Your analysis/comments are reflective and provide me with a perspective as to what is currently happening in Africa.
Please continue to provide me with your perspective on events Africa.
The enclosed below is a reflection written by me which I still believe has currency.

July 2005

“Celebutant” a word coined by this writer seven years ago when serving in Sudan under the aegis of The UN to describe a [movie star] celebrity dabbling in a dilettantish manner in regions/issues for the egoistic photo-op. This type of activity can only exacerbate an already complex set of problems and absolutely does not subscribe to a simplistic photo-op type process.

Adopting and removing a young [indigenous] child living in a failed state type environment—dropping in like a ‘deus ex machina’ into a [fragmented] stress zone environment where chaos and disorder is the leitmotif of the day—spending a few hours lamenting as to the horror and then departing to the comforts of the hotel where in this oasis one can wash the dust-filth and excruciating anguish away and then to view the pictures of you cradling an infant [whose life expectancy can be measured in days]—hoping that some magazine dabbling in the behaviours and life style of the celebrity will include your brief voyage of poverty prurience in the next issue.

“It is more difficult to pass over from totalitarianism to democracy than from democracy to totalitarianism. Democracy calls for deep-going, value-oriented changes in the public mentality—it calls for time.” Karl Popper

In a transitional administration, the transfer of power to local hands is the exit strategy, with the international presence shifting into a more traditional relationship of development assistance. How that transfer is managed and what foundations are laid for the future stability and prosperity of the territory should be central to the evaluation of such an operation. Elections, which are held up as the benchmark of success, are only one part of this process.

Post UN-Cambodia-[1993] indigenous activities—began to raise questions about the relative importance of democracy. A shift began to occur in the rhetoric that saw ‘good governance’ sometimes replace democracy in the peace-building and development jargon. ‘Good governance’ was an intentionally vague term that spoke less to the formal structures of government than how a state is governed.

“Good governance is, among other things, participatory, transparent and accountable. It is also effective and equitable. And it promotes the rule of law. Good governance ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of development resources.” UNDP

Elections mark an important stage in the political evolution of a state, but it is now recognized that they may achieve little in isolation from broader and more far-ranging transformations in the political environment. In Kosovo and in Liberia, commitment to ‘immaculate’ elections has occasionally obscured the larger aims of political and economic development.

Post-conflict elections carry a heavy burden. At a time of national crisis, they are called in order to settle issues of internal and external legitimacy—in many cases the very issues that took a country into war—against a backdrop of insecurity, institutional breakdown, and economic uncertainty. These are not conditions that favour the introduction of democracy. But democracy should not be the focus. The focus should be on peace and security, sustainable institutions, and economic stability.

State-building after a war will always take years, perhaps decades, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise to domestic publics. Elections and limited devolution notwithstanding, international actors will remain. As Karl Popper recognized, the transition to democracy requires a transformation in public mentality similar to that which underpins respect for the rule of law. Elections may provide evidence of this transformation, but they are only a small part of what is required to realize it.

The West cannot design a comprehensive (external-imposed) reform for a poor country that creates benevolent laws and good institutions to make the economic markets work. Experience demonstrates that the rules that make markets work reflect a complex bottom-up search for social norms, networks of relationships, and formal laws and institutions that have the most payoff. To make things worse, these norms, networks and institutions change in response to changed circumstances and their own past history. Political philosophers such as Burke, Popper and Hayek had the key insight that this social interplay was so complex that a top-down reform that tried to change all the rules at once could make things worse rather than better.

Piecemeal reformers, foreign and domestic, can try to move toward better systems that are sensitive to local conditions and that unshackle the dynamism of individuals everywhere. The dynamism of the poor at the bottom has much more potential than planners at the top.

“No one’s life, liberty, or property is safe
While the legislature is in session.”

The one gut instinct that many people have about the poverty of nations in Africa is probably close to the target: it is all politics!

In the course of my work in developing countries, I have encountered outstanding government officials whom I admire greatly. These government officials with insight complain more knowledgeably about bad politics and corruption in their own countries than outsiders can ever hope to articulate.

We must face reality—decades of research by social scientists, not to mention everyday observation, illustrate how dysfunctional government can get in many countries. We do not do the poor any favours by tenderly respecting the sensitivities of ‘bad’ rulers who oppress their own people.

Democracy can function, but imposing democracy from the outside does not. Democracy features feedback and accountability, while foreign aid does not. Government institutions such as courts, judges and police could solve some of the problems plaguing emerging market economies. Impartial courts and police help make the market function in affluent countries by enforcing contracts, protecting property rights, providing security against predators and punishing lawbreakers.

The Achilles’ heel is that any government that is powerful enough to protect against predators is also powerful enough to be a predator itself. The other great invention of human society besides the free market economy is political freedom. According to the simplest view of democracy, an open society with a free press, free speech, freedom of assembly, and political rights for dissidents is a way to ensure good government. Free individuals will expose any predatory behaviour by ‘bad’ governments and vote them out of office. Voters will reward with longer terms of office those politicians who find ways to deliver more honest courts, judges and police. Political parties will compete to please the voters, just as capitalistic firms compete to please their customers. The next generation of politicians will do better at delivering these services. Of course, no real democracy functions close to this ideal. Democracy is not a quick prescriptive fix for poor countries. The path to a stable democracy is tortuous and fraught with peril. Democracy depends on the slow and bottom-up evolution of rules of fair play.

Aside from numerous examples of electoral cheating/fraud, democracy is an intricate set of arrangements that is far more nuanced than just holding elections. Another problem with democracy is that of the tyranny of the majority. If a majority hates some minority viewpoint, they may vote to censor the dissidents. This would limit the free speech and debate that is one of the virtues of democracy. These points are far from hypothetical in poor-country democracies, which are often polarized along ethnic and class lines and where the winners sometimes abuse the losers. This is why a complete definition of democracy involves some protection for individual rights and freedom of dissent as well as majority rule.

Another problem with the ideal vision of democracy is corruption. Competitive elections are no guarantee against corruption. Politicians can buy votes instead of earning them with good government. They can steal from state coffers to fund payoffs for their supporters. Corrupt politics merge with ethnic politics as parties compete to win resources for their own ethnic group.

This superficial sketch of democracy and its vulnerabilities has uncovered several reasons why good government may not take hold—elite manipulation of the rules of the political game, weak social norms, landed wealth, natural resources, high inequality, corruption and ethnic nationalism and hatreds.

Unfortunately, the aid agencies have had little idea how to fix these problems from the outside when they have tried to change ‘bad’ governments into ‘good’ governments—the foreign aid Planners in the West have never figured out how to deal with ‘bad’ governments. ‘Bad’ governments can sabotage even the most well-intentioned aid programs. Another critical government input for development is good public services. Governments in poor countries often fail at delivering basic health and education services.

Since donors understandably do not want to admit they are dealing with ‘bad’ governments, diplomatic language in aid agencies becomes an art form. A war is a “conflict-related reallocation of resources”. Aid efforts to deal with homicidal warlords are “difficult partnerships”. Countries whose presidents loot the treasury experience “governance issues”. When government officials want to steal while the aid agency wants development, there are “differences in priorities and approaches that need to be reconciled”. The “weak but improving” line is popular among aid agencies in Africa.

Some blame the perception of ‘bad’ government in Africa on racism—an insult to the many courageous Africans who have resisted tyrannical rulers at risk of their lives and safety. It is a mistake to go to either extreme—overlooking ‘bad’ government in Africa or embracing a stereotype of African government as always bad or ineffective.

To aid agencies, participation is an apolitical technical process of consulting the poor. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said about a similar participation idea in the 1960’s: “The socially concerned intellectuals seemed repeatedly to assume that those who had power would let it be taken away a lot easier than could possibly be the case if what was involved was power”. Often society and politics fracture along regional or ethnic lines, and foreign aid maintains neutrality with difficulty.

This is not to automatically canonize democratically elected governments. They, too, can make terrible choices—this reinforces the fact that it is awfully hard to get democracy to function in a prescriptively beneficial fashion. Outside interference does not have a great record on improving matters, on making governments do the “right” thing.

Another device by which donors try to get “local ownership” of ‘good’ government reforms is “peer review” of some African rulers by others. This is part of what is called the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which is supposed to have African rulers enforcing standards of ‘good’ governance on one another. It is a little mysterious why the donors embrace a mechanism of accountability for African governments that they would never apply to their own countries. (Would the American government submit to peer review by the Canadians?) “Peer review” misses the whole point of democracy, which is government accountability to its own citizens—not to some other government.

In his book The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs emphasizes that many African countries do not have unusually ‘bad’ governments compared with other countries at their level of income. Unfortunately, what counts for the population’s well-being is not how good the government is for its level of income; it is just how good the government is, period. Aid agencies have to face reality: Is money given to a ‘bad’ government going to reach those in need—the poor? Perhaps the reason the country is poor has something to do with ‘bad’ government?

Unfortunately, the official aid agencies do not know how to change ‘bad’ governments into ‘good’ governments with the apparatus of foreign aid. ‘Bad’ government has far deeper roots than anything the West can affect.

An appropriate prescriptive method in which a ‘celebutant’ can assist would be to create a trust and allocate the resources to a well established aid agency or other recognized NGO in the alleviation of poverty-want-harm and hunger.

Monte McMurchy
Toronto, Canada

(416) 921-6493

Brief of a Paper Presented at The Munk Centre For International Studies 2005