Optimistic conclusions
Economics professor Sylvain Boko sees hope for Africa
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Economics professor Sylvain Boko, left, talks with sociology professor Earl Smith at a campus symposium.
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 rom a distance, Africa looms dark and chaotic, rife with poverty, disease, and brutality. It can be easy to despair of a brighter future for the continent. But for one Wake Forest professor and his students who’ve seen it up close, a different impression emerges. They see a waning of the tribal conflicts and civil wars that have ravaged so many of Africa’s countries for so long; a rising trend of political self-determination for communities; an emerging emphasis on education, health and economic development; a base of independent and resourceful citizens with entrepreneurial spirit. They see, in a word, hope.
In his newly published book, “Decentralization and Reform in Africa,” Assistant Professor of Economics Sylvain H. Boko looks at trends in four African countries—Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana—and comes to some optimistic conclusions. By allowing local communities to elect their own leaders and seek their own funding, he observes, the central governments of those countries are fostering conditions for economic development. The trend, he notes, continues a movement toward democratization in the nations that began in the early 1990s.
Boko sees positive signs in other, more troubled countries as well. In Angola, the death of their leader has encouraged rebels to lay down their arms. In the Congo, four neighboring countries that had been fighting for hegemony have agreed to withdraw their troops.
To be sure, problems persist elsewhere. The status of women—one of Boko’s prime concerns—is appallingly low in virtually every country. Despite democratic reforms, Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, remains ravaged by ethnic and tribal conflicts. Zimbabwe continues to spiral downward into poverty and chaos under the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe. But to Boko, these are exceptions rather than the rule. “The conflicts that have afflicted Africa are finally dying out,” he says. “There is real hope that a new crop of leaders will arise and resolve to devote the resources available to the continent to education, health and infrastructure.”
Boko knows first-hand of what he writes. A native of Benin, he is a specialist in international development and based his book on fieldwork rather than just theory. Each summer for the past five years, he has taken a group of 10 to 12 Wake Forest students to Africa, where they hear lectures from Boko and local experts on economic development issues and go on field trips to observe conditions for themselves.
“We went to a small community in the hills of Burkina Faso where an association of surrounding villages came to speak with us,” Boko says. “We saw how much the people value education when we spoke with older people who had gone back to school so they could write and read the prices on goods they buy. They told us, ‘We know what skills and resources we have; we don’t want anything from the outside. If we don’t need it, don’t bring it.’ They are ready to invest in health and education.”
The field trips have had a humanitarian outcome as well. “The people of Africa are poor, but they want to share everything they have with visitors,” says Boko. “This can be an inspiration to young Americans. Our motto here at Wake Forest is ‘Pro Humanitate’, and the field trips have helped our students become conscious of ways they can help.”
The students who went on last year’s trip were so inspired that they came home and did something that “overwhelmed” their professor: they raised more than $5,000 for medicine and bedding for the local hospital in Pobe, Benin, where Boko was born. This summer’s group distributed the materials.
Boko says one area that needs to be “greatly improved” in Africa is the status of women. In most countries, women remain generally uneducated, with no access to property or credit. “There is no way there will be progress without the full participation of women,” he observes. “If you educate one woman, you educate the whole family, and the chance that the children will go to school is much greater.”
So passionate about the issue is Boko that he spent two years organizing a conference at Wake Forest this fall on African development that placed women’s status near the forefront. The conference, titled “Globalization, Liberalization and the Role of Women in African Development in the 21st Century,” was held Sept. 6-8 and attracted about 40 scholars and public officials from the U.S., Africa and Europe.
Boko, 34, came to the United States to attend Grinnell College in Iowa and he went on to earn his Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University. He joined Wake Forest’s economics faculty in 1997. He and his wife, Tandeka, who is trained as a physician, have three children.
--David Fyten
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