Two Lane Highway to Africa!

Wars fought over minerals that have their markets in the first world, children press ganged into killing machines, civil wars brought on by mad, corrupt dictators and developed into lost cause conflicts that can no longer be explained. Disease, drought, hunger and strife…

The most incredible scenery. Landscapes ranging from Mediterranean coastal strips through desert into sahel, savannah, rain forests on volcanic slopes to riparian paradise; flora and fauna in vast quantities building a rainbow of amazingly interesting diversity. Weather to fear, weather to pray for and to enjoy and, above all, Africa has one major asset – its people!

Two ways of looking at Africa, which seem to be the two poles that lurk in peoples’ minds – either you love it, or you hate it.

There is just one question to ask those with the negative opinion, “Have you ever been there? (and I don’t mean just staying at a hotel on the beach)”. My guess is that the majority of those people would answer “No”.

I also believe that the vast majority of those that have been there, and have ventured out of the tourist enclave, would belong to those that in spite of a high awareness of this article’s first paragraph share the sentiment of the second.

Be that as it may in my opinion the good people of Africa need help and, just like the dichotic first two paragraphs I believe that this help should come in two ways – the two lane highway to a healthier and self sustainable Africa…..

Let’s take the first path; this is the way of the modern world, the fast lane. Currently Africa (itself) has no means to compete with global competitors. Of course, world wide corporations do have their foothold in certain parts of Africa and do offer a small number of jobs to the lucky few, and they may do some other good, at least certain individuals, but the companies are there to earn profit for headquarters and not to perform great deeds for the majority. Yet Africa needs the chance to become a part of the modern world, to establish itself in trade and commerce and to speak for itself. This route is hard and strewn with obstacles, not to mention the greed of some governments and individuals.

With tongue in cheek I could propose that the large globals look at the actual profit they are pulling out of the most part of Africa and realise that it is not this market that is buttering their bread, it is an extreme limited growth because ninety per cent of African people cannot afford their products. So why not write-off their markets there and use the afro establishments to build infrastructures in Africa – networks, schools, colleges etc. Enabling commerce and allowing room for commercial growth room the continent.

I am not suggesting that we let it run loose, uncontrolled, in a cancerous way, such as ploughing up the savannahs to build motorways or using Africa as an architects Kindergarten. This type of progress must be carefully planned and controlled in the same way that you expect your local council and regional government to prevent someone building a chemical factory on your doorstep. A governing body, similar to UNESCO, staffed by lovers of Africa all of whom have a heart for conservation, self sustaining renewable energy driven communities and, above all, a desire to retain as much of the African cultural diversity as possible, should monitor and control this progress.

Perhaps it is too much to expect that global corporations would think this way and that even a UNESCO type organisation tasked with the building of this road could cope, so let us look at a similar but less mammoth automobile that could take us up this fast lane.

All nations of this world have some kind of NGO presence. Non Governmental Organisations which perform enormous and beneficial tasks for their country of residence. Such organisations are all over Africa helping the sick, the poor, all sorts of victim communities and they do a lot of positive work in areas of conservation and culture preservation. Some countries even have an NGO that serves to co-ordinate all of their NGOs and perform similar controlling tasks to the proposed UNESCO type of organisation mentioned above. Perhaps there is already an NGO above all of those to perform the same tasks on a continental scale. If it doesn’t exist then it should do.

A number of world wide and African NGOs have, already, made fantastic progress in various areas. In wildlife conservation, for example, the WWF works continuously with organisations such as SANPARKS, the Peace Parks Foundation and others on amazing projects such as trans-frontier conservation areas (TFCAs) allowing animals to migrate freely, maintaining the migration corridors across international borders and allowing them to pass through ever increasing human communities without stress to either human or animal.

Africa needs this conservation because wildlife, landscape and culture are all reusable assets. You don’t have to dig them up, you don’t have to destroy anything to see them, they are just there, and they provide a wealth of interest for first world customers to come and see (and pay for).

And what do you know? We have just moved over to the slow lane, the second of this two track highway. In the fast lane we would have non African governments and major corporations working in collaboration with the continental and national NGO-Controllers (and not with some African governments) to help Africa grow its own technology and commercial footprint. And, in the slow lane, we have the smaller philanthropists and international NGOs working on keeping Africa’s golden, natural assets healthy and seen to be needed as the financial assets that they are…

The second lane must never be trampled in a massive pile-up from some reckless driver in the fast lane, loosing Africa’s natural beauty in the process. This path must have equal priority. Africa must develop in terms of technology, industry (very carefully) and commerce but, at the same time we must continue to preserve and conserve its multiple cultures, its amazing scenic beauty and its flora and fauna.

I am not, as such, a typical conservationist but I see the urgency and importance of their tasks and I believe that most conservationists see the same in the tasks that I wish to attempt. They conserve nature, in all forms, although it does usually seem, on the surface, to be animals, trees, and habitats that take priority. But most conservation projects these days require the support of local people, which give those communities their own benefits. You cannot conserve lions without talking to lion hunting cultures and convincing them to conserve instead of kill and you cannot convince them without helping them – it works both ways.

I also see from the small benefits, like those which my humble tourism business in Tanzania attempts to provide, that concentrating on helping rural African people also brings benefits to the cause of natural conservation. As soon as my brand new safari lodge in Manyara has paid its debts and becomes profitable we intend to provide up to fifty thousand US dollars per annum to a single aid project in rural Tanzania. A predefined and guaranteed budget, as it is granted just before closing our financial books for the year, can be deployed to implement one specific project that is possible with that budget. The following year: another budget and another project! Just one example will illustrate how helping people also helps to conserve nature…

In some ways we can thank the stars that Africa does not have huge power stations all over burning up resources, polluting the land and searching for nuclear waste dumping grounds. And, in addition, it is in the ideal spot to take full advantage of re-usable energies such as solar and, on a small, local scale wind power. In some places they have used water power but, in my opinion, that is not always reusable energy – firstly it drowns valleys, their flora and much fauna, and dries up the lands below, silts up the dams and provide only a slightly better ratio of energy verses destruction than the resource burning power station polluters.

But, back to the example, most projects of ours will result in some kind of construction work to build workshops for micro-industries or schools, clinics etc. With 50,000$ per annum we are not erecting huge buildings so our small architectures can easily be built to melt into the scenery and local village traditional shapes and colours, even materials. No matter what purpose our constructions provide (school or workshop etc.) they will need power, sanitation and water, and we will use the same kind of technologies that we have deployed in the building of our self sustaining safari lodge.

Inexpensive solar installations, one per building or even per group of close buildings, can provide a simple to install and safe twelve volt lighting system – enough to prevent school children having to read in dimly lit huts.

To power a workshop in which articles, from baskets to chairs, hats and garments, can be manufactured you would need to add a wind turbine and a further bank of batteries from which inverters could produce enough 240 Volts to power the equipment. Alternately a more expensive solar system could achieve that if the wind was not reliable.

Dry, compost toilets in which urine is automatically separated from the faeces and sent to some kind of natural “grey water” filtration pit and from which the faeces are emptied regularly and stored in remote compost containers until suitable for ground dispersion or burning, are a huge improvement to open, gravity pit toilets. Twelve volt ventilators send odours out of the toilet chamber, through a chimney like pipe which goes through the wall and up over the roof, expelling and diluting them into the atmosphere. As the toilets are dry we save a good ten litres of water per excursion and have no need to build sewage drainage systems.

This brings us on to the final facet of building micro industries using reusable energies: water. In remote villages that reside in areas that have massive rainfalls at certain times and drought for the rest of the year can harvest their rainwater in specially constructed plastic water tanks and with a minimum of filtration devices can even produce potable water throughout the year!

Hopefully you now see my hopes for the development of Africa along the slow lane. Private and smaller businesses can contribute a lot to developing the rural areas, preventing the mass migration of youngsters to the cities by providing improved education, micro-industry and a small infrastructure of pharmacies and clinics. From all of these opportunities come others and so the local communities grow in self sustainability.

But the fast lane must develop too, and must be carefully controlled. It should not be driven by entrepreneurs but by philanthropic businessmen and conservational NGOs. Let us allow Africa to grow, slowly but surely, and to become a continent with a voice, a better reputation, and the one that shows the most respect towards nature. That is a prize that has not yet been won. Africa could be the first continent to develop towards the ideals of the first world but in a way that is kind to nature including its gentle, humble and kind folks. Let’s help Africa and help it to remain Africa!