UK NGO Panos has done something very exciting – they’ve brought a group of top African journalists to Edinburgh to cover the G-8 summit, and are rounding up blog entries from their writers on a blog called Africavox. The stories are also being featured in the free newspaper, Metro, which should give them excellent reach to a UK audience.

One of the writers on the trip is my friend Ndesanjo Macha, who is blogging the trip on one of his blogs, Digital Africa. (He’s blogging it on his main blog, Jikomboe as well, but I don’t read Kiswahili and the majority of my readers don’t either…) Ndesanjo’s first piece for Metro – on the McDonaldization of the anti-globalization movement is (unsurprisingly) excellent. I’m very grateful to Panos that we’re going to have the perspectives of great African journalists at this G-8 summit and very much looking forward to keeping up with the Africavox bloggers.

The upcoming G-8 summit and Blair’s declared focus on Africa has inspired a great deal of Africa-focused reporting in mainstream media, some of it pretty smart and insightful. An excellent post by Bletch on Metafilter rounds up a number of articles about China’s increasing influence in Africa, including a great piece in the New Statesman that points out that China is making investments in Africa with very little concern for human rights, political freedoms or governmental legitimacy.

Abraham McLaughlin echoes this point in the latest in a series of articles of Chinese influence in Zimbabwe, pointing out that some African nations may be looking at Asian models for political leadership and pursuing a “vision of ‘state’ before ‘individual’.”

Driving to Boston this morning, I was pleased to hear a pair of stories on BBC Newshour (though none in the two hours I listened to NPR’s Morning Edition) focused on Africa. The first was an interview with Andrew M. Mwenda, a Ugandan political commentator who argues that foreign aid interferes with government accountability. He makes the point that half of Uganda’s budget comes from foreign aid, which makes Museveni more accountable to foreign donors than to domestic taxpayers. His recent op-ed in the International Tribune – “Foreign Aid Sabotages Reform” – is radical, interesting and smart. (I’m not sure I agree with it, but it’s damned interesting.)

A second interview was with Simon Anholt, a marketing expert and author of “Brand New Justice”, a book that argues that Africa’s “bad brand” contributes to problems of economic development. Anholt points out that Ethiopia, for instance, is branded as a “basket case”… which makes it very hard to recruit manufacturers to open factories, or to open the nation to tourists. While the “basket case” brand is very effective for generating aid dollars, it’s the wrong message to send for economic development. It’s an interesting argument, not far from the argument I’ve been making regarding Live 8 – I’ve just bought his book and will review it here in the next couple of weeks.

There’s a lovely article on ChinaView, a project of China’s state news agency Xinhua, about a visit from politicians from nine African nations to appliance firm Haier’s Qingdao offices. While some of the quotes don’t quite parse into English as I know it, it’s pretty clear that a good time was had by all:

“It is really incredible that Haier can manufacture almost anything we can imagine,” said Habibou from Niger, the head of the delegation, while playing table-tennis with a body-building inter-communication TV. “This TV is of great interest, and it will attract senior citizens like me to do exercising at home,” he said.

(Man, I’ve always wanted a body-building inter-communication TV. I wish Best Buy stocked those.)

I’ve been following news about Haier for a couple of years now, after discovering that the company was advertising on luggage carts on airports in half a dozen of the developing countries I regularly visit. Haier’s vegetable cleaning and cheese-making washing machines have become a favorite example of mine in talks about innovation in the developing world. And I’m very interested to see whether Haier’s $1.28 billion bid for Maytag succeeds… and what sort of emotions it raises for protectionist US politicians (which seems to include both sides of the aisle these days.)

Two things that interest me about this article. There’s a lot of rhetoric in the US these days about unfair Chinese government support for businesses. I tend to ignore most of it as China-bashing. But it’s certainly interesting that Haier – a “collective” company, technically owned by the workers, though no one seems to know who owns how much, or whether the government owns some of the shares – gets such sympathetic (sycophantic?) coverage from the national news agency.

The African politicians on the trip (the only one I’ve been able to identify in the story is Marie Ramampy, the vice-President of the Antenimierampirenena Malagasy, the National Assembly of Madagascar) are not junketeering to Qingdao purely to look at air conditioners. They’re in China on a diplomatic study tour, and their trip to Qingdao is paid for by “the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee”, not directly by Haier. And if the visiting politicans do become “volunteer spokespersons” for Haier, the company can thank the Chinese government. (It’s worth noting that the US deparment of commerce also works hard to promote the interests of US companies abroad.)

What really interests me, though, is the way Chinese companies are approaching Africa – as a potentially huge emerging market. According to the Xinhua article, Haier’s sales to Africa in 2004 totalled $27 million – a tiny percentage of their total sales of $9 billion. But Haier and other Chinese companies are aggresively pursuing these new markets, realizing
that a middle class is emerging in Africa, more slowly but just as surely as one is emerging in China, India and other developing nations.

Haier’s not alone – read Russell Southwood’s Balancing Act newsletter (widely considered the best source for telecommunications news from Africa) and you’ll see Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE winning contract after contract on the continent. Mapara Syed, writing in Balancing Act, reports that Huawei now has 30 branch offices on the continent and sold $250m worth of mobile telephony equipment in 2004. In many cases, Huawei is able to match low cost contracts with financing through entities like the China Development Bank.

Chinese companies aren’t just selling into African markets. They’re building factories. Haier now has plants in Nigeria and South Africa as well as Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria. ZTE is manufacturing cellphones and recharge scratch cards in Nigeria, and fixed wireless equipment in Algeria. A recent $200m contract between Huawei and the Nigerian government included Huawei investing $20m in a new plant in Nigeria.

Abraham McLaughlin, Africa correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, sees Huawei, ZTE and Haier as part of a larger Chinese focus on Africa. China’s trade with the continent increased 50% between 2002 and 2003, and Chinese officials project that trade with Africa will total $30 billion by 2006, rivaling US-Africa trade figures of $44.5 billion last year. While US trade with Africa is substantial, a great deal of that trade is in the energy sector – in 2002, the US obtained 16% of its total oil supply from sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s rare, though, to hear American and European companies talking about Africa as a market (or as a location for manufacturing facilities.) About 18 months ago, I attended a dinner held by Orange CEO Sol Trujillo at Davos. (Trujillo has subsequently left Orange for Australia’s Telstra.) Trujillo gave an hour-long talk focused on markets and products where telephone companies can yield high “ARPU” (average revenue per user). Feeling like being a pain in the ass, I asked Trujillo whether Orange saw value in low-ARPU markets, or whether they were prepared to let companies like South Africa’s MTN claim market after market. (Again with the skillful attempts to ensure that I don’t get invited to cocktail parties.)

Trujillo didn’t miss a beat, and told me that Orange Madagascar was one of the company’s most profitable units. ARPU was lousy, he explained, but labor costs were very low, and there was almost no need to spend money on marketing, as pent-up demand was so high… so profits were quite high. But, he added, the reason he hadn’t brought up Madagascar was “every time I mention Africa, our stock price goes down”.

I worry that American and European attitudes about Africa as a continent in crisis ensure that companies won’t invest in Africa, or will be very quiet about doing so. Chinese companies, on the other hand, seem to be treating Africa as an exciting potential market… which may have major economic benefits for Africa if the practice of opening African manufacturing facilities continues. As Africa matures and grows, we may find that we’re way behind the Chinese in learning how to design products for and market products to new middle class African consumers.

But that’s the least of our problems. In the immediate future, there’s a body-building inter-communication TV gap that needs closing! Our national pride depends on it!

My friend Brian at Black Star Journal has an excellent critical response to my post a few days back expressing frustration with today’s Live 8 concerts. Conceding me a few points – the paucity of Africans on the festival bill, the trivial ways in which people are being asked to show “commitment” to Africa – he (rightly) challenges me on my (snarky, mean) comments about celebrity involvement in the concert series.

Brian and I have some common background as bloggers – like me, he’s lived and worked in West Africa (as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea-Conakry) and, like me, the experience has turned him into an Afrophile and advocate for development issues. I read, enjoy and respect his blog and am grateful that he’s forcing me to wrestle with these questions rather than just slagging Live 8 and moving on.

And I couldn’t agree more when Brian points out:

The main reason I care about third world development issues is because I lived in Africa. My concern was only vague and theoretical before then. Most people don’t have the good fortune to live abroad. And you aren’t going to learn anything much about development issues by reading the mainstream US media.

So does this mean that the only people who can care about development issues are people who’ve lived in lesser developed countries? In fact, this goes against everything I believe. Having lived in Africa, I WANT Americans to care about the place, even those who haven’t been there.

Given how hard it is to hear about African issues through mainstream media, shouldn’t I be grateful that Africa is getting attention, even if that attention is mostly to celebrities and the music, and less to the issues? Brian draws an analogy to the late Princess Diana’s involvement in the campaign to ban landmines:

I remember back when Princess Diana got involved in the landmine question. I wondered how those ordinary activists felt. They worked on the issue for years to little effect but then this fancy royal flies in and suddenly it’s the cause célèbre du jour.

But on the other hand, at the end of the day, the Ottawa treaty banning landmines was signed. Most countries (not including the US) do not use landmines anymore. Is it really important who gets credit? As an activist, is it about you or the cause? Do you think any anti-landmine activist would say, “I think we should revoke the Ottawa treaty because it wouldn’t have passed without star power”? I hope not. If so, they are not real activists.

He goes on to share a nuanced and more optimistic view of Live 8 than the one I’ve expressed.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that many people won’t learn much about important issues of international development unless a princess or a rock star picks up the mantle. But it’s reality. And given all the serious problems facing both the world and individual countries, can you really blame people for not focusing on 10,000 issues at once?

Most people aren’t going to the Live 8 concerts because of their concern for development issues. HOWEVER, once there, they will be a captive audience. Once there, they might learn a thing or two about issues they hadn’t considered before… It’s easy to say, “I know so much about development issues and Live 8 can barely scratch the surface.” And it’s may be true. But f you want to get people interested in development issues, you have to start somewhere.

Let me start my response by conceding that I agree with Brian more than I disagree. I’m perpetually frustrated at how difficult it is to hear about development issues in mainstream media. I’m grateful to see African development issues as a major priority at the G8 talks, and I acknowledge that the involvement of celebrities has helped make these issues more prominent, though I don’t think they’re responsible for getting Blair to “put Africa on the agenda”.

On the Princess Di analogy – I’m tempted to make a distinction between celebrities who clearly care deeply about causes and throw themselves into campaigning – Geldof, Bono, Peter Gabriel and Angelina Jolie all come to mind – and those who come along for the ride at an event like this one. But I’m not foolish enough to take Brian’s bait and argue that well-intentioned but incompletely-informed supporters should be turned away from good causes. And I acknowledge the arrogance Brian’s attributes to me with the “I know so much about development issues and Live 8 can barely scratch the surface” statement – not a quote from me, but too close to the truth for me to brush it off.

All that said, I’m having trouble sharing Brian’s view that the attention generated by Live 8 is neccesarily a good thing. Yes, millions of people are paying attention to “Africa” today… but I’m having some trouble recognizing the “Africa” they’re talking about.

In several of the interviews I watched on CNN and MTV, concert performers and fans referenced “the issue of Africa”, “the African cause”, or “the problem of Africa”.

Africa’s not an issue. It’s not a cause or a problem. It’s a continent – a complicated, confusing, beautiful continent, with wealth and poverty, peace and strife, success and tragedy. When Africa becomes a cause, we tend to see only one side of the continent – a helpless, dependent, starving side that “needs our help”.

To actually accomplish the goal of Live 8 – the elimination of poverty in Africa – Americans and Europeans have to get a great deal smarter about this other Africa. This Africa needs investment and trade, rather than just aid and debt forgiveness This Africa is open for business. This Africa is as important and as real as the Africa that needs help.

Aid dollars don’t eliminate poverty – integration into a global economy does. (South Korea and Ghana had approximately the same per capita income when Ghana gained independence in 1957. South Korea’s income per capita has increased roughly fifteen times in constant dollar terms, while Ghana’s has fallen slightly. You may notice that we buy a great deal more from South Korea than we do from Ghana.) If the goal of Live 8 were to help people see the African continent as a place they want to visit, a place they want to open businesses in, a place they want to engage with, as opposed to a place they want to save, I’d be more likely to share Brian’s hopes.

But that would be a very different concert. It would be one that celebrated the cultural richness of the continent by putting African artists on stage, rather than inviting them – after Geldof was shamed by Peter Gabriel – to perform at a parallel event a hundred miles away from the main action. It would be one that put African leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators on stage, rather than using a silent young Ethiopian woman as a stage prop for Madonna and Geldof. It would be one that was more focused on changing the global image of Africa than on somehow changing the minds of the eight guys sitting around a table in Scotland.

It’s possible that I’m wrong, and that the concert is changing the mind of the performers, the fans, and the G8. Perhaps traffic will mushroom at AllAfrica.com as thousands of new readers start following news from around the continent. Maybe African hiphop stars will start selling records in the US as Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg start touring with Senegalese and Tanzanian rappers. Perhaps Bush will agree to stop subsidizing sugar and cotton production, Chirac will agree that EU dairy subsidies are unreasonable and Putin will crack down on sales of small arms to conflict-ridden nations. (By the way, if Bush and EU leaders do cut agricultural subsidies, allow me to predict a revival of the 1980′s “Farm Aid” concerts across the US and Europe…)

Maybe my flight to Johannesburg next week will be packed with tourists, businessmen and music fans all travelling to Gabarone, Windhoek and Maputo. I promise to let you know. I’ll also let you know if we see a measurable rise in the mention of African nations in mainstream news coverage or in weblogs.

But I’m not betting on it. Because what I’ve seen of Live 8 so far treats Africa as a crisis, not an opportunity, and perpetuates the sense that Africa’s another planet, not just another place.

The estimable Andrew Heavens – independent journalist and author of the excellent Meskel Square blog (required reading for anyone paying attention the East Africa) – has discovered that the Addis Tribune newspaper are big fans of his blogging. Such big fans that they lifted his recent interview with Ethiopian Minister of Information Bereket Simon wholesale from his blog and ran it on pages 14 and 15 of their June 24th edition. Making the newspaper a family affair, the article on page 13 was written by Heavens’s wife, lifted from the BBC web site.

(Just imagine how much of Heavens’s content we’d see in Ethiopian newspapers if he released his posts under a Creative Commons license… :-)

Heavens seems good humored about the incident, pointing out that there’s a generally lax attitude towards copyright in Ethiopian newspapers, and that one can generally tell the best papers as they’re the ones that lift the least content. He’s also cognisant of being too critical of Ethiopian journalists in the same week that editors of four Amharic newspapers have been arrested and held on defamation charges for writing about the role of the Ethiopian air force in election-related violence. (You may remember that, earlier this month, the Information ministry revoked the press credentials of five reporters working for Voice of America and Deutsche Welle, and that Heavens has been concerned about maintaining his ability to report from Addis.)

The Ethiopia/Belarus story is a fascinating one. Eight Ethiopian SU-27 fighter pilots have requested political asylum at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. (This follows the defection of two helicopter pilots to Djibouti a week earlier.) Belarus – often described as the “last European dictatorship” – has strong military and trade ties with Ethiopia, which explains why the eight pilots were able to request asylum – they were in Minsk on a training course. It’s unclear whether the pilots in question are fleeing possible charges from post-election violence or defecting for other reasons. (This is a very difficult story to follow in the Western press – if anyone’s got good leads on the story, please let me know.)

The good folks at Christian Science Monitor have done a small – but very interesting – survey, talking to ticketholders for Live 8 concerts and university students in Senegal and Nigeria. Too small to be scientifically significant – eight selected from each group – the journalists discovered some interesting differences in perspectives and priorities.

Concertgoers identified AIDS as the chief problem facing the continent six of eight times; the students identified poverty as the chief problem seven of eight times. (It’s possible that this has to do with interviewing West Africans where the impact of AIDS, though profound, has been less devestating than in East and Southern Africa.)

Only three of eight concertgoers thought aid to Africa should have conditions attached to it. Six of the eight African students did, citing the tendency of aid money to end up in the pockets of corrupt officials. African students tended to mention the devestating impact of civil wars on the continent and the role Northern nations play in selling arms to the continent.

In a pair of “gotcha” questions, the interviewers found that only two of the eight concertgoers could name all the members of the G-8 (none of the eight Africans could)… and that only half the concertgoers could name a single African leader. (In three of four cases, the concertgoers came up with “Robert Mugabe”, suggesting something about what African countries do and don’t receive Northern media coverage.

Given my research on media attention, I really liked Francesco Colangelo’s – a film director in Rome – answer to the African leader question:

Name the current leader of any African country.
I can’t. I lack the knowledge. But I am also a victim of a lack of information. Africa is talked about only as a marginal place. A place that does not matter. It is not important in dominant culture. Its leaders do not often make the news here.

Very much worth reading the whole piece. And if you’re interested, CSM is soliciting comments from readers about Live8.