Introduction

The document outlining the nature of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a long and exhaustive one, and it would be as well to examine the premises upon which it appears to be based.

“The New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic ...”

To what extent will these statements reflect a likely future for Africa? The best starting point in attempting an answer to this question is to establish as clearly as we can where we find ourselves at present. Most of us have probably not done this accurately. Certainly, the dominant discourse in the public realm seems well wide of the mark. In the author’s view this state of affairs is the result of our unconscious or conscious acceptance of a set of assumptions so banal as to be taken as virtually self-evident, not least of which is the nature of the linkages between security, stability and development.

First among these assumptions is the issue and role of globalisation and, by extension, what it implies or could imply for Africa. As important and connected to this, are other perceptions about the role of the state in providing security to African societies and the relationship of the state to its security apparatus and, finally, there is the acceptance at face value of the primary commitment of the leaders of Africa’s political class to the development of their countries and citizens.

Globalisation

Let us start with the first assumption, about the role, actual or putative, of globalisation. This is a phenomenon that probably looks substantially different when viewed from the South African as opposed to the African continental perspective. Of course, the states of the Mediterranean littoral and that other African giant Nigeria, will share some of South Africa’s perceptions, because of the relative size and sophistication of their economies, which make it more likely, though far from certain, that they will benefit on balance from this latest transformation in global capitalism.

Much of the thinking behind (NEPAD) seems to be predicated upon this assumption. Here we are, a major player in African terms, aspiring to assist the continent out of its globally marginalised position, in the process ourselves emerging as a modest middle level power. To achieve this our leaders are willing to embrace the inevitability of the historical triumph of a process commonly known as globalisation, satisfied with the claims of its high priesthood that allowing the unimpeded operation of market forces and the flow of goods and capital (if not labour) will deliver massive and irreversible material benefits to our country and the bulk of its people. This, in turn, will allow our government to care more effectively for the welfare and security needs of the masses, creating an exemplar and agent for change in the revitalisation of the African continent as a whole. As an adjunct to the broad human security benefits we expect to ensue from our insertion as a fully fledged partner in the globalised economy, we also hope to create a new governance and security order based on commonly accepted rules and underwritten by the international community of states at regional, continental and global level.

Well, what is wrong with that? Quite a lot really.
What’s wrong?

A common popular perception is that South Africa has the potential to become a rich, industrialised, developed country, comparable to the affluent economies of the northern hemisphere. Brief acquaintance with the major cities, their striking skylines and the suburban shopping malls and mansions cherished by a small class of conspicuous consumers, lend a spurious credibility to this picture.

By African standards certainly, the country has reached a high level of economic development. Its gross national product is more than three times that of the other 11 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) put together, is three times larger than that of Nigeria, and 20 times larger than that of Zimbabwe.

In the global context, however, it is a middle-ranking, semi-industrialised economy. In addition, and most importantly, it has one of the most skewed patterns of income distribution in the world. Some 51% of annual income goes to the richest 10% of households; while less than 4% of annual income goes to the poorest 40% of households.

The gap between the rich and poor in South Africa is a wide one. More significantly, it has tended historically to correlate closely with the racial classifications until recently imposed by white-dominated governments on the national population. This has provided much of the dynamic of South African politics in the past, and attempts to redress these imbalances and to create a more equitable society will continue to provide the leitmotif of the political economy for the foreseeable future.

According to many well-informed foreign observers, South Africa has the potential for striking economic success over the next two decades and beyond, though the realisation of this potential is by no means guaranteed. As the World Bank noted recently, South Africa must cope with a number of obstacles in its quest for faster growth in output and employment. Its production structure is highly capital-intensive and inward looking; it has a largely untrained and under-educated labour force; and its urban structure inhibits the productivity of unskilled labour and is not conducive to the growth of the informal sector. In addition, we have in the HIV/AIDS pandemic a threat to human security unparalleled in recorded human history, with its epicentre in Southern Africa.

This is a very different context from that in which the Marshall Plan took root in post-war Europe, and moving north the dearth of human capital becomes even greater. As it is, the South African government finds it difficult to dispense the funds it has for poverty alleviation and other development tasks. Africa’s essential human capital exists largely among diasporas, unlikely to be drawn back to their original homes unless convinced that the promised changes in the political, economic and social environments are permanent.

A further inhibiting factor is the general lack of investor confidence arising, in part, from uncertainty about future government policy. This hesitancy partly reflects the generally disappointing, if not disastrous, experience of outside investors in Africa following the optimism engendered by the end of colonial rule in the 1960s. With ample investment opportunities available in the Far East, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the world, South Africa will come under close scrutiny before it receives substantial inflows of private capital. Of course, inflows of capital, though they may be a necessary condition, are not of themselves a sufficient condition of economic growth as conventionally measured, let alone of development.

Recent occurrences have also served as a reminder that what flows in may flow out just as suddenly. The volatility of the money markets that has propelled the government into issuing its macroeconomic blueprint, in itself demonstrates the unprecedented mobility of capital, not to mention the overriding importance of sentiment, rumour and anticipated short-term profit or loss, which drive the market.

Perhaps a more fundamental question ought to be raised, and this applies to virtually every part of the ‘developing’ world: whether the economic development path being implied by the free-market strategists is actually available to the mass of underdeveloped countries. A glance at the evidence would suggest that it is not, and that the promise of material progress implicit in the bargain being struck is every bit as historically absurd as that offered by the proponents of scientific socialism.

A recent report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that for all the unprecedented growth of the global economy over the past few decades, the number of people living in appalling poverty has increased. It also points to the ever-widening gap between the very rich and the mass of people, even in the developmentally advanced nations. Of ‘catching up’ or ‘trickle-down’ there is little evidence. During the past 30 years, the world’s gross domestic product has expanded from $4 trillion to $23 trillion. Over the same period the share of world income for the poorest 20% of countries has declined from 2.3% to 1.4%. Simultaneously the share of the richest 20% grew from 70% to 85%. A similar progression is noted within countries. On this view one might go further to ask whether the development trajectory of the wealthy nations will prove viable for them, even in the medium term. The triumphalism of the free-marketeers following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite economies seems somewhat premature if one considers the social blight afflicting many post-industrial nations, the erosion of the welfare state accompanied by radical demographic change, and the steady growth of a disaffected and often criminalised underclass in those societies.

In short, we have yet to see that globalisation will deliver to Africa what its advocates claim, in that Africa, as a very small player in the context of the formal global economy, reacts more violently to the squalls and gales worked up by market sentiment than do the larger states upon whose experience most generalisations on political economy and security are based. For Africa to gain equitable access to the global market certainly requires that the dominant players forego some of the extremely unfair advantages they currently enjoy. For all that we have heard from Mr Blair and from President Chirac, do we really imagine that they are about to tackle the Common Agricultural Policy that keeps Europe’s farming sector solvent? And is President Bush made of the sort of stuff that will convince American workers in the textile, garment or farming industries that they have to forfeit their jobs in the interest of global equity? Remember, all this is to be broached at the June meeting of the G8 this year. Remember, too, that the global economy is in deep recession. We find it far more compelling to believe that by June the leaders of the G8 will be giving more serious attention to Japan’s banking crisis and the possibility or reality of an American war on Iraq, with all its ramifications for the stability of the Middle East as a whole.

Since 11 September a great deal has been said about the dangers of the rich ignoring the claims of the marginalised, and about the viability of an inequitable world system. These are certainly moral considerations. Historically speaking, however, they are naïve, and when United States (US) Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill talks of the possibility of all the world’s people being able to aspire to and achieve living standards comparable to those of 21st century America, he merely demonstrates the shallowness of much thinking on the nature of the global economy. Africa, with the exception of the Horn and the Mediterranean states, is not going to feature on the radar screens of the anti-terrorism units of the First World. Its declining state systems may well provide opportunities for drug dealers, gun runners and money launderers, but these can be policed by international conventions and the co-operation of pliable, though not necessarily democratic, regimes. In certain circumstances any form of state will serve the purposes of wealthy non-Africans.

Absurd models

The idea that the choice for Africa lies between a United States of Africa and an African Union based on the European model is also essentially absurd, in that neither of these prototypes is historically or functionally applicable. Both emerged at a particular juncture and subsequently evolved largely as the consequence of peculiar historical circumstances. Neither has achieved what might be regarded as ‘final success’ or an end state: the arguments about federal versus states’ rights continues in the US, as do the debates about the relative powers of sovereign European governments and the authorities in Brussels. And these are models based on the existence of strong, capable and effective nation states, occupying a dominant position in the global economy.

Contrast the situation with that of Africa. We are a continent of more than 50 states, many of which lay claim to a juridical existence only because they are represented in international fora. In some respects we may find that the reasons for joining a ‘stronger’ continental body would be to reinforce the mythic omnipotence of the state and, of course, the elites that own it. This is a point touched upon by several African commentators, many of whom are at the same time optimistic that the African Union project can be made to work for the African peoples at large. Yet it is difficult to believe that adequate space will be made for what is widely referred to as African civil society, especially if that civil society seeks to make use of the apparatus of the African Union to raise criticisms of their rulers that are impossible or illegal to voice at national level. What Basil Davidson has called “the brutal divorce between rulers and ruled”, continues to apply across virtually all of the continent, and one cannot imagine that a union designed by the beneficiaries of state power, however attenuated, would be allowed to work to any other advantage than that of the dominant political class. And this raises an absolutely fundamental point: that in the global scheme of things we assume that the state apparatus exists largely to protect the security of its citizens. Across much of Africa, and other parts of the world, this is simply not so, and much of the world’s population views the formal security forces as one of the most potent threats to its security, and therefore seeks to disengage and find refuge from the grasp of the state and its uniformed officials. This surely has to factor large in any considerations of continental security and defence debates.

Conclusion

NEPAD represents a noble attempt to alter this picture of an African future. Its authors claim that “we will determine our own destiny”. Perhaps they have more in common with Paul O’Neill than we thought, his claim at the World Economic Forum being that all the poor nations have to do is to use their imaginations to achieve success. We hope they are right, though we fear that Africa’s future path will be more messy and interesting than that. Men may well write their own history, but not entirely as they wish.

But to conclude on a more positive note: what can Africa, and in particular Southern Africa, do to fulfil its part of the proffered bargain? Let us remember that the outside world, if it is indeed serious about the NEPAD quid pro quo, is likely to want evidence of the quo before it releases the quid. Put bluntly, Africa is not going to receive massive debt relief, nor attract investment of a significant volume if it does not, collectively, put its governance house in order. Investors of a permanent rather than ephemeral variety look for a number of things: respect for property rights and the predictability and transparency of administrative and legal systems being among the most important. Nor do they draw fine distinctions between the performance of individual states from the same region. The Zimbabwean crisis is a case in point. Though there may be any number of reasons for quiet diplomacy on Pretoria’s part, regional solidarity with a thoroughly repellent regime should not be seen as one of them. The result is, that for this and a number of other reasons, outside investors and diplomatic representatives are baffled by what they can interpret only as a non-policy of expedient drift.

To succeed, even moderately, NEPAD is going to demand the commitment of political leaders here and elsewhere to policies that may cause them considerable discomfort in the short- to medium-term. It is, in a way, a self-denying ordinance. Whether the politicians meet the challenge, should determine how history and their citizens judge them. We have a suspicion, however, that Africa will achieve its rebirth despite, rather than because of, their actions.