Rebuilding America by building Africa
By: Lloyd Whitefield Butler, Jr. - Columnist
Posted: Thursday, June 17, 2010 12:23 pm
WHITE House and Congressional Black Caucus fast asleep at the African switch.
"If the enemy is not doing anything against you, you are not doing anything" Ahmed Sékou Touré
"Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular - but one must take it simply because it is right." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
England’s Chatham House has been the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs for ninety years. Their mission is to be a world-leading source of independent analysis, informed debate and influential ideas on how to build a prosperous and secure world for all.
According to Chatham House’s independent thinking on international affairs they published a June 2010 strategic report on Africa called “Playing to its Strengths: Rethinking the UK’s Role in a Changing World.”
Chatham House’s executive summary states the following:
"African countries are playing a more strategic role in international affairs. Global players that understand this and develop greater diplomatic and trade relations with African states will be greatly advantaged.
"For many countries, particularly those that have framed their relations with Africa largely in humanitarian terms, this will require an uncomfortable shift in public and policy perceptions.
"Without this shift, many of Africa's traditional partners, especially in Europe and North America, will lose global influence and trade advantages to the emerging powers in Asia, Africa and South America.
"China's re-engagement is for the most part welcome, as is that of the increasing numbers of emerging powers such as Turkey, South Korea and Brazil that see Africa in terms of opportunities - as a place in which to invest, gain market share and win access to resources.
"Economic fortunes across Africa are now diverging, making it less meaningful to treat Africa as a single entity in international economic negotiations. Despite this, it is in the global interest that the African Union should be granted a permanent place at the G20."
The former British Empire’s think tank has finally arrived not from intelligence and insight, but from forced necessity. American think tanks are disgraceful. Racism, greed, and superstition keeps the American political elite spellbound in ignorance with an insatiable appetite for war. This makes business and political foreign policies toxic to Third World nations.
In 1968 US Presidential Candidate Richard Milhouse Nixon while speaking before a group of Black Republicans shared strategic advice when delivering his "Bridge to Human Dignity Speech" he said:
"In order to have human dignity, people need property rights - and never has this been more true than in the case of the Negro today. What do I mean by property? Essentially, the economic power that comes from ownership, and the security and independence that comes from economic power."
The above sounds like Zimbabwe’s indigenization and empowerment law.
The “Words of Dr. Martin Luther King” Selected by Coretta Scott King further enlightens with strategic thinking in order to rebuild America by dignifying its relations with Africa:
"Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice. But the Negro knows that these two evils have a malignant kinship. New laws are not enough. The emergency we now face is economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation.
"It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete on a just and equal basis?
"Few people consider the fact that, in addition to being enslaved for two centuries, the Negro was, during all those years, robbed of the wages of his toil. No amount of gold could provide an adequate amount of compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries. 'Not all the wealth of this affluent society could meet the bill. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages.
"When millions of people have been cheated for centuries, restitution is a costly process ... Justice so long deferred has accumulated interest and its cost for this society will be substantial in financial as well as human terms. This fact has not been fully grasped, because most of the gains of the past decade were obtained at bargain rates. The desegregation of public facilities cost nothing; neither did the election and appointment of a few black public officials."
The Zimbabwe Guardian reports in an article how the “Group of Elders should re-read history” by Tendai Midzi. He opines that: "Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his so-called 'Group of Elders' are making a fool of themselves by making uninformed comments about Zimbabwe without the right kind of briefing from politicians in the country.
"There are crises in many places in the world where these so-called 'elders' have either remained quiet or taken a more informed approach. There are also other places where their contribution could be more meaningful rather than Zimbabwe where the parties are at peace and have managed to strike a deal without their influence.”
Here is an example of a place in the world where the Group of Elders’ contributions can be more meaningful: the United States of America. The Group of Elders is not too elderly to understand the following remarks:
"Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular - but one must take it simply because it is right." MLK
Breibart News reported this week that, “Global military expenditures soared to a record high last year, unscathed by the economic downturn, with the United States accounting for more than half of increase, a think tank said Wednesday. In 2009, 1,531 billion dollars (1,244 billion euros) were spent worldwide in the military sector, a 5.9 percent rise from 2008 and a 49 percent jump from 2000, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its report.”
Meanwhile, U.S. AFRICOM is preparing militarily; sanctions and threats of sanctions are State Department problem solving tools, and, chasing poor Somalian peasant pirates who are compensating themselves for ships that dump toxins in their waters ruining their fisheries are U.S. high points for winning over Africa.
Regretfully President Obama appears to believe that military preparedness should outperform fiscal preparedness. Fiscal availability determines the timeframe and affordability of war; with the exception of self defense. Depleting a nations’ treasury while executing war is suicidal, and, winning a war that results in generational debt is stupid.
The above mentioned reference to President Nixon’s “Bridge to Human Dignity” speech should be applied to the White House, US House of Representative & Senate, Congressional Black Caucus, and Group of Elders.
All Africa, Asia, and Central & South America watch carefully the manner in which the European and American governments treat the Elder Statesman of African Liberation President Robert Mugabe as though he does not exist. The West hatefully and jealously sanction the Zimbabwe people and their new government against the wishes of the African Union, Non-Aligned Nations, and United Nations, etc. because they dare venture into Black African Capitalism.
In Africa and the world President Mugabe is also known as the well mannered Godfather of African Indigenous Land Return & Mineral Resource Ownership. President Mugabe accepts that “If the enemy is not doing anything against you, you are not doing anything.”
In 1909 a white Southerner and gentleman, Edgar Gardner Murphy, wrote in “The Basis of Ascendancy - Our Race Security" the following:
'The perils involved in the progress of the [N]negro are as nothing in comparison with the perils invited by his failure. And yet if any race is to live, it must have something to live for...it will hardly give any deep spiritual or conscious allegiance to its racial future, if its race life is to be forever burdened with contempt, and denied the larger possibilities of thought and effort.'
Gardner Murphy further states in 'The Integrating Force of Opportunity' chapter VII. that: 'Deliverance lies not solely in the white man's baldly assuming the perpetual attitude of the policeman over his treasure, but in giving the negro a treasure too: and, as he becomes also a policeman, on guard as a man and as a race above his own. Keep him forever in his bankruptcy and his destitution, without a life to attract him or a treasure to conserve, and these millions will become conscious of their race only to disown it and to betray it, -- a despairing and devouring menace to the wholesome stability of our own life, and a noisome indictment of the perversity or the incapacity of our statesmanship.'
The Financial Times also reported this week that “China’s engagement with Africa has had a transformative effect on the continent’s relations with the outside world, shaking up an old and fraying order dominated by cautious foreign donors and former colonial powers…Trade between Africa and China rose tenfold, from $10bn (€8bn, £6.9bn) to $108bn, between 2000 and 2008…Africa holds 10 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves – and more still to be discovered. China buys a third of its oil from Africa and the US aims to import 25 per cent from the west African seaboard...Algeria and Algeria the seventh and eighth biggest natural gas reserves globally. South Africa 40 per cent of the world’s gold. Africa after China, the biggest reserves of the rare earth metals essential for production of high-technology items from lasers to turbines
Need anymore be said concerning the strategic importance of Rebuilding America by Building Africa?
How far gone has American foreign policy gone?
I quote an excerpt from former CIA Analyst Chalmers Johnson’s NY Times bestseller “Nemesis – The Last Days of the American Empire.”
‘The attempt to disguise or avoid the policy-based reasons for 9/11 fed the rantings of Christian fundamentalists in the United States. Televangelist Pat Robertson, later joined by Jerry Falwell, declared that “liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters bear some responsibility for [the] terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God’s anger against America,” and they launched a hate campaign against all Muslims. Jimmy Swaggart called Muhammad a “sex deviant” and a pervert and suggested that Muslim students in the United States be expelled. The Pentagon added its bit of insanity to this religious mix when army lieutenant general William G. “Jerry” Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, argued in public in full uniform without subseequent official reprimand that “they” hate us “because we are a Christian nation,” that Bush was appointed by God, that the Special Forces are inspired by God, that our enemy is “a guy name Satan,” and that we defeat Islamic terrorists only “if we come at them in the name of Jesus.”
Labels: BARACK OBAMA, CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS, LLOYD WHITEFIELD BUTLER JR
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US Congressmen end Zimbabwe visit
by
03/09/2009 00:00:00
A DELEGATION of U.S. Congressmen concluded two days of meetings with senior Zimbabwean government officials in Harare on Thursday.
The five-member delegation discussed a range of issues including the performance of the power sharing government, unresolved issues of the Global Political Agreement signed last September 15, and the role of the United States in supporting the government, the US embassy said.
The delegation, the largest group of American policymakers Zimbabwe has hosted in more than a decade, was led by Representative Gregory Meeks (D-New York) and included Representatives Jack Kingston (R-Georgia), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Melvin Watt (D- North Carolina) and Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio).
The delegation met separately with President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and Speaker of the House of Assembly Lovemore Moyo and the tri-partite chairs of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution.
Following their meeting with the Prime Minister, Representative Meeks, speaking on behalf of the delegation, said: “This delegation and my government are supportive of the inclusive political arrangement established between the three primary political parties in Zimbabwe. We recognize that it is not intended as a permanent arrangement and as such is bound to experience some growing pains.
"However, to have a reasonable prospect of delivering benefits to the Zimbabwean people it is paramount that the signatories work in good faith with each other. We are concerned that multiple issues remain unresolved with respect to the Global Political Agreement.”
While addressing America’s relationship with Zimbabwe and what additional support the U.S. government might provide, Meeks said: “Our support for the Zimbabwean people cannot be questioned. U.S. direct assistance to the Zimbabwean people exceeded $310 million, primarily food aid, non-food emergency assistance, health assistance, and democracy building support this year. We have always stood ready to help the Zimbabwean people.
“During Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s visit to Washington in June, President Obama promised additional support in the areas of agriculture and education. Beyond this, increased U.S. engagement and assistance will depend on further political and economic reform; and compliance with the Global Political Agreement."
Labels: CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS, SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, ZIMBABWE
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AU and US Congressional Black Caucus coalition needed
Lloyd Whitefield BUTLER, Jr.
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:27:00 +0000
“People may ask how we, who have been opponents for so long, can possibly work together in government. On this I ask all Zimbabweans to hear these words. I have signed this agreement because I believe it represents the best opportunity for us to build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic Zimbabwe.
I have signed this agreement because my belief in Zimbabwe and its peoples runs deeper than the scars I bear from the struggle. I have signed this agreement because my hope for the future is stronger than the grief I feel for the needless suffering of the past years.” Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai
“Hundreds of Pan-Africanists came out to the National Black Theatre on Sunday, February 8 to hear a historic panel on scholars and activists declare total solidarity with Zimbabwe and the leadership of President Robert G. Mugabe. The powerful gathering demanded an “end to the illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe”. The rally was sponsored by The December 12th Movement and the Friends of Zimbabwe whose rally theme was “Pan Africanism or Imperialism”. The New York Amsterdam News (2/12-18/09)
THE African Union and US Congressional Black Caucus must form a coalition based on historical and mutual interest; it appears both institutions are fast asleep at the switch of big business and history. However, western busy-bodies and snoopers are actively burning the midnight oil in tracing African oil and mineral profits for undeclared intentions.
The NY Amsterdam News also reported how a “U.S. Senator Urges Buildup of Military Presence In Africa” and that ‘AFRICOM is widely unpopular among African leaders, who are skeptical of a U.S. led professionalization of their armies”.
The theme Pan Africanism or Imperialism may sound far fetched to some but its colonial head is rearing itself in the U.S. Senate in 2009.
US Congressional statements by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold on “Africa and U.S. AFRICOM” at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., 01/28/09 are revealing and poorly informed. Senator Feingold has yet to commend the All Inclusive government of Zimbabwe and the brotherly love shown between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Senator Feingold’s committee’s heard testimony from one of their key all-white lobbyist Global Witness (GW). The testimony “Resource Curse or Blessing: Africa’s Extractive Industries in a Time of Record Oil and Mineral Prices” by Simon Taylor, Director and Co-Founder Global Witness only demonstrates Anglo America’s true foreign policy interest: mechanisms of neo-colonial control and containment. It is amazing how there policies do not apply to the EU and US.
Global Witness reported with distaste how ‘Africa exported $249 billion in oil and minerals in 2006, nearly six times the value of international aid to the continent,’ and how ‘A lack of transparency has meant that billions of dollars cannot be accounted for, from Angola to Equatorial Guinea.’
‘Although few people realize it, more oil from Africa now goes into gasoline in the U.S. than from the Persian Gulf. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 23% of U.S. oil imports currently come from Africa – more than the combined U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf, which are 18%.
The largest oil producing nation in Africa is now Angola, which now ranks as the seventh largest oil exporter to the U.S. – ahead of Kuwait, Russia, and Colombia combined. So nearly one-quarter of American gasoline comes from Africa, and Angola is Africa’s largest oil producing country.
GW also made subtle suggestions on ‘The Supply chain and how we can influence it. So what exactly is the supply chain for African oil coming to the U.S., and how can we influence it to help reverse the resource curse?’
Why does GW find trade with Africa a “resource curse?” Is it because black Africans are profiting?
One Global Witness press release promoted “Conflict diamond scheme must suspend Zimbabwe” after the Zimbabwe government re-established law and order and a business setting for investors in the diamond fields - 12/12/2008.
‘Members of the Kimberley Process (KP) Civil Society Coalition are calling upon the KP to suspend Zimbabwe from the rough diamond certification scheme, in light of recent violence used by the government to take control of the Chiadzwa diamond fields.”
As a 16-year member and Chairman of the all-white Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs Russ Feingold committee’s imperial beliefs are as follows:
* ... we in Congress should work across the spectrum of agencies here in Washington as well as with AFRICOM's leadership to help craft a combatant command that is doing the right job, for the right reasons and can thus be adequately resourced.
* By expanding our diplomatic presence in Africa, including outside the capitals, we increase our ability to learn about the continent -- its governments, its people and its cultures. Right now, we do not have the necessary human resources or expertise on the African continent to gather this information and anticipate emerging crises or fully understand existing ones.
* Diplomatic reporting and open source collection in Africa are a critical complement to the clandestine work of the Intelligence Community, and I have long called for more resources for both.
* At present, there are several devastating crises that we cannot ignore, including in Congo, Nigeria, the Sahel, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
While Senator Russ Feingold’s all White subcommittee on African Affairs, and soon to be all white American Senate, plans neo-colonial policies for Africa with US taxpayer funds the borders of the United States are crying out for an AMERICOM.
African leaders should be aware that the same foreign policy that set up impoverished and corrupt governments in post-colonial Africa and Latin America are now reformatting its details on the African Union. US Senator Feingold should direct his attention to massive corruption on the borders of America and stop meddling in the affairs of duly elected African governments.
Senator Russ Feingold appears to be completely unaware of fugitive convict Roy Bennett’s legal status and Zimbabwe constitutional law by advocating the release of a fugitive before trial.
According to The Zimbabwe Guardian: “Three years ago in March, Roy Bennett left Zimbabwe under cover of darkness, after he was accused of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe. He was wanted by police in connection with the discovery of an arms cache at Peter Hitschmann’s house in Mutare. Hitschmann was immediately arrested, charged and later convicted.
‘In 2004 Bennett spent eight months in jail for punching Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament. Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi said Bennett was a “fugitive” who escaped after being granted bail in a bid to avoid justice while his alleged partner in crime, Peter Hitschmann has since been convicted.
“There was a warrant of arrest issued against Bennett by the courts. We are merely upholding the law and putting the court order into effect . . . that is our constitutional mandate. No one is above the law and he (Bennett) sought asylum knowing full well that he was being charged with a crime,” Mohadi said.
“We had been looking for him for one and a half weeks prior to catching him at the airport where he was planning to leave the country. So we apprehended him immediately because his case is pending,” explained Mohadi.
White farmer, Roy Bennett will go on trial commencing March 4 after a magistrate found reasonable grounds for him to stand trial.
Bennett, who is the MDC Treasurer General and a former legislator, was designated for the deputy minister of agriculture post, briefly appeared at Mutare magistrate's court on Wednesday.
Feingold’s recent press release stating: "I am deeply concerned by the arrest of Roy Bennett. This appears to have been a deliberate attempt to keep him from being sworn in with other cabinet members last week and to undermine the newly formed unity government. If so, this is calls into question Robert Mugabe and his allies’ commitment to genuinely share power and implement democratic reforms. I will continue to monitor the situation in Zimbabwe and Mr. Mugabe's actions closely. I urge the Obama administration to do all it can to ensure that Mr. Bennett is not tortured and to press for his immediate release” demonstrates political naiveté.
Monitoring needed on US Mexican border & Latin America
According to the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, CHA, America’s foreign policy is politically and economically devastating on Latin America. Senator Feingold’s committee on Africa should concern itself with America’s backyard immediately. The report states:
“The Rock in the Sun”: Haiti’s [Rene] Préval Pleads For the U.S. and Rest of the World to End Global Negligence Towards Latin America’s Poorest Country. ‘Haitian President Préval’s dilemma may continue as he makes his case before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and international lending agencies. The failed state continues to suffer in spite of it being led by a worthy president. Visit lacking high visibility.’
The CHA’s report covered such topics as Haitian Food Shortage, World Intervention: A Failed Attempt at Stabilization; and The Tactics of a Drug Strategy: Mexico.
The CHA’s report mentions West Point Adjunct professor of International Affairs, Retired US General Barry R. McCaffrey who is quoted from an After Action Report after visiting Mexico 5-7 December 2008. ‘An Afghanistanization of Mexico and Central America becomes a strong possibility, if not a near certainty, claims a report written by ex-Drug Czar [US] General McCaffrey, referring to the specific areas within Mexican territory being wrested from the government’s de facto control by powerful drug lords who would then not hesitate to set up their own shadow authority.’
‘For well over a century, the Monroe doctrine dictated U.S. policy towards the rest of the Americas. …the past eight years have seen U.S. influence in Latin America badly erode and progressively usurped by powers from outside the hemisphere. Russia and China in particular have been active in the region, as well as Iran and the European Union…’
‘Assisting the Mexican government with military aid and intelligence will have little effect if the DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organization) continue to arm themselves with US-secured weaponry from cross-border sources. The importance of acknowledging the price that the war on drugs has cost the region, which has been fueled by high levels of US consumption and eager DTOs doing the supplying, must be of more than cosmetic note to the Obama administration.
‘A failure by the Mexican political system to curtail lawlessness and violence could result [in] a surge of millions of refugees crossing the US border to escape the domestic misery of violence, failed economic policy, poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the mindless cruelty and injustice of a criminal state. Mexico is not confronting dangerous criminality--- it is fighting for survival against narco-terrorism.”
Black American input in US African foreign policy wanted
To assist African development in technology, agriculture, and venture capital the US Congressional Black Caucus should continue to initiate a pro-active Africa Policy whereby no legislation or executive orders, directly or indirectly affecting Africa, be passed without their approval. Presently, all white American committees, NGO’s, research groups, lobbyist, and non-Africans are forging African policy. This must stop.
Some of Africa’s most urgent needs have been acknowledged by the US Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health; and reported in historical context the following:
* International donors started to cut back on international agricultural assistance in the 1980s. In 1980 the US was a leading international advocate for agricultural development assistance, with nearly 25% of official development assistance (ODA) going to this sector. A decade later the share had fallen to about six per cent of the total. By 2003 it stood at one per cent. Although this drop occurred at a time when overall US foreign assistance was rising in constant dollar terms, the net effect is still a dramatic decrease: between 1980 and 2003 total bilateral ODA increased by 69%, but agricultural aid dropped by 98%.
* The cutting of agricultural development assistance in the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been so thorough that the term ‘‘agriculture’’ is hardly used. The agency still has an agriculture office, but its total budget had dropped to just $27 million. The total US development assistance to agriculture from all USAID offices now stands at a mere $169 million, or 1% of the total ODA.
* This has significantly undercut the capacity of the US to be a serious diplomatic player in Africa where agriculture still remains a core economic activity.
* Africa has lagged behind other regions of the world in agricultural development for two main reasons. First, its institutions of higher learning hardly played their role as promoters of agricultural innovation. They focused on producing functionaries for the civil service. Second, reductions in foreign agricultural assistance undermined the local research efforts as well as international university partnership.
* The challenge now is to forge a new partnership between the US and Africa that will bring new financial resources to enable US universities to team up with their African counterparts.
* One of the main challenges in African higher education is the isolation of campuses and training facilities. University textbooks are often decades out of date and students have little access to more recent information: road travel is difficult and slow, air travel expensive; and Internet connections are prohibitively expensive. It is not possible to spread information about available agricultural practices when it can cost a day’s wages for an African student to log on at an Internet cafe´ to download a paper or brochure. Most students have no Internet access at all through their universities. African universities of the size of the University of California Berkeley or the University of Texas at Austin have the Internet capability of a single US household. They do not buy more capacity because even this limited connection can cost up to $15,000 per month. A digitally-isolated Africa cannot effectively educate its students or provide adequate post-graduate training.
* In much of Africa, communications prices are far higher than the cost of infrastructure warrants. Africa (other than South Africa) is currently linked to the developed world by a single fiber-optic cable down the West Africa coast. It is the most digitally-isolated region on the globe. Even so, that single cable is still underutilized.
* That cable is operated as a monopoly, and the owners (a consortium of Africa and foreign, including US companies) have set bandwidth prices so high that most users connect via satellite instead. Bandwidth in much of Africa is sold for prices 40–100 times higher than in the US although operating expenses are not significantly different.
* Monopoly firms have adopted a ‘‘high cost, low volume’’ business strategy. The curbing of the monopolies in Africa is a necessary step in its economic development.
* Energy is another area that stalls Africa’s agricultural development and economic growth. The continent has abundant new and renewable energy resources—hydropower, geothermal, biomass, solar, and in some countries, wind potential. Africa accounts for only about 5% of world primary energy demand and this is unevenly distributed.
* Only about 36% of the population has access to electricity and most of this is in urban areas. Nearly 80% of the continent’s rural population has no access to electricity. The majority of these people rely on traditional biomass such as wood and agricultural residues as their main energy source with far-reaching ecological implications.
* Much of the discussion about Africa’s energy situation focuses on trends in supply and demand and their environmental implications. What is often ignored is the importance of technological innovation associated with energy use which can be a springboard for technology used to tackle wider conservation challenges. Discussions should be placed in the context of using technological innovation to boost the transition to sustainability.
* Geothermal energy is a good example. Using existing technology, Eastern Africa (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) has the potential to generate over 2,500 MW of electricity from geothermal energy (out of the current global output of 8,100 MW). Geothermal energy production involves building capacity in a wide range of fields including ecology, chemistry, geology, engineering and electronics. The expertise needed is similar to that needed for natural resource management. Building geothermal energy capacity can therefore go hand in hand with efforts to meet longer term sustainable development as well as sustainable energy targets.
* The 8th Summit of the African Union adopted far-reaching decisions on science and technology at its January 2007 session in Addis Ababa. The presidents committed themselves to ‘‘Encourage more African youth to take up studies in science, technology and engineering, and invite Member States to pay special attention to the teaching of science and technology,’’ African Union. 2007. Addis Ababa Declaration on Science, Technology and Scientific Research for Development.
* The development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been an integral part of the development of all industrialized economies. This holds true in Africa. Building these enterprises requires development of pools of capital for investment, of local operational, repair and maintenance expertise, and of a regulatory environment that allows small business to flourish. Africa must review its incentive structures to promote these objectives, and the international community must promote investment in African businesses.
* They need to support agribusiness and technology incubators, export processing zones and production networks as well as sharpening the associated skills through agribusiness education. The US can help in all these avenues.
* Banks and financial institutions also play key roles in fostering technological innovation and supporting investment in homegrown domestic businesses. Unfortunately, their record in promoting technological innovation in Africa has been poor.
* Capital markets have played a critical role in creating SMEs in other developed countries. Venture capitalists not only bring money to the table, they also help groom small and medium-sized start-ups into successful enterprises. Venture capital in Africa, however, barely exists outside of South Africa and needs to be introduced and nurtured.
* Industrialized countries have supported, funded and promoted institutions of higher technical learning, as well as academies of engineering and technology, professional engineering and technological associations, and industrial and trade associations.
* Higher technical education is increasingly (and belatedly) being recognized as critical for development. While primary education has been the focus of the donor community for decades, secondary and higher education and research are now beginning to gain policy attention.
* BUILDING CAPABILITIES FOR INNOVATION: The role of universities as vehicles of community development is exemplified by the US land-grant system, which led to the founding of 106 universities, including Colorado State, Rutgers, Texas A&M, and the entire University of California system. The system not only played a key role in transforming rural America, but also offered the world a new model for bringing knowledge to support development. While the model largely is associated with agriculture, its adaptation to industry also occurred. Universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and parts of Stanford University owe their heritage to the land grant system.
* Arguments against the model tend to focus on the claim that universities that devote their time to practical work are not academic enough. As a result a hierarchy exists that places such institutions either off or at the lower end of the academic ladder.
* EARTH University emerged in a context that mirrors today’s Africa: economic stagnation, high unemployment, ecological decay, armed conflict. Inspired by the need for new attitudes and paradigms, EARTH University was created in 1990 as a non-profit, private, international university dedicated to sustainable agricultural education in the tropics.
If western international business and its American-EU military surrogacy is to survive as a civilized society it better get over its racist attitude and behavior toward Africans and deal with them equitably.
The African Union and the Congressional Black Caucus must establish a coalition to monitor African American continental relations in international security terms. If, not Africa and America can expect war, an economic collapse, loss of trade, and the complete downfall of the American dollar.
Labels: AU, CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS, PANAFRICANISM
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