Democracy cornerstone for development

Democracy: Cornerstone for Development The Role of Democracy as a Prerequisite for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARIANS WITH AFRICA

The production of this book was made possible by the funding from

Democracy: Cornerstone for Development The Role of Democracy as a Prerequisite for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

Colophon Text Contributions Various Photos Various Editing Dr. Jeff Balch, Ms. Marion Verweij, Ms. Alizia Kamani Design Alizia Kamani Printing Jubels BV Cover Photo Meeting of the AWEPA Partnership Council 2011, Midrand, South Africa

Contents Introduction 6

By Minister of State Ms. Miet Smet (Belgium), President, AWEPA

The Development of Democracy in European Countries

8

By Minister of State Mr. Wilfried Martens, former Prime Minister of Belgium, President, European People’s Party

The Role of Democratic Equality in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals 15

By Rt. Hon. Abdirahin Haithar Abdi (Kenya), Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly

Africa’s Changing Development Landscape: “Beyond Aid”

20

By Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki (Niger) Chief Executive Officer, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Planning and Coordinating Agency

Africa’s Parliamentary Aspirations

27

By Prof. Ben Turok (South Africa), Member of South African Parliament and Chairperson, Network of African Parliamentarians (NAP)

Why Development Aid Needs Democracy

30

By Ms. Anna Lekvall (Sweden), Senior Policy Advisor, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)

How Cultural Context and Educational Values can Impact the Democratic Process 38

By Hon. Dr. Odette Nyiramilimo (Rwanda), Member of East African Legislative Assembly (EALA)

The future relationship between the developmental state and democratization in securing sustainable development in Africa 43

By Dr. Jakkie Cilliers (South Africa), Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies

The Influence of Democracy on Shared African and European Values 47

By Ambassador Lindiwe Zulu (South Africa), Special Foreign Advisor on International Relations, South Africa

About AWEPA 51

Introduction

By Minister of State Ms. Miet Smet (Belgium), President, AWEPA

W

hy a book on the democratic development in Africa? There are two important reasons:

Our parliamentary partners in Africa, with whom we form the Partnership Council of AWEPA, regularly ask questions about the development of the democratic process in Europe: How long it took? What mistakes were made? How complicated it was, which steps were taken? Which institutions were set up etc?

In addition to that, there are the continuing comments about the quality of African democracy, the single party systems and the lack of good governance. A type of “governance” that fails to reduce poverty, illiteracy, diseases, violence and child mortality, let alone to eliminate them all together, is not seen as good governance.

In 1994, during an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit meeting, Mr. Nelson Mandela, former President of the Republic of South Africa, declared: “We must face the matter squarely that where there is something wrong in the way we govern ourselves, it must be said that the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are ill-governed. The time has now come for a new birth. We know that we have it in ourselves, as Africans, to change all this. We must assert our will to do so. We must say that there is no obstacle big enough to stop us from bringing about an African renaissance.”1 The idea of ​​the African Renaissance was later picked up by Mr. Thabo Mbeki.

During the 1990s, Mr. Mbeki claimed that at least twenty-five African countries had established ‘multi-party democracies’. “The African renaissance, in all its parts, can only succeed if its aims and objectives are defined by Africans themselves, if its programmes are designed by ourselves and if we take responsibility for the success or the failure or our policies.” International assistance remains an important component, “We believe that the international community should agree that Africa constitutes the principal development challenge in the world.”2 The African Renaissance idea was at the centre of a new set of institutions and initiatives, supported by the international community. In 2001 the OAU was replaced by the African Union (AU), an institution with more authority within the Member States to monitor peace and stability. At the same time, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), the African Central Bank and a Peace and Security Council were established.

Around the same period, another new initiative, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was founded. The governments that signed its founding declaration engaged themselves to promote democracy, good governance, popular participation and sound economic management. With regard to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the focus was mainly on social development constituting the reduction of poverty and hunger, tackling HIV and malaria as well as illiteracy. The 1 Excerpts from State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence. Martin Meredith. The Free Press, 2005.

2 Ibid, 2005.

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initiatives were widely supported, both financially and in principal, by the international community, of which Europe was the most important partner. More recently, AWEPA has cooperated with our African partners to bring to the attention of the international community the important role of parliaments in oversight and scrutiny of development expenditures, in ownership and accountability.

AWEPA is a key player in this whole evolution. Our organisation fully supports the African democratisation process through our work with national and regional parliaments and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP). Our support consists mainly of strengthening the knowledge, capacity, and accountability role of the parliaments. As our partners testify in this publication, this is done with success.

We are only able to do this thanks to the financial support of the European Commission and a number of European countries, which are all convinced that parliaments form essential links on the road towards good governance. We extend our gratitude towards them and also to all our African friends with whom we may experience the journey to further democratic development.

About Minister of State Ms. Miet Smet As a member of the Belgian, European and Flemish Parliaments for over 30 years, 14 of which she served as Minister for the Belgian government, Minister of State Miet Smet has played an important role in Belgian and European politics. During this time she has played a key role in equality in politics, environment and labour.

Her deep rooted urge to see equal opportunities for all, not only gender, but in all areas of human dignity, brought her into contact with AWEPA where having served two terms of office on the AWEPA Executive Committee, she was elected President in October 2009 via a unanimous vote of the AWEPA Governing Council.

Married to fellow CD&V politician, the former Belgian Prime Minister and former Vice President of AWEPA, Wilfried Martens, Ms. Smet resides in Belgium where, alongside her work for AWEPA, she continues to support society in a variety of ways.

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The Development of Democracy in European Countries

By Minister of State Mr. Wilfried Martens, former Prime Minister of Belgium, President, European People’s Party History has shown us many times that building a sustainable democracy is a challenging task. From the dawn of European democracy until today, the European continent has gone through over 2,500 years of vast transformation. Borders have been relocated and wars have been fought. But step by step, stone by stone, the foundations for democracy, as we know, have been laid.

Contrary to popular belief, democracy was not first established in Europe, but in the Middle-East. From there, the humble idea that people should govern themselves through democratic assemblies spread westwards. As a result of a variety of factors, the idea of democracy took root in Athens and political freedom was extended downwards in society so that the people could govern themselves.

But it was a selective group of society that was allowed to take part in the debates and decision making, and power struggles would later lead to an early death for the Athenian democracy. The idea of self-governing rose again many times in the hearts and minds of Europeans, but it was not until the late 18th century that it would really demand a prominent position in the European polity.

History has shown time and time again that we should not regard the general public as powerless. Even when the average person in Europe had hardly any civil rights, they still had voices. And as the French Revolution taught us, they had the advantage of being the majority.

The French Revolution constitutes, in hindsight, a good example of how democracy has taken shape, historically speaking. A spectrum of participants with various motives all pulling in different directions. But they all had the same goal: empowering the people.

Due to its violent nature, the revolution failed to convince the general European public that democracy was the right way to turn. Was this really the noble concept people had given their lives for? But although European hearts were not massively won, this revolution triggered a curiosity in the minds of some: maybe democracy in a less brutal form could be the solution?

And so, European democracy continued to evolve. It transformed itself to representative democracy; that the people would elect someone to represent them and their opinions. But the representative democracy would soon bring on another debate. Who should be able to cast their vote, and who should be allowed to represent us? That referred to social classes: In the 19th century, in many European democracies, rich people had more votes than poor people. It also referred to gender: In the beginning, only men could vote. The world’s first female members of parliament were elected into the Finnish Parliament in 1907. And other countries followed.

But European parliaments were not strong enough to defend Europe from economic downturn and totalitarian leaders. As the early and mid-20th century would teach

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us, totalitarian forces stood for the destruction of civil society. Whereas democracy represented the people, totalitarian power regarded the state as everything, and the average citizen as nothing.

In 1945 there were as few as 12 functioning democracies left on the face of the earth.

Europe was left in complete ruins after two devastating wars and the prospects for the European continent were gloomy. But it was from these ruins, with the newly acquired wisdom of what totalitarian power meant that democracy could prosper and grow more beautifully than ever. And so, democratic institutions were rebuilt, One by one, country by country. And thanks to European integration and the fall of the Iron Curtain, today’s European Union (EU) unites 27 stable democracies.

Let me stress how important it is not to look at democracy as a finished project.

Democracy is a dynamic form of governing, which will continue to evolve along with the society it serves. It is built from the ground and up. It is based on the humble thought that the people hold the right to govern themselves. That power begins at the hands and feet of the regular citizen. Democracy does not come with a blueprint.

It has no religion, knows no colour and stretches beyond any border. Democracy flourishes in various shapes and sizes, and it has no geographical placement. It requires moderation and humility from the governing bodies; the institutions that are created to serve the interests of the people. It requires nurture and care, but also willingness to look at the system with a critical eye.

People’s longing for, and right to participate in free and fair elections, to live in a society with the rule of law where people have equal rights and where civil society is blossoming, is neither geographically nor historically restricted. These are basic human longings. And they are universal, as the Arab Spring has recently shown.

Representative Democracy As Mr. John Keane taught us in “The Fate of Leaders After Leaving High Office”3: “Understood as forms of government and ways of life in which no body rules because power is subject to periodic elections as well as publicly monitored and contested from a multiplicity of sites, contemporary democracies are remarkable in the way they dispense with the fetish of leaders.

Democracies certainly need leaders, multiply their numbers, respect them, follow them, learn from them - but they do not worship them as Leaders blessed with metaphysical powers. Democracies specialise in bringing leaders down to earth. They manage to do this by using a variety of formal methods and informal customs that require leaders to leave office peacefully, without staging ruthless comebacks, so enabling other leaders to take their place without kidnappings or gunfire, bomb blasts or street upheavals.

The principle that leaders should periodically be replaced using peaceful means has its origins in the birth of representative democracy in the Atlantic region, at the end of the eighteenth century. (…)

3 Published in Dispersed Leadership in Democracy: Foundations, Opportunities, Realities, edited by John Keane, Haig Patapan and Paul ‘t Hart (Oxford University Press 2009) Democracy: Cornerstone for Development www.awepa.org

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Representative democracy signified a new form of government in which people, understood as voters faced with a genuine choice between at least two alternatives, were free to elect leaders who then acted in defence of their interests. Much ink and blood was to be spilled to represent whom, and what had to be done when representatives snubbed or disappointed those they were supposed to represent. But what was common to the new age of representative democracy that matured during the early years of the 20th century was the belief that good government was government by elected representatives of the people. (…)

Usually in opposition to monarchy and despotism, representative democracy was praised by its supporters as a way of governing better by openly airing differences of opinion, not only among the represented themselves, but between representatives and their electors. Representative government was applauded for its emancipation of citizens from the fear of leaders to whom power is entrusted; the elected representative temporarily ‘in office’ was seen as a positive substitute for power personified in the body of unelected monarchs and tyrants.

Representative government was hailed as an effective new method of apportioning blame for poor political performance – a new way of encouraging the rotation of leadership, guided by merit and humility. (…) Representative democracy was thought of as a new weapon against pandering to the powerful, a new form of humble government, a way of creating space for dissenting political minorities and levelling competition for power, which in turn enabled elected representatives to test their political competence and leadership skills, in the presence of others equipped with the power to sack them.”

Democracy in the European Union In the past years, new superpowers have emerged on the world stage, which are not pursuing the same model of democratic development as the West, like China and Russia. In the past we were used to showing our Western model of economic development wrapped in democracy as an example to the world. Today, some people are still astonished about the fact that several new economic superpowers are now successful without being democracies. But should this make us believe less in our model of democratic development? Certainly not. And I think the Europeans need to seek a more prominent role when it comes to promoting democracy worldwide.

Democracy is the central concept of European political thought. It is the expression of free will. It cannot be imposed from the outside but has to be developed within a society and efforts are needed to deepen it and to maintain democracy.

Democracy lies at the heart of open societies, where all fundamental rights and freedoms are effectively upheld in accordance with the rule of law. Moreover, democracy also goes hand in hand with open economies based on open trade and investment at home and abroad. Democracies are also the prerequisite to promote social inclusion and the idea of social justice and solidarity.

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As the past decades have proved, societies and economies that make exchanges with other peoples and cultures are an engine for development and prosperity. And openness has always been a condition of our prosperity and cultural and economic dynamism, and also a factor in Europeans’ achievements. It was Europe that gave birth to the very concept of the “open society”. The open society is a society of democracy and human rights, a transparent, free and pluralist society.

But when we speak about openness we should not forget that it is not only about our political regimes but also openness to others, openness to other cultures and other ways of thinking. This openness, I believe, lies at the heart of the European project.

In the last 30 years, democracy has advanced as never before – in southern Europe, in Latin America, in Central-Eastern Europe, in Africa. But there is still a lot of work to be done – in the Middle East, in many parts of Asia and Africa, while new challenges for global governance arise every day.

Even where democracy has made gains, building and especially consolidating democracy is a complicated business – holding free and fair elections, developing institutional and legislative reform, establishing human rights, ensuring an independent judiciary and independent media, fighting against corruption. And it also means educating citizens in the broadest sense about the importance of politics and political systems. Sometimes democracy’s greatest advocates are the slowest to realise what a complex and at times fragile process it is to create a real democracy because democracy is above all a matter of political culture. It is not just a question of engineering.

So democracy building is a fundamentally important task, both within a political community, and internationally, to help others benefit from the same right to exercise the rights of citizenship in a framework of pluralism.

What does the EU contribute to this? Since democracy was invented some 2500 years ago, our roadmap to democracy in Europe and now in the EU has involved many twists and turns, some dangerous roads, and a few dead ends. And of course the speed of our European journey has accelerated dramatically over the last 50 years, with the European Community, the European Union acting as a major catalyst for peace and democracy, with fundamental values such as human rights and the rule of law, freedom, solidarity and the respect for diversity established as the building blocks of European integration.

Today we stand as a Union of citizens, a Union of 27 Member States and of 500 million people who have decided together, of their own free will, to build a common future together, based on the rule of law, an internal market, and the gradual abolition of internal borders.

I don’t know any other experiment in human history so advanced in terms of political integration and democracy. What we have done for ourselves in terms of bringing democracy to hundreds of millions of people, we also wish to bring to others. The European Union continues to exert a major force for democratic and economic change in neighbouring countries, not only the candidate countries but also in Eastern Europe and in the Mediterranean area. For many people throughout the world, the

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EU is considered a model of economic and political integration. It is indeed a very important inspiring force for democracy in many parts of the world. Many countries today, like our own countries a few short decades ago, see Europe as opening their own doors to freedom and democracy.

And I believe that when we are financing the promotion of democracy beyond our borders we are not only defending and promoting our values but we are also defending our interests. By investing in the democracy of our neighbours, we are investing in their openness. Their development and long term stability. And from a European perspective, we reduce the costs of social problems, the risk of wars, and the risk of political or religious radicalisation. The return on investing in democracy comes in the form of a peace dividend.

The success of the EU in democracy-building has largely been a European affair, though: bringing potential member states closer, supporting new member states, and active and ambitious neighbourhood policies. But on the global scene there is less articulation and less ambition. The European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights is well and good, but is detached from the much bigger and broader development cooperation programmes. Bringing the democratic politics dimension more strongly into European development cooperation policies can have a big impact. And precisely because American leadership in democracy building is not as unilateral as it was sometimes in previous administrations, Europe has more of a role to play alongside our transatlantic partners.

One has to keep in mind, though, that Africa and Latin America, for example, are also experimenting with new forms of transnational cooperation, via the African Union and Mercado ComĂşn del Sur (MERCOSUR). How successful are these regional organisations at building and consolidating democracy? How effective are the peer reviews, peer assistance and peer pressure they have brought to bear? Many of the challenges are common to us all, and we can surely learn from each other. Moreover, I think the EU should encourage and support these initiatives of transnational cooperation.

How should Europe do this? Europe should build on it being an example for other regions of economic and political integration. This position gives Europe an attractiveness and legitimacy which is important in pursuing democratic development efforts globally. In a global context of more polarisation, Europe should not develop democracy building policies that are confrontational but that are partnership orientated towards regional organisations, developmental in terms of taking a long term perspective, and building on national leadership of democratic and development processes, not only on ownership of largely foreign-led policies. But this does not mean Europe should get friendlier with dictators and authoritarian rulers than other democracies do. Quite on the contrary – we should never forget the lessons of 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how a determined support for civil society in totalitarian and authoritarian systems pays off, in the end. There is much to gain from a stronger, broader and deeper EU partnership with other regional organisations in the field of democracy and development. Given the different dynamics of each region and each country, there is a need to ensure that programmes are aligned with the development objectives of the countries and regions at hand.

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Both Democracy and Development are key to ensuring lasting peace and security, and despite the manifold complexities, there are many positive developments across the continents. A significant number of African countries are in the process to end violent internal conflicts which undermined human rights, democracy and development and are moving towards democratization. A number of emerging democracies furthermore have been characterized by the peaceful alternation of power and are moving in the direction of other countries that are working to consolidate democracy through a culture of representation, participation and accountability.

The unanimous adoption of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance by the African Union Assembly was also another major step forward despite the complexities of implementing such an ambitious document. Throughout the Charter, there is constant commitment of African Union Member States towards institutionalisation of democratic social, economic and political governance.

The role of national democratic institutions, including parliaments and political parties will be key to ensuring the implementation and further development of these processes.

Finally, what is the policy framework within which we are promoting democracy? In my view, it is dominated by the need to respond to globalization. In fact I believe this is the agenda for the 21st century. And I believe that Europe has the duty to shape globalisation with its values, with its unique experience of supernational rules and supranational principles. And I think we should be proud of it. That is why I really believe that we are at a turning point in world´s history. The financial crisis is opening minds, is opening minds for the need to come up with global solutions. And hopefully those global solutions will not only be about the financial markets but will link the financial markets to the economy as a whole to global prosperity. Global prosperity: that means global trade, the Doha trade and development agenda, it means the Millennium Development Goals. I believe it is unthinkable that world leaders meet to discuss financial markets and they do not think about those people who are starving in the world, who don’t have enough food to eat or not enough clean water to drink. And when we think about global prosperity we have to see the conditions of survival and quality of life on our planet. That is why we need to address the issue of climate change.

It is a real threat to the future generations, a real threat to life on our planet, and also the issue of energy security. So we have here a great moment, a defining moment for the world. And with our experience in Europe of supranational institutions and supranational compromises I think we can give a great contribution to this new order.

And democracy of course is part of it because democratic societies are better prepared to shape this order if you want to be the order for a more decent world.

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ABOUT MINISTER OF STATE MR. WILFRIED MARTENS Mr. Martens is cofounder of the European People’s Party (EPP), which he presides since 1990.

Mr. Martens has devoted his entire life to politics since his political awakening as a student leader. He was Belgian Prime Minister from 1979 to 1992, leading six governments, Belgian Minister of State, Deputy in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives holding office from 1974 to 1991, Senator thereafter, and Chairman of the Belgian CVP from 1972 to 1979.

Internationally, he was also President of the Centrist Democrat International from 2000 to 2001.

In his latest book, the autobiography “Europe: I Struggle, I Overcome”, Mr. Martens offers the inside story on running a complex country like Belgium, fighting for European integration and unification, and transforming the European People`s Party into a strong, united centre-right movement and leading the European political family.

Mr. Martens holds a doctorate in law, a degree in notarial studies, as well as a baccalaureate in Thomistic philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain. He also studied international political science at Harvard University. He has practiced law at the Ghent Court of Appeal.

Among numerous national and international distinctions, he was honoured in 1998 with the Charles V Prize for his contribution to European Union.

For more information on the EPP please visit http://www.epp.eu/.

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The Role of Democratic Equality in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

By Rt. Hon. Abdirahin Haithar Abdi (Kenya), Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly

I. Introduction

T

he aim of this article is to contribute our views to furthering the meeting on the role of democratic equality in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) held in Midrand, South Africa in November 2011.

We will attempt to give you a purely lay person’s contribution to this nerve-racking theme. However, for the purposes of analysis we will begin by describing the meaning of democratic equality. Then, review some of the ways democratic equality via parliamentary representation can contribute towards achieving the MDGs. Finally, we will provide our concluding remarks.

II. Definitions and Concepts Definitions and (concepts) matter when we attempt to organize our thoughts. In this section, we first review ways in which democracy, equality, democratic equality and MDGs have been defined and how these definitions have been applied. In so doing, we raise the following questions, which we try to address throughout this section: • • • •

What is Democracy?

What is Equality?

What is Democratic Equality?

What are Millennium Development Goals?

i. Democracy Ancient Greece (Athens in particular) is widely regarded as the birthplace of Western democracy and political thought, and the word democracy was coined from the Greek words demos, “the people,” and kratia, “to rule.” In theory, this was rule by the people for the people as opposed to rule by one (autocracy) or a few (oligarchy), a form of direct democracy in which all citizens could speak and vote in assembly. In practice, Athenian democracy did not extend equality and franchise to all persons and therefore allowed direct participation only by male citizens, a small political elite, to the exclusion of the majority of the populace consisting of women, slaves, and foreign residents. Greek democracy did not really encompass most of the key elements of modern democracy—equality of all persons before the law and franchise for all. Thus, in reality, direct participation in government by the privileged few constituted the thrust of Athenian democracy. Limited as Athenian democracy was, the world including the developing countries in general and the West in particular still draws inspirations from it. ii. Equality Equality points to one of the critical dimensions along with the quality of democracy.

What is at stake in our focus of discussion is political equality, not equality of Democracy: Cornerstone for Development www.awepa.org

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everything human beings have reason to value, nor equality in the most important structures – in class, status, and power. However, political equality is intertwined with, and profoundly shaped by these structures. Political equality is affected by social and economic inequality in two broad ways: dominant groups can use their social and economic power resources more or less directly in political sphere, and they can shape the views, values, and preferences of subordinating groups by virtue of their status and influence on education, cultural production, and mass communication, exerting ‘cultural hegemony’. Political equality will be extremely limited unless these effects of social and economic equality are substantially contained. iii. Democratic Equality When we talk about democratic equality, a natural question arises: equality in what? Democratic equality cannot mean equality in everything: there are many inequalities that democracy does not deal with. For Professor Dahl, it is the logic of “political” equality, not of any other equality, that constitutes one important factor affecting the development of democratic ideas and institutions. Prof. Dahl defines the logic of political equality as the belief that “all the members of the association are adequately qualified to participate on an equal footing with the others in the process of governing the association”, and that “no single member, and no minority of members, is so definitely better qualified to rule that the one or the few should be permitted to rule over the entire association.” He then argues that only a democratic government is fully consistent with this logic of political equality.

According to Prof. Dahl, there are five criteria that mark a democratic process: voting equality, effective participation, enlightened understanding, control of the agenda, and inclusion of all adult members in collective decisions. These five criteria make the democratic process fully consistent with the logic of political equality.

Violating any of the five criteria not only renders the process undemocratic, but also renders it incompatible with the logic of political equality. For example, “to deny any citizen adequate opportunities for effective participation means that because their preferences are unknown or incorrectly perceived, they cannot be taken into account. But to not take their preferences toward the final outcome equally into account is to reject the principle of equal consideration of interests” (Dahl, 1989, pg.

109), which is a corollary of the logic of political equality. We believe that MDGs are among the global collective measures to correct inequalities in our society. iv. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organisations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development.

III. Contribution of Democratic Equality in achieving MDGs How can democratic equality contribute to achieving MDGs and correct existing inequalities in society?4 As we are all aware, at the turn of the Millennium, all 191 4 They are: Goal 1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger; Goal 2. Achieve Universal Primary Education; Goal 3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women; Goal 4. Reduce Child Mortality; Goal 5. Improve Maternal Health; Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases; Goal 7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability; and Goal 8 Develop a Global Partnership for Development.

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UN Member States adopted and pledged to pursue eight MDGs . There is universal agreement that effective global pursuit of the MDGs requires a strong commitment from national governments. At a domestic level committing to the MDGs builds a set of reference points that enables countries to tailor or adjust policies and initiatives to consistently address domestic development needs. The goals can provide an effective way to coordinate policy priorities, implementation efforts, and the effective use of resources across ministries, bureaucracies, branches and levels of government, and civil society. To date, resources that outline effective strategies or describe best practices have focused primarily on the executive branches of regional, national and local government, and on their attendant administrative and technical bureaus.

For national or regional commitment to MDGs to be wholly effective however, some attention must also be given to a countries most representative branch of government: the legislature.

We are of the opinion that democratically and directly elected legislatures are constitutionally intended to represent the geographic and ethnic diversity of a country. Consequently, legislatures other than any other democratic institution are best suited to correct inequalities among socioeconomic and political strata in our society. This is evident in many cases, even if there is significant social distance between elected leaders and the citizenry at large, the assembly remains the branch of government that is closest to the people.

We believe that geographic constituencies link parliamentarians to a specific portion of the public in a way that executive officials do not encounter. Because of this, the actions taken by a national or regional assembly could contribute substantially to bridging the gap between stated national commitment and public understanding of the steps taken to achieve the MDGs. It may also help to promote popular understanding of how the MDGs themselves reflect critical domestic issues such as poverty, health, and education.

As mentioned elsewhere in this article, the object is to provide an overview of actions which can be taken by various legislatures to support regional and or national pursuit of MDGs. What is the role of legislatures in correcting political inequalities and achieving MDGs? The technical authority and capacity of a legislature varies tremendously from country to country. Despite this diversity, all legislative bodies are assigned three main constitutional responsibilities: Legislation; Representation; and Oversight.

Even though easy to separate conceptually, the three responsibilities are substantially intertwined in practice. It is, in some ways, easier to think about the role of legislatures in pursuing the MDGs if assembly actions are categorized by their effect instead. There are three potential outcomes of legislative efforts to support national or regional MDG efforts in correcting political inequalities in society. • First, demonstration of national commitment: While all UN member states have already pledged their commitment to pursue the MDGs, reinforcing legislative actions demonstrate that support for the goals extends deeper than executive government offices. In addition to making an international statement about commitment to the MDGs, such legislative action as passing resolutions, hosting Democracy: Cornerstone for Development www.awepa.org

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high profile events or meetings, or participation in MDG networks or working groups may also demonstrate to the general public that the MDGs are a priority for all branches of government.

• Second, raising regional or national awareness: As a directly elected representative body, legislatures can also take effective action to increase public understanding of the MDGs. Whether an assembly chooses to promote awareness of the MDGs as a group, or to increase public knowledge about what must be done to address a specific goal, public education is an important potential impact of legislative action.

• Third, enabling (or directly pursuing) progress toward specific goals: Although the implementation of MDG related initiatives is the mandate of the executive branch, legislative action to adjust current policies or budgets is often needed. In countries where issue committees are expected to review all legislation relevant to their issue area, an assembly is particularly well situated to evaluate newly proposed legislation in the context of national commitments to the MDGs.

IV. Concluding Remarks For many countries, commitment to the MDGs was initiated by the executive branch. As time passes however, it becomes increasingly evident that effective pursuit of the eight development goals will require support and participation from the legislative branch.

Constitutionally established to pass legislation and budgets, to represent the population in national or regional decision making, and to monitor executive implementation of national/regional policies, a national/regional assembly has many potential roles to play in ensuring national/regional achievement of the goals. Using the mechanisms established to fulfil their basic legislative responsibilities, national/regional assembles are able to demonstrate national commitment to the MDGs, raise awareness of the goals, and — in some cases — enable more efficient pursuit of a particular goal.

We are aware that the tools available to each parliament to support the MDGs vary tremendously. However, each parliament must tailor its actions to the national/regional development context. This is most effectively done by ensuring members — particularly members of relevant committees — are fully briefed on localization efforts, as well as MDG related policies that are presently being implemented. From this information, legislative leadership will better be able to determine the legislative tools that can be applied most effectively, and hence, enable democratic equality to guarantee citizens equal basic liberties, including worth of political liberties.

References Dahl, Robert A. “Justifying Democracy,” Transaction Social Science and Modern Society 32, no. 3 (1995): 46.

Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and Its Critiques. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1989.

Parliamentary Development Practice Note – UNDP, September 2002.

Parliamentary Engagement with the MDGs: Consultative Seminar on the Role of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures in the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. A Presentation by UNDP Country Office, Pretoria. September 5-6, 2011, Cape Town

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1755, A Discourse on Inequality, London: Penguin 1984, partly reprinted in L. Pojman & R. Westmoreland (eds.), Equality. Selected Readings, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997, pg. 36-45.

Sen, Amartya, 1992, Inequality Reexamined, Oxford: Clarendon Press, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

ABOUT HON. ABDIRAHIN HAITHAR ABDI Hon. Abdi is the former Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), a supra regional parliament of the East African Community Member States of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

As of 2012, Mr. Abdi has also been accounted Member of the House Regional Committee on Communication Trade and Investment and Member of the House Regional Committee on Accounts of EALA. Mr. Abdi also represents EALA at international and regional meetings at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the EU. Mr. Abdi has devoted his life to EALA’s vision of a “prosperous, competitive, secure and politically united East Africa” which can be shown by his life’s work.

In 1992, Mr. Abdi worked as general manager for Haithar Holdings, a recognised transport and logistics provider in the East African region which specialised in delivering emergency relief goods. Haithar Holdings provided logistics for many organisations such as the World Food Programme, CARE, Médecins Sans Frontières, World Vision and The National Cereals & Produce Board of Kenya. With the professional help of Mr. Abdi, Haithar Holdings obtained transport and logistics contracts awarded by NGO’s, aid agencies and large corporations for successfully transporting cargo within Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, N.E. Congo and South Sudan.

In 1996, Mr. Abdirahin Abdi started as managing director at the corporation Abha Limited, which delivers agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, furnace oils and collection of processed tea from 53 factories to the auction houses in Mombasa. With successful management, Abha has been able to support and contribute immensely to the industrialization of Kenya.

For more information on EALA please visit http://www.eala.org.

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Africa’s Changing Development Landscape: “Beyond Aid”5

By Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki (Niger) Chief Executive Officer, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Planning and Coordinating Agency

Introduction

A

frica is witnessing a change dynamism that is globally acknowledged. Our continent is making steady and considerable progress in its transformation agenda by embracing far-reaching political and socioeconomic reforms in spite of the daunting challenges. This transformation development agenda is within a challenging, complex and ever-changing context. Indeed, African countries and peoples have become the epicentre of global attention, with virtually all sub-regions witnessing some form of positive change!

But what are the development issues facing Africa; which of these issues have captured global attention in the 21st century? What factors shape the development landscape that we are in today? How can Africa move swiftly and sustainably from aid dependency to development effectiveness? To these posers, I wish to highlight some key fundamentals: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Peace and security are a sine qua non for African development. It serves as the bedrock of sustainable conditions for growth and development; The urgency to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) given the substantive progress being made by many African countries; Pathway to shared growth and sustainable development for wealth creation and a prosperous continent is home-grown policies and utilization of own resources; Improvement in good governance in all its ramifications relative to where the continent was in the 1990s; Devotion to re-energizing African unity and regional integration; and Most importantly, Africa’s outlook to “beyond aid”.

Features of the new global cooperation architecture and agenda Africa has had a longstanding relationship and built strong alliances with development partners over the years. However, this partnership is witnessing a silent revolution or paradigm shift in engagement strategies. With improvements in good governance and the pledge by African leaders to place the continent on a sound footing for a deeper integration into the world system, gaining foothold, new models of partnership are being constructed with new partners from the emerging economies. The continent is promoting a global partnership for development that will help shape the livelihood of the present and next generation of Africans.

The current aid architecture shows a mixed picture. Africa receives a greater share of total global aid than any other part of the world. Over the past four decades, aid to Africa has quadrupled from around US$11 billion to US$44 billion with a net increase of almost US$10 billion during the period 2005 -2008. But while aid to Africa has reached 5 Speech delivered at 2nd Regional Meeting on Aid Effectiveness, South-South Cooperation and Capacity Development, 4 November 2010, Tunis, Tunisia Page 20

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record levels, it has fallen well below international commitments and the level of impact is contentious. Indeed, the impact from these resource flows has been marred by a number of factors including fragmentation, question of ownership and low accountability, coupled with the recent economic and financial crisis.

Current forecasts suggest a US$14 billion shortfall on the original Gleneagles estimate that aid would increase by US$25 billion a year from 2004 to 2010. Amidst the concerns over the effectiveness of aid, Africa is confronted with new challenges and opportunities regarding the use of aid for development.

On the other hand, development aid from non-OECD countries and through SouthSouth Cooperation is growing rapidly and may represent a significant share of global aid flows. This experience can lead to exchanges and potentially effective relationships between “new” and emerging partners for Africa. Looking forward, we expect the international aid architecture to change with non-OECD partners playing a bigger role and South-South Cooperation becoming enhanced. Brazil, India and China are lead emerging players in Africa.

My key message here is to reiterate firmly and clearly: that though aid will continue to be an important tool for Africa’s development, aid cannot develop Africa.

Development assistance cannot help Africa realise its sustainable development objectives. I am fully convinced that Africa’s development will be the result of African efforts that aim at utilizing innovative financing mechanisms and other forms of development finance, particularly domestic resources. Africa must start the thought process of what will exist Beyond Aid! The internationally agreed principles of the Paris Declaration and the priority actions under the Accra Agenda for Action are global milestones that Africa fully associates with. However, delivery by Development Partners on their partnership commitments, particularly on use of country systems has been abysmally low.

In order for aid to become more effective and sustainable it must be based on the premise of partnerships and joint accountability, with the principles of mutual responsiveness and ownership at the core of the engagement. Our focus should reflect a major shift of policy design strategy, “aid is no longer the main determinant of policy design”. The private sector, civil society and regional economic communities are becoming increasingly important in the development process, as well as taking firm ownership of policy design.

The totality of citizen empowerment is at the core of the new African development landscape.

Southern countries have to take actual control of their development process by laying a foundation for sustainability through clear and measurable strategies to institutionalize the synergies between aid effectiveness, South-South Cooperation and capacity development. We have to strengthen existing South-South coalitions and build new alliances to promote Southern-led cooperation as a useful instrument in establishing mechanisms that span intra and inter-regional levels.

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Critical role of Capacity Development in the new African landscape The new African vision is hinged on capacity development as expressed in the firstever regional Capacity Development Strategy for Africa - the Capacity Development Strategic Framework (CDSF). This framework was developed through an extensive consultative and participatory process embracing inputs from African stakeholders and partners. The framework received approval of the 14th African Union Assembly as Africa’s integrated policy tool for capacity development.

The CDSF is built on six strategic cornerstones, which are capacity development priorities as defined by Africans. These priorities include leadership and citizen transformation, unlocking African potential, and skills and resources for development. Further, the central thrust of the CDSF is to enhance the capacities of capacity developers and to institutionalize integrated approaches and evidence-based knowledge and innovation systems for continuous improvement. This Africa-wide Framework will enhance mutual learning on a methodical basis to influence public policy design and development at all levels of governance. Given that knowledge is in effect the “capacity for effective action” in achieving development results, national and cross-regional learning will be central to maximizing Africa’s development prospects. At the core of the Africa-wide Capacity Development strategy is to place leadership transformation on the continent’s agenda as part of institutional development.

With governance and capacity variations among African countries today, there is a need to, first and foremost, shape perceptions of state effectiveness and societal engagement within the necessary framework of Capacity Development. Essentially, ‘capacity development’ denotes country-owned and country-led development and change processes. This is what we should be promoting. Importantly, capacity dividends have the potential to reinforce good governance, with emphasis on achieving objectives and results. Therefore, Capacity Development is instrumental to achieving governance objectives as well as sector objectives. Yet on the other hand, good governance through improved accountability and transparency potentially strengthens the capacities of institutions.

In advancing the transformation agenda, we must recognise and act on the centrality of Capacity Development in empowering Africans to embark on the set development agenda and to fulfil their creative potential. Much of Africa’s inability to successfully implement key development programs stems from deep, systemic capacity weaknesses at state, sub-regional, and continental levels. The ineffective nature of the interrelationships amongst these levels of governance has exacerbated Africa’s development challenges.

New opportunities for Africa The changing development landscape of Africa depends on these key factors: 1. Beyond Aid Africa cannot afford to continue to rely on external and emergency development assistance to survive. It is time for Africa to be innovative in raising domestic resources for its development programmes. Africa’s over-dependence and addiction

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to aid is unsustainable for a continent that is seeking to break off from the shackles of poverty. Knowledge generation and mutual learning processes between development actors in Africa must be pursued to ensure that development results are African led and owned.

Given the challenges and opportunities provided by the present global financial crisis and its impact on Africa, the African Union Summit in January 2010 called for the adoption of a new strategic approach focusing on partnership dialogue on Africa’s development policy issues. This will embrace putting in place the desired paradigm shift from “management of poverty” in the continent to “economic transformation”, so that Africa will emerge as a new growth pole to address existing global imbalances and play a significant role in the integrated world economy. This is absolutely necessary!

2. Globalization Africa needs to understand the risks, pains and gains of globalization. Globalization is a force that can shape a better Africa. However, at the moment, Africa’s voice is not loud enough in the global economic governance architecture. The emergence of the G20 as the premium global economic cooperation grouping with recent commitment to discussing development issues is a welcome development. But Africa’s active participation will only be possible with Africa’s adequate institutionalized representation within the G20, while Africa’s engagement with the G8 process should continue. The global challenges facing globalization, particularly the macroeconomic instability resulting from openness, decentralization, rapid urbanization and climate change, must be addressed on a global scale for Africa to make sustainable progress.

3. From Aid to trade For centuries, Africa has been integrated into the world economy mainly as indispensable supplier of cheap labour and raw materials. In 2006, 70% of Africa’s exports to the world were made up of primary products including oil and minerals.

In fact, for Africa to reap the benefits of being a key player in an increasingly globalized economy it needs to enhance its involvement in the evolving global cooperation architecture by scaling up its vertical diversification — through value addition to primary commodities and horizontal diversification, which is to multiply the sectors on which its economy depends so as to make a country less vulnerable to external shocks. Most African countries have not been able to reap the rewards of globalization. Despite the increases in export earnings in recent years, Africa’s share of global trade was 3.5% in 2008, the lowest share of any region in the world. The new global cooperation architecture will not augur well for Africa if the largest economies of the North reject the global call to satisfactorily conclude the Doha Development Round under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The removal of agricultural subsidies is imperative for African access to developed markets. On its part, Africa is promoting the development of regional markets as a means to boosting intra-African trade.

4. African Championing and Ownership Africa should effectively manage what some observers call the new ‘scramble for Africa’ by interacting with other national actors and regional groupings to maximize their bargaining power. The continent should, as a matter of urgency, develop a

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strategic outlook to govern its relationship with the new emerging powers of the South. We must demonstrate stronger leadership and ownership of the continent’s own development policies and development programmes. The design of public policy must be a shared process from the start, embracing actors from the private sector, civil society and broader ownership as enshrined in the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action.

Business as usual with Development Partners is not value driven and beneficial to Africa’s future. It is essential that the culture of entrepreneurship and governance must have a common bond. Africa’s capacity to strategise on its special development needs is evolving, and ownership is critical in rethinking policy design processes and implementation processes.

5. Africa’s greatest resource Africa’s greatest resource is its youthful population. Africa is a young and growing continent with almost 50% of the population below the age of 25, which undoubtedly constitutes a critical resource mass and opportunity to galvanize the African Renaissance. It is, however, extremely important that Africa’s youth is empowered with skills, adaptive education schemes and capacity to redefine the continent’s development agenda. Greater attention must be given to the removal of barriers that hinder Africa’s youth from harnessing and realizing their full potential in an increasingly competitive world. Constraints such as lack of business training, capital to build competitive industries and financial services to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to fruition have to be overcome.

6. Implementing Africa’s sector priorities In the new development landscape, actors should align to the home-grown African sector priorities with Agriculture and Food Security, and Infrastructure as topmost priorities for the continent. We call for the support of our Development Partners for the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) as key examples. It is most regrettable that Africa still imports over US$40 billion of food per year. Africa must take food ownership and sovereignty as essential.

7. Good Governance Good governance as the bedrock of the paradigm shift. In particular, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a unique illustration of intra-continental collaboration developed by African countries under the NEPAD Programme. At the core of the self-monitoring review mechanism is a facility that promotes peer exchanges across countries on good governance and other development issues. This peer learning instrument is used to foster accountability and government efficiency.

8. The continental march to knowledge-driven economy and enterprise The international aid architecture which rests on Official Development Assistance (ODA) requires a total overhaul. The rules and standards that govern the provision of ODA should be respected by all parties, while an inward looking strategy is adopted by Africa to become less aid-dependent. The rules of engagement which govern Africa’s new development partnerships should be addressed. A different

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cooperation model is necessary. Africa’s changing landscape can accommodate these new realities, however complex. Our continent is blessed with abundant human and material resources that should be fully tapped for better development results.

Collectively, Africa and its partners can successfully mobilize towards the implementation of the ‘bold development agenda’ to drive the continent’s prosperity.

The move from aid dependency to development effectiveness is achievable.

Closing Remarks It is now time for ACTION. Africa must take leadership of its development. We must put ownership and accountability into practice. A common and consolidated African voice is fundamental. This will help contribute actively to reshaping the global development architecture and impact on policy design and implementation.

I would like to reinforce some key messages from our deliberations over the past two days: 1. Ownership, Accountability and Sustainability We should invest in capacitating our Parliaments, civil society, academia and the private sector, for inclusiveness towards attaining Africa’s development.

2. South-South Cooperation and Capacity Development The underlying need is for Africa to re-define its partnership and coalition-building agenda. Both North-South and South-South relationships need to prioritize the qualities of mutual respect, equality, accountability and transparency.

3. Developing Capacities by Using and Strengthening Country Systems Development Partners must use country systems for aid delivery as agreed to under the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action. Given that country systems are often weak in Africa, Development Partners should support national institutional development as a core component of aid programmes.

4. Regional and Sub-regional Perspectives on Development Effectiveness Promotion of the issue of value chain is important in enhancing regional integration.

Therefore, African countries need to embrace regional objectives while focusing on the national development imperative.

Innovative Funding for Development Effectiveness – growing out of Aid • •

We must work towards raising our own domestic resources. The alignment of banking systems to the key issues of development is critical; Africa should employ innovative mechanisms for the smart use of Aid to catalyse sustainable development, while developing productive capacities. It is also important that we shift aid more towards the productive sectors of our economies.

In conclusion, it is my hope that we can more consciously draw on the synergies between the three themes of Aid Effectiveness, South-South Cooperation and Capacity Development. It is imperative that Africa charts a new course. Africa’s next generation will only thrive within capable states and growth-enhancing institutions for quality livelihoods.

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ABOUT DR. IBRAHIM ASSANE MAYAKI Dr. Mayaki was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) in 2009.

Between 1996 and 1997, Dr. Mayaki was successively appointed Minister in charge of African Integration and Cooperation and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Niger.

During this time, he worked as Professor of Public Administration in Niger and Venezuela. In November 1997, he was appointed Prime Minister of Niger, a function he held until January 2000. In August 2000, he set up the Analysis Centre for Public Policy.

From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Mayaki was a guest Professor at the University of Paris XI, where he lectured on international relations and organisations; he also led research at the Research Centre on Europe and the Contemporary World within that university.

From 2004 until his recruitment as CEO of the NEPAD Agency, Dr. Mayaki was Executive Director of the “Rural Hub for West and Central Africa” based in Dakar, Senegal.

Dr. Mayaki holds a Master’s degree from the National School of Public Administration (ENAP) Quebec, Canada, and a PhD in Administrative Sciences from the University of Paris, France. He is the author of the book “Quand la caravane passé…”, relating his political experiences.

For more information on NEPAD, please visit http://www.nepad.org/.

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Africa’s Parliamentary Aspirations

By Prof. Ben Turok (South Africa), Member of South African Parliament and Chairperson, Network of African Parliamentarians (NAP)

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here can be little doubt about the present hegemony of parliamentary democracy across the globe. Wherever authoritarian government crept in, as soon as it is challenged, parliamentary democracy steps in as the only alternative. Thus one dictator after another seeks to demonstrate that after all, the real intention was to behave democratically. This phenomenon can be found in the Arab spring, in Eastern Europe, and across Africa.

Parliamentary systems were imposed on Africa during the independence process.

Freedom from colonial rule was often delayed for several years to allow for the formation of parliamentary parties and to create the necessary machinery for parliamentary elections.

However in some cases this very process was accompanied by a variety of indirect control measures which led to neocolonialism, at least in the economy. However this did not curb the very valuable measures adopted to install political party systems, to build universities, improve health provision and many other advances.

Some of these advances were stalled under the imposed International Monetary Fund (IMF) Structural Adjustment Programmes which also had a negative effect on the advance of democracy. As governments came under pressure to introduce budget cuts, reduce the public service, impose cost recovery for basic services, political instability became widespread and parliamentary democracy was in retreat.

Hence: the ‘lost decades’ of the 1980s and 1990s.

Yet there were voices calling for a new kind of democracy. The renowned economist Professor Adebayo Adedeji convened an all-Africa conference in Abuja in 1988, urging the continent to adopt “participatory democracy” and not just parliamentary democracy. He wanted development to be based on people’s participation rather than a government top-down system. Unfortunately, his proposals were not adopted by a single government, although his sentiments have continued to be influential.

In recent years Africa has seen a significant economic recovery. At first sight it seems this is due to the increased prices of mineral exports, but a close examination shows that many aspects of governance have improved. In addition, the recovery is associated with a growing middle class which is consumption oriented, including the products produced in Africa itself. This is helping to create a favourable economic cycle of production and consumption, of supply and demand, which contributes to a favourable domestic atmosphere.

In such a climate, it is difficult for authoritarianism to flourish, as competing social and political interests manifest themselves. Hence the basic tenets of parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, constitutionalism, and the separation of powers between the three arms of government - the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary - is becoming the norm.

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Yet there are many deficiencies. The campaign by the Network of African Parliamentarians and AWEPA on Aid Effectiveness revealed the lack of consultation of parliaments on aid provision. Despite heroic efforts, Cabinets across the continent failed to report adequately or even consult with their respective parliaments on aid programmes. Despite pious declarations by donors to the contrary, donor governments did little to assist the democratization of aid procedures. It also emerged that even in the rich donor countries there was inadequate transparency about aid in their parliaments.

But the challenges of parliamentary democracy go further than that. Despite the hegemony of the idea of multi-party parliamentary democracy, few of us are content with what we have. The alienation of large numbers of voters from formal politics, in most countries, indicates a significant weakness in the system. The scale of cynicism about public life is a serious matter. No wonder spontaneous protests are becoming a common occurrence in so many countries.

Young people in Africa, many of whom face unemployment, are also becoming cynical about formal politics and political parties. They are increasingly aware of what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in England, Greece, Portugal and elsewhere. Sooner or later, they too will turn to protest against authority, including their own Parliaments.

So there is no place for complacency about our political systems. While there are clearly no obvious alternatives to multi-party parliamentary democracy, the system is not adequate in representing the people’s aspirations. We need serious study of what makes up civil society, what role non-governmental organisations have in our society, and whether business associations and labour unions ought to play a more visible role in public discussions.

This means that well-meaning organisations like AWEPA and indeed the Network of African Parliamentarians should speedily sponsor a global debate about taking democracy to the people. We should not be afraid to pose difficult questions or to raise our vision above the rather humdrum arena of parliament, where too often speeches follow a routine format and where the fight for status and position seems to override concerns about the public interest. AWEPA is ideally placed to initiate this process.

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ABOUT PROFESSOR BEN TUROK Prof. Turok is a former anti-apartheid activist and current South African Member of Parliament and a member of the African National Congress (ANC).

He is the Chairperson of the Network of African Parliamentarians (NAP). Professor Ben Turok combines his affinity towards politics with his devotion to research as a surveyor, lecturer and writer.

As a young child, Ben Turok moved with his parents to South Africa in 1934, escaping the repression against Jews in Latvia, and graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1950. Three years later, he joined the South African Congress of Democrats and in 1955 became its secretary for the Cape western region, helping to plan the Congress of the People. He was arrested in the Treason Trial in 1956 and stood trial until charges against him were withdrawn in 1958, when he served for a period as secretary of the Consultative Committee of the Congress.

Before the unbanning of the ANC and the dismantling of apartheid, Turok lived in London where he was a member of the British Labour Party and editor of Sechaba until 1972. He is now on the faculty of London’s Open University, for which he wrote a lengthy study in 1975: “Inequality as State Policy: The South African Case.”

His writings also include “South Africa: The Search for a Strategy,” in The Socialist Register 1973 and a booklet, Strategic Problems in South Africa’s Liberation Struggle: A Critical Analysis (1974).

Ben Turok was instrumental in helping draw up the Freedom Charter and he is the founding Director of the Pan-African Policy Research Institute for African Alternatives.

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Why Development Aid Needs Democracy

By Ms. Anna Lekvall (Sweden), Senior Policy Advisor, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)

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here are at least two reasons why development actors should pay more attention to political processes.

One reason is a pile of research from the 1990s onwards arguing that the political situation in many poor countries is a key reason for the lack of development.

The second reason is that efforts to improve the effectiveness of aid are likely to fail without stronger democratic institutions.

Let us look at each of these in turn.

Non-developmental politics There is a lot of research describing the political landscape in developing countries, particularly in Africa, as ‘neo-patrimonial’ or ‘clientilistic’. In essence, there is a patronclient relationship between the politician and his/her constituency. Politicians provide concrete goods on a more or less personal basis to constituents, who give loyalty and support in return. There is pressure on parliamentarians and political party members to provide powerful individuals within their communities with cash, goods, positions within government, a health clinic, road or any other tangible benefit. From the people’s point of view it makes sense to choose leaders who are most likely to ’bring home the goods’, rather than more general political aspirations such as an ‘improved national school system’ which under current circumstances are unlikely to materialize.

Now isn´t this a basic relationship in a democracy – we vote for you if you give us what we need? Yes, in the way that politicians are responsive to their constituencies and respond to what they are held accountable for.6 However, there is often a need to use personal resources to provide the goods, giving politicians strong incentives to divert resources from the state to attain them. They can also lobby, threaten, or use other means to channel something specific from the state to a particular community.

From both a democratic and development perspective the concern is that the politician is providing concrete benefits to some particular set of supporters, not the public as a whole. Moreover, it is very individualistic. Political parties - fundamental in aggregating views, negotiating and providing platforms for national development policies - are often virtually non-functioning. Parties in many developing countries are used merely as platforms for elections and positions, but seldom function to develop and agree on coherent policies. Furthermore, the essential role of Parliament as an accountability institution risks being ineffective and undermined where incentives divert parliamentarians from such tasks.

This is fundamental for development. State-led development departs from the basis that there is a national, coherent view and political support for producing public goods. It also departs from having functioning accountability institutions such as 6 See Staffan Lindberg “What accountability pressures do MPs in Africa face and how do they respond?

Evidence from Ghana”, 2010, Department of Political Science & Center for African Studies, University of Florida, for an insightful study on what politicians are held accountable for.

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parliaments and parties. The weaknesses of the political institutions, as well as the incentives for politicians to divert state resources for political finance, seriously challenge those assumptions. Moreover, politicians face incentives to undermine development projects which give power to their rivals or weaken their own.

It may be noted that patronage politics is a challenge also from a conflict as well as gender perspective. The expression ‘it is our turn to eat’ is telling, essentially meaning, that once you have power you feed your own people using state resources, while the opposition from other groups is suppressed. This is a core cause of conflict between ethnic, religious and regional groups - that resources are used and distributed for certain privileged groups. It is also a gender issue as politicians need support from the powerful within a constituency who are men. Men are thus fed and strengthened, while women remain at the hands of men’s will and power. Resources used in this way thus reinforce men with power instead of redistributing power.

It is important, of course, to use ‘clientilism’ with some caution. There is a risk that such a label paints an unnecessarily static and cynical picture of politicians and the often impossible situations they face. The clientilist model tends to give the impression that patronage politics is a cultural phenomenon based on greedy people. This is not helpful to anyone. It is not static, not cultural, it is a consequence of a situation where democratic institutions are weak, even dysfunctional, and the rule of law is compromised. Moreover, different types of political strategies coexist.

Politicians may both try to serve the general public as well as engage in clientilistic strategies at the same time. Most countries have some kind of mix between these two types of politics. Of course this is not an exclusive feature of developing countries, though it is here where it may do the most harm.

Having said that, for anyone assuming that the state functions more or less as a neutral bureaucracy – or that problems can be fixed with increased resources for capacity-building – these models can be used to understand the challenges the political situation gives for both democracy and development.

The new aid agenda needs democracy…

Another reason for donors to pay more attention to politics is that improved democratic institutions are needed to enable the aid effectiveness agenda.

At the High-Level Forum for Aid Effectiveness in Busan 2011, it was recognised that only one out of thirteen targets of the Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness had been fulfilled. The biggest hurdle has been for donors to transfer more ownership to recipient countries. A recent study in Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique for example found that governance issues were fundamental to the failure to implement the Paris Agenda.7 Interruptions in aid programmes and budget support often hinge around concerns in elections, human rights abuses and corruption. It is becoming increasingly clear that donors will not be able to use country systems and aid modalities which channel resources directly through the state without an improved democratic system which is representative, accountable, and capable of protecting human rights and fighting corruption.

7 Bertil Odén and Lennart Wohlgemuth, ‘Where is the Paris Agenda Heading? Changing Relations in Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique’, ECPDM, Briefing Note no 21, February 2011.

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This has been reflected in ‘underlying principles’ of aid agreements which cover commitments by the partner country to promote peace, free and fair electoral processes, the independence of the judiciary, respect for human rights, good governance, and the fight against corruption. However, the democratic deficit is often underestimated in such principles. Both donor and partner countries tend to focus on the existence of formal institutions – whether there is an independent judiciary and elections are held. There may be a recognition that institutions are weak, but there seems to be an implicit assumption that respect for human rights and the fight against corruption will move in the ‘right direction’ or can be fixed with capacity building. There even seems to be an implicit assumption that democracy will develop and strengthen by itself – that as long as there is a formal multiparty democracy, the rest will take care of itself. This is of course far from reality. Tom Carothers threw the transitional paradigm –construed as automatic sequence of good things by development practitioners- out of the window in 20028, and Marina Ottaway showed that many newly democratized countries had in reality stopped at the ‘semiauthoritarian’ stage9. Positive democratic movement was not happening – and there was even some backtracking.

What happens is damaging both for democracy and development. Donors agree with the partner government on general budget support or a sector programme, using underlying principles which do not reflect the reality on the ground. Then there is a ‘sudden’ realization that there is corruption in a sector or there are democratic ‘setbacks’ in the form of manipulated elections or new laws to limit civil society.

Corruption and electoral violence were not part of the game plan to begin with, so this seems to come as a surprise.

In such cases, aid is suspended temporarily until measures have been taken by the government, and then aid is disbursed again until the next ‘surprise’ comes along.

This stop-go disbursement of aid creates frustration and confusion among both donors and partners. It reduces predictability and does not help to alter the situation that created the problems in the first place. The very foundation that the new aid agenda rests on – channelling funds through a government’s own systems – should be adjusted with eyes that are open to the realities of the political situation – and support an improved democratic landscape.

…yet sometimes undermine it Paradoxically and unconsciously, aid modalities sometimes undermine democratic processes. New forms of aid modalities such as budget support and sector-wide approaches should strengthen domestic institutions and free up partner government resources to focus more on promoting development than servicing donors. These efforts have gone a long way towards streamlining assistance and emphasizing the importance of national processes as opposed to donor-driven approaches. The Paris Agenda thus provides building blocks for strengthening democratic processes.

8 Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm”, Journal of Democracy, Vol 13 No 1, 2002 9 Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged – The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003. Note: It should be recognised that there is a large body of academic research in this area with a plethora of new concepts to describe different variations of this theme such as “electoral authoritarianism”, “competitive authoritarianism”, illiberal democracy” etc.

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However, the ways in which aid effectiveness is being interpreted and constructed in practice seem to have some negative effects on democracy. In particular, there are a couple of concerns with regard to the impact of aid processes on parliaments and political parties.

Aid by-passes political institutions At the High Level Forum for Aid Effectiveness in Accra in 2008, it was recognised that representative institutions such as parliaments are often by-passed in aid negotiations. They are not regularly informed and invited to discuss what aid is being accepted, which loans are being taken up or what the national development strategies are. This includes loans with a 20–40 year payback period – decisions that will influence economic choices for several elections and possibly generations.

Representative institutions are more often than not excluded from these discussions or simply cannot absorb the information.

The Accra Agenda took an important step forward by recognizing the need for inclusive ownership and the role of some political and social actors such as parliaments, local government and civil society in development. However, a role for the fundamental institutions which represent people and shape national development agendas – political parties and electoral processes – is completely absent from the agenda. These institutions are at the core of ‘inclusive ownership’ and when they are weak and ill-functioning, the rest of the system is likely to fail as well.

In addition, parliaments and civil society organisations are almost treated as equals in the Accra Agenda. Both are supported ‘to take an active role in dialogue on development processes’.10 While both actors play an essential role in democratic and developmental societies, there is a need to distinguish between the constitutional role of parliaments and the advocacy role of citizen interest groups. It is inconceivable that a Western government in a domestic policy sphere would place its own parliament alongside the national audit office, civil society organisations, and so on, and give each an equal opportunity to contribute to the planning and implementation of a national reform programme. In development assistance, however, the roles and functions of representative institutions are blurred with the roles and functions of civil society organisations.

Moreover, consultative processes on Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes (PRSPs) to engage parliament, civil society and local government have been ineffective at best, and harmful at worst. Many actors have felt ‘coerced into consultation systems that gave them little voice’.11 It is increasingly recognised that this approach has not been effective at enhancing ownership. There are many reasons for this, including limited time, the limited capacity of actors to make substantive contributions to technical development plans, the lack of parliamentary will to critique the executive’s plans, and so on. Asking parliamentarians and civil

10 Accra Agenda for Action, 2008.

11 ‘Strengthening Broad-Based Inclusive Ownership and Accountability: A Synthesis of key findings and Messages for the Working party on Aid Effectiveness and High Level Forum 4’, OECD/DAC (working document for the High Level Forum 4) Democracy: Cornerstone for Development www.awepa.org

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society actors to participate in PRSP processes in the current form conflicts with the roles and mandates of the actors, delegitimizing both, and does not give any of them genuine power or space to pursue their political goals and issues.

Aid weakens domestic accountability Another key concern is that aid weakens domestic accountability. The Governance Network of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for European Co-operation and Development (OECD DAC) has indicated that aid weakens domestic accountability by: (i) primarily engaging with the executive branch of government; (ii) its lack of transparency, which makes it hard for parliaments, audit institutions and civil society to monitor how aid resources are used; and (iii) over time, making governments more accountable to donors than to their own citizens.12 Engagement with the executive alone risks weakening accountability actors – be they opposition parties, parliamentarians, media outlets or social actors. Civil society organisations and opposition parties often argue that the increasing amounts of aid being channelled through government budgets give more power to the executive and weaken their own power. Furthermore, to the extent that donors have engaged with accountability this has often been concentrated on supporting civil society actors. Relying on social actors alone is harmful. Elections and political parties aggregate the views of all citizens, while social organisation only represents special interests. A political process is therefore fundamental to achieving a balance of views and to capturing the views of minorities and disempowered groups.

Although the new aid modalities are improving budget transparency, a significant proportion remains off-budget. This lack of transparency is a concern as it skews accountability towards the donor and reduces the capacity of parliaments to play an oversight role and for parties to know what resources are available to build their own respective programmatic approaches or play the vital accountability role of opposition.

Aid to political institutions is only 0.09% of ODA flows While massive support is channelled through the state in the form of budget or programme support, direct engagement with political processes and institutions is almost negligible. Calculated on the basis of the OECD/DAC Creditor Reporting System:13 •

• •

Only 2 per cent of all official development assistance (ODA) flows goes to key democratic institutions: civil society, elections, political parties and legislatures.

Once civil society is excluded, 1 per cent remains for the core political processes of elections, parties and legislatures At the far bottom of the list, 0.09 per cent of total ODA flows goes to political parties and legislatures. More aid goes to ‘solar energy’ and ‘tourism policy’.

12 Alan Hudson, Background Paper for the Launch of the Workstream on Aid and Domestic Accountability, OECD/DAC GOVNET, 2009.

13 OEDC/DAC, Creditor Reporting System, 2009.

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That is not to argue that financial resources are the key to resolving all problems.

It does, however, beg the question whether aid has sufficiently engaged with democratic actors, recognizing them as development institutions, and whether this support is well-balanced.

Moving forward Despite its huge implications for development and aid effectiveness, the political landscape has not yet been seriously addressed on the mainstream development cooperation agenda. Political economy approaches have been useful in identifying the concerns, but not in dealing with them. It seems to be too sensitive and is seen as an intrusion into a country’s sovereignty. Yet, not dealing with the political issues risks leading to failed aid relationships and ineffective development processes.

Furthermore, in a year when citizens have come to the fore more than ever in reshaping dysfunctional relations, the aid agenda should not go untouched. This will be a fundamental issue for the post-Busan agenda.

There are no easy answers. Aid is usually needed the most precisely in conditions where it is the most difficult to provide effectively. Donors should not take - or more accurately, take over - responsibility for the political situation in a given country. But aid does operate within and play into particular political environments which it needs to be better able to deal with to strengthen both democracy and development.

A first step would be to reinterpret ‘ownership’ as ‘people’s ownership’ and engage much more with all the democratic actors and processes that need to be part of the development project. Accra took a first important step to recognise the importance of i.a. parliaments and civil society. In Busan, private sector actors were introduced.

However, the fundamental representative actors and processes that political parties and electoral processes are remain completely absent from the aid effectiveness agenda. If the right incentives are put in place, they ensure competition over nationwide policies, deter executives from concentration of power by inducing effective and loyal opposition that is nothing but horizontal, political accountability; and improve representation linkages for citizens. These are core actors that cannot continue to be ignored as they provide fundamental ‘building blocks’ or institutions that the development project rests on.

Another step would be to increase engagement with political institutions and processes. A lot more engagement is needed by donors and recipients alike to break the pattern of clientilistic politics by building a substantive democracy adjusted to the historical, cultural and political realities of each country. To borrow from Wollack and Hubli:14 Sustaining socioeconomic development over the long term requires a political system whose incentive structures make it more likely that responsive, reform-minded, accountable politicians will become ministers in the first place. It requires governments that have popular support and legitimacy to sustain development policies over the long

14 Kenneth Wollack and K. Scott Hubli, ‘Getting Convergence Right’, Journal of Democracy, 21/4, October 2010.

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term. It also requires mechanisms for orderly alternation of power in order to reduce the incentives for corruption that inevitably affect governments with no fear of losing office. It requires strengthened policy-development and evaluation capacity within political parties and intermediary political institutions in order to help raise the level of political discourse. It requires effective legislatures – with significant roles of opposition voices and the means to build broader consensus on development policy – in order to avoid policy reversals if governments turn over. It requires greater voice and power for citizens, including women, young people and historically marginalized communities, in order to complement increased economic empowerment with increased political participation.

How to start promoting it? As the failure of current models and assumptions suggests, more and better understanding of the conditions for democratic institutions to best serve social and economic development and vice versa is needed.

A contribution to that end by International IDEA is the project on programmatic parties looking at how countries have made the move from clientilistic to programmatic parties – how did it happen, what were the conditions, what can be learnt from these experiences? – and sharing these experiences.15 Another new project on political design for development is exploring and sharing experiences on how democratic institutions may be designed to better support socioeconomic development. Moreover, an accountability toolkit is being constructed to help countries assess and discuss improvements in their accountability institutions.

15 Luna, Juan Pablo. Desk Review on Programmatic Parties. Delivered to International IDEA in December 2011, and Kitschelt, Herbert. Research and Dialogue on Programmatic Parties and Party Systems, delivered to International IDEA in January 2012. Both are forthcoming.

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ABOUT MS. ANNA LEKVALL Born in Sweden, Ms. Anna Lekvall is a consultant and Senior Policy Advisor for International IDEA for which she is currently writing a book on democracy in the new aid agenda. 2008-2011 Ms. Lekvall managed IDEA’s Democracy and Development Programme dealing with key global challenges such as how to design democratic politics for development, strengthening democracy building in development aid processes as well as how to support the transition of political institutions from patronage politics to promoting public goods.

Before joining International IDEA, Ms. Lekvall served as a Swedish Diplomat in a number of capacities and postings such as the Mission to the United Nations in New York and the Embassy in Uganda. She also worked at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and Export Credit Guarantee Board. In 2007 Ms. Lekvall was granted the Jonas Weiss Memorial Award for her engagement in the neglected conflict in Northern Uganda.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Democratic Development from the University of Uppsala and a BA in International Economics from Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law. For more information on IDEA please visit http://www.idea.int/.

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How Cultural Context and Educational Values can Impact the Democratic Process

By Hon. Dr. Odette Nyiramilimo (Rwanda), Member of East African Legislative Assembly (EALA)

1. Introduction

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he simplest definition given to democracy by the classics is “the government of the people by the people,” but many scholars have tried to define democracy as they understood it according to their social, political and possibly, economic environment.

In ancient Greece, democracy meant initially an independent political unit, sovereign, not being under a tyrant regime, with equal opportunities or social equality. J.A Schumpeter, in his book entitled Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, published in 1942, wrote: “The democratic method is the institutional system, which leads to political decisions whereby people are entitled to take decisions at the end of an electoral process.”

S. P. Huntington declared that “the essence of democracy lies in the choice of the leaders through fair elections, where everybody can participate in competitive elections, held regularly where the majority of people take part”. Huntington further described democracy as freedom, equality, brotherhood, effective control of the political decisions by the citizens, the responsibility for the government vis-à-vis the citizens, honesty and transparency in politics, a keen and rational reflection, the involvement of all the citizens in decision-making and other civic merits” (S.P. Huntington, 1991, pg.6).

Political scientists subdivide the concept of democracy into three major categories: political democracy, socioeconomic democracy and cultural democracy. The etymological meaning of the word “demos” talks of all the citizens in general without any distinction about competence, family, origin or wealth. Political democracy here means then that citizens have the power in their hands and the concept of good governance implies all the three types of democracy. This brief introduction, which explored different definitions that were given to the concept of democracy, shows how it integrates all aspects of a given society thus implying that the path to achieve it differs from one society to another.

2. Application of democratic principles in different contexts In everyday life and through our modern education, one understands that the right to elect and to be elected, the freedom to think and express one’s opinions, the freedom of press, the right to meet and create organisations, etc., constitute political democracy. In order to exercise these rights one must be culturally trained to embrace such ideology. One’s human, intellectual capacities must be developed through education and other organized ways of capacity building. In that context, can we expect democracy in a country where more than 50% of citizens are illiterate, where the majority does not even know what their rights are, to be applied the same

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way as in a country where literacy is close to 100%? Does democracy have the same meaning for a society that has been developing and following its principles since the 18th century as for one that has only heard of it for the first time in the last century?

Democratic principles remain the same, but their application will be completely different.

Many African countries, in the contrary to Western countries, have parallel systems where there is, at the same time, a President of Republic and one or more kings reigning over the same people. For example, in countries such as Liberia, the judiciary system is still struggling to combine constitutional and traditional laws, since rural chiefs still hold most of the power in the eyes of the population. In Uganda, the king of Buganda has his own government, enjoys many state privileges and can give directives that he thinks are of benefit to his people (subjects) without prior consultation with the elected government. If the government is not happy with the directives given, it will delegate an official to go negotiate with the king until both sides reach an agreement. The citizens then, who at the same time trust their king and their government, will express opinions on the matter through local leaders and/ or community gatherings while waiting for supreme authorities to take last decisions.

It is with colonization that democracy was ‘imposed’ upon African leaders. It goes without saying that the African cultural and educational values were extremely different from those of the Europeans and resistance to change and misconceptions, like in every social revolution, would accompany that system of governance.

3. Cultural resistance In Africa, from age one, every child is taught in what manner he/she should talk to people older than themselves. The first value a child learns is ‘respect’ to anyone who is older, from the closest family member to the visitor to whom the child will cede their bed without any question. This system of social hierarchy defines also behaviours that some might define as self-censorship, when they do not take time to analyse the historical, political, cultural and/or educational context.

In Rwanda there are sayings such as: “umwera uturutse I bukuru bucya wakwiriye hose,” which means: “whatever comes from the highest leadership will expand all over (even if it is bad)”; and “Irivuze umwami ntirikuka,” literally “what is said by the king can’t be contradicted,” which can be understood that nobody should publicly oppose the leader. But these beliefs change with time and our children and coming generations, which are exposed to other cultures through technology and world networks, cannot adopt that way of thinking.

Another culturally related example is that one cannot call the leader or a person highly respected by his/her name, only by their title or, in case you know them personally, by the name of his/her firstborn. When I had to move a vote of thanks to His Excellency Pierre Nkurunziza, the President of Burundi, at an EALA Session in November 2011, when I started, I asked myself if I had to speak as the other Members of EALA do when addressing one or the other President, always mentioning their two names. I opted to only call him “His Excellency the President of Burundi” as I would have done if it were the President of Rwanda. Politeness in our culture and in Burundi’s as well, dictates that one cannot pronounce the name of a highly respected

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person, which is not the same in other countries, especially in Western countries. Not pronouncing the superior’s name does not deprive anyone of the right of free speech; it is just a way of expressing respect.

It is in the same context that in many African countries, the rate of electoral participation, despite extremely difficult conditions, is much higher than European countries. This is because Africans, even for the illiterate or the elderly who might not fully understand the reason of going through the process, will participate out of ‘respect’ for their leaders. In this case we cannot talk of exercising democratic rights as defined, when the general population is not enlightened on the consequences of their choices. On the other hand, one cannot jump to conclusions such as “the population have been forced to vote” without doing in-depth research, which takes account of the cultural context.

Margaret H. Marshall, a retired chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in an interview, questioned whether all societies should follow the First Amendment model of unlimited free speech. That is an “anti-historical” belief, she says. In the United States, it has proven wise to protect even the most offensive views. But hateful speech has led to mass murder in other countries, from Nazi Germany to the killing fields of Cambodia to Rwandan radio broadcasts denouncing Tutsis. In her view, nations seeking to move beyond genocide might be justified in restricting not only hate speech, but also some political expression, such as calls to overthrow the government and restore majority rule - which, in Rwanda’s case, would mean a possible return of extremist Hutu power.

“To say that all speech in all circumstances is always acceptable is inconsistent with human experience,” Marshall said in an interview. “You cannot say that the American version of free speech is correct for every society. We have much to learn from the experiences of other societies— not that I would change freedom of speech in the United States, but I would temper the view that all societies should always follow the American model.” (2012, pg. 5).

In Rwanda, after many decades of lack of democracy, where citizens did not exercise the same rights and which led to the most abject crime against humanity, that is genocide, democracy cannot be applied the same way it is in America where democratic principles have been implemented for centuries. In some old democracies, it is said (Andrew Friedman) that the major concern of power conservation replaces that of power exercise, where “competition between the concurrent forces is open, and the fight against the opposition is more important than the achievement of the government mission.”

Rwanda is far from such political configurations. After the RPF-Inkotanyi won the war and stopped genocide in 1994, it would have been easy to put its members in all governing bodies ignoring the other political parties existing in country. They, instead, chose to apply the Arusha Peace Accord that gave almost the same number of seats in Government and Parliament to all parties during the period of transition.

Only the parties which participated actively in the perpetration of the genocide were ejected. After the transition period ended, the Constitution that was adopted in 2003

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by Referendum, by nearly 100% of Rwandans who could vote, enshrined the element of power sharing so that no longer could a group of people or a political party take all the powers. A presidential winning party cannot have the Speaker of Parliament and the cabinet cannot be composed of more than 50% of the winning party members.

Therefore, it is obvious that opposition parties, being represented in Cabinet, in Parliament and even in the local governments, tend to search for consensus and to have a common understanding of policies as the ruling party itself. When all leaders focus towards a common goal in all sectors and avoid confusing the population with opposing and non-justified contradictions in a vulnerable society such as Rwanda’s, giving space to economic and social development, can we say that democratic values and principles are rooted because differing views are debated in a forum of political parties?

While in the developing world today democratic institutions are struggling to find solutions to the lack of basic needs such as food, healthcare and shelter for their citizens, developed countries institutions are talking of the global economy and foreign policies because these basic needs have been satisfied long ago. Their Institutions have been fortified for years and can even function without change of political leaders as it happened in Belgium, where during a post-election period of 15 months with no new government, public services were operating as usual. To this day, it is impossible to imagine an African country that could survive such a situation.

4. Conclusions Democracy is not an end in itself, but a path taken towards achieving good governance, assuring rule of law, respecting people’s rights and giving them a favourable environment for development and wellbeing. That path cannot be the same when it has to pass through different environments. When countries are culturally, educationally and economically different, the concept of democracy has to be applied according to their particular context at a given time and space.

Members of parliaments, as elected representatives of the people, have to ensure that leaders of their respective countries, in priority, fight against poverty while keeping in mind human rights and dignity, and applying at the same time universal democratic principles in a manner that embeds them in the culture of their electorates as a foundation for lasting development.

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Bibliography IRDP (Institut de Recheche pour Le Dialogue et la Paix): Democracy in Rwanda, December 2005 HABUMUREMYI Pierre Damien, February 2008: Integration Politique au Rwanda après le Génocide de 1994: Utopie ou Réalité?

SCHUMPETER, J., Capitalisme et Démocratie, Paris, Payot 1965 SCHUMPETER, J.A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942 HUNTINGTON, S. P.: Troisième Vague: Les Démocratisations de la fin du XXème siècle, Ed. Nouveaux Horizons, 1991 Google search: Wikipedia: the Free encyclopedia: Some Basic Principles of Democracy Kagame’s Rwanda: Can an Authoritarian Development Model be squared with Democracy and Human Rights? Andrew Friedman, Third World Approaches to International Law Conference: Capitalism and the Common Good at the University of Oregon, October 2011 Google Search: Margaret H. Marshall: Can censorship help heal Rwanda, p5, in Boston Globe, Feb 05, 2012

ABOUT HON. DR. ODETTE NYIRAMILIMO Dr. Nyiramilimo is a Rwandan Member of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) since 2007. She served as Minister of State for Social Affairs in the government of Mr. Paul Kagame from March 2000 to October 2003, and as Senator from 2003 to 2008.

As Member of the Second Assembly of EALA, Dr. Nyiramilimo introduced the EAC Conflict Management Bill in 2011 that shall see regional establishment of a Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution Mechanism (CPMR), responsible for identification of potential sources of conflict and devising response options. It further seeks to ensure provision of preemptive measures to address conflict situations, develop capacity for mediation and negotiations to forestall and diffuse conflicts and propose modalities for intervention and stabilisation of conflict resolutions.

Dr. Nyiramilimo’s life story has been profiled at length in Philip Gourevitch’s book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, which gives account of how she, as a Tutsi, prevailed against tremendous political adversity to make a professional life in Rwanda’s Hutu Power dictatorship in the years before the genocide in 1994.

She and her husband founded a private maternity and pediatrics practice in Kigali called Le Bon Samaritain (“Good Samaritan”).

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The future relationship between the developmental state and democratization in securing sustainable development in Africa

By Dr. Jakkie Cilliers (South Africa), Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies

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he Institute for Security Studies deals with broad issues of human security and development. We hope to work in support of the NEPAD Agency on long-term African futures. We believe that the sophisticated modelling that we are able to do in collaboration with our partner at Denver University in the USA, will allow us to help look at appropriate African development indicators as part of the MDG+ initiative as well as establish benchmarks to measure progress for monitoring and evaluation purposes.

I would like to invite you to view the model available on our website on African Futures to this end as well as the various video’s and multimedia at www.iss.co.za.

I was asked to speak on the future relationship between the developmental state and democratization in securing sustainable development in Africa. I base my remarks on an earlier monograph that I coauthored on ‘African Futures 2050’.

Is democracy inherently a good thing? And do democratic institutions facilitate economic development?

It appears reasonable to answer the first question affirmatively: democracy is a good thing because it facilitates free human choice and it furthers the good of political participation. Intrinsically democracy is a necessary component of the ability of individuals to live freely and autonomously. Instrumentally, it is an institutional guarantee that the policies and laws created by a government will have a reasonable fit with the fundamental interests of the people. Thus democracy is a central determinant of the quality of life, and a central element in the ability of men and women to live freely and autonomously as human beings. This is no less so in poor and developing countries than it is in the developed world.

But the answer to the second question, do democratic institutions facilitate economic development?, is an empirical one, and there is debate within the development field about the effects of electoral democracy on the development process. Some argue, for example, that the experiences of China, Korea, Taiwan, or Indonesia show that a strong authoritarian state is better able to engineer a successful process of economic development than an electoral democracy such as India (because of its ability to discipline fractious demand groups).

Since World War II over 100 nations have undergone a variety of processes of political and economic development. A large number of empirical studies have been undertaken in the past 30 years to investigate the relationship between democracy and development. The empirical case is suggestive but inconclusive. Although it has been widely established that higher levels of GDP per capita relate globally in the long run to greater democracy, the same is not true of the shorter-term relationship from democracy to economic growth. No clear linkage has been established and some even argue that democracy may, at early stages of economic development, retard rather than advance growth. The association is empirically weak, and there are

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a number of counter-examples in both directions: authoritarian regimes that have a good development record, and democratic regimes that have weak development records.

Eventually there is little support for a strong positive causal relation between democracy and development in the shorter term. In fact, the recent history of capitalism and democracy is not a happy one and the strong association that many Western scholars seek to create between these two complicate any honest evaluation of the more sophisticated and modern concepts of the social market economy, of social democracy and even of the developmental state. Unfettered free market capitalism has been found to increase rather than decrease inequality in countries such as the USA and it is evident that the financial markets and some of their destructive financial innovations require regulation and control if they are not to undermine global economic development.

Partly because democracy is not obviously a means to economic growth in the shorter term, there is unhappiness among many Africans about being lectured by the West to adopt policies that are seemingly at odds with Western experience and history, never mind those elsewhere in the world such as in Southeast Asia. In addition, practically all of today’s rich countries used subsidies, protection and regulation to develop their economies, yet today preach open markets and liberalisation to others that are at a very different stage of their development. These philosophies have generally been adopted as a result of economic growth and development and only once countries have achieved considerable levels of economic progress. Furthermore, many find the Western emphasis on democracy and individualism, as two sides of the same coin, problematic in societies that may value community as a greater good.

At least in theory, we should expect a tendency for state policies of democracies to accommodate the economic interests of the poor, and to begin to redress the antipoor tilt that is characteristic of authoritarian politics.

Eventually effective political action in support of progressive economic development policies is most likely to come into place within a context of effective electoral democracy, in the presence of an administratively competent party of the poor.

Eventually only democratic institutions give any promise of tilting economic development policies toward the interests of the larger population rather than the elite. Remember that “progressive� economic development is defined as development that is designed to result in wide distribution of the benefits of growth, significant and sustained improvement in the quality of life of the population, and significant and sustained improvement in the incomes and assets of the poor and near-poor.

Greater/more democracy can be a central means of furthering poverty-first economic development. But it is also clear, both empirically and theoretically, that broad-based electoral democracy does not unavoidably result in conferring political influence on the poor. There are constraints on the political capacity of such a party. First, there are numerous channels through which elite interests can subvert the political goals of a party of the poor. And second, there are structural constraints on the policies that such a party can advocate, let alone implement, without creating an economic crisis that worsens the condition of the poor.

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So democratization is not the only ingredient of a successful poverty- first policy, and my preceding arguments are designed merely to show that it is quite possible for democratic electoral mechanisms to lead to outcomes that neglect the poor or are positively biased against them.

Survey research shows that popular demands and support for democracy are widespread among the general public, particularly in African countries where governments have attempted political reforms. Africans value democracy both as an end and as a means to improved government policies, performance and social well-being. If the Arab spring and the growth of social media indicate one thing it is that the pressure on democracy in Africa will only increase in the future. African leaders will be hard pressed to meet these challenges. We have no choice - we have to democratize and develop within a global context that constrains the ability of government to govern. We have to fight for a place for a role for government, for our model of a developmental state.

In the short term, three key problems will continue to undermine the positive impact of elections on the democratisation process. An increasing number of elections have been affected by violence. Worse, some governments manipulate the actual or real threat of international terrorism and foreign conspiracy arguments as a justification to rig elections. Finally, although the number of elections may be increasing, the instances of political transitions from ruling to opposition parties remains limited, with a number of elections ending in stalemate and a negotiated government of national unity.

While the direct link from democracy to development outcomes is therefore historically ambiguous, it is more widely accepted that, at least over time, democratic institutions considerably improve ‘developmental governance’, including economic policy coherence, effectiveness of the public service and reduced corruption.

Moreover, there is evidence that governments that are accountable to their people are better at reconfiguring and adapting themselves in response to systemic breakdowns and emerging threats. They are better at dealing with challenges such as recurring drought, responses to conflict and other emergencies such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the impact of climate change. They are more adept and responsive in the allocation of scarce resources such as education and social services. And while the relationship between democracy and economic growth may be poor in the short term, over time democracy generates electoral incentives for politicians to compete by advocating redistribution and expanded welfare commitments.

In contrast to the less clear-cut relationship of democracy to development, there is a widely recognised relationship between governance in terms of the rule of law and absence of corruption on the one hand and economic growth on the other. There is a clear and long-term relationship between GDP per capita and the level of corruption.

Advances in GDP per capita can be linked to increased transparency. Reflected in the writings of Ha-Joon Chang and others, corruption generally declines in the longer run as a result of development. Obviously, this relationship does not ‘excuse’ high levels of corruption at low-income levels; nor should it detract from efforts to reduce them. However, it gives us reason to believe that corruption will decrease in Africa as income increases, as well as the reverse. Perhaps more cynically, I tend to believe Democracy: Cornerstone for Development www.awepa.org

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that the nature of the use of the ill-gotten gains from corruption in Africa will also change in the years that lie ahead. A discerning feature of corruption in Africa has been capital flight – the extent to which corrupt Africans remove their stolen gains from the continent to stash them in banks in the developed world or in known tax havens. This is different to the situation in countries such as Indonesia and India where corrupt income is generally reinvested locally, thus fuelling domestic growth, albeit in a skewed manner. As Africa becomes a growth pole, even criminals will start investing in the continent.

Thank you very much.

ABOUT DR. JACOBUS KAMFER (JAKKIE) CILLIERS Dr. Cilliers is the Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), which he cofounded in 1990, playing an important role in the transformation of the South African armed forces and the institution of civilian control over the military in the period 1990 to 1996.

Most of Dr. Cilliers’ interests relate to the emerging security architecture in Africa as reflected in the developments under the banner of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union as well as issues around African futures. He is an Extraordinary Professor in the Centre of Human Rights and the Department of Political Sciences, Faculty Humanities at the University of Pretoria. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) in Switzerland and as a member of the board of advisers of the Centre on International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, New York. Dr. Cilliers has presented numerous papers at conferences and seminars and published a number of books on various matters relating to peace and security in Africa. He is a regular commentator on local and international radio and television and has attended a large number of international conferences.

Born in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Dr. Cilliers has a B. Mil (B.A.) from the University of Stellenbosch and a Hons. B.A., M.A. (cum laude) and DLitt et Phil from the University of South Africa (UNISA). Awards include the Bronze Medal from the South African Society for the Advancement of Science and the H. Bradlow Research Bursary.

For more information in ISS please visit http://www.iss.co.za/.

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The Influence of Democracy on Shared African and European Values

By Ambassador Lindiwe Zulu (South Africa), Special Foreign Advisor on International Relations, South Africa

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any African parliamentarians, like me, are beneficiaries of the AWEPA study tours and training programmes. So much has happened since 1994, when we in South Africa sat in Parliament for the first time representing a people that had been deliberately shut out. AWEPA assisted us to visit a number of European Parliaments to experience their parliamentary practices. Later on we visited African Parliaments such Uganda to also share African experiences. We noted common concerns in differing contexts.

This topic, the influence of democracy on shared African and European values, makes us think of how the relationship between Africa and Europe has evolved. Leopold Senghor of Senegal once recalled in 1961: “With docility we accepted the values of the West, its discursive reason and its techniques. Our ambition was to become photographic negatives of colonisers: black-skinned Frenchman.� It went even further, for we would have blushed, if we could have blushed, about our black skin, our frizzled hair, our flat noses, and above all the value of our traditional civilization.

Our people, our cultures, our values, secretly caused us shame.

So much has changed since then, including reaction against the above-mentioned assimilation, fighting colonialism, apartheid and racism and many other forms of oppression. So much progress has been made to change the way Africa relates to itself. There is much peace and stability, more countries embracing human rights and democracy, and more acknowledgment of the role of women in society as far as ensuring their participation in decision making structures is concerned. We now have more women in African Parliaments than ever before.

Europe on the other hand, and to some degree, is looking at Africa through the eyes of Africans, and its importance is occupying new spaces and stature. Of course, it can also be said that today’s common global challenges, demands and needs compel Europe to change its attitude and its approach towards African-European relations.

There is recognition therefore that the inter-regional dialogue has to improve, if only to deal with common concerns. A lot still needs to be done.

Common challenges facing Africa and Europe today, to mention just a few, include climate change, international financial crises, terrorism, unequal relations in trade, social upheavals and the demands by citizens to be treated fairly. Democracy on the other hand has thrived in Europe, while in Africa we still argue about its definition.

Depending on the side of individual countries and individual leaders, democracy is defined according to convenience and the interests of the time.

Democracy, in my understanding, is not complicated. It has a number of key elements:

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• • • •

It speaks of respect of human rights, of freedoms as enshrined in constitutions or relevant guiding and governing instruments; It speaks of equality before the law, the rights of women, women’s emancipation and empowerment; It speaks of the rights of young people and to addressing their challenges, such as freedom from hunger and want; It speaks of accountability of leaders, but also speaks to the responsibility of citizens.

The list is long when it comes to the details. If these issues cover our understanding of democracy, they therefore also speak of our common values.

On an on-going basis, new relations between Africa and Europe are fostered to create a better life for all citizens, on both continents. The African continent is moving from colonialism, racism and under-development towards peace, security and inclusive development.

Challenges facing Africa include the following: • • • • • • •

Sustaining the peace, security and stability; Dealing with countries still in conflict, noting that their numbers have drastically been reduced; Dealing with hunger and poverty acutely plaguing some parts of the continent; Dealing with political upheavals and demands for democracy, human rights and development; Combatting terrorism and piracy; Ensuring the rights and empowerment of women; Addressing challenges facing the youth.

There is recognition of the need to pay attention to the needs of citizens. Leadership that is capable must be capable of dealing with today’s common global challenges.

There are new challenges facing both Africans and Europeans. The world as we see it today produces common economic, political and social challenges. There is interconnectedness across continents. We now all must confront global sustainability and climate change across borders.

What is to be done: • • • • • •

Understand the connectivity and inter-dependency of each other and the rest of the world; Affirm the need for and work towards equal partnership as much as possible; Accept and deal with the new challenges affecting Africa, Europe and the rest of the world; Deal with Globalization - the positive and negative elements; Take seriously issues of climate change and everything that comes with it; Develop strategies for dealing with shrinking natural resources.

Above all, we need to affirm what we think are shared and common values, Page 48

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particularly in the new environment of global economic crises, political and social challenges.

What Africa now recognises for itself: • • • • • • • • •

The need for stability and peace as a prerequisite for development; The need for democracy and respect for human rights as a cornerstone for finding friendship and support; The need for people focused policies as a basis for people to have hope; The need for good governance and good leadership as a basis for the future; The need for strong institutions that protect democracy; The need to fight poverty and underdevelopment; The need to fight corruption; The need to serve citizens and keep promises; The need to take ourselves seriously before others do.

What Europe has to recognise is: • •

• • •

The new resilience in the African continent; The inter-dependence on each other to face the similar challenges; from climate change, to terrorism, to shrinking resources, to failing international financial institutions; The need not to be selfish and self-centred but to be more outward looking; The need to be practical, realistic and create partnership; The need for fairness in engagement, equality which has always eluded us.

There is a need to see the peoples of the world as having one common interest, to save our planet for the future, for future generations. These recognitions are our common values.

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ABOUT AMBASSADOR LINDIWE ZULU Ambassador Zulu is currently the special foreign advisor to the President Jacob Zuma of South Africa on International Relations. She is also Chief Director of the Western Cape and Central Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs since 2002, and Head of the Media Department of the African National Congress Women’s League, body to whom she has been attached in the past as Member of the Working Committee and up to date as Member of the National Executive Committee. Ambassador Zulu also chairs the Women’s Empowerment Unit.

She previously served as the head of communication for the Pan-African’s women’s organisation in Angola in 1988. In 1989 she moved to Lusaka, Zambia where she held the position of head of communication in the ANC department of Religious Affairs.

After which in 1990 she moved to Uganda where she was the head of communication and administrator in the ANC office.

In 1991 she returned to South Africa where she became the head of communication in the ANC women’s league and in 1993 she became an executive committee member of the women’s league. That same year she was seconded to the ANC Department of Information and publicity as the spokesperson for the first democratic elections.

In 1994 she became a member of the Gauteng Legislature and in 1995 was appointed Deputy Speaker of the Gauteng Legislature.

In 1999, Ambassador Zulu became the special advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs a position she held until 2001. In 2001 she was appointed Chief Director for Western and Central Africa up until 2003 where she became the executive head of Government and International Relations, Vodacom group.

In 2004 she became the South African Ambassador to Brazil and in 2007 she was elected to the ANC national executive committee and in 2009 was elected to Parliament.

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About AWEPA

T

he Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) works in partnership with African parliaments to strengthen parliamentary democracy in Africa, keep Africa high on the political agenda in Europe, and facilitate AfricanEuropean parliamentary dialogue.

Strong parliaments lie at the heart of Africa’s long-term development; they serve as the arbiters of peace, stability and prosperity. AWEPA strives to strengthen African parliaments and promote human dignity. For more than 25 years, AWEPA has served as a unique tool for complex democratisation operations, from Southern Sudan to South Africa.

The pillars that support AWEPA’s mission include: •

A membership base of more than 1700 former and current parliamentarians, from the European Parliament and almost all EU member states, including Norway and Switzerland. These members devote their wide-ranging expertise to peer-learning with African colleagues • Long-term partnerships with African parliamentary colleagues which ensure local ownership and accountability • An infrastructure of political and parliamentary entry points, which spans nine African and two European offices as well as 25 parliaments in Africa and 28 in Europe, including the Pan-African Parliament and the European Parliament AWEPA’s overarching goal is to eradicate poverty and support the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, through the realisation of human rights, democracy and development in Africa.

AWEPA is an international parliamentary association that is strictly non-partisan. AWEPA has Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council and is on the list of Official Development Assistance (ODA) Eligible Organisations of OECD/DAC.

Back Cover Photo Rosa Wandria Abudalla, also known as “Mama Rosa” attended the outreach visit in Maridi County, Western Equatoria State. During the first Sudanese civil war she fought in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Currently “Mama Rosa” is the Chair of the Women’s League in Maridi, an organisation which advocates for peace and gender equality.

D

emocracy: Cornerstone of Development brings together the voices of African and European politicians and experts in a deep, practitioner-based assessment of the essential relationship between democracy and human development.

Contributors come from a variety of positions, from the NEPAD Agency CEO and the President of the European People’s Party, to representatives of African regional parliaments and networks, diplomacy and academia. This thought-provoking collection contributes to the debate on a range of challenges and opportunities that will ultimately determine the development future of Africa.

AWEPA International

Prins Hendrikkade 48-G 1012AC Amsterdam, The Netherlands t: +31 20 524 5678 f: +31 20 622 0130 e: amsterdam@awepa.org

Belgium

brussels@awepa.org

Rwanda

rwanda@awepa.org

Burundi

burundi@awepa.org

South Africa

southafrica@awepa.org

DRC

rdc@awepa.org

South Sudan

southernsudan@awepa.org

Kenya

kenya@awepa.org

Tanzania

tanzania@awepa.org

Mozambique

mozambique@awepa.org

Uganda

uganda@awepa.org

Connect with AWEPA: www.awepa.org