The Communal Challange in Africa's Economic Development

The African society is highly communal. This presents both an opportunity and a threat to economic development. Advantages of a highly communal society are many. Collective education and information sharing is possible by utilizing existing informal leadership structures. On the other hand, highly communal societies can become a liability especially where structural differentiation is not possible and community subunits are not organized for mutual benefit through functional specialization and interdependence.

The four factors of production as we know them, land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship, interact within a productive society to create wealth. In Africa, however, especially in rural Africa, some of the factors of production are not developed or there is just so much of one factor in relation to the others. To ensure economic development, the four factors of production need to be developed into meaningful production linkages. In order to do this, a few changes must take place. First there is need to increase differentiation of production units into patterns of functional specialization and interdependence. Second, new mechanisms of integration, coordination and control should be developed. Thirdly, there is need for structural changes to the key features of society such as cultural values, goals, and distribution.

Countless efforts are being made today to bring about economic change in Africa. One of the most popular ones is micro finance. Large amounts of funds are being pumped into small villages to improve food production, crop yields, and healthy living. What such interventions lack though is the facilitation of structural adjustments which must go with any financial or moral support. There is need to create inter-village linkages to foster productivity, differentiation and specialization. The economy needs to be looked at as a sum-total of individual specialized units. Eeconomic interventions should put the responsibility of, and resources for, development into the hands of villagers who manage their resources through collective responsibility. In order to create wealth, technical expertise using existing structural/cultural arrangements must be strengthenedThere is need to create economic activity through providing access to external market linkages between neighboring villages.Fostering cross-village communication by expanding general social norms, and creating functional and responsible democratic associations could be an added advantage as well.

French Electronic Music

Justice, a French electronic music duo consisting of two friends, Gaspard and Xavier, warms up the crowd on a chilly French evening. French being my fifth language, I can hardly put two words together to understand what in the world these two are singing about. I don’t care as much for French music any ways as I do for French poetry. On this warm western evening though, watching Justice from my SONY VGN, I know I should not be dreaming in French; unless, of course, I am Julie Delpy or Adam Goldberg in “Two Days in Paris”. Of course I can’t stand a whole two days in Paris unless my smart pumpkin has fallen off my shoulders.

Back to Justice. I am stuck with a wrong name (Justice) singing the wrong kind of music (electronic music) in a wrong language (French) from a wrong city (Paris). But the name of the band arouses an impressive imagination. The name “justice” reminds me of the unattractive sounds that we all make to the children of the world; children suffering from Malaria, Kwashiorkor, HIV/AIDS; children from war-ton countries striving to keep their skin on their bones. We sound like a French electronic music band when we kneel down beside our beds and say the Lord’s prayer, wishing well those far away, as if they are too far to be touched. There is French electronic band music in each and every one of us. It sounds unpleasant to the hungry and sick listeners. And we love to play our depressing electronic music. We play it from the pulpits, in our political speeches, in our leftovers tossed in collection baskets with everlasting noises. We play too much French electronic music we have lost touch with real music- real lyrics from the classics of love and the country ballads of tenderheartedness.

There is a song in each and every one of us. That song is calm, kind, tenderhearted, compassionate, and caring. It’s the song of humanity. The peaceful sound of “I will do something to end the suffering of the world”.

Sun-Kissed

I have been sun-kissed. I am talking about a pre-birth tan. And that gives me a foot forward to complain about my fellow sun-kissed friends especially in the west-most part of the sun. And without measuring melanin content, I believe I am a few ancestors away from big foot in Zimbabwe. So when he hurts I hurt. When he hurts others I cry. And he has been making me cry non-stop. And then he sarcastically calls for a meeting, the like of which journalist Heidi Holland mistakably calls a “father and son” reunion with Brother Morgan. Come on Heidi! Do you have a father?

Dogs and Sheep

A friend of mine once asked me if carrots grew on trees. Which reminds me; some time back I was driving through a local town in Hawaii and came across a herd of sheep. A friend of mine who was riding with me wondered why some one would keep all those dogs in their backyard. But that was not far from a good friend of mine that has just returned from a mission trip to Rwanda who was asked if he saw gorillas in town. I mean, come on! Gorillas in town!!, are you kidding me! Now wait when you hear this: “Do you eat cooked food in Africa?” Okay, that really got me. I mean, fire was discovered in Tanzania by a caveman a few years ago in African history. Are you wondering whether cavemen eat cooked food? The answer is yes. Of course we are so many years ahead of caveman living. Little wonder we eat cooked food. But seriously, what’s up with our education system? I mean, why are our kids getting slower and slower about world events and simple visual recognitions? Did I say kids? I meant, why, including more than kids, are we so… uninformed?

A few days ago I was talking to a western investor (and by WEST I mean from Jupiter) about real estate investment in Kampala Uganda; Talk about 50% ARR (Annual Rate of Return). The gentleman looked me in the eyes with an absent-minded-I-know-the-answer-kind of look and said “what about Joseph Kony? Is it safe to invest in a city where Kony’s soldiers vandalize houses everyday?” I know you were going to laugh at this. If you didn’t laugh, please stop reading this because what follows is probably going to annoy you even more.

I called this note YELLOW AFRICA because of my affinity to bananas. My wife knows I can have bananas for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Did you just say MONKEY? Please!! Anyways, yes, bananas. According to my banana preservation technique, there is a time in the life of a banana when it is the sweetest. It’s normally between the stickiness and the stinkness of a banana. Imagine if a country like Rwanda was a banana. Maybe we could call the time period between 1991 and 1994 “sticky Rwanda”. But ten comes 2005 and 2006. Close your eyes before you read this because your Jupiter-mind will not believe it: Percentage change of Rwanda’s GDP growth rate was a stinking 477.78%. In the same year, United States’ percentage change in GDP growth was a sarcastic -27.27% (we are talking minus in terms of negative growth. It’s like walking to heaven backwards).
Now let’s talk future. In 2007, United States’ GDP growth was, you got it, Zero. What about predictions for 2008? Yeah, that’s right: minus (negative) thirty one point two five percent (31.25%) “ungrowth”.

Now going back to our sticky Rwanda, 2007 figures show that Rwanda’s GDP outgrew one hundred and twenty two (164) countries of the world at a whopping 11.54% growth rate. Now that’s what I call a really-yellow-banana ready to go. And we have so many of them in Africa. Lots and lots of them. But our Jupiter minds have not been programmed to see them. We miss them. Everyday. Until we hit rock bottom. Then we wake up to India, and China, and Taiwan, and Singapore… and it’s too late to jump onto the boat. Fasten your seat belts. And if you would excuse me, we are off to we-told-you-we-were-really-ripe-for-investment land”.

Tell Me Today About Tomorrow

One of the most widely read Christian books is “Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. Why is this book so popular? Is it because people really want to know what plan God has for their lives? May be. May be not. Knowing the future has been the fascination of many generations. In Africa we have fortune tellers who use all kinds of tricks to prove that they can foretell your future. Horoscopes are popular in the west. There is a deep desire in every man or woman, for gender sensitivity, to want to know the future. Why do we want so much to know the future? I believe that human beings don’t like surprises. Not knowing what the future holds leaves us to a game of chance and sheer trust that the future will be what we expect it to be. To take the surprise out of life we spend hours and hours consulting books, fortune tellers, horoscopes, give it a name. Thousands of books have been written on how to determine your career. Psychologists boast knowledge of your future by analyzing your talents and passions.

What surprises me about these future speculators is not so much that they exist, but that very few of the predictions they make actually happen. You see, to me, something that is not a hundred percent accurate all the time cannot be truth. Truth has to be a hundred percent true at all times. There is no such a thing as partial truth, lopsided truth, some-how-true truth, or not-yet truth. Truth is true at all times. And that is why I believe that only God knows what our future holds. He is always true to himself. David, talking of God, says, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and you are intimately acquainted with all my ways.” David understands the futility of trying to figure out his future. If God has known him from before time, then the same God knows where his life is leading. Only God can know our future. He has always known our future. The psalmist says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me.” God knows our life map. He has the power to change your course if he wanted to. It doesn’t really matter what the psychologists say. A friend of mine used to stutter a lot until God called him to become a preacher. He could not believe it. His first sermon in the pulpit was a nightmare. And so was his second, and third, and forth, until the church he was called to pastor started to grow. The church grew from one hundred people to a thousand in less than two years. He still stutters and the church is still growing. You see, the psalmist understands this when he says, “For You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.”

So why worry about the future if someone is taking good care of it? Shouldn’t we all be minding our present business and rejoicing in the fact that someone has our best interest in mind? I think we should.

How Lessons Learned from Culturally Relevant Marketing Can Transform Evangelism Patterns

Here in the city of Portland, one of the largest American crusade evangelists is organizing a mega citywide outreach to win souls for Christ. His present campaign beats the marketing strategies of fortune 500 companies. He has people. He has money. He has volunteers. Everything is free, it is non-profit money. Everything is donated so star evangelist can afford to put on such an expensive show with no responsibilities to shareholders or venture capitalists. This is a safe business for church people. But just how much result can we reap from citywide evangelistic gang-bouts today? Is the harvest still the same as the early 80’s and 90’s when Billy Graham last wooed masses with his soft-spoken accentuation and a hard-pressed call for repentance?

One of the leading US church consultants was asked how he could describe Christians in terms of evangelism today. “I am frustrated by church people letting Billy Graham do the job for them,” he said. I can’t agree more. Billy Graham is an old man who is skating straight to heaven with angels waiting for him at heaven’s door gates. When are we going to stop waiting for Billy to come to our town and do our evangelism? When are we going to stop thinking of evangelism as multitudes gathered at crowded stadiums? Somewhere along the path, Christians need to realize that evangelism is more than a big bang task to accomplish. Somehow the light must come on for us to see that evangelism is a way of living our Christian life.

Today’s advertising patterns and marketing culture trends call for even a more urgent change in the way we do evangelism. The big crusade billboards do not work anymore- ask any average business owner in town. Television and radio commercials are losing grasp of the ever changing culture. Which crutch are we going to stand on?

I believe there is so much that churches can learn from ordinary business marketing trends to engage today’s culture with the message of Christ. It is not new information that consumers today are rejecting traditional forms of marketing. The artificial and highly scripted marketing campaign is not popular any more. Multinational corporations are becoming “the enemy of the state” so to say. The public has developed high distrust for the outrageous promises delivered by corporations on TV and other media. Consumers are sick and tired of advertising spin-offs with tactical story telling that settles for no more than empty promises. This kind of disgust is affecting not only marketable goods and services but the message of the church as well. Anything that encroaches on the public private viewing freedoms is received with contempt. This includes television evangelists and large Christian meetings infomercials

The public is turning to a new form of buying called “peer-advised buying.” Peer-based sources of information that help the public to exchange observations about experiences in the marketplace are becoming popular. The marketing manager at “3-Foot Corporation” (fictitious name) is no longer the message controller. The new marketing manager is the consumer. The consumer is found everywhere from a high school football team to a local pub. The marketing mass has become highly fragmented. Numerous sets of subcultures are screaming to be reached in their own way and on their own terms. In brief, the consumer determines how you do advertising. In other words, in the new marketing world, culture determines who buys and sells. This kind of consumer advised buying is setting trends for all kinds of public groups including church membership and product purchases.

Savvy corporations today are flocking to culturally relevant marketing. This form of marketing however does not produce quick-fix results like the mass media has always done. Its strength lies in the power to embed the products in the minds of the public, thus producing greater returns in the long run. People flock to what promotes their culture. The new culture is what people watch, read, and share. Only those companies that maximize on this knowledge will be able to reach the post mass-marketing consumer. This shift has so many implications on the way we do evangelism today. Evangelism will have to be culturally relevant to break through the clatter of subcultures that are sheltering themselves from the outside world. You find them everywhere; from myspace and facebook groups to Google Orkut communities. Rumor has it that these subcultures are creating all sorts of goods and services including the time-old economic systems such as barter trade.

One of the ways that corporations are making use of culturally relevant marketing is through product placement. Product placement advertisements are promotional ads placed by marketers using real commercial products and services in the media. Product placement appears in plays, film, television series, music videos, video games, books etc. This and many other culturally relevant marketing techniques are going to set the trend for advertising in a post mass-marketing generation. This is something that churches can borrow from. What about incorporating the message of the gospel in a movie and pay placement fees? Movies have the power to reach more sheltered houses than any international evangelist will ever step into.

So here you have it. If you are so passionate about reaching our generation for Christ, it is high time you started breathing in their space and reach them on their own terms. Or you can stick to the same old-time prophetic finger-pointing and miss the whole deal of God’s ways. Jesus was always relevant to his culture. He spoke farming to farmers, fishing to fishermen, and laws to lawmakers, Pharisees and Sadducees.

Are you ready to drop your guard and REACH?

Amon Munyaneza