In a Africa Reawakening: What the Continent Did with International Aid, a first-hand look at how foreign aid has been used in Africa and what the continent’s future promises, James F. Conway describes the political and other developments that have engulfed these nations.

The book chronicles the events and peoples whom Conway has lived with and studied in the Sudan, Niger, Egypt, and Angola for more than 15 years.

Conway shows a continent with a resolute path toward stability and progress. He maintains that the eras of colonization, civil war, corrupt dictatorship and independence have been followed by today’s relative peace. “The African countries have witnessed remarkable growth, with South Africa serving as a determined prototype,” he declares.

Fifty years after the post-independence period, a new Africa has emerged, according to Conway. He maintains that not only has South Africa stepped into the limelight but also that leadership is emerging among the 53 countries on the continent that form part of the African Union (AU). He documents success stories in Mozambique, Botswana, Senegal, and Ghana.

Conway also pinpoints the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which, according to Mr. Aziz Pahid, the South African Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, “is about changing the begging bowl syndrome and past donor-recipient relations.” Conway himself declares that NEPAD “casts a positive light on the future horizon in Africa.”

Says Kevin G. Lowther, Regional Director of AFRICARE: “Ever since Rene Dumont's False Start in Africa, development professionals have been agonizing over the continent's failure to take advantage of massive foreign assistance and its substantial natural resource base. Drawing on his quarter century working throughout the continent, Jim Conway analyzes some hard lessons and looks forward to a new dawn for African development.”

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James Francis Conway, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, spent 1974-1987, and 2003-2004, working in Africa. Niger and Zaire postings were assignments for Church World Service, the Development arm of the Protestant Council of Churches of the USA. In Rwanda, in l981-82, he worked for CLUSA (Cooperative League of the USA).

In 1982, he transferred to the United Nations, and moved to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, as Director of the WFP (World Food Program). From ’84-‘87 in Cairo, Egypt, he was Adviser for WFP. During those first 13 years in Africa, he did consultancies in Sudan for the FAO, in Ghana and Ivory Coast for the UN Population Fund and in Zaire for USAID.

In June of 2003, Dr. Conway was named Emergency Disaster Relief Coordinator in Luanda, Angola for OFDA (Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance) of the USAID, where he is currently residing.

Over the years, Dr. Conway managed to visit 40 of the 53 African Nations, and reside on the edges of some of its major rivers: the Niger, the Nile, the Congo, and the Kwanza. He took courses to achieve speaking ability in Hausa, Lingala, Swahili and Arabic. His six-month-old son lived his next 13 years in Africa; his daughter was born in Niger in a village clinic. His children attended French, Belgian, International and American school systems in Africa. In Equatorial Guinea, there were no international schools. The children enrolled in CNEC, a French overseas learning system based in Toulouse. Conway has compiled a synthesis of his experiences and insights about the development process in a book called Africa Reawakening: What the Continent Did With International Aid.

Conway is also the author of Migrant America (1965), and Marx and Jesus (1974), and has written for Worldview Magazine.

EXCERPT FROM JAMES F. CONWAY'S AFRICA REAWAKENING

FOREWORD

Africa Reawakening: What the Continent Did With International Aid picks up where Rene Dumont, in his “l’Afrique Noir est mal Parti,” left off. Dumont focused on corrupt dictators, lack of planning processes, the bankrupt colonial heritage, rampant demographic growth, and null economic growth rates. This occurred in the first decades after independence and continues to occur to some extent.

We are now 50 years from the post-independence period. A new Africa emerged from 27 years of incarceration on Robin Island. South Africa has stepped into the limelight. Leadership is emerging among the 53 countries on the continent, which form part of the AU (African Union). Success stories can be documented in Mozambique, Botswana, Senegal, and Ghana. Despite deteriorating soils, less rainfall, and smaller harvests, creeping desertification, and devaluation of export crops on world markets, West Africa is finding new resources, such as oil (on and offshore), uranium, diamonds, natural gas, and embryonic tourism.

The war-torn economies of Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Angola are reconfiguring and an urban working class is emerging.

Africa is the largest political force in the UN General Assembly. The Trusteeship Council helped bring many of its countries into existence. UN Peace-Keeping Missions are active in most of Africa’s crisis countries from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Liberia. The UN technical agencies are active partners in the development planning in all the country capitals. The United Nations is also leading the fight against AIDS on the continent.

What is the secret formula for development on the Dark Continent? What are the mistakes not to be repeated? Why is the aid not working like a Marshall Plan? What are the new imperialistic interests? Did the British leave behind their legal tradition and respect for law? Did the French validate the African Culture, its linguistic multiplicity, its wood carvers, bronze casters, dancers and painters? Did the Portuguese solve the race problem by intermarriage in Lusophone Africa as they pretended to do in Brazil? Did the Belgians forget to educate the people, and leave behind a tradition of interracial harmony? Did the colonialists, who once scrambled for possessions in Africa, step down gracefully or fight to the end to retain mercantilist and exploitative relationships?

The book proposes no easy solutions, no universalistic formulas. It proposes to learn from the present and the past. It is a personal journey written in Luanda, Angola, which spans 15 years on the continent. It suggests successes and opens a door to tomorrow.

Price: $17.95 paperback

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