As the globalized economy advances, development and progress become more widespread, inequitably. Africa remains the poorest and most marginalized region on the planet.
The latest annual report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), published on 30 October 2006, highlights that sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected by famine with more than 206 million people undernourished in 2002-2003, an increase of 37 million representing more than 22% compared to the period 1990-1992.
This extraordinary situation is untenable in the long term and deserves serious reflection as the widening development gaps are the bedrock of failed States. Yet globalization theoretically offers all the countries of our planet real opportunities for growth and development, provided that the world is truly open. However, freedom of movement is in fact limited to goods and capital, while that of persons is not exempt from the law of choice and selection.
Indeed, globalization is seen as the perpetuation of economic inequality in which poor countries, particularly those in Africa, are maintained as sources of supply of commodities and natural resources. This situation of domination guarantees rich countries the maintenance and acceleration of their growth and development.
And all other things being equal, the fact remains that the explanation for the despair thus caused lies in the absence of an enlightened leadership with a leadership deficit as a corollary. The latter often lacks vision in the conduct and management of the affairs of these countries.
Therefore, it must be recognized that if there is one continent where we cannot afford to tolerate and promote incompetence and mediocrity in the conduct of institutions, whether national or intergovernmental, it is Africa.
This continent is lagging behind other parts of the world. This has disastrous consequences for employment and the well-being of the population. Administrative and management systems remain largely ill-equipped, poorly organized and poorly autonomous to function in the service of its real customers, including, among others, a dynamic private sector. Added to this is blatant poor governance and lack of transparency. This makes some say that zero tolerance must be applied to combat incompetence and mediocrity in Africa.
While it is true that the twenty-first century could be that of the continent, there is no doubt that we must review the issue of leadership in order to be able to build today the Africa of tomorrow, at the service of Africans as a priority. On the continent, leadership is characterized not only by the astonishing absence of a vision for the future but simply by the absence of a vision altogether. The leaders' speeches are far from being in tune with the realities and the implementation of their content remains very uncertain. The development as recently built in Asian countries is a fine illustration of the importance of visionary leadership whose responsibility for the exit from underdevelopment of a large part of this region is well established.
Without exaggeration, it can even be said that in Africa leadership and the decision-making process that underpins it are neither benevolent nor coherent when they are not simply non-existent. Unfortunately, leadership cannot be provided from the outside. It is a capacity that must be brought out from within the continent by involving Africans in the diaspora. It conditions the ownership of the development process and determines the role and respect of institutions and rules.
In Africa, where very often leadership is wrongly understood as the business of an individual "alone", it is not uncommon to see him evolve towards police methods, themselves paving the way for authoritarianism, even dictatorship and its harmful consequences.
This vision of leadership finds its breeding ground in the fact that perhaps the phenomenon of the city and the state is not very African. Thus, many Africans are above all individualistic in their behavior. They think first of themselves, then of their family, their village, their clan, their province, their country, their region, their ethnicity.
And this is reflected very concretely in the choice of people made by the first managers to compose the management teams of national institutions. Practices often happily exported by the same officials when they find themselves at the head of international organizations, despite the "fuss" made around transparency and good governance.
Instead of recruiting and appointing employees because they have the most appropriate competence to fully assume the responsibilities imposed by the position, the observed tendency is to appeal to women and men on a subjective and personal basis by putting forward the criterion of allegiance, docility and "larbinism".
It is the fear for their positions that makes these leaders not want to have at their side more qualified employees and able to make them hear a different sound than what they want to hear. This is a special form of the complex of incompetence and mediocrity with in addition a phobia of contradiction, especially when it comes from their immediate entourage or the media.
In Africa, the examples are legion and can be seen at the level of governments, in subregional, regional and pan-African institutions where leadership is clumsily hidden behind false political criteria. In fact, it is much more of a mimicry or complacency that naturally leads to cultivating the dogma of incompetence and mediocrity in appointments and recruitments and making it a virtue.
That is precisely what needs to be changed in Governments, national, subregional, regional and pan-African institutions, be they political, economic, social and cultural. The multinational airline Air Afrique, an integration tool par excellence, has borne the brunt of this type of leadership, and the lessons do not seem to have been really learned.
Optimism is still allowed to make the twenty-first century that of Africa given the natural resources and human skills necessary and sufficient in quantity and quality at its disposal to emerge victorious from its fight for sustainable development and the eradication of poverty. The interest shown in Africa by emerging countries such as China, India, Korea, Malaysia will allow the most discerning leaders to make a difference by using the new resources available to serve their people with dignity.
Ultimately, the hope for all is in the evolution of the economic and social situation of the continent which should lead as soon as possible to the emergence of another type of leadership: one that would eradicate incompetence and mediocrity, and that would ipso facto give all the necessary consideration to excellence and efficiency in the service of the populations. This will result in a more rational use of the skills that exist, putting the right men and women in the right place, in order to achieve better results.
Thus, Africa would no longer have to call on politicians lacking vision and sometimes lacking appropriate skills and qualifications to manage national and pan-African structures. And simply having assumed the offices of minister, head of government and/or state or belonging to the "family, clan or ethnic seraglio" will no longer be a sufficient criterion for the management of countries and institutions in a globalized economy.
African leadership, integrating our cultures and ancestral values into their positive aspects and adapting them to the modern world, would thus propel Africa into achieving its quest for sustainable development.
That is what the people of Africa legitimately aspire to and that is what the international community's efforts on behalf of the continent are resolutely moving towards.
source: jeuneafriquehttps://www.jeuneafrique.com/79443/archives-thematique/leadership-et-d-veloppement-en-afrique-la-comp-tence-la-bonne-place/