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"Africa's Destiny Lies in Africa's Hands"
Monday, Mar 07, 2011 in Africa Governance Initiative
This interview first appeared in the March 2011 print edition of the The New African.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is no stranger to Africa and its political and economic dispensation, during and since his premiership. Think of the Zimbabwe land reform saga, Britain's record in Sierra Leone's civil war, or the formation of the Commission for Africa which helped form the basis of the Gleneagles G8 summit that prompted the writing off of some of Africa's foreign debt burden. And indeed, his "passion" for Africa did not end with his 10-year reign as Britain's prime minister 4 years ago, He tells New African's Regina Jane Jere and Omar Ben Vedder in this interview: "Africa is a source of fascination for me...there is a different atmosphere in and around Africa and about Africa today which is very exciting." And to that end, he has set up the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), a charity that focuses on helping African governments "to build effective systems in their capacity to govern, thereby helping to reduce poverty through improved governance" He explains how in this interview.
New African: Your stand on Africa is well documented, but two of your quotes are particularly memorable: "Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world" and "No responsible leader can turn their back on Africa". Do you still hold to this premise and does it inform the concept behind the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI)?
Tony Blair: Yes partly, [I do]. I mean, Africa is a source of fascination for me. Its problems still mean that so many people die needlessly through conflict, famine and disease. On the other hand I do believe that Africa is embarking on a new era. There is a new generation of leadership, a new sense of hope and optimism and a new feeling within Africa, which I think is very exciting. However, Africa's destiny lies in Africa's hands, which I think is the single most important thing. This is and was what I always wanted to see from the process of the Commission for Africa and Gleneagles where the idea was to replace paternalism by partnership and I think that is happening. But, I think the challenges are still enormous. We only have to look at deaths from malaria and HIV/Aids and conflict that is still grotesque in many senses. But on the other hand, I think there is a different atmosphere in and around Africa and about Africa today which is very exciting, and for me [too]. I guess the AGI is a continuation post-office, of what I started when I was in office.
To clarify, the AGI is an offshoot from, the Commission for Africa, except that you are now working on this project in an unofficial capacity?
Yes, because at the heart of the Commission for Africa was this idea that it wasn't about a donor/recipient relationship but it was about a partnership. And that partnership was about African governments also taking responsibility and my view is that, yes, aid is vital for Africa but governance is the challenge. If African countries are well and effectively governed, their natural resources and the talent of their people will take them there. I always say to countries in which I work today, which at the moment are Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, that our challenge is to wave goodbye to the donor community. I mean, that's what we want. So yes, this is very much about the concepts that were developed when I was Prime Minister; now we are implementing them. In some ways, now I have got the time, I think I can probably have a biggest impact on what's happening in Africa than I could when I was the Prime Minister.
The AGI's focus at the moment is on three countries, which are all in a way postconflict. Will you be expanding to other countries, and why?
Yes, I mean we'll probably take [on] another couple of countries this year. But the idea is to make sure that we hire a team of people, typically aged between 25 and 40 who will have worked, say, in Downing Street or in government. maybe in the UK or America or elsewhere, or maybe in the private sector. I have a relationship with JP Morgan [and] they give us people that will come and work right alongside the presidents [in these countries] co help build effective systems of delivery for getting private sector investment. They also help to make sure that the president's time and policy-making is handled in the most effective way. We also work alongside and help train a cadre of people around the president. But what I learnt in government is that having the right vision is often the easy part in a way, the hard part is implementing it and so we learnt a whole set of techniques and things that, even though obviously Britain is very different from many developing countries, nonetheless, the lessons are basically the same and it's all about effective government. You know, when people talk about governance in Africa they often simply mean the absence of corruption and that is obviously extremely important, but it's not, by any stretch of the imagination, sufficient; what a lot of African countries need is really effective systems of government. So we found, for example, with the work we did in Sierra Leone that there was money set aside for delivering the maternal mortality and infant mortality programme but there wasn't a system in place to deliver it, so that's what makes the difference. Or if you're looking at agriculture in Africa, where the yields are often a fraction of what they are in developed countries, it's not that you don't have the land or the people [to develop it] but you don't have the right methods and assistance from the government to get things done, so this is what we focus on and it's really been very very successful. I think if you ask any of the three presidents we worked with they would pay tribute to that. We are really proud of the work t hat we have done.
Looking at the list of people that you partner with in these three countries, it seems there's a lot of emphasis on investment and little on the political side of things, is that the case?
Yes, because when we work with the governments, it's not my job to tell them what their priorities are - they know what their priorities are, it's my job to help them deliver them. And what a lot of African countries feel today is that they need quality private sector investment, you know, not bad deals done with the wrong type of company but quality investment. And the great opportunity for Africa is that that quality investment is waiting to come, so bring it in, making sure that you attract the right investment, and give it the right aftercare. This can then have a huge knock-on benefit for the country and it can bring in intellectual capital, which is also very important. Because all over Africa, and I don't just mean the countries we work with, we are meeting a generation of very smart young capable people. What I notice about Africa is what I noticed about India about 15 years ago. Everyone has suddenly started to realise there's a new generation of really switched-on, clever people and it's only a matter of time before they come through and start taking positions of leadership in government and in business and society.
So you're a proponent of governance but in terms of a political system you're not a proponent of any political system which you think is better than any other?
You mean democracy or nor democracy? No, I'm in favour of democracy. I mean, there's no point in us working alongside a government that doesn't want to make change in the right direction because it just doesn't work otherwise. But what we focus on is the effectiveness of government. I mean, of course we focus on the transparency, that is essential, but we focus on the effectiveness.
We don't know yet what criteria you use to choose the governments you work with. I think there is a very interesting choice with the countries that you are in at the moment. Apart from being postconflict, the choice of Sierra Leone is interesting due to the history between Britain and Sierra Leone during that country's civil war. People may be sceptical about your current initiatives in the country and be less enthusiastic there. Is that the case?
Well, you always get people who are sceptical but I would say on the whole, in each of the three countries the initiatives have been really well received because we're helping the presidents make the changes they want to make and that's the key to it, because that's what is often needed. For example, in Rwanda we helped with slimming down the whole set of different bodies that worked to attract private sector investment, we put them into one body which was the Rwanda Development Board. The staff there now are very smart, very good, very geared up to getting the investment. In Sierra Leone, the president rightly decided that his focus was to get the [electricity] lights on in the capital, Freetown, by getting the Bambuna power project working properly. That was the first thing he wanted to do and we therefore gave assistance in that. The main things are done by the countries themselves but we have an AGI team that lives there, works there. I am really opposed to the kind of fly-in fly-out consultancy. I think it's far better to have a team that's there and wants to be there.
You said as far back as 2005 that Africa is changing and changing for the better but following recent events in North Africa - in Tunisia and Egypt, countries whose economies were much more solid compared to those found in most sub-Saharan African countries - do you still hold that view and optimism?
Yes, I'm very optimistic, but one has to kind of distinguish between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa in a way. What I mean is that in the end, whatever the short-term problems are, if you get a better system of government in these countries, it is going to help the economy. If you look at Africa over the past ten years or so, the number of democracies has increased, peaceful transitions of power and elections have increased radically. As always, the trouble with having a conversation like this is that if I say I am very optimistic people will say you are ignoring the problems, but if you focus on the problems then everyone gets depressed. But the truth, I think, is that Africa is in a far better and stronger position than it was five years ago, I would even say - certainly, ten years ago.
In your memoirs, Tony Blair: A Journey, you write very little about Africa, and even then it's more about Sierra Leone. Was that an omission or was it because the book's focus was on something different?
I actually did a lot on Africa around the Gleneagles Summit and so on, but really the focus of the book was very much about domestic reform and then the foreign policy stuff was obviously heavily influenced by Iraq and Afghanistan and 9/11. But for me Africa was a big part of my Premiership and it's still a very big part of my [passion] after that.
And in terms of foreign policy, from what we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt for example, I think there's been a shift - as you mentioned at the beginning - towards home-grown solutions. Do you think that foreign policy from western countries is changing?
Well I think they [western countries] will naturally want to partner with countries moving towards greater democracy and openness and I think to be fair they always did. But if you try and interfere too much, then people resent that, so there is a balance to be struck there. However, I think what's happening in Tunisia and Egypt at one level is extremely exciting. In the case of Egypt particularly, I think it needs to be managed carefully. These changes are all to do with a new generation of people, who are saying, well look we can actually do things differently - and that's got to be good.
You have mentioned a shift away from aid, which is what you're trying to achieve in the three countries especially. It's been argued that aid takes away accountability - that the ruling classes are less accountable to their people because they are less dependent on their people. What's your view?
I think where aid meets a specific problem, for example, healthcare or HIV/Aids and so on, and where aid is helping support a government programme like, say, support for smallholders in agriculture, then aid plays a really useful role. I do think though that there are two problems that we have got to be honest about with aid. The first is that it can become a very bureaucratic interaction between government and donor community, which sometimes doesn't always mean that the donor community is meeting the objectives of the government, [or] that the government is meeting the objectives of the donor community. So that's one issue. And the second issue is that it's a bit like being on welfare in the West. The welfare system is necessary, but your objective is to get independence. That's why I always say that a country may be dependent on aid for a moment but for sure, the objective - never mind the objective of the donor community - is to get on its own feet. That is why the private sector is so important because in the end that will generate income and as people become more prosperous, then they are going to be paying taxes and then the state is not going to be dependent.
Following recent revelations by WikiLeaks, we've seen that with certain, if we might say so, darlings of the West in Africa, the ruling elite have misappropriated or been involved in certain dealings which they should not be in their position. Will your association be involved in building stronger institutions within those countries?
You are not going to get corruption out of the system either easily or within a short time-span but there is a way of building strong institutions and those strong institutions can start to carry the country to a different level of doing things. The point about corruption is very simple - it's not just that it's wrong, it's also the least efficient way of running a country because what happens is that decisions get taken on the wrong basis. So if you've got two potential partners, say in inward investment, and you give the deal on a corrupt basis, you're going to be getting a worse investment, that's for sure. What I always say to people is that, if you create a bigger cake everyone can get a fair share and do it in a fair way. The trouble with corruption is it creates a little cake and everyone fights over it. It's a kind of obvious thing to say that corruption is wrong, but what is sometimes less obvious is that corruption also stunts the growth of a country. So with AGI, one of the things that we do is always try to bring in high quality investment. The great thing about Africa today is that for the first time you are getting a broad spectrum of western companies who would come and invest in Africa on proper and transparent terms and that's not just in agriculture and resources, but in financial services and telecommunications too - you know, across the spectrum.
You support Liberia and President Johnson-Sirleaf as one of the success stories. Would you say the future of Africa probably belongs in the hands of women like this?
Yes, she's a fabulous leader obviously but the point about Africa is that we need to develop the full potential of women and that is not just about what they do socially, but what they do economically. And, you know, my wife actually has a project which is about women's empowerment in relation to business and it's really important. One lesson of the world today is that technology and capital are mobile but the great advantage you have is in human capital. Any system or society that doesn't develop its total human capital, which includes the female as well as the male population, is just squandering its future. So the case for this is absolutely overwhelming and I think it's great Johnson-Sirleaf is the first female president in Africa. Yes, let's have many more great Johnson-Sirleafs, that's what I say.
While you were Prime Minister there were two big African issues, among many that you dealt with, one was Sierra Leone, the other one which is still bubbling away is Zimbabwe. Have you got any regrets or would you have done things differently with regards to the situation in Zimbabwe?
The trouble with Zimbabwe is [pauses], I mean, did we want change? Yes. Do we still want change? Yes. Can we as Britain bring it about? No. I'm afraid in the end that the solution to that will come from within Zimbabwe. One of the myths that [President Robert] Mugabe used was this thing that we wouldn't provide money for land reform. I set aside the amount of money they needed for land reform, but one important thing was that the money had to go through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and not through his government machine, because if it went through his government machine it wasn't going to be used for the purposes for which it was directed. Therefore, that was the issue; not that we wouldn't fund the land reform, we were happy to do that. And still are, by the way!
