"The combination of growing urbanisation and a large, increasingly educated youth population will drive major change," Clare Short said of sub-Saharan Africa
LONDON (TrustLaw) – Corruption and unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa risk causing popular uprisings like those seen during the Arab Spring, the UK’s former Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short has said.
Over the past year anti-government protests across the Middle East have toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, while Yemen’s president has pledged to step down and Syria’s president is under pressure to do the same. And in sub-Saharan Africa’s Nigeria, fears that the democratic government’s plans to remove a fuel subsidy would stoke corruption led to mass protests this month.
“Anger at corruption (and), a lack of justice and dignity was the major driver of the Arab Spring... it is not unlikely that such forces will produce a similar reaction across wider parts of Africa,” said Short, a patron of the Centre for the Study of Governance and Transparency, which organised last week’s Second Oxford Anti-Corruption Conference at the University of Oxford.
In both the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa, resentment towards governments has been spurred by high youth unemployment, namely among university graduates, she said, citing a July speech by African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka.
“My own conclusion is that the combination of growing urbanisation and a large, increasingly educated youth population will drive major change,” Short said of sub-Saharan Africa.
“The consequences will be turbulent and they will most probably lead to major reform and greater social justice but of course, if there isn’t progress, it could be much (uglier) than that,” she added.
Western countries must share some of the responsibility for the frustrations that led to the Arab Spring, Short said, as it was Western support for many of the now-deposed leaders that had kept them in power for so long.
“In the Arab world in particular, Western countries have colluded in propping up corrupt dictatorships which they have seen as crucial to their self-interest because of their need for access to oil,” Short told the conference.
The Arab Spring is not over, she said.
“There’s more to do of course in the Arab world but its ramifications for Africa are very powerful and I don’t think they’ve been played out,” she added.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
