because it incorporates local knowledge. The message doesn't degrade so much as transmutates.

Ayittey is surely correct that traditional African institutions cannot be neglected in any solutions for Africa's problems. But a simple "return" to traditional African institutions doesn't seem conceivable in this world of real time communications. Everything is mixed up.

Surely the metaphor of cultural cannibalism is offensive in a context of talking about Africa in that it brings to mind awful and untrue Western stereotypes of Africans. But the notion of a "mash up" is too new and connected to technologies rather than to the ecology of life. I'm not coming up with a suitable metaphor, nevertheless accounting for this process of cultural exchange while being uniquely African seems important.

Ayittey's insistence on the Internalist position; that Africa's problems are rooted in Africa as are any solutions defends what is essentially African. It's very difficult to say what is essentially Thai, essential American, essentially African, or essentially any culture, in part because culture is living. Because it is hard to say, doesn't mean that what is essential can be imagined unimportant.

I wonder if I can roll back a few posts here.

I've started reading George's book Africa in Chaos (had to wait for a US Edition to arrive in the post) and will come back on that but - before the point disappears entirely - I wanted to pick up on the Andrew Mwenda speech at TED.

John Powers refers to the speech and says:

In Mwenda's talk he bemoans the fact that Uganda hasn't attained sugar export quotas. Does the sugar business in Uganda operate in the same free market game that farmers in northern Uganda do? Does the sugar business operate under the rules of the traditional African institutions Dr. Ayittey regards as the solution?

Mwenda actually went further than John suggests. He was referring specifically to the duty free quotas agreed by the EU on imports of foodstuffs from African countries.

He refers to the "failure" of Uganda to export a single kilo of sugar to take advantage of the duty free quotas. He also says the same thing about Botswana's beef exports to the EU.

I looked into this and I'll put it bluntly: George Mwenda is being disingenuous and I think this is one Cheetah that may just be showboating to impress the TED audience.

Let's take Ugandan sugar.

From my brief research it seems that the Ugandan sugar industry was decimated by war. The country is therefore still reliant upon imports of sugar. Uganda first has to deal with competition from imported sugar and deal with growing domestic demand before it could even dream of taking advantage of export markets - duty free or not.

As increased domestic production of sugar will also support the growth of the Ugandan soft drinks industry it seems that export of sugar is probably not even a desirable current priority.

To imply, as Andrew Mwenda does, that the Ugandan government or foreign aid (I'm not sure which) is somehow to blame for the 'failure' to take advantage of EU sugar quotas seems bizarre.

Andrew Mwenda also levels similar charges against the beef industry in Botswana. He again says that Botswana has not exported a kilo of beef to take advantage of EU quotas.

This is simply not true and, again, he uses his throwaway condemnations to gloss over the complexity on the ground.

First, according to the figures I googled, Botswana exports around $100 millon of beef to the EU per annum. Second, Botswana is heavily reliant upon imports of dairy products and one of the key problems for the Botswana livestock industry is how to increase dairy production (thereby reducing imports) without impairing the export income that comes from beef production.

Apparently Botswana has a highly developed veterinary and slaughter programme (to meet EU meat production standards) but they have also suffered from outbreaks of foot and mouth disease which immediately put a stop to exports.

This is not a peculiarly 'African problem' - there is currently an EU ban on the export of UK beef following a (hopefully isolated) outbreak of the disease in the south of England.

I stand to be corrected on all of these points and I have no doubt that, if I were to probe deeper, that I could come across specific problems that arise from concentration of ownership, nepotism, incompetence and maybe even corruption.

But similar charges are often made against some global corporate players - let alone African countries. And that's not to excuse either ! :)

But that is not my key point here. My point is that the 'truth' about Africa can only be found in the whole story and that causes us problems because there are no sound bites and the whole story is often dull.

The problems of the beef industry in Botswana or the Ugandan sugar industry provide good examples because, whilst they are unlikely to excite most of us, it is often in these kinds of unsung and unsexy arenas where real development work is taking place.

I think we need to take account of this when we listen to people like Andrew Mwenda and I think we also need to get past being beguiled by an obviously charming and persuasive young African and look critically at what he is actually saying - just the same as we would with anyone else espousing a cause.

Finally, I would like to pick up on Andrew Mwenda's criticisms of foreign aid because I don't think the term (or at least the way he uses it) is particularly helpful.

'Aid' may encompass a lot of sins but the term is also used to include a lot of support and development work - often administered locally - that bears no relation to the kind of aid that Mwenda is dismissing as problematic.

And, even if this were not the case, is the obviously well nourished Andrew Mwenda suggesting that we should withdraw famine relief or food programmes where they are desperately needed and simply allow 'the market' and entrepeneurs to find a solution ?

Some extra information here to emphasise my point.

A bit more reading on Ugandan sugar and it seems that one of the major investors and engines for growth in the Ugandan sugar industry is the Indian corporation Mehta Industries who want to encroach into protected rainforest to establish sugar plantations.

This 'development' is being opposed by Western environmental groups on the grounds that Ugandan ecological services including water, climate and biodiversity are more important than sugar which can be grown elsewhere.

This may be true and sugar should obviously not be planted in protected areas - but this highlights one small part of the African dilemma.

Western ecologists are telling Uganda that sugar can be grown elsewhere in the world but they fail to point out (as they would in another context) that imports add to the carbon footprint.

Reliance on imports can also contribute to a widening trade gap between imports and exports - but protection which might enable the development of sensible self-sufficient sugar production would be opposed as being anti-market.

And then Andrew Mwenda implies that Uganda should be producing sugar as an export 'cash crop' to take advantage of EU duty free quotas.

Square that circle !

Abit off topic

Investors should learn how to be in harmony with the enviroment,I believe the western ecologist are abit sensible in that nature because without distroying the forest would mean a disaster tomorrow and I believe Mweda( I have not yet read is speech if am right) but this is inresponse to meta sugar group and our envoroment.

Munnu, I agree that sugar should not be planted in protected or environmentally sensitive areas - but I assume that does not prevent sugar being planted elsewhere.

I was also simply using the point to highlight the conflicting pressures that can arise just on an apparently simple issue like sugar production.

Andrew Mwenda might well support the environmental argument but - during his speech to TED - he was castigating Ugandans (or the government) for failing to export sugar to take advantage of EU duty free quotas.

I hope that clarifies my points. :)

Yeah.thats why I said abit off topic.

Thanks Firth

Munnu, you're point: Investors should learn how to be in harmony with the environment, I believe the western ecologist are a bit sensible in that nature because without destroying the forest would mean a disaster tomorrow is really important and on topic.

Dr. Ayittey in his talk said (using Linda's fine summary):

People want to help. Help has been turned into a theater of the absurd - the blind leading the clueless.

Sometimes here in the West when conversations stop making a lot of sense people say: "They're arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."

I don't mean to make such nonsense, but I know too often I do.

Your point about caring about the environment is very good, and not because Western ecologist say so, but because you say so.

You see Munnu, you're one of the Cheetahs, the new generation Dr. Ayittey is talking about. And everyone here at Ned is trying to figure out how to help you and all the other Cheetahs create good things in your community. Dr. Ayittey is saying that our attention and investments should be in people like you.

None of us can make happy lives, and happy lives for our children and our children's children if we destroy the land water and air that support life. Dr. Ayittey points out that traditionally Africans have invented ways to make happy lives from the air, water and soil. It's time to remember those ways.

Some of the ways are different than ways in other places. Those differences are important, but there is also much important knowledge that is shared across many places and cultures. We all need to live in harmony with the natural world. There is much in your experience and the methods and businesses you create to teach us outside of Africa.

John Powers said:

In terms of metrics this Global Projection of Subjective Well-Being may be of interest; if for no other reason than for the citations.

The Happy Planet Index is also of particular interest because the measure show that resource consumption doesn't make people happiest; this "more" may be what we want but more doesn't guarantee happiness.

The Index doesn’t reveal the ‘happiest’ country in the world. It shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens.

Of course, Gapminder provides interesting insights with statistics. Hans Rosling's talks are particularly engaging.

Illich railed against "disvalsue" the social program of degrading the cultural patterns through which people have traditionally found joy and meaning in the name of a reified ideal called development.

The outlines of sufficiency economy might well be applicable everywhere in the world, but I have the feeling that the ways in which they are expressed are in some ways uniquely Thai. These qualities are hard to point to--especially for me who knows hardly anything of Thailand.

Ayittey also seems to be pointing to qualities which are uniquely African. Indeed these may follow from such fundamentals as the extended family being the unit of production. But these qualities are not defined by their roots alone.

Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade wrote a polemic published in 1928, "Manifesto Antropófago" (Cannibal Manifesto), that became a foundation for some Brazilian artists in the 1960's. Oswald de Andrade's manifesto exposes the metaphor of devouring--cultural cannibalism.

Obviously this is a Brazilian idea, but it strikes me that in this inter-connected world of real time communications, that the metaphor of devouring has some importance to everyone.

I don't post to my blog Bazungu Bucks very much, and I really can't imagine why anyone reads it. But one of the happy reasons for having a blog is meeting people. Recently I got a comment from a Ugandan Christian Rapper. Something else is going on than mere imitation. The metaphor of the Brazilians of eating and digesting as cultural encounter seem apt.

There's something of this "devouring" in what I pointed to earlier in how Ghandi's satyagraha took root among the American Civil Rights Movement. Or how a young Kenyan writer would tell me that when young he bounced back and forth between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. until he discovered satyagraha at last finding an idea to make his own.

Devouring and digesting is something different than the old game of Telephone where a message degrades whispered along a row of children because it incorporates local knowledge. The message doesn't degrade so much as transmutates.

Ayittey is surely correct that traditional African institutions cannot be neglected in any solutions for Africa's problems. But a simple "return" to traditional African institutions doesn't seem conceivable in this world of real time communications. Everything is mixed up.

Surely the metaphor of cultural cannibalism is offensive in a context of talking about Africa in that it brings to mind awful and untrue Western stereotypes of Africans. But the notion of a "mash up" is too new and connected to technologies rather than to the ecology of life. I'm not coming up with a suitable metaphor, nevertheless accounting for this process of cultural exchange while being uniquely African seems important.

Ayittey's insistence on the Internalist position; that Africa's problems are rooted in Africa as are any solutions defends what is essentially African. It's very difficult to say what is essentially Thai, essential American, essentially African, or essentially any culture, in part because culture is living. Because it is hard to say, doesn't mean that what is essential can be imagined unimportant.

John,

You wrote this:

Ayittey's insistence on the Internalist position; that Africa's problems are rooted in Africa as are any solutions defends what is essentially African. It's very difficult to say what is essentially Thai, essential American, essentially African, or essentially any culture, in part because culture is living. Because it is hard to say, doesn't mean that what is essential can be imagined unimportant.

My call for a return to and building upon Africa's indigenous institutions is often misinterpreted by many who are not familiar with these institutions.

I do not make normative judgment -- how a society SHOULD be run. Every society has its own unique problems. Africa is not an exception. The problem is, we (African elites and leaders) have often applied foreign solutions to our problems in Africa, which have not worked well. Hence, my call for "African solutions." Let's take conflict resolution, for example.

Since 1970, more than 40 wars have been fought in Africa. Year after year, one African country after another has imploded with deafening staccato, scattering refugees in all directions: Sudan (1972), Angola (1975), Mozambique (1975), Ethiopia (1985), Liberia (1992), Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Zaire (1996), Sierra Leone (1997), Congo DRC (1998), Ethiopia/Eritrea (1998), Guinea (1999),Ivory Coast (2001), and now Sudan (Darfur), Congo DR, and Somalia. And year after year, grisly pictures of emaciated bodies of African famine victims are paraded on Western television in urgent appeals for humanitarian assistance.

More than 40 such peace accords have been brokered in Africa since the 1970s with abysmal success record. Only Mozambique's 1991 peace accord has endured, while shaky pacts hold in Chad, Congo, and Niger. Elsewhere, peace accords were shredded like confetti even before the ink on them was dry, amid mutual recriminations of cease-fire violations. The most spectacular failures were: Angola (1991 Bicesse Accord, 1994 Lusaka Accord), Burundi (1993 Arusha Accord), DR Congo (July 1999 Lusaka Accord), Rwanda (1993 Arusha Accord) and Sierra Leone (1999 Lome Accord). All collapsed because they adopted the Western approach to conflict resolution.

The cornerstone of this approach, often foisted on Africa by well-intentioned Western donors, is direct face-to-face negotiation between warring factions. It works if factional leaders want peace or must pay a price for the mayhem they cause -- assumptions, which grotesquely confute reality.

Fact is, war is "profitable" to warlords as conflict situation provides them with the opportunity to rape women, pillage villages and plunder natural resources, such as gold and diamonds. For rebel soldiers, their weapons are often their livelihoods and many government soldiers live by looting too because they have not been paid by their commanders. Several officers have grown rich by seizing control of diamond fields.

The war also gives the government an excuse ("national security") to suspend development projects, provision of social services and keep its defense budget secret, thereby shielding padded contracts to cronies from scrutiny.

None of the war combatants pay any price for the destruction they wreak. Rather, they are "rewarded," gaining respectability. Back in 1993, the late Somali warlord, Mohammed Farar Aideed, was transported in U.S. military aircraft to Addis Ababa to take part in peace negotiations. [Aideed forces were subsequently responsible for the deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers in Mogadishu.] The most outrageous appeasement, however, was that of Foday Sankoh, the barbarous warlord of Sierra Leone, whose band of savages (the Revolutionary United Front) chopped off the limbs of people, including women and children who stood in their way. The 1999 Lome Accord rewarded RUF with four cabinet positions and Sankoh himself with the ministry of mines.

Africa's own indigenous conflict resolution mechanism provides a better approach. It requires four parties: An arbiter, the combatants AND civil society or those directly and indirectly affected by the conflict (the victims). For example, in traditional Africa, when two disputants cannot resolve their differences by themselves, the case is taken to a chief's court for adjudication. The court is open and anyone affected by the dispute can participate. The complainant makes his case; then the defendant. Next, anybody else who has something to say may do so. After all the arguments have been heard, the chief renders a decision. The guilty party may be fined say three goats. In default, his family is held liable.

The injured party receives one goat, the chief another goat for his services, and the remaining goat is slaughtered for a village feast for all to enjoy. The latter social event is derived from the African belief that it takes a village, not only to raise a child but also to heal frayed social relations. Thus, traditional African jurisprudence lays more emphasis on healing and restoring social harmony and peace than punishing the guilty. Further, the interests of the community supersede those of the disputants. If they adopt intransigent positions, they can be sidelined by the will of the community and fined say two goats each for disturbing social peace. In extreme cases, they can be expelled from the village. Thus, there is a price to be paid for intransigence and for wreaking social mayhem -- a price exacted by the victims.

African jurisprudence stresses restitution, reconciliation and restoration of social harmony (3 Rs). Somali law, for example, is restorative rather than punitive. Western jurisprudence, on the other hand, stresses punishment and rehabilitation of the guilty.

In recent times, a return to African jurisprudence is being made. After apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up. Whites guilty of apartheid crimes were given the opportunity to confess and for their "sins" to be forgiven. They were not hunted down as the Nazi fascists were. Rwanda also discovered that it would take the country more than 120 years to try the genocidaires (the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide) using a Western-style court system. So it changed to the traditional gacaca courts.

I am not saying one approach is superior to another but if it works in restoring social harmony and, above all, is CHEAPER, why not use it?

It may interest you to note that there is a new movement in the U.S., partly funded by international financier George Soros, that aims at “Restorative Justice.” It views punishment as “bad” and seeks to integrate the criminal into the community through “victim-offender reconciliation programs.” It claims that punishing people harms people and people who are harmed are more likely to commit crimes. Therefore, the Western emphasis on punishment may be considered as “iatrogenic justice.” Iatrogenic means “doctor induced” and, hence, iatrogenic justice means criminality induced by the treatment (punishment). Vermont and Minnesota are U.S. states which have adopted restorative justice as policy but whether it will work in the U.S. is a different matter. In traditional Africa, although the criminal is not punished, it is the responsibility of the lineage or clan to rehabilitate him. In the U.S., the clan or lineage has nearly vanished as a social unit.

George Ayittey, Washington, DC

Rory Turner said:

Back to Ayittey.

I agree with him, Trade not aid, attention to the traditional and informal sectors, investment in what works.

I would add attention to refinements of effective processes to allow them to scale better -- perhaps a management theory dealing with issues such as trust and collective affiliative social arrangements like extended families.

Also helpful I think would be ways to link together such efforts in a visible and praisable way. Know the Cheetahs! Feed the Cheetahs!

My question. How could Ned help with this?

Rory,

GOOD QUESTION.

On my recent trip to Africa in August, I went to Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria to see how we can implement some of the ideas I raised in my book, Africa Unchained and the TED Global conference in Arusha.

I am working with a Nigerian, a Ghanaian, Ethiopian and a Kenyan to establish a network of the “Cheetah Generation.” As you know, the “Cheetahs” are the young, educated and dynamic African entrepreneurs who brook no nonsense about corruption and economic mismanagement. They are intellectually agile and understand what accountability, democracy and rule of law are. They don’t sit there waiting for government to come and solve problems for them. Like I said in my speech, it is on the backs of these Cheetahs that Africa’s salvation rests.

By contrast, you have the “Hippos” – the ruling elites. They are stuck in their intellectual patch, always complaining about colonialism, imperialism, the World Bank, etc. They are not interested in cleaning the pond (reforming their abominable political and economic systems) because they benefit from the rotten status quo.

Ask them to develop their countries and they will develop their pockets. Ask them to seek foreign investment and they will seek a foreign country to invest their booty. Ask them to cut bloated state bureaucracies or government spending and they will set up a “Ministry of Less Government Spending.” Ask them to establish better systems of governance and they will set up a “Ministry of Good Governance” (Tanzania). Ask them to curb corruption and they will set up an “Anti-Corruption Commission” with no teeth and then sack the Commissioner if he gets too close to the fat cats (Kenya). Ask them to establish democracy and they will empanel a coterie of fawning sycophants to write the electoral rules, toss opposition leaders in jail, and hold coconut elections to return themselves to power (Ivory Coast, Rwanda). Ask them to reduce state hegemony in the economy and place more reliance on the private sector and they will create a Ministry of Private Enterprise (Ghana). Ask them to privatize inefficient state-owned enterprises and they will sell them off at fire-sale prices to their cronies. Such was the case in Uganda. In 1992, the Government began a privatization effort to sell-off 142 of its state-owned enterprises. However, in 1998, the process was halted twice by Uganda’s own parliament because, according to the chair of a parliamentary select committee, Tom Omongole, it had been “derailed by corruption,” implicating three senior ministers who had "political responsibility" (The East African, June 14, 1999). The sale of these 142 enterprises was initially projected to generate 900 billion Ugandan shillings or $500 million. However, by the autumn of 1999 the revenue balance was only 3.7 billion Ushs.

That’s the Hippo generation.

In the “Atinga development model,” that I crafted in my book, Africa Unchained, the traditional chief plays a pivotal role in development. He is respected and accepted. In addition, he serves as a custodian of the land and, thus, allocates land.

I met with several traditional rulers during my visit to seek land for cottage industries.

• Cheetah Hut: The Mantse of Nungua, a suburb of Accra and his Traditional Council has agreed to allocate land to us for the construction of a food court/market. A percentage of the profit will go to traditional council, which will use it to provide clean water, electricity and other social amenities for the people. This venture is for-profit and the investment capital will be paid back in three years or less. There is no government involved in this and, moreover, it empowers the local community (the traditional council) to do more for themselves, instead of relying on corrupt and incompetent governments. The food market will be called “Cheetah Hut” (rhymes with Pizza Hut).

Cheetah Fishing: Native fishermen for centuries have gone to sea in narrow dug-out canoes, which limit the size of the catch and how far out to sea they can go. Bigger boats can raise the output of the native fishing industry. There is a chap who builds such boats but the operations outdoors on the beach are not very efficient. Mr. Efum, the boat builder told me that it takes him four months to build one such large boat.

I have formed a partnership agreement with him to build such bigger boats. The traditional chief of Elmina has agreed to give us land for the construction of a hangar-type of structure to build these boats. In such a structure, productivity can be raised to one big boat a month, instead of four months. A percentage of the revenue will go to the traditional council for the provision of social services, as in the food court venture.

• Cheetah Bio-Fuel/Palm Oil: Palm oil can be turned into bio-diesel and West Africa is an important palm oil producing area. In fact, it was Ghana which sent Malaysia its first palm oil seedlings. The world demand for palm oil, especially in Europe, has skyrocketed and it is now fetching $845 per metric tonne. However, production is not well organized in West Africa. There is a huge potential here if West Africa can increase its production of palm oil.

On my August trip, I visited more than 20 villages in Ghana and spoke with several groups of farmers, who already grow the palm fruit. Their complaint is that, they can grow all the palm that we want but their problem has always been lack of buyers. I told them that their problem would be solved if they would be willing to be organized in to cooperatives, which will serve as their guaranteed buyer. The coop will grant them micro-credit loans or advance to expand or improve their farms but it will be the sole buyer of their produce. The micro loans will be deducted when they sell their produce to the coop. When the coop makes a profit, a percentage will be given to the local traditional council to provide clean water, electricity, health clinics, schools, etc. to the farming communities.

When I left Ghana on August 24, after a three-week visit, over 2,000 farmers had signed up. I spoke with Mr. Gilbert Owusu, my local coordinator two days ago and he informed me that the number of farmers has grown to more than 9,000. If we succeed in organizing the farmers, they will produce more palm oil, earn more money, with which to send their children to school, pay for electricity and take care of themselves when they get sick.

Our approach seeks to re-write the book on African development or, if you may, turning development thinking on its head. Conventional development thinking conceives of the poor as hapless people to be pitied and assisted through government intervention programs with massive infusions of foreign aid. “Poverty-reduction” has been the rallying cry of these conventional development models.

We would like to banish the term “poverty-reduction” and replace it with “wealth creation,” which has a more positive ring to it. We believe the poor are not to be pitied; they are hard-working and entrepreneurial. Quite often, it is governments that impede their progress or stand in their way. For example, the informal sector is always bustling with entrepreneurial activity and constitutes the mainstay of many African economies – about 85 percent of Ghana’s economy and nearly 90 percent of Nigeria’s. Therefore, we believe that with a little bit of capital and little re-organization, we can unleash the entrepreneurial energies of the informal sector to create massive streams of wealth and, by extension, lift millions out of poverty.

The approach taken by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Bono, Geldof and other do-gooders is “top-down” – handing money to corrupt and incompetent African governments to initiate development in the hope that it will reduce poverty. This approach did not work in post colonial Africa. Ours is a “bottom-up” approach that seeks to empower the poor to help themselves through entrepreneurship. It differs from the “Asian Tiger model,” which was “state-led.” Our approach calls for no government intervention.

Our approach has not been tried before for the simple reason that, to start anything from the bottom, one has to know what’s at the bottom. But the multitude of development experts, World Bank officials, and foreign aid donors who descended on Africa in the post colonial period, bearing goodies never knew squat about what was there at the bottom – the peasants and their indigenous systems. Nor were African government officials, leaders and elites any better informed. They shunned the informal and traditional sectors, castigating what was there as “backward and primitive.” Then they went abroad and blindly copied all sorts of foreign systems to impose on Africa. Rome has a basilica; so they built one in Yamassoukrou (Ivory Coast). The Soviet Union was a one-party socialist state; so they established one-party state systems across Africa. France once had an emperor; so Bokassa spent $25 million in 1979 to crown himself “emperor” to prove that Africa had come of age. The U.S. has a space center; so Nigeria has built an $89 million space center! This model of “development-by-imitation” left Africa littered with the putrid carcasses of failed foreign systems.

The Hippos can wallow in their putrid pond, choked with failed imported systems. We will establish Cheetah Enterprises in the informal and traditional sectors. We will like to prove that you can make money in these sectors by helping the poor help themselves. Today, every educated African who wants to make money heads straight into government. If the elites had sought their wealth from the informal and traditional sectors, Africa would write a better report card.

We are working to set up a "Cheetah Fund" which will finance various enterprises in the informal and traditional sectors as enumerated above. Contributions to the Fund will be regarded as loans to be paid back. This is not charity. And enterprises will be given to Cheetahs to run them. There is no government involvement here. We have registered company caled Cheetah Entities in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. It will serve as a holding compny with several subsidiaries.

The whole idea is to create wealth at the BOTTOM. I leave for Mali to speak to a group of Malian Cheetahs on Sept 27.

George Ayittey, Washington, DC

This is brilliant and inspiring Dr. Ayittey, thank you so much for your work!

I can attest to what you say of local govenrment vs. traditional institutions. In Nigeria Local Government offices were dismal tired places doing next to nothing to really help the people. It was through traditional chieftaincies, age grades, and collectives that actual development took place, things of real substance like electrification and road construction.

There were also some local businessmen coming out of the informal sector that built critical enterprises that were profitable and that created wealth and jobs for the community. Unfortunately, these achievements were largely overshadowed by the enormous wealth of those who hijacked the aid and oil money flows. This created a challenging cultural dynamic that became part of my research -- a conversation was going on in Igboland about what it means to be a good man that answered in practice the question how can modern Igbo culture work.

We need to sing the praises of such men, like ny late friend Okpatu Dunu of Ukpo who built a nation spanning business the old fashioned way.

We also need precisely as you say, to flip development on its head.