ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュの2 Higgins Europe and Africa

Structural Problems
Yet, we must be cognisant that, once the COVID-19 crisis is over, all of the inherited and acquired structural impediments to Africa’s sustainable development remain. Perhaps the largest of these impediments remains debt. It is surely one of the greatest global failures – the continuing failure to achieve the will of the members of the United Nations in relation to making debt, and credit flows, serve as instrument rather than stranglehold – be it in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals, climate change, migration or pandemics.
Responding adequately to structural global inequalities can, by inter alia recognising African agency, provide Africa with the prospect of carving out a path of recovery of its deep and diverse cultures, a shared prosperity, an enduring peace, and a hopeful future, not only for all its citizens, but for us all, for the achievement, I repeat, of a sustainable connection between economy, society and ecology.

I use the term ‘agency’ very deliberately, as I agree with development economist and High Representative of the Commission of the African Union, Carlos Lopes, that it is through the creation of African agency – that capacity to act autonomously and independently, which has been denied to Africa at so many points during its colonial and post-colonial periods – that Africans will be enabled to undertake the necessary structural reforms so as to create a brighter, shared future.
There are some basics that it is necessary to repeat. The health of the populations of the planet must take precedence over any abstract version of global debt. Statistics illustrate how, for instance, in 2016, Angola spent nearly six times as much servicing external debt as it did on public health care. Fifteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa spent more paying creditors abroad than on doctors and clinics at home. This is morally outrageous. Furthermore, Sub-Saharan Africa spends less than 5 percent of its total government expenditure on public health, a consequence, in part at least, of the debt-ridden nature of its economies. There is now an unanswerable case for a global campaign for Universal Basic Services.

When it comes to trade and the economy, recent low commodity prices have led to decreased revenues, with African exports having declined by approximately a third in recent months. The Chinese economic slowdown has impacted severely on African exports given the high dependency of many African countries on the Chinese market. Furthermore, many African countries collect relatively low levels of taxation revenue by international standards, as I have already stated, with estimates indicating that as much as 89 percent of people, in some states, and even regions, work in the informal economy, compounding the economic challenges facing the continent.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the least industrialised regions in the world, and the modern industry that is currently in place struggles to keep pace with what are usually referenced as international productivity metrics. If labour productivity has stagnated or declined in many African countries over the past 60 years, only to recover modestly since 2000, and GDP has tripled in the same period, serious wealth and income distribution questions are raised. Jobs distribute income, even if in some parts if our planet industrialisation has been irresponsible in ecological and human terms. Yet, there is an industrialisation, as Lopes and Kararach point out, that can be appropriate for Africa on best use of resources natural and human. Critical, too, is the transfer of science and technology on new terms.

The external shocks I referred to earlier, including China’s slowdown and falling commodity prices, as well as the widespread drought in Eastern and Southern Africa, have led some industries to become a drag on their economies rather than being engines of growth or available for structural transformation.
This is all the more worrying because Africa is still predominantly specialised in relatively low-technology industries with a huge dependence on agriculture. Findings from some of the better work in the development economics field suggest Africa’s long-term development would entail a diversified move away from exporting raw materials and the attendant reliance on high commodity prices, entry into more complex, advanced activities that yield higher value goods and services for export, thereby increasing the share of GDP derived from advanced manufacturing, and improving competitiveness vis-à-vis other world markets. What, then, are the prospects for these developments?

Let me quote, if I may, from Carlos Lopes and George Kararach’s book, Structural Change in Africa:
“Five decades of development planning have not yielded the 7 percent, which is the minimum required to double average incomes in a decade. Instead, there are a range of highly unequal and vulnerable economies that remain entrenched in poverty. The evolution of industrial policy in Africa mirrors the evolution of development planning. These include the import substitution policies that took root after the independence era, then planning was enthusiastically driven in the 1960s through to the 1970s; the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s when planning waned and the state was rolled back; and then this was followed by poverty reduction strategy papers in the 1990s when liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation were entrenched as methods of economic management. The weaknesses in understanding Africa as well as its misrepresentation during these periods has a lot to do with the deficits in industrial production and the incidences of de-industrialisation. This is ironic since most governments implemented various industrial policy strategies and interventions to promote industrial development.

Manufacturing as a share of output and employment decreased or remained low over most of these periods. As African countries prepare to take their rightful places in the future global economy, they have a real opportunity to promote economic transformation through the industrialisation process by capitalising on the continent’s abundant natural resources, adding value to them, while also supporting the development of infant industries. The manufacturing sector in particular has been the engine of economic development for the majority of developed countries, and very few countries have developed their economies without a strong manufacturing base, so much so that the terms ‘industrialised’ and ‘developed’ are often used interchangeably when referring to such countries.”
As with many other global issues, establishing the root cause of Africa’s political and economic challenges is fundamental for understanding the dynamics of the African continent which, as Lopes and Kararach correctly identify, requires an understanding of how the issues of geography, economy and demography have influenced, and will continue to influence, Africa’s development.
Colonisation and Its Legacy
Returning, if I may, to the ethics of transformation and a meaningful multilateralism, it is critical to recall that, between the 1870s and 1900, Africa suffered European imperialist adventurism and aggression, diplomatic pressures, military invasions, and eventual conquest and colonisation. Despite many African societies’ brave resistance, foreign domination was successfully imposed, and by the early twentieth century much of Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, had been colonised by European powers.
The European imperialist push into Africa was motivated by factors that were not just economic, but also political, social, cultural and racist. The colonial drive followed the collapse of the profitability of the slave trade, its abolition and suppression, as well as the expansion of the European industrial revolution.

An interplay of economic factors – the imperatives of capitalist industrialisation including the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets, and profitable investment outlets – as well as political factors, including inter-European power struggles and competition for pre-eminence, together with social factors, such as rising unemployment and poverty in Europe, all led to this ‘Scramble for Africa’.
The colonisation was characterised by frantic attempts by European commercial, military, and political agents to declare and establish a stake in different parts of the continent through inter-imperialist commercial competition, the declaration of exclusive claims to particular territories for trade, the imposition of tariffs against other European traders, and claims to sole control of waterways and commercial routes across Africa.

The arbitrary national boundaries that followed have been largely responsible as source for ethnic conflicts on the continent due to the forced separation of ethnic groups across states and the forced assimilation of others within states. Colonialism also replaced the pre-colonial governance structures with Western ones, creating a system of kleptocracy in some nations through the formation of hierarchical ruling structures. Economic rewards given to African elites created a dominant leading class at the expense of other Africans and the continent’s natural resources.
Despite the demise of colonialism, some elites have remained and maintained their relationships with former colonialists as part of a shared corruption in parts of Africa. Such elites are being continually rewarded for draining their states’ natural resources and thereby reinforcing inequality.

Colonialism, furthermore, created single-crop economies in societies that relied overwhelmingly on agriculture, sentencing African economies to the volatile whims of markets and market-based fluctuations, and exposure to crop failure. Forced integration of developing states into the international trading arena augmented the already widespread inequality between developed and developing states.
Central to colonisation was indirect rule and assimilation, and a consistent theme propagated by the imperialists was the portrayal of the indigenous Africans as uncivilised and uneducated. This racist notion, widely promulgated, legitimised the ill-treatment and exploitation of those who were colonised, including their relegation to the status of second-class citizens in their own countries.

Forging a New Relationship between Europe and Africa for an ‘African Enlightenment’
As to the future then, the basic physical conditions for economic transformation are challenging and to different degrees in many (but not all) African countries: small, often fragmented markets, poor infrastructure, remoteness, and sometimes a scarcity of relevant natural resources all play their part in the continued poor trade and wider economic performance of many African countries. Even when these factors are taken into account, however, there remains a large unexplained ‘residual’.
It is good, therefore, that a new generation of scholars, that include Professors Lopes and Kararach, are examining those structural features of the African economy that account for its past record and are serving to impose limitations on its future development. I am not sure, however, may I mischievously suggest, that they have departed sufficiently from the notorious Modernisation Theory, with its linear assumptions. Yet what is most important is their suggestion as to what is possible, and that will include, an appropriate form of industrialisation that can be ecologically well fitted and adjusted to local capacity.

If Europe is sincere about its wish to be a partner in enabling Africa to achieve an inclusive, sustainable and prosperous future, debt cancellation must be an intrinsic element of a new, authentic European-led response. It is my strong view that a temporary cancellation of debt interest would not suffice as an effective response. Rather, a much more radical approach is required to effectively relieve Africa’s debt burden, by restructuring, redefining and, in some cases, forgoing the bulk of outstanding debt. Such an approach would be a fitting demonstration of genuine European solidarity with our neighbours to the South. It could help to consign to the category of transacted painful memory so much of the horrendous consequences of hundreds of years of colonial and post-colonial hubris, exploitation and abuse.
There is such strong evidence that our current development models are in disarray or producing dysfunctional consequences. A new model must come from a genuinely inclusive dialogue. Enabling Africa to become self-sufficient and to develop sustainably will require giving agency to Africans to build a sustainable future for all Africans.

Why debt cancellation will help in this regard is by allowing strategic commodities that are held by the state to be used for the purpose of economic advancement for all, rather than serving debt repayments. Improving agency may also require alterations to the forms of bureaucratic and governmental systems in place in some African nations so as to achieve inclusivity and accountability. It will also necessitate that there is a willingness on the part of the State to work inclusively with civil society in its engagements with external partners.
African agency is about not the freedom to imitate falling paradigms. Neither should African agency be solely seen as emanating from, and being exerted solely by, governmental elites. Rather, it can be a by-product of independent civil society and progressive movements across Africa at individual and societal levels, working with entrepreneurial versions of the State towards shared goals.

Agency also relates importantly to the multilateral level. The ongoing under-representation of African nations in international organisations, including the United Nations, is a major cause for concern. We should all be concerned at this under-representation. We continue to witness an historic, unjust under-representation of an Africa which was still ruled by colonial powers when the United Nations came into existence and the Security Council established. Africans must be allowed to have influence in Council decisions affecting their own continent. The increasing effect of climate change on international peace and security gives this proposal even greater urgency.
A 21st-century ‘African Enlightenment’ is underway and, may I suggest, it can draw on sources deeper and richer than any limited European 18th-century rationalism. For example, it can draw on a diversity of pre-imperialist sources of wisdom, as well as the vigour and energy that comes from being the continent of the young on our planet.

To enable such a transformation requires us Europeans to re-conceptualise development models in relation to Africa and indeed elsewhere, to emphasise the need to seize the possibilities of transformational change, to be partners, partners with a listening capacity, as we offer our help in the efforts to build a sustainable future for the planet.
As to what is already underway in Africa, we have examples available to us. We can build on excellent initiatives already receiving assistance from the European Union, such as the Great Green Wall, a project led by the African Union which aims to transform the lives of millions of people by creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa, combatting the effects of desertification.

The key structural changes that are required in relation to Africa have been identified, as I have said, by Carlos Lopes, George Kararach and many others. These include changing politics, respecting Africa’s diversity, embracing a deeper understanding of the policy and historical context, not defeated by it or its consequences move to sustainable industrialisation, increasing agricultural productivity and diversity, building a new social contract, adjusting to climate change, and inserting agency in the relationship with Africa’s key partners, especially China.
An effective European input into an African 21st-century Enlightenment requires an agreed and appropriate definition of what is meant by ‘structural transformation’, as Lopes and Kararach have written in the work I have already quoted, Structural Change in Africa: Misconceptions, New Narratives and Development in the Twenty-First Century.
It requires an understanding that, while Africa seeks transformation, it is not alone, and that any such transformation must be grounded in eco-social sustainable policies. It requires, too, a proper understanding of the role of new forms of sustainable industrialisation in any transformation, as well as other key enablers such as innovative development financing.

Conclusion
Whatever policy proposals that are made now and in the future must accept that it is past time that the residues of the imperialist mindset, succeeded as it was by ‘the idea of Progress’, of Modernisation Theory with its ethnocentric linearities, which must be eschewed from informing assumptions in policies, diplomacy and scholarship.
I so agree with Carlos Lopes that such residues continue to permeate modern-day misconceptions of Africa, often propagated in ignorance by the media, misconceptions, misreadings that are not only cartographic, but also pervade work on risk perceptions, levels of conflict, problems of political stability and other spheres of human existence.

Such misconceptions for too often portray a continent in continual crisis, despite that continent having made significant progress in recent years. Such accounts usually form the basis of an unhelpful and inauthentic African narrative that portrays a gap between perception and reality regarding its transformative potential.
I am not for an instant discounting the need for institutional change. Of course, an overall commitment to good governance and state well-being is needed in many African states as a prerequisite, but this cannot be used as an excuse for shirking Europe’s moral and ethical obligation to progressing and being partners in Africa’s overdue economic and wider social transformation.

We need now, all of us, to move beyond our prescriptive approach to dealing with African challenges, an approach that often resulted in programmes of aid in the past that were externally imposed, conceived and applied without proper understanding of the crucial need for African agency, that were offered, delivered, even imposed without due cognisance of history and the context of Africa as a diverse, fast-changing continent. Perhaps it is even an appropriate time to return to using old tools in our task such as anthropology.
I agree with Carlos Lopes that a paradigm shift in African Union-European Union relations is now urgently needed. Our challenge as Europeans must, therefore, be to forge that new relationship with Africa, by arriving at a new place founded on real multilateralism and solidarity, so that we can be ethical partners in the necessary structural change that can deliver universal basic services and transformational prosperity in Africa, and an enduring, sustainable future for the continent of the young, on which those of us who believe in global social justice and solidarity place so much collective hope.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.
Beir Beannacht.
Thank you all for listening and participating