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Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future

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In Africa Unchained (January 2005), Ayittey takes a new fresh look at Africa's future and makes a number of daring suggestions.

First, he says economic development requires investment, both foreign and domestic. Investment, however, does not take place in a swamp or vacuum but in an "enabling environment," which must have, among others, the following features: security of persons and property; rule of law; and basic functioning infrastructure.

This environment does not exist in many parts of Africa because of the absence of a few key critical institutions: an independent media, an independent central bank, and an independent judiciary. These institutions are established by civil society or parliament, not by corrupt leaders since they are fundamentally opposed to the establishment of institutions that will check their arbitrary use of power.

Second, looking at how Africa can modernize, build, and improve their indigenous institutions, which have been castigated by African leaders as "backward and primitive," Ayittey argues that Africa should build and expand upon these traditions of free markets and free trade. Asking why the poorest Africans haven't been able to prosper in the 21st century, Ayittey makes the answer obvious: their economic freedom was snatched from them.

War and conflict replaced peace and the infrastructure crumbled. In a book that will be pondered over and argued about as much as his previous volumes, Ayittey looks at the possibilities for indigenous structures to revive a troubled continent.

Reviewed by David S. Fick, Author of Africa: Continent of Economic Opportunities, STE Publishers, Johannesburg SA, May 2005, www.ste.co.za

For too long written off as irrelevant to international affairs except as the stage for proxy conflicts during the Cold War or the recipient for the world's charity, Africa is nonetheless poised to play an increasingly important role in the global community of the 21st century. Within the decade, West Africa alone will provide more than one-fourth of North America's petroleum imports, surpassing the entire Middle East. The continent also boasts the world's fastest population growth: by 2020, there will be an estimated 1.2 billion Africans-more than the combined populations of Europe and North America. Yet despite the dynamic potential implicit in these natural and human resources data, Africa remains the world's economic basket case: per capita GDP is barely $575 while thirty-two of the thirty-six countries classified by the United Nations Development Program are to be found in Africa.

Why this apparent contradiction? Defying the conventional wisdom that has long infantilized Africans by blaming colonial exploitation, superpower rivalries, intergovernmental aid agencies, impersonal market forces-anyone and everyone external to the continent-Dr. George B.N. Ayittey, himself a son of Africa, points his finger at the causes closer to home: the "vampire states" and "coconut republics" whose undemocratic and illegitimate rulers have done more harm to their own people than any external agents. In short, Africa Unchained is an unusually frank truth speaking to power-or rather, a dose of tough love for the tough challenges faced by the nations and peoples of the continent.

Unlike many works on Africa, however, Dr. Ayittey's does not end on a pessimistic note. Rather, he points the way forward by looking back at the continent's own rich history of freedom: free enterprise, free markets, and free trade, by free people organized in free societies. The road ahead, he correctly points out, lies through the past-recovering the authentic, acknowledging the baleful. A provocative thesis, to be sure; but it is one which deserves to be considered by scholars and policymakers.

-Dr. J. Peter Pham, author of Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State

It is perplexing to read Ayittey's book and still be aware that some have called him a sell-out. His love for Africa is apparent in this book. His description of the "low level" efficiencies that make Africa work is lovely to read. What he calls the "astonishing degree of functionality, participatory form of democracy, rule of customary law and accountability of the traditional African society," is respectful and easy to applaud. These are words of facts as well as love. He cannot be the Afro-pessimist his detractors sometimes call him. Otherwise, how could he put so much faith in the simple African peasant he calls "Atingah"?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja
www.thisweekghana.com

This is the most brilliant text on Africa I have read, and I don't say that lightly. With almost 500 pages of small text, it's not exactly a breeze to get through, but it is worth every second spent. The author unapologetically describes the mess that the "Hippo" generation following decolonization made, and how it ruined the continent. His prescriptions, which amount to `Africans must solve their own problems in their own way, growing out of African traditions', is right on. I hope that anyone interested in Africa reads this book.

George B.N. Ayittey's Africa Unchained contributes some important points to the contemporary discussion of Africa's (lack of) development. His main focus is the abysmal leadership offered by African politicians who have used the mechanisms of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of their populations. Here Ayittey is at his best, ridiculing and excoriating the corruption, avarice, and stupidity of African political leaders in a way that would be difficult for a non-African writer to pull off. His book argues for policies aimed at improving the productivity of Africa's rural agricultural masses, for recognizing and supporting indigenous institutions such as free markets and local politics based on traditional chieftaincy, and for a reduced role of the state in economic activity.

Although Ayittey's ideas have a great deal of merit, they are poorly, incompletely, and haphazardly presented in Africa Unchained. The book reads a bit like a drunken rant from a stranger at a bar: it begins relatively coherently, but quickly becomes disjointed, repetitive, and long winded. The author seems unable to making a simple point without numerous tangential diversions. Chapter and section divisions seem to have been distributed at random throughout the book's 450 pages, which is at least 400 pages more than necessary to make the book's substantive points. Africa Unchained is perhaps most remarkable as a marvel of poor editing.

Besides being overwritten and under-edited, the real disappointment of Africa Unchained is its failure even to attempt anything approaching its ambitious subtitle as "the Blueprint for Africa's Future." Ayittey offers a few policy ideas, but leaves them largely undeveloped. The book is long on anecdotes but surprisingly short on the kind of evidence and rigorous analysis one would expect from a professor of economics writing about economic issues. Rather than the promised blueprint for success, the book's conclusion offers little in the way of constructive recommendations or even optimism about Africa's prospects. "Africans have no future because their leaders don't use their heads and the Western donors who give them money don't use theirs, either." It's easy to imagine our stranger at the bar muttering this, the book's final sentence, suppressing a few hiccups, then turning back to the bartender, ordering another drink, and continuing, "but did I already tell you about price controls? You know, traditional chiefs never controlled prices in local markets..."

I saved this book for last (I read in threes and fours to rapidly sense competing and complementary perspectives). The other three:
The Challenge for Africa
The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

This book (Africa Unchained) is really two books in one, and as I conclude this summative review, will suggest to the author a third book needed now to complete the trilogy.

BOOK ONE: Chapters 2-7 focus on the problems of the past and are less interesting to me than the author's clear rejection of all tendencies to blame the past, the West, the banks, or anyone other than Africans themselves, for the failure to develop. These chapters merit careful reading if one is to be fully engaged in Africa, but here I sum them up as "four strikes and out" in the author's own words:

Strike One: State control model never worked

Strike Two: Rush to modernize industry while neglecting agriculture (where 65% of African live and die in largely subsistence mode)

Strike Three: Aped (sic) alien systems and ignored--demeaned indigenous political and economic systems that had worked for centuries

Strike Four: All the above required massive external investments and dependencies

BOOK TWO is the Chapter 1 and Chapters 8-11. It opens with a dedication by name and circumstance to investigative journalists and publishers who were killed for seeking and sharing the truth. The recurring theme within this book as well as the other three I experienced this week is that Africa's biggest problem is ignorance among the 80% that are dirt poor, and Africa's potential "great leap forward" could be fueled by inexpensive locally-oriented Information Operations (IO), my term for a diversity of examples the author puts forward in the last chapter.

While published in 2005, I sense this book remains a best in class effort. Three short quotes from the Prologue:

"They [the cheetah generation] understand and stress transparency, accountability, human rights, and good governance."

"They have vowed to work tirelessly to expose the crimes committed by African despots and to block the grant of political asylum to any such despot."

"They teach petty traders, hawkers, small artisans, market women, and those in the informal and traditional sectors about simple accounting techniques, how to secure microfinance, how to secure a job, and how to improve the productivity of their businesses, among other things, so as to make these self-employed artisans self-sufficient."

Other "IO" elements about this book that truly inspired me:

+ South African music legend Bonginkosi Thuthukani Dlamini and his isi-camtho kwaito "wicked cool talk" could be used by South Africa to carry the message of bottom-up self-sufficiency and hope across the continent.

+ The intellectual in Africa have betrayed the public as much as the corrupt despots, they have become "intellectual prostitutes" to those in power.

+ Indigenous knowledge, including centuries of self-governance and participatory democracy as well as valued medicine men and women combined with majimbo--a Swahili word for local initiative and trust in traditional wisdom, is still there.

+ West does not understand Africa and has been "feckless and impotent" across all fronts (government aid, corporate exploitation). I take this to mean that there is a need for Africans to educate the West and the varied parties seeking to engage Africa for whatever reason, at the same time that all Africans must be educated to understand that the aid is being stolen at the top and should be refused.

The over-all thrust of BOOK TWO is that only Africans can save Africa, and more specifically, only the poorest of Africans--the 65% engaged in subsistence farming--can save Africa by creating agricultural productivity and self-sufficiency.

The author observes the insanity of receiving $18.6 billion a year in aid while paying the same amount to import food to a continent that is rich in resources, is NOT over-populated, and is also enjoying the emergence of women with common sense as key players in community leadership.

Chapter 8 outlines why the state system fails even if corruption is eliminated; Chapter 9 is for me very important, a discussion of the indigenous economic system (more aptly, localized political-economic-social-cultural system). Chapters 10 and 11 are the heart of BOOK TWO and full of specifics.

On page 327 "how Africa loses money" lists $148B to corruption, $20B to capital flight, $15B to military, $15B to civil war damages, $18B to food imports, and $216B to all other leakages.

The author concludes that Africa has all it needs to invest in itself, less the vanquishing of the corrupt leaders across the region, a "challenge" the author never addresses, other than stating his view that the African Union (AU) is hopeless. I'm not so sure, between Brotherly Leader Al-Gathafi and President Zuma in ZA, there are some possibilities.

Among the author's recommendations:

+ Leverage the 3rd industrial revolution (communications and information technologies).

+ Move away from high-end aid projects and instead focus on bottom-up assistance at a level of a goat that gives milk, a foot-pump to move water, a donkey for transport, micro-credits, and so on. From page 392 there are numerous ideas, all relevant.

+ Return to the African model of peace making, a four-party model in which the two belligerents are not brought together by the UN so they can agree to a "joint plunder" deal, but rather use trained facilitators and add the civil society--the victims and residents being plundered--to the mix for a longer-term settlement achieved by holistic consensus.

The author focuses on the village development model (Cf. p 369) and discusses how "African solutions are less expensive, and further, reform that is internally generated endures." (Cf. 417).

The bibliography is extraordinary, a lifetime of reflections by others that the author has integrated.

BOOK THREE is needed, perhaps with Wangari Maathai, actually providing both a handbook that is short and easily translated into AUDIO TAPES in all languages and dialects, and an online "Regional Range of Needs Table."

Other books I recommend:
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
Faith- Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents (Hardcover))

this is a great book. IF we have more people like George that tell the truth about Africa like he does in his book, maybe, just maybe we will be able to transform Africa.

"Africa Unchained" is a very interesting book. It proposes "the blueprint for Africa's future." To find out how workable the proposal is one has to read the book. However, here is how the author goes about the subject. First, he explains why Africa is poor. Four themes form the answer. One, Africa is poor because of the failure of Western policies. Second, Africa is poor because of the ill-conceived development model African countries pursued upon political independence - its ideology, strategies, mistakes, and a feeble leadership. Third, colonial and neo-colonial policies hampered progress "by imposing an alien system that destroyed Africa's heritage". Finally, Africa is poor because of unfavorable development finances, which made possible a resource curse, widened resource gap, and facilitated aid dependency.

Out of the failure emerged a new set of problems such as an exploitative state, which promoted wrong-headed industrialization policies, along with self-destructive agricultural, inflation, and foreign debt policies.

To avoid further failure and get out of poverty, Africa needs a new approach. The proposal recommends development of indigenous economic systems which are supportive of property rights, and free market and voluntary exchange mechanisms. The book cites Botswana as an example that development is possible in Africa if one follows the "Atinga development model". The Atinga model centers on a new strategy that is taking place at the village level, is inclusive of the informal sector and invests in it. If that happens, an African Renaissance will follow.

This is a credible effort, indeed. My hesitation is that focus on Africa, instead of African countries is unlikely to produce helpful results. In the age of globalization, endogenous systems are likely more productive than indigenous systems. Strongly recommended.

Amavilah, Author
Modeling Determinants of Income in Embedded Economies
ISBN: 1600210465

Excellent, very well written, researched and a must for anyone who is serious about economic development in Africa

Why is Africa still so poor? This book does not forget the cultural destructiveness of European colonization, but Mr. Ayittey focuses on the ongoing systemic issues which still keep most African nations in unremitting poverty. This is a searing indictment of the post-colonial African "leaders", and of developed nation politics which enable and support their predatory military-based regimes with ongoing "development aid." More importantly, Mr. Ayittey describes the underlying free capitalist economics of traditional tribal culture across Africa, and how this was misunderstood or ignored by first-generation of post-colonial leaders who associated capitalism with colonialism, and then was actively suppressed by a descent into corrupt, military-based dictatorships. The great majority of foreign aid, given under the presumption that the so-called leaders of African nations actually seek to develop their national economies, is funneled off through corruption and outright theft and deposited into investments and private bank accounts outside of Africa. Or it is used to purchase military equipment, which is then used in endless conflicts that give despotic rulers a justification for military rule and suppression of legitimate civilian criticism. Western attempts to mediate these conflicts fail because they begin from the incorrect assumption that the military leaders have any goal in their fighting other than the perpetuation of their own personal power. Ayittey backs up his description and analysis with a consolidation of facts and estimates from both international reports and what African investigative reporting makes it past the censorship of the regimes. This is, however, a book that balances strong criticism with great hope. Mr. Ayittey provides us with a careful description of the "indigenous economic system" that existed before Colonialism and still exists in many places today. Ayittey shows how this uniquely African tribal capitalism can be the basis for African recovery and development, if only it is enabled and allowed to flourish. A fundamental prerequisite is the end of military conflict and dictatorial corruption, however, and that will only happen once developed nations end their intended and unintended support of corrupt governmental regimes. I highly recommend this book as essential reading for anyone interested in African economic development.