Episode 1 Reflections

In today's episode, young people from Uganda, Cameroon, Ghana, and Nigeria share their views on what they think is Africa's Biggest Problem. Is it our culture, education, mindset, or the government's fault?
Let's find out!

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Transcript

Baobab Platform
Reflections Podcast Episode 1

Nadine Tim:

Welcome to Reflections. This is where we discuss some of Africa's biggest problems from the perspective of young change makers. My name is Nadine Tim and I am your host. Let's get into today's episode.

Nadine Tim:

This is our first episode, and I thought there's no better way to kick off our conversation than to hear some young people address the question. I know we all have somewhere at the back of our minds. "What is Africa's biggest problem."

Nadine Tim:

Now, the responses I got were very interesting. So you'd be hearing directly from some of these young people and for others, I will be reading out their responses. Let's get to the first response.

Arnold:

There are many different understandings for most, the problems in Africa can be considered and looked out to. But I think it's more complex because what I see as a problem might not be a for you or might not even be a problem for someone else.

Arnold:

For me, my understanding and belief is that some of Africa's problems are coming from how we have been meant to understand the world, our cultures. And I can give an example that in some cultures, a girl, to be considered a successful woman in future is just by who you marry. You don't even what you have as a lady or the way you have worked to achieve all that you have achieved. So as long as you don't have a sensible man, I mean, you're unsuccessful, and look at that. I mean, many girls have lost all track on even achieving their own dreams because all they know what matters is having someone a man who is sensible.

Arnold:

But then again, the other thing that I see is that many of African problems are due to, we not appreciating who we are, that we even give more respect to people that we don't know than ourselves. And I can give an example that if a white is to come to Uganda, obviously, even if it's more poor than all the Ugandans will be given more respect than the fellow Ugandan who is even rich.

Arnold:

So I think it's about culture. Then we believe in ourselves as Africans and then supporting each other and giving ourselves respect which are the missing values into creating solutions for most of Africa's problems.

Nadine Tim:

That was Arnold from Uganda. And what I'm getting from you Arnold is that our culture has a significant influence on the state of our countries. I do have another comment that is in line with this.

Nadine Tim:

And will just read it out. This is from Ghanaian. And he said, "One of the things I have realized is that growing up, we are not allowed to be creative. And it starts with our upbringing, in Ghana you are brought up to be that recessive timid child just accept things as they are with the hope that when you grow up, you figure them out yourself. We are not involved in what is supposedly adult conversations, which has a positive side. Obviously we are taught to be too obedient and confidence is somewhat not tolerated."

Nadine Tim:

This is quite interesting. Let's hear what the next person has to say.

Speaker 3:

To me. African's greatest problem is leadership. I think for a very long time, we have not had leaders, especially political leaders who have the right mindsets needed to drive the continent forward or to bring some good under the continent. And what is sad is that such leaders also have a negative influence in the younger generations, leaving us with circles and circles of bad influence.

Nadine Tim:

Honestly, I agree because in countries like Equatorial Guinea which has had the same precedent of 43 years, the young people don't have any other leadership example to learn from. And more often than not. What we see in Africa is that our leaders would do anything to get in power and stay for as long as possible.

Nadine Tim:

How do you continuously innovate and grow as a nation under the same leadership for over 40 years? What example are we showing our young people. It's a very difficult question to answer because our leaders have failed us to the point where one in four Africans, according to the World Economic Forum had to pay a bright to access public services in 2018.

Nadine Tim:

Take note that it says public services. Now these are supposed to be made available to the citizens by its government. It's part of their obligations, right? But what we are doing is breeding corruption at all levels and weakening our institutions.

Nadine Tim:

This also reminds me of another response I received. The person said, "There is an absence of leaders who truly care for their citizens. It isn't about being elected to office, but doing what you are elected to do, which is to provide the necessities of your citizens. Our politicians know are problems, but deliberately embezzle and fatten themselves, their family members and friends. I would describe it as legal stealing."

Nadine Tim:

That's quite an interesting way to put it. We can spend the whole day talking about how leadership has filled some of our African countries, but what does Abraham from Ghana think is Africa's biggest problem?

Abraham:

I think the biggest problem in the Africa is the culture of dependency. The idea that their government has to provide every single need of the citizenry has been a thing that has resulted in much more social challenges than we expect, especially in relation to unemployment.

Abraham:

So for instance, in Ghana, we have over 1.55 million people who are within the employable age range, actively searching for jobs who do not have jobs. And this is because of the idea that the government has to provide jobs.

Abraham:

I think we have missed conceptualized the role of government, which is to provide a good legal and infrastructural frameworks for businesses to thrive. And so we have deferred the responsibility of creating our own livelihoods to the government and looking at how much the government has to do. It has very limited resources.

Abraham:

Being able to provide basic livelihoods for every person in the State and so you see rising unemployment and this is not just in Ghana. This is across the continent where we have about 10.6%, which means a low percentage. But when you look at the number of people who are in the informal sector and people who are underemployed and people who are earning less than $2 a day.

Abraham:

You realize that the problem of unemployment is huge, and it's because we over rely on the central governments to provide for us. I think it's high time that the youth consider the other resources and other means of generating their own livelihoods.

Abraham:

But I think the governments across the continent are moving in the right direction with the introduction of the African Continental Free Trade Area with the introduction of good business policies and regulatory frameworks.

Abraham:

And in Ghana, it takes now less than two months to register business from scratch, which is an improvement from some years back where you have to spend several months in the queue to just get your business registered. And I think that leveraging the entrepreneurial skills of the youth would be a good way to alleviate some of the big challenges on the continent.

Nadine Tim:

Abraham, you raised some really good points, but before I comment, it's quite surprising that this ties in very much with are not the response that I received from [Hepzibah, 00:08:22] who is from Nigeria. So let's hear what [Hepzibah 00:08:24] has to say, and I will be right back.

Hepzibah:

I think Africa's biggest problem is us. It's very true that we have leaders who don't exhibit good character who are not ethical, who engage in corrupt practices, embezzle money and do so many dubious things.

Hepzibah:

And it's very normal to say, "The leaders, the leaders, the leaders." But I think it's beyond that. We all have a role to play in making Africa the place we want it to be. We can all decide to leave the continent, go abroad, go to different countries, but never forget that you come from a place that's your identity.

Hepzibah:

And no matter how well you are doing in another country or another place, they would always trace your identity back to you are African. And I think we have to rise up to change and make Africa better.

Hepzibah:

We shouldn't say it's the force of the government. What can we do to make the little spaces we find ourselves better? What can we do to transform our communities? What can we do? How can we work on ourself? That if 90% of people in the office are adding zeros to falsify numbers, I would be the only person that would stand out.

Hepzibah:

It's not just about religion. It's not just about, "I want to do good." It's about your belief system. What good character, what ethical behavior do you want to show forth? Because you know that you may be the only person, but yet you're contributing to making Africa better.

Nadine Tim:

This is so insightful. And my understanding of what you are both saying is that there is only so much that our governments can do for us. And even though I think that our governments needs to improve our policies and create a better environment for its young people to thrive.

Nadine Tim:

I also think that we, as citizens must play a part, what are we doing to make ourselves better? What are we doing to help our communities? Do you have ideas, start a business, do something to improve your skills, do something to help other people within your community.

Nadine Tim:

Before I go onto our last response, I would just like to highlight the fact that we started out asking ourselves, "What is Africa's biggest problem?" Is it culture? Is it leadership? Is it our people, and their mindset?

Nadine Tim:

We don't know because what I'm hearing from these young people from different countries is that Africa's problem is complex. But I think Sandra from Uganda breaks that down even more.

Sandra:

I believe Africa has biggest problem is education. As we all know, this is the basis for development of any country in the world. Having a large number of the population and educated leads to a whole chain of other problems, ranging from a rise in disease, food insecurity, early pregnancies among the young teenage girls and the chain continues.

Sandra:

I believe once this is addressed, there will be improvement in the health sector. There will be better security, better policies will be made. Resources will be better utilized. And in the long run, the country will grow to the GDP that we all want to see it at.

Nadine Tim:

Thank you so much, Sandra, for bringing up the fact that even though you think Africa's biggest problem is education. It ties in with healthcare. It ties in with food insecurity. It ties in with how we utilize our resources, a security and even sectors such as agriculture.

Nadine Tim:

If we have the most educated citizens, but poor leadership and poor policies, then our countries will continue to struggle. But if we are able to change the mindset of our people, we can also change the culture. And by changing the culture, we're going to have people who advocate for their governments to do better.

Nadine Tim:

So if you look at it critically, you see that everything is connected. If you ask me, "What is Africa's biggest problem?" I have no idea, but what I can tell you for sure is that Africa needs structure, Africa needs leaders, Africa needs proactive citizens. Africa needs organized institutions.

Nadine Tim:

But most importantly, Africa needs you and me. Now, the question is, "What can you do to make Africa better?" Thank you so much for listening up until this point continue to engage with my post on Baobab.

Nadine Tim:

And if you don't know what Baobab is, this is a platform for all young Africans who are passionate about creating change. If you're not on the platform, you can go to www.baobabplatform.org and follow us on Instagram @baobabplatform until next time. Bye.