South Sudan: Failures in Choosing our Development Path
6 min readBy Opoka Christopher Arop, Juba, South Sudan
July 28, 2015 (SSB) —- Part of the reason our country has gone through all these dark pages in our short new history is because of a failure by the political leadership to identify and implement a development path. This failure was first among the political elite, but it soon spread to the middle class and then slowly but surely it consumed the civil service as more and more people became overexcited by the opportunities now before them, and nationalism and a specific development objective was thrown out the window.
One development expert and a former Ambassador of Germany to one African country said during a media experts workshop on China—Africa relations: “Many African governments are not asking why German companies are not fully involved in building Africa, but instead the German people are willing to send donor aid…the other question is why Chinese companies are all over Africa, doing all and everything…” the Ambassador stated to a seemingly astonished audience. The official was the least surprised.
The high level German official went further to say that; “The differences are very clear for all to see. Africa doesn’t need journalists to tell its people what is going on. This isn’t rocket science. Europeans don’t see profits in rebuilding Africa. The profits are there, but the risks are too high. But Europeans are afraid of two other things. They are afraid and not ready to confront strong memories of all forms of colonialism from Africa. And frankly speaking, the German said,…Africa is not as exciting as a business destination for European companies…We see Africa as a holiday destination…we are even surprised by the standards of hotels Africa offers …these hotels are better than some in Europe, and do Africans know how this makes Europeans feel…? Old women and grandmothers all over Africa can use and have mobile phones, and can send money using a phone…can send pictures…can pay medical bills…there are middle class in some parts of Europe that don’t know what the internet is, let alone how to use it…..some Europeans have never and perhaps may never own mobile handsets in their lifetime.. so if you ask me why Europeans are not so excited about Africa’s emerging market potential; I will write a thousand pages of book…”
The other question is the reason why Chinese companies are here. The Chinese government through all financial mechanisms are ready to push their companies, state owned or private, to venture in any part of the world, first to create friends, and later to make money. What is $ 500 million to the Chinese government! This is nothing compared to the rewards from such investments, and thus a risk worth taking. It could be a fair argument to say of Chinese economic and foreign policy adventures, as a mission for friendship in a global village where all you need may be the people you can count on.
So the Chinese and Europeans have made their intentions very clear. The politics of donor aid has plagued Africa for long and much has been written on this subject, however one aspect stands out; “donor aid has saved lives through emergency aid toward health, education, food, shelter and security” and without this, it is said Africa would not be here today or where it is today. The new argument by the Chinese is that, their alternative has provided long term investments for Africa: infrastructure, trade and machinery, technology; and that these forms of aid have proven crucial for Africa’s survival in a global struggle, but also provided Africa with an opportunity to an equal partner in this struggle.
The rest of the debate is about the decision by Africans and by and among African governments. South Sudan must choose its development path, without the influence of European aid and Chinese development finance, but this may prove very difficult. We may need both. But our dependency on one or both is what will and is crippling us.
A decision, bold in nature, consequential in output must be made. Our donor friends may shun us in the end; but we must make such decisions. A good though unfair example would be the experience of the Kingdom of the Netherlands or Norway or Sweden; where there is enormous experience in river and lake management, low cost housing and construction on and along waters, management of flooding, building bridges etc. But instead these countries send us human rights activists, as if we don’t know that it is wrong to kill one another or that we don’t know and haven’t perfected the art of torture or that we don’t have any form of justice system. They ignore what we need most and concentrate on what they think we must need.
Making a decision for our development path is not and will not be an easy decision. It would have been easier if we had a functioning legislature, where parliamentarians are competent persons who are not and don’t have vested interests in all and every private enterprises across the country; thus this decision will be tedious, expensive and challenging. For one thing, the multi-billion dollar aid industry is too complex a web that, the threat, any threat to it would have such nation receiving calls from offices as high up as the United Nations or Geneva and from all backers of the processes that led to our independence and secession in 2011. But it is a decision we must make and live by the consequences thereafter.
Donor politics as a development path have produced a poor civil service where the most highly skilled have been drained by United Nations agencies, with many citizens becoming consultants too soon, and many others looking forward to such positions and stature, too quick too soon; with many others being sucked into overseas engagements with such agencies, where they see such promotions as a reward for their deserved hard work, rather than a splash plunge into a web of intricate donor-global-development-aid-politics-employment.
At the end of the day, with the mediocre persons we have in our institutions, it is not shameful that mismanagement has been our least of worries. Institutionalized corruption, abuse of power, diversion of resources have led to the collapse of what appeared from the onset, a shattered economy and have all been expected and have outlived their welcome in the end. And we are not surprised.
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