Category: aid and development

arguing tragedy with a communist

Kelly, UBHH newbie Tim and I had a run-in with the ever-opinionated 27th Comrade over the Virginia Tech tragedy at this week’s UBHH. Our passionate young communist argued that Americans deserve what they get and shouldn’t make a big deal out of things like this because far more than 33 people die from violence, preventable illness or sheer neglect each day in Africa because of things America has done or failed to do. Kelly and Tim were ruffled, and I think the appropriate response to insensitivity and callousness isn’t more of the same. Still, I get his point…sort of.

The VA Tech shootings earned far more American media coverage than any event in Africa last week, despite the fact that Nigeria had hotly contested elections, Somalia is exploding, the Ugandan peace talks resumed and Zimbabwe is always in trouble. What makes the fates of these students any more media-worthy than the fates of thousands of Africans?

Well, location, for one — Americans want to read news about other Americans, and papers need to sell. Ugandan coverage of Somalia is from the Ugandan peacekeeper angle, and neither the Monitor nor the New Vision talked at all about the unrest in Kirkuk last week, so you can’t blame just the American media for being narrow-minded.

So let’s talk about foreign policy. By now pretty much everyone admits that American involvement in the Horn of Africa in the 1990’s was worse than worthless — approximately 85,624 books have been written about the terrible things we did there. I’d be one of the first to say that the HIV/AIDS programs we’re pursuing aren’t always the best course of action — supporting Martin Ssempa’s public condom bonfires is probably contributing to, rather than stemming, unprotected sex among infected teenagers. But Janet Museveni’s championing ineffective family planning methods just as hard, and the West isn’t exactly rallying around Mugabe’s latest antics or trying all that hard to keep Obasanjo in power.

Yes, America has been and continues to be stupid and occasionally harmful when it comes to Africa. But the majority of deaths on the continent aren’t solely attributable to the U.S. any more than to colonialism or corruption or lack of media coverage or an environment hospitable to rapidly spreading fatal diseases, and the students who were murdered last week don’t deserve to be used as part of a transatlantic morality scale that needs to be balanced.

Pointing fingers only goes so far, and that’s where I start to butt heads with the 27th Comrade. Tragedy is tragedy wherever it happens, and I think you could have picked your argument — and your audience — a little better.

Wimax? Why not?

Andy Mack and Jeremy Goldberg posted an article on Andy’s Global View about the role of emerging technology in post-conflict northern Uganda (from which I stole the title of this post):

Happily, more and more each day it seems that technology is available to help previously left behind regions get on the grid quickly — new products and services that can be deployed in a fraction of the time it would take to rebuild traditional infrastructure. In recent years a whole host of technologies have been developed that could help war-recovering Africa “skip steps” in re-development, in much the same way that the cellphone revolution has brought personal communications to Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and yes, southern Uganda.

(…)

Three years from now (or even less) I could be in a transformed Gulu, where international and local investors work together seamlessly to get work done. I could be managing my investment from a distance, speaking with my staff from a Skype phone, or perhaps working with a young entrepreneur who learned how to surf the Internet on a $100 laptop.

Mack and Goldberg mention, among other things, Wimax, which can increase wireless internet access in areas without cable or telephone networks. Infocom started installing a Wimax network in Kampala last June, and Celtel has plans to expand Wimax throughout East Africa, but no mention was made of moving this to northern Uganda. Here’s to hoping….

2007: Jackfruity predictions

George Bush will out Aga Khan as a terrorist mastermind and commence war against Pakistan and Tajikistan. Turkmenistan will be thrown in for good measure. Shortly thereafter, the Washington Post will reveal that what were thought to be terrorist training camps in northern Pakistan were actually just schools for poor shepherds, and CNN will begin featuring “Stangate” on the nightly news. Fox News will insist wool from the sheep in question contained suspicious traces of plutonium, thereby justifying the attack. Ronald Gates will resign, and in an unprecedented violation of the Constitution, Dick Cheney will take over his role. American voters, disturbed by the thought of radioactive sheep, will be too busy lobbying against imported lamb to notice.

Yoweri Museveni will die of gout. Obote’s wife will take over under the title Obote III, followed within two months by a military coup led by Salim Saleh in collaboration with Aga Khan (who, in sly retaliation for the Stangate debacle, will force Saleh to charge Americans double the nightly rate at the Kampala Serena Hotel — all under the pretense of development work, naturally).

The Red Pepper will discover Salim Saleh’s previously well-hidden penchant for American hip-hop after a house servant chances upon his closet shrine to Jay-Z. To shield himself from embarrassment, the new leader of Uganda will invite the eminent artist to the country and crown him Kabaka of the Buganda. The former Kabaka’s body will be packed in concrete and sealed into the Bujugali Dam, the building of which will proceed expediently due to the Saleh-Khan partnership. Jay-Z’s next album will feature a remix of “Oh My God,” in which he changes the line “got crowned king down in Africa” to “just became the new Kabaka.” Fans will urge him to retire; “For real this time” will be the headline of Slate’s disgusted review.

In November, sources close to Aga Khan will reveal that he actually is a terrorist, and that he’s been funneling foreign aid to Uganda and revenue from the Serena network into nuclear projects in the Federated States of Micronesia. Jackfruity will be awarded the 2007 Best of Blogs award for her hard-hitting, tireless reporting on the so-called philanthropist. She will then be taken in by the CIA for questioning as to the exact nature of her interest in the latest Greatest Threat to National Security. This site will languish forlornly in the blogosphere until one of Aga Khan’s aids discovers it. Selections will be compiled into a Mein-Kampf-esque Life of the Aga Khan IV, and Jackfruity will become a bestselling author. Unfortunately, she will be unavailable for a booksigning tour, as she will be locked in Guantanamo Bay.

The bungling of Bujagali

On Tuesday the New Vision reported that Bujagali Energy finished their environmental feasibility study for the construction of a new dam at Bujagali Falls.

The proposed dam — a $530 million collaboration between the Sithe Global LLC (based in the U.S.) and Industrial Promotion Services (based in Kenya and owned by Aga Khan) — is an attempt to ease Uganda’s energy crisis. Estimates made in 2005 by Power Technology, a web site that aggregates power industry data, claim that, if construction goes as planned, Uganda’s electricity supply would exceed demand for the first time in years.

Though Uganda’s electricity deficit has been called “the single greatest obstacle to the country’s economic growth,” many local and international groups have raised concerns as to whether the dam is the best choice for development. An independent study conducted by the Prayas Energy Group of India found that the project would cost the nation up to $132 million annually — money that the government has considered taking from the World Bank (which agreed, then refused to sponsor the project), from an infrastructure development bond and from the National Social Security Fund. All of these options would place an enormous strain upon the citizens of Uganda, miring the country even deeper in debt.

Furthermore, official discourse on the dam has thus far ignored the losses Uganda would sustain as a result of the project. The National Association of Professional Environmentalists released a list of major concerns, including the submersion of both the falls and the surrounding islands (which would cost $675,000 annually in lost agricultural revenue), the extinction of several rare species of plants and birds, and the extirpation of regional tourism. Tourism is Uganda’s second-largest industry after coffee, and sightseeing and whitewater rafting at Bujagali contribute between $600,000 and $1 million to this every year.

Despite the dam’s excessive costs, the government is charging on towards its completion, actively working to lessen the falls’ international attraction. In 2000 Uganda refused to host the Camel Whitewater Challenge, a rafting competition that would have brought over 1000 participants and spectators to the country for two weeks and cemented the nation as a leading adventure tourism destination. Writing for the International Rivers Network, an organization that opposes the dam, Stephen Linaweaver claims, “Tony Hansen, the CWWC Director, was specifically told by a Ugandan government official that Uganda would not host the Challenge because it did not want to broadcast the popularity and success of rafting or the beauty of Bujagali Falls, for fear that it would spread opposition to the Bujagali Falls Dam.”

The government’s handling of this project is appalling. The drive to proceed with the dam in the face of so many clear counterindicators to its success rings eerily of the October declaration that all IDP camps would be closed by the end of the year: it’s a flashy, economically dangerous move that has the potential to harm not only those who live and work near Bujagali but the wellbeing of the country as a whole.

Aga Khan, I’m disappointed in you.

Merry Christmas from the Internets

AfriGadget is proof that the Internet celebrates holidays (if it didn’t, why would it be giving me such great presents?). This delightfully, inspirationally geeky blog is a bit Gizmodo, a bit MAKE — a chronicle of “African ingenuity” that’s a pleasant jumble of everything from battery-operated podcast broadcasters to trendy USB flash drive covers.

One of my favorite gadgets, though, is the PlayPump. No, it’s not anything like that. It’s a merry-go-round that pulls water from the ground, stores it in a tank, and makes it easily available from a tap. It’s brilliant.

I was happy to learn that USAID supports PlayPumps — compared with this debacle, it’s a rather impressive endeavor. I was even happier to learn that one of the lead fundraisers for the project is none other than my boy Jay-Z. This kid is everywhere.