Considering the critical comments with regard to my earlier text on mistakes with cooperatives and cooperation, I would like to take the discussion a bit further. Besides commenting on the predicament of African countries, I will also involve the present predicament of the so-called West.

First of all, I am not against cooperatives. On the contrary, my point is that patrimonial systems stand in the way of cooperation, due to privileged treatment and dependence. I see that confirmed in some of the comments. If a short-term project installs cooperatives without tackling this institutional environment, it cannot be a surprise that the project fails.

If it is admitted that African societies are between two systems, we can finally discuss in the open where to draw the line in this process of change
Secondly, Africa is in a process of social transformation. It is moving away from in-group thinking and patrimonialism, towards open cooperation and trust under the umbrella of rule of law. But it is not easy. The most difficult thing to change are the values we adhere to, the more so if they are embedded in the institutions that arrange our daily lives.

I fully agree that Western donors are part of the problem. They want fast change with a focus on technology and impact. They don't consider the longer-term sufficiently. For that reason they cannot take into account the slow process of social transformation, which requires a slow pace of change in values and institutions. Actually, my criticism was directed more to them, especially the last sentences. They turned out to disturb some of my African critics on the ground.

Another mistake Western donors make, is that they do not have the courage to openly discuss their problems with African social systems, although surely there are many differences between countries. They want to be politically correct. But that comes with a price. They are less effective and create a paradox. They are less effective because they only want to be effective and cannot deal with slow problems.

Acknowledgement and transparency
It helps the debate if also African participants acknowledge the difficulties of the transition Africa is going through. If the problems with patrimonialism are brought into the open one can deal with them also more effectively. For instance: Western donors should acknowledge the importance of family solidarity and the director of an NGO should openly discuss where to draw the line. Transparency and equality requires that no incompetent family members are hired. But family solidarity requires that the director of the NGO may not be able to avoid granting a family member a privilege. Now he or she has to conceal it by double bookkeeping. Western firms are doing the same. They have a code of ethics against corruption, but they do have to deal with patrimonialism and its costs nevertheless. Often, they hire a consultant to do it for them. On the contrary, if it is admitted that African societies are between two systems, we can finally discuss in the open where to draw the line in this process of change.

Interestingly, Africa and the West have an inverted and yet common destiny: the heritage of the one, is the future of the other. In Africa everything goes too slow. In the West everything goes too fast. Isn’t that remarkable?
The end of an era
The West and Africa dance to very different rhythms. How come Africa has a surplus of patrimonialism in Africa, whereas the West suffers from too much instrumentalism? Elsewhere, I have argued that both of them, Africa and the West are at the end of an era (see my book about Cross-cultural Entrepreneurship and Social Transformation, chapter 7). Africa has to organize itself on a larger scale. That requires leaving behind the traditional in-group values of family and clan and installing broader cooperation under the umbrella of an universalist state without privileges. In other words: Africa needs to adopt non-patrimonial values and institutions like those the West has developed. But, the West is also at the end of a development. It created huge corporations and state apparatuses, and turned more and more individual people with reduced family ties into cogs in the machinery. People that suffer from too much instrumentalization do not develop their spiritual powers to their full potential. Too often they act without responsibility in a daily rhythm. For that reason many in the West long back to some form of belongingness, roots or identity. That's why collectivism and neo-tribal policies are so attractive to the general public in the West. The problem for the West here is how to integrate belongingness and team spirit into its organizational power. The West has to change as well, going a bit more 'African'! Interestingly, Africa and the West have an inverted and yet common destiny: the heritage of the one, is the future of the other. In Africa everything goes too slow. In the West everything goes too fast. Isn’t that remarkable?

Otto Kroesen teaches cross-cultural entrepreneurship at the Delft Center for Entrepreneurship, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He published the book Cross-cultural Entrepreneurship and Social transformation: Innovative Capacity in the Global South, Lambert, Saarbrücken, 331pp, available here.