The Lost Continent?

THE LOST CONTINENT? Pauline H. Baker The artificiality of the states, their tribal confusion, the weakness of ideology, and the waywardness of leaders all make Africa too complicated by farfor any superpower to wade into with assurance. There L· potentialfor plunder at high riskfor adventurers, and there L· prospect offebrile escapL·mfor reporters like myself, bored with the gray monotony of the West. But sensible people these days—-foreign governments, businesses, andjournalisL·—are learning to keep out. —Xan Smiley1 Wh hile more acerbic than most, this indictment of Africa by the former editor of Africa Confidential is basically in agreement with a wide body of recent opinion, shared by African and non-African observers, lamenting the continent's demise. J. F. Ayaji, a distinguished Nigerian historian, similarly expresses his disappointment when he writes that the masses have "become victim alike of the colonial powers, the traditional elite, and of each succeeding regime." Overall, he concludes, "the most fundamental aspect of postindependence Africa has been the elusiveness of development. ... In many ways, the quality of life of the average farmer and his family in the village, or worker in the urban areas, has not improved significantly; in some respects, and in some areas, it is even worse than on the eve of independence ."2 While there has been progress in some spheres—in education and 1."Misunderstanding Africa," Atlantic Monthly (September 1982), p. 79. 2.J. F. Ade Ajayi, "Expectations of Independence," Daedalus 111 (Spring 1982), pp. 4 and 6. Pauline H. Baker is a research scientist at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Washington, D.C. She served as a professional staff member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee with principal responsibility for Africa, and as a lecturer in political science at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, where she resided for eleven years. She is the author of Urbanization and Political Change: The Politics ofLagos (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1974). 99 100 SAIS REVIEW health, in the building of roads, ports, and cities, and in the expansion of selected industrial activities—and while a handful of states are relatively better off, African nations are, on the whole, hovering near bankruptcy. "Development experts who deal with Africa have recently become aware that Africa's problems are unique in the world," reported the Chicago Tribune. "No other region is faring so badly, or facing such an alarming future."3 This dismal diagnosis is confirmed by the statistics of distress in the World Bank's authoritative report, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa : An Agenda for Action.4 Over the last twenty years, per capita income in nineteen countries grew by less than 1 percent per year. Over the last ten years, fifteen countries—one-third of the states in black Africa—actually had a negative rate ofgrowth ofper capita income. The average per capita income was $41 1 in 1979, including the oil-producing states. Death rates, population growth rates, the rates of urbanization, and the refugee populations are higher in Africa than in any other region. Life expectancy is the lowest, only forty-seven years, with a fifth of the children dying by the age of one. There is safe water for only about 25 percent of the population, and the literacy rate for the continent as a whole is barely 30 percent. Food production per person declined in the 1970s, the only area of the world where per capita agricultural output has gone down. Total debt increased from $5 billion to $32 billion between 1970 and 1979. Even under the most optimistic assumptions about the recovery of the world economy, the World Bank estimates that Africa will probably experience no growth in per capita income in this decade, and may well register a negative growth rate under less favorable conditions. Shattered economies have helped pave the way for shattered political systems, as fragile governments struggle painfully to cope with mounting food shortages, inflation, unemployment, debt, and the widespread political and social tensions spawned by domestic scarcity and financial insolvency. World public opinion has become numbed by accounts of Africa's political misfortunes, with prevailing images of Uganda's Idi Amin, the Nigerian civil war, racial conflict...