Category : Books-Non-Fiction

Sub Category : Reference

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THE SHACKLED CONTINENT:Africa’s Past, Present and Future by Robert Guest 

NOTE: 

Permission was granted by Robert Guest Permission by writing to review the book with limited quotations for accademic purposes. Reviewed by Abraham Blessings (ADMM, MBA/PLM) - MU


Robert Guest is the African Editor of ‘The Economist’ who for years has been tackling the subject of Africa’s poverty. The Shackled Continent: Africa’s Past, Present and Future dissects the continent of Africa in areas of war, famine, economics, politics and leadership. Leaders like Robert Mugabe are dissected and the truth about their poor leadership is left open. Follow the dissection here…

In the 21st Century, almost all African Countries are free; free from colonialism and its roots. Yet we have a basic question, is freedom sufficient for African Countries to achieve total freedom and development? Was independence necessary for some of the African countries as far as most of the African countries are concerned today? Or was it necessary for most of the African countries to remain under colonial rule for a while? All these and many more questions clinch in the brain of intellectuals and human development thinkers everywhere in the world.

Most African countries today have lost their cause, identity and ideology. Countries like Zimbabwe and Mozambique have a mild climate and a number of wealth resources yet they are among the poorest African countries. 

The Shackled Continent: Africa’s Past, Present and Future wrote by Robert Guest of the Economist Journal and a long time reporter of the BBC in Africa, dissects this continent into different diagonals – mostly politically, socially, historically and importantly economically and left the recipe on the table free for everyone to help himself!

Slavery disrupted many African societies 

Guest pinpoints how slavery n many African societies. According to Guest, Arab slavers were the first outsiders to arrive but Africans were found enslaving themselves for centuries prior to the arrival of the Arabs from as far as Saud Arabia and Oman. 

As a matter of fact, slavery was common in most parts of the world before the Britons fought it and eventually crushed it. Africa was no exception as before 30 and 60 per cent of Africans were slaves all over Africa before the arrival of Europeans. A number of Africans were shipped to America via the Atlantic and could be seen as an extension of African’s internal market instead of being seen as a crime. African chiefs participated fully in this business. Slaves were equated to cows or goats and some Chiefs even protested when the trade was banned – writes Guest.

Guest  recalls the cruelty of slavery and he writes that it was “cruel and rapacious.” From 19th century slavery continued into the 20th century in both East Asia and the Middle East. Guest wonders that even at the 21st century in countries such as Mauritania and Sudan slavery continues today!

Guest dissected the colonial rule in Africa. He recalls: it ended half a century ago. The colonial powers left social scars, precedents of dictatorship and troublesome arjytificial national boundaries. What is good for Guest is that they left considerable modern infrastructure such as roads, railroads, medical clinics etc. These are great gifts which Africa cannot forget although they caned our grandpas! Guest reminds us that, over 70% of Africans alive today, were born after the independence of their respective countries.

Guest criticizes strongly the way African countries rely on outside assistance in order to build their economy. Reliance on outside assistance to solve African’s problems is an obvious exercise in futility. The prosperity of each African nation can only come from self-reliance, full stop!

Countries grow wealthy in much the same ways that individuals do

Outside assistance, can at most assist at margins. Guest writes, “countries grow wealthy in much the same ways that individuals do: by making things that other people want to buy, or providing services that others will pay for. There are exceptions. Just as some individuals inherit wealth, so some countries are rich simply because they have a lot of oil and not many citizens. But by and large, the route to prosperity is through thrift, hard works, and finding out what other people want in order to sell to them.”

Basing on that fact, what Africa produces, that the world market wants except natural resources that are taken raw and a few agricultural commodities that are also penetrated to the market raw. As a matter of fact, Africa produces nothing. Shame on Africa! I wonder, Africa has a good number of graduates who graduated with flying colours in almost every sector ranging from, agriculture, doctors, engineers, pilots, architectures and building economists, economists and even anthropologists! Where are they? And what are their contributions to the development of the African economy?

AIDS pandemic is a new plague hobbling Africa

The Book, The Shackled Continent points a number of calamities facing Africa today. The AIDS plague is one of the worst calamities which have been experienced in Africa for a decade now. Guest writes, “life expectancy has fallen in much of Africa in the last two decades..,. 30 million Africans are infected with HIV. Three deaths occur in Africa. Nearly 5 Africans die of the disease every minute…migration and war helped the virus to cross borders…the disease threatens to kill more people than all continent’s wars put together and multiplied by ten. I know you won’t like it but let us call a ‘spade a spade!’ This is not me, is Robert Guest, he has been in Africa for more than three years of consecutive dealing with Africans issues in different perspectives. So, he knows all about Africa – A – Z. 

Guest writes, “Polygamy, witchcraft, and superstition aggravate the crisis…“ Guest continues to writes, “AIDS continue to make employees sicker and therefore, very expensive and less productive…AIDS is making Africans poorer…The South African economy will be 17% smaller in 2010 than it would have been without the virus… the Zambian Health Ministry estimates that half of Zambia’s population will eventually die of it.”

AIDS pandemic is a new plague hobbling Africa. Obvious its victims are typically in their early mature and most productive years. AIDS pandemic is a calamity to Africa. Africa is remaining silent but for sure AIDs is a calamity I repeat again. How can the future of Africa stand if the trouble is not fought sincerely? Philosophize!

Africa and tribalism

Africa has been too loyal to tribal loyalties than national loyalties. Demagogic leaders are ringleaders in playing this. However, what has been experienced as a result of this is horrific. There have been several “holocausts” in Africa since WW-II. Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Liberia and several other African countries have experienced ethnic slaughters in one way or another!

In emphasizing this, Guest assert that this tribalism of politics, along with economic quotas and other ethnically divisive laws, increases the influence of “tribal hucksters” and eventually inhibit economic growth and as a result, the economic policy is transformed into a zero-sum game where every gain generated is someone’s loss.

Trade barriers amongst African countries

Guest looks at the trade barriers to African agricultural and textile exports as the worst damage to the African economy than can possibly be made up by aid. But worse enough, African countries impose debilitating trade restraints against each other. And a good example is recently meeting in one of the Arabs countries where Tanzania was intending to sale a pile of stock of ivory it owns for many years, worse enough, most of the African countries voted against it. 

Poor leadership

In trying to analyze the character of a poor leadership, Guest points Nigeria as a sample of a poorly managed country. Guest quotes, Chinua Achebe speaking of Nigeria said: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with Nigerian land or climate or water or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which is the hallmarks of true leadership.” Guest emphasizes that; the same can be exemplified to all African nations.

I asked before if “independence” has meaning to African countries. Guest comments about the challenge of African countries’ independence. He writes: “Since independence, ‘Africans’ governments have failed their people. Few allow ordinary citizens the freedom to seek their own fortunes without official harassment. Few uphold the rule of law, enforce contracts or safeguard property rights. Many are blatantly predatory, serving as a means by which small elite extracts rents from everyone else. Predatory governments usually make their countries poorer, as in Nigeria and the Central African Republic. Worse, when power confers riches, people sometimes fight for it, as in Congo and Liberia.”

Guest goes as far as picking Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe as one of the worst economic failure nations. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is a prime example of how not to lead a nation. Some people can wonder how Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana is also referred to as one of the failure leaders and his socialist ideology. Socialist tendencies of African governments still hobble African economies. The way socialism was administered alternatives to free markets impoverish whole African nations which adored it like Tanzania!

Africa and African leadership, you can’t understand it the way it fails its people (The majority – to be precise). It is difficult to philosophize the mechanism of leadership and economic maneuvering that for decades has been ruining Africa under the so-called Africanism. The vast sum of the Western aid, for example, was wastefully misspent and nothing stern happens. In nations with substantial mineral wealth like Congo, Tanzania, Zambia, Liberia, Nigeria etc kleptocratic governments still, hobble economies and worse enough, nothing happens. Wars over control of property (assets) impoverish the people and destroy their meagre economy. Mineral wealth is transformed from an asset to a curse!

Africa still fumbles in the darkness of poverty as there still lies lack of property rights, widespread corruption and administrative red tape hobble economic activities.

For Africa “title deed” is as hard as having a mere business license or motor vehicle registration card. Why all these? Here comes the reason, “Leaders of darkness, thieves and corrupt men of the third world countries!” 

Guest has gone as far as having a look over “petty corruption among public officials” and lack of infrastructure which hobble business growth and realization of profit and low cost. Guest explains that starting a business in Africa often means establishing your own electric, water and transportation infrastructure. This portrays that, risks are high, only the most profitable businesses can survive in the jungle. However, the demonization of international corporations inhibits productive investment from the outside world. 

Africa is good in providing education to its people. Thereafter is like a hen which is about to lay eggs. Most African countries have no culture of handling its scholars. Go to Europe, America, Asia, Arabs countries and other places of the globe, doctors, engineers, pilots, architectures, researchers, athletes, and computer wizards even aero-space supermen are doing good jobs out there. The reason, Africa is not ready to utilize its experts it generates itself using taxes of poor men who are leaving under $1 a day!

Yet, Africa is employing a good number of experts of almost similar qualifications from abroad; paying them at exorbitant rates. You can wonder, are we not crazy?

South Africa remains an exception to much of this; because of proper planning, it has. South Africa has sound budgetary and monetary policies as well as reasonably good infrastructure I comparison to most African countries south of Sahara. On the other hand, South Africa has failed to grow fast enough to employ most of its unemployed blacks who are causing riots in Shanty Towns and other places where a number of unemployed is bigger. In chapter 9 Guest singles South Africa for special treatment as a “beyond a rainbow Nation” and rightly so, given its status as one of the few countries in Africa that has managed since the end of apartheid to adhere to fiscal policies that are outstanding in relation to those of certain neighbors whose ideas of boosting the economy involve nationalization and printing more money like Zimbabwe. 

On the other hand, South Africa is tempered by "palpable anger” that seems to drive “street violence” and “crime” and responses to it, President Thabo Mbeki’s by then mysterious tolerance of Mugabe’s reign of terror and the reality that the country needs an entrepreneurial class that does not depend on government patronage.

Government vs. bad Government

Guest tries to evaluate between good government and bad government as he considers Korea, where South prospers and the North languishes in the darkness of extreme poverty by all definitions of poverty. Before 1990, West German prospered while socialism syndrome ate the eastern German economy and left it in shambles. The same applies in Africa. Guest narrates further that when comparing between a well-governed Botswana with its Northern neighbour Zambia which also is socialistic and extremely corrupt and poorer today; it has failed its people as it is poorer today than it was when it gained independence. And that’s why I asked earlier when I began my analysis that: wasn’t it better for most of the African countries to delay in getting their independent?

If Africa was better governed, it would be richer

Guest writes, “if Africa was better governed it would be richer.” And of course, if every African country was better governed, it would be richer. The same I speak to my motherland-(Tanzania), if it was much better governed, it would be richer! Yet, we have room to be richer because we are governing it better but we must govern it at best!

Guest has always been better when it comes to the question of mentioning Robert Mugabe as an example of the worst African leader in every situation. Mugabe is a prime example of what is wrong with African governance. Guest writes: “Africans are poor largely because they are not yet free. They live under predatory, incompetent governments which they have great trouble shaking off. Their governments impoverish them in many ways: through corruption, through bad economic policies, and sometimes, as in Zimbabwe, by creating an atmosphere of terror that scares off all but the most intrepid business folk.”

Mugabe whether knowingly or not knowingly has damaged Zimbabwean economy, international relations and internal democracy by intimidating opponents, inflationary monetary expansion, and corruption widened, causing the budget deficit, ravaging economic system, inflated prices, bloating and overpaying bureaucracy, an obstructionist licensing and regulatory regime. What has been experienced in Zimbabwe is a reverse industrial revolution. Every hope has been turned upside down. The only good thing is that Mugabe won’t live forever – one day we will forget him and call it history!



In the African economy, Botswana is an exception. Other African countries have similar dreary histories and disastrous economic results. Mozambique’s economy has been dwindled by the dreadful civil war which ended up in 1992. Mozambique’s government is doing efforts to attract more foreign aid in order to repair its damaged economic system.


Guest draws the effect of civil war in Africa. 20% of African populations have been blighted by civil war as of the time Robert Guest’s book has been written in 2003 – 2004. Out of that 20% are casualties, 90% of the casualties are civilians. Civilians who are the workforce of this continent. When civil war broke, expect refugees disaster and environment degradation forget all about deaths and diseases. In Africa there are a total of 20 million refugees; most of them are women and children who are lacking their fundamental rights of education and maternal love. In the African context, when women are running from their country of domicile, that means no more food and all activities of petty development are stopping including agriculture. Children are losing their state of education and little resources which have been acquired through hard labour are lost in the wilderness of civil war and migration. “For young men with few prospects, soldiers pay, or the opportunity to loot in neighbouring village can seem appealing.” Guest writes.

The complex civil war in Congo 

Children of Africa needs peace for their growth

Guest provides details of the long, complex civil wars in Congo, Angola and Mozambique. The cause is nothing but the control of mineral wealth. In the 1990’s, at least eleven African nations suffered from conflict over control of mineral wealth.

Angola has left a kleptocratic and inept government in place at the end of the civil war. Angola has oil and diamonds so it does not depend on the rest of the economy for its revenues. Nevertheless, peace is better for commerce than war, and some economic revival is visible as peace prevails. Because is from this juncture where people returns to their homes and farms to continue with their normal ways of life.

Interventions from within and without 

Interventions from within and from outside Africa has brought some relief and extending cold wars. A boycott of “conflict diamonds” from rebel-held mines was effective in Angola. In Sierra Leone 800 British soldiers ended the horrific civil war there. We have seen Mzee Nelson Mandela and Ketumile Masire working diplomatically for peace in Congo and Burundi. We have been experiencing Western aid been cut off from warring nations and given instead to peaceful ones.

It took 17,500 UN troops to keep peace in Sierra Leone alone, while the other 15,000 UN troops were taken to Liberia costing almost $800 million a year. All this money could be subjected to other areas of development Africa could turn from a begging giant to a giant economic continent.

Africa to stay peaceful in a long-term

Guest writes, “to stay peaceful in the long term, countries need governments that serve their citizens instead of robbing them, and which can be removed without violence. Not only must these governments be elected; they must be elected under rules that more or less everyone agrees to be fair. Countries need a constitution that provides reasonable protection for all citizens, regardless of whether they support the ruling party or not. Governments must respect their constitutions under the terms of which they govern, and should step down when they are voted out.” And is from this point of view that I respect the government of Tanzania and its leaders which play a role model in Africa when it comes to the question of democracy; bravo the ruling Party - CCM!

I remember even the President of Zanzibar, His Excellency President Abeid Amani Karume, though he has been requested by his own people, own voters to extend his term, strongly he said no, let the constitution be respected. This tells much how democracy is a giant tree in Tanzania and how Tanzania is a University of democracy in Africa. Bravo Mr President!

Lack of property rightsLack of property rights has been hindering the economic growth of citizens of Africa. How can people own capital by lacking property rights? Guest here echoes and supplements Hernando De Soto. 90% of all Africans are without enforceable legal title deeds to their homes. On the other hand, though they own homes, they are homeless as they work without formal contracts or written records of their efforts or in the grey market “informal” economy without any legal status at all.

Guest highlights the importance of credits to farmers. He pinpoints that without credits farmers cannot buy seeds, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs. Successful business undertaken by the tradesmen cannot succeed without credit facilities from strong financial institutions. As populations grow year by year, farms are further subdivided, further impoverishing the people. Those who move to the cities to find work risk losing their land. However, they can’t sell the land without approvals from their family and the Local Chiefs, and someone will grab it if it will be left unattended. This is the kind of land problem in most African countries. 

In his book: The Shackled Continent: Africa’s Past, Present and Future, Robert Guest emphasizes that “for poor countries today, the lesson is not in the details of American history, but in the general principles. For property law to be respected, it has to reflect what is actually happening on the ground, and it has to include as many people as possible. Poor countries’ efforts at reforming property law have rarely succeeded. Middle - class reformers have too often assumed that their ideas could be imposed on the poor. In Peru for example, numerous attempts to give indigenous people title to their land failed because the mechanisms by which they could assert their right were too complex and costly.”

Africa is hard (?)

You need to be tough to live here. Is as if the law of the jungle prevails here? Only the strongest survive. Imagine having to create or grow everything you sell yet you have to take it physically to the market on foot almost twenty-five kilometres away from your home. Worse enough, you have to sell at whatever you can get that day because on contrast you have to carry it back home another twenty-five kilometres to make it fifty kilometres; remember, most of the time with nothing taken into your stomach and sometimes pregnant!

Robert Guest is embarking on how those who benefit from the system are blocking the establishment of enforceable property and creditor rights unnecessarily as they benefit from the existing state. 

Robert Guest is good in comparison. He compares and contrasts. Guest relates the experience in Rwanda, Nigeria and South Africa. Though there are great differences between the three; in some fundamental cases, yet there are vital similarities. For example, Guest writes, in all three countries, politicians have at times sought to stir up, rather than sooth, ethnic passions. In all three, governments have made laws that explicitly discriminate against their own citizens on tribal or ethnic grounds. In all three again, the results have been either woeful, in Rwanda’s case, catastrophic.

Tanzania’s image before the eyes of Robert Guest 

According to Robert Guest, Tanzania, at first sight, is considered an island of tolerance. However, he considers how Ujamaa brought mess in that country. Though Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere managed to free tribalism, sustain
 political arrest and resentments. Guest continues to write that, “While other African leaders stirred tribal rivalries to keep themselves in power, Julius Nyerere sought to soothe them instead. He imposed a single official language, Kiswahili and urged every Tanzanian to learn it so that they could talk to each other. He banned ethnically divisive folk from politics.” Just simple like that and ethnic syndrome ended up in that country. What a great leader? But to put things clear, we have to consider some other factors such as National Service. Intermingling middle schools’ students from one region to another as well as civil servants transfers from one region to another, this assisted very much in building up national unity.

Ravages of HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS pandemic is an issue in Africa. Guest didn’t leave the issue HIV/AIDS unattended. The ravage of AIDS is covered by Guest extensively. According to him, the pandemic is the personal, social and economic disaster which occurs on a massive scale and is added on top of malaria and other tropical diseases for causing deaths. Yet, statistically, Africa’s population is growing rapidly in both rural and urban.

Life in Africa is judged for a day. Tomorrow will account on its own. Nobody cares about tomorrow! Poor people’s pleasure is sex and liquor- because, as there is no electricity, Guest writes, food is ready by 6:00 pm in most villages if not all. It is dark by 7:00 pm. By 7:30 pm people are on the bed. Expect what is next and there are no contraceptives and condoms? Expect unplanned babies due to lack of family planning and infection of STDs and HIV/AIDS.

AIDS is fought day and night in Africa. Money is pumped in Africa from different parts of the world. There is a Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation. There is the Government of USA. There is the WHO. There are UN and many other International and local organizations. Essentially, there have been successes in fighting AIDS in Africa to some extent. Yet, there is a long way to go and a number of challenges which needs collective responsibilities.

Robert Guest recalls how hard it is in challenging AIDS in Africa where even people don’t wear safety belts! Ignorance and lck of “hope” make people lousy because everything ahead of them is “uncertain!” So maximizing life today is everything as nobody is certain about tomorrow! AIDS is caught via “losing hope for life”. Once life is meaningless, then everything is meaningless too!

Africa under extreme poverty is a home of many calamities not only AIDS. Issues of crimes in Africa, urbanization, alcohol and drugs, shanty towns and many more are unavoidable. Leaders of Africa through AU, UN Organizations, EU and the rest of the world should look at Africa with a different eye – “Eye of Hope.”

Polio Vaccination Campaign

This is one of the areas where foreign aid has succeeded in Africa – Guest observes. According to Guest, many assistant grants failed. Guest exemplified Zambia as one of the peaceful countries with peaceful people that have thus attracted massive foreign grants between 1980 and 1996, where grants worth the US $400 million was pumped, nevertheless, average income fell from the US $540 -$ 300 per year between 1964 (when Zambia became independent) and 2000. Studies done by various scholars and prominent economists have discovered no rebuts link between the amount of foreign aid received and success in economic development.

Whey all these? Lack of leadership and teamwork; you see Presidents and Prime Ministers in Africa want to remain Presidents and Prime Ministers instead of becoming the Chief Executive Officers of their Offices (CEO). There is a significant difference between an Executive Officer and His Excellence Mr President specifically when it comes to the question of deliverance. Presidents and Prime Ministers should behave like CEOs. They should not behave like people from the Royal Family. They are not Kings. They should know that in the government’s payroll they are worker number one and number two each. So, Presidents, Prime Ministers, perform!

The Dangers of the Western World in Africa is Unaccountable 

When we account about the Western World we consider even giant companies and other influenced individuals who have their own interests such as mining and other sectors which play an important role in the economy. Guest writes that: “he who pays the piper calls the tune. We have experienced what happened during the cold war. Each side had its client states in Africa. The bad thing is, each side supported guerrilla and dissident forces seeking to undermine the others clients. Little of this support funds found their way into critical infrastructure or economic development. Client state giving still constitutes a large proportion of foreign aid.

Much more about Botswana…

Whenever discussing Botswana, always the story emerges differently. Aid and money from diamonds were used to finance infrastructure, education and health. The nation was open for business. Ecotourism flourished. The government was reasonably honest, and GDP per head rose to the US $ 3,000.

Guest wrote, “The adage that foreign aid is a transfer from the poor countries is always true. A typical poor African country receives aid equivalent to about 10% of GDP, but the poorest fifth of the population disposes of aid only 4% of GDP. In other words, a lot of aid is paying for conferences in five – star hotels, study trips for MPs and top officials to Washington DC and buying Toyota Land cruisers VX V8s high classification to ferry aid workers around!” Is it not ridiculous? Let’s have mercy over these poor fellow brothers and sisters around Africa. African leaders should change up their attitudes and start behaving like grown-ups and matured people. Africa is poor not because is poor by default but because we insisted it to be poor beyond God’s will!

Guest elaborates about how needs vary from one country to another in Africa. Most African countries still need basic human needs: primary education, primary health care, passable roads, piped water and a functioning legal system.

Most African governments have problems of good governance. Guest points out the tendency of most African countries to spend aid money on perquisites for the governing class. Fundamentally, this is ridiculous. While this is happening, in schools children are sitting on the floor. In hospitals, specifically primary health centres, there are no drugs. The worst point is, those governing leaders in power, they believe that Africa’s problems are someone’s fault, but not themselves, which is wrong. On the other hand, common people believe that development and development catalyst is the leader’s responsibility. This also is wrong. The best idea is, we should work in teamwork and common people should understand that they are the initiators of development within their respective areas and consequently their countries-that means, charity begins at home!

Poor infrastructure creates many difficulties and costs 

Guest has observed a number of bad expenses for poor infrastructures in Africa:

The dirt roads are the mess of ruts and potholes, bridges are in bad repair and are frequently washed out like recently experience in Kilosa District in Morogoro Region where even railways were washed away by heavy rain due to lack of time to time checkups and repairs. However, roadblocks enforce a vast array of regulations that provide numerous opportunities for demand for bribes. A good example, start your journey from Dar es Salaam while heading to Mbeya, you will wonder the number of police traffics all the way and within short distances. Is as if they don’t trust each other and they are rechecking each other. I personally argue to the Inspector General of Police to come up with a sustainable plan towards checkpoints and general roads patrol along all trunk roads in this country. On the other hand, why his ‘traffics police Officers’ are to obesity as if there is no exercise and discipline in the police army as it was during the early 70s? Mzee Mwema, this is a challenge towards your office. I know you always perform as a chief executive officer and that makes things to be on the proper line. So, I expect flat Traffic Police Officers - ‘that means no protruding stomachs!’ whenever I pass throughout this country. 
Living in Africa is not a joke for a common man with a spending purchasing power less than the US $1 a day! Yet this man has to pay costs of every item sold there. Bad roads increase the costs of manufactured items in the interior by 25%. Since bottled beverages like beer and Coca-Cola are the only safe liquids to drink in these areas and now a day’s bottled drinking water, this is no minor matter. This goes as far as to affect medicines and vaccines.
Bad roads in Africa are a challenge. Bad roads make it impossible for interior farmers to get cash crops to big city markets. Bad roads have been impoverishing people of the interior of the poor African nations. On the other side of the coin, incomes immediately rise whenever roads are improved.
I don’t think Africa needs prophets to make it holly in terms of leadership, economy and environmental protection. Building roads that are durable and at international standards is not a miracle even a nightmare! Is something which is possible, what is required is determination and morals. Farmers who are living at the heart of our countries need good roads that are passable throughout the year. Income of our people will improve when roads in rural areas are good. In absence of the roads, the people who are living in these regions will be hopelessly impoverished. Leaders in Africa turn around, look at your people, your bosses, your voters, and say, ‘enough is enough, let us now care for our people!’  🔑 Foreign direct investments Africa has lost much under the wilderness of corruption, neo-colonialism and Western unfaithful investors specifically in the sector of mining and oil. However, the gap between the developing world and African ‘Petty’ development is widening day by day. In Africa, the gap between the poor and the rich is astonishing. In Africa, today life is losing meaning. Guest is dissecting much on how Africa is exploited in ‘terms of cheap labour,’ and ‘rich resource’. Is from this point of view that Guest examines how Western standards, multinational pay and working conditions are by far best available underdeveloped nations – where multinationals transfer valuable skills from this continent. Although investors from the Western world are worried about investing in Africa where risks such as lack of reliable infrastructure, suppliers, utilities or even physical safety are higher than anywhere in the world yet lack of rule of law, enforcement of contracts and property rights make Africa a place where doing business needs someone who is ready to take risk at maximum. But in my opinion, real business is not a game of chance. Real business depends solgely on feasibility studies which involve researches from prominent firms. So, the question of taking risk has minimal room. I have seen Anglo – American, a giant company specializing in the sector of mining and mostly – gold mining. This company is making its fortune: sweet money here in Africa, and for sure they don’t regret investing in Africa where labour is cheap and you can generate working capital from the same continent during feasibility study and research! Nowhere in the world, you can find such an opportunity. It is available only in Africa where the so-called leaders are just corrupted by Mercedes Benz new models as a package of corruption and forsake their brothers and sisters behind them! I know one day God will stand on our side and these traitors will pay their due!The result of this turning point is corruption, lack of nationality and honest leaders. As a matter of fact, Africa has a long way to go towards building a continent where its own people including their leaders are the custodians of their resources, preservers of their environment and wildlife as a gift from God and a valuable asset to our tomorrow’s generation.Robert Guest narrates, Africa unlike India or China it is not a massive national market. Africa has lost it strength after being divided into small states thus leading it to small national markets which worth nothing when it comes to the question of markets continent wise and global wise. Lack of unification or regional common markets such as that of EAC, ECOWAS or SADC–Africa is being traumatized more and more economically. 🔑 Indigenous entrepreneurs in Africa All these indigenous entrepreneurs - face the same challenges as the multinationals. There is a lack of finances which makes it impossible for an even successful business to expand. Inheritance traditions have been experienced to cause businesses to break upon the deaths of the founders. Guest has noted lack of a culture of trustworthiness. Business must rely on the family circle and must conduct transactions with others in cash.               🔑Technology is invading Africa, is it a blessing? Maybe a blessing in disguise! When we look over modern weapons, where millions of landmines are underground waiting to kill or amputate legs of our people specifically women and children, automatic guns, helicopter gunships on the other hand – kills hundreds of thousands of our people in Angola, Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and many more African countries and the essence of all these is to keep despots in power.Guest has managed to show how technology has managed the increasing lifespan of modern medicines by 150% in the last century. In some African countries, AIDS is reversing some of the lifespan gains.Guest is astonished by little research done on medicines for tropical diseases which include malaria. The reason behind it is a poor market and the risk of theft of intellectual property which is so high.Guest noted that AIDS drugs delivered at the cut-rate prices to Africa from WHO and the Western world were sometimes grabbed by corrupt officials and sold in Europe at exorbitant prices. Records portray that, it costs about the US $500 million to develop a new drug.On the other hand, incentives for Pharmaceuticals Company to research onto tropical diseases are too little. According to records available, of 1223 drugs introduced between 1975 and 1996, it was learned out that only 13 were for tropical diseases, malaria one of them. Guest, however, gives words of hope as his findings come up with the other side of the coin where charities are now trying to step into this breach and finance such research in order to reverse the situation.As the book finds its final touches, Guest gives a way forward.                                                  🔑Roads to richesGuest writes, “where roads improve, incomes tend to rise in the parallel…no country with good roads has ever suffered famine…there is no substitute for building and maintaining a better infrastructure.”Apart from addressing the issues of how to reduce risks, the evil of oppressing the poor, he notes one thing which impressed me so much which is how famine in Africa is being caused more by bad governments than by bad weather. As a result, “once people have valuable expertise, however, keeping them is a problem. Guest justifies how Africa loses 23,000 professionals every year, which helps explain why Chad has 1 doctor for every 30,000 people. It is the brightest and best educated who leave…”Guest concludes that Africa has “two big problems, first the tendency of African elite to spend other people’s money on themselves…second their tendency to believe that Africa’s problems are someone else’s fault.”Dear friends, this is The Shackled Continent: Africa’s Past, Present and Future, a book written by Robert Guest a graduate of Oxford University who lived in Africa for a couple of years reporting on the wars, famine and economics. Guest regularly appears on CNN and the BBC.
The end.      🇹🇿