Open Letter - Why was The Inclusive National Conversation (TINC) Sierra Leone established?

Dear Reader,

 

Introducing: The Inclusive National Conversation (TINC)

for Constitutional, Economic & Cultural Competitiveness

 

Greetings. At FJP, we take our social responsibility particularly seriously. Over a long period of time, and increasingly in the last decade and a half, we have been perturbed by the persistent lack of competitiveness in Africa as a whole and Sierra Leone in particular. We have sought, in our client and voluntary work, to contribute to strategies, systems, policies and actions that may result in sustainable improvements in development outcomes. We have not been satisfied with the observed results.

 

To examine this matter in adequate depth, I enrolled for relevant DBA research at Heriot-Watt University, which was satisfactorily concluded last year. In examining the African situation, I found myself developing a potentially paradigm-shifting economic sociology of national competitiveness which has wider implications, including for the derivation of the global financial crisis and its implications for the international accounting and auditing professions.

 

On the national level, the research came to an interesting conclusion.  The primary development challenge facing Africa and Sierra Leone in particular is a mismatch between the dominant Unitary State governance model and the underlying multi-ethnic diversities of most African countries. The literature clearly indicates that diversity is correlated with development challenges – you will have observed the perennial struggles of Europe’s diverse Balkans. Diversity increases the risk of dissonances in group values and social axioms. This can undermine the Social Trust that is critical to ensuring adequate levels of investments in public goods that are the foundation of economic competitiveness. Interestingly, the literature suggests that doing nothing is not an option. As the Swiss found to their reward, you have to take firm and reasoned action to mitigate the inevitable frictions that arise in a diverse society.

 

The Unitary model in Africa fails to deliver such essential society-building services. By offering “winner-takes-all” rewards in diverse societies, it accentuates social frictions. Even where some countries may have attained economic gains through the suppressive actions of a strongman, these gains prove fleeting as they simply dam up the social frictions. When the dam inevitably bursts: as with Cote D’Ivoire after H-Boigny, Yugoslavia after Tito and more recently in Kenya, Libya & Syria, the gains risk being lost.

 

The research suggests that Sierra Leone, a polarised collective of minority ethnicities, suffers from the Societal Cynicism dimension, identified in Leung’s 2002 studies of social axioms. This confirms the validity of President Koroma’s focus on Attitudinal Change. Societal Cynicism is linked to low interpersonal trust, weaker cooperation, lower performance and lower productivity. It is associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. At the individual level, Social Cynicism refers to “a negative view of human nature, a view that life produces unhappiness, that people exploit others, and a mistrust of social institutions”. At the collective level, Societal Cynicism relates to “a lower emphasis on striving for high performance”, which is unsurprising “if there is a general suspicion of the social system and a general expectation of negative outcomes”. If unresolved, Societal Cynicism guarantees perpetual under-development. Crucially, the research indicates that Societal Cynicism is a symptom and not an originating cause of our under-development i.e. it may be a product of the over-centralised Unitary structure imposed on a polarised collective of minority ethnicities.

 

In other words, for Sierra Leone’s context and history, Attitudinal Change cannot be effectively tackled within the Unitary State.

 

The evidence appears clear. In the absence of a dominant cultural group that can be freely accepted as the cultural leader of the country (as with the WASPs in the USA until recently), a diverse society must deploy a confederal constitution for sustainable progress. This is more than decentralisation. In the Sierra Leone context, a critical-success-factor is that tax raising powers must lie with the districts, who then remit an appropriate, minority, proportion of revenues to the centre. This is the opposite of the Unitary model. Even where it seeks to deploy decentralisation, the Unitary State tends to generate discord. The objective of confederation is to remedy Societal Cynicism through a political economy that builds Social Trust by minimising opportunities for malign ethnic competition for scarce resources.

 

TINC has emerged to advocate for Confederalism to be one of the two constitutional options to be available to the people of Sierra Leone at the Referendum that is being planned by the Government of Sierra Leone. I have been gratified by the widespread interest in the concept since I commenced dissemination of this aspect of my research findings in December 2012.

 

You may wish to download a copy of the research evidence basis of TINC for your Library from:

 

http://hdl.handle.net/10399/2565

 

I look forward to your robust participation in this National Conversation that will determine the path of our beloved country for generations to come, likely beyond our remaining lifetimes.