TWO RECENT SNAPSHOTS: IIAG & Zambian DHS 2013-14

The Moibrahim Foundation has just published its annual assessment regarding the quality of governance in Africa. There are 4 main qualities with over 100 indicators that it uses in its methodology to produce the annual league table of African States. The Foundation uses Safety & the Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development. The full report can be found onwww.moibrahimfoundation.org

 

Over all, 13/52 countries made good gains, though saying that, even amongst the top 10 leaders, there were areas of deterioration and underperformance. Ivory Coast and Guinea made the greatest strides in improvement by resolving internal conflicts, on the other hand, Egypt and Libya falling in the table, is due to the on-going instability and conflict in both countries. This year Zambia was ranked number 13/52, its score has risen by 3.1% over the past 5 years.

 

Position	Country	Score	Position	Country	Score
1.	Mauritius	81.7	28.	Mali	49.5
2.	Cape Verde	76.6	29.	Niger	49.4
3.	Botswana	76.2	30. EQ	Comoros	49.3
4.	RSA	73.3	30. EQ	Liberia	49.3
5.	Seychelles	73.2	32.	Ethiopia	48.5
6.	Namibia	70.3	33.	Madagascar	48.2
7.	Ghana	68.2	34.	Cameroon	47.6
8.	Tunisia	66.0	35.	Djibouti	46.8
9.	Senegal	64.3	36.	Togo	46.4
10.	Lesotho	62.3	37.	Nigeria	45.8
11.	Rwanda	60.4	38.	Burundi	45.3
12.	ST & P	59.7	39.	Mauritania	44.5
13.	Zambia	59.4	40	Ivory Coast	44.3
14.	Morocco	58.8	41.	Congo	43.4
15.	Tanzania	58.2	42.	Guinea	43.3
16.	Malawi	57.6	43.	Libya	42.1
17.	Kenya	57.4	44.	Angola	40.9
18.	Benin	56.7	45.	Eq Guinea	38.4
19.	Uganda	56.1	46.	Zimbabwe	38.0
20.	Algeria	54.4	47.	DRC	34.1
21.	Burkino Faso	53.3	48.	Guineau Bissau	33.2
22.	Mozambique	52.2	49.	Chad	32.3
23.	Gambia	51,6	50.	Eritrea	29.8
24.	Swaziland	51.5	51.	CAR	24.8
25. EQ	Sierra Leone	51.1	52.	Somalia	8.6
25. EQ	Egypt	51.1
27.	Gabon	51.0

 

Tying in quite well with human development aspects, but on a more local level, we have another interesting and in places shameful survey just out; the slides for the 2013-14 Zambia Demographic and Health Survey. These are updates concerning amongst other things fertility, family planning, nutritional status of children, Mother-Child Health and mortality rates over the past five years in Zambia.

 

16000 households were surveyed, 16000 women and 18000 men, all in the 15-49 year range. Around a half were married with 53% being rural and 47% urban.  Over 90 % were educated to at least secondary level.

 

Fertilty Trend: this fell from 6.2 in 1992, to 5.3 today

 

Family Planning: 49% of respondents were using or had used family planning.

 

Mortality (deaths per 1000 births)

 

                                    1992                                        Today

Neo-natal                    43                                            24

Infant                          107                                          45

Under 5                       191                                          75

 

Full Immunisation: this seems to stubbornly sit at just under 70%

 

Fully Breastfed           73%

 

Child Nutritional Status  Stunted: 40%          Wasted: 6%                 Underweight: 15%

 

Ante-Natal Clinic Attendance: 96% with almost 2/3 of births taking place in a Health Facility

 

Maternal Mortality: 398 per 100 000 live births

 

So like the curate’s egg, this is good in places but it is really great to be able to get these statistics and have them to hand for use in our work.  The survey highlights a reduction in family size, increased use of family planning and a reduction in child mortality, all of which is encouraging.

 

IndyRef: African Perspectives

The Scottish diaspora here in this neck of the woods, whatever our political persuasion are eagerly awaiting in anticipation for the results of the Referendum to be held on Thursday coming. Most of our information these days comes from a wide spectrum of news channels. With DSTV you have Sky, CNN, BBC World, Aljazeera, Russia Today, Central China TV, New Delhi TV, Euronews and the Zambian National Broadcasting Company; all broadcasting in English. There are French, Flemish, Portuguese and Italian news channels as well. They all give their own peculiar, in the original sense of the word, view of what is going on.

 

Thankfully we no longer have to rely just on the mainstream media. With the internet and social media a much wider form of engagement is now possible than was the case previously where we relied on the Weekly Guardian - very often two weeks out of date before we got it - and the World Service for our news. What with Twitter, blogs and other websites it is now often easier for us here in Mwandi to know almost immediately what is going on in Livingston, West Lothian, than Livingstone Zambia which is only 140km downstream from here.

 

In Africa most people still get their news from the state broadcaster and from government-run newspapers. There are actually few independent newspapers, radio and TV stations. I have had a brief look through the African Press to see what their take has been so far on the Scottish Referendum. As you can see the debate has been on higher things, mostly the political with a capital P. There is not the same emphasis on supermarket costs, bank addresses and roaming telephone charges!!

In Nigeria last week the Daily Independent from Lagos, looking at the clamour for greater autonomy by regions in Nigeria, commends both the Holyrood and Westminster leadership for the civilised way being used to determine Scotland’s future with the use of debate instead of the armed struggle and unwholesome agitation against the state.

It salutes the British Government for permitting a referendum on self-determination. In most African countries charges of treason would be brought against proponents of independence, most governments reinforce by coercion the indivisibility and dissolubility of their respective states, despite most African states being forced into nationhood by the colonial masters for their administrative convenience. The leader suggests that the right to secede should be included in the constitution, arguing if the laws allow for the dissolution of marriage - the smallest unit of association - why should the country not allow minorities self-determination through the constitution? The right to self-determination after all is a fundamental human right.

The military mentality still persists in Nigeria, 15 years into the 4^th Republic, a supposed democracy, but which operates a constitution that has no recognition for the opinion of the people on national issues.

Kenya’s daily Nation last Thursday suggests Scotland could make history by ending the Union and creating the newest state in Europe since the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

It looks at Spain, where the central government has ruled out a referendum for Catalan independence but many Catalans want to have the right to vote. And from Scotland they see it is possible to have a vote whether the outcome is yes or no.

There is also obvious interest in Belgium too, which is divided between the Flemish, French and German-speaking communities. The push for greater autonomy has affected them for years, but a referendum like Scotland’s would be banned by the Belgian constitution.

And finally a rather wistful and surprisingly nostalgic piece from Malawi’s Daily Nation,
entitled, Of Scottish Independence: Where to from here?

The article talks of a possible seismic shift with a Scots departure from the Union, but again commends the use of the democratic process to do this rather than violence and aggression.  This has not taken from the passion of debate with explosive hot tempers and the fury of the arguments. It has caused uncertainty but uncertainty is a fact of life. The No camp have been pulling out all the stops in a last ditch attempt and when the economic arguments have seemed to fail, the promise of Devo-Max is back on the cards.

Willis Mijiga concludes that whatever the result, it will be to the betterment of the people of the people of Britain and the rest of the world and despite the imperialist trespasses of yesteryear the UK has been a force for good in modern days. 

Buried Treasure

The Zambian Economist has a good article this week about the difficulties Zambia’s Mining Policy is facing especially in regard to taxation. The Mines Minister has promised an enabling environment for mining investors to sustain their operations by revisiting taxation. First Quantum Mining has recently announced it was holding back from investing $1 billion in Zambia. Two weeks ago there had been a suggestion that mining taxes would have to go up to cover a deficit in Government spending. For Zambia it is a case of once bitten twice shy and keeping her distance from the World Bank/IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes. This announcement led to the usual barrage of self-interested, special pleading from the Chamber of Mines that a variable profit tax is the same as the windfall tax………… Higher taxation will put the mines out of business ………..etc, etc.

 

So it was a surprise to hear that the GRZ will refund in stages US$600m in VAT to mining companies. This had been withheld as the companies had failed to provide a transparent paper trail to the end-user of zero-rated copper exports. The money to pay for this will come from the recently acquired US$1 billion Eurobond, US$700m of which is apparently still sitting at the Bank of Zambia.

 

Another paper called PV Zambia Report - Copper Colonialism makes the point that politicians and newspapers here as elsewhere in the world often portray multinational company investment in our countries, as some sort of benevolent, altruistic, loss-making job creation-scheme. This of course could not be further from the truth.

 

Extractive industries come to take advantage of low taxes and neo-liberal policies which allow them to ruthlessly exploit natural resources, leaving behind corruption and environmental and social degradation which their minimal tax contributions and so-called social responsibility programmes do not come close to covering. Sub-Saharan Africa is a 'global net creditor', contributing billions of dollars to the world economy each year. This comes from 'cash flight' in owed taxes, mispricing, overestimating costs and under reporting production. Sub-Saharan Africa and other places we know well, are not the burden on the rest of the world we are made to believe. This misuse and exploitation of natural resources is plain and simple extractivism. It is not investment, aid or charity.

 

Zambia's copper is a finite resource with economists suggesting that it will be exhausted anywhere between 2020 and 2100. This is highly unlikely, and merely shows how companies and financiers manipulate figures to create investor confidence, enable speculation or to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

 

What is true is that there is limited window of opportunity to reverse the trend of losing rather than gaining from this precious resource, making it last, or planning for an economy without it.

At present Zambia produces 1/16 of the world’s copper. It is the eighth largest producer in the world. Copper provides 75% of our export revenue but only 2% of domestic revenue! The world price is $7 300.00 per tonne and in 2012 Zambia produced just short of 1 million tones.

 

Is this resource benefitting the people of Zambia under multi-national company management? If not, how can the Zambian people and the Government gain the maximum benefit from this enormously valuable national asset? There are no simple answers, but instead these are crucial questions to address and consider. Missing information is needed to enable informed debate to help Zambians decide what steps to take. Accurate information could contribute to developing a 'critical consciousness' in Zambia, which examines and creates new models of development, that will serve people's needs. Critical consciousness is necessary to prevent Zambians from being short-changed by neo-liberal rhetoric, which represent little or no change from the old extractivist regime, backed by the same interests.

 

Finally, Zambia is not served well by its NGO culture, this also should be critically re-examined. NGOs employ around 37 500 people in Zambia compared with 75 000 in mining. Many NGOs are out of touch, living and working in gated compounds, driving 4x4s, but declaring anywhere East or West of the line of rail as the bush! They are in receipt of foreign donor aid funding and so are accountable to the donors and not the people they are supposed to serve. They deliver top –down projects that were planned in Head Office to communities and that bring no significant lasting change as they are generally unconcerned with local priorities or needs. In fact ironically they often use, suppress or co-opt existing grassroots movements instead of nurturing them.  They spent most of their time doing surveys, holding workshops, gathering evidence with no follow-up. They seem more concerned with ticking the right boxes so as to get the next tranche of funding. 

 

The notion of 'civil society' should be expanded to include community groups, marginal trade unions and people's movements. The growth of these bodies, which are at the heart of true democracy, should be encouraged and valued. Mass movements are important to secure people’s rights, as workers and as citizens, to change politics and policies and bring into being a culture of questioning and activism. At community level Zambians can learn from successful examples of social movements in India, North Africa, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere, and begin a bottom-up process of redefining 'progress' and 'development' as concepts which will truly serve Zambia's people.