Rethinking poverty reduction in an automated economy

Gibson Nyikadzino

The World Economic Forum (WEF) in January noted that in ten years time, fifty percent of jobs will be changed by automation. However, automation is not expected to eliminate more than five percent of the jobs. On the other hand, the United Nations anticipates reducing poverty in the world by 2030.

Further statistics reveal in the next decade 1.2 billion employees worldwide will be affected by the adaptation of automation technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI). As economies mutate, digital transformations occurring the world over are believed to be affecting the vulnerable and low-skills populations, thus, these groups are in need up-skilling. 

In the development context, this might cause the rise in inequality and challenges in reducing poverty levels. Already, Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, is the world’s poverty capital after overtaking India, despite India’s population relatively six times more Nigeria’s. By 2050, Nigeria is expected to be the world’s third largest country by population and its poverty problem will likely worsen. The visible poverty levels are likely to continue in sub-Saharan Africa in general, where Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in particular, are set to house the majority of the world’s poor. While poverty is an African-wide problem, only Ethiopia is on track to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending extreme poverty by 2030.

Last year the World Bank (WB) recorded that extreme poverty in Zimbabwe rose from 29 percent in 2018 to 34 percent, an increase from 4.7 to 5.7 million. Putting it bluntly, Zimbabweans and their leaders are still finding it hard to start forty years into independence.  

Ending poverty is a huge assignment, and working towards its reduction is a practice that can be achieved in equal measure because of vast knowledge and innovations around sustainable practices.

Embracing modern communication technologies or ICTs and the internet of things is an imminent mission that governments in the less economically developed countries should embark to reduce poverty, boost agriculture, improve the health being of the people among other things. As expected, losing jobs in the next decade and joining the poverty bracket will make many people part of the miserable statistics if they do not rethink adaptation to modern technologies.

The forms of journalism today are not what we had just five years ago. The introduction of solar or electric powered vehicles will push most petrol attendants out of work, for instance. In Europe, Sweden has already started banning diesel powered vehicles.  The education sector too is facing transformation; e-learning is becoming an effective form of knowledge exchange. Education and health sectors are becoming ICT driven. New skillsets are therefore required in reducing poverty and adapting to the vagaries of the changing world of work.

Oftenly, in Africa, some academic qualifications have become irrelevant; rendering holders useless as they fail to compete for jobs in the interconnected world and reduce poverty. These academic disciplines have become moribund and dysfunctional.

Kenya’s academic and public intellectual Prof. Lumumba says: “Africa must review and change the education curriculum in order to meet the modern challenges and future opportunities. We must not lock ourselves in a state of permanent lamentations.”

Talking about and embracing modern technologies alone is not going to change Africa’s fortunes in poverty reduction, but a change mindset.

No single sector has an answer to the reduction of poverty. It calls for collaboration from government, private sector and citizens with interest in socio-economic development. It is imperative to learn about what has worked elsewhere and realise that at the heart of the success stories were politicians taking hard decisions and taking more action than ideological rhetoric.

Africa should work towards more growth to address inequality and reduce poverty. Zimbabwe by 2030 is expected to become a middle-income economy. Figures have been released by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to squeeze in citizens the idea that the country’s economy has been growing, “correct fundamentals” have been put in place. The statements, albeit, have been meaningless to the layman who is pummeled by the harsh economic conditions.

It does not mean that growth automatically reduces poverty, but no growth definitely implies that poverty is not going to be reduced.

In fighting to reduce poverty, the future jobs demonstrate that the automation revolution will not necessarily lead to a loss of work. Rather, it represents an opportunity and a call to action for up-skilling to reduce poverty and address inequality.

For feedback: gnyikadzino@gmail.com

Africa Day: A Celebration Degenerating to Fallacy

Gibson Nyikadzino

IT is ridiculous to let the 57^th commemoration of the African Union (AU/OAU) pass without putting significant thoughts about the day and try to see it in Africa's post-modern context. It has become tradition for African leaders on this day find excitement in posturing towards the pulpit of unity with esoteric Pan-African ideological inclinations that never translate to the betterment of perilous socio-economic challenges distressing the continent. 

While it is crucial to talk of African unity, ironically, Africa Day is observed as a public holiday in only 12 out of 54 African countries: Ghana, Mali, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia and Mauritania; when over thirty leaders gathered and midwifed the birth of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There is need to reflect!  

When I was in grade three, a teacher at St. Francis in Chegutu, Mr. Buns, gave me a sweet at the assembly point after I provided an answer of the name of the organisation that preceded the AU, i.e. the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

Mr. Buns spoke glowingly about Pan-Africanism. That was a moment of conviction, a moment that shook my conscience and triggered interest to go beyond the usual desire to know mere names of the Founding Fathers to understanding the philosophy behind the OAU/AU; Pan-Africanism. 

Without doubt, Pan-Africanism today no longer has the meaning it carried four decades ago. It has become more of a misdirected idea whose objectives need to be revisited and concretised towards service delivery, accountability, transparency, respect for rule of law and good governance.

In 1996, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986 had a changing perspective about the then OAU: “It is a Club of Thieves,” he said.  

Many years after my primary school days, echoes of African unity on Africa Day continue to be heard, alas, only as the fading sound of a horn blown by a watchman from above the tower.

Africa is an unfortunate continent whose fortunes remain linked to its former colonisers (or the G7 of Colonialism) of Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Britain, Belgium and Portugal. From the G7 of Colonialism, many African nationalists used various methods to attain independence. For some African colonies, armed struggle was the alternative, while to others elections and negotiations ended years of colonialism. In extreme cases, some administrations have been established through bloody coup and revolution. 

In his book, Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon wrote: “We have seen that the objective of the nationalist parties from a period onward is geared strictly along national lines. They mobilise people with slogans of independence and anything else is left to the future. When these parties are questioned on their economic agenda for the nation they propose to establish, they prove incapable of giving an answer because in fact they do not have a clue about the economy of their own country.”

Contemporary governments have however failed to separate the framework of their modern governments to those that made a transition from colonialism to independence. Because Zimbabwe won its independence through the barrel of a gun, it is inexplicable for the current administration to listen to a voice from Botswana over human rights abuses because Botswana got its independence on a “silver platter.”

The dynamics are so complex that even the development challenges and the needs of Africans require more than what the leaders are doing. Inclination towards the mind of the coloniser remains visible amongst Africans who remain divided along Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone lines. 

In 2012 when South Africa’s Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was challenging Gabon’s Jean Ping to head the AU Commission, then spokesperson to the late Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, George Charamba, mentioned the despicable.

“At the election, Zimbabwe is going to vote for Dr. Dlamini-Zuma because we share a similar history. South Africa and Zimbabwe were both colonised by Britain,” said Charamba. To defend one position is to attack another. The Francophone-Anglophone divide remains elusive in comprehending what Africa’s unity entails.

As Dr. Dlamini-Zuma won the election, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were fighting hard to neutralise rebels in eastern DRC, with the AU pledging to send peacekeepers there.

Since May 25, 1963, Africa has had more wars than those it has managed to solve. The DRC, Central African Republic, Cameroon, South Sudan and Libya are all examples that serve as a reminder that African unity is soon becoming a mirage.

Because of politics of patronage, since its inception, the bloc has not been caring enough to the concerns of the people who today continue to groan under the yoke of dictatorships, military governments, kleptocrats and the comprador bourgeoisie who act as middlemen of the erstwhile colonisers in economic exploitation.

While state's remain sovereign: Is it in the interest of a united Africa to see Equatorial-Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo appoint his son to become the country's vide-president? Is it the continent's satisfaction to see the young men and women wield AK47s to fight in wars they have no contribution to instead of attending school? Is it feasible for Africa's unity to be seen through leaders who endorse military governments that grab power through coups and kill people with impunity and shut democratic space?

Years before the 2011 demise of Libya’s Col. Muammar al Qhatafi, the issue of a United States of Africa (USA) was presented on many African fora, and it had rhetorical buy-in before dying a natural death. The continent’s development patterns are varied. 

The issue of unity in Africa is mere rhetoric that is brought up for the convenience of the elite. Today the continent's leaders talk of Agenda 2063, an agenda with a time frame whose burden they will not bear because they will not live to see it.

Africa’s unity does not need geographical explanations to be effective, but needs (re)invented shared values, norms and beliefs. The pan-Africanist gospel is nothing but an idea that never works but refuses to die. In its current form, Pan-Africanism will not go beyond Ubuntuism. It needs an urgent revisit.

Without shared values, norms and beliefs, all slogans and change rhetoric become nothing but a common sight that Africa is united in error!

For feedback: gnyikadzino@gmail.com

Millennial poverty, unemployment and a generation’s future in Zimbabwe

Gibson Nyikadzino

Let me start on a sombre note, and I hope it will end as a reflection that stands to be judged, either way. The original state of people is not poverty, people are pushed into poverty. Zimbabwe’s millennial generation is no exception. The future of the Zimbabwean youth is the most dramatic story that does not even make the news headlines, except for political reasons.

Zimbabwe is on the edge of an economic precipice. The young who are today clamouring for equal opportunities are unmindful that if you want to make poverty history, the first thing is to understand the history of poverty.

Historian Emmanuel Akyeampong remarked: “Poverty, wealth, power, powerlessness are connected.”

It has become a terrifying reflection that in Zimbabwe, people are not poor because they do not have food or they have no rich culture, but their poverty has been created first by grabbing the resources by a few but powerful people.

A score ago, Zimbabwe embarked on a “nationalist” land redistribution exercise that, according to the leaders, was meant to change the fortunes of natives in the agricultural sector and social life in general.

But twenty years later, the poverty currently experienced is deeply linked with the appropriation of land, itself a major economic resource. Using nationalist terminology, biggest “land redistribution” happened in Zimbabwe, while on the other hand it created more poor people.

Since 2000, a new poverty has been created in the hunt of affluence and a new language has been created; cartels and oligarchs. The emerging oligarchs grabbed the land of the people, today they benefit from energy, power and transport deals, they are beneficiaries of the privatisation of state enterprises, are in the agriculture sector.

As the poverty unfolds, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is slowing, income per capita is pathetic all because productivity has been declining  for 20 years, since the “nationalist land redistribution.” The result; unemployment has been very high and nowhere in Zimbabwe is it pronounced than among the millennial generation ready to join the workforce. 

Poverty and inequality is a twin scourge in the 21^st century, and has become more pronounced in Sub-Saharan African. A lot of  unfortunate scenarios, never witnessed by our ancestors, are by the doorstep.

Zimbabwean youth have been disadvantaged because of the 20 years of declining productivity, slow growth, steep unemployment and increasing inequality since 2000. The economic downturn is fuelling growing discontent towards governing institutions and spawning extreme political views that threaten to disrupt the prevailing order.

In the face of a global COVID-19 pandemic, what are signs that point to the government’s ability to nurture the talents of the young generation and prepare them for the competitive future.

While the ‘government of Zimbabwe’, then and now, never competed in the first and second Industrial Revolutions, how is the leadership harnessing modern infrastructure as a measure on its commitment to provide equal opportunities to millennials and all with innovation?   

While globally today we may be living longer and comfortably, on average, than our forebears, it is frightening to know that 40 percent of the global population that is earning less than two dollars a day is far worse than what our ancestors were before the two industrial revolutions in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

This current industrial era, if not embraced with innovation and rewarding talent, it can create a more profound crisis, a worse generational crisis. Zimbabwe’s 65 percent of the population are youth, that is no longer a myth. What is terrifying about this demography is that it is made up of most brilliant minds that are impoverished by those they look up to.

Inequality of opportunity is certainly one of the many major drivers of poverty among Africa and Zimbabwe’s young generation. The situation we experience today has all to do with the quality of our governance structure.

For example, Zimbabwe in 1996 hosted the first Solar Energy Conference, and unfortunately as a nation we have failed to install renewable energy technology to transform our electricity and transport grids to move the economy. This only requires innovative leaders without a strongman mentality, possessing the willingness to change factors that drove a 21^stcentury economy. 

Where is Zimbabwe’s millennial generation looking to when global economists reveal that “we are looking at small growth and little job opportunities for the next 20 years?”

As German philosopher Walter Banjamin puts it: “The value of information does not survive the moment in which it was new. It lives only at that moment; it has to surrender to it completely and explain itself to it without losing any time.

A story is different. It does not expend itself. It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of realizing it even after a long time.”

Zimbabwe’s youth should tell a different story, with time.