Fixing a failed African state

[Linty_Fresh]

@Acid_Lamp

Linty, you make good points, and I even agree with a lot of them. My idea probably is unworkable for lots of reasons, but I don’t think that continuing to pump charity into an area where it is basically being flushed down the toilet is the solution either. I also don’t believe that true change will come from charitable organizations. They are a crutch, not a cure. The problem is that most traditional african culture isn’t really compatible with european/american ways of doing business. Our model assumes a certain level of stability, wealth, and education that countries in question don’t possess, and may never have possessed in the past.

<snip>

I do view the church as a major issue, and retardation in the path to peace in that region. If you let things go you have to basically shout louder than them. the problem is that they’ve managed to convince an uneducated populace that they will suffer for all eternity of they don’t comply. That is a major health hazard and if were not for it’s religious background, I don’t think any government would stand for a blatant campaign of lies that would potentially cause massive medical problems.

And on this, you and I are in agreement, particularly with the inadequacy of charities and the church. The Catholic church has a lot to answer for, but keep in mind that right now, at least they’re in the muck helping. They may not be perfect, but they’re there. We’re here in the comfort of our living room discussing problems which they are actually dealing with in the real world. I believe that this alone gives them at least some benefit of the doubt.

I don’t have a solution, just a lot of lofty ideals that would take a lot of money, diplomacy, and luck to pull off, much the OP’s ideas. However, if the goal is to bring such nations to a level on par with western nations, I don’t see how it can be achieved without a certain level of shift in the culture. Cry colonialism if you like on that, but it is pretty clear to me that tribal level government, subsistence agriculture, herding, and the like are not going to achieve those goals. There is nothing wrong with those models, but they don’t build roads, power stations, hospitals, and other western niceties.

Be that as it may, it’s not our decision to make, nor is it up to us to change the culture at the end of a gun. You cannot hope to achieve any item on your list without the subjugation of people who disagree with you and stand to lose something in the deal. That subjugation will require violent interference in a separate nation’s affairs. The moment you carry this out–even if there were some universal standard by which you could call yourself morally correct–you are now engaged in the colonization and rule of a nation, which by definition you consider to be inferior to your own.

If there is anything to be gained from the mess in Iraq, I hope the civilized world could at least relearn the lesson that was taught to our grandparents by Great Britain: When it comes to interfering in another nation’s sovereignity, lofty ideals almost always lead to bloody consequences, and no matter how justly a colonial power rules, some good people will always suffer injustices by that power’s own hand.

[Shodan]

From: Shodan, Special Project Manager, Africa Division

To: Phil Phatcat, Assistant Director, Overseas Development
Ronco Corp.

Date: January 3, 2012

Dear Phil:

You asked for weekly status reports on the progress of the Cap Snaffler[sup]TM[/sup] factory I am supposed to set up here in the lovely Republic of Boo-foo-Yoo. Okay, here we go.

As you heard from my secretary, my arrival in this Godforsaken country was delayed by the national emergency General Acid Lamp declared after the latest disaster. You probably know more about it than I do, since there is a news blackout in the country and all I hear is rumors. From what they say, the General called a peace conference last week, and actually got two of the larger warring factions to declare peace and disarmament in return for a general amnesty. This got a hell of a lot of positive press - some were talking about a Nobel Prize - but it kind of fell apart after the Congoleum Liberation Front, a group I never heard of but who is apparently funded by a Marxist faction in neighboring Bumfukistan, took advantage of the disarmament to shoot everyone in sight and attempt a coup in Boo-Foo-You’s second largest city, Marasmus. And it was only last week that travel into or out of the country was allowed.

So I arrived here to find that, essentially, nothing has been done. I stopped by the docks, first of all, to see if the shipments of equipment had been off loaded and prepared to be moved to the factory site. No, they were not. The head of the docks said they hadn’t received the special license needed to move freight during a national emergency.

When I went to the office to see about the license, somebody there who claimed to be the Under-Secretary in Charge of the Executive Washroom said that the Chief Secretary was off at a party celebrating his grand-nephews circumcision, and wouldn’t be back for a week. However, for a special fee of $5000, he said he could expedite the license. I didn’t feel like we could wait a lot longer, so I approved the fee (see my expense report). He stamped the hell out of a piece of paper which said something in their indecipherable language (the interpreter we arranged disappeared yesterday to go to the funeral of the nun who taught him to read - she died in prison under the recent Religious Freedom Act that got passed last year).

So I went back to the docks, armed with the license, and the dock workers said they wanted an extra $20 apiece to work during a national emergency. I paid up (see my expense report again) and promised a bonus if they got it all off loaded by the end of the day.

Then I went off to the factory site. You remember it, maybe - it was the site of one of the soccer stadiums that got leveled in a riot when the Boo-Foo-You Strikers lost in the quarter-finals to the Bumfukistan Beagles. There were a whole shit load of squatters on the site - with the emphasis on the word “shit”, no sewage facilities seem to have been arranged - but we expected that, and the local army types moved them off pretty quick. There was a photographer from Time there taking pictures, and I don’t think he was real happy about how the squatters were being treated, but there isn’t anything I can do about that.

While they were clearing the shanties off the factory site, I went back to the docks to see how the off loading was going. Most of the dock workers were gone, although it was still only about 3:00pm, and all the heavy stuff, including both the generators, were still on the ship. I finally located the supervisor, who said they were done for the day, but if I doubled the bonus and paid overtime, they could load some of the construction materials on the trucks and get it out to the factory site. I paid up (see my expense report), we loaded the construction material and set off for the site.

We got there fine, although the road is little better than a cow track with more holes in it than a college student’s undershorts, unloaded the materials, and went back for more. When we got back to the dock, the generators were still not unloaded, and the dock workers were gone (again). The captain of the ship was waiting for me. He said that he didn’t want to waste any more time in this fershlugginer hole (not his exact words, but I got his drift) and he was losing money because he was not on his way to his next port of call, and that if I didn’t get the generators off at once, he would sail with them on board and I could pick them up when he returned a week from Tuesday. Unless…

I paid up (see my expense report).

We headed back to the factory site. When I got there, not only were all the aluminum rain gutters gone, but also the tin for the roof and half the bricks. Also, the two guards we hired. The special consultant we hired said he didn’t know anything about it, but I spotted some rain gutters sticking out of the back of his Land Rover. I confronted him, he denied everything. So I went off to the police station to see what could be done.

To make a very unpleasant story short, the chief of police is his uncle-in-law, once removed, or something, and not only did he not believe me, he fined me $5000 for filing a false report. (see my expense report.)

The good news is, if I agreed to hire back his nephew-in-law, once removed, he would forgive the thirty days in jail he sentenced me to, and his nephew-in-law could supply all the building materials I was missing. Which he did - by coincidence, it appeared to be exactly the same as the stolen materials, down to the labels on the boxes.

Phil, we are already almost $27,000 over budget to date and a week behind schedule and we haven’t achieved much of anything. I was told the only reason we agreed to get into this project was that the new government had cracked down on corruption. Also that we got an international development grant from the US government. Unfortunately, that grant stipulates that we do all our transactions in the local currency, to stimulate the economy. Nobody will accept the local currency - they want dollars, or euros.

Phil, I was chosen for this project because I worked on that Russian project. The Russian Mafia is pretty unpleasant, but at least when they see their cut threatened, they knee cap some people and things start to get done, and they stay bought. Here I got someone coming to me with their hand out every minute, and it’s a different guy every time.

On the up side, the local beer is acceptable. (See my expense report.)

Regards,
Shodan

[Acid_Lamp]

Shodan, you and I don’t agree on much in this thread, but that was brilliant.

[Lochdale]

I think tackling spiraling birthrates is a good start. From there, positive change will occur.

[tomndebb]

@Acid_Lamp

I do view the church as a major issue, and retardation in the path to peace in that region. If you let things go you have to basically shout louder than them. the problem is that they’ve managed to convince an uneducated populace that they will suffer for all eternity of they don’t comply. That is a major health hazard and if were not for it’s religious background, I don’t think any government would stand for a blatant campaign of lies that would potentially cause massive medical problems.

I realize that it is a favorite theme of one or two posters that all of AIDS in Africa is the direct result of Catholic rules about contraception. Unfortunately, their position is mostly nonsense. There are a few bishops in Africa who have echoed the silly positions of Cardinal Trujillo in the Vatican regarding condoms and HIV, however, that is not generally the position of the people actually working in the countries described, who tend to be rather more realistic. Everyone attacking the church likes to to quote Trujillo’s idiotic claim that HIV will travel through tiny holes in condoms. The same sources appear to be pretty careful to avoid mentioning the remarks of Cardinal Barragán that a woman whose husband has contracted HIV should protect herself by using a condom or the remarks of Cardinals Daneels and Murphy-O’Connor that characterize condom use as a moral obligation or note that when the president of Uganda claimed that condoms had only a minor effect in reducing the HIV rates in his country, it was the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development that contradicted him, pointing out that condom use was an important part of the program.

Beyond that, of course, there is the “minor” problem with your scenario that few countries in Africa have a substantial Catholic population. The numbers vary widely from Zambia (supporting your position with a 16.5% HIV rate and a 62.5% Catholic population) to Sao Tome & Principe which has only a 1.5% (possibly underreported) HIV rate for a 70.3% Catholic population. Benin and Mali each have a 1.9% HIV prevalence, but Benin is over 27% Catholic and Mali is only 1% Christian, including all denominations. Uganda has a 4.1% HIV rate with almost 42% of the population Catholic while Burkina Faso has a 4.2% HIV rate while only 10% of the population is Catholic. The two hardest hit countries by HIV are Zwaziland (38.8%) and Botswana, (37.3%), yet Swaziland is only 20% Catholic and Botswana 5%. There is simply no correlation between the prevalence of Catholics and the prevalence of HIV, so the idea that Catholic prohibitions on condoms is a major source of HIV infections in Africa is nothing but projected prejudices unsupported by facts.

Then there is the matter of how closely any Cathoics, in or out of Africa, actually follow the dictates of Rome. There is no secret to the fact that a majority of American Catholics, (and large pluralities or majorities of Catholics in other countries), disagree with the Vatican stance on birth control and routinely reject it. How likely is it that Africans are more dutifully following church teachings on condoms when the church has failed in Africa to curb polygyny or the practice of waiting until a couple has produced a healthy child before they marry?

One may, of course, continue to condemn the position of the church, but it would be nice if posters, here, would stop propagating the baseless rumors that were started around the time of John Paul II’s death that the church has successfully spread AIDS across the face of Africa…

[even_sven]

@Lochdale

I think tackling spiraling birthrates is a good start. From there, positive change will occur.

Except when everyone starves to death because they don’t have enough field hands. They aren’t have kids because they are stupid. They are having kids because you absolutely cannot survive on a sustenance farm without a certain number of people working the fields. As people move into cities, they naturally have less children within a generation or so. Every single society to dates show that lower birth rates are the result of wealth, not the cause of it.

As for education, this is another one of those horrific catch-22s. Even in areas with accessible education, many kids don’t make it through school. Disease is a big part of it. If you have to take two weeks off school every few months because of malaria, you are never going to pass. Another is just general work. You aren’t going to be a great student if you spent all morning fetching water from the well two miles away and were up late into the night tending the cows. Finally is will. The jobs just aren’t there. I knew college graduates made their living driving motorcycle taxis because there is just no work for educated people. You’d have to be crazy to invest so much in your education if there was no sign that it would give you a better life.

[even_sven]

@tomndebb

Then there is the matter of how closely any Cathoics, in or out of Africa, actually follow the dictates of Rome. There is no secret to the fact that a majority of American Catholics, (and large pluralities or majorities of Catholics in other countries), disagree with the Vatican stance on birth control and routinely reject it. How likely is it that Africans are more dutifully following church teachings on condoms when the church has failed in Africa to curb polygyny or the practice of waiting until a couple has produced a healthy child before they marry?

This is absolutely true. My village was about 40% Catholic. I worked with an anti-AIDS youth group where about 70% of the members were devout Catholics. We handed out condoms, did condom demonstrations, publicized condom use and distributed all kinds of condom related information. In my two years there the only time I heard anyone talk bad about condoms it was Muslim men who wanted to have as many children as they could. Indeed, Catholics were the more progressive people in my village (much more progressive than the Muslims, pagans or Protestants) and spearheaded most of the anti-AIDS social work. Women, especially, get a lot more say in their lives under the Catholic church. In my opinion not only did it not hinder development, but it improved development in my area.

And yeah, I met plenty of Catholic guys with a few wives, too.

[Lochdale]

@even_sven

Except when everyone starves to death because they don’t have enough field hands. They aren’t have kids because they are stupid. They are having kids because you absolutely cannot survive on a sustenance farm without a certain number of people working the fields. As people move into cities, they naturally have less children within a generation or so. Every single society to dates show that lower birth rates are the result of wealth, not the cause of it. .

Really? That’s extraordinary so a country like Ethiopia, whose population has doubled since 1984 is suddenly a first world country?

Or is it that, despite famine, they are simply having too many children? That is, well more than any sustenance farm may need.

[tomndebb]

@Lochdale

Really? That’s extraordinary so a country like Ethiopia, whose population has doubled since 1984 is suddenly a first world country?

Or is it that, despite famine, they are simply having too many children? That is, well more than any sustenance farm may need.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to assert, here.

Wracked by civil war and a serious degradation of the infrastructure, Ethiopians have seen their children as the only hope for personal survival in old age and are breeding as fast as they can. Generally we see birth rates fall with advancement into a post-agricultural society, just as they have fallen in the U.S., Europe, and Southern India (which is participating in the tech revolution while Northern India, still primarily agrarian, continues with high birth rates). Nothing you have mentioned argues against that position unless you have evidence that Ethiopia is actually moving away from an agrarian existence. While Addis Ababa and a couple other cities have experienced rapid growth as people move there hoping for jobs, the overall growth in population has been and continues to be located primarily in the countryside. Nearly doubling the population from 42 million in 1984 to 82 million today cannot be explained by the population of a city of fewer than 3 million.

When people have hope that their children have a good chance to survive, they have fewer of them. When they expect a large number fo them to die, they have more, hoping that some will survive. That is pretty much a universal characteristic of humanity.

I see any number of people suggest that countries would do better to reduce their populations in order to improve their lot, but it is not a realistic scenario among humans.

[even_sven]

@Lochdale

Or is it that, despite famine, they are simply having too many children? That is, well more than any sustenance farm may need.

No, because of the famine they are having too many children. When there are droughts and bad harvests you have to work larger fields to get enough to eat. Which means you need more people to work those fields.

Let’s say each person in a family needs the equivalent of working 10 units of land to survive. A given person has the time and energy to work 12 units of land. But taking care of basic household needs (cooking, washing, maintaining a house, repairing tools, etc.) takes the equivalent of working 8 units of land worth of time and energy. Each kid you add to the family adds 1 unit of land’s work to the basic household costs. A family with four kids at this rate is just going to be making it.

But if bad harvests mean it now takes 10.5 units of land to feed a person, suddenly that same family isn’t making it. And the only way they ever will is to add more people.

[orcenio]

Here is a quote from Yoweri Museveni (the president of Uganda) on meeting the goals the UN Millennium Development Project. I got it from a blog I read and I think that it is very relevant to what Shodan is saying.

Regarding the statement that I have heard repeated so many times since the General Assembly opened, that “all African countries cannot meet the MDGs by 2015,” I would like to make two positions clear.

First of all, this confirms what I said yesterday in the High-Level Meeting on Africa’s Development needs. Talking of sustainable development without talking of socio-economic transformation has not been correct. We have repeatedly pointed this one out. I have often used the example of pregnancy. You cannot endlessly, talk of “sustainable pregnancy”. Yes, the “pregnancy” should be sustainable until it transitions into as baby.

Like Europe did and other societies in Asia have done recently, Africa must, therefore, metamorphose socially, economically and technologically from a pre-industrial, sometimes feudal, society into a middle class, skilled working class society. Period. Meeting all the MDGs is a consequence of this metamorphosis.

You cannot maintain a pre-industrial society and, then, somehow, meet these MDGs. That is what Uganda has been working for in the last 20 years. This means that Africa must industrialise, develop modern services sector and commercialise agriculture. That means that emphasis must be put on “market access”. This means that we should not only access the big markets of the World, but also rationalise our own African markets through regional and continental integration. It also means that in order to lower costs of doing business in Africa, we should deal with energy, transport, especially rail and education (primary and high-level). The MDGs are consequences of these. They are not precursors or autonomous phenomena to these.

The second position I would like to point out under MDGs is that Uganda is on course to meet all of them except maternal and child mortality. I see no reason why these goals should not be achievable. Other than HIV/AIDS which is behaviour-related, I am sure all the others are achievable if in Uganda we do enough, political-led sensitisation and investment.

I do not associate myself with the pessimists on Africa or those who put the cart before the horse. Why, for instance, were industrialisation and value-addition not made one of the MDGs? The export of the raw-materials is one of the cardinal ‘sins’ that causes Africa to contribute only 2% of World Trade would go up even today.

Moreover, this would create jobs for the Africans and, therefore, contribute structurally to poverty eradication. How were we supposed to eradicate poverty without creating jobs other than using witchcraft? We have repeatedly pointed out these issues in several fora, to no avail.

From what I understand, the real goal is not sustainable development but industrialization. After you modernize a country’s economy the subsequent economic growth will improve living standards. However, I still disagree with Shodan on the virtues of sweatshops. I believe economic growth need not come at the cost of blatant and rampant worker exploitation; but this is really another discussion altogether.