Is SA too tired to lead?

There is a pretty cool Apple app called Flight Radar 24 that you need to check out if you are into that sort of thing.

It enables the user to monitor air traffic across the globe, live. One can see in real time, for instance, the exact whereabouts of a commercial aircraft flying between OR Tambo International and Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, in Ethiopia.

One thing that strikes you when you open the app is the amazing amount of traffic over the far east of Asia, western Europe, the US and Canada, Brazil and the Middle East.

You look at the African skies. There is very little activity, with most of the traffic predictably being over South Africa and, to some extent, Kenya and Egypt.

If busy air corridors are one of the key indicators of robust economic activity and progress, our continent still lags the rest of the world.

As Africa celebrates the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity - the predecessor to the current continental body, the African Union - the continent's citizens ought to be looking back with a critical eye on what has been achieved since those early days of independence.

The OAU's founding fathers - like the founders of various anti-colonialist and nationalist struggles before them - had high expectations of the role the organisation would play in Africa's regeneration.

Opening the OAU's inaugural conference on May 25 1963, in Addis Ababa, the then Ethiopian leader, Emperor Haile Selassie, asked: "A century hence, when future generations study the pages of history, seeking to follow and fathom the growth and development of the African continent, what will they find of this conference?"

Half a century later, there is indisputable evidence that much progress has been made - some of it due to the work of the OAU and its successor, the AU.

Whereas only 32 countries on the continent were self-governing when the organisation was formed, today all 54 member states are independent nations.

The past two decades have been largely marked by the restoration of peace in many of the countries that experienced post-independence civil war.

This, coupled with the replacement of one-party states by multiparty democracies that held regular elections, has helped bring about stability in most parts of the continent.

On the economic front, though still far behind other continents in development, Africa is no longer regarded as a basket case.

Even The Economist magazine, which once angered the continent's leaders and citizens by referring to Africa as "a hopeless continent", now admits that our region's economy is growing faster than that of any other region in the world.

The International Monetary Fund predicted last week that this economic boom will continue for many years.

Countries such as Ivory Coast and Mozambique, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook report, will experience 8% economic growth next year, and the sleeping giant that is Nigeria is expected to grow by 7%.

The world's growth average is currently around 4%.

Though it is true that much of the economic expansion in most of the African countries has been driven by China's demand for commodities, the continent's own role in these developments cannot be ignored.

The foundations for what is now known as Africa's "golden decade" were laid at the turn of the century during the process, in which South Africa played a leading role, leading to the launch of the AU and the adoption of the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

Our country can rightly claim some of the credit for the incredible turnaround in the continent's fortunes.

But there is still a very long way to go before the continental development project - dubbed the African Renaissance by former president Thabo Mbeki and others - can be declared a resounding success.

For us on the southern tip of the continent the question is whether we are capable of continuing with the pioneering role we have played for much of the past decade.

Such a role was not bestowed on us merely because ours happened to be the richest and most sophisticated economy on the continent.

It was earned through effective and visionary leadership.

Many on the continent began to look up to South Africa because of the way in which it had conducted itself internally and internationally since its readmission to the world community.

That confidence is slowly being eroded.

We can poke as much fun as we like at the troubled Swaziland government, which pledged to "pray for" our government to change its "sinful" ways, and at Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott, who professed to "hate" us for being "backward".

But the truth is that they represent an extreme form of a sentiment that is causing growing numbers of Africans to look away from us.

How do we expect to be taken seriously by the likes of Chad and the Central African Republic when we chastise them for being France's puppet states, while we allow ourselves to become the Chester Missings of a rich and well-connected family?