Over the next two years, the African leaders we know about—Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa—will retire. Many of the big names of the last few decades are dead—Nyerere, Kenyatta, Nkrumah. Yet this continent without "names" is doing better than we realise. Sub-Saharan Africa's average growth rate will be 6 per cent next year. Much of Africa is pulling itself together.
Nowhere is this more true than Tanzania, the ex-German/British colony that got more than its share of attention under the rule of Julius Nyerere—Africa's headmaster, who knitted the country's tribes together but sent Tanzania's economy tumbling with his socialist ideas. But now the youngish, dynamic Jakaya Kikwete has been elected and is hurtling around the country talking to villagers. He tells me he will get the country back to 7 per cent growth next year (from today's 5.9) and then strive for 10 per cent, like its neighbour Mozambique. If successful, this will transform the lives of the poor and could add ten years to lifespans.
I recently spent three days with the president, driving round the villages of the south on rutted roads. "There are too many people dragging this country down and slowing it up," he tells the crowds. "If the bureaucracy slows up the arrival of your power lines, you must tell me." (His mobile number is an open secret, and people do call him.)
"We think we have all the time in the world," he tells me, "but I've told my cabinet we have only five years. We have to change our frame of mind. The bureaucrats look at a document and if they can't immediately find a fault with it, they put it on one side and say they'll look at it tomorrow. Some of our bureaucrats cry when we push them on things like building more secondary schools.
"Before, the private sector was the enemy. Now we realise it's our friend. Today the gas well we visited is going to give this whole region power. There is enough for 800 years, and the Canadian company says they expect to find much more.
"Our problems? Our police, judiciary and land administration are all bad. Justice is too often bought and sold. We have to push harder where we have comparative advantage—adding value to our agricultural products and minerals. China is killing everyone with its cheap exports. But we can't surrender. We have to attract China's capital and its technology, which is often suitable for Africa. We need more aid too, for roads, power and hospitals."
"What about China's role in backing the Sudan government against the rebels in Darfur?" I ask. "I don't think it would make much difference if China decided to pressure Sudan tomorrow to let the UN peacekeepers in. Sudan fears that the US wants regime change. It sees the UN as a Trojan horse. It also thinks that the UN will attract al Qaeda and they will have another Iraq. But a hybrid UN/African Union force is a good idea. We must not abandon the people of Darfur."
Kikwete is a name to watch.
