The Challenge for Africa Read Online Free

violence and exploitation, or promoting narrow self-interest and opportunism.
    Perhaps the most important quality that the African leadership needs to embrace, and which is desperately lacking across the continent, is a sense of service to their people. Too many Africans still live in hope that their leaders will be magnanimous enough not to take advantage of their weakness and vulnerability, and instead to remove the causes for why so many continue to live in fear.
    The revolution in leadership and the need to instill a sense of service cannot be confined only to those at the top of African societies, however. Even the poorest and least empowered of Africa's citizens need to rid themselves of a culture that tolerates systemic corruption and inefficiency, as well as self-destructive tendencies and selfishness. They must grasp the available opportunities and not wait for someone else magically to make development happen for them; they must realizethat, no matter how meager their capacities and resources, they have the means to protect what is theirs. Africa's peoples, wherever they are in society, need to hold politicians and themselves accountable, value long-term sustainability over short-term gain and instant gratification, and plan wisely for an uncertain future rather than settle for an expedient present. Instead of milking the cow called
Africa
to death, everyone should feed, nurture, and love her so she can thrive and provide.
    Africa has been on her knees for too long, whether during the dehumanizing slave trade, under the colonial yoke, begging for aid from the international community, paying now-illegitimate debts, or praying for miracles. At both the top and the bottom, all Africans must change the mind-set that affects many colonized peoples everywhere. They must believe in themselves again; that they are capable of clearing their own path and forging their own identity; that they have a right to be governed with justice, accountability, and transparency; that they can honor and practice their cultures
and
make them relevant to today's needs; and that they no longer need to be indebted—financially, intellectually, and spiritually—to those who once governed them. They must rise up and walk.
    In confronting these challenges, the environment needs to be at the center of all decision making. Neither Africa nor the world can afford for the continent to continue to be solely the resource base for the industrialization and development of countries outside her borders—whether in Europe, the Americas, or Asia. Instead, together, African countries and the international community should enable the African peoples to protect their precious ecosystems—the land, wetlands, fisheries, rivers, lakes, forests, and mountains—and use them responsibly, equitably, and sustainably. Development practices must be conceived and implemented holistically.
    If a critical mass of Africans adopts an attitude of preservationover exploitation, collective responsibility over individual gain, and common feeling for the continent rather than narrow ethnic nationalism, they will have a chance to survive. They will also have an opportunity to experience an African revival such as what I believe Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, envisioned when he invoked the African Renaissance.
    My concern for an African revival is personal. As I described in my autobiography,
Unbowed
, my life represents the aspirations—as well as the complexities—of the contemporary African citizen. Unlike many others who write about or lead large-scale efforts in support of Africa, I am not an economist, a social scientist, or a political theorist. I haven't worked on the staff of a donor agency or large international development organization. Just about all my life has been spent in Kenya. By training, I am a biological scientist and taught for many years at the University of Nairobi. For five years I served in Kenya's parliament, as well as in the