Africa and Its Diaspora Must Exert Agency

             Agency is defined as “the sense of control you feel in life, your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior and the faith in your ability to handle a wide range of tasks and situations.”  There is a lot of talk about African institutions recently as regards their perceived lack of agency.  The African Union turned 20 in July, and there are many critics who rushed to say that the continental organization of nations has not lived up to its promise.  The various conflicts and dissonance from member states is offered as proof that the AU is not as functional as promised.

            This criticism misses the difficulties inherent in melding various legal and monetary systems and even forms of government.  Efforts by the AU such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) were created to stimulate much-needed reforms, but both programs require cooperation of member states, and with the increasing number of coups and remaining undemocratic systems, that is not an easy task.  The conflict experienced on the continent prior to colonialism is what allowed foreigners to use the divide-and-conquer strategy to colonize almost all of Africa.  Even after colonial rule was ostensibly ended, neocolonialism, aided by colonial structures and embedded arrangements allowed for agency in Africa to be diminished.

            I recall being in Bamako, Mali, with colleagues some years ago and speaking with the head of the Bank of Africa there.  He listened as we described the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and how it could benefit Mali I fully implemented.  He listened but had no response until after he excused himself and went into another room.  We later learned that he was consulting with a French advisor before responding to what we were telling him.  Colonial powers embedded people like that advisor in many governments before colonial rule ended, and their mission was to ensure the continued profits for their country even at the expense of their African hosts.  In this way, African agency seemed established, but was constrained.

            It has been difficult to end all the colonial legacies.  You still see wigs and robes used in the United Kingdom, for example, being worn by African litigators and jurists.  Overly complicated paperwork continues to be used because we are told that is the way things have always been done during the colonial period.  Processing of raw commodities is still largely done in the colonial countries, and the finished products purchased back by the country of origin.  Land transportation infrastructure and air routes continue to use what was established by the colonial powers.  Many passengers of Air Afrique (myself included) would complain about how the airline was managed, especially lost luggage.  Eventually, I was told that airline systems were managed by Air France.  In all these instances, African agency wasn’t being employed.

In a skewed system under colonial rule, Africans managed to find ways to make profit out of systems that were not intended to benefit them.  Moreover, the criticism of corrupt governments ignores the involvement of outside institutions in taking advantage of regulatory loopholes and paying the bribes that are registered as part of the corrupt African practices. Now, when they are told they should do things differently, many in government and the private sector balk at change because they are not certain that the recommended reforms will be as profitable as what they have crafted. This uncertainty is what led some governments, such as in Nigeria, to originally hesitate to sign onto the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).  It is not because the vision was too complex; it was that there had to be a calculation of what would work for them in this new commercial environment in which economies were linked in a way they had not previously been connected.  Many held their breath when the Nigerians hesitated to sign on.  Can you imagine AfCFTA working well without the continent’s most populous nation?  The Secretary of Nigeria’s National Action Committee on AfCFTA, Mr. Francis Anatogu, now says his country is ready to do business under the continental economic combine.

            “What we are focusing in 2022 is understanding where the opportunities are, and we have already identified areas that are priorities for AfCFTA in terms of products and services,” Anatogu said at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Export Group Symposium.

            “At the National Action Committee, our mission and vision for the AfCFTA is to take 10 per cent of Africa’s import from the world to provide the products and services from Nigeria that are currently being supplied by other countries outside Africa, but we know that for us to achieve that, we need to focus on developing value chain in products and services.”

            Now that the Nigerians have figured out how AfCFTA can work to their benefit, they are on board with it.  They just needed to understand that it did not deprive them of agency.

            NEPAD was created to end the “beggar’s bowl” syndrome in which African governments depended on donor financing to run their countries.  Many of the AU programs were established to end dependence on donor aid. The question is whether African stakeholders will truly commit to the implementation of the AU’s Agenda 2063 plan and gather the necessary political will to enact reforms and accept rigorous and systematic monitoring and evaluation regimes to hold each other accountable for implementation. Surely African countries have the financial resources to develop themselves.  I have yet to visit any African countries in which there were not truly wealthy people. It is thus important to understand the extent to which African stakeholders continue to depend on external powers to achieve the key regional and continental priorities and expanding the continent's policy space and strategic autonomy or deploy the local resources over which they have control.  They have agency and can exert it if they really choose to do so.

            The other side of the coin, so to speak, is agency on the part of Africa’s Diaspora.  For more than a century, members of the Diaspora have made attempts to reach out to make a connection with African people and institutions for mutual benefit.  The Pan-African Conferences beginning in the early 1900s highlighted what could be if Africa and its Diaspora could work together.  However, it was too early to work then as almost all of Africa was under colonial rule.  The Honorable Marcus Garvey sent a delegation to Liberia in the 1920s, but even though it was an independent country, outside forces, as well as memories among Liberians of prior bad experiences with returning Diasporans, conspired to defeat Garvey’s intentions.  Various efforts to support Africa since then, including a massive demonstration in 1935 to demand U.S. support in opposing the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (prior to its being later called Ethiopia) to organized support for Africa independence from the 1950s on demonstrated agency on the part of the Diaspora.  However, these efforts were wide but not deep.  Many in the Diaspora didn’t see themselves as connected to Africa nor to their brothers and sisters in the Latin America and Caribbean region.  Many of us saw them as “other” and not part of the global Diaspora to which we all belong.  In fact, many African Americans didn’t see themselves as part of that Diaspora to the extent that they objected to being called African American.

            So often we’ve seen members of the Diaspora not only decline identification as members of the overall Diaspora and also refuse to accept efforts among their peers to take the next steps for common good here in America.  For example, when talk show host Tony Brown started the “buy black” campaign in the 1980s, many in the Diaspora community apparently saw that as an exclusionary effort and rejected it.  Brown was following Booker T. Washington and Garvey’s prescription for building self-sufficiency to deal with others as equals rather than supplicants.  Again, that was the basis for NEPAD. Divide and conquer has been used on Diasporans too, and it has been difficult to escape from the mindset that we are more individuals than members of a larger, indeed global, family.  Like any family, we each have different needs and perspectives, but just like successful families everywhere, it is possible to work through our individual concerns to achieve successful collaboration on areas of agreement.  We won’t be able to work with our counterparts in Africa or elsewhere in the Diaspora if we can’t even collaborate with each other where we live.

            We in the Diaspora have so far missed the golden opportunity for international unity provided by the AU in early 2003 when that body changed its charter to recognize the Diaspora as Africa’s “sixth region”.  Because we have failed to exercise our agency in organizing ourselves here in the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere, we have no current way to send approved representatives to the AU.  We must acknowledge, though, that up until a conference the AU sponsored here in December 2002, what the Diaspora meant to Africa’s leaders was those born on the continent who lived elsewhere.  Once AU officials saw the breadth of Diaspora interest in the continent at the conference they sponsored, they moved to incorporate us.  Now it is time for us take up this opportunity.

            The late Reverend Leon Sullivan in the early 1990s initiated two efforts to galvanize Diaspora investment on the continent: the Peoples Investment Fund for Africa and the Self-Help Investment Program, which also had a domestic component.  The international aspirations of both programs were frustrated by the lack of mechanisms to effectively identify and vet potential investment opportunities in African countries.  Such mechanisms exist today.  Homestrings, the Diaspora investment engagement platform established in 2012, has raised more than $30 million in 35 transactions in 13 countries.  Its 7,000 members are using their agency to provide needed finance for African ventures.  The more Diasporans who join with African counterparts to utilize our joint resources, the better. Governments can help, but we must help ourselves, using the resources we collectively have at hand.

            I’ve worked on AGOA from its inception, and I often hear complaints from people in the Diaspora that they haven’t been included in the process.  But that is just it: it is a process you can use if you try to do so.  Waiting for someone to provide an opportunity that already exists negates your agency.  Governments in the United States and Africa can highlight the opportunities under AGOA and provide a simple way to benefit, but it is up to the entrepreneur to reach out and take advantage of what is being and has been offered.  Many already have and others are getting into place to follow.  Remember, AGOA is a business-to-business proposition, but it has been operated as a government-to-government operation.  Thinking of it that way limits the ability of the businessperson to seek and confirm deals with counterparts elsewhere.  Furthermore, if we look at governments as referees of the game of trade, we can then operate from a position of agency and determine what kind of deals we want to do, and with which partners we want to do it.  In such a situation, government become the arbiter of disputes and the creator of the infrastructure necessary to operate.

            As I’ve stated previously, I see the Diaspora as the vanguard of trade and investment with Africa – not only those born on the continent or their offspring in the Diaspora, but also those of us who are African descendants have a greater ability to establish relationships that lead to long-term business relationships.  Once such relationships on the continent are established, opportunities beyond the original ideas emerge, and the personal trust we develop can be transferred to our family, friends and neighbors of any ethnic group for whom we are willing to vouch.

There is great potential for Diaspora-Africa connections.  We all just need to use our talents, experience and resources to reach out and partner with one another to the extent we can.