2009 Failed States Index (and a map!)

Foreign Policy has again joined forces with the Fund for Peace to compile the 2009 Failed States Index and a wonderful accompanying interactive map of state fragility.

The Index, which ranks 177 states in order from most to least risk of failure, is premised upon 12 social, political, economic and military indicators of state cohesion and performance, and an alleged 30,000 publicly available sources. The 12 indicators are: (1) demographic pressures; (2) refugees/IDPs; (3) group grievance; (4) human flight; (5) uneven development; (6) economic decline; (7) delegitimation of the state; (8) public services; (9) human rights; (10) security apparatus; (11) factionalized elites; (12) and external intervention. The data used are collected from May-December of the preceding year (in this case 2008). More information pertaining to the methodology employed may be found here.

According to the 2009 Index, the ten most fragile states are: (1) Somalia; (2) Zimbabwe; (3) Sudan; (4) Chad; (5) the Congo; (6) Iraq; (7) Afghanistan; (8) Central African Republic; (9) Guinea; (10) and Pakistan. This marks only slight shifts from 2008. No longer included in the top ten is Cote d'Ivoire, which has moved from #8 to #.. well, it appears to be absent from the 2009 ranking! Curious. Guinea, which in 2008 was #11 has now moved up to #9. Beyond this unfortunate bunch, other discernible jumps are those of Kenya (#26 to #14), Georgia (#57 to #33), Iran (#49 to #38), and China's appearance in the top sixty, at #57. Naturally, Norway, followed by Finland and Sweden remain the most stable.

Humming a familiar tune

Barack Obama delivererd his speech to Ghana's Parliament this past Saturday (full text of the speech may be found here) in what was his first presidential trip to sub-Saharan Africa. A collection of opinions on the speech may be found at the BBC's fantastic 'Africa Have Your Say' program.

What I have to say is this: While there is little denying the significance of Obama's trip or the importance of his now oft-repeated statement that "Africa's future is up to Africans," the content of his speech was altogether unsurprising and contained nothing that hasn't already been said. Like other Western leaders who have addressed African nations in the past, Obama came touting the need for Africans to embrace democracy and market capitalism; to battle corruption, cease the ongoing violence, work with the West to combat disease and - in short - embrace the 21st century. This is all well and good, but such catch-phrases amount to no more than empty suits when not substantiated with specifics. Even his claim that Africa's future rests with its own people has been made numerous times in the past; most recently by the likes of Bill Easterly, President Kagame of Rwanda, and Dambisa Moyo in her ever-controversial book Dead Aid.

There was a welcomed shift in tone when Obama promised to cut down on funding American consultants and administrators and instead put resources and training into the hands of those who need them (i.e. resident Africans), as well as when he highlighted the economic possibilities implicit in African entrepreneurship (which, again, Kagame has been stressing for some time). But overall the speech diverged little from previous U.S. policy statements on Africa, no less so given Obama's insistence on continuing Bush's terrible idea of Africa Command. As Bill Easterly aptly notes in today's post, "[...] goodwill for U.S. military is nonexistent after a long history of Cold War Africa interventions, post-Cold War fumbles, reinforced by the more recent fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan. Africans will never see US military (or any other Western force) as a neutral and benevolent force." *Sigh* When will we learn?

Of course the speech was inspirational - as may of President Obama's speeches are - and quite empowering for many Africans (and, apparently, for the UK Times' Libby Purves who sees a fantastic "new start" where those who understand African history and politics see none). Yet it pales in comparison to the speech Obama gave in Cairo when he addressed the Islamic world, and fails to represent much in the way of a novel shift in U.S. policy towards Africa and its people. Yes, Africans must pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they are to make anything of themselves, but didn't we (and they) know that already?

"We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans"

President Obama delivered his speech before the Ghanian parliament in Accra today. Full text of the speech may be found here. I will circle back with comments (and perhaps criticisms) on Monday; until then, do enjoy a lovely weekend!

Development in dangerous places (aka a symposium on Paul Collier and his policies)

In the July/August issue of Boston Review one can find Paul Collier's essay on development in dangerous places (which appears to be a fantastic cut-and-paste exercise from both The Bottom Billion and Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places), along with a host of commentary from the likes of William Easterly, Nancy Birdsall and Larry Diamond, among others.

Easterly for one is not particularly pleased, neither with Collier's policy prescriptions nor the means by which he arrives at them:

I have been troubled by Paul Collier’s research and policy advocacy for some time. In this essay he goes even further in directions I argued were dangerous in his previous work. Collier wants to de facto recolonize the “bottom billion,” and he justifies his position with research that is based on one logical fallacy, one mistaken assumption, and a multitude of fatally flawed statistical exercises.

[...] Collier’s convoluted stories are made up after the fact to fit whatever random collection of data points he is working with at the moment. So the specious rationalizations keep changing—too bad for those who took the precise recommendations in The Bottom Billion as gospel.

Larry Diamond adopts a more cautionary tone, stressing the salience of governance as a key to development:

None of these endemically poor countries can climb out of misery without better governance. Collier appreciates this, but he does not fully grasp the vital distinction between Asia’s developmental dictatorships and Africa’s dictatorial disasters. The classic authoritarian Asian tigers—Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia—all had near-death experiences with communism that led them to realize it was time to “develop or die. [...] Whatever their other faults, all of these countries’ ruling elites (and later the regimes in China and Vietnam) came to identify their own political interests with generating the public goods necessary for transformative development.

I strongly endorse Collier’s appeal for a much more serious and sustained international commitment to reinforce or guarantee security and peace in the world’s most fragile and miserable states. [...] However, I cannot go along with Collier’s suggestion that we implicitly threaten to tolerate a military coup against a civilian leader who has stolen an election. How would that have made Kenya or Nigeria better off? [...] The answer to any unconstitutional seizure of power—whether by a civilian in a rigged election or a soldier in a coup—is cutting off international aid; targeted sanctions against the overseas personal assets and travel options of the power-usurper, his family, and supporters; and a credible threat of indictment and prosecution by the International Criminal Court for predatory corruption, which should be made a crime against humanity—for that is surely what it is.

Much more commentary, criticism and insights may be found at the Boston Review link.

[HT: Marginal Revolution]

PS. Don't call Collier's policies colonialist...

Great expectations

Regarding President Obama's upcoming trip to Ghana, G. Pascal Gregory of Africa Works writes the following in Monday's Globe & Mail:

Scholars speak of “the empire striking back,” referring to former colonized peoples, such as immigrants from Africa and India, settling in Europe and North America and then challenging norms of race and identity. In his first official trip to Africa, U.S. President Barack Obama is striking back in a novel way. His visit to Ghana highlights the desirability of prominent people from the diaspora making a positive contribution to African affairs.

But Mr. Obama's visit, while heavy on symbolism, reveals the limits of his power. Burdened by economic problems in America and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he can't act boldly in Africa or make big promises.

There is certainly no denying the importance of Obama's trip to Africa... errr Ghana... but I am struggling to discover the novelty of the visit. Arguably the trip would have carried much more symbolism had he been 'returning' to Kenya, the birthplace of his father. As Kenya is the most corrupt state in east Africa, the President's decision to visit Ghana instead is being justified on the grounds that by his visit he is hoping to "lift up successful models of democracy" of which Ghana is surely one (and Kenya quite obviously not). If this truly is the objective, however, then he presumably should not have extended aid to Zimbabwe or made nice in Saudi Arabia or buddied up to Chavez, etc. etc. If one is keen to promote models of democracy, one would hope that this would apply on a global scale and not just in select regions.

I further hesitate to attach much significance to Obama's upcoming 'Africa' visit because a) he is in fact going only to one country which quite limits whatever impact he might have, even more so in light of the fact that he is not giving a speech as he did in Egypt when addressing the Islamic people. One would think that he would desire to address the people of Africa, if for no other reason to pay tribute to his roots. Moreover (point (b) as it were) as Gregory aptly notes, Obama cannot act boldly in Africa or make any big promises, though to be quite honest I haven't seen any signs signaling his intention to do so anyway.

While there certainly is much excitement surrounding the President's upcoming visit, much of it seems to stem from the symbolism surrounding the trip - a man born to a Kenyan father, elevated to the highest office in America, returning to his native continent. There is certainly much to be celebrated in this tale, but I fear that Obama's visit will be little more than that: another chapter in the history of a man. All the while, great expectations will be met with great disappointment.

Update: I stand corrected, President Obama will deliver a speech in Ghana, according to the White House blog. The speech is set to air at 6am EST on Saturday, 11 July for all of you early Americans risers (and at a much more reasonable hour for those in Europe and elsewhere!). The President's interview with allAfrica.com likely provides some insights into what we might expect from him. I very much look forward to learning what he has to say.