The Challenge for Africa

*** The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai - Well, this was a stark contrast to Dead Aid. This one is definitely written by someone who has spent her life living in Africa and surrounded by poverty. However, the book is much lighter on statistics and economics, which is a fairly essential piece in the challenge for Africa. Maathai's experience is also amazing, having led an organization that planted 30 million tree seedlings in Kenya.

She does an outstanding job of identifying some of the problems on the continent, however, her superficial treatment of economics means that some issues are either glazed over or completely missed. And in general, when she's analyzing the cause of a problem, it always comes back to colonialism. I would have taken this viewpoint a bit more seriously were it not coming from a Kikuyu (the most populous tribe, or micro-nation, to use Wangari Maathai's language, in Kenya). The Kikuyus have supplied two of the three Kenyan presidents post-independence. While the Kikuyus had a rough time during the colonial era, most scholars would argue that at least some of the present problems in Kenya could be traced to the Kikuyu tribe (imagine Napoleon blaming his defeat at Waterloo on Robespierre--well, that might be a bit extreme, but there is at least a parallel). Her habit of tracing everything to the colonial powers rings a tad hollow (she does at times acknowledge that some members of her tribe have made some poor leadership decisions, but even that is the fault of the colonial system). I don't want to belittle the wrongs of the colonial era, since they were egregious and those mistakes have left a tragic legacy, but there were plenty of post-independence mistakes which have led to modern problems.

She also makes pretty outlandish claims at times. One of the ones that irked me was her claim that it is easier to define Indian culture than Kenyan culture. Although both countries are made up of lots of different peoples with different histories, languages and cultures, I would say that the broad spectrum is a bit wider in India. (The bulk of her examples come from Kenya, which is handy, since I have plenty of counter-examples from there).

My conclusion at the end of the book was that Wangari Maathai would be a lot happier if she moved to Tanzania. Some of her top priorities are environmental stewardship and preservation of culture, which Tanzania outscores Kenya on by most measures. Most of the books that focus on economics rank Kenya higher than Tanzania based on statistics, but it always stuck with me how the subtitle of Schumacher's book identified the shortcomings of basing everything on the numbers ("economics as if people mattered"*). It's a stretch say that the book is a treatment of economics, but it is clear that she's studying development as if people mattered.

The book isn't the easiest read, but I wouldn't discourage people from reading it. I wouldn't go so far as to stamp it with a recommendation. I'm mostly hoping that I'll find a more agreeable book that studies development as if people mattered.

As a side note, the book jacket contained reviews of her memoir, Unbowed. Their snippet from The Economist says "Inspirational...Ms. Maathai will not be beaten down." The article in context says "Hers is not a well-written book, but it is inspirational. Ms Maathai will not be beaten down."

*This link takes you to Amazon.com, although I believe you can just search for Small is Beautiful pdf and download the book for free