THE CHALLENGES OF LEADERSHIP

IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

Report on the Inaugural Programme

of the

Africa Leadership Forum

Ota, Nigeria

24 October to 1 November 1988

THE CHALLENGES OF LEADERSHIP

IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

Report on the Inaugural Programme

of the

Africa Leadership Forum

Ota, Nigeria

24 October to 1 November 1988

Contents

Page

I. Introduction 1

II. Review of Proceedings 5

A. Challenges of economic development 6

B. Challenges of the international

Economic environment 13

C. Challenges of social and cultural development 17

D. Challenges of the South African situation 24

E. Challenges of policy formation 26

III. Group Discussions

A. Political and strategic issues 30

B. Economic and social issues 33

IV. Summary and Conclusion 37

Appendix I

A List of participants 41

Appendix II

A List of statements and papers 45

I. Introduction

The Africa Leadership Forum was established as a private initiative to assist

incumbent and potential African leaders who have been propelled into

leadership positions yet who have not had the opportunity to acquire all the

skills necessary for leadership. It is, indeed, only rarely that African leaders

have been adequately exposed to and gained experience on the myriad issues

and problems confronting the continent. The enormous difficulties that face

Africa today and the even more worrisome problems of tomorrow make it

imperative to establish such an institution as the Africa Leadership Forum.

It is the view of the Forum that leadership skills are not only prerequisites

for those in the executive branch of government or in the top echelons of

political parties. Leadership skills are needed at many levels of the society.

Industry and finance have become such powerful sectors today that even a

dictator, albeit with an arsenal at his disposal, must bend under pressure

from the leaders of the private sector. In our educational systems, too, and in

our military institutions, in the arts and culture, in government service and in

diplomacy, there are many people who must posses the skills of leadership.

The intention of the Forum is to identify potential leaders, in all these

spheres, through the assistance of seasoned leaders, the growing pool of

active participants, through the press, and through recognized personal

achievers. The Forum aims to bring together participants from Africa, with a

sprinkle of participants from other regions, and incumbent and retired

leaders from all walks of life. It sees such interaction as important in

offering informal preparation and assistance to those who would be called

upon to lead in the various sectors of the African continent.

The broad objectives of the Forum are:

(a) To encourage the diagnosis, understanding, and informed search for

solutions to local, regional, and global problems, taking full account

of their interrelationships and mutual consequences;

(b) To develop, organize and support programmes for the training of able

and promising Africans with leadership potentials so as to expose

them to the demands, duties and obligations of leadership positions

and to prepare them systematically to assume higher responsibilities

and to meet the challenges of an interdependent world;

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(c) To generate greater understanding and to enhance the knowledge and

awareness of issues of development and social problems, within a

global context, among young, potential leaders from all sectors of the

society, cutting across national, regional, continental, professional

and institutional borders and with a view to fostering close and

enduring relationships and promoting life-long association and

cooperation among such potential leaders:

(d) To support and encourage the diagnosis and informed search for

appropriate and effective solutions to local and regional African

problems from an African perspective – within the framework of

global interdependence. This includes consideration for phased action

programmes that can be initiated by various countries, sub-regions

and institutions.

The inaugural programme of the Africa Leadership Forum took place at the

Forum’s Conference Centre, Ota, Nigeria from 24 October to 1 November

1988. Participants from eleven African countries and six non-African

countries attended this inaugural programme. The list of these participants is

contained in Appendix 1.

The Programme was opened by His Excellency Ibrahim Babangida,

President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who declared on that occasion

publicly the support of his Government for the private initiative that the

Africa Leadership Forum represents, which may materialize in the near

future in a very substantial way. Subsequently, a keynote address entitled

“Africa in Today’s World” was delivered by the former Head of State of

Nigeria, General, Olusegun Obasanjo, who had initiated the idea of

establishing the Africa Leadership Forum. Both addresses are of pivotal

importance for appreciating the enormity of the leadership crises in Africa

and they are published together with the discussion thereon in a separate

booklet.

The inaugural programme comprised a number of seminars, at which papers

were presented and discussed, and group meetings where the leadership

challenges in specific areas could be discussed in more depth. The

programme also provided direct and stimulating exposure to the pressing

problems of rural areas, through a one-day field trip to the Ibarapa area of

Oyo State, and to the problems of metropolitan Lagos, through a

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presentation by and exchange of views with the Military Governor of Lagos

State. The participants also enjoyed social programmes and contacts with the

Ifo-Ota Local Government Council and the Government of Lagos State.

While reflecting on the operations of the Forum, participants suggested that

future meetings should be of a shorter duration than the inaugural

programme, lasting, perhaps, not more than four days. Such meetings can be

held twice a year. As a long-term project, there was a feeling that the Forum

should help initiate the establishment of a high-level African think tank or a

Center for Policy and Strategic Studies, where much sustained investigation

and analysis of the African situation can be undertaken to assist policy

formulation and decision-making by African leaders.

The critical financial support by several donors, which helped make the

Forum and the inaugural programme a reality, must be gratefully

acknowledged. Generous and significant contributions were received from

the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Government of

Japan, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mr. Victor Mpoyo, an

African industrialist, and the Africa Leadership Foundation Inc.

The Forum extends its sincere gratitude also to governmental agencies,

embassies, private sector institutions and individuals whose warm hospitality

added welcome social dimensions to an intellectually most stimulating

encounter. It is not possible to indicate all of these benefactors in this brief

report but special mention must be made of the Nigerian Ministry of

External Affairs for facilitating the attendance of participants; the Lagos

State Government for hosting delegates to a lecture on the “Problems of the

Lagos Metropolitan Area” and a delightful dinner and culture show; the Ifo-

Ota Local Government Council for exposing delegates to cultural life at the

grass-roots level; to the A.G. Leventis Group of Companies and to Tower

Aluminium (Nigeria) Limited for offering dinners at which participants were

exposed to the private sector interest in leadership issues.

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II. Review of Proceedings

Appendix II contains a list of some nineteen statements and papers presented

at the programme. Each of the papers examined specific aspects of the

challenges confronting African leaders today and the nature of the external

environment in which they have to work to resolve these challenges. In order

to provide some indication of the rich content of ideas, views and

suggestions provided by these papers, the review has been organized in five

sections:

A. The Challenges of economic development

B. The Challenges of the international economic environment

C. The Challenges of social and cultural development

D. The Challenges of the South African situation

E. The Challenges of policy formation

The deliberations and recommendations of two groups which were formed

to allow participants to explore in greater detail responses to current

leadership challenges are reviewed in Chapter III.

A. Political and strategic issues

B. Economic and social issues

Chapter IV provides in a nutshell the broad conclusions reached during this

inaugural programme of the Africa Leadership Forum.

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A. The Challenges of Economic Development

Several papers dealt with the economic situation of the continent. Starting

with the opening address by President Babangida entitled “The Challenge of

Leadership in African Development”, reference was made to the fact that in

the closing quarter of the 20th century, Africa finds itself in a debt overhang

equivalent to 44 per cent of its gross domestic product. If the continent is to

recover from this debt overhang and confront the twenty first century

unencumbered by debt, hunger, poverty disease and ignorance, it needs

leaders who are strong and self-confident, creators of great ideas who are

able to command the loyalty of their people and who are totally committed

to the development of their countries and to the imperative for peace and

brotherhood among nations. Such leaders, in turn, must be able to mobilize

and commit their people to a programme of honest, hard work, relying on

the sweat of their own labours to improve the quality of their own lives.

President Babangida observed that, throughout history, nations without

strong leaders have had no enduring philosophy and have remained

vulnerable to external pressure.

Consequently, Africa needs today a systematic examination of the failures of

past and current African leadership in the development process. Equally,

there should be a recognition of the imperative for sustained high-level

training of potential African leaders to ensure a process of orderly, inter-

generational succession.

This trend of thought was carried one step further in the keynote address by

General Olusegun Obasanjo, entitled “Africa in Today’s World”, in which

he tried to define the new context in which African leaders have to operate.

That context derives from the demise, in the early 1980s of the international

economic order that evolved after World War II. The presently emerging

world constellation is not only characterized by the importance and

preponderance of the developed world but also by the growing significance

of the countries of the Asia-Pacific Rim, particularly Taiwan, the Republic

of Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Disappointingly, it also depicts the

increasing marginalization of the whole of Africa, particularly the sub-

Saharan region. This marginalization is a function of the fact that this region

has remained one of the most unreconstructed economies, where production

processes have been frozen within colonial moulds. International

indebtedness brought the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

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into Africa in a manner unparalleled anywhere else in the post-war world.

These organizations now determine the tenor and tempo of the development

of many African countries. Everywhere, the evidence is of a continent in

dereliction and decay, rapidly becoming “the third world of the Third

World”.

But the position is far from hopeless: General Obasanjo suggested four areas

where African leaders could begin to transform the circumstances of their

countries and the whole continent. First, African leaders have to stimulate

creativity in their peoples through establishing social institutions which

make for a humane society. Second, African leaders must endow political

institutions and political processes with the requisite democratic content so

as to guarantee their necessary legitimacy and safeguard them against

violent overthrow. Third, African leaders must review their present

organization as nation-states and strive towards new forms of larger,

regional economic associations with the aim of political union. Lastly,

African leaders must pursue serious scientific and technological

development through encouraging the flowering of indigenous talents,

experts, and intellectuals inside and outside their national universities. To

pursue these goals as vigorously as the situation demands, General Obasanjo

concluded by calling for more purposeful and regular economic summits of

African leaders and the establishment of the necessary machinery to follow

up on the decisions of such summits.

In his presentation, Professor Adebayo Adedeji further elaborated on the

perilous economic situation in Africa today. He sees African economic

everywhere as having suffered a systemic collapse caused by low

productivity, lack of co-operation and collective self-reliance among African

countries, and a high level of dependence on a Europe which is becoming

more and more inward-looking and more and more determined that Europe

is its own best market. The answer to the situation is not a mindless

structural adjustment of the type currently being initiated in one African

country after another. Certainly, what is required is not a structural

adjustment which, even with a human face, leads to the closing down of

schools and hospitals whilst leaving what remains with no books or drugs.

What Africa needs is a serious structural transformation constructed on

greatly increased per capita productivity which seeks, as a first step, to end

the era of hunger in a continent where only 20 per cent of cultivable land is

at present under cultivation.

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In confronting the present economic malaise in Africa, Dr. Tariq Husain, the

Resident Representative of the World Bank in Nigeria, called attention to the

continued relevance of three challenges that Sir Arthur Lewis had posed to

African leaders as far back as 1968. These were: (a) to strive to raise the

domestic savings rate to 30 per cent of gross national product (no African

country has achieved a rate of over 20 per cent: Nigeria in the mid-1980s

achieved only 10 per cent, Ghana 8 per cent, and Zambia 13 per cent); (b) to

invest heavily in the production of secondary (including technical) school

graduates; and (c) to reduce drastically the parasitical growth of employment

in the public sector. The failure to face up to these challenges is a pre-

eminent cause of the current predicament on the continent. Yet, in any

attempt to resolve the problems today, four new elements need to be taken

into account. First, more than ever before, African leaders must strive to

eliminate absolute poverty in their countries through setting targets for more

equitable income distribution. At present, income distribution in Africa is

strongly skewed in favour of the rich. An income distribution target whereby

at least 7.5 per cent of national income accrues to the bottom 30 per cent, as

against the present 2.5 – 3.5 per cent, is something that could be aimed for

by the year 2000. Second, all sections of society should be assured of

adequate nutrition through a food security programme which not only makes

food available but promotes the financial ability of households to acquire it.

Third, educational opportunities need to be enhanced both in the broad

sense, i.e., with due regard for human rights, and in the narrow sense, i.e.,

education for increased productivity. Fourth, environmental resources must

be conserved through reducing the rate of population growth, rationalizing

the rate of exploitation of natural resources and being more vigilant in

matters of pollution control in respect of both internally generated wastes

and attempts to make the continent a dumping ground for toxic waste from

developed countries. In all of these, African leaders need a revolution of

perceptions and of approach, particularly in respect of rules that direct

intergovernmental relationships for greater co-operation and negotiated

progress.

On the issue of co-operation and negotiated progress, the paper by D.

Donatien Bihute, Chairman of the Meridien Bank of Burundi, was

particularly instructive. He observed that after 30 years of independence and

collective commitment to achieving economic integration, inter-African

trade still accounts for only 5 per cent of the continent’s trade flows. Apart

from external interference and sabotage, the main reasons for this state of

affairs are the predominance of political and short-sighted considerations in

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the decision-making process and the lack of effective legal and

administrative mechanisms to support and activate the main economic

operators, especially from the private sector. To rectify the situation, he

suggests political security and sound economic policies in each country;

faith in the future of the continent and its constituent countries through

investing in them; and improvement in general accessibility and

communication networks as preconditions for facilitating multi-country co-

operation involving the private sector. Given the above, the private sector in

African countries can foster more effective co-operation if common tariffs

and collective trade protections are instituted by sub-regional groupings

against outsiders. Such groupings can engage in joint ventures in trade and

industry and promote economic growth through greater interaction among

national chambers of commerce. More importantly, they can organize the

joint training of African managers, help them overcome linguistic barriers

and use national and sub-regional trade fairs to foster the exchange of views

and ideas for enhanced productivity. Finally, where trade imbalances result

from such co-operation, mechanisms to correct these can be put in place

through a special fund financed by the countries with positive surpluses.

The strategic urgency of seriously confronting the agricultural and rural

development challenges of the continent was presented in the paper by Prof.

Akin Mabogunje, Vice-Chairman of the Directorate of Food, Roads and

Rural Infrastructure, Office of the President, Nigeria. He argued that apart

from the conventional wisdom of how to stimulate agricultural and rural

development through price incentives of various types, much still remains to

be done to create the structural context in which African agriculture can be

truly modernized and its productivity greatly enhanced. Central to this would

be strategies to deal with the land tenure situation and bring it into

conformity with the market orientation of most of the institutions needed to

stimulate agricultural productivity. Such strategies need not entail expensive

modern land reform procedures, but could creatively use the community

context in which most farmers and farming groups still exist to determine

and register individual access to land in a manner acceptable to credit

institutions. The need to achieve congruency through the market mechanism

for access to all factors of agricultural production is the most pressing

challenge for African agriculture if it is to resolve rapidly the problems of

hunger, malnutrition and inadequate food supply in the continent.

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The final paper on the challenges of economic development was a review of

the lessons of experience with the development strategies pursued by

African and other developing countries since the end of World War II. It was

presented by Prof. A.M.A. Muhith, former Finance and Planning Minister of

Bangladesh. He observed that, up to 1975, there was an unflinching devotion

to economic growth and most developing countries, including many in

Africa, registered growth rates of at least 3 per cent per annum. Much of this

growth was promoted through transnational corporations, which were able to

bring together profitably four processes that dominated the period:

technological development; trade growth; cheap energy; and free capital

movement. In spite of these, weaknesses were recognized, especially in

developing countries where population growth remained largely

uncontrolled, the poverty of an increasing proportion of the population was

not checked, the environment was continuously assaulted and degraded, and

national economies were poorly managed.

From 1974 to 1985, therefore, these countries entered a period of payment

crisis caused by the crisis of the “there Fs”: fuel, food and fertilizers. This

was the period of hyperinflation, when country after country had to adopt

rigorous austerity measures. The developed countries got out of this situation

quickly as they were able to muster a new entrepreneurial spirit through

which individual initiative as well as new organizational structures broke

loose from the oligopolistic giant corporations; new technological advances

were made, especially those based on computer and information revolution;

inflation was kept in control and there was a substantial expansion of United

States’ exports to the world.

However, African and many other developing countries are still gripped in

the throes of paralyzing structural adjustment programmes. If they are to

return to the path of growth and development, there are a number of strategic

imperatives they must attend to. First, they must rise above doctrinaire

fanaticism and pay greater attention to implementation efficiency, selective

investment programmes, higher productivity and greater overall efficiency.

Second, they must operate their economies within flexible policy

frameworks rather than on the basis of the rigid comprehensive planning

format of conventional development plans. This would mean giving a

greater role to the market mechanism in setting prices, to enterprise and to

efficiency and to managing the national economy more through consultation

than direction. Third, they must intensify domestic resource mobilization

with emphasis on community efforts. Fourth, they must harness more energy

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sources and give primacy to agriculture, which is required for overall

growth, to diverting surpluses to industrialization, to creating employment

opportunities and to generating demand in the economy. More than

anything, they must reduce their population growth rate and appreciate that

structural adjustment is likely to be long term rather than short term. Serious

attention must be given by every African country to negotiating viable

relationships with their development partners so as to create the environment

necessary to revitalize their economies and put them back on the path of

growth.

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B. The Challenges of the International Economic

Environment

One whole day was devoted to enable Mr. Helmut Schmidt, former

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, to give participants the

benefit of his views on the current international economic environment

within which African countries have to undertake the structural

transformation of their economies. Mr. Schmidt began by noting that the

structure of the world economy had become multi-polar. The size of the

poles, however, is not easily determined by superpower status. Thus,

although one may identify five superpowers at present in the world, their

economic significance varies considerably. The Soviet Union is a military or

strategic superpower but is neither an economic nor a financial one. Japan is

par excellence an economic and financial superpower, with the potential of

becoming a strategic superpower. It is noteworthy that one of the factors

responsible for the enormous upswing in Japan’s economic strength over the

last 30 years is the firm control it has placed on military spending, keeping

this down to no more than one per cent of its gross national product. The

United States is the major economic, financial and military superpower in

the world. Its current difficulties with the twin trade and budget deficits

could, however, be resolved by the end of the century. Europe as it is

envisaged in 1992 is also a potentially formidable economic superpower, but

the reluctance to establish a European monetary system or sacrifice more

individual national sovereignty could inhibit the full realization of this

potential. China can be seen as a superpower in ascendancy, currently

stronger in military and strategic than in economic terms.

Apart from these superpowers, there are the medium powers who can affect

the global economic situation for good or for ill. On the one hand are the

Asian countries such as Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Hong

Kong – the “four little tigers” On the other hand are the Middle Eastern

countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Israel, which among them can provoke

major international military confrontations. There are also the Latin

American countries, whose external indebtedness can also cause a

significant global crisis if not properly managed.

In spite of this multi-polar structure, the most significant feature of the

global economy is the highly integrated and interdependent nature of the

financial system that keeps it together. The impact of an event anywhere in

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the world can be felt in the system within a few minutes. There are no longer

independent national stock markets which can be regulated and modulated

by national authorities. All markets are now one international financial

market, with no international authority to regulate its operation. The Bretton

Woods institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund or the World

Bank, have lost much of their impact in recent times.

By contrast, no such integrated markets exist for commodities and

foodstuffs, especially for oil or manufactured goods. And yet, these are the

products that dominate the economies of developing countries. Thus, it is not

clear what Third World countries mean when they press for a new

international economic order. Such an order is already emerging – though it

is not the type they want. The new order is the product of the reactions by

the developed countries to the two oil shocks of 1973-1974 and 1979. As a

result of the high oil prices most of these countries were able to invest in

alternative energy sources, particularly nuclear power. The result is their

increasing economic independence from raw material constraints and the

enormous flexibility of their markets to switch from one consumer product

to another.

For African countries in particular, this situation has meant a severe

marginalization of their economic importance, even for Europe. This fact

must be borne in mind in designing economic policies and programmes for

the period ahead. Its implications are many. First, the message from the

international economic environment, increasingly, that Africa is on its own

and must find its own way to salvation. At best, it can expect only official

development assistance from developed countries. Second, not much can be

expected from private financial institutions until present debts are retired.

All talks of debt repudiation by debtor countries are unhelpful and likely to

be self-defeating in the long run. The issue of debt overhang to private

financial institutions is indeed one area where there is considerable scope for

co-operative leadership in Africa. Thirdly, African and other developing

countries must take the issue of population control seriously. By the year

2000, the world population will be approximately 6 billion, of which only

800 million will be in the industrialized countries. It is unthinkable that this

latter group will shoulder the responsibility of developing the 5.2 billion

people in the rest of the world. Fourthly, African leaders must reduce their

defence expenditure and concentrate on investing in their nation’s

development. In some African countries, military spending is as high as 14

per cent of gross national product. This cannot be sustained. Fifthly, African

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countries must pursue a studied programme of diversification so that they

are not tied to just one market or one country or one product. They must find

ways of using their present reservoir of cheap labour to real economic

advantage. Like Asian countries, they must deliberately set out to discover

what they can produce cheaply and well to various foreign markets. Sixthly,

African countries must concentrate on improving their economic

management capacity. Great emphasis must be deliberately placed on

training in economics and business administration as well as on widespread

proficiency in the English language, which had emerged as the language of

global commerce and international economic relations. Finally, African

countries must be more circumspective about ideas and proposals coming

from foreign sources. They must examine these against the background of

their own cultural heritage and gradually build up confidence to be selective

in regard to foreign innovations which can serve to transform for the better

the socio-economic circumstances of the majority of their people.

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C. The Challenges of Social and Cultural Development

The papers presented on the challenges of social and cultural development

emphasized the importance for African leaders to regain their pride and

confidence in the integrity of their cultural heritage. Dr. Pierre-Claver

Damiba, Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Africa of the

United Nations Development Programme, while presenting a message from

the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, observed

that the development process in Africa, in many ways more than necessary,

had been rather more wasteful, more disruptive and more traumatic than

anywhere in the world. Perhaps this was because no thorough attention had

been paid to Africa’s cultural values and social institutions, even by Africans

themselves. Instead, Africans are confronted everywhere with negative

images of themselves and their societies. Thus, it is worth stressing that, like

other people, Africans cannot advance without a keen sense of their own

self-worth and without the constant reinforcement of this sense.

Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka further developed this theme with a

paper entitled: “Twice bitten: The fate of Africa’s culture producers”. He

began by emphasizing that culture is not a sum of parts but a summation and

synthesis of the entire life of a people. It encompasses not only objective

products and their interrelated activities but also the social psyche and the

basic life affirming elements of a people as they evolve, as they transform

the concept and manipulation of their environment and influence their

assessment, rejection or conciliation with alien encounters. For ex-colonial

territories, however, culture had become a slave to expertise, indentured to

alien training and its inevitable repercussions. This has made it easy for

Africans to accept transferred models of other people’s cultures, the products

of different, specific conditions of climate, social life-styles, economic

acceptance and even religious influences. Architectural programmes in most

African countries are easily the most visible area of the greatest failure in

terms of cultural enracination.

The challenge of cultural productivity requires that attention be paid to the

conditions of the producers of culture and their destiny at the hands of those

who direct affairs of state. In this connection, Africa and African leaders

stand self-indicted. There can be few African countries today where the

artistic and intellectual potential of the people has not been truncated in the

so-called process of nation-building. Many of these countries have

experienced the internal equivalent of a brain-drain through the wanton

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imprisonment and sometimes murder of their writers, their poets, their

dramatists, their artists and the various intellectual producers of their culture.

Some have even gone so far as to have books burnt in the manner of the

medieval Inquisition in Europe. Everywhere, the story is a catalogue of the

betrayal of African culture by African leaders and the sacrifices have been

made as much by the masses as by the artists themselves and the

intelligentsia.

If Africa is to achieve real development and strive for a new and creative

dimension of national identification, then African leaders must seek new

inspiration through pursuing a vigorous policy of what Soyinka calls “race-

retrieval”. This involves the conscious activity of recovering what has been

hidden, lost, repressed, denigrated or indeed simply denied, not just by

Africans themselves, but certainly by the conquerors of African peoples and

their Eurocentric bias’ of thought and relationships. For if a people must

develop, they must have constant recourse to their own history – a crucial

component of their material art and culture – not only for inspiration but also

to retrieve the fount and spring- head of their creativity. African leaders must

therefore appreciate that the producers of this culture are not poor relatives

of development; efforts must be made to ensure that they are no longer

treated as front-line victims by those under the delusion of power, affected

by leadership alienation and paranoia at the pinnacle of state authority.

Professor Junzo Kawada of the Institute for the Study of the Languages and

Cultures of Asia and Africa based in Tokyo, Japan further explored the

theme of the relationship between development and culture. He noted that

the basic problem was how to relate the intrinsic cultural value of every

society with the inequalities seen in the degree of development of those

societies. Part of the answer must be that development cannot be considered

in terms of some universal criteria but is to be sought on the basis of the

cultural heritage of each society. In pursuing this line of thought, however, it

is necessary to recognize three points. First, that in the course of the general

global development of technology, a complete reversal is practically

impossible. There is no way a society living in the twentieth century can

reject all the conveniences that modern industrial civilization has brought the

world. Second, that in our modern age the peoples of both the so-called

developed and developing countries are contemporaries. Thus, irrespective

of their levels of development, these societies are confronted and concerned

with similar problems, such as urbanization, environmental degradation and

so on. Third, that the conditions that enabled traditional technology to

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function appropriately in the past have changed and it is important to reject a

mere nostalgic and retrospective attachment to the “good old days”.

Professor Kawada then used the example of Japan to illustrate the

relationship between development and culture. He believes that the

phenomenal development of Japan can be traced back to three significant

elements of its cultural heritage. First, its linguistic unity, which made it easy

to absorb, disseminate and popularize new ideas and concepts among all of

the people. The second factor is the human-dependent character of Japanese

traditional technology. European technological orientation, Prof. Kawada

pointed out improves tools and instruments to obtain maximum result

independently of the user’s personal skill and to economize human labour

through exploiting non-human energy. In contrast to this, the technological

orientation of Japan is to make tools and instruments whose functional

efficiency depends heavily on the skill and manual dexterity of the user. This

orientation has had two contradictory consequences for Japanese industrial

development in modern times. Positively, it ensured that in the domain

where precise manual skills were important, such as in the textile industry,

the manufacturing of watches and bicycles, and later of cameras, transistor

radios and so forth, Japan was able to compete effectively with Western

countries. Negatively, however, Professor Kawada pointed out, in proportion

to its development in the applied aspects of sciences, Japan has made

astonishingly little original and creative contributions in the domain of

fundamental scientific research. Third, the traditional Japanese value system

has emerged over centuries of working on the limited available land with

great earnestness and assiduity. These values of old Japan made it easy to

absorb Western science and technology rapidly and to set the stage for

nationalistic industrialization, although it did restrain individual creative

activities.

It is, of course, too early to be sure of the direction of African technological

orientation but there is no doubt that it will be influenced by the fact that

African farmers loved, and still live, in open spaces, full of unknown

possibilities, using their wisdom with relatively high labour productivity.

This cultural heritage, the base for an emergent African development ethos,

will continued to form and be reformed in the course of history, through

contact with elements of foreign cultures. The danger however is not the

introduction of foreign elements but rather the idolization of one culture,

tendencies, which lead to ethnocentrism or xenophobia, and cultural

inferiority or superiority complexes. This is why Professor Kawada

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suggested that African leaders should consider the value of “a triangulation

of cultures” to the multiplication of cultural points of reference as a means of

combining the ancestral wisdom of their people with ideas and cultural

experiences from a number of foreign sources to build a new and more

glorious future for their people.

Against this background, it was possible to appreciate the insistence of

Professor Alex Kwapong of Ghana, former Vice-Rector of the United

Nations University in Tokyo, that the main challenge of education in Africa

is to develop the human resources which will ensure accelerated

development and modernization without compromising Africa’s cultural

identity. He noted that the expansion of primary school enrolments in Africa,

particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, might have been unparalleled in

any time or place in history. Yet, for all that, there are areas of educational

expansion that require urgent attention. There is, for instance, a need for a

more equitable distribution of educational opportunities and the reduction of

existing inequalities based on sex, economic status and geography. There is

also the need to improve the internal and external efficiency of the

educational system as a first step towards improving the quality of education

and high cognitive achievements by students. Internal efficiency entail

arresting the decline in the supplies of key inputs into the educational system

at all levels – including such basic materials as books and other learning

materials – as well as ensuring serious administrative action relating to the

flow of students, class size and the use of space and facilities. External

efficiency requires an increase in the relevance of schooling to the job

market and making certain that students are equipped with the knowledge

and skills needed to find employment in an increasingly competitive and

changing milieu.

For such educational transformation to take place in the current

circumstances of most African countries, three policy remedies are

suggested. First, African leaders must pay greater attention to the adjustment

of current demographic rates of growth to the fiscal realities of their

countries. Second, there is a need to revitalize the existing educational

infrastructure, giving special emphasis not just to science and technology but

also to the integration of traditional and emerging technologies. Third, a

programme of selective expansion in all three sectors should be pursued

through renewed progress towards long-term goals of universal primary

education and the improvement of quality in the secondary and tertiary

17

sectors. Particularly in the case of the tertiary sector, such improvements can

be fostered through the identification of selected, nodal centres where a

critical mass of teachers, researchers and practitioners can be brought

together.

In all of this, the overall political environment is of prime importance. The

prevalent political instability and the near-collapse state of the economy of

most African countries have precipitated a massive internal and external

brain-drain. As the position begins to improve, African leaders, through the

type of political climate they provide, must resolve the twin challenges of

attracting back from abroad the skilled professionals, scientists, scholars and

researchers and adding to and retaining all those being produced in the

various institutions of higher learning and research in the continent.

The crucial importance of the political environment of social change in the

health sector was further highlighted in a presentation by Professor Thomas

Lambo, former Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization.

Professor Lambo called attention to the frightening dehumanization going on

presently in most African countries as a result of the current economic crisis.

He noted the rise in the rate of infant mortality and the level of malnutrition,

especially among vulnerable groups in the population at the same time as

health institutions were being denuded of vital drugs and medications and

skilled and highly trained manpower. Yet, in planning to redress the

situation, it is important to bear in mind that health is not just the absence of

infirmity and disease but a state of complete physical, mental and social

well-being. Against such a definition, it is necessary to re-examine the

complete dependence of African governments on Western-type medical

tradition, with its philosophical underpinnings in the rational materialism

and scientific empiricism deriving from the Renaissance period. The fact

that alternative medical traditions with equal efficacy do exist is perhaps best

brought out by the Chinese medical tradition with its emphasis on

acupuncture. Given the abundance of vegetal species in Africa, African

governments need to give urgent attention to verifying and validating the

healing capabilities of African traditional medicine. This is an area where

the call is to innovate, not imitate. Indeed, the World Health Organization

has given the lead in this matter and its Division on Traditional Medicine has

taken decisive strides in various directions. This has not always been easy;

especially as such achievements were made in the face of strong opposition

by large, transnational corporations in the pharmaceutical industry.

Nonetheless, the current economic situation in most African countries

18

presents African leaders with an unparalleled opportunity to fall back

decisively not only on the product of their environment but on the

technological and medical resources of their cultural heritage.

19

D. The Challenges of the South African Situation

The challenges that the South African situation constituted for African

leaders were well summarized in the presentations by both Dr. Ntatho

Motlana, Founder and Co-Chairman of the Soweto Crisis Committee, and

the Rev. Stanley Mogoba, President of the South African Institute of Race

Relations and Secretary of the Conference of the Methodist Church of

Southern Africa. The presentations outlined clearly the nature of the problem

and provided a historical serialization of attempts to resolve it. Basically, the

problem is the dispossession and displacement of Africans during the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from their lands through the greater

violence of the foreigner’s gun when pitched against the African spear.

Apartheid, as a racial policy, should therefore not be seen as dating back

only to the time the Nationalist Party came to power in 1948 but it originated

as far back as 336 years ago, during the Dutch occupation of the Cape. As a

policy, it was equally espoused by the British, who presided over the all-

white National Convention in 1908, in which the Union of the four

provinces of South Africa was decided, and who also authorized the Act of

Union in 1910. Soon after that Union – by 1913 – the Government of South

Africa was already declaring that 87 per cent of the land belonged to whites

only. After four years of negotiating and organizing, the African National

Congress was established in 1912. It immediately drew up a petition to the

British Government to protest against the white union and the grabbing of

almost all of the land. No redress was forthcoming.

The period since 1912 has thus witnessed different phases in the struggle to

reverse this situation and make the African no longer a foreigner in his own

land. Five such phases were identified:

(a.) The Negotiation Phase) 1912-1950) when the African National

Congress sought a democratic and peaceful solution to the

problem;

(b) The Positive Non-Violent Action Phase (1950-1960) when, under

the leadership of Chief Albert Luthuli, a defiance campaign was

mounted, resulting in the first treason trials;

20

(c) The Violence Phase (1960-1970) which witnessed such violent

incidents as the Sharpeville Riot, the Pass Campaign, the Podo and

the Rivonia Uprisings;

(d) The Youth Revolt Phase (1970-1980) which culminated in the

Soweto uprisings and the banning of the Black Consciousness

Movement; and

(e) The Phase of New Organizations and New Leaders (since 1980).

Whilst apartheid has continued to be entrenched in the life of South Africa

through a process of state terrorism, it has provoked reactions not only

among the blacks but also among the whites. Among the blacks, the most

striking feature of present resistance is the multi-dimensional character of its

leadership, embracing not only those exiled or imprisoned but also the

church, labour movement, internal opposition groups, homeland and youth

leaders. This diversity of leadership presents problems of communication

and dialogue, especially within the country. A state of political impasse

seemed to have been reached internally.

A new initiative is expected through international leverage on the situation,

especially leverage carefully worked out by African leaders and enjoying

superpower support. Not much can be expected for now from the cosmetics

of unscrambling apartheid by state President Botha nor from the liberation

movements. Careful diplomacy and negotiation skills by committed African

leadership would appear to hold the greatest hope for the immediate future.

Things look bleak, grim and gloomy in the medium and long terms if serious

negotiations are not embarked upon soon.

21

E. The Challenges of Policy Formation

One of the most serious failings of leadership in the present circumstances of

Africa is the lack of vigorous economic discussions on the policy scene.

Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory

Committee, Office of the President of Nigeria presented a paper to explore

the challenges of policy formation using the example of Nigeria.

Professor Aboyade began his presentation by noting the enormous structural

problems of development in Africa and their implications. This has meant

that the policy maker does not choose his starting point, no matter how

differently he might have wanted it. Development, however, is a process

almost daunting in its complexity. As such, it is important to stress the

dangers of individuals coming into government and into policy prescription

with a very naïve view of what is realizable and with a heavy baggage of

populist sentiments. Professor Aboyade then dealt with the challenges of

policy formation in three parts, namely the nature and structure of public

policy, the historical setting for policy-making in Africa and some recent

attempts at policy reform in Nigeria.

On the nature and structure of public policy, Professor Aboyade began by

noting that policy formation for underdeveloped countries such as Nigeria

must necessarily be seen in a holistic context; that is, the complex

interdependence of targets and instruments in all segments of the economy

operating simultaneously. It invariably involves large numbers of

technocrats, bureaucrats, opinion moulders, political leaders, pressure

groups, special interests and social activities for whom the time required for

initiating or getting results from particular policies varies enormously. Thus,

time is probably the most severe constraint that policy-makers have to

confront in an underdeveloped society. The speed of reaction to given policy

measures is not only often slow, long and unpredictable, it invariably gets

lost in the dynamics of intervening exogenous events.

The core of policy formation is rigorous economic analysis. Good training in

economics is thus essential for a nation’s team of economic advisers and

bureaucrats, since it is through objective economic analysis that the

quantitative effects of a given measure can be discovered i.e., how large are

the expected results and how long might they take to work themselves out;

whether there are other alternative measures which might more effectively

22

and efficiently achieve the goals being sought; or whether there are other

side effects which either help or hinder the attainment of a given policy

objective. Good training in development economics thus facilitates the

capacity in a policy-maker to rise above the various pressures and criticisms

of the moment in a relentless pursuit of his objectives, unless there is no

social consensus about what those objectives are.

Nonetheless, although economics remains the core of policy formation, its

boundaries are constrained by the historical and social conditions of a given

nation and the global context of continuous economic and political

interaction. In the African situation, the colonial experience until recently

detached the region from the general development process. Beyond creating

markets for imported industrial products and procuring sources of tropical

products and raw materials for metropolitan factories, colonialism resulted

in a structural dualism and the heightening of fragmentation in African

economies. Its negative consequences included the stagnation in agricultural

productivity in products other than the primary exports, the almost complete

absence of industrialization, the poor state of social infrastructure, the

underdevelopment of peasant agriculture and the food economy, the neglect

of human resource development at the grass roots, indifference to serious

entrepreneurial efforts in the population and the almost total failure to

develop indigenous, self-sustaining capacity for economic analysis and

national economic management.

It took the turbulence of the 1970s in the world markets for primary

commodities (especially with respect to crude petroleum, tin, copper,

beverages and vegetable oil) to completely unmask the severe fragility and

external dependence of African economies. This fragility was made more

precarious by a political leadership and party machinery, which, though

filled with dogma and rhetoric, often lacked the basic economic control of

the state. The results have been the rise of the informal or parallel markets,

loss of Government revenues, rapid accumulation of heavy external debts,

the real economy running away from the Government’s administrative

control and policy instruments, increased unstructured and illegal ways of

operating business while earned incomes and policy formation were seen

increasingly in terms of political importance and discretionary patronages,

rather than in terms of their long-term value to sustained economic

development and social welfare.

23

Not unexpectedly, most African economies collapsed. In the past seven

years, they have all been forced to introduce stabilization and structural

adjustment measures aimed at national economic recovery as a pre-condition

for the resumption of growth and development. In Nigeria, this situation has

been used not only to promote policy reforms but also to begin to face

seriously the long-term developmental challenges of the country.

The lessons of the Nigerian experience in policy reform stress the need for

African leaders to ask serious questions about the essence of the

development process and of the system of production relations required to

promote it. In striving to outline a new paradigm for African structural

transformation, it must be recognized that the core of a permanent and

sustainable development process is to achieve a major, significant shift in

per capita physical productivity in a country. The cumulative effect of such a

shift will provide the national economy with the structural flexibility and

management capacity to confront shocks, whether such shocks originate

externally or internally. Starting from this period of difficult transition,

African leaders must promote widespread economic education in their

countries, bearing in mind that structural problems cannot be wished away

and that there are no easy choices that do not involve sweat and courage.

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III. Group Discussions

The participants at this first programme of the Africa Leadership Forum

were assigned into two groups. The first group discussed the political and

strategic issues arising from the various presentations, noting in particular

their implications for leadership in African countries, the types of problems

that confront them and the strategies that can be suggested to deal with these

problems. The second group focused on economic and social issues.

A. Political and Strategic Issues

Under its Chairman, Dr. Francis Deng, the group noted that in any country,

leadership must be considered very broadly. It embraces not only political

leaders at all levels of Government – national, state, provincial, district and

local – but also the youth, women, and leaders of the community, academia

and of business. One must also add leaders in public service and the military.

Nonetheless, participants observed that, although the challenges of

leadership were essentially of the same nature, the performance of leadership

at the national level had implications for all other categories of leadership,

both internally and at the international level.

In the African context, there were a number of problems that have vitiated

the effectiveness of leadership. These include the problems of corruption at

all levels, the people’s mistrust of the leaders and a general attitude of

cynicism towards leadership effort. With respect to corruption, it was

suggested that one reason for this was that the leaders in Africa often have to

relate to two categories of the public. On the one hand, there is the private

circle of the ethnic or extended family group, friends and supporters, who

usually profit from the corrupt practices of their members and therefore

encourage them. On the other hand, there is the general public, which

usually surfaces where such corrupt practices go hand in hand with a

contemptuous disregard for public opinion. Although they are in the public

eye almost twenty-four hours a day, many African leaders show such a poor

sense of accountability that the basis for trust hardly exists. The result is a

paralyzing cynicism among the people as to the intentions of government.

This has made it difficult for most African leaders to mobilize their

population or to pursue effective policies that would require commitment

and acceptance by their respective societies. It has also encouraged the

persistence of a negative perception of the ability of society to resolve its

problems by itself.

25

All of this emphasizes the need for African leaders to develop institutions

that can translate political independence to broad-based popular democracy

and liberty. African leaders must encourage the emergence in their societies

of broad-based mechanisms which can accommodate dissent without

undermining the upsurge of the creative energies of the people for social and

economic development. Such mechanisms would entail greater concern for

an equitable and impartial balance of interests as a means of breaking down

ethnic, cultural and religious barriers in the country. According to the group,

gross violations of human rights and repression are antithetical to the

purposes of development and nation-building. African leaders must rise

above factionalism and strive to foster the growth of internal consensus in

their country by breaking down various forms of community barriers. Only

then would they have begun, in the words of General Obasanjo, “the process

of endowing political institutions with the necessary legitimacy which is

their ultimate safeguard against violent overthrow”.

The group considered various strategies that may help in sensitizing African

leaders to the moral imperatives of leadership by checking their abuse of

power and fostering the values of respect for the will of the people and their

human dignity. It recognizes that a fundamental tenet of such strategies is

that people know their rights. Education and public enlightenment are thus

paramount to this process – not just any type of education, however. The

group noted what it calls “the crisis of knowledge discontinuity” in Africa,

whereby indigenous knowledge and traditions are regarded as marginal and

irrelevant to the process of development and nation-building when compared

to imported theories and practices. Yet, such imported ideas tend to

marginalize African masses, erode their self-confidence and participatory

relevance and undermine their resourcefulness in the development process.

It was therefore agreed that the requisite educational programme for

encouraging people to know their rights must be one built on their own

cultural values and one which employs to the fullest the resources of

proverbs, sayings and imagery in the local language. This will facilitate

effective communication with the people and reinforce the moral and

cultural basis of their expectations and the obligations of leaderships in

meeting those expectations.

Furthermore, it was felt that an important strategy for real leadership

development is greater emphasis on local government, encouraging a return

to the autonomy and self-reliance of local communities and reducing the

overwhelming and stultifying presence of the central government. In this

26

regard, it was noted that there was in many African countries an unnecessary

parsimony in the number of local government councils, their individual area

of jurisdiction too large for real and effective governance.

Related to the need for greater and more broad-based local autonomy is the

importance of improving data collection processes, right down to the grass

roots as a means of enhancing the basis of sound policy decision-making.

One other strategy for improving the quality of leadership in Africa is for

leaders to have regular “sessions of introspection” to review performance

and the general direction of governance. Along with such regular retreat

should go some unobtrusive form of education and training for leaders,

especially with respect to international economic relations so that African

leaders can become increasingly self-assertive in their enlightened pursuits

of Africa’s interest in the global arena.

In this connection, it was indicated that African countries and their leaders

have paid less than adequate attention as to how their foreign policy should

feed into their economic purposes. This is perhaps understandable as long as

Africa comprises so many small and highly dependent countries. But as the

imperative of regional economic (and possibly political) integration is better

appreciated, it becomes urgent that African leaders see Africa as the center-

piece of their foreign policy.

B. Economic and social issues

The discussion began with attempts at better appreciating the nature of the

current economic crisis in Africa, particularly as it relates to the problem of

the debt overhang. There were views that it should be possible for African

countries to act in concert, either to repudiate the debts or at least secure a

debt relief or consolidation (another word for longer-term rescheduling).

Following Mr. Helmut Schmidt’s presentation, four categories of debts were

recognized:

(a) Those owed to states or to state banks;

(b) Those guaranteed by a government or governmental financial

institutions of the creditor countries;

(c) Those in which the debtor is a firm or government from a

developing country while the creditor is a private bank in the

developed country; and

27

(d) Debts where the creditor is a private enterprise in the developed

country.

Each of these categories needs to be considered differently. Whilst one can

conceive of debt relief (or forgiveness) in respect of the first category, it is

not wise to press for it in respect of the other three since this could have

considerable implications for the profitability or cash flow of creditors and

might make them less willing to engage in the flow of investible funds to

developing countries. A more realistic approach in these cases is to press for

re-scheduling or the lowering of the interest rate or the prolongation of the

repayment time frame.

One reason for approaching the issue of debt settlement with greater

circumspection is the prognosis that the volume of investment funds likely to

be available for transfer to developing countries in the foreseeable future is

bound to be considerably reduced. For one thing, the era of recycling

superabundant petro-dollars is gone forever. For another, the position of the

United States or other developed countries in attracting investment funds is

unlikely to be matched by developing countries, particularly in view of the

latter’s’ history of political instability and their fragile economic structures.

In all these, the role of OPEC is likely to be one of diminishing importance.

After eight years of acting as an economic “superpower” and raising oil

prices to very high levels, OPEC has created a situation in which

industrialized countries have developed alternative sources of energy to such

an extent that OPEC will never again be in a position to exercise comparable

leverage.

Under these circumstances, African leaders must review their basic

economic strategies. They must develop a more positive, though not

necessarily complacent, approach to multinational corporations, which

remain major sources of investible funds in developing countries. They must

design and vigorously pursue new strategies of export promotion, seeking

out those products and markets where their countries have decisive

comparative advantages. They must also pay considerable attention to

environmental issues, particularly those of toxic pollution whilst

concentrating research and development efforts on non-palliative sources of

energy, particularly solar energy. More importantly, African leaders must

start to give serious thought to regional and sub regional economic

integration and to significant reduction of expenditure on arms and

28

armaments as major pre-requisites for ensuring the long-term development

of the continent.

Of more immediate urgency is the need for African leaders to work

relentlessly towards ensuring food security for the populations of their

individual countries. The current food and nutrition situation in Africa calls

for new, imaginative and, above all, practical policy initiatives. Such actions,

the group noted, are feasible through programmes of farmer co-operatives

integrated with agro-industrial enterprises. Efforts should be directed at the

complete involvement of local farmers, avoiding their displacement and

offering them maximum encouragement and incentives.

Nonetheless, whether in regard to internal developmental challenges or

external economic relations, the group felt that African countries,

individually, but particularly collectively, do not have the necessary

institutional capacity to facilitate understanding and develop analytical and

negotiating capabilities for coping with the array of problems emanating

from these sources. It was the view of the group that Africa must take a leaf

from the experience of other nations and begin to equip itself now with the

intellectual and scientific capacity as well as the requisite knowledge base to

formulate long-term strategies, analyse economic and social issues correctly,

and implement such policies with the necessary political vision.

The group observed that, unlike other parts of the world, Africa at present

has no high-level think tanks, no institutes or centres for long-range studies,

policy formulation and analysis. As a first step, the group recommended that

the Forum initiate action and seek possible assistance or collaborative efforts

in creating an African Centre or Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies.

Such a center or institute should be a think tank with a small, highly

professional staff of, say, three dozen social scientists and policy experts in

other disciplines, equipped with the necessary financial resources, and up-to-

date library and research facilities. It must enjoy the general support or

goodwill of African governments, but have only minimal direct government

involvement. Such a high-quality institution, dedicated to policy formulation

and analysis, would be a crucial first step for African nations to acquire the

necessary institutional and intellectual development tools.

29

The group reviewed some past and current attempts to bring about similar or

related institutions in the region. It was particularly delighted to note and

accept the offer of its Chairman, Mr. Pierre-Claver Damiba, for the UNDP to

provide the necessary support and seed money to undertake a plan of action

for the envisaged Centre or Institute. The benefits to be derived from such an

institution would be long term, but the Group urged the Forum to take the

decision now to bring it about.

30

IV. CONCLUSIONS

The wide range of issues that were thoroughly discussed at the inaugural

programme of the Africa Leadership Forum led to a number of suggestions

that have been highlighted above. The following eight conclusions are

however worthy of special mention.

1. It was generally agreed that the external environment within which

African countries must now plan their development can no longer

be regarded as benign. Even when the global economy recovers

fully from its recession, it will no longer be possible to envisage

ample resources of the type available in the 1970s through the

recycling of petro-dollars. The signal from the international

community is that Africa is now on its own. There may be

humanitarian assistance of various types, but the volume of aid or

even of investment flows to the continent can be expected to be

very much less than that in the recent past.

2. Since the rest of the world is no longer particularly interested in

Africa, the message to African leader is clear. They must learn to

devise and design strategies and programmes of self-reliant

development. Assiduity in achieving a higher degree of debt relief

may help their economy to some degree but only sustained

increase in per capita productivity can make a lasting impact. To

achieve this, African leaders must pay more serious attention to

reducing significantly the rate of population growth as well as

maintaining, and even enhancing the quality of their environment.

3. Sustained, increased productivity cannot be attained so long as

political instability prevails in African countries. Military coups

and threats of coups do not encourage the flow of investment

capital, nor do they reassure resident enterprises to reinvest in the

country. The position is not helped by the glaring disregard for

human rights, especially those of highly trained personnel who are

then made to flee their countries. This massive brain drain, the

result of political instability, becomes very detrimental to

development since the loss often has to be made up by the costly

importation of foreign expertise to advise African governments.

31

4. One other factor that African leaders have to consider seriously in

striving to improve their national performance in development is

military expenditure. Considering their gross national product,

most African governments spend an extremely high proportion of

their annual budget on defence. This must be drastically revised. It

is instructive that one element in the success story of Japanese

development in the last four decades is the very small fraction of

national expenditure devoted to defence.

5. All African economies are correctly going through a structural

adjustment programme designed either by the International

Monetary Fund or worked out by the countries themselves. It is

important, however, for African leaders to recognize that these

programmes are generally short-term in scope. They should not be

allowed to compromise the long-term interests of development.

This is why it is vital to ensure that the policy package under a

structural adjustment programme is compatible with the

achievement of increasing structural transformation and the

cumulative growth of the national economy. Structural

transformation requires an increasing use of local resources, local

technological skills and indigenous cultural values. One area where

such a shift of development emphasis could be critical is, for

instance, in health delivery services. Any programme of achieving

health for all within the shortest possible time can be only on the

basis of the fullest and most rational utilization of all available

systems of health care delivery in a country, whether western or

traditional.

6. Another important element in achieving such structural

transformation and cumulative economic growth is a vigorous

programme of food production and rural development based on the

effective mobilization of rural communities. Such broad-based

grass-roots mobilization equally has tremendous implications for

the growth of democratic institutions and the political distribution

of power. It encourages the emergence of a large number of local

leaders directly accountable to the people. This helps to strengthen

the calibre, competence and quality of the leadership that will

eventually emerge at the national level.

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7. Whilst the improvement in the quality of education and the number

of those educated are important factors in enhancing leadership

capacity, there is a need to emphasize the increasing acquisition of

economic or business expertise for all those aspiring to be leaders

in African countries. This is not only because national

development is the single most important challenge confronting

African leaders today, but also because it must be tackled in an

international milieu that exacts harsh penalties for shoddy

economic thinking or failure to perceive and exploit economic

advantages. In an increasingly competitive and interdependent

world, where the language of international relations is couched

more and more in the idioms of bargaining and negotiations, a

good knowledge of economics provides African leaders with the

facility of comprehension and the ability to appreciate better where

the national interest lies in the welter of complex and conflicting

options.

8. The situation in South Africa is a challenge to all African leaders.

This challenge must be addressed, however, not only on the basis

of the current liberation struggle, but also in preparation for a post-

apartheid South Africa. It was agreed that strategies should be

evolved through governmental and non-governmental channels to

ensure that African contributions to the final resolution of the

conflict are orchestrated in such ways that African interests cannot

be marginalized or ignored in the subsequent reconstruction and

reconstitution of forces in the country.

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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

CHAIRMAN: General Olusegun OBASANJO

A. LECTURERS/PANELISTS

1. Ojetunji ABOYADE (Nigeria), Professor and Chairman, Pai Associates

2. Chief Simeon O. ADEBO (Nigeria), former Permanent Representative to the

United Nations, New York and Executive Director, United Nations Institute

of Training and Research (UNITAR)

3. Adebayo ADEDEJI (Nigeria), Under-Secretary-General of the United

Nations and Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for

Africa (ECA)

4. Tariq HUSAIN (PAKISTAN), Representative of the World Bank in Nigeria.

5. Junzo KAWADA (Japan), Professor, Institute for the Study of Languages and

Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo.

6. Alexander A. KWAPONG, (Ghana), Lester Pearson Chair for Development

Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada; former Vice-Rector, United

Nations University, Tokyo

7. Thomas A. LAMBO (Nigeria), President, Lambo Foundation for the

Advancement of Biomedical and Bio-behavioural Sciences; former Deputy

Director-General, World Health Organisation

8. Flora LEWIS (USA), Columnist, The New York Times.

9. Akin L. MABOGUNJE (Nigeria), Professor, Pai Associates; Pro-Chancellor

and Chairman of Council, Ogun State University, Ago-Iwoye

10. Ntatho MOTLANA (South Africa), President-Founder, Soweto Crisis

Committee and Chairman, Get-Ahead Foundation

11. A.M.A. MUHITHA (Bangladesh), Former Finance and Planning Minister

12. Col. Raji RASAKI (Nigeria), Military Governor of Lagos State.

13. Helmut SCHMIDT (Federal Republic of Germany,) Former Federal

Chancellor

14. Wole SOYINKA (Nigeria), Nobel Prize Winner 1986 for Literature

15. J.U. AIRE (Nigeria), Executive Director, A.G. Leventis and Co. (Nig.)

Limited.

16. A. ANATHARAMAN (India), Managing Director, Tower Aluminum

(Nigeria) Ltd.

B. PARTICIPANTS

1. Malam Yaya ABUBAKAR (Nigeria), former Permanent Secretary, Political

Department, Cabinet Office

2. P. Ayangma AMANG (Cameroon), Directeur-General, Compagnie Nationale

d’Assurances C.N.A.

3. Babafemi BADEJO (Nigeria), Senior Lecturer, University of Lagos.

4. Donatien BIHUTE (Burundi), Managing Director Hydrobur; Chairman,

Meridien Bank Burundi; former Minister of Planning of Burundi and Vice-

President, African Development Bank

5. Cecil BLAKE (Sierra Leone), Senior Programme Officer, Global Learning

Division, United Nations University, Tokyo

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6. Munirul CHOUDHURY (Bangladesh), President, Aegean Maritime

International, Washington, D.C.; former Adviser to the President of

Bangladesh

7. Pierre-Claver DAMIBA (Burkina Faso), Assistant Administrator and

Regional Director for Africa, UNDP

8. Francis M. DENG (Sudan), former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs;

Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

9. Julien DOBONGNA (Cameroon), Conseiller du President,Compagnie

Financiere et Industrielle

10. Jens FISCHER (Federal Republic of Germany), Chief of Staff, Office of Mr.

Helmut Schmidt

11. Jean HERSKOVITS (USA), Professor of African History, State University of

New York.

12. Ahmadu JALINGO (Nigeria) Dean, Faculty of Management and Social

Sciences, Bayero University, Kano.

13. Mansur KHALID (Sudan), former Foreign Minister and Vice-Chairman,

World Commission on Environment and Development

14. Justin LABINJOH (Nigeria), Senior Lecturer, University of Ibadan

15. Zamani LEKWOT (Nigeria), Major-General (rtd.), former Governor of

Rivers State, former Nigerian Ambassador to Senegal

16. L.B.B.J. MACHOBANE (Lesotho), Minister of Education

17. Rev. M. Stanley MOGOBA (South Africa), President, South African Institute

of Race Relations ;and Secretary of the Conference of the Methodist Church

of Southern Africa

18. Viktor M.P. MPOYO (Nigeria), Industrialist (oil industry)

19. Dragoljub NAJMAN (Yugoslavia), former Assistant Director-General,

UNESCO

20. Lopo Fortunato do NASCIMENTO (Angola), Governor of Huila Province;

former Prime Minister and Deputy Executive Secretary, ECA

21. Letitia OBENG (Ghana), former Regional Director for Africa, United Nations

Environment Programme

22. Anezi N. OKORO (Nigeria), Professor of Medicine, University of Nigeria

Teaching Hospital, Enugu

23. James ONOBIONO (Cameroon), President, Compagnie Financiere et

Industrielle

24. Hans D’ORVILLE (Federal Republic of Germany), Senior Officer, UNDP

New York and Coordinator, InterAction council Secretariat

25. Oyeleye OYEDIRAN (Nigeria), Professor, University of Lagos

26. Tayo SERIKI (Nigeria), Chairman, Siemens Nigeria

27. Albert TEVOEDJIRE (Benin) President, Centre Panafricain de Prospective

Sociale; former Deputy Director-General, International Labour Organisation

28. Bilikisu YUSUF (Nigeria), Editor, New Nigerian

29. Terencia LEON-JOSEPH (Peru), Administrative Assistant

35

Appendix II

List of Statements and Papers

1. The Challenge of Leadership African Gen. Ibrahim

Development Babangida

2. Africa Today’s World Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo

3. Message from the

Administrator of United Nations Pierre-Claver Damiba

Development Programme

4. Leadership Challenge for Tariq Husain

Improving the Economic and

Social Situation in Sub-Saharan

Africa

5. The African Economy: Adebayo Adedeji

Overview and prospects for

Recovery and sustained development

6. Development Strategies A.M.A. Muhith

- Lessons from Experience

7. Multi-Country Private Donatien Bihute

Sector Co-operation in Africa

8. The Interest of the Private Sector A. Anantharaman

in Leadership

9. Some Thoughts on African Leadership J.U. Aire

10. Agriculture, Rural Development and Akin L. Mabogunje

The Post-Colonial State in Africa

11. Local Government in Nigeria J. M. Olanipekun

12. The Challenge of Education in Africa A. A. Kwapong

36

13. The Problems of Managing Raji Rasaki

a Conurbation like Metropolitan Lagos

14. Leadership in an interdependent World Helmut Schmidt

and What is Expected from Africa

15. Twice Bitten: The Fate of Africa’s Wole Soyinka

Culture Producers

16. Development and Culture – Is Japan a Junzo Kawada

Model?

17. Policy Formation: A Case Study Ojetunji Aboyade

of Nigeria

18. Apartheid and Leadership Nthato Motlana

19. Apartheid and the Challenges of M. S. Mogoba

African Leadership

37