'Don't judge Africa on Zim'

2005-06-25 09:59

Johannesburg - Africa should not be defined in terms of what was happening in Zimbabwe, businessman Cyril Ramaphosa told Irish radio in Dublin on Saturday morning, shortly after receiving an honorary law degree from a university there.

"I think Africa should not be defined in terms of the mishaps that are happening in one country or in a particular region," he said.

Africa had to be put on "a much broader canvas" and assessed on what was moving ahead on the continent.

"... And if you were to do that, you would find that, by and large, many, many more African countries have become democracies; people have voted in their leaders; the conflicts are beginning to reduce more and more, on an ongoing basis; and... economies (are)... growing wonderfully. Foreign-direct investment is flowing into a number of these countries."

"So if you look at the broader picture, there is progress."

Ramaphosa did not think African leaders' failure to take Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to task over the ongoing evictions undermined confidence in Africa's ability to deal with corruption.

The Zimbabwe situation was at the top of the minds of many people within South Africa.

"My own government is continuing to do as much as it can to try and resolve this problem diplomatically and our president (Thabo Mbeki), he is continuing to engage with Pres Mugabe," he said.

Africa was making tremendous progress on a number of fronts, with the peer review mechanism agreed to under the New Partnership for Africa's Development working wonders even in its infancy.

Rather than condemning, people should be applauding, because Africa was coming into its own. It needed to be appreciated, and egged on by being told: "carry on and do as much as you can".

Commenting on the media picture of Africa abroad, Ramaphosa said the misfortune of the African continent was that it was not branded as effectively as it should be.

"The progress that is being made. The progress that some of us who live on the continent can see, can touch, can smell, is not being projected and being recorded, but what is rather happening is that isolated mishaps are being projected much larger than what is warranted and yet progress is being made."

Africa was reportedly the largest growth area behind China - more so even than North America and Europe.

"As a businessman, I do know that whatever investment people put in Africa the returns are phenomenally wonderful."

Yet, these things were not reported. They were not packaged properly.

"And I can understand, the media likes failures, they like to project horror stories and yet there are good stories that are happening," said Ramaphosa.

- SAPA