Why African leaders are so obsessed with rural development

WHY AFRICAN LEADERS ARE SO OBSESSED WITH RURAL DEVELOPMENT


Africa will continue to be one of the most pertinent continents in the world with multifaceted people from different cultural backgrounds. Interestingly, the continent is blessed with innumerable natural resources such as crude oil, gold, cocoa, manganese, salt, bauxite, human resource, just to mention a few. Time in memorial, Africa has had so many great leaders such as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Felix Houphouet Boigny, Nelson Mandela and among others some of whom shed their blood for the rescue of their countries from colonialism and emancipation from mental slavery. Notwithstanding, some African governments hold nothing to be proud of but welter in the quagmire of corruption, selfishness and deceit. Consequently, regardless of her inundating natural resources, the continent has still not received any satisfactory and significant development. Currently, some African governments buy into the philosophy of rural development and have started initiating and implementing policies to actualize this philosophy. According to Moseley, Malcolm J. (2003) rural development generally refers to “the process of improving the quality of life and economic wellbeing of people living in relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas”. To extrapolate from this definition, it is noteworthy that the main intent of developing rural areas is to ameliorate the living standards of the indigenes in order to enhance their wellbeing. The main objective of this article is to bring to bear the reason why African governments are now obsessed with rural development. Their reasons include; improvement of the economy through agriculture, reduction of rural-urban migration, promotion of national tourism, eradication of extreme poverty in the country and on the basis of securing massive political votes.
Firstly, African governments are now obsessed with rural development because they want to improve their country’s economy through agriculture. Most soil types and climatic weather conditions in Africa support food crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Captivatingly, in most countries in Africa, of which Ghana is not an exception, the rural areas are noted to be the bread basket of the economy. This is because agriculture thrives in the rural area more than the urban areas. Most agricultural lands in Accra for instance, have been destroyed for infrastructural development. Contemporarily, Accra cannot boast of serious agricultural activity rather it relies on raw goods such as tomatoes, yam, timber, millet, rice, sorghum, maize, plantain and cassava from areas such as Kade, Twifopraso, Techiman, Yeji and Peki either for raw consumption or for processing in factories. Since agriculture forms a very sturdy establishment in improving economies, African governments today through local agencies have become more emphatic in developing their rural areas in order to achieve this purpose.
More so, another reason why African governments are now obsessed with rural development is because they want to reduce rural urban migration. Rural urban migration is generally defined as the influx of people from the rural areas to the urban areas. People normally migrate from the hinterlands to settle in the cities where they can seek greener pastures. Such people are not motivated to stay in their homes in the villages because they lack certain social amenities such as electricity, nice shelter and water. However such provisions can be found in the cities so the rural people move from their villages to also enjoy such provisions. The negative effect of this is that it results in a significant increment in the population of those living in the cities hence leading to the uprising of high cost of living, slums, low standard of living and related social vices. Finally, in pursuance to extenuate the rate of clustering in the urban areas, governments of African countries such as Ghana, South Africa and Cote D’Ivoire have become so fixated with rural development hence have started providing such areas with basic social amenities in order to keep them in their villages.
Furthermore, African governments are now obsessed with rural development because they want to promote national tourism. Tourism refers to the beautiful places of scenery that we take time of our busy schedules to visit and to enjoy our eyes or appreciate things. Most places in our rural villages and areas are preserved and serve various purposes of site of attraction. As paraphrased from Professor Miranda Greenstreet (2001; pp57-74) “there are many taboos that preserve the environment; for example not fishing on Tuesdays and not farming on Thursdays together with other cultural practices have gone a long way to preserve some aspect of our natural environment thus establishing a front for national tourism”. This means that most rural areas in Africa are the major sources of income generation for their countries when it comes to the tourism industry. For instance, Aburi botanical gardens, Boti water falls, Kakum National Park and mountain Afadjato are all places of beautiful scenery found in most rural parts of Ghana. Consequently, most African governments have become so much emphatic on developing their rural areas especially those beautiful places of scenery so as to promote national tourism and this will go a long way to generate more revenue for the entire nation.
Moreover, in the bid to eradicate extreme poverty in their country, African governments are now obsessed with rural development. Poverty is defined by Professor Kodjo Senah (2013) as “socio-economic phenomenon whereby the resources available to a society are used to satisfy the wants of the few while the many do not have even their basic needs met”. To deduce from this definition, I see poverty as a phenomenon created by the nature of our socio-political systems that seek to satisfy the basic needs of minority rich citizens to the detriment of the majority poor. In 2008, absolute poverty had been a major pain in the neck of most Sub Saharan - African governments statistically contributing to 47% rate of incidence. (February 29, 2012, The World Bank). Moreover, since most African governments aim to meet the Millennium Development Goal one (MDG 1- Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger), they become obsessed hence tend to shift their focus towards developing their rural areas so as to actualize this goal (MDG1). In Ghana for instance, over the last 15 years, the country has been able to reduce poverty by an annual average rate of 15% per year from a high rate of 51.7% in 1991/92 to 39.5% in 1998/99 and then further to 28.5% in 2005/5 (GLSS5, 2007). In addition, it is even worth mentioning that the Busia’s Administration was the first government to establish a ministry for rural development in Ghana which unfortunately lasted for only 27 months. (Professor Kojo Senah, 2013) . One of his dreams was to eradicate poverty through promoting rural development. Finally, it is clear from the above statistics and reasons that most African governments are now obsessed with rural development because they want to eradicate poverty in the country.
Lastly, governments in Africa are now obsessed with rural development on the basis of securing massive political votes from their people. Most African governments are of the mindset that they are going to pull political votes from their rural areas if they should focus on developing such areas massively. For instance, the news reverberated some few years ago in Ghana, that a well known Member of Parliament (M.P) bought electricity poles for the generation of electricity for a particular village in his constituency in order to secure votes from that area. Unfortunately for him, he lost in that particular village. That notwithstanding, he went back for his electricity poles which he had bought with his own money. Yamoussoukro (Cote D’Ivoire) which used to be a less developed city in times past has now become one of the biggest centres of attraction in the world. Contemporarily, Yamoussoukro can boast of the biggest Basilica-“Our lady of Peace (church) in the world according to the current Guinness Book of Records. Felix Houphouet Boigny (first president of La Cote D’Ivoire-1960) masterminded this project. He was re-elected at five year intervals (1960-1990) because Ivoirians who lived in all the rural areas of Yamoussoukro believed in his diligence thus voted massively for him. From the above examples, it is crystal clear that most African governments are also obsessed with rural development because they want to secure massive political votes from their people.
In conclusion, Africa is a very beautiful continent with innumerable and multifarious natural resources. Despite her abundance in natural resources there is not yet a significant reflection in her development. Liberia, Togo, Sierra Leone, Mali, just to mention a few continue to wallow in the morass of extreme poverty. Can we say our political leaders have failed us or our colonial masters? Even though there are many ways of going about developing a country, most African governments contemporarily have been obsessed with rural development because they want to improve their economy through agriculture, reduce rural-urban migration, promote national tourism, eradicate extreme poverty in their country and on the basis of securing massive political votes. Notwithstanding, for me, most of these philosophies are brilliant but must be carried out successfully without leaving traces of predicaments that will blight the continent in the future.

REFERENCES
Moseley, Malcolm J. (2003). “Rural development: principles and practice” (1. publ. ed.).
Professor Miranda Greenstreet. (2001). “Ghana Association of Arts and Sciences proceeding” 2001. pp 57-74.
July, 2007 “Strengthening efforts for the eradication of poverty and hunger”: Ghana Country Report. The Annual Ministerial Review Meeting. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)- United Nations. Geneva, Switzerland.
(February 29, 2012). “World Bank Sees Progress Against Extreme Poverty, But Flags Vulnerabilities". The World Bank.

AUTHOR:
MR. DICKSON BOATENG DENKYI (a.k.a Philosopher)
(+233 247061 880) dicksondenkyi@gmail.com
UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON.