Through African experts delivering top quality advisory services to African policy-makers, the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET) is supporting the long-term growth and transformation of African economies.

For the first time since independence, several African countries are enjoying steady economic growth. GDP is no longer stagnant across the continent, with 16 countries having an average growth rate of 4.5% since the mid-1990s.

Yet, while countries such as Botswana and Mauritius are seen as beacons of hope for sustained growth and economic transformation, the majority of countries across the continent are still increasingly dependent on imports and overly reliant on low-productivity agriculture and the export of a limited range of natural commodities.

This contrasts starkly with the progress made by developing countries in Asia where, although per capita incomes for Africa and East Asia were the same in 1960, by 2004 East Asia’s per capita incomes were five times higher than Sub-Saharan Africa. Countries such as Korea, Malaysia and Singapore have achieved impressive economic turnarounds and growth paths by emphasizing technological innovation and supporting modern industry and services which, in turn, has led to reductions in poverty.

The key difference between the successful and less successful countries in Africa, says Dr. K. Y. Amoako, founder and President of the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), is that today’s economic beacons of hope in Africa have managed to implement locally developed and owned economic policies involving a true transformation to a diversified economy with high value-added opportunities for employment and longer-term growth.

“I believe that Africa is poised for economic transformation,” says Dr. Amoako. According to the former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), there is no doubt that development in Africa has improved considerably in the last decade. “We have seen growth rates steadily accelerating, democratic systems widely adopted, continental leadership and direction renewed and civil society rapidly expanding at the grass roots.”

But if previous attempts at poverty reduction – often backed by huge injections of foreign aid - have resulted in only limited success in dealing with the structural challenges faced by most African economies, what else can be done?

The answer proposed by the ACET team lies in a new, ambitious and comprehensive approach to tackling the interlocking problems that are impeding the growth and development of African economies. A new approach to ensure that African countries can fundamentally re-orient themselves and realize sustained economic transformation.

While there have been many previous efforts to provide research and capacity development to Africa’s policy-makers, much of this has failed to deliver real impact or to create an agenda for real change. With the establishment of ACET, Dr. Amoako and his team are taking a new approach by providing high-quality policy analysis and advisory services to African governments to address some of the policy and institutional barriers that have hampered sustained economic growth on the continent, with the objective of achieving long-term growth and transformation of African economies.

“I deeply believe that Africa must lead its own efforts to develop,” says Dr. Amoako. “For far too long the policy advice received by African governments has come from outside Africa, through international technical assistance or donor programs.”

Today’s economic beacons of hope in Africa have managed to implement locally developed and owned economic policies involving a true transformation to a diversified economy

Identifying the ‘outside-in’ approach to advisory support for Africa as a key factor in the failure in transforming African economies, ACET’s approach is to drive transformation from within through Africa’s own talent base, both within the continent and in the Diaspora.

“Today, African professionals have broad experience and solid reputations as policymakers at the national level, as senior staff of international organizations, as seasoned private sector specialists, and as first class academics,” says Dr. Amoako. However well intentioned, he notes, much of the policy advice currently available to decision makers comes directly from donors who often lack a richer understanding of the local context that African advisors could provide.

Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda and one of a number of African heads of state that have endorsed the establishment of ACET, echoes this view, pointing out that for Africa to become “a viable actor in the global economy,” it is imperative that “we nurture home grown approaches in developing both short-term and longer-term strategies.”

It is with this focus that ACET, with its headquarters in Accra, Ghana, is aiming to attract highly qualified African talent from the Diaspora to contribute solutions to the most challenging problems facing the continent.

Combining their external experience with their inside knowledge of Africa, ACET will be fielding a team of experts to access and influence African policy makers at the highest levels, providing them with an African perspective on policy analysis and research that translates to country-specific applications and advice. ACET’s approach will focus on the “how-to” of policy reforms, drawing on practical experiences and best practices from within and outside Africa.

In instances where the required package of advisory services extends beyond its available core Secretariat capability, ACET will identify and collaborate with a range of external advisors. ACET will seek to deploy African professionals possessing broad experience and solid reputations as policy makers at the national level, as senior staff of international organizations, and as seasoned private sector specialists to provide advice that bridges analysis and practice.

ACET’s approach to delivering advisory services recognizes that economic reforms involve technical, political and institutional issues. The use of top-level expertise, within Africa and for Africa, that is sensitive to its local political and economic particularities and nuances but also aware of the need for urgent decisive reforms, will lead to not only better quality advice but also speedier and more acceptable action.

The benefit of ACET’s approach has been recognised by African leaders, including Tanzanian President Kikwete, who notes that “for poor countries like Tanzania, this can only lead to better policies that can help accelerate poverty reduction and spur economic growth.”

Liberia’s President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is another African head of state excited by ACET’s engagement with Africa’s Diasporan professionals. “I am particularly attracted to the idea of an African-led expertise dedicated to tackling the strategic issues of significance to Africa’s development. This will give meaning to African ownership of Africa’s destiny.”

“Harnessing existing domestic capacities, tapping the expertise and talents of the African Diaspora, and promoting knowledge sharing across countries are the issues that stirred me into forming ACET”.

By drawing on consultants, wherever possible, from the African region and continent and by creating a mechanism for readily accessing capable African talent both on the continent and in the Diaspora, says Dr. Amoako, ACET will fully leverage this greatly under-utilized pool of capacity to address some of the systemic weaknesses of current advisory models.

“Harnessing existing domestic capacities, tapping the expertise and talents of the African Diaspora, and promoting knowledge sharing across countries are the issues that stirred me into forming ACET”.

ACET has an ambitious vision for the continent, which it intends to deliver through a unique integrated approach.

In order to deliver holistic solutions, these advisory services will be supported and enhanced by a combination of both research and capacity building services that will ensure that the outcome of engagement with ACET is not just about a well written report but about transformational results delivered on the ground.

ACET’s distinctive value will therefore come from the interaction between policy advisory services to help policy-makers in African governments respond effectively to specific challenges and opportunities, its policy analysis and research – leveraging its network of local think tanks across the continent – and institutional strengthening and skills building which will place ACET Fellows drawn from skilled African professionals in medium and long-term supporting roles in governments.

In order to build and maintain a distinctive set of advisory capabilities, ACET will focus its interventions on a few key areas that it believes can have the most transformational impact. The expertise of both the organisation’s core team of staff at its Accra headquarters and its roster of African and non-African experts will centre on Trade and Competitiveness, Effective Natural Resources Management, Financial Sector Reform and Private Sector Development.

In addressing trade and competitiveness, ACET’s approach will focus on the supply side drivers of competitiveness such as regional integration, robust infrastructure and well-calibrated regulation. With effective natural resources management, ACET will tackle the paradox that Africa’s resource-rich countries have actually performed more poorly on most measures than many less endowed neighbours. Financial sector reform is also seen as critical as transformation remains impossible without financial systems geared towards channelling capital to businesses and offering personal financial management tools to Africans at different income levels.

In addressing private sector development, ACET is looking at disseminating informative analytical tools and educating policymakers on the business environment challenges facing the private sector, and particularly, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in stimulating broad based economic growth.

To ensure that African governments have the capacity to implement transformative initiatives, ACET will be piloting a Fellows Programme that will provide governments with access to promising Fellows and Associates to address specific targeted capacity gaps in potentially transformative areas of their policy apparatus.

In the process, the Fellows programme will also help to produce a cadre of well trained new development leaders with experience of working with decision-makers at the highest levels.

ACET will identify a range of candidates for placement with the Fellows programme through a rigorous intake process to attract top talent with strong professional and academic backgrounds. This pool of potential Fellows will be provided with training in ACET’s methodology and resources before being assigned for periods of one to two years.

Part of what makes ACET distinctive is its unique access to African leaders and policy-makers, based largely on the reputation and strong networks of its Founder, its Board of Directors and its Advisory Board.

The Centre has already successfully delivered an analysis of key lessons learnt from African post-conflict experiences in Rwanda and Mozambique at a Cabinet retreat convened by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Subsequently the Liberian government has requested additional support in identifying high priority infrastructure projects and developing innovative funding and implementation mechanisms for these, as well as broader advice on how to approach the country’s medium term Poverty Reduction Strategy.

In Ghana, where the organisation is based, ACET has begun to deliver support to the government around policies for guiding its management of aid resources and its relations with development partners in the run up to the Accra High-Level Forum. The Ghana Government has also requested ACET’s assistance in implementing its evolving strategy to manage new oil and gas finds, in ways that would minimize the country’s exposure to typical features of the resource curse.

“Country-specific policy advice must be derived from practical research, comprising best practices, case studies and innovative thinking.”

ACET has also embarked on an initial wave of independent research looking at the prospects for long-term economic transformation in Botswana, Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. These case studies will seek to leverage examples from Asia to identify potential drivers of success for these very different countries and hopefully draw out some broader implications for the continent as a whole. The studies will be presented at an ACET seminar in July 2008 in Accra which will be chaired by Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, the chair of ACET’s Advisory Board.

Transforming Africa is not about imposing a ‘one size fits all’ solution, as ACET is keen to point out.

“I believe that the transformation that African economies are poised to undertake requires that we think through and implement practical solutions to specific economic challenges,” says Dr. Amoako.

With this approach, he adds, “country-specific policy advice must be derived from practical research, comprising best practices, case studies and innovative thinking.”

While high-level policy advice provided by ACET will help improve the quality of policy decision-making in Africa, the organisation also aims to have an impact over the longer term.

To this end, ACET will act as a catalyst to engage the research, policy analysis and advisory capacities of African think tanks, Diaspora researchers and development managers in the policy process, encouraging them to focus on the key drivers of economic growth and transformation.

ACET’s research agenda, like its advisory services, will be structured around the four identified areas and will look beyond the specific concerns of any one client to identify broader trends with implications for transformation efforts.

A key feature of ACET’s research approach will be a case study-based method that recognizes that the most practical lessons for countries will likely be derived from a good understanding of the experience of others and how that may or may not be relevant to their own context. This integrated method, comprising research, advisory and institution strengthening, will help African governments improve their capacities to develop and implement stronger economic policies and to take deeper ownership of the development process. This, in turn, will result in a considerable improvement in the impact and sustainability of plans for economic growth and development.

In order to deliver on its vision, ACET will combine a Secretariat made up of a small core staff headquartered in Accra charged with coordinating ACET’s various operations and programmes and combining leadership capacity in each of ACET’s substantive activities, with a range of affiliated resources including ACET Fellows and international expert advisors.

ACET is actively recruiting for these roles and, to attract the appropriate talent for these roles, the organisation is offering compensation that is comparable to other major international civil service organizations and including benefits such as health coverage.

Through ACET, African professionals around the world have a vehicle to bring their skills to bear in transforming a continent that, says Dr. Amoako, is on the brink of a new renaissance.

Macroeconomic stability is becoming the norm instead of the exception, with inflation at historic lows and budget deficits declining. Foreign direct investment and other capital flows, including remittances and portfolio investments, have increased sharply.

“It is an auspicious time to build on the progress made so far to create stronger, more diverse economies, competitive local private sectors, more facilitative investment climates, and deeper pools of skilled, technical human resources.”

For further information about ACET: http://www.acetforafrica.org/index.html

Vera Ng'oma interviews leadership expert Dr Marshall Goldsmith to find out his views on motivation, inspiration and management.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority on helping successful leaders get even better – by achieving positive, lasting change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams.

In 2009 Dr. Goldsmith was recognized as one of the fifteen most influential business thinkers in the world in the bi-annual study sponsored by The Times of London and Forbes magazine. The American Management Association named Marshall as one of 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years. He has written 27 books and his articles are available at www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com.

Vera Ng'oma (VN): At its core what is leadership?

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith (MG): Leadership can be defined as working with and through OTHERS to achieve objectives. The key word in this definition is OTHERS. One of my favorite CEO clients noted that, "for the great achiever it is all about me – for the great leader it is all about them".

VN: Can anybody/everybody be a leader?

MG: As long as we are working with and through others to achieve objectives, we already are leaders! The more important question is, "Can leaders get better?" My partner, Howard Morgan, completed research with over 86,000 respondents which documented how leaders who receive feedback, then follow-up with key stakeholders in a disciplined and frequent manner, almost invariably become more effective – not as perceived by themselves, but as perceived by their key stakeholders.

VN: What do you see as the biggest threat to great leadership?

MG: The greatest problem of already successful leaders is ego. This is manifest in 'winning too much' or 'adding too much value' – as I discuss in 'What Got You Here Won't Get You There'.

VN: What should managers do with people who have peaked in their organization?

MG: I never believe in stereotyping people. Anyone who does not have an 'incurable genetic defect' can improve. Some people may not ever be promoted again, but can still become more effective, if they choose to work at it.

VN: Leadership is more convened with competence than character these days?

MG: I believe that the press focuses on the negative examples of leadership and ignores the positives. I work with many leaders who have great character. Every organization should have a 'zero tolerance' policy on integrity violations.

VN: Should leaders in the workplace take a more democratic approach?

MG: Peter Drucker once said that, "The leader of the past knew how to tell. The leader of the future will know how to ask." Most of the leaders that I meet today manage knowledge workers.

What is the definition of a knowledge worker? They know more about what they are doing than their boss. If we manage knowledge workers, we cannot just tell them what to do and how to do it. We have to ask, listen and learn.

VN: When employees show leadership, what sorts of things would they typically do?

MG: Employees who demonstrate leadership learn how to influence without line authority. They are focused on 'making a difference' – not 'proving how smart they are'. They recognize that all decisions are made by the people who have the power to make these decisions – and learn how to maximize their impact on these decision makers.

MG: Empowerment, unlike integrity, is not always a good idea. Empowerment only works with employees who are motivated, knowledgeable, skilled and confident. With the right people empowerment is a wonderful leadership style – with the wrong people it is a disaster.

VN: Some think inspiration is overrated. Is an inspiring leader able to achieve more?

MG: Inspirational leaders increase the odds of engaged employees – employees who will go the 'extra mile' to help the organization. Engaged employees lead to increased productivity.

VN: Should the leader's 'MOJO' (positive spirit) seek to influence the company culture?

MG: MOJO is 'that positive spirit – toward what you are doing – now – that starts from the inside – and radiates to the outside'. Leaders who are high in MOJO consistently communicate that they are happy to be doing what they are doing – and that they find their work to be meaningful. What kind of message do leaders who have no MOJO send? I am miserable and this work is meaningless. The positive communication of happiness and meaning can build a culture. The negative message can destroy a culture.

VN: How can an organization effectively grow its people?

MG: I am very excited about peer coaching. Several studies that have been conducted show how it can help create better leaders at a very low cost to the company

VN: How can a leader breed greater trust?

MG: Lead by example – not by 'preaching'.

The South Africa-Washington Internship Programme is helping to inspire, prepare and support new generations of leaders for South Africa.

SAWIP is a non-profit youth leadership and service programme that recruits exceptional university students who have a record of leadership and service. It is an extension of the successful 15 year old Washington-Ireland Programme for Service and Leadership (WIP) which was initiated in 2006.

At an event held in South Africa House in London to raise awareness of the programme, successful SAWIP Interns talked about the benefits of the programme and how it has refocused their efforts to give back to South Africa.

SAWIP has a vision of a South Africa with strong leaders who have a global perspective and who serve others with humility and integrity and, in so doing, inspire future generations to do the same.

Starting as a pilot in 2007, the SAWIP programme has now been entrenched and is playing a vital role in bringing students from diverse backgrounds, with differing opinions, to participate in a leadership programme which spans six months. During this time they develop a deeper understanding of leadership for service, sharpening their communication, public speaking and critical thinking skills.

Each year SAWIP selects 15 or so diverse students from universities across South Africa for the leadership programme. Over the course of the programme, they find the prejudices that they have grown up with are broken down, enabling them to lead in society in a way that transcends cultural barriers.

SAWIP enables students from South Africa to undergo professional work experience internships in Washington DC at some of the most prestigious institutions, including congressional offices, government departments, non-profit orgnisations and business and diplomatic offices. During these internships students work in highly competitive environments, learning skills to help equip them as future leaders within South Africa.

Community service is also heavily emphasised in order to promote active citizenship and students are required to perform 30 hours of individual community service with a project of their choice both prior to leaving for Washington DC and as part of a SAWIP team project on their return home.

"Our lives were inexplicably changed and deeply impacted by this programme," said Emma Margetts, an alumnus of the 2009 programme who spoke of her experience with SAWIP.

An intensive and rigorous selection process was followed by the six month leadership programme which included two months in Washington. Living with a host family also helped to extend her cultural education.

As part of an alumni network that continues to lead through service, SAWIP participants are "bonded for life", said Margetts, in a group that transcends racial and socio-economic boundaries. Instead there is only one denominator – passion, with a commitment and drive for the betterment of the country.

"I am more proudly South African today than I have ever been," she says. Instead of thinking of money as the problem, change has to come from within, from our human capital, she added, "and that is exactly what SAWIP is."

"All of us are committed to Project South Africa," said Sabelo Mcinziba, another 2009 SAWIP alumnus.

"As a young nation recovering from a long history of racial conflict, we would be profoundly mistaken to think that a political victory is enough for us to unwind the damage of apartheid," he said.

Mcinziba spoke of the need for a psychological transformation within South Africa, given the deeply entrenched separation, fear and misunderstanding of each other that apartheid engendered.

"In South Africa we know of each other, but we know each other on a very limited basis," he explained. "If we merely tolerate people, we have no time to love them."

SAWIP, he said, employs a simple but far from simplistic approach by making students learn through exposure to people and places they would otherwise not have come across. These encounters challenge them to think differently, not only of others but also of themselves; for as they get to know others, they also get to know themselves.

"All the clouds of separation that engulf us in South Africa fall away."

"Looking at South Africa from the outside, you start seeing that the way out is not too difficult," he observed.

On his return from Washington, Mcinziba gained an internship in the South African parliament serving with the Africa Desk in the International Relations Unit, and is clear about the requirements of a SAWIP alumni.

"The South Africa part of the programme is a programme for life in that we have to demonstrate what we mean by a post-SAWIP family. We don't talk change; we do change. Change is most effective when it begins in the mind; not by tolerance, but by love and understanding."

Now open for applications, the British Council Strategic Leaders Programme offers you a unique opportunity to join African and British leaders in addressing today's pressing challenges.

The British Council is the United Kingdom's international cultural relations organisation. Since it was established, the organisation has grown into a global force with a presence in over 100 countries around the world, with teaching centres that provide over one million classroom hours a year.

Since 1934, the British Council has had a presence in Africa and today it works in 23 countries throughout the continent to build mutually beneficial relationships and increase awareness of the UK's creative ideas and achievements. Each of its centres offers a different range of services, including cultural events, student exchange programmes and study visits to promote opportunities in UK education, teach the English language and promote arts and innovation as well as professional networking.

British Council Strategic Leaders Programme

The British Council Strategic Leaders Programme, one of the organisation’s flagship programmes, is an 8-day cutting edge international programme for high level African and UK leaders in the public, private and community sectors. Now open to applications, the programme offers a unique opportunity to address new challenges in this interconnected world through access to inspirational and professional senior leaders from the UK and 19 African countries and using innovative learning tools.

It is a unique experiential learning programme, delivered over a period of three months, by a team of highly-qualified and experienced facilitators and respected practitioners from Africa and the UK.

"Being the largest international cultural relations organisation, it is our belief that when people engage positively they benefit from the richness of diversity," says Alan Addison, the Strategic Leaders Programme Manager.

"In the Strategic Leaders Programme we bring together leaders at or near CEO level, adopting the British Council's distinctive leadership approach and using speakers, alumni, a facilitator team, and our consortium links which include Exeter University Centre for Leadership Studies and Manchester University Business School."

Global Leadership with an Edge

The Strategic Leaders Programme is an innovative programme that focuses the skills of professionals and builds on participants' experience to deliver high performance for their organisation; imparts skills to help them understand and motivate their work force so as to accelerate sustainable change inside and outside their organisation and build networks with senior professionals.

"Leaders strengthen their capacity to understand their own role, to envision, to bring out the best in their team and lead others into a successful strategic transformation of organisation or company," says Alan.

The programme has proved hugely successful and is now highly sought after by senior African and UK professionals from private, public and non-governmental sectors. Asked why people should seek to participate, the message from the British Council is clear. "Because it works," says Alan. "The British Council has run the programme for four years in the UK and in twenty African countries. Over 3,000 leaders now use its tools to understand better their own role as leaders, and to bring out the best in their teams."

"It is a unique opportunity to engage, learn and network within and across multi-cultural environments," Alan explains. "It is a chance to learn how to lead change with a new focus, energy and understanding. It is not just about business but about seeking new ways to achieve the 'Triple Bottom Line' of 'People, Planet and Profit'."

Learning within an Appreciative Inquiry framework and Systems Thinking, participating businesses or organisations can establish new mutually beneficial relationships for their employees, stakeholders, shareholders and customers.

By the end of the programme, participants will have strengthened key leadership competencies, explored opportunities to establish new partnerships, gained insights and tools to achieve core objectives whilst respecting people and preserving the environment, and planned action to make the change for the organisation.

"The Programme enables you to clarify what you and your organisation stands for," says Alan. "To raise your ambition levels through inspiration from many new voices and continuing to grow your confidence as one of a global community of leaders making positive change in Africa and the UK. It develops your skills based on proven experience of what works and how transformation happens, and increase your impact to address new challenges and business opportunities through networking, partnerships and collaborations."

The methodology of the programme is highly interactive. "No lectures!" says Alan. Instead they offer highly effective experiential learning led by professional and skilled African and UK facilitators and continually updated to include the latest thinking and best practice. Participants are given space for cross-cultural conversations and mutual learning, while further learning also comes from international Guest Speakers with global and organisational insights.

Leadership with Purpose

The programme is structured into 2 phases: a 'Doing and Learning Phase' between 11 and 14 January 2010 in London, followed by 4 days in Johannesburg from 8 to 11 March 2010 for the 'Living Leadership Phase'.

Alumni of previous programmes include the Botswana Local Government ministry, cabinet members of countries including Malawi and Cameroon, delegates from the Commonwealth Heads of Government and UN Economic Commission and local government ministers from Botswana.

Those interested in joining the 2010 programme have until 11 December to contact the British Council and the selection process will be rigorous. Those selected will typically be responsible and/or accountable for the present and future success of their business, organisation or department.

They will need to be passionate about leading successful, sustainable change, not only for their organisation or company, but also for humanity. Given the diversity of participants, those selected will need to demonstrate their interest in working effectively with different cultures.

"We are looking for people who are dynamic, enthusiastic and make things happen," says Alan. "Our vision is to bring a large cohort of African leaders together with UK leaders, to focus and produce leadership that generates sustainable solutions to the real and pressing challenges we now face in Africa and throughout the globe."

A new US survey shows that MBA students want changes in their curriculum to address the social impact of business.

As business leaders struggle to guide their companies through the current economic turmoil and regain the public trust in their ability to do so, future leaders are thinking about what they are learning in business school and wondering if they will have the skills necessary to navigate future crises.

Focusing on the Long-Term

"New Leaders, New Perspectives: A Survey of MBA Student Opinions on the Relationship between Business and Social/Environmental Issues," finds that students have mixed feelings about how well they are being prepared to manage such challenges.

Conducted in the last months of 2008 by Net Impact in partnership with the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education, the survey gathered the opinions of 1,850 MBA students, representing over 80 graduate business programs. Nine out of ten respondents say that a focus in business on short-term rather than long-term results has been one of the contributing factors to the global financial crisis. Just 24% of respondents strongly agree that they are learning how to make business decisions that will help avert similar crises.

In addition, a majority of the students surveyed strongly agree that there is a need for business schools to introduce other financial models into the curriculum, specifically models that take long-term social impacts into account.

"The costs of short-term focus in business are no longer a subject for debate. The reality of its toll on the economy is painfully obvious, from Wall Street to Main Street," says Judith Samuelson, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. "Students are right to be concerned about what they are learning, since it will be their responsibility as future business leaders to help restore the financial health of and public trust in U.S. business."

The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education equips business leaders for the 21st century with a new management paradigm—the vision and knowledge to integrate corporate profitability with social value. To that end, it provides educators with cutting edge classroom resources and creates peer networks to incorporate social and environmental stewardship into teaching, research and curriculum development. Aspen CBE is part of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, an organization dedicated to developing leaders for a sustainable global society.

'Social Responsibility is a Profitable Business Practice'

"It is clear that the next generation of business leaders realize that the resources and skills that business can provide are crucial to solving the problems facing our world," says Liz Maw, Executive Director of Net Impact. "More importantly, they also recognize that being socially responsible is a profitable business practice and are eager to use their business skills to create positive global change."

Net Impact is a global organisation of students and professionals using business to improve the world. The organisation offers a portfolio of programmes and initiatives to educate, equip and inspire its more than 10,000 members to make a tangible difference through business. Spanning six continents, its membership is one of the most influential networks of students and professionals in existence today and includes current and emerging leaders in corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, non-profit management, international development and environmental sustainability.

The survey also reveals that MBA students see issues such as healthcare, energy consumption and sources of energy, and the quality of public education as very important factors for CEOs of U.S. corporations. Yet, they say that their business schools place moderate or little emphasis on these challenges.

In addition, respondents agree that the curriculum at their schools should include more content related to sustainability and corporate responsibility. And, while less than a third of the students surveyed believe that corporations are working towards the betterment of society, they definitely think that the for-profit sector should play a role in addressing social and environmental issues and that being responsible leads to corporate profits.

While the current financial crisis has many students re-thinking their career objectives, most respondents to the survey feel that their job prospects upon completion of their degree are very good. That optimism wanes, however, the closer they get to graduation.

An executive summary, as well as the full report of the survey, can be found at http://www.netimpact.org/perspectives

By Frances Williams

As the African continent struggles to retain and build on its capacity for democracy and the rule of law, the role and nature of leadership – whether social, economic or political - is one that must concern us all.

What makes a leader? What inspires someone to raise their head above the parapet and answer a call to service? And, once in power, what keeps a leader grounded in reality and able to resist the many sycophantic voices that will want to acclaim even his or her less than heroic exploits?

I was extremely grateful for the chance to pose some of these questions to a man who has raised his head above the parapet of privilege to stake a claim for what he sees as equity and justice.

Mbhazima Shilowa, the former Premier of Gauteng Province of South Africa (which takes in the country’s biggest city, Johannesburg), is one of the leaders of the Congress of the People (COPE), a new political party launched in South Africa in December 2008.

As South Africans head to the polls in their forthcoming elections, COPE, which has been described as a "breakaway" group from the ruling ANC, has generated controversy and excitement in equal measures. Whether or not COPE succeeds in ending the ANC's hold on power, what is clear is that the launch of this party is the most significant political event since South Africa's liberation in 1994. It has offered an alternative choice to South African voters and dramatically altered the political scene in the country for the foreseeable future.

Born in 1958, Mbhazima Shilowa moved to Johannesburg to seek employment and, at the age of 23, joined the Trades Union movement. From the position of Shop Steward, Mr. Shilowa rose to become Deputy Chairperson of the Congress of South African Trades Union (COSATU) Gauteng before taking up the position of Vice-President and later President of the Transport and General Workers Union.

In 1993, as General-Secretary of Cosatu, Mr. Shilowa played a key role in the National Economic Development and Labour Council, engaging extensively with both government and business in determining strategies and practical options for developing South Africa. He also participated in the Mass Democratic Movement prior to the unbanning of the ANC and was involved in the multiparty negotiations process which led to the writing of South Africa's democratic constitution.

From 1997, Mr. Shilowa was a Member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC and became Premier of Gauteng Province from June 1999 until his resignation in 2008, following the recall and removal from office of former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, by the ANC. At the time, Mr. Shilowa described the ANC National Executive Council's action as one he could not "publicly explain or defend" and that any action taken by the ANC had be "based on solid facts, be fair and just."

During his recent visit to London, ReConnect Africa was given an exclusive interview with Mr. Shilowa, a man who has been pivotal in electrifying the South African political scene over the last six months.

Facebook savvy, articulate and passionate, Mbhazima Shilowa is the very model of the new generation of African leaders. Deliberate and measured in his use of words, Mr. Shilowa exhibits the controlled energy of a man on a mission and with little time to waste in getting his message across.

His passion for his country is evident as we talk about leadership, not only in South Africa, but across the continent.

Mr. Shilowa prefaces our discussion by emphasising that South Africa is bigger than any party and any man.

"What it is important for us all to realise," he says," is that the country will endure, no matter the political direction. Sometimes it's easy to feel a sense of hopelessness but we have got to start on the basis that our people have the capacity to ensure that, regardless of challenges, there will always be a way to respond. We must deal with the leadership issues and the challenges they present, but democracy has taken root."

MS: Leadership is shaped by both your values and your environment – where you were born, who you grew up with, who you associated with, whose politics you espoused. All of these have helped to shape me as a leader. I view leadership as the ability, in any given situation, to find a way to survive and to move out of it.

When I was asked to go to Gauteng, it was seen as a new experiment in leadership as I was in the Trades Union movement. After the elections, there was very little time for the transition but I was able to put together a team of dedicated men and women – some of whom had been in local and municipal government. Together with them, I was able to identify what we needed to do to grow the economy, create jobs and focus on the issues of the poor.

We may not have achieved everything but, over time, we were able to look back with pride to say that the plough is in the furrow.

RCA: What principles or values led you to recently give up such a high profile position as Premier of Gauteng Province?

MS: I would say a number of things. Primarily it would have been when the judgement around the South African government was taken. [In declaring the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA's) decision to charge Zuma invalid, Judge Chris Nicholson said the South African President or the cabinet had interfered in the functioning of the NPA]

The decision by the ANC [to recall Mbeki] was taken on the basis of what the judge said in his commentary – which was not even part of the official judgement. I said then that if we go that route, as was taken, we will split. I knew that I was not going to be able to toe the line because I felt that the issues and the approach taken by the party were wrong. I didn't feel that I could keep quiet about a matter that I felt so strongly about.

This [decision] wasn't so much the spark, but more the straw that broke the camel's back. At that point many others were raising issues about what was happening in our organisation, how people were being treated, and so on. So for me, it came down to issues around honesty, integrity, solidarity, humaneness and the rule of law.

My position was not about whether they should have recalled Mbeki but that you cannot have a situation where a Justice Minister is named in a judgement and stays while the leader goes. If they had said that the entire cabinet should go, I would have felt that there had been no singling out of an individual.

MS: In the COPE manifesto, we say that, in some respects, it's the whole issue of commitment to serve rather than being for me, my family and my friends. It's about ensuring the prudent use of resources rather than seeing the state coffers as mine.

It must be about honesty, values and integrity; it must be about leaders who are above reproach to the greatest extent possible.

MS: While many people did not expect the final outcome – and did not like it – what we took to heart is the fact that the Ghanaian people accepted it. That is the essence of democracy; to understand that there's always another day.

MS: I think the UK is unique in the sense that the majority of South Africans here regard themselves as South Africans and have kept ties with their country. In the South African context, it has been mainly about people travelling to the UK for job opportunities and they have retained a deep love of South Africa. This is the message that comes across from my friends on Facebook.

But their skills remain required. There is a brighter future in South Africa with them participating. It is the poorer without them.

At the same time, in a globalised world, people will move to other areas to seek what they feel are greener pastures so it is more about how we ensure that new skills, resources and entrepreneurship can be placed back in South Africa.

MS: My mother. Because she inspired in me my values – and also no sense of entitlement. We grew up very poor but, throughout my early years, I had no sense of how poor we were because she always found the means and ways of providing. However, she never tried to solve all my problems for me, but rather encouraged me to explore to find my own answers against a framework of honesty and integrity.

My mother may have had enemies but I don't know anyone, right from my childhood until she passed away aged 82, who could say that they were my mother's enemy.

MS: To be yourself. Also, from my uncles on both my father and my mother's sides, I was told that no matter how successful you may think you are; always remember that you are up there because someone lifted you up.

That you are standing on someone's shoulder and you would not be there if someone had not helped you get there.

MS: That, in life, you will always have ups and downs; life is never smooth sailing. You discover many areas; some you get to know, to like and to explore even further. With others, you learn and don't want to go back. The way I see it is that the 'good' experiences are the ones that help you succeed and give you strength and that you want to revisit.

The other experiences are what you must learn from in order not to repeat them and to never go back there.

…or 11 Ways to Run the Meeting from Hell!

Often described as the biggest time wasters in the workplace, meetings can sometimes feel like hell on earth. Lin Sagovsky offers a few tongue-in-cheek suggestions of what NOT to do to get the most out of those inevitable gatherings.

1. With all meetings, the more the merrier, especially if most people there haven't a clue why they're in the room.

2. Make sure everyone sits on either side of a long, long table. People will then be forced to lean forward to hear what's being said at the far end. (If there are too many people in the way to do that, tough. Anyway, it might keep people marginally more engaged if they're constantly yo-yoing about with others who are blocking their view.)

3. If you have regular meetings with the same people, make sure everyone always sits in the same place. Glare at anyone who dares to make a move to sit somewhere different.

4. Dispense with introductions at the start - that's just wasting time.

5. Never allow jokes. Business meetings should be serious stuff at all times.

6. Never ask any individual for a comment or opinion. Or if you do, be sure to pounce on someone at the most unexpected moment. (That'll teach them to pretend they're shy.)

7. If people wander off the agenda, that's fine - meetings are meant to bring stuff to the surface that might not get said otherwise. Actually, better still - don't have an agenda: keep things freeform.

8. Never paint yourself into a corner by committing to a particular end time for the meeting. Let people leave when they have to. (Or say they do.)

9. If everyone talks at once, let them. In all probability no-one's saying anything worth listening to and they'll probably shut up eventually.

10. If someone's audibly sighing a lot or rolling their eyes and 'tutting' at what's being said, show that you can rise above their sulking or passive aggression by ignoring it. Alternatively, make pointedly sarcastic remarks about it to someone else.

11. Defer as many decisions as possible to the next meeting.

Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba has been described as "dynamic", "in-touch" and "a breath of fresh air". And even a brief meeting with the newly appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth is ample evidence that she is all of these things.

From Botswana, Ms. Masire-Mwamba took up office on 2 June 2008 and reports to the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma on political affairs, legal and constitutional affairs and youth affairs. A graduate of the University of London and the holder of an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, USA, Ms. Masire-Mwamba also oversees the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Corporate Services Division, Human Rights Unit and HR section.

Formerly the Chief Executive of Botswana’s Investment Promotion Agency (BEDIA), Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba has held a number of high level positions, including Group Manager of Corporate Business and Regulatory Affairs for the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation and UK Business Development Manager for the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation.

During the course of a fascinating conversation, I asked Ms. Masire-Mwamba to share her views about leadership, women and the changing face of Africa.

FW: Can you tell us about your career and what has brought you to this position?

MM-M: I always saw my role in development and I found it difficult to map out my career as I started in the science field and had difficulty in seeing how to apply this to development.

I then moved into telecommunications development; a sector which is not just an enabler but is also good for development of industry, which in itself impacts on development. I wanted to go beyond telecoms and to look at other challenges of socio-economic development. For a time, I was also engaged in investment promotion. This was fascinating as it causes you to look at the challenges of infrastructural and institutional development. This was the pull that really interested me in pursuing the Commonwealth as a further platform where I could continue to engage.

FW: In today’s world, how do you feel that the role of Commonwealth is relevant?

MM-M: I think the role of the Commonwealth is extremely relevant and is highly appreciated by the membership. The testament to this is the continual engagement and interest by countries not in the Commonwealth to become members.

What draws people to the Commonwealth? It is a forum based on shared values and a communality of experiences and offers an opportunity for sharing best practice and learning and sharing from each other. The Commonwealth has 53 member states including both developing and developed countries. This results in a spectrum of opportunities and experiences from which countries can grow and learn and which also offers the freedom to associate with those you want to.

FW: How do you feel your gender impacts on your role as a leader?

MM-M: There are probably two issues here. Firstly, there are relatively few women at this level of leadership which raises the challenge of association and of being able to network with like-minded women.

But for me, from a professional point of view, being a woman at this level is really not such a big issue for me personally. Having a support structure, camaraderie and assistance in getting over certain things is more important. But then, maybe because of my background as a telecoms engineer, I have always been in a male-dominated sector so I have probably developed the ‘tool kit’ I need to manage.

FW: Women have been making headlines in recent times in terms of political leadership. Do you see this as an exception or the start of more to come?

MM-M: I think it is a fascinating and very welcome development. The perspective women bring to the table will benefit mankind much more significantly. It is fascinating to see women coming through into leadership roles in business and politics and we have short-changed ourselves by reducing women’s contribution and role in business and politics.

FW: How do you believe that Africans abroad can support the drive to increase investment back into the continent?

MM-M: In terms of investment, I think we all have a role to play. Development is about making a country more visible and engaging with leadership.

There are various levels of engagement that we can have with our home countries that will assist development. Supporting investment involves having a definition and a realisation of opportunities. It involves finding out about your country, knowing and appreciating what your country has to offer and making investors better aware of the opportunities.

We should ask ourselves "what are the challenges of my country and how can I help?" In parallel, we should consider how we can raise the level of awareness and define the opportunities we have to assist potential investors.

FW: How do you believe we can address the skills deficit in Africa?

MM-M: I think it is important that we look at investment broadly. With foreign direct investment where companies are coming to invest, this often provides, such as in the mining sector, opportunities to beneficiate and to develop down-streaming investment as well as the transfer of technical skills.

We have to find a way to bring our skills back home. Sometimes we lose potential investment because the skills are not on the ground. The challenge is that the Diaspora is contributing to the growth of host governments but our economies are also growing and facing similar challenges and therefore our skills bases are closer.

If you take the ICT industry in particular, this is a sector which needs the same skills in Africa as elsewhere in order to grow and develop the knowledge economy. A lot of this expertise is needed at home once our people have the experience and exposure.

FW: What about those who feel disenchanted with Africa and the pace of development?

MM-M: We need to take greater responsibility for our own development, both within the country and across the Diaspora.

I don’t believe disengagement is the answer. You are the one responsible for the development of your country and for future generations. Now, with the advent of ICT, a lot of countries have official websites and other sources of information and in this day and age, I don’t think anyone has an excuse for not knowing basic facts about their economy and the key challenges of their country. It is important to engage and engage meaningfully – and then coming back to see where we can engage further.

FW: How would you advise those in the Diaspora to deal with the challenges of living as a minority?

MM-M: You have to know who you are, where you come from, and what you bring. You may well find that this is not mirrored in the place where you are but you also have to know that ‘I can go back’. I don’t want to minimise the reasons why people choose to move overseas but, if we all approach the international labour market with a short-term perspective, we will see it as a chance to grow and contribute and then go back.

One of the key things that we have to appreciate and acknowledge is that Africa is not static, it’s dynamic. There are overwhelming challenges but I’m continually encouraged by the policies and institutional systems being put in place as well as the political will across the continent as a whole. The challenge and frustration is that so much needs to be done but my sense of optimism stems from the fact that it has started to happen.

If we look at it with an objective eye, we should be able to see visible signs of progress.

FW: You have recently been appointed to the position of Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General. What do you hope to have achieved at the end of your tenure?

MM-M: By the end of my tenure I hope that this optimistic sense that I have of Africa, and that I feel, will really have come to fruition; that it will be more general and not an exception to the rule.

I am excited that the portfolio I handle allows me to participate with the principal players in democracy, the rule and law and key governance issues. Democracy is not good for its own sake but for the benefits it allows to trickle to the people. By the end of my term, I will measure my success by the appreciable differences that will have been made in these areas.

‘Under the Tree of Talking’ is newly published collection of essays by eighteen distinguished thinkers and leaders which testify to hope on the horizon for African societies.

Effective leadership holds the key to Africa’s economic and social progress and, in this book, leading writers and social commentators share their insights into leadership in Africa and its capacity to advance or hold back the continent. ReConnect Africa speaks to the author, journalist and film maker Onyekachi Wambu, about the book and the role of leadership in changing Africa’s fortunes.

RCA: Congratulations on such an impressive publication. The contributors to the book include Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Chinweizu, William Gumede; Wangui wa Goro, Kimani Ngoju, Martha Chinouya; Eva Dadrian, and Marianna Ofosu. How did you persuade so many writers to participate in this project?

OW: Many of them didn’t need persuading as people felt it was an issue that needed to be addressed. Achebe and Mazrui had addressed the issue in the 80’s and Achebe, for example, has been concerned with this issue in the post-Nigerian independence period. It was something that was very high on every one’s agenda so it wasn’t that hard to convince them. The real difficulty was trying to get regional and gender balance and, as a lot of the approaches were based on my own network, while we have a contributor from Rwanda, we haven’t been able to achieve a good balance in terms of Francophone contribution, which is something that we have to remedy.

Deciding who to target was really the result of the themes that I wanted to discuss in the book. In the book, we talk about leadership from a number of perspectives. I wanted to start a debate about post-independent leadership from the premise that Africa governed itself before colonialism. For example, I decided to discuss Africa’s most illustrious society and there is an essay on what the ancient Egyptians thought of leadership and good governance. The names of contributors suggested themselves according to the subject I wanted to explore and who could address it. For example, one subject I wanted to explore was that of translation as a leadership issue. With nearly 3000 languages spoken on one continent, how do we talk to each other? By the time we speak across languages, the meaning is distorted. How do you get information from your government about services, how are legal disputes mediated if you don’t understand the language of the courtroom, for example?

We look at leadership both from the top down and bottom up; how ordinary people become extraordinary. We look at leadership from the present to the future, exploring the issues that young people have around seniority. We look at leadership from the outside looking in i.e. what the African Diaspora brings to the table and then from inside looking out; the external challenges facing Africa e.g. the rise of China and the leadership responses to that. It was also about asking the writers to make suggestions, offer strategies and solutions and provide examples of service through their own experience. As a result, a few of the essays are quite personal.

RCA: In addition to the introduction, you also wrote a chapter on Africa and China. What do you see as the lessons African countries must apply in the face of China’s massive focus on and investment into Africa?

OW: If you are gong to negotiate with someone, you need to know what they want. And then you need to know what you want. I’ve explored Chinese history; where they are and how they got here, but also what China is after in Africa, which is essentially in pursuit of their expanding economy, i.e. resources and markets. In the chapter, I conduct a SWAT analysis of where Africa is and how we need to negotiate and, I would suggest, we need to negotiate not individually, but as a group like other blocs. Our engagement with China also raises the issue of jobs and how we can put these on the agenda in our negotiations. Simply put, if China is destroying our jobs base, we shouldn’t be encouraging that. If they are putting in infrastructure but also bringing in their own labourers, we shouldn’t be in the business of creating jobs for Chinese people when we have 8 million Africans every year that need jobs.

There are parts of China’s model that we can look at and borrow but the bigger question that I ask is whether it is China we should be focusing on rather than, say India. India is achieving growth within a democratic framework and what I am suggesting is that we have more in common with India and we can be proactive in developing a relationship with that country. We have large Indian communities in Africa – Durban is the biggest Indian city in the world outside India – and share much in common. If we were positive in defining our own agenda, we could build more like-minded partnerships, albeit at a slower pace.

One of the lessons Africa should have learned and must apply is defining its own interests and then defending them. In the past we have tended to rely on other people’s agendas, hoping that they coincided with ours. The 2 major economies that did not follow the Bretton Woods prescriptions were India and China. In Africa, where we followed the World Bank and IMF, we have been pauperized, our middle classes destroyed and our expertise exported. I believe that it is about having the confidence to preserve our own policy space. I would add that ultimately, in order to be able to have that luxury, you also need to be able to defend yourself and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those two nations also have their own nuclear defence.

RCA: In a speech she gave in 2006, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia spoke about the need for a different kind of leader in Africa. After the liberation era when so many leaders relied on charisma and the cult of personality to lead Africa’s newly independent states, what do you believe is needed in the 21st century?

OW: I would refer to Ali Mazrui’s essay on ‘Liberation, Democracy, Development and Leadership in Africa’. The point he makes is that Africa produced a lot of good liberation leaders and even leaders of reconciliation, like Mandela. But what the continent hasn’t been able to do so effectively was to produce leaders of democracy and development. I happen to think that this has to do with skill sets. The skills that you need to take your people to liberation are not necessarily what you then need to manage democracy properly. Mazrui looks at the traditions of African leadership and he identifies eight traditions of the older model that people then built on. It is not simply about blaming our leaders or accusing them of incompetence when perhaps they are only doing what they know and in the framework of what they know. For me, the perfect example of this is Winston Churchill. He was the right leader for a war but thereafter the British people voted in leaders like Attlee who were able to build a post-war democracy for which Churchill was not seen as having either the skills or the inclination.

I think it’s about looking at that in Africa and about understanding who has those skills sets; people who can be managers and yet also ‘charismatize’ people. Is it possible for us now to start looking at the skills sets that leaders need? As far as I’m concerned, it is a management issue and we, as followers, need to create the space to discuss the right skills needed by our leaders i.e. the skills needed to manage, rather than getting caught up in issues of ethnicity and other irrelevant criteria. Can our leaders deal with the challenges of today’s world? With mobilizing our Diaspora? A leader has to be able to do all of that effectively if they are going to deliver results.

RCA: What would you say are some of the most provocative views expressed in ‘Under the Tree of Talking’?

OW: I don’t think we get into a slanging match with anyone. Rather than provocative, I would say that some big issues emerged. A number of issues came up again and again, one being the shortcomings of the inherited colonial state and how we might imagine and reconstruct these states. A lot of people talked about pan-Africanism as a response to imagination and reconstruction. Another theme was how we manage the huge diversity within our nations - which I think, is a welcome dialogue. What also emerged was the importance of involving women and young people in leadership. And then, finally, the issue of identifying African solutions to African problems and creating our own policy space where we begin to talk of our countries as the template rather than as abstractions onto which other countries’ systems are to be transplanted.

I write in the book about my village, where the Chief dispenses about 80% of the justice. Why do people there prefer that? Most people don’t want to enter the state’s halls of justice; they don’t understand the language used in court, the culture there is alien to them, justice can be delayed and the price of justice can be very high whereas, with the village, justice can be served speedily and affordably. That is the reality in many African countries but these leaders are not supported by the state and are not trained. Yet, in reality, they are part of the real service delivery in these countries.

By engaging with our traditions, you may find you get a better system of justice and yet when nothing works in the transplanted legal systems that we have adopted, people wonder why. If the traditional is what is working, why not build on that to address our issues today rather than on a tradition that came from elsewhere?

RCA: With so many Africans living in other parts of the world, what role can Africa’s Diaspora play in ensuring effective leadership within the continent?

OW: I think we need to be careful about our assumptions. The sad truth is that our organizations in the Diaspora are often riven with the same kind of problems that we see at home. Think about what we see in some of our organisations; the leaders for life, splinter group break-offs, multiplying organizations for those that won’t submit to the majority and other anti-democratic approaches. And we do need to talk about these things. But I think there are things we can do as part of the Diaspora. We have seen how other societies function and how you can put in place policies around equity and transparency. We implement these on a daily basis and know the benefits that come from them and these are things that we should be trying to convince people at home about.

There is no doubt that we can use our economic muscle to hold leaders more accountable. Leaders in Africa are now talking about Diaspora money and Ghana has been ahead of the curve in talking about social remittances and seeing how these remittances can be put to use at home. It seems to me that there are things that we can begin to demand quite rightfully, as other donors do. If we are sending our money home and the government is planning to use it, it holds them accountable to us for how that money is spent and we want transparency.

But I would far rather see this as a partnership that we can work with. Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie’s chapter deals with this issue and talks about the 10 ‘principles’ around which we, in the Diaspora, can work with people on the continent. These include the principle that the benefit of migration must accrue far and wide throughout African society and not just to those who are fortunate enough to travel abroad. Another important principle is commitment to institutional development in Africa. Another is that the right systems and resources are offered to Africa in a way that people on the ground want and require. It has also got to be about mutual gain, that is, a relationship where both Africa and the Diaspora benefit. He talks about building organizational structures that encapsulate diversity; age, gender and ethnicity and also about incrementalism, building up on what already works rather than tearing down everything and starting over each time, and getting away from the idea that the last leader did nothing. It is also about recognizing that the balance of power must stay in Africa and that we should learn from past mistakes about how Diaspora and Africans relate to each other.

‘Under the Tree of Talking’ (ISBN/ISSN: 12453654) is published by Counterpoint. Copies can be purchased online from  Amazon or from all good bookshops.

In this remarkable interview with John Battersby, Nelson Mandela – who turns 90 this month - reflects on his legacy and the lasting influence of his 27 years in prison.

Ten years after Nelson Mandela walked out of prison on Robben Island, and seven months after stepping down as president of South Africa, he reflects, in an interview with the Monitor, on his legacy and the lasting influence his 27 years in prison had on him.

Whatever my wishes might be, I cannot bind future generations to remember me in the particular way I would like," Nelson Mandela says.

Despite peace missions, a blistering schedule of overseas travel and stepped-up philanthropic activities, Mr. Mandela has begun to reflect on how he wants to be remembered both in an interview and at functions to pay tribute to him.

And despite his reluctance to be singled out and discuss his personal qualities, there is consensus in South Africa that without Mandela's personal commitment to reconciliation, his moral authority, integrity, and intense compassion, the country's transition to democracy might not have gone as smoothly.

Mandela is at pains to ensure that he is remembered as an ordinary mortal with qualities that are within the reach of ordinary people. "What always worried me in prison was [that I could acquire] the image of someone who is always 100 percent correct and can never do any wrong," he told one audience of 500. "People expect me to perform far beyond my ability."

"What always worried me in prison was …… the image of someone who is always 100 percent correct and can never do any wrong."

He expanded on these reflections for the first time in a recent interview with the Monitor, which probed his philosophy of reconciliation, the origins of his moral integrity, and the experiences and influences that forged the qualities which have made him one of the heroes of the 20th century.

He also spoke about the importance of religion in his life and the crucial role of reflection and "the time to think" during his 27 years in jail.

History will remember Mandela for having the strength of conviction to risk engaging his jailers - and thereby humanizing them - from inside prison and eventually setting the stage for the ANC to negotiate them out of power. Mandela sees the success of the ANC in mobilizing both domestic and international opinion against the apartheid government as the key factor.

In the interview, Mandela insisted that he wanted to be remembered as part of a collective and not in isolation. On his release from jail 10 years ago tomorrow, he made it clear that he regarded himself as a "loyal and obedient servant" of the African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement he headed before becoming South Africa's first democratically elected president in May 1994.

"I would like to be remembered as part of a team, and I would like my contribution to be assessed as somebody who carried out decisions taken by that collective," Mandela says, adding that even if he wanted to be remembered in a specific way that was not a realistic option.

Mandela was speaking in the living room of the house he shares with his second wife Graca Machel, whom he married in 1998. It is a doubly-story house in the plush Johannesburg neighbourhood of Houghton.

"As prisoners, we used our individual and collective positions to make friends with some of our jailers. But this must be understood against the bigger picture of what was happening outside - an organized and disciplined struggle by our organization and the international community," he says.

At the launch, late last year, of a book to commemorate him, written by South African journalist Charlene Smith (due out in the US this April, New Holland/Stuik), Mandela insisted that he not be elevated to some kind of sainthood.

The paradoxical side of the man is that he has sometimes taken on superhuman tasks such as his shuttle last October to Iran, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Gaza, and the United States in a bid to broker a comprehensive Middle East peace.

Despite what Mandela described as "positive and cordial" meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Ezer Weizman, Israel rejected his intervention. But Mandela was not unduly discouraged.

"There are bound to be setbacks," he says.

Mandela was greatly encouraged by the eventual outcomes of his interventions in East Timor and the handing over by Libya of those accused of the bombing of the Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. He spent seven years mediating the behind-the-scenes negotiations with Saudi Arabia.

He says it is important that leaders should be presented to people with their weaknesses and all. "If you come across as a saint, people can become very discouraged," he says. "I was once a young man and I did all the things young men do," Mandela says, to drive home the point of his human fallibility.

Biographers and commentators have been intrigued by Mandela's extraordinary focus and unity of purpose during his years as a young ANC activist and later as its spiritual leader from behind bars.

"If you have an objective in life, then you want to concentrate on that and not engage in infighting with your enemies," he says in the interview. "You want to create an atmosphere where you can move everybody towards the goal you have set for yourself - as well as the collective for which you work.

"And, therefore, for all people who have found themselves in the position of being in jail and trying to transform society, forgiveness is natural because you have no time to be retaliative.... You want to mobilize everybody to support your cause and the aims you have set for your life," he says.

"For all people who have found themselves in the position of being in jail and trying to transform society, forgiveness is natural because you have no time to be retaliative.... You want to mobilize everybody to support your cause and the aims you have set for your life."

Asked about the origins of his passionate belief in reconciliation and forgiveness, Mandela goes into a lengthy explanation of how he launched the Mandela Children's Fund after a personal encounter with homeless children in Cape Town who had come to see him to explain their plight. He was so moved that he vowed in that moment to launch the fund, which has collected more than $25 million and has helped hundreds of children. Mandela donated a third of his presidential salary to the fund during his five years in office. Many business executives matched his example and some bettered it.

Mandela is sensitive to criticism from certain black leaders that he has leaned over too far toward whites in his efforts to achieve reconciliation and forgiveness. He becomes emotional when defending his impressive campaign over the past few years to get business leaders to donate funds for the building of schools and clinics in the rural areas.

"Why would anyone say that I am leaning too much towards whites? Tell me the record of any black man in this country who has done as much as that [for black people].... I am not aware of any other black man who has spent so much time addressing the problems of poverty, lack of education, and disease amongst our people," Mandela says, adding that he had nothing but cooperation and support from the white business community.

When it comes to his moral authority and achievement in persuading his jailers and their political bosses to negotiate with him, Mandela again stresses the moral high ground of the ANC cause.

"When you have attained the moral high ground, it is better to confront your people directly and say: Let's sit down and talk. So, it is not something that just comes from me. It is something that was worked out by the organization to which I belong."

Mandela speaks of the influence that veteran ANC leader Walter Sisulu had had on him while in prison and how he was instrumental in taking care of fellow prisoners regardless of their political background.

Mandela has in turn been praised by Eddie Daniels, a former Robben Island prisoner from a rival anti-apartheid organization, who has told how Mandela befriended him and kept his cell clean when he was ill.

Mandela says, "I can tell you that a man like Sisulu was almost like a saint in things of that nature. "You would really admire him because he is continually thinking about other people.

"I learned a great deal from him - not only on that respect but also, politically, he was our mentor. He is a very good fellow ... and humble. He led from behind and put others in front, but he reversed the position in situations of danger. Then he chose to be in the front line."

In "Mandela: The Authorized Biography" (Knopf), Anthony Sampson notes the remarkable transformation in the Mandela that emerged from jail compared with the impulsive activist with a quick temper he knew in the late 1950s (reviewed Sept. 30, 1999).

Mandela does not dispute Mr. Sampson's judgment and acknowledges the importance of mastering his anger while in prison. "One was angry at what was happening [in apartheid South Africa] - the humiliation, the loss of our human dignity. We tended to react in accordance with anger and our emotion rather than sitting down and thinking about things properly.

"But in jail - especially for those who stayed in single cells - you had enough opportunity to sit down and think. And you were in contact with a lot of people who had a high education and who were widely traveled. When they told of their experiences, you felt humbled.

"All those influences changed one," Mandela says. Sampson quotes from a letter that Mandela wrote to his then wife, Winnie, in 1981 after she had been jailed.

"Thinking is one of the most important weapons in dealing with problems ...”

Mandela noted that there were qualities "in each one of us" that form the basis of our spiritual life and that we can change ourselves by observing our reactions to the unfolding of life.

He urged Winnie in the letter "to learn to know yourself ... to search realistically and regularly the processes of your own mind and feelings."

In the interview, Mandela says that one of the most powerful forces that changed him was thinking about how he had behaved and reacted to generosity and compassion expressed toward him in the past.

"For example, when I arrived in Johannesburg [as a young man], I was poor, and many people helped me get by. But when I became a lawyer and I was in a better position [financially], I became too busy with legal affairs and forgot about people who had helped me.

"Instead of going to them and saying: Look, here's a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates and saying thank you, I had never even thought about these things. I felt that I had behaved like a wild man ... like an animal and I really criticized myself for the way I had behaved.

"But I was able to do this because I had time to think about it, whereas outside jail - from morning to sunset - you are moving from one meeting to the other, and there is no time to think about problems. Thinking is one of the most important weapons in dealing with problems ... and we didn't have that outside."

Peter Ustinov, the veteran actor, author, and international citizen, met Mandela in South Africa two years ago and was struck by the importance Mandela attached to the long period of solitude in prison.

"I had a most inspiring meeting with Nelson Mandela," Ustinov told this reporter in an interview in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos. "He told me with a certain amount of irony and wickedness: 'I am grateful for the 27 years I spent in prison because it gave me the opportunity to meditate and think deeply.... But since I came out of prison, I haven't had the time.' "

How has Mandela made time to think since his release from jail in 1990? He says that he has tried to emulate the practice of businessmen who take a complete break from their work over weekends. Mandela says he consciously has tried to make time for reflection.

After his separation from Winnie, Mandela used to spend long periods in retreat in the home of a wealthy Afrikaner businessman, Douw Steyn, who ran an open house for the ANC to hold meetings during the negotiations with the government. It was here that Mandela proofread the script of his autobiography: "Long Walk to Freedom" (Little Brown).

In November last year, Mandela accepted an invitation to be the guest speaker at a gala evening to mark the transformation of the house into a super-luxury guest house, retreat, and conference centre.

In an impromptu speech, Mandela waxed philosophical and introspective in paying tribute to the warmth and hospitality of his Afrikaner hosts.

"It has been said that difficulties and disaster destroy some people and make others," Mandela began. It was a phrase he had last used in a letter to Winnie in 1975. "Douw Steyn is one of those who has turned disaster into success," he said of the wealthy businessman who had formerly supported apartheid.

"One of the most difficult things is not to change society - but to change yourself," he said. "I came to stay here at some of the most difficult moments, and the way Liz and Douw treated me has left me with fond memories."

Mandela said that Douw Steyn had changed and was now part of the white business community that was sharing its resources with the poor. That gave him a feeling of fulfilment. "It enables me to go to bed with an enriching feeling in my soul and the belief that I am changing myself [by reconciling with former adversaries]," Mandela said.

Mandela has spoken on other occasions of the importance of giving. When he received a bag of some 20,000 postcards in September from children who were invited to wish him well for his retirement, he said that there was nothing more important in life than giving. Tolerance is forged when people look beyond their own desires, he said.

Mandela said that religion had played a very important role in his life. He has tended to avoid talking about the subject in the past. In December, Mandela addressed a gathering of religious leaders from the world's major faiths in Cape Town. He spoke publicly about his views on religion for the first time.

"I appreciate the importance of religion. You have to have been in a South African jail under apartheid where you could see the cruelty of human beings to each other in its naked form. Again, religious institutions and their leaders gave us hope that one day we would return."

Mandela said that real leaders were those who thought about the poor 24 hours a day and who knew in their hearts that poverty was the single biggest threat to society.

"We have sufficient cause to be cynical about humanity. We have seen enough injustice, strife, division, suffering, and pain, and our capacity to be massively inhuman. But this gathering counters despairing cynicism and reaffirms the nobility of the human spirit," Mandela said.

Mandela went on to say, "Religion is one of the most important forces in the world. Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, or a Hindu, religion is a great force, and it can help one have command of one's own morality, one's own behaviour, and one's own attitude."

"Religion has had a tremendous influence on my own life. You must remember that during our time - right from Grade 1 up to university - our education was provided by religious institutions. I was in [Christian] missionary schools. The government [of the day] had no interest whatsoever in our education and, therefore, religion became a force which was responsible for our development," he said.

The discipline of jail also played a role in his transformation, he said.

"It was difficult, of course, to always be disciplined before one went to jail except to say that I have always liked sport. And to that extent I was disciplined in the sense that four days a week I went to the gym for at least two hours.

"Also, I was a lawyer, and I had to be disciplined to keep up with events in the legal field, and to that extent I was disciplined," he said.

{mosimage}But Mandela said there were many respects in which he and his colleagues were not disciplined when they went to jail.

"In prison, you had to follow a highly disciplined regime, and that, of course, influenced your behaviour and your thinking," he said.

Mandela said there was also a personal discipline. "We continued to do our own exercises, and we continued with study and conversing with others to gain from their experiences."

He said that reading the biographies of the great leaders of the century also had a major impact on him. Mandela said it was though reading the biographies that he realized that problems make some people and destroy others. Mandela said that the prison experience taught him to respect even the most ordinary people. "I have been surprised a great deal sometimes when I see somebody who looks less than ordinary, but when you talk to the person and he (or she) opens his mouth, he is something completely different.

"It is possible that if I had not gone to jail and been able to read and to listen to the stories of many people ... I might not have learned these things."

Delivering the inaugural Oppenheimer Lecture in London, Liberia’s new President argues that Liberia and Africa today need a different kind of leader

If pomp and circumstance is what you have come to associate with Africa’s presidents, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf quickly makes it clear that her style of leadership needs none of the superficial trappings adopted by so many of Africa’s heads of state.

Speaking with clarity and exhibiting the precision of intellect one would expect of the Harvard University graduate, Liberia’s new President delivered the inaugural Oppenheimer Lecture in London in the understated way she intends to conduct her term in office.

Exemplifying a new type of leader sorely needed in Africa today, President Johnson-Sirleaf used the occasion to set out the challenges for Africa’s leaders and to explain why the old style of governing is no longer acceptable to the people of Africa.

The Oppenheimer Lecture was established by Nicky Oppenheimer, Chairman of De Beers, as an opportunity for Africans to speak for themselves, for a change, on issues of importance to Africa.

Addressing the theme “African Leadership in Post-Conflict Situations: A case study of Liberia”, the President began the lecture by thanking the IISS for their invitation to dialogue and paid tribute to the BBC for bringing the plight of Liberia to the attention of a global audience.

In a life that has spanned almost seven decades of struggle and determination, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has paid her political dues.  A Finance Minster in the 1970’s, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison and exiled from Liberia after a short period of incarceration.  She worked as an Economist for Citibank and then the World Bank.  With the arrival of peace in 2003, she returned to her native country and started the political process that led to her election in 2005 as Africa’s first woman president.

Announcing that her country was on a “journey towards achieving national renewal after decades of conflict”, she spoke of the “nationalistic, selfless and visionary” nature of African leaders in the post-colonial period.  Less concerned with material accumulation, leaders such as Nkrumah, Lumumba and Nasser inspired their people to the cause of nationalism.  Citing Nelson Mandela as the “moral conscience” of the continent today, she spoke of the decline of African leaders that followed this period.
The next generation of leaders, she said, invested not in their people but in military adventures, grandiose projects and pandered to religious and ethnic divisions, minimising the significance of education while looting scarce financial resources.  Only recently has Africa ushered in a new generation of leaders concerned with democracy and peace and development. 

Competence, Integrity and Courage

So what kind of leader does the continent need today?  The President outlined the elements that make for good leadership, particularly in post-conflict situations: competence, integrity, responsibility for action, courage and clarity to focus on the principles expected of one who leads by inspiration and motivation.  The challenge for leadership in Liberia, she said, must be set against the context of the country’s history.

The post colonial leaders ruled in a different environment.  Leadership for those times when nations were focused on liberation and only slowly coming to terms with post-colonial realities, required an element of authoritarianism.  Today’s technological revolution has created an informed population which makes it very unwise to repeat the practices of the past.

“You have to bring a certain degree of competence and inspiration or you won’t last, she said.  “Today’s environment calls for a different kind of leadership”.

What she intends to usher in is “a new Liberia, based on the principles of good governance”.  Her election, she said, was the signal ‘of a growing need for an alternative leadership style in Africa; visionary, courageous and strong enough to address the challenges.”

Recurring throughout the President’s lecture was the need for today’s leaders to maintain respect for the rule of law and the dignity of the people.  Today’s Africa needs a new approach and, as she said, “a new dispensation calls for a new set of values and morals”.

Taking personal responsibility for the challenge that lies ahead for Liberia, she affirmed that “our leadership must take the lead in destroying the imperial presidency and dismantling the trappings” of the “semi god-like institution” of presidency that has been created in Africa.  What that needed, she said, was “a heavy dose of modesty and quiet self-assurance”.

The need to demystify the presidency is critical to enable all citizens to become stakeholders in the development of the country and for Liberia to realise that what she called “the dark years of conflict and dictatorship” have come to an end.

The President stated that her key imperative for the country was the consolidation of national peace and to inspire a new sense of hope for a new kind of leadership.  Recognising that such a transformation would not be an easy one, she acknowledged that “our success will determine our place in the leadership history of this country.”

The focus of that inspiration has, in her estimation, to be the youth of the country.  “Our policy is to offer hope to young people who have been both perpetrators and victims in the general mayhem that has engulfed our recent history”, she said.  The need now is to refocus the mindset and energies of young people to want a better life.  “Unless we invest adequately and qualitatively, peace and stability – the sine quo non for development – will never take place.” 

The Role of the Diaspora

President Johnson-Sirleaf spoke of the need for schooling and employment opportunities to occupy young people and the role that Liberia’s Diaspora could play.  Younger generation today are less well equipped than their parents due to a lack of education and the disruption engendered by conflict.  While there are no quick fix solutions, she said, “we hope to start the process and hope that many of our people in the Diaspora will come back to be part of the mix to help develop the country.”

Leadership for Reconstruction

“15 years of conflict have left Liberians a divided people with ethnic and religious differences”, she said.  Describing her country as “war weary, traumatised, impoverished and cynical”, the President highlighted the need for a leader that will inspire hope.  Leaders with less emphasis on grandstanding, she said, who are “short on rhetoric and long on implementation”. 

She spoke of the collapsed infrastructure and the need for physical reconstruction of the country as “one of the most daunting challenges”.  Private capital and investment are critical to Liberia’s longer term solutions with the need for assistance from development partners in the immediate short-term.

With a population of 3 million people, Liberia is well endowed – mineral, forestry, agriculture, fisheries and there is no reason for Liberia to be poor.  Yet the reality today, she said, is that “infrastructure has been destroyed, skills have left the country and so the capacity needed to exploit these resources has been greatly reduced.  The Liberian economy has the potential to be strong and in a decade or so, Liberia should become a major economic player in the region.”

On Leadership and Governance

A key element of the new Liberian government’s reform agenda is stamping out corruption.  Speaking of the “corrosive effect” that corruption has on the national fabric, she stated her government’s determination to combat the social vice that corruption represents in the public and private sector as well as in civil society.  This included plans for a new code of conduct and clearly defined fines and penalties for public sector as well as incentives such as enhanced compensation. 

Since coming to power, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has already proved her intention to take the lead against corruption, with the recent announcement that three senior government officials and five other mid-level employees have been dismissed for acts of impropriety. She has since ordered government prosecutors to begin legal proceedings against those involved.  The President has also thrown her support behind an anti-graft plan known as the Governance Economic Management Assistance Programme (GEMAP),  under which international supervisors will monitor key ministries and lucrative concerns such as the port, airport, customs office and forestry commission, as well all state expenditure, for the next three years.

‘One of the Boys’

In the inaugural lecture, the President acknowledged that, as a woman, she is seen both as a leader for the country and a leader for Africa’s women and intends to show to the world that an African female president will make a difference.  Cautious about overstating the gender issue, she pointed out that “I’m a professional, a technocrat who happens to be a woman.”  However, the President acknowledged that her gender does bring with it added advantages - “I hope I bring the extra sensitivity and dimension to the role.  I have been accepted by my colleagues in Africa as one of the boys…I have the commitment, capacity and courage to be equal to them in carrying out the task of governing.”

A Whole Lot of Priorities

Asked about her priorities for Liberia, President Johnson-Sirleaf spoke of her first priority as ensuring ‘sustainable peace and security’, highlighting her government’s moves to dismantle army and security services, retraining defence personnel,  and the challenges of educating young people, many of whom, teenagers today, have never been into schools.  With poor educational infrastructure and a lack of teachers, the country is already facing 80% unemployment.

“I know it sounds like a lot of priorities,” she admitted, “but there are a whole lot of problems.”

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf faces a formidable set of challenges by anyone’s standards.  Her style of leadership is to face challenges head-on and to keep focused on the priorities.  Ultimately, as she concluded, “my government hopes to make a difference to the lives of the Liberian people.”

Further information about the IISS can be found on: www.iiss.org

In this provocative article, Elijah Litheko, South African Human Resources expert, argues that the continual disempowerment of the African people is a call for us to shape our own agenda in order to achieve true empowerment

The key priority for Africans today is to address the continual disempowerment of the African people and to identify how we can rescue ourselves. In my view, the disempowerment of Africa has taken place in three key phases

The two new stations – CNBC Africa and Al Jazeera International which are both set to go live in the next 6 months or so – will intensify the media spotlight on Africa at a time when the northern hemisphere view of the world is being increasingly challenged by economic realities and reforms at the United Nations and multilateral institutions.

The Phases of Disempowerment

The first phase saw the conquering of Africa by the West, leading to destabilization and control by the occupiers.  This had serious implications in terms of who Africans were; their culture and the natural path of development and progress that Africa’s societies would have made.  The destabilization led to social dislocation as the powers that be imposed their lifestyles, values and standards on the African people.  They saw the Africans as a resource, like any other resource, available to utilize for their own economic means.

The second phase of disempowerment was through the effective ‘Balkan-isation’ of Africa.  By splitting us up into various countries, states, ‘bantustans’ and the like, the controlling powers magnified the differences rather than appreciated our spirit of Ubuntu/Botho as Africans.  During this phase, an African person was not allowed to give any thought to his/her own development or growth; their focus was on satisfying the needs of their masters.

The third phase addressed the educational and social aspects of our societies.  Because we were seen as a resource like any other, educating an African was not a priority as the African was only given the necessary tools to fulfill the needs of the master.  In South Africa, in particular, laws were put in place to ensure that the development of an African person did not happen.  As a result, we, in South Africa, have seen centuries of under-development and today we are suffering the consequences of that in a big way

The Marginalization of Africa

All these factors marginalized the African people as a player on the world stage. Conditions did not make it possible for Africans to develop or stick their necks out – those that did like Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, Onkgopotse Tiro, Tsietsi Mashinini, and many others in the case of South Africa, suffered severe consequences. This marginalization and the inhibition of the potential of Africans had dire consequences in all spheres of human development – political, economic, educational and social.

Now that Africa is so-called free, and I say, ‘so-called’ as this freedom is still a misnomer because, in reality, there is little truth in it. The world stage today demands of nations and states, capabilities that would ensure the successful advocacy of their nation’s agendas at world forums. These capabilities, in my view, are political power, economic power, military power, a sound education base, social equilibrium, innovation and so forth. The majority of African states are lacking desperately in all these key essentials for successful performance and delivery at the world stage.

The world, in today’s terms, is like a Premier League and to play there and be accepted as a Premier League player you need to bring certain qualities on board as highlighted in this article. Africa, in my view, has been denied the opportunity to develop these capabilities and competencies for its own people for centuries and now, with the pseudo-freedom that African states have attained over the years, Africans are expected to perform at the world stage/Premier League with veterans without the necessary supporting infrastructure. This is setting Africa up for failure. The other challenge that Africans face as late comers on the world stage is that the multilateral economic structures that are in place today – World Bank, IMF and others - are Western-created and African leaders have difficulty in acknowledging that they are operating within structures over which we have no control to reform and align to the continent’s socio-economic challenges.

Placing Africa in the Premier Leagues

After World War II, the Marshall Plan was developed to rebuild Europe. The Plan focused on not just the infrastructure of the region but also on its economic recovery and stabilization of its social fabric. In South Africa, the Nationalist Party adopted a number of strategies that ensured that White South Africans, particularly the Afrikaners were taken out of the poverty trap of the 1940’s and early 1950’s that some of them harshly experienced. Both Europe and White South Africans generally can play on the economic world stage because of the support and resources that they were showered with at the time when they needed them most.

When Africa gained its freedom from its colonial masters there was no dedicated plan, like the Marshall plan, which was put in place to ensure that the African people, denied growth for so many years, could become world players, as was the case with Europe after World War II, and South Africa during the reign of the Nationalist party. Instead, we hear talk of FDI (foreign direct investment) i.e. the continued economic subjugation of Africans to another master.

So when is the real problem of Africa’s underdevelopment going to be tackled so that Africans can also be perceived as FDIs in other countries and be their own masters like many nations in the world are? When as Africans we start to empower ourselves and to take decisions that are in the best interests of the African people. When we determine our own agenda and ensure that it is an agenda that reflects our priorities, needs, values and the diversity of our societies. When we start mobilising resources whose main focus is to empower us and promote us to the world stage as key players. If that does not happen, our people will continue to be marginalized and our countries taken over economically. But, this time, it will not be by military might or forceful occupation, but by the consent of our elected African leaders.

If this trend of economic subjugation by other nations continues unchecked, Africans will be relegated to the position of perpetual servants of other nations in the guise of FDI, democracy and entrepreneurship. When these unsavoury developments manifest themselves, as they have started to, nobody in the world will remember that the failure of Africans to rise to the challenges and demands of today’s world is due to centuries of underdevelopment. What a callous and inhuman assessment of the real problems facing African people.

This is a cry for help extended to all people in the world who believe that progress and human development is an inalienable right for all mankind.

Elijah Litheko is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of People Management in South Africa. He holds an MBA from De Montfort University (UK) and a postgraduate Diploma in Labour Law.

“The South African business environment is characterised by volatility and change”, says Brand Pretorius. “There are many factors that result in a complex labour environment. Staff have higher expectations than ever before and are looking for meaning in their lives at work. Shareholders are still demanding sustainable growth and quality returns.”

In a measured and thoughtful presentation during the 50th Anniversary Convention of the South Africa Institute of People Management, Brand Pretorius, who has built a reputation for business excellence in the automobile industry, spoke of the demands of effective leadership.

“The world we used to know doesn’t exist anymore.  We have to transform and to perform at world-class levels,” he said.

What does a Leader Need?

So, asked Pretorius, what does a leader need? “A leader needs IQ – good basic intelligence,” was his first response. Citing Nelson Mandela as the supreme example of this, Pretorius added, “Our integrity should be unquestioned.”

“A leader needs spiritual intelligence,” he added. “The ability to work towards a greater purpose, to look at the long term and to move beyond self-interest. A leader needs emotional intelligence, an understanding of their own emotions and a sensitivity and empathy to deal with one’s own team members. Emotionally illiterate managers become isolated and ineffective leaders because they cannot deal with their own emotions.

“A leader needs humility. Ego tends to destroy many leaders and ego can be the biggest single obstacle to successful leadership. A self-serving leader is only interested in Me Inc. and does not care about his people. A humble leader instils a felling of equality in his organisation and moves away from hierarchy.

“A leader needs integrity. Only high integrity leaders will remain successful over the long-term. Such a leader prefers service to power and principle over convenience.”

‘Leadership is a way of being’

Describing leadership as ‘a way of being’, Pretorius spoke about the qualities of leadership.  “A leader needs hardiness – to be tough and resilient, able to hang in there.  A leader needs passion, energy and enthusiasm.  Benjamin Zander said, “Leaders are the dispensers of enthusiasm.”  Do we suspend or dispense enthusiasm?” he asked.

Speaking of the need for strategic thinking, Pretorius likened leadership to “a radar screen that is always switched on.  To look ahead at what lies on the horizon, to adapt or change the company strategy?”

He went on, “A leader needs innovation and creativity and to be capable of making rational decisions. To know how to take emotions out of decision making, to assess, research, consult, judge and then make decisions.

“A leader needs the skill of self-management.  Without it, one cannot survive in this high-pressure world.  We cannot manage others if we cannot manage ourselves.  Do we have the skills to prioritise, to live balanced lives, pay attention to the emotional, spiritual, physical sides and not be obsessed with jobs.  To ensure that success does not destroy our relationships and hurt others.  Do we live life to the full? Do not live half a life.  To be successful, one has to recharge batteries and enjoy magic moments.

“A leader needs the skill of effective communication. Effective leaders are those who succeed in inspiring, conveying meaning so that people know what to do. Mastering the art of emphatic listening, without which one does not truly communicate.”

The Characteristics of Leaders

“So what are the characteristics of Leaders?” asked Pretorius. “Leaders embrace change; they acknowledge that it is the price of survival and embrace change and transformation with enthusiasm.” Quoting Jack Welch, he noted that, “When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, then the end is in sight.”

“Leaders have a bias for action,” said Pretorius.  “They don’t procrastinate.  Leaders are not transactional; they seek not reluctant compliance but positive acceptance.  Leaders have values of equity and fairness.  They have respect and ‘walk the talk’ and live by the values they articulate.

“Effective leaders succeed in bringing about synergy, alignment and common purpose; they set the team to fly in formation. Leaders create a culture for every team member to do his or her best. The Eurocentric culture is not one that is always comfortable and the spirit of ‘ubuntu’ is alive in many organisations.

“Leaders empower with skills, learning and knowledge.  They follow the concept of distributed intelligence where every contribution is considered important.  The biggest responsibility of leaders is to enable people to develop, to discover their hidden gems, to liberate people so that they can achieve their own potential.”

“The effective leader,” said Pretorius, “is a trusted leader and rewards people fairly, creating a culture of abundance, not a scarcity mentality. One who is prepared to serve their people, to care about their people and to earn their respect and loyalty. He referred to former President Mandela’s statement during his inaugural speech in 1994, “I am here not to lead but to serve.”

“Effective leaders in South Africa today are socially responsible,” noted Pretorius. “They look beyond their company walls to make a difference to South Africa and its people.”

Pretorius spoke of leadership as the light switch in an organisation. In terms of assessing the effectiveness of a leader, he said, has the vision been translated into reality? The results, he suggested, should be self-evident.

What do People Expect from Leaders?

Addressing the question of what people expect from their leaders, Pretorius said. “Clear direction and results – people only follow performers. Trust and hope that tomorrow will be better than today; hope for success and a better life. People expect a positive vision of the future; based on realism and hope with substance.”

Closing his presentation, Pretorius called on his audience to “move from success to significance,” and to leave “a legacy defined, not by wealth, but in terms of character and contribution.”

By Frances Williams

 Appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Secretariat in 2002, Florence Mugasha speaks to ReConnect Africa about the role of the organisation, leveraging African experts in the Diaspora and the challenges of leadership for women.

The Commonwealth comprises 53 nations around the globe.  It spans from the Americas to the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific and its 2 billion citizens comprise around 30% of the world’s population.

  Based in London, the Commonwealth Secretariat, which was established in 1965, is the main intergovernmental agency of the Commonwealth, facilitating consultation and co-operation among member governments and countries.

Africa and the Commonwealth

Appointed Deputy Secretary-General in May 2002, Florence Mugasha is a quietly spoken woman who exudes grace, warmth and determination in equal measure.  Prior to her appointment to the Commonwealth, Mrs. Mugasha had served since 1996 as the Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet in the Office of the President of Uganda.  She was the first woman Head of Public Service in Africa and has been closely involved in the African Association for Public Administration and Management. 

The Deputy Secretary-General outlined the importance of Africa to the work of the Commonwealth and its Secretariat. 

“My advice is to fight sexist attitudes head-on…it is my brain, not being a woman, which has brought me here.”

“Africa is one of the focus areas of the Commonwealth and 43% of our work is in the continent, where we concentrate on gap filling and how to add value.  We do also look at the ACP but almost half of our initiatives are in Africa and about £9 million of our budget is concentrated on Africa.”

The Secretariat organises Commonwealth summits, meetings of ministers, consultative meetings and technical discussions; it assists policy development and provides policy advice, and facilitates multilateral communication among the member governments. It also provides technical assistance to help governments in the social and economic development of their countries and in support of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values.

“We need to deliver the Millennium Development Goals and our duty as the Commonwealth Secretariat is to make sure our member countries catch up,” she explains.

We ask Mrs Mugasha how relevant the Commonwealth is to Africa in today’s world of globalisation and given the changing nature of political and economic alliances.

“If it wasn’t relevant, I wouldn’t be here,” she replies crisply.  “We have a voice in international forums. We have 53 countries and there is no way anyone cannot listen to us.”

“What we feel is very critical is that we have countries who share the same languages and institutions.  The programmes that we operate are demand driven and Africa has been vocal and in the forefront.  As far as the Commonwealth is concerned, we have a very big role to play where international trade, politics and conflict resolution are concerned.  We have made a very big impact.  Most of our countries know that we can make a difference, such as on debt relief and supporting democracy – we observe elections at their request and develop capacity for their electoral commissions.”

She emphasises that five major countries finance the Secretariat’s budget.  “If they didn’t believe we were doing something worthwhile, they wouldn’t fund it.  The Commonwealth is very relevant today and has assisted global dialogue between north and south and between south and south for both big and small organisations.  In addition, of course, we are in constant contact with regional and national organisations such as the United Nations and the Africa Union.”

Leveraging the Expertise of the African Diaspora

Many Commonwealth developing countries face human resource and knowledge constraints limiting their capacity for sustainable development, poverty reduction and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

To address these constraints, the Commonwealth has a Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC) as its principal means to deliver development assistance to member countries.  The CFTC supports and develops training programmes at centres of excellence throughout the Commonwealth to build capacity in priority development areas of need.

CFTC also provides capacity-building and institutional strengthening assistance to developing member countries, especially small states and least developed members. As a provider of expert services to its member nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat deploys a varied team of professionals from across a range of sectors who share their skills and experience to maximise the development potential of member states and to build the capacity of the key national and regional institutions.

“The first criteria,” says Mrs. Mugasha, “is that our experts must be Commonwealth citizens.  They must register with us and tell us their areas of specialisation.  Quite a number of Africans have registered with us to date and we have placed many on short and long-term consultancies around the Commonwealth.”

The impact of the brain drain from Africa is one that greatly concerns the Commonwealth.  “We have signed two protocols on health workers and teachers to try and control their exodus in our member countries and to allow us to train more health and education professionals,” she explains.

“There is also an international Commonwealth code of practice for the international recruitment of health workers and teachers, with Britain and Canada to try and manage migration to avoid the depletion of these skills in African countries.”

Fight Attitudes Head On

No stranger to working at high levels of governance and dealing with Africa’s predominantly male political leadership, Mrs. Mugasha is uncompromising about the impact of her gender on her role within the Commonwealth.  If being a woman in a leadership position is an issue for some who deal with her, she is confident of her right to be where she is.

“My advice is to fight sexist attitudes head-on,” she says.  “Show them you can deliver; that you are not second best, but that you are there in your own right.  It is my brain, not being a woman, which has brought me here.”

The difficulties faced at times by women leaders, she adds, are not unique to women working in the context of Africa.  “It’s not an African problem, it’s a worldwide problem.”

Commonwealth Youth Programme

One of the Commonwealth programmes that seem close to the heart of its Deputy Secretary-General is the organisation’s Youth Programme, which operates from four regional centres. 

The Commonwealth Youth Programme is an international development agency dedicated to empowering young people aged 15-29 in its member countries. The programme works with young people to create the opportunity for them to become active citizens who understand that they have rights as well as responsibilities. This enables them to fully participate in development projects that create opportunities for themselves and their communities.

The Africa programme, which is managed from Lusaka, offers training to build capacity in young people through universities across the Commonwealth.  The programme has trained over 2000 young people since its inception.  The programme also encourages youth participation in governance by involving them in politics at local, regional and national levels. 

“We want young people to be involved and to have an influence on governance,” says Mrs. Mugasha.  “We also involve them in governance workshops across the Commonwealth and include young people and women in our observer teams.”

The programme includes an initiative that offers credit to young people to start small-scale activities and to build skills.  Through centres in Guyana, Kampala and Bangladesh, young people receive training in carpentry, bricklaying, clay work, home economics and agriculture.  As part of the training, the young people receive tools and a revolving credit facility as they grow their businesses.

The Youth Programme also supports the Ambassadors for Positive Living initiative, which comprises youth networks of more than 500 young people who work during their holidays on counselling and raising awareness of HIV/AIDS.  The programme enables young people living with HIV virus or drug rehabilitation to exchange personal experiences, to promote dialogue amongst various stakeholders in the community and to foster behaviour change among young people.

The young people, says the Deputy Secretary-General, are trusted by their peers while the Commonwealth’s provision of transport and subsistence allowances enables University students and graduates to continue their studies while counselling others on avoiding drugs and high-risk behaviour. The programme, says Mrs. Mugasha, “has worked very positively in Africa and Asia and is beginning to trickle through in the Caribbean.”

A Rewarding Experience

In summing up her experience of working with the Commonwealth Secretariat, Mrs. Mugasha acknowledges the high expectations and workload carried out by her organisation.

“Although we are only 300 people, the magnitude of people we work with and the impact of what we do is so much,” she says.  “This has been a rewarding experience; it has widened my horizons, taken me across the world and I have met so many different people.  It has been a lasting experience and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.”

For more information on registering with the Commonwealth Secretariat’s CFTC, http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/20636/cftc/

Opening in South Africa in 2008, African Leadership Academy will be the first secondary school of its kind focused on developing and supporting the next generation of African leaders.

ReConnect Africa speaks to Fred Swaniker, the Ghanaian founder of ALA, about the vision behind this unique institution that aims to build ethical leaders for a prosperous Africa.

Fred Swaniker was born in Ghana and, at the age of four, began the first of a number of international moves to countries including Gambia and Botswana.  After attending high school in Zimbabwe, Swaniker went on to college in Minnesota, enrolling at McAllister College (Kofi Annan’s alma mater) from where he graduated in Economics.  Swaniker then moved to South Africa and joined McKinsey and Co., working for the company in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa.  During this time, he also helped to start up a biotech company in Cape Town, which is now undertaking leading edge research.  Returning to the USA, Swaniker studied for an MBA in Stanford and it was during this time that he came up with the idea for the Academy.

Africa Leadership Academy

The Academy will offer students aged 16-18 years old from all 54 African nations and around the world the opportunity to attend Swaniker’s two-year, co-educational boarding school in South Africa.

The Academy has a Board of Advisors with extensive experience in business and education, including Sam Jonah, the Ghanaian former Chairman of Anglogold Ashanti, Issac Shongwe, Chairman of the African Leadership Initiative in South Africa and Ralph Townsend, Headmaster of Winchester College.

Fred Swaniker and his team have already received recognition of their efforts and, in June 2006, co-founders Swaniker and Chris Bradford were named Echoing Green Fellowship winners and described as two of the “15 best emerging social entrepreneurs in the world.”

RCA: RCA: What inspired you and your team to set up African Leadership Academy?

FS: The original vision for the Academy started in 2003 and we have been working on it full-time since June 2004. The first stage was a pilot summer programme that we ran in 2005 with 70 students from 16 different countries. We repeated this in 2006 with 100 students from 25 countries.

The vision behind ALA was to set up an institution to develop the future leaders of Africa.  My personal experience of growing up and living in different parts of Africa made me realize that what Africa really needed to achieve its potential was a new generation of leaders.  We can do all the work to change Africa, but if we do not have a good group of leaders, it will not be for the long-term.

It often seems that in Africa, we are in crisis management mode. Unless we take a step back and develop leaders to prevent these crises happening in the future, it won’t change.  We don’t always have to rely on the West to solve our problems – why should we need Bill Gates to come to Africa to solve our problems, why don’t we develop our own leaders who can do this?

But leaders are not developed overnight; it takes a whole generation.  My vision was to build an institution to develop young leaders and then to work with them to continue to develop them over their lifetimes.

RCA: What made you decide on the approach of building a school?

FS: Education runs in my family and members of my family have been involved in starting schools for several generations.  My Grandpa was a headmaster, while my Grand-Uncle started Accra Academy, one of Ghana’s leading secondary schools.  My mother, who is a teacher, started a school in Botswana and I worked in the school for a year.

RCA: What do you aim to achieve with African Leadership Academy?

FS: We believe that ethical leadership is the key to a prosperous and sustainable future for Africa. The Academy is a catalyst for change in the way we educate young people in Africa.  Once we are fully operational, we will have 250 students (125 per year on a 2-year programme).  Our goal is to stimulate innovation. We will be bringing in teachers from other schools so we can teach them our methodology.  This will enable them to replicate our curriculum within their own schools and environment, using our methods to develop leaders in their communities.  In this way, the Academy will have a broader impact on more than those who are able to attend.

RCA: When does all this start?

FS: The school will be operational in September 2008. During 2007, we will be hiring a headmaster, finalizing the curriculum and recruiting our first group of students. We are looking for Africa’s most outstanding young people to join the first class of the academy over the next year. The selection process will be open but rigorous. We are open to anyone and we are looking to cast our net far and wide to give as many people as possible a chance to apply for a place. Applicants will have to go through a number of processes, including an interview, submission of a written essay as well as having to provide recommendations from teachers and from their community. The selection process will also be about assessing the applicant’s entrepreneurial skills, their commitment to public service and their leadership potential.

We are looking for people who really have the potential to change the world and are passionate about Africa; people who understand that whatever they have and whatever networks they develop, are not only for themselves, but for the good of their communities and countries.

With an innovative curriculum in leadership, entrepreneurship, and African studies, we will be preparing talented youth from across Africa for a lifetime of leadership on the continent. This curriculum will be integrated alongside an international Baccalaureate academic program and the Academy will offer college counseling, career placement, and ongoing alumni support.  We are also assembling a larger network of like-minded mentors, partners, and leaders to provide alumni with the long-term support system needed to lead Africa toward equitable and lasting development.

Our team is currently made up of eight full-time people and we are hiring three people to involve in our recruiting efforts as well as a Headmaster and faculty.  I have to say that we are looking for the best African faculty.  (See ReConnect Jobs)

RCA: How will the Academy be funded?

FS: Our funding has come from private individuals; a combination of high net worth individuals throughout the world and leading business people have contributed to the academy.  We have raised $5 million in financing to build our campus, at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site outside Johannesburg, South Africa, from individuals in South Africa, plus close to $1 million from individuals throughout the world to fund the staff costs.  We still need to raise another $2 million or so over the next two years to get through the starting costs.

To learn how you can help make the African Leadership Academy vision a reality, contact Fred Swaniker (fswaniker@africanleadershipacademy.org) or Chris Bradford (cbradford@africanleadershipacademy.org)

Editor’s Note: Since this article was produced, Christopher Khaemba, the Principal of Alliance High School, one of Kenya’s top secondary schools, has been selected as the Founding Dean of African Leadership Academy.

Having trouble engaging your team at meetings? Lin Sagovsky shares some insights on effective team communication and leadership.

As an actor and playwright with over 20 years’ experience in the business world, Lin Sagovsky helps business people to discover that better performance in the workplace depends upon practical explorations of the value of rehearsal.

Through her consultancy, Play4Real, Lin has created and ran interactive plays, workshops in leadership and other interpersonal skills as well as private coaching in confident speaking – by making it fun. In this article, Lin shares insights that she has observed on team leadership.

"A year or so ago I was asked to work for a couple of months as an Arts Associate alongside a team of senior managers at Unilever. My brief was to help them understand their identity and so improve their effectiveness, both as a team and as the individuals who made up that team – in order to turn it into ‘more than the sum of its parts’. I topped and tailed the Associateship with exploratory group workshops, and in between, spent time with each individual to use as he or she chose.

Some wanted me to work exclusively on straightforward personal impact techniques in private coaching sessions; others were also keen for me to shadow them moving about the office having ad hoc conversations at people’s desks; or to give them feedback on their writing style in round-robin e-mails; or to help them prepare for a specific big presentation to their own superiors. These requests engendered a cyclical process which itself became a fantastic means of learning for me about the principles I teach. I would give verbal feedback on what I witnessed, translate that into practical exercises with the individual manager to develop new awareness and technique, and finally would again watch how that was being applied on the hoof, in the moment, back in the workplace itself.

What fascinated me more than anything was the opportunity this gave me to become a fly on the wall as my coachees led meetings, of which there were many, and often with numerous attendees. Regular team updates could last three hours or more, with fifteen or twenty people cramming themselves into a corridor-shaped board room to sit in two long rows at a table (no-one ever wanted to sit at the head). Eye contact with whomever was speaking was therefore an impossibility for most, and if that person was a mumbler (most were), the soporific hum of the air conditioning and generally sagging energy around the table as the meeting lumbered on meant that any speaker wound up, in effect, addressing only those seated nearest - while the rest slumped progressively lower in their chairs, frowning at whatever it was they were picking out from under their own fingernails.

Several of my managers were rightly concerned about this, and at a loss as to how to get – and keep – their people engaged. And the great thing was to be able to suggest a few very simple things about energy, and spatial relationships, and eye contact, and environment, and all the non-verbal stories being told by the things and people around us to which we continuously respond as human beings - mostly without knowing it, much less understanding what a difference a small alteration can make… and then to see the light dawning in the eyes of whichever manager it was I was working with.

This is not to say all their meetings suffered from the finger-picking epidemic. One of the best I witnessed was a tough-talking strategy meeting with eight or nine top guys (yes, they were all male, alas), chaired by the leader of my team, responding to some disastrous figures for the previous month’s sales. My manager wanted my feedback on his style – which was undoubtedly gung-ho, macho, and entirely appropriate for a roomful of men who appreciated a sporting metaphor or a military simile, and could also enjoy a good joke. Watching that meeting taught me a lot about rhythm. The talk was hard and fast and intense – energised and decisive. But every so often my manager would throw in a quip, and everyone would laugh and sit back for a moment with a grin on his face. Then it would be onwards with fresh attack for the next agenda point. What my manager was doing, quite unconsciously, was providing communal breathing space. A moment for stepping back, absorbing what had just been said, lightening the focus, allowing the breath to leave the body on a chuckle or a sigh… and so create room for new inhalation, arriving in the body as the vehicle for fresh inspiration for the individual, and so for the whole meeting.

I say it to leaders again and again: dare to reach a full stop. Dare to breathe. Give space to the process of inspiration and expression to establish its own rhythm. We all need breathing space, and it is often the first thing an under-confident leader overrides – particularly under pressure.

The more I work to help leaders discover space – space to breathe, space to relate, space to allow the recipient, the audience, to come towards me rather than me relentlessly trying to bludgeon them with whatever is on my agenda – the more I see real connection, real humanity, and real creation blossom. It’s a privilege to me to deepen my own discovery of these truths and feed them back to businesspeople.”

As we look ahead to the forthcoming African Business Leaders Forum taking place in Accra in October 2007, we bring you David Christianson’s report from the Leadership for Growth conference, organised by Business in Africa and held at the Sandton Convention Centre in October 2006.

‘At the Conference, it was repeatedly stated that there is little intrinsically wrong with Africa’s leadership talent pool. But the way it has been developed and the environment in which it has to operate came in for much criticism.

There was a robustness to the debate. Much more forthright than in previous years, the tone was set during the opening plenary session addressed by three prominent African political leaders: President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and ex-president Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. During question time Nigerian Ndidi O Nwuneli, founder of leadership training NGO LEAP Africa, asked about the succession issue. Addressing her question to President Museveni, recently re-elected for a third term after necessary changes to the constitution of Uganda, she pointedly stated that one of the things great leaders do is create a succession. In Nigeria there had been popular mobilisation against the idea that President Obasanjo should stand for a third term. Some of it had been facilitated by the new electronic media, including SMS petitions. What possible justification could there be, she asked, for hanging onto office?

The question was characteristic of the robust nature of much of the debate. Many delegates had decided what points to make and were determined not to hold back. For the most part, the high-profile political leaders dealt with issues with more circumspection than many delegates. But President Museveni, in response to the question, did ultimately speak bluntly. After talking about how the presidential succession in Uganda “is guided by politics and strategy … what programme the party wants to push and who can best champion it”, he did state that he “does not agree with term limits”. “After all”, he argued, “programmes are not limited in terms of time so why should political terms of office be?”

After President Museveni’s robust statement, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda spoke diplomatically. He referred to the need for institution-building and how, in the leadership context, “you (have to) develop others to be part of the processes that are taking place”. But despite his diplomatic language, it was ultimately clear that President Kagame did not agree with President Museveni’s position. He placed an emphasis on institutions because “ultimately you don’t want to emphasise individuals” and concluded that “in Rwanda, we want to see leaders come and go”.

The director of Johannesburg’s Gordon Institute for Business Science (GIBS), Prof Nick Binedell, suggested afterwards that views on leadership in Africa are shifting. Museveni’s position, he implied, is becoming outdated and less popular. “Museveni has done a great deal for Uganda,” he argued. “In the context of what has needed to be done over the last 20 years, he has indeed been a great leader.” Museveni is indeed a huge historical figure and one that needs to be accounted for in any assessment of leadership in Africa. But as a number of delegates pointed out, he may have done his reputation a disservice “by hanging on too long”.

In terms of the overall conference, the “term debate” was something of a diversion from the issues that most concerned delegates. It did not come up again in a strong way after the first plenary. What did emerge though was a thorough discussion of the choices facing Africa’s leaders. A very distinctive private sector view on Africa’s problems came through clearly over the course of the conference. Bill Egbe, Coca-Cola’s East and Central Africa president might have been summing things up when he said in the opening session: “There is no question that there is a role for governments in African development. But there is also a role for the private sector.”

It was in the course of discussion about the interface of these two sectors that some of the most animated debate was heard.

Ali Mufuruki, Chairman of Tanzania’s Infotech Group, argued strongly that “there is no excuse” for Africa’s relative underdevelopment. He examined each of the popular excuses — the colonial legacy, a history of civil war, climate, the absence of connections to the global economy — and using comparative examples (Korea, India, Vietnam, Botswana) proceeded to reject each of them. He said Africans “need to examine our role in keeping our continent behind”. Also criticised were the “development partners” of African government — multilaterals and corporates — for being too “polite”.

Dr. Matthews Chikoanda, a former head of both the Treasury and Reserve Bank in Malawi, and now head of the country’s biggest private sector enterprise, Press Corp, traced the historical development of business corporations in this context. Originating as pure profit maximisers, corporates tended to become restructured to realise shareholder value and then, later, move on to a Corporate Social Investment view of the world. He made it clear that this was a sort of democratisation of big business. But what is the appropriate role of these corporate businesses? Chikoanda says that in the compilation of Malawi’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), it became apparent that growth was necessary for poverty reduction and that the private sector alone was an adequate ‘engine’ for the realisation of that ambition. The same insight applies to the whole continent, he implied.

Perhaps not surprisingly for a business leadership conference, there was little dissent from this view. The consensus included Presidents Museveni and Kagame, who both made robust statements in favour of private- sector-driven development. President Kagame argued that “the private sector has to take the lead”. He went on to point out that “things have to be viewed in an integrated way. Development cannot move ahead (very) fast, unless government puts certain things in place. However President Museveni, on the same point, appeared to step away from a pure market approach. “There may be a need to intervene to kick-start things,” he said. “You can always privatise later.”

Lynette Chen of Nepad pointed out that 9 out of 10 jobs in Africa are located in the private sector, if it is accepted that family farms and household economies fall into this category. She presented the case for private-sector-driven development in its starkest form. “Corporate citizenship can easily become a matter of box ticking,” she argued. “The most important thing business can do is business.” Chen stressed that the primary pre-requisites were, first, a good investment climate, which meant private-public cooperation in tackling the ‘binding constraints’, second, investment in infrastructure, and third, the elimination of the constraints on intra-African trade.

Chen was certainly not dismissive of the virtues of corporate social investment. But she clearly made the point that many conventional aspects of CSI can more appropriately be seen as business initiatives — supplier development, capacity building and treating the continent’s poor as “value-conscious consumers” rather than charity cases.

The limits of government policies were repeatedly emphasised by delegates. In this regard, these could have been the views of any group of businesspeople, anywhere in the world, presented with an opportunity to speak not only to each other but also to government leaders. Dr Chikoanda remarked on how easy it is to advocate a leading role for business but how difficult it could be to deal with obstacles in practice. He used the example of intermittent electrical supply — a very topical problem in drought-stricken East Africa where water shortages mean that hydro-electrical schemes cannot run at full capacity — and spoke of the operational chaos this factor had induced in a bottling plant operated by his company in Malawi. South African Mahadi Buthelezi, a property entrepreneur, spoke of a problem that is widespread and much less widely remarked on: the impact on business cashflows of slow payments from government. Alex Banful, the managing director of Ghana Social Marketing Foundation International remarked that this was a problem that would have its heaviest impact on smaller, indigenous businesses.

Banful pointed to a line of cleavage that perhaps did not emerge clearly enough at the conference: between large corporates, many but not all of them internationally owned, and local small and medium enterprises. He pointed out that the SME sector is a “distinctive challenge for Africa’s growth agenda”. A vibrant SME sector is an effective mechanism for mobilising savings and creating employment, he argued. The problem in much of Africa though is that most governments offer preferential treatment, not to smaller, but to larger enterprises. Subsidies are offered for large scale investment, for instance, frequently accompanied by tax concessions. The result, argues Banful, is the extensive use of inappropriate capital intensive technologies which restrict job creation.

Banful zeroed in on a field that was perhaps not adequately discussed at the conference — the sheer weight of regulation that inhibits smaller enterprises in Africa. The topic of leadership, as dealt with by delegates, tended to be leadership in government and the corporate sector. Delegates spoke of course from personal experience and raised the issues closest to their hearts. But the voicelessness of SMEs could not have been more dramatically demonstrated.

This, perhaps surprisingly, was the case even when the topics of entrepreneurship and the development of talent were discussed. The personal attributes of the successful entrepreneur were discussed extensively. Entrepreneurship expert Brian Hattingh made the perfectly valid point that it was not necessarily appropriate to see small business owners as synonymous with entrepreneurs. He favoured Richard Branson’s definition of entrepreneurship as “setting out to do something better or something no-one has ever done before, and in so doing to make a profit”. He did go on to point out that in a world where life expectancy is rising, an increasing number of people — perhaps a majority — are likely to work in the informal sector, if only because their pensions will not carry them through their entire lives. “Africa needs to develop a substantial SME entity in each country,” he concluded.

But Hattingh was something of an exception. Few delegates ventured down the SME development path that he opened up. South African leadership expert Reuel Khoza argued that equity — in corporates — should be transferred to youth in order to encourage shareholder activism. Coca Cola’s West African head Larry Drake II argued that the challenge was not to train young leaders but to retain them — again a concern especially from a corporate perspective. Dr Manu Chandaria, chairman of Kenya’s Comcraft Group, spoke of leadership as the ability to “create an environment of shared values, to take decisions and to believe in them”. All of these points were appropriate. But speakers made it clear that they were approaching the topic from a corporate perspective.

The emphasis on corporate experience relates directly to Ali Mufuruki’s earlier criticism that development partners tend to be “too polite”. Corporates especially, as self-interested institutions, are concerned to get ahead with establishing and running operations. In their interactions with government, they will almost invariably be reticent about any business environment issue apart from those that impact directly on their bottom lines. Even in these cases, criticism will be circumspect.

This is another of those ‘missing middles’ that bedevils the continent. While political leaders might now have a better grasp of the concerns of corporate business leaders than ever before, there is a massive information gap when it comes to the problems of their own citizens trying to run their indigenous enterprises. This was demonstrated in the contrast between President Museveni’s comments and those of Alex Banful. Banful — as reported above — had argued that capital-intensive investment is decidedly limited in terms of local impact. President Museveni on the other hand, criticised investment as not being capital and technology intensive enough. This is surely an argument impossible to sustain for any leader who is in touch with the needs and conditions faced by his or her own domestic SME sector.

It became apparent that the African diaspora is a major concern of the continent’s business leaders. There is undoubtedly a visceral sense of disturbance at the idea that many of the continent’s brightest and best feel compelled to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

On the evidence of these two days, a healthy — indeed robust — exchange of opinions between the continent’s political and business leaders is not only useful but characterised by a willingness from both sides to engage. There was not much evidence of polite reticence at the conference. It has to be suggested that getting high profile political leaders together with business leaders creates the conditions for a worthwhile and potentially valuable debate.

‘Under the Tree of Talking’ is a newly published collection of essays by eighteen distinguished thinkers and leaders which testify to hope on the horizon for African societies.

Effective leadership holds the key to Africa’s economic and social progress and, in this book, leading writers and social commentators share their insights into leadership in Africa and its capacity to advance or hold back the continent. ReConnect Africa speaks to the author, journalist and film maker Onyekachi Wambu, about the book and the role of leadership in changing Africa’s fortunes.

RCA: Congratulations on such an impressive publication. The contributors to the book include Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Chinweizu, William Gumede; Wangui wa Goro, Kimani Ngoju, Martha Chinouya; Eva Dadrian, and Marianna Ofosu. How did you persuade so many writers to participate in this project?

OW: Many of them didn’t need persuading as people felt it was an issue that needed to be addressed.  Achebe and Mazrui had addressed the issue in the 80’s and Achebe, for example, has been concerned with this issue in the post-Nigerian independence period. It was something that was very high on every one’s agenda so it wasn’t that hard to convince them. The real difficulty was trying to get regional and gender balance and, as a lot of the approaches were based on my own network, while we have a contributor from Rwanda, we haven’t been able to achieve a good balance in terms of Francophone contribution, which is something that we have to remedy. Deciding who to target was really the result of the themes that I wanted to discuss in the book. In the book, we talk about leadership from a number of perspectives. I wanted to start a debate about post-independent leadership from the premise that Africa governed itself before colonialism. For example, I decided to discuss Africa’s most illustrious society and there is an essay on what the ancient Egyptians thought of leadership and good governance. The names of contributors suggested themselves according to the subject I wanted to explore and who could address it. For example, one subject I wanted to explore was that of translation as a leadership issue. With nearly 3000 languages spoken on one continent, how do we talk to each other? By the time we speak across languages, the meaning is distorted. How do you get information from your government about services, how are legal disputes mediated if you don’t understand the language of the courtroom, for example?

We look at leadership both from the top down and bottom up; how ordinary people become extraordinary. We look at leadership from the present to the future, exploring the issues that young people have around seniority. We look at leadership from the outside looking in i.e. what the African Diaspora brings to the table and then from inside looking out; the external challenges facing Africa e.g. the rise of China and the leadership responses to that. It was also about asking the writers to make suggestions, offer strategies and solutions and provide examples of service through their own experience. As a result, a few of the essays are quite personal.

RCA: In addition to the introduction, you also wrote a chapter on Africa and China. What do you see as the lessons African countries must apply in the face of China’s massive focus on and investment into Africa?

If you are gong to negotiate with someone, you need to know what they want. And then you need to know what you want. I’ve explored Chinese history; where they are and how they got here, but also what China is after in Africa, which is essentially in pursuit of their expanding economy, i.e. resources and markets. In the chapter, I conduct a SWAT analysis of where Africa is and how we need to negotiate and, I would suggest, we need to negotiate not individually, but as a group like other blocs. Our engagement with China also raises the issue of jobs and how we can put these on the agenda in our negotiations. Simply put, if China is destroying our jobs base, we shouldn’t be encouraging that. If they are putting in infrastructure but also bringing in their own labourers, we shouldn’t be in the business of creating jobs for Chinese people when we have 8 million Africans every year that need jobs.

There are parts of China’s model that we can look at and borrow but the bigger question that I ask is whether it is China we should be focusing on rather than, say India. India is achieving growth within a democratic framework and what I am suggesting is that we have more in common with India and we can be proactive in developing a relationship with that country. We have large Indian communities in Africa – Durban is the biggest Indian city in the world outside India – and share much in common. If we were positive in defining our own agenda, we could build more like-minded partnerships, albeit at a slower pace.

One of the lessons Africa should have learned and must apply is defining its own interests and then defending them. In the past we have tended to rely on other people’s agendas, hoping that they coincided with ours. The 2 major economies that did not follow the Bretton Woods prescriptions were India and China. In Africa, where we followed the World Bank and IMF, we have been pauperized, our middle classes destroyed and our expertise exported. I believe that it is about having the confidence to preserve our own policy space. I would add that ultimately, in order to be able to have that luxury, you also need to be able to defend yourself and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those two nations also have their own nuclear defence.

RCA: In a speech she gave in 2006, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia spoke about the need for a different kind of leader in Africa. After the liberation era when so many leaders relied on charisma and the cult of personality to lead Africa’s newly independent states, what do you believe is needed in the 21st century?

OW: I would refer to Ali Mazrui’s essay on ‘Liberation, Democracy, Development and Leadership in Africa’. The point he makes is that Africa produced a lot of good liberation leaders and even leaders of reconciliation, like Mandela. But what the continent hasn’t been able to do so effectively was to produce leaders of democracy and development.

I happen to think that this has to do with skill sets. The skills that you need to take your people to liberation are not necessarily what you then need to manage democracy properly. Mazrui looks at the traditions of African leadership and he identifies eight traditions of the older model that people then built on. It is not simply about blaming our leaders or accusing them of incompetence when perhaps they are only doing what they know and in the framework of what they know. For me, the perfect example of this is Winston Churchill. He was the right leader for a war but thereafter the British people voted in leaders like Attlee who were able to build a post-war democracy for which Churchill was not seen as having either the skills or the inclination.

I think it’s about looking at that in Africa and about understanding who has those skills sets; people who can be managers and yet also ‘charismatize’ people. Is it possible for us now to start looking at the skills sets that leaders need? As far as I’m concerned, it is a management issue and we, as followers, need to create the space to discuss the right skills needed by our leaders i.e. the skills needed to manage, rather than getting caught up in issues of ethnicity and other irrelevant criteria. Can our leaders deal with the challenges of today’s world? With mobilizing our Diaspora? A leader has to be able to do all of that effectively if they are going to deliver results.

RCA: What would you say are some of the most provocative views expressed in ‘Under the Tree of Talking’?

OW: I don’t think we get into a slanging match with anyone. Rather than provocative, I would say that some big issues emerged. A number of issues came up again and again, one being the shortcomings of the inherited colonial state and how we might imagine and reconstruct these states. A lot of people talked about pan-Africanism as a response to imagination and reconstruction. Another theme was how we manage the huge diversity within our nations - which I think, is a welcome dialogue. What also emerged was the importance of involving women and young people in leadership. And then, finally, the issue of identifying African solutions to African problems and creating our own policy space where we begin to talk of our countries as the template rather than as abstractions onto which other countries’ systems are to be transplanted.

I write in the book about my village, where the Chief dispenses about 80% of the justice. Why do people there prefer that? Most people don’t want to enter the state’s halls of justice; they don’t understand the language used in court, the culture there is alien to them, justice can be delayed and the price of justice can be very high whereas, with the village, justice can be served speedily and affordably. That is the reality in many African countries but these leaders are not supported by the state and are not trained. Yet, in reality, they are part of the real service delivery in these countries.

By engaging with our traditions, you may find you get a better system of justice and yet when nothing works in the transplanted legal systems that we have adopted, people wonder why. If the traditional is what is working, why not build on that to address our issues today rather than on a tradition that came from elsewhere?

RCA: With so many Africans living in other parts of the world, what role can Africa’s Diaspora play in ensuring effective leadership within the continent?

OW: I think we need to be careful about our assumptions. The sad truth is that our organizations in the Diaspora are often riven with the same kind of problems that we see at home. Think about what we see in some of our organisations; the leaders for life, splinter group break-offs, multiplying organizations for those that won’t submit to the majority and other anti-democratic approaches. And we do need to talk about these things. But I think there are things we can do as part of the Diaspora. We have seen how other societies function and how you can put in place policies around equity and transparency. We implement these on a daily basis and know the benefits that come from them and these are things that we should be trying to convince people at home about.

There is no doubt that we can use our economic muscle to hold leaders more accountable. Leaders in Africa are now talking about Diaspora money and Ghana has been ahead of the curve in talking about social remittances and seeing how these remittances can be put to use at home. It seems to me that there are things that we can begin to demand quite rightfully, as other donors do. If we are sending our money home and the government is planning to use it, it holds them accountable to us for how that money is spent and we want transparency.

But I would far rather see this as a partnership that we can work with. Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie’s chapter deals with this issue and talks about the 10 ‘principles’ around which we, in the Diaspora, can work with people on the continent. These include the principle that the benefit of migration must accrue far and wide throughout African society and not just to those who are fortunate enough to travel abroad. Another important principle is commitment to institutional development in Africa. Another is that the right systems and resources are offered to Africa in a way that people on the ground want and require. It has also got to be about mutual gain, that is, a relationship where both Africa and the Diaspora benefit. He talks about building organizational structures that encapsulate diversity; age, gender and ethnicity and also about incrementalism, building up on what already works rather than tearing down everything and starting over each time, and getting away from the idea that the last leader did nothing. It is also about recognizing that the balance of power must stay in Africa and that we should learn from past mistakes about how Diaspora and Africans relate to each other.

‘Under the Tree of Talking’ (ISBN/ISSN: 12453654) is published by Counterpoint. Copies can be purchased online from Amazon or from all good bookshops.