Contact: Michael Bratton, Afrobarometer, (517) 353-3377, mbratton@msu.edu; or Gisgie D�vila Gendreau, University Relations, (517) 432-0924, gendrea3@msu.edu
4/1/2004
EAST LANSING, Mich. � Much like U.S. residents fret about jobs lost despite an economic recovery, Africans are concerned about chronic unemployment, saying they are worse off than their parents were a decade ago, survey results released today show.
�Unemployment is not only a preoccupation among Americans, but for Africans, too,� said Michael Bratton, a Michigan State University political science professor and co-director of the Afrobarometer survey of 15 African countries.
�Africans hold somber views about the current state of their national economies, concluding like the famous Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, that �things fall apart.��
Almost half of the Africans interviewed thought that the present condition of their national economy was bad and more than 40 percent of respondents mentioned unemployment as one of the priorities government should address. In 13 out of the 15 countries studied, adults consider themselves worse off today than their parents were 10 years ago.
Yet the survey also had a few bright spots, including a belief held by most survey respondents that their children will lead better lives than themselves.
The Afrobarometer is an independent, nonpartisan project conducted by MSU, the Center for Democratic Development in Ghana, and the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.
In its second cycle, the survey asks residents of countries that have introduced a measure of democratic and market reform in recent years what they think about these reforms, as well as their views on poverty and AIDS.
The survey also found that two thirds of all adults say they support democracy and larger proportions reject previous forms of military rule and personal dictatorship. Politically, the more than 23,000 Africans interviewed in 2002-03 consider they are better off than they were under previous non-democratic regimes.
Other survey findings include:
- Seventy percent of African Muslims support democracy; and Muslims are no more likely than other Africans to think that violence is ever justified in pursuit of a political cause.
- One in 10 respondents cites AIDS as one of their three most important problems; almost one-quarter mentions �health� as an important issue.
- Single-party rule remains a popular alternative, especially where people have never known anything different. And the proportion of deeply committed democrats � that is, those who both support democracy and reject authoritarian alternatives � has dropped from 48 percent in 2000 to 37 percent by 2003.
As the U.S. government promotes democracy in Iraq, it can draw lessons from other parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, Bratton said.
�Fifteen years ago, sub-Saharan Africa also looked like a harsh and unpromising political environment,� he said. �Today, almost all African countries hold multiparty elections and several have recently seen peaceful electoral turnovers of ruling parties. Because these events increase popular support for democracy, one can even cautiously suggest that in a handful of places in Africa, democracy is beginning to take root.�
For full survey results, visit www.afrobarometer.org