Big Bag of Africa: Malawi politics, Rwandan agriculture, S. Sudan constitution

Malawi’s politics used to be highly geographic, with each third of the country focusing on one primary party. Between 2005 and 2009, that picture changed dramatically:

The DPP party gained an enormous following, enough that some people have started worrying about single-party democracy. Matt at Aid Thoughts postulates the primary reason for the great upswelling of unity is the national fertilizer subsidy. During the election, parties differentiated themselves mostly be claims of how they would apportion subsidy money. Since DPP had already shown how it (relatively) evenly distribute the money, they were a known entity. Now, is this vote buying, or demand-responsive democracy, or political entrepreneurship, or rampant socialism, or something else altogether?

One of my most-consistently-visited posts dealt with Rwandan agricultural growth prospects being potentially oversold. In the meantime, growth has been good and better than the regional average for five years. Hansl believes the way forward is to invest in irrigation, integrated fertilizer management, diversification of ag products, and most controversially get out of smallholder agriculture:

The relatively high level of land productivity reflects the favorable agro-climatic potential resulting in two harvest seasons, as well as the intensive nature of the predominant agricultural production systems. In contrast, labor productivity remains low compared to these countries, albeit increasing over the last decade. This is related to the fact that Rwanda has the highest proportion of rural population, most of them engaged in labor intensive agriculture. It appears that most opportunities for future productivity gains lie in the area of making agricultural production less labor intensive, in other words less subsistence based.

I commented earlier that the Rwandan hills will make mechanization somewhat difficult.

Comments on South Sudan’s temporary constitution. Primary concerns: it doesn’t say just how temporary, nor how the new process will be more transparent and participatory, nor if there will be term limits which the vice president had spoken in favor of. (HT: Roving Bandit)

Vaguely on the subject of African geopolitics, below the fold is a map of energy connections between African states:

Lit in Review: Impacts of thte 2010/11 Surge in Food Prices

Ivanic, Maros, Will Martin, Hasan Zaman. (2011). “Estimating the Short-Run Poverty Impacts of the 2010-11 Surge in Food Prices.” World Bank Development Research Group, Policy Research Working Paper 5633, Apr

In the 2007/08 price increase, most of the price increase was concentrated in staple cereals. This meant the effects were concentrated on the poor who had few outside options to shift to. In the current price shock, however, food prices have increased in many more commodities and by less overall. This means there are more substitutions available and much of the hit has affected foods the poor consume less of anyway. As a result, they estimate that only 44 million more people are poor instead of the 105 million more in 07/08.

However, it appears that price transmission is higher this time than last.

Post-liberation governance, aid effectiveness, and a less dismal science

On the difficulty of running a post-liberation government, with applications to Rwanda, Uganda, and South Sudan: 

the central challenge for power holders is often not economic, but political. Former rebels continue to use the informal mechanisms that suited them so well when conspiring outside government. Power consequently resides in a shadow state, characterised by the personal and reciprocal arrangements which developed in the struggle. … though optimists point to economic progress, the reality is one of intense intra-elite competition with incredible violent potential, as has been witnessed in all three countries in the past and as might soon occur again in Rwanda and South Sudan.

Last month’s violence in South Sudan between rebel groups and the government.   

“Satellite images released by US pressure group the Enough Project, appear to back up claims of troop reinforcements and northern ‘fortified encampments inside Abyei.’ … With the referendum over, [former peace] deals [between southern groups] are now falling apart as groups jockey for power.”

The ‘consensus’ still seems to be that outright war is unlikely, that enough people want to avoid it … but they don’t yet have the trust and social capital to make it a nonissue.

The Africa News Blog cynically posits that the lessons to be learned from Gbago’s fall are not the ones we might wish: don’t hold elections unless you know you’ll win, don’t let the news get out if they don’t, and do your election rigging well in advance (prevent opposition from getting out their voice) rather than trying to stuff ballot boxes.

How effective is aid in Madagascar? Aid doubled between 2008 and 2010 with few noticeable results.

How effective is aid in Haiti? Well, people would rather stay in the tent cities where conditions are much better thanks to the aid. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s just a good thing we don’t have to actually talk to poor people to find out how to do this kind of work (/sarc)

Over lunch two weeks ago, I wondered at the fact that media don’t run more positive stories about Africa like the successful, peaceful, free, and fair elections that happened recently. After all, since the West expects bad news, reporting more bad news is just “dog bites man,” it’s not news. When things go right, why don’t we see more news announcements “Something Goes Right in Africa.” … Might make an interesting blog title, that. 

One answer to why not is because, among the people who have information about the continent, it’s in very few people’s interest to widely spread good news. Another name for it is the Tragedy of the Commons in Selling Tragedy by Kenny, who has a book out trumpeting development successes: Remember Tolstoy’s maxim: “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” From its introduction, Kenny writes that

the proportion of the population of sub-Saharan Africa affected by famine averaged less than three-tenths of a percent. The proportion who were refugees in 2005 was five-tenths of a percent. The number who died in wars between 1965 and 2001 averaged one one-hundredth of a percent.

For instance, on the plus side the Somali government prevented the trafficking of a pair of endangered lion cubs. See, occasionally the news in Africa really is about lions!

Five Second ... Leaked Report on DRC

The UN report on the violence in the DRC was recently leaked and Texas in Africa gives these valuable summary points as well as the usual cogent discussion:

As Jason Stearns notes, the leaking of the report almost certainly happened in order to ensure that the word "genocide" got out lest someone scrub it from the final version.... I have seen the draft report. It is long and it is damning. ...

Faced with the incredible horrors around him, he assumed that since the genocidaires were the bad guys, Kagame and his team were the good guys. What Gourevitch failed to understand then - and seems to still be missing now, despite all evidence to the contrary - is that there were never any good guys in this fight. Blood is on almost everyone's hands, and there's plenty of blame to go around. ...

This report highlights the importance of seeing violence in Rwanda, the Kivus, and the rest of the eastern DRC as interrelated. You can't understand one without the others. The Rwandan genocide did not happen out of thin air; it was a product of the country's civil war, and decades of historical events before that. The fight for control of Rwanda extended onto Zairian territory and, in one form or another, continued at least until early 2009 and arguably until today. It may well break out in Congo again;...

The importance of this leaked report cannot be overstated. If released as such, it will disastrous for what's left of Kagame's reputation, and he knows it. Even if it's not released, it's unlikely the donors can now simply ignore what they have long known to be true. What happens as a result of this is anyone's guess. Kagame is already sitting atop a powder keg of resentment and division in his own party. But there are many potential consequences, and no donors want to see instability in Rwanda.

Ginormous Bag o Political Blog Links

Utah's upcoming model of immigration reform compared with Arizona's by The Economist, who also shows us how gamers can move science forward by folding proteins better than computers.

Words of wisdom, hat tip Mankiw, with commentary by Aid Watch:

Politicians are in charge of the modern economy in much the same way as a sailor is in charge of a small boat in a storm. The consequences of their losing control completely may be catastrophic (as civil war and hyperinflation in parts of the former Soviet empire have recently reminded us), but even while they keep afloat, their influence over the course of events is tiny in comparison with that of the storm around them. We who are their passengers may focus our hopes and fears upon them, and express profound gratitude toward them if we reach harbor safely, but that is chiefly because it seems pointless to thank the storm. (p. 25)

Yglesias accepts online curriculum even if it isn't as good as being in person, shows where our public works spending priorities are, and gives Republicans more credit for sincerity and non-hypocrisy than I do:

Their view is something like “one should do whatever one can within the bounds of the law to ensure that the right substantive outcome happens.” So if holding a lame duck session produces more conservative policy, they hold one. But if stigmatizing a lame duck session would block progressive policy, they stigmatize. It seems to me that this is how politics ought to be done. No country has competing political coalitions organized around rival views of process issues, they’re organized around rival views of important questions of substance. One problem with the structure of American politics is that we only have one team that plays this way. But the fault for that lies with the Democrats, who it seems to me have a tendency to not take their own jobs and ideas seriously, rather than with Republicans.
Politics ... [is] serious stuff, and it deserves to be taken seriously. Republicans do a good job of that, and their approach to process “hypocrisy” merely reflects the fact that they have a reasonable sense of priorities.

A view of Jimmy Carter's presidency I've never heard: a positive one. Side by side with a remarkably balanced, semi-detailed take on Rwanda's president and why it's hard to discuss him.

Easterly answers (yet again) "What can I do to end world poverty?"

On the other hand, I find this question to be unproductive and frustrating. It sounds mean, but the honest response (which I have never given) is, ”look, the biggest problem to solve in economic development today is NOT what you can personally do to end poverty.”  Poor people do not perceive THEIR biggest problem to be that rich people are agonizing how to help them.
More constructively, I want to say: Don’t be in such a hurry. Learn a little bit more about a specific country or culture, a specific sector, the complexities of global poverty and long run economic development. At the very least, make sure you are sound on just plain economics before deciding how you personally can contribute. Be willing to accept that your role will be specialized and small relative to the scope of the problem. Aside from all this, you probably already know better what you can do than I do.

One reason why Kenya's constitutional vote did not descend into violence: good technology and monitoring to assure everyone the results were not tampered with.

And to get away from politics for just a second, I hope Mike Dixon picks up on this quote from the Journal of Consumer Psychology: 

One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.

Also known as "Economics: the study of being happy on a budget"

East African Free Trade Zone Begins Today

Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda will begin removing all (political) barriers to trade, to be complete in 2015. Gallup reports that citizens are in favor of allowing free movement of people as well, by a wide margin in most countries (87-91% in Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda; 65% Kenya, 57% Tanzania).

BBC (Hat tip: Poverty News Blog) reports: "The hope is that member states will adopt a common currency by 2012, allowing them to move towards a political federation."

Novogratz' Blue Sweater

I'm partially outsourcing this one. It's a good book for finding what you want to look for. It's a biography, but it's a good deal more, particularly once she gets to trying to understand the Rwandan genocide.

It's similarly a history of the social entrepreneurial approach to aid - that we help people more by giving them responsibility than handouts. There's some microfinance, but this is more a macro version of microfinance: patient capital that uses markets and is willing to wait for the returns so that products can get to the poor successfully.

Philanthropy 2173 sees it as a story of human-ness. Novogratz does a lot of work to show not only her thought process and character development, but spends time introducing the people she works with and for. The theme is on listening to other people and trying to approach problems from their perspective. The failing is that she doesn't present us many of recipients, but mostly the workers.

Easterly sees it as a story of entrepeneurial spirit that turns many failures into eventual success.

Marginal Revolution sees it as Aid Realism for the Idealist. She came with idealism, discovered things were not as she imagined, and managed to gradually become more and more realistic without becoming cynical - a needed perspective.

As one of those unfortunates who write about African food statistics and food policies that affect Africa without having so much as drunk the water, I appreciated the day to day living experiences and portraits of people rather than journalist caricatures. The blogs I read are pretty quick to point out what people should not be writing, but don't provide many examples of how to do it right. I think she's got at least one workable model. So I recommend it as a reality check.

Less important points: Novogratz is addicted to color and describing the colors of what everyone wears. She falls in love with (nearly) everyone she meets and every city she visits on first appearances. (I recognize that with people at least, there is selection bias involved. Who wants to write a book about passing acquaintances who were just part of the scenery?)

WB on Africa's successes

The World Bank's Kenyan report is out. It cheers that Kenya's economy is recovering from the global recession. They expect growth of about 4 percent this year and nearly 5 percent next year. However, they are concerned that growth is not more widespread throughout economic sectors (mostly non-tradable services) and they really want investments to be made to improve Mombasa's port which slows trade.

The Bank also cheers successes from government getting out of the way:

The best example is Ghana’s cocoa sector, which was destroyed by the hyperinflation and overvalued exchange rate in the early 1980s. When the exchange rate regime was liberalized and the economy stabilized, cocoa exports boomed (and continue to grow). Similar examples include Rwanda’s coffee sector and Kenya’s fertilizer use. Africa’s mobile phone revolution, too, is an example of the government’s stepping out of the way—in this case by deregulating the telecommunications sector—and letting the private sector jump in.

Getting involved where it needed to:

The example of Mali’s mangoes is a beautiful illustration of how, when governments intervene to provide genuine public goods—and only those goods—the private sector can spur growth and poverty reduction. In Lesotho’s textile industry and Rwanda’s gorilla tourism case, too, the government stepped in to provide just the enabling factors for take off.

And giving "smart" subsidies:

In the case of NERICA (New Rice for Africa) or the KickStart pump, the government went beyond providing an initial subsidy. They continuously consulted with farmers about the design of the new technology (in the case of NERICA) and how to market it (in the case of KickStart). They were able to avoid the fate of other subsidy programs that simply provided the subsidy without paying any attention to the beneficiaries’ knowledge or preferences.

I find it interesting that both the market and the government are cheered throughout while also discussing the failures of each. "In fact, what distinguishes these successes from similar efforts that didn't succeed is that they emerged from a domestic consensus or idea within the countries."

Big Bag

Problems in Ethiopian governance:

The problem with foreign aid in Ethiopia is that both the Ethiopian government and its donors see the people of this country not as individuals with distinct needs, talents, and rights but as an undifferentiated mass, to be mobilized, decentralized, vaccinated, given primary education and pit latrines, and freed from the legacy of feudalism, imperialism, and backwardness. It is this rigid focus on the “backward masses,” rather than the unique human person, that typically justifies appalling cruelty in the name of social progress.

 A moving account titled "Springtime in Kigali", hat tip: Texas in Africa.

When I think of the spectacular growth around Kigali, or those miles of trenches laid with fiber-optic cable across the country, or the latest signs of a growing crackdown against the opposition, they all seem to be different ways to answer the question – for better or for worse – of how to deal with the legacy of 1994.

Yglesias' vision for the world - celebrating idleness, fan fiction, school, retirement, and open source software as transcendent escape from capitalist masters:

So that’s the agenda I have to offer. For rich countries—productivity growth, social insurance, and efforts to improve public health all aiming at allowing people to live more and more of their time outside the bonds of commercial work. For poor countries—capitalism, to get the process of prosperity and social betterment rolling. At the interface between the two—a generous and humane approach to migration issues so that people can have the freedom to escape bad situations, and a trade regime that aims at facilitating the exchange of goods rather than coercing poor countries into adopting the preferred policies of rich world companies. And for all of us, an overhaul of energy systems so the world doesn’t boil and we all get to keep enjoying our prosperity.

Cornell researchers find that SOME jurors are statistically more likely to find unattractive people guilty and give them harsher penalties.

LDS in Haiti

“Immediate help was sent by the Church to members and nonmembers and was distributed under the direction of the local priesthood and Relief Society leaders,” said Elder Francisco Viñas, the Church area president based in Santo Domingo. “They not only received medical aid, food, water and other basic supplies, but they also received counsel, guidance and comfort from their local leaders.” ...
 “The nine chapels in and around Port-au-Prince were mostly undamaged—another remarkable miracle,” said Elder Wilford W. Andersen at the recently-concluded 180th Annual General Conference of the Church. “During the weeks that followed the earthquake, they became shelters for over 5,000 Haitians and bases from which food, water, and medical attention were distributed. Basic needs were met, and order began to emerge out of chaos.”...

In the case of Haiti, local Church leaders worked to complete a head count of members of their own congregations and formulated an assessment of their needs.

Despite the devastation in their homeland, order quickly returned to Mormon congregations in Haiti. Patrick Reese, manager of planning and administration in the Humanitarian Services Department of the Church, said “The (Church) leaders knew the principles of welfare, of communication and self-reliance long before the catastrophic event occurred and they knew how to implement these principles for the benefit of their members.”...

Since the earthquake, the Church has sent 1.4 million pounds of aid to Haiti and the Dominican Republic in addition to teams of doctors who treated patients in Mormon meetinghouses after the quake. 

Lack of Newsprint, of Aid, or Wrong Approach?

Texas in Africa argues that the Democratic Republic of Congo's various problems are well-publicized and there's a lot of money flowing into the area. Enough for the government to offer money to help Haiti, certainly. The problem is the wrong approach.

A quick, non-scientific Google News search yielded 1,857 stories that at least mention "Democratic Republic of Congo." These stories come from news sources as varied as Allafrica.com and the Washington Post. When I narrow the search to include "conflict," there are 444 hits from the last two weeks alone. When I narrow it further to search for both terms from January 2002 to December 2010, there are 17,800 stories. Even Oprah covers the DRC, with specific attention to the rape crisis. ...

All told, the Democratic Republic of Congo gets about $4 billion per year in foreign aid. How exactly does $4 billion per annum constitute "ignored?" ...

hat are some of these mistakes?

• An obsession with the 2006 presidential elections. Donors (mostly the U.S.) spent $500 million to hold an election that would legitimate the new regime in Kinshasa. They did so despite clear signals that the fighting in the east wasn't over and that the country wasn't even close to "democratic." It also prematurely raised the populations's hopes for real change in their lives. Those hopes have been almost completely unrealized, and many Congolese are disillusioned with the idea of democracy.
  
• A failure to address local land conflicts & citizenship issues in the peace settlements. Severine Autesserre's observations on this issue are key to understanding why the fighting drags on.
• A failure to acknowledge and address Rwanda's role in the conflicts until very recently.
• Misguided military strategies that assume the FARDC is a credible partner.
• Financing a government that is rife with corruption.
  

All the news accounts and money in the world won't protect the Congolese if the basis on which the international community's response to the crisis is flawed.

High Hopes for Rwandan Ag Development

Roger Thurow's report casts political will and ownership in the hero roles for Rwandan agricultural development. The only question he asks is if donor governments and institutions will step up to the plate, rather than if the plans themselves will be implemented and will work once implemented. The US rhetoric has been that developing government ownership and partnership is the new way of doing business. This has been promised before also.

And so, in December 2009, the U.S. and other western governments and leading development institutions came to Rwanda and finally put their words into action.

Note that words have already been put into action merely by the majestic appearance of the western representatives. The US representative, not incidentally, is a member of the US security council. In my paper measuring political will based on delegates, this would indicate a low commitment on the US side. On the other hand, the President of Rwanda is present, a sign of rather more commitment. Can we close the commitment gap?

While their food aid once again poured into other east and central African nations to rescue millions from starvation, the donors gathered in Kigali and ignited a Global Food Security Initiative that aims to help farmers grow more of their own food rather than merely feeding them. If it is successful and spreads to other countries on this most malnourished of continents, it could change the way hunger is fought and development aid dollars are spent, and usher in an agriculture revolution in Africa.

No, expectations are very realistic and not at all over the top.

A few facts about what needs to be done:

Typical of sub-Saharan Africa, about three-quarters of Rwanda’s population depends on farming for its own food and a bit of income. Agriculture provides one-third of the national income. Yet Rwanda’s rural infrastructure is underdeveloped. A lack of irrigation leaves it almost wholly dependent on rain. The hills are scarred with erosion. Markets are weak, transport is difficult, seed research is scarce. Since the genocide of 1994 ravaged the countryside, hunger reigned.

Here are some of those Rwandan hills, courtesy the Rwanda Development Gateway. The hills make mechanization rather less effective.

A few notes on what is being done:

"In 2007, the Rwandan government, anxious to cut its dependence on food aid, embarked on its own push to boost farm production. Since then, it has more than doubled its spending on agriculture, to 6.6% of its 2009 budget with a goal of 10% by 2012, according to the agriculture ministry. Rwanda was the first country on the continent to complete an investment strategy under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) of the African Union. ...

Within days of the Rwanda meeting, several countries, included Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zambia, told the African Union they wanted to push ahead with their own agriculture plans.

From the agriculture ministry, Agnes Kalibata says Rwanda, after a long period of darkness, is eager to show the way. “We began this process feeling like a guinea pig,” she said, “but now we feel like a lighthouse.”

I do hope this works out. I am encouraged by the importance being given longer term agricultural development, particularly by the government itself. The rhetoric has the benefit of being the prescription of the day. I think it's a step in the right direction and hope that actions live up to the rhetoric. It has several more hopeful signs in terms of self-determination than the Millennium Villages, whose decisions are made for them "by a Professor in New York" as discussed recently by Barder. But this is the beginning of the path, not the end. Declaring success and saying we're up to lighthouse mode seems a bit premature.

I bring this up because when rhetoric sets expectations too high, anything realistic that happens is going to be a let down and a disappointment, fueling aid fatigue and giving the critics of all aid or your particular program more ammunition. The more we claim aid, markets, microfinance, international cooperation, or anything else will accomplish, the more we sound like an infomercial promising too much. More realistic, humble rhetoric leaves you free to celebrate the genuine successes you have and build on them. Being upfront about how results will be measured and evaluated would also be useful.

In Search of Complexity

Chris Blattman reports:

Alex Engwete reviews René Lemarchand’s new volume on the violence consumed the DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda through the 1990s (and simmers today). ... Engwete picks up two Lemarchand quotes bound to stir passions. For one, he bemoans the ‘misleading analogy’ between the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide: “Jews,” writes Lemarchand, “never invaded Germany with the assistance of a neighboring state for the purpose of bringing down the government.”

This highlights another narrative impulse: the desire for good guys and bad guys:

Drawing the line between the good guys and the bad guys is easy enough in the case of Nazi Germany; in Rwanda, the distinction is far more problematic, if only because it defies the simplistic equation between Hutu murderers and Tutsi victims.

This inherently complex dimension is one that is systematically shoved under the rug in official Rwandan historiography. The watchword in Rwanda today, symbolized by the moving memorial to Tutsi victims, is ‘Never forget!’—but there is an unspoken subtext: ‘Never Remember!’

Never remember the 1972 genocide of Hutu in Burundi, the massacre of Hutu refugees in eastern Congo, or the systematic elimination of Hutu civilians during and after the 1990 invasion of Rwanda by Kagame’s soldiers.

Above all, never remember Kagame’s onus of responsibility in the shooting down of the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi to Kigali, the detonator that ignited the genocide.”