• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

A FRICANA Volume 5, No. 2 June/July 2011 Editor-in-Chief A. Curtis Burton Managing Editor Christopher LaMonica Board Members: John Akokpari Masse Ndiaye Lere Amusan Stanley Naribo Ngoa Priya Chacko J. Shola Omotola Mourtada Deme Karen Smith Ibaba Samuel Ibaba Kathryn Sturman Christopher LaMonica Françoise Ugochukwu Victoria Mason Douglas Yates A FRICANA Boston University African Studies Center 232 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02210 U.S.A. Print: ISSN 2155-7829 On-line: ISSN 2155-7837 www.africanajournal.org Africana June/July 2011 © Africana. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. Disclaimer: The views expressed in the articles contained in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of anyone affiliated with Africana or of anyone at the African Studies Center at Boston University. Africana is printed by Country Press, Inc., Middleboro, MA USA Cover Photo: ‚People in Africa‛ ©Uros Ravbar (Dreamstime.com) Vol. 5, No. 2 ii Africana June/July 2011 CONTENTS v From the Editors 1 Economic Empowerment without the State: Lesson from the Nande Patience Kabamba 40 A Decade of Nigeria’s Economic Diplomacy: Issues and Challenges Irene Pogoson, PhD 56 African Growth and Opportunity Act: Myth and Reality Ezeibe Christian Chukwuebuka 76 Language Barrier as the Bane of Development in Africa Akeem Ayofe Akinwale 98 Creating a Culture of Impunity in Zimbabwe: A Case for Philosophical Input in Developmental Issues Erasmus Masitera 123 Zimbabwe’s Constitution Making Process and the Death Penalty: A Philosophical Reflection Munamato Chemhuru & Dennis Masaka Vol. 5, No. 2 iii Africana June/July 2011 147 Media Strategies of HIV/AIDS Communication for Behaviour Change in South West Nigeria Koblowe Obono, PhD 171 Development Journalism and Africa: Tackling Violence against Women Nelson Okorie 185 A Diet of Wives as the Lifestyle of the Vapostori Sects: The Polygamy Debate in the Face of HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe Francis Machingura 211 Poverty Reduction and the Attainment of the MDGs in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects Segun Oshewolo Vol. 5, No. 2 iv From the Editors It is with great pleasure that we present to you the June/July 2011 issue of Africana. We are all concerned with the ongoing developmental challenges facing the African continent, yet opinions on what can or ought to be done vary considerably. The post-colonial era has left us with a legacy of developmental failures and, as a result, many are understandably critical of the international ‚poverty industry‛ that seems to continue without end. Are we to conclude that Africa will be, now and forever, impoverished? Or should we still have faith in the intentions of external actors? With the Cold War over, many developmental gurus suggest that the time has finally come for African growth and development to take off. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Daniel Yohannes and Mo Ibrahim tell us, for example, that ‚six of the 10 fastest-growing economies of the last decade were in sub-Saharan Africa< And over the next five years, the average African economy will outpace its Asian counterpart." (WSJ, June 27, 2011). The suggestion is that free- trade policies are now finally taking hold in Africa due, not only to the end of cold war politics, but to the promotion of free-trade arrangements. British proponents of free-trade policies, such as The Economist, are only too eager to provide data to back up these claims; as we have seen, the American Wall Street Journal is doing much the same. For American policy-makers the emphasis tends to be on, notably, the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) and their financial support of new developmental initiatives via USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Of course, perspectives on the same topic of development, from within Africa, tend to be much more critical of these policies and initiatives. In this issue of Africana we see this criticism, for example, in a piece by Ezeibe Christian Chukwuebuka entitled ‚African Growth and Opportunity Act: Myth and Reality.‛ Using the core- Africana June/July 2011 periphery model, as Chukwuebuka does, has been a common academic response to circumstances of underdevelopment as the late Latin-American academic André Günder-Frank termed it. Understandably, any patience in grand economic theory (or ‚neo- liberal ideology‛ as Chukwuebuka says) is limited when generation after generation continues to live in circumstances of dire poverty. Without improved global support for technological advance and capital exchange, Chukwuebuka argues, circumstances are unlikely to improve. Well-intentioned or not, international actors are now under more pressure than ever to get it right. And perhaps now more than ever within industrially-developed governments, African development is now viewed as being intricately linked to matters of security. In May 2010 US President Obama suggested that ‚long- term security will come not from our ability to instill fear in other peoples, but through our capacity to speak to their hopes.‛ (NSS, May 2010) Similar views were being expressed in the latter years of the second Bush Administration and now it seems clear: development is not only an issue of concern in remote locations dotted around the globe. In today’s smaller, globalizing world, it is a matter that affects us all. In some ways this could be good news for Africa: the industrially-developed world now has a real and practical reason to care! Real effective policy change could be on its way—but will it be too late? Dambisa Moyo, the Zambian critic of foreign aid, has written that Africans are more than tired and impatient. ‚What would happen,‛ she asks, if that entire ‚aid industry‛ were just taken away? Would many more millions in Africa die from poverty and hunger? Probably not – the reality is that Africa’s poverty-stricken don’t see aid flows anyway. Would there be more wars, more coups, more despots? Doubtful – without aid, you are taking Vol. 5, No. 2 vi Africana June/July 2011 away a big incentive for conflict. Would roads, schools and hospitals case being built? Unlikely< Too many African countries have already hit rock bottom – ungoverned, poverty-stricken, and lagging further and further behind the rest of the world each day; there is nowhere further down to go. (Moyo, 2009, 144) Without doubt, patience is wearing thin. And it is not only Africans who are critical of the aid industry: free-marketeers have long argued that any form of aid to Africa is little more than market distortion, i.e. aid only feeds corruption and delays development. In the literature of African politics, much of the attention has been on the seemingly unique form of the African state that, due to colonial history and influence, has become little more than a corrupt resource for locals to ‚latch on to‛ if they have the chance. In other words, the colonial administrator built his palace and developed institutional norms to benefit himself, and not the colony within which he resided. And it is that set of norms and expectations which the African leader inherited at independence. The notion that the State ought to serve the Public was essentially an alien concept and, despite any good intentions of the optimistic generation of Africa’s independence, the old colonial norms eventually distorted development, leaving African states and their citizens where they are today. Given the corrupt reputation of African politics writ large, it should come as no surprise that there is external critique of the African State. Some do for largely ideological, pro-free-trade reasons; others because they remember—hypocritically, some would say!—the corrupt leadership of the Cold War era. Free scholarship from within Africa has been hampered, in many ways, by the corrupt conditions of Vol. 5, No. 2 vii Africana June/July 2011 African politics for decades. Still, to this day, open critiques of certain African politicians and policies can be challenging. And yet the reality of Africa’s crisis has pushed many brave academics to push forward and help identify African State problems and alternative solutions to development when they can be found. The challenge seems to be so daunting that remembering what may have occurred, in terms of trade and development, prior to the establishment of today’s governing norms, might seem impossible. In that vein, Patience Kabamba of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, reminds us of the developmental practices of the Nande who have proven to be quite successful without involvement of the state. In many ways, Kabamba’s message is very supportive of the notion that wealth can be generated through trade networks, i.e. the same message that promoters of improved global trade have argued. Yet again, many are understandably leery of any state involvement in private, entrepreneurial affairs. What we normally hear are the pro-free-trade, neo-liberal reasons for removing the state (for reasons of corruption or bloated inefficient bureaucracies). In this article, however, Kabamba provides us with an example of thriving trade absent state involvement, with a decidedly less ideological take on the matter. With great care, Kabamba introduces us to the notion that trust is what is essential to successful entrepreneurial activity. She suggests that the majority of Africans take part in informal social-economic activities, and trust networks are often nurtured by other, non-state, local actors such as the Catholic Church. Dr. Irene Pogoson, of the University of Ibadan, has provided us with an insightful article on the rapidly changing forms and structure of global diplomacy. While her overarching concern is undoubtedly the well-being of Nigeria in these rapidly changing circumstances, her overarching message is that the traditional forms of state-to-state diplomacy which focused on politics are now Vol.

Load more

  251

Copy Link