Category: Future

Kipchumba Some wrote a sobering description in an article yesterday’s Daily Nation about problems in Nairobi’s slums. The grinding poverty and lack of any feasible alternative future make young men easy recruits for al Shabaab in the same way that they make young women easy recruits for prostitution. Given the choice between a terrible life and no life at all, many people make horrifying choices.

The article describes a 40-year-old man, Joseph Njoroge, who recently had cause to reflect on what had happened over the years to his schoolmates. Out of a class of about 30, only about six were still alive. The majority had died as a result of police shootings, mob lynchings or gang warfare. Others had died from AIDS complications and other complications for which they were not able to afford medical treatment. Some had died from alcohol or drug abuse.

Although Kenya is experiencing economic growth, the effects are not felt in the slums. The brutality and hopelessness of life in the slums remains undiminished, and people from rural areas continue to migrate to the slums in search of urban employment opportunities. Slums are by their nature largely beyond the reach of law and order, and they remain a hotbed for national insecurity.

China offers African countries attractive deals on infrastructure projects: delivered on time and on budget, with no questions asked. Poor infrastructure has been one of the greatest impediments to economic growth in Africa. Because of the poor condition or absence of roads and railways, it has been very expensive to transport goods from producers to markets. This has meant high prices for goods and an overreliance on subsistence farming at the expense of higher-yield agriculture.

According to Stephan Richter of the Globalist Research Center, the Chinese have a very different vision for the development of Africa from that of Western countries. The Western vision prioritises democracy-building over market-building. The Chinese vision prioritises market-building. Over the past 50 years progress towards fully functional democratic governments in African has been disappointingly slow.

Based on Africa’s experience, it is at least arguable that democracy-building cannot progress far until significant progress has been made with economic development. Economic development can create a vocal middle class which restrains the excesses of political leaders. Ironically, it seems as if the Westerners are the ones who have been touting ideological doctrines in Africa, whereas the Chinese are the ones who have been providing practical help.

For many years it has been common for business leaders to say that people are their most important asset. Now, however, it seems that chief executives think that technology is a more important determinant of future organisational success than people skills, according to an international survey of 1,709 CEOs conducted by IBM. Technology skills was the highest ranked external determinant of success, ahead of people skills (69%) and market factors (68%).

But are technology skills really so important? In most industries, an innovative firm might gain an advantage by adopting a new technology, but the other firms soon adopt the same technology, erasing the first firm’s advantage. Unless a new form of technology can be protected by a patent or similar barrier to copying, it is very difficult to maintain a significant competitive advantage based solely on technology.

The buzz at the moment is social networking. If you company is not actively getting into Facebook, you’re going to miss out – or so the story goes. However, there seem to be very few companies that have worked out a way of getting value out of a significant Facebook investment. Plenty of companies that have not invested in any type of social networking have still not lost any business as a result. The path to future success is a bit more complicated than simply adopting the latest technologies.

The future is uncertain for Ethiopia after the death of dictator Meles Zenawi on Monday. The 57-year-old president has ruled the country since 1991, when he led a military coup to oust Mengistu Haile Mariam, the man who led a communist military junta and oversaw the Ethiopian Red Terror, and who has since lived in exile in Zimbabwe as a guest of Robert Mugabe, hiding from genocide charges.

Meles had a micro-management governing style, keeping a firm grip on power, so that there will now be something of a power vacuum, according to analysts. He was known for his ruthlessness in eliminating potential opponents, restricting freedom of the press, and controlling the operations of non-governmental organisations. On the other hand, he was a key ally of the US in its fight against terrorism in the region.

Ethiopia currently has a number of armed opposition groups, some of whom are trying to seize power while others are trying to secede. Relations with neighbouring countries Eritrea and Somalia are tense and liable to descend into military action at any time. Deputy prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn will be the interim leader of the country, but there is a risk of civil war is an armed power struggle ensues.

During the Mumbai siege four years ago, terrorists were shooting people with guns held in one hand while at the same time checking text messages on phones held in the other hand, according to Marc Goodman in a TED talk given in June. The terrorists had set up a command centre which was directing operations and monitoring television stations and social media, so that they could count the number of people killed and help terrorists locate further victims.

The openness brought about by new technology makes it easier for criminals to have a far more devastating impact on a much greater number of victims. Whereas in the past the number of people criminals could rob at one time was limited, in last year’s Playstation hack, the criminals managed to rob 100 million people at the same time. Robots and drones give criminals the technological ability to conduct their crimes by remote control. Guns and weapons can be created using 3D printers.

In the future we can anticipate new forms of bio-crimes, with criminals creating new bio-viruses, such as enhanced versions of ebola or anthrax, with the aim of creating new deadly pandemics. Our current systems of policing and border control are not suitable for dealing with these new kinds of threats. New types of crowdsourcing will be required so that all citizens can contribute to fighting future crime.

If Kenya is to achieve its goal of becoming an industrialised middle-income country by 2030, it will need first to gain a new style of democratic leadership, according to political commentator Tee Ngugi writing in The East African. For the first 40 years of Kenya’s independence, the country was essentially a dictatorship, controlled by secret police who would take any suspected dissident to Nyayo House’s torture chambers.

The country’s government created a culture in which tribalism flourished, mediocrity and short-cuts were rewarded, the acquisition of wealth was a virtue regardless of how it was acquired, selfishness and tribalism were expected behaviours, and no personal responsibility was taken for the performance of public duty. Now, however, the country has a new Constitution which assumes a different set of values and calls for a different style of leadership.

Ngugi suggests that the new leadership will require total commitment to the task at hand, personal integrity, innovation, diligence in implementing the Constitution, the ability to inspire Kenyans to see a vision for the future and work towards it, and the skill to create a new basis for political mobilisation that transcends tribalism. Unfortunately, while there are many candidates for the country’s presidency, the candidates are not displaying the necessary attributes.

An effective justice system is one in which justice is dispensed quickly and in a manner which is seen by all to be fair. Unfortunately no justice system every fully meets these criteria. In most countries the judicial system is underfunded, and as a result disputes take longer than they should, and the party which is ready and able to spend most on litigation often has a substantial disadvantage, while poorer parties often have no effective access to justice.

Kenya’s judiciary is attempting to modernise and to provide a significantly higher level of justice, but there are substantial challenges ahead. The commercial courts have big backlogs, and for some companies this means that the cost of doing business in Kenya is too high to be worthwhile. The East African quotes the case of Renaissance Capital and its investment in Tatu City, which has allegedly been held to ransom by distrust, scheming and intrigue, without being able to obtain expeditious help from the courts.

The average length of time for resolving a commercial dispute in Kenya is 465 days, according to the Doing Business in the East African Community Report 2012. This is more than twice as long as Rwanda’s 230 day average. Last week a vetting committee found that two judges were unfit to hold judicial office because of extensive delays in reaching their decisions. Almost half of the value of an average claim is spent on legal costs.

The number of children recruited as child soldiers will diminish if a strong treaty can be negotiated at the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty which is scheduled to run until the end of this week, according to Justus Nyang’aya, country director of Amnesty International Kenya. The purpose of the proposed treaty is to regulate the international trade in conventional weapons, with the aim of preventing the supply of weapons where there is a risk of serious violations of human rights.

The idea of an arms trade treaty was considered by the UN in 2006, but the US voted against. As the US is the world’s biggest exporter of arms, its agreement is considered vital. The current US government has indicated that it is in favour of a treaty, but powerful US lobby groups are against, arguing that it will restrict the ownership of weapons in the US. The number of people killed by guns in the US each year is about the same number as those killed by motor vehicles.

According to Amnesty International, irresponsible arms transfers contribute to the deaths of half a million people per year, as well as facilitating the majority of the world’s human rights violations. Syria is just the latest example of a country where arms supplied by other countries have led to devastation. It remains to be seen whether the current UN conference will produce a workable solution.

Most of the world’s population will have migrated to cities by the end of the century, according to predictions. One place where rapid urbanisation is occurring is Africa. In Kenya, people move from villages and rural locations to Nairobi in search of work and improved quality of life, and many of the economic migrants end up living in the Kibera slums. Kibera is one of the Arrival Cities described in Doug Saunders’s book Arrival City.

Conditions in Kibera are not particularly appetising, and the tiny slum dwellings are crowded, with very limited ability to accommodate more people. According to Saunders, Arrival Cities of this type are effective in slowing down population growth because inhabitants elect to have fewer children. However, the government is left with the problem of unsightly substandard housing and concentrated areas of unemployment and crime.

Efforts have been made to replace the slums. The Nyayo Highrise Estate was meant to replace the Kibera slums, but the buildings were soon filled by middle-class residents, leaving the poor in Kibera. The UN-Habitat Kenya Slum Upgrading Project is another attempt to replace the slums, but it appears that slum-dwellers granted residency are likely to barter away their new homes, spend the money gained, and continue to live in Kibera, turning the project into another middle class housing estate.

Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, has won Egypt’s presidential election, defeating Ahmed Shafiq the former prime minister who reminded the people too much of the bad old days of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Mursi has stated that he will form an inclusive government and will govern the country on behalf of all of the people, but already there are worrying signs about Egypt’s future direction.

One especially worrying feature of Mursi’s presidency is his pledge to reconsider the Camp David Accords, which were brokered between Israel and Egypt by US president Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and resulted in peace which has lasted for more than 30 years. Another worrying feature is his stated intention of strengthening ties with Iran. These are significant threats to global peace, and to Israel in particular.

To support his promise that he will govern Egypt on behalf of all of the people, Mursi has resigned his membership of the Muslim Brotherhood; however, his Islamist record is a matter of some concern to many observers. It is widely believed that Egypt’s bureaucracy and army will make it difficult for Mursi to achieve significant shifts in the country’s policies, but the world waits and watches anxiously.