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The founding fathers of the AU were passionate about the need for African unity. They believed in a united Africa that would wield a significant influence on the world stage both economically and politically.
Africa indeed has come of age, but sadly the economic emancipation of its people that the founding fathers envisaged has remained elusive.
At the recent Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Japan, the Japanese premier acknowledged that Africa would be the engine for growth in the next few decades.
He then pledged huge financial aid to Africa in the coming decade to assist in its development.
The huge appetite for Africa’s vast mineral resources is clearly the reason for this renewed interest on the African continent by advanced economies including China.
Africa is endowed with vast mineral wealth and world economic powers want access to these resources in order to satisfy their domestic markets.
But Africa must cease trading its mineral wealth in its raw form and start exporting processed products.
African states need to develop stronger bargaining positions with foreign investors so that they can begin to restructure their economies towards higher value production.
The cluster approach suggested by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara where African states can pool their resources together to establish value-adding production processes to compensate for their lack of large capital outlays required to establish these plants, makes business sense.
African states must plan for co-ordinated economic and industrial development rather than continuing to cut deals as individual states that looks good on paper but end up benefiting foreigners more than they would benefit Africa’s own people.
The new surge by global powers to access Africa’s vast resources should put Africa in a stronger position to unite and get fairer deals for its resources than before. African states must set common economic rules and objectives.
African states must increase trade amongst themselves and embed pan-African values in their business dealings with each other.
The strong emergence of Chinese and other non-traditional economic and trading partners should create the space for a practical pan-Africanism that must see African countries coming together to advance a common position as they negotiate with foreign investors.
All barriers to free intra-Africa trade and free movement of its people must be removed.
As observed by the African Development Bank vice president and chief economist Dr Mthuli Ncube at the AfDB annual meeting in Morocco, restrictive visa requirements in
African states are among the main factors restricting intra-regional trade and economic growth in Africa.
Visa restrictions are tighter for Africans travelling to other African countries than they are for Europeans and North Americans coming to Africa, implying missed economic opportunities from intra-Africa trade.
Pan-Africanism should move out of the conundrum of idealism to become a practicable life standard in the continent’s business dealings.
Pan-Africanism should move away from being a high sounding slogan for African leaders to being the African philosophy that drives the way we do business and conduct ourselves in our everyday lives.
Pan-African value systems must be used to bring the African people together across the colonial borders. Pan-Africanism shouldn’t be associated with mere leadership grandstanding in world forums.
Rather, it should be transferred from these leadership forums to the African industries, homes, communities, work place, and social networks so that it is engraved in our everyday speak.
Talk of contradictions that characterise the pan-African talk in politics then you start to wonder whether we as Africans are really resolute about collectively pushing for the African agenda in every sphere of our being.
Surely, in all the 50 years of preaching African unity how then do we justify laws in our midst that disenfranchise fellow Africans labelling them aliens simply because they are born of one of their parents being from a neighbouring African state?
Or to think that in some African countries blacks from other African states are viewed as foreigners more than whites from Europe or other parts of the world are viewed in the same light?
Pan-African value systems must be practised in our everyday lives. The pan-Africanist spirit should determine the way we do business, and the way we relate to each other across our artificial borders.
Needless barriers imposed by the existing colonial borders must be broken and Africans should enjoy free movement on their continent.
Pan-African value systems should go beyond mere politicking, neither should they be used to victimise or exclude others simply because they happen to hold a different viewpoint.
l Bradwell Mhonderwa is an Ethics Coach and Trainer with the Business Ethics Centre. Send feedback to [email protected], or call 0772 913 875.
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