Moneymakers Five questions with George Ayittey

from The Houston Chronicle

By PURVA PATEL

Africa's progress in the last century has been limited by war, disease and corruption, according to economist and activist George Ayittey from Ghana, who heads the Washington-based Free Africa Foundation.

But the solutions to Africa's problems lay in Africa, he said.

Instead of seeking foreign aid to solve its problems, Africa should crack down on corruption, Ayittey said. Corruption alone costs Africa $148 billion a year, he says, compared to the $25 billion in aid it receives each year.

"You can do the math," he said. "People have to speak up and tell the leaders they're looking in the wrong places for Africa's problems when the solutions are right there."

He spoke in Houston this week at an event sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Houston.

Ayittey spoke with reporter Purva Patel before his speech.

Q: What has worked in Africa?

A: The successful countries today would be Botswana, Mauritius, Ghana and Mali, and a few others. But they are all small countries.

The bigger picture is you have large countries not doing much, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is trying to recover from brutal civil war, Sudan, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, which is teetering on the brink of total collapse. These are large countries that are dragging the continent down.

The main reason why is because of poor governance, in the sense that the post-colonial leaders established defective political and economic systems, which were totally alien to Africa's own indigenous institutions.

Because these systems were alien to the African people, they rebelled against them. Africa needs to reform the political and economic systems. Right now out of 54 countries, only 16 are democratic. And economically, there were free markets and entrepreneurship in Africa. But after independence, because of hostile leadership, they adopted socialism. If they had built upon indigenous traditions, Africa would be different today.

Q: How do they reform?

A: Go back to their own indigenous systems and build upon them.

That's what the Japanese did. In the post-colonial system, the continent is just littered with the carcasses of foreign systems. The people didn't want them. The market was there before the colonialists came.

Go back and build upon it.

In the traditional African villages, decisions are made on consensus. They should go back and build upon it. Also, in the traditional system we had free trade and free enterprise.

Q: You focus on grass-roots work. Why?

A: That's where I want to redirect the energy of the African people, youngsters and students.

If you take any African economy, it can be divided into three: the modern sector, which is the abode of the elites and is the seat of government, the rural sector in the villages and the informal sector.

The vast majority of Africans can be found in the rural and informal sectors. Those were the sectors that African leaders neglected. They focused on the modern sector. I'm trying to reverse this and mobilize Africans to go into the sectors that have been neglected.

Q: How do you do that?

A: I raise money to build markets. That's No. 1. I'm also raising money to build bigger boats for the native fisherman.

Traditionally they go fishing by canoe, which limits the amount of fish they can catch. So if you provide them with bigger boats, they can carry more fish, make more money and lift themselves out of poverty.

The second thing I'm working on is peasant farmers.

I just returned from Africa, where I went to 20 villages and spoke with farmers and am organizing them into a cooperative so they can grow palm oil, which can be used as a biofuel. I've signed up 9,000 farmers. If they grow it, we have a buyer in Europe to pay the farmers. So the more money they make, the more they can use the money to take care of themselves.

This is what you call development at the grass-roots level. No government is involved. The traditional model by Jeffrey Sachs and Bono is just more money to corrupt African governments with money, which we know will never reach the African people.

Q: Are the younger folks more receptive to the new approach compared to the older generations?

A: Very, very receptive. I tell them that our generation has failed Africa. Africa's salvation rests on their backs, and they shouldn't repeat the stupid mistakes we made, by which I mean all of us.

Many of us elites went into government to seek wealth. The younger group should go to the private sector to seek their wealth there.

That's why I'm setting up a cooperative to sell palm oil. So if I make money, I have something to show for it. I don't have to steal the government's money.