Pretoria – In most times, when well-known American personalities visit the "mother land", they often get criticised for believing that Africa is an under-developed continent dominated mainly by wildlife.
So much that recently, when US musician William Leonard Roberts II, well-known as Rick Ross, came to Africa in June to promote one of his artists and posted the following on Twitter: “Just landed in the beautiful country of Africa. I can tell you that the world is excited for #TheGifted”, he received a tongue-lashing from his Twitter followers, with some poking fun at his lack of knowledge about the continent.
While Rick Ross was mainly criticised for his ignorance or error for referring to the entire continent as a country, Andile Lungisa, the President of the Pan-African Youth Union (PYU), is calling for all African states to unite and speak in one voice so that developed American, European and Asian investors will find the continent as a united “country” when they explore business opportunities in Africa.
Lungisa says for Africa to become a developed continent; to put a dent on poverty and youth unemployment and to win the fight against capitalism, the continent should – through the African Union (AU) – advance the same economic agendas and “speak in one voice.”
“What needs to be done now in the continent is to move speedily towards regional integration in terms of opening up in SADC (Southern African Development Community, your ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), your North Africa, Central Africa and East Africa. But we must also move now beyond regions towards the continental integration.
“We must move beyond the union, to the united states of Africa where we can have the continent as one country and then we can have one army, one currency and have one African Development Bank.
“We can integrate the continent to be able to maximise the beneficiation from natural resources and then we can keep other strategic mineral resources in Africa for nationalisation and beneficiation,” he says.
At a recent Infrastructure Africa Conference in Sandton, Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba called on African states to prioritise investing in infrastructure and on working towards cutting all the regulatory red tape that makes it difficult for countries within the continent from trading amongst each other.
Lungisa’s call concurred and even went beyond Gigaba’s pronouncement. He anchored his statement on the principles that gave birth to the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
When Lungisa spoke at the 50th anniversary of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 25 May 2013, he reminded African heads of states and United Nations leaders that the OAU –now known as the African Union – was formed to promote unity and cohesion among the newly independent African states; to advance economic development, and to accelerate the liberation of those African nations that were still under Colonial or White rule.
In an interview with SAnews, Lungisa says these principles should still be the main mission for the current generation of young people, and adds that they should push for economic emancipation “in our lifetime”.
Africa’s growth despite crippling challenges
Most African states - like the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - struggle to recover as a result of a civil war driven by rebellious forces.
In July, the Human Rights Watch reported that M23 rebels – a rebel military group that is based in the eastern parts of the DRC - have since March 2013 executed at least 44 people and raped at least 61 women and girls.
The situation in the DRC is a common narrative for African countries in other regions where maintaining peace remains a priority.
In North Africa, in Egypt, Former President Mohammed Morsi was ousted by a military coup at the beginning of July after he, together with the Muslim Brotherhood, reportedly sparked protests over his failure to implement political reforms that led to him becoming President.
Morsi, whose whereabouts are still unknown, had taken over from his predecessor Hosni Mubarak in 2010.
The current tensions in Egypt, that ended in bloodshed, have plunged the country into economic turmoil and Adly Mansour, the acting President, is now faced with a huge task of leading the country through a process of drafting a referendum on the country’s amended constitution and of holding Parliamentary elections by February next year.
In the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – an economic region of 15 African states that was formed in 1975 to coordinate regional coordination – peace remains the main priority.
At a recent World Economic Forum Africa meeting, Ibrahim Bocar Ba, commissioner for the ECOWAS, reportedly said that infrastructure investment came straight to the region’s priority to maintain peace, and added that infrastructure investment was an answer to regional integration.
Other regions, like the Sub-Saharan Africa, have showed a growth of 5% annually for the past ten years.
At the back of a slow-down from the Eurozone - Africa’s traditional trade partners - most African leaders have in recent times started toying with the idea of promoting inter-African trade.
In 2010, the continent experienced growth of 4.6%.
Although there was a global slow-down in 2011, the growth levels remained at 5.0% in 2012 despite uncertainty. A recent UN report projected that the continent’s economy will grow by 4.8% in 2013, and 5.1% in 2014.
Developing the continent
Lungisa, a former chairperson of the National Youth Development Agency, says it is crucial for African countries – despite their challenges – to identify their economic strengths and to come together under one roof to devise a strategy of how to maximise their returns.
This, Lungisa says, would be achieved by taking full ownership of natural resources and ensuring they benefit the people of Africa.
He cites countries like Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Angola, Libya and Algeria - who collectively are home to huge oil reserves - and Botswana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Zimbabwe for their diamonds. He adds that South Africa attracted a lot of foreign investment due to its platinum.
“If we do that, we can be able to fight hunger, under-development and unemployment… We can be able to address issues of development if we move in that direction.
“At least we can be able to fund education where we can have free, democratic, quality and compulsory education.”
He says young men and women in the African continent were needed to raise their hands and show leadership to defend against the “open looting” of these and other resources.
“And this is exactly what we are advocating,” he says.
Lungisa, who was also recently appointed into the ANC’s provincial executive committee (PEC), said his experience in handling international relations matters while he was in the ANC Youth League’s national structure has assisted him to lead the PYU into coordinating youth structures across the continent.
Like it is globally, youth unemployment remains Africa’s main challenge today. There is an estimated population of about 600 million young people in Africa, and Lungisa says the PYU was making progress in its mission to convince all of the continent’s 54 states to embrace and implement the African Youth Charter into the public service – which prioritises youth education, skills training and employment.
Lungisa says only 24 countries were yet to endorse and domesticate the charter.
“If you talk about young people in the continent, they constitute more than 62% of the population, which is why all of the 54 African states should prioritise youth development and youth issues.”
He says the vision of the next 50 years would be an Africa “where there is peace, harmony, and a continent where there are no coups d'etat, citing recent developments in Egypt as a set-back.
Lungisa also says South Africa, his place of birth, should start embracing foreign nationals and do away with xenophobia. The attack on foreign nationals reached frightening heights in 2008 where an image of a burning Mozambican man shocked the world.
South Africans, he says, would be surprised at how well-received their fellow countrymen are when they visit other African states.
“We must be able to learn to live side-by-side. What we are saying now, from one country to another, we must only use passports to just record movements of people from [country to country] without Visas.
“That’s why I’m saying that the issues of xenophobia does not have a place in Africa. We have a responsibility as young people, through the PYU, to educate Africans from all over, even in South Africa, that we are brothers and sisters.
At the end of the interview, a relaxed-looking Lungisa says he has adapted well to travelling around the continent, and says at home, he discourages his children from speaking English.
“They can speak English at school. I tell them that they must speak IsiXhosa or other African languages at home."
Lungisa says his travels have exposed him to speaking other African languages like Swahili and Arabic, and says his children were also taking classes for certain African languages. – SANews.gov.za
