The Toussaint-Garvey-Nkrumah Institute

[theworldismine13]

subs

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

subs

Got any ideas?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Been thinking about education policy. Came across a document which compare's Ontario to Pennsylvania: How Ontario's vision of equity for schools contrasts starkly with Pennsylvania's

Ontario made the following reforms in the 1990s to their education system - emphasizing equity. Ontario spends less per student but achieves higher results overall.

But then Ontario made a few key changes:

It eliminated the local school property tax, and now all funding comes from the province.

It greatly reduced its number of school boards — widening the racial, social and economic diversity of each system.

And, crucially, it decided to provide more funding per-pupil to the school boards that serve students who face the greatest obstacles.

School boards get more money if there are more students who have low household income, who are raised by single parents, whose parents have low education levels, and whose families recently arrived in Canada.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

What sort of industrial policy is best suited for the following African countries:
- Nigeria
- Ethiopia
- Tanzania
- Kenya
- South Africa
- DR Congo
- Morocco

Anyone willing to take a guess?

 

[Poitier]

why Toussaint-Garvey-Nkrumah?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

why Toussaint-Garvey-Nkrumah?

I chose Toussaint because of his role during the Haitian Revolution
Garvey because of his influence in sparking Pan Africanism
Finally Nkrumah for continuing Garvey's influence

Do you have another name in mind?

 

[David_TheMan]

Been thinking about education policy. Came across a document which compare's Ontario to Pennsylvania: How Ontario's vision of equity for schools contrasts starkly with Pennsylvania's

Ontario made the following reforms in the 1990s to their education system - emphasizing equity. Ontario spends less per student but achieves higher results overall.

I think seeking test results instead of the parent seeking the best life results for their children is a problem. Its a huge problem in government controlled education in myview.
I would hope its something we can move away from.

 

[Poitier]

I chose Toussaint because of his role during the Haitian Revolution
Garvey because of his influence in sparking Pan Africanism
Finally Nkrumah for continuing Garvey's influence

Do you have another name in mind?

No, just curious. All deserving names out of a large pool.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Agricultural Policy steps which may be cross-applied:
- Ensure that land redistribution occurs to create agro-entrepreneurs out of subsistence farmers/small-scale commercial farmers
(this is to reduce the amount of rents going to landowners. I don't think a model in which the state owns all the land like Ethiopia is best but we can talk about it - do not squeeze the farmer for city dwellers. Aid the farmer so he/she can earn forex for your country )
- Create Agricultural Credit Agencies, Agro-Science Institutes, Infrastructure and Marketing Boards, Insurance
(this is to allow farmers to have loans, aid farmers and getting resilient seeds/crops, to help them get their goods to market, to establish a floor price, to prevent destitution)

In countries where most people are employed as farmers, if these basic policies work, this should stimulate consumption in farmers which could aid domestic producers of various goods. It can also ease forex needs which will be needed to import farming machines/tools.

What role could co-operatives play in all of this?

General thoughts?

 

[newworldafro]

Interesting

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

I will be adding more ideas to this thread soon.

 

[videogamestashbox.com]

Agricultural Policy steps which may be cross-applied:
- Ensure that land redistribution occurs to create agro-entrepreneurs out of subsistence farmers/small-scale commercial farmers
(this is to reduce the amount of rents going to landowners. I don't think a model in which the state owns all the land like Ethiopia is best but we can talk about it - do not squeeze the farmer for city dwellers. Aid the farmer so he/she can earn forex for your country )
- Create Agricultural Credit Agencies, Agro-Science Institutes, Infrastructure and Marketing Boards, Insurance
(this is to allow farmers to have loans, aid farmers and getting resilient seeds/crops, to help them get their goods to market, to establish a floor price, to prevent destitution)

In countries where most people are employed as farmers, if these basic policies work, this should stimulate consumption in farmers which could aid domestic producers of various goods. It can also ease forex needs which will be needed to import farming machines/tools.

What role could co-operatives play in all of this?

General thoughts?

I damn near forgot about this thread .....the following may be of use to you.

I prefer to look at existing African forms before entertaining outside ideas.


​

EXAMPLE: If African Americans tried to copy European concert (classical)music it wouldn't work economically nor culturally.

• ECONOMICS - African Americans at the time didn't have access to the funds needed to build and maintain large concert halls with 100 +/- well trained/paid professional musicians. That's not even mentioning the expensive tuxedos & dresses need to replicate such a European cultural expression.
• CULTURAL - African Americans sitting still(no dancing) and quiet(no "call & response") during a long drawn out concert is atypical to the cultural norms.

The idea I'm stressing is that...

1. you start from a general survey of your own cultural store house of ideas & expressions.
2. From that survey you find the subset of ideas that can be used to form a base solution to the given problem.
3. After forming the base of your solution search the store house of ideas provided by the rest of humanity to help build on that base(as opposed to simply copying others regardless of context).

...as a result you avoid building something that doesn't suit your environmental/societal needs.

African countries adopting western style democracy is a great example of adopting something that doesn't suit the environment/society. The US could adopt democracy because after the revolutionary war it had few foreign rivals who could successfully meddle in the election process. For small African countries to adopt democracy in this environment is to open itself up to foreign financiers who will fund whoever's campaign aligns with their foreign interest. Internally western democracy also disregards the ethnic realities in many African countries.

The African union really doesn't get the credit it deserves for how it constructed a governance style suited for an African reality. While the public official is voted in place by the local populous noone knows what position they will hold in the AU so there is little incentive for foreign election meddling. There are no elections outside of the AU body itself so no foreign entity can directly hijack a campaign via financing it(short of bribery of the official after the fact). The next thing they did correctly is the alternating of leadership between regions (north,west,central,south,east) all take turns on who gets to lead the AU so regionalism is harder to take hold because everyone knows they will get a shot at leadership while all the other members get to vote on who the leader from that region will be.

Imagine if a place like Nigeria adopted a similar African Union mechanic such that there are rolling elections...

• (Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, combined minority ethnic groups, repeat cycle)

...everyone would have a better shot at leadership lowering ethnic tension while everyone else would get a chance to vote on who that leader will be regardless of ethnic affiliation.

Though I think a better idea would be to mimic the AU down to the community level where each community sends their representative up the political chain. The political body their representative sits on then votes internally for the tasks each other representative will work on including who will go up to regional/national/AU level. That way the local populous have control over who's their political reps but there is a defense against Foreigners hijacking campaigns of larger regional/national representatives.

(Because there are so few people voting on the higher up reps, it's obvious who the targets of bribery would be, and therefore who to monitor for foreign compromise)











Come to think of it that's why the US has a hard time interfering with places like China and Cuba because their election process is internal.
(Though that's when the U.S. tries to foment public discord as a precursor to "regime change")

​

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

I damn near forgot about this thread .....the following may be of use to you.

I prefer to look at existing African forms before entertaining outside ideas.


​

EXAMPLE: If African Americans tried to copy European concert (classical)music it wouldn't work economically nor culturally.

• ECONOMICS - African Americans at the time didn't have access to the funds needed to build and maintain large concert halls with 100 +/- well trained/paid professional musicians. That's not even mentioning the expensive tuxedos & dresses need to replicate such a European cultural expression.
• CULTURAL - African Americans sitting still(no dancing) and quiet(no "call & response") during a long drawn out concert is atypical to the cultural norms.

The idea I'm stressing is that...

1. you start from a general survey of your own cultural store house of ideas & expressions.
2. From that survey you find the subset of ideas that can be used to form a base solution to the given problem.
3. After forming the base of your solution search the store house of ideas provided by the rest of humanity to help build on that base(as opposed to simply copying others regardless of context).

...as a result you avoid building something that doesn't suit your environmental/societal needs.

African countries adopting western style democracy is a great example of adopting something that doesn't suit the environment/society. The US could adopt democracy because after the revolutionary war it had few foreign rivals who could successfully meddle in the election process. For small African countries to adopt democracy in this environment is to open itself up to foreign financiers who will fund whoever's campaign aligns with their foreign interest. Internally western democracy also disregards the ethnic realities in many African countries.

The African union really doesn't get the credit it deserves for how it constructed a governance style suited for an African reality. While the public official is voted in place by the local populous noone knows what position they will hold in the AU so there is little incentive for foreign election meddling. There are no elections outside of the AU body itself so no foreign entity can directly hijack a campaign via financing it(short of bribery of the official after the fact). The next thing they did correctly is the alternating of leadership between regions (north,west,central,south,east) all take turns on who gets to lead the AU so regionalism is harder to take hold because everyone knows they will get a shot at leadership while all the other members get to vote on who the leader from that region will be.

Imagine if a place like Nigeria adopted a similar African Union mechanic such that there are rolling elections...

• (Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, combined minority ethnic groups, repeat cycle)

...everyone would have a better shot at leadership lowering ethnic tension while everyone else would get a chance to vote on who that leader will be regardless of ethnic affiliation.

Though I think a better idea would be to mimic the AU down to the community level where each community sends their representative up the political chain. The political body their representative sits on then votes internally for the tasks each other representative will work on including who will go up to regional/national/AU level. That way the local populous have control over who's their political reps but there is a defense against Foreigners hijacking campaigns of larger regional/national representatives.

(Because there are so few people voting on the higher up reps, it's obvious who the targets of bribery would be, and therefore who to monitor for foreign compromise)











Come to think of it that's why the US has a hard time interfering with places like China and Cuba because their election process is internal.
(Though that's when the U.S. tries to foment public discord as a precursor to "regime change")

​

An Ethiopian President described modern democracies as “political marketplaces”. I’ll post his musing here soon...

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

@videogamestashbox.com

https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/2018/08/The-future-of-ethiopia-20180817.pdf

AdW: I’m sure this is a good approach, but it’s at the level of tactical policy engagement and regulation, not systemic. The danger is that the regulator will be vulnerable to capture by well-financed businesses or foreign governments.

MZ: You mean that the Ethiopian state could be bought? I don’t see that happening short of a counter-revolution, in which case, the rentseekers will sell anything and everything. If that happens, well, Ethiopia won’t be a failed state so it won’t be a laissez-faire open political market like Somalia. We are not a rentier state so we won’t become an oil-based kleptocracy like Sudan. Or for that matter a one-man mafia-style business as in Eritrea! The Kenyan example is more intriguing, but we don’t have that national business class. But you are correct: your analysis is a powerful tool for the archetypical African state, and it demystifies the actual conduct of politics on the continent. You need to elaborate further. At the moment you are dealing with the political elite, you should bring in the masses in the rural and urban areas, how are they affected? You need to explain which social forces generate deeper rent seeking: are they inside the state structure or outside it?