Local communities in Africa moves Africa

Africa has many faces in a diverse picture of historical, cultural, sociological, political, economic and legal facts. 

But beyond this great diversity there are clear underlying trends. 

These trends included appreciable, sustained growth in the number of LOCAL authorities that cover an increasingly large territory; consolidation of the notion of decentralisation as a policy; relatively greater responsibilities assumed by local authorities in many countries and the constitutions of networks of local authorities that are likely to lead to promising forms of decentralised cooperation.  

The creation of various organisations like the Pan-African organisation United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA) was consistent with the process of reinforcing the role of local authorities on the continent. 

And all of that is another good example from a continent that is acknowledging the essential role of local governments in Africa's sustainable development, going beyond the linguistic and ethnic barriers that were part of the legacy of the colonial period to build a united African voice on the issues of decentralisation, local development, regional integration and cooperation that will increase African sustainability.    

African "artificial economic growth" and the need of TRANSPARENCY to transform lives at LOCAL level...

Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa will reach 5.2 per cent in 2014, according to a new World Bank report, due to the continent's development of natural resources and infrastructure. 

At the same time, tax avoidance and opaque natural resource deals costs Africa around 30 billion of Euros annually, according to the 2013 Africa Progress Report. That's twice as much as the continent receives in aid.

This is a huge development opportunity for the big players of the market like the foreign governments and capitals, but as we know, normal citizens at the local level are not receiving the benefits of this "development" mainly because of corruption and the mismanagement of revenues.

Following the excitement of this "development", the question remains about how to make transparency work for sustainable development, particularly for the local communities living closest to the natural resources reserves and projects.

Making transparency more relevant to local communities could increase its potential to deliver sustainable development and alleviate poverty within resource-dependent countries. 

Three key challenges must be overcome to eliminate the current disadvantage situation of local communities in Africa: 

1. Accessing and analysing information: Communities frequently complain that they can't access the information they really need. Better project reporting understandable at all levels and a participatory work involving all of the stakeholder from the beginning are just a couple of ways or examples to address this issue.
2. Lack of support and engagement: Local and national institutions suffers from the same challenges, including the fluctuating of political authorities, lack of capacity among government and civil society stakeholders, lack of consistent financial support, and lack of meaningful engagement with local communities. 
3. Working in insolation: Much more could be done to link up with tax reform efforts, environmental protection initiatives, corporate social investment programmes (community development spending), and efforts to address major corruption issues with significant local impact.

Capitalism in intensive care - A new economy model is needed...

After reading twice, I just wanted to recommend  an excellent book called: 23 Things they don´t tell you about Capitalism – a Nº 1 bestseller written by Ha-Joon Chang, who is a specialist in development economics and reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge.

In this book he destroys some of the biggest myths of our times and shows us the truth about how the world really works. You will see that we don´t have to accept things as they are, because there´s a better way!

A book for every one that truly whish a real and positive change in our society…the ones who are convinced that we need to reboot our economic system, pushing as a society for a change and real actions like for example:

•  Radical transformation of the financial system,
•  Restarts the concepts of local economic activity (Acting globally, thinking locally),
•  Find the right balance between environment, society and economy.
•  Redesign the tax system,
•  Redesign the policies of subsidies,
•  Redesign the production system (specially in the agro, fishing and energy sectors)

Enjoy the reading!

Best Regards

Marcelo