Africa on right trajectory despite problems

To see the unification of all Africans,

Has it been said already, let it be done...

Africa Unite..." — Robert Nesta M. Song, "Africa Unite"

Africa is full of poverty, underdevelopment, corruption, wars and hence it is condemned to a life of underdevelopment perpetually, right?

Wrong.

The above statement seems to true and factual to those that look at Africa's social reality "as it is today." devoid of providing a historical context.

But this life that humans are living has a historical context. Humans have not been supplanted "instantaneously" into this current world. Ours has been an evolution of nations and societies over a prolonged period of many years.

Therefore, to make sense of the modern world and make educated guess of where societies are moving towards, history is important.

All societies, whether African or European or Asiatic, are all striving towards a more better and civilised future.

And this arc of history has followed a certain path. Francis Fukuyama in his book "The end of history and the last man," is right when he sees history as a linear progression, moving from one socio-economic epoch to another.

And what is the desired or expected outcome of history?

We assume it is a developed, peaceful and egalitarian society. We can assume a developed region contains traits as described by British Historian Ian Morris in his book, Why the West Rules — For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future: “Amount of Energy a society can usefully capture (measured by the size of it's largest cities), war making capability (weapons, troops strength and logistics) and information technology (speed and reach of writing, printing and telecommunications).

Over the course of history, various societies have dominated in civilisation terms. Social Development Index shows the West leading until 6th century, China leading until 18th Century and the West taking over again.

Africa joined the “civilizational arc” less than 150 years ago. In 1900, our forefathers were still using fire as their sole source of energy, waging wars with spears and communicating strictly orally. As at that time, the West was thousands of years already into civilisational trajectory.

Therefore, comparing currently the West and Africa in developmental terms is like comparing a child who has just joined nursery with a grown up already in the university.

Africa just joined the civilisational journey less than 150 years ago, albeit through conquest and colonialism.

But the African child in Early Childhood Development Education is really doing well. It has taken the African societies only 130 years (as at today) to have physical infrastructure like roads and dams, proper governance institutions like formal governments whereas the European took thousands of years to reach this stage of development and build such institutions.

In other words, it took Europeans and Asians thousands of years to reach Africa's current level of development. Africa has developed faster.

Take like two measures of social development - nation building and economic development.

Over the years, Europe has been developing at an average annual economic rate of growth of 2-3 per cent. Africa has been averaging 5 per cent since the 1960s when most of Africa got independence.

On nation building — which basically means the process that distinct ethnic groups within a state melt into a single nation that coincides with state boundaries — Africa has passed a much better course. Save for a few civil wars and coups here and there, Africa has avoided great human catastrophes that have characterised nation building struggles of other societies.

Europeans slaughtered each other in millions to create a European nation identity. Five million lives were lost in Napoleonic wars of 1803-1815. The total human casualties in World War One are estimated to be 40 million. In World War Two, more than 65 million are thought to have perished. The late Rudolf Rummel, the demographer of governments mass murder, estimates the human toll of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet regime from the 1920s to 1950s to be 61 million people.

The East’s endeavour to create nation states has also been disastrous. The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 led to deaths of about 2 million people.

In the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" of 1958 to 1961, at least 45 million starved to death due to Chairman Mao's poor policies.

Whereas every life of a single human being matters and any comparison is unethical, definitely the above figures do not compare with lives lost in African societies post -independence nation building struggles.

In fact, Africa is developing within a better social context — when the world has globalised, and deaths in any part of the world will be televised and highlighted hence incentivise global action. That means Africa will be spared the worst experiences in other parts of the world which developed when the world was in "silos" or in compartments.

Therefore, notwithstanding whatever problems Africans are undergoing, looking at things from a historical perspective, Africa is really doing well. Other nations have suffered more to reach where we are.

But of course there is much to be done to make Africa great. Particularly on matters economy.

Africa needs to integrate more. Africa has a huge potential market of 1.2 billion people. These people can "unleash trade, optimise shared natural resources and economies of scale to achieve Africa transformation."

Economies of scale would lower overall production costs and attract additional foreign investment. A starting point towards this journey should be aligning Africa tax policies.

For long-term economic growth, Africa should tax less most mobile factors in the economy, like capital. It should tax more factors that cannot easily move, like land.

Other possible interventions would include deepening democracy. Democracies create stability in governance.

Removing travel barriers amongst Africa countries and striving to form United States of Africa must remain our lifelong endeavour. The problems of an African in Mali or Niger must be our problem in Kenya.

- The writer is the governor of Murang’a County. [email protected]