Mthobeli Jiwulane

Africa’s dependence on the West for aid and other forms of support is far from over because, while many African countries continue to bite the Western hand that feeds them, they still have to go back there for help.

That may be the reason that some African leaders such as Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo have begun to speak with forked tongues towards the West to even directly ask France for help to deal with the increasing number of military coups in the region and to end the Russian-linked Wagner group’s influence in the region.

Akufo-Addo’s U-turn and hypocrisy shocked many because not so long ago he was among several African leaders that publicly condemned the West’s influence on the continent.

Similarly, South Africa insisted on its non-aligned stance towards the large powers ostensibly to be able to be welcomed by either side in times of trouble.

President Cyril Ramaphosa rhetoric of anti-western neo-colonialism and projection of Africa as being “not a burger” of the West may have come too early for Africa is not out of the woods yet.

Inequality and poverty are twins and one stems from the other.

South Africa, while seen as among the richer nations in Africa, it was declared as the most unequal society in the world in a World Bank report early this year.

The country, which is endowed with an abundance of mineral resources that are fast depleting, including being the world number one producer of platinum, has among the lowest economic growth rates on the continent.

South Africa is the lowest performer economically among all the BRICS member countries.

However, there are clear signs that a fully and efficiently functioning BRICS Plus (including the six new member state accepted into the economic alliance in August) would boost Africa’s economic standing and help to sway it away from too much dependence on the West.

South Africa will also benefit from this alliance, without doubt.

In the recent past, many countries of Africa had been criticising the West for its continued neo-colonialism especially France and the US that still had physical presence in Africa.

A number of African leaders including military juntas that grabbed state power in a number of West African countries had voiced their public objections to Europe’s and the US presence in Africa.

They accused the West of continuing to plunder and pillage Africa’s natural resources such as minerals to develop themselves and build advance weapons for their defences at the continent’s expense.

France left Niger only this week following pressure from that country’s new ruling military junta and the Nigerien people who protested against the French presence in their country.

As proven by its good attendance at the 26th St Petersburg International Economic Conference in June, the Russia-Africa Summit in July and Africa’s enthusiasm to join BRICS, most of Africa wants Russia and China and both are responding well to their calls for help.

Besides, all the new military juntas in Africa are pro-Russian and some like Mali and Burkina Faso, have drawn in Wagner onto their territories to lend support in case of an invasion by any belligerent force.

In Africa, development aid from China, which runs into trillions of dollars, is not seen as neo-colonialism or new form of colonialism as the West make them believe, but an attempt to empower African nations to develop their economies.

The mantra in Africa is that neither China nor Russia colonised Africa nor did they ever pursue imperialism on the continent, unlike the West that not only colonised but enslaved Africans and not only invaded and grabbed their land through the barrel of a gun, but also looted their mineral resources from under their soil.

Instead both Russia and China were seen as saviours of Africa for their roles in support of the anti-colonialism and their backing of liberation wars on the continent and through current economic interactions with Africa such as BRICS Plus and other country specific economic forums.

It’s an unescapable reality that China is gaining momentum in Africa both as a trading partner and as a development aid source.

Even Washington recently admitted that they would not be able to match Beijing’s progress on this one.

China has over the years overtaken the West to become South Africa’s largest trading partner over the European Union in its entirety and the US, the second and third trading partners respectively.

A report released this week by South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor gave no hope in the immediate to medium terms for Africa to attain the objectives of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

She reported that many African countries had failed to make any move towards implementing the Agenda 2063 goals, something that has thrown the cat among the pigeons particularly in the programme’s quest to realise the “Africa we want” vision.

The failure to implement the plan is not what the AU would have like to see happening for the regional organisation advocates for Africa to find African solutions to its problems.

During its retreat this week at Kigali, Rwanda, the AU executive council looked at progress on the implementation of Agenda 2063.

But it was disappointed to find that many countries had not started at all blaming, among several causes, the lack of institutional capacity.

Agenda 2063 is Africa’s blueprint that contained a master plan to transform the continent to become the global powerhouse of the future.

As a framework it is aimed to deliver on the continent’s main goal for inclusive and sustainable development.

Pandor says since 2013, the countries had failed to fully build the institutional capacity and implement development programmes aimed to realise the Agenda 2063 goals.

“So a number were lagging behind even to the degree that they had not been able to provide reports on how they had implemented various aspects of the programme,” Pandor said.

But the continent had not given up as it resolved to with its objectives such as addressing food security through agriculture utilising its abundant arable land and water in some cases.

Of grave concern was the fact that this outcome left Africa still at the mercy of foreign help, whether that is from the west or east.

This contradicts its aim to attain self-sufficiency through economic growth, food security and unity of the continent.

In a report published in September 2022 authored by Habtamu Fuje and Jiaxiong Yao on the IMF Blog it was found that even in countries that experienced decades of growth, progress stalled after 2010, with regional inequalities having likely widened post-pandemic.

While they noted Rwandan and Ethiopian pre-2010 rapid growth at average 7.5%, the writers, however, realised that not all lagging regions realised improvement.

Fragile and conflict-affected states made little-to-no progress in reducing regional inequality.

The report found that access to clean water, electricity, and cellphone services, for example, was two to four times lower in lagging regions compared to leading ones, in part because public expenditure per capita is so much lower.

According to the data they produced, at least until 2010, African countries made tremendous progress in reducing regional income inequality (differences in output per capita across regions of a country).

In their observation, the authors said this is in marked contrast with other parts of the world, where inequality either increased or convergence was slower.

In April this year the Institute for Security Studies reported and painted a bleaker picture of the African growth highlighting that the set growth figure for 2063 would not be achieved while attempts at reducing poverty were moving at snail’s pace.

“Poor progress can be attributed first to the lack of political will and poor governance on the continent. The ineffectiveness of governments to drive their development agendas continues to hamper the attainment of Agenda 2063.”

Further, the institute says the COVID-19 pandemic and worsening climate woes have also negatively affected economies.

In 2020 alone, African GDP shrunk by 2.1%, with about US$101 billion lost in export revenue from fuel alone.

ISS says at the current growth trajectory, Africa would miss the Agenda 2063 target of 23% in 2023 by 14 years with 31 countries falling short.

The citizens of 11 countries will be below the poverty line. However countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritius, Morocco, Seychelles and Egypt have already eliminated extreme poverty.

Deducing from this report, the fact that many African countries had failed even to start acting in the first ten years since the Agenda 2063 launch in 2013, should be a source of worry for the AU.

While in terms of the programme Africa’s Gini coefficient, which is the standard measure of inequality, was projected to reduce inequality from 0.4 at the launch to 0.34 by 2021 and 0.32 by 2023, ISS highlighted the shortfall adding that instead of realising the projection, in 2021 Africa’s Gini coefficient was 19% lower than the expected target of 0.34 which was forecast to reach 0.38 in 2023. “This slow rate of inequality reduction will prevent Africa from reaching 0.32 – even by 2063,” the ISS says.