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From: YPFDJ Media (media@youngpfdj.com)
Date: Wed Sep 29 2010 - 17:51:58 EDT
The following interview was published in New African Aug/Sept 2010 Publication and it is very interesting read about the image of a nation (especially in Africa) and the far-reaching consequences of receiving Aid. Here is a quote from the interview
“I just think that we have failed to see what a double-edged sword aid is for its recipients: we give with one hand and take away with the other. We provide much-needed money but in order to ensure the continued supply of that money from donors and taxpayers, we set about professionally degrading the image of the recipient country. We use all of our skills and resources - especially in communications - to brand the recipients of our aid as worthy causes: or, in other words, as desperate basket cases. The problem is that the negative image will outlast the economic problems by generations, and catastrophically blocks the recipient's chances of independent development. This is because everybody will give money to a basket case, but nobody would go on holiday there, buy products or services that come from there, live and study there, hire somebody who comes from there. The image of a country that's progressing and the image of a country that needs foreign aid are fundamentally incompatible.”
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Simon Anholt is an independent policy adviser who developed the concepts of "nation brand" and "place brand" over a decade ago. Nowadays, he specialises in analysing the cultural perceptions of nations, cities and regions, and working out the implications for public diplomacy and international relations. In 2009. he was awarded the Nobels Colloquia Prize for Economics. Here he talks to about brands and marketing, charity and international aid, and Brand Africa, and asserts that: "...We have failed to see what a double-edged sword aid is for its recipients: we give with one hand and take away with the other."
Q: First of all, could you explain what is meant by the "nation brand" concept?
A: Places depend on their international standing as never before: the way they are perceived by people around the world has a direct impact on their ability to export products, services, ideas, culture and people, and their ability to attract investment, tourists and talent. So it's very important for governments to understand how national reputation is formed, and how and why it changes.
This is why I coined the phrase "nation brand" back in 1998. But the phrase I didn't coin was "nation branding", which seems to contain a promise that if a country doesn't like its reputation, it can manipulate it using the techniques of marketing. This promise is a lie. Places are judged by what they do and what they make, not by what they say about themselves. So "nation branding" is a wicked waste of taxpayers' money, and shouldn't be tolerated.
Q: So enhancing the reputation of countries is a fundamentally different enterprise compared to the marketing of commercial goods and services?
A: Yes. It you're marketing commercial goods or services, it's an essentially honest and straightforward process: you're offering people a product or a service and using advertising to tell them "buy this, it's good". But places aren't for sale, and the underlying message is "please change your mind about this country".
We all know what that is: it's state propaganda, and it can't work in our modern, globalised world because every message is always challenged, and nobody is paying attention anyway! Using advertising for marketing tourism or investment or export promotion, by contrast, is entirely different because you are selling a product or service to people who might be interested in buying it.
Q: Last year in an effort to combat negative perceptions, Nigeria rebranded itself with the slogan, "Good People, Great Nation". You're not a fan of this sort of endeavour, why not?
A: Because it cheapens and vulgarises countries, reducing their complexity and richness to the level of a childish, superficial stereotype. It's insulting to their culture, to their history, to their geography. and above all to their populations. It excludes all the people and organisations that don't happen to fit the slogan: it's a kind of fascism, like all marketing. And it makes the country look naive and desperate. Products can be reduced to a "unique selling point" but places can't. Any government that tries to do this is guilty of an act of cultural aggression against its own population.
Q: in the past, you have been critical of international celebrities like Bob Geldof and Bono because you felt that their charitable activities have had a negative effect on Africa's reputation.
A: Of course. I have always stressed that 1 didn't want to criticise the good intentions or the good results that such celebrities - and the hundreds of donor governments and NGOs alongside them - have achieved over the decades. Their work is essential and they are to be praised. I just think that we have failed to see what a double-edged sword aid is for its recipients: we give with one hand and take away with the other. We provide much-needed money but in order to ensure the continued supply of that money from donors and taxpayers, we set about professionally degrading the image of the recipient country. We use all of our skills and resources - especially in communications - to brand the recipients of our aid as worthy causes: or, in other words, as desperate basket cases. The problem is that the negative image will outlast the economic problems by generations, and catastrophically blocks the recipient's chances of independent development. This is because everybody will give money to a basket case, but nobody would go on holiday there, buy products or services that come from there, live and study there, hire somebody who comes from there. The image of a country that's progressing and the image of a country that needs foreign aid are fundamentally incompatible.
Q: Do you think that a different type of relationship is possible, then?
A: What is needed now is a more equal form of partnership between rich and poor countries. As the old African proverb says, "The hand that receives is always beneath the hand that gives". Rich countries and the countries they support need to find ways of learning from each other, and pooling their skills, wisdom and resources for mutual benefit. Despite all the handwringing in the West about China's investments in Africa, at least these engagements don't involve the deliberate degradation of Africa's reputation, and perhaps that's part of the reason why recipient governments welcome it. For better or for worse, China treats them as partners rather than supplicants, and that makes a big difference.
Q: Like the economist Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid, you are critical of the effects that foreign aid has had on Africa. Can you explain?
A: Apart from the image problems, what I've seen in a few African countries over the years is governments completely reconfigured as distributors of foreign largesse and no longer equipped to build their countries; local entrepreneurs driven out of business because they simply can't compete against free money and tree products; and in a few cases I've seen the moral climate change from one of honest ambition and the desire to build and to better oneself, to an angry sense of entitlement.
Q: Africa has been growing at around 5% for the last decade - indeed, the World Bank estimates that growth for 2010 will be 6% - but it is only recently that the international investment community seems to have woken up to the fact that the continent has such incredible economic potential. What's your analysis?
A: It always takes a long time before people change their minds about other countries. People believe what they believe about Africa because they've believed it all their lives, and it takes many years of sustained and dramatic evidence before they are prepared to uproot all their fixed beliefs and reconfigure them. What's starting to happen is that little pools of positive perceptions of Africa - some of which have been around tor decades and centuries, like [around] sporting ability or beautiful landscapes - are gradually beginning to pool with each other, and create real, lasting perceptual change. Beautiful landscape is merging with beautiful nature and beautiful culture and good sport and good people and good resources into good growth, good human achievement and good prospects.
Q: You mentioned China earlier. Do you think that China's engagement with Africa has been significant in changing the image of the continent?
A: Amongst highly informed, elite audiences such as diplomats, serious journalists, direct investment and tourism experts, it already has. Amongst broader public opinion, not yet, but it will. We often start to treat a person with more respect when we observe those who we already respect treating that person with respect.
Q: From your research, which African countries have the best reputations?
A: Alas, I can't answer this with any certainty because my annual survey, the "Anholt-GfK Roper Narion Brands Index", has only included a handful of African nations (there are only 50 countries in the study and we have to be selective); for years I have longed to create a separate study, an African Nation Brands Index, but it needs funding. I hope that one of the African institutions - the AU or ADB, for example - might be interested in helping me achieve this. Such a study would regularly measure the international reputations of all African nations, detect early improvements or weakening, and see where the overseas market opportunities lie for which countries and in which areas.
Q: Africa is a continent of 53 nations, so do you think it is possible for all of these countries to achieve a reputation that stands out in the global marketplace?
A: Yes, of course, in theory. Each of Europe's countries stands out in the global marketplace, and so do each of Asia's countries. African countries are certainly all different, with their own story to tell, their own resources and abilities and unique historical, cultural and human assets. It might take a while and there will certainly be laggards. But it's already happening.
Q: You have just come back from Botswana. What did you find?
A: I was invited by the government of Botswana to give one of my masterclasses on Competitive Identity to a mixed authence of government, private sector and civil society. Botswana is certainly one of the frontrunners in Africa and has a wonderful story to tell which would astonish many people in other parts of the world. So many aspects of Botswana flatly contradict the negative picture of "Brand Africa", and this is exactly what Africa needs. Botswana is a country that is eminently capable of driving a wedge into that negative continental reputation and beginning the process of breaking it up.
At thc moment, the reputations of each African country are created by the image ot the continent, which is generally negative. This is simply the wrong way round. It needs to he the countries of Africa that together build the image of the continent. It's a long haul but countries like Botswana are well placed to start the process.
Q: Shifting the focus now, what does your research reveal about the images of different cities in Africa?
A: When I have included cities like Lagos in the Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index, it has proved what I expected it to prove: people know virtually nothing about the reality, so the perception flourishes unchecked.
Q: So, what can cities do if they have a poor reputation?
A: In principle, it's exactly the same thing. Cities, like countries, are judged by what their citizens make and do, not by what they say. So the image can only be changed by a constant, unbroken stream of dramatic evidence that the city or country deserves the reputation it desires. A reputation cannot be constructed: it can only be earned. The solution to a weak or negative image is enlightened policies, investment and innovation - not marketing.
Q: Finally, if you had a crystal ball, what would it reveal about the reputation of Africa in 50 or 100 years' time?
A: Everything hinges on education. Whatever we discuss about human affairs is either a symptom or a consequence of education.
If Africa and Asia continue to invest in education, and Europe and North America continue to fail to do so, then the decline of Western civilisation - which is utterly clear no matter which aspect of its society, its culture or its governance one studies - will accelerate, and the South and the East will continue to rise.
But Africa must not make the mistake of thc West in confusing technological competence and connectivity with real learning, real literacy, and that essential broad grounding in culture, history, humanities, politics and economics. The superficial dexterity of the "internet generation" cannot be the basis ot human progress since it fails to learn from the mistakes and achievements of past generations. Unless each generation absorbs the lessons of the generation before and builds on them, civilisation cannot move forward, lhe decline of the West is the decline of our ability to build on the past, our relentless superficiality, our shallow facility for grasping a million unconnected trivia, calling it knowledge and making markets out of it. Real wisdom requires significantly more application, and there are no shortcuts to it.
There is evidence that much of Asia has perceived this glaring competitive opportunity against the West. Africa's rise depends on whether it can do the same. While working in Sierra Leone last year, I learned that the country used to be known as the "Athens of Africa" because of its preeminence in academia.
This is the clue I was seeking. Rebuilding that patrimony is the key to Africa's future
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