In order for us to really understand the contemporary situation in Africa, it is prudent to take a look at where Africa was a little more than forty years ago. This will allow us to see where we might be half century from now and also help us answer these questions; Why Africa? Why now? Why us? Socio-economically, sub-Saharan Africa of today is the sub-Saharan Africa of the 1960s. This is not to say that nothing good is happening at the moment in Africa, the opposite is true. During the early 60s, most African countries were gaining political independence thus generating some positive perception and hope for self-determination not only politically, but also economically and socially as well. Even though their post-colonial economies were still pegged to the colonial powers, Africa sustained positive economic growth at the same levels we see today across much of the continent. Averages of 2-5% annual growth rates characterized most of the post-colonial Africa up to, and until 1973.
Due to global energy crises and the import dependent economies, Africa’s economies started to crumble in part because there were no sufficient institutional and infrastructural mechanisms with capacity to support a sustainable economic growth seen in the previous decade, and also, lingering in the background were the Cold War sentiments which helped to sustain Africa’s corrupt regimes. This aspect, in part, enabled for the retardation in economic development at rates never seen before. To illustrate this, take for example what happened in the developing economies of East Asia. These two emerging economies- East Asia and Africa - were at the same level developmentally in the 1960s. But currently, Africa’s per capita income, even when adjusted for purchasing power, is only a fourth compared to that of East Asia. The East Asian economies have substituted their import-led economies for export oriented development characterized by high technology products and services while on the other hand, Africa is still largely agrarian, commodities driven and prone to catastrophic calamities as we see it today. After the slump and economic stagnation, which lasted for about two decades, Africa is back in the same positive trajectory we saw in the 1960s but the problem is that its four decades late and the question remains; is it sustainable in the long-run without institutional and infrastructural capacity-building in key areas of education, health, science and technology, economic and resource allocation management? After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its centrally planned economic system rendered obsolete, the free-market capitalism became the only viable economic arrangement to direct and dictate the New World Order. Free-market liberalism became the status quo enabling major global financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO to institute various governing regimes for the newly globalized world. Even though these institutions helped usher in a new era for Africa’s development, much of its austerity measures from the 1980s and early 90s had been partially discredited in part because they failed to address the underlying root causes for underdevelopment; namely foreign debt and debt servicing measures that were creating dependency on donor communities which in turn had helped to exacerbate overall human insecurity on a broad socio-economic spectrum. Furthermore, the call for political reform and associated conditional measures failed to address the issues concerning debt relief and unchecked globalization, especially those relating to fair trade for Africa’s products.
By the year 2000, the developing world, and for the most part Africa, was in a state of economic turmoil with inflation skyrocketing, high unemployment rates, low productivity, environmental degradation and resource misuse, capital flight, and HIV/AIDS pandemic taking a toll on the vulnerable in abject poverty. These issues became a cause for global concern and outcry which led the United Nations to call upon its member states to convene and adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, in it and among other things, a call for specific Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, gender inequality, unfair trade relations between developed and developing countries to be achieved by 2015 (cut in half all incidences as shown by poverty indicators). With the gains made in democratic and political reforms, the UN is able to carry out these MDGs with the help of civil society involvement in conjunction with other global community stakeholders and partners. According to the MDGs 2007 update, (mid-point to 2015) sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieve any of the Goals. For example, people living on one dollar a day only dropped from 45.9% to 41.1%; child mortality rates dropped from 185 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 166 per 1,000 live births in 2005; people dying from HIV/AIDS continues to mount, reaching 2 million in 2006, and maternal health still a major problem with 1 in 16 deaths from pregnancy complications and childbirth compared to 1 in 3,800 in the developed world. And the list goes on.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have provided for a much needed framework not only for meaningful change and approach, but also for a platform for cooperation and partnership with civil society, government, and the private sector. This has enabled for an unprecedented opportunity for global community involvement in both developing and developed world to mobilize financial support and political will for broad-based, capacity-building programs for poverty eradication, sustainable economic development, and long-term human security for millions of Africans in the 21st century.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world…" [Gandhi]
"Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Millions of people are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free. Poverty is not natural, it is man made and can be overcome by the action of human beings…" [Nelson Mandela]
"We have the opportunity to do something that will be remembered for a long time after we’re gone… We want to end extreme poverty in our lifetime. A child dying from a lack of food or a mosquito bite at the start of the 21st century will one day in the future appear utterly ridiculous…" [Bono]
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity…" [Martin Luther King, Jr.]