Grappling with Change in Africa: The Dream of Prosperity Using African Wisdom

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© 2014 Emmanuel Danstan Chinunda. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 04/08/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-9662-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-9663-1 (e)

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Introduction

Preface

Abbreviations

Executive Summary

Chapter 1   Change in context

Chapter 2   Africa versus change

Chapter 3   The Leadership Trap

Chapter 4   Management Vision in Organisations

Chapter 5   Understanding of Change by Africans

Chapter 6   Education versus Change

Chapter 7   Special focus on the 50th celebration of

the African Union

Chapter 8   The Dependency Syndrome Risk

Chapter 9   The Culture of now and discontinuity

Chapter 10   Looking inside the African Continent

Chapter 11   Challenges facing Africans

Chapter 12   Corruption as an economic threat

Chapter 13   Resources Unexploited

Chapter 14   Swaying the Pendulum

References

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my thanks to my previous employers who entrusted me with the responsibility of managing their organisations in positions of group general manager, human resource and administration manager and executive director. These organisations made it possible for me to practically see change in different forms.

Secondly, I extend my special thanks to so many people I personally interacted with in different boards as these acted as my true teachers on change management. I witnessed organisations changing by different decisions taken at board level.

My humble appreciation also goes to Dr Chiku Malunga, who is an author and a consultant, for sharing his knowledge coupled with his inspiration, encouragement and interest in my work as a consultant.

I am deeply indebted to Innocent Chitosi who edited my work and other people too numerous to mention who challenged me to reflect on various issues on the subject of change management.

My sincere thanks go to my wife, Tiwonge, for her understanding when I was researching and writing this book and my kids, Emmanuel (Junior) and Esther who will be witnessing a constantly changing world.

Finally, I extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who contributed to my work both knowingly and unknowingly including Employers Consultative Association of Malawi who acted as my main spring board to facilitate my trips to South Africa, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands where the genesis of this book was born and the Management College of Southern Africa where I studied Change Management as a subject which generated a lot of interest and has finally culminated into the book you are holding in your hands.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my late parents, Laban Nindi Chinunda and Mrs Joyce Chinunda who made it possible for me to witness the light of the day and showed me the way to be able to contribute to the changing world.

Introduction

This book provides an overview of how change should be viewed in Africa. Change is undoubtedly a critical part of life. Primarily, it highlights what needs to be done in order to be able to change. The book uses the author’s experience to present the subject having extensively travelled around the world and studied on the subject matter. It should be appreciated that there are so many approaches which change takes in life. However, this book is in the author’s considered view merely a simplification of his understanding of the subject using some African proverbs to relate the subject to what Africans really love: familiarity and patterns. It provides a guide on how change can be simply viewed and undertaken with seriousness in the African continent. If you want to understand Africa, this book provides an overview of what you need, to be able to appreciate and understand the continent.

This is a book on change and it is required now more than ever before because the world has entered a new era of human history. It does not imply and shall not be construed to offer solutions to the immense challenges Africa is facing. Rather it attempts, in a small way, to provide a direction on how the author thinks change can be internalised in the continent based on the challenges the continent has gone through and currently is still going through. The book creates debate on how African’s voice can be heard in the global world and advocates for the transformation of Africans and other people from other continents to understand each other.

You will discover the secrets of progress and how Africa can overcome existing challenges, actual and imagined to become a star in the world. Most other countries and continents of the world have their proverbs and wise sayings. In Africa, it is the same and the African proverbs are the pride of the African culture. From time immemorial, African proverbs have been used to convey messages during important conversations. It is believed that such sayings come from the wise and only the wise understand them. Over the years, proverbs have been associated with the wise, elderly and the grey haired who pride themselves in the knowledge of these proverbs and more often than not, they are used to advise a child or youths as the advice tends to stick more when the proverbs are understood. In most traditions in Africa, it is common for a person presenting a proverb to interpret it as well. It is said that the more deeply you understand other people, the more you appreciate them and the more reverent you feel about them. The voice of Africans must indeed be heard in the world.

Preface

This book had its genesis in my travels to different countries on earth. I realised that there is something missing in our continent which we do not do right and therefore people from different parts on Earth have completely different perceptions about Africans. More so, in the year 2009 I was privileged to study Social Dialogue at International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation in Turin, Italy. The trip took me to Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Monaco. Whilst in Belgium, I visited Antwerp, the world’s diamond centre and attended the conference on Extraordinary Liaison Forum on the Review of European Sectoral Social Dialogue on 27 April, 2009 at Hotel Crown Plaza, rue Gineste, 3, in Brussels where one of the presenters clearly talked about Africa. This was at the peak of the global credit crunch which affected many countries in the world. I was moved by his strong contribution that Africa can no longer be a solution to Europeans’ lack of employment because Africans are clever now and European nations cannot go to Africa to mine resources as they did in the past since most countries are independent states. I thought over this narration and conversed with my friend in the delegation from Zambia who categorically said that what the presenter said was indeed true. However, I personally was irritated because by comparison I saw that Africa as a continent is grossly underdeveloped except, may be, very few countries such as the Republic of South Africa, Mauritius and Botswana and yet it has huge resources which can be exploited and put the continent on the road to prosperity. I felt moved because considering huge resources in the African continent coupled with its manpower something can be done to really uplift the continent. The focus on the common theme of poverty alleviation which morphs into poverty reduction, which in my considered view, is the same song which has been sang for many years and may as well be forgotten needs to be further explored. Further, reading the books by Dr Chiku Malunga on Oblivion or Utopia: Prospects for Africa, The African Dream From Poverty to Prosperity by the late President of Malawi Dr Bingu Wa Mutharika, Dead Aid by Dambiso Moyo, The Capitalist Nigger by Chika Onyeani, recommendations by Discussion Groups on Economic, Social, Political and Strategic issues from the Inaugural Programme of the African Leadership Forum in Ota, Nigeria and regular updates on African Confidential, a magazine which highlights African news, Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s observation at World Economic Forum in Davos on January, 2013 that African stories must be narrated by Africans, reading various magazines and literature including my MBA studies which focused on Managing Strategic Change also known as Organisational Development (OD) further strengthened my urge to put across my ideas to the world.

Prior to these events, I was in a plane returning from University of Durham in England in 2002 where I was invited by The Tradecraft Exchange to attend meetings and training in Business Counselling and whilst watching the TV in the plane it was showing people from Africa dying with hunger. This attracted my attention. The Western media is awash with negative news about Africa. I felt duty bound to write issues about Africa so as to paint a correct picture about the same.

I had to personally do research on the plight of Africans through reading various magazines which talk about Africa and surf the web to bring out what I conceptualised as key ingredients for African revival. I have spoken to many fellow Africans about what they think Africa should be like and followed developments in the continent. Coupled with my sojourn in the African continent having first hand information clearly gave me the impetus to highlight issues as they are in the continent. ‘Seeing is believing’ so the saying goes and let those who have the first hand information tell the world the truth about Africa. Thabo Mbeki, the former South African president, agrees with this assertion by arguing that Africans need to own, build, nurture, strengthen and control the indigenous institutions of research, information gathering and dissemination including media so as to end distortions about ourselves that lead to the disempowerment of our people, self-hate and confusion about what we ought to do to advance our development. While I strongly believe that silence can be a speech, I got moved with what Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Silence becomes cowardice when the occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly". As long as Africa’s stories are told by non-Africans, global perception of Africa will be fundamentally flawed and Africa will continue to be presented in less than ideal light.

Abbreviations

AWEP   The African Women Entrepreneurship Programme

AfDB   African Development Bank

AU   African Union

CEO   Chief Executive Officer

COMESA   Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa

CFTA   Continental Free Trade Area

EITI   Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

GDP   Gross Domestic Product

GPS   Global Positioning System

ILO   International Labour Organisation

IMF   International Monetary Fund

MBA   Master of Business Administration

MDGs   Millennium Development Goals

NEPAD   New Partnership for Africa’s Development

NTD   Neglected Tropical Diseases

OECD   Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

TV   Television

DRC   Democratic Republic of Congo

EU   European Union

UN   United Nations

OD   Organisational Development

Executive Summary

Africa is one of the seven continents of the world and the most populous black continent. Africa is also known as being the hottest continent on Earth, home to ancient Egyptian Pyramids and the Nile River. Africa is known for its huge cultural heritage and the origin of civilisation and written language dating back to more than 400 years. It is the second largest continent in the world both in population and land mass covering almost 12 million square miles (approximately 31 million square km. Being the home of human species which developed there about 500 million years ago and origin of 1500 different languages. Africa is known for being a home to about one billion people. Africa has the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, which makes up an area greater in size than the entire continental United States. World Civilisation started in Africa and the most ancient civilisation known to man was the state of the Pharaohs which started in ancient Egypt about 3300BC and ended in 343 BC. Nile is the longest river in the world measuring about 6670 km length although the Nile is usually associated with Egypt only 22 percent of the Nile course runs through Egypt the rest flows through Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Sudan. And the banks of river Nile saw the origin of civilisation. One surprising fact about Africa is that the continent is blessed with many natural wonders and amazing tourist destinations of which Lake Victoria is one of them. It forms the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest fresh water lake in the world. This Lake covers an area of 26,830 square miles (69,490 square kilometres ) but its wonder is that it contains the largest sheet of falling water in the world in terms of area. The world’s largest living land animal, the African elephant which can weigh between 6 and 7 tonnes is found in Africa.

Change is an alteration in the status quo according to Collins Dictionary. Africa is a rich continent in any material respect. It has immense resources which are unexploited and can ably support the entire world in so many ways. From Cape to Cairo, one sees a continent pregnant with resources which are in less abundance or indeed lacking in so many parts of the world. It plays a host to inland lakes, valleys, mountains, rich soils, people with different cultures, mineral resources, animals, among others but it is classified as a poor continent. Why?

Mo Ibrahim, the founder and chairman of Mo Ibrahim Foundation; founder