Stand up Africa and redefine your future
Stand up Africa
and redefine your future
While Africa has seemingly gained the political
kingdom, it remains the ?sick man of the world?, said Prime Minister Nahas
Angula on the occasion of the Africa Child Day which was celebrated on 16 June.
Angula said poverty, civil strife, HIV/AIDS devastation, under-development and
famine remain the hallmark of African conditions.?In my view, the struggle for
African dignity remains an unfinished business. Africa cannot continue to be the
laggard of the international community. Africa must rise. Africa must stand up
to be counted?, cried Angula.The start toward all this should be the ?retooling,
repositioning and revitalising of the African state to be a catalyst for
development. He said the African state should ?play two over-arching roles? –
that of ?service delivery and social transformation?.Angula said in its role as
an agent of service delivery, the state should ensure good governance, law and
order, provision of public good, welfarist redistribution and infrastructure
development, an instrument of transformation and a dynamic transformation that
intervenes and supports endogenous entrepreneurial development.The Prime
Minister used South Korea and Taiwan as examples of states that where able to
carry out relatively massive interventions in institutional structures and thus
achieve a dynamic social transformation in their economies.He said the two
countries initiated rapid and far-reaching land reforms before the take-off of
their economies.?All agricultural land above a low ceiling was compulsorily
acquired by the state at a price much below the market price and re-distributed
to tenants at low prices. The transfer of natural resources, including land, to
emerging endogenous capitalists is one way in which a dynamic social
transformational state could intervene in favour of growth and development?.He
added that it is his ?contention that the African state should build up its
transformation capacities in order to push the economy into a capitalist
transition through institutional engineering?.