I’m at the World Economic Forum for Africa. At least I think I am. Four of the five panelists at the opening press conference were most certainly not African, so perhaps I’ve been transported to some parallel, non-African dimension. But then, this is the WEF on Africa, not the WEF for Africa.
I was greeted by Lucy at media registration. Irish, I think.
Besuited WEF delegates at the Cape Town International Convention CentreShe told me that quite a few sessions are off-limits for the media. ‘Why, is that because the lizard people need a chance to breathe and scratch their scales?’ I ask. She was unfazed.
But back to that press conference, an insipid ritual designed only for casting some few shards of offhand wisdom to less-than-agog hacks.
Mrs Ogata, head of the Japanese Overseas Development Agency, and a previous head of the UNHCR, tells us that Japan’s overseas development priorities have now shifted: ‘Asia has moved up. Our main focus has shifted into Africa.’
Perhaps the Japanese are feeling left out of the sudden tumble to exploit Africa’s commodity markets. The Chinese have been tumbling in for the last couple of years, with partnerships, initiatives and the usual arsenal of ‘we take your stuff and give money to your elites’-type strategies. By some accounts, the Chinese were bankrolling Mugabe’s regime till recently.
The Japanese are burdened with having to be a little more respectable, so they’re taking the more conventional approach to veiling their predatory eyes.
Bizarrely, Ogata refers to ‘pockets of poverty’ in Africa, as if it does not remain the continent’s dominant economic texture. ‘Africa is in places growing at rates of 8-12%.’ But what about the rest?
Japan is keen to help with infrastructure, even though, she concedes, things like roads and water are usually best handled by the public sector. Of course, she assures us, the private sector contribution is important.
The head of Coca-Cola weighs in weightily for a while. He certainly has a formidable presence, fine-tuned by two decades of attendance at weighty events like the WEF. He makes frequent references to ‘they’, ‘them’, and ‘these people’, when discussing Africans, who, he assures us, do have innate entrepreneurial ability. The WEF is important he says, because of all the stuff they say to each other when the press is not in the room.
Then someone from a Kenyan paper pipes up with a question relating to education.
Loud sniggers erupt behind me. Two hardened hacks are mumbling to each other, ‘Ah, politicians just love that kind of question. They can go on about how, “Youth are the future,” and how, “We must treasure young people.”
’ Indeed, the words ‘youth’ and ‘future’ prove to be inseparable companions throughout the day.
Later I go to a gender press conference. Various WEF members are forming a committee which will be meeting regularly — once a year. They believe they can actually achieve something, though, and there is even mention of ‘deliverables’.
One of the notables is Jay Naidoo, now of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, once minister of telecommunications in the Mandela cabinet. I last heard him speak at a Nusas congress at Wits in 1988 (not that I was very heavily involved in Nusas). I ask about the gap between institutional gender change and real social change. The reply does not provide specifics.
Afterwards I ask him if he’d consider, say, hauling half the ANC’s NEC into a gender training workshop. He laughs heartily, in that hearty politician way: ‘That’s an excellent idea!’
There’s a climate change discussion in the afternoon. None of the participants know very much about climate change. I ask about the contradiction between ‘addressing climate change’ and ‘continued economic growth’ (as we know it), but it’s late in the session, and the answer from the head of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal is terse. ‘We need to learn from the mistakes of the developed world,’ he says. But since South African economic policy seems to be about repeating those mistakes, this is not especially reassuring.
So to the plenary. The hall is dark, depressing.
The key at plenaries is to position yourself for an emergency exit from the tedium, should the alternative of falling asleep be compromised by snoring.
Bizarrely, we’re piped in by rock: ‘The heat is on’, ‘Eye of the Tiger’ – where do these guys come from? Refugees from the 80s, the first ‘decade of greed’?
An army of suits, marching, eyes shut, to the drumbeat of undifferentiated Eco-Nomic Growth (this may be the most depressing picture on this whole blog)The hall is filled with men. Seriously, women are less than 10% of the delegates. It’s quite startling. ‘It’s always like that. Men are the enemy,’ says my Zimbabwean colleague Deborah.
Once again, it’s not an African chairing the plenary, but Klaus Schwab, founder and president of the WEF. He runs the whole thing, so I guess he’s got a right to look important for a while. He sits with arms stretched along the arms of his chair, like a convivial grandfather. He’s seen a ton of politicians come and go since 1972 — no doubt he’s no longer much impressed by them. And indeed, they sit around him like apprehensive schoolchildren.
The quotes that follow are (obviously) soundbites.
‘The WEF deeply believes in the long-term opportunities of Africa,’ says Schwab.
Thabo Mbeki is first to speak. He looks a little old, shrunken, uncertain when first we see him.
‘You have been the pioneer in creating a new brand for Africa,’ Schwab tells him. ‘What are your concerns at this point? What do you see as key problems at the moment for strong growth and political stability?’
Mbeki sounds more certain now. ‘Klaus, I think it’s the wrong question. Why don’t we start elsewhere? I think we need to start with the positives.’
The sycophants heave with laughter.
Then Mbeki talks about creating peace in Kenya and Burundi. Not a whisper about the refugee crisis in his own country. He talks about the continued trend of higher economic growth for the continent.
The Burundian president, Pierre Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader, take his turn. What must he have seen, what roads did he walk to come here, to gain power in so brutal a part of Africa, I wonder?
“You can have resources, but if you have no peace, there is no way to develop your country.”
‘We must have an educated people.’
Creating an educated people would be more substantial than turning Africa into a brand.
‘A man can have five wives. It’s a problem. [That raises laughs.] You can have ten children. It’s a problem. The number of people is higher than the facilities we have to help our people. It’s because of poverty.’
Kenya’s Odinga: ‘As you know, Kenyans have been through a very trying period.’
‘Over 1500 lost their lives. 350 000 people became internally displaced. For 40 years of independence, we lived the lie that we were a united country. But deep down there were tensions.’
‘What I’ve seen in Kenya is not unique to Kenya. It’s a continental problem. The richest continent in the world in resources is also the poorest.’
‘At independence, the income of Kenya was the same as south Korea. 40 years down the road, Korea’s economy is 40 times the size of Kenya. The mediocrity with which Africa has been ruled has been responsible for Africa’s under-development.’
Then he really says something, something his peers will not echo. Particularly Mbeki, of course.
“Still today a country can hold elections and after more than one month the results have not been announced. And African leaders are silent about it.’
Applause. There’s no close-up on Mbeki on the big monitors, but there should be.
(That’s the news point in all this, by the way: “Odingwe slams peers’ silence on Zim”. But nary a mention in the subsequent WEF press release; let us not highlight dissent amidst the confraternity.)
Malawi’s Mutharika has impressive gravitas, and tells an interesting tale: ‘I will even dare say that the world food shortage will be solved here in Africa.’
‘Malawi, the last 25 years, had an annual ritual, the president going down on his knees, begging [the world] for food. Till at last in 2004 I said, enough is enough. Let’s grow our own food. And indeed, we have achieved national food security.’
As so often, I have a sense of living in one of Africa’s least exciting countries. Cloning a western consumer society onto the southern tip is not development. Here’s some more about agricultural policy in Malawi over the last few years. Essentially, they’ve subsidised fertiliser for farmers, apparently with stunning success.
Mutharika continues, ‘I think some here have got to learn to share power.’
‘The security council, etc, we are still not part of that game… Where is Africa in the global village?’
Schwab asks Mbeki again about the problems for African development.
Mbeki frames his answer with caveats, casting nuance to the barbarians. ‘It is difficult to discuss this one big elephant called Africa.’
Hurtling over most of sub-Saharan Africa, he starts talking about the Sahel, ‘a belt of instability’. Then he talks about Sudan. Then he talks about Somalia. ‘It’s an important problem which needs to be solved.’ Then he talks about Uganda. ‘We’re hopeful that an agreement with the LRA will be signed soon.’ Now we’re onto the DRC. More hope there. Then Chad and Sudan. ‘I’m talking about situations of violent conflict.’ More matters of concern.
‘Then there these internal challenges with regards to democratic processes.” And finally, he mentions Zimbabwe. Once. In a phrase alongside Kenya. Then skids back up to Nigeria, and its electoral crisis last year.
‘I’m trying to disaggregate this elephant called Africa.’ He has a point. But surely there comes a time when one must beware not seeing the elephant for the meat, tusks and ears? (cf. the wood and the trees).
Kufuor of Ghana is speaking. And speaking. And speaking. For close on 15 minutes, quite a time in a panel discussion. There are a few worthy points in there , I think. Again and again, we think he is about to stop, as his voice descends. Then again and again, one of what seemed to be closing thoughts erupts into fresh monologue.
Mutharika again: ‘Poor women cannot survive about subsidies. We have to think differently about subsidies to make sure there is food security, both at a subsistence and commercial level.’ I think he may be referring to Malawi’s fertiliser subsidies.
How do these African leaders compare? Mbeki is all about continental vision. Bu the others, mercifully, seem to be far more focused on the real and immediate problems of their country.
Odingwe: ‘Members of the G8 continue to exclude Africans from getting full access to their markets.’
He cite the dream of Cecil Rhodes (who he calls a ‘kaburu’; what is a ‘kaburu’?), the dream of a railway line from Cape Town to Cairo, which has still not been realised. He points out that commodity shortages are driven by China’s huge consumption of steel, cement, fertiliser. More of these African commodities should stay in Africa, he says.
And there are other frustrations: ‘Why can a South African not travel from here to Kenya on an ID card [and not a passport]?’
‘Why can we not see the necessity to open up our borders? Why do we continue to blame our colonial past?’
Now Mbeki’s asked to talk about the G8 and the Doha round. A question Schwab knows is right up his street.
He makes an aside on the Common African Agricultural Development Policy — ‘it exists, it demands resources.’ Then he steps to Doha.
‘ “Conclusion of these matters is around the corner. There’s now tiny gap between the partners.” They [the WTO’s Pascal Lamy and others] tell me that every six months [laughter]… the corner seems to be a bit far, but it’s still there.’
Pre-empting leave to break ranks, I depart.
If these guys actually were lizards, they wouldn’t be any more scary.
