Africa’s democratic leaders are upbeat about the progress and prospects of the continent.
This emerged from the African Leaders’ State of Africa Report 2005, released by former United States ambassador to Tanzania Charles Stith at the University of the Witwatersrand on Wednesday.
The report contains State of the Nation addresses or other speeches by 14 African leaders, including President Thabo Mbeki.
”The record of accomplishment of the countries covered in this year’s … report stands in stark contrast to the pessimistic view put forward [elsewhere],” Stith told journalists, academics and students. ”Africa is more than the sum of its problems … The best days are yet to come.”
Stith said that in the four years the report has appeared, the one constant that has characterised it has been change.
”One change has been the number of countries we track, which is a reflection of the pace of reform and progress on the continent. Another change has been the continuing progression towards peaceful transitions in power, which has resulted in a new generation of leadership coming into its own.”
Former Botswana president Ketumile Masire, now the fourth president-in-residence at Stith’s African Presidential Archives and Research Centre, at the University of Boston in the US, said the report ”fills the gaping holes in Americans’ perspective on the African continent”.
About 3 500 copies are printed, and at least one goes to US President George Bush.
”We are quite meticulous in identifying folks who ought to get the report,” Stith said.
The current list includes the chief executives of companies on the US Corporate Council on Africa, as well as leading academics and policy makers.
The countries in this year’s report are Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
All have, since at least 1990, shown a genuine determination to democratic governance and free-market economies — the yardstick used by the report’s compilers for determining which to include and which to leave out.
Stith said the research centre is considering including Rwanda in future reports because of many laudable reforms there.
The ambassador was less sanguine about Uganda, saying President Yoweri Museveni standing for a third term of office is a blot on an otherwise impressive legacy and is seen as a step back from democracy.
”It does not do anything to burnish his legacy … but is hopefully just a blip on the radar screen.”
Stith disputed the view held by sceptical students that a State of the Nation address would not provide any enlightenment on the subject, arguing that investors and other governments looking seriously at a country need to know where the ”guy in charge is headed to”.
He said he would have found a report of this nature invaluable during his tenure as ambassador to Tanzania.
Any number of other reports provide statistical analyses and identified national strengths and weaknesses, but few allow African leaders to articulate their aspirations for their countries in their own words, Stith said. — Sapa