Andrew Mwenda :另眼看非洲

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http://dotsub.com/view/24c16293-cff1-4b1e-9cd3-ba3e1bde9398
Andrew Mwenda :另眼看非洲
我非常非常的高兴能和这么多…… 这些灯光太刺眼了 它们反射到我的镜片上了 我非常高兴且荣幸和 非常聪明、有创造力的人们在一起 在此之前我已经听了3个人的演讲了 猜一下发生了什么事？ 每一个我想说的事情都已经被他们说完了 看上去我好象没有什么可以说的了
（笑声）
但是在我的祖国有一句谚语 如果一朵花一句话也不说就离开了树干 那朵花一定还稚嫩 所以，既然我已不再稚嫩 我还是要说一点的
我们正在一个非常合时宜的时候开这个会 因为另一个会议正在柏林召开 这就是八国首脑峰会 G8峰会建议，解决非洲问题的办法 应该是继续加大对非洲的援助 这和当年的马歇尔计划很相似 不幸的是，我个人并不相信马歇尔计划 首先，马歇尔计划的成果被夸大了 它最大的受援国是德国和法国 但援助只占了他们GDP的2.5% 平均每个非洲国家接受的外国援助 竟达到了他们GDP的13%-15%那么多 这是一个史无前例的金融资源大迁移 从富裕的国家到贫穷的国家
但是我想说的是，有两件事情我们需要提及 西方媒体是如何报道非洲和那些援助成果的 通过播放绝望和无助的画面 媒体是在展示非洲的真实情况，非常真实 然而，媒体没有告诉我们所有的真实情况 因为绝望、内战、饥荒 虽然是我们非洲的真实的一部分 但这些不是全部 而且，它们只是其中很小的一部分
非洲有53个国家 只有6个国家有内战 那就说明，媒体只报道了这6个国家 非洲蕴含着的巨大的机遇却从来没有被报道过 那些交织着绝望和无助的报道 西方媒体却大量的向他们的听众传递 但是那些报道的作用只是祈求同情 祈求怜悯，祈求那些所谓的援助 这样的结果是，西方人关于 “非洲经济困境”的错误观念被建立起来了 这种观念的建立是一味的去联想 一个绝望的非洲的结果 我们该怎么办？我们应该给饥饿的人们食物 我们应该给生病的人送去医药 我们应该派维和部队 去拯救那些正在遭遇内战的人民 在这个过程中，非洲已经丧失了自己的主动性
我想说，重要的是认识到 非洲确实有其根本性的不足 但是同时，也有很多的发展潜力 我们需要重新定位非洲正面临的考验 从充满绝望的考验 它被叫做减少贫困 到充满希望的考验 我们重新定义它为一个充满希望的考验，这是值得的 所有关心非洲的人们面对着这个考验 这不再是一个减少贫困的考验 而应该是一个创造财富的考验
一旦我们交换了这两个概念 如果你说“非洲很穷，他们需要脱贫” 你的愿望非常美好 但是带点什么去非洲呢 给穷人带去药品，给饥饿的人带去食物 给遭受内战的人送去维和部队 所有这些都没有从根本上解决问题 因为对于非洲的那些基本问题 这些只治标不治本 送一些人去学校，给他们药品 各位，这些不能给他们创造财富 稳定的收入才是致富的根本，而稳定的收入来自于 一个能获利的贸易机会或者一份稳定的工作
现在，我们开始谈到如何让非洲富裕起来 我们的下一个挑战将是 谁是社会上创造财富的代理人 是企业家，现实告诉我们他们一直 只占世界人口的4%，但是16%不是真正意义上的企业家 但他们同样可以胜任企业家这个工作 所以，我们应该把钱用在什么地方？ 我们需要把钱用在可以创造财富的地方 支持在非洲的私人投资，不管是国内的还是国外的 支持科研机构 因为知识是创造财富不可或缺的一部分
但是那些国际援助组织现在在非洲做些什么呢？ 他们把大把的钞票花在了基础医疗上 基础教育上和粮食救济上 整个非洲大陆已经变成了 一个绝望和坐等慈善的地方 女士们先生们，你们谁能告诉我 你的邻居、朋友和亲人 哪一个人是通过接受善款致富的 是通过抱着讨饭碗接受别人的施舍而致富的 你们谁听说过有这样的例子 你们谁听说过一个国家是通过 他国的善良和慷慨而发展起来的？ 那好，既然我没有看到有人举手 那说明我说的是事实
Bono：对
Andrew Mwenda：我听到Bono说他知道有这样的国家 哪个国家？
Bono：这是个爱尔兰名字
（笑声）
非常感谢，还是让我来告诉你们吧 外人只能给你一个机会 能否抓住这个机会，且把它变成一个优势 取决于你的个人能力 非洲曾有过很多机会 但其中的大部分我们没有从中获益良多 为什么？因为我们缺少相应的体制框架 和政策框架来帮助我们 从我们的对外关系中获利。我可以给你们一个例子
根据科托努协定 其前身是洛美协定 欧洲曾给过非洲一个很好的机会 可免关税出口货物到欧盟市场 我的祖国，乌干达，得到个机会可以出口5万吨 蔗糖到欧盟市场 我们连一公斤都没有出口 我们反而从巴西和古巴进口了5万吨的蔗糖 第二，按照这个协定书上的牛肉协定 非洲产牛肉的国家 可以有一定的配额免关税出口牛肉到欧盟市场 没有任何一个国家，包括非洲最成功的国家博茨瓦纳在内 用完了这些配额
所以我想说的是，非洲从根本上 没有能力和其他国家 建立一种高效的合作关系 是因为它没有好的体制和政策框架 各种形式的变革都需要支持 发展能创造财富的机构 和能提高生产效率的机构 我们应该怎么做呢？为什么援助不是一件好事呢？ 你们知道为什么援助不是一件好事吗？ 因为所有政府都需要钱去维持 想维持法律公正和社会秩序需要钱 建立军队和警察去维护法律和秩序也需要钱 同时因为大多数的政府都比较独裁 他们真正需要的是用军队去镇压反对派 接着各种政治活动也需要花钱 为什么人们应该去支持他们的政府？ 那是因为政府能给他们一份好工作 在很多非洲国家，暗地里 可以通过腐败获利
事实是，世界上没有一个政府 除了少数像伊迪阿明那样的以外 可以选择完全用武力来进行统治 世界上的很多国家需要让他们的统治合法化 为此，政府们一般需要提供基础教育 基础医疗、道路、修建医院和诊所 一个政府的财务状况如何 取决于它是否能从人民那里获得更多的钱 这样的被利益驱动的政府 以一种更加开明的方式进行统治 它会和那些能创造财富的人坐下来 和他们讨论什么样的政策和体制 是他们继续扩大生意必须的 这样它就能从他们那里获得更多的税收收入 非洲的问题 由援助引起的问题是 它扭曲了自我激励体系 非洲各国都要面对这个问题 我们政府财政收入的主要来源 并不是来自于国内经济 而是来自于国际援助
与其和乌干达的……
（掌声）
与其和乌干达的企业家坐下来谈 和加纳的商人，南非的企业领袖谈 我们的政府发现倒不如 和世界货币基金组织和世界银行谈来的合算 我想说，就算你有10个博士学位 你也不可能比比尔盖茨更了解计算机行业 为什么？因为你需要去懂得的那些知识 扩大生意需要的原动力 都需要你去倾听那些在这个行业中的人和机构怎么说的
非洲的各政府因此从国际上得到了一个机会 以避免去和自己的国民 建立一个有成效的协议 因此允许开始和国际货币基金组织的无休止的谈判 还有世界银行，然后国际货币基金组织和世界银行 告诉各政府他们的国民需要什么？ 在这整个过程中，非洲人民完全被忽略掉了 从我们国家的政策的制定、政策的取向一直到 政策的执行过程中被忽略掉了 我们必须限制投入，因为发号施令的是花了钱的人 国际货币基金组织、世界银行和全世界的好心人 已经剥夺了我们作为公民的权利 因为政府依赖于援助，因此他们正在做的是 去听从那些国际债权人而不是他们的国民
但是我想补充说明一点 援助并不都是破坏性的 一些援助用来建立医院，救济饥饿的村民 修建了道路，那道路 或许已经发挥了很好的作用 国际援助的错误是 看中那些孤立的成功例子 进行推广，再投成千上万的钱进去 然后把它们传播到世界各地 忽略了被援助的每一个村庄的情况都是不同的 技能、实践、规范和习惯 才是让援助计划成功的关键 就像Jeffrey Sachs工作的那个肯尼亚的绍里村 推广这样的经验 让它变成每个人都能用的经验
援助增加了政府的可用资源 让在政府工作成为最有利可图的事情 特别是对于一个正在找工作的非洲人来说 由于国家的政治吸引力的增加 特别是非洲这样一个种族分散的社会 援助往往加剧了种族关系紧张 每个种族都看是争先恐后的加入那些国家 就为了获得外国援助 女士们先生们，非洲最有事业心的人 也不能发现进行私营贸易和工作的机会 因为体制和政策环境都是反对做生意的 政府不去改变这些，这是为什么？ 因为他们不需要去和他们的国民谈 他们只和国际捐助人谈 所以有事业心的非洲人最终只得为政府工作 而这已经增加了我们国家的政治紧张 正式因为我们依赖于援助
我想说在过去的50年里 非洲收到的来自国际上的越来越多的援助 对我们确实非常重要 包括技术援助，经济援助 及其他各种援助 在1960到2003年间，非洲收到了6千亿美元的援助 我们还是被告知非洲仍然贫困 这些援助都去哪里了？
我想用我自己的国家——乌干达，来作为一个例子 来看收到的援助是怎么花掉的 在2006到2007年的财政预算里，预期收益是2.5兆先令 预期外国援助1.9兆先令 乌干达的日常开支，日常开支的意思是 只用来糊口，需要2.6兆先令 为什么乌干达政府预算花掉它的110%的 自己的收入 因为有国际援助在帮忙 但是这里你看到的乌干达政府 没有打算用自己的收入 去做有益的投资 而是用这笔钱 去作为公共机构的支出 公共行政，是大头，用了6900亿 军事，3800亿 18%的非常贫困的国民从事的农业 却只花了180亿 贸易与工业花了430亿 然我来告诉你什么是公共支出 在乌干达倒不如说是公共财政支出 我们来看，70个内阁成员，114个总统顾问 顺便说一下，除了在电视上，谁也没有见过总统
（笑声）
（掌声）
当你真的看到他了，那一定是在这样的公共场合 即便如此，那也是他们建议的
（笑声）
我们的地方政府有81个部门 每一个地方政府的组织结构都和中央政府一样 一个行政系统，一个内阁，一个国会 政府部门提供了这么多的工作岗位 原来有56个行政区，当我们的总统想要去 修改宪法除去他任期限制的时候 他又增加了25个行政区，现在有81个了 333个国会议员 你需要一个“温布利体育场”来看我们的国会 134个委员会 和半自治的政府机关 所有的这些机构都需要负责人和汽车，最后 让我们转向Bono先生，他最近的工作或许能帮助我们
一个最近的对于乌干达政府的研究显示 有3000辆汽车 在卫生部总部被使用 乌干达有961个县，每个县都有一个医务室 他们中没有一个有救护车 那些在总部的汽车 用来载部长、秘书、官僚 和做援助项目的国际援助官僚 而穷人因为没有救护车和医药而死去
最后，我想说在我来这里演讲之前 我被告知了TEDGlobal的原则 那就是，一个优秀的演讲应该像迷你裙 它必须短到能充分激起大家的兴趣 长到能遮住应该被遮的地方 我希望我做到了
（笑声）
非常感谢
（掌声）


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Andrew Mwenda takes a new look at Africa
I am very, very happy to be amidst some of the most -- the lights are really disturbing my eyes and they're reflecting on my glasses. I am very happy and honored to be amidst very, very innovative and intelligent people. I have listened to the three previous speakers, and guess what happened? Every single thing I planned to say, they have said it here, and it looks and sounds like I have nothing else to say.

(Laughter)

But there is a saying in my culture that if a bud leaves a tree without saying something, that bud is a young one. So I will -- since I am not young and am very old -- I still will say something.

We are hosting this conference at a very opportune moment because another conference is taking place in Berlin. It is the G8 Summit. The G8 Summit proposes that the solution to Africa's problems should be a massive increase in aid, something akin to the Marshall Plan. Unfortunately, I personally do not believe in the Marshall Plan. One, because the benefits of the Marshall Plan have been overstated. Its largest recipients were Germany and France, and it was only 2.5 percent of their GDP. An average African country receives foreign aid to the tune of 13, 15 percent of its GDP, and that is an unprecedented transfer of financial resources from rich countries to poor countries.

But I want to say that there are two things we need to connect. How the media covers Africa in the West, and the consequences of that. By displaying despair, helplessness and hopelessness, the media is telling the truth about Africa, and nothing but the truth. However, the media is not telling us the whole truth. Because despair, civil war, hunger and famine, although they're part and parcel of our African reality, they are not the only reality. And secondly, they are the smallest reality.

Africa has 53 nations. We have civil wars only in six countries, which means that the media are covering only six countries. Africa has immense opportunities that never navigate through the web of despair and helplessness that the Western media largely presents to its audience. But the effect of that presentation is it appeals to sympathy. It appeals to pity; it appeals to something called charity. And, as a consequence, the Western view of Africa's economic dilemma is framed wrongly. The wrong framing is a product of thinking that Africa is a place of despair. What should we do with it? We should give food to the hungry. We should deliver medicines to those who are ill. We should send peacekeeping troops to serve those who are facing a civil war. And in the process Africa has been stripped of self-initiative.

I want to say that it is important to recognize that Africa has fundamental weaknesses. But equally, it has opportunities and a lot of potential. We need to reframe the challenge that is facing Africa from a challenge of despair, despair which is called poverty reduction, to a challenge of hope. We frame it as a challenge of hope, and that is worth creation. The challenge facing all those who are interested in Africa is not the challenge of reducing poverty. It should be a challenge of creating wealth.

Once we change those two things -- if you say the Africans are poor and they need poverty reduction, you have the international cartel of good intentions moving onto the continent, with what? Medicines for the poor, food relief for those who are hungry, and peacekeepers for those who are facing civil war. And in the process none of these things really are productive because you are treating the symptoms, not the causes of Africa's fundamental problems. Sending somebody to school and giving them medicines, ladies and gentlemen, does not create wealth for them. Wealth is a function of income, and income comes from you finding a profitable trading opportunity or a well-paying job.

Now, once we begin to talk about wealth creation in Africa, our second challenge will be, who are the wealth-creating agents in any society? They are entrepreneurs. [Unclear] told us they are always about four percent of the population, but 16 percent are imitators. But they also succeed at the job of entrepreneurship. So where should we be putting the money? We need to put money where it can productively grow. Support private investment in Africa, both domestic and foreign. Support research institutions, because knowledge is an important part of wealth creation.

But what is the international aid community doing with Africa today? They are throwing large sums of money for primary health, for primary education, for food relief. The entire continent has been turned into a place of despair, in need of charity. Ladies and gentlemen, can any one of you tell me a neighbor, a friend, a relative that you know, who became rich by receiving charity? By holding the begging bowl and receiving alms? Does any one of you in the audience have that person? Does any one of you know a country that developed because of the generosity and kindness of another? Well, since I'm not seeing the hand, it appears that what I'm stating is true.

Bono: Yes!

Andrew Mwenda: I can see Bono says he knows the country. Which country is that?

Bono: It's Ireland.

(Laughter)

Bono: [unclear]

Thank you very much. But let me tell you this. External actors can only present to you an opportunity. The ability to utilize that opportunity and turn it into an advantage depends on your internal capacity. Africa has received many opportunities, many of them we haven't benefited much. Why? Because we lack the internal institutional framework and policy framework that can make it possible for us to benefit from our external relations. I'll give you an example.

Under the Cotonou Agreement, formerly known as the Lome Convention, African countries have been given an opportunity by Europe to export goods, duty-free, to the European Union market. My own country, Uganda, has a quota to export 50,000 metric tons of sugar to the European Union market. We haven't exported one kilogram yet. We import 50,000 metric tons of sugar from Brazil and Cuba. Secondly, under the beef protocol of that agreement, African countries that produce beef have quotas to export beef, duty-free, to the European Union market. None of those countries, including Africa's most successful nation, Botswana, has ever met its quota.

So I want to argue today that the fundamental source of Africa's inability to engage the rest of the world in a more productive relationship is because it has a poor institutional and policy framework. And all forms of intervention need support, the evolution of the kinds of institutions that create wealth, the kinds of institutions that increase productivity. How do we begin to do that and why is aid the bad instrument? Aid is the bad instrument, and do you know why? Because all governments across the world need money to survive. Money is needed for a simple thing like keeping law and order. You have to pay the army and the police to show law and order. And because many of our governments are quite dictatorial, they need really to have the army clobber the opposition. The second thing you need to do is pay your political hangers-on. Why should people support their government? Well, because it gives them good paying jobs. Or, in many African countries, unofficial opportunities to profit from corruption.

The fact is, no government in the world, with the exception of a few like that of Idi Amin, can seek to depend entirely on force as an instrument of rule. Many countries in the [unclear], they need legitimacy. To get legitimacy, governments often need to deliver things like primary education, primary health, roads, build hospitals and clinics. If the government's fiscal survival depends on it having to raise money from its own people, such a government is driven by self-interest to govern in a more enlightened fashion. It will sit with those who create wealth. Talk to them about the kind of policies and institutions that are necessary for them to expand a scale and scope of business so that it can collect more tax revenues from them. The problem with the African continent and the problem with the aid industry is that it has distorted the structure of incentives facing the governments in Africa. The productive margin in our government's search for revenue does not lie in the domestic economy, it lies with international donors.

Rather than sit with Ugandan --

(Applause)

Rather than sit with Ugandan entrepreneurs, Ghanaian businessmen, South African enterprising leaders, our governments find it more productive to talk to the IMF and the World Bank. I can tell you, even if you have ten Ph.D.s, you can never beat Bill Gates in understanding computer industry. Why? Because the knowledge that is required for you to understand the incentives necessary to expand a business, it requires that you listen to the people, the private sector actors in that industry.

Governments in Africa have therefore been given an opportunity by the international community to avoid building productive arrangements with your own citizens, and therefore allowed to begin endless negotiations with the IMF and the World Bank, and then it is the IMF and the World Bank that tell them what its citizens need. In the process we, the African people, have been sidelined from the policy-making, policy-orientation, and policy implementation process in our countries. We have limited input, because he who pays the piper calls the tune. The IMF, the World Bank, and the cartel of good intentions in the world has taken over our rights as citizens, and therefore what our governments are doing, because they depend on aid, is to listen to international creditors rather than their own citizens.

But I want to put a caveat on my argument, and that caveat is that it is not true that aid is always destructive. Some aid may have built a hospital, fed a hungry village. It may have built a road, and that road may have served a very good role. The mistake of the international aid industry is to pick these isolated incidents of success, generalize them, pour billions and trillions of dollars into them, and then spread them across the whole world, ignoring the specific and unique circumstances in a given village, the skills, the practices, the norms and habits that allowed that small aid project to succeed -- like in Sauri village in Kenya where Jeffrey Sachs is working -- and therefore generalize this experience as the experience of everybody.

Aid increases the resources available to governments, and that makes working in a government the most profitable thing you can have as a person in Africa seeking a career. By increasing the political attractiveness of the state, especially in our ethnically fragmented societies in Africa, aid tends to accentuate ethnic tensions as every single ethnic group now begins struggling to enter the state in order to get access to the foreign aid pie. Ladies and gentlemen, the most enterprising people in Africa cannot find opportunities to trade and work in the private sector because the institutional and policy environment is hostile to business. Governments are not changing it. Why? Because they don't need to talk to their own citizens. They talk to international donors. So the most enterprising Africans end up going to work for government, and that has increased the political tensions in our countries precisely because we depend on aid.

I also want to say that it is important for us to note that over the last 50 years Africa has been receiving increasing aid from the international community in the form of technical assistance, and financial aid, and all other forms of aid. Between 1960 and 2003 our continent received 600 billion dollars of aid, and we are still told that there is a lot of poverty in Africa. Where has all the aid gone?

I want to use the example of my own country called Uganda and the kind of structure of incentives that aid has brought there. In the 2006-2007 budget, expected revenue 2.5 trillion shillings. The expected foreign aid: 1.9 trillion. Uganda's recurrent expenditure -- by recurrent what do I mean? Hand-to-mouth -- is 2.6 trillion. Why does the government of Uganda budget spend 110 percent of its own revenue? It's because there's somebody there called foreign aid who contributes for it. But this shows you that the government of Uganda is not committed to spending its own revenue to invest in productive investments, but rather it devotes this revenue to paying structure of public expenditure. Public administration, which is largely patronage, takes 690 billion. The military, 380 billion. Agriculture, which employs 18 percent of our poverty-stricken citizens, takes only 18 billion. Trade and industry takes 43 billion. And let me show you what does public expenditure -- rather, public administration expenditure -- in Uganda constitute? There you go. 70 cabinet ministers, 114 presidential advisers -- by the way, who never see the president, except on television.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

And when they see him physically, it is at public functions like this, and even there, it is him who advises them.

(Laughter)

We have 81 units of local government; each local government is organized like the central government -- a bureaucracy, a cabinet, a parliament, and so many jobs for the political hangers-on. There were 56, and when our president wanted to amend the constitution and remove term limits, he had to create 25 new districts, and now there are 81. 333 members of parliament. You need Wembley Stadium to host our parliament. 134 commissions and semi-autonomous government bodies, all of which have directors and the cars and -- and the final thing, this is addressed to Mr. Bono. In his work he may help us on this.

A recent government of Uganda study found that there are 3,000 four-wheel drive motor vehicles at the Minister of Health headquarters. Uganda has 961 subcounties, each of them with a dispensary, none of which has an ambulance. So the four-wheel drive vehicles at the headquarters drive the ministers, the permanent secretaries, the bureaucrats and the international aid bureaucrats who work in aid projects while the poor die without ambulances and medicine.

Finally, I want to say that before I came to speak here, I was told that the principle of TEDGlobal is that the good speech should be like a miniskirt -- it should be short enough to arouse interest, but long enough to cover the subject. I hope I have achieved that.

(Laughter)

Thank you very much.

(Applause)