Diaspora African Women’s Network

March 27 2012 
By Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa and Charles Wachira


This piece was originally written by DAWNer Jacqueline Musiitwa in the IOL News. The original post can be read here. 



South Africa's election into the Brics bloc of big emerging economies (along with Brazil, Russia, India and China) comes with many expectations and obligations.

As Africa's only Brics member, we need to ask whether SA's inclusion is solely for its own benefit or as the gateway to the rest of Africa, as SA would have us believe.

There are many reasons, however, why SA should not be considered the world's gateway to Africa.

As different countries and regions in Africa continue to improve their individual competitiveness, the need for a gateway is being diminished.

Proposing SA as a gateway implies that African countries are not capable of accessing the world, which is not the case.

African countries are making great strides to integrate into the global economy.

Further, SA does not have sufficient soft power to act as a gateway between Africa and the world.

And finally, SA has myriad domestic issues that hinder it from being a continental gateway.

SA has the highest GDP in Africa, but it must be asked how long it can maintain its lead.

Other parts of the continent are continuing to integrate, increasingly operating as unified trading blocs linked by efficient transport systems, an uninterrupted and affordable supply of electricity, and telecommunications.

Other countries are also eliminating barriers to trade. If SA does not improve its competitiveness, it might flounder.

Furthermore, many African countries are taking advantage of their links to China and India.

Ethiopia, for example, is increasingly diversifying its economy and expanding growth after the global recession, which continues to diminish SA's economic power.

The Economist recently ranked the world's fastest-growing GDPs from 2001 to 2015, and SA was not on its list.

So why would the rest of Africa need SA as its gateway? Other African countries need to focus on increasing their own competitiveness in order to attract more investment for their development directly.

Nigeria, an African country that did make it onto The Economist's list of fastest-growing economies, is continuously ranked as the second largest African economy behind SA.

Considering its large population, a rapidly growing middle class, an increase in domestic industries and the expansion of Nigerian companies across the continent, Nigeria is a force to be reckoned with, especially as it is expected to restructure the basis of its GDP calculation, enabling it to pass SA in 2014 - a major psychological barrier.

However, like SA, Nigeria is plagued by corruption and crime. Nevertheless, as evident on the streets of Lagos, which are overflowing with businesses of all sizes, Nigerians are an entrepreneurial people, very focused on making money by whatever means necessary.

This contrasts sharply with SA, which is likely to be distracted for some time by major disputes over issues such as nationalisation, the legacy of apartheid and distributing wealth to the marginalised.

For SA to be a successful gateway to Africa, the Africans on the other side of the fence, so to speak, must agree to confer on it that status.

While it is true that SA has been the default “Africa brand” on such matters as hosting international sporting events, Africa has never chosen SA to be its stepping stone on other matters.

SA's failure to win anything close to the support needed to get Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma elected as chairwoman of the African Union Commission in January was a glaring demonstration of the weakness of Pretoria's soft power.

SA's “exceptionalism”, which often causes South Africans to talk about Africa as though it was another continent, also counts against this country being accepted by other Africans as their gateway.

At its extreme, of course, this sense of otherness manifests itself as xenophobia, a disease which doesn't seem to want to go away.

SA also has to solve its many domestic issues before taking on Africa's problems. Since the ANC took power in 1994, unemployment has increased substantially, while the few who have the right political connections have grown immensely wealthy.

With about 20 percent of the population owning 80 percent of the country's wealth, future political stability is becoming a growing issue for investors - as is crime, especially violent crime.

Though official figures claim a small decline of just over 6 percent in murders in the year to March 2011 compared to the previous year, even the government acknowledges that rape is increasing. A survey by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency in SA of 4 000 women indicated that one in three had been raped. Coupled with SA's status as having the highest number of HIV infections in the world, this is not attractive to foreign business people.

SA needs to shake off its complacency. Other countries on the continent are finding solutions to their own problems and are prospering. This is reflected by progress in Rwanda, Botswana, Zambia and elsewhere.

Due to globalisation and technological advances, African countries do not need a go-between. African countries are ready to face the world, on their own, regionally and continentally.

*Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa is founder of Hoja Law Group and a Mo Ibrahim Leadership fellow at the World Trade Organisation.

Charles Wachira is a journalist in Kenya.

March 31, 2012
By Wendy Lee, Guest Blogger

Click here to read the original guest post. 

I am not an African, but in the two years of my Peace Corps service in Cameroon, I had fallen in love with the African people. Like most naive twentysomethings who set out to go “change the world”, I was humbled by my time in Cameroon. The country changed me in more ways than one. I barely made a dent in changing my village, much less the world.

I discovered Africa beyond the mainstream portrait of the continent. Africa is a massive place, and while civil wars, famines, and the like do still exist in parts of the continent, the Western media somehow rarely highlights the incredible growth that is taking place in this part of the world. In working with the Cameroonian people, they taught me the realities of African life. Western solutions to problems often do not align with these African realities. Western perceptions of Africans often belittle the incredible motivation, pride, and ingenuity that many Africans possess.

I taught business classes to my villagers. Sure, a little accounting and marketing skills are helpful, but my villagers know the landscape of operating business in Cameroon far beyond my knowledge. At the end of the day, they know what works. Africans know what they need to fix their problems. That’s not to say that problems are easy to fix and foreigners should back off completely. But it is time for the world to give Africans a lot more credit and recognize their own power to develop their own countries.

Articles like The Hopeful Continent: Africa Rising in The Economist gives me hope that the international community are finally recognizing the many positive aspects of African growth. But what will it take for Africa to reclaim its on power? And what is the role of the international community in this process?

Columbia University’s 2012 African Economic Forum will address exactly these questions. The theme this year is Africa Reclaiming Africa: Changing the Rules of Engagement. I hope you will join us in this discussion and network with the Continent’s finest at our formal gala on April 13-14th, 2012. For more information and to register, visit http://www.aef2012.com.

To read the original post from the Christian Science Monitor, click here. 

By Semhar Araia

This week’s biggest Africa news isn’t from Africa. It’s from a massive online and social media campaign launched by the US group Invisible Children to capture indicted war criminal and Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony.

As with their previous campaigns Displace Me & How it Ends, Invisible Children launched Stop Kony 2012 on Tuesday to mobilize the next generation of young Americans to help end the conflict in northern Uganda. Except this time, they called on their mostly white, privileged and educated youth followers to get involved through web-activism on their Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube accounts. 

It all begins with a remarkable 30 minute video highlighting the instantaneous & hyper-connected world we live in. Founder Jason Russell narrates, stating “there are more people on Facebook than there were in the world 200 years ago” and that “humanity’s greatest desire is to belong and connect”. He may be right. In just two days, it has been viewed 32 million times and quickly grabbed the attention of personalities such as Oprah Winfrey, Van Jones, Sean Combs and Rihanna.

It is a powerful example of how social media, art and activism can merge to mobilize privileged people into action and how open-minded Americans want a safer, fairer and more prosperous world.

I appreciate their role. They are reaching a core constituency -- many of whom have never thought about these issues before -- and getting them to care about Africa. But caring is no longer enough. 

Sadly, there are concerns that history may be repeating itself, as seen in responses from emerging African diaspora leaders Solome Lemma and TMS Ruge.

Of course Joseph Kony should be captured. But this approach is flawed. The video shows only a Western audience, without any reference to African partners or leaders.  They are disempowering and undermining the role of Africans. They failed to recognize the role of individuals like Betty Bigombe, a long-time Ugandan activist or seek partnerships with African organizations for the launch, such as Ushahidi or Africans Act for Africa. 

Invisible Children and other Africa-focused advocacy organizations should deliver more sophisticated, nuanced, and respectful  narratives that recognize capturing Kony is a collective responsibility and that Africans must play the primary role in bringing peace in the region.

Calling for the use of the latest technology, tools and organizing tactics to attract millions of peope who have never heard of Kony before (as they say, 99% of the world) into action is exciting. But for Africa’s sake, it is no longer enough.  

On its face, it’s eerily reminiscent of previous Africa advocacy movements, such as Save Darfur in its early days: grand public launches, with minimal partnership and little substance. Dangerous. Whether they meant it to or not, whatever the intentions, it ends up looking like yet another Western campaign to help Africans who can’t help themselves. Africa can’t be handled that way anymore. 

Besides the most obvious concern of another “white savior” narrative for Africa (complete with a young blonde child learning of Africa’s “good guys” and “bad guys’), there’s an absence of depth and deference to the power of Africans who are standing up for themselves. There’s also a complete failure to recognize the role the Ugandan government has had and should have in protecting its citizens and ending the conflict. 

Invisible must be careful not to sell a simple narrative, raise unreasonably high expectations of the conflict’s resolution, ignore the power and agency of Africans on the ground or rely too much on Western solutions and audiences.  They must do better. 

The anti-apartheid movement of the 80s, the debt relief movement of the 90s and the Save Darfur movement just a few years ago, showed us that legislation, peace agreements, foreign aid and ICC arrest warrants don’t always end suffering. For conflict zones like this, there must be global political will focused on long-term security, peacebuilding, development and investment in local leadership and capacity building. 

We also now know that young people’s minds are open and hungry. They should be inspired by knowing Africa is empowered, saving itself and working with partners to remove Kony. That is the real story.  

Invisible must be willing to take their followers on a journey through the Africa that Africans know. They must be willing to inspire - but also to  manage - their followers’ expectations. They must be willing to use their media to amplify African voices, not simply their own.  

This isn’t about them. 

Lastly, this campaign must be better at representing and working with a more accurate reflection of young America. This includes diverse voices, communities of color and new Americans. African-American organizations, historically black colleges and universities and African diaspora groups are missing from the video. Additionally, Invisible’s own US-based staffing and board of directors lack the requisite diversity and representation where critical decisions are made. 

I want Kony captured and I hope everyone uses their power to push our governments to act. But when I say everyone, I mean everyone. 

Including, and most importantly, Africans. 

By DAWNer Sagal Ali

This blog was originally posted on the White House Champion of Change Blog. Click here to read the original post.

I am humbled to have been selected as a Champion of Change and to have the opportunity to represent the achievements of American diaspora communities with roots in the Horn Africa. The Horn of Africa and specifically Somalia, where I was born, is a region that is deeply impacted by political instability, extreme poverty and refugee crises. Immigrants and refugees from Somalia who come to the United States have to overcome not only the trauma of forced migration and civil war but many settle in high poverty communities where they struggle along with their fellow Americans to emerge from a cycle of intergenerational poverty. My interest in helping Somali refugees and low-income Americans to emerge from poverty and improve future outcomes for their children led me to join Columbus Metropolitan Library Ready to Read Corps.

As part of the Ready to Read Corps, I take the library into at-risk communities to teach parents and caregivers of children between the ages of 0-to-5 on how to be their child’s first teacher and prepare their children for kindergarten. We teach parents to develop their child’s literacy skills and show parents how taking little steps can have an impact on preparing a child to succeed in school. To reach low-income parents we work with food pantries, preschools, churches, social service offices, mosques, hospitals, schools, high school teen parent program, and we even hold trainings in people’s homes. We bring the library to the community and work with diverse low-income populations in Columbus, Ohio, which is home to the second largest Somali immigrant and refugee community in the United States.

In some local schools, 40% of the children entering kindergarten are not adequately prepared to succeed in school, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment Literacy (KRA-L) scores. In some local immigrant neighborhoods, that score is as high as 77%. These early inequalities in school preparation have been proven in numerous research studies to adversely impact a child’s academic and lifelong success because children are continually attempting to catch up to their more affluent peers. The Ready to Read Corps of Columbus Metropolitan Library is an innovative early literacy program that works to prevent these persisting educational inequalities by educating and empowering parents and is an integral component in the fight against poverty.