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Rethinking Development Strategies in Africa
A University of Nevada, Reno sociologist contends that widespread corruption, economic mismanagement, lack of accountability, lack of sound leadership in government and the nascent private sector will continue to weigh negatively on struggling Sub-Saharan African countries, unless these sectors collaborate with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs) to bring about real progress.
In his new book, Rethinking Development Strategies in Africa: The Triple Partnership as an Alternative approach – the Case of Uganda, Johnson W. Makoba, associate professor and sociology department chair in the University’s College of Liberal Arts, uses Uganda, his home country, as a case study.
Makoba has been researching development strategies for Africa for more than 20 years and contends that a “triple partnership” is the only way that sustained economic development and poverty reduction can be achieved in the region. He asserts that the massive amount of development aid channeled into the country over the past two decades has done very little to reduce poverty in the country or improve the peoples’ well-being.
Makoba says that NGOs and MFIs have shown to be effective agents in sustainable grassroots development efforts, helping to achieve the twin goals of improving the well-being of the poor and promoting more sustainable economic development for the region.
“The failure of states and markets in Africa to bring about desired economic development or effectively deliver basic services, such as health, education and clean water, has meant that NGOs and MFIs have stepped in to close the ‘gap’ created as a result of such failure,” he said.
Makoba’s recommendations are based not only his scholarship, but on his first-hand experience. He grew up in rural Uganda amid the social, economic and political devastation that began in the early 1970s during the Idi Amin regime. He was determined to “study hard to make a career and be able to help others to find self-help solutions to poverty.”
In his book, Makoba explains that recent public-sector reforms in Africa, such as the creation of executive agencies, can serve as a road map and provide the building blocks for the eventual establishment of autonomous development funds on the continent that would promote a partnership in development efforts. Under this new paradigm, he asserts that nongovernmental organizations, the government and donors could collaborate and rethink their strategies and roles in order to achieve sustainable development. Corruption and political interference would be minimized under this scenario.
Makoba previously authored the book, Government Policy and Public Enterprise Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently the head of the subsection on “Microfinance and Development” under the Sociology of Development section of the American Sociological Association. Rethinking Development Strategies in Africa, published by Peter Lang, is available at www.amazon.com and other outlets.
Travel West Africa by the 19th Century Book
By Sylvia Frommer-Mracky, Travel Editor
There are dozens of travel books from which to choose to guide you throughout almost every part of the world. That’s good! It takes searching to find the right one. The one that advises you where to house yourself and at what price; where to dine at how many stars and dollar signs; as well as the sights which must not be ignored.
I want to introduce you to another route to follow, a unique and somewhat romantic road, to a world less known and in a manner most intriguing. To my thinking this may be the way to submerge yourself into a new world of travel that is perfect for “adventure achievers” and the travel literati. Make sense?
The National Geographic Adventure Classics is a new series of what their experts find to be the 100 greatest adventure books of all time. The one I chose is on Africa, of course. “Travels in West Africa” is like no other guide book found anywhere. Published in 1897 two years after Mary Kingsley returned from an exceedingly daring journey into what was then known as the French Congo.
This is a book by a remarkable woman, one who was never schooled but educated herself by reading the fascinating books in her father’s extensive library. What held her interest the most were the stories of the explorers in West Africa. Shortly after her parents death her travels began. It was 1892 and this trip was considered a reconnaissance. In 1895 she was ready to return to explore as an anthropologist and an amateur scientist trained to collect new species of fresh water fish for the British Museum.
Her West Africa journey began from Sierra Leon and moved south, all the way to what today is Angola.
With her Sharon Stone good looks, slim figure and her 19th century lady-like demeanor, Mary Kingsley was never shy or condescending; she put herself as an equal with the native tribes, some of whom have never seen a white person, man or woman until she came through the jungles. She traded with the native tribes for goods and services. She was on equal terms with chiefs, French traders and government ministers.
I think she was quite fearless and never seemed to panic in any situation and there were many dangerous as well as what seemed to be hilarious situations – all captured on the pages that she wrote.
Relating to today’s traveler, her 1897 descriptions of the cities – Free Town, Accra, Calabar, Luanda are like precious treasures that a true connoisseur of travel will savor when he or she sees what remains of what Ms. Kingley saw, noted and wrote about for us to enjoy. Her books were best sellers in England and continue to be worldwide, for the past 200 years.
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Excerpts from “Travels in West Africa” 1987
“The West Coast of Africa is like the Arctic regions in one particular, and that is that when you have once visited it you want to go back there again; and, now I come to think of it, there is another particular in which it is like them, and that is that the chances you have of returning from it at all are small, for it is a Belle Dame sans merci.
I succumbed to the charm of the Coast as soon as I left Sierra Leone on my first voyage out, and I saw more than enough during that voyage to make me recognise that there was any amount of work for me worth doing down there. So I warned the Coast I was coming back again and the Coast did not believe me; and on my return to it a second time displayed a genuine surprise, and formed an even higher opinion of my folly than it had formed on our first acquaintance, which is saying a good deal.
“We reached Sierra Leone at 9 A.M. on the 7th of January, and as the place is hardly so much in touch with the general public as the Canaries are 1 I may perhaps venture to go more into details regarding it. The harbour is formed by the long low strip of land to the north called the Bullam shore, and to the south by the peninsula terminating in Cape Sierra Leone, a sandy promontory at the end of which is situated a lighthouse of irregular habits. Low hills covered with tropical forest growth rise from the sandy shores of the Cape, and along its face are three creeks or bays, deep inlets showing through their narrow entrances smooth beaches of yellow sand, fenced inland by the forest of cotton-woods and palms, with here and there an elephantine baobab.
The first of these bays is called Pirate Bay, the next English Bay, and the third Kru Bay. The wooded hills of the Cape rise after passing Kru Bay, and become spurs of the mountain, 2,500 feet in height, which is the Sierra Leone itself. There are, however, several mountains here besides the Sierra Leone, the most conspicuous of them being the peak known as Sugar Loaf, and when seen from the sea they are very lovely, for their form is noble, and a wealth of tropical vegetation covers them, which, unbroken in its continuity, but endless in its variety, seems to sweep over their sides down to the shore like a sea, breaking here and there into a surf of flowers.” |
