There are no
tigers in Africa,
but the lions are coming
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF
Associate since 1991
Comments directly to
JonatPower@aol.com
December 6, 2006
LONDON - In a speech the other day one of Tanzania’s
new breed of remarkable entrepreneurs, Ali Mufuruki, chairman of Infotech
Investment Group, made a withering public attack on African defensiveness
about its appalling economic record:
• “If the excuse is colonialism then compare the experience
of Africa with that of Korea, which after decades of the most brutal
form of colonial oppression, exploitation and humiliation, plunged into
a civil war that killed more than one million of its people and split
the country into two parts. Today South Korea is the tenth biggest economy
in the world.”
• “India was long colonised by the British. Today Indians
are the third biggest investors in the UK.”
• “If the excuse is civil war or liberation war then look
at Vietnam. Three decades ago it was split in two, its infrastructure
completely destroyed and millions killed. Today it is one of the most
influential players in global trade.”
• “If your excuse is bad weather then compare your fate
with that of the Arabs living on a desolate piece of desert called Dubai.
How in twenty-five years did they transform this piece of desert into
a vibrant and thriving metropolis of global proportions?”
• “If your excuse is living too far away from sea ports
or navigable rivers then how do explain the success of landlocked Botswana
when ideally located Somalia is teetering on the brink of self-destruction?”
Bully for this honest African self-criticism. But you should only believe
half of it. Yes it’s true of Somalia and the Congo and perhaps another
dozen African countries. But it is rapidly becoming an outdated caricature,
as Mr Mufuruki should know from the rapid progress of his own country
since it turned its back on the socialist ideals of its founding father,
Julius Nyerere.
Last month John Lipsky, the ex Wall Street banker and now the International
Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director, whilst visiting Mali,
said he expects the average rate of growth for sub-Saharan Africa
to be 6% next year.
In fact we have had an inkling of this good news for over twenty years
now - that’s when the Ivory Coast hit 7% growth and stayed there-
until its president, the grand old man of Africa, Felix Houphouet-Boigny,
died in 1993 and the country fell apart into ethnic feuding. Botswana
was also a great success, becoming for a while in the 1990s the world’s
fastest growing economy. It spent its money well and still does. Alas,
the tragedy of AIDS hit it harder than elsewhere and knocked an enormous
hole in the growth rate. Gradually it is now pulling itself out of it.
The IMF’s latest “Regional Economic Outlook” makes the
point if African countries can achieve an annual rate of growth of 7%
they should be able to halve poverty by 2015. Tanzania itself is well
on the road to such progress. In Nigeria, the continent’s most populous
country, growth is a firm 7%. Despite the press reporting the country
as an ongoing disaster with political feuding and deeply embedded corruption,
it is getting on top of many of its problems- its macro economy is in
balance and there is strong growth in the non-oil sector. In Angola, not
very long ago the country on the continent most devastated by war, growth
is nearly 16% a year and an increasing proportion of that growth is likewise
coming from the non-oil sector and rising agricultural output. In Mozambique,
another war-ravaged country where growth is now over 10% (without an oil
sector), Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa report noted that poverty
has been reduced from 80% of the population in the 1990s to around 50%
today. Even in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo the IMF believes
now that the elections have been held and if the country can avoid a new
round of civil war growth will be over 7% next year.
Although South Africa’s growth is a modest 4.2% it is an impressive
rate by the country’s historical standards. It is Africa’s
largest market, an increasingly important source of investment and a major
driving force in the region. Its entrepreneurs have spread all over the
continent- in Tanzania, for example, running telecommunication and airline
companies. Its young black executives have been turning heads in Dar es
Salaam.
It’s true that Africa has spent too much time since independence
arrived making excuses and wasting its resources. But this laid-back,
self-indulgent, attitude is undoubtedly metamorphosing into a something
very different. There are no tigers in Africa, but watch the lions. I
believe they will soon be roaring.
Copyright © 2006 Jonathan Power
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Jonathan Power can be
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