Uncommon Thinking: New Insights for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

By Babashola Chinsman

When independence arrived in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1960s, everyone was optimistic higher living standards would quickly follow. But after almost half-a-century of intensive policy and institutional reforms, and massive foreign grants and loans, the condition of the majority has hardly improved.

Bad governance has been a key factor, and must be rectified before the region can attain its aspirations. But the need for reforms extends beyond African governments alone. Some of the prescriptions donors enthusiastically promoted were flawed. Others acted as disincentives to development. Market principles, backed with external aid mostly targeting humanitarian relief, did not lay a solid foundation for growth. The problem though is not with the basic principles, but with the failure to apply them contextually.

The response to poverty - the major challenge in the region - is a typical case in point. Conventional programmes try to mitigate the suffering of the poor, only to keep them hovering at the edge of hardship. A pragmatic response would recognize that poverty prevents an economy from operating at its full potential, and would elicit action to bring the poor into mainstream economic activity. Reducing poverty is no longer a magnanimous gesture, because it makes good economic and business sense.

This uncommon perspective, taking social realities in the region into account, is the basis of the new strategies for policy and institutional reforms, aid management and governance, that are advanced.

It is not policies and strategies alone that need to be fixed. Complex delivery processes need to be simplified. Progress would not require a revolution, but a gradual accumulation of small results, interacting to produce big impact. Most importantly, development should be promoted as an activity people do for themselves. With the right incentives, people can organize themselves to beat the adversity of poverty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 8, 2007
• ISBN: 9781412204040

Babashola Chinsman

The author, Dr. Babashola Chinsman, is a seasoned specialist, with over 25 years of experience in assisting clients in the public and private sectors, in project design and management and in translating development and business ideas into reality. His qualifications combine a rare mix of high level managerial experience in academia, government, the private sector and international agencies of the United Nations, with a professional background in technology, and in-depth knowledge of business development. His experience covers development planning, management and project advisory services in over 40 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. As a university teacher and researcher in his native Sierra Leone, and subsequently as Director of Technological Consulting and Advisory Services in the Regional Centre for Technology, he was engaged in pioneering activities to translate science and technology policy into practical development activities in the region. His assignments in international development management have ranged from serving as Principal Adviser to Resident Coordinator in the United Nations System. He is currently Principal Partner in Manzel Prospero Consulting Ltd, a development and business consulting firm. His major responsibility in the firm is to manage the collective capacity of the in-house multi-disciplinary team, and the firm's global network of professionals, to bring fresh perspectives and solutions in helping clients to satisfy their most pressing development and business challenges.

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© Copyright 2006 Babashola Chinsman.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 The Unfinished Journey

Chapter 2 Underrated Potential

Chapter 3 Lingering Endurance

Chapter 4 Unknown Quantity

Chapter 5 The Promise Deferred

Chapter 6 The Quest For Growth

Chapter 7 A New Deity Emerges

Chapter 8 Giving Reform An Internal Locus

Chapter 9 No Room For Diversity

Chapter 10 Invisible Assets

Chapter 11 Killing The Golden Goose

Chapter 12 Unleashing The Human Enterprise

Chapter 13 Prosperity Begins At Home

Chapter 14 Bringing It All Together

Chapter References

UNCOMMON

THINKING

New Insights for Developmentin Sub-Saharan Africa

PREFACE

The basic tenet of this book is that development is more than just a matter of taking people to a threshold of subsistence, at which they escape the worst forms of poverty. None of the laudable goals of the region, set in conjunction with its external partners, can be achieved without a systematic process of creating prosperity that spreads across all segments of the society. In the context of sub-Saharan Africa, this progression requires interventions to rebuild economies, decimated by years of misrule and policy misadventures. But far from requiring complex measures, most of what needs to be done to start the process, is relatively simple and quite straightforward. The focus of attention in development should not be on formulating grand and complex programmes, but on the small measures that can produce the incremental change that transforms the region from poverty to prosperity.

The new approach to development that is proposed is based on practical experiences gained in over 25 years of professional service, operating at the interface between government and international development agencies in many countries. The span of this experience covers management responsibilities at national, regional and international levels, and in some of the largest countries in the sub-Saharan Africa region. What the book shares is knowledge, acquired from the privilege of participating in the planning, implementation and monitoring of development activities in diverse fields of endeavour, in no less than 40 countries in the region.

In the course of this varied engagement, I have been witness to a wide range of useful experiences, as well as to heartwrenching disappointments. Some of the activities that I considered my best efforts, and others I equally admired, became resounding failures. My expectations were dashed repeatedly, as my prejudices and preconceived ideas turned out to be woefully out of step with reality. Development programmes and projects misrepresented the poor as helpless victims in need of compassion and charity, instead of as potential consumers and producers of goods and services. A reversal of the region’s underdevelopment will arise, not from charitable invocations about reducing poverty, but by bringing the large numbers of people, marginalised by their poverty, into mainstream economic activity.

The decision to write this book is therefore not devoid of some enlightened self-interest. I needed to make some sense of my disillusionment and discontentment. This feeling was by no means unique. Other colleagues, with whom I interacted, felt a similar frustration, that what was being paraded as development in sub-Saharan Africa was often more verbiage than substance. The development industry, long on well-meaning proclamations, has been very short on self-fulfillment. In the development dialogue, rhetoric is cheap and committed action rarer still.

My enchantment with the compassion of people dedicated to making the world a better place for all humanity had prompted my joining their cause. I eagerly accepted the challenge of giving up a profession in which my work ended up in something concrete—a road, bridge, canal or a simple house, for another in which outcomes were far less tangible. A good deal of the investment in development ends up in neatly bound reports, adorning bookshelves in offices, which few people bother to read, let alone implement. My early disillusionment was with hindsight inevitable, as I constantly searched for, and expected more substantial outcomes, than the system was primed to deliver.

My experience with an expert, three months into one of my country assignments, typified this frustration. The expert had spent several months in the country, studying and drawing up plans for a national airport system. He stopped by my office to brief me on the outcome, and to deposit his end of mission report, which was in three large volumes. But after the briefing, he was totally unprepared for my spontaneous reaction and palpable disappointment. With over one million dollars spent on the study, how were the recommendations going to be translated into reality? I asked impatiently. In the unique world of development, experts’ reports, more often than not, are seen as outcomes, rather than as the beginnings of the real exercise of problem solving. Indeed, rarely does the challenge in development reside in identifying new solutions. Quite often, it is in the implementation of already known solutions.

My insistence that the process should not end with the report elicited some visible frustration and discomfort. The expert, a former officer in the engineers’ regiment of his country’s army, looked flustered. Brushing his moustache repeatedly, he left my office briskly. But for some reason, he returned soon after in more quiet composure. He fully understood my concern, but confessed he had never been so challenged in several years of working as a consultant.

My frantic pleas to delay the departure of the expert, so that he could prepare a plan for implementing his recommendations, were met with rebuff about the difficulties of extending the project at a moment’s notice. I was operating in an environment with little tolerance for divergence from the institutional regimen. Age-worn practices are adhered to purely out of habit, even though they may defy logic, or the rationale that inspired their adoption in the first instance may have long ceased to be relevant. The law of averages operate to rigidly subdue any delusions that individuals can deviate from the mean to champion change. Such action is reproached for the sheer arrogance of the thought. The modus operandi sustains a subtle culture of compliance in which careers are advanced by not rocking the boat.

The fact that the amount required, to move the process to the next critical phase of implementation, was only a minuscule percentage of what had been spent in producing a voluminous report seemed of little importance. Logic does not always provide the best ammunition in this culture. But after much pleading and grovelling, the departure of the consultant was delayed. Over the weeks of hard work that followed, a detailed plan was prepared and a part of the capital investment was secured to start the process of implementing recommendations that in all probability would have remained ensconced in the report.

The reaction to an internal memorandum from the head of one of the organisations in which I served further crystallises this concern. The memorandum had requested all country representatives to substantiate, in no more than two pages, what their most notable contributions had been in the poor countries in which they had served over the years. The response to this simple request was a near mass revolt.

Some long careers had been spent managing humanitarian and relief assistance in difficult crisis situations, putting their lives at risk to save others. Others had invested quality time preparing grand programmes, too complex to implement in the imperfect environment of the region, and which invited much disappointment and disillusionment when the goals were missed. Many careers had been spent preparing plans focussing on nebulous goals which depended on many actors and factors, far beyond the control of a single agency. Others were spent overseeing the immutable supplies of consultants of every hue and description, paid over-zealous attention to procurement of imported equipment, or superintended many workshops, training courses and fellowships or in simply lecturing timid officials in government on development. Many good intentions had been defeated by the sheer burden of an institutional bureaucracy that was simply not geared towards producing tangible results. But though much effort and resources had been expended with incomparable dedication to service, alas, the primary objective of improving the living standards of the poor was seldom achieved.

The gap that exists between investments in development and actual achievements is not for lack of trying. In co-operation with donors and aid organisations, governments experimented with an assortment of strategies, policies and programmes, to promote growth and reduce poverty in the region. The prevailing view was that with a focus on the fundamentals of economic growth—macroeco-nomic stability, human resources, and with aid and foreign investment supplementing domestic savings, an accelerated pace of development would be achieved. The notion was that building social assets would make the countries attractive for foreign investments which in turn would create growth and prosperity that would ultimately trickle down to the masses at the bottom of the social ladder.

Years of applying this strategy, neither resulted in the expected growth rates, nor did the failure instigate a change of tact. Even where some modest growth was achieved, it was not accompanied by longer, healthier and more comfortable lives for the poor. Instead of coming to terms with this reality, the region became the object of repeated diagnosis of unrivalled intensity and extensiveness, based on the presumption that the policies and strategies that were being promoted were flawless.

In the process, no other region in the world has been so overstudied and overd-issected and in the end, disoriented and diverted from its rightful destiny. Most of these studies have been sponsored, or conducted by the very authors of the strategies and policies that have failed to achieve any significant impact on growth in the region. But even if only a few of these studies have been self-serving, and some have even been extreme in their criticisms, the development story in the region so far, has been narrated mainly through a Western lens.

There have been far too few cases of Africa’s development story being recounted from an African perspective. This has meant that diverse understandings of the same problems have led to much controversy over their resolution. Glaring value gaps often exist, between experts in the region and those in the rich countries, on perceptions of the problems to be solved and their solution. This gap contributes to making standard prescriptions hard to apply in the region. It also makes a new and unconventional approach to solving basic problems in the region obligatory.

Uncommon Thinking is the outcome of this endeavour. It will hopefully contribute to redressing the imbalance that exists in the literature on development in sub-Saharan Africa. By telling the story from the perspective of the recipients, the intention is not just to question widely held views, opinions or prejudices. It is to expose views that are widely held by the recipients of aid, but which are seldom expressed to donors, for the fear that doing so can only prejudice timely response to their request for aid.

The new perspective also shifts the emphasis from the persistent analysis of the problems, to a search for tangible solutions. It moves the development process from its preoccupation with grandiose plans with tenuous objectives, to a search for pragmatic solutions that are invariably simple, for most of the problems that beset the poor. It also underscores the need to tackle problems in a comprehensive manner, rather than in the compartments into which they are slotted by aid organisations, to suit their mandates and interests.

This change of emphasis has a profound effect on the way the basic issues in development are understood. The poverty approach has become a part of the problem. Apart from the image that it connotes, the near obsession with poverty consumes most of the energy that should be invested in the solution. The emphasis on the problems wears out the most ardent supporters of the region’s development. The fatigue of dealing repeatedly with the same issues has left many with the impression that the region’s prospects for growth and development are hopeless and helpless. But if only a small part of the time and energy that is devoted to discussing and reanalysing poverty, was spent on actually creating a viable path to prosperity, a far more significant impact would be achieved in reducing the scourge.

Taking this optimistic approach is not to deny that many problems exist. Some of the fundamental problems are quite well known and their solutions are universal and independent of perceptions that are culture-based. It is a good thing also for nationals from the region to repeat these solutions, to block accusations of neo-colonialism that can so easily be levelled against foreign experts advocating their adoption. This pragmatic approach also avoids the easy temptation of ascribing the region’s woes to conspiracy theories that are supposedly designed to keep Africans in perpetual servitude. Such an approach not only shifts the blame for the lack of progress to outsiders, it also contradicts one of the cardinal principles advanced in the book, that development is primarily a national responsibility.

Governments have not been able to take on this responsibility because development strategies have been dismissive of the potential of the region. A pervasive image of a region where impropriety prevails, continues to influence much of the international response. The lack of trust in international cooperation, and the loyalty of foreign experts to strategies that have consistently failed to stimulate growth, has meant that more time is spent analysing and explaining why the strategies fail, than in searching for viable solutions to problems in the region. Even if a large part of the failure arises from bad leadership, dwelling repeatedly on the negative may confirm age-old prejudices, but hardly provides information for going forward.

There is little merit therefore in another treatise following well-worn paths that repeatedly analyse and explain why development has failed in the region. What the region needs is solutions to its basic problems. But the search for solutions is held back by a mind-set that the salvation of the region can only come from outside its shores. The dependence on external assistance has not cultivated holistic country-driven solutions to national problems. Besides, aid, which is often the justification for the external domination of development, is of little value when it is provided with strings attached.

Unless development is rediscovered as something people must do for themselves, the countries will not be able to pursue their own truly homegrown development agenda. Without a retreat from the inordinate dependence on external assistance, key ideas, knowledge, and values, that should moderate policies and strategies in the region will continue to be overlooked. And no matter how well-meaning external assistance may be, the reality cannot be escaped that in the final analysis, only Africans can develop Africa.

The book however, is not a critique of international development co-operation in sub-Saharan Africa. It is about rediscovering development as a national responsibility. It is about empowerment, to make people responsible, individually and collectively, for their own advancement. With all the best intentions in the world, societies cannot modernise and develop through benevolence and philanthropy alone. With the right support, the poor can be the champions of the processes that are designed to extricate them from poverty. Throughout history, societies have only advanced through their own sweat and toil, investing their energy and resources towards the achievement of goals they set themselves. Not only is it true that only Africans can develop Africa, but it is also equally accurate to state that only the people can develop themselves.

It would be erroneous to claim that the ideas expressed in the book are mine alone. It is a consummate effort based on what many people have said to me, after being seized by my ideas and approach to development. It is a recollection of the comments of the many knowledgeable persons, some at the highest levels of government and others in lowly positions in poor communities in Africa, who opened up and spoke frankly to me, after I had gained their unreserved confidence and trust. It is about the responses I have been privileged to hear each time I have had cause to speak about development in small groups, or in public meetings. It is about a burden, which must be revealed and shared, to finally defeat its consequences.

If anyone feels betrayed by my divulgence of facts and ideas obtained in privileged circumstances, I humbly apologise for this betrayal of their trust. I do sincerely hope that they would appreciate the unselfish motive of sharing their ideas to promote the wider interest and public good in their beloved Africa. This remains my unstinting objective and which I hope every discerning reader would appreciate.

If there is any selfish desire in this venture, it is to see this book as a source of ideas in discussions about Africa’s future. Political leaders, as well as students in institutions of higher education, should find its contents useful. The wider community of academics, development researchers and experts in development assistance institutions may find the new insights stimulating and relevant in their work, but the presentation and style are decidedly geared for easy comprehension by the widest possible readership.

Any sense of triumph and optimism detectable is not because the Holy Grail has been discovered. All new ideas go though a cyclic process of elation and defeat before they are finally accepted. But remaining optimistic is essential in Africa’s case to escape the stigma of a hopeless basket case. Optimism is essential as a source of energy to persevere against seemingly overwhelming odds. It is also a necessary ingredient for change. What is important is that the bouts of elation should not be allowed to cloud the vision of what is real. The consequences of too little triumphalism however, is too much defeatism.

The book itself is the outcome of an opportunity that gave me the time to rediscover myself and my genuine interests, and to think-something I had not done for years. I was too absorbed, rushing around playing the game, and responding to one contrived crisis after another. To those who contributed to this self-discovery, I have found cause to be grateful. A common African saying is that it is futile to try to keep smoke sealed in a bottle. Like an idea, whose time has come, its escape can only be delayed, but it cannot be prevented. Happy reading and enjoy!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There have been several versions of this book, written over the past four years as a result of the comments from kind friends and colleagues too many to mention individually. I have run my ideas through so many people to test out their reaction. Reading through this book, some would finally come to realise why they were forced into an unwilling argument and debate. Among my many reviewers, knowing or otherwise, I would particularly like to thank Alwyn Taylor. Accurate Editing of Victoria, Canada also deserves my thanks for their extensive editing of the text. As always, Eugenia read several of the manuscripts and moderated my excesses. Triple N Inc. made valuable comments and produced all the diagrams and illustrations in the text.

My primary research assistants have been my children; Folashade for part of the time a student of sociology in Manchester Metropolitan University, and my son Babajide, formerly a sixth form student at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, preparing for his A levels in History, Psychology and Economics and now studying Business and Management at Nottingham University. Their far superior dexterity with computers was of extreme help, when they were not reluctant to assist, in getting information and references from the Internet, far more quickly than I could ever have hoped to, working most of the time from home.

It is my sincere hope, having dedicated so much of the very best I can offer to them, that they would be able to return to an Africa different from today, finally on her feet, in control of her destiny, and commanding respect in her rightful place among the community of nations.

CHAPTER 1

THE UNFINISHED JOURNEY

Challenges of Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

INTRODUCTION

Providing people with the basic necessities of life has been the foremost priority in sub-Saharan Africa, in the almost half a century that has elapsed since its independence from colonial rule. With an activist fervour, governments embarked on programmes to expand basic services and infrastructure, with the expectation that they would create a favourable environment for attracting foreign investments to support development in the region. Appeals to the former colonial powers for help were received with accommodation and understanding. However, the logic and morality of the cause of the region was not enough to sway the rich countries into granting substantial concessions or to forego advantages they enjoyed in global trade.

In spite of these drawbacks, the prognosis of international experts was that prospects for rapid progress in sub-Saharan Africa were more favourable than in the other regions that were also gaining their independence at about the same time.¹’²’³’⁴ Most of the external development agencies in the region however recognised that though sub-Saharan Africa was endowed with many valuable natural resources, the capacity for managing development was generally weak. The core of their assistance was therefore designed to bolster national capacity.

Appropriate though this response was in theory, in practice it mainly financed a limited scope of the needs. Most of the funds supported foreign technical expert costs, the procurement of equipment for selected national institutions, and bursaries for the training of nationals. The assistance was too narrow to support capacity needs which were much more profound. A particular limitation was that direct support to productive activities that create wealth was minimal. Without this vital linkage, between technical assistance and wealth creation, development became a fragmented process that endowed social and physical infrastructure, without the opportunity to use them for economic gains.

Three presumptions in development policy also turned out to be wrong. First, the expectation that foreign investors would flock to the region, once basic infrastructure improved, did not materialise. Second, the model of development that was promoted in the region was based on seriously flawed assumptions. And, third, it was incorrect to presume that conditions in the region were sufficiently uniform to justify applying the same policy everywhere. With these fundamental errors in thinking, the targets of growth were missed by a wide margin. Progress either stagnated, or deteriorated, with repeated applications of the policy.

This chapter briefly reviews the development experiences in the region, in the three broad phases that have characterised the process over a period spanning almost half a century.⁵ The knowledge that is derived from the review of these experiences provides the basis for defining the key challenges of the future. They are also the main source of the new strategies that are proposed for dealing with the outstanding issues that must be resolved to accelerate the development of the region. The key elements of these proposals also constitute the subject matter of subsequent chapters of the book. The objective however is not to provide ready-made solutions. The conditions and potentials in the region are much too varied to make such an approach realistic. Each chapter is structured to provide information that should allow each country to make its own informed choices about the path it wishes to follow for getting to its chosen development destination.

THE PHASE OF EUPHORIA

The first phase of the development experience in the region covers the decade following independence in the early 1960s. It was a period of exceedingly high expectations, when people expected rapid progress and greater prosperity. Desperate efforts in the final years of the colonial administration, to introduce some minimal improvements in social conditions in the region, did little to mask the appalling state of poverty. But in spite of the formidable challenges, there was considerable optimism that development would be at eclectic speed. Governments entertained the vision that living standards would rise, and eventually catch up with those in the rich countries.

This optimistic outlook was based on the enormous natural resource wealth of the region. Revenues from exports of primary commodities, such as coffee, groundnuts, palm oil, and copper, to name a few, provided funds to support elaborate programmes of development that were unveiled. The revenues from exports also enabled the region to afford the cost of importing its most basic needs, as there were no domestic capacities to satisfy them. For a while, this arrangement seemed sustainable, as commodities commanded relatively high prices in the export market.

The initial efforts at development succeeded in improving some social services and physical infrastructure. The numbers of children receiving education increased. University courses, particularly in science and technology, minimally available in the colonial period, were expanded. More hospitals and clinics were built, and safe water supplies were made more accessible to a larger population. Expanded road networks linked centres of food production with their markets, helping farmers to record modest increases in their incomes.

But national development plans were not moderated by the magnitude of national income. They became more elaborate, as expectations mounted that grants in aid from the rich countries would finance a large part of the budget for their implementation. There was also an overblown impression that the region was richer than it actually was. Governments planned grandiose projects, in anticipation that their cost would be defrayed by future revenues from exports. While this illusion lasted, there was little motivation to diversify the economy to reduce the almost total dependence on highly capricious commodity exports as a source of wealth.

Two factors made the strategy of exporting raw materials to earn revenues to import consumption goods tenuous. The first was that the terms of trade did not remain favourable to the region for long, placing the capacity to satisfy its most basic needs, without resorting to deficit financing, under great strain. The situation was compounded by two other factors. The governments’ share of the revenues from exports of their natural resources was a small part of the large profits the multinational exploiting them were earning. Governments found themselves in the invidious position in which they became poorer, while rich countries, to which they resorted for loans to finance their consumption and development needs, became richer. Although trade was heavily tilted to favour the rich countries, it did not impel them to increase their aid to bridge the financing gap in the development programmes in the region.

Second, the limited resources that were available were wrongly applied in a process that associated the achievement of development with the same symbols that were evident in the rich countries. It was the number of schools, tall buildings, motorways with flyovers, mechanised farms, large factories and dams, that a country built, that exclusively defined its progress. Westernisation, symbolised by machines and large infrastructure, was seen as the only path to modernisation.

The inequitable trade and investment arrangements in the region created the ultimate paradox. Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the poorest places on earth, was a most lucrative destination for foreign investors. While investors reaped large profits from its resources, the region relied on massive injections of aid and loans to sustain modest infrastructure and services. And without a capacity to repay its debts, the region’s indebtedness grew rapidly from default and penalty payments. The investors and creditors to the region became richer, as the region sank deeper into poverty, increasingly incapable of satisfying the basic aspirations of its people. This inequitable relation with its trading partners became the origin of the region’s poverty and remains its major cause.

THE PHASE OF DECLINE

By the mid-1970s, the exhilaration for rapid development was all but dissipated. The expenditure of governments had to be reigned in, and aligned more realistically with their declining incomes. The euphoria of independence had given way to the sober reality of limited resources and unpredictable aid flows. Using aid to support investment in machines had not resulted in the expected significant growth. The strategy was then shifted to using aid to support reforms which were then considered the new arbiter of growth. The emphasis in aid management moved from investing in machines to becoming a carrot for securing the commitment of countries to undertake stringent reforms.

Under the guidance of the World Bank and IMF, the countries in the region adopted reform programmes which emphasised fiscal austerity, market liberalisation and privatisation. But many countries found it easier to submit to the simple aspects of the reform package, than to its core requirements which they found intractable. Governments, though, were still able to contract new loans to repay old debts, by promising to undertake reforms and to ignore their promises after the loans are secured.

The impact of reforms was mixed. The process succeeded in increasing awareness of the need to manage scarce resources frugally. It alerted governments to the consequences of mismanagement, even if it did not entirely check the practice. Reforms dampened the exuberance for prestige projects, and exposed the futility of supporting unprofitable public enterprises with scarce public funds. It also initiated a debate on the need for more realistic expectations in development.

But the process of reforming the economies in the region did not address the basic problem arising from the inequity in trade and investment arrangements. The positive attributes of the reforms were also counteracted by severe consequences that drastic reductions in government’s expenditure had on already inadequate social and physical infrastructure for the poor. The social costs of halting maintenance of infrastructure, and investments on new projects, in many cases, far exceeded the savings that were made. The gains of the earlier period were placed under threat, as development was brought to a standstill from which it has still not fully recovered.

The deep disenchantment with the slow pace of development was the inspiration for a symposium on the theme: What Kind of Africa by the year 2000, which the Organisation of African Unity organised in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1979, to mark the milestone of the first 21 years of independence in the region.⁶ The symposium was the first attempt to assemble African experts to deliberate and offer their frank opinion on development strategies and their performance in the region.

After several days of sober reflection, the experts acknowledged that none of the major expectations at independence had been realised. The blame for this abysmal performance was attributed to the failure to create an internal engine of growth in the region. The deliberations noted that, in response to external advice, governments had built their social and physical infrastructure, on the presumption that they were the prerequisites for attracting foreign investment. But in spite of the expansion, and the wide ranging incentives that governments offered, foreign investors did not flock to the region. Unlike the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams, which popularised the notion that if you build it, they will come, the anticipated investments did not materialise after the region had built some, even if modest, infrastructure.

The experts noted, with concern, that the failure of development was instigating a mass migration of people from the rural to the urban areas, in search of their dreams of prosperity. The exodus was having two main effects. First, it placed enormous strains on modest infrastructure and services in the urban areas. Second, it depleted the capacity in the rural areas to produce food for domestic consumption. Governments were compelled to solicit food aid, and to divert scarce resource from critical needs to support imports to meet any shortfalls in demand. Governments, concerned about minimising the risk of instability in the urban areas, sacrificed important projects to finance food imports.

In the light of these experiences, the Monrovia Symposium recommended a new strategy to place development in the region on a more sustainable path. The strategy was translated into the Lagos Plan of Action, which was launched in 1980. The Plan marked another significant milestone in the region. It was the first attempt by Africans, though under the tutelage of the UN, to prepare a