Africabeat

Jeffrey Sachs criticizes the "extreme free-market ideology of structural adjustment" promoted by the IMF and the World Bank while praising Chinese investment in Africa.  Here’s why he is both right and incredibly wrong.

Jeffrey Sachs’s editorial at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, "China’s lessons for the World Bank," touches on recurrent themes of the China-Africa story: the hypocrisy of Western criticism and China as a viable alternative model.

Sachs attended the African Development Bank meeting in Shanghai a few weeks ago, and from his participation in high level meetings observe,s "The advice that the African leaders received from their Chinese
counterparts was sound, and much more practical than what they
typically get from the World Bank."

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Today, Reuters launched its new website, Reuters Africa, which as Reuters Africa editor John Chiahemen told The Guardian, hopes "to show that Africa can be covered as a business story, not just a disaster story."

Is it just me, or does this seem like another sign there’s a paradigm shift in the making?

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Will China Teach Africa How to Fish?

A few weeks ago, Blaise Aplogan wrote (En, Fr) about Li Zhaoxing’s visit to Benin.  He saves what I consider his most fascinating observation for last:

""Smiles, frank handshakes, and community of Third-World experience, are quite
good. But what worries me is what a friend of mine working in the Foreign
Ministry told me. According to this well informed civil servant, agreements with
the Chinese are interesting, but they are often accompanied by a long period of
transfer of technology, not to mention ownership right. Some delays may be as
long as a hundred years! A hundred years, may not be so long for China, an old
nation having behind her a past of several millenniums. But for us Africans who
have been languishing in the shadow of poverty an alienation, finding it hard to
take hold of our destiny and get rid of the fate, we look forward to making our own the Chinese proverb which
says: " it is better to learn to fish rather than be given a fish " and
I shall add gladly: " and not to be reduced to salivate while it is cooking in
our own kitchen, in the Chinese sauce …"

I agree that technology and skills transfer are key, but that
doesn’t happen by accident or simply through passive osmosis.  My guess
is that real skills transfer isn’t going to come unless a) African
governments *really* hammer this point home as a condition for future
business deals (I’m a bit skeptical on this point for the simple fact
that human beings have a difficult time acting rationally in the face
of mountains of cash) or b) when Africans actually start owning a
significant share of Chinese-funded projects. 

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A record-breaking growth rate, massive Chinese investment and ambitious projects like the UN Millenium Development Goals, One Laptop per Child, and The End of Poverty helped to fuel a new era of "Afro-optimism" – the idea that Africa can and is making real progress.

But progress doesn’t only happen on the scale of nations, multi-national initiatives, or billions of dollars in investments.  Real progress can also be measured in the efforts and successes of individuals.

This is why I love the concept of a new African business blog, The Benin Epilogue Part I: Africa – Ready for Business by "Benin Mwangi," a blogger from Atlanta, GA who became interested in African business issues after studying abroad in Ghana.  The Benin Epilogue profiles successful African entrepreneurs – and business opportunities – with the goal of "[reaching] out to businesspeople who have never been to Africa and therefore
have no idea as to how well other business people are doing there-right
now…educating you as to why Africa is quickly becoming one of today’s
hottest business destinations…"

Here are some of Benin Mwangi’s perspectives on doing business in Africa, his goals for the Benin Epilogue, and why he thinks Africa really is "ready for business."

*   *   *
 
What specific experiences made you interested in business and entrepreneurship in Africa?


During first visit to Africa, which was two semesters of study abroad in Ghana, I traveled extensivly throughout West Africa and
met many sharp businesspeople. One day it dawned on me that rather than
the destitute images that I had seen on TV, most of my surroundings
consisted of enterprising and hardworking individuals.  Upon realizing
this, I began to ask myself, "why is Africa not wealthy?"  One day it hit me, "mainly because the products and services that Africa produces are not highly demanded in other parts of the world."   At that moment my purpose in life was clear to me.

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For just US$821-1,231, passengers can now fly from Beijing to Lagos on China Southern Airlines.  The new route is China’s first direct air link with the African continent.

Maybe I’ll make it to Nigeria sooner than I thought!

A Mail & Guardian article explores the role of Indian investment in Africa, reporting on Indian investments in African oil, infrastructure and light manufacturing.  Last week, 300 business delegates from 35 African countries visited New Delhi to explore potential opportunities. 

Well it may not be as big of a story (India is democratic and English-speaking.  China is everyone’s favorite whipping boy), India is clearly looking to expand its business presence in Africa.  (See also: Africa as China and India’s "New Economic Frontier")

Can Other Developing Countries Be a Model for Africa?

At the China-Africa Business Council meeting, Chinese participants talked about the ways in which they believed Africa could learn from their experiences.  Before Deng Xiaoping’s gaige kaifang ("reform and opening up"), China was at a similar economic level as many African countries.  China’s success over the more than twenty-five years since can offer important lessons for African economies, they argued.

Similarly, I noticed the following quote in the Mail & Guardian piece:

"We want to learn from India’s experience," said Amadou Dioffo, managing
director of Sonidep Petrol and Gas Company of Niger. "Like us, India also has a
colonial past. We want to know how and why it is doing so much better now."

Which brings up a series of old and familiar questions (or at least I encountered these questions in nearly every college political economy course or course on the politics of X developing country):

1. Can other developing countries’ successes offer lessons or models for Africa? 
2. Why did South Korea become so rich when in the early 1960s, it was at about the same level of economic development (or perhaps even a bit lower) as Ghana? 
3. Why are China and India successfully developing now? 
4. Is Asia fundamentally different than Africa and is Africa just doomed to always be last in line? 
5. What structural or historical reasons account for Asian success and African stagnation?

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(Beijing) This Monday, in advance of the Nov 3-5th The Beijing Summit of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation- to which foreign and nonofficial Chinese media are not invited – the China-Africa Business Council held a meeting of its own. 

Present were representatives of several Chinese companies who, though personally having no experience in Africa, hoped to pitch their services and products to African entrepreneurs; Chinese entrepreneurs and government officials, some of whom had several decades of experience in Africa; and about 20 Africans from 16 countries who had just spent two months in China learning about the food processing industry.

The Western press almost exclusively covers the potential negative effects China’s influence is having on the continent.  Arms sales to the Nigerian government, the sale of internet filtering technologies to Zimbabwe, the purchase of oil from Sudan, the deplorable working conditions in Zambia’s Chinese-owned copper mines.  These stories are true and disturbing, but they are only one side of the story: the side that happens to sell papers.

For me, the meeting was an important look at some of the less sensational – but equally important – aspects of the China-Africa relationship.  Beyond the geopolitics and the Clash of Civilizations, there are the microlevel relationships and interests that motivate both Africans and Chinese who are just looking to make a buck.

My observations are long and specific, so I will post them in separate entries (currently in the works):

• China & Africa: The Problem of Cultural Ignorance
• China’s Interests in Africa
• What Africans Want from China
• What China Can Give to Africa
• The Golden Gate Group, Nigeria
• Admonishing Chinese Entrepreneurs to Aspire to Moral Purity
• On Western Media Coverage of the China-Africa Story

• China:
  From Confucianism To Capitalism – Chippla engages in a really interesting discussion of how the West’s history of industrial revolution and colonialism’s finds echoes in China’s rise.
• Zimbabwe
  woos Russian investors (Mail & Guardian) – I guess somebody was feeling left out.

And for some good, old-fashioned propaganda:

• Ghanaian
  president: Africa needs win-win co-op with China (Xinhua)
• Ghanaian
  president wishes win-win China-Africa cooperation (Xinhua)
• From
  "brothers" to "partners": China, Africa building strategic ties (Xinhua)
• Official
  website of China-Africa summit in use (Xinhua) – Yes, there’s a summit coming up in Beijing and I really did want to go, but as a foreigner working for a Chinese publication, there was absolutely no chance in hell I was getting press credentials.  In fact, as far as I can tell, only official media have been invited.

Tipped off by an Al Jazeera article, I stumbled upon a recent World Bank report, titled "Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s New Economic Frontier."  The report paints rosy pictures of "South-South" international commerce and of African potential to produce and export to Chinese and Indian markets at very competitive prices not just raw materials, but "diversified, nontraditional exports such as processed commodities,
light manufactured products, household consumer goods, food, and
tourism."

In short, Africa could be for India and China what China and India have been for the U.S. and Western Europe (and vice versa).  South-South trade might one day be the engine that drives African development just as Chinese manufacturing exports and Indian service exports are driving economic booms in those two countries.

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