Africa must make it own strides at developing- Mkapa

Cape Coast, Nov 6, GNA - The former Tanzanian President, Mr Benjamin William Mkapa, on Thursday called for an "Afro-centric" leadership capacity on the continent that would create and sustain politically stable and peaceful states and viable economies. He said such leadership must be able to nurture and encourage the participation in not only political power but economic prosperity as well, adding that Dr Nkrumah who stood for African liberation and integration, would be dismayed by the diminished political will at integration.

Mr Mkapa made the call when he delivered the second lecture at the on-going eighth edition of the 'Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures' under the main theme "Rethinking the political, social and economic paradigm of African development" at the University of Cape Coast. He enumerated several challenges currently facing the continent such as the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, which he said had become the "epic-centre of the disease. He said out of a total of about 25 million people globally infected with the disease, 68 per cent are in sub- Saharan Africa, who also accounts for a total of 76 per cent of deaths from the epidemic, which he said was killing most of Africa's skilled labour and which was now creeping into capacity building institutions. He therefore among others, challenged the continent to research into the manufacture of anti-retroviral drugs to prolong the lives of infected persons.

The former President, who spoke on the topic "The first 40 years: a flawed development dependence model", noted that the challenge for newly independent Africa was nation building that required strong leadership and alliances.

He said the leaders appended their signatures to charters of institutions in whose founding they had not participated, thereby "inducting themselves into deeply entrenched systems" and that in the first three decades of the 21st century, they looked to the IMF and other western financial institutions who mainly promoted the mission of their founders.

He said these institutions lent loans to Africa, which culminating effect was gross indebtedness, with a payment pressure that was anti-development, compelling some of the countries to borrow more to settle their debts as a result of which some of them "graduating to become" Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC).

He stressed that it was a "shame" to talk about food crisis in Africa, and deplored the global view, that African women were marginalized, but pointed out that however distorted that may be, there was the need for re-thinking and reforms to empower women to vigorously pursue their role in nation building on equal terms with men. Mr Mkapa said African countries now need to work harder on the international scene with other groupings, and said at joint group meetings such as the African Union/European Union, Africans were regarded as takers rather than givers.

The former President, who traced Africa's socio-economic and political performance from the colonial era, observed that the continent was now totally free of colonialism and apartheid, describing it as a "dream of Dr Nkrumah come true", and added that next to independence, the best thing was the end of the cold war which enabled Africa to be truly free.

He said the cold war, had compelled Africa to look externally rather than internally, and that for instance, NEPAD would not have been possible "under the cloud of the cold war". He also attributed the slow pace of Africa's development to the numerous military coups and wondered if they had occurred as a result of bad leadership, or they were themselves the causes of bad leadership, and stressed the need for the role of such institutions to be harmonized in nation building.