Jill Rees: Welcome Press

In a recent lecture, Hans Rosling (1) shows how Africa has been left behind in the world in terms of poverty. Poverty is determined by high infant mortality and high birth rate, as well as GDP per capita. Africa is as a whole at the level of Europe in the 19th century. In 1820, Austria and Sweden both had an infant mortality rate of 20%, which is comparable with modern day Nigeria. But child mortality and economy aren’t necessarily related. Social progress in some countries today exceeds their economical development. Social progress means national health statistics, longevity, education and the availability of medical services.
Today, Singapore is the healthiest country in the world; you stand a much better chance of survival if you are born in Singapore than anywhere else. ‘It’s only a small country,’ jokes Hans Rosling, ‘Everyone can get to the hospital quickly.’
National wealth has so far always been related to the production of carbon monoxide since it refers to industrial development. Statistics only appeared from one hundred years ago, a little earlier in some countries. Until industrialisation, no-one measured things. Poverty, says Hans Rosling, means trying every day to survive. The poor don’t have time to be concerned about the state of the nation, or about democracy, although sure it is nice to vote if you have time. The poor women he worked with in rural African villages wanted technology more than democracy. They wanted a mill, to grind the grain, which took up the majority of their time and which they felt to be a waste of time. They wanted running water, perhaps the most important advance ever made; the infrastructure of schools, where at the least they could leave their children and go out to work; roads and a bicycle to travel to market. The infrastructure of good governance, therefore, comes before the longing for a democratic say.
Accordingly to Hans Rosling, sub-Saharan Africa, contrary to the popular conception, has done better than any other nation on earth in terms of economical progress, having developed from a medieval state in European terms to a 1900s Europe, beginning to develop industrial and welfare infrastructure.
Vital to development is economic growth, since 80% of our survival depends on income level. Those considered relatively poor lack the food, medical services and clean housing and water provision necessary to longevity. They need good governance (no wars), and education so that the population are able to perform the activities necessary for wealth creation. Human rights are important of course, but more important than anything else, says Hans Rosling, perhaps surprisingly, is culture, because it is culture which makes life worth living. It is culture which makes us believe that the seemingly impossible, like a poor nation becoming wealthy, is possible.
India invested $30 billion in Africa last year and calls Africa an emerging market. India is battling with China, who invested twice that, to become the key player in Africa. In Nigeria, India, not China, was the major investor. Unlike China or the Northern countries, India says it wants to be involved ‘in the community’, circumventing the big political corruption. This kind of relationship will empower the small entrepreneur, currently held back by rich and powerful assemblages. Wealth and power will no longer be intertwined. If business is able to flourish, and entrepreneurs are able to acquire influence, it may be that nations like Nigeria, where governance has impeded development, will be able to advance nevertheless.
Traditionally in northern countries, social development and welfare came about because of individual entrepreneurs’ benevolence. Often religious leaders, educators, independently wealthy patrons and benevolent entrepreneurs started schools, medical centres for the poor, campaign groups to change laws such as employment laws which were unjust and corrupt. Change very rarely occurs because of benevolent government.
It may be that India is the exception. At the beginning of the economic miracle that is modern India, programmes to build wells and bring clean water and schools to every village were already in place.
In 1983, a chap from Pakistan told me of his visit to India, and how every child had free milk. He contrasted this to his own country, which he described as corrupt and primitive. Although Pakistan today has grown militarily, and has the atom bomb for example, it still has extreme poverty, low opportunity for women, poor educational standards, political corruption and an unstable and largely unproductive economy. Development of welfare and culture do indeed seem closely linked to general wealth as well as international respect and influence.
India has a long-standing love for Africa. Its great and beloved statesman, Mahatma Gandhi, cut his teeth on anti-racist campaigns in South Africa and always spoke well of the African people. In later years, Gandhi said that he was born in India but ‘made’ in South Africa (2)
‘It was after I went to South Africa that I became what I am now’. (3)
Indians are businessmen, concerned with running ethical businesses, not political players. They could be what Nigeria needs. Furthermore, like Nigeria, they speak English. India isn’t talking about aid, or World Bank lending, or Africa as a special case. India is interested in making money. Like India, whose economy has boomed to enable her now to be a world power, Nigeria is on the move. It seems to me that this increasing connection with India might be an important and beneficial relationship for Nigerians.

© Jill Rees
09 April 2008
931 words

1. www.ted.com
2. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 84, page 380.
3. Collected Works, Volume 87, page 257.

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Tags: China, development, economics, Hans Rosling, India, industrialisation, Nigeria, poverty, progress, TED, world bank