Talks are underway to launch a major debate on refocusing of Africa's development. Proponents argue that the theory that everything gets right when the market is right (market driven economy) has never worked and can never work for Africa.
They say the theory has rather left the continent with no productive capacity and subsequently dependent on extractives to the neglect of sectors such as agriculture which often leads to famine.
Hence, to be able to make a truly productive agenda work for Africa requires people to agree around an era of industrial force. A 'think-do tank' promoting productivity and innovation in Africa, "Institute DRIVE", is a new alternative African institution that will act as a focal point for non-mainstreaming analysts and solutions to Africa's development problems.
It brings together African and non-African people, partners, collaborators and institutions North and South, forming an alternative to existing African think-tanks in the many ways.
For example, it calls for a refocus on production, productivity and innovation realizing that under-development is the result of a crisis of the three.
DRIVE will depart from dominant market driven mono-economics and draw on traditions that focus on promoting innovation and productivity.
Analysts say the need for such an institution is even more compelling at a time when mainstream economics has failed - as recently demonstrated by the collapse of the liberalized finance.
Ghanaian Development Economist, Mr. Charles Abugre, said DRIVE could pass for an industrial revolution and that Africa must come back to fundamentals of the ability to create wealth that is remunerative.
"Everybody talks micro but never about Africa that it can industrialize, a mindset that has to change. The problem of trade policy is not market access for Africa but industrial policy that requires that countries are reluctant to open up their markets."
Speaking to Public Agenda at the Voksenaasen in Oslo Norway, Mr. Abugre noted that the post structural adjustment generation in Africa had been exposed only to a narrative of "markets good, governments bad"; an understanding of Africa's progress that fails to appreciate huge strides made by post-independent nationalist leaders and to a consistently negative image about Africans.
According to him, self-belief is central to the ability of Africans to drive their own development and that the essential issue to address in Africa development is the continent's ability to industrialize.He argued that the debate about aid and aid effectiveness did nothing to the development of Africa.
He said over the last years, aid has continued to pour into the Horn of Africa, which is crunching under conflict but then it is not possible to maintain long term peace in a situation where poverty is created.
Therefore, conflict and peace issues should be part of the development content.He said Africa must not get diverted into other causes such as good governance but must focus on transforming production, adding that growth that generates employment and solves poverty is consciously managed to add value to production.
"Growth is an accumulation. We need to go beyond that. All are natural resource intensive and without value addition you can't create jobs and there will be no basis for taxation which government needs for development."
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund at the end of the 1990s announced a shift in the focus of their lending policies in Africa towards poverty reduction.
Critics say close examination of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) shows that the new approach has not changed substantially from the structural adjustment policies promoted in Africa by the Bank and the Fund since the 1980s.United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD's) study of African PRSPs, entitled From Adjustment to Poverty Reduction: What Is New?, reckons that not much has changed under the new approach.
The two institutions have mainly built on conventional structural adjustment polices by adding two new elements:. Paying more attention to the need for public spending on education and health, reversing the tendency of early adjustment policies to reduce such spending. . Introducing "safety nets" and targeted spending programmes to mitigate the adverse impact of adjustment policies on the poor in education, health and rural infrastructure.
The group argues that since the majority of Africa's poor live in rural areas; efforts to improve their conditions should emphasize rural development, enhanced agricultural productivity and job creation.
Mr. Charles Abugre blamed in many cases the limited active participation of civil society in economic policy-making which at times is used as an endorsement of the Bank and Fund's policies creating an impression that they have the support of NGOs.
"Sometimes the IMF and World Bank make all the important lending decisions for a government before a PRSP is finalized," observes Mr. Abugre.
The recent financial crisis and global food price hikes have exposed the extreme vulnerability of a continent dependent on external market for virtually everything. DRIVE aims to refocus the development policy debate to productivity enhancement, promote a review of the early days industrialization and production support policies in Africa in the light of 30 years of mainstream reforms and convene an agenda-setting, high level event to put forward a bold alternative African agenda and a framework focused on a bold production framework.
It will also seek to follow-up activities to ensure the integration of this agenda with related regional initiatives, use internet, popular media and mobile technology to sustain the debate and campaign for policy change, as well as organize lectures and speaker events in important centres and countries across the continent, targeting the policy making technocrat and academic communities and the media and involving heterodox (political) economists around the world.
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