The Quest for African Governments to Perform Excellently

The quest for African governments to excel in all of their various governmental portfolio activities is rooted in the reality that many African governments are now actively engaging and demonstrating the political will to implement good governance policies.

First and foremost the fact that most African governments have now embraced democracy and changes of government without any conflict is a huge step towards achieving the excellence desired by policy makers throughout the world. For instance, Ghana and South Africa, to mention a few have successfully changed heads of state without the transition being marred by political instability as had been noted in the past. The fact that Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda, which had previously been the darkest spots on the African continent with raging civil wars, have successfully expressed hope of change and constructive dialogue. These moves have been recently endorsed by the new US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on her recent visit to Kenya.

In countries that have been bedeviled with leaders who had insatiable thirst for power and the quest too rule forever such as Zimbabwe and Kenya, we have seen the recent formation of the Government of National Unity and progress being made towards democratic elections.

On the economic front we have seen an upward increase in the rise of the gross domestic product of many SADC states, with the exception of Zimbabwe. This has included growth in Botswana (4.8% between the 2007-2008 economic year), Mozambique (6.5% between the 2007-2008 financial year) and South Africa (4.9% between the 2007-2008 economic year).

The devil of corruption within African governments is carefully being handled through the creation of corruption monitoring boards such as Transparency International (TI) - where the African representatives of TI are lobbying their governments for legislative reform to seal all known loopholes that allow the illegal appropriation of public money from their treasuries. They are also seeking to punish the culprits, as well as to create frameworks for receiving recovered and repatriated moneys.

The dependency syndrome of Africa states is clearly being handled by investment policies which are calling for investment rather than donation. Most African Governments have created Ministries of Industry and International Trade as governmental arms chiefly responsible for handling incoming and outgoing investment activities. During his recent visit to Ghana, the President of the United States, Barak Obama stressed in His State of Africa address the need for Africa to embrace investment and develop home grown solutions rather than waiting on donor funding. 
 

“The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with repeated peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. (Applause.) And by the way, can I say that for that the minority deserves as much credit as the majority. (Applause.) And with improved governance and an emerging civil society, Ghana's economy has shown impressive rates of growth” 

(Barack Obama, 2009) 

The recent educational policies of African states from Nigeria to Zimbabwe and from Egypt to South Africa have greatly encouraged the education of Africans in a remarkable way. Most EU countries together with the UAE and America have looked to Africa for professionals and labour. There has been a sharp increase since 2000 in the number the professional that have migrated abroad, and surely these countries are to some extent being sustained by professionals from African countries. Indeed, here Africa has shined and continues to shine.

Africa has the vast potential and capacity to reverse the current situation, and take the lead in driving the continent's developmental issues, rather than have its developmental agenda directed from other continents.

Brian Chigumbura
Researcher and Consultant
Mthente Research and Consulting Services