What is your deepest fear?

I was very amused to read a post by one member of a mailing list who was lamenting the corruption in the Ugandan government.  The whole issue started with an article from the Monitor newspaper that talked about the incomplete state of Uganda’s national fibre optic backbone.  Of course this non-completion is related to the fact that the money was allegedly “eaten” by the officials in charge.  However, it has the greater effect that there shall be delays in connecting the national backbone to the recently launched SEACOM undersea cable that connects the East African coastline to Asia, Europe and Southern Africa.

Anyway this gentleman was so incensed by the whole issue that his proposition was that we should hand back the management of Uganda to the British.  I picked a section of the email.

 ”Let us demand our government to hand us back to our colonial masters officially than give away Airport to Arabs, Diary Corporation to Malysians, L.Victoria to the Dutch. Lets do this in an organized way where all of us agree that we can’t do things right here except under supervision by the British Government. I am not pro the Brits, it could be a company like Cisco Systems diversifying its business portfolio. It could be Microsoft. It could be Egypt. It could be the Norwegians. Simply lets put Uganda including its people on auction because of the above.”

I was just reading an article about a new pair of slippers called by the dutch shoe designer Jan Jansen.  I picked out an excerpt

“The soles of the Plakkies are made from used car tyres. In South Africa, car tyres are dumped en masse and illegally incinerated, causing a devastating impact on the environment. Thanks to Plakkies, they can now be recycled. Shoe designer Jan Jansen and students of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering came up with the design for the hip, socially responsible slipper.”

Full article about plakkies

As I read it I thought to myself… hmm that sounds quite close to what we call lugabire!!!  Unfortunately I have looked around for somewhere with a close up picture of these plakkies in vain.  I also thought I could find a picture of lugabire.. so if anybody has one please post it up!

I just read that the elections of the Ugandan Olympics committee resulted in the ousting of Maj. Gen. Francis Nyangweso who has been the chairman of the committee for the last 28 years.  I am just wondering what somebody is still doing as a chairman after 28 years!  Apparently the new chairman Roger Ddungu has promised reforms to the body.  I sincerely do hope that he makes the necessary changes.  The last I heard, Uganda had more officials than participants at the 2008 Beijing Olympics; that is what 28 years brings for you.  Mr. Ddungu is hopefully going to put in place a comprehensive nation-wide program to improve on the facilitation and training of sports and sports (wo)men and more importantly to build a system that shall run well after his term of office has run out.

I heard a question that I thought was quite interesting.  During a panel discussion at Barcamp Africa, the discussion moderator, Guy Kawasaki, asked that if he wanted to write a $1,000 cheque to support a cause in Africa what should he do.

One of the panelists said he should think of investing it into the stock market; to which he said it would sound crazy to his portfolio manager that he wanted to invest in a stock market in an African country.  Most of the other responses were from people who have been running projects in African countries and were all advocating for their individual projects.  One panelist from Ushahidi said he should invest it in an iPhone to do tests on the Ushahidi applications.

It was an interesting question for me.  One that I have to admit I was stumped at.  First, because I am more and more propelled towards the no-more-aid “movement”, but more importantly because this no-more-aid is not necessarily a really black and white scenario.  So in the meantime while I think about this I shall have to remain “dumb” for the time being.

I was listening to two presentations today; the first presentation was by Andrew Mwenda arguing for the rethinking of development aid in African countries.  He gave a detailed break down of some of the expenditures of the Ugandan governments in 2006/07.  It was quite interesting to see that according to the public expenditure structure, the amount of money spent on Public Administration was UShs. 690 billion (US$ 340 million) while UShs. 374 billion (US$ 187 million), approximately half, was spent on Health.  He also presented some statistics that indicated that the Ugandan governments recurrent expenditures are more than the expected revenue, with the balance being funded on donor aid.  His main point, however, was that because of aid, there is no dialogue between African governments and their citizens, since the governments are more interested in dealing with the donors, from whom they are guaranteed bank rolling.  In such an environment, the people who might bring about development, that is, entrepreneurs, are not able to get the necessary conditions, policies, that they would require to grow an economy stably through profit-making businesses.

The second speaker I listened to was a panelist at Barcamp Africa.  For this second speaker it was one particular statement that he made that brought me back to the former presentation.  The speaker was saying that sustainable development projects are dependent on ownership, and that governments in African countries are “not in a position to maintain (this) infrastructure”.  The speaker was talking in reference to infrastructure resulting from development projects like, say construction of boreholes.  I immediately thought to myself that it is not necessarily true that the governments are not able to maintain the infrastructure, it is more a question of how willing they are to maintain it.  And it is along this line that I draw a parallel between African governments and American citizens.

These governments make me think of people who use credit cards and spend money well in excess of what they can rightfully afford.  Worse still, some of these expenditures are on items that they do not necessarily need.  The difference maybe is that the money is simply handed to the African governments, whereas the American citizens are then strangled with debts that they have to pay back.

I am watching the video coverage of Barcamp Africa and I have to say that from what I have seen in the first hour or so has been quite impressive already.  Two essential points that I am all for and one new interesting word.

First one of the speakers, Andrew McLaughlin, mentioned a point that is very much related to what I wrote about a few days ago concerning what I think about how aid is provided to African countries.  He mentioned that when aid money is invested by a non-profit organisation to introduce computers in schools for free, it kills the markets for entrepreneurs who might have been interested to get into such a venture.  Another speaker, Peter Carpenter, mentioned that the same argument could be provided for food aid that is taken to parts of the country.

Peter Carpenter then put up a slide that contained more material that I happened to be discussing with another friend.  I shall just put up the content as it speaks for itself.

1- Know and Respect the culture in which you are trying to make a difference.

2- Know what the people you want to help actually want and need – which may not be what you originally planned to give them

3- What is in your heart and mind is much more important than what is in your wallet – but all three need to be used if you are going to make a difference

The last thing I wanted to mention was the new word I picked up…. reaspora.  This, apparently, refers to African people (at least in the context of the panel it was presented at) who have been working abroad and are making a conscious decision to return home knowing that the very fact that they are in their homes is a contribution to progress in itself.