Founder of Open Society Foundations, Open Society Foundations
The Open Society Foundations and Africa
In the video above, George Soros and other experts discuss how there is great hope for Africa. A youthful population, stronger civil society, greater accountability, and economic growth all point to an Africa that can determine its own future.
Yet this is only the beginning, not the end, of the struggle for democracy, human rights, and justice for all Africans. There are very real challenges facing Africa today, including widespread corruption, lack of transparency, and poor governance—the latter magnified by the current Ebola crisis.
Learn more: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/
About George Soros
In a 2010 interview with Chrystia Freeland, George Soros discussed global disorder and the fragility of European institutions. He argued that the European Union, which he described as the embodiment of an "open society," had been transformed by the euro crisis from a voluntary association of equals into a hierarchical structure of creditors and debtors. Soros also characterized Russia under Vladimir Putin as resembling inter-war Germany, calling it "nationalistic and based on resentment," and said the Putin regime's primary interest was preserving itself in power and maximizing rents. Soros stated that sanctions alone were insufficient to address the situation in Ukraine, as they reinforced Putin's narrative of Western hostility. He advocated for a strategy combining sanctions with effective assistance to Ukraine, arguing that a flourishing Ukraine could serve as a role model for people under Putin's domination and eventually bring about change in Russia.
Transcript (19 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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George Soros0:04
This continent is changed out of all recognition from what it was in the early '80s and was confronted by a series of repressive governments with no democracy, no freedom of speech. There's so much hope for the continent. In spite of the paradox: it's a rich continent with a lot of poor people. But there's so much going for it. It's got a youthful population. Stability by and large has returned. Economic growth consistently high. Poverty has also declined over the years.
God blessed us with natural endowment. I am very hopeful about the future of Africa. Global trends prevail on Africa. The developing world is in fact coming up. It's only the beginning; it's not the end of the struggle.
The current Ebola crisis in West Africa has been very challenging and very difficult. What Ebola has done is to expose the severe governance challenges that exist within all facets of our society.
The tragedy of Africa is that of misplaced priorities. We are sitting in Ghana today—it is the number two producer of cocoa, and yet ask an average Ghanaian whether they can afford a bar of chocolate. They will not be able to. So me standing in the line on the election day in this merciless Ghanaian sun, there hasn't been a logical link between that—my citizenship act and my life. The bane of our problem is corruption: massive, widespread corruption.
Zambia is very rich, and there's no reason why a Zambian should go without a meal. If you look at the way the contracts are signed, it does not benefit Zambians. Natural resources belong to the people who live in the country where the resources are located. They are expropriated and misused to the benefit of the people coming in to mine them.
In South Africa right now community members are still talking about going to relieve themselves in a bush because there isn't proper, safe sanitation. They get raped when they go to the toilet. They get attacked. So yeah, it's a grim situation.
Something is going on. Slowly you had this consciousness of the people, that they have to control the people to whom they are giving the power.
Even in situations where governments are brutal, do not respect human rights, how many of your own people can you lock up every day and keep your legitimacy? So when civil society comes together, begins to organize and put pressure on the governments to do what is right, it makes a difference.
Our civil societies are very strong about the exercise of their rights. And they know how to claim it. By networking among themselves, by demanding it of their governments through the media. And if it comes to that, they claim it through the justice system.
Transparency for me really entails having the courage to challenge those that exercise power, and to use it for the benefit of the common good, saying, 'I've got rights, but I also have the responsibility to ensure that those rights are fulfilled.'
Social auditing is a tool that any community, but particularly working class communities, can hold government accountable, can hold the private sector accountable, to ensure that services are delivered.
We are going to make citizens very, very powerful. The woman who is living in the village, if we can give that woman that power to track the funds that are made available for the clinic in her village, that's a concrete connection between the process that we are trying to influence and the lived experience of the citizens.
There is a great sense of accountability from almost all the mining companies, particularly the companies that we have taken to court. Communities are now aware of their rights, and a lot of them can confidently sit with mining companies and negotiate compensation.
The results of the social auditing in Khayelitsha in Cape Town, there was an immediate change in the material conditions of people in that community, you can actually effect small changes, which over time can lead to a more transformed society.
There has been cases in Uganda and Kenya, where people have been abused by police or their houses raided, and the courts said people irrespective of their sexual orientation are entitled to dignity, they're entitled to freedom from cruel and inhuman treatment. So even in countries like Uganda you've had positive judgments.
All throughout West Africa you've seen civil society step up; they have been much strengthened by this epidemic. Part of what we have done is to call on our governments to take a very serious look at public health service delivery in our respective countries. If we manage those resources better, we think that we can prevent Ebola from reoccurring again in the sub-region. It may not be in a year. It may not be in two years. But definitely these are challenges that will be overcome.
The future of Africa is for us to realize ourselves. And then determine for ourselves what we think of when we think of development.
Democracy is not an event. Democracy is a process. And you don't achieve that in a day. No amount of money pays for the satisfaction of seeing somebody who has spent 21 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, coming out. There's no amount of money that pays for the establishment of an African Court on Human and People's Rights, because you know that the gains from these things are going to outlast any one of us.
One of the things that constantly gives me hope is the resilience of the ordinary African man, the ordinary African woman. With the younger generation there's a greater sense that they belong to one common Africa. There's a generation that wants to see Africa move forward and is working very hard to ensure that the image of Africa is changed.