President Obama speaking in Ghana on his recently concluded Africa trip re -echoed a question that has puzzled economists and other social scientists. Why has South Korea which had about the same Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as Uganda at independence in 1962 gone on to become a global industrial power house while Uganda wallows at the bottom list of the league of nations ?
In fact Kenya’s GDP was even higher than that of South Korea at independence in 1963 but South Korea’s GDP today stands at--- compared to Kenya’s,,,,
In 1959 Singapore ‘s per capita income was $ 400 compared to today’s $ 22,000.
At the time of African independence many of the countries in Anglophone Africa were regarded as better prospects than the South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore of the 1960s.
Sixty years on, the African countries have not only become poorer than they were in the 1960s’ but trail their East Asian counter parts on just about any major development indicator ever formulated.
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime minister, writing in his memoirs From Third World to First recounts how, over three decades, Singapore was built virtually from scratch in the 1960s, with no army, parliament and other basics of a state to speak of.
In contrast, at the time, Uganda was a functional state with most of the apparatus of statecraft.
Lee Kuan Yew through astute leadership and indomitable will went on to build a state that today boasts a per capital income that rivals several members of the current European Union. This he did through encouraging entrepreneurship and economic freedom
In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad between 1988 and 1997 transformed Malaysia into a manufacturing, financial and telecommunications hub. Malaysia started producing cheap appliances for western markets and providing home to the plants of major Japanese giants such as Sony and Panasonic owing to relatively cheap Malaysian labour.
China as recently as 1972 was a struggling state reeling from the disastrous ‘cultural revolution’ of Chairman Mao Tse Tung who pursued a radically communist agenda imprisoning and purging his party of any real or imagined ‘capitalists’ that bred untold poverty and dysfunction in a sleeping giant. Subsequent Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, strategically realizing that communism would not transform China made a u- turn and started China on the road to export-led industrialization dubbing it’ capitalism with communist characteristics’.
China, among other strategies, adopted a policy of population control and invested heavily in education especially in maths and science. It’s no wonder that Chinese and Indian students dominate natural science doctoral programmes in the United States.
Crucially, Asia ‘s example suggests that the state can be a major player and driver of growth and in Singapore, Taiwan and China, the state took the centre stage in driving national growth. It may not be widely known that the Chinese firms constructing stadiums and high rises from Luanda to Kinshasa are actually Chinese state-owned companies.
Tragically, in the place of the transformative leaders Asia has had, in Africa we have had ‘big men’. Although Asia’s success stories also suggest that a ‘benevolent’ dictatorship especially geared towards economic transformation is not entirely unwelcome considering that Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Deng Xiaoping of China, Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia ,Suharto of Indonesia were not the most illustrious students of democracy but provided the leadership that turned the tide in their respective countries. Apologists for President Paul Kagame of Rwanda tend to take this posture.
It has also been suggested that Asian cultural values such as Confucianism, honour and a hard work ethic are conducive for productivity and spur economic growth. David Landes’ in his insightful ’The Wealth and Poverty of Nations’ Underscores the relationship between culture and economic advancement
While Europeans love their holidays and shut down on Sundays, Asians have no such proclivities.
The Chinese have won many civil works contracts in Uganda and the rest of Africa partly because of cost economics. Chinese engineers are said to be cheaper than their Ugandan counterparts, for instance, and they deliver that building when they say they will.
Next time we shall see how Africa took a wrong turn and why Asia continued on the path to the Promised Land.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The King of Pop is Gone too Soon.
I first learnt about Michael Jackson when I was about ten. It was the Uganda of the early 1980’s and it was Obote II’s Uganda. Michael Jackson was my first major interaction with American pop culture. As I recall, it was the Thriller album days. The VCR was making an entrance in some select Ugandan living rooms. Those were the days of break dance and it was cool to do some break dance with the kids back at school.
I remember watching the full-length ‘Thriller’ music video and Rambo’s ‘First Blood’ at Namilyango Junior School when I was in form four of boarding school. . I recall the Ethiopian famine of 1985 and the anthem that ‘We are the world’ became at the time.
Michael Jackson was a very fascinating and unique act, even more so for a young Ugandan boy who didn’t have much alternative pop acts to compare him with. Of course I now know that MJ was ‘it’ and there will never be another MJ. In the words of the Motown founder who first signed the Jackson 5 ‘Michael Jackson was the greatest entertainer that ever lived’.
I had a soft spot for MJ and he didn’t lose me as a fan even when it become clear that his private life was a totally different script from the Michael Jackson we saw on the screen belting out, Thriller, Bad, Earth song, Heal the world, you name it.
He was very much a part of my childhood and initiated me into American pop and that fascination with everything American. As I child, I longed to visit the land of MJ and that dream came to pass in 2001 at Dallas, Fort Worth.
When he was announced dead, I couldn’t help but feel that a part of my childhood had gone with him. As children we sang his hits, imitated his signature dance strokes. Wore his trademark white socks, hat and fantasized about his red jacket.
His Thriller, Off the Wall and Bad albums stand out for me and when I think of MJ, I remember his ground-breaking music videos especially the ‘BAD’ video which is forever burned in my brain. Who's bad?!
As a school kid I remember using oil paint to label my cap with the letters ‘BAD’.
Yes, there will never be another Michael Jackson. Even Usher and Justin Timberlake would agree.
I remember watching the full-length ‘Thriller’ music video and Rambo’s ‘First Blood’ at Namilyango Junior School when I was in form four of boarding school. . I recall the Ethiopian famine of 1985 and the anthem that ‘We are the world’ became at the time.
Michael Jackson was a very fascinating and unique act, even more so for a young Ugandan boy who didn’t have much alternative pop acts to compare him with. Of course I now know that MJ was ‘it’ and there will never be another MJ. In the words of the Motown founder who first signed the Jackson 5 ‘Michael Jackson was the greatest entertainer that ever lived’.
I had a soft spot for MJ and he didn’t lose me as a fan even when it become clear that his private life was a totally different script from the Michael Jackson we saw on the screen belting out, Thriller, Bad, Earth song, Heal the world, you name it.
He was very much a part of my childhood and initiated me into American pop and that fascination with everything American. As I child, I longed to visit the land of MJ and that dream came to pass in 2001 at Dallas, Fort Worth.
When he was announced dead, I couldn’t help but feel that a part of my childhood had gone with him. As children we sang his hits, imitated his signature dance strokes. Wore his trademark white socks, hat and fantasized about his red jacket.
His Thriller, Off the Wall and Bad albums stand out for me and when I think of MJ, I remember his ground-breaking music videos especially the ‘BAD’ video which is forever burned in my brain. Who's bad?!
As a school kid I remember using oil paint to label my cap with the letters ‘BAD’.
Yes, there will never be another Michael Jackson. Even Usher and Justin Timberlake would agree.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Dambisa Moyo's 'Dead Aid': A Book Review
Dambisa Moyo’s new book Dead Aid has sent ripples across the globe, particularly for those in the billion- dollar aid industry for whom this provocative book ought to make required reading. Dambisa argues that development aid to Africa ‘is no longer part of the potential solution but, its part of the problem-in fact aid is the problem’.
Dambisa Moyo is a London-based Zambian economist with degrees from Harvard and Oxford Universities with stints at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs.
Dambisa shows that over a 60 year period , US$ 1 trillion in development aid has been sunk into African countries with nothing to show for it in the recipient countries. Dead Aid maintains that aid money goes down the drain of corruption and props up despotic African regimes which are more concerned about appeasing paying donors rather than the disenfranchised populations they lead. Dambisa argues that development aid leads to market distortions, perpetuates an aid dependency syndrome in Africa and that enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship suffer as a result when all African leaders have to do is’ wait to bank cheques’. Dambisa’s argument that aid is counter- productive is hardly original and William Easterly in earlier, more illustrious endeavors, White Man’s Burden and The Elusive Quest for Growth and Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion make even more compelling cases.
Even World Bank staffers have penned books around the subject such as Phyllis Pomerantz’s Aid Effectiveness in Africa but Dambisa takes it a notch higher
’ The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so is a myth. Millions in Africa are poorer today because of aid; misery and poverty have not ended but increased. Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster’
Even African heads of states such as Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Paul Kagame of Rwanda are publicly making the case that trade not aid is a better hope for lifting millions out of poverty and deprivation in Africa and the rest of developing world. Although trade is the new buzz word among African leaders clearly foreign aid is still needed and its critics will be the first to acknowledge this much. The point being made is that aid should be more effectively targeted and it should not be seen as the panacea for bringing countries out of chronic poverty.
Dambisa’s call for the end of foreign aid altogether, which she calls for in the next five years, sounds at best hugely radical. In the place of western aid, she calls for African countries to cultivate fiscal discipline by raising finance through international bonds or international commercial lenders which in the current climate of the global credit crunch is an proposal dead- on-arrival .
Foreign aid may not have worked in Africa but to dismiss it outright would be to belittle the value of the Marshall Plan or US aid to Europe after the Second World War which transformed Europe or the case of American support to South Korea which is an emerging global economic power house. Clearly the debate ought not to be whether aid can be helpful but rather how it can be made much more effective and much more smartly targeted than it has in the past.
Indeed more innovative approaches to giving aid are gaining currency at a micro level and western entrepreneurs interested in improving Africa’s lot are thinking up some creative approaches. Aid is no longer purely humanitarian but has a tinge of business interest. For example computer companies which want to make contributions to development causes increase sales through declaring that US$ 5 will go to African charity from every lap top sale rather than make outright donations.
A Uganda entrepreneur in Denmark through his initiative byc4.com creates a forum for European humanitarian capitalists to lend money to deserving Ugandan businesses with friendly interest loans.
The days of conditions-free money seem to be in the fog of the season’s end.In summing, Dead Aid ‘s diagnosis on aid merits attention, the prescriptions offered, less so. African poverty is a multi-faceted animal with structural, cultural, institutional, attitudinal and even historical
Dambisa Moyo is a London-based Zambian economist with degrees from Harvard and Oxford Universities with stints at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs.
Dambisa shows that over a 60 year period , US$ 1 trillion in development aid has been sunk into African countries with nothing to show for it in the recipient countries. Dead Aid maintains that aid money goes down the drain of corruption and props up despotic African regimes which are more concerned about appeasing paying donors rather than the disenfranchised populations they lead. Dambisa argues that development aid leads to market distortions, perpetuates an aid dependency syndrome in Africa and that enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship suffer as a result when all African leaders have to do is’ wait to bank cheques’. Dambisa’s argument that aid is counter- productive is hardly original and William Easterly in earlier, more illustrious endeavors, White Man’s Burden and The Elusive Quest for Growth and Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion make even more compelling cases.
Even World Bank staffers have penned books around the subject such as Phyllis Pomerantz’s Aid Effectiveness in Africa but Dambisa takes it a notch higher
’ The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so is a myth. Millions in Africa are poorer today because of aid; misery and poverty have not ended but increased. Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster’
Even African heads of states such as Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Paul Kagame of Rwanda are publicly making the case that trade not aid is a better hope for lifting millions out of poverty and deprivation in Africa and the rest of developing world. Although trade is the new buzz word among African leaders clearly foreign aid is still needed and its critics will be the first to acknowledge this much. The point being made is that aid should be more effectively targeted and it should not be seen as the panacea for bringing countries out of chronic poverty.
Dambisa’s call for the end of foreign aid altogether, which she calls for in the next five years, sounds at best hugely radical. In the place of western aid, she calls for African countries to cultivate fiscal discipline by raising finance through international bonds or international commercial lenders which in the current climate of the global credit crunch is an proposal dead- on-arrival .
Foreign aid may not have worked in Africa but to dismiss it outright would be to belittle the value of the Marshall Plan or US aid to Europe after the Second World War which transformed Europe or the case of American support to South Korea which is an emerging global economic power house. Clearly the debate ought not to be whether aid can be helpful but rather how it can be made much more effective and much more smartly targeted than it has in the past.
Indeed more innovative approaches to giving aid are gaining currency at a micro level and western entrepreneurs interested in improving Africa’s lot are thinking up some creative approaches. Aid is no longer purely humanitarian but has a tinge of business interest. For example computer companies which want to make contributions to development causes increase sales through declaring that US$ 5 will go to African charity from every lap top sale rather than make outright donations.
A Uganda entrepreneur in Denmark through his initiative byc4.com creates a forum for European humanitarian capitalists to lend money to deserving Ugandan businesses with friendly interest loans.
The days of conditions-free money seem to be in the fog of the season’s end.In summing, Dead Aid ‘s diagnosis on aid merits attention, the prescriptions offered, less so. African poverty is a multi-faceted animal with structural, cultural, institutional, attitudinal and even historical
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Wangari Mathaai's Unbowed:A Pedestrian Book Review
I am reading a May 2009 copy of TIME magazine and Liberian President,Sirleaf Johnson, in her 'Ten Questions' TIME interview mentions Kenyan activist,Wangari Maathai as one of her role models. And she is in good company.The first elected female president in Africa also mentions Julius Nyerere(former Tanzanian president)and Nelson Mandela among her other role models.
When Wangari Maathai was awared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, many were taken by suprise. Many know Wangari as an environmental activist, the founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya which as has chapter around the globe.
Reading a copy of Unbowed, Wangari Maathai 's memoir convinces any doubter that she deserved the Nobel prize.
Wangari Mathaai was one of former Kenyan president- Arap Moi's solitary opponents. And this is a shocker given that we know Wangari mostly as a green- crusader.
In a country where there was only one official political party-KANU, Wangari and colleagues provided the only opposition that Kenya knew. Its a miracle that she survived death which many of her peers were not so lucky to survive. Her methods like those of Martin Luther King and Mahtama Gandhi were decidely non-violent.
The book though is a remarkable testimony to the birth of an environmental advocacy group operating in a tyranical state in Africa. It took enormous personal sacrifice and sheer guts to beat the odds in keeping the green belt movement's candle burning in Moi's Kenya. The police, the judiciary and even the academia in Kenya all at different times proved to be road blocks in the way of Wangari Mathaai. In fear of the Moi government, they frustrated the efforts of Wangari and her environmental cause as appeasement to the Moi regime which understood Wangari as a threat to the regime in Kenya even when all she did was just to get women to plant trees! Of course it was alot more complicated than that. Wangari was treated as an opponent for many reasons, including, her external support from the west and her clout among women in Kenya and also because of partriachial perceptions that as an 'african woman' she had claimed more than her fair share of public affairs and belonged to the domestic realm.
The books begins off beautifully with a nostalgic tale of life in rural kenya during British colonial rule through Wangari's teenage eyes and takes us on a journey to colonial Nakuru,Nairobi and then the United States back to Nairobi and then to Germany and then back to Nairobi again-the story of her incredibly remarkable life. Wangari' s tale is seemingly larger-than-life. Her stuborn, fearless and selfless will amidst trials and tribulations seems beyond mere mortals.
Unbowed is also a story of one woman's effort to save the environment in Kenya and an african woman's treatise on the perils of environmental mismanagement and in the words of Mahtama Gandhi, being the change that she wanted in her world.
When Wangari Maathai was awared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, many were taken by suprise. Many know Wangari as an environmental activist, the founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya which as has chapter around the globe.
Reading a copy of Unbowed, Wangari Maathai 's memoir convinces any doubter that she deserved the Nobel prize.
Wangari Mathaai was one of former Kenyan president- Arap Moi's solitary opponents. And this is a shocker given that we know Wangari mostly as a green- crusader.
In a country where there was only one official political party-KANU, Wangari and colleagues provided the only opposition that Kenya knew. Its a miracle that she survived death which many of her peers were not so lucky to survive. Her methods like those of Martin Luther King and Mahtama Gandhi were decidely non-violent.
The book though is a remarkable testimony to the birth of an environmental advocacy group operating in a tyranical state in Africa. It took enormous personal sacrifice and sheer guts to beat the odds in keeping the green belt movement's candle burning in Moi's Kenya. The police, the judiciary and even the academia in Kenya all at different times proved to be road blocks in the way of Wangari Mathaai. In fear of the Moi government, they frustrated the efforts of Wangari and her environmental cause as appeasement to the Moi regime which understood Wangari as a threat to the regime in Kenya even when all she did was just to get women to plant trees! Of course it was alot more complicated than that. Wangari was treated as an opponent for many reasons, including, her external support from the west and her clout among women in Kenya and also because of partriachial perceptions that as an 'african woman' she had claimed more than her fair share of public affairs and belonged to the domestic realm.
The books begins off beautifully with a nostalgic tale of life in rural kenya during British colonial rule through Wangari's teenage eyes and takes us on a journey to colonial Nakuru,Nairobi and then the United States back to Nairobi and then to Germany and then back to Nairobi again-the story of her incredibly remarkable life. Wangari' s tale is seemingly larger-than-life. Her stuborn, fearless and selfless will amidst trials and tribulations seems beyond mere mortals.
Unbowed is also a story of one woman's effort to save the environment in Kenya and an african woman's treatise on the perils of environmental mismanagement and in the words of Mahtama Gandhi, being the change that she wanted in her world.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Adieu Tajudeen Abdul Raheem
From Facebook, the news began trickling in. Tajudeen , that behomoth of Pan Africanism and African thought was no more. Tragic road accident in Nairobi,Kenya is all the news we could get.
I knew about Tajudeen in 1994 as a secondary school student. He was the Secretary General of the Global Pan African Movement secretariat, then with offices in Muyenga,Kampala suburb.
At the time,current Trade Minister Kahinda Otafiire was the Chair. Tajudeen served for many years at the secretariat.
He has been a regular columnist in 'The Monitor' and a weekly column at Pambazuka an on-line Pan African content provider. He was also Deputy Director of the UN ,Milenium Development goals-Africa chapter. The news of his passing was utterly devastating and completely shocking - yet another case of an illustrious life cut hot in its prime. Tajudeen was indeed one of Africa's premier public intellectuals. He commented with distinction on African politics and on local Ugandan politics.
The world, especially Africa, is a poorer place because of his passing. We have lost a powerful voice that feared not to say and see it the African way with inspiring optimism of the promise that is Africa despite the tragedy that falsely seems insurmountable. Adieu Tajudeen. You live on in your works and in the movement you have spawned.
I knew about Tajudeen in 1994 as a secondary school student. He was the Secretary General of the Global Pan African Movement secretariat, then with offices in Muyenga,Kampala suburb.
At the time,current Trade Minister Kahinda Otafiire was the Chair. Tajudeen served for many years at the secretariat.
He has been a regular columnist in 'The Monitor' and a weekly column at Pambazuka an on-line Pan African content provider. He was also Deputy Director of the UN ,Milenium Development goals-Africa chapter. The news of his passing was utterly devastating and completely shocking - yet another case of an illustrious life cut hot in its prime. Tajudeen was indeed one of Africa's premier public intellectuals. He commented with distinction on African politics and on local Ugandan politics.
The world, especially Africa, is a poorer place because of his passing. We have lost a powerful voice that feared not to say and see it the African way with inspiring optimism of the promise that is Africa despite the tragedy that falsely seems insurmountable. Adieu Tajudeen. You live on in your works and in the movement you have spawned.
Monday, May 4, 2009
THE AK-47 IS STILL KING IN AFRICA
Want to become president in Africa? Well, how about starting out as a guerilla leader first? A recent survey by The Economist magazine of 5,000 politicians in the International Who’s Who to determine why some professions are so well represented in politics and why different countries favour different professions for choice of their political leaders turns out some interesting findings. In Africa, the findings are perhaps not that surprising considering that several presidents in Africa started out as guerilla leaders. Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda , Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso are all sitting heads of state who started out as guerilla chiefs. Jacob Zuma of South Africa is a fresh entrant to the club. Two decades ago, the rule rather than the exception in Africa was that you started out in the military or as a guerilla chief before becoming president. Think here of Samora Machel,Sam Nojuma ,Robert Mugabe,Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela, Muamar Gaddaffi etc.
In the west, the picture is starkly different. An amazing a third of all members of the German parliament are lawyers. We all know that a certain Barrack Obama, Clinton (Bill and Hillary) are all lawyers and so is current Vice President, Joe Biden. Obama’s inner circle is said to be filled with old boys from Harvard Law. And if that wont do it for you consider that over a half of the entire United States Senate is made up of lawyers.
In China, the current and previous presidents are engineers. Chinese President Hu Jintao is a hydraulic engineer. The immediate past president Jiang Zemin was a soviet-trained electrical engineer. The current Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao is a geological engineer and eight out of the nine-member elite Chinese politburo is made up of engineers.
In Britain, the selection bias is said to be more dynastic than professional and the political class network there is formed at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
The United States too is no stranger to political dynasties if you think of the Kennedy Clan or more recently, the Bush Clan. In France, the elite Ecole Nationale Administration or ENA has trained most of the ‘super-civil servants’ who run the French civil service- a favoured route to politics. Seven out of the last 11 prime ministers of France have been alumni of the ENA. Lawyers still dominate in France as well and nine out of the Nicholas Sarkozy’ s first cabinet of 16 was made up of lawyers who included the President, Finance Minister and Prime Minister. Businessmen are said to be the second most important players in politics in Europe represented by two-time Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi ,the proprietor of AC Milan foot ball club. Business men’s foray into politics is clearly out of self-interest.
The Economist ‘s survey further shows that certain professions dominate politics in some countries. It’s shown for example that in Egypt academics are favoured, in South Korea, civil servants and in Brazil its doctors.
Politics itself has emerged as a profession on its own with many of the politicians in Britain and the United States jumping straight from university to party politics without getting a ‘real job’ first. Here we can cite the examples of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron and to a certain extent, Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Going back to a country’s preferences for political office based on profession, interesting explanations which range from history, culture and stage of development are offered. For instance it is suggested that that lawyers are favored for political office in western democracies because they are given to ‘marshaling evidence, appealing to juries, command of procedure’ and that engineers are favoured in China because they know ‘how to build physical structures and keep them intact’ a preoccupation of communist regimes. Former Russian President, Boris Yelstin was an engineer-turned politician.
In Africa, the guerilla leader has been the most favoured occupational pathway to the presidency owing to the historic struggles for independence but also because of the political economy of armed violence in Africa.
So, next time that little kid asks you what it takes to become president of a country in Africa you know what to say.
In the west, the picture is starkly different. An amazing a third of all members of the German parliament are lawyers. We all know that a certain Barrack Obama, Clinton (Bill and Hillary) are all lawyers and so is current Vice President, Joe Biden. Obama’s inner circle is said to be filled with old boys from Harvard Law. And if that wont do it for you consider that over a half of the entire United States Senate is made up of lawyers.
In China, the current and previous presidents are engineers. Chinese President Hu Jintao is a hydraulic engineer. The immediate past president Jiang Zemin was a soviet-trained electrical engineer. The current Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao is a geological engineer and eight out of the nine-member elite Chinese politburo is made up of engineers.
In Britain, the selection bias is said to be more dynastic than professional and the political class network there is formed at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
The United States too is no stranger to political dynasties if you think of the Kennedy Clan or more recently, the Bush Clan. In France, the elite Ecole Nationale Administration or ENA has trained most of the ‘super-civil servants’ who run the French civil service- a favoured route to politics. Seven out of the last 11 prime ministers of France have been alumni of the ENA. Lawyers still dominate in France as well and nine out of the Nicholas Sarkozy’ s first cabinet of 16 was made up of lawyers who included the President, Finance Minister and Prime Minister. Businessmen are said to be the second most important players in politics in Europe represented by two-time Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi ,the proprietor of AC Milan foot ball club. Business men’s foray into politics is clearly out of self-interest.
The Economist ‘s survey further shows that certain professions dominate politics in some countries. It’s shown for example that in Egypt academics are favoured, in South Korea, civil servants and in Brazil its doctors.
Politics itself has emerged as a profession on its own with many of the politicians in Britain and the United States jumping straight from university to party politics without getting a ‘real job’ first. Here we can cite the examples of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron and to a certain extent, Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Going back to a country’s preferences for political office based on profession, interesting explanations which range from history, culture and stage of development are offered. For instance it is suggested that that lawyers are favored for political office in western democracies because they are given to ‘marshaling evidence, appealing to juries, command of procedure’ and that engineers are favoured in China because they know ‘how to build physical structures and keep them intact’ a preoccupation of communist regimes. Former Russian President, Boris Yelstin was an engineer-turned politician.
In Africa, the guerilla leader has been the most favoured occupational pathway to the presidency owing to the historic struggles for independence but also because of the political economy of armed violence in Africa.
So, next time that little kid asks you what it takes to become president of a country in Africa you know what to say.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
THE G 20 ECONOMIC SUMMIT: THE UK AND US NEED TO TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORN
Press reports indicate that French President Nicholas Sarkozy has publicly expressed his displeasure at his British and American counterparts for stalling on a G20 joint accord to respond to the global recession. Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel are pressing for more stringent measures to clean up the financial and banking worlds in advanced economies particularly the push for regulation of the industry and a rethink to the financial stimulus measures that have gained currency especially under the Obama administration.
In one sense the rift is ideological. The US and Britain want to bail out the financial and Banking worlds without requiring a radical surgery or a more stringent approach such as statutory regulation and other checks and balances in the industry, what in the US would be the republican standpoint.
France and Germany prefer a more regulated industry, that is cautious and see the US and UK as preserving a system that smacks of reckless capitalism that has brought the world to the brink of financial catastrophe. Clearly the execesses in the US and British markets impact the rest of the world which is why Europe see these reforms in the financial and banking industry as critical to the health of the rest of the world economy. Thomas Friedman was more right that he imagined. The world truly is flat.
The US and British governments need to step up to the plate and make bold decisions( inspite of the political costs that come with it) if another financial down turn is to be avoided and industry regulation is clearly at the heart of any such measures.
The era of banking and financial industry execesses such as off- shore banking,tax havens, cooking books of account, lending carte-blanches is over.
The evidence suggests that more prudent banking and regulation of the financial services industry is the way foward and indeed the Franco-German approach saved the duo from more severe effects of thedownturn as compared to the US and the UK.
The UK and US owe to the rest of the world to 'get it right' this time and save the world from another recession years from now.
In one sense the rift is ideological. The US and Britain want to bail out the financial and Banking worlds without requiring a radical surgery or a more stringent approach such as statutory regulation and other checks and balances in the industry, what in the US would be the republican standpoint.
France and Germany prefer a more regulated industry, that is cautious and see the US and UK as preserving a system that smacks of reckless capitalism that has brought the world to the brink of financial catastrophe. Clearly the execesses in the US and British markets impact the rest of the world which is why Europe see these reforms in the financial and banking industry as critical to the health of the rest of the world economy. Thomas Friedman was more right that he imagined. The world truly is flat.
The US and British governments need to step up to the plate and make bold decisions( inspite of the political costs that come with it) if another financial down turn is to be avoided and industry regulation is clearly at the heart of any such measures.
The era of banking and financial industry execesses such as off- shore banking,tax havens, cooking books of account, lending carte-blanches is over.
The evidence suggests that more prudent banking and regulation of the financial services industry is the way foward and indeed the Franco-German approach saved the duo from more severe effects of thedownturn as compared to the US and the UK.
The UK and US owe to the rest of the world to 'get it right' this time and save the world from another recession years from now.
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