Comin' Straight Outta Africa

Some time ago, I was blabbing on about a Jason Shim-inspired opportunity to do some blogging with CIGI, the Waterloo-based governance think-tank. Two months on, I finally convinced them to let me "comment on relevant public policy and current affairs topics and issues based on personal experience and expertise." My contract, basically three posts a week for a monthly pittance, starts today.

Since part of the deal is 'peer engagement', consider yourselves cordially invited to help me get Out of Africa. My first post explains what you need to know. I'll throw a permanent link on here somewhere in the off chance you want to visit more than once.

Comments make me look busy and important. Leave them.

This Week in Africa: Troubled Countries Edition

The week started on a depressing note as Darfur peace talks in Libya broke down over boycotts from key rebel factions. Unlike the seemingly successful (though now in tatters) deal brokered between Khartoum and John Garang's rebel forces in South Sudan in 2005, there's no central command to even begin to treat with.

In an unholy mess reminiscent of DR Congo's wars from 1998-2003, rebels are turning on each other, an ineffectual international force is seen as a puppet of the central government and the ruling regime is using all the confusion to carry on its treachery. Let's hope that it doesn't take 4 million dead to bring everyone to the table.

Speaking of Africa's other troubled megalith, Big (since it really isn't all that democratic) Congo is still trying to sort out Hutu-Tutsi friction caused by the fallout of the Rwandan Genocide, some 13 years on. Renegade general Laurent Nkunda claims he's protecting the Congolese Tutsi minority in North Kivu from Hutu extremists, some of which are Interahamwe still kicking around since their 1994 exile from neighbouring Rwanda.

Joseph Kabila's government, a world away in Kinshasa, accuses Nkunda's men of war crimes and has sent in a force to disarm him after he defected from Congo's national army. With general's positions currently being pounded with artillery, 350,000 have fled the area as the Great Lakes region faces yet another humanitarian crisis.

Am I the only one wondering how over-sized polities like DR Congo and Sudan are going to manage not to split up in the longer-term?

Meanwhile, across Stanley Pool in Smaller Congo (Brazzaville), authorities have reacted to the other big story from Africa this week - the row over Zoe's Ark and the 100 or so Chadian children they dubiously planned to export to Europe as as 'orphans.' The Congolese have suspended all international adoptions in the wake of the emerging scandal.

While the facts emerge, hopefully the incident acts as a touchstone for a wider debate on adoption processes and human trafficking, and not just knee-jerk reactions to accusations of brazen kidnapping. The nature of human trafficking in Africa - where children or siblings are often quite willingly sent abroad into indentured situations with the hope of remittances and a better life - is as fascinating as it is disturbing. Adoption procedures, mired in the hopeless bureaucracy of African governments, are understandably short-cut in the name of efficiency.

It will be interesting to see how much the children's 'parents' knew about the removal of the children and what Zoe's Ark (an unfortunate name: two children of every kind?) planned to do with the them once in Europe. The might not have been orphaned per se, but they also might not have been taken against their (parents') will. We'll see.

How to Win the World Cup

The question of how to win the FIFA World Cup has plagued coaches, players, pundits and billions of football fans around the world for decades. How to win the right to host the tournament, on the other hand, has become decidedly more straight-forward.

After its controversial decision to bring the Cup to South Africa in 2010, football’s world governing body announced on Tuesday that the biggest sporting event on the planet was going somewhere more familiar in 2014 – Brazil. As five-time winners, the home of the ‘beautiful game’ was a natural choice to host the quadrennial tournament. As The Economist was quick to point out, the decision puts Brazil on par with the other rapidly-developing ‘BRIC’ nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in welcoming a major sporting event in the next little while.

Like South Africa – another big, democratic, developing world host – Brazil’s corruption, transport infrastructure and security situation are being touted as the nation’s biggest challenges ahead of the competition. 19 cities, all looking for a share of the Cup’s considerable spoils, have applied for just 10 host city locations. The fifth-largest country in the world, the country is bound to have problems moving hundreds of thousands of fans into the interior if places like Rio Branco or Manaus are awarded any games.

But according to FIFA, the biggest problem with choosing Brazil was that it was the only choice.

Under the association’s ‘rotation policy’, each soccer federation – the groupings of nations within FIFA broken up roughly by continent – was to receive the rights to host the tournament in order, starting with Asia (South Korea and Japan) in 2002. After proceeding to Europe (Germany) last year and on to Africa in 2010, South America was up for 2014. The only problem was that Brazil won by default because they were the only country that put forth a full bid. For the supposed greatest sporting spectacle on earth, this was somewhat of an embarrassment.

So Sepp Blatter, the Swiss president of FIFA, has decided to put the tournament back on the open market. Even though it’s an absurd 11 years away, the 2018 World Cup has already received formal interest from 10 different countries. The USA and Mexico are talking about co-hosting, as are the Benelux nations. China – who conspiracy theorists believe the rotation was broken to accommodate – have expressed interest along with potential debutants Russia and Australia.

Frontrunners England, keen to rekindle the glory of 1966 when it hosted and won the competition, have dreamed up the “best British sporting decade in history” as the UK is slated to host the Olympics in 2012, the Commonwealth Games in 2014, and possibly the Rugby and Soccer World Cups in 2015 and 2018, respectively.

Mo's money, less problems?

For most Africans, Mo Ibrahim is probably better known for founding Celtel - the telecommunications empire that helped make Africa the first continent where cell phones outnumber landlines - than his efforts to promote good governance across the continent.

In Zambia, the company's trademark red and yellow livery is plastered on newspapers, storefronts and even public schools under the ever-present slogan of 'Making Life Better'. It's certainly more visible than any signs of accountable leadership, but the Sudanese-born Mr. Ibrahim is trying to change all that.

Having already made life better for Celtel’s 20 million subscribers in Africa - where the company has pioneered networks in rural areas and operates in war-scarred countries like DR Congo and Chad - he sold his empire for a small fortune in 2005 and 'retired' to start a personal investment fund in a rather volatile commodity: African governance.

As the Water Cooler reported, the newly-minted Ibrahim Index of African Governance uses five different "quantifiable and objective" criteria to judge how effectively a given country is governed. As expected, the obscure but apparently well-governed island nations of Mauritius and Seychelles topped the list while ungovernable Somalia finished an ignoble last.

Last week, Mr. Ibrahim's foundation finally unveiled its much-hyped Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, a $5 million prize awarded to a former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano. The field was limited to heads of state who have left office in the past three years, not exactly a large group in a continent where leaders cling to power past constitutional and rational limitations. Organizers have already admitted it is unlikely the prize will be awarded annually for wont of suitable candidates.

So what long-term effects (if any) will the existence of such a prize have on African governance? Mr. Chissano won for negotiating an end to his country’s 16-year civil war, initiating multi-party elections and stepping down on time. Will the prospect of a large retirement nest egg encourage similar magnanimity amongst his contemporaries? Sadly, I doubt it.

The index is surely a useful tool for policy-makers and the award does shine sorely needed light on continental governance, but for deeply entrenched and enriched African leaders, the prospect of maybe winning some retirement money is unlikely to motivate a paradigm-shift of governance. The phalanx of patronage that surrounds the Mugabes, al-Bashirs and Musevenis of Africa means that leaving office is about more than losing power. It’s a lifestyle change that affects your inner circle of friends, family and political supporters, and is unlikely to be peacefully influenced by outsiders.

Encouraging good governance – so that African leaders preside over peaceful democracies where decisions that are made for the benefit of more than a privileged few – was probably better fostered by Celtel than Mr. Ibrahim’s current venture. Bringing connectivity to the rural areas of some of the continent’s worst-governed countries has allowed the disenfranchised to access and share political information like never before. It has brought the Internet to affordable handsets that are, increasingly, the African gateway to the web.

Mr. Ibrahim has often said in interviews that homegrown success in the private sector is the key to his continent’s salvation; that, like him, enterprising Africans need the economic tools to succeed no matter the government of the day. Perhaps an investment award for Africa's most innovative business idea or a loans programs for small business would see Mr. Ibrahim directly making life better in Africa once again.