By Movine Omondi

In the face of complex challenges and rapidly evolving global geopolitical and socioeconomic scenarios, including increasing levels of state fragility to lack of trust from their citizens, African States can draw immense lessons from the successes of  Fortune 500 Companies! Commonly touted Fortune 500 traits like efficacious decision-making, adaptability, and timely delivery of goals can guide leaders. Similarly, key tenets of Fortune 500 companies’ marketing strategies, including brand consistency, ensure stability and dynamism, which will be critical for engaging the enormous youthful population, and transparency and trust-building are eternally vital. In addition, standing for rationality and impeccable telling of the African story will foster unity for the largely heterogeneous states. If well executed, this plan should result in an increasing prioritization of the citizens’ well-being, ensuring security and stability for a prosperous future and a strengthened African Statecraft.

Introduction 

The African State Project, which largely began in the 1960s, post-independence, suffers from several crippling challenges. State weakness is top on this list. According to Robert Rotberg,  a weak state cannot effectively deliver public goods to its citizens. In fact, Robert further contends that such a state increasingly becomes illegitimate and a thorn in the eyes of its citizens and is eventually a source of disruption to the world order. Some of the most critical public goods that should be provided by a State to its citizens, in order of priority,  include public security, the rule of law, civil rights, and socioeconomic goods, including education, healthcare, agriculture, and urban planning, among others. Some of the most daunting constraints faced by an enormous number of African states that still linger in weakness include, among others, internal political and civil strife, armed violence, ideological and democratic misalignments, endemic corruption, and lack of proper development planning. 

There exist several indices that often try to calibrate the global order into various categories of state success or otherwise levels of state failure. For instance, the Fund for Peace’s State Fragility Index utilizes the prevailing socioeconomic, political, cohesion conflict, and human rights data from at least  179 States to rank them on a continuum of either sustainable, stable, warning, or alert levels of fragility.  Another more touted index is the Failed States Index, which generally also follows the Fragile State Index and ranks states from worst performing, ideally collapsed states to failed states, moderate, and finally to strong states based on their real and perceived capabilities to deliver political goods to their citizens. 

Fragility of States Index 2023

Source: Fund for Peace

From the analysis of the FSI, a majority of African states’ fragility fell in between warning and alert. There are credible critiques that have been successfully lodged against such indices as FSI, including a perceived politicization of the indices for vested interests as well as the application of Eurocentric approaches that ideally favor Western Liberal Democracies in defining indicators. Regardless, it is also worth noting the strengths of such analyses and their applicability in the African State context. For instance, unlike earlier FSI indices, which were largely ranking-based, recent outputs have given provisions for more open data collection and verification approaches and integrated grassroots voices in their analyses. Of more importance is the opportunity for African States and Leaders to get honest and largely objective “outsider” feedback as pertains to their performance, which they rarely get internally, for obvious reasons!  

Our focus is particularly drawn to the socioeconomic elements of the state fragility. As observable from the analysis, a majority of African states perform largely on the warning to alert levels of fragility, and apart from political and civil strife preeminent in a number of African countries, corruption and inefficient development planning top the list for why various  African States cannot successfully provide their respective citizens the necessary political goods with efficacy. Interestingly, evidence continuously suggests that resource-based conflicts remain some of the longest-fought conflicts across Africa, a case in point being the DRC conflict that has spanned at least seven solid decades. So what does running the African State like a Fortune 500 company have to do with anything then? Fortune 500 Companies list is an annual ranking of the most successful American enterprises by Fortune Magazine.  According to Concordia University Texas, “The Fortune 500 is an annual list of 500 of the largest companies in the United States based on revenue for the accompanying fiscal year.” 

Fortune magazine, a publication focused on the business industry, publishes the list. The Fortune 500 list is a golden standard in the field of business.” It is especially critical to conceptualize the idea of Fortune 500 companies being the golden standard in business as meaning having applied the best entrepreneurial strategies successfully with the obvious reward of bountiful revenue and profitability within the  American entrepreneurial space for at least 1 year. This is exactly what the African State needs to weather the complex and rapidly evolving global geopolitical and economic scenario. It is worth noting that some of the companies that, over the years, have formed the top archives of the Fortune 500 list have not only had their presence felt in America but have, in fact, spread their wings wide across the world, including into Africa. For instance,  a random mention of the list of top-20 Fortune 500 list 2024 would definitely ring a bell to most of us: Walmart, Amazon, Exxon Mobil, Apple, UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Berkshire Hathaway, Alphabet, McKesson, Chevron, AmerisourceBergen, Costco, Microsoft, Cardinal, Cigna Group, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66, Valero Energy, Ford Motor, Home Depot. A Harvard Business Review inquiry established some of the most preeminent factors that set the most influential CEOs apart (presumptively, most of them being those of Fortune 500 companies). The review identified four major traits, including quality decision-making (effective and efficient), impactful cross-functional engagement, proactive adaptability, and reliable delivery. African States’ CEOs, essentially heads of states and governments, ministers, and other key political decision-makers could endeavor to integrate some of these practices into running the  States. Gacia Macom’s reflections on some of the most effective business practices engendered by some of the most consistent Fortune 500 companies underscored marketing strategies, including brand consistency, dynamism (creating a movement), trust, social strategy, standing for something and selling a story, as key markers for success. 

Brand Consistency

Garcia Marcom draws our attention to Coca-Cola’s approach to maintaining its marketing consistency for the past 130 years, especially around its premium offering, the Coca-Cola drink. For instance, the company’s logo has remained the same, and its marketing slogans and taglines have also remained relatively consistent over time. Marcom even attests to the fact that despite the Coca-Cola marketing team having access to a whooping USD 4.3 billion in marketing budget, it still chose consistency! Consistency breeds stability, and stability commands confidence. The African State project has often lost its continuity, especially during political transitions. New governments are often quick to throw the baby with the birth water out of the window. Incrementally leading to piles of white elephant projects across the continent, haphazardly abandoned policies and initiatives, among others. Lack of policy stability and predictability is also often a turn-off to potential development partners and investors who are forced to adopt a wait-and-see approach during times of political transitions as such, may eventually fail to commit to longer-term projects, say upwards of 15 years as most presidential term limits linger around a maximum of 10 to 15 years. There is an urgent need to embed administrative continuity and political goodwill across the board, and even when an incoming administration is vastly opposed to the political programs of an outgoing regime, a case-by-case professional and objective analysis of such programs should be made. In the worst-case scenario, if some have to be halted on the basis of ideological and policy differences, such actions must be properly communicated transparently and executed with utmost rationality.

Creating a Movement: Dynamism

African Statecraft has been accused of a myriad of things. One of those accusations has majorly emanated from the young people. “The state is out of touch with the reality of its people, especially the young people.” This is the rallying call of young people across Africa! In all honesty, this sort of accusation is understandable because at least 70% of the continent’s 1.4 billion strong population is composed of young people. While it may be an over-the-roof exercise to pinpoint what a State’s “being in touch with the citizens” looks like with precision, some key lessons can be borrowed from Marcom’s analysis of Apple’s approach to dynamism. “Apple’s marketing efforts have not only highlighted their products, but also generated the impression that their products are visionary and life-changing.” A deeper analysis of this statement underscores the most fundamental logic for identity formation. In other words, Apple is giving its customers a reason to line up over the night for its products every so often. Customers expect a life-changing experience using Apple products. Can that be comfortably said by the citizens of the respective African States about their citizenship? Prevailing evidence may prove otherwise. Media reports continue to shed light on the unending immigration of Africans into Europe and elsewhere, including mass illegal immigration; some of the immigrants are even more willing to sacrifice their lives in their attempts to emigrate. While immigration is a natural process of human civilization, mass immigration is not! As such it is important to audit some of the most outstanding issues that inform the decisions of immigrants from Africa. A majority of the immigrants and refugees blame armed conflicts and limited socioeconomic opportunities as the core motives for their departures. 

Both issues take us back to the ideas surrounding state failure and fragility. Remember Robert Rotberg’s assertion that when a state is unable or unwilling to provide its citizens with political goods. Key among them is public security, whereby the state incrementally loses legitimacy with the citizens and, as such, leaves them no option but to leave. This is the same fate that befalls a commercial outfit that is unable to prove to its customer base that its products are life-changing. The customers eventually leave. Closely linked to this is the need to solidify a socioeconomic environment that is conducive to human development. Socioeconomic rights are primed as some of the most fundamental individual, communal, and societal rights and freedoms by the UN and other intergovernmental human rights regimes as they translate to the wholesome well-being of a people. Even without going further into what others think, none of us would really be interested in living a minute longer in a place with no nutritious food, quality housing, clean water, good hospitals, and great roads, among others. No brainer!

It is, therefore, imperative for the African State to first and foremost set up measures that can guarantee the security of all that live within their borders. Otherwise, no rational, life-loving being would be interested in staying in a locality where they could literally die the next minute. Ideas that would work well include adherence to constitutional frameworks in resolving all political matters and in governance, intentional investment in robust intelligence and crime detection systems, intergovernmental security and anti-crime frameworks, and entrenching community policing techniques, among others. As for the socioeconomic challenges, development planning that encompasses contextual sensitivities of the respective country and its people needs to be explored as it could potentially yield unimaginable results. Eventually, the African State should find a way back to be in touch with its people, if only to give them a reason to belong to the State. 

Trust

Marcom’s remark concerning Colgates’s approach to trust is interesting.

“Colgate has adopted a different strategy over the years, instead of simply forcing its products down people’s throats, and has instead chosen to educate consumers.” 

The reality is that being a citizen of any state or world can sometimes feel like choking. This is especially true if one is a citizen of a State that does not inspire trust. Marcom louds Colgate for not forcing its products down people’s throats and instead choosing to educate consumers, for example, by creating an Oral Care Centre that is optimally stocked with information on dental health and wellbeing. What Colgate is doing essentially entails getting into an objective debate with its consumers about the benefits of great dental health and consequently proffering solutions, such as Colgate toothpaste, toothbrushes, and a litany of other products. No reasonable man would resist such an offering. But wait a moment. Something stands poignantly out about the Colgate approach, and trust me, it’s not their litany of dental products; rather, it’s their repository of dental health information. It goes without saying that such information must exude utmost accuracy or else shall be called out of order by the numerous specialists and competitors who assumably must also continually interact with Colgate’s content. The idea here is the place of transparency in good governance and state building. 

Joseph Ferguson, in his book titled “Transparent Government: What it means and how you can make it happen” defines transparency in government as the principle by which the citizens are made aware of the basic facts and figures, mechanisms and processes of their government in a format that is accessible, understandable and enticing enough to motivate the citizens to engage with the dialogue necessary to enhance efficiencies and reduce corruption. Ferguson further states that it is, in fact, the duty of elected officials and civil servants to actualize transparency. It is reasonable to infer that the failure of a government agency or agent to demonstrate transparency often erodes public confidence in the State. As such, African public institutions must endeavor to dry their linen right before their citizens at all times, regardless of how dirty such linen is. If anything, Ferguson asserts that when State institutions continually give the citizens an opportunity to actively interact with the facts, figures, and operations of their government, it gives the citizens an opportunity to contribute to nation-building, thus technically enhancing the operations of the state. 

Social Strategy

Social strategy refers to the public relations aspects of the State. In the case of Starbucks, it is their Germaine and innovative social media engagement strategies that have constantly kept them ahead of the curve. For the African State, it would definitely refer to the level of engagement and how easy it is to interact with various public service offerings. For instance, the extent and form of digitalization as a tool for public administration would be a major consideration. Effective public relations strategy is key as it helps promote brand identity, authority, and trust.  It also enhances deeper connections with the targeted audience, in this case, the citizens. In brief, African states must package their communication in a way that inspires confidence and spreads hope, as well as be consistent and innovative in their messaging. As such, it may be time for the plethora of State agencies to invest in critical public relations and communications resources, including competent personnel. 

Standing for Something

While it is becoming increasingly difficult to pin any individual, community, or society, let alone an entire state, to make a stand on most matters of ideology and values, given the heightened levels of polarity globally, it may still be possible to maintain a basic modus operandi. For starters, a majority of African States have historically embraced non-alignment in previous global ideological war fronts. Such strategic decisions were well noted and, to a large extent, made political sense. However, there is an impending danger of African states being the “ones” perpetually spectating. Of course, there is a healthy balance between staying ideologically neutral and making key political and socioeconomic commitments that are well thought out and rational. The dangers of staying noncommittal on matters of international or domestic significance abound. For instance, failure by a state to ratify a progressive human rights convention creates a hindrance to the smooth operations of the international human rights regime. For one, it becomes exhaustively difficult to lay ubiquitous grounds for across-the-board accountability. Similarly, limited commitment to the terms of engagement of a plethora of Regional Economic Communities that most African States are part of continues to frustrate their success. Similarly, domestically speaking, the often fluctuating government policies on a myriad of issues, including trade and investment policies, the rule of law, and human rights, among others, are a cause for alarm. The idea is to build an assertive State that can create well-structured, scientific,  evidence-based, consultative, and inclusive decision-making mechanisms that can be relied upon to deliver quality domestic and foreign policy standpoints. Therefore, African States should endeavor to build a technical capacity across various fields of domestic and foreign interests and consequently abide by the professional advice of such consortiums. 

Sell a Story the Nike Way

Nike is one of the most renowned shoe sellers in the world. The company would also rank as one of the most renowned storytellers in the world. Simply put, Nike tells the back tale of each of their sneakers, including its iteration, design, creation, and completion. Nike’s approach not only helps them sell a million tons of new shoes every month, but it also breeds something deeper. It allows their brand to have a firm grip on the minds of their customers. The customers, interested in following the narratives, forget themselves and become entangled in these stories. The point is to design the African State building project in such a way that the citizens not only get access to information for analysis’ sake as in the Colgate-transparency approach but also easily interact with and enjoy their history heritage and glory in their diversity. In other words, state-building must go hand in hand with nation-building. As should have been clarified beforehand, (politically speaking) a State encompasses a number of features, including territorial integrity, recognition by other states, population, and a government. On the other hand, a nation would refer to a group of people with a shared history or heritage. 

Therefore, a majority of African States at the point of formation were multinational with an implicit aspiration to eventually jell into one uniform nation, going by the African Union declaration to maintain the boundaries of respective African States at the time of independence. It is under such circumstances that Africans find themselves in the countries where they currently reside. Given the high levels of heterogeneity across most African countries, including linguistic, cultural, and even often racial, the African State building project must proceed in such a way as to promote unity in diversity, whatever this means for the respective State. Some of the key areas to consider to sell the African story impactfully would include accurately telling the history of the State, including those parts that are not necessarily impressive, storing this history ‘undiluted’ for future generations, promoting diverse cultures without prejudice, and above all, rallying these diverse cultures to form one rich national identity, capable of joining the other 55 cultures drawn from across the continent in finding the space for the pan-African political, socioeconomic and cultural voice and activity globally.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the analogy of running African states like Fortune 500 companies offers profound insights into navigating the complexities of governance. The African State, facing myriad challenges from fragility to a lack of trust, can draw invaluable lessons from the success strategies of Fortune 500 companies. Just as successful CEOs exhibit traits of quality decision-making, cross-functional engagement, adaptability, and reliable delivery, African leaders can adopt similar principles. Embracing brand consistency fosters stability, while dynamism creates a movement that resonates with citizens, especially the youth. Transparency, trust-building, and effective communication strategies are imperative for restoring faith in governance. By standing for something and selling a compelling narrative, African states can foster unity amidst diversity, paving the way for a prosperous future. It is time for African leaders to emulate the best practices of successful enterprises and prioritize the well-being of their citizens, ensuring security, stability, and socioeconomic development for generations to come.