It's hard to make a buck in Nigeria when you can't go to the bank and mortgage your house or your farm, or use your property as collateral for a business loan. There are 120 million people in Nigeria, the most populous and boisterous of African countries, but the land-title system is a wreck.
This is why Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, in one of the many practical steps he took in his six-country tour of Africa that ended yesterday, promised Nigerians that Canada would help them conduct a thorough survey of their territory. He said it is a simple idea and that Nigerians desperately need access to one of the most elemental tools of the capitalist economy: a clear legal right to a bit of land.
As he crisscrossed the ravaged continent, logging 45,000 kilometres by plane, Mr. Chrétien saw people living in shacks and in sickness and in fear. He headed out to the poorest of the poor in Ethiopia, where people were thrilled that water suddenly is available a few doors away -- thanks to a Canadian-financed project -- instead of four hours away.
He saw Algerian kids who witnessed religious violence that claimed 400 lives, and people on the sidewalk peddling bananas and chewing gum, living off a dollar a day.
And every day Mr. Chrétien saw Africa's wealth concentrated among the few who have power and palaces -- and the access to the diamonds, oil and tax dollars.
Through it all, however, Mr. Chrétien continues to believe that problems could be managed if they were tackled one by one.
"I am not known as someone of idle dreams and empty ideals. I prefer action to rhetoric," the Prime Minister said this week in a speech to the Organization for African Unity.
When asked yesterday why he had embarked on a project to save Africa when many others have failed, Mr. Chrétien said he was asked to come up with an Africa plan by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. "When you give me a job, I do it."
Mr. Chrétien was a hit among his African hosts. He saved them embarrassment by not criticizing their countries for their human-rights violations, while never shying away from talking about the perils facing Africa as a whole.
"Growing poverty, famine, disease, war, debt, corruption -- they are the millstones of Africa," he said, pointing out that Africa is the only continent that had regressed economically and socially during the past decade.
Africans had good reasons to be welcoming. As the emissary of the G8, Mr. Chrétien brought a long-term pledge of $50-billion (U.S.) in new aid to reward governments that undertake democratic and economic reforms.
To gain access to those funds, African countries are pledging to set up their own carrot-and-stick approach to development. They will draw up their own rankings of countries based on various criteria: Respect for human rights and democracy, good governance and open economic policies. They will gain points for such initiatives as free elections, naming auditors-general and having independent judiciaries.
Under this plan, called the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the best performers will receive increased aid money as incentives and rewards for their progress. The plan had wide backing.
One of NEPAD's goals is to prevent the emergence of another Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe who recently won an election by using his governmental powers to trample the opposition.
As one senior Canadian official said, the G8 will not let Mr. Mugabe ruin the prospects of development for 800 million people.
Zimbabwe likely would rank at the bottom of the NEPAD list, and it would not receive new money. Donor countries, however, will not abandon Zimbabweans; donations will continue to support existing humanitarian projects. But NEPAD will be a financial incentive to Zimbabwe -- and other non-democratic regimes -- to undertake reforms.
Canadian and African officials exude rare optimism. "The world was getting so tired of failure in Africa, they were about to turn it off," a senior Canadian official said.
The former Canadian ambassador to Algeria and Rwanda, Claude Laverdure, said he finally felt good about Africa's future now that a new generation of leaders is in place, and with them the prospect of better government throughout much of the continent.
"I would never have believed over the last 10 days we would have heard what we heard," said Mr. Laverdure, the Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs adviser. "The word governance I don't think existed much around this part of the world."
Mr. Chrétien said it is the start of a new era in Africa.
Still, it is hard to understand how NEPAD will help people such as Tahir Abdi. The grand objective of the plan is to attract private investors to Africa, but companies are not heading to the 26-year-old Ethiopian's part of the world. He lives on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, in a one-room house on a rocky slope just by the edge of the jungle.
Mr. Abdi said he acts as a kind of customs agent, inspecting vehicles coming in and out of the city. He earns about $80 a month.
He and his neighbours have little education, no job experience and no infrastructure to offer to the large producers of the world. Mr. Abdi said his country needs the basics of life, and that's what he wants rich countries to pledge to provide.
"They have to help Ethiopia, first for water, then transportation, telephone, light, electricity and health," he said.
It will take time for those things to unfold. But as Mr. Chrétien would say, you have to start somewhere.
The tour's highlights
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien visited Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia and South Africa in a bid to give momentum to the New Partnership for African Development, a plan to increase foreign aid to countries on the continent in exchange for democratic and economic reforms. Among his activities:
On April 3, Mr. Chrétien met with Moroccan Prime Minister Abderrahmane el Youssoufi. Much of the discussion dealt with the conflict in the Middle East.
On April 4, Mr. Chrétien called on African governments to push ahead with democratic reforms and give a voice to their people, after meeting dozens of Algerian children who witnessed the 1997 killing of 400 people by thugs in their village of Bentalha.
On April 6, Mr. Chrétien flew to South Africa for meetings with President Thabo Mbeki and former president Nelson Mandela. He drew fire in Canada for refusing to comment on South Africa's slow distribution to pregnant women of an anti-AIDS drug and for refusing to denounce the imposition of Islamic law in northern Nigeria, which allows for the stoning of women convicted of adultery.
Winding up his trip to Africa, Mr. Chrétien warned African leaders in a speech on Thursday that they will "pay the price" of reduced foreign aid and private investment if they fail to persuade Western nations that they are committed to implementing guidelines of good governance and human-rights reforms.
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