The Kenya-Korea economic fallacy, graft cop out and stagnation ruse
What you need to know:
- Most people wrongly believe that the resource-wealthy Africa has been held back largely by bad governance and corruption.
- Western countries have strenuously resisted attempts by African countries to adopt such an eccentric development blueprint.
You probably have heard it said that, at Independence, Kenya was at the same economic level with South Korea and that in the intervening years sure-footed Koreans advanced as Kenyans, or Africans, spectacularly failed.
The assertions have been made by, among other individuals, former President Mwai Kibaki and former United States President Barack Obama, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Keroche Breweries and former Standard Media Group CEO Sam Shollei and even twitterati like @Disembe.
Just five minutes into his 2006 lecture, “An honest government and a hopeful future”, at the University of Nairobi, then-Senator Obama told a packed auditorium that “as Kenya was gaining its independence, its gross national product was not very different from that of South Korea. Today, South Korea’s economy is 40 times larger than Kenya’s."
LECTURES
He repeated it in 2009, in Ghana, on his first presidential visit to Africa. You may even recall him saying it in K’Ogelo.
President Kibaki said in a UoN lecture that in 1963 Kenya was virtually shoulder to shoulder with South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia.
On a campaign stump in Baringo last year, Raila reportedly said “when we were attaining independence, Kenya’s economy was at the same level as that of South Korea” but “54 years later, South Korea’s economy is 45 times bigger than that of Kenya”.
He would make similar claims in his lecture at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
It is inconceivable that a marginalised and highly illiterate nation emerging from a 70-year abusive colonial rule could be compared to South Korea, whose modern history dates to at least 1919.
GDP
Before 1963, Korea was a rapidly industrialising nation that already had some 10 presidents. It produced its first car, the Sibal, in 1955 and had three vehicle firms before 1963.
In 1963, there were 8.9 million Kenyans compared to 27.3 million Koreans. Our GDP was a miniscule 17 per cent that of Korea’s.
The Kenya-Korea output ratio is comparable to the 2017 Kenya-Denmark one. Our real per capita income of $537.95 (Sh54,000) was about half of Korea’s.
A Korean baby born in 1963 expected to outlive a Kenyan one by seven years.
A study shows there were 19 institutions of higher learning with more than 8,000 students in Korea in 1945.
The number of teachers increased from 20,000 in 1945 to 79,000 in 1965 and universal primary education achieved in the early ’60s.
In 1963, there were a mere 150 secondary schools in Kenya with 28,764 students.
MISCONCEPTION
Africa’s slow (or lack of) economic progress is a “major mystery” to economists.
But that Europe, Latin America and Asia have progressed as Africa stagnated is not surprising.
Most people wrongly believe that the resource-wealthy Africa has been held back largely by bad governance and corruption.
The youngest continent is yet to fully resolve its teething problems. South Sudan and Eritrea just arrived.
Corruption has become a convenient excuse for copping out. Kenyans think that with “good” leaders, we would be at South Korea’s level.
GOVERNANCE
Considering Korea and Kenya as ‘age-mates’ is akin to comparing South Sudan to Niger.
It is prudent to compare Korea to Japan, China and Singapore though. Korea was well primed for takeoff.
It had made considerable economic and political progress, such as the US-led land reforms.
It's cycle of leadership had landed them a pair of tyrannical yet benevolent leaders who received generous, stable and predictable economic, financial and technical support from the US and hitherto colonial masters Japan.
Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan both had strong domestic and external support in pursuing protectionism, heavy-handed interventionist and planned economic development.
GRANTS
Western countries have strenuously resisted attempts by African countries to adopt such an eccentric development blueprint.
A South Korean think tank has calculated that the US offered about $60 billion in grants and loans to South Korea between 1946 and 1978.
Compare that to Africa’s $68.9. Korea also got Japanese economic cooperation funds and sizable colonial reparations.
Rather than getting consumed and dispirited by corruption and mismanagement, Africans must work hard.
Even then, if only America and its allies could be as generous, supportive and patient with us as they were with the Koreans!
Mr Chesoli is a New York-based development economist and global policy expert. [email protected].
