Month: June 2024

Rethinking Africa’s Education Systems: Lessons from China

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Let me first caveat the fact this is a sweeping generalization as far as reference to “Africa’s education systems” is concerned. But I believe the generalization will still meet some nuance in this article.

Most African countries (especially Sub-Saharan) maintain a varied mixture of traditional and colonial/European/Western schooling systems. By their very nature, our education systems generally lack domestic responsiveness to address our societies’ unique historical, contemporary, social and future realities. This is due to their unmindful inheritance of formal education structures which were relinquished to us at the dawn of independence, without reassessing the intentions that informed the colonial design of education in Africa. Besides this, other factors such as epidemics, humanitarian crises and other development challenges continue to bear negatively on our children’s schooling.

Often, when action is championed to do something to address our education challenges, it is still spearheaded by external actors like the United Nations which sets a cookbook of Millenium Development Goals which every country should pursue. Of course, this is not to say no fruits have been born from this. Millions of children have been enrolled in school continent-wide through adoption of UN Programmes and support from UN agencies like the World Food Programme which provides meals in schools to combat hunger-related dropouts.

However, I think so much more would have been done if our governments keenly rethought, redesigned and reimplemented their education systems.

I’ll draw inspiration from one of the most recently poor, underdeveloped, famine-stricken, disease-affected, resource-constrained countries which paid clinical attention to their education and now boasts global excellence in almost all indices measuring academic excellence – China.

Estimates from 2022 showed that Uganda’s adult literacy rate (the percentage of people aged 15 and above who have basic reading, writing, arithmetic and understanding) was 80.59%. in contrast, China’s literacy rate upon the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was estimated between 20 and 40%. As of 2021. The country’s literacy rate was estimated at 99.83%  It took a great investment of thought and resources to change the course of literacy in their country.

Currently, China is among the biggest investors in academic research. Every year, millions of students graduate in science and engineering from Chinese universities, including thousands of international students. They surpassed the United States in 2017 with the highest number of scientific publications. It also ranks topmost in most international STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) championships.

This is not by luck or coincidence. When China emerged out of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), it redesigned its education system to focus on economic modernization. Few if any African countries seem to understand or act with the understanding that there is intersectionality between education and economic transformation. China understood this early and highly prioritized the development of scientific and technical knowledge as well as training skilled personnel to realize it economic modernization agenda.

Needful to add, the pursuit of scientific studies excellence did not undermine humanities. Literature and the arts were also highly revived, which explains the world-wide appeal of Chinese cultural expression through movies.

The country has also keenly responded to climate change, with its Education Ministry formally implementing environmental education content in the school curriculum from early primary through to high school since 2003.

In order to satisfy their country’s industrialization and urbanization, the country also instituted higher vocational schools, secondary skill schools and job-finding centers. These institutions tailor the skills they equip workers with to address the urgent needs of China’s modern manufacturing and service industries.

Capital shortages to highly finance education is expected. However, like in China, alternative forms of education especially at higher levels can be embraced. Some institutions in Africa already implement online and long-distance learning, but we need to inform more people about this possibility. Spare-time and part-time learning can also go a long way in onboarding low-skilled youth who did not get a chance to study due to high resource constraints in formal arrangements.

China has also embraced the opportunity of using education to cause social change, specifically by making it compulsory for all universities to teach literature that encourages the integration of the country’s ethnic minorities and end discrimination.

It is difficult, almost impossible to develop a country without getting it right with education. But we can’t get it right if we do not think through it. If we keep rolling the machine, churning out graduates and drop-outs who have undergone a rusted, inherited, unexamined system. We need to press the reset button, get on the drawing board and think Africa’s education systems anew.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

Global Politics and Foreign Policy: Who is Entitled to the “Monroe Doctrine”?

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

The Monroe Doctrine is the fulcrum around which America’s grand strategy on foreign policy has revolved since the 19th Century. Originating from President James Monroe’s speech to Congress in 1823, it was a solemn statement by the United States warning European nations to desist from interfering in the affairs of countries in the Americas (the totality of North and South America and most of the Western Hemisphere). Based on this doctrine, America would interpret any intervention by a “major country” (excuse my French – because all sovereign countries are presumed equal…) in its spheres of influence (what it called its “strategic backyard”) as a threat to U.S. security.

A flashpoint in America’s implementation of the Monroe Doctrine happened in 1962 during the world’s first nuclear crisis. Fidel Castro had led a guerilla struggle in Cuba which deposed Sgt. Fulgencio Batista. To save Cuba from bankruptcy upon his usurpation, Fidel approached the communist countries and began nationalising American-owned industries since the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would not lend to him. The American president then, Eisenhower, was unsettled by the thought of a communist state emerging a few miles from the coast of Florida. When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, he undertook Eisenhower’s scheme to invade Cuba and authorized a failed attack at the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy ordered constant surveillance over Cuba and his spy planes registered aerial photographs showing that Castro was armed with Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (I.R.B.M.s). When Kennedy confronted the Soviet Union over this, Nikita Khrushchev protested: “Your rockets are in Turkey. You are worried by Cuba. You say that it worries you because it is 90 miles from the American coast. But Turkey is next to us!” Whereas arrangements were made by the U.S.’s Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to de-escalate the crisis, and in exchange for the Soviet Union’s withdrawal of missiles from Cuba, the U.S. reciprocated with a non-invasion pledge and the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles from Turkey, America’s presence in Russia’s neighborhood did not cease.

It is 62 years today since the 1962 Cuban Nuclear Missile Crisis and America is fueling a proxy war between Russia and Ukraine. Like America’s position on the Monroe Doctrine, Russia too claims it needs some breathing space from the expansion of NATO eastwards, and would rather keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence. A saying goes that what is good for the goose is good for the gander…

However, the world has changed. China has emerged. Its government has publicly denied having a Monroe Doctrine. Indeed, not a single war has been fought by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1979. The country’s leaders have theorised about harmonious co-existence as the future that China wants. Besides doing business and extending development finance to developing parts of the world as well as building infrastructure projects globally under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has not exhibited an appetite for military alliances with any country in the world.  Indeed, today, the PRC’s foreign policy banner is building a community of shared future for mankind.

Let us turn back to the United States and the Monroe Doctrine. American political scientist and International Relations scholar, John Mearsheimer, developed a theory called “offensive realism”. This theory explains that great powers are essentially desirous, rationally, of establishing hegemony in their hemispheres in the anarchy of the international system. He calls the international system anarchical because of the absence of any higher hierarchy above the nation-state.

It is understandable, based on the theory of offensive realism, for China, Russia or any other major world power to feel entitled to their own Monroe Doctrine. Currently, the U.S. has surrounded bases all across the Pacific in a provocative encirclement of China, which threatens a disastrous war between the two states. This is not the posture we need for sustainable peace in the world. It might make America feel safe, but nobody is safe if other countries feel threatened.

China has called for a multipolar world where no single center of power bullies the rest of the world. I think that such multipolarity is a far more secure balance of power for a peaceful world. Mearsheimer’s offensive realism would be a false theory if China’s stance was genuinely experimented on by other countries, especially the United States. However, if the U.S. posture in the Pacific is not unclenched, I fear John might be right in the long run.

Nnanda is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

 

Lessons From China’s Climate Change Strategy

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

For a long time, China was known for relegating the challenge of combating climate change to “developed countries.” It did not consider itself among them and thus stood alongside developing countries to demand that wealthy, developed countries address the issue. As one of the largest CO2 emitters worldwide, it did not take long to backtrack its stance and become a world leader in green technology and climate-change mitigation. The nation’s commitment now is to shrink carbon emissions to safe levels by 2030 and realise carbon neutrality before 2060.

China has come a long way on this journey involving devising various strategies and implementing several policies to mitigate long-term effects of climate change. In 2004, they started experimenting with the “Green GDP” policy. The idea behind this policy was to deduct resource and environmental costs from the GDP of the country. This is how they began greening their economic policies and promoting nature conservation in their economic development model.

The “Green GDP” initiative is an environmental index applied while assessing an area’s GDP.  China uses it to evaluate economic performance by considering indicators such as energy consumption, energy reduction and emission intensity of major pollutants per 10,000 yuan of GDP. This is an environmentally smart and responsible method of measuring economic performance of the country without blindsiding oneself only to GDP growth.

Over time, China has improved assessment criteria by relying on indicators which pay attention to people’s livelihood, improvement of social conditions and monitoring ecological benefits. This should be the way to go for countries that aren’t yet implementing similar models.

In a more drastic move in 2013, China unveiled an Air Pollution Prevention and Action Plan, termed the “Air Ten.” By this, it passed strong regulations on pollution and restructured industries to achieve better air quality, especially in Beijing which is usually heavily affected by air pollution. By 2021, Beijing’s air quality had improved greatly with the city’s average PM2.5 reading dropping by 52.9% within five years.

President Xi Jinping also introduced the “new normal” concept in 2014. This denoted that government had appreciated the need to improve the quality of China’s economic development since it had attained a higher stage of development and outgrown the age of primitive acceleration of growth. Xi famously remarked that; “the carrying capacity of the environment has reached, or is close to, its upper limit and it is necessary to promote a new way of green, low-carbon and circular development”.

He noted that it was no longer sustainable for China to pursue the old economic path of extensive economic development and warned that such a path would be a dead end.

Therefore, China now pursues green development as a necessary means to mitigate climate catastrophe while maintaining economic development.

Additionally, Xi conceptualized the “ecological civilization” theory. He articulated the principles that must be followed in order to promote ecological civilization including; maintaining harmonious coexistence between man and nature and working together to build a global ecological civilization among others.

He stated: “We must deeply involve ourselves in global environmental governance, enhance our voice and influence in the global environmental governance system, actively guide the direction of change in the international order and form solutions for world environmental protection and sustainable development.”

But that would not be possible if corruption had continued to eat up China’s environment and energy sectors. For instance, officials in the coal industry conspired in the destruction of grasslands by coal mines in the Qilianshan Muli area and the illegal construction of villas in the Qinling Protected Area.

To confront this challenge, President Xi founded the Central Ecological and Environmental Inspection Team (CEEIT) in 2015 to supervise provincial and central ministries. Over 6,000 senior officials at various levels of government were arrested for corruption and have been held accountable for several environmental and energy-related cases.

This is tremendous progress – from denying contribution and responsibility for climate change – to holding large numbers of public servants for complacency in environmental degradation. China’s transformation ideologically and proactively in combating climate change and assuming global leadership in green technology should challenge all countries slacking on this urgent global challenge to stand up to the task.

Nnanda is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

nnandakizito@dwcug.org

 

The other side of China Africa Friendship: Stories from the 8th China-Africa Youth Festival

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By George Musiime

As an African with an interest in China Africa Cooperation, many times I come across information that seeks to discredit and undermine China-Africa friendship. Indeed it is very easy for someone living in Africa to believe that the concept of China-Africa friendship is a smokescreen covering an ulterior motive. More so, as a Ugandan and an African  I would understand why some might even be tempted to question China’s intentions in Africa given the level of negative publicity that comes from without the presets of this friendship; alluding to neo-colonialism, debt trap diplomacy et cetera. Luckily, I was blessed with the opportunity to experience this friendship from outside the African viewpoint during my visit to China, for the 8th China-Africa Youth Festival. From this experience, to realize the vision of a China-Africa community with a shared future, Africa needs not only right Information but also significant introspection before making judgment based on the information we are constantly bombarded with.

A long shared history. Many a times when Chinese involvement in Africa is discussed, we are made to believe as though China-Africa interactions are just being incepted while in fact this is not true. Some of the oldest recorded history of China-Africa interactions are from 600 years ago during the Voyages of Admiral Zheng He who reached the east African coast in the 14th century. While he made several Voyages to the East African coast, with a huge fleet Admiral Zheng was never a threat. As a matter of fact, his voyages were never about conquest or colonization. Moreover, it has been documented that he instead used the might of the Chinese military to suppress pirates on the course of his Voyages. In one of his inscriptions, the Admiral is quoted to have written that “…because of this, the sea routes became pure and peaceful and the foreign peoples could rely upon them and pursue their occupations in safety.” This alone is testament of China’s earliest commitment to global peace, security, and common prosperity. Otherwise, given the size and sophistication of the fleet he commanded, he could have chosen a different path. His voyages have indeed been described as diplomatic in nature and he is known to have brought foreign envoys to the Ming court as a way of building even stronger cooperation between China and the nations he sailed to.

The role of language in global cooperation. Language has for so long been known to foster mutual respect, understanding and tolerance. My experience in China literally blew out of the water the idea that China intends to use the teaching of the Chinese language in Africa as an inroad to future colonization and I’ll illustrate here. During my stay in Beijing I was constantly in contact with young Chinese that were fluent in many foreign languages and it was indeed fascinating to find young people that were fluent in indigenous African languages. I particularly had interesting conversations with two Beijing Foreign Studies University  (BFSU) students who were fluent in Swahili. For a nation as powerful as China with the added advantage of all its 1.4 billion citizens speaking a Unifying language, there would be no reason to train its young people in foreign languages unless there was a strong commitment to building cooperation and mutual understanding. In fact the study of indigenous African languages and language exchanges  might become the glue that holds together the China-Africa community with a shared future. Therefore, contrary to the mainstream narrative, other than work to interest Africa into its own culture, China and the Chinese people are taking a keen interest in African Culture as well.

Aside from the language exchange programs, I was also honored to visit the Institute of African Studies at the Zhejiang Normal University where, I learnt that this Institute had by far the most prominent program on African studies in the whole country . In fact the Institute is home to a museum where artifacts of African culture are curated in an effort to preserve the culture but also to give their students from different cultures an experience in the diverse culture of the African continent. At the museum, even I, was exposed to aspects of African culture I had not experienced before despite living on the continent. This effort fits in very well with the Dar-Es-salaam Consensus which called for the adoption of the Global Civilization Initiative advocating for the respect of the different cultures of the world.  Exposure to the diversity of world cultures is indeed a means to prepare the students for a smooth transition into the global community of humanity with a shared future.

This experience was further extended to the Zhejiang Guangsha Vocational and technical University of Construction where I was guided through the different projects by students present and past as well as the stories behind them. A tour of these  institutions was an eye opener to me and I believe for many of my colleagues because it told a different story; one of the enduring friendship but also of the China’s keen interest in preserving the same. It was indeed refreshing  to see first hand that other than try to water-down African culture, China is, if anything serving as a curator and guardian of a significant potion of African heritage. Throughout my stay,  there was at every turn something to remind me that my culture was always close which also tell the most beautiful story of the Enduring China-Africa friendship.

Meanwhile, despite the deepening China-Africa cooperation focusing more on addressing the economic bottlenecks that Africa faces on its path to modernization, a visit to China gives a different view of China-Africa friendship; a view that is more about the people-to-people  connections  and cultural aspects of this  friendship. I was brought in contact with the efforts being taken to not just expose Chinese people to African culture but also to preserve artifacts of African culture with a Chinese touch. Indeed this serves as the bedrock for the enduring China-Africa friendship. While this may be aim to strengthen the bond between the two parties,   it is also a clear indication  that as long as Africa is able to harness this friendship with China, the prospects of the continent will only continuously get brighter.

George Musiime is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

 

The World Right now! And China’s Place in It

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Moshi Israel

The world as it is today is largely in disarray. The scenario is akin to that of a civil war where leaders are engaged in power struggles as the world around them burns to ashes. This is what is happening now, battles of hegemony and dominance are becoming more prevalent and defined. It is no longer shameful to threaten war or annihilation of the entire human species. Global peace and order are at risk because states have doubled down on taking the route of political realism. The weak are preyed upon by the strong and the interests of countries come above all else even at the expense of other’s interests.

Let us begin in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine. The war has now gone on for over two years with no end in sight. The Russians will not relent until they achieve their objectives of having a neutral and disarmed neighbor. Ukraine backed by the West has chosen to fight until the last Ukrainian in a bid to be part of Europe and out of Russia’s grip. The West on the other hand has openly stated that Ukraine is a unique opportunity to weaken Russia and inflict a strategic defeat on it. Therefore, the theater of war must continue until one side blinks. China is the only country that has pushed for a political settlement in Ukraine, emphasizing the need to respect sovereign territory and to address legitimate security concerns of all countries. This has been pushed by the Chinese despite them having a limitless friendship with Russia. Therefore, while all countries have clear allies and corners in this war, China has been politically mature enough to suggest a compromise that addresses both warring country’s concerns.

Europe is now at a crossroads. They have two major questions to answer; the first question is the Russian question and the second one is the China question. On the first question, the continent is running headfirst into a potential continental confrontation akin to the World Wars. There is an anti-Russian resurgence in Europe stemming from the Balkan states. These states are leading the drive into the new normal where Russia is seen as the major threat to the rest of the continent.

The second question which pertains to China may not be existential but is extremely important. Europe is still figuring out how to deal with China especially given China’s tumultuous relations with Big brother across the Atlantic. The recent visits by President Xi to Paris, Belgrade and Budapest have highlighted the contrast within European politics. France, knows it needs China but also has to trade carefully so as not to sour relations with their key ally, the US. China’s close friendship with Russia also complicates this further. The same goes for the majority of the European Union. Relations with China in Europe heavily depend on politics from the other side of the ocean. If it were completely up to Europe, it is evident that they would have preferred to have cordial relations with both china and USA.  On the other hand, there are some in Europe such as Serbia, and Hungary, the two allies, President Xi visited that see no qualms dealing with an increasingly inevitable China. These countries signed even more trade and partnerships agreements with China during Xi’s visit. The message President Xi brought to Europe was simply that; China is a fact of life and Europe has to deal with it.

Across the Atlantic, The United States remains consistent with its Foreign policy goals despite many thinking otherwise. The goal is as simple as maintaining US influence across the world and defending their interests and national security above all else. Now, how they go about this is a discussion for another time. The major point here is, as China’s influence grows, it inevitably collides with the influence of the United States and the latter is not accustomed to being challenged by a near peer power. China insists that its development is peaceful and seeks collaboration rather than confrontation. A peaceful world entirely depends on the US perception of China’s rampant rise.

Recently, the world was rocked by news of the death of the Iranian President, his foreign Minister and other key figures of the IRGC. This news left many in major political centers biting their nails at the prospect of the new emerging reality in the middle East. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear and that was dangerous because if a finger was pointed at anyone, it meant a potential new regional war. Many friends of Iran reached out to assist the country and it is yet to be seen what these developments will mean for the Middle East.

The war in Gaza is another political hotspot that has topped debates around the globe. The failure to release hostages by Hamas and lack of adequate humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people have made the Gaza war into one of the most gruesome conflicts in recent memory. China has constantly called for a cease fire and is currently pushing to have Palestine recognized as a state by the united Nations. The reality that the ICC might issue warrants against top leaders of Hamas and Israel has taken many by surprise. It is after all, an open secret that the Criminal court is reserved mainly for criminals in the Global South, this is no longer hearsay, as the Prosecutor Karim Khan confirmed it in an interview with CNN. We in the Global South can only watch as intrigued spectators as to where all this is headed.

In Africa, the DRC is still facing numerous insurgencies and the political climate in the country is one of uncertainty. In the volatile Sahel belt, the US has finally agreed to withdraw its troops from Niger in September. All this happens as the Global South largely improves ties with Beijing.

The Writer is a Senior Research Fellow at Development Watch Centre.

 

 

Framing Foreign Employees: Tales of Chinese Workers at Karuma Hydropower Project

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Allawi Ssemanda

Figures from the Word Bank indicate that approximately, one billion people from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have no access to electricity. This is a huge barrier to socio-economic transformation of world’s significant population and has both direct and indirect effects on development efforts like slowing expansion of development indicators such as health, poverty reduction programs, education, food security among others.

Despite significant progress in growing the numbers of people with access to electricity, it is still hard for developing countries to meet the 7th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of all having access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy by 2030.

The government of Uganda has been working hard to increase electricity production capacity to increase its accessibility countrywide. Through EXIM bank of China, Chinese government offered concessional loan to fund 85% cost of the project, while Uganda government is meeting the remaining 15%.  A Chinese firm SinoHydro Cooperation was contracted to undertake the project which is Uganda’s biggest hydropower plant and possibly, the 14th largest hydropower dam in the world.

The dam will produce 600MW which will push the country’s hydropower generation to 1,868 MW. The government hopes this will help the country to increase power accessibility countrywide reduce power tariffs in the long run.

Uganda’s vision 2040 which aims to make “a Transformed Ugandan Society from a Peasant to a Modern and Prosperous Country within 30 years” lists increased generation of affordable power as a magic bullet for the country’s socio-economic take off. To achieve this, Uganda must increase its electricity per capita consumption from the current 215 kWh to at least 3,668 kWh. This to happen, we must raise our power generation capacity to at least 41,738MW and increase access to national grid to at least 80%!

As Bent Flyvbjerg, a Danish professor at Harvard University taught us; “Infrastructure is the great space shrinker, and power, wealth and status increasingly belong to those who know how to shrink space,…” Put differently, Uganda to realise her 2040 vision, we must shrink electricity deficits. This will among others increase multiplier effects associated with increased access to power.

For this to happen, as a country, we must not aim at small and individualistic gains but rather aim at those that benefit us as a country.  We must not kill a hen to save an egg. This means resisting all acts that may delay or sabotage infrastructural developmental projects.  For instance, the completion of Karuma Hydropower project partly delayed because of sabotage when unknown individuals vandalised and collapsed 5 transmission towers on the Karuma-Kawanda 400KV transmission line.

Last year, I and a team of researchers from the Development Watch Centre went to Kiryandongo district specifically to get first-hand information and understand how the Karuma hydropower project was impacting the host communities.

We interviewd 91 people who included residents and leaders of Karuma town council and neighbouring sub countries, managers and emplyees of the project. These included 64 men and 27 women. Among the 27 women, some were those some media outlets identified as victims. While interviewing alleged victims, who media reported to have claimed to have children fathered by Chinese workers, one Lydia Atim (she gave consent to quote her) from Gulu refuted the claims stressing the father of her child was a Pakistan. “No, the father of my child is not a Chinese. He is a Pakistani,” Lydia Atim affirmed.

The findings reached at after several interviews revealed striking findings including ground truthed claims of blackmail by some local politicians who some community members and politicians argue are using the “victims” of the project for both political and monetary gains.

Asked why they cite Chinese employees as responsible including those who know that afthers of their children are not Chinese, Washington Ochaya, the area district councillor noted; “for us, all foreign workers in this area who are not black in colour are Chinese because they are the majority.” He stressed that as local leaders, in total they had “registred only five ladies who claimed to have had children with foreign workers.” If anaysed, in this case Chinese employees can easily be accused even when it is clear they are not personally responsible.

Desipte what he called a few challenges, Ochaya who was our contact person during the study credited the project stressing; “before this project, Karuma was a small town with no opportunities. With the project kicking off, the area has registered significant growth in all aspects that today, we have a Town Council and we are still growing.” “Land used to be cheap here, but with this project, land prices skyrocketed and social services in the area improved. Those Chinese also helped us to have access to clean water by constructing a water tap at Karuma primary school which is a source of clean water for entire community,” emphasised Ochaya.

While one may not conclude that accusing foreign workers of abandoning their alleged fathered children is a common conspiracy against Chinese, some local leaders think that some politicians are manipulating mothers who have children with project’s foreign employees to say it’s Chinese who are responsible. In our interview with Mr. Oryem Joseph Lilly, the chairperson LC 1 Karuma cell, he argued that some local politicians use local women with children fathered by foreign workers as a campaign tool so that they can be seen as having fought for what they present as vulnerable people. Oryem emphasises that some politicians are manipulating those women hopping they would get compensated and share their money claiming they helped them. Describing the act as corruption, Oryem stressed “corrupt politicians are using the project for selfish interests. They are so determined that some are willing to blackmail the project, inflate victims’ list and list of those who lost land hopping they can gain monetarily from this,” Oryem emphasised. Here, one can conclude that some politicians in the area are willing to kill a hen to save an egg!

In this case, a hen is framing and blackmailing huge infrastructural projects like Karuma hydropower project with its immense opportunities to local communities. The egg saved is someone individually benefiting as a result of blackmail or framing the project that would otherwise benefit entire society but the individual consciously or otherwise frames and blackmail it for personal gains which may in the long run affect the entire project and the host community who would otherwise benefit from such projects.

To avoid such blanket claims, government especially the ministry of energy should interest themselves in this matter and where a person or local politician claims of having knowledge of existence of so-called “many abandoned children” left behind by foreign workers, they should be tasked to help authorities locate alleged victims. Otherwise, other than the possibility of government or the contractor spending much money compensating such non-existent victims on long lists created for political and other ulterior motives, such unsubstantiated claims have potential to cause unnecessary projects delays.  Also, as a country, we risk being seen as hostile to our development partners because of selfish individuals who thrive on blackmail.

Allawi Ssemanda is a Senior Research Fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

Africa Cross-Pollinates Civilizations

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Samuel Huntington riled many minds in the international relations circles when in 1993, he published “The Clash of Civilizations?”, a controversial article which he later expanded (and I would add, “escalated”) into a book in 1996. In the article cum book, he theorized that cultural and religious identities rather than ideological differences would define the post–Cold War conflicts among nations.

Whereas so much ink has flowed in critiquing Huntington, some people still believe him, especially on the lines that conflict in the 21st century is likely to flare up between the world’s major civilizations i.e., the Western (USA and allies) and the Sinic (Chinese) civilizations. It was Huntington’s view that current and future conflicts among sovereign states would best be understood on the contours of cultural differences.

As for Africa, Huntington did not even find us to be a necessary part of his global analysis. He said so little and yet so much by being conceptually inattentive to the place of Africa in the debate of global civilizations.

It is that gap in his analysis that I seek to add a whisper to. I think that we as Africans stand at the center of global civilization because of the unique and complicated history we are walking from and the undetermined future we are walking to. I observe Africa as the fallopian tube where the cross-fertilization of competing civilizations is happening currently.

This fertilization is happening generally in these ways. Whereas Western civilization seems to compete more forcefully through the superimposition of assumed Western values onto African societies, China has on the other end established principles of sharing its civilization not by prescribing its domestic values and systems for Africa but by respecting African values and autonomy. This way, the cross-pollination of Chinese and African civilizations is based on respect and mutual benefits.

The danger of Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” theory is that it offered a brand-new excuse for the United States to justify any atrocious confrontation they may have wished to execute in the absence of the Soviet Union, which had been the perfect excuse for a threat during the Cold War.

Huntington had a very narrow and limited appreciation of identities and civilizations. He determined the result of their intersection as violent, ipso facto. He only anticipated adverse effects from the interactive competition of diversity. And yet history has limitless evidence of the harmony and development that came from inter-cultural and inter-civilizational exchanges. He saw no “conversation of civilizations”. He ignored all substantive evidence to that effect and instead earnestly highlighted the “clash of civilization” – by which he meant catastrophic warfare.  Surely, the interdependence of our time and the intersectionality of our global challenges deserve better analysis of our diversity.

In politicizing civilizations, Huntington dangerously attempted to rationalize and passively encourage political violence on the global landscape. The logic of monopolizing violence was already an inherent nature of the modern state. These nation-states customarily inflict violence on both internal political minorities during state formation and also violate foreign subjects during external imperial expansion. We in Africa are still coming to terms with both the violence of state formation as well as recovering from that of colonial expansion. But along with this trauma, we are also offering a safe space for Western and Sinic civilizations to peacefully meet as they interact with us on our journey to socio-economic transformation.

China and the West should exploit the opportunity of partnering with Africa on its development course to diffuse their intercultural tensions by viewing Africa not as a place for rivalry but one for cooperation. I believe that this would align well with the objectives of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC).

Africa is home to millions of the youngest people in the world. These youths are negotiating a multicultural, fast-changing world with open arms. Those arms must be bestowed with tolerance, not the cultural prejudices fraught in Huntington’s clash of civilizations.

We should be more invested in urging for dialogue among civilizations like never before. As a venue where various civilizations now meet on development agendas, Africa should inspire dialogue, mutual understanding, peaceful coexistence and cooperation among these civilizations.

Let us not seek to remake the World Order along lines of cultural confrontation. Huntington’s theoretical legitimization of Western aggression against Islamic cultures and China should be buried in the unmarked graves of history where it belongs. I hope that the United States’s foreign policy actors desist from conducting it under the intellectual enlightenment of thoughts like Huntington’s. Future history will kindly remember them for that.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Center.

nnandakizito@dwcug.org

 

 

China-Africa Cultural Exchanges Inspiring the Next Generation Leaders: Chronicling the 2024 China-Africa Youth Festival

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By George Musiime

More than 60 youth representatives from Africa have been immersed into the culture and history of China as a part of the China-Africa youth festival that kicked off in Beijing on the 20th May with the opening ceremony in the Chinese capital Beijing. The 2024 China-Africa youth festival was organized with the collaboration between  the China Soong Ching Ling foundation and the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government. The opening ceremony on May 20th was attended by young people from all across the continent, representatives from African embassies in China and the African Union as well as Chinese dignitaries including the  Vice Minister for foreign affairs of the People’s Republic of China Chen Xiaodong as well as the chairperson of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, Li Bin.

The festival is a cultural exchange  activity where youths from China and Africa share experiences under the people-to-people connection facet of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation FOCAC  which is due to take place in September this year. In fact, because it coincided with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, this year’s  festival exposed participants to China’s political journey where participants took part in activities aimed to showcase the story of China’s progress both politically but the social economic aspects as well.

For the first two days, participants took part in activities at the former residence of Soong Ching Ling the wife of the Chinese leader Sun Yat-Sen, an influential figure in Chinese history and champion of Women and young peoples rights, the Chinese Peoples Consultative  Conference CPPCC  museum, the Museum of the Chinese Communist Party and a lecture  on China’s journey of progress at the Prestigious Peking University’s National School of Development.

After the Beijing sessions, participant traveled to the city of Jinhua in the Chinese province of Zhejiang where they visited and experienced various aspects of Chinese culture and development as well. In his address to the media and participants in the opening ceremony in Jinhua yesterday, deputy director-general of foreign affairs in the Zhejiang people’s government, Mr. Chen Jiangfeng, highlighted the role of Jinhua in China-Africa cooperation pointing to the city’s significant contribution to the total China-Africa trade having over 30,000 Jinhua enterprises engaged in business on the continent as well as its strategic importance in the people to people connection. Indeed the city has been leading the China-Africa education cooperation for more than 30 years offering training opportunities to thousands of Africans. The youth also visited China’s best institute on African studies and policy at the Zhejiang  Normal University where many materials on Africa are being curated both to document and tell the brotherly story of China-Africa friendship.

In the city if Jinhua, the delegates and media also visited the 13th largest Electric vehicle manufacturer in China, Leap Motors. At the factory, the youth were able to see first hand the progress being  made in  the area of transportation and its impact not just on China as a country but the world as well . In fact beside leap motors manufacturing its own parts, the  assembly plant rolling-out 800 auto mobiles a day  demonstrates the role of the electric vehicles in decarbonizing transportation in an era where the world is struggling to meet carbon neutrality.

This years China Africa youth festival therefore sought to expose young people from Africa to how China has successfully tackled the same problems Africa is dealing with today on the political and socio-economic fronts. Having been a developing country 50 years ago, China through its unique approach has been demonstrating to the world in every aspect that it can be accomplished; lifting all its citizens out of poverty.  As a testament, 800 million have been liberated from absolute inside of 40 years, grown their GDP per capita from a paltry 150USD to 12000USD in the same time, becoming the worlds second largest economy and Africa’s biggest trading partner in about the same time with a goal of inspiring Africa’s youth to take the mantle and drive the change that Africa desperately needs. As such, the 8th China-Africa Youth Festival stayed true to its vision of tapping into the unlimited power of Africa’s young population in order to unlock the continent’s potential for socio-economic progress.

George Musiime is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.