Editorial

For the folks of African Politics and Policy, 2017 was a very

good year: we have made thousands of posts, a dozen APP

newsletters, several newsletters of cultural news, hundreds of

original articles, many original interviews with some emerging

African leaders.

We have reached thousands of readers from hundred of coun-

tries. At the beginning of 2017 we had readers in 142 coun-

tries, while now we are read in 175 countries. In the past 12

months we had readers from 166 countries.

We were able to appeal to readers from a growing number of

countries and to a growing number of readers. The USA is our

fastest growing market: we have nearly tripled our average

number of daily readers from the USA and the USA was AP-

P’s biggest market in the past 12 months.

While in the first two years of APP, Nigeria, Kenya and

South Africa had been our biggest African markets, in the

course of the past 12 months Tanzania became our biggest

and fastest growing African market.

We have also been able to increase the number of readers

from Asia and Latin America, where we have enjoyed an un-

precedented success.

More articles, more newsletters, more readers from more

countries and of course more contributors. There is no doubt

about the fact that the success that APP has enjoyed in the course of 2017 is due primarily to its

growing, very committed contributors, from Ivory Coast, the Gambia, Togo, Nigeria, Tanzania,

Zimbabwe and South Africa. They have contributed to diversifying the content of APP, to in-

creasing the quality of our original articles, to appealing to wider and more diverse readership.

As Frank Sinatra once sang, it was a very good year. It was good for us, it was good for APP, and

it was pretty good for Africa as well.

We hope that 2018 is also going to be a very good year-for us, for APP, for our

readers, and above all for Africa.

Riccardo PELIZZO

This issue:

Editorial P.1 Politics is finding a reason P.2

Let’s make things clear P.3 Interesting article P.3

Art&culture and cities P.4 How to boost tourism P. 6

McKinsey’s report P. 7 Congresses and conventions P. 8

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, the

leading international contemporary art

fair, has announced 17 galleries participat-

ing in its inaugural Marrakech edition, tak-

ing place on 24-25 February 2018.

Six galleries are from Africa: Art Twenty

One (Nigeria), Galerie Cécile Fakhoury

(Côte d’Ivoire), LouiSimone Guirandou

Gallery (Côte d’Ivoire), L’Atelier 21

(Morocco), Loft Art Gallery (Morocco) and

VOICE Gallery (Morocco).

Exhibitors

Announced

African Politics and Policy

Newsletter n.33 Christmas Issue

Whenever an organization becomes dysfunctional

people immediately say that its dysfunctionalities

are just politics.

Whenever people are asked to describe politics, peo-

ple generally say betrayal, lies, backstabbing, im-

morality, corruption…

For some political theorists from the polemological

school, such as Julien Freund, politics is war, poli-

tics is conflict –a point that they support by saying

that politics has the same root of polemos, which, in

ancient Greek, means war.

For Carl Schmitt, the ontological opposition be-

tween friend and enemy is the fundamental catego-

ry of the political.

For Marx, politics is class struggle and class struggle

is politics.

Democratic politics is implicitly conflictual. It is

said to have replaced bullets with ballots. But it is

not said to have neutralized conflict.

Conflict is implicit in Rokkan and Lipset’s treat-

ment of cleavages and cleavage structure.

Conflict, like Derrida’s monster, seems to be lurking

everywhere.

But, one may add, this understanding of politics as

conflict is only one way to understand politics.

Politics is also finding a reason to be, to stay and to

remain together.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan after

two, long, devastating conflicts. It gained independ-

ence and immediately found itself trapped in a new,

bloody conflict.

There was some point some talk about breaking

South Sudan into smaller and more homogeneous

state entities on the assumption that homogeneity

will prevent conflict. But that’s clearly not true.

The conflict between Dinka’s sub-clan in Western

Lakes makes it clear that if South Sudanese people

do not manage to find a reason to be/stay/remain

together, no state entity, however small or homo-

geneous it may be, will be able to secure peace.

Nyerere knew it. We know it and it be good if the

South Sudanese people embraced this simple truth

too.

More importantly we need this second notion of

politics to prevail on the notion of politics as con-

flict. Otherwise, the South Sudanese crisis will nev-

er end.

By Riccardo PELIZZO

Politics is Finding a Reason

In times of confusion, it’s at time necessary to make

things clear. So let’s make things clear.

This article by Philip Roessler argues that the AU

not have allowed to coup in Zimbabwe to take place

because the AU is expected to have “zero tolerance

for unconstitutional changes of government ”

An unconstitutional change of government occurs

when a democratically elected government, that is a

government chosen by the people in free and fair

elections, is removed from power. When this hap-

pens the constitution is breached and the change of

government (and the change of regime) is unconsti-

tutional.

Given the nature of Mugabe’s rule, the unfairness of

the electoral process, the low level of good govern-

ance, it is not entirely clear whether and to what

extent the Mugabe administration could be regard-

ed as an example of ‘democratically elected govern-

ment…chosen by the people in free and fair elec-

tions’.

If the coup breached something, it breached a

breach in the constitution. Hence the government

change should be regarded not, as Roessler incor-

rectly believes as change against the constitution,

but as a change outside the constitution. For both

the status quo ante and the new regime were outside

the constitutional dispositions. And while the AU

has to sanction unconstitutional changes of govern-

ment, it is not clear whether its is mandated to sanc-

tion extra-constitutional changes.

So the criticisms against are misdirected and mis-

leading.

It is an interesting article [1] that not only ar-

gues that Africa is at the Crossroads, but that

explains Africa’s recent developmental success on

the basis of commodity boom, aid and so on.

This analysis is in many ways very similar to

how we have analyzed Africa’s success. But it

departs from our analysis in significant way.

This article argues that Africa’s economic success

depends on industrializing in an environmentally

friendly and inclusive way.

Great.

But migration, climate change, and population

growth are not the only challenges for Africa.

Africa is also challenged by epidemics, the trans-

formation of the world system, the amount of

wealth that International Organizations can

commit to development and, last but not least,

investments.

In factm without investments, without foreign

direct investments, there is no industrialization,

there is not growth, and there is no inclusive

growth.

Hence, Africa’s first priority is to remain and/or

become increasingly more appealing for inves-

tors.

This is the real lesson that African leaders should

learn.

References:

[1] Li Yong (2017). “Africa’s Must-Do Decade”, AllAfrica, 15

December, http://allafrica.com/stories/201712150554.html

By Riccardo PELIZZO

Let’s Make Things Clear Interesting Article

By Riccardo PELIZZO

The great cities of the world have an interest peculiarly

their own. They mark the progress of mankind in arts,

commerce, and civilization, and they form a sort of in-

dex to the rise and fall of national greatness. In exam-

ining their condition in different epochs of history, we

learn lessons of wisdom and experience, and pass over

a field of observation replete with subjects of study and

reflection.

John Frost, “Introduction” in Great Cities of the

World (Auburn: Alden, Beardsley & Co, 1852).

Taking into account the tremendous increase of ur-

ban population in Africa – 200 million in 2000, 360

million in 2015 and expected 900 million in 2050[1],

it is evident that sustainable development of the

cities is becoming one of the vital issues for Africa.

One of the popular concepts in the sustainable ur-

ban development now is the ‘creative city’ pro-

gramme. African governments in partnership with

international organisations are investing in design-

ing and implementing urban development policies

with a focus on the arts, culture and creativity.

Just to name few examples: five cities – Kinshasa

(DRC), Lubumbashi and Brazzaville (Congo), Da-

kar (Senegal) and Cape Town (South Africa), have

joined recently the UNESCO Creative City Network

[2]; this year Arterial Network has launched African

Creative Cities programme in Harare (Zimbabwe),

Pointe-Noire (Congo-Brazzaville), Victoria Mahé

(Seychelles) and Nouakchott (Mauritania) [3]. In

this light, it is very interesting to see what actually

culture can offer.

Urban development policy is critically intertwined

with cultural heritage policy that traditionally re-

ferred to the discovery, protection, classification,

preservation and promotion of the past, primarily

monumental structures. These days, however, cul-

tural heritage policy is broadened to the extent to

discover, protect, classify, preserve and promote

contemporary heritage, or community’s living ex-

perience.

If well-developed, cultural heritage policy not only

glorifies the beauty and achievements of the past,

not only gives to citizens sense of common history,

sense of community, plays some educational role,

but moreover, performs its nowadays essential new

function: it creates jobs, favours economic growth

and sustainable urban development, contributes to

city’s tourist attractiveness and engages citizens

into the dialogue and informal practices of urban

cultural governance.

In other words, as was stated by Mbaye and Di-

nardi (2017), there is an idea to create a ‘cultural

polis’ where not only cultural and creative prod-

ucts used for boosting tourism and rebranding,

but, moreover, which “emphasizes the subjects of

transformative processes and integrates communi-

ties in the conception and production of arts and

culture for the wellbeing of citizens”[4].

In Africa, there are several success stories that

demonstrate how powerful the culture that gets

endogenous local support is in urban regeneration.

One of the most discussed examples is the city of

Segou in Mali, also known as the capital of the

Bambara kingdom. With approximately 65% pov-

erty rate against 49% nationwide, Segou is rapidly

changing its face thanks to an innovative entrepre-

neurial model for culture-based urban regenera-

tion. The urban cultural policy is built around the

Festival sur le Niger[5] launched in 2005, which

“unlike the internationally famous photo biennial

in Bamako, which many Malians consider to be an

event for the elite, is a true folk

festival [that] exceptionally and

enthusiastically greeted by the

audience”[6].

By Kristina BEKENOVA

Art&Culture and the Cities: Africa in Focus

According to the

UNESCO report,

“the festival has been

a major catalyst for

the local economy

and has structured

the arts and crafts and agricultural sectors”: around

30,000 visitors per year, 150 local enterprises in-

volved, contributing to 140 direct and 2,000 indirect

jobs, 2 cultural centers created – the Kore Cultural

Centre (to train cultural professions) and the Ndo-

mo Centre (to produce traditional Bogolan weaving

and targeting unemployed youth)[7].

Another example is the [8], Chale Wote Street Art

Festival in James Town neighborhood of Accra,

Ghana, launched in 2011. The neighborhood that

was always before categorized as slum, now is inter-

nationally known platform with wide cultural prac-

tices and whose cultural heritage and artistic poten-

tial from year to year attract an increasing number

of visitors – 20,000 people in 2015 and 30,000 in

2016.

Third example where festival plays a crucial factor

is annul Amani Festival in Goma, the Democratic

Republic of Congo. As Belamu Paluku, the organiz-

er of the festival, noticed in his interview

with African Politics and Policy, this event brings

33,000 visitors, involves 60 NGOs and local associa-

tions, 600 volunteers from and out of the city[9].

And the fourth example that also shows the im-

portance of social movements in re-creating the im-

age of the city and engaging the audience into the

dialogue is #AnaTaban campaign in Juba, South

Sudan. However, in these two last examples I

should mention that Amani Festival as well AnaTa-

ban are the large scale events where the topic is of

urgent concern of political stability, peace and rec-

onciliation, as their names indicate – ‘Amani’ means

‘peace’ in Kiswahili, and ‘Ana Taban’ means ‘I’m

tired’ in Juba Arabic. The Festival as well as vari-

ous artistic activities organized within #AnaTaban

campaign put art in core of promoting and achiev-

ing peace, and of educating youth/citizens to seek

own solutions for the problems.

So, all these four examples of the festivals that to

some extent are iconic symbols for cities’ cultural

life are also emblematic in some other respects.

First of all, the festivals are the community pro-

jects launched on the basis of do-it-yourself princi-

ple. Second, the creation of job opportunities, the

reconfiguration of public places, the reconstruction

of the city (and country) image, the cultivation of

the sense of community and personal responsibility

are achieving by relying on and nurturing arts and

culture, by showing community’s cultural tangible

and intangible heritage, its living experience, by

creating a new urban cultural narrative, by giving

an opportunity to everybody to express them-

selves.

Of course, without data I cannot evaluate the ef-

fectiveness or success of these festivals for the cities

in terms of, for example, created average per capita

income of city residents, average expenditures of

visitors, but if measuring the effectiveness with

other indicators, certainly I can say that the festi-

vals are rooted in local needs, involve community

in the programme development and implementa-

tion, and created a continuous dialogue between

various-level organisations involved and the city

residents. Thus, the modern understanding of the

city as place of transit was overcome and trans-

formed into a place where cultural memory was

created together.

References:

[1] UNESCO (2015). Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Ur-

ban Development, p. 32

[2] UNESCO. Creative Cities Network, https://en.unesco.org/

creative-cities/home

[3] Arterial Network (2017). “Creative Cities| Programme Launch

2017”, http://www.arterialnetwork.org/article/

launch_creative_cities

[4] Mbaye, J. & Dinardi, C. (2017), “Ins and outs of the cultural

polis: Informality, culture and governance in the global South”,

Urban Studies [Forthcoming], http://research.gold.ac.uk/20042/1/

PDF_Proof.PDF, p. 6

[5] http://www.festivalsegou.org/

[6] http://www.powerofculture.nl/en/current/2009/february/festival-

niger

[7] UNESCO report, p. 36

[8] http://accradotaltradio.com/chale-wote-

street-art-festival/

[9] http://www.africanpoliticsandpolicy.com/?

p=4596

According to the World Bank in 1995 there were

196 million international tourism arrivals in the Eu-

ro area, while only 13 million international tourism

arrivals in Sub-Saharan Africa.

By 2015, the number of international tourism arri-

vals had reached 351.2 million in the Euro area and

36.8 million in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The number of tourism arrivals in the African conti-

nent has nearly tripled in 20 years and yet it is a

small fraction of the number of tourists arriving in

Europe.

This is obviously a major problem for Africa. Tour-

ism could create employment and wealth, could

stimulate and sustain economic growth and be one

of the drivers of socio-economic development in the

continent.

But tourism has to grow. And Africa does not have

to become more beautiful or more diverse or more

rich to attract more tourists. It has to become a bit

safer and, more importantly, it has to become more

reachable.

As the press mentioned recently bad flight connec-

tivity and strict visa rules deter tourists. They dis-

courage tourists.

Tanzania with its strict visa rules loses a lot of tour-

ists.

According to the data from the Ministry of Natural

Resources and Tourism, Tourism division, the num-

ber of international tourist arrivals from Ethiopia,

Eritrea, Djibuti, Madagascar, Zambia, Cameroon,

Gabon, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Maurita-

nia, Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, from several Carib-

bean countries (Antigua, Bahamas, Dominica, Ja-

maica, other Caribbean), Costa Rica, El Salvador,

Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, Colombia,

Ecuador, South Korea, Brunei and form several

Eastern European and Central Asian countries has

decline.

In some cases the decline was massive.

In 2016 Tanzania received only 2 per cent of the

Kazakhstani tourists it had attracted in 2012, it

attracted slightly less than 2 per cent (1.96) of the

Gabonese tourists, 1.65 per cent of the Nicaraguan

tourists who had come in 2012. The most shocking

decline concerned the tourists from Brunei: in 2016

only Tanzania attracted 0.2 (zero point two!) per

cent of the number of tourists who went to Tanza-

nia in 2012.

There are of course markets that remained stable

and some from which Tanzania was able to attract

more tourists, but if it had managed not to lose so

many tourists from so many countries, the tourism

industry would have experienced a stronger

growth, it’d have created more wealth and employ-

ment and would have made a greater contribution

to the country’s socio-economic development.

Similar conclusions hold for other countries in Sub-

Saharan Africa and policy makers, so called lead-

ers, and high ranking officials should perhaps elim-

inate an obstacle to development that they have

created.

By Riccardo PELIZZO

How to Boost Tourism

McKinsey & Company believes that Africa is rising,

that its combined GDP will reach 2.6 trillion by

2020, that growth has become more sustainable,

that governments have become more stable, that

wealth is concentrated in a few hands and that Côte

d’Ivoire, Benin, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and To-

go are the most appealing countries for investors.

Some of these claims are correct. There is no doubt

that wealth has been growing but that it has be-

come increasingly concentrated in a few hands—as

we have previously and repeatedly reported.

It is also correct to say that stability is an im-

portant pre-requisite for growth.

It is such less clear whether African governments

have become more stable, whether political stabil-

ity in the continent has increased and will contin-

ue, and it is also hard to believe that four of the 6

most appealing countries for investors are in West

Africa—especially if one recalls that earlier this

year many analysts had predicted that East Afri-

can economies had outperformed and would con-

tinue to outperform pretty much anybody else in

the continent. And that some East African coun-

tries, such as Mauritius, would continue to outper-

By Riccardo PELIZZO

Some observations on a McKinsey’s report

We are happy to report that our readers now come from 175 countries. They come

from: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Aus-

tria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda,

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Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, USA, Uzbekistan,

Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

The last report issued by the International Con-

gress and Conventions Association (ICCA) noted

that the number of congresses and conventions

has literally skyrocketed in the course of the

past decade. In 2006 there were 6000 association

meetings, in 2016 there were 12212.

The cities that held the highest number of meet-

ings were Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, Berlin and

London. SIngaopre is sixth, Prague is 11th,

Rome is in 20th position, while Milan is 43rd–

which is a bit worse than Cape Town which

landed in 39th position.

The countries that held the highest number of

such meetings were the USA, Germany, the

UK, France and Spain. Italy was sixth, Singa-

pore was 28th.

What about Africa? Africa did well in some re-

spects, less so in others.

For example, 16 African countries are among

the top 100 countries in the global ranking (that

captures the number of meetings per country),

but except for South Africa, that hosted 125

meetings, so only 26 fewer meetings that Singa-

pore, all the other countries hosted only a little

more than a handful of meetings.

Morocco to be fair hosted 37 meetings, Egypt,

Kenya and Rwanda hosted 18 each, Ghana

hosted 13 meetings, Ethiopia 12, Nigeria 11,

Tanzania and Uganda 10, Tunisia 8, Algeria,

Botswana, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Zimbabwe

7.

This means Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Ethiopia,

Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Tunisia, Algeria,

Botswana, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Zimbabwe

combined hosted as many meetings as South

Africa. which hosts only one-quarter of the

meetings that Italy hosted, which, in turn,

were one-half of the number of meetings hosted

by the USA.

Clearly Africa can do better than this. And,

more importantly, it has to do better than this.

Conventions can boost the number of tourism

arrivals, stimulate the growth of the tourism

industry, create wealth and employment op-

portunities and contribute to curbing poverty–

which is why we do not think that Africa can

afford to overlook the possibility to host and

organize international congresses and conven-

tions.

By Riccardo PELIZZO

Congresses and Conventions

Job Openings

REPOA, Tanzania’s leading research institution, is look-

ing forward to recruting a re-searcher.

Further details about the va-cancy can be found

here: http://www.repoa.or.tz/repoa/careers

APP Newsletter

ISSUE 33, Christmas 2017

Kristina BEKENOVA, correspondent African Politics and Policy.

Riccardo PELIZZO, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarba-

yev University, Astana, Kazakhstan

Collaborators

of the Newsletter of African Politics and Policy

African Politics and Policy

Smith Gallery is presenting its summer exhibition

“Salad” that includes “contributions from 28 artists,

including choice pieces from all seven of the artists who

staged solo shows at the gallery in 2017.” The exhibi-

tion is running until 20th January 2018.

56 Church Street, Cape Town, South Africa

http://www.smithstudio.co.za/salad