"There is no reason any country has to remain poor. Countries are NOT poor because of climate, lack of natural resources or race. Countries as locationally varied as Singapore, Mauritius, Korea, Chile, Estonia and Cayman have become relatively rich over the past few decades." argues a news paper article. "Those countries that are still relatively poor are poor because they have not put in place the necessary institutions, political structures and policies."

Africa's Statistical Tragedy

Shanta’s keynote speech at the IARIW-SSA conference on “Africa’s Statistical Tragedy” is among my favorites. It addresses a critical issue in Africa’s development: Statistical Reporting. No doubt, ‘bad’ African governments have tactless political incentive to contrive Statistics. Affirmation of the phenomena of the ‘statistical tragedy’ by the renowned World Bank economist is worthy of attention. A bolt-from-the-blue revelation of figures on economic growth and poverty reduction without a corresponding transparent and independent validation would be no more than an empty holler. Shanta asserts that African governments have continuously been perverting Statistics for political reasons.

He discusses,“The underlying problem that connects all of the other proximate causes is politics. Political factors standing in the way of Africa’s development of statistics the same way it stands in way of broad based sustained growth…the reason why this is similar to the obstacles to broad based growth is because those obstacles are also political. All the proximate obstacles to difficulties for achieving broad based growth in Africa such as infrastructure deficit, weak skills, lack of productive employment, or low productivity in agriculture; they all have their roots in politics.

The implication of these contrived statistics is extensive. It is actually much more dangerous since it limits the significance of research and decision making, unless the international community, citizens and the civil society do not have the privilege as well as the capacity to authenticate government Statistics. As Shanta has suggested, transparency and clarity in the Statistical procedures is a big first step to this end. Still, this also depends on “the good will” of African governments.

Freedom and Development

In 2012, the Freedom House indicated that only 18% of African countries are considered free. Despite some progress in the 1980’s Africa’s progress towards a democratic and free society has been largely hampered. The most important problem remains lack of strong political will on the part of African governments to commit to progress and democratization. Several of these governments would try to convince you that democracy and freedom is not a priority, at least not for Africans. Others would tell you that they are having elections every four or five years and thus have become democratic states. Still, others assert dictatorship or as they call it “the developmental state” is proven to be much more successful in advancing economic growth and prosperity, often citing China as a case in point to justify their argument. Though archaic in its own right, the last argument also rests on the character of the government.

Unfortunately for these African dictators, almost all the developed countries of the world experienced a well-structured, sustained and often irrefutably spectacular progress in all aspects of society not using "the Chinese model". While the socio-economic and political repercussions of the Chinese model of development is yet to be revealed, it’s no justification to restrain free thinking and free expression, which by themselves are engines of creativity and positive dynamism in any society.