BY CHRISTINE MUNGAI
If we
were to redraw Africa’s borders to have each ethnic group in their own country,
we would have at least 2,000 countries
Sign in Botswana: turn left for
Namibia, right for Zimbabwe and Zambia. (Photo: Flickr/ Guitarfish).
AFRICA’S arbitrary
borders have done much to foment strife and instability on the continent.
Partitioning communities, the argument goes, has led to artificial
borders, ethnic struggles, and spurred civil conflict and
underdevelopment.
Look at a map of
Africa and you will notice the many clean lines. Nearly half (44%) of Africa’s borders are straight lines
or follow lines of latitude or longitude, splitting at least 177 ethnic groups
in two or more countries.
It’s obviously
impractical to have all Africa’s ethnic groups with their own country, simply
because Africa is such a diverse place. If we were to redraw Africa’s borders
to have each ethnic group in their own country, we would have at least 2,000 countries.
Still, four in ten
Africans today belong to an ethnic group that has kin across borders.
Having your community
split by a border increases the risk of war, says this seminal study on
the long-term effects of African borders, and makes
conflict more deadly. One study showed that length of a conflict and its
casualty rate is 25% higher in areas where an ethnicity is divided by a
national border as opposed to areas where ethnicities have a united homeland.
There are
several reasons for this high risk of conflict, the researchers
say – partitioning tends to generate irredentist demands, where
ethnicities that are minority groups in one country want to unify with their
kin across the border.
For example, the
Somali are split between five different countries – so apart from Somalia
itself, Somalis can be found in northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, Eritrea and
Djibouti.
At least three wars
since independence in the 1960s have been driven (partly at least) by the
desire of Somalis in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya to become part of Somalia.
The Somali national flag is a white five-pointed star set against a blue
background; the five points of the star represent these five “estranged” Somali
groups.
Risk
of conflict heightened
The risk of conflict
is also heightened because split ethnicities may fight to gain independence or
obtain automony; one historical study documented that around 20% of civil wars
in Africa have a secessionist undertone.
Split groups are also
more likely to be smaller, as a percentage of the total, in their respective
countries, and so are likely to be marginalised and unable to access political
power, and the benefits of patronage.
The Malinke of West
Africa are among the most partitioned people in Africa, split into six
different countries – Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and
The Gambia.
Similarly, the Ndembu
are split between Angola, Zaire, and Zambia; the Nukwe, between Angola,
Namibia, Zambia, and Botswana, the Alur, between Uganda and DR Congo, and
the Ibibio between Nigeria and Cameroon.
Silver
lining
But there’s a silver
lining to this seemingly gloomy story. You may not realise it – and African
governments don’t give them enough credit – but border communities generate as
much GDP as all of Africa’s offices and factories, only that it’s off the
books.
Informal cross border
trade represents 43% of the official GDP of the continent, thus being almost
equivalent to the formal sector, according to data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
In some ways, people
hardly recognise the arbitrary lines that separate them from their uncles,
aunts, brothers and sisters living on the other side.
But in other ways,
they are very keen to benefit from the opportunity, leveraging their mobility
to make the most of price differences across borders.
One report from USAID
estimates that each of about 3 million West African cross-border traders
conducts an annual average of $20,000 in transactions, amounting to an
aggregate amount of four billion dollars.
Overall informal
exports to West Africa from Nigeria is estimated to be between $1.5 and $1.9
billion, and up to 15% of Nigeria’s imports enter Ghana informally, largely
along the Benin–Nigeria border.
Livestock are some of
the most informally traded commodities. In the Horn of Africa, cross border
trade in camels through Ethiopia/Djibouti, South Sudan/north-western Kenya, and
eastern Uganda/western Kenya is estimated to be worth $5million per year;
informal trade in cattle represented more than 85% of total trade.
In this region,
exports of livestock to neighbouring countries in fact at times exceed official
trade by a factor of 30% or more, hence making up over 95% of total trade in
livestock.
A similar study quoted by the African
Development Bank noted that informal traders along the Kenya- Somalia borders
were known to realise astounding growth of 500-700% in the value of their
livestock and generated annual sales in excess of $11.7 million.
In Uganda, a more relaxed tax regime makes some goods in the
country cheaper, leading to the curious phenomenon where goods can be imported
to landlocked Uganda through Kenya, only to be re-exported to Kenya – doubling
back of the same roads that they were imported through – and still sold for a
profit!
Sudan and DR Congo are a major
destination for Uganda’s informal exports, jointly accounting for 64%-74% of
exports, largely comprising shoes, clothes, fish, beans, maize grain, flour,
beer, medicines and alcohol.
A mountain of paperwork
Still, it’s not that these cross-border
communities are intent on evading the law – following the legal channels is so
incredibly tedious that it can be virtually impossible to comply, if your goods
are ever to make it to market on time, before your tomatoes turn to mould.
In most African countries, there are two
sets of documents to be filled on either side of a border, which means that the
average customs transaction involves 20–30 different parties, 40 documents, 200
data elements (30 of which repeated at least 30 times), and the rekeying of
60-70% of all data at least once, according to the report from UNECA.
These administrative hurdles sharply
increase trade costs (it is estimated that each day of delay at customs is
equivalent to an additional 85km between the trading countries). They also
encourage illicit trade and corruption in order to bypass delays at customs and
border posts.
But African borders, formidable as they
seem (officially), are actually not as robust in reality, particularly if
there’s a common ethnic group living on both sides, as these communities are
adept at squeezing through the cracks.
Generally, African governments generally
adopt a “live-and-let-live” approach – even though the informal trade denies
governments much-needed tax revenue, it provides even-more needed jobs.
The AfDB notes that the informal trade
can have numerous knock-on effects, such as lessening the impact of food crises
and help reducing price volatility, as well as give a greater availability of
goods at affordable prices.
But the most interesting study on borders we have come across so far
looked at two communities in Niger and Nigeria. These are the Hausa, who
straddle the border between the two countries, and the Zamra, who are found
within Niger and so have an “internal” ethnic border with the Hausa.
The study found that the Niger-Nigeria
national border did not have such a large impact on the price difference of
millet and cowpeas between the two countries, compared to other borders in the
region that do not share a common ethnic community on both sides.
Intriguingly, the researchers found that
the price difference within Niger, between the Zamra and the Hausa, was much
more pronounced than that between the Hausa living on both sides of the
Niger-Nigeria international border.
At first, it seems that linguistic
differences between the Zamra and Hausa would explain the internal (ethnic)
barrier to trade in Niger, as none of the Hausa traders in the study could
speak Zamra, and only 20% of Zamra traders could speak Hausa.
It’s the women
But then interviews showed that it takes
a very low level of linguistic proficiency to sell millet and cowpeas; just a
rudimentary knowledge of simple terms and numbers in either language is enough
to close a sale.
So if language isn’t the problem, what
explains the price gap? The answer is surprising – women.
The researchers found a stark difference
in the gender composition between the Hausa and Zarma regions. At the
Hausa-Zamra “internal” border, 30% of traders operating in the Zamra markets
are female, as compared with only 5% in the Hausa markets.
The percentage of female traders increases
when moving farther west into Zarma regions, and decreases when moving farther
east into Hausa.
The cultural difference in gender roles,
as reflected by the gender composition of Zarma and Hausa markets, may be one
source of the ethnic border effect if male Hausa traders are unwilling to trade
with female Zamra traders.
This reluctance to trade with women
reduces the optimal quantity traded between those markets – effectively
segmenting the markets and creating a “real”, de facto border.
The study thus makes a stunning
conclusion: that in such situations, ethnic borders may map the geography of
trade more effectively than international borders do.
So if you’re a government, how do you
promote trade in such an environment? Fancy customs offices and computerised
border posts won’t make much of a difference. It’s easy – encourage
intermarriage across communities. Market inefficiencies like this will
disappear, because you’ll quickly run out of excuses why you can’t buy
cowpeas from your wife’s sister.
Source: Source: Mail & Guardian
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