In the book
Making Africa Work, authors Greg Mills, Jeffrey Herbst, Olusegun Obasanjo and Dickie Davis recall the story of former Zambian president Guy Scott who was minister of agriculture in 1991. Upon assuming office, he called for reports on how to improve agricultural sector performance in the country and received a mountain of papers, yet very little of what had been recommended, he recalled, had happened. Planning but no delivery.
It is common knowledge that African countries face the challenge of a lack of financial resources (debatable, yes), a poorly capacitated civil service to deliver, and most importantly a lack of political will to set priorities and make the necessary tough choices to achieve them. These have made delivery of plans necessary for growth and development challenging. Arguably, it is difficult for a government to deliver meaningful change over a single term in office. Nevertheless, often politicians can be blamed for indulging short-term political intere
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“Water is life,” Sulley Gariba often said. Growing up in the dusty regional town of Tamale in Ghana’s impoverished north at the parched edge of The Sahel, he was acutely aware early on of the centrality of clean water to the wellbeing of his fellow citizens.
He also understood that deep-seated asymmetries of power and knowledge prevented universal access to all affordable basic services including education, food security and the rule of law and a better life for all.
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Try refreshing your browser, or Jackson: Ghanaian diplomat Sulley Gariba, who worked to level inequalities, called Canada his second home Back to video