Abstract
This research paper explores innovative measures to tackle poverty, reduce under-development, and accelerate economic progress among vulnerable African communities. It reflects on the marginalization of Africa in global discussions, particularly concerning technological advancements like artificial intelligence, and emphasizes the urgent need for educational reform that integrates local dialects and practical knowledge to enhance comprehension among learners. The paper suggests using digital technology and social media to promote civic engagement among African youths, addressing systemic barriers like high internet costs and security threats, and creating inclusive educational curricula. It further discusses the need for reforming intellectual property laws to improve access to essential medicines in underserved African regions. It suggests strategies like relaxing patent laws, promoting compulsory licensing, and leveraging patent pools to reduce costs. It also emphasizes generic competition and tiered pricing, and the role of international organizations. Finally, the paper addresses the broader economic context, advocating for democratic participation in rural economic development through inclusive microfinance models that cater to local needs and promote financial literacy.
Key words: Climate resilience, Economic empowerment, Health care, Education, Digital transformation, Gender equality, Peace and security
Introduction
Towards the end of 2024, I was invited together with other youths from different parts of the world to attend the 16th annual Global Peter Drucker Society in Vienna, Austria. While the meeting progressed, I noticed the emphasis of the attendees was just on the USA and Europe with a little emphasis on Asia. Africa was totally left out of the discussion. This bothered me at first, but when I tried to share my burden with a fellow African youth who was an attendee, she said, “What you are saying is true, but with Africa already behind in almost all aspects of life, why would you want them to be factored into a discussion that centred upon artificial intelligence?” As I sat back to listen to debates among professors from top Western Universities on topics relating to artificial intelligence and artificial integrity, I was convinced that Africa as a continent was not yet ready to measure up to the pace of the Western world. This fuelled in me a resolve to use my research, creative writing, and critical thinking skills to leverage available platforms to contribute innovative ideas that will democratise systems in the continent to address the issues of poverty and inequality and stimulate sustainable development. I believe this essay will ignite the passion of the next generation of African youths who have been weakened by the failures of our fathers to arise from their slumber and push vigorously until Africa becomes a force to be reckoned with.
Education
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”-Nelson Mandela
As an African, I noticed during my school days that the emphasis placed upon theoretical knowledge devoid of practical knowledge makes many youths handicapped in the face of challenges. After graduating from the University, I embarked upon the National Youth Service Corps (a one-year scheme designed by the Nigerian Government to encourage Nigerians not above 30 years to serve the country in regions alien to them). As fate had it, I was posted to Katsina State in the Northern part of Nigeria where illiteracy was at its peak.
As a class teacher, I was saddled with the responsibility of teaching over 300 student’s Agricultural sciences and computer studies. One day after delivering a well-researched lesson using English as a medium for communication, my confused students complained about their inability to understand English. After making an effort to explain as much as I could further, a student confidently said “Mallam, explain Hausa” (translation for Please use the Hausa language to explain the lesson). I was flabbergasted at this point because the Hausa language was an alien language and an informal medium of communication in the education sector. Nevertheless, I employed the use of Google Translate to deliver my lessons through dramatization for the understanding of my students. The poor performance of my students prompted me to organize an English holiday lesson to equip students in my host community with communication, writing, and comprehension skills. I taught my students how to read, write letters, construct sentences, and name parts of the body. The principal in charge of the school where I tutored was very pleased with me and as a testament to my labour, some of my students like Abubakar occasionally call me to thank and appreciate my effort in teaching him English communication skills. Although learning English as an African is a plus, it’s high time we incorporate our local dialects into the education system. My experience during my service year proved to me that African learners grasp concepts better when they are communicated using local dialects and practical’s.
With the Western world already using technologies like artificial intelligence and self-directed learning to educate youths on global governance structures that encourage civic engagement in international policymaking, we don’t need to be left behind as Africans.
“Most of the courses we study in our schools need an update of the curriculum and scrapping of others. Of what use is learning typewriting in 2024 and making it a core course?” The above quote popped up on my Facebook news feed one fateful afternoon while I was trying to catch some updates. While I pondered upon the thought, it was clear to me that as Africans, we were using traditional implements to cultivate fields with the potential to yield exponential harvest proceeds.
If I am opportune to create programs to educate youths on global governance structures, I will create a practical-based educational curriculum that will offer content in multiple languages for a wide outreach to address Africa-specific issues and exemplify how they are being dealt with on the global stage.
In recent times, the level of ignorance about various subject matters is on the increase. The Perils of Perception study conducted by Ipsos MORI in 2017 revealed that a large number of people in some of the world’s richest nations are ignorant about important topics. Out of the 29,133 people around the world who were assessed, the majority were ignorant about happenings around them. If this is happening in the developed world, imagine what will happen if such a study is conducted in Africa. For the next generation of African youths to gain hands-on decision-making experience, mock clubs, workshops, and seminars that will bring experts from all walks of life to interact with youths shouldn’t be neglected. This could be augmented with the creation of online platforms where young disadvantaged Africans can have unhindered remote access to resources.
Despite the contributions of youths to national development, they are often neglected in the international decision-making process. African youths need to form youth policy forums, collaborate with civil organisations, and engage international organisations to project their perspectives.
“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. - Maya Angelou. Stakeholders, educationists, and creative writers tasked with the responsibility of creating literary works should endeavour to discuss matters related to global governance structures to arouse an army of youths properly equipped to engage in international policymaking.
According to GSMA real-time intelligence data, 5.27 billion people have a mobile device in the world. This means that about 67.03% of the world’s population has a mobile device. Statista also predicts that in a few years, the number of mobile device users will increase to 7.33 billion. Leveraging the use of digital technology can help in creating widespread policymaking awareness. This can be done using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Africa-based software engineers should also be encouraged to create applications like games and global governance encyclopaedias capable of informing youths about ethical civic engagement in international policymaking.
Furthermore, a recent study by the University of Arkansas in collaboration with the Manchester Business School in London found that consumers (ages 18-24) take on an active role in developing their identities and appearances based upon celebrities. Since celebrity endorsements resonate more strongly with Generation Z (ages 15-20) and millennial (ages 21-34) audiences, leveraging the use of global icons from the music, sports, and entertainment industries can help in stimulating interest among youths and widen the scope of youth civic participation.
Due to the high cost of education and the current economic downturn, many Africans will find it difficult to fund their education in the future. Many Nigerian leaders currently on stage for instance wouldn’t have acquired education without the free primary education of 1955. To this end, there is a need for African governments to make education free from the primary to tertiary level. This will guarantee upward social mobility and alleviate poverty.
Around the Lake Chad Basin, the negative activities of bandits, rustlers and Boko-haram (an Islamic sect that prohibits Western education) are already creating cultural educational apathy in the region. On the 7th of March 2024 for instance, gunmen attacked LEA primary and secondary school, Kuriga in Kaduna state and abducted about 137 learners. With these incidents becoming a norm across the continent, there is a need for the provision of adequate security for teachers and learners to guarantee their safety and restore the love for education. Traditional and religious leaders in vulnerable communities should be encouraged to implement policies that will make the education of the girl child compulsory.
Technology is advancing, but as African youths, we are just interested in using these technologies to engage in trivial issues. With many youths not equipped with the knowledge of digital literacy that’s capable of promoting civic engagement, we need to deliberately create programs like global engagement platforms, policy hackathons, E-governance parties, online training on international law and policy, and civic digital literacy sport festivals that will train youths on effective civic engagement.
According to a prediction by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), over 1.2 billion people are under threat of being displaced by 2050 due to natural disasters and climate change. How prepared is Africa’s current education system to accommodate displaced persons? To this end, I will incorporate mobile learning into Africa's educational system to give access to millions of migrants and refugees in need of quality education.
In many African communities, local youth groups are operational. Leveraging on already existing structures like this to create awareness campaigns on global governance and civic engagement is an effective way to create a bottom-top system that promotes local engagement.
Digital transformation
Analysis of trade agreements on digital inclusion
In 2020, the International Finance Corporation and Google estimated that Africa’s digital economy could reach $180 billion in 2025 and $712 billion by 2050. With one third of the world population and workers expected to be Africans, there's a need to bridge the gap through trade agreements that promote balanced technology transfer. This led to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, adopted in February 2024.
What then is the AfCFTA DTP agreement? It’s an ambitious and comprehensive framework designed to facilitate digital trade across Africa.
According to United Nations Trade and Development reports, only 33 out of 54 Africa countries have data protection laws while 10 have no data protection regulations. It goes further to state that while 39 have cybersecurity laws, 12 do not. This was concluded with an affirmation that while 28 African countries have consumer protection laws that apply to online transactions, 15 have none. As startling as this report is, AfCFTA DTPs protocol emphasizes on establishing regulatory frameworks that builds trust in digital transactions to speed up technology transfer.
Innovative features of the AfCFTA DTP agreement like extensive provisions on digital inclusions is further helping to bridge the digital divide.
Before the AfCFTA DTP trade agreement, several countries already had existing laws. With the interplay of law variations, harmonizing digital regulations among member’s states with varying levels of developments and regulatory frameworks makes it difficult for digital uniformity.
Due to the relatively low capacity of some African nations and inability to extensively add clauses that support skill developments and capacity building that enables parties to reap the benefits of technology transfer, some are already growing cold towards trade agreements.
After the United States, the major supporter of free data flow withdrew its positions in the World Trade Organizations e-commerce multi-lateral negotiating context, criticisms have been levelled against Africa’s DTA because it risks allowing foreign big tech companies to dominate the African market thereby, frustrating the transfer of technology with the capacity to grow our digital economy.
Proposals that will stimulate balanced policies for technology transfer to African nations:
Experience has shown that many trade agreements short-change the interest of vulnerable African communities, making it difficult to actualize digital inclusion. To propose balanced policies, multi-nationals need to support local tech hubs through investment in the training of the work force who can create technologies tailored to meet African needs.
Over the years, technology transfer has been a one-way process that focused on just the importation of finished products. I have even heard of situations where imported technology that cost millions in investment was abandoned when it developed a fault over the inability of local engineers to repair it. With the technology divide widening, African countries need to adopt a two way process that will facilitate sustainable technological transfer. Under this arrangement, Africans will import technology and be trained on how to operate and maintain them themselves.
The non-flexibility of intellectual property laws in many trade agreements limits innovation across the continent. Frameworks that will enable local entrepreneurs to import foreign technologies to their vulnerable communities without facing the brouhaha of exorbitant licensing fees needs to be augmented with joint technological agreements to facilitate local innovation penetration.
One issue that is generating global debate is the need for data privacy. Many trade agreements in Africa violate the safeguarding of the vital African data. This makes us vulnerable in the international cyber space. Instead of releasing our data cheaply to outsiders and relying on them to keep them safe, African nations need to implement robust data protection regulations that will finance the building of data storage facilities with the capacity to protect the privacy and rights of Africans.
Furthermore, due to the increasing cost of data across the continent, many people are finding it difficult to engage in digital trade. Trade agreements henceforth need to factor in the negotiation of lower tariffs on technology imports and make regulations friendly to remove barriers to digital trade.
When you pay a visit to a vulnerable community in Africa, you will see people climbing trees and mountains in search of a mobile network signal to communicate with other Africans. This has been going on for decades despite the array of already signed trade agreements. To address the issue of connectivity gap, African governments need to establish public-private trade agreements and partnerships that will help in funding digital infrastructure in underserved regions.
Climate resilience
Policy frameworks to ensure equitable access to climate adaptation technologies for vulnerable African nations:
As I move from one rural area to another, one thing that always strikes me is the biting effects of climate change on these vulnerable people. Despite the innovations in the development of climate adaptation technologies, failure to consider the limited financial resources, weak infrastructure, and dependence on climate-sensitive sectors in vulnerable African communities has made it difficult to ensure equitable access to technology. How can these issues be addressed?
Before developing a sustainable policy framework, we need to collect data and map out the continent to understand the vulnerabilities and needs of every community. Since many of the communities already have local knowledge on how to adapt to climate changes, we can slowly integrate this indigenous knowledge with foreign climate adaptation technologies for easy adoption.
Through my experience during extension fieldwork in rural communities, I notice that vulnerable groups like women, youths, and disabled populations are not usually engaged during decision-making processes. This failure makes it impossible for the rights of vulnerable people to be captured during the introduction of climate adaptation technology.
Due to limited collaboration, many communities find it difficult to afford climate adaptation technologies. With communities across the continent facing similar challenges like poor water management, drought, and lack of access to clean renewable energy, regional organisations like the African Union and ECOWAS can be leveraged to promote cross-border collaboration between communities facing similar challenges.
Access to finance is another issue that has continued to hamper equitable access to climate adaptation across Africa. Communities need to be assisted to create local capacity-building programs that will stimulate climate adaptation technology financing. This should be followed with the introduction of incentives like tax holidays and public-private partnerships that will encourage investment from the private sector.
Poor policy and regulatory bureaucracy have continued to hamper equitable access to technologies. Intellectual property rights and tax laws, instead of helping the continent, make the environment unconducive to technology adoption. African governments need to establish innovative hubs that will provide support for research, make legal frameworks friendly, and scale up indigenous climate adaptation technologies production to create equity.
When you visit some communities across the continent, you will notice that they possess smart technologies that assist them to adapt to climate change. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge sharing among vulnerable communities makes many to continue suffering in ignorance. Policy frameworks that will encourage the training of indigenous Africans to transfer adaptation technology knowledge to other communities facing similar challenges are a necessity.
In the past, negligence to incorporate monitoring, evaluation, and accountability into policy frameworks has made many programs fail. As a new generation of Africans, we need to set up smart, independent monitoring teams that will ensure equitable access to technology among the vulnerable. These teams will also offer feedback to authorities to address pockets of limitations.
Although we are clamouring for African-based solutions, we need to remember that leveraging international cooperation can help in pushing for more support for adaptation technologies in vulnerable communities.
Finally, lack of awareness about climate adaptation technologies widens the divide, making it impossible for equitable access in local communities. Local dialects need to be adopted to create advertisements capable of stimulating increased demand among Africans for climate technologies.
Peace and security
“Africa has one of the largest stateless populations in the world, but the government only recently started recognising it as a serious problem.” - Ineke Mules
Forced migration refers to the involuntary or coerced movement of people from their homes or regions due to factors like persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, or natural disasters.
A stateless person, according to the UN's 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, refers to someone who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law. Although the exact number of stateless people is unknown, the UNHCR estimates that there are approximately 12 million stateless people, with over 715,000 in Africa alone.
Gleanings from Saharawi:
“I am Saharawi, and I want to live in my free land,” sang Mariem Haison, back in 2012 in her album Al Aaiun on Fire.
For over 40 years, the people of Western Sahara have been stateless after their land was occupied by Morocco in 1975. After the invasion, half of the Sahrawi population escaped through the desert to settle as refugees in the harsh Algerian desert, where they created their nation, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, while the rest of the Saharawi population remained in Western Sahara, where they exist as second-class citizens. Due to inequality, a significant part of the Saharawi population escaped to Europe, where they have not been recognised by their independent national identity.
“In 2002 in Madrid, I was legalising my situation, renewing my documents that authorised me to reside in Spain. I had to go through an unending administrative process, queuing in the street, suffering the low temperatures and the indifferent looks of passers-by… I had my Saharawi passport, national ID, and birth certificate… but our ex-coloniser Spain does not recognise them as legal because they are issued by my country, the Sahrawi Republic, which Spain does not officially recognise. They simply called me “apatrida,” stateless.” -Bahia Mahmud Awah
“Just imagine many children instead of drawing toys; they draw a policeman with a gun and a stick beating people and people behind bars. I am scared that they will become violent and incite violence… Because practicing violence one day will incite violence… It is our role as human rights defenders to call for peace.” -Aminatou Haidar
Strategies that will address forced migration and statelessness which are the drivers of conflict in African region:
To address statelessness and forced migration, we need to strengthen the implementation of the 1969 OAU convention-governing refugees in Africa. This could be achieved through liaising with member states to implement the content of the convention that provides a framework to protect vulnerable refugees and prevent statelessness.
With nationality laws in Africa based on the concepts of “right of soil” and “right of blood,” many people born away from their homelands find it difficult to apply for citizenship of that country while being denied nationality in their resident country. Since many of these people become instruments in the hands of conflict drivers, there's a need for a comprehensive reform of the national laws across the continent to ensure they are inclusive and non-discriminatory. This could be followed up by the introduction of an African Union Passport and strengthening of civil documentation systems that grants displaced Africans access to identification documents.
Gender discrimination and trafficking, which have been fuelling statelessness for decades, need to be phased out through the implementation of prevention strategies like anti-trafficking and anti-gender bias laws.
Colonial policies and border disputes that made people who settled because of the colonial era's forced labour and migration stateless need to be abolished entirely across the continent.
In countries where displacements and conflicts are the major causes of statelessness, there is a need for regional cooperation. This could be through the adoption of domestic measures to address the situation instead of seeking international aid.
Due to the misconception that all refugees are stateless, coupled with poor documentation, there is a need to leverage artificial intelligence to capture the data of every African. This will help in the seamless documentation of nationality no matter one's location.
Role models and influential personalities across the continent need to be encouraged to support campaigns that will educate the public about the dangers of statelessness.
The political will to address the problem of statelessness, as exemplified when the Heads of State of the ECOWAS signed the Abidjan Declaration, needs to be adopted across all the regions of the continent. This will create uniformity in the fight against statelessness.
With many African nations lacking the capacity to properly respond to the waves of migration, educational institutions across Africa need to step up the training of youths who will be able to research and come up with laudable proposals to address the situation.
Despite the agreement of the African Union to a treaty that aims to give children a right to nationality and end generational statelessness, its implementation needs to be sped up through the change of national laws across the continent.
Since birth registration is not just a fundamental human right but also a crucial tool in preventing statelessness, African countries need to make birth registration services available and accessible to every African.
Gender equality
Although austerity measures help in restoring the financial health of a nation’s economy, cuts to welfare and social services can lead to lower wages and decreased household earning. This forces women in the continent to channel their resources to address their social needs instead of investing in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs).
In some African countries, the implementation of austerity measures worsens the mental health of the populace, increases suicide rates and promotes mortality among older age groups. In 2020, for instance, the African Women Development Fund found that close to 73 million women across the continent were affected by mental health conditions. With many of these women living below the poverty line, they are left to scavenge to survive amidst depression.
Tax increase and reduced spending by governments weakens safety nets and hampers the realization of economic, social and cultural rights across communities in Africa. Had this been affecting the male gender alone, there would have been little cause for alarm. Its effect on vulnerable low-income earners like women however, causes one to reflect soberly about their plight.
Furthermore, many African nations have witnessed public outrages and calls for the resignation of public officials over the implementation of austerity measures. In 2021, hundreds of protesters gathered in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, to call for the resignation of the transitional government after the elimination of subsidies on essential food items and the devaluation of the Sudanese pound. Since many of these outrages start without prior notice, it often leads to the destruction of life and women owned businesses.
Lower spending by African governments leads to higher unemployment. According to statistics from the worlds Bank, the average unemployment rate of African women based on data from 52 countries in 2023 was 11.11%.
Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, women-owned businesses littered the streets of Africa. After the pandemic drove an estimated 39 million Africans into extreme poverty, many of these female-owned businesses collapsed. This left many in destitute situations.
The government, which should have helped, too is facing the debt crisis, which mandates them to spend more on debt repayment than on development. This is backed by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, which states that the average debt ratio in sub-Saharan Africa alone almost doubled when it moved from 30% of GDP at the end of 2013 to almost 60% of the GDP by the end of 2022.
Estimates reveal that 43 African countries will cut expenditures by $183 billion cumulatively from 2022 to 2026, and continue to spend 22 times more on debt servicing than on social protection. With this move expected to affect the education, health, and social welfare of Africans negatively, the inequality divide will widen for African women depending upon these services.
The adoption of Value Added Tax (VAT) on basic goods and services is making it difficult for women to hold large factions in the public sector but loan conditionality is like cutting the public wage bill is limiting women’s access to financial security. During a chat with a colleague of mine, he shared with me, experiences where government officials out of quest to forcefully generate revenue for the government, storm markets to tax low-income earners like widows that barely make daily profits of $1 from their petty businesses to fend for their families. How will they be able to cope with such austerity measures?
Advocacy for gender-responsive economic policies:
Experience has shown that when gender equality concerns are embedded into fiscal and monetary policies, macroeconomic policies become more gender-responsive. African countries should adopt this principle to help women overcome challenges resulting from austerity measures.
Statistics from many income groups show that women have lost more jobs than men have in proportional terms when measured using the employment-to-population ratio. To this end, sectoral employment policies that promote a just transition to a gender-equitable, job-rich, and environmentally sustainable economy need to be introduced across the continent to stimulate women's economic participation.
Instead of the imposition of value-added tax on basic social services, progressive taxation capable of increasing fiscal space for The African government's spending should be implemented to bridge the existing inequality.
International lending organizations also need to consider wholesale debt cancellation pending when the economic situations in Africa are revived to support her vulnerable populations.
It’s very unfortunate that elected government officials across the continent instead of pushing for investments in public services that benefit women, prioritize the privatization of existing public goods and services. As Africans, let’s abandon selfishness and think about the greater good of the public.
Although the introduction of austerity measures helps in stabilizing economies, there is a need for investments in the care economy, which can create quality jobs, increase demand, improve wellbeing, and support women-owned ventures.
Many labour market policies currently in use are dormant due to gender biases. To address the situation, active gender-responsive market policies that support women’s attachment to the labour market and guarantee their access to productive employment should be considered.
Governments need to implement tax holidays and gender-responsive budgeting for women in the grassroots scavenging for survival. This will enhance the growth of women-owned businesses and perpetuate their longevity.
Health care systems
Proposing reforms to intellectual property (IP) laws to improve access to essential medicines in underserved regions of Africa is a crucial step in addressing the continent's public health challenges.
Before the introduction of intellectual property laws, people in underserved regions across Africa had access to a variety of medicines. To treat malaria for instance, everyone had access to the forest where herbs and plants could be fetched to compound herbal concoctions. This helped our ancestors to sustain their health and that of their communities.
As time progressed and the population of human beings began to increase, nations started shifting their focus to the industrial production of drugs. Due to this development, over 2 billion people across the developing world now lack access to affordable medicines particularly due to patent protection.
Reform proposals to improve access to essential medicines in underserved African regions:
High levels of IP protection laws rather than solving the problem of access to affordable medicines often exacerbate the situation in low-income countries across Africa. With the financial burden of dealing with chronic and non-communicable diseases requiring treatment over long terms. African countries need to sign reimbursement agreements with pharmaceuticals that will relax patent laws and reduce the financial barriers associated with access to patented drugs.
Africa as a continent needs to broaden the use of compulsory licensing which is the legal process where a government allows the production of patented medicines by a manufacturer other than the patent holder without the consent of the patent holder to reduce the cost of drugs, and make them available for everyone everywhere.
Over the years, generic competition has proven to be the only potent method of reducing the prices of medicines and making them available for people in rural communities. With patent extension provisions allowing pharmaceuticals to seek extensions of a 20 year patent term to compensate for administrative delays by drug authorities that are underfunded. Governments across the continent need to empower pharmaceuticals with the resources needed to speed up the evaluation of patent applications. This will shorten the processing time and make drugs available in rural areas.
Furthermore, we need to leverage patent pools, which is a mechanism where multiple patent holders agree to share their patents, allowing manufacturers to produce medicines at lower costs. This can be achieved through the incentivising of private pharmaceutical companies to participate in patent pools for life saving drugs for equitable access.
Studies have shown that although patent rules help in generating profit for pharmaceuticals, this does not however lead to innovations that would address the health needs of Africans. Instead of pivoting on strict patent rules as a way to generate innovation, pharmaceuticals should employ measures like multi licensing compensation. Under this arrangement, two or more firms will purchase a patent and speed up drug production.
During the rainy season, I am always forced to take malaria medication because of the prevalence of mosquitoes. One thing that marvels me is the price differences I encounter while getting an anti-malaria tablet from a chemist in a rural or urban setting. The implementation of the principle of tiered pricing which is the practice of offering different prices for the same medicine depending on the economic conditions of the purchasing region needs to be introduced into life-saving drugs to ensure that price barriers do not restrict access to such essential medicines in disadvantaged regions.
I am always encouraged when I visit a typical village to find signposts that show the presence of international organizations like United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and World Health Organization (WHO). In these vulnerable societies, we can promote the use of these international organization mechanisms to create access to medicines and develop regional frameworks that will collaborate to harmonize laws concerning access to medicines.
Patent linkages prohibit African countries from approving drugs by frivolous laws. Since these require drug distributors to expend their energy carrying out safety checks in addition to policing patents, the drug distribution network becomes clogged. African nations need to identify drugs with frivolous patents and channel their forces to more pressing ones to ease the traffic flow of drugs to rural areas.
Finally, laudable projects in the past have failed woefully due to the lack of monitoring and enforcement practices. To make the reforms to intellectual property laws to be sustainable, monitoring agencies should be created across the continent to report erring pharmaceuticals that make minor changes to existing drugs to renew their patent protection and ensure that patents are granted only for genuine drugs.
Economic Development
In many rural African communities, agriculture, forestry and mining play important contributory roles to the nation's economy but in recent times; the lack of democratic economic participation seems to be stalling progress.
International Labour Organization (ILO) further estimates that over 80% of poor people live in rural areas, where a large share of the population depend on subsistence farming. Implementing democratic economic participation policies with the capacity to empower rural dwellers is key if we dream of democratized economic development.
During the last Covid-19 pandemic, the economic downturn across Africa made life unbearable for many families. With movement restricted through lockdown to limit the spread of the virus, governments, NGOs and International Organizations opened their application portals for the public to access funds and palliatives. As a youth with access to digital technology, I applied to a bunch of applications to access financial empowerment. I even went further to assist disadvantaged youths in my community to also apply. Since I applied, days turned weeks, weeks turned months, and months turned years. Almost 5years down the line but no positive reply yet. News outlets and other media houses have already reported that the schemes were successful and the applicants are making judicious use of the empowerment. Upon hearing this news, many of the people I assisted to apply for these empowerment opportunities started contacting me with regards to knowing their fate. Without proper answers to their puzzle, I just admonished them to exercise patience. Reports on Facebook shared by some youths in urban centres who have access to authorities reveals that they have benefited from a couple of these opportunities while those in the rural areas grapple in confusion.
Designing microfinance models that address regulatory capture and promote democratic economic participation in rural areas:
Well, many empowerment schemes in the continent have not been inclusive, transparent and responsive to the needs of rural communities due to the dysfunctional system in place. This allows microfinance institutions to make policies, channel loans and empowerments to favour urban-based dwellers at the expense of rural dwellers. To design microfinance models that will address regulatory capture and promote economic participation in vulnerable communities, the following need to be done:
Firstly, micro finance models need to focus on community centric designs, which encourages local ownership that’s responsive to local needs.
Vulnerable communities also need to be tasked with the responsibility of creating independent regulatory and enforcement boards that will prevent exploitative practices, and encourage timely declaration of financial records to build public trust and transparency.
Furthermore, microfinance models need to train trainers that will educate people in rural areas about financial literacy and capacity building to reduce the risk of defaults. Trainers should also disseminate innovative measures like peer lending to strengthen social capital and encourage collective repayment of loans.
To promote democratic economic participation, designers of microfinance models should introduce flexible loan products that can cater for a variety of income levels. To make the scheme fair and sustainable, loans from these schemes need to be set at non-predatory interest rates.
With the world, leveraging the use of Artificial Intelligence to solve complex problems, smart mobile banking and digital platforms that use clean renewable energy for operation needs to be adopted in rural areas where access to traditional banking is limited.
Finally, experience has shown that despite the laudable potentials of past microfinance models, many folded up due to lack of self-sustenance. Microfinance models for use in local communities should collaborate with rural development agencies to build multiple streams of income for longevity.
Conclusion
As a continent, we are faced with multifaceted problems but through the implementation of the reforms raised in this essay, we will progress exponentially to overcome the challenges of poverty, and underdevelopment currently plaguing us. God bless Africa.
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