After
Zimbabwe's Elections
Reason for African Optimism
By JONATHAN
POWER
June 28th. 2000
London - It sometimes takes a lot of faith to
believe it, but most of Africa is going slowly in the
right direction. Once again the pessimists have been
confounded. The run up to last weekend's parliamentary
election in Zimbabwe seemed to be African despotism at
its worst with President Robert Mugabe blatantly calling
on his supporters to "axe" opposition activists. But the
heroism of the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and
his supporters paid off. Although they did not win, they
secured a handsome vote that gives them a great deal of
leverage in the new parliament to argue not just for
political reform but for economic change too. Mr
Tsvangirai is now well placed to topple Mr Mugabe in the
presidential election in two year's time.
There may not be the political "renaissance" that
presidents Bill Clinton and Thabo Mbeki once spoke of.
There are too many wars tearing up large swathes of the
continent for that but there is a definite sense of
forward momentum both on the economic and the political
level.
The International Monetary Fund now expects an average
growth rate in Africa of over 4% this year. Economic
activity is rebounding in three of the largest economies,
Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria. A slew of smaller
countries are all expected to turn in strong
performances, just as they have in recent years: Ghana,
Tanzania, Tunisia, Senegal, Malawi, Botswana, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Sudan, Benin, Cote D'Ivoire and Uganda. The
biggest pacesetter of them all, Mozambique, which had
regular annual growth rates of 10% or over is still
recovering from last year's terrible floods, but it is
already showing signs of renewed growth. Call them the
African lions!
Africa is being helped along by the fair wind blowing
from Europe, the major market for African countries. The
general drift of the world towards increasing prosperity
is also helping lift the African economies as the prices
of many, but by no means all, commodities begin to rise
and export opportunities open up. Oil-producing states
such as Algeria and Nigeria have benefited from unusually
high oil prices.
Years of macroeconomic stabilization, structural
adjustment and political reforms are bearing fruit.
Inflation is expected to be around 6% or less in many
countries. In South Africa the fiscal deficit has
declined more rapidly than expected and interest rates
have fallen.
The political map is better too than the war headlines
suggest. Eight countries in Africa meet Freedom House's
rigorous criteria for being totally "free" and another 24
are "partly free". But 21 remain closed
dictatorships.
Nevertheless, Africa's underlying deep rooted poverty
and misery will not begin to disappear until these trends
are more firmly and widely established. In Africa
generally the level of real per caput incomes is lower
than it was thirty years ago. Although economists now
accept there is no single formula for kick-starting
growth, it is both common sense and the common consensus
of economic research to conclude that there will be no
progress as long as there is poor education and poor
health, ineffective governance, weak rule of law and war.
One should also add, that as long as the albatross of
debt incurred under previous years of maladministration
and short-sighted lending hangs around Africa's neck, it
will sap the economic incentive to reform and grow.
Progress will also not come about until the AIDS
pandemic is brought under control. The one redeeming
feature of the poverty statistics used to be that even in
countries where income was not rising health levels and
longevity were, thanks to vaccinations, improvements in
water supply and hygiene`. But the toll from AIDS is
upsetting these gains in a number of African countries,
an historical reversal no one foresaw.
This is why, belatedly- it should have happened 20
years ago- poverty reduction is now placed at the centre
of the International Monetary Fund's facility for
concessional lending. Yet, foreign aid to countries with
bad policies is money down a rat hole. Despite 30 years
of investigation, debate and conclusion the same old
mistakes are still being made- aid to recipients who are
not capable of making the investment produce a return,
donor countries that favour projects that benefit their
own exporters of goods and services more than the needs
of the recipients and still too much spending on
prestigious "white elephant" projects and military
purchases.
Moreover, there is the real question what is the point
of giving aid when the industrialized countries still
block the channels of trading opportunity? Agricultural
subsidies to farmers in the industrialized countries
amount to $360 billion a year, equal to Africa's entire
national income. Europe in particular needs to reform its
trade policies in areas that discriminate against Africa.
There are still serious import restrictions on things
that Africa could do cheaper: agricultural produce and
textiles. Moreover, these subsidies add to the downward
pressure on world food prices, eroding the
competitiveness of many farmers in Africa. It should not
be beyond the wit of the European Union top introduce new
ways of supporting the incomes of poorer farmers at home
without exacting a cost in the global fight against
poverty.
The prize-winning Nigerian novelist Ben Okri describes
Africa's condition with the sharpest of words:
"Everywhere there was the crudity of wounds, the stark
huts, the rusted zinc abodes, the rubbish in the streets,
children in rags, the little girls naked on the sand
playing with crushed tin-cans, the little boys jumping
about uncircumcised, making machine-gun noises. The air
vibrating with poisonous heat and evaporating water from
filthy gutters. The sun barred the reality of our lives
and everything was so harsh it was a mystery that we
could understand and care for one another or anything at
all."
But it doesn't have to be. Africa can progress out of
its poverty. There is a way forward and given a quarter
of a chance African men and women will fight for it, as
the voters of Zimbabwe have bravely shown.
Note for editor 1) Copyright JONATHAN POWER 2)
dateline London 3) I can be reached by phone: +44 385
351172 or by e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
4) Next week I will be in Nigeria. Please make
allowances for slow and difficult communication problems.
If column only arrives in part, please e-mail me at
once.
Copyright © 2000 By JONATHAN POWER
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