Africa and the Rhetoric of Good Governance

Judging by their public statements everyone in Africa is in favour of good governance: governments, public servants, business people, civil society, donors and other international organizations. There are two problems with this positive view. Firstly, there are as many different definitions of good governance as there are organisations, with the multiple verbal differences reflecting real variations in how organizations and individuals wish to see their worlds shaped. Secondly, for all of these players there are vast gaps between the rhetoric and the reality, depending on the political context, struggles over access to power and opportunities for illicit material gains. In the public shadow play, African Union (AU) and donor treaties and charters and national plans, programmes and laws rule the world. In the lived reality, daily faced by the masses, it is every one for them self and the leaders with the most followers beholden to them and the biggest Swiss bank accounts win. The cases of governance in Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda are examined to explore the gap between rhetoric and reality, keeping in mind the real consequences for the forgotten villagers and slum dwellers of Africa who have never heard of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted by the AU in 2007.