Fundamental to answering this question is to ask another: what should that country prioritise?
Africa’s global representatives should prioritise development. Moral framing has been over-emphasised to the point of being counterproductive.
Adopting a democratic constitution won’t trigger an instant evolution in how previously disenfranchised voters perceive their political leaders. Conversely, liberation from an oppressive regime will provoke much loyalty. That is, as patronage closely resembles reciprocity – a foundational social feature – no country has ever rapidly developed a highly effective electoral culture. It tends to take many electoral cycles.
Moral framing supports patronage by redirecting blame to colonial legacies, slowing accountability. Africa needs to be represented by a role-model nation that has matured beyond post-colonial political leaders blaming their countries’ woes on legacies from an earlier era. But, as importantly, this region must be represented globally by a nation that also demonstrates exceptional development leadership.
History versus geography
Twenty-first century depictions of Africa’s modern history focus on Western imperial injustices; while factually supported, they distract from the region’s geographic development constraints.
Most of the Middle East and Asia were as poor as Africa after the Second World War and also experienced sweeping decolonisation. After the Cold War, Asia’s rapid rise sharply reduced poverty there, helping to explain why two-thirds of the world’s extreme poverty is now concentrated in Africa.
A country’s potential has always been shaped by its geography; yet such key considerations are routinely ignored when a nation’s public discourse fixates on historic injustices. For instance, it is easy to drive for many hours across Namibia without ever seeing lakes, rivers or vibrant vegetation. Most parts of that country lack the soil, irrigation and transport capacity to grow and distribute meaningful volumes of food. Such characteristics endure irrespective of Namibia’s turbulent political journey.
Africa’s diverse geography lacks snow-covered mountain ranges feeding large navigable river networks. Navigable rivers connecting farmers with coastal harbours have been central to development.
Africa is resource rich; where mineral or hydrocarbon deposits are large and accessible, roads and rail can be economically justified. In large expanses of Africa, all-season roads are lacking while economic activity is dominated by small and subsistence-level farms.
In some such situations the costs of building and maintaining roads can only be made economically viable through mass migration from those areas to create large commercial farms. More frequently, the land’s highest and best use is subsistence farming, meaning development is blocked by lack of market access.
Rural-urban migration drove development elsewhere, but Africa’s challenges are more extreme: many tens of millions live in “economic deadzones”, often more than a day’s difficult travel from the nearest river or road, making road construction and maintenance prohibitively costly.
The global shift to services-led growth and the spread of low-cost internet connectivity offer, for the first time, upliftment paths even to remote areas. Though beyond this article’s scope, these trends underscore the need for leaders to focus on development challenges without being distracted by sins of the past.
There was never a plan
The first dozen or so years of ANC rule seemed to go well. But there was never a plan that could have delivered broad prosperity across SA let alone across Africa.
President Thabo Mbeki sought to lead an African renaissance. This would have been more commendable if he had had a workable development strategy. What had made the rise of Asia possible was a role model nation, Japan. More recently, the UAE executed a powerful development plan that suits Middle East circumstances.
SA should have played a similar role by also developing paths to integrate much more meaningfully into the global economy through adding value to exports. This should have coincided with SA being a regional gateway logistically and financially into the global economy.
The post-Cold War’s hyper globalisation was great for economic development and poverty alleviation. The focus on efficiency and innovation simultaneously had the effect of making isolationism nonviable.
Each of this era’s rapidly developing countries understands the central importance of adding value to exports destined for affluent countries. The ANC needed to accept that this had become central to development. Instead, their leaders chose to maintain a liberation fighter’s criticisms of the West while seeking economic growth through exporting commodities and regional trade.
SA, Morocco, Rwanda
If SA were to somehow switch geographic locations with Morocco, or Mexico for that matter, our proximity to affluent markets – that is, highly favourable market access – would be greatly improved. The main reason both countries have grown so much faster than SA in recent decades is that they prioritise value-added exporting. Regulations, such as BEE and EWC, undermine SA’s potential to compete at value-added exporting.
Morocco has recently surpassed SA to become Africa’s largest auto exporter. Also, despite being a predominantly Muslim country, like the UAE, and unlike SA, it trades openly with Israel. That is, neither high-growth country tries to project a virtuous international relations image to the point of blocking trade opportunities.
Rwanda is landlocked, sparsely populated and poverty is rife. Nonetheless, this central African economy stands out given its proven ability to sustain rapid growth through global integration and service sector exports.
By comparison, SA’s economy is among the continent’s top three, along with Egypt and Nigeria. However, none of these large countries can credibly claim to be adept at economic development.
SA’s credibility
SA’s economic policies have entrenched high unemployment and poverty, undermining its credibility as a promoter of Africa’s interests. When our leaders prioritise patronage over the welfare of most black South Africans, other African states and citizens have little reason to trust SA to advance the continent’s interests. SA’s treatment of illegal immigrants has also strained regional relationships.
Despite SA’s unnecessarily frosty relationship with the US further downgrading our qualifications to represent Africa globally, SA remains the continent’s most industrialised economy with the deepest financial and logistical linkages; it is still the country best positioned to provide regional leadership.
For SA to become the kind of development role model Africa lacks, policymakers must provide special dispensations from BEE and related anti‑competitive regulations for new value‑added export initiatives. If this is accompanied by growth‑enabling foreign policies, SA’s regional and global standing can only improve.
[Image: by ellinnur]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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