Young Black Men Hit Hardest in Recession

Community Service Society Report

Only one in four young black men in New York City has a job, according to a report released by the Community Service Society of New York. The report, “Unemployment in New York City During the Recession and Early Recovery: Young Black Men Hit the Hardest,” illustrates that some demographic groups experienced the brunt of the recession more than others in terms of unemployment and job loss. Data for the report comes from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and, according to the report, in New York City the groups most affected by the recession were blacks, Latinos, youth and those with less than a high school or equivalent diploma.

Only one in four young black men in New York City has a job, according to a report released by the Community Service Society of New York. The report, “Unemployment in New York City During the Recession and Early Recovery: Young Black Men Hit the Hardest,” illustrates that some demographic groups experienced the brunt of the recession more than others in terms of unemployment and job loss. Data for the report comes from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and, according to the report, in New York City the groups most affected by the recession were blacks, Latinos, youth and those with less than a high school or equivalent diploma. “The recession has created a landscape of the unemployed and underemployed with particular catastrophic consequences for young African-American men,” said David R. Jones, president and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York. “We have long known the struggles of the more than 200,000 youth in New York City who are out of work and out of school. Now young black men between 16 and 24 years have become the banner of hopelessness, particularly here in New York City.”

According to CSS Labor Market Analyst and the report’s author Michelle Holder, the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t compile city-level demographic employment data such as contained in the report, which outlines a difficult picture for young people, people of color, and the less educated in New York City. Ms. Holder added, in addition to unemployed youth, an estimated 30 percent of the unemployed in the city who previously held a job were unemployed for more than a year and, for those 55-64 years old, it took almost nine months to find a job. The top line report findings are: The largest increase in the unemployment rate occurred among working-age black men – it jumped from 9 percent in 2006 to 17.9 percent in 2009, an increase of nearly 9 percentage points.

The highest unemployment rate in 2009 was among men 16-24 years of age—their overall unemployment rate hit 24.6 percent during the recession and early recovery period. Breaking this down by race, young black men had the highest unemployment rate in this group—33.5 percent. While only one in four black men ages 16-24 have a job in the city, that figure drops to an astounding one in ten for young black men without a high school diploma.

Men 55-64 years old had the longest average spell of unemployment (approximately 39 weeks), but black New Yorkers had the highest percentage of those unemployed for more than a year; nearly 40 percent of black men and women who held a job before were unemployed for more than 12 months during the recession and early recovery. Overall, the average length of unemployment during the recession/early recovery period for all New Yorkers was just over six months. CSS published a report in 2004 on black male unemployment that explored the jobless and unemployment figures for this demographic; that report showed that only about 50 percent of all working-age black men held jobs in New York City at that time. While that figure has not changed significantly, noted Ms. Holder, the jobholding rate for young black men in particular is about half that level, and even lower for those who lack a high school or equivalent diploma.

Ms. Holder added, “From a public policy perspective, the main findings of my report are troubling because young African-American men without a job and without an adequate education become at-risk for involvement in the criminal justice system. As it is, black people are overrepresented among the incarcerated in this country. We need to ensure that young men of color in New York City are achieving the basic educational requirements to either get a decent job or go on to college if they so choose.”

Existing research has shown that the lack of a high school diploma as well as high unemployment puts young men at greater risk for incarceration. Also, there is strong evidence that shows that having a prison record is associated with subsequent poorer employment and wage outcomes. CSS continues to strongly advocate for quality General Educational Development (G.E.D.) programs as well as transitional workforce programs that help prepare young people to make successful transitions into either college or permanent, full-time employment. “Without work, without school and without a diploma, young African-American men are vulnerable for the prison pipeline,” Jones added. “The absence of training and jobs will provide a clear and uninterrupted pathway to poverty and potential imprisonment,” Jones added. For 165 years, the Community Service Society of New York has been the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers and continues to advocate for the economic security of the working poor in the nation’s largest city.

What State Budget Cuts Mean to the Children of New York Open Letter to Governor Cuomo

March 7, 2011

To the Governor of the State of New York The New York State Assembly The New York State Senate

The Children’s Defense Fund – New York (CDF-NY) is extremely concerned about the impact the Governor’s Executive Budget proposal will have on the children of New York. The Executive Budget proposal for SFY 2011-2012 closes a $10 billion budget gap primarily through reductions in spending and shifts in state support to financially strapped counties and cities. The $132.9 billion budget proposes an across-the-board reduction of 10 percent on all agencies and reduces state aid to localities by more than $3 billion, primarily through reductions in School Aid and Medicaid. These cuts are proposed while the Governor considers allowing a tax surcharge to expire at the end of the calendar year for the top earners in the state. How can the state wave good-bye to $1 billion in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, and $4 – $5 billion the following year at the same time it proposes cutting services that are critical to the healthy development of our most vulnerable children? New York has one of the most drastic income disparities in the country. Since 1980, the richest 1 percent of New Yorkers has grown from representing 10 percent of all wealth to 35 percent of all wealth in the state. Without this surcharge, New York will need to make even more crippling cuts in the next fiscal year. While encouraged by efforts to reform the juvenile justice system and some efforts to improve our education system, we are greatly concerned about the level of reductions to preventive services, youth programs and education, as well as the significant cost-shift to localities. JUVENILE JUSTICE We applaud the commitment to close underutilized youth prisons and invest in community-based alternative-to-placement programs. The legislature must support the Governor’s proposal and end the days of keeping empty facilities open while failing to provide youth with the services they need. Unfortunately, local detention funding will be capped to pay for new alternative programs. We caution you to ensure the final budget does not punish struggling counties, leading them to reduce critical preventive services in order to pay for local detention costs. A phased-in or staggered approach to the detention cap will allow counties the time to develop new programs that can safely keep youth out of detention. CHILD WELFARE AND YOUTH SERVICES CDF-NY strongly opposes the creation of the new Primary Preventive Investment Fund (PPIF). Cutting in half the already-inadequate funding previously budgeted for preventive services, making counties compete for that half-pot, and requiring them to raise a local match does not bode well for children. Cutting Advantage Afterschool means a loss of 5,000 afterschool slots for children at a time when the value and importance of afterschool and summer enrichment programs is unquestionable. CDF-NY urges you to restore the proposed $5 million cut and maintain funding for the Advantage Afterschool program at $22.2 million. Similarly, we cannot bear the loss of 25,000 Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) slots. CDF-NY urges you to restore SYEP funding to $35 million. Most troubling of the cuts made through the PPIF and reduction in TANF funding is the loss of funds for the Home Visiting Program, one of the most effective interventions to prevent child abuse and neglect and improve school readiness. Investing in children up front saves money and saves lives. We strongly urge you to ensure that Home Visiting remains fully funded and out of any block-granted program. EARLY CHILDHOOD We are glad to see the continued commitment to fund the universal prekindergarten program, but the other reductions in early childhood programs will force parents to choose between employment and leaving their children in unsafe and unreliable environments, or places where children will not be adequately prepared for school. Every dollar invested in early childhood services saves taxpayers $4 to $7, and stimulates the local economy immediately. Restore the $55 million back to the Child Care Block Grant in the final budget. EDUCATION The Governor proposes many new cost-containing measures that would pass significant costs to local counties and cities. CDF-NY is very concerned about this across-the-board approach to reducing education funding. In particular, we are alarmed that the proposed budget fails to honor the terms of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s lawsuit settlement, which established that all New York State’s children should be provided with an equitable and adequate education. Cumulatively, the property tax reduction, proposed GEA formula and the idea of delaying the phase-in of foundation aid would place already-at-risk children throughout New York State in further risk of not receiving the support and services they need. We must rein in costs and applaud some of the initiatives proposed to create greater efficiency in our school systems. Yet, this budget will further strain the ability of struggling school districts to provide services and supports for their students in the near future. FAMILY ASSISTANCE The changes proposed to the public assistance program are not worth the $36 million in savings that they will generate. “Full family” sanctions will punish children along with parents and further destabilize struggling families. We support compliance but believe that implementing full family sanctions will hurt children. In addition, the delay of the grant increase will continue to penalize the most vulnerable families in our state and leave families with 70 percent of the purchasing power the grant had in 1990. States across the country are allowing the financial crisis to be borne on the backs of children. While everyone has a contribution to make to our becoming “whole,” not all cuts can be equal. Some cuts leave no room for recovery and eat away at tomorrow’s promise. Children have no vote so they depend on our voices. We urge you to show the way forward by protecting New York’s future. Sincerely, (The Rev. Dr.) Emma Jordan-Simpson Executive Director Children’s Defense Fund – New York

The Parent’s Notebook

A Crisis in Leadership at Medgar Evers College

“I was not brought here to lead a black institution.  I was brought here to lead a public institution and to raise the bar.”
These are the words uttered by the current President of Medgar Evers College Dr. William Pollard at a meeting of the Medgar Evers College Community Council, and therein lies a fundamental problem as to why there is currently a “crisis in leadership.”  Dr. Pollard is the leader of an institution named for the civil rights leader, Medgar Wiley Evers, a man whose life is symbolic of the struggle for the human and civil rights of black people in this country, a man who died tragically while advocating for the rights of black people who were disenfranchised.  Medgar Wiley Evers, the man, symbolizes the mission of Medgar Evers College, a college whose mission is committed to providing students with a high-quality liberal arts education, ensuring that students have a knowledge of self, culture, history and preparing students to assume leadership roles and to serve their communities and the larger world.
Dr. Pollard does not understand that leading a black institution and raising the bar for a public institution are not mutually exclusive.  He has not accepted the fact that he was asked to lead a predominantly black college whose students come from almost 70 different nations in the African Diaspora, including many countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America and West, East and Southern Africa, as well as other regions of the United States.  He does not understand that the goals which framed the mission of Medgar Evers College are comparable to those goals which guided the development of Historically Black Colleges throughout our nation.  Tragically and unfortunately, he seems frozen in time, in a generation that gave birth to a belief that quality, concern and excellence within black schools in African-American communities did not exist and that busing and the closing of such schools would result in a better education for black children. Our communities have sadly, experienced just the opposite. We have generations of students who have received an inadequate education in public schools despite the efforts of integration.  And there is ample evidence that students who were educated in schools run by the African American community have received a sound education.  One can both lead a black public institution and raise the bar. Educators like Pollard have not kept pace with this fact.  .
Historically, the Black Church led to the birth of black colleges and through their leadership   provided a unique education for black students.  These institutions were created to serve students who were under-represented and who did not have access to higher education and entrance into majority institutions and graduate study opportunities.  Historically Black Colleges speak to the value of empowering black students for success by creating and surrounding them with an educational and culturally rich, nurturing environment of faculty, staff and administrators.  These colleges emphasize the importance of activism and service in a community of committed students, teachers and scholars.
Medgar Evers College does not have the formal classification of an Historically Black College, but it does have the classification of a predominantly black college.  Educational institutions created after 1965, which currently have large numbers of blacks in their student body (over 75%), have been termed “predominantly black”.  In fact, Medgar Evers College has received educational funds because of its classification as a predominantly black public institution.
Dr. Pollard’s lack of understanding of his role as a leader of a predominantly black college is most troubling and problematic. Many people want to be a leader but few understand the nature of leadership.  A leader must have integrity, i.e., there must be evidence that the words of the leader match his actions.  A leader must have problem-solving abilities so that problems which could have been addressed at early stages don’t spin out of control.  Leaders have integrity and know how to influence people without promises of gifts and/or rewards. Leaders inspire followers who have confidence in them and who do not fear or intimidate them.  One can have a title of a leader and still not be a leader. Leadership is earned not given. Those who do not understand this will not remain leaders for long.
Since assuming the leadership of Medgar Evers College, Dr. Pollard has engaged in a number of actions which reveal that there is a crisis in leadership at Medgar Evers College.  Most recently, 89% of the faculty present at a meeting called to discuss a “vote of no confidence” affirmed a vote of no confidence in the leadership of Medgar Evers College and specifically in the Offices of President William Pollard and Provost Howard Johnson. There can be no “spin” of the facts by the Central Administration that can obscure or conceal the outright dissatisfaction of the majority of faculty and staff who have experienced the actions of this administration.
Dr. Pollard’s dismissal of this vote as reflective of a disgruntled group of faculty is evidence that he does not understand that he cannot lead an institution where 89% of a group of 66 faculty would affirm a vote of no confidence.  He is not aware that within the last two years less than 35 faculty have voted in the Faculty Senate and that even fewer have come to the one Town Hall meeting called by the president.  Thus, it is significant that twice as many faculty came to a meeting to declare their lack of confidence in the leadership of the current administration.  A majority vote of 89% speaks volumes!
Dr. Pollard prides himself on wanting to create a student-centered environment.  Yet under his leadership, the infrastructure for student and faculty support services has been dismantled. The Writing Center, which is dedicated to helping students throughout the College improve their writing, has been eliminated; the budget and services of the Learning Center, which provides tutoring for students in all disciplines, have been reduced; the staff and resources in the College’s library, computer and psych labs have been reduced; the Center for Teaching and Learning which supports improved pedagogy and faculty research and scholarship, has been eliminated and funding for faculty/student research has been blocked.
How can one speak of supporting a student-centered environment and dismantle the very structures that strengthen this support?  When given the choice of expanding the Learning Center (the size of one classroom) or creating a game room, why would the president use precious space to create a game room?  These actions that have dismantled student and faculty support services represent a lack of vision for what is academically in the students’ best interest and reveal a disjuncture between the words and actions of the President. In short, these actions speak to a lack of integrity in the leadership of Dr. Pollard.
Further evidence of the crisis in leadership is evidenced by the administration’s failure to adhere to shared governance procedures and policies. Colleges within the CUNY system operate by shared governance between administration, faculty, staff and students.  The procedures which characterize this shared governance are described in the CUNY Bylaws, the College’s Governance Plan and the union’s Professional Staff Congress.  Under the leadership of
Dr. Pollard, shared governance practices have been violated and there have been irregularities in conducting the business of college-wide committees and personnel actions.  Duly elected chairs of departments have been removed; a clear example is the removal of the Education Department Chair whose students had 100% pass rates for the past three years on state teacher exams, and the replacement of the Chair with a faculty member who has no or little experience as a leader of a department and whose demeanor and temperament have put her at odds with students, faculty and educators at area schools.
Other violations of governance include the President’s refusal to chair the college’s personnel and budget committee, a committee which oversees the appointment, reappointment, promotion and tenure of faculty; the Provost’s refusal to disclose the votes of actions on college-wide committees; the unprofessional manner in which faculty have been informed of their non-reappointments (via security guards, in classrooms, in their offices and via the Internet.)  The administration has also attempted to abolish and merge departments without going through the appropriate governance procedures involving faculty departments and the College Council.  These actions are truly reflective of a crisis in leadership.
The most recent illustration of this leadership crisis is Dr. Pollard’s announcement of the formation of a criminal justice program which would be a collaboration between Medgar Evers College and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. Prior to the announcement of this collaboration with District Attorney Hynes, President Pollard had expressed no interest in having a program involving formerly incarcerated individuals on campus; in fact he had expressed that he wanted no criminal elements on campus. However, when faced with widespread opposition to his treatment to this existing program (NuLeadership), he quickly courted DA Hynes (with as he indicated on a recent edition of Inside City Hall with the help of “a friend”) and engaged his office to deflect the criminal justice community’s outrage with his treatment of the Center for NuLeadership. Not surprisingly, Dr. Pollard has not been able to articulate what this criminal justice program would look like and the individual appointed at the College to lead this program has no experience working with formerly incarcerated individuals.
Why wouldn’t President Pollard call upon the expertise of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, a center which has been at the College for the last six years and which has been dedicated to teaching and training formerly incarcerated students to create and deploy new and innovative paradigms for solving community development and related criminal justice challenges in communities of color?
Why would this announcement come after President Pollard issued an eviction notice for the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, a Center that is the only Center in this country founded and staffed by formerly incarcerated individuals, a Center that has been praised and recognized both locally and nationally as one of the premier public policy think tanks in the country on these issues?
The Center for NuLeadership has provided the College with a place where the study of mass incarceration, mass unemployment and mass disenfranchisement of Black men and women is conducted from the perspective of urban communities and people most impacted by these social phenomena.  In view of President Pollard’s actions and statements related to The Center for NuLeadership, his launching of a new criminal justice program at Medgar Evers College for formerly incarcerated individuals lacks credibility.
In his book, The Servant as Leader, Robert K. Greenleaf reminds us:
“Foresight is the ‘lead’ that the leader has.  Once he loses this lead and events start to force his hand, he is leader in name only.  He is not leading; he is reacting to an immediate event and he probably will not long be a leader.”
The leadership at Medgar Evers College is in crisis.  There is a breach of integrity and a lack of confidence in the leadership of the College under Dr. Pollard.  The forming of the Medgar Evers College Coalition on Academic Excellence and Mission Integrity by faculty, students, community leaders and clergy and its expansion are evidence of the growing support for a change in leadership.  Dr. Pollard’s lack of understanding of the nature of the College has affected his ability to lead the College and his image as an effective leader has unraveled.

The Medgar Evers College Coalition for Academic Excellence and Mission Integrity.
For further information visit www.MEfortheCommunity.org/ and
www.facebook.com/MEfortheCommunity or write to meccoalition@gmail.com.

Toward the Student-Centered College

2010 marks 40 years since the founding  of Medgar Evers College in 1970.  Under the leadership of Edison O. Jackson, the school has created nationally known centers such as the Center for Law and Social Justice, the Caribbean Research Center, the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, the Ella Baker/Charles Romain Child Care Center, the Center for Women’s Development and the Jackie Robinson Center for Physical Culture.  The construction of the Academic Science Center and earlier this year achieving the status of a full-funded CUNY four-year institution are other testaments to his tenure.
Now under the stewardship of  President William L. Pollard, we asked what are the greatest challenges he faces after only five months on the job.  The president was hesitant to speak of particular difficulties, saying the job is “Everything I expected, plus some.” 
Asked about the challenges of the incoming class, Pollard says the students in the new class as well as those already attending, “affirm my thinking” regarding his defining goal of Medgar Evers College being “the leading student-centered school in the CUNY system.”   He says that the decisions he’s making in terms of personnel or the physical plant, are in line with that student-centered vision.  “I want us to be first and foremost a college that is pro-student.” and that changes are being made “not necessarily to benefit faculty or staff, but to benefit the students.”
The first example he offers is that “in order for the campus to be more student-centered, it has to be more technologically efficient than it has been.”  In order to achieve that, “We have to have a chief information officer who can help us make better decisions about technology to bring our software and hardware more closely aligned with the needs of the students.   The technology we have now is not well-thought-out and it’s not of benefit to students or faculty and administration.  The technology hire is designed to help students, first and foremost.” 
Another hire will be a chief financial officer with the title Assistant Vice-President for Finance, to deal with a legacy financial system that he finds cumbersome.  “We currently have a structure that has the president making virtually every financial decision in the college.  And while the president is responsible for the decisions made, if I have to buy robes for the choir, or popcorn poppers for the gymnasium basketball games, when do I have the time to reflect on what the needs are for the institution more broadly?  I have to get away from the nickel-and-dime decision-making.  The only way I can do that is to put the financial house in a kind of order and direct it in a way that allows for greater decision-making at the unit level.  It’s at that level that student needs are taken into greater consideration.” 
Pollard will also be hiring an assistant vice president for the physical plant, so that decisions can be made and projects can move forward without the direct involvement of the president’s office. 
As part of his student-centered vision, President Pollard opens his office to students on Friday afternoons and Tuesday evenings.  With this procedure, “I get to hear firsthand what the students are concerned about.  As a result, there are things that I’m able to pass on to faculty and staff that allows them to be much more responsive and supportive of students.”   Pollard explains that “if we’re going to ask students to take classes on Saturday and Sunday and in the evenings, we have to have office hours to answer the needs of the students.  That’s student-centered.”
The president makes clear who is in charge of the school. “Student-centered does not mean student-run.  It means we have to be responsive to students, and give them direction so that they make decisions with care and forethought.”  Some of those decisions involve how students dress and behave and he mentions that, “At Morehouse, the president has told the young men they can’t wear baggy pants or do-rags.  At Lincoln, the president has decided that the university has to take more responsibility to help the students make better decisions on what they eat.” 
Rather than issue an edict, President Pollard has chosen to engage the students in dialogue about their future and the steps they need to take to get there.  “I’ve had a couple of town hall meetings with students and engaged in conversations on what students ought to look like and how they ought to behave if they’re going to be Medgar students,” and while the president has not established a formal dress code at Medgar Evers College, he is  challenging the students to begin reflecting more about their appearance and their roles as young men and women as they move into the future.
President Pollard is very protective of his students and bristles at the fact that “We’ve heard people talk about ‘nontraditional’ students.  I don’t believe we have nontraditional students at Medgar, we have students, who for reasons of the economy, for reasons of age and circumstance, have to take non-traditional means to get a college education.
“They may not enter right after high school.  They may enter college with family and personal obligations that make their road to a degree longer.  taking 5,6,7 8 or 9 years.”   This contributes to lowering the school’s graduation rate, but not for any failure on the part of the school or student.
One example he speaks of is a student in the biology department who is studying the nervous system of shellfish.  In the course of that research, he’s seen that magnesium has a negative effect on the nervous system of human beings, causing Parkinson Syndrome-like hand tremors.  “In some people, it is not Parkinson’s but an overabundance of magnesium in the body.”  This student’s research is looking at how to manipulate the amount of magnesium in the body to control tremors. 
“This young man is 28 years old.  His mother and father had a difficult divorce.  He dropped out of school 8-9 years ago so that he could help his mother take care of his siblings and himself.  Is this a nontraditional student, or a student taking a nontraditional path?  He never lost sight of what he needed to do and he’s now a biology major who will graduate next year.”
Asked if the building boom at the college was over for a moment while he concentrates on other issues, President Pollard says, “We are not finished with the building boom.”  Pollard expresses a deep appreciation for the amount of work, patience and willpower that Dr. Jackson exerted in bringing the new buildings into being on the MEC campus saying, “I understand what it took politically and personally to reach this point and that it represents a 10-12-year effort”  and yet he said, and he was sure that Dr. Jackson would agree, “The college needs that space again.” 
“We are not finished with the building boom and we’re still light years away from where we want to be technologically.” 
High on his list is the need for a student center.  A place with meeting rooms, food franchises, student government offices and a comfortable location for students to sit and talk between classes.   “When you drive by the school and see students out on the street, it’s because we need a student center where the young people can congregate.”  And again, this is part of  his student-centered vision.  “Any building boom has to include a plan for total student development: spiritual, mental and physical.”  Along with the student center, Pollard insists there is a need for a field house and playing field as well.   He feels that those who think that intramural sports are not integral to higher education miss the learning experiences inherent in sports and that the social skills learned on the soccer field are useful in the boardroom.  “Young people learn how to lead, how to work in teams and are prepared to work in structured environments such as the society presents.” 
“I want my legacy to be that Medgar becomes the leading student-centered college in the CUNY system.  One marked by students who know and believe they are the most important thing at the college.  It will be reflected in the way we treat them, reflected in improved graduation rates, reflected in the office hours for faculty and staff,  and in the way students are accorded courtesies and conveniences in the evening and on weekends.”

Building a New Africa With its Soil and People

2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai

The new Africa starts here: how to make the people prosper.  If Africa is to thrive, a revolution in thinking is needed — and it must begin out in the farmers’ fields.

      By Wangari Maathai

      The Times (London)

      June 6, 2009

      Not long ago I was in Yaoundé, Cameroon, as part of my work as Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem, a position to which I was appointed in 2005 by heads of state of the ten Central African nations. I was meeting the secretariat of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership and the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (Comifac) based in Yaoundé, as well as economic and environment ministers from the region.

      As I stood outside the hotel in a light rain I looked across to one of the seven hills that surround the city. My eyes focused on a woman in the distance who was making rows of small depressions in the soil parallel to the gradient of the hill. “She shouldn’t be making furrows in that direction on such a steep slope,” I thought, “because when the rains come, very quickly all that soil will be lost.”

      But when I asked a hotel security guard why the woman was cutting furrows downward, instead of across, he explained that the rain would run along the furrows and therefore not disturb the crops.

      This directly contradicted every principle of soil conservation that I know, because when the rains fell the soil that the woman farmer had so carefully formed, and so desperately needed to make her bananas, maize or yams grow, would be swept down that hillside — in the very furrows she had just dug. She was creating the perfect environment for soil erosion, making it less likely that anything would grow on that hill in the future.

      There was an added irony to the situation. I was waiting for a car to take me to meetings to discuss safeguarding the Congo Basin forest — an ecosystem of 700,000sq km (270,000sq miles) that is the largest intact expanse of forest in the world after the Amazon.

      Yet I realized, no matter what else we were doing, unless those of us who would assemble at the Comifac headquarters could work with that farmer, multiplied several million times in Cameroon, the Congo region, and indeed throughout Africa, not only would we not save the Congo forests, but we might also be unable to halt the rapid desertification under way across the continent.

      Of course that woman farmer and others like her are not the primary threats to the forests of the Congo Basin. Mining and timber concessions that feed the seemingly insatiable global demand for raw wood, as well as residual conflict, are more directly destructive. But once the timber Lorries and mining companies have made their inroads and cleared the trees, it is people such as this subsistence farmer who follow — completing the cycle of destruction.

      Soils in tropical forests are often not well suited to agriculture. Unless farmers practice good land management, when trees are cut down the land is degraded, further increasing the risks of soil erosion and desertification. When the rains fall, the topsoil is washed into rivers, leaving the land behind barren.

      No blame should be apportioned to the woman on the hillside for attempting to eke out a living. But as I stood there that morning, she came to represent for me the collective challenges that face agriculture and development as a whole in many African nations. I wondered how much of the revenue of the luxurious hotel where I was staying — owned by a foreign corporation — was making its way into the Government’s coffers and, in turn, how much of that the Government was investing in its agricultural extension service to assist that woman to farm in a sustainable manner. Probably not enough.

      I also reflected that if African states’ agricultural extension services had not been under-funded or neglected in the decades since independence, that woman farmer could not only have learned the right way to prepare soil for planting, but might also have had access to information, modern equipment and governmental support that would have enabled her to grow crops more efficiently and less destructively.

      If, in turn, development practitioners and international agencies had, in their work with national governments, given more priority to investing in Africa’s farmers, the continent’s agricultural systems might not be in such poor condition today.

      If the continent’s governments had set development priorities so that productive land had been distributed more equitably and used more wisely, natural resources conserved and suitable urban planning undertaken, that woman might not have been forced up that hillside. If they had addressed the inequities of land distribution left from the colonial period and taken advantage of by the ruling elite, then this farmer might not have been tilling such unproductive soil.

      If African leaders had invested more in education and the creation of sustainable employment options and inclusive economies, and if they had been more concerned with the welfare of their people and not their own enrichment, then perhaps this farmer would have had more opportunity. Today she might be in another profession altogether, or be managing a larger, more efficient farm that could have freed her from grinding poverty.

      It is my many experiences similar to that encounter in Yaoundé that lead me to believe that if Africa, particularly south of the Sahara, is to progress so that it no longer depends on aid or remains a byword for poverty, conflict and corruption, it is on hillsides such as these, and with women such as that farmer, that we must work.

      For too long Africa has been on its knees: whether during the dehumanizing exploitation of the slave trade or under the yoke of colonialism or seeking aid from the international community or servicing illegitimate debts or praying for miracles.

      To change the life of that farmer, and millions like her, a fundamental revolution in leadership is needed. This would ensure that Africans experience good governance, respect for human rights, development that is equitable and sustainable, and, eventually, peace. The most important quality that African leadership needs to embrace, and that is desperately lacking across the continent, is a sense of service to the people in whose name leaders govern.

     But this revolution cannot be confined only to the ruling elites. Even the poorest and least empowered of African citizens need to rid themselves of a culture that tolerates systemic corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement of state affairs. Such a system also privileges one ethnic or socio-economic group over another. This, too, should be unacceptable.

      For decades African elites have ignored small-scale agriculture because it is assumed that it is only for the uneducated. But much of Africa is represented by that woman farmer on the hillside. Clearly African governments need to invest in making small-scale farmers more productive, especially as the effects of climate change intensify and growing sufficient amounts of food becomes even more challenging.

      At the same time, other regions have increased food production and have used subsidies, fertilizers, mechanization and sheer hard work to not only feed themselves but also to produce food so cheaply that it undercuts local African markets. Because of corruption, mismanagement and unstable international commodity prices, the cash-crop economy has not enriched ordinary Africans.

      At the very least one would want to see co-operatives that provide farmers with accurate and timely information about their crops and weather. Affordable inputs and vibrant local and regional food markets that are sustainable would be a better option. Governments should institute and enforce policies that ensure fair prices for their farmers in the global economy.

      Governments and individuals in Africa need to do all they can to improve land management — principally, preventing erosion. Africans should continue to welcome the international agencies, donor nations and private ventures that have an interest in helping the continent to develop in a manner that is sustainable and just.

      But, ultimately, the fate of Africa depends on its own leaders and its own citizens. Only Africans can resolve to provide leadership that is responsible, accountable and equitable. It is Africans who must decide whether they will manage their natural resources responsibly and distribute them equitably, using them for the good of fellow Africans. It is they who must determine whether they will continue to allow outside forces to seduce and bully their governments into arrangements that allow those resources to be siphoned from the continent for a pittance.

      It is for Africans to choose whether they will work hard to build up their own talents and abilities, strengthen their democracies and institutions of governance, and foster peoples’ creativity and industry.

      Can Africa take a different path so that her future generations will not look back and shake their heads at the expanding deserts and degraded lands? Or lament the large numbers of people migrating in search of water, land, food and work, and the inevitable conflicts over scarce resources? This is the challenge for Africa, including that woman on the hillside in Yaoundé.

      Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is founder of the Green Belt Movement and the author, most recently, of The Challenge for Africa: A New Vision