Africa at Harvard

Each generation confronts challenges that define it. Some take the form of military threats; others, attacks upon moral sensibilities. The challenges posed by the developing nations animate both self-interest and conscience. It is Africa that constitutes the development challenge of our time.

When I attended college, it was India that most powerfully projected what it meant to be under-developed. The specter of suffering emanated from the sub-continent; broadcast by the media, it circled the globe and haunted our homes. While still poor, India now boasts productive agriculture, growing industries, and an expanding middle class. The image of suffering now emanates from Africa.

The image is valid, but incomplete. There is reason for optimism, as well as despair. White rule has toppled; democratic institutions have emerged; and several of the nations--Mauritius, Namibia and Ghana--boast of growth rates that would be the envy of most other nations of the world. Africa indeed constitutes the development challenge of our time. But it is a challenge worth undertaking.

Harvard has long numbered distinguished Africanists among its faculty. When a graduate student in the 1960s, I took courses from Martin Kilson, Rupert Emerson and Robert Rotberg (I mention only political scientists). Since that time, the ranks of Harvard's Africanists have deepened dramatically.

To illustrate: Before coming to Harvard, I co-edited a book in which a series of distinguished scholars, drawn from the social sciences and humanities, were asked to analyze the way in which their fields had been shaped by research in Africa. Of the 10 contributors to this volume, four have since moved to Harvard; one was already here and a sixth has just declined an offer. Each was recruited because of her prominence in her field. They thus number among the world's leading scholars. They work on Africa. And they are here.

This autumn, Harvard's faculty began to explore ways to focus on the challenges posed by Africa. The Institute for International Development and Center for International Affairs co-sponsored a lecture series in which members of the faculty outlined their vision of what Harvard should be doing in the study of Africa. So large were the audiences that the lectures had to be moved from seminar rooms to lecture halls. Dinner discussions followed. From these deliberations have come plans to launch a center for research into Africa's development. The Committee on African Studies, headed by Anthony Appiah; the Department of Afro-American Studies, headed by Henry Louis Gates; and the Harvard Institute of International Development, headed by Jeffrey Sachs '76, are now designing the foundations for a Center for Research into African Development.

How should we define such a center? One way, of course, is to begin with the needs of Africa itself. That much is obvious. Less obvious is to define the center not only in terms of its subject but also in terms of its location. The question then becomes: what will work best at Harvard? The answer, of course, is a center dedicated to academic research.

Some might regard a call for research as inappropriate, given that Africa's needs are so obvious and pressing. What is required, rather, is commitment, involvement and action. For several reasons, those advocating this position might want to reconsider.

Africa's needs are indeed basic and pressing: better health care, higher incomes and greater safety of life and property. But generations of well-meaning people have found it difficult to devise ways to fulfill these needs. Many have tried, and many have failed. And when they have failed, it is Africa's people that have borne the costs.

Many African nations are poor in part because visionaries prescribed policies that not even superpowers, such as the Soviet Union, could afford. Food aid has brought food shortages, many now argue, by allowing Africa's governments to maintain in place policies that discriminate against local farmers. Structural adjustment has stabilized Africa's macro-economies but brought little economic growth. Africa's people have paid the costs of "free" public services, foreign "aid" and "free" markets.

Africa is poor. Its nations are weak; they are not in a strong position to bargain. As a result, their leaders have allowed Africa to be subject to social experimentation. When ill-informed, well-meaning friends of Africa become part of the problem, not of the solution. We need to achieve a fundamental understanding of what Africa's realities are, if only so as to respond better to its needs.

Research and action are complements, not substitutes. To do good, we need first to comprehend. The point is both simple and basic; it is not a debater's point, nor one simply designed to promote academics. For experience shows that it is Africa that will bear the costs of misguided interventions.

There is a second major reason for calling for a center devoted to academic research. Quite simply, this is what Harvard does best. We are an academic institution and, arguably, one of the very finest in the world. To give Africa the best we have to offer, we should offer the products of what we do best.

These observations suggest a criterion that the center might wish to employ: It should ask those who wish to work within it not only how their work would contribute to development in Africa but also what problems, central to their disciplines, they can address by basing their research in Africa. Each participant should be motivated by a vision of her academic field and of the place of African research within it.

Motivated by Africa's needs and by problems lying on the cutting edge of the disciplines, a research program can attract the best minds in academia. It can also inspire the most intense intellectual energies. The ability to achieve these outcomes constitutes the test that Harvard applies to its core programs; they are what define this institution. Nothing else is worthy of Harvard. Nothing else will be good for, or good enough for, Africa.

For Africanists, these are exciting times to be at Harvard.

Robert H. Bates is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government.