POVERTY in Africa is often equated to an outcome of a lack of strong State institutions, poor systems and lack of democracy and rule of law. Those who put forward this line of thinking argue that these are pre-requisites, if development has to happen.
Develop me Tapiwa Gomo
It is the same thinking that has dominated the world’s global governance system and has been prescribed on those countries seen as needing help to develop. It is indeed a modern-day thinking, which presumes the pre-existence of certain fundamental structures of the progress hierarchy, while disregarding the fact that these are just outcomes of economic growth not requirements. For example, it is a fact that our current towns and cities and their infrastructure were not established during the times of democracy.
It is for the same reason that many countries have been religiously loyal to tenets of democracy with the hope that it will one day deliver development. For example countries are stuck with bad leaders because it is not right to remove them before their terms of office expire, because doing so is seen as antithetical to democracy. It is equally the same reason that we have accepted the notion that we are weak and, therefore, require capacity building from those countries that are already developed in order for us to develop. By putting these as requirements instead of outcomes, we have locked ourselves in a vicious cycle of powerlessness and vulnerability, which is not easy to break without being seen as inimical to global norms and offensive to those countries that purport to support us.
For starters, two illusions have been allowed to subsist, as if they were commandments to modern-day life. The first is that democracy is what drives development and second is that development can be transferred from the centre to the periphery. These have been allowed to hold hostage the discourse of development when in actual fact there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that democracy leads to development or development actually reduces poverty.
Ironically, available evidence actually suggest the contrary. For example all western developed countries accumulated their economic base during the times of autocracy, colonialism and slave trade. They only adopted democracy when they had established a certain level of economic base and their citizens had acquired a certain level of empowerment, which largely derive from a very strong and solid economic superstructure, which is wholly-owned by the society but run by individual investors. Democracy grew out of economic growth and not the other way round.
The lack of evidence to sustain these notions of democracy and development is part of the reasons Africa as a continent cannot and will not escape poverty unless they realise the futility of these ideas. Because of African countries’ desire to belong to the current world order, they have been forced to start from the end instead of going back to the beginning where developed nations started. China is an example of a communist country that has realised the importance of starting from the base going up the hierarchy when in 1978 they made a policy shift and adopted capitalist models for its economy, and its economy has boomed to make the country one of the biggest economies. Increased economic growth also meant increased incomes for their people — a platform which will naturally usher democracy as people become more empowered to claim their rights and hold the government accountable.
There is evidence today that China is trying to define democracy, albeit, in its own way, with Chinese characteristics. There is already talk of group rights and participation, which is different from the western model of individual rights. While democracy is still limited to groups than individuals, it has always been assumed that economic growth improves the wealth of individuals and societies, expands middle class and empowers them to demand democratic rights whether as groups or individuals — except for Russia of course. The more citizens become economically empowered, the stronger they become to challenge their government. Democracy in its current format in Africa it has largely depended on donor money, which has been used to empower hungry people, those who are economically weak to challenge their strong and corrupt government leaders and the result has been that the same poor people have been keener to submit to politicians for their next meal than to pursue democracy and long term development goals. Empowerment is not a matter of sending people to the streets, holding placards. Corrupt leaders will always find ways of buying favour from the hungry citizens by providing what is needed now in the form of food. We have seen people being bussed from drought-affected areas just for two meals (lunch and dinner) to participate in meaningless marches. There has to be real threat to the system not piece-meal efforts.
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Key to establishing progress and development is to ensure that societies are productive and the role of leadership in that context is to direct national social energy towards such production. The more a society produces to meet its needs, the faster it grows but it must be noted that the initial stages of growth are painful and require discipline. As needs are met through production, infrastructure and systems will be start to emerge and so do increases in incomes leading to an empowered people who will start pursuing self-actualisation — a launch-pad for democracy.
Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa
