Strategies
Best 6 Strategies to Accelerate Development in Africa. Strategies to accelerate development in Africa. The African continent is said to be the cradle of mankind. Despite that fact, the continent is lagging behind in terms of almost all living standards being health wise, economic and in almost all spheres of life. Here we propose strategies to accelerate development in the continent.
Culture
Culturally: as a result of the cultural domination from outside that goes with globalization, African countries are rapidly losing their identity and therefore their ability to interact with other cultures on an equal and autonomous basis (Addis Ababa, 2002). The new generation of young Africans is losing the values of their traditions including their mother tongues due to globalization. The famous coca cola culture is filling in the gaps. For the youth in the developing world, doing what youth in America and other developed regions of the world do is the best way. They all sing the hip hop music, rap music and all dress in the blue jeans.
Globalization
Nonetheless, globalization as said before has positive impacts too; the squeeze of space and time has promoted greater respect for human rights and contributed to the development of an African press, we can witness very well in a countries like Tanzania, there over ten daily news papers and a huge number of private radio and television stations. This has opened African countries to greater scrutiny than in the past, making it somewhat more difficult for African governments to get away with blatant and excessive abuses of democratic governance and transparency. Moreover, globalization has to some extent unleashed the scientific and technological forces, and so giving people access to the revolution of information through ICT (Addis Abba, 2002).
Theories
All modes of productions have theories to explain them; capitalism, socialism and all others have their patterns of explanation. Opening his discussion on diplomacy and globalization, Professor Omary of The School of Diplomacy in Tanzania, argued that the World in the age of globalization, is now in a paradigmatic crisis. We do not have a clear paradigm that can articulate eloquently and satisfactorily the great changes that the world is undergoing in the wake of globalization.
Omary argued further, that we need a theory to explain these happenings. In the deliberation with the students of advanced degree- Masters, we eventually accepted an interdependency theory to elaborate the globalization occurrences.
Interdependence
Interdependence as a pattern to follow will very much help the African countries in this era of villagization of the world. African development can and will benefit from economic and political interdependence with the developed world, other emerging markets, and other developing regions. Interdependence can be a trigger for Africa’s development (Trevor 2004). In the world of politics and economics, Interdependence is characterized by reciprocal effects among countries or among actors in different countries.
These effects often result from international transactions- flows of money, goods, people and messages across international boundaries. We know that, the world, of course Africa included, has become interdependent in economies, in communications and in human aspirations (Robert and Joseph, 1977). The theory encourages mutual dependency. Since sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of South Africa, is lagging behind in most spheres of life, then interdependency should be most useful especially now in the epoch of globalization.
One should however, note that the concept of interdependency is not a new one as it has always been there. During the time of slavery there was interdependency too, the Arabs brought beads to Africa and took slaves on exchange. The question here is about a meaningful and balanced interdependency. This should be the time where by Africa will receive advanced technology in the exchange of her raw materials–this should be the age of doing a balanced trade among the nations of the world.
On engaging this interdependency pattern of world business and economics the continent has to be careful for the rules and procedures neither so complete nor so well enforced as in well ordered domestic political systems, and the institutions are neither so powerful nor so autonomous. The rules of the game include some national rules, some international rules, some private rules- and large areas of no rules at all (Robert and Joseph, 1977).
Despite the difficult in the area of international relations and so interdependency, still Africa has no choice but to interact and cultivate relations with the developed world. Not only is this unavoidable, but a real necessity. However, Africa can jubilate over this interdependency, for there are individuals and groups in developed countries that are ready to work with Africa.
Those individuals and groups are motivated by justice, equity, and fair play, they support or could be persuaded and encouraged to support African interests. African countries should therefore cultivate and consolidate ties with these individuals and groups and strengthen them whenever they can such individual and groups can become powerful lobbies for Africa within the body of politics of developed countries (Addis Ababa 2002).
As held earlier, this pattern, that is interdependency, requires participation of both players the developing world as well as the developed world. The latter should know that until the poor developing African countries are brought into the international financial system with real power, the global economy cannot be stable for long (Rugumamu, 2005).
For Africa to catch up with the rest of the world the international community has goals which are projected for 2015 these include achieving universal primary education, eliminating gender disproportions in education by 2005, reducing infant and child mortality by two thirds reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters. Achieving universal access to reproductive health services. These goals appear reasonable but are not going to be easy to reach.
In some areas, such as primary education, it is only in the past few years that the declines of the 1980s and 1990s have started to be reversed. In others, such as child mortality, trends are worsening largely because of HIV/AIDS. Achieving these goals will require resources, political commitment, appropriate services delivery and increased international cooperation (Can Africa Claim, 2000).
Knowledge Culture
To conclude let us talk of the culture of knowledge; the African people require necessary knowledge which will help them acquire the world’s current technology, to acquire the needed knowledge, they then need education. The African countries are therefore, required to increase their budgets on education and have special programs on this important factor in development.
