Africa: looking beyond statistics

Many major economic forecasts have been projecting a growth in Africa since the early 2000s. This year, the World Bank's key publications, The World Development Report and the World Development Indicators, have both painted a relatively positive picture of Africa. The United Nations' Millennium Development Goals Report has an even more sanguine assessment of African growth. This is a great development.

It is easy to see how this growth trend can continue because the driving force is obvious – the rise of China. The Chinese demand for raw materials and new markets is an oft-cited fuel in the engine propelling African economies. It is also just as easy to see how things can quickly fall apart, to borrow Chinua Achebe's apt term.

That is the tragedy of Africa. Things start to work. People become hopeful. And then, BOOM! All hopes and investment blow up right in your face like the Space Shuttle Challenger.

As Harvard academic, Robert H. Bates shows in his book, When Things Fell Apart, things were looking good for Africa in the 1970s when many of its nation-states emerged from colonialism. Then, coups and civil wars blew all the hope away. Things quite simply fell apart.

When the Economist magazine declared Africa a hopeless continent in May 2000, it did so despite statistics showing that African economies were trending towards growth. Its main reason for making that pessimistic declaration was based on sociopolitical problems that existed then and persist today.

If seen in the context of its time – anarchy in Somalia, genocide in Rwanda, civil war here, coup d'état there, corruption hither and expropriation thither – then one wonders why the article was greeted with the kind of premature chastisement that it received.

Since The Economist's "hopeless continent" article, the growth trend has picked up so much so that they had to reverse their position in 2010. In a metaphorical piece iced with an illustration of a lion exiting a cage, The Economist returned to business reporting and has since kept referring to Africa as a hopeful place for businesses.

I suppose talking up African growth serves to instil confidence in investors and can be seen as a service to the continent. However, there are still strong reasons exercise caution. As Red says in The Shawshank Redemption, "hope is a dangerous thing."

It may have been wrong to declare Africa hopeless; it could be too hasty as well to go to the other extreme. One can hope that Africa grows economically and also improve in other ways.

So far it looks like African economies are growing alongside the same kinds of problems that stand to retard progress at some stage. Consider the following events that have occurred since The Economist's "hopeless continent" piece:

1. Robert Mugabe's racist expropriation of farms from white Zimbabweans has transformed that country from Africa's food basket into a failing authoritarian state needing, you guessed it, FOOD! While Mugabe did this, African leaders said little and did nothing.

2. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has either arrested or issued warrants for African genocidaires and war criminals. And when I refer to the ICC, I take it to be separate from ad hoc international courts such as those set up to prosecute people accused of war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The ICC's most wanted list is full of Africans, which confirms that The Economist's premise that Africa was a hopeless place because of senseless violence was not entirely baseless. Taking this point a step further, the African Union has been protecting President Bashir of Sudan. For example, when the Supreme Court of Malawi flagged that they might enforce the ICC warrant on Bashir for genocide and war crimes if he attended the AU meeting in that country, the venue was moved to Ethiopia to accommodate him.

3. One of the most historically peaceful countries in Africa, Kenya, almost descended into anarchy in 2007 following disputed election results. That major conflict attracted a lot of attention and resources to resolve it. Now, in that same country, a secessionist movement called the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has arisen and is already a subject of concern because they have expressed a willingness to resort to violent, terroristic and sabotage tactics if need be. The Coast Province of Kenya that this separatist group seeks to destabilise possesses the seaport that serves most of Eastern Africa including the landlocked Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

4. Sudan, the largest country in Africa before July 9 2011 and a rising economic star between 2005 and 2010, broke in two and the two residual entities are currently just managing to survive as sovereign states. Furthermore, the conflict between the resultant states, Sudan and South Sudan, is considered a threat to world peace by the UN Security Council and the African Union, not least because Uganda says it will not sit idly and watch South Sudanese be blitzed by a Sudanese firepower they can match.

5. Nigeria almost returned to civil war in 2011 in a post-election violence that closely followed the contours of the Biafran war of secession. The problem in Nigeria, as is the case in Kenya, is that "ethnic" or "sectarian" loyalties are so elevated in national debate that legitimate attachments to the country are undermined. In other words, patriotism ceases to be a personal conviction and becomes a question of what involvement in national issues means for the group from which participants come.

6. Ivory descended into complete disorder despite strenuous efforts by the United Nations and the African Union to immediately bring peace.

7. Somalia continues to be a burden on Kenya and Ethiopia. It is unclear how its terrorist groups will affect security in the Horn of Africa in the years to come.

8. The democratic Republic of Congo is still ungovernable. Its conflicts have killed over 5.4 million people, a figure not seen elsewhere since the Second World War.

Last word: African countries cannot forge progress without peace. If Africans continue in the wretched anarchical state of affairs that Robert D Kaplan described in his 1994 essay, "The Coming Anarchy" – the same problems we see today – then future investors will not accept any formal or verbal assurances of security and respect for property. This is the point were politics meets economics. And since politics of African countries remain in need of fundamental paradigm shifts, I will remain sceptical about the future trajectory of African economic growth.