NEW AFRICA INITIATIVE
1. Introduction
Over the past decade, and especially the last six years, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have gone through major social, political and economic ferment. The repeal of Section 2(a) of the Kenyan Constitution in December 1991 ended one party rule culminating in a spirited competition for political power. In 1988 Uganda started an impressive constitution-making process which reached a milestone in March 1994 when Ugandans elected a Constituent Assembly which openly debated and eventually promulgated a new democratic constitution in October 1995. Tanzania abandoned its socialist claims used to justify monopoly politics and adopted political pluralism in 1993 leading to the country's first multi-party general election in October and November 1995. These developments were given further momentum in 1996 by the revival of economic and political co-operation among the three East African countries under the co-ordination of the East African Co-operation Secretariat re-established in Arusha, Tanzania. The three East African countries are now experiencing a historic up-tide in plural politics. While this up-tide has led to new opportunities for deepening and broadening democratization in East Africa, concomitant needs have emerged as a result of two important considerations.
First, the activism and ideas behind the changes in favor of democracy in East Africa have remained a preserve of elite groups: bureaucrats, political parties, academics, NG0s and the donor community. Second, and because of the first reason, the dissemination of information and ideas about the changes that are either taking place or are proposed is often done in esoteric publications, seminars and workshops that are not accessible to ordinary East Africans. Consequently, there is a growing gap between the demands for democratic changes being made by the elite groups and popular perceptions of the changes sought. This has raised the risk that ordinary East Africans are going to become cynical about the process of democratic transitions in the region. As a response to this risk, the Ford Foundation's Governance and Civil Society Program for Eastern Africa launched the "New Africa Initiative" in Entebbe, Uganda, at a workshop held from July 15 to 18, 1996. The workshop was attended by 54 prominent East Africans and international resource persons working on issues of democratisation and human rights in East Africa.
2. The Initiative
The New Africa Initiative targets the next generation of East Africans with the ultimate objective of fostering democratic constitutionalism and good governance in the region. In this connection, the Initiative seeks to promote the cultivation of a democratic public mind-set and to engender mutually beneficial interaction among key governmental, civil society and knowledge-generating institutions and individuals. To achieve this objective, the Initiative seeks to: (1) generate policy-relevant knowledge by identifying and supporting the next generation of East African leaders at key universities and research institutes in the region; (2) promote democratic constitution-making through a regionally co-ordinated institutional effort and (3) promote democratic social mobilization through alternative research, film, public debate, scholarly and popular publication of governance ideas.
3. Objectives of the Initiative
More specifically, the Initiative's interim objectives are: (1) to establish an East African "summer" school as an intellectual forum to break down old barriers between policy-makers and academia and to forge new linkages among the next generation of leaders in Eastern Africa and their peers in North America and elsewhere; (2) to establish a regional center to promote constitutional development in Eastern Africa as an issue of importance to everyday life beyond the event of constitution-writing; (3) to establish publication series on emerging East African alternatives to communicate innovative governance and policy ideas to the next generation of East Africans in politics, education, the civil service, business, and the growing non-profit sector; (4) to bring critical ideas on the governance debate in Eastern Africa from elite individuals and groups to the level of ordinary East Africans through film and (5) to promote partnerships between local communities and key governmental institutions through research and policy action to revive traditional knowledge on conflict resolution and democratic governance within a modern context. These objectives will be pursued by six organizations working in East Africa - Kituo cha Katiba (in Kiswahili), Uongozi School (in Kiswahili), Series on Alternative Research in East Africa (SAREAT), National Museums of Kenya (NMK), Development Through Media (DTM), and Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA). [Figure 1, p. 47]
4. Kituo cha Katiba
Kituo cha Katiba's primary mission is to stimulate multi and inter-disciplinary dialogue and action on constitution-making, constitutionalism and democratic governance in Eastern Africa. This will be done through basic and applied research, information dissemination and public debate. Of particular concern will be the development of programs of constitutional advocacy and activism, policy-formulation and advice, technical assistance within the region, and constitutional reform and revision. The Center will target various levels of East African society including the government, civil society, academia, the arts, the professions, and especially the next generation.
The project leaders have concluded that constitution-making is not the end of the process but just the beginning. The larger and more important issue is one of building a viable political community in the long run: a state that generates governance by consent under the rule of law leading to democratic civil society. To this end, the project will promote regional consensus around the need for a non-partisan institution that will have the credibility to foster a wider and deeper discussion of constitutional development in Eastern Africa.
Conceived as a project that will complement rather than supplant current national efforts in the three East African countries, Kituo cha Katiba will seek linkages and collaboration with existing projects and institutions within and beyond Eastern Africa. The Center will pay particular attention to information collection, research and public debate of constitutional issues of a pan-East African nature. The Center will create a network of organizations and individuals committed to the ideals of constitutional development within and across the three East African countries.
The objectives of Kituo cha Katiba are:
· To advance the science, processes and art of constitution-making, constitutionalism and democratic governance in Eastern Africa through basic, comparative and applied research;
· To commission state of the art studies on various dimensions of constitution-making;
· To promote the values and ethos of constitutionalism and gender equality and equity;
· To address the plight of disadvantaged social, cultural, economic and political groups in Eastern Africa, including minorities, refugees and people with disabilities;
· To collect and compile the testimonies of prominent East Africans who are involved in the processes of constitutional evolution and development in Eastern Africa; and to foster the contribution of grassroots operatives to these processes;
· To host an annual public lecture by a prominent East African on constitutional development in the region; and to widely disseminate the text of the lecture to diverse audiences in and outside the region;
· To create and maintain a directory of individuals and institutions committed to democratic constitutionalism in Eastern Africa;
· To encourage, support and facilitate the reform of school and university curricula incorporating important issues of constitution-making, constitutionalism and democratic governance;
· To act as a regional watchdog for the protection, promotion and enhancement of constitution-making, constitutionalism and democratic governance; and
· To foster solidarity with local, national, regional and international organizations;
The Nairobi office of the Ford Foundation believes that Kituo cha Katiba will fill the gap in the institutional landscape of an emerging new Eastern Africa. Currently, there is no regional body dealing with the important issues identified by the Center. Yet the region is increasingly asserting itself as a community. The center is therefore timely and its program is innovative.
5. Uongozi School
The "Uongozi School" (Uongozi is a Kiswahili word for "leadership") will be based in Arusha, Tanzania under the auspices of the University of Dar es Salaam. The preparatory work for the school was co-ordinated by the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) and led by a working group comprising of Professor Rwekaza S. Mukandala, (the co-ordinator of the group from the University of Dar es Salaam), Professor Joseph O. Nyunya (University of Nairobi), Professor Edmond Keller (University of California at Los Angeles - UCLA), Professor Foster Byarugaba (Makerere University) and Professor A. S. Kiondo (University of Dar es Salaam).
With a focus and emphasis on economic development issues, community relations, constitutional change and comparative area studies, Uongozi School will cover contemporary research and public policy debates on democratic values and constitutional processes between the state and civil society in the Eastern Africa region along with perspectives from other regions in and outside Africa.
The Uongozi School will be a unique and a path-breaking collaborative project of the four universities under the co-ordination of the University of Dar es Salaam. The involvement of UCLA will enable the James S. Coleman Center for African Studies to contribute to the revitalization of African Studies in the United States with a focus on Eastern Africa. Professor Mukandala and his colleagues believe that there is a need for an intellectual forum to nurture and harness the democratic ideas of the next generation of African leaders in ways that are reminiscent of the various meeting points enjoyed by the early African nationalists such as Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkurumah, Julius Nyerere, Kamuzu Banda and many others who despite their ideological differences, used various fora when they were students to discuss and shape the future of Africa.
The school will have five objectives:
· To support the making of a new East Africa by enhancing the intellectual growth of promising undergraduate students in the region by exposing them to current theoretical, methodological and popular debates in the social sciences, arts, law, NGO, state and civil society;
· To enable the students apply their knowledge to critical analysis of concrete socio-economic and constitutional problems in their home countries and the Eastern Africa region;
· To provide a forum for an intensive exchange of research and innovative ideas, under the supervision and with the participation of leading scholars, activists and policy makers, on the periodically selected current topics;
· To train students as future leaders in their home countries and the Eastern Africa region by exposing them to the interdependence of the region arising from the historical and emerging political and economic realities of the three East African countries and their neighbors; and
· To develop an internship program for the students as a bridge between theory and practice.
The Nairobi Office of the Ford Foundation is very encouraged by this initiative, especially because the initiative presents challenging opportunities to the participating universities to forge new linkages, revitalize African Studies and stimulate the imagination of the next generation of East Africans.
6. Series on Alternative Research in East Africa Trust
(SAREAT)
The journal and publication initiative will be run by the Series on Alternative Research in East Africa Trust (SAREAT). Based in Nairobi, and led by Mutahi Ngunyi, one of Eastern Africa's most promising scholars belonging to the younger generation, SAREAT is a recently established research and publication forum to communicate innovative governance ideas to the next generation of East Africans in education, the civil service, commerce and industry and the growing non-profit sector. This will be done through the publication of a monthly journal and books and the hosting of regional monthly public meetings on the policy implications of democratic transitions in Eastern Africa. The initiative will give emerging East African scholars, policy analysts and practitioners a regular forum for disseminating new concepts to shape democratic governance in the region. There is no other regional forum of this kind in Eastern Africa.
The establishment of SAREAT is, therefore, a welcome development which is consistent with the Ford Foundation's objective to promote democratic values through open debate and dialogue.
7. National Museums of Kenya (NMK)
The Museums Trustees of Kenya have established a policy project to enable the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) to promote partnerships between local communities and governmental agencies to revive traditional knowledge on democracy and conflict resolution in Kenya today. Led by NMK's Director General, Dr. Mohammed Isahakia, the project will use Kenya's national museums as a forum to revisit and critically discuss the values and institutions of traditional East Africa as a means for promoting cross-cultural understanding and pluralism within the modern context of democratic governance.
NMK's regional museums will be the focal points for building inter-group cultural dialogues to promote understanding and harmony among Kenya's diverse ethnic groups. This will be an important contribution to the current governance debate in Eastern Africa in view of the growing number of ethnic voices demanding a stake in the constitution-making process throughout the region. NMK's proposal is particularly attractive because it places a major Kenyan institution with regional influence in Eastern Africa into a new role in which it addresses the often noted but little acted upon need for promoting positive mutual images among Kenya's many diverse ethnic groups.
NMK's thesis is that ethnicity, which is an African reality, can be seen as a resource for building sustainable political and socio-economic development from within. The proposed project will test this thesis. In that connection, the project is a useful addition to the New Africa Initiative not only because it addresses the all important question of the future of ethnicity in a democratic Eastern Africa but also because it targets ordinary citizens.
8. Development Through Media (DTM)
The media initiative to popularize governance ideas in East Africa among ordinary people will be run by a media-NGO, Development Through Media (DTM), which is working on a docudrama film under the title, "The Forgotten Lot". The setting of the story is based on the connection of ordinary East Africans (mainly Tanzanians but also Kenyans and Ugandans) with the New South Africa. Many East Africans, indeed the rest of the world, have forgotten about the sacrifices made by ordinary Tanzanians, through public protest and associational life, to the end of apartheid in South Africa. In a significant but so far unrecognized way, the sacrifices and public protests were and remain a part and parcel of the struggle for democracy and good governance in Tanzania in particular, and East Africa in general. But all that has been forgotten, hence the title of the film: The Forgotten Lot.
Led by Dommie Yambo-Odotte, the highly respected and committed Kenyan female film producer who has won international awards for her outstanding work, DTM was formed and registered in 1996 as a non-profit media public company based in Nairobi, Kenya. DTM, which is the only organization of its kind in Kenya, seeks to use film as a tool for transforming the public mind-set in East Africa from an authoritarian to a democratic orientation. Ms. Yambo-Odotte and her colleagues at DTM believe that the media, especially the use of docudrama on film, has prodigious impact as a tool for popularizing important governance ideas among ordinary people who otherwise have no access to specialized sources of information or esoteric debate in the political process. DTM's assessment of the lopsided nature of information dissemination in Eastern Africa is shared by the Foundation's staff in the Nairobi office who have previously explored various ways of using film to reach wide and diverse audiences of ordinary East Africans to advance values and ideas which support democratic governance. DTM's project is a central component of the Foundation's New Africa Initiative, especially the part which seeks to extend the governance debate in Eastern Africa from elite circles to ordinary people through the mass media.
9. Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA)
OSSREA played a midwifery role in launching the core activities of the New Africa Initiative, particularly through a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February 1996 that focused on the concept of the "summer" school and through a later meeting in Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1997 which focused on the core activities of the New Africa Initiative. OSSREA staff collaborated with the working groups that emerged from the Entebbe meeting whose work has led to the five activities presented above. OSSREA is well placed to contribute to the New Africa Initiative by creating a forum for the core programs in the Initiative to communicate with each other and to work for synergy.
OSSREA will link the major partners in the New Africa Initiative with universities and social scientists in eastern and southern Africa through its well established networks and name recognition. In effect, OSSREA will provide a useful glue to the New Africa Initiative. Under the guidance of its regional co-ordinator, Dr. Tegegne Teka, the workshops will have the following specific objectives:
· To further advance the goals of the New Africa Initiative;
· To provide a forum for critical evaluation of the activities of programs under the New Africa Initiative;
· To refine and identify further areas of collaboration among key partners in the New Africa Initiative and other initiatives in and outside Eastern Africa;
· To explore existing and possible strategies through which the New Africa Initiative could have wider and deeper impact in Eastern Africa;
· To provide partners in the New Africa Initiative with comparative experience;
· To examine other relevant issues to enhance the individual and collective purposes of the partners in the New Africa Initiative; and
· To identify fund-raising strategies and sources to promote the long-term sustainability of the joint programs under the New Africa Initiative.
10. The Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation programming in Eastern Africa is conducted by its Representative and Program Officers and an administrative staff who are based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Significant and durable social progress in Eastern Africa will come from the efforts of many actors, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, universities, private businesses and outside donor organizations. With the limited resources at its disposal, the Foundation supports the strengthening and evolution of local institutions with the capacity to generate and apply new bodies of knowledge. The Foundation makes grants to fund experimentation, learning and demonstration. The principal areas of grant making are Peace and Social Justice, Asset Building and Community Development, Education, Media, Arts and Culture.
Grant from the Foundation addresses three interconnected issues in Eastern Africa:
· How to assist the transition in Eastern Africa to a more enabling environment through constitution-making and reform of laws and state structures;
· How to promote value systems, local philanthropy and effective non-state organizations which articulate civil society in Eastern Africa; and
· How to assist the poor and disenfranchised to gain access to justice as well as information, skills and assets they need to empower themselves to improve their lives.