ONE of the cruel irony of the world economy is that the African continent is so rich in natural resources, yet so poor in the living standards of its people.
The shortage of marginal and technical skills is an ingredient that is a good stimulant for Africa to remain wide open to exploitation to outsiders even after the Scramble for Africa’s virgin natural and human resources.
The Scramble for Africa’s human resources mirrors the age of slave trade which also saw the ‘retired’ slaves building industries in the developed world and elsewhere in the Americas.
Put aside the slave trade tempo and look at one of Africa’s failure to industrialise in the context of Liberia — Africa’s leading producer of iron ore and one of the world’s principal exporters of the world’s iron ore.
In most parts of Africa, the railway network has remained the most cost-effective transport considering the heavy load it carries which our roads cannot accommodate.
As a lucid condition of Africa, most parts of the train are made of iron and steel, including the railway lines along which its steel wheels roll and yet not a single mechanical part is made locally in most parts of this world, let alone in Liberia, Africa’s leading producer of iron ore and one of the world’s principal exporters of the world’s iron ore!
Interesting enough too, the train continues to carry raw materials with which other trains are made abroad.
Out of this, litigious Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe intones that Africa should look for alternative funding for its development because its partners may not support the continent’s plans of maximising benefits from its resources.
To Mr Mugabe, who was speaking at the heels of the 25th Ordinary Session of the Heads of State of the African Union recently held in South Africa, the alternative sources lay in countries creating incentives for industrialisation that would add value to raw materials that were produced around the continent.
Africanist philosopher Ali Mazrui qualifies the concerns raised by President Mugabe when he argues that Africa does not need to adopt Western solutions for African problems — but when such solutions are adopted, like heavy industries, Africa should also adopt the logic that comes with such type of thing.
Scholars believe this is the logic of rationale calculation of maximising benefits, of minimising costs for the continent to develop from the slumber of under-development.
That is the route to go if sustainable industrialisation and invariably upliftment of the people was to be realised in its true sense.
To paraphrase a Western poet Alexander Pope: A little modernity is a dangerous thing, drink deep, or taste not the Western Spring!
This also explains that the continental curse is that every technological advancement in most African countries reveals the ugly yet gloomy reality of African failure to thrive socio-economic and political.
While the 25th Ordinary Session of the Heads of State of the African Union meeting has been crafted to explore alternative sources of funding for the AU, Mr Mugabe believes that it is cardinal to ensure ownership of the continental body and its programmes.
“Let us leverage resources for development by adding value and moving away from raw material exports. Industrialisation should come now then we can talk of the awakening of the African giant,” he said.
African countries had relaxed from the time they gained independence but after so many years, it was shameful to witness the truism that little had been done towards development through industrialisation.
Developing industries that revolve around the mechanics of productivity and processing of raw materials has all the ingredients to ignite industrialisation with the capacity to solve the joblessness puzzle.
President Edgar Lungu said recently at the AU Summit in South Africa that Africa’s allies were amused with the continent’s lack of industries because they bought raw resources for processing in their countries and exporting the finished goods back to Africa.
Mr Lungu is equally dismayed that some states imported food requirements such as sugar!
Why set up a firm that imports plastic cans instead of manufacturing them not only for the local market but export as well?
President Lungu observes that one way to wrestle Africa from under-development was to empower the locals so that they remain main drivers of the positive future and prosperity of the continent.
Other than that, the route that Africa was taking remains a blunt legacy not of development but simply dependence.
“We have built empty factories at home and import products from other people’s factories abroad. We produce in our minds what we do not use,” Professor Mazrui argues in one of his illustrious documentaries titled ‘Tools of Exploitation in Africa’.
Yes, African barracks do not produce what they use but instead Africa exports raw materials which are processed into finished products which African countries later import in local warehouses.
Africa must wrestle itself from the vagaries of poverty and perpetual under-development.
As Mr Mugabe bluntly put it, Africa must now support its own plans of coming out of poverty and other challenges by ensuring the successful implementation of the Agenda 2063 plan.
And what is Agenda 2063 plan?
Agenda 2063 is both a vision and an action plan. It is a call for action for Africa to build a prosperous and united Africa based on shared values and a common destiny.
In their 50th Anniversary Solemn Declaration, the Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU), while acknowledging past successes, rededicated themselves to the continent’s accelerated development and technological progress.
That is good for now but the results will be more ample than any oratory ever witnessed in the present life of the AU.
The African leaders managed to lay down the vision and eight ideals to serve as pillars for the continent in the foreseeable future, which Agenda 2063 will translate into concrete objectives, milestones, goals, targets and actions/measures.
That may be that.
Agenda 2063 attempts to enable Africa remain focused and committed to the ideals envisaged in the context of a rapidly changing world.
Now, what boggles the mind is: Why a 50-year agenda?
Fifty years is, undoubtedly, an extremely long development planning horizon — no matter how strategic it may be. Is this a serious choice for Africa?
For sure, many will draw out to wonder, especially in this age of material wealth display against the facade of human degradation.
How can one realistically plan given breath-taking changes permeating the global face of the continent? What are the benefits of such long-term planning?
Critics beg answers.
The choice of a 50-year time must be understood within the context of the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the OAU; and the need for the continent to take stock of achievements, successes/ failures and map out a long-term vision as well as set goals and targets.
In operational terms, the Agenda 2063 would be a rolling plan of 25 years, 10 years, five years and short term action plans.
Most development agendas in Africa have often bequeathed decay rather development for the ordinary population who have long been strangled, again, in the facade of human degradation, disease, squalor and acute poverty.
Sad too, Africa’s resources for Africa’s development remains solidly unfulfilled because as the resources get exhausted, the countries in the continent will, no doubt, remain distorted images of a deserted abandoned landscape.
Africa should be wary of the truism, as punctuated in the words of British policy-maker Lord Lugard, who argued that Europe had a double mission in Africa.
One was to develop Africa using its resources for Africa’s own benefits, while the other was to use those resources to meet the ever growing industrial requirement of the Western world.
The time to chart an African agenda of industrialisation that was free from the European Hegemony is now more than yesterday.