I cannot recall the number of times that friends and acquaintances have called my attention to tourism activities that are harmful to wildlife and their habitat in our national parks and reserves. These are largely lay people who are rightly perturbed by what they see as isolated incidents of misconduct. (Including safari rally, sport hunting, consumptive use, the Standard Gauge Railway.)

The truth, however is far more complex, because what we witness from time to time are mere symptoms of a deep philosophical malaise that started slightly over a century ago. Its origins lie in a strange mix of myth, megalomania and racism. To begin with, we need to look at the whole concept of protected areas (PAs) which include national parks, reserves, conservancies, etc. We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that protected areas are a deeply flawed concept and a primitive, obsolete conservation tool. Philosophically, protected areas are lands that are taken, or “protected” from their rightful owners, the indigenous people. They are based on the globally popular myth of ideal nature existing within a matrix of “pristine wilderness” devoid of human presence.

This isn’t remarkable, knowing that the concept, first developed in the United States, was the brainchild of the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, and naturalist writer John Muir. Neither of these men had any technical ecological knowledge and their assertions about nature were based on the pillars of white supremacy and the need for self-actualization. This “poisoned root” of conservation is the reason why in the Global South the practice still requires guns, uniformed personnel, and fences. It remains a continuous slow-burning war against indigenous people. Together and separately, Muir and Roosevelt both regularly expressed their disdain for Native American societies, referring to them as “dirty” and “uncivilized” respectively in their writings.  It is against this backdrop that the oldest and arguably the most famous national parks in the world (Yellowstone, Sequoia, and Yosemite) were established in the United States.

The durability of their respective narratives was such that neither man was acknowledged as the unabashed racist that he was until the advent of the “Black Lives Matter” movement less than five years ago. Sierra Club, the conservation group founded by Muir in 1892, apologized in 2020 for his racist remarks as it struggled with its white supremacist history amidst a groundswell of anti-racist sentiment driven by the murder of George Floyd.

One of the starkest and most enduring symbols of the white supremacist origins of conservation practice is the statue that stood at the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History. It depicts Roosevelt riding a horse while flanked by a Native American man and a Black man, both on foot. In 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the then Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio issued the following statement: “The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. The whole world applauded this move, but failed to see and appreciate the big (long-term) picture that this statue had been accepted and celebrated since it was erected by sculptor James Earle Fraser in 1939, over 70 years earlier. We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the change we are witnessing isn’t a result of any logical departure from white supremacist reasoning but as a result of collective outrage at an incident of racist cruelty that played out in the glare of global media.

How, then, did this racial prejudice come to our shores? In 1910-11, after his presidency, Roosevelt made a famous hunting trip to Kenya. It was euphemistically called a “scientific expedition” because that is the only way in which it could be supported by a State Agency like the American Museum of Natural History and other private donors, who would require tax breaks for their contributions to the cost. Granted, many of the specimens “collected” found their way to museum collections, but the bloodlust and self-actualization is evident from the sheer number of creatures killed. By Roosevelt’s own account, he “collected” over 11,000 animals which included over four thousand birds, two thousand reptiles and amphibians, five hundred fish, and 5,103 mammals. The “scientific” credentials of this expedition are somewhat compromised by the numbers of specimens collected from every single species.

The trip was a huge success and Roosevelt remained a celebrity for the rest of his days, especially as concerns matters wildlife. In 2010, the Smithsonian Institution celebrated the centenary of his trip with an exhibition of specimens, mementoes and photographs. The exhibition includes several photos that showed Roosevelt and his companions R. J. Cuninghame, Frederick Selous, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, John Alden Loring, and Roosevelt’s son Kermit at different stages of their journey and posing with their kill. An enduring pictorial theme is the image of them on horseback crossing hazardous rivers and vast plains accompanied by columns of black porters, all on foot, bearing huge loads of equipment, supplies and trophies. Anyone who understands the loads carried, the risks taken and the distances travelled will know that this was indentured labour—the closest one could get to slavery in the immediate post-abolition world.

The template for tourism in Africa was thus forged and cooled to perfection. Romanticized tales of Roosevelt’s hunting trip were the first instances of the Kiswahili word “safari” migrating into the English language and being used in the context of recreational tourism. Their exploitation of nameless black bodies irreversibly infused the aroma of subjugation into the term “Safari”. Their extraordinary commitment to killing wildlife on this trip forever tied the term “Safari” to the disrespect and “consumption” of wild animals. The few conservation scholars who are familiar with African history will also note the presence of Frederick Courteney Selous among Roosevelt’s companions, an extraordinarily committed killer of African wildlife and a “hero” of the brutal suppression of the Ndebele people in Southern Africa, having killed many of them in the late 19th Century. Safari tourism is the only sector in Africa that celebrates our racist histories, and our national parks are white spaces. That’s why East Africa’s largest and richest protected area is called the Selous Game Reserve.

Anyone who understands the loads carried, the risks taken and the distances travelled will know that this was indentured labour.

So, having examined the roles of racism and megalomania in our safari tourism sector, where is the role of myth? This aspect is not immediately apparent because we tend to default to the ancient whenever the term mythology is used. In the case of conservation, we are dealing with 20th century mythology and the foundations of this myth were laid by the American author Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1914 when he created the fictional character known as “Tarzan”, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as some strange “heroic” adventurer.

Safari tourism is the only sector in Africa that celebrates our racist histories, and our national parks are white spaces.

The power of this myth is most visible in its success over the years in syndicated articles, novels, comic books, movies and animated features. The most powerful and oppressive parts of the myth, however, are more subtle and almost subliminal. Firstly, it is the fact that the “feral” child is actually a noble scion (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke). This actually provides for maintaining the seamless link between being a “leader” both in the “jungle” and in “civilization”. In present day Africa, that manifests as any white person being entitled to claim leadership in the conservation/safari tourism sector, regardless of their age or qualifications. Secondly, there is the absence of black people, despite the story being set in Africa, which manifests in the sector as black people’s needs being completely subordinate to the needs of safari tourism interests and their clientele.

This particular message is extremely powerful, and has poisoned the thinking of conservation students and scientists in Africa over the decades. It is probably most responsible for the “saviour complex” and ambivalence to black people that is so characteristic of those who parachute in from Western countries. In a refreshing show of honesty, the world-famous chimpanzee saviour and primatologist Dr Jane Goodall openly says that the legend of Tarzan inspired her to come and work with wild animals in Africa. To this day, I struggle to see any intellectual participation of black Africans in her work.

Lastly, there is the very strange “introduction” of black people into the story of Tarzan when they finally do appear. A tribe of black Africans settles in Tarzan’s home area, and his adopted mother (an ape!) Kala, is killed by one of its hunters. After avenging himself by killing the hunter, Tarzan begins an antagonistic relationship with the tribe, raiding its village for weapons and practicing continuous sabotage on the villagers and their activities. They, in turn, regard him as an evil spirit and attempt to placate him.

This last subliminal story from Tarzan is the most compelling snapshot of the safari tourism situation we witness every day in present-day East Africa. It begins with the problematic concept of a black African tribe being described as “settlers” in a part of Africa occupied by a white man and some wild animals over which he exercises some kind of dominion. The white occupier is judge, jury and executioner for what he, an outsider, perceives as a violation of “his” animals’ rights. That could be a description of local communities and their relationship with any protected area as we know it, including the ever-present spectre of extra-judicial killings therein. Compellingly, Burroughs’ tale tells us how, after this killing, Tarzan maintains a continuous war and a campaign of violence against the black Africans. Who hasn’t seen the violent displacement of indigenous people to create protected areas, most recently in northern Tanzania? Who hasn’t seen the destruction of livestock production and farming systems to create “alternative livelihoods” serving tourists and making beadwork?

The white occupier is judge, jury and executioner for what he, an outsider, perceives as a violation of “his” animals’ rights.

Fast forward to present-day Africa. Our parks were created as “white spaces” and they remain so. The only notable change is that “white” is no longer an exclusive reference to Caucasian people, but has necessarily broadened to include elites of other ethnicities, certain activities, and a certain school of thought about Africa’s natural heritage vis-à-vis who owns and uses it. Here in Kenya, our parks and reserves are managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation officers from various county governments, respectively, at various levels of efficiency, but the uniform thread that runs through them all is the almost neurotic need to please the white gaze.

The latest incident shared on social media last week was a video clip from the Maasai Mara reserve where we are currently enjoying the annual wildebeest migration. It shows a fleet of over 20 tour vehicles driving off-road at breakneck speed and jostling for position as they seek vantage points on the riverbank to view a crossing that was about to begin. Given the speed and number of vehicles, it’s no small miracle that no animals were run over, although they were spooked away from their initial path. People wondering why the rangers don’t enforce the rules are unaware that those are mostly (if not all) foreign tourists and we are too obsessed with them (especially the Western ones) to even enforce the most basic park rules, because we need the numbers. That is why the performance of our tourism sector is measured by the ministry in terms of “arrivals”, meaning that the local ones don’t matter. We are the ones who must follow the rules like speed limits within parks and staying on designated roads.

On the part of activities, it is instructive to look at how little respect the Kenyan government (which is supposed to hold parks in trust for us) has for our natural heritage. Even in the worst of droughts, like the one we are currently experiencing, there has never been any move to allow even limited managed grazing of livestock in parks because it is said that this would damage the ecosystem. However, the same government licenses the construction of major infrastructure in parks, creating new wayleaves despite the existence of old ones. In the detailed KWS park rules visitors are cautioned against making noise and scaring animals, but in 2020 the KWS licensed the Koroga music festival to take place in Hell’s Gate National Park because they classified it as a tourism activity. The same park rules stipulate a maximum speed of 40 km/h in national parks, yet the KWS licensed an entire leg of the World Rally Championship to be held in a national park.

Who hasn’t seen the violent displacement of indigenous people to create protected areas, most recently in northern Tanzania?

When the colonial government established national parks expressly as recreational spaces for white people, it instantly gave their lifestyles a higher priority than the livelihoods of locals. We have simply been unable to change from that prejudiced thinking, so in terms of conservation practice today, the government and tourists are “white”. Further afield in northern Tanzania, Maasai villagers are violently evicted from their grazing grounds in Loliondo to make way for wildlife, yet the activity for which they are being evicted is sport hunting. This demonstrates that the welfare of animals is rarely the primary consideration in our conservation practice. It comes second to the edification of the visitor. Local livelihoods come third. This is what we urgently need to change. This is such a deeply entrenched mentality that it has become “normalized”.

However, in Kenya we have an opportunity to do so with the change of government. We must urgently do away with the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife and house these under different ministries.  Only then will our government and society realize that tourism is simply a by-product of good conservation practice, and should not be treated as the reason for conservation. We were stewards of our natural heritage before tourists came, and we will continue to be, even without their patronage.

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This publication was funded/co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of The Elephant and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

The information disorder (i.e., mis- and disinformation) pervasive on social media has arguably interfered with democratic processes across the world. As public authorities and political actors continue to embrace social media as a broadcast and civic engagement tool, the potency of manipulated narratives online is further entrenched. This is debatably truer in electoral contexts where issues are perhaps more emotive and divisive. For example, in the run-up to Kenya’s general elections, a notable amount of mis- and disinformation on social media was observable. As Wambui Wamunyu and June Okal noted, doctored images of crowds during political rallies, mild deepfake videos, doctored photos, and fake accounts passing off as political actors or mainstream media were just some of the categories of mis- and disinformation observable on social media. These observations tie in with earlier research by Odanga Madung and Brian Obilo, highlighting the practice of using bloggers for disinformation campaigns. During the actual elections, the EU Election Observer Mission also observed “manufactured amplification and coordination of messages online by fake accounts and malicious, bot-driven activity in support of the presidential candidates”.

The impact of the information disorder on democracies has been extensively discussed and will not be the subject of this article. Instead, this article focuses on the diverse responses which have been mooted and implemented in Kenya by policy makers, media, civil society, and social media platforms in response to the information disorder. In particular, this article argues that these responses are largely ineffective when used in isolation and suggests that collectives comprised of a broad range of multidisciplinary stakeholders working collaboratively are likely to have a higher chance at success. One such collective, Fumbua, was established in the run-up to the 2022 general elections in Kenya, and this article argues that the frameworks for collaboration it established can be repurposed to address the information disorder in numerous contexts.

Contextualizing the information disorder on social media

The proliferation of mis- and disinformation on social media is made easier by the fact that such platforms, by nature, enable peer-to-peer engagement with little to no gatekeeping. While this characteristic has also meant that these platforms have served to create room for civic engagement and act as an equalizer, such civic engagement is often undermined by the harmful content that is prevalent. In recognition of the potential for harm their platforms pose to democratic processes, numerous social media platforms have adopted policies and tools specifically designed to address election-related mis-and disinformation. Comparatively, the content moderation tools applied in the Global South have arguably been scant. For example, in Brazil, the individuals tasked with enforcing Twitter’s policies during the presidential election only got access to the necessary internal tools a day prior to the election, and only in a limited capacity. Twitter allegedly utilized automatic enforcement technology and third-party service providers. According to numerous commentators, it is not uncommon for content moderation efforts in the Global South to be below par. From automatic enforcement tools trained on datasets lacking in local context, to human content moderators facing the same challenge, these platforms’ efforts to curb the information disorder are handicapped from the outset. These challenges are exacerbated in electoral contexts. Recent developments have shown that it sometimes takes third parties such as researchers or civil society pointing out harmful content for platforms to act.

It is generally agreed that mis-and disinformation was prevalent on social media during Kenya’s August 2022 general election. For example, the EU Election Observer Mission indicated in its report that it had identified hundreds of misleading Facebook and Twitter profiles. Platforms triggered their civic integrity policies a few weeks prior to the election and set up information centres and moderately labelled misleading content. However, these labels were not consistently applied and were in fact only deployed during the election tallying process. Stakeholders seemingly lacked a clear solution to address the information disorder on social media. The lack of sustainable and scalable solutions is not unique to Kenya and the region. It is certainly a global problem and a key step in the right direction is securing more transparency from platforms in relation to their enforcement processes as this will enable stakeholders to co-create solutions. However, in the interim, the information disorder can be addressed by effecting incremental and sustainable changes to how media is produced and consumed. One way to accomplish this is through multidisciplinary collectives such as Fumbua.

Addressing the information disorder

Fumbua is a collective of media and media-related organisations which came together in the run-up of the 2022 general election with a view to addressing the information disorder as it relates to political campaigning. The efforts to address the information disorder in Kenya’s 2022 general election can largely be categorized into actions taken in anticipation of the mis- and disinformation (pre-emptive measures) and actions taken in response to the information disorder (reactive measures). Fumbua brought together organisations involved in both areas, such as fact checkers, “pre-bunkers” and traditional media. Both these reactive and pre-emptive measures are discussed below.

The information disorder can be addressed by effecting incremental and sustainable changes to how media is produced and consumed.

Mis- and disinformation has reportedly featured in Kenyan elections since 2013. Consequently, with each passing cycle, stakeholders have been able to understand its nature and develop solutions which are alive to Kenya’s specific context. Unfortunately, due to the rapidly evolving nature of mis- and disinformation practices, the solutions developed have often been reactive in that they seek to get rid of such harmful content or undo its effects after the fact. For example, by criminalizing false content through the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, by fact checking such content, by using labels to warn audiences of the nature of the content, and by obtaining the takedown of such content from social media sites.

Fact checking has perhaps been the most prevalent or visible response to the information disorder. It essentially entails systematically breaking down the validity of claims made by public officials, institutions, and political actors with a view to identifying whether the claim is factual or not. In Kenya’s elections, various fact-checkers were active. These included independent media, the fact-checking desks of mainstream media, and collectives or associations. To name a few, Africa Check, Africa Uncensored, Pesa Check, Media Council of Kenya, Kenya Editors Guild and The Star were involved in fact-checking claims made during the Kenyan elections. While fact-checking has increasingly become common, it would be improper to conflate its growing prominence with its ability to address the information disorder, especially when empirical evidence on the subject is divided. In highly politicized environments, it is unlikely that being exposed to verification of claims will affect an audience’s world view. This is more so the case where the objectivity and impartiality of the fact-checkers are in question. Fact-checkers often must compete with an audience’s confirmation bias and their credibility is often questioned due to the conflict their narrative poses to the world view of some audiences. This is not made easier by the fact that fact-checking is a difficult, time-consuming, and labour-intensive process which cannot compete with the speed at which false information is spread through social media. Add in the fact that false information more easily captures attention due to its ability to trigger negative emotions and one can understand why the utility and efficacy of fact-checking is limited. Fact-checking claims made through social media have also been especially difficult in Kenya due to the minimal and often performative support given to fact-checkers by social media platforms.

For fact-checking to be effective, it must offer an alternative narrative to that which it is disputing. The challenge is that such a narrative must exist in the first place and must be capable of being accepted by an audience. Where such a narrative exists, there is a risk that it may come with “political baggage” and as such be difficult to accept. In such cases, the efficacy of fact-checking is limited, and this is essentially the challenge faced by fact-checkers – purveyors of false information are not bound by the same rules. Despite all this, fact-checking has been found to positively affect audience beliefs notwithstanding pre-existing beliefs and whether an alternative narrative was presented. However, these credentials are limited as the effects on belief are weak and gradually becoming negligible. Additionally, they do not always translate to downstream effects (i.e., changing of votes).

For a long time, stakeholders seeking to curb the information disorder have found themselves on the back-foot, always responding after the fact. By the time interventions such as fact-checks, social media takedowns, and flags are deployed, harmful content has likely taken root. With this in mind, some pre-emptive solutions have been contemplated and used by stakeholders. These are discussed below.

While fact-checking has increasingly become common, it would be improper to conflate its growing prominence with its ability to address the information disorder.

As discussed earlier in this article, fact-checkers often face the challenge of having to overcome an audience’s inherent biases and the political baggage accompanying the alternative narratives they seek to put forth. In seeking to overcome this reactionary approach, Stephan Lewandowsky and Sander van der Linden argue that it may be more effective to inoculate audiences against harmful content by priming their minds to anticipate it. This has come to be referred to as prebunking, and it essentially entails exposing audiences to watered down versions of false or misleading content with a view to highlighting the tactics used by purveyors of such content. Prebunking efforts recognize that the information disorder may not necessarily be solved by disseminating more accurate information given that harmful content is often consumed in highly politicized contexts. Instead, these efforts seek to redesign information architecture through behavioural interventions (i.e., changing how audiences consume information). In Kenya, Stop Reflect Verify was the first publicly documented election-related prebunking program. It offered a misinformation quiz focused on the Kenyan elections.

While prebunking seemingly promises to reduce the reactionary nature of stakeholder efforts, there is insufficient proof that skills learned in prebunking programmes are applied in practical situations. Counterfactual thinking may be a useful strategy to incorporate into prebunking efforts. Counterfactual thinking involves stimulating an audience’s mind to consider alternative facts and hypotheses when presented with information in a bid to logically deduce the likely truth. The lack of consensus on the utility and efficacy of prebunking as an alternative to fact-checking points to the need for the deployment of multiple interventions in a coordinated fashion, and this is where multidisciplinary collectives such as Fumbua come in.

Building in sustainability 

Periodically, civil society, media practitioners, and the donor community focus their efforts on election-related programmes in a collaborative manner (for example the media’s collaboration during presidential debates). In most cases, the collaboration does not survive the post-election period. As a result, these election stakeholders have to start anew during each election. A considerable amount of time and resources are dedicated to establishing the frameworks for collaboration, taking away from the potential impact these programmes may have. With collectives such as Fumbua, stakeholders are able to repurpose the goodwill that fostered collaboration during elections to continue to address the information disorder in other contexts. By sustaining the collaboration, stakeholders would be able to leverage on incremental gains and make a more impactful change. In relation to the information disorder, they would be better able to move towards how media is generated and consumed. The effect of this would be a more informed audience that is less susceptible to mis- and disinformation.

Are East African countries ready to face the next crisis or are they simply keen to go back to how things were? What does a new normal mean when speaking about public finance management (PFM)?

In continuing the struggle for structural transformation, economic justice efforts must work towards developing a new citizen and preparing for unpredictable or unforeseen events, more so those with extreme socio-economic and political consequences.

This is because, besides known challenges posed by existing inequalities, the COVID-19 pandemic has pointed out how “unusual circumstances such as man-made disasters, natural catastrophes, disease outbreaks and warfare … depress the ability of citizens to engage in economic activity and pay taxes as well as that of governments [capacity] to collect revenue [or] provide services”.

Such circumstances therefore demand more inclusion of human rights-based approaches in economic justice efforts to champion greater fairness within existing financial architecture.

Disasters should, therefore, not obliterate human rights but should heighten the need to respect, protection, and fulfilment of obligations through prioritizing expenditure on service delivery, as well as all elements of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCRs) to “boost the capacity of residents to withstand shocks” by improving coping mechanisms.

Promotion of fair taxes among other broader economic justice initiatives within PFM should consequently adapt towards championing ESCRS within the context of more disruptive and unexpected incidents. Crisis is constant in the new normal.

Fiscal democracy and civil protection: Recovery, resilience, and transformation

Currently, conversations on recovery are focused on tackling reduced tax collection; slowed growth; depressed formal or informal productivity; exploding unemployment; diminished remittances; persistent poverty; decline in energy access; and escalating food insecurity.

This emphasis seeks to reverse the effects of various lockdown policies that placed restrictions on businesses, mobility, movement within and across international borders, [plus] public gatherings. However, it speaks mostly of a desire to return to pre-COVID levels of economic activity while vital systems in tackling the next crisis such as water, education, or health remain unaddressed.

Economic justice initiatives should therefore embrace fiscal democracy and civil protection as goals or appendages in achieving the structural transformation agenda. This will then speak to the resilience, and transformation needed to ensure PFM works for Africans in good times or bad.

Understanding fiscal democracy takes the form of better prioritization, response to problems, and improved sanctions for mistakes in the revenue cycle.

Advocacy for increased domestic opportunities, promotion of childhood development, enhanced socio-economic mobility, support for workers, motivation of local entrepreneurship, diversification of public infrastructure from mega projects, as well as increased innovation through subsidized research and development should be at the heart of economic justice efforts.

Economic justice initiatives should therefore embrace fiscal democracy and civil protection as goals or appendages in achieving the structural transformation agenda.

Civil protection gives a new framework of planning by envisioning contexts or processes in which a series of unfortunate events can emerge, thus providing adequate responses without breaking the social contract.

Transformation therefore occurs when both go hand in hand so that public facilities are not overstretched in the event of crisis. Hence, in looking at the impact of Covid-19, across the East Africa region, we must ask ourselves: How transformative are the current recovery efforts underway? Will they offer a new resilience?

The salvage job: Economic sustainability through reliefs, guarantees, subsidies, and funds

Responses have clearly been driven by the urgency to overcome the pandemic and the need to forestall outright disaster or collapse. The “short-term rescue mode” has seen efforts to ensure vaccine access and bolstering of public health systems.

On the economic front governments “Have sought debt relief, implemented corporate tax deferrals plus exemptions, made direct citizen transfers and interest rate adjustments. [They have also] implemented guarantees and subsidies, liquidity support and food relief … [with] examples of support for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Cash transfers and other safety nets for poor and vulnerable populations are critical for an integrated … response. While not transformational, they are building blocks for a basic level of resilience to external shocks.”

The fact that these efforts are not transformational must motivate the infusion of a justice quotient in recovery efforts. This will enable a movement beyond an emergency-oriented recovery that recognizes existing modern challenges such as climate change, population growth, scarce resources, man-made or natural calamities.

In the case of tax justice, to make the linkages that will establish economic sustainability in East Africa, it is important to understand the effect of recovery efforts in relation to public debt; the tax burden on individuals or households; illicit financial flows; harmful tax practices; economic growth; and resource distribution.

Recognizing the prevalent debt crisis even before the pandemic struck is important in informing economic justice movements and their activities. Concerns were looming over the fact that 40 per cent of Sub-Saharan African countries were in or at high risk of debt distress. Between 2010 and 2018, public debt in East Africa grew rapidly as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – National Debt to GDP Ratio

Source: Individual Country Central Banks

In this time, East African Community (EAC) governments failed to mobilize sufficient revenue despite an overall increase in taxes. The situation was therefore exacerbated by COVID-19, the consequence being that these countries are now stuck in a situation where they must tax more to bridge revenue gaps.

Basically this, first and foremost, creates a context of unfair tax policies in the region that burden their respective citizens, does not enhance service delivery, and is exclusionary in how debt repayment strategies are developed.

Lack of open debate about a country’s fiscal priorities within the existing PFM system neglects the needs of youth who constitute the majority of the population among other segments of society, curtails ideas on how to increase resources needed to provide for new economic opportunity(ies) and respond to the next emergency.

Recognizing the prevalent debt crisis even before the pandemic struck is important in informing economic justice movements and their activities.

Secondly, an environment or ecosystem of illicit financial flows (IFFs) that constitutes the formation of International Financial Centres (IFCs) in Kigali and Nairobi plus the signing of numerous Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs) continues to perpetuate itself thereby providing loopholes within the tax architecture that undermine efforts at domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) because the monies going out of countries are so massive, outweighing Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).

This is thanks to “Constitutionalism [among other legal questions] plus demands to implement new public finance management principles, growth in trade and services across countries in the region or with other countries across the globe, and discovery of natural resources requiring more inflows of foreign direct investments (FDI).”

On average IFFs accounts form 6.1 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) thereby impeding economic development and sustainability. For instance, since 2011, Kenya is estimated to lose KSh40 billion annually “as government, local firms and multinationals engage in fraudulent schemes to avoid tax payments”. As of 2021, The State of Tax Justice Report indicates this has grown to an estimated KSh69 billion annually at current exchange rates.

Third, growing account deficits and rising external debt are heavily limiting to economic growth. Increased spending on debt repayment is restricting prioritization on essential public goods and services while borrowing remains one of the key sources of budget financing.

In as much as Kenya cancelled its recent pursuit of another Eurobond, the about-turn towards borrowing domestically following a surge in yields within international markets because of the Russia-Ukraine war is still going to punish the country’s citizens by squeezing them out of access to credit.

Lastly, the debt burden is disempowering the citizen. Rising public debt may result in poor public participation in the management of fiscal policy, and weak structures for keeping governments accountable. This is further worsened by limited access to information on debt or public spending. Moreover, there is weak oversight by parliaments as executives take full control of processes.

Policy-making processes during cascading crises: Fiscal Consolidation, Special Drawing Rights, and Open Government

By understanding that crisis is constant, and that it is likely to manifest as confluence events — merging risks of mitigatable disaster(s) — or major confluence events, that is, the combination of potentially unmitigated risk(s) at any one point in time, how does policy making at such a time help to prepare for the emergency next time?

For example, what does Kenya’s fiscal consolidation programme — which comprises of reforms to improve oversight, monitoring, and governance of state-owned enterprises; improved transparency of fiscal reporting; and comprehensive information of public tenders awarded including beneficial ownership information of awarded entities — have to do with preparing for the next series of cascading crises?

Several emergency relief funds have been established to address the impact of COVID-19, such as the Rapid Credit Facility, the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, and the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).

However, these efforts are not likely to unlock the existing “trilemma” of solving the health plus economic crisis and meeting development targets while dealing with a tightening fiscal space. This is because they are stuck in the present circumstances with no consciousness of how much the challenge is likely to prevail into the future.

East African Community governments, in this time, failed to mobilize sufficient revenue, despite an overall increase in taxes.

Adopting fiscal democracy not only provides a new agenda determining organizing principles, but it has the potential for establishing a new citizenship through further entrenchment of human rights-based approaches in economic justice, and commitment to open government principles.

It will also anticipate and prevent the disaster capitalism witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many African countries seem to be in a constant state of crisis, thus allowing for IFFs through PFM malfeasance that locks corruption and fraud into procurement through bid rigging or collusion.

Principals of public participation, demands for accountability, championing non-discrimination, advocacy for empowering programing, and legitimacy through the rule of law should set standards on beneficial ownership while open contracting, open data for development, legislative openness, improving service delivery, access to information, and access to justice will help build resilience in government.

A call to civic education: Revenue rights and obligations

Somewhere along the way, capacity building and training programming took prominence over civic education. Advocacy efforts should look for ways to bring back more popular public awareness. Denial of resources for these kinds of activities has been a major blow for PFM advocacy among other activist efforts.

Civic education will re-establish links between individual claims to service delivery and assigned duties in the fulfilment of public demands. Citizens will be able to identify how the problem manifests and engage on the immediate, underlying or root causes of an issue.

Rising public debt may result in poor public participation in the management of fiscal policy, and weak structures for keeping governments accountable.

It will also allow them to establish the patterns of relationships which may result in the non-fulfilment of rights or absconding of obligations. This will enable them to assign appropriate responsibility by identifying the relevant authorities. It will keep an eye on resources through participating in decision making.

Governments and political leadership should therefore work to improve their communication capabilities in engaging the public so that once this new citizenry is involved, they can work together to achieve representative priorities for action.

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This article is based on a presentation and comments made at the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Debt Conference, Towards strengthening accountability and transparency around public debt management and the use of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in Eastern and Southern Africa, 20–21 June 2022, Nairobi, Kenya.