The news that a Kenyan girl was able to trace her ancestry in China 600 years after one of the legendary Chinese Sailor Zheng He’s fleet of 25,000 ships sank while on a peace and trade mission unearthed the fact that globalization is not a modern phenomena. Mwamlaka Shariff Lali (19), a simple girl from Siyu village in Lamu, was recently a Chinese State Guest after DNA samples linked her ancestry to China. The Chinese story is that of opening up and letting people free to move and explore.

What lessons does Africa learn from this discovery? Whereas mercantilist driven globalization opened the World to economic and political exploitation in the 18^th century, the 21^st century has brought with it a new meaning to globalization. Countries can no longer strive to exploit each other, but must spread benefits of innovation across the globe. It is now realized that actions of individuals anywhere, impact on the rest of humanity, this ranges from climate, culture and security.

As the 1880s saw the beginning of the scramble for Africa, the 1950s witnessed rapid withdrawals from Africa by colonizing countries. This led to massive technological breakdown, failing economies and political chaos.  Comforting facts from history indicate that similar trends took place in Britain. When the Roman rulers withdrew; Britain suffered massive retrogression and later picked up. To Africa, colonization enabled tribal nations that had limited knowledge about what existed beyond the mountains and the jungle to suddenly become aware of the vastness and riches of the continent in terms of people and sub surface wealth.

Presently, Africa holds the ‘spoiler’ vote in most international forums such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. Developed countries literally camp in Africa in pursuit for such votes. Backed by warped economic theories, developed country experts argue for increased donor support in order to secure this votes and markets for their businesses. Say, if developed country ‘A’ funds an anti malaria program in country ‘B’, it secures business for her malaria related industries. Country ‘A’ indirectly subsidizes her industries on a foreign soil while actively seeking allies in international vote access.

Developed countries have continued to export bureaucracy to Africa since colonial times. The symbol of a successful career has been pegged on high profile jobs offered by international agencies, which unfortunately for Africa, are normally bureaucrats. Four decades ago, few Africans were able to travel and see for themselves the wealth generating engines in the rich nations. The tide is changing now, and many Africans are discovering what actually creates wealth, a free people.

Writing early this year in New York Times, Sam Roberts noted that there are more Africans migrating to United States than during the slave trade. He noted that over 50,000 legal migrants move to America annually. Washington hosts the highest number of African immigrants followed by New York. The biggest single ‘exporter’ of migrants to the U.S.A is Nigeria followed by Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia, Somalia, and Kenya comes last.

New migrants tend to be quite entrepreneurial and keen to seize new opportunities. For instance, in U.S.A, African migrants compete with African Americans for opportunities which despite the tension, promotes better avenues of black people advancing themselves economically. According to Sam Roberts, the most visible signs of modern day African entry into America is ‘…the proliferation of African churches, mosques, hair-braiding salons, street vendors, super market delivery men, the controversy over female genital mutilation, and election of Barack Obama, son of a native Kenyan, to the United States Senate from Illinois.’ The migrants are increasingly becoming the most legitimate strategy of exposing other Africans on the causes of poverty. They supervise remittances to their relatives closely while introducing new approaches to doing business.

To drive Africa to the next level of economic development, it is important that the African states harmonize and facilitate a sound business environment. African governments must open up the continents’ markets to facilitate intra Africa trade, eradicate prisons of poverty (sovereign African states) that have for long impoverished Africans and promote a uniform business structure that will attract investors from the migrant community, locals and other external investors. Africa can learn from China, take bold steps and open up, while investing to reinforce positive history. China’s continued transition from planned economy to a market economy has spilled over to individual’s way of life. Chinese presence is being felt in major cities in Africa. To facilitate this, the political class has to sacrifice by moving away from using government force to equalize everybody to allowing rewards to drive individual actions.

Governor Bai Enpei, of Qinghai province way back in 1998 observed thus: “Things the government shouldn’t manage, or can’t manage, or manages badly, should be given to enterprises, society, and relevant institutions to manage themselves”. Africa should create its own growth model that will depart from the traditional aid dependency which offers incentives to governments to engage in business. This model should focus on opening a continental market, expanding access to credit to African private sector, facilitating business to invest in market expansion focus on strategic linkage with developed nations to access technology and skills. Africa must pursue a model that allows entrepreneurs to set sail on a peace and trade mission both locally and internationally.