By Xolani Nyali and Siyabulela Gebe
AS AN invited speaker at this year’s Africa Day celebrations at Rhodes University, former President Thabo Mbeki revealed another predicament we face as Africans, that of policy implementation. Over the years we have crafted the best policies and Human Rights instruments but have failed dismally in their implementation. Among the challenges Mbeki put to the youth at Rhodes University was to study and understand their country and continent and begin to devise the means to implement the existing body of policies and laws.
Since the formation of the Organisation of African Union and recently the African Union, we have crafted protocols, charters, treaties and human rights instruments that are arguably the best in the world. If these were implemented rigorously in all 53 states, we would see a peaceful, stable and prosperous continent based on democratic rule.
The AU’s Constitutive Act promotes “unity, solidarity, cohesion and co- operation among the peoples of Africa” and enjoins them “to promote and protect human and peoples’ rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture, and to ensure good governance and the rule of law”. All the while guided by “our common vision of a united and strong Africa and by the need to build a partnership between governments and all segments of civil society, in particular women, youth and the private sector, in order to strengthen solidarity and cohesion among our peoples.”
In order to achieve these goals we have established Nepad, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the Protocols on Women’s Rights; charters relating to the youth, children, democracy, elections and governance, and cultural renaissance.
But how many within the AU member states have adhered to and promoted these policies? Unfortunately such is the problem in the Eastern Cape, too, where local government reflects the entire continent at a microcosmic level.
Like the rest of Africa, the issue of education is paramount. We need to retain our Eastern Cape graduates to help uplift industries such as agriculture, tourism and manufacturing. The implementation of such policies like Asgisa must be seen through, and investments on skilling the local youth should take priority.
Regionally, we must be bold and move for the adoption of a common market or even an economic union. The free movement of capital and labour between southern African states needs to be a reality. African states must be able to rely on each other for economic assistance and to sustain peace and security.
Mbeki referred to Europe’s programme where the more developed countries make generous contributions to the European Union. In that way, the lesser developed European countries are assisted by their affluent neighbours. Capital, investment and labour transfer on a scale unforeseen before was shown to benefit both the source and host country.
It is incumbent on us to study and understand this mutual assistance fund with a view to replicating it and for the economically strong African states to contribute to this fund; beginning with South Africa.
It is true that South Africa stands tall among the world’s community of nations only because it stands on the shoulders of fellow African states. Our involvement in the Southern Africa Customs Union is simply not enough as it perpetuates imbalanced power relations and the subordination of our neighbours to the whims of the government of the day. This ought not to be the basis for our co-operation and integration.
As a starting point we need to look to our universities. No province has more universities than the Eastern Cape yet we suffer from the same labour flight that Africa experiences at a macro level. We have Walter Sisulu University in the field of community healthcare, complemented by Rhodes University in pharmacy, information systems, law and chemistry. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University offers us management and accounting studies and Fort Hare leads in agriculture and the social sciences.
What, therefore, is the basis for having an unskilled labour force? What is the fundamental reason for the skills flight, non-functioning and aging public service and a betrayal of the developmental agenda?
In light of the writings of Dr Saleem Badat on “On the visibility of our universities” what becomes the role of our universities in growing and developing our region and continent?
Our universities need to identify and make available, as part of credit-bearing service learning programmes, postgraduate students to assist government at provincial and local level to come up with solutions to appropriately implement policies. These students could be seconded to work with departmental officials in their areas of expertise. Such collaboration would not only benefit the Eastern Cape but also the student as it opens up vast possibilities for advanced, relevant and applicable research, and thereby inspires development models for the rest of the continent.
Xolani Nyali is in his penultimate year of his LLB at Rhodes.
Siyabulela Gebe is a second-year Bachelor of Social Science student at Rhodes.