It is a tragedy that Africa, in spite of its vast geological and human resources, still wallows in poverty with close to 75% of its population living on less than $1 a day. The African leadership and policy makers have over the years focused on natural resources instead of  the African people.  

What passes for education in Africa is nothing but a conveyor belt system that churns out labor as opposed to critical thinkers. We must urgently probe political and economic systems that have alienated Africans from their own wealth and relegated them into spectators who watch on the sidelines as huge trucks ship out tree logs and small jet planes ship out minerals and ship back beer, pornographic magazines, cigarettes and guns.  

Switzerland produces the finest chocolate yet she has no Cocoa plantations; Japan, an island country is a major player in the global economy but she has no geological resources to boast of. Knowledge driven economies focus on creating a critical mass of innovative citizens as opposed to those who simply wait for manuals in order to operate. Knowledge is more than simply learning how to read and speak English and French; it entails utilizing logic (reason) to interact with one’s environment (in this case geological resources) for purposes of improving one’s living standards.  

My recent trip to Yaoundé after more than 2,000 years of absence (because I am Bantu) left me in a state of deep depression. I participated in a geological resource and governance meeting where I encountered patronizing international NGOs with a sprinkling of their Sub Sahara African surrogates. While Western countries had business, geological experts, politicians in attendance; African countries simply presented a mirror image of the West. It is inexcusable that Africa at this point in time has to rely on information about itself from the West. If one wants to know what is going on in the mining sector, say, in Democratic Republic of Congo, he/she has to obtain the same from Europe. If a West African wants the quickest means of travelling to Yaoundé, he/she must go to Brussels or Paris.  

Sub Saharan Africa countries’ history stretching to say 250 years back paints a very horrifying scenario. Populations were enslaved, and got freed on the terms of the slaver; communities were colonized - and "freed" on the terms of the colonizer; the World Bank/IMF prescribed disastrous policies and continues to offer solutions (aid) on their terms and countries whose companies plunder natural resources on the continent offer transparency initiatives on their own terms.  

It is a picture akin to “water boarding torture technique,” where the agent seeking information from the tortured uses water to simulate drowning and allows the victim to gasp for air (aid) because the intention is not to kill but get intelligence. For many African countries, more so those endowed with vast geological resources, the technique to simulate drowning (through conflicts) and gasps of air (aid + transparency initiatives) while resources are shipped out is a common occurrence.

“What do you expect? It will be counterintuitive for us to train you to get us out of the market,” a delegate intimated.  It is cheaper to train say a driver, a hotel waitress but expensive to get a drilling engineer or a surveyor. Africans’ own political system forces the few experts trained to relocate to the developed countries.  

While it is clear that we ought not to invest in blaming others for African problems, it is important to expose Africans to the context that informs their predicament if they have to initiate a knowledge driven economy. It is imperative that we facilitate an education system that will enable individual Africans to innovatively add value to the knowledge about existence of geological resources. We ought not to be hoodwinked by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that focus on mere enrolment ratios but  ignores the content of school curricula.  

The Focus on oil, diamonds, coltan, huge tracts of agricultural land among other resources simply turn our political leaders into corrupt salesmen. The focus ought to be on African people and how to impart relevant knowledge that can enable them transform such resources into wealth. Africans’ ultimate capital is the human mind!

By James Shikwati.

James Shikwati james@irenkenya.org is Director of Inter Region Economic Network.