Refounding Africa 

Document preparatory to the meeting at Dar Es Salaam
TANZANIA
From 21 to 26 June 2001

For all comments and information, please write to 
Centre International Martin Luther King
BP 14
BUJUMBURA
BURUNDI
E-mail: cimlk@cbinf.com

I)	A new century, a project for Africa, a contract for a generation

The Africa of the 21st century will be different from that of the 20th century

1.	The 20th century was that of the domination of Africa from the outside: first by colonisation, then by inappropriate development methods imposed on the continent by foreign political and economic interests that still find local allies (to involve Africa in the Cold War, implement foreign aid programmes, and share the fruits of exploiting natural resources). 

2.	Although this century has seen numerous hopes, attempts and movements for emancipation, it has also brought terrible failures and disillusions. Forty years after independence, the crisis of Africa is deep and multiform. The current civil wars are an illustration of this. Today, in one way or another, three quarters of African countries are affected by wars. The continent has over 10 million refugees and displaced persons. Analysts estimate that from 150 to 200 million Africans live in States where internal conflicts could break out into civil war during this decade. 

3.	There is a profound desire for change throughout the continent. A new awareness is emerging: this is no longer a time for makeshift solutions, vague incantations, illusions of a return to the past or the blind belief in new concepts borrowed from outside. 

4.	The century has changed and our continent is changing generations. Africa must look to its young who have not known the struggles for independence and the political debates of the 20th century. They are entering fully into the construction of tomorrow's world, freed of complexes vis-à-vis former colonial powers, free from feelings of guilt about failures. They refuse to seek elsewhere the source of Africa's ills and the inspiration to remedy them.

5.	Change does not mean forgetting or denying. The trials and errors of recent years have multiplied the lessons and apprenticeship needed for the next century; they have given rise to reflections and innovations at local level, preparing the birth of the Africa of tomorrow. The Congress for African Refoundation is the starting point of a collective effort to identify lessons and perspectives. Failure in this effort of appropriation implies continuing dependence exclusively on models from outside. 

6.	Real and sustainable development cannot exist without common long-term perspectives. The Congress must be the starting point for building a common project, a contract for a generation for Africa. This contract will be forged from an intensive approach carried out over five years that combines different groups of people, starting from local levels to go onto national, regional and finally continental levels. A similar approach will be taken everywhere to build the project: the identification of common values, the observation of the main obstacles and advantages, and the elements of the programme. The basis of this "project for Africa" will be used to invite different partners - governments, companies, NGOs – to join the contract for a generation and implement public tools to evaluate compliance with the mutual commitments made. 

7.	The Dar Es Salaam Congress prefigures this contract for a generation by declaring its possible orientations. 
What are the values, strategic proposals and joint actions on which this refoundation should be based? This preparatory document for the Dar es Salaam Assembly was written in the framework of African Caravan for Peace with the intention of opening the debate on this necessary refoundation. 

II)	Common values on which to base a common project and the legitimacy of institutions

1.	There can be no common project without common values shared by persons, economic and social groups, and institutions. The common values on which our continent can be built in the 21st century could be summed up by two principles: the restoration of dignity and participation in the world to be built. The restoration of dignity: this means the conviction of being in control of one's own destiny and the capacity of exercising that control. Participation in the world to be built: this means awareness of a specific identity while belonging to the common destiny of humanity. On the basis of these two principles, we can outline a common basis of values. They are the meeting point of the African identity and the universal ethics of the world to be built. They can be the basis of a Charter for a responsible, plural and united Africa that can be used as the basis for outlining a common project for Africa and declaring the conditions for legitimate governance. 

2.	An Africa rich in diversity and strong in unity 

Africa has a wealth of languages, cultures, communities and peoples. It is also a continent with a long tradition of trade and migrations that underwent a long period of exploitation and colonisation, though it can now look forward to a common destiny. 

The nation states born from independence have tried to build national identities and conceive of an Africa based on the diversity of its cultures. Forty years after gaining independence, speeches on national sovereignty and national unity sometimes appear rhetorical from states that have become dependent on international aid in order to function. These states are both too big to deal with social problems in an integrated fashion and too small and weak to build a common destiny and an area of exchange. 

As for African unity, it has long remained the subject of vacuous speeches. It has often been reduced to a variety of institutions without much legitimacy or efficiency, without a dynamic and visionary force. 

There is also a schism between the official Africa and the real Africa. The official Africa is stuck onto the real Africa. However, it is the official Africa that has tapped internal and external resources and imposed an administrative model, fragmenting local problems when they should be treated integrally. Real African society fails to recognise itself in this official Africa and must do everything to exercise powers and resources according to its own thinking. The diversion of the institutions and resources of official Africa to the profit of real Africa is both constructive and suicidal.

The most pressing need, in order to build an Africa rich with diversity and strong in its unity, is to go beyond the divorce between institutional and official Africa and the real Africa. The former believes it brings modernity, grafting on ready-made systems copied from outside. Real Africa uses too much of its energy to divert institutions from their intended purposes rather than building a future. Going beyond this divorce requires starting from local realities and their management so that all the regulations can take root in the district, the village and the region. If this keystone of governance is not wedged firmly in place, and if the plan for Africa's architecture based on this keystone is not immediately understandable, the entire edifice will lack lasting cohesion. 
New practices of governance and ways of combining diversity and unity will be founded by laying the foundations of local partnerships. 

3.	A united Africa

One of the most destructive effects of the modernity grafted onto Africa is to have ignored the tradition of solidarity to the profit of individualism associated with personal rights and economic development. It is true that traditional solidarity, the precedence of the group over the individual and the respect of hierarchies and tradition may be considered nowadays as being an intolerable form of social control. They can result in the negation of individual rights and entrenched conservatism. However, the meaning of the other, the importance given to the other and to the group, the awareness of belonging to the entirety of living beings and establishing links with nature that are not purely those of domination, are all virtues that can easily be dismissed in the name of progress, although they are the very virtues required to make the world a liveable place. Their rediscovery is urgent and they must be adhered to in Africa and around the world. 

4 An Africa of freedom and responsibility 

The same evil can be seen in the impunity of certain leaders and the absence of the notion of public service at basic level, the small and large-scale pillage of public property, the disdain for law and the absence of long term vision. The simple fact of holding any form of power gives the means to act, though in return it does not give equal awareness of the responsibility this power to act implies. The problem is to pass on the notion of obligation felt towards one's own immediate family, group, ethnic group to that felt towards a larger community, that of the town, nation, Africa, and future generations. This must be remedied in part by means of control, denunciation and justice, by setting up counter-balances. However, no form of repression will succeed if these values do not spring from within and if social recognition does not stem from awareness of responsibility at every level and in every sector. The example comes from above, and, as the proverb says, the fish rots from the head first. The leaders of African society in the 21st century must assert their responsibilities. This does not imply denying their history and the still very present impacts of slavery and colonisation; on the contrary, it implies refusing to use these impacts as an excuse for irresponsibility.

5 An Africa of human development 

Economically and technically developed countries have reached this stage by massively exploiting the planet's barely-renewable resources. Our continent cannot follow along the same road. Its historic lag in this area means that when it does finally catch up significantly, the world's environmental crisis will have become so serious that this road will no longer be thought practicable. 

We must choose our itinerary carefully in our race with time and reflect on the lessons of the 20th century. 
In order to achieve economic and human development, is it necessary to pass through all the historic stages of industrial development; is it possible to take a short cut by foreseeing now what the world's development will be in fifty years time? The question is complex. It combines issues of economic policy (what strategies should be used to create production resources?), governance (how can apprenticeship be organised and create the social, legal, human and financial conditions for development?) and ethical (finally, what kind of development do we want to promote?). Contrary to accepted opinion, ethical questions are the most important. Regarding material resources in the new century, Ghandi's words ring true, "there is enough for everybody's needs and not enough for everybody's greed". Thus a choice must be made between development based on material accumulation (more having) which will be reserved for a minority, and development based on human fulfilment (more being) which can be extended to all. And what if our continent, the laggard of material development, is in the lead in many areas? And what if its delay could be paradoxically transformed into an advantage? And if the scarcity of material resources, and the need to compensate goods by services, enabled preparing for an economy based on relations and intelligence? 

 6 An Africa that uses the past to build the future 

We have too often been asked to reject our past as a condition for entering into the modern world, as if this past, qualified by the colonisers as primitive, were a latent barrier to "entering into civilisation". This stigmatisation has also too often given rise to an artificial idealisation of the past. Now is the time for clear and complex-free consideration. No people can develop by rejecting themselves and no one can go without the dynamism contributed by others. Failure is inevitable if every time one helps a person, one bases oneself on what they do not have. They must be helped on the basis of what they do have as the starting point of their identity and progression. 

Our continent has a solid moral and cultural foundation. Our societies in many regions have developed original method of governance, solidarity, natural resource management and sharing. The keys to the future rely on updating these practices without complacency, and on creatively making ours contributions from outside.

IV)	Reform of the education system, primary school and higher education

Illiteracy, low school attendance in rural areas, especially for girls and the weakness of secondary education are considered as major reasons for the continent's underdevelopment. However, what kind of school and education are we speaking of? 

We must ask ourselves whether the present education system is not a decisive factor in the African crisis, perpetuating the production of intermediate colonial managers that govern a society from which they stem but which they disdain, since they exist outside it. They regulate governments that "do not satisfy the hopes of their people, do not know how to listen to them, understand them or get them to participate in initiatives and authority". 

The major weaknesses of this system are: 

•	primacy given to booklearning, which is segmented and dispensed by authoritarian arguments; 

•	isolation from the environment, this isolation occurs via the language and the poor recognition of "cultural advantages"; it is even greater between a system that seeks to transmit universal knowledge and a milieu that seeks to transmit specific values; 

•	poor development spirit of initiative and enterprise, thus more suited to the preparation of civil servants for a state that does not exist any longer, than for fermenting innovation in the original community; 

•	higher education modelled on that of the former colonial powers at a time when this very system is in crisis; this higher education is often straight-jacketed within the borders of the nation-state, and forges more links with European and American universities as centres of excellence than with neighbouring ones; 

•	higher education that prepares for emigration (how many members of our establishments now live abroad either due to political exile or because they seek better living conditions, security and work?) or for functions of authority rather for working in partnership to face the country's real challenges. 

Paradoxically, meagre material resources can be turned into an advantage. Our governments must get education to negotiate with society according to new conditions since it must obtain its resources from society. This crisis of African education coincides with a world crisis of education systems. This raises an opportunity. If we want to stop public education from becoming increasingly mediocre, the premises of this system must be redefined. Scarce public resources should no longer be devoted to training students to leave for big cities and abroad. A small number of rich families send their children to private schools.

The bases of the reform can be set out according to the different levels of the system. 

•	at primary and secondary school level, emphasis should be given to teaching attitudes as much as knowledge;

•	use the local context and its challenges as the focus for learning; develop in-the-field knowledge, with regular reviews of the action; 

•	develop attitudes, capacities for cooperation, creativity, conflict management; transmit values at the same time as knowledge of general laws; 

•	constantly learn the relations between the fields of knowledge and between beings and things in order to link them together later; 

•	learn to both criticise and dialogue. Criticism is to develop the capacity to think for oneself, and question accepted thinking; dialogue is to develop tolerance and the capacity for thinking outwards.

In higher education, teach the virtues expected of the future establishment. Priority should be given to vocational training rather than to initial training:

•	the training of emerging business and union leaders who are the most likely to recycle this knowledge in the development of their own communities; 

•	training through exchanging experiences. This permits the simultaneous development of  exchange networks, the use of critical judgement and it makes links between knowledge and its application; 

•	training for management and the spirit of initiative; 

•	training for dialogue and cooperation with other sectors of society; 

•	training to use databanks and expert systems: technical knowledge is the easiest to mobilise. In addition, the development and use of the Internet will modify in the near future the relationship between specialised know-how. Here again, we can take advantage of our delay to pass directly to the next stage. 

V)	The media

The media and particularly radio plays a decisive role everywhere on the continent, especially since physical means of communication are sometimes lacking. They can be a decisive factor of development at continental level. Information is the good that increases through sharing. And it is exactly goods that increase through sharing that are the keys to the future. 

Too frequently, the media have been propaganda tools in the hands of various authorities. The notorious Mille Collines radio station is an extreme case of the media in the service of hate. But even without going as far, even free media depend on the goodwill of their governments for their existence and their sources of information, too often focused on political life in the capitals or too entrenched behind national borders. 

The advent of the Internet is bringing about radical changes that should be exploited as much as possible by setting up a vast pan-African network of information sharing, and written and audiovisual productions. 

This network would be based on the ethical and social commitment of the media and the personal commitment of the journalist to share information, working both on institutional and interpersonal scales. Free use of information produced by others would be subordinated to compliance with these ethical commitments. Information centres would act as databanks that structure information and the transit between "flows" and the "stocks". Interactive contact with society would occur via local radios with the broadcast of experiences (experience exchange workshops) and the population can also request pertinent information.

The InterAfrican media network would also be a key factor in the successful reform of education, since it would be a linchpin of remote information and training systems, by making university students the producers of information in the framework of their own apprenticeship and handling of the Internet and information systems. 

Lastly, getting the media to form a network is one of the decisive ways of developing governance and new intermediate bodies, by ensuring the transparency of information on public action and by setting up independent arenas for public debate on subjects concerning society. 

VI)	Economic development 

At present, economic development is hampered by major drawbacks. These drawbacks, which privilege unearned income, are well known: 

•	insecurity which dissuades enterprise; 

•	the absence of law and permanent rules which dissuade African and foreign businesspersons from making investments; 

•	national frontiers that cause markets to be too small and which penalise trade due to racketeering; 

•	the poor state and cost of transport and communication - trains, planes, mail, telephone, etc.; 

•	the existence of public and private monopolies that lead to the practice of commissions; 

•	the divide between the casual economy and the official economy; 

•	the scarcity of domestic savings, causing over-dependency on foreign investments; 

•	the procedures for operations by foreign companies and cooperation without any effort to train local populations; 

•	the burden of foreign debt, resulting from poorly used or completely diverted loans, hampering development and placing countries before the dilemma: failure to repay block access to future loans, but repayment makes financing public services impossible though the latter are vital for development (health, education and infrastructures); 

•	the lack of competent managers to run companies and the difficulty of creating an African system of management that is both rigorous and in phase with society; 

•	the tapping of natural resources to the profit of those in power and dubious links between the latter and the companies that exploit natural resources; 

•	the pressure exerted by international competition on local production, especially agricultural production; 

•	the stiff competition between several goods for export, e.g., petroleum, cocoa, coffee, etc., which renders counterproductive the recommendations made by international institutions to increase exports to pay back debts; 

•	the sequels of authoritarian policies aimed at rural communities and farmers; 

•	the absence of services for companies, making the development of small businesses risky; 

•	and consequently, more opportunities to make fortunes from import-export activities than from productive activities.

Our continent also has great difficulty in the area of economic development to produce autonomous thinking rooted in own specific characteristics. This is where successive systems have been imported from elsewhere, that doctrines from the left and right, authoritarian and then liberal, have flourished without control. The first two decades were dominated by "the state is all". The state saw itself as the motor of development in the name of progress, but it had neither sufficient competency nor legitimacy. At best it was often merely landlord and at worst a predator, behaving like an elephant in a china shop with respect to society. From North to South, from "industrialising industry" to "African socialism", the failures have been bloody and countries have run up debts without having profited from the money loaned. Countries have had to change from the practices preached at the time by the World Bank to the total market economy, systematic privatisation and the opening up of borders without any transition period. None of this has taken into account the need for initial economic development and the need to protect young enterprises before they can face the heavy seas of the world market. 

Promoting a new dogma for general application would be pointless. On the contrary, here as elsewhere, African refoundation must occur via the development of African thinking and human networks capable of conceiving, promoting and implementing it. 

It will probably be necessary to combine regional and national measures concerning framework conditions with local measures concerning active development policies that privilege the emergence of small and medium sized businesses working in networks, with access to economic services close to their requirements (training, finance, market surveys, technical advice, etc.). 

Setting up these measures should be done in each case according to the principle of "active subsidiarity": the basis comes from exchanging experiences from which main policies are formulated rather than uniform recipes. Lastly, everyone should set up the measures for implementing the policy most appropriate to their specific case. For each of the obstacles identified below, there is a corresponding policy.

XI)	Managing soil for the benefit of all and future generations

Fertile soil is our common property but it is on the process of dilapidation. The earth is not a merchandise. Its management cannot be left to free trade or to the desires of its owners and occupants. Its future is a public issue and a major challenge for governance. 

If the present process continues, this essential heritage of our continent, contrary to the raw materials that are being exhausted, which ensures its long-term prosperity will disappear. Combined with the effects of increasing demographic growth, its scarcity has become one of the major sources of bloodshed in Africa. 

The earth of Africa is fragile. In both the north and south, and in the Sahel region, fertile earth lacks water and is turning to desert. In tropical and equatorial Africa, water abounds, leaching poor soil, which acidifies. 

African farmers have succeeded for centuries in using these fragile soils and protecting them to guarantee their own survival. The management of rights to use the earth is one of the strongest traditions of African governance. Colonisation overturned traditional balances, concentrating ownership of land and dictating new ownership laws that replaced careful management of fertility with mining management. 

We shall be condemning ourselves if we do not become a world of skilful and reasonable gardeners. Ancestral know-how is not enough since the conditions under which it came into being have changed. We need an African Soil Campaign, a common project that spurs energies, creativity and human resources and material resources throughout the continent. 

Along with water, this will be the first priority of African governance. All solutions to the problems of African soils require renewed cooperation between different levels of governance: local territory where soils are divided among their users, the long-term maintenance of their fertility and the distribution of water resources; regional, national and transnational territories which manage the major catchment areas, the distribution of populations, the codification of land rights and territorial development; and the continent where the policies are defined and where financial resources are found. 

The action programme and its policies combine three requirements: sustainable development; social justice; and the balance between the town and country. 

These requirements are interdependent. If maintaining soil fertility causes the concentration of ownership, it will inevitably lead to injustice and social conflict. If the soils distributed on an egalitarian basis cause their poor upkeep, the social justice of today will prepare the conflict of tomorrow. 

Right of ownership and access to the earth are conditions for its upkeep in the long term. However, this right and security are associated with the duty to carry out this upkeep. The right will disappear if the duty is not fulfilled. Thus it is necessary at each local level to combine technical and intellectual resources and the legal framework for cooperation to ensure that these duties are respected. It must also include the means for observing whether or not these duties are complied with and the authority and justice to transfer ownership of the land if they are not. 

The maintenance of soils and the development of sustainable agriculture demand huge investments. Any suppression of the right of use or ownership in the name of social justice must give rise to fair compensation. A common code of these guarantees should be drawn up for the entire continent. 

Conflicts over soil use will multiply as it becomes scarcer. Between crop cultivation and cash crops, agriculture and livestock breeding, town and country, these conflicts can be managed at local level though in accordance to the policies founded on experience. A constitutive assembly of African farmers will define these policies after hearing all the parties.

The pressure of the towns and their growth over the best lands has become a very serious problem in certain African countries, caused by rights of use. Several principles should be implemented: 

•	the establishment of intensive agricultural green belts around towns to develop economic resistance to urban invasion; 

•	the choice of levels of arbitration on the assignment of soils to avoid local pressures; 

•	the implementation of a compensation principle: any suppression of a hectare of farmland  must give rise to compensation of three hectares of fertile land.

The African action programme for the preservation and rehabilitation of soils will have two common dimensions: 
- international action to conserve and rehabilitate soils; 
- an inter-African programme of training and education so that the rules for soil conservation are known to all.

VIII)	The refoundation of governance 

The term "governance" has been compromised by the use given to it by the World Bank and the IMF, followed by other international institutions, by reducing it to a few rules of "good governance" heavily influenced by liberal ideology. However, this term should be restored to its wider meaning.
Governance means all the regulations that a society gives itself: concepts, practices, institutions, social services, law, political and administrative organisation. 

It is here that Africa has borrowed most from outside, applying systems supposed to represent those of any modern society. They were initially imported by the founders of African states, who were educated in the West, then imposed by international aid. An example is the concept of decentralisation. The results have often been very deceptive: public services bereft of resources, poorly paid and undermined by corruption; multipartite democracy converted into ethnic parties; more theoretical than real separation of parliament, the executive and legal systems. An effort of refoundation is required. 

This effort of refoundation comprises general principles and their application to decentralisation and regional integration based on two pillars: the networking of local innovations and the common declaration of policies with monitoring of their practical application.

Networking local innovations. There are many multiform and promising innovations. Some of them have been made necessary by government shortcomings that have caused populations to find solutions themselves. Others have been developed with the aid of foreign NGOs. Most of them take the form of partnerships between public authorities and society. 

The declaration of guiding policies. Experience has shown that every society develops its own systems of governance, though in response to issues common to all. These common experiences are identified through the exchange of experiences at international level and they constitute the guiding principles, the "obligations of performance " that must be satisfied.

The two approaches are close and complementary; the first privileges interAfrican exchange while the second privileges international exchange. 

The crisis of governance is particularly acute in Africa though not specific to it. It is also an advantage for an approach aiming at refoundation. Our continent does not have to behave like a good pupil that copies its master's lessons to the last letter, it must participate in creating and implementing the governance of tomorrow. The following are possible steps of this approach.

1)	The setting up of an InterAfrican Institute of Governance, an institute without walls based on the exchange of experiences and networking, intended for existing political and administrative managers at local, national an regional levels as well as to social leaders. This training would last one year and combine work on site and collective seminars in the field. It would bring these managers into contact with other administrative traditions, other ways of thinking and other perceptions and result in a possible diploma of aptitude guaranteeing competency in the eyes of the population. Given a timeframe of 20 years, a network of competencies could be formed, along with a pool of experiences and a school of African thought on governance.  The idea of providing this vocational training to politicians would also lead to solving certain obstacles to changes of government by election in our continent. Losing politicians hang on to power by every means at their disposal for fear of also losing their status and economic security. 

2)	The setting up of an experience exchange network to permit different social and economic actors to take part in public debates on governance. Debate is often biased by an abuse of legalism giving the feeling that debates are reserved only for specialists whereas the latter are the least well placed to speak of governance in practice. 

3)	The declaration of different subjects that influence the quality of governance and which are concerned by the guiding principles. The following points can serve as a basis, with the help of international experience:

a)	Setting up the conditions for genuine partnership between the public authorities and society, i.e.:

-	The capacity for dialogue and the formulation of joint projects with the population (instead of the public authorities considering that they are "above" the population and that they are sole guardian of the general interest and the right solutions) ; 

-	Taking into account real social rhythms (instead of imposing administrative rhythms); 

-	The association of citizens, of every level, in formulating, implementing and controlling public budgets (instead of controls qualified by largely illusory voting); 

-	The combination of public and private finance (instead of keeping the two spheres separate); 

-	The recognition of movements specific to the population and assistance to these movements (instead of believing that the public authorities can create these movements); 

-	The capacity of public institutions to work together simultaneously on the different aspects of problems (instead of dividing the problems into parts according to the responsibilities of administrations); 

b)	Setting up procedures for the integrated management of territories and the promotion of sustainable development; 

c)	Reform of the decision-making process; the public authorities set up the different  stages of dialogue with actors from society to produce satisfactory solutions; 

d)	Links between the levels of governance: this link is the recognition that none of Africa's underlying problems can be solved only at one level and that cooperation between all levels is vital; 

e)	The reform of the internal organisation of public services to reinforce their capacity to manage complex social problems through cooperation and permanent learning;

f)	The development of counter-balances and means for controlling decisions; the combat against corruption; 

g)	The development of citizenship and civil awareness. 

h)	The legitimacy of institutions: Contemporary Africa does not suffer from a lack of institutions and legal frameworks that give a legal basis to regulation and decision-making procedures which, together, constitute governance. Quite the contrary. However, this legality is not enough to found the legitimacy of power or of those that wield it. This legitimacy is linked to the recognition by all that all the practices involved in wielding power conform to common values and that those who wield it do so in the common interest. 

Legitimacy cannot be decreed. It is earned. People make their judgements based on evidence. The legitimacy of those in power is also the condition of the civic responsibility of the people. Awareness and fulfilment by citizens of their duties vis-à-vis their community cannot endure without awareness that the latter is being managed in the common interest. 

Naturally, legality (the leaders have been chosen and the decisions have been implemented in conformity with the rules agreed) is one aspect of legitimacy but there are many others that are closer to ethics and culture than to law: 

•	Do the objectives aimed at reflect genuine concern for the common good? 

•	Do the methods conform to the cultural rules of reaching consensus? Do they allow everyone to express themselves and be taken into consideration? Do they reflect the twofold concern of unity (the general good of the community) and diversity (taking into account of the different situations and points of view)? 

•	Do the morality, origins, experience and competencies of the people who exercise power on behalf of the community make them fit to do so? Are they aware of their responsibilities and are they worthy of them? 

•	Regarding the spirit of justice, and recognition of everyone's right to equal dignity, do they preside over decisions and their application? Does everyone consider themselves as being seen as equal by the authorities and their services regardless of sex, age and ethnic group? 

•	Is the governance exercised pertinent? Do the decisions and their application concern essential questions, are they adapted to the scale of the problems, and are they capable of providing the right answers with genuine actors? 

•	Are the transparency in which the decisions are made and applied and the means of control sufficiently independent and efficient to check that trust is honoured? 

4	 The transformation of the guiding principles into charters declaring a number of principles and commitments. 

IX)	Decentralisation and territorial management 

We must start by consolidating the management of local territories – towns and rural districts – in order to establish legitimate governance on our continent. There are many reasons for giving priority to this dimension. Some of them are general while others are specific to Africa: 

a)	general reasons: in the context of globalisation, the territory is the basic building block of tomorrow's governance:

•	It is the scale on which the responses to the crisis in our development systems can be invented: by consolidating social cohesion, by recreating the link between the economy and society, and by permitting an integrated approach to relations between society and its environment.

•	It is the ideal scale for learning about citizenship and more participatory forms of democracy; thus it is the level at which new governance can be invented. 

•	Other types of relations between the local and global can be built from this basic level. 

The decentralisation of power is occurring all over the world; however economic and technological development is often concentrated in certain cities and regions. The main innovations of governance are at local level. Here, the approach of sustainable development is more concrete and active than at national level. Governments often lag behind and find it difficult to implement reforms or to develop partnerships. These are all illustrations of this major role in the context of globalisation. However, the new centres of development are not isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary, they are very open to the outside world and belong to international networks and are in contact with emigrant populations, which often play an important role too. 

b)	The reasons specific to Africa: The African governance of tomorrow will spring from the territory, which is the place of concrete relations. 

•	Provided risks of creating clienteles are avoided, the territory is a scale of governance where mechanisms can be set up for the public control of funds; 

•	Our continent has a long tradition of local management with sophisticated regulation mechanisms. Thus it is at this level that  a synthesis can be made between tradition and external practices and ides; 

•	Faced with the shortcomings of governments, many towns and rural districts have found innovative types of partnership with local populations in many fields, such as health, water and waste management, etc.

•	The structures of civil society began at local level, though they have since spread over the last twenty years to cover nations and even the continent. 

•	Political corruption and violence are mostly linked to the control of commissions on natural resources. More decentralised means of collecting resources would be a positive factor. 

Many African countries have already experimented with decentralisation.  Unfortunately, these experiments were again imposed by foreign moneylenders according to imported systems. Decentralisation sometimes resembles a simple reduction in the density of administration and states often decentralise responsibilities without decentralising the corresponding funds. Consequently, rural towns and villages have few resources and depend on the state and international aid for their functioning and even more so for their investments.

Collective strength and a common project are required so they can avoid this dependency. Collective strength could come from an Alliance of African towns and territories united by a common charter. Towns and territories would commit themselves to the charter to exchange experiences, set up internal evaluation bodies and accept collective evaluation based on the criteria of the joint project. 

X)	Regional integration

First dimension: The emergence of regional actors, the construction of a regional civil society through the systematic development of networks and collective intelligence tools (structuring information, exchanging experiences). 

Second dimension: monetary policy. After observing that no African country is sufficiently strong economically to carry out an independent economic policy, the security and fluidity of transactions should be the first priority of monetary policy. The idea would be to set up a single currency.

Third dimension: the single market. The economies of most African countries do not complement each other. On the other hand, customs barriers are obstacles to natural trade, which is organised with no relation at all to national borders. Legal trade barriers also give the opportunity for making illegal levies. Lastly, a single African market would permit the gradual development of economic activities that do not have sufficiently large domestic markets to get off the ground. 

Fourth dimension: protectionism. There is no advantage for the continent from the isolated membership of the WTO by certain African countries and even less so from rapid membership. It is vital to stimulate domestic production capacities and void any encouragement to import sophisticated products which cause recurrent consumption of imported products, such as cars, and energy. This protectionism should permit some catching up and learning. Thus it should be limited to 30 to 40 years with gradual decreases in import taxes to prevent governments living off them, which is what happened with price guarantees.

Negotiation with the European Union, for example, should take into account this dissymmetric tax situation. It would amount to "positive discrimination" in favour of Africa justified by the prejudices it has suffered in the past. This system is preferable to the price guarantees for certain products covered by the EU-ACP countries and which have resulted in perverse effects.

Fifth dimension: tax policy and redistribution. The objective of this should be: 

-	to increase domestic savings and investments;
-	stimulate local development;
-	avoid effects of unearned income; 
-	promote productive activity and favour the consumption of imported products; 
-	favour human work and penalise the consumption of  non-renewable natural resources.

In particular this implies tax collection in towns and territories where the use of tax revenues is much easier to control by the population, along with the redistribution of customs duties on the same scale, with the twofold criteria of social equity and encouragement of local savings. 

Sixth dimension: management of natural and mining resources. These wealth providing resources are non-renewable resources and owe little to human activity. Their abundance could have been a source of wealth for Africa but they have become a curse by privileging redistribution rather than work, by keeping in power governments with no real popular support, by centralising resources into the hands of only a few, by attracting pirates, by selling Africa on credit and by constituting the raw material of insecurity. 

In the past piratical leaders constantly brought nationalist feelings to boil to cover up the use and profits they made from these resources. We must enter into a new era of joint and transparent resources management. As with revenue from customs duties, it would be a good idea to redistribute it at local level by financing the other levels from contributions negotiated at grass roots level. 

Regional public management should also set out specifications for foreign firms that exploit raw and make international invitations to tenders so they can select the best bidder. 

Seventh dimension: the constitution of regional expertise networks. Dependency on foreign aid is an African tragedy.  Since this aid often comes in the form of projects, massive use is made of foreign consultants, depriving Africans of the precious opportunity of learning. This process has been termed development by disposable learning. Political instability, the absence of democracy, and clientelism also lead to the definitive emigration of qualified managers who take their experience with them. 

The definition at regional level of criteria for expertise, with procedures for qualification and vocational training usually call for exchanges and capitalisation of experience, providing career profiles to those who have proved their worth and encouraging them to stay in the continent. By combining public and private foreign aid to set up a pool of experts, exclusive or privileged use of these experts for the management of the aid could be accorded to the donors in exchange.

This procedure could also contribute towards guaranteeing a livelihood to ousted politicians, permitting their reintegration into civil life. Without such measures, it will be difficult to convince them of the virtues of real democratic changes of power. 

Eighth dimension: security. There is no chance of Africa developing in the present context of insecurity, which affects every part of the continent. 

These conflicts comprise many factors that vary from one case to another, for example: 

-	the fight for control over the revenues generated from raw materials; 
-	political-ethnic conflicts; 
-	the control of power by violence and by exacerbating divisions; 
-	the disappearance of social cohesion, the weakness of public services and urban violence; 
-	revolts by the poor and desperate; 
-	border conflicts often stemming from the other factors mentioned above. 

Since owning a rifle is, in certain cases, a sure means of satisfying one's hunger, the presence of armies is more a factor of insecurity than the contrary. The answer to the problem is both regional and local.

At local level, decentralisation could be a way of reducing ethnic tensions provided that rules for multi-ethnic and multi-religious cohabitation are applied at this level. Our countries have a long tradition of tolerance and multiethnic societies. Thus it is quite easy to arrange an inter-ethnic balance by drawing from this tradition. It would not be difficult to set up committees of wise men belonging to the different ethnic groups and religions that would arbitrate on the conflicts brought before them. This implies management at district scale where the populations have first hand knowledge of urban violence. 

The main lines at national level should be:

-	replacing the army by a police force whose training includes human rights; 
-	the promotion of peace in schools and by the media;
-	setting up a highly trained rapid action force at continental level, with a coherent structure and command, with a permanent mandate and finance, capable of intervening to prevent conflict (small scale actions early on are more efficient than large scale and late actions) ; 
-	an international court where national leaders can be tried; 
-	preventive diplomacy based on observation and alert networks constituted, for example, by civil society.  

XI)	Reconciliation and building sustainable peace  

The first objective of governance is to ensure peaceful human development. 
Ensuring this peace requires that the use of violence belong exclusively to the public authorities provided their legitimacy has been recognised. 
Violence perpetrated by groups cannot be distinct from violence between persons or deep dissension between each and all of us. 

The Africa of the 20th century is one of violence, riven by countless conflicts that tear apart countries and communities, impeding any efforts of development and leading to the progressive acceptance of violence and the economy of violence as a way of life. A double vicious circle. Violence attracts violence in return; any pretext is worthwhile for continuing violence when it becomes a major source of revenue for certain social groups.

Breaking with vicious circles of violence and ensuring the reconciliation of Africans with themselves and Africa with itself: that is the double priority for our continent in this first year of the 21st century.
It is useless to pretend that violence is the offspring of poverty. Firstly, because this is historically false, and also because if this were so, our societies are condemned forever. If development is a condition for putting an end to violence and peace is required to ensure development, then we are heading into a cul-de-sac. Peace must be built now. It is the absolute prerequisite. 

Peace is far more than not waging war. It is a cultural, institutional, political and psychological state that must be elaborated. 

Africa has rich cultural resources in its own traditions with which to build peace. It can also draw on the experiences of other societies. Reconciliation in Africa and the building of peace will be the fruit of this intermingling.

Conflicts do not resemble each other exactly. Each has its own history often rooted deep in history and each has its specific antagonists. However, it is possible to declare guiding principles, as for the other areas of governance, for reconciliation and the transition from war to peace.

The first stage of refounding Africa will be an inter-African conference on the challenges to building peace in order to formulate these guiding principles. A coalition for peace will then be set up in each country and it will adopt a common charter based on these guiding principles along with the continental procedures for controlling and implementing these principles. We propose the following guiding principles that come under the heading of four objectives:
	
-	Accept the past 
-	Repair the damage of the past
-	Organise the present 
-	Prepare the future.

1)	Accepting the past 

Reconciliation cannot be founded on forgetting but on forgiveness. Forgiveness in itself is not compensation for prejudice but recognition that since the prejudice is irreparable, it cannot be allowed to stop life from continuing. 

Work must be done to examine the past by commissions of justice and truth, with the effective judgement of the guilty. Even and especially if this process is followed by a public pardon, it will be part of the grief that must be expressed in order to accept the past. This is the price to be paid for reconciliation, to break to endless cycle of a thousand legitimate vengeances.

2)	Repairing the damage of the past 

Lasting conflict has destroyed the structures on which peace and the economy were built replacing them with the economy of violence. In both cases, return to peace is impossible: the foundations of a peaceful of economy do not exist and those who are involved in violence must continue in order to survive. Peace settled at the expense of those who have left everything to join the violence cannot last. Political violence and organised crime are interchangeable and have the same will to survive. Consequently, the first thing to do is to reintegrate those engaged in fighting by setting up minimum economic and working conditions. 

3)	Organising the present 

Peace is based on trust in the other's sincerity. What can be done if there is no confidence, if violence is based on the negation of the other's humanity? Skilful peacemaking means the capacity of changing the perception of the enemy into the perception of a possible partner. The following elements can be mentioned regarding current African experiences: 

-	The importance of symbolic acts. Joyful firing into the air by the combatants in Mali is a good example. Every society has its own symbolic acts;
-	The commitment of spiritual and traditional leaders. In general, these are the only legitimate ethical figures to which recourse can be made in situations of violence. Wherever conflicts between ethnic and religious groups break out, and wherever power struggles are disguised as such, it is essential that the spiritual and traditional heads of communities work together to find a solution. This type of mediation has often been decisive in African conflicts;
-	National reconciliation conference. An act of refoundation is required to stop the fighting. It cannot be a mere compromise between the parties in conflict. Peace must be achieved by calling on the vital forces of the country to act on the basis of new foundations, for example, social and profession, and by privileging the representatives of civil society. However, these representatives must not become involved themselves in the struggle for power. A Constitutive Assembly that lays down the foundations for the future with non-re-eligible representatives is a good idea;
-	Guarantees given to minorities. No one in a position of force would give up their arms to find themselves immediately threatened and defenceless afterwards. Minorities need "safe places" both materially and symbolically. Every day people all over the continent are excluded, brutalised and killed since they do belong to minorities. However, we know that peace cannot be achieved by the domination of a majority by a minority, nor vice-versa, but by the recognition of the rights of all by each and everyone.
-	Local creation of conditions for cohabitation. There cannot be a system for general peace if the conditions for cohabitation at local level do not exist at the same time. Such and such a group can be in majority in one place and not in another. Rules of local cohabitation must be set out as the basis for equilibrium between unity and diversity. Peace exists because I recognise that the other is equal to me and also because I accept the other's difference;
-	Dismantling the image of the enemy. This includes symbolic dimensions that could be contributed by spiritual leaders and the media and it includes very concrete aspects of surpassing prejudices and fears. Youth workshops, people's forums and exchange programmes are all ways of achieving this. Another important element is drawing up a charter under continental control to moderate the media;
-	Training the police in human rights and the control of the security forces. Disarmament is impossible if the forces responsible for security are themselves a factor of violence and ethnic partiality. The experience of Mozambique shows how important converting the security forces is.

4)	Preparing the future 

There can be no peace without a common project. 

-	A project for peace. "Give them a chance to build and you will make them your brothers," says the proverb. Development is not a prerequisite to peace, but it is a common project for achieving it. This project must be set up at local level according to proven methods.
-	The culture of peace. This is a contract for a generation in itself that associated local authorities, the media, schools, and religious and political institutions.
-	Peace institutions. The example set by some countries demonstrates that a constitution that guarantees a balance between powers and allows autonomy can become popular to the point of not only giving a framework but also being considered as a symbol of peace. By guaranteeing the freedom to be different, it builds the conditions by which we can live together.
-	Sharing for peace. Peace that institutionalises injustice and which allots the spoils to the victor cannot endure.