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Perspective on African development

Africa's richness in human resource can also be illustrated in terms of population and variety of cultures and indigenous knowledge systems that are untapped assets of the continent. Notwithstanding these capital potentials, there is apparent income and opportunity inequality which has both intrinsic and exogenous sources. Africa has abundant mineral resources, mineral oil, good agricultural land, water bodies, deserts that can have potential value, eco-tourism potential and other endowments. Despite the scientifically proven fact that Africa is the cradle of humanity (archaeological findings attest to this), and also the advent of civilization in the Nubian to Egypt and West Africa, little can be seen as evidence of potential heritage in Africa today considering the acute depreciating living standards. Whilst we admit the possible long-term effect of exogenous factors such as colonization its consequences, Africa cannot shy away from its own responsibility to be critical about what constitutes well-being and making decisions that have medium to long-term impact. As Ravi Kanbur (2008) asserts, ‘part of the increase in inequality can be attributed to decisions taken freely by individuals in accordance with their tastes in response to new opportunities’. This is a fact which in broader sense reflects the kind of uncritical decisions made by some African leaders and communities for the obvious reason of not being aware of the consequence in the near future. Whilst we cannot continue to bemoan the past colonial mistakes while the majority of the African people suffer in abject poverty, the people must come to grasp with their realities and accept responsibility to wake up and make decisions that can equally reverse and change the consequences of the past mistakes. In this case, individuals and groups should begin to learn how to determine the future they desire and work to achieve that and not expect it as a goody. This requires what Luiza Nora (2006) describes:, ‘[e]mpowering the poor is imperative in bringing about the policies and investments needed to address the multiple dimensions of poverty’. Yes, even the most benevolent father Christmas appears just for one month of the year and the rest is no more benevolence but working to earn one’s needs.

Since, 1970s Africa has been one of the key areas that received several tranches of grants and loans from International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to support economic and social development. But there is marginal improvement in average living standard of the ordinary African with widening inequality. Some Asian countries have undergone conditions of colonization of tougher degrees such as South Korea and India among others. But over the past 50 years these countries have experienced tremendous economic growth and improvement in living standards in per capita income. Today, India and South Korea are financing projects in many African countries. The cardinal factors cited as catalyst to the phenomenal growth in South Korea and India have been increased education, dependence on local skills, improved agriculture (resulting in improved food security), enhancement of local indigenous systems and technology, harnessing local knowledge to increase productivity level, developmental state approach to politics, decentralisation of development decisions, among other factors.

Over the same past 50 years, Africa had much prospect to grow than these states with its rich natural resources and human capital to make the continent self-sufficient but the continent has been a contradictory situation. The GDP until the past 5 years have lingered at an average growth rate below 4%. The GDP per Capita measures the average national income of the country. Currently, there has been remarkable growth all across Africa with performing economies targeting 6% growth rate whilst the average is about 5% growth rate. This indicates the potential of the African economies to grow. The unfortunate thing is that in most cases, increased growth does not necessarily translate into improvement of living standards. Whilst poverty empirically may reduce, inequality based on several factors can linger and affect many people at the grassroots . Economic growth can benefit the poor and change their economic status if they can make informed decisions that can translate into opportunity. ‘Policy makers are used to disbelief about official growth rates from civil society observers, who often argue that high growth rates are all very well but the beneficial impact on the population at large, in particular on the poor, is a different matter altogether’ . It will take practical steps with right approach to let growth impact development at ordinary community level. For this to happen requires the role of an agency or organ to facilitate information dissemination and training to empower the ‘weak’ in terms of opportunity and income . This should not come as a surprise, considering that many things have gone wrong politically where decisions and programmes have been formulated with inadequate information of the real ground situation. But the emerging positive political aptitude to change the status quo is yielding and proving that African people can one day reduce the level of poverty drastically and emerge from the seeming entrenched high level poverty.

What happened in Africa? The literature on economic policy will attribute Africa’s previous under performance to misplaced policy priorities, political misdemeanor, high level illiteracy and brain-drain over the past decade. Notwithstanding the veracity of these factors, we believe the region has much to worry over excessive dependence on imported commodities from scratch matches to religious systems. Practically, Africa has ignored her own endowments and her taste; mostly foreign commodities have become a bane than boon to the general well-being of the people. Life cannot be sustainable that way. Development scientifically and in reality is self-evolving in accordance with basic natural principles of nature. Anything that cannot evolve stands the good chance of demise (in this case becoming ineffective and passive). For over 100 years Africans have depended much on imported commodities such as food, clothing, knowledge, and many things that could easily be produced by improving and harnessing local technologies and reliance on local skills. Kanbur indicates that if households e.g. choose to buy everything from the open market compared to utilising backyard resources it has much effect on their income, no matter how big it may be.

Once many things have gone wrong resulting in unfortunate deplorable living conditions for the average African, our aim therefore, is to provide training that takes cognizance of these factors to focus on recognition of local competence, local assets and livelihood endowment, and harnessing local knowledge with enrichment from other sources to pursue sustainable development. This shall reduce over dependency on exotic or imported consumer items. It shall also contribute in mitigating the burden of increasing need for state grant welfarism which is not sustainable in the long-term unless with foreign aid cushioning which has its own cost. This approach sets our organisation apart as moving from the outdated development practice that entrenches pauperisation. As the Chinese adage goes, ‘it is better to teach a person how to fish, than to give him/her the fish’ every day. We have developed our own techniques for adults and young people to re-orient the entrenched sense of incapability and dependency.

ThemBOS-dev’s intervention service offers room for social research which will contribute to generation of knowledge which is so crucial and critical in real social and national transformation. The scarcity of basic information about many African communities and situations has contributed to wrong policy formulation around development. Our training programme/projects are regenerating, informative, formative and the intended outcomes shall be compiled in document form to inform decision-making and other areas elsewhere about the success of our methods that is focused on inside-out-approach to development.

Bernard Owusu - Sekyere