Connecting Africa's middle to the coast
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 8:44AM 
Nifty WSJ piece from the 21st.
A standard bit in my Wikistrat's "World According to Tom Barnett" brief: the reality that, as globalization penetrates Africa, a certain political fracturing is inevitable (and not necessarily bad if handled well). How it gets handled well: an overarching effort at regional economic integration so that, when such fracturing happens, it doesn't go zero-sum because everyone is sensing the larger economic opportunity.
Historically, African trade goes like a pin-wheel: lines connecting the middle to the coast. But the colonial set-up of so many states (Africa has more states per square mile than any other continent) creates all these interior situations that are not economically sustainable - thus the connection imperative.
Economic communities meet that challenge, although some serious gaps remain: would be nice to see West package extend southward a bit; need something in Horn eventually, and I suspect it's an expanded EAC; and there's nothing really up top, but there the Arab Spring opens up possibilities considerably.
Right now Wikistrat is running an internal training simulation for the younger analysts that puts me in Yoda mode: Hmmm. Good she will be. The analysis is strong with that one.
The simulation is entitled, "China as Africa's De Facto World Bank." We planned it merely as a training tool, plus a way to - as always - build up the GLOMOD (our online Global Model of globalization made up of all these hundreds of scenario pages). Naturally, working out a few new wrinkles in the established simulation methodology, because we always want to be evolving through experimentation on the edge (new twists, new features, new modules, etc.). I honestly didn't have big expectations for the output, but the padawans, as always, surprise me with their inventiveness. In the end, they may push us to productize the material. At the very least, they have me thinking that my next strategy book should be a crowdsourced effort throught Wikistrat itself (the next step up from thanking a hundred or more bloggers in "Great Powers"), because just like the International Grand Strategy Competition, this China-Africa sim is generating cool ideas that deserve a wider platform.
Reader Comments (4)
The West African community is interfering in member's troubles. The East African Community has a customs union and is considering a common currency (hopefully with strong enough institutions to avoid the Euro's troubles). I wonder how long it'll be before they start reconsidering the colonial-era boundaries?
I can see my life on that map. I grew up in Nsukka, a small university town in Eastern Nigeria. Immediately after graduation, I had to get to the coast because there were no economic opportunities where I lived.
I sped down to the nearest coastal town, Port Harcourt to get a job, I wasn't successful so I had to go to Lagos, picked up a job, but since I wasn't paid well enough I had to depend on my extended family for support.
Pausing here: My story illustrates three trends in Sub-Saharan Africa, the breakdown of Government institutions, the decrease in economic opportunities and the increasing importance of ethnic and religious networks.
From Lagos, I spent a year in another coastal town, Warri, trying to get into the Oil and Gas Industry. (The Oil and Gas Industry contributes more than 90% of our foreign exchange earning but provides only about 0.5% of all employment opportunities - i.e. traditional Western FDI, heavily skewed towards the Energy sector doesn't really provide many jobs). I wasn't successful, so I got back to Lagos and worked in consulting for a while. Most of my working life has been spent around the coast.
However, I took a one year excursion to Gombe State (near the epicenter of Boko Haram). I was employed as a business consultant and I vividly remember trying to administer a survey. I couldn't because only about 25% of the junior staff in the Cement factory I was consulting for could read or right. I immediately knew there was a problem.
The problem was low literacy levels, appalling health care and poor infrastructure. I wasn't surprised at the emergence of Boko Haram, because if Government wasn't up to the job of providing education to the masses, someone else would be - and we are witnessing the results today. Since formal schooling was scarce, parents send their sons to barely literate quaranic teachers (mallams) to be trained. These young children sustained themselves by begging, they are also very useful cannon fodder for politicians and the many Islamist / Salafist groups that ply their trade in the Sahel.
It was predictable.
Everything is linked. Economic and connectivity issues lead to national security challenges. Joseph Kony plies his trade in the inaccessible region between Congo, Uganda, South Sudan and Central African Republic. Integrating these hinterland regions will require more than building infrastructure, it will require a massive push to educate boys and girls and the results will take at least a generation to manifest.
The Chinese are willing and able to get the infrastructure up and running and they are also seriously considering moving low level manufacturing to Africa, but when they do start in earnest, they are not going to build factories in the hinterland. They will build factories in places like my home state (where female literacy is as high as 92%), Nairobi or the East African coast.
So our connectivity problems still will not be dealt with.
The Western donor / NGO community has invested heavily in aid to the educational sector in Africa. However, a combination of a unresponsive local governments and an inefficient distribution process has led to very mixed outcomes. Secondly, the West neither has the money nor the enthusiasm to do something big in Africa in the future. Thirdly, this isn't the Chinese or Indian area of expertise, so the onus rests on African people / African politicians to make it happen.
For this to happen, African politicians need to stop looking at educated people as a liability. The unspoken truth is that your usual "big man" African politician finds it easier to manipulate a poorly educated, superstitious population than a better educated one. Mobutu, Bedel Bokassa, Idi Amin and Obiang would find it impossible to operate with an educated population and a balanced economy. That exactly, is the modus operandi of Northern Nigerian politicians. Thankfully, Boko Haram is forcing them to do a cost-benefit analysis (do the costs of under-educated, unemployable youth far exceed the benefits?).
The answer to that last question is increasingly, yes. So enlightened self-interest is creating the first flickers of change.
As I said earlier, it is all linked. America's most prominent, most visible initiative for engagement with Africa shouldn't be AFRICOM. Africa doesn't have an Al Qaeda problem, it has a poor governance, poor infrastructure and poor education problem. The situation is so complex that treating a symptom in isolation (example, Somalia) distorts your understanding of the whole picture. In addition, you may eventually do much more harm than good.
We have a lot going on and even those of us on the ground don't fully appreciate what is going on. Analysts in the West should be humble enough to admit that they don't either. So this isn't really a time for grand strategies, but to keep one's ear to the ground, to listen to the voice of the people, to live among the people, speak their language and really understand what message they are trying to pass across to the rest of the World.
One thing you can be sure of is that any model built around the present behaviour of African people or their leaders will be obsolete in the medium term. Attitudes are changing and changing fast. The Museveni or Zenawi you are dealing with today is not the same Museveni or Zenawi you will be dealing with in five years time. Please keep that in mind.
Also remember that we are yet to hear the voice of the Sub-Saharan African street. This is the greatest unknown. They may not speak with one voice, but what they say will have a profound impact on the rest of the World. It's up to them, Africa is their problem.
Michael,
The West African community sits on a major fault line, between the Christian communities on the coast and the Muslim communities in the Sahel. There are bound to be conflicts here and conflicts require resolution.
Maduka: I actually agree with you. I was in a hurry and chose my words poorly.