By George Hamusunga, Executive Director, Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC)
The agenda for the Summit of the Future (SOFT) has attracted great interest among UN member states, the UN system, Civil Society representatives, international organizations, media representatives, and volunteers. This is evidenced by the large number of participants who attended the opening session on 20th September.
On 20th September, which was the opening day of the SOFT, the UN experienced the longest queues they have seen in the recent past at the UN Pass Office, UN entrances, and Conferences. This overwhelming interest is a testimony of the relevance of the SOFT to UN member states and citizens. However, although it is obvious that different themes attracted different participants, my reflection in this blog is on the SOFT agenda and how it aligns with Africa’s current needs and aspirations.
In the meetings I attended, speakers emphasized the need to modernize the UN system to make it more responsive towards accelerating progress to achieve the SDGs. They expressed concern that the SDG achievement rate was standing at 17% with only five years before the 2030 deadline. To my surprise though, none of the presenters justified as to why we are lagging so much behind in achieving the SDGs. Instead, the discussions offered firm promises that the SOFT will address the current global challenges of poverty, climate change, conflict, and inequalities. To achieve this, the SOFT targets to confront inequities in the current international financial architecture to ensure financial stability and equitable economic growth, improve global governance, and provide opportunities for meaningful youth participation among others.
With the above dominant characterisation of the SOFT agenda, there is no dispute that the conceptualisation of the SOFT is very relevant to Africa. However, whether or not the proposed solutions are both practical and durable is an honest conversation that requires interrogation.
First and foremost, it is important to note that Africa’s problems are unique in that they co-exist with natural resource endowments and a bulging youth population which presents a huge economic dividend. As a result, the continent requires a unique strategy to address its problems mainly premised on harnessing its local opportunities, rather than depending on aid, debt, and foreign direct investment as the ‘Mother Theresa’ of development capital. In other words, what Africa requires is the decolonization of development financing. Africa does not require an agenda that posits the continent as a child in need of being rescued from a burning building. Instead, the reforms that African Heads of State need from the UN should be targeted at maximizing the continent’s domestic resource mobilization through just and fair taxes, combating illicit financial flows responsible for the loss of billions of dollars from Africa annually, and lobbying for debt swaps with social sectors and climate change financing.
This inward-looking for Africa should be motivated by the failure of previous global agendas to yield meaningful development outcomes for Africa mainly due to both unfulfilled global financing pledges and the lack of context-specific priorities. For instance, the overemphasis by previous global development agendas on early learning and primary education at the expense of secondary and tertiary education has had its ramifications. For a continent in dire need of high-level technologies to sustainably exploit its vast natural resources in order to create employment for its youthful population and spur economic growth, this inequitable investment in education has denied the continent the real value of education.
As if this is not enough oversight, education is deliberately not part of the five pillars of the Pact of the Future, probably because the UN believes that sustainable development is possible with minimal emphasis or investment in education.
The discussion around youth participation, though not an end in itself, is also relevant for Africa given the high youth population. However, the challenge that arises is that meaningful participation entails that when the youth speak, governments ought to listen and act. Otherwise, giving the youth a voice, without acting on their asks amounts to tokenism. It is for this reason that the youth at the SOFT ranked their participation at the UN as being tokenistic in an online survey held during their interaction with the UN Secretary General.
It must be understood that voice and action are two main pillars of youth participation that should not be sacrificed. Otherwise, sacrificing action for voice amounts to tokenism, decoration, or verbalism which can be a source of conflict or discontent among the youth. Voice alone without action cannot directly translate into increased access to meaningful educational opportunities, youth employment, and reduced poverty. More important, the purpose of meaningful youth participation should be to enhance the relevance, efficacy, and efficiency of service delivery for the youth, including the delivery of education and training opportunities. This is the value of meaningful youth participation as opposed to only empowering the youth to engage in self-advocacy devoid of government responsiveness.
Finally, the most significant progress that the UN has already achieved through the SOFT is the recognition of the need for change in addressing the current global challenges. However, the agenda lacks practical context-specific solutions for Africa. The conference does not recognize strategic opportunities that present competitive advantages for the continent’s sustainable growth and prosperity. Instead, it seeks global solutions to Africa’s problems that may not respond to the real needs of the continent even if they are domesticated.
Perhaps the UN must change its strategy by starting to depend on data and evidence, as much as they are doing with consultations, so that they can learn from past failures and use compelling evidence to chart a realistic future for its member states.