VIRTUOUS LIVING - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

I have noted elsewhere that HIV/AIDS rate infection is standing at about 30 million insub-Saharan Africa alone. Statistics show that HIV prevalence is higher in the agegroup15-45 years. This is the most economically active age group of any Africancountry. This group is also a potential leadership source. Yet, this is the group withthe most victims of HIV/AIDS. NEPAD’s capacity and its human capital andinstitutional development programmes are dependent on healthy people on thecontinent, particularly in this age bracket. There is bound to be a leadership gap in allpublic and private sectors, mostly due to HIV/AIDS-related deaths, notwithstandingother factors, such as the “brain drain” 32 . To this end, HIV/AIDS would appear tonegate the development of an African Renaissance, as it aggravates a situation that isalready dire.The key point in politico-economic development is the creation of “a better life forall”. This catch-phrase was first mentioned by Nkrumah (1963) and reiterated byMbeki (2001) in all the NEPAD documents (cf Mbeki’ Speech 31.10. 2001:1-9;iafrica.com 26.2.2002:1-4). Politicians are the leaders in this effort. However, Africanleaders have been accused of non-delivery owing to corruption, nepotism, and generalinefficiency (cf Davidson 1994; Russell 2000). Moral transformation is required inthis area. At a press briefing by Goodwill Ambassador Harry Belafonte, on 26 June2001, he gave a revised “global image of Africa,” one that was “rooted in the grossdistortions”. He said that from these distortions flowed fatalistic modern mediareporting, “perpetuating the notion that pouring resources into Africa was a wastedinvestment” (Belafonte 2001:1). He wisely made the point in an attitude ofencouragement and a hope of redressing the past European misgivings. However, the“waste of investments” in Africa by Western governments and corporations is not aresult of European distortions of Africans in the films and racist myths, but of thefailure of African moral leadership failure (cf Russell 2000). The NEPAD documentreiterates these moral leadership failures on the continent in paragraph 34b. In thisdocument, they recognise that failure of political and economic leadership in many32 NEPAD is very much aware of Africa’s problem of brain drain, and has a built-in strategy to reversethis trend. Paragraph 124 of the NEPAD document offers objective for this strategy. “To reverse thebrain drain and turn it into a “brain gain” for Africa. To build and retain within the continent criticalhuman capacities for Africa’s development. To develop strategies for utilising the scientific andtechnological know-how and skills of Africans in the diaspora for the development of Africa” (NEPADDocument October 2001:18).89