FORGOTTEN AFRICA?  It’s more complex than that, says Professor Dr. Cédric Dupont, who joined discussions about Ebola on the Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) feature «Avis d’experts» on 27 October.

We followed-up with Prof. Dupont for a brief interview in English, after his radio discussion (listen, in French).  His responses, below, highlight some of his key insights.

As the world watches the dramatic spread of death caused by Ebola in West Africa, is this a result of the world’s neglect of Africa?
Indeed, some in the developed North Atlantic world have voiced their concern that Africa has for too long been a forgotten continent.   From their perspective, if Ebola had emerged in another continent in the mid-seventies, significant efforts to find a vaccine would have been undertaken—and other solutions put in place—to fight this terrible disease. (In contrast, there has been almost a complete neglect of it since its first outburst in the Democratic Republic of Congo forty years ago).  But while it is true that attention paid to Africa in the North Atlantic media tends to correlate it with natural disasters, wars, famines and epidemics, the picture of a continent otherwise forgotten by the rest of the world is at best misleading.


If neglect is not the primary cause, what are other possible underlying reasons for this lack of preparedness?
First, one should not be overconfident about what would have happened if Ebola had emerged in other parts of the developing world. I can be argued that even with the existence of adequate health infrastructure, it would probably not have gathered much more attention or resources than it has had thus far in Africa until the loss of life reached this kind of exponential tipping point.  Why? Because the business model for the pharmaceutical industry would have been the same, that is, a rare disease affecting regions with low income and therefore sales prospect too low to recover the costs of R&D.

So is it mostly a market-based challenge?
Beyond a problem of market failure, the current situation relates very much to the challenges of governance and the issue of Africans being forgotten “by whom”? Whereas some are quick to point to the cynical developed and emerging worlds that are interested in a resource-rich Africa, eager to channel investments into domains of activity that help deprive Africa of its wealth, the reality on the ground is also marked by huge local governance problems.  As demonstrated in a large range of studies, sustainable prosperity is unlikely to materialize short of long-term expectations about peaceful political and social change.

What can be done, then, to build that stability?
The most availed, although not unique, way to achieve such a situation has been the establishment of democratic political regimes.  And in most parts of the continent, despite clear democratization progress in several countries, citizens still often lack the confidence of peaceful domestic change.  The main reason for this sad state of affairs has been the tendency of political elites to capture the state—and then change the rules of the political game to consolidate their stay in power, even at the cost of domestic violence.  And when this violence bursts out, the long-term costs of infrastructure are likely to be huge and lasting. It is not a coincidence that Ebola has so far mostly affected countries with some of the worst records in domestic violence and conflicts.


So changes in governance can ultimately make a difference?
In sum, there is certainly a need for the world to consider financing mechanisms to counter the market failures in addressing diseases such as Ebola.  But there is an even greater urgency for public sector leadership.  What is needed is for many of these African political elites to stop focusing so much energy on their own power and wealth and instead to focus on building the prosperity of their citizens.


Professor Cédric Dupont regularly travels to Sub-Saharan Africa to teach civil servants in the region as part of capacity-building programmes in Institute's Executive Education division.  Prof. Dupont is Professor of Political Science/International Relations and Director of Executive Education at the Graduate Institute, Geneva.