Reflecting back, looking forward: Caroline Kende-Robb
To mark the new year, Democracy in Africa has asked key groups and individuals to reflect on
developments in Africa during 2012, and look forward to 2013. We have invited them to
share with us their insights and predictions, their hopes and their fears. Here, we speak
to Caroline Kende-Robb. Caroline is the Executive Director of the Africa Progress Panel, a
group of distinguished individuals, chaired by Kofi Annan, dedicated to encouraging progress
in Africa.
January 18, 2013
1. Could you briefly describe the work that APP does?
The Africa Progress Panel , set up in 2007 and chaired by Kofi Annan, is a group of ten
eminent personalities who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable
economic, political and social progress in Africa. Advised by policy experts, the Panel
monitors Africa’s socio-economic development and offers evidence-based recommendations
for better policy. As individuals and as a group, the Panel influences policy so that Africa’s
economic growth translates into more prosperity for Africans.
2. Looking back at 2012, what were the most promising developments for democracy in
the region?
At time of writing, the news out of Africa is quite focused on events in Mali. But actually
2012 was quite a good year for democratic developments. Unplanned but peaceful power
transitions in countries such as Ghana and Ethiopia and progress in countries such as Sierra
Leone and Liberia highlight the increasing resilience of democratic institutions in these
countries. Multiparty democracy continues to take root in Africa, with only one country –
Eritrea – refusing to hold elections.
As we saw in 2011/2012 with the Arab Spring, social media has been a powerful tool to
amplify the voice of people out there for action. In addition, Africa is now more connected
with the rest of the world than ever, which provides citizens with more avenues to challenge
poor governance. Did you know that more and more governments are now using social
media too? Last month, to take a recent example, Egypt’s President Morsi announced a
reversal on a tax decision through a Facebook post!
3. Do you think that these developments will be sustainable in the next year and beyond?
It’s clear that multipartyism, along with elections, will continue to be the norm, as opposed
to the exception, in Africa. However, there are many worrying signs. Dictators of the tiniest
African countries with little or no geopolitical strategic interest have routinely stagemanaged multiparty elections that have consolidated their hold on power – with little or no
protest from the outside world.
Indeed, as the renowned Kenyan political scientist Karuti Kanyinga has forcefully argued,
elections are not always a force for good, and in many cases only serve to catalyze or
exacerbate seething societal tensions and unresolved questions. One only has to review
media accounts of elections in African countries (as well as countries elsewhere) to see that
elections and violence go hand in hand, to differing degrees.
In 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual democracy index ranked only one country,
Mauritius, as a “full” democracy. The Mo Ibrahim Governance Index found that popular
participation in African elections had declined by 5%. What is more, Freedom House found
that of the 49 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of democracies had fallen from
24 in 2005 to 19 in 2012. In light of these disturbing trends, we expect that the validity and
relevance of electoral democracy will be tested in a number of countries this year.
In Egypt, despite democratic elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood into power
after years of opposition, strong divisions persist between those in favour of an Islamic state
and those who want a more secular State. These divisions recently surfaced when President
Morsi’s effort to bolster his powers sparked massive civic protests that forced him to climb
down. Fault lines such as these may lead to more protests and civil violence. And this will
threaten Egypt’s democratic processes and with it the necessary peace that will allow the
progress of democracy.
Amid the hope that Kenya’s general elections on 4 March 2013, the first under the country’s
new Constitution, will not be a repeat of the flawed process that sparked bloody violence at
the end of 2007, there are some concerns that the polls may do little to calm grievances
among different communities that are seen by some to have been exploited by politicians in
recent years.
Meanwhile, elections are also due in Zimbabwe, where ZANU-PF has made life difficult for its
main coalition partner, the MDC, and is hoping to return long-standing President Robert
Mugabe to power. With rumours of the octogenarian Mugabe’s poor health intensifying,
analysts fear that a power struggle within the ruling apparatus (likely involving the powerful
security services) could lead to further instability in a country whose economy has been
decimated by corrosive politics.
Mali was to have held elections in mid-2013, but these will clearly not happen. The recent
Malian military offensive against Islamist rebels who seized the north of the Sahelian
country – launched with support from ECOWAS and France – marks the start of a new phase
of the conflict that is certain to continue for many months. Mali’s disintegration represents a
huge threat to stability in Sahelian West Africa. The intersection between a virtually failed
state, drug trafficking and radical Islam makes it imperative that peace and constitutionality
are restored to Mali in the shortest possible time.
Mali signifies what can go wrong with the conventional notion of democracy if it produces a
government that does not make appropriate changes and reforms. When military officers
ended 20 years of constitutional democracy in 2012, the response from the international
community was lukewarm. ECOWAS was left to push for a return to constitutionality. Some
believe that it was only when France realized that Mali was about to become a failed state
and assessed the wider impact on Western interests that it decided to send in troops – an
act that has internationalized what started out as simply another setback to African
democracy.
There are many other African countries in which the democratic scorecard can be
questioned. Having said that, things are much better than in 1990, when the wave of
multipartyism began to sweep through Africa in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. At
the time, Freedom House could count only 3 African countries that satisfied the basis
conditions for multipartyism. Today, the picture is radically different. Most countries operate
on a constitutional basis, albeit with different levels of adherence; term limits are considered
more and more to be the norm; and the rights of citizens are increasingly being
acknowledged by governments – even if the dominant refrain is often that democracy can
never be perfect as long as poverty persists.
4. What do you believe are the key remaining challenges to democracy across the region,
and how might these be tackled?
The overarching challenge is one of ensuring that democracy is deepened into a sustainable
instrument for social change.
More specifically, election organization and conduct remains a key challenge. Despite
technological advances that reduce the margin for error and minimize fraud, election results
continue to be contested, as was recently the case in Ghana when the opposition NPP
refused to accept the result of what turned out to be the second closely contested poll in a
row, in a country applauded for its culture of democracy and its political maturity. Creating a
“level playing field” from start to finish is essential as is clearly highlighted in Deepening
Democracy, the recent report of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and
Security (http://www.global-commission.org/report)
Beyond the nitty-gritty of conducting free and fair elections, another challenge is the winnertakes-all mentality that still prevails in the majority of African countries. Whichever party
wins an election has absolute power to appoint its supporters to top jobs, as well as to
initiate and pursue policies in the party (as opposed to national) interest. Policies initiated by
previous incumbents are set aside and new policies developed. Skilled technocrats and
policy makers from opposing parties find themselves out in the cold. Often, this mentality
breeds alienation and sows the seeds for future conflict.
Until and unless constitutional provisions can be enacted to ensure policy continuity from
regime to regime, African citizens will continue to draw the short end of the stick. The
provision in Ghana’s proposed new Constitution for a National Development Planning
Commission that will have the power to design and ensure the implementation of
development policy regardless of which government is in power, represents a bold step
forward. Whether or not the final version of the Constitution will retain this proposal,
remains to be seen.
Another challenge is the gulf between promulgating and implementing constitutional
democracy. In Kenya, civil society actors are concerned that the implementation of the
groundbreaking 2010 Constitution is being subverted by some elements of the government
and parliamentary interests. This raises the spectre of provisions that call for citizen
oversight of key appointments (secretaries of state, members of the judiciary, etc.) to be
watered down or side-stepped in favour of the status quo ante. A related challenge in Kenya
is the rolling out of the devolved Government mandated by the new Constitution. For each
of the 47 new counties created, and in addition to voting for a new President and Vice
President, Kenyans will elect county Governors as well as Senators representing each county
in a new chamber in Parliament. Each county will also have its own elected assembly. Given
the sizeable budget allocated to each county and the myriad of functions devolved to county
level, nothing less that a fully mobilized, vigilant and capacitated citizenry will be needed to
hold the new power-holders to account. Devolution in Kenya thus represents a doubleedged sword – on the one hand it takes power away from the centre and empowers more
citizens; on the other, it introduces new challenges of transparency and accountability.
5. What new and potentially surprising developments do you see on the horizon that will
become increasingly important to the way in which democracy functions in Africa?
Some commentators suggest that an ‘African Spring’ may be about to happen in countries
where citizens, empowered by the wide availability of cheap technology, will take to the
streets as well as cyberspace to force shifts in power. There’s no question that access to
mobile phones and eventually to smartphones will empower citizens further, and increase
citizen oversight over public institutions and public money.
However, we should not expect the masses to rise up and overthrow their governments. The
majority of African citizens are pragmatic – they focus their energies on activities that
generate household and community income. Many believe that even if they complain about
issues such as poor delivery of basic services, it will not make a difference. Often, people
believe that by highlighting deficits in the provision of services or pointing out instances of
corruption they will leave themselves vulnerable to reprisals. So they keep quiet.
It’s important that in being enthusiastic about the opportunities afforded by social media for
citizen agency and enhanced popular participation, we do not go overboard. Instead, we
should follow the progress of the growing number of innovations that are being tested
throughout Africa to encourage people to be more proactive in their communities. These
include websites that users can visit to identify and fix problems in their localities, call
centres that people can phone to register complaints about poor services, bulk
SMS campaigns, and community action groups. Small-scale innovations like these, using
technology in ways that recognizes the local context, are likely to be much more effective in
giving power to the people than campaigns to urge people to cast their vote. Where Africans
can effect change, electoral democracy will be more meaningful in their daily lives.
Original Source: http://democracyinafrica.org/reflecting-back-looking-forward-carolinekende-robb/
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Chaired by Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Africa
Progress Panel (the Panel) includes distinguished individuals from the private and public
sectors, who advocate on global issues of importance to Africa and the world.
For further information, please contact
Edward Harris - [email protected]
(m) +41 79 87 38 322 and (w) +41 22 919 7536
www.africaprogresspanel.org and www.facebook.com/africaprogresspanel
@africaprogress and #APR2013