Preface

The New Africa Initiative (NAI) was initiated in July 1996 in Uganda with the support of the Nairobi-based Ford Foundation's Governance and Civil Society Program for Eastern Africa. The idea was to advance mutually beneficial interaction among key governmental, civil society and knowledge-generating institutions and individuals. The ideas carried over by each institution and the objectives set by the same are indeed very broad.

Six institutions launched various programmes in Entebbe, Uganda, at a workshop held in 1996 to achieve the above objectives. The six institutions were Kituo Cha Katiba: the East African Centre for Constitutional Development (EACODEV); the Series on Alternative Research in East Africa Trust (SAREAT); Development Through Media (DTM); East African Uongozi Institute (EAFUI); the National Museums of Kenya (NMK); and the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA).

The Entebbe workshop was preceded by a planning workshop on "Summer School for Promising Undergraduate Students in East Africa" convened and hosted by OSSREA in March 1996 in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. Those who were invited to the planning meeting were senior university administrators, deans of social science and heads of political science departments in Addis Abeba University, Dar es Salaam University, Makerere University and Nairobi University. The planning workshop on the Summer School underlined the need to find alternatives to an African leadership that is self-centered and self-servicing, and that contributes little to develop responsible citizenship.

One observes that the present leadership in Africa has been the management of crisis while the generation of leadership that follows is occupied with the process of indigenization of the system of governance. It is perhaps fair to state that both categories of leadership have failed to consolidate peace, provide the necessary emergency relief in times of difficulty, and put their countries on the path of sustainable development. Not only that but also because of the attempts by the present to assume dominance and high tension have been major characteristic of the political life in the continent. Conspicuous among these are ethnic tensions where ethnicity has been used as a tool for mobilization of support by those who want to stay in power or to acquire new fields of dominance. However, the reality of the situation is that ethnic tensions have led, in some cases, to the collapse of the state and the disintegration of nations.

One major problem that faces Africa in general and East Africa in particular is the lack of leadership that has the vision of taking this part of the continent into the fast changing world. Very few of the leaders seem to know what they would like to achieve concerning the quality of life of their people. They have resisted any attempts for the democratization of the decision-making processes and liberalization of the economy when they are not sure about the favours that their close supporters and/or ethnic group members shall receive. Given the present age of globalization, the problems of the new millennium are going to be very different from those so far encountered by the earlier and the present leadership of East Africa.

The New Africa Initiative is also motivated by the consideration that, despite significant moves towards more open governments in East Africa over the past couple of years, state politics and civil society remain rooted in the authoritarian legacy of colonialism and local traditions of patriarchy. This climate of opinion strongly challenges the next generation of East Africans to have clear thinking and insight to advance the concepts and practices of democratic governance in order to shape the future of the region.

Since the late 1980s, major political, economic, and social changes have been taking place in East Africa. Constitutional transformation that could pave the way to democracy and pluralism has become the order of the day. East Africans are still debating over constitutional choices. Poverty, illiteracy, disease, unemployment continue to bring suffering to the majority of East Africans. As in many countries of Africa, unemployment, hopelessness, disillusionment and frustration have continued to affect the East African youth.

The conflict between the constitutional choices of nationalist leaders and those of civil society groups has manifested itself particularly in the East African countries since the 1990s. This development has put disagreements over constitutional choices at the forefront and brought about that of the governance debate in Africa. The New Africa Initiative programs are meant to contribute to constitution-making and to broaden and strengthen the democratic content of society.

Since the late 1980s, individuals, organisations, institutions and communities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have started to remake societies. New community initiatives, leaders and alternative resources are emerging outside state politics. These initiatives, leaders and resources have a background of gender, racial, national, ethnic and religious diversity. These developments demonstrate not only the making of a new Africa but also the culmination of a political process which has been taking root since the end of the Cold War in particular and the end of colonial rule in general.

Convinced of these developments, the University of Dar es Salaam, Makerere University, University of Nairobi, University of California (James S. Coleman African Studies Centre), Centre for Basic Research, Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (Kenya), East Africa Law Society, East Africa Cooperation Secretariat, Law Society of Kenya and OSSREA, to mention just a few, participated in the Entebbe, Uganda, Workshop in launching the New Africa Initiative.

The New Africa Initiative is meant to help achieve the formation of the 'New African'. An African that would recognize the changes that are taking place in the environment around us. People are now living in a changing world setting. Issues such as globalization, regionalization, HIV-AIDS, etc., are examples that are common to many African countries. As many said in the Workshop, the Initiatives are not issues for East Africa alone but for Africa as a whole. The Initiative is for all Africans or for those who would like to see the recreation of a New Africa by New Africans.

The mandate for facilitating the realization of the objectives of the New Africa Initiative was given to OSSREA. The First Workshop for Synergy on the Initiative was held in Addis Abeba in October 1997 and the Second Workshop was held in October 1998 in Nairobi. OSSREA was assigned a facilitative role, a strategic role of creating synergy among the active players in the formation of the 'New African'.

The New Africa Initiative : Working for Synergy is a project that was dealt with co-operatively by organisations with a view to fostering a creative, tolerant and democratic culture in the younger sections of the population in East Africa, specifically in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It is the idea of promoting democratic constitution and good governance and overall people-based political environment that emerged in the region that inspired the creation of the New Africa Initiative. The publication of this document is therefore intended to make others understand the ideas and the objectives laid down, the issues discussed and the tentative conclusions reached at the two workshops. The 1997 NAI Synergy Workshop in Addis Abeba was organised by the Facilitator, Ms. MaryKay Penn and Venzen Ross Consulting (USA) in collaboration with OSSREA in Addis Abeba and the Ford Foundation in Nairobi. The 1998 NAI Synergy Workshop in Nairobi was organised by the Facilitator, Dr. Tegegne Teka, Regional Project Co-ordinator, OSSREA, Addis Abeba.

Tegegne Teka

Facilitator