How to Develop Africa

Abstract

Africa’s disastrous postcolonial economic record provides overwhelming evidence that the state-controlled socialist economic model can never be used to develop Africa successfully. First, the inherent superiority of the statist model has not been proven convincingly in any part of the Third World. Second, even if such a model can be adjudged superior, Africa lacks the necessary supporting inputs to make the model work: an efficient administrative machinery, honest and dedicated civil servants, as well as an effective communications network. Africa lacks all these. Third, the statist/socialist model benefited only the ruling vampire elites. Only they rode about in Mercedes Benzes. Only they purchased commodities at government-controlled prices. Only they had access to government-subsidized housing. Even their funerals were paid for by the government. But there were also more practical reasons why statism failed miserably in Africa.

When, if ever, black people actually organize as a race in their various population centers, they will find that the basic and guiding ideology they now seek and so much need is embedded in their own traditional philosophy and constitutional system, simply waiting to be extracted and set forth.

—Chancellor Williams (1987; p.161).

We have had to go back to our roots. We have to go back to our traditional ways of solving our problems, traditional ways of working together. Otherwise, Boosaaso, a port in war-torn Somalia, would not have peace.

—Gen. Mohamed Abshir, Boosaaso’s de facto administrator in The Washington Post, March 3, 1996; p.A239.

Unfortunately, the leadership that took over from the departing colonial authorities did not go back to our past to revive and revitalize our democratic roots. They took the line of least resistance and convenience and continued with despotism, autocracy, and authoritarianism. But the basic democratic culture is still there.

—Dr. Adebayo Adedeji, former executive secretary of UN Economic Commission for Africa and director of the African Center for Development and Strategic Studies in Nigeria, in Africa Report, Nov/Dec 1993; p.58.