‘An Expert on Africa’

Duncan Clarke

When asked to join the Spiegel Tent ‘Discourse on Africa’ in August 2012 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, to speak about my book, Africa’s Future: Darkness to Destiny published that year, it seemed best to parody the army of ‘experts’ then prevalent in and on the Continent. One decade-plus of ‘wise’ expertise has emerged since on ‘saving Africa’.

“Thinking Africa” is taxing and complicated, normally requiring years of trawling through thousands of books on culture, economics, history, social science, anthropology and politics – even that global gogglebox, YouTube, with Instagram and the ubiquitous ‘X’. Pity that Musk oke didn’t stay in Cape Town.

It’s no mean task, but one luckily simplified lately by numerous self-styled “Africa experts”, wokerati, would-be saviours, political spin-artists, sound-bite junkies, arriviste journos, tech-bros, think-tankers, policy wankers, random bankers, deviant academics, New Age mystics, ‘influencers’, gender benders, market honchos, thinkers, corporate suits, public relations acolytes, greenies and self-important politicians.

Even Kamala Harris has stepped foot on Africa’s soils, thrice, to ‘do Africa’ and endure an entire nine-days of redemption. She’s ‘got it’ now.

So, no need to take the hard road. New pathways now exist, some digital, in the eternal search for Africa’s Rosetta Stone, the missing economic variables, to explain the continent’s volatile track record over time – or if you prefer, recent apparent ‘good news’ and confected ‘bad news’ on its presumed macroeconomics, and why this paradigm will continue for 50 years or more. After all, ‘It’s Africa’s Time’, so the wits insist, n’est-ce pas?

First things first: pick any theme of unrestrained optimism. Shed your bias and unconscious Afro-pessimism or scientific proclivity for realpolitik. Use terms like “dynamic”, “emergent”, “middle class” and “the last investment frontier” to depict the inevitable sunshine lands of the future.

Remember, Africa’s all about unrestricted economic growth beyond the arc of history or inherent capacity: since both are “adjustable”, the former by revisionism, the latter by “new technology”, iPhone penetration, AI, Green Tech, and all things made outside the Continent. Nothing will go wrong if the climatology cult can expunge fossil fuels from Africa’s lands.

Go for catchy soundbites: like “Africa is Rising”, the “African Century” or “it’s Africa’s Moment”, even if all this might have happened before and may never again. Do not look back too far.

Dwell only on what is going up, not on what might always go down. The laws of gravity don’t usually apply Cape-to-Cairo. Be contrarian: invest against the trends. Remember, one’s political risk – usually that’s yours – is another’s commercial treasure.

Refer to the Great African Economists: Greta, Geldof, Bono, Madonna, Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Harry and Meghan, or the Great and Good, Bill and Hill, or even whoever might next walk the Hollywood red carpet.

To sound “deep and historic”, cite Niall Ferguson – even Paul Theroux, who remains the only American author to know the difference between the witchdoctors and politicians, if there is one, and who is worse.

Always genuflect on bended knee before Nepad, transparency, good governance, inclusive growth, peer reviews and Mo Ibrahim – Tony Blair did, and it seemed to work for him. If that fails, cite the economic wisdom of that illustrious “Africanist” Gordon Brown (who spent one whole month on the Dark Continent).

If washed-out Western politicos are not your thing, recant the wisdom of Mao or Xi, Vladimir Vladimirovich, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MBS, or the unknown Gulf Arabs who have nowadays won the Scramble for Africa.

Praise economic initiatives called local content, best practice, regulation, “indigenisation” empowerment, nationalisation, confiscation, modern money tree printing, and so on, as Mugabe did: they’re models of Nobel Prize-like perfection, guaranteed to boost investment, FDI, jobs, welfare, and someone else’s economic growth. It worked for Robert Gabriel, if no-one else.

When unhappy with your president, don’t bother to vote him out of office: that’s a waste of time. He’s never gonna go anyway. Form a junta, initiate your coup, and call it another ‘new dispensation’.

Back stability, just as have Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo: 45 years in the presidential saddle is not too long. Or do what Paul Biya’s done: stay on for 42 years, to age 91 years. It’s not too old: it’s the ‘Africa way’. Even “Joe” could have done another decade, if he’d not been taken out in a coup, one that Africa could learn from: he’s still young, gaga admittedly, but 81 only.

Ignore Africa’s demographic tsunami: there’ll only be 4.2 billion by 2100, with 790 million Nigerians. It’s a wave to be surfed. Invest now. What could ever possibly go wrong?

Don’t do what so many ill-informed politicians do: investing in Switzerland, Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, offshore or in similar shady places. Think Goma, Ouagadougou, Maseru, Juba, Nouakchott, and related world class financial centres.

Always vote for “sustainability” (the glitterati do, religiously). If you can’t in your Africa missives, mention other bon mots in passing, alike stable, along with democratic, open and “green”. Official buzz words cement your obvious authenticity, cred and guarantee good reviews – even on Tik Tok.

Be available to fly anywhere, to meet anyone, and accept all invitations to indabas, lekgotla, bosberaad, colloquia, assemblies, safaris, conferences or braai, especially ifon “The Way Forward”, “Transformation”, GNU, or similar Godly endeavours. You’re ‘saving Africa’ – mostly from itself.

Don’t keep singing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, it’s not His job – it’s Cyril Ramaphosa’s. He’ll fix things, whether it’s in Israel or Ireland, Congo or Somalia –  just not in Naboomspruit or Nelspruit.

Repeat all modern conventional wisdoms about Africa: “it’s the fastest growth region” (ignore all time-scales here); “the top six (or is it seven) fastest-growth economies are in Africa” (do not question the insignificance of this); opportunities are “huge” (never attach scale or contingent risks to this fantasy); project numeric growth is enormous (don’t mention venture size or related capital volumes); and show or simulate sage wonderment at FDI inflows (even if unrelated to world market investment movements).

After all, Africa is a big beast, even if not in the ‘Big Five’. Its $3.2 trillion economy appears mega: but it’s split into 55 states and statelets, while seven countries outside the continent each have even larger GDP. While its share of Global FDI is pitiful, at 3.5% and global investment capital in Africa is below 1%, clearly there’s room for growth potential.

On track record, the continent is ‘poor’ and destined to stay that way if investors have anything to do with its future. Whoa, you say, what about the state in Africa, or even the state of Africa?

Be careful here, where angels fear to tread. Never mention gross state inefficiencies, infrastructural mayhem, proliferating parastatal behemoths, repetitive state-made disasters, institutional dysfunction, energy outages (especially Eskom, Zesa, or another hundred others), failed or failing governments which are only exceptions proving your prescient economic rule.

Remember, coups d’états are passé, last century’s blips seen on the radar screen. Ignore contemporary kleptocrats in Armani suits with entourages of patronage, swathed in gold watches. They reflect ancien regimes, not modern nomenklatura. Punt aid shamelessly, even if it is the policy wave of the past: it’s now “social capital”.

Forget about the 35-armed conflicts now in progress in Africa. Sahelian coups are just ways to transition in government. Sudan’s 18-month war may have destroyed Khartoum and led millions into exile and poverty: but someone may rebuild it – perhaps before 2100.

Never worry about M-23 and Congo’s endless trauma: it’s got great potential even if it will aways be a country with great potential. There’s always hope – Cain may stop beating up Abel one day.

Beware slavery (Mauritania’s for instance). Ask for reparations (they help the rich at the expense of the poor). Join the Church of England to send your blood money to others. Advocate woke economics, especially if you wish to go broke.

Never overcomplicate Africa: it is “one” after all (the AU says so). Unity is the inviolate leitmotif. Complexity is your enemy. Keep your intellectual horizons a mile-wide, and an inch deep. One perfect size fit “Africa”. Interlocutors will appreciate your synthesis and intellectual profundity.

Remember, Africans are “entrepreneurial” (you saw that in three places on your ten-days tour de l’Afrique). They’d be more so but for colonialism, imperialism, FrancAfrique (or Eurafrique), ChinaAfrique and RussAfrique.

Remember, these ‘new friends’ are there ‘to help’- themselves, mostly – and create informalism, plus the ‘dynamic’ Zhing-Zhong economic mode, in which hawkers and street traders are merely Africa’s underappreciated billionaires of tomorrow.

Stand against “unequal exchange”, foreigners (except Chinese) and the Makwerekwere, modern apartheid north of the Limpopo (it’s a southern disease), and prejudice against the “global South”, or other harbingers of disadvantage and mass victimology like anthropogenic climate change (admittedly difficult to predict, just like Africa, and the weather).

Make obligatory comments on corruption, but remember it’s not the Africa way, but just used as lubricant in a complex world. Forgive government debt, but not your own. Begging may be bad, but rescheduling is good, non-payment far better.

Pay obligatory homage to “leadership”, local governance, public/private partnerships, ‘Thought Leaders’, newly minted growth models, Millennium Development Goals, gateways to business, dynamic commercial hubs, changed realities, revised optics, the “new normal” of 5% (or even 7%) annual GDP growth forever.

If your Vision 2030 cannot be achieved in time, draft another: Vision 2050 may be better advised – you’ll be dead by then.

Endorse linear pathways to nirvana. Never mention troubling matters like global commodity cycles. Don’t ever forecast the crude oil price: it goes up and down, usually both at the same time.

Rely on Africa’s inherent resilience. Praise any Five-Year Plan guiding the masses to economic heaven. Do not question the obvious: drink the Kool Aid. It’s good for you, and Africa.

Never let Africa manage its wildlife and game, especially elephants and rhinos. They’re likely to eat it all well before you get to see it other than on Disney Channel. Plus, the Chinese and Vietnamese want to have their share. Be kind to poachers: they’re just as hungry as you.

Pretend that “corporate social investment” is always benign (it helps CEOs, and photo-ops in annual reports) even if it contrasts with 50 years of failed multilateral “aid”. Don’t question why largesse is problematic. More is needed, ask Jeffrey Sachs: he ‘knows best’.

Some notions are verboten in economic discourse: like, for instance, that Ubuntu may be skin-deep, ethnicity may remain at issue (it was a colonial construct after all), or that NGOs have business models looking for a market (luckily Africa provides fertile terrain for the young and restless seeking “gap year” training to shed their expertise amidst tropical exotica).

There are only 10 million NGOs left on the planet, most in Africa, so offer them tax-free status, grants, Land Rovers and 4X4s, with free money to survive. Their needs are more important than yours, their strategies far more intelligent. Never give that money to the povo: they’ll just waste it.

Buy Africa’s children, if you can: it’ll lessen the dire demographic drama. Angelina Jolie may still be in the market, perhaps Oprah, too – or even Madonna. That way they could end up in Hollywood and in film. It’s a long way to swim to America, so try Europe first, if you plan to live in England. The welfare’s better there, too, for now.

Within complex politico-economic landscapes, please stress the blindingly obvious: Africa’s middle-class is “huge, growing at electric pace” (despite the inconvenience of pesky peasants and growing urban underclasses), the “demographic dividend” in Africa is massive even if niggling problems of job creation will remain unresolved.

Ignore gravity for what goes up once, or for a few years (such as GDP), must always do so. This has been ordained by High Priests: The African Development Bank, World Bank, ECA, UN, Soros Foundation, and well-heeled if unloved corporate spin doctors. Some of them may even be your friends.

Remember Africa is always ‘world class’, even if it’s only the Bokke that appear to win World Cups.

“Africans” should always be seen to prefer “African solutions” (and you too) even where no-one knows what this might be. Speak “of them and to them” so that they know they “exist”, alike vague socio-anthropological entities.

Africa is simple to understand, notwithstanding two thousand languages, fifty-five “nation states”, its on-going balkanising evolution, hundreds of fragile borders, multiple power brokers, warlords and ‘warvets, and an unfathomable mix of ethno-linguistic societies and competitive entities seeking survival and your lucre under Africa’s benign sun.

Invest in the revisionist history of Africa: it’s time to shift the narrative. Take down all historical statues, especially of that dreaded Cecil Rhodes. That Mahatma Ghandi was a tricky bugger, too. Build bigger ones for yourself or Africa’s presidents. Ask the North Koreans to help. Rename all streets so that you can fox the neo-imperialists.

Change your country’s name just as Eswatini did, so that no-one will ever know where you are, or who lives in it. How about Mawili for Malawi? Why not take that ‘democratic’ out of DRC: it’s just not their thing.

Avoid saying Africa is or should be “one country”: even Kamala Harris knows that – she’s been to three, and is already an ‘expert’, just like you.

Pay respects to the spaghetti bowl of regional economic cooperation and trade agreements, with their cross-pollination and alphabet soup of anodyne acronyms (ECOWAS, SADC, EAC, COMESA, plus fifty or so more) even if they barely function. Maybe they will one day, to create that fictional “Africa market” with its Afro-currency and an African Monetary Union, along with the rest of its medieval and bureaucratic-cum-political paraphernalia.

Keep nomenclature simple, and shaped around ‘Africa’, so that countries within do not think that they might exist on their own: that could spell doom even before ‘Africa’ is born. After all, ‘we are all African’ – Thabo Mbeki says so. There’s no difference between Comorans and Equatoguineans. They both live beside the sea.

Fill your texts and epistles with micro-anecdotes: they will illustrate macro-truth. There’s always room for another book on Africa. It’s only 2-3% of the world publishing market. Wonder why? Perhaps it’s to do with literary deserts between Cape Town and Cairo? Or maybe everyone’s now gone online.

Tell epochal tales of that Abidjan taxi driver, the Mombasa hotel fellow met, the Lagos market Mama, street hawkers anywhere, shabeens visited, stokvels in operation, to depict “dynamic” Africa’s billion-plus unemployed demography. Throw in some few ‘rich and famous’ (Dangote an option, Strive Masiyiwa another) to balance matters out so the breadth and depth of your extensive Africa contacts, interviews and investigation is revealed.

History is essential to establish your savvy and emotional credentials. The “West” (a dubious bunch, always ‘plotting’) should be castigated at least once in your pithy and courageous analysis.

Shift your mind-set eastwards, to the new fulcrum of the future: China, Russia, and that idiot Lula in Brasilia, remembering that South Africa is the Brics’ economic pivot, its underbelly, and Nigeria is not to be trusted, while all others are inconsequential (as most are not of Africa).

De-dollarise as fast as you can. Build up reserves in Yuan, Real, Rubles, and Rupees. Add some sensible diversity: say, with Rupiah, Lira and other currencies as hard as marshmallows.

Why not try out ZiG, too. Zimbabwe has an excellent record in currency management – and lots of gold backing, most of it now in Dubai.

Make sweeping generalisations, like “mobile telephony has transformed Africa”. Don’t mention that Africa is but 2% of the world GDP, its domestic savings record poor (in places non-existent), the foreign debt profile has been heavily engineered with write-offs, and its continental power industry approximates the size of Spain’s.

Ignore all economic shocks that might lurk ahead (crisis, drought, famine, warlords, conflict, or megalomaniac and geriatric politicians): that’s Afro pessimism, not to be revealed, the disease of the demented, and a brush Africa’s not to be tarred with.

Economic or political failures should be ignored, airbrushed or minimised as inconvenient sideshows: Zimbabwe, Somalia, DRC’s Great Lakes, Azawad (that’s the “New Mali” by the way), SADR, and those dozen or more economies struggling to breakeven inside the weirdly wicked world of  Davos and globalisation.

Adopt the Grand Strategy du jour: feeding the homeless to the hungry – or should that be the other way around? Either way, it’s best-established practice.

Bounce your favourite themes off the utterances of the cognoscenti and recently quoted celebrity economists – Paul Krugman one – the parachute artists of global economica that come and go as the rains in Africa, such as Joesph Stiglitz and random Harvard alumni.

Always say things like: “we see now that … we think that” … even when you have not seen anything, and thought even less, and mostly where this is only your own random opinion.

Join “Oprah in Africa” if possible; if not, then an Oprah-styled five-minute sound-clip opportunity, say on CNBC Africa, to articulate your insight, and cast your precious pearls before Africa, as you talk-the-talk.

Or do what CNN has done for years: ‘broadcast for Africa’, at least for as long as rich sponsors in Lagos and Cairo come up with the dosh to enable their repetition of razor-thin diagnosis and endless platitudes.

Keep up with the latest clichés, the fast-moving bits and bytes of quasi-intelligence that signal depth of understanding. Invent one for your own use. Watch the Twitterati (they know what’s going on, at least did before that Musk fellow X-d them). Instagram your views – everyone wants to know, and especially what you had for breakfast.

If you’re behind the Africa tech loop, ‘join My Space in Africa, so you can get LinkedIn to Twitter on your YouTube, fiddle your Instagram, play with SnapChat, mark the spot with ‘X’, and then Google all over Facebook’.

Move with Africa’s fast-shifting social tides and do not get stranded on the beach of ignorance, branded with “old thinking”. Africa is ‘on the move’, CNN says so. If ever in doubt, consult BBC: it’s their patch, after all.

Stick with facile comments and platitudes, to offend no-one: you may be invited back again. After all, you’re one of the self-selected management and gurus of Africa. Your ideas should prevail, warts and all, especially so you can take the credit and allocate the blame.

Your audience may disbelieve if you don’t signal unmitigated concern for rampant unemployment, informal economies of growing desperation and Africa’s fast-expanding and slum-ridden mega-cities: these are merely opportunities awaiting new social entrepreneurship, Africa’s bottom-of-the-pyramid marketers, and innovative urban planners – maybe even you.

For South Africans with historic guilt complexes or ill-founded insecurities (where “Africa” is “over there”), parade your inherent sympathies, with well-meaning empathy. Avoid saying, as they do, that you’re “going into Africa”.

Endorse ANC-Mandela-economics, whatever that might mean, and listen to the new economic geniuses – Malema, JZ – who might want to tax the backside out of everyone, sustain falling GDP/capita in real terms beyond the nine years accomplished already. They’re the future, you’re the past.

Adopt ‘Muggernomics’: Mnangagwa has – it’s the new economic theory. It’s too late to ‘rob Mugabe before he robs you’, but you’ll be okay with some new shamwaris. Enhance the Gini Co-Efficient. Back ‘liberation’, especially of other peoples’ wealth. Partner with the magandanga, they run the shop.

Love the “development state”, even if it taxes the bejesus out of everyone, and means government of the state, by the state, and mostly for the state. You will never be part of it anyway, so reshape your strategy.

“Go North”. It may resolve the vexed quandary you once had about Africa “coming South”. Whereas long before, you were worried about South Africa becoming like them, now they worry that you won’t.

Become alike Davos Man: command the podium space, with droplets of quasi-economics and manicured soundbites fed to the unwashed, media and public, moulded around newly emerging themes carefully selected to generate maximal hot air. Your insights will be enjoyed by the bourgeoisie in attendance.

Offer your deepest thoughts and engage in brainstorming. Issue thematic statements and press releases at workshops and plenaries, with maximal networking (known in Africa as ‘not working’).

Match your interests with Africa’s politicians, rising corporate elites or local carpet baggers. All corporates want to “marry Africa”, especially if fewer suitors elsewhere appear attractive.

Extol ‘Homo Africanus’ in all glossy documents. Mix economic waffle with magic and the pseudo-pragmatic to secure economic glory or repentance. After all, your nganga and sangoma are far smarter than theirs.

Don’t mention the constraints for “doing business” in Africa. That’s rude. Staying in five-star venues helps keep those obstacles at bay. Whatever, wear that Mnangagwa Scarf wherever you go – even in the bath.

Bid for the Olympics in Africa in 2032: there are many possible venues. What could go wrong? If Macron could use the Seine for the Opening, you can do the same on the Zambezi.

Embed your blind optimism in models of gratuitous upliftment. Plug your inherent moral virtues. Never mention “The Hopeless Continent”, like The Economist did in 2000, except to infer that its authors were deluded.

Refrain from using politically incorrect concepts like underdevelopment or economic backwardness (these are throwbacks to the 1960s – and what did they know then anyway?). Rene Dumont’s book, ‘False Start in Africa’, in 1966, had no idea of what was coming.

Stay eminently networked and ideologically fashionable: the alternative is anachronism. Don’t ever consult the vast literature on Africa’s economies: it could derail your critical theses. No one wants that to happen.

Above all, remember that Africa is merely the construct of 19th Century Europe’s imagination and Africa’s 20th Century mythologies: or is it the other way around?

Sometimes it’s hard to recall, but does it matter?