I am the wrong person to write a treatise on what is wrong with Africa. I have neither the immersion nor direct access to the issues that my friend Andrew M. Mwenda has nor the painstaking, meticulous nature of my mentor, Timothy Kalyegira. There are countless economists and analysts who would do a better job than me. But the latter, in trying to analyze the hype around Marvel’s Black Panther, unintentionally challenged nerds like myself to think of what Wakanda may have gone through to achieve its economic prowess. In Kalyegira’s mind, while Wakanda is hypothetical, fictitious, and out of reach for today’s 55 African countries, I shall attempt to show that Wakanda, unlike El Dorado, can be achieved in less than 18 months.
Now, without alluding to Rostow’s specific steps to economic growth, this article subtly infuses movie elements, fast-moving words, even faster assumptions, motions, and even some sleight of hand. And if you have not seen Black Panther, this may not make sense at first. But stick with me; we shall get you there.
Value Addition
To start, although vibranium is not a real mineral, there is something used quite as ubiquitously: coltan, infused primarily into mobile phone capacitors, is, like diamond, copper, and gold, mostly found in Central Africa. Interestingly, this is the same Great Lakes region within which the fictional reclusive/hermit Kingdom of Wakanda is based.
While vibranium can be refined into an inviolable but feather-light metallic product, coltan becomes a heat-resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge, central to control currents inside miniature circuit boards. Before being processed, primarily African men and women work their fingers to the bone to dig craters in streambeds to get to the coltan underground. These workers then use large wash-tubs to slosh water and mud around so the heavy coltan can settle at the bottom. As ABC News suggests, ‘a good worker can produce 1 kilogram (2.2 lbs) of coltan daily.’
But therein lies Africa’s problem. At the height of its market price, a kilogram of coltan went for approximately US$400. In the Congo, where much coltan comes from, a good miner can make about US$50 weekly. Now, whose fault is it that this miner, the one that brings in almost US$3,500 worth of stuff per week, is paid less than 5 percent of its overall value? The answer lies not in the world’s stock exchanges but in two words: value addition.
Because another quickly replaces the man that digs the earth, the value their respective labor adds to the process is, perhaps, less than 5 percent of the final product’s value. When one buys a mobile phone for US$50, they are not buying 20 grams (0.7 ounces) of coltan. Instead, they are buying a product that has undergone various iterations – and this mobile phone, at US$50 – may leverage less than 1 gram of coltan. In simple terms, until the Congo has the technology to add value to its vibranium, nee coltan, the country cannot emerge in the mold of Wakanda in the next few months.
On the other hand, allow me to touch upon an even more precious natural resource. Coffee
is valued much higher than gold, sugar, maize, and diamonds. Coffee is the world’s most ‘revered’ beverage. Produced by mainly developing nations, over 500 billion cups of coffee are consumed each year globally, primarily in developed countries like Norway and the United States.
Ever since Independence in 1962, coffee has been Uganda’s biggest export. In 2017, the Daily Monitor reported that Uganda had earned US$545 million from selling 4.6 million kilograms (10 lbs million ). Initially discovered in Ethiopia, Uganda is Africa’s 2nd largest coffee exporter – earning less than 4 percent per annum of what is, globally, a US$20 billion export business and even less than 0.06 percent in the overall US$100 billion industry.
Now, before you cast stones and aspersions against colonialism, or some dark mafia preventing Uganda from getting better than fair trade prices, the reality is that Uganda can become a Wakanda simply by adding value to the coffee the country exports. In its raw form, the coffee cherry must be picked, pulped, fermented, washed, dried, hulled, and sorted before it can garner the price it fetches. As of January 31, 2018, one kilogram of Arabica coffee was US$3.06. On arriving back in the United States yesterday, I paid about US$12 for a measly 453 grams of roasted coffee beans that I would grind myself. My pathetic self-pity aside, because each person in the value chain is entitled to a profit margin, it is pretty sad that Uganda’s farmers may, for the foreseeable future, continue to earn less than 5 percent of what the overall exporter earns on a kilo.
Wakanda Emerging?
But I am not here to talk about the farmer. This discussion concerns Wakanda as a country, and in this case, Uganda. Specifically, if Uganda wanted to start the process of becoming Wakanda over the next 6 to 18-month period, it could:
1. Place a June 30, 2018, moratorium on all raw coffee exports. In the 4 months between now and June 30, Uganda’s President Museveni has so much work to do to prepare farmers and the regional coffee sector for the radical changes they are about to witness. Or perhaps, like King T’Challa of Wakanda would do, President Museveni could order the country to stop exporting unprocessed coffee by June 2018, and it will, no doubt, happen.
2. In March 2018, 3 months before the June 2018 dictum takes effect, the country could invest approximately US$100 million in a whole host of tangential roasters, such as the Jupiter series that can produce over 11,000 pounds of coffee [in a wide range of precise flavors and aromas] in an hour. Because the beans must be kept in motion at a temperature of about 550 degrees Fahrenheit, Uganda must have a stable source of electricity.
3. Because the process of pyrolysis – where the flavor and aroma of coffee emerge – is a delicate one, Uganda must ‘import’ specialists from those countries that consume much of Uganda’s coffee. Housed all over Uganda and employed semi-permanently, these “foreign experts” would advise the country on what kind of flavors their respective millennials are going for.
4. Seminally, because freshly roasted beans must reach the consumer as quickly as possible, Uganda must have cargo planes on standby to fly freshly roasted Ugandan coffee to the farthest ends of the globe. With progress on a functional Yamoussoukro Arrangement to regulate air transport in Africa, Uganda should not have a problem securing the sort of credit guarantees that will allow the country to walk into Boeing and walk out with 15 brand-new aircraft. Boeing sits on both new and used inventory, and Uganda is a shareholder at the African Trade Insurance Agency, home to some of Africa’s most comprehensive credit solutions.
5. BUT before the coffee can get onto those brand new planes, it must be branded and placed in appropriate packaging and bags. Ugandans will not be able to get away with just shoving the produce of their hands into sisal sacks and stuff. Delicately designed bags will have to be developed or imported; we expect better-manicured hands to touch the coffee that will touch the lips of the customer – and by George, I hope those better-manicured hands belong to a former AGOA girl who is, now, better paid.
Do you see Wakanda emerging now? Can you smell it? Can you see the number of people who would benefit if the country earned an additional US$600 million (or more) from just coffee? Did you notice that there were additional elements like cargo planes and electricity? These sectors and industries would all come together to facilitate a precious resource like coffee.
Now, how different is coffee from vibranium? Based on the reality that Uganda is still the world’s most entrepreneurial nation, home to the world’s friendliest people, and overseen by the world’s best weather, the only thing missing is the actual hand-to-hand combat contest for who, among the country’s royals, will be the next Ugandan Panther.
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