What the AU Summit should have done for Africa

By William Babigumira (July 2007)

What an eventful week it has been for Africa! Our leaders gathered in the capital city of Ghana, once the bedrock of the anti-colonialism movement, spearheaded and pushed by visionaries of a past generation of leaders like Kwameh Nkrumah; strugglists who surmounted a lot of geo-political challenges of their time, to push a Pan-African agenda.

Alas! The divisions at the summit regrettably took centre stage. Our Great Leaders risked being reduced to a bunch of bickering prefects. Resentment was rife for Gaddafi's attempt to use Libya as a launch pad for what political pundits interpret as an “oil-fueled” domination of Africa. This in effect is pitting him against the United States of America, China, and South Africa. In my view, the cracks were largely due to colonial age divisions between Franco-fone and Anglo-fone Africa.

That said, and with the benefit of hindsight, the set of ideas pushed forward to realize an African Union are rather simple, and rightly so (an African passport, strengthening regional blocs, etc). This is because history tells us that the process of forging nation-states and existing United States’ was a rather bloody and drawn out one. Africa has had its fair share of wars, and as such, should digress from forging itself by spilling more blood.
Rather than deliver a damning indictment of what is generally accepted as an important milestone in the process of Africa’s integration, I choose to examine what it is that the Leaders at the AU summit could have focused their energies on. My view is that, rather than set an agenda for discussing an African government, out Leaders should have focused on agreeing on certain practical economic aspects of African integration which are measurable and plausible and ultimately help forge our continent together.
These roughly span two key areas:

Transportation and Communication Infrastructure:

State Unions of any kind are usually premised on the free and unhindered movement of persons across borders. The free movement of persons is less impacted on by diverse languages, cultures of ways of life, and more by the means for doing it. If I can travel by road or rail to Tripoli, it doesn’t really matter whether I can speak Arabic. Give me a highway, and you have opened up my choices to move. I therefore am free to move where best I can utilise my talent, or apply my capital (human or financial), and I can also tell what the Libyan doesn’t have which I can possibly sell to him. Furthermore, it matters that I am able to ship whatever is demanded which I produce with a comparative advantage, across this vast continent at a reasonable cost.
Key deliverable: An Interstate Highway System linking the geographically diverse markets of Africa. An Interstate Railway system linking the relatively rich markets of Southern Africa to the well endowed food production zones of central Africa and the oil rich Northern and Western Africa.

Energy Infrastructure

Another key factor that defines a viable union of states is freely transferable energy; large amounts of affordable fuel and electrical energy should move unhindered across the continent. Africa has vast potential for both. She however lacks the transformative ingredients to harness this energy. Open up the flow of energy from where it is abundant to where it is needed most, and viola! The economic possibilities are endless.
Key deliverable here; A transnational oil pipeline network linking the energy rich markets of West and North Africa to Energy starved markets of East, Central and South Africa. Likewise, a continental electricity grid linking the Congo basin with the rest of Africa is a necessary and requisite requirement for quick and rapid industrialisation.
Africa is saliently the only Continent investing heavily in pipeline infrastructure to channel oil “away” from herself to the more affluent markets of China, the EU and America, rather than “to herself”, a more energy hungry hinterland craving cheap sources of energy to enable Industrial transformation. A pity indeed!

The Way Forward

How then can our weak states possibly implement these mammoth projects? Rather than seek Aid from the rich west, with all its attendant conditionality and the vested interests it seeks to protect, member states of the AU could pledge to contribute between 2 - 3% of national GDP towards these projects (current estimates place real GDP growth for Sub-Saharan Africa at an average of 4.5%. Real GDP per capita growth was about 2.8% in 2006). Eventually, if a well thought out project implementation plan is tabled and ratified, then International financial investment corporations will be attracted to co-finance the project.

The AU Summit offered that unique forum for discussing such a plan. It was, inadvertently, missed.

One would argue that the economic disparity and instability across Africa’s regions is a major impediment to the viability of these infrastructure projects suggested herein. I believe this is not entirely true. Contrary to popular belief, Sub-Saharan Africa’s currently enjoys relative economic stability. This, combined with a favourable global growth climate, now offers opportunities that the region has begun to exploit. Sadly, this is being done at national level, with all the attendant weaknesses which I need not mention here. Further work is needed at a macro (read: Continental) level to harness and accelerate national efforts for development and poverty elimination.

According to the IMF, Sub-Saharan Africa experienced a third straight year of growth over 5% in 2006. The IMF projects growth to be around 6% in 2007 and the region is inching closer to 7% growth per annum, the rate needed to achieve the Millenium Development Goals of cutting extreme poverty in half by the year 2015. My considered view is that by 2015, if these two major economic areas are well consolidated and addressed, then poverty would be well below 5% by the year 2015.

Off course these ideas are not without challenges. Trans-continental projects of this nature can be very expensive and are subject to the successful negotiation and implementation of complex regional agreements, which is why the platform for action must be defined in palatable ways for all the Governments of Africa. National plans for electrical grids will have to be tweaked to fit a continental energy balance, and re-designed to meet the standards and specifications of an African Electricity Grid. Concession agreements for oil pipelines have to be negotiated and agreed within a specified timeframe.

In conclusion, what will forge a viable African Union is economic integration first. Political integration is far off in the future and will be realized if an African head of State has an integrated economic zone and her peoples to preside over.