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The IIJD Formula – Justice and Development

Development is a cooperative effort that is directed at improving living conditions. For development to take place, you undoubtedly need a physical infrastructure. But more importantly, you need a legal infrastructure. The one essential ingredient that has been missing in Africa’s quest for development has been justice. In the view of Socrates, Plato, Locke and Montesquieu and other classical scholars, justice is a natural right. We all know that Africa is richly endowment with natural resources. We also know that over the years, the continent has received hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid. Yet, for obvious reasons, there has been no perceptible improvement in the living conditions of the average African. In other words, there has been has been no development. If anything, Africa is much worse off today than it has ever been at any time in its past. So what went wrong? I will here suggest that what is missing is a very unique formula – a formula that IIJD has developed and is working to implement on the ground in Africa. IIJD believes that justice is a precondition for development. We cannot have development without it. The West would never have developed had it not first embraced justice. Some of the things that classical philosophers had to say about justice and development are very much in line with the IIJD formula. Here are some of those thoughts:

These are the thoughts that have guided development in the United States and the rest of the Western world. They are the same thoughts that have inspired the development of the IIJD formula. But for some reason, Africa and international institutions that are involved in development work in Africa seem to have ignored this formula. In a belated effort to address the problems of underdevelopment in Africa and other parts of the world, the international community came together in 2000 and launched an initiative called the Millennium Development Project. The Project included a series of goals and timeline. The goals were very tall on ambition, but very short on justice reforms that should guarantee and enable development to take off. Gender equality, for example, is one of the many measures of justice. Development simply cannot take place without it. Almost all of the countries that are developed enjoy this very important measure of justice. Yet, among the eight goals that were outlined in the Millennium Development Project, only one made mention of the need to promote gender equality. This may be the reason why policymakers are already predicting that the goals are not going to be met by the 2015 timeline that was set for their achievement. You simply cannot reduce hunger and poverty in the world without providing equal educational opportunity to the women who were better place to know what it takes to feed and cloth a hungry baby.

Justice is a universal right, and development is a universal aspiration. Any philosopher will tell you that a universal right is more important than a universal aspiration. However, IIJD will more accurately tell us that justice is integral to development. It sees Justice is the political infrastructure that facilitates development. The formula is simply. You simply cannot have development without justice. When women are denied equal access to educational opportunities, it deprives society of women’s contributions to development. When corruption is rampant and transparency lacking, it reduces society’s ability to attract foreign investments. To my knowledge, no country in the world today can develop without foreign capital. Even though Africa has some of the fastest growing stock markets in the world, it has difficulties attracting foreign investments.

As alarming as this may sound, Africa and the United States were discovered and linked to the international economy the same decade. Short four years after Christopher Columbus discovered the United States in 1492, Vasco da Gama discovered Africa in 1496. If these were human, we would likely call them twins. Today, look at the gap between the two regions. It is not four years; it is light years. What happened? Well, one adopted the IIJD formula which believes that justice and development go hand in hand; the other did not.

The deficiency of justice in Africa obviously has much to do with the manner in which Africa was colonized and occupied. When America was colonized and settled by Europeans, a certain degree of justice was permitted in the management of its local affairs. On the other hand, when Africa was colonized and forcibly occupied, it was denied the most basic form of justice that is the natural right of the citizens of a civil society. The colonizer was neither interested in the development of Africa nor in the establishment of a culture of justice. His modus operandi was brute force. The effectiveness of brute force made the development of institutions of justice irrelevant. It was not until the eve of independence that the colonizer hurriedly allowed rudimentary notions of justice to be instituted in Africa. Any doubt therefore why African rulers today are so eager to use brute force against their citizens?

Twice the world has failed Africa – once by the colonizer and once by the African ruler. Any baseball fan will tell us that we cannot afford to fail at this third trial. Africa is very important and the stakes are too high for anyone to sit on the sideline. The public sector alone can no longer be counted upon to lead the development effort in Africa. We need to mobilize all of our resources – from entertainment events such as LiveAid, to activities by civil society, students, churches, private investors, academic experts such as Jeffrey Sachs, philanthropists such as Bill Gates, Sorros, and of course you and me. This is why IIJD brought us all here tonight. In our own special way, we can do for Africa what LiveAid did a few years ago, and what Sorros, Gates and Sachs are doing for Africa today. IIJD has already done the most difficult work. It has developed the formula – the Justice and Development formula. All we now need but to give it a push – the financial push that will enable its implementation.

Africa is ailing. It is ailing on all fronts. Bias against women is rampant. Many are denied the right to own property, to education and to equal treatment. At the death of a husband, a woman has no claim to the property she and her husband acquired during their lifetime working together. The property in most cases is transferred to the husband’s male siblings. The same is true with other underprivileged groups in Africa. The handicapped, the aging, and children simply have no legal protections. These are not biases that we can count on African governments, on the World Bank or on the IMF to correct. They are biases that can best be corrected by you, me, IIJD and anyone who is genuinely interested in Africa’s wellbeing. As genuinely committed as we all are, the truth is that we cannot all physically relocate to Africa to forge the change that the continent so badly needs. Luckily, IIJD has simplified the task for us. It is willing to go there on our behalf and work as our surrogate in bringing justice and development to those for whom justice and development are still a dream.

“Dreaming of justice!” is the title of tonight’s event. What a troubling title. Troubling but befitting though. You and I ought to be angry. Angry because what we ordinarily take for granted remains a dream for many people in other parts of the world. Yes, for a majority of people in Africa, justice and development are still a dream. But it is the one dream that you and I can help these people realize. Yes, we have the wherewithal. To s/he that much is given, much is expected. In the final analysis, personal fulfillment comes not from how much better off we are personally, but from how much we have contributed in making life better for others. Talk to any philanthropist; talk to anyone who is about to give up his last breath. They will all tell you that they wish they had the opportunity and the ability to make life better for others. This is your opportunity

This is your calling. Collectively, we can make a difference. Can we? It is time to collectively translate our optimism into action. Thank you IIJD. Thank you all. Thank you for coming, and thank you for your generosity in helping sow the seeds that will add meaning to the lives of our fellow humans.