Africa-Press – Sierra-Leone. <\/strong><\/span>Sixty years ago, on this day, May 25, Africa led the world in creating the first-ever pan-continental political body with the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity. It was in 1963 when 30 leaders of Africa\u2019s sovereign republics came together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to sign the founding Charter of the new body. This is where the celebration of May 25 as Africa Day originated.<\/p>\nThe OAU had, from its inception, a bold and transformational mission as it was set up to facilitate the attainment of economic development, social transformation, political freedom, and the completion of independence in the African countries still under the yoke of foreign actors while also launching the struggle to dismantle racist regimes in Rhodesia -later Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia.<\/p>\n
Sadly, 60 years after, not much seems to have been achieved by the OAU. Not even after it transformed into the African Union in 2002, in a bid to upscale its objectives towards greater economic independence and democratisation, peace, security, and prosperity as well as asserting itself in global affairs.<\/p>\n
Contemporary evidence shows that the story of Africa is far from the rosy prospects predicted by some who thought it could claim the 21st century. Africa has fallen far short. The challenge it faces today, with coups, wars, terrorism, decaying social and physical infrastructure, democratic regression and other ills, seems to vindicate those who, not too long ago, depicted the continent as a lost hope, or, to use Tony Blair\u2019s damning condemnation, as a \u201cscar on the face of humanity\u201d. Former US President, Donald Trump even went further, to define its nations in unprintable words. The stark reality is that most, if not all, development indicators, demonstrate that Africa\u2019s fate has gotten far worse than it was in 1963.<\/p>\n
Apart from a few encouraging signs from countries like Tanzania, Namibia, Mauritius, Cape Verde and Morocco, the numbers are not good. \u2018Africa has a young population that is growing rapidly, but 30 million children are out of school. Half of all children reach adolescence without achieving literacy or numeracy. 35% of the youth have no access to secondary education or technical skills development. About \u20181 in 14 children in sub-Saharan Africa die before their fifth birthday\u201415 times higher than the risk for children born in high-income countries and 20 years behind the world average, which achieved a 1 in 14 rate by 2001. On the economic front, the World Bank in Africa reports that \u2018Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s (SSA\u2019s) economic growth dropped to 3.6% in 2022 from 4.1% in 2021 and is expected to dip to 3.1% in 2023. The economic growth in SSA is not uniform across subregions and countries. The GDP growth of Western and Central Africa is estimated to decline to 3.4% in 2023, from 3.7% in 2022, while that of Eastern and Southern Africa declines to 3.0% in 2023, from 3.5% in 2022. The region\u2019s performance is still dragged down by lower long-term growth in the largest countries on the continent. Economic activity in South Africa is set to weaken further in 2023 (0.5%) as the energy crisis deepens, while the growth recovery in Nigeria for 2023 (2.8%) is still fragile as oil production remains subdued. Among the 10 largest economies in SSA\u2014representing more than three-quarters of the region\u2019s GDP\u2014eight are growing at rates below their long-term average growth, including Sudan, Nigeria, Angola, and Ethiopia.\u2019 On average, African countries\u2019 public sector debt-to-GDP ratio stood at above 60 per cent in 2022. Islamist militant groups in Africa further expanded their territorial reach in 2022, particularly in the western Sahel, where al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates compete for influence and continue to make inroads.<\/p>\n
What could be the cause of this perennial underperformance?<\/p>\n
Many experts have grappled with this question of Africa\u2019s consistent poor economic, social and political performance over the last six decades. In trying to understand this unusual phenomenon and locate the causal factor(s), they have looked at common issues like corruption, poor leadership, poverty, social insecurity, poor human capital infrastructure, faulty policies, religious and ethnic divisions, fratricidal wars, etc. These issues, as plausible as they may seem, are at best, symptoms of a systemic and structural problem in Africa.<\/p>\n
However, with the growth of political innovation, particularly since 2000, in African countries, new vistas of understanding of the economic under-performance of African countries are beginning to emerge and gain consensus. The conventional wisdom is that citizens of Africa need to organise and mobilise to compel the political leadership of their countries to urgently reform the continent\u2019s broken political system. This is a key reason that led to the creation of #FixPolitics, whose mission is to elevate the office of the citizen to its rightful place in Africa and develop a political class of servant leaders. A citizens-led research-based movement, #FixPolitics sees broken politics as the root cause of Africa\u2019s poor governance and backward economic development. It is therefore committed to structurally changing and innovating politics in Africa.<\/p>\n
Politics is an essential factor in the development of any country, and Africa is no exception. Political leaders are responsible for making decisions that affect their citizens\u2019 economic, social, and political well-being. Africa\u2019s politics is broken and dysfunctional, which is why despite the abundance of natural resources and growth potential, many African countries continue to struggle to achieve sustainable development.<\/p>\n
The failure of the continent\u2019s variant of politics and public leadership inherently subverts the public good and places personal and narrow interests above the collective well-being of citizens. It distorts and compromises good governance. In the absence of good governance, economic and human development are impeded, and monopoly democracy becomes the toxic oxymoron that is bequeathed to a continent begging for an urgent political reset.<\/p>\n
With pervasive corruption and the looting of public funds at the expense of ordinary citizens fast becoming the norm, even the barest minimum expectations of citizens towards their government are now seldom met. The range of unmet citizens\u2019 expectations grows wider year after year in almost every country on the continent. This has led to an erosion of citizens\u2019 trust in democratic institutions, shallow levels of social capital, a stalling institution-building process, and, more generally, a slow transitioning process from country to nation, as well as rising levels of extreme poverty and insecurity in the continent.<\/p>\n
As Africa celebrates, rightly so, its day, we are convinced that her present and future will only be bright if the challenges encumbering the political climate in which it exists are thoroughly examined and fixed. Failing to do so will mean sustaining the present intolerable status quo. In the same way, pan-africanist and independence movements fought hard to win the formal battles of recognition and freedom for their nations, it is obvious that creating a conducive political climate that will nurture and support democracy, good governance, economic and human development and other intangible norms is the prerequisite for Africa\u2019s renewal.<\/p>\n
The urgency of this auspicious time in history calls for strategic action. As it celebrates 60 years of integration attempts, it is time for Africa to re-emerge from the shackles of arrested development and embrace the future with confidence in the possibilities and opportunities for progress and development. The most effective way to start is to make a determined effort to reform its current unproductive political system because politics trumps everything else. This process must begin not with the leaders but with the citizens of the continent, fully and actively occupying the office of the citizen. Indeed, given the monopolistic variant of democracy that pervades the continent, it is incumbent on citizens to engage, mobilise, and collectively demand constitutional, political, electoral and economic reforms that will give currency to democracy, good governance and development.<\/p>\n
For far too long, African citizens have ignored politics, waiting for governments to be formed before a few citizens manage to come forward to demand good governance. This attitude of waiting \u2018downstream\u2019 before engaging has been and continues to be counterproductive. The #FixPolitics research shows clearly that the quality of Government and by implication the quality of Governance is determined \u2018Upstream\u2019 at the Politics stage \u2013 the stage where citizens typically abdicate their civic responsibility by failing to engage and participate effectively in the political process. Using the \u2018Triangular Pillars of Democracy\u2019 as a framework, citizens across all countries in Africa must now begin to shape the quality of leadership and institutions that will deliver good governance by collectively engaging their political systems to ensure quality politics.<\/p>\n
Citizens must compel African leaders to institutionalise a politics that supports sound policies, strong institutions, and an effective and efficient priority of investment in public goods and services for the emergence of the private sector. Only African citizens working together can compel the governments of their respective countries to respond urgently and stem the continued backward slide of development in the continent. In the immortal words of Margaret Mead, \u2018Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.\u2019 The time is ripe for change, and Africa must seize the moment to put its politics in order and march towards a bright and prosperous future.<\/p>\n
punchng<\/b><\/p>\n
For More News And Analysis About Sierra-Leone<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alioune Badara Fall Africa-Press – Sierra-Leone. Sixty years ago, on this day, May 25, Africa led the world in creating the first-ever pan-continental political body with the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity. It was in 1963 when 30 leaders of Africa\u2019s sovereign republics came together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to sign the founding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":17985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[291,293,292],"class_list":["post-17986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-sierra-leone","tag-sierra-leone"],"yoast_head":"\n
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