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African AgendaPublished by TWN Africa

page photo: Cargo at an African port

African Agenda is published six times a year by Third World Network (TWN) Africa.TWN is an international network of groups and individuals who seek greater articulation of the needs and rights of the peoples of the Third World, especially marginalised social groups, a fair distribution of the world’s resources and forms of development which are ecologically sustainable and fulfil human needs. TWN Africa is grateful to Oxfam-NOVIB, Development

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COVERAfrica's trade and development agenda, which way?................... page 5

ECOWAS on slippery route with EPAs…………………….. page 8

COP 19 opens in Warsaw amidst worsening

climate situation………………………………………......... page 12

Africa is not doing enough to stem illicit flows……………… page 14

DEVELOPMENT

Tackling the global jobs crisis……………………………… page 16

German development cooperation, colonial-racist

imagery and civil society response…………………………. page 18

Africa's growing competitiveness in the global

tourism market………………………………………........... page 21

Africa's economic growth: A fallacy of numbers?........................ page 23

Africa's expanding educated underclass…………………….. page 26

POLITICS

Little change in poverty after a decade-long growth

in Africa…………………………………………................... page 28

HEALTH

The controversy over “counterfeit” drugs…………………... page 31

Ghana's drug agency clashes with a local pharma giant;

bans Indian pharma co…………….............................................. page 33

As resistance grows, malaria vaccine raises hopes…………… page 36

RIGHTS

AU's ICC summit: A case of elite solidarity for self

preservation…………………………………………............ page 37

Contents

AFRICA'S long drawn out efforts at put-ting itself on the right path for trade anddevelopment continues to be bumpy.Over the years at various continental fora,decisions were taken to ensure all worktowards the same goal of regional integra-tion and protecting the interest of thecontinent as it strives to pull itself frompoverty.

As the World Trade Organisation'sMinisterial in Bali draws near, manygroupings from across the world, G7,G20 etc are making efforts to consolidatetheir interest and Africa should not be leftbehind. Unfortunately, signals comingfrom the continent are not encouraging.At the African Union's 8th OrdinaryAnnual meeting of the Conference ofAfrican Union Ministers of Trade(CAMoT), the continent's highest politi-cal and policy-making forum on Trade,attendance and deliberations left much tobe desired. (See Page 5, Africa's tradeand development agenda, which way?)For a continent which has a lot to lose if itdoes not take the right decisions leadingto transforming and integrating its econo-my the attitude of member countries ofthe AU towards the meeting was undesir-able. Worse still, as CAMoT was meetingin Addis Ababa, ECOWAS trade minis-ters were at the same time meeting inDakar to deliberate on EconomicPartnership Agreement with theEuropean Union. (See Page 8, ECOWASon slippery route with EPAs). The dis-traction aside, both fora deliberated ontrade and development as well as integra-tion issues and could have benefitedimmensely from a consolidated andfocused meeting.

Talks of a Continental Free TradeArea, CFTA, which many think will helpin a long way to achieve the long-wished

economic takeoff that Africa needs seemto be going nowhere with the fragmenta-tion coming up along sub-regional fault-lines. Africa's Regional EconomicCommissions, RECs, like ECOWAS, asseen above, seem to be in a hurry to takeposition on the EPAs meanwhile theEPAs are not limited to only the sub-regions but the whole of the AfricaCaribbean Pacific (ACP) configuration .Meanwhile, whatever decisions the RECstake on the EPAs, have repercussions onnot only the CFTA but the general tradeand development policy of the continent.Not losing sight of the fact that the AU'smajor trade and development agenda is,'“the strategy for the implementation ofthe Action Plan for Boosting Intra-AfricaTrade (BIAT) and the strategic frame-work for the establishment of theContinental Free Trade Area (CFTA) by2017”.

Care must thus be taken so that boththe WTO, Bali Ministerial and the EPAnegotiations, do not detract, Africa fromits avowed aim of promoting intra-African trade and ultimately creating theCFTA. A clear danger emerging fromthe disjointed and uncoordinated effortscoming from various organizations mayresult in the continent shooting itself inthe foot as positions seem to differ on per-tinent issues. For example, the ECOWASdecision to give the European Union 75percent access to its market will com-pletely defeat the CFTA purpose of pro-moting intra-Africa trade as EU goodswill flood the ECOWAS and invariablyAfrica's markets. Could these flagrantdisjointed and self-defeatist policy choic-es not be avoided if the various RECS andtheir negotiation officials together withthe AU are made to partake in joint meet-

ings that eventually, look at the biggertrade and development agenda of thecontinent and hence subject their policychoices to a joint effort? The AU andother sub-regional organizations especial-ly the RECs, should at the least avoidorganizing meetings on similar or sameissues at the same time so that energiesare not dissipated at various fora insteadof at a joint meeting. Again member statesshould take continental efforts seriouslythereby sending their representatives tomeetings that seek to take monumentaldecisions that if well participated in andunderstood would not face implantationhurdles associated with non-participationand hence reluctance to implement them.

The interest of Africa must supersedeother interests as some member statesseem to be more concerned about theirrelationship with foreign powers andtheir hold on them to the detriment ofcontinental concerns. For instance, whilstsome African countries were vehement inexpressing their concerns about the'overambitious' the 2017 ContinentalFree Trade Area deadline, these samecountries are silent on the 2014 deadlinethe EU has issued African countries forthe signing of the Economic PartnershipAgreement. Whilst it is true that differentcountries will be impacted differently, bythe trade and development path thatAfrica may take, it is important to notethat being on the same continent, Africacountries will be impacted generally byany multilateral agreements reached byany one or some of them. Coming togeth-er to work towards a comprehensive tradeand development pact that promotesintra-African trade through integration isof much more benefit to all than going italone or in sub-groupings.

EDITORIAL

4 AFRICAN AGENDA VOL.16 NO.4

Africa must consolidate itsdevelopment efforts

AFRICAN AGENDA VOL.16 NO.4 5

Africa's trade and developmentagenda, which way?

THE just-ended 8th Ordinary Annualmeeting of the Conference of AfricanUnion Ministers of Trade (CAMoT), thecontinent's highest political and policy-making forum on trade, produced conflict-ing signals about the priorities and directionof Africa's agenda in this all-important area.

One such conflict was identified, inwhat was effectively the keynote speech, byAU Trade and Industry CommissionerFatima Acyl as “pressures between our con-tinental agenda of deepening regional inte-gration and boosting intra-Africa trade[and] pressure from the global trade sys-

tem...the WTO and with other bilateralPartners” make this “a critical time forAfrica's trade and development” withinwhich “our window of opportunity to re-write our story is limited”.

However, to judge by the actual confer-ence deliberations and conclusions, whatthe specific character of these pressures are,what to do about them and what to priori-tize perhaps became even less clear at theend of CAMoT 8 than at its beginning.The AU Commission's media alert onCAMoT 8 announced the agenda for themeeting as “the implications of Bilateral

Trade Agreements by Member States andRECs with external partners on the estab-lishment of Continental Free Trade Area(CFTA) and the implementation of region-al integration in Africa, among other issues.On the other hand, the aide-memoire tomember-states and participants identifiedthe main agenda as the critical examinationand adoption of “the strategy for the imple-mentation of the Action Plan for BoostingIntra-Africa Trade (BIAT) and the strategicframework for the establishment of theContinental Free Trade Area (CFTA) by2017” (emphasis in original) and “to agree

There are contradictory signals from Africa as the continent works towards a comprehensive

trade and development agenda, writes *Gyekye Tanoh.

COVER

Cargo at an African port

on a common position on issues relating tothe 9th WTO Ministerial Conference(MC9) that will be held in Bali, Indonesia”.

In the event, while a full declaration onthe WTO was agreed, as well as others oninternational and external trade issues suchas EPAs and AGOA, the discussion onBIAT and CFTA - i.e. Africa's own conti-nental agenda - fell rather short of what wasenvisaged and the implications of BITS andother external trade arrangements on thatagenda did not merit any mention in thefinal report.

Meanwhile, a third or more of Africanministers, members of this “highest politicaland policy-making forum”, were absentbecause on the very day that CAMoT 8 wasto finalise its conclusions in Addis Ababa,the ECOWAS sub-region was holding aTrade summit half-way across the conti-nent in Dakar, which was discussing sub-regional positions on the EPAs - withoutdoubt one of the arduous conflicting inter-national trade pressures confronting notjust West African countries but all AUmember-states south of the Sahara andevery one of Africa's Regional EconomicCommunities (RECs) except the AfricaMaghreb Union.

As a matter of fact, while the AU minis-terial declaration on EPAs affirmed the pri-macy of BIAT and the CFTA for Africa,while calling on the EU to “reduce theirambition in its EPA demands”, the ECOW-AS summit in Dakar was acceding to EU'sambition not just on the contentious sub-ject of duty free quota free market accessopening for EU exports but extending thescope and remit of the EPA into new areas. Even in Addis Ababa, the clearest views onthe CFTA were those describing the 2017indicative deadline for its establishment as“very ambitious” and calls for its extensionby countries such as Cameroun, Gabon,Kenya and Tanzania. However, the EU'sunilateral imposition of its October 1, 2014deadline for the completion of InterimEPAs has not evoked such pointed responsefrom any section of African leaders.

These underscore the strategic urgencyunderlying Commissioner Acyl's character-ization of the EPAs as a “real threat to thecontinental economic integration agenda”.Her warning against international tradeagreements and “commitments multilater-ally and bilaterally” that affect “the policyspace and flexibility that African countriesneed to enact the right policy mix that willlead to development” is thus proper. She

followed up with the call for the immediateimplementation of BIAT and concretesteps on CFTA as a means of bolsteringcoherence in the face of vulnerability andlocking-in Africa's own priorities ratherthan being locked-in by the agenda's ofexternal agencies and interests.

ParadoxThe paradox is the apparent absence of

actors leading the play in Africa's ownregional agenda, while the AUCommission, as the ostensible repository ofthe schedules and fixtures is left alone in themiddle of the arena struggling to summondistracted players' attention and surround-ed by dispiritingly empty spectator stands. Yet CAMoT 8 also suggested that thisimage leaves out important detail. In thefirst place, the AU Commission probablyhas a more established track record and rep-utation as a bureaucracy, more given tograndiose plans than as a hub of dynamic

fast-moving changes. Not too much hap-pened in the management of the CAMoT 8meeting to dispel any of this.

More specifically, there is much thatremains contentious and contestable inwhat is already known about CFTA, BIATand Africa's Trade & Development agenda,not least the still-heavy legacy of trade liber-alization and other neo-liberal orthodoxy,its continued aid expectations and depend-ence on external financing generally, andthe narrow fiscal horizons that constrainstrategic breadth and depth.

Perhaps it is such short term revenueand resource flow considerations, at thedirect expense of more comprehensive andsustainable endogenous growth and longterm development and industrial strategies,that has shaped the ministers' view of 'Trade

Facilitation' in the WTO as primarily an aidissue. On this basis, the CAMoT 8 declara-tion on the WTO decried its 'TradeFacilitation' agenda because of the imbal-ance between obligations on African coun-tries to its costly implementation weighedagainst the lack of commensurate obliga-tion on global powers to finance the cost ofAfrica's compliance.

Yet far weightier objections can beraised, like CSOs such as the Africa TradeNetwork (ATN) has done. The ATNrecently explained its rejection of the pres-sure by developed countries to conclude anagreement on trade facilitation in the WTObecause this intention to set binding ruleson customs and shipping procedures is real-ly “a framework which would allow transna-tional corporations to intervene in the pow-ers of national governments to regulate cus-toms procedure, and to shift the overallmanagement of ports and related import-procedures into the hands of the few foreigntransnational corporations which have risenin recent times to dominate the movementof goods across international borders”.

CostThus, beyond what the ATN agrees is

the threat that 'Trade Facilitation' in theWTO poses to “revenue-generationoptions available to developing countrygovernments arising from the internationalmovement of goods, while forcing them toincur significant implementation, regulato-ry, human resource, and infrastructure costswhich would further affect national budg-ets” are its broader, developmental ratherthan primarily fiscal implications. ATNemphasizes how Trade Facilitation “willalso restrict the overall space available tothese governments to align internationaltrade and customs in relation with theirnational developmental policies” and “willreinforce and lock in place on-goingprocesses of liberalisation which are leadingto the erosion of labour rights, the collapseof jobs, increasing joblessness and povertylevels.”

This rather more comprehensiveapproach to the implications of integrationinto neo-liberal globalisation, also reflectsother official African critique and ambiva-lence about the negative effects of integra-tion into global circuits that reinforce thepre-dominance of MNCs, advancedeconomies and other system-drivers andintegrators at the global level.

The irony is that while the strongest

COVER


“While a full declaration on

the WTO was agreed, as well as

others on international and

external trade issues such as

EPAs and AGOA, the discussion

on BIAT and CFTA - i.e. Africa's

own continental agenda - fell

rather short of what was

envisaged .”

7AFRICAN AGENDA VOL.16 NO.4

COVER

and most avid acclaim of the entire confer-ence was for the AU Trade & IndustryCommissioner's unambiguous message “forAfrica to prioritize and fast-track its owntrade and regional integration agenda”, inthe face of conflicting pressures of demandsfrom external actors and processes, theactual and on-going priority agendas forAfrican leaderships, be it in Addis Ababa orDakar, showed anything but the same clari-ty and determination.

However the point here is not aboutthe widely-known traditional challengesconfronting the AU and perhaps similarinstitutions but rather its newly emergingrole as a vector for heterodox policy onAfrica's developmental transformation gen-erally, and in specific areas such as Tradeand Investment. Increasingly, the AUappears to be evolving into a strategic conti-nental convergence point for more or lessformal or informal networks of memberstates, institutions and spectrum of interestsand actors that might emerge as the fulcrumof genuinely effective leadership to crosskey thresholds and turning points.

ContradistinctionThus on the trade and development

paradigm, members like Namibia, SouthAfrica and Uganda were as emphatic as theCommission about the prioritization ofAfrica's agenda in contradistinction to oth-ers' not for its own sake nor simply becauseof their external genesis and authorship butbecause they represented different andalternative paths and paradigms of tradeand development- Africa's integration agen-da is about the industrial transformation ofthe continent, while global integration asraw material producers and exporters is not.

As South Africa put it, “this is not aboutthe ideal trade agreement or arrangementsbut trade WITH real economy interven-tions, integrating real production capacitiesand infrastructure between our economiessupporting THAT integration” (emphasisadded). This dovetails very much with Mrs.Acyl's call for a regional approach thatfocuses less on the “elimination of tradebarriers” that has defined and dominatedthe regional integration agenda to date, andmuch more on development of the produc-tive capacities away from externally-orient-ed raw material production that exposesAfrica's economies to external shocks,reduces its share and benefits from globaltrade and the global economy.

UNCTAD Secretary General Kituyi

also emphasized the growth and develop-mental potential of more regionally inte-grated economies - pointing to the muchhigher levels of regional links in the overalleconomic activity of more industrializedregions such as East Asia, North Americaand the EU; and citing the composition ofmanufactured goods in intra-African tradeas evidence of its industrializing andemployment-creating potential. UNCTAD'snew orientation on supporting RegionalIntegration in Africa was offered as comple-mentary to the re-energised and focusedefforts being developed on the continent.

This last point about developing agen-das of work and intervention around theregional transformation recalls the AfricaMining Vision process that was anotherprominent reference point during CAMoT8. While ministers and policy chiefs laudedthe AMV as more evidence of the emer-

gence of “developmental regionalism” inAfrica, others beyond these ranks, whoseseats in the popular stands as yet remainempty may take even a broader cue fromthe AMV process.

ChallengesAmong the key drivers of change, long

in gestation, that finally culminated in thishistoric challenge that the AMV potentiallyconstitutes to the hegemonic regime ofMining MNCs, global commodity marketplayers and the IFIs, were the struggles ofmining communities and workers alongsidedevelopment activists, often at the receivingend of brutal repression by states and gov-ernments that now extol a developmentaltransformation of mining in Africa. Theirs isa real sense in which the popularization ofmining and related struggles have set theagenda and pushed key political and policyplayers along, just like has happened, albeiton a much more dramatic scale in LatinAmerica in the last decade or so.

Since the advent of StructuralAdjustment in Africa, with its sweepingtrade liberalisation, the roll-back of indus-trialization, agrarian development, jobs,domestic savings and investment has beenas relentless as it has been devastating. Justas much, the prioritization of fiscal austeri-ty, high, deflationary interest rates, debtrepayment, liberalization of finance andcapital flows, debt repayment, and theexternalization of the benefits of raw mate-rial export-led growth has escalated the con-straints and distortion of human and eco-nomic development. Trade and Investmentreforms have been primary instruments andmechanisms in the retrogressive redistribu-tion that has taken place.

One of the reasons why this is a 'crucialtime' for Africa's trade and developmentagenda is because the purposes, characterand effects of trade policy must now bereversed.

The struggles against jobless growth,against precarious small holder and infor-mal sector conditions, against MNC corpo-rate and Donor and International 'develop-ment' agencies' domination, the fight forjobs, living incomes, decent services, digni-fied welfare and for alternative develop-ment must find ways to resonate on thisfront.

* Gyekye Tanoh is Programme Officer,Political Economy, Third World Network-Africa.

“The prioritization of fiscal

austerity, high, deflationary

interest rates, debt repay-

ment, liberalization of finance

and capital flows, debt repay-

ment, and the externalization

of the benefits of raw material

export-led growth has escalat-

ed the constraints and distor-

tion of human and economic

development.”


COVER

A recent communiqué by the West African grouping, ECOWAS, suggests it is headed in the

wrong direction as far as the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement, EPA, with the

European Union is concerned, writes *Sylvester Bagooro.

ECOWAS on slipperyroute with EPAs

AN extra-ordinary Heads of State Summitof the Economic Community of WestAfrica States (ECOWAS) took place in theSenegalese capital, Dakar, on the 25th ofOctober 2013 as recommended by the 43rdSummit in Abuja early this year. The leadersmet to consolidate efforts at integrating theeconomies in West Africa, which of course

is in line with the continental integrationbeing spearheaded by the African Union.The Summit adopted a common externaltariff as well as a declaration on the lingeringEconomic Partnership Agreement (EPAs),a trade pact under negotiation, betweenECOWAS and the European Union whichhave been deadlocked since 2007.

The communiqué runs counter to thedesire by Heads of State of the region thatthe region becomes well integrated withbetter functioning economies. As the cur-rent Commissioner of for Trade andIndustry of the Africa Union, FatimaHaram Acyl, pointed out at the AfricaTrade Ministers meeting, which also took


place at the same time as ECOWAS Headsof State were meeting, the current EPAnegotiations and model are disruptive ofAfrica's regional integration efforts.

Ahead of the Summit stakes were highas to what the outcome would be since thespotlight was on the EPA. Various actorsexpressed their concerns. Civil SocietyOrganizations (CSOs) intervened at boththe national and regional level to draw theattention of the Heads of State and othergovernmental officials to the needtointegrate rather than sign detrimentaltrade pacts. For instance CSOs under theauspices of the West African Platform ofCivil Society Organizations on theCotonou Agreement (POSCAO- AC)

called on the Heads of Stateto take forward the issue ofregional integration but alsopay special attention to thethreats posed by EPA espe-cially as Ghana and Coted'Ivoire had initialled theinterim EPA.

Ghana's Vice President,Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur,speaking to the media afterthe summit, indicated thatGhana would not take anisolated decision, but wouldbe guided by the collectiveposition that would bereached by ECOWAS onthe EPA with the EuropeanUnion. This comes on theheels of threats by theEuropean Commission towithdraw preferences toGhana and Cote d'Ivoire,which trade with the EUunder the interim EPA, byOctober 1, 2014 unless'steps' are taken towardssigning the EPA, in the caseof Ghana or implementationby La Cote d'Ivoire.

Greater risk But the declaration of

the Summit on the EPA, asissued by the ECOWAS Commission, leadsthe whole Region on a slippery path, a paththat disintegrates and puts the economiesof West Africa at greater risk. The finalcommuniqué in the words of theCommission indicates that 'the Authoritytakes note of the new market access sce-nario by the Region ... on the basis of the

new proposals, Authority directs the chiefnegotiators of West Africa to expeditiouslyresume discussions with their Europeanpartners with a view to concluding theregional agreement as soon as possible. Thesummit further directs them to ensure thatadequate financing is provided for the EPADevelopment Programme (EPADP).Summit also directs them to put servicesand free movement of persons on the toppriorities during the negotiations'.

This declaration sums up the anti-development path or contradictory paththat the ECOWAS Commission is leadingthe region. First of all, the processes leadingto the new market access offer of 75% arequestionable. Early this year, in a move toconclude an agreement, the ECOWASCommission convened an experts meetingin Ghana, in February to be precise, in adesperate move to convince member statesto accept a new market access offer of 75%.Due to the unfavourable outcome of themeeting in Ghana, the Commission againheaded for Praia, Cape Verde, for theMinisterial Monitoring CommitteeMeeting which to some extent also failed toaccept the new market access offer of 75%.The last meeting that was held was thecouncil of Ministers (Foreign Ministers),who are not technically in-charge of tradebut strangely accepted the offer of the newmarket access and which now is supposedlyadopted by the Heads of State.

On the substance of the new marketaccess offer, it is disappointing. Studies, byeven the World Bank, which is pro-liberal-ization, have warned ECOWAS of the direconsequences of opening up its market bymore than 60 % in a free trade agreement.The economic future of the Region lies inthe regional market and Africa at large. The60% figure was even affirmed by WestAfrica's own analyses and was the initialoffer in the EPA negotiations. 70% was animprovement, due to EU intransigence inthe negotiations and now the 75% engi-neered by the ECOWAS Commission andadopted by the Heads of States is simplysuicidal. This is because domestic produc-ers and most of the promising local produc-ers whose main market is the ECOWASsub-region risked being knocked out ofbusiness due to the influx of imports.

Arguments to the effect that liberalisa-tion will promote growth and thus balancethe effect on local industries and revenueare simply suppositions and projectionsrejected by many respected bodies, includ-

ing the Economic Commission for Africa.Those arguments do not take into theaccount the structural characteristics ofindustry and economic sectors in WestAfrica, what needs to be transformed, andthe opportunities as well as obstacles need-ed to be overcome - including infrastruc-ture etc. Similar arguments were made inthe early days of structural adjustment, andthe experiences have been miserabledecades of de-industrialisation in WestAfrican countries with unemploymentworsening by the day.

Secondly the communiqué also indi-cated that the regional agreement should beconcluded as soon as possible ostensibly tomeet the 2014 deadline. The rush by theCommission is unnecessary and misplaced.Even If the EPAs were signed today withthe intention of meeting the October 2014deadline, it would still be impossible forECOWAS to meet it. This is because ofprocedural issues within the Europeanmember states. The agreement will have tobe translated into the 22 official languagesof the European member states, as requiredby law. And this will take at least six monthsafter which it will have to go through legalscrapping before European Member Statescan append their signatures. How canECOWAS rush to sign an agreement ofwhich the originators (EuropeanCommission and its member states) treadcautiously in terms of language? It is diffi-cult to comprehend.

COVER

“Studies, by even the World

Bank, which is pro-liberaliza-

tion, have warned ECOWAS of

the dire consequences of open-

ing up its market by more than

60 % in a free trade agree-

ment. The economic future of

the Region lies in the regional

market and Africa at large. The

60% figure was even affirmed

by West Africa's own analyses

and was the

initial offer in the EPA

negotiations.”


COVER

ServicesAnother hugely disappointing area in

the Communiqué is the issue of servicesthat seemed to have been sneaked into it bythe Commission to twist the arms of theHeads of State. Even with the goods EPA,the odds are against West Africa and theCommission is now pushing for negotia-tions in trade in services.

CSOs and other respected bodiesincluding the Africa Union Commissionhave cautioned governments long agoabout the real interest of the EuropeanUnion which lies in the areas of services,investment, government procurement,intellectual property and competition poli-cy of which the EU insisted on the ren-dezvous' clause in the build up to the earlierdeadline of December 2007.

The EU has become more single-mind-ed in pursuit of its agenda for the deregula-tion of services, investment and govern-ment procurement, together with restrictivedisciplines in intellectual property and soon - all of these with the aim of obtainingfree access for European investors to anysectors of Africa economies, while Africangovernments are prevented from givingpreferences to domestic or other investorsover European investors.

Lastly, in terms of adjustment cost theSummit called for a commitment on thepart of the European Commission to thefunding of the EPADP. That is countriesshould give up their trade-import revenues,which are substantial elements of theirbudget, which are theirs by right, inexchange for some projected revenues thatwill arise from growth, or better targetedaid. Furthermore, the supposition that amore refined and targeted EPA develop-ment programme will secure better com-mitment from the EU is unfounded. The

Caribbean experience proves that EU didnot provide any additional funding, con-trary to its commitment, but sought to re-package existing EDF fund and bilateral aidcommitments. This will be the experienceof ECOWAS if member states give up rev-enue in exchange for a promise of aid.

Clearly the outcome of the Dakar sum-mit point to a fundamental contradiction interms of logic of development of theRegion. Heads of State desire a region thatis well integrated with better functioningeconomies but the declarations on the EPAis rather opening up the region for foreigncontrol of strategic sectors of the region towhich the citizens and even the govern-ments will have no control. As the currentcommissioner on Trade and Industrypointed out at the Africa Trade Ministersmeeting, the current EPA negotiations andmodel are disruptive of Africa's regionalintegration efforts. ECOWAS efforts shouldbe in line with the continental body, AfricaUnion, instead of committing itself to atrade agenda that is detrimental to conti-nent's development.

* Sylvester Bagooro is Programme Officer,Political Economy, Third World Network-Africa.

“The EU has become more sin-

gle-minded in pursuit of its

agenda for the deregulation of

services, investment and gov-

ernment procurement, togeth-

er with restrictive disciplines in

intellectual property and so on

- all of these with the aim of

obtaining free access for

European investors to any sec-

tors of Africa economies.”


COVER

ECOWAS STATEMENT ON EPAThe Summit took note of the memoranda presented bythe President of the Commission, in particular on theECOWAS Common External Tariff (CET), the CommunityIntegration Levy (ICL), the Economic PartnershipAgreement (EPA), and the West African MonetaryIntegration Program (WAMIP). It further took note of hereport of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers on theExtraordinary Session of the Council, which met on 30September 2013 to examine the issues related to the con-solidation of the regional market.

With a view to consolidating the regional market, Summitencourages Member States to scrupulously adhere to theTrade Liberalization Scheme, notably through the strictapplication of the ECOWAS Rules of Origin and the contin-uation of the efforts to eliminate all non-tariff barriers andreactivate the Community Industrial Policy. In that regard,the Heads of State and Government encourage H.E BlaiseCompaore, President of Faso in the role and mission con-ferred on him by the 43rd Ordinary Session held in Abujafrom 17 to 18 of July 2013 to promote the free movementof persons and goods.

The Heads of State and Government reiterate their com-mitment to the conclusion of an equitable and develop-ment-oriented EPA. They commend the efforts beingmade by the two parties to the negotiations to identifyareas of consensus and work towards compromise on per-sisting divergences.

19. Authority takes note of the new market access scenarioattained by the Region and which take into account therequired coherence with the CET and development objec-

tives envisaged in the Agreement.

20. On the basis of the new proposals, Authority directsthe chief negotiators for West Africa to expeditiouslyresume discussions with their European partners with aview to concluding the regional agreement as soon aspossible. Summit further directs them to ensure that ade-quate financing is provided for EPADP and fiscal adjust-ment costs in order to ensure balance with the marketaccess offer. Summit also directs them to put services andfree movement of persons on top of the priorities duringthe negotiations.

Authority calls for the flexibility needed by the two partiesin the search for compromise on all issues in the interest ofthe two Regions.

22. The Heads of State and Government designate H.E.Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, to over-see the negotiations in the search for comprises that aremutually beneficial to the parties.

23. Authority welcomes the spirit of cooperation betweenthe Commissions of ECOWAS and UEMOA, which pro-duced significant outcomes in the analysis of the variousquestions on the deepening of the economic integrationprocess. It calls for the strengthening of this cooperation inthe implementation of decisions taken to that effect.Authority commends the Presidents of the twoCommissions, the Ministers and all stakeholders for theirsubstantial contributions to the results obtained.

Dakar, 2013

Concerned by a growing trend by some key WTOMembers to devolve concentration of their negotiatingefforts away from Doha Development Agenda to theever proliferating plurilateral agreements;

Further concerned that the devolution of concentrationaway from the DDA will erode modest progress made inintegrating African countries into the multilateral trading system through trade related interventions par-ticularly in pursuit of developmental objectives ofAfrica;

Aware of the positive contribution that the multilateraltrading system could have on the African Union`s agen-da on boosting Intra-Africa Trade and the realisation ofthe Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA);

Strongly caution against attempts to undermine thespirit of cooperation inherent in the multilateralapproach to negotiating the DDA and call on Members

of the WTO to exercise due restraint in engaging inplurilateral arrangements with the potential effect ofundermining the DDA;

Strongly object to any attempt to link non-trade issuesor add new issues to the DDA, before developmentissues such as agriculture (including cotton), LDCissues, S&D and implementation related concerns aresatisfactorily addressed and the DDA is fully exhaustedand successfully concluded;

Take note of the holding of 8 to 10 July 2013 in Genevaof the Fourth Global Review of Aid for Trade andemphatically reiterate our desire to see this initiativeusefully support the efforts of the African Union, name-ly the implementation of its action plan to enhanceintra-African trade and the creation of CFTA.

Addis Ababa, 2013

AU Statement on WTO


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THIS year's COP19 in Warsaw is shows yetagain the difficult complexities of the worldtrying to extricate itself from the full-scaleclimate crisis.

It also takes place at a time of extremeweather events and ecological hazards. Inthe Asian region alone, the Philippines isenduring the strongest storm in recordedhistory. Recently, there were also a powerfulcyclone in India, major fires in Australia,heavy rains and floods in many countries,air pollution in Beijing, the “haze” inSoutheast Asia. The experience of extremeweather events is also prevalent in all otherregions.

The concentration of Greenhouse

gases is rising to record levels. The amountof carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose ina year by 2.2 parts per million to reach 393ppm in 2012, or 141% above the pre-indus-trial level of 278ppm. By 2015 or 2016, thataverage may reach the landmark 400ppm,according to the latest WorldMeteorological Organisation report. In fact,the 400 level had already been breached inseveral stations, including in Hawaii earlierthis year.

The signs on the ground and the sci-ence are increasingly scary. But adequatelyimplementing the actions to prevent furtherglobal warming (mitigation) and for copingwith the effects (adaptation) is still out of

reach. At Warsaw the differences in approach-

es among countries on the global frame-work for action will likely re-surface.

Warsaw as the “Finance COP”? The developing countries are united in

seeking the significant levels of financeneeded for their climate actions. Withoutexternal financing, they can't mobilise thelarge resources needed for technologicalchange, replacing energy sources, improv-ing energy efficiency, re-fitting machines,re-designing buildings, changing the fuels invehicles, stopping deforestation, etc. Theirexisting scarce resources are also needed foreconomic and social development. To

The UN Climate Conference, COP 19 is underway in the Polish capital, Warsaw, with

developing countries making funding for climate action the main issue, and developed countries

wanting commitment to action, writes *Martin Khor.

COP19 opens in Warsaw amidstworsening climate situation


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complicate things further, the global eco-nomic slowdown is already taking a toll,with economic growth going down, com-modity prices declining, trade deficits ofmany countries widening, and a few coun-tries being caught in a debt and foreignexchange crisis.

The developing countries wantWarsaw to be the “Finance COP”, duringwhich developed countries commit to con-crete and adequate funding. The latter hadalready committed in the Cancun COP tomobilising US$100 billion a year by 2020. To start with, they pledged $10 billion ayear in 2010-12. That period is over, andthere is no concrete commitment for 2013or after, and no road-map of scaling up thefunds from 2013 to 2020.

This is dispiriting, especially since thedeveloped countries' governments havebeen stressing their lack of funds and thatmuch of the money can be obtained fromthe private sector, which is not the usualway that North-to-South financialresources are committed.

The Green Climate Fund Board hasmade some progress in its meetings thisyear. Nevertheless, there are hardly anyfunds except for administrative costs so far. There are eight items on finance issues inthe COP and CMP agendas, includinglong-term finance, standing committee onfinance, GCF, the GCF-COP arrange-ments, fifth review of financial mechanismand Adaptation Fund.

Eagerly anticipated is a whole-dayMinisterial dialogue on finance on 20November. It is hoped that this dialoguewill clarify what resources will be available.If there is a breakthrough in financing com-mitments, the mood will change amongdeveloping countries, which will be able togear themselves to greater actions. If thelack of clarity continues, or it becomes moreevident that there are no significant newfunds, the gloomy situation will continueand may infect the overall mood.

Mitigation and interpretations of

“Applicable to All”The major developed countries have a

higher priority in the post-2020 and pre-2020 mitigation agenda. They are interest-ed in getting developing countries to com-mit themselves to help fill in the pre-2020emissions gap. The developing countriesare interested if the Kyoto Protocol secondperiod commitments have been ratified, thereview of adequacy of commitments and

the possible upgrading of commitments,and whether there will be a comparableeffort made by non-KP2 Annex 1 Parties.

The European Union is seeking inWarsaw that each country in 2014 will makea pledge on reducing its emissions. In theplan, the pledges are to be assessed by othercountries, and revised upwards if necessaryand possible. Then the pledges will beplaced as commitments in an agreementduring the COP in 2015 in Paris, to beimplemented after 2020.

This proposal is seen as premature bysome developing countries. They want first-ly to negotiate and clarify the principles,rules and elements of a mitigation frame-work, before pledges are made. They insistthat developed and developing countriesshould have different types of commit-ments, as the Convention indicates.

Secondly they want to ensure first thatfinancial resources and technology transferare adequate and really forthcoming. Formost developing countries, mitigationactions (NAMAs) are conditioned onfinance and technology support beingforthcoming.

Negotiating the principles and rules,and the finance and technology commit-ments should be tied together with the mit-igation or emission-reduction issue, and allthese should be included in the agreementto these developing countries.

There cannot be a mitigation-aloneagreement.

Another sticking point is the types ofmitigation commitments by developed anddeveloping countries. The agreement to besigned in 2015 is to be “applicable to all” butthere are different interpretations to thisterm. Many developing countries, citing theprinciple of common but differentiatedresponsibilities and the principle of equity,argue that an agreement would apply to allwhich sign it, but that it would not apply ina uniform way.

“Universality of application does notmean uniformity in application”, as somehave stated. In particular, it does not meanuniformity in the types and extent of obliga-tions. According to this argument, theremust be a qualitative difference in the com-mitments of developed countries (whichmainly caused the climate problem throughtheir historical emissions) and the develop-ing countries (which are still at a lower eco-nomic level and need space to develop).

Most developed countries howeverseem to take the view that “applicable to all”

means that all countries should be treatedthe same way, with similar levels of legal-bindingness and taking on the same type ofemission-reduction obligations, with anydifference being mainly in the timeframe forimplementation.

Progress on the post-2020 frameworkmay depend on whether an understandingcan be reached on this issue.

Adaptation; and Loss and

Damage Another issue in Warsaw is adaptation.

Developing countries want to take meas-ures to reduce the impact of climate change,for example by improving the drainage sys-tems to cope with the increased incidenceand strength of rainfall and floods; seawallsto protect from sea-water rise, storm surgesand tsunamis; sustainable agriculture meth-ods and more hardy crop varieties that canadapt to global warming, etc.

But the already meager funds for adap-tation have become much smaller due tothe drying up of the Adaptation Fund(mainly due to the very low carbon-tradingprices), while the GCF adaptation windowis not yet operating. How to address this cri-sis in adaptation financing may be one ofthe important issues in Warsaw.

Related to adaptation is how to address“loss and damage” caused by climatechange. Last year's

COP in Doha, Qatar made a break-through by agreeing on further work on thisissue. This was hailed by many as the mostimportant development of COP18.

In particular, the decision in COP18mandated Warsaw's COP19 to set up “insti-tutional arrangements” such as a mecha-nism on loss and damage. Since Doha,meetings have been held on loss and dam-age issues, with discussions including onunderstanding future needs and on how toaddress slow onslaught events.

A key focus in Warsaw will thus be toestablish the institutional arrangements.The discussion on setting up an interna-tional loss and damage mechanism (as a keycomponent of the arrangements) wouldhave to include key issues of the functionsof the mechanism, the modalities of per-forming the functions, and the financing.

* Martin Khor is the Executive Director ofSouth Centre, an intergovernmental policyresearch and analysis institution of developingcountries based in Geneva, Switzerland.


FROM 'legitimate' international tax sys-tems to dodgy accounting arrangements bymultinational companies, Africa has sincethe colonial days been losing billions to theinternational world of business.

African countries are not the onlycountries suffering from the loss of a hugechunk of their resources through this meansbut given the great impact of this loss on thelives of the people it is a major blow toAfrica's socio-economic development. It isestimated that Africa lost over US$ 854 bil-lion in illicit financial flows between 1970and 2008, a yearly average of about US$ 22billion. Current estimates put illicit finan-cial outflows from Africa at $50 billion ayear. Meanwhile, official developmentassistance to Africa stood at US$46.1 billionin 2012.

A report published last year on IllicitFinancial Flows from Africa: Scale andDevelopmental Challenges, noted that"Just one-third of the loss associated withillicit financial flows would have beenenough to fully cover the continent's exter-nal debt that reached US$279 billion in2008". It went on to state that some two-thirds of the outflows came from only tworegions, West Africa and North Africa, with38% and 28%, respectively whilst, "Each ofthe other three regions (Southern, Easternand Central Africa) registered about 10% oftotal of Africa's illicit financial flows," per-haps because of lack of data and due to thepoor quality of available data, the reportwarns.

The total result of all this, the reportconcluded is that multinational corpora-tions operating in Africa are involved inillicit transfer of most of the $ 1.5 trillionthey make in Africa each year back to thedeveloped countries, hurting Africaneconomies in the process. Ultimately, themultinational corporations continue "per-

petuating Africa's economic dependence onother regions".

Various means, legal and illegal, areresponsible for this hemorrhaging ofAfrica's finances. These include undocu-mented commercial transactions, purelycriminal activities like over pricing, transferpricing, tax evasion, money laundering, cor-

ruption and false declarations. Tax havensand secrecy jurisdictions complete the pic-ture.

These activities constitute a drain onforeign exchange reserves, reduce tax col-lection, cancel out of investment inflowsand contribute to worsening poverty.

The African Union and the Economic

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Leaders across Africa agree that illicit financial flows are a contributory factor to inadequate

resources on the continent but have so far lacked the necessary efforts to stop the leakage,

writes *Cornelius Adedze.

Africa is not doing enough to stem illicit flows


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Commission for Africa, fully aware of thesituation and in an attempt to stem it, estab-lished in 2012 a ten-member High-LevelPanel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africaheaded by former South African presidentThabo Mbeki.

The Panel has the mandate to under-take extensive and in-depth studies on theextent and ramifications of illicit financialflows on national economies as well as itsimpacts on the population. It is also to offerpossible initiatives that can help Africancountries either individually or collectivelyto stem the flows and repatriate the stolen

funds. The panel has so far held consultations

in Kenya, Tunisia, Liberia, Mozambique,Nigeria, the DRC, and Zambia.

“It is important that we fight this eviltogether so that Africa can use the money tosolve its poverty and development prob-lems”, Mbeki noted recently.

Africa's situation is compounded bythe fact that the judicial systems of mostAfrican countries are not sophisticatedenough to ensure successful prosecution oftax offenders.

"When the matter ends up in court, thejudicial system gets overwhelmed by theexpertise brought to court by the privatecompany," Mbeki added.

They also lack tax experts who canpainstakingly track these illicit transactionsand bring the perpetuators to book.

The panel is expected to publish areport on illicit financial flows in March

2014.For most African coun-

tries that depend largelyon commodities, their sit-uation is worse becausethey do not know howmuch of the commodity isproduced and exported bythe multinationals. Theyeither lack the means ofverification or have offi-cials who are compro-mised through bribery bythe multinational compa-nies.

The work of Mr. Mbeki'spanel is supposed to com-plement increased atten-tion by the G-20 leaders tothe issue of capital flightfrom the developingworld.

The G-20 has askeddeveloping countries tojoin the ExtractiveIndustry TransparencyInitiative, EITI, a bodythat compares the revenuedisclosed by governmentswith tax declarations bythe companies working inthe extractive industry.However, the EITI has sofar been able to furnish the2010 figures of what theextractive sector had con-tributed - just a little over

1% of GDP, a mere fraction of what wasexpected. Analysts said that while joiningthe initiative may bring in some level oftransparency, it would not be enough plugleakages.

In a related development, Mr.Osseman of the Mozambique-basedInstitute for Social and Economic Studies

has also pointed to another major area ofresource outflow from Africa that needs tobe looked at. According to him,

"Licit capital flows that are largely relat-ed to excessive and redundant fiscal incen-tives to megaprojects are huge, accountingfor several hundreds of millions of US dol-lars" also lost to Africa in the name ofattracting foreign direct investment.

The G7 and G8 countries have talkedabout the need to stem the tide of illicitflows globally with a promise by Britain'sChancellor of the Exchequer, GeorgeOsborne, that, 'Britain has made reducingglobal tax evasion and avoidance a priorityfor its G8 presidency'. It is yet to be seenhow this promise transfers into reality giventhat it is mostly the G7and G8 countries'companies that benefit from the illicit flows.Already, certain steps taken by some finan-cial institutions in the developed world tohelp the situation have been ridiculed asmerely 'sugar-coating'.

Attempts by the Swiss governmentunder a 'Under a clean money strategy', thatmay force banks to ensure their foreignclients are tax-compliant in their homecountries have been rubbished by someanalysts. Even before the dust settled onthe proposal, Thomas Sutter, spokesmanfor the Swiss Bankers' Association" wasreported as saying that,

"As a bank, if you have a client give youmoney you have to trust and believethem...You can't be responsible for whetherclients have paid their taxes." As othershave pointed out, it cannot be a bank'sresponsibility (indeed would be asking toomuch of a bank) to find out if a client is tax-compliant in his home country beforeaccepting his money. No matter how suc-cessful this approach may be it would onlyscratch the surface of the issue.

In the face of these great challengessome have suggested that Africa countriesincrease their capital gains tax and also workwith other African countries to exchange taxinformation. An African coalition as well asa global one to deal with the challenge isanother hopeful approach that may help inthe fight against illicit flows from Africa.Given the great development challenge thatthey pose to Africa, illicit flows deservemore research into it and collaborationamong African countries and civil societygroups to advocate for and promote policiesthat would help stem the flow.

* Cornelius Adedze is editor African Agenda.

DEVELOPMENT


UNEMPLOYMENT has reared its uglyhead to become arguably the world'sbiggest economic and social problem onceagain. The situation today is not unlike theGreat Depression in the late 1930s andearly 1940s, when millions were thrown outof work.

Lack of jobs was associated with unrestthen, and some historians think it con-tributed to World War II. It is now a majorfactor in street protests in Europe andunseated political leaders in Egypt and else-where.

Now, as then, there is confusion inintellectual and policy discussions on whathas caused, and how to tackle, unemploy-ment.Global unemployment is now slightly above200 million. It grew by 4.2 million last yearand will do so by another five million thisyear, according to the International LabourOrganisation (ILO).

There are 28 million more unem-

ployed people today than in 2007, when theglobal financial crisis started. But the figureclimbs to 67 million as a “global jobs gap” ifwe include those who chose to stop lookingfor jobs.

Globally, 73 million young people are

unemployed, a 12.6% rate. But in somecountries, 30% to 40% of the young are job-less and thus susceptible to frustration andrebellion.

At the United Nations last week,employment was one of the main issues dis-cussed at a working group tasked with for-mulating sustainable development goals(SDGs).

In fact, the UN should adopt employ-ment as a top priority issue, for obvious rea-sons. It is the most important indicatorwhether an economy is healthy. It is thegateway to social development, as peoplewith jobs are more likely to escape povertyand fulfil their basic needs.

Thus “the attainment of full employ-ment” should be accepted as a major SDG.And “employment” should include formaljobs as well as livelihoods in the farm andurban informal sectors.

Full employment was widely recog-nised as the major goal of economic policyin the post-World War II period. The lead-ers swore not to have a long period of highunemployment again, as in the GreatDepression.

Tackling the global jobs crisisUnemployment and social unrest have assumed global proportions, as such there is an urgent

need to restore full employment as a national and global priority goal, writes *Martin Khor.

“Globally, 73 million young

people are unemployed, a

12.6% rate. But in some

countries, 30% to 40% of the

young are jobless and thus

susceptible to frustration and

rebellion.”

A South African research scientist


DEVELOPMENT

After the war, international orga¬nisa-tions like the UN, the IMF (InternationalMonetary Fund), the ILO, the GATT(General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)and Unctad (United Nations Conferenceon Trade and Development) were set up,and employment was one of their top prior-ities.

One of the first UN conferences in1947 was titled “The UN Conference onTrade and Employment” and it led to thecreation of the multilateral trading system.“Ensuring full employment” is a main objec-tive of the WTO. The IMF has “promotionand maintenance of high levels of employ-ment and real income” as a main purpose.

In Economics taught in school and uni-versities, and in government policy circles,the attainment of full employment wasaccepted as the main priority in economicpolicy, together with adequate economicgrowth.

However, full employment was down-graded as a policy goal starting in the 1980s,to be sidelined by other goals, includingcontrolling inflation, reducing the budgetdeficit, eliminating tariffs and cutting thesize and role of government. These othergoals became central in the WashingtonConsensus and the “structural adjustmentpolicies” that the IMF and World Bankimposed as conditions for receiving loans.

Many developing countries that faceddebt problems took on these policies toavoid default. Today, this story is repeatedin many European countries as “austerity” isadopted as the priority policy set. As aresult, employment and growth were setaside.

The resulting rise in unemployment,accompanied by recession and inequality,has catapulted job creation into the centrestage as a public demand, in conflict withthe austerity programme.

A policy war is raging between thosewho stress the need to tackle unemploy-ment now while addressing the budgetdeficit in the medium term, and those insist-ing on wide and deep austerity measuresnow. The anti-austerity camp is graduallywinning, as the facts on the ground show arise in unemployment and a fall in growthrates.

The developing countries are increas-ingly affected by the austerity policies, espe-cially as the Western slowdown is nowaffecting their exports, currencies, capitalflows and growth rates. To avoid a worsen-ing employment situation, the developingcountries need favourable internationalpolicies, including:• Avoidance by developed countries of

national policies that adversely affect the employment situation of

developing countries;• International financial institutions and

aid agencies should avoid policy adviceand conditions that have negative impact on employment in developing countries;

• Attaining full employment in developing countries should be adopted as a top priority objective in international agencies;

• Criteria for debt sustainability for developing countries should fully take account of the requirements for generating sufficient employment; and

• Trade rules and negotiations should give the highest priority to the maintenance and promotion of employment in developing countries the highest priority.Globally, full employment should be

restored as a top economic policy goal. Thisshould be translated at the national levelinto full employment as a top priority innational goals and targets, including in fiscaland development policies.

Developing countries that face short-falls in government budgets required tofund programmes that generate employ-ment-intensive growth to a level sufficientto attain full employment, should be able todraw on international financing and othersupport.

* Martin Khor is the Executive Director ofSouth Centre, an intergovernmental policyresearch and analysis institution of developingcountries based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Credit: Third World Economics, No. 548

“A policy war is raging

between those who stress the

need to tackle unemployment

now while addressing the

budget deficit in the medium

term, and those insisting on

wide and deep austerity meas-

ures now. The anti-austerity

camp is gradually winning, as

the facts on the ground show a

rise in unemployment and a

fall in growth rates.”


DEVELOPMENT

AT the end of April 2013, the GermanMinistry for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (BMZ) launched a billboardadvertising and internet campaign entitled“The Big Five!” The poster displayed acrossGermany 3,600 times - shows images of anelephant, a lion, a leopard, a rhinoceros andthe silhouette of a buffalo.

We see a map of Africa in the back-ground. Short slogans are written next toeach animal: “Protecting human rights -promoting democracy”, “fighting poverty -fostering growth”, “promoting education -creating opportunities”, “safeguardingresources - sustainable economy', and 'pre-

serving biodiversity - visiting Kaza”. Above the big heading “The Big Five!”

is found a smaller heading stating, “The newGerman development cooperation”. At thebottom of the poster lies a photo of theGerman Minister Dirk Niebel (LiberalDemocratic Party) who is shown with a QRcode and a question next to him stating:“Which animal are we looking for?” - askingthe spectator to identify the anonymousanimal shown as a white outline.

Did the creators of this advertisementhave in mind that this animal, the African orCape Buffalo, used to be (and still is)known as “Kaffernbüffel” in German? This

translates to “kaffir buffalo” - “kaffir” being aderogatory, racist term used for Black SouthAfricans during apartheid, a term still in usetoday to dehumanize Black people. Neitherdo we reckon that the people behind thecampaign were looking for the answer: “theracist pig” - as was written by an unknownadbuster on the billboard..

Be that as it may, both buffalo andadbust bring us straight into the debateamongst German NGO and activist circles.As we will explicate below, this debate hasbeen marked primarily by criticism of theadvertisement's colonial-racist stereotypes,but at times also of the neo-colonial stance

German development coopera-tion, colonial-racist imagery and

civil society's responseRepresentation of Africa in the German public shows that a one-sided racist image prevails,

which is disseminated via family socialisation, mass media, school books, films, advertising,

and travel magazines/brochures. That is the image that informs German-Africa development

cooperation, write *Daniel Bendix with glokal e.V.

German Minister Dirk Niebel


DEVELOPMENT

it conveys. In this essay, we trace the reac-tions by German civil society and augmentthe points of critique voiced thus far with acouple of additional problematic dimen-sions of the advertising campaign.

Above all, however, we argue that weshould be wary of reserving our criticism toracist imagery and crude neo-colonialism ifthis entails overlooking the neo-liberal dailygrind of German “development” policy andthe centrality of racism (as well as otherforms of oppression) for the perpetuationof neo-liberal “development” policies.

A coalition of individuals and develop-ment NGOs wrote an open letter to theminister criticising the poster's colonial-racist imagery, and called for an end to thecampaign. Concerted criticism of this bill-board from civil society and in the mediathus far has been concentrated on the slo-gan “The Big Five!” as a colonial term forbig game hunting and on the imagery in asfar as it uses animals to speak about Africa.“The Big Five” refers to the five animalswhich were thought to be most dangerousand difficult to hunt by foot. Today, it isoften used for the same five animals, but inthe context of tourism: - these are the ani-mals (white, Western) tourists need to nec-essarily hunt down with their cameras.Studies on the representation of Africa inthe German public have highlighted that aone-sided racist image prevails, which is dis-seminated via family socialisation, massmedia, school books, films, advertising, andtravel magazines/brochures. Africa is com-monly perceived as a homogenous entity,associated with backwardness, and reducedto “Sub-Saharan Africa”. Usually, the topicsinclude war, catastrophes, Aids, hunger,oppression of women, underdevelopmentand dependency on aid from outside/theWest.

Africa is mostly associated with nega-tive phenomena, the “heart of darkness”,“white man's burden” couplet is never far.This is implicit in “The Big Five!” cam-paign, as Germany positions itself as thenecessary player to help Africa get rid of itsproblems referenced by the five dimensionsof Germany's activities. Yet, the imageryvis-à-vis Africa in Germany not onlyincludes barbarity and negativity but alsoalways the other side of the racist coin:Africa as close to nature, no, - as nature perse. This exoticising dimension of anti-African racism is fulfilled by the choice ofusing animals on the billboard. There is alsoa tangible connection between the imagesof Africa in Germany and the treatment of

Black Germans, Afro-Germans andAfricans and Black people living inGermany. Only recently a study has found adirect link between the portrayal of Africa inschool books and racism amongst whiteGerman children and teachers vis-à-visBlack and African children in the classroom(Marmer, Marmer, Hitomi, & Sow, 2010).Consequently, criticising the developmentministry for the use of colonial-racist stereo-types is indispensable for tackling racism inthe global context as well as withinGermany.

ContextThe initiation of the ministry's cam-

paign needs to be situated and understoodin the context of another event initiated bythe BMZ: the German Development Day.On 25 May 2013, the German governmentas well as several development institutionsand NGOs organised this day to promotethe ideas of development cooperationamongst the German public. It took place in16 cities and several other venues acrossGermany and cost at least three millionEuro (excluding staff expenses). As it hap-pened, the day of the German DevelopmentDay, 25 May, is also, first and foremost,'Africa Day' - the annual commemoration ofthe founding of the Organisation of AfricanUnity in 1963. This year, incidentally, is theAfrican Union's 50th anniversary. Fiftyyears ago, leaders of 30 of the 32 independ-ent African states signed a founding charterin Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On this day, cele-brations are held in many African countriesas well as in the Diaspora. The Afrika-Rat -a network of organisations, associations,initiatives and people of the AfricanDiaspora in the federal states of Berlin andBrandenburg - pointed out the BMZ'schoice of this day for their own event as asign of impertinence:

“In this year of all years, in which the 50years of existence of African unity are cele-brated, the Ministry for EconomicCooperation and Development (BMZ) hasdecided to not put emphasis on the dignityof those Africans who were active in the lib-eration movements and in the developmentprocesses on the continent and in theDiaspora, but to celebrate itself and otheractors imprudently.”

The Afrika-Rat as well as supporters ofits press release thus called for the minister'sresignation in light of his disregard forAfrican people.

We would like to draw attention to acouple of colonial-racist aspects overlooked

thus far in the reaction to this campaign.First of all, we would invite the readers totake a closer look at the way the Africanmap is depicted on the billboard advertise-ment. Africa is once again reduced to “Sub-Saharan Africa” or to what is often referredto as “Black Africa” in German, as the top(as well as the bottom) is slightly cut off andthe animals are invariably placed in the Sub-Saharan region.

Frantz Fanon pointed out the function-ality of creating a “black” Africa: “Africa isdivided into Black and White, and thenames that are substituted - Africa South ofthe Sahara, Africa North of the Sahara - donot manage to hide this latent racism.[...]Black Africa is looked on as a region that isinert, brutal, uncivilized, in a word, savage.”Blackening a particular part of Africa andwhitening others as well as Europe servestwo purposes: On the one hand, it perpetu-ates the myth of a white Europe that hasallegedly only recently started losing itshomogeneity. On the other hand, NorthAfrica (as well as the “emerging country”South Africa) is awarded to the occidentwhich - given that Greek “civilization” washeavily influenced by North Africa - is anecessary move to uphold the idea ofEurope's supremacy and Africa's inferiority.Such hierarchy between the “West and theRest” is central to the idea and practice of“development cooperation.”

Pan - African coloursAlso, thus far nobody seems to have

noticed any significance in the colours usedto paint Africa in the billboard: red, goldand green. These Pan-African colours arefound on the national flags of many Africannations and are inspired by the colours ofthe Ethiopian flag. These colours are widelyreferenced in Rastafarianism, where Red issaid to signify the blood of martyrs, greenthe vegetation and beauty of Ethiopia, andgold the wealth of Africa. In this light, thefact that German development cooperationoccupied 25 May as the day to celebrate the'white man's burden' of developing Africaand the Global South takes on a whole newdimension. It can only be read as a deradi-calising appropriation of African andAfrican diasporic struggles for freedomfrom colonial oppression.

The image below (Figure 1.2), createdby Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, is a reaction tothe campaign and the attempt to stay trueto that special day and highlight thatAfrican liberation (whether from colonialo r “ d e v e l o p m e n t a i d ' s ” o p p r e s s i v e


DEVELOPMENT

relations) is not in the former colonizers'hands but has always come from Africansthemselves (including women, to correctthe male bias in this image). The pointsraised thus far underline the necessity topay attention to, and stand up against, thepresence of colonial-racist stereotypes inGerman “development aid”. However, theydo not yet adequately criticise the materialrelations and structures created and perpet-uated by German development.

The reactions to the BMZ's billboardand internet campaign 'The Big Five!' are anecessary anti-racist and anti-colonial cri-tique, but they seem to overlook the every-day neoliberal agenda of German 'develop-ment' policy for which racism is incremen-tal. Some of the criticisms have in fact raisedeconomic dimensions and taken the con-tent of the advertisement seriously.According to the Afrika-Rat, for example,the fact that Africans and Africa are not por-trayed as actors but as passive objects raisesthe question of whether the BMZ is inter-ested in cooperation or if it is not moreabout “the implementation of a neo-colo-nial agenda through which Africa is kept inpoverty and dependence.”

Here, we would like to take a closerlook at the agenda suggested and articulat-ed in the billboard advertising. One com-mentator reiterated the charge of neo-colo-nialism:

“What is new about the Germans want-ing to 'fight poverty in Africa' and to 'secureresources' and foster their growth at thesame time? That they are of the opinionthat they can 'preserve biodiversity' throughhunting and photo safaris? What is newabout Germany wanting to export its ideasabout 'democracy' and its models for 'edu-cation'? What is new about Europe talkingabout the 'protection of human rights',while denying African refugees that protec-tion?”

“Securing/safeguarding resources -sustainable economy” is a particularlyambivalent statement. It could be under-stood as meaning that German develop-ment aid supports African countries in pro-tecting their resources for their own sake;however, it can also be perceived as refer-ring to Germany's interest in securingaccess to resources on the African conti-nent. The last German politician who con-nected Germany's policies abroad to secur-ing resources was the former presidentHorst Köhler. He justified Germany's warin Afghanistan for the sake of economicinterests, and consequently had to leave

office. If the development ministry's state-ment had said 'protecting resources', thecharge of neo-colonialism would be moredifficult to make. Thus, let us take a closerlook at some of the other objectives, such as“sustainable economy” and “fighting pover-ty.”

From the 1980s, German developmentpolicy has pushed for an economic re-orien-tation in line with neoliberal principles andhas asserted such a policy via conditionality.After 1998, under the Red-Green coalitiongovernment, German development policyhas increasingly shifted to what is referredto as “global structural policy”, which aimsto promote an international policy environ-ment conducive to “sustainable develop-ment.” Since Minister Dirk Niebel of theLiberal Party took office in 2009, the BMZhas more and more emphasized coopera-tion with the (German and other coun-tries') private sector. In this respect, theGerman ministry is quite frank and outspo-ken. In an interview with the leadingGerman tabloid BILD, Dirk Niebel out-lined his approach to development cooper-ation as follows:

“If we pursue smart development poli-cy, we raise money for Germany. Withevery Euro spent for development coopera-tion, two Euros flow back to us in the longrun. [...] Through business contacts. It is byfar cheaper to engage in trade with peacefulcountries than to fight hostile ones.”

PaternalismWhile neo-colonial tendencies of

direct exploitation and colonial-racist pater-nalism certainly hold sway in Germandevelopment cooperation, Germany todayseems more interested in “integrating” theGlobal South into a “free” market economy.“Development cooperation” is about trans-forming countries of the Global South -through “democratization”, “education”,“health care”, legal reforms, environmentalpolicy etc - so that these countries mayserve as places for German investments andas consumer markets.

International tourism policy as part of“development cooperation” is marked bythe intertwining of colonial-racist andneoliberal economic rationalities. Thus,suggesting tourism as a panacea for “devel-opment” issues disregards the fact thattourism from the Global North to theGlobal South is historically and contem-porarily based upon racialised cultural andeconomic exploitation of people in the

Global South. Zooming into the policiessuggested in the “The Big Five!” campaignthus brings to light how routine Germanneo-liberal policies are intertwined withracism.

EPAs As an alternative to the alleged German

neo-colonial agenda evident in the “The BigFive!” advertisement, some commentatorssuggested that “the African continent doesnot need development aid but economicpartners with whom it cooperates at eyelevel. It is time that the BMZ thoroughlyreconsiders its principles of cooperationwith Africa and adapts to the zeitgeist.”

Yet, is “the zeitgeist” not about assert-ing a neoliberal agenda worldwide? CurrentGerman “development” policy takes theministry's addendum “EconomicCooperation and Development” seriously.This seems to be much harder to scandalizethan obvious racism and neo-colonial aspi-rations. Yet if we reserve our criticism tocolonial-racist stereotypes and crude neo-colonialism, we forget that we are in themidst of the “neo-liberal revolution”, inwhich “neo-liberal ideas, policies and strate-gies are incrementally gaining ground glob-ally, re-defining the political, social and eco-nomic models and the governing strategies,and setting the pace.”

To aspire to partnership betweenGermany/the West and Africa at neo-liber-al eye level is neither desirable nor possible:capitalism necessary means exploitation bybuilding on and (re-)producing racist, sex-ist, ableist etc. divisions and hierarchiesamongst people. A scrutiny of developmentpolicy needs to incorporate a critique ofracism (both within Germany and inGermany's North-South relations) as wellas capitalism - and what is most needed: acritique of the intertwining of different sys-tems of oppression as well as suggestionsfor their dismantlement. In this light, weneed to be careful not to remain on the levelof criticising colonial-racist picture lan-guage if this means overlooking how thefundamentally neoliberal- and capital-friendly policies of Germany's developmentministry rest upon and perpetuate racism.

* Daniel Bendix holds a PhD in DevelopmentPolicy and Management from the Universityof Manchester, UK. He works for glokal e. V, adevelopment education NGO based in Berlin,Germany, that focuses on post-colonial per-spectives on development, anti-racist critique,and critical perspectives on globalisation.


DEVELOPMENT

A new World Bank report, “Tourism inAfrica: Harnessing Tourism for ImprovedGrowth and Livelihoods,” says that Africancountries can compete with other tourist-rich regions of the world if they can effec-tively plan for and integrate tourism intotheir economies.

Countries around the world have bene-fited from tourism as international globalarrivals have grown. For example, from1980 to 2000 arrivals in the Asia Pacificgrew from 8% to 22% contributing to eco-nomic growth and improved livelihoods.During the same period, Africa's market

share for global tourism grew from 3%(1980) to 5% (2010).

To close this gap, the report calls onAfrican governments and the private sectorto work together to address obstacles suchas land access and visa regulation to expandtourism opportunities, transform businessclimates and energize job creation, especial-ly for women and youth.

“Africa's mountains, savannahs andrivers, and cultural events such as music,dance and festivals are far above the naturalassets found in other regions,” says IainChristie, one of the report's co-authors.

“With these natural attributes, tourism canplay an enormous role in development. Butto do so it must be integrated into eachcountry's economy and government struc-ture and be seen as a benefit by everyone,from the president, to the ministers to thegeneral population.”

“Tourism in Africa” is the first WorldBank report to comprehensively examinetourism throughout SSA and to recom-mend practical, evidence-based measures tounleash the sector's economic and develop-ment power across the continent.

It shows how Botswana, Cape Verde,

Africa's growing competitivenessin the global tourism market

Africa has the potential with its cultural and natural resources to outpace other regions in

attracting valuable tourism income. But entrepreneurs need transparency, roads and electricity

to help them build and expand tourist destinations. A new report outlines constraints and offers

solutions to strengthen and promote Africa's tourism sector.

Flashback : President Obama at Cape Coast Castle during his visit to Ghana in July 2009


DEVELOPMENT

Namibia, South Africa and Tanzaniaamong other countries have high potentialfor tourism expansion over the next fiveyears, and argues that many SSA countriesare on the verge of tourism success.

A powerful development pathTourism is one of the largest and

fastest growing sectors of the world econo-my, and tourism in Africa is ripe for devel-opment, the report notes.

For example, the number of touristsarriving in SSA has grown over 300% since1990, with 2012 marking a high of 33.8 mil-lion tourists who visited the region. Incomegenerated from tourism has also climbed:Receipts from hotels, tours and otherattractions in 2012 amounted to overUS$36 billion and directly contributed justover 2.8% to the region's GDP, according tothe report.

This boost in tourism is occurring justas economic growth is exploding across theAfrican continent. Over the last five years,real GDP rose an average 4.9% - faster thanthe 3% global average. As a result of therecent economic good health in SSA coun-tries, global hotel chains are poised to spendhundreds of millions of dollars in Africaover the coming years to meet risingdemand from both international touristsand the continent's own fast-growing mid-dle class, the report notes.

“Africa is an important emerginggrowth market and despite political uncer-tainty in parts of the region, we continue tosee demand for growth of all of our brandsthroughout the continent,” says Hassan

Ahdab, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Vice-President and Regional Director ofOperations for Africa & Indian Oceanregion. “Starwood will increase its Africanportfolio by nearly 30% with 12 new hotelsset to open over the next three years, addingnearly 3,000 guest rooms to the continentand creating thousands of local employ-ment opportunities.”

Current constraintsAt the same time, the expansion of

tourism in SSA faces a number of obstacles.Issues such as land ownership and availabil-ity, and how land rights are transferred, arecentral to business and tourism develop-ment. Other constraints such as access tofinance for investors, taxes on tourisminvestments, low levels of tourism skills

among Africa's population, lack of security,safety and high crime, and bureaucraticprocesses are present in varying degrees inSSA countries. The report provides steps toovercome each of these obstacles.

Creating a path for growthTo understand better which SSA desti-

nations are the highest performers and why,the report presents a typology of destina-tions, which ranks the 48 SSA countries bylevel of tourism development, ranging frompre-emergent (those countries recoveringfrom or engaged in civil war) to consolidat-ing (countries with relatively maturetourism sectors), and provides recommen-dations appropriate for countries at eachstage of tourism development.

The report shows how countries thatare scaling-up tourism need to invest in pro-motion and marketing, should take steps toenhance their image, and should provideincentives to investors, while those countiesworking to deepen their success need todiversify their tourism offerings, addressseasonality, and manage growth strategical-ly.

Learning from successThe report presents 24 tourism case

studies from a wide range of destinations,dating from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s, each chosen to illustrate a particularchallenge or success and the effects of cer-tain planning decisions. The cases illustrategood practice and lessons learned fromcountries that promoted tourism as asource of growth and poverty alleviation.

They include large projects based onbroad-scale land development (such asTurkey's South Antalya) or citywide pro-grams (such as Cancu_n or Dubai), casesthat focus on specific activities (nature con-servancies in Namibia, mountaineering inKenya), and smaller cases that are typicallyindividual islands, resorts or activities (suchas Nihiwatu, Indonesia, or Jungle Bay,Dominica).

The report describes SSA's manytourism successes and urges governmentsto form alliances with the private sector-andthe private sector to partner with govern-ment at local, regional and national levels.Together they can plan and developtourism infrastructure, increase transparen-cy in land ownership and create a business-friendly environment for tour operators andother companies. When sustainably man-aged, tourism fuels economic transforma-tion, accelerates reform, triggers infrastruc-ture improvements, and empowers womenand minorities in countries throughoutAfrica.

“When sustainably managed,

tourism fuels economic trans-

formation, accelerates reform,

triggers infrastructure

improvements, and empowers

women and minorities in coun-

tries throughout Africa.”

Victoria Falls


Africa's Economic Growth: a fallacy of numbers?

ONLY a decade ago, Africa's socio-eco-nomic growth potential was confined to thedoldrums and back alley of underdevelop-ment. Today, the international media con-tinues to be abuzz with common themessuch as “Africa Rising” and “The FinalInvestment Frontier”.

Many writers often cite poverty, dis-ease, starvation, wars and tribal conflictsfuelled by a vicious neo-colonial legacy as

the cause of the continent's woes. Much asthese may be true, we have seen the conti-nent rise like the proverbial phoenix in thelast decade to join the league of global andregional economic blocs negotiating for afairer and better world economic system.

The economic growth witnessed inAfrica over the last decade has led TheEconomist, which captured Africa in 2000 asthe hopeless continent to eat humble pie.

The magazine made a dramatic turnaroundof its forecast dedicating their December2011 edition with the cover title, “TheHopeful Continent: Africa rising”. Manyother publications such as Time and ForeignPolicy Magazines have followed suit with asimilar Africa rising theme espousing thepotential of the continent to become thenext Asian economic miracle.

On the back of this new media hype

DEVELOPMENT

Until we can have proper address systems, well lit streets, paved roads, constant electricity and

clean water supply, and a lean and efficient government along with the working population

engaged actively in productive activities, we cannot by any stretch of imagination say we have

arrived on the global development stage, writes * Theo Acheampong.

A bus terminal in Johanessburg


over Africa's economic potential andgrowth; one cannot help but wonderwhether the recent high growth rates andincreased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)inflows into Africa actually correlate withreal development at the grassroots level.Have these transcended into the provisionof better road infrastructure, ports, railways,schools and ICT facilities? Rick Rowdenand Morten Jerven make the point thatmany of the analysis of Africa's develop-mental progress and statistics seem to for-get the challenges and accuracy issues asso-ciated with the measurement of nationaldevelopment and economic indicators onthe continent.

Jerven in his Foreign Policy magazinepiece notes for example that “in November2010, the statistics office of the governmentin Ghana announced that it was revising itsGDP estimates upwards by over 60 percent, suggesting that previous estimates hadleft out economic activities worth about$13 billion. After the revision, a range ofnew activities were accounted for, and as aresult Ghana suddenly, was upgraded froma low-income country to a (lower) middle-income country.” (Note however that thisstatistical correction to the GDP measure-ment does not mean Ghana is better offthan it previously was.)

The authors further drum home thepoint about inaccurate growth statisticsespecially on the African continent wheredata collection remains a challenge. Using aselection of 17 Sub-Saharan African (SSA)countries, only 10 had a reference base yearfrom which subsequent adjustments toGDP were made, thus, concluding that“more than half of the rankings of Africaneconomies up to 2009 may be pure guess-work.” Many of the SSA growth statisticsbeing churned out conceal wider issuesabout structural deficiencies and imbal-ances. These highlight a growing discon-nect between the recorded macro levelgrowth numbers and their linkage to grass-roots microeconomic development. Theissue of the quality of the development andgrowth statistics is a serious problem thatneeds to be addressed by all stakeholders.

These huge discrepancies in the dataonly points to a bigger issue about samplingmethodologies that need to be criticallylooked at, and whether the purportedgrowth is indeed reflective of the real devel-opment of the people. In June 2011, theIMF faulted Ethiopia's reported growthestimate of 11.4 per cent for 2010 saying

that a 7.5 per cent growth was more realis-tic. In addition, price controls, a key com-ponent of late President Meles Zenawi cen-tral economic planning ideology had left aclobbered private sector in need of muchinvestments in technology to expand out-put.

Commodity Booms and BustsHas Africa's purported growth been

real and will the fortunes of the continentcontinue to be hedged on its naturalresource endowments such as gold and oilthat go through the cyclical dictates of thebooms and busts of the global economy?Real non-oil GDP growth in some coun-tries has been averaging five per cent perannum over the last four years according tosome estimates. The questions we ought toask policy makers are:(i) how has the growth catalysed core

productive sectors of the economy in agriculture, manufacturing and associated value chain linkages, and

(ii) how has the income inequality gap been closed over the last decade? A cursory look at the data points to the

fact that many African economies are stillreliant on commodity exports and are thusexposed to the huge shocks and imbalancescommodity price swings tend to have onnational economies. The Dutch diseaseelaborates the point about the conse-quences that arise from large increases in acountry's money supply following a naturalresource discovery.

The increase in FDI and income bringsabout currency appreciation ultimatelyleading a decrease in the competitiveness oflocal industries and manufacturing. Nigeriais a classic case in point. Quoting from theWorld Bank's 2012 World DevelopmentIndicators, Alice Sindzingre] notes that “in

SSA in 2010, fuels represented 32 per centof total merchandise exports; manufactures,31 percent; ores and metals, 18 percent;food, 15 per cent; and agricultural rawmaterials, four per cent”. The graphs belowhighlight the fate of many Africaneconomies to commodity price shocks.

The construction and services sectorsnamely financials, telecoms, residentialproperty development amongst others haveshown improvements year-on-year.However, the real game changer to address-ing the jobless growth, which has as its hall-mark rising youth unemployment will beour collective capability to leverage onemerging and proven technologies to rampup the industrialization value chain.

There is an impressive pool of youthfultalent and creativity that abounds fromAccra to Zanzibar, Cairo to Lusaka andLagos to Johannesburg. Agriculture andvalue added manufacturing for local con-sumption as well as exports to regional mar-kets should form the basis of the real eco-nomic transformation and development ofthe continent. The era of state farms andindustries are confined to the realms of his-tory. Instead, what governments ratherought to address as a matter of urgency isimplement policy reforms that shift andfocusses resources on removing impedi-ments that prevents entrepreneurs fromaccessing land for large-scale agriculture,manufacturing and other capital inputs toproduction. These impediments, ultimatelyincrease the cost of doing business and aretransferred to the end consumer; thus, mak-ing the end-user products uncompetitivelocally and internationally.

According to the African EconomicOutlook, young people aged between 15and 25 represent more than 60 per cent ofthe continent's total population andaccount for 45 per cent of the total labourforce. Unlike other developing regions, sub-Saharan Africa's population is becomingmore youthful. The youth as a proportionof the total population is projected to beover 75 per cent by 2015 due to high fertili-ty rates driving the demographic momen-tum.

It is expected that this increase in thenumber of young people will not decline for20 years or more. The irony is that morethan 60 per cent of the continent's unem-ployed are aged 15 to 24 - and more thanhalf of these including many women, havegiven up on finding work. Therefore, thecurrent growth being experienced has been

DEVELOPMENT

“Many of the SSA growth sta-

tistics being churned out con-

ceal wider issues about struc-

tural deficiencies and imbal-

ances. These highlight a grow-

ing disconnect between the

recorded macro level growth

numbers and their linkage to

grassroots microeconomic

development.”


DEVELOPMENT

termed by many as a “jobless growth.” TheAfrican Development Bank's ChiefEconomist Mthuli Ncube has remarked it isan unacceptable reality on a continent withsuch an impressive pool of youth, talent andcreativity. The population pyramid of SSAshown below shows the youthfulness of thepopulation base.

Structural adjustments and

Public Sector ReformsDespite many years of World Bank and

IMF imposed Structural AdjustmentProgrammes (SAPs) that have as one oftheir broader objectives the reform of thecivil service, many African state institutionsare over-bloated with systemic bureaucraticinefficiencies. These systemic challengeshave resulted in a civil service whose labourproductivity gives diminishing returns toany factor input. For example, why haven'tthe Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs) in a lot of the respective countriesbecome more efficient despite the enor-mous resources that have been poured intoalmost 25 years of public sector reforms?

Many of the Scandinavian countriesare doing much better economically thantheir Southern European counterpartsbecause the governments in these countriesrealise they need to rein in on excessiveexpenditure, expand the tax base, reducethe size of government to the barest mini-mum, and create incentives for young grad-

uates to start their own enterprises.Incurring liabilities by borrowing on thecapital markets should be for growing andexpanding industrial asset base of the coun-try and need not be for recurrent expendi-ture such as paying public sector salarieswhich has become norm in some SSA coun-tries.

An integral duty of governments inSSA ought to be to provide the assistanceand nurturing of new enterprises devoid of areliance on old political patronage. Thesenew African enterprises or TechnicalMaverick Movements (TMMs) as BrightSimons of IMANI Ghana calls them, needto be supported for example with tax breaksin a manner that allows them to acquiretechnological capital and “new technicalvalues." This will be pivotal to the success ofthe TTMs to transcend regional borders tobecome new African conglomerates akin toSamsung, Hyundai and Daewoo Industriesfrom South Korea.

The adoption of technology as criticalpillar of government policy could play a fun-damental role in breaking bureaucratic bot-tlenecks that have almost killed innovationon the continent. Networked traffic man-agement, centralized procurement manage-ment, and an integrated national identifica-tion and ICT backbone systems will all helpreduce the systemic inefficiencies and spura new wave of innovation by entrepreneursAfrica needs to catch up with the almost 30

year development gap lost to the decades ofmilitary rule and weak leadership.

There is a glimmer of hope on the hori-zon. The adoption of the right technologiesand a culture of excellence that places pre-mium on technical value acquisition in allspheres of national life will jettison ustowards the attainment of full socio-eco-nomic freedom.

ConclusionsAfrica's statistical growth may be a

measurement issue and correction of GDPdata to reflect the upward trends in eco-nomic activity. Nevertheless, one cannotdeny the fact that Africa is growing whatev-er the numbers may seem to project. Thereal challenge is the extent to which we canleverage and translate the macro-levelgrowth at the micro-level to address themassive youth unemployment. That iswhen we can truly thump our chests to sayreal development has been achieved. Untilwe can have proper address systems, well litstreets, paved roads, constant electricityand clean water supply, and a lean and effi-cient government, we cannot by any stretchof imagination say we have arrived on theglobal development stage.

These aspirational developmentdreams won't come on a silver platter.Rather, a set of well-designed and cogentpolicies that redefines the role of govern-ment as a key economic agent remains fun-damental to our collective ability to moveout of the poverty conundrum. We needplace more emphasis on human capitalacquisition and the adoption of technolo-gies to propel agriculture, manufacturing,and commerce within a robust macro-eco-nomic framework that focusses not only oninflation targeting but also on growth.

Without running the risk of reportingstatistical fiction, a careful evaluation of themacro-level growth and micro-level incomeevidence must form the basis of any evalua-tion of Africa's rise. There is a great sayingthat, "a country's greatest asset, by far, is itspeople, who work, innovate, pay taxes, and,generally, reproduce. How well they dothese things depends on their legal, cultural,and natural environments, which can beaffected, for good and for ill, by the govern-ment."

Leadership is cause, all other is effect.

* Theo Acheampong is a petroleum economistand a PhD candidate in economics at theUniversity of Aberdeen, UK.

DEVELOPMENT


“BET you didn't know the boys scouts start-ed in Africa,” said the man with the hollowstare, moustache twitching as he peeredintently into my eyes. He was looking formy soul. And I wasn't cooperating.

I smiled like a real smartass and said: “Ido know. Baden-Powell. He stole the ideafrom the Asante war strategists in pre-colo-nial Ghana.” That seemed to ruin his mood.After a pause that felt like a decade, he cameback with words whose causticness onlybecame evident over time: “That's the prob-lem with you detribalised, westernised,African upstarts. You think the meaning is

in the fact.”Wow! What an accusation! Is this the

newfound marginalisation of Africa? Or is itsimply the bare essentials of truth unspiced?For my accuser's fingers were on the pulseof a new tendency - a tendency to reducethe portrait of this colourful continent to astream of economic factoids meaningless toits inhabitants and useful only as entries in apocket guide for cynical non-Africans sizingup the continent as they might a moistchunk of Angus beef.

You probably know what I am talkingabout. You probably read the title and

immediately expected me to start this arti-cle parroting some inanities about Africagrowing at five per cent (5%) per annum,about to record its billionth mobile phoneuser, or having cut its poverty rate by 35 percent (or some such). Quick bites. Fast wis-dom. Factoids.

I have something else in mind. I wantto talk to you about… fractals.

In recent times a movement dedicatedto understanding African fractals hasemerged.

There are ethno-mathematicians inNew York who have published passionately

Innovator and writer, *Bright Simmons argues here that African competitiveness will not be

determined solely from growing output, but also from the efficiency and sustainability of the

engines producing that output.

Africa's expandingeducated underclass


DEVELOPMENT

about the presence of fractals at theheart of many African designs, a deepersymbolism that makes seemingly illogical orcontradictory or fragmentary or base oreven primitive artwork suddenly, laden withmeaning, capable of bringing together tornstrands of understanding into a compositerichness.

Any chance that we can begin to appre-ciate the African experience by goingbeyond the factoids and straining for deep-er meaning to illuminate what is going on?Move a bit from factoids to fractals, that is?Nothing beats actually trying.

So let's start with something you haveprobably heard a bit about already. A meta-narrative you can't avoid if you listen tomainstream talk about Africa. A neat, seam-less, self-contained, view of the new Africa.Let's call it: the all-purpose, middle-class,African, consumer (AMAC).

AMACAccording to African Development

Bank (AfDB) and World Bank reports,there are 300 million AMACs from everyconceivable walk of life: from cattle-ranch-ers to taxi drivers.

A skeptic responds to the BBC that:from a “global middle-class standard” pointof view, only five per cent (5%) of Africansqualify for the tag. That will make, well, any-thing from 40 million to 50 million people(i.e. depending on whose demographic sta-tistics about Africa you believe).

So are there 40 million AMACs or 300million AMACs?

A guru from a big, global, bank thenchips in: actually, there is virtually no mid-dle class at all. There is a super-rich elite andthen….no, not the “masses”, but a “strongconsumer group”. Which might mean poorpeople living above their means or low-income earners with rapidly rising wages,depending on your mood.

Another guru from yet another big,global, bank is repulsed by this notion of anon-existent middle class: the AMACs arethere, and there are 120 million of them, sheinsists. That is four times what the OECD(the rich nations club) thinks is the number,and more than three times whatRenaissance Capital believes is the case, butless than half what big global consultanciesswear they have seen.

Zero, 32 million, 40 million, 120 mil-lion or 300 million? Pick your figure.Actually, pick your factoid.

The middle-class concept is probably

much better unpacked. Distilled into itswhirling fractals it gives us a mosaic, a moreengaging landscape of what matters, what istruly meaningful.

Let's start by saying that Africa has aunique middle class. That's what is interest-ing, not the absolute numbers, or relativenumbers, or even whether it has the fastest-growing middle class.

Africa has a unique middle classbecause history has created conditions forthe fractionation of the middle class. Onlyin Africa is the cultural and economic mid-dle class completely heterogenous.

Across Africa, incomes are rising fastestin the trading segments of the economy. Itis the importers (the “suitcase merchants”,who travel to Dubai and the Far East everymonth to haul in cheap consumer goods, aswell as their collaborators who stay at hometo push the stuff in the markets), second-hand goods dealers, and distributors open-ing up small towns to commerce, that arebenefitting most intensely from the rise inearnings being experienced at the bottom ofthe social order.

Nouveau-richeThese “nouveau-riche” are rarely the

better-educated. In fact, the situation hasbecome a source of adages about the stateof education in most African nations, as uni-versity graduates struggle to find the white-collar jobs they have been conditioned intobelieving are their birthright. Supposedly“illiterate” operators with a more commer-cial bent are often held up as a sort ofreproach to these educated idlers, and astestimony to the dysfunctionality of themainstream higher-education-cultural com-plex.

This presence of an expanding educat-ed underclass and an 'uneducated' risingclass, alongside the more orthodox emerg-ing professionals, highlight the fissures inAfrican society that explain the observedlack of political maturity in some Africancountries even as the population of the mid-dle class, of whichever income band,appears to explode. It also explains the lackof technical sophistication in key growthpoles in African countries, and consequent-ly, in some cases, the break in the connec-tion between rising incomes and the qualityof life.

African competitiveness will not bedetermined solely from growing output, butalso from the efficiency and sustainability ofthe engines producing that output. Pure

consumption driven by a sudden availabili-ty of credit and the by-products of globali-sation is probably not sufficient to drive theAfrican economic miracle.

A middle class that lacks a shared socialconsciousness cannot rebuild the politicaland economic institutions required to makegrowth transformational. The lack of attitu-dinal solidarity and the internal contradic-tions (to mock a Marxian allusion) withinthe African middle class means that it isunlikely to play the role that the middleclass has played elsewhere in exactly thesame way. It will not be the “all-purpose”motif so beloved of consultants, or deridedby their critics, but instead an important ifalso anguished study in how African coun-tries can modernise their societies while stillrecognising the actual ways indigenous cap-ital is being created in contemporary times.Which is not at all to say that the middleclass in Africa will not grow in size, or that itwill not have a positive impact on society,but rather to say that: economic factoids areuseless in understanding the true opportu-nities represented by the fractured andproblematic notions of the middle class inAfrica.

One needs to savour the complexity ofthe fractals, the tension, the depth of theunclear and still evolving in order for one todraw the right inferences and lessons forAfricans whose destiny is in play here.

* Bright Simmons is Ghanaian innovator andpresident of MPedigree, a technology to deter-mine the authenticity of a medicine via SMS.

“This presence of an expanding

educated underclass and an

'uneducated' rising class,

alongside the more orthodox

emerging professionals, high-

light the fissures in African

society that explain the

observed lack of political

maturity in some African coun-

tries even as the population of

the middle class, of whichever

income band, appears to

explode.”


POLITICS

“LIVED poverty” remains widespreadacross Africa, new data from Round Five ofthe Afrobarometer, collected across 34African countries between October 2011and June 2011 reveal.

This data, based on the views and expe-riences of ordinary citizens, counters pro-jections of declining poverty rates that havebeen derived from official GDP growthrates. For the 16 countries where thesequestions have been asked over the pastdecade, we find little evidence for systemat-ic reduction of lived poverty despite averageGDP growth rates of 4.8 per cent per year2over the same period.

Key Findings• With only two years to go before the2015 Millennium Development Goalbenchmark year, roughly one in fiveAfricans still experiences frequent ('manytimes' or 'always') deprivation with respectto their most basic needs for food (17%),clean water (21%), and medicines and med-ical care (20%). Approximately half experi-ence at least occasional shortages. Slightlyfewer suffer from inadequate access tocooking fuel (13% frequently go without).

• More than twice as many (44%) regu-larly lack a cash income which might enablethem to meet these basic needs, and a fullthree-quarters (76%) report going withoutcash at least once in the previous year.

• People in Burundi, Guinea, Niger,Senegal and Togo experienced the highestaverage levels of lived poverty, while thoseliving in Algeria and Mauritius experiencedthe lowest.

• People living in countries undergoingor emerging from conflicts appear to be par-ticularly vulnerable to lived poverty, espe-cially food shortages. Five of the seven

countries that experience the highest levelsof nutritional deprivation - Burundi,Liberia, Madagascar, Sierra Leone andNiger - are all emerging from recent con-flicts. And the two worst performers inNorth Africa - Egypt and Sudan - haverecently faced internal conflicts as well.

• Comparing regional experiences oflived poverty, we find that both West andEast Africans encounter the most shortages,while North Africans experience the lowestlevels of deprivation.

• Across 16 countries where data is avail-able over the past decade, the average expe-rience of lived poverty has hardly changed.There have been real over-time decreases inCape Verde, Ghana, Malawi and Zambia.And the formation of the Government ofNational Unity in Zimbabwe in 2008 alsoappears to have generated a “peace divi-dend” in the past five years that translatedinto a more recent, but substantial reduc-tion of lived poverty in that country.However, these instances of poverty reduc-tion have been matched by increases inBotswana, Mali, Senegal, South Africa andTanzania over the past decade.

• The data show significant correlationsbetween access to electrical grids, pipedwater, and other basic services in communi-ties and lower levels of lived poverty.Higher levels of formal education also cor-relate with sharply lower experiences ofdeprivation.

Nature and severity of poverty in

Africa as of 2012Some analysts contend that relatively

high economic growth rates, which aver-aged 4.8 per cent per annum over the lastdecade, have contributed to correspondingdeclines in the proportion of Africans living

below the poverty line from 51 per cent in2005 to 39 per cent in 2012. Others count-er that there is no solid evidence that thisstrong economic growth is contributing tomeaningful reductions in poverty levels.Still others question whether the highgrowth rates being reported may them-selves be illusory.

Afrobarometer's measures of livedpoverty shed light on this debate, suggest-ing that doubts about the extent of progressachieved in the fight against poverty are wellfounded. The data reveal that significantnumbers of Africans still fail to meet theirmost basic needs, and many of them fallshort on a regular basis. Majorities reportfacing shortages in medicine and medicalservices (53% at least once in the past year)and food (50%). Just under a majority expe-rience at least occasional shortages of cleanwater (49%), and four-in-ten go withoutcooking fuel (42%).

More troubling is the intensity of theproblem: roughly one in five encounter fre-quent shortages (going without “manytimes” or “always” in the past year) withrespect to water (22%), medicines (20%)and food (17%). Not surprisingly, short-ages are especially acute in rural areas,where 21% experienced regular food short-ages, 24% went without medical care, and26% lacked access to water, compared tojust 11%, 13% and 15% of urban dwellers,respectively.

The most commonly cited form ofdeprivation remains access to cash income,with a full three quarters (76%) reportingthat they went without cash at least once inthe previous year. While cash income is notin itself a basic need, access to it can enablecitizens to purchase their basic and non-basic needs. Income shortages thereforehave many spillover effects on individuals'lives. The fact that three-quarters ofAfricans report having gone without cash

Results of a new survey show that the strong economic performance of African economies over

the last decade has hardly empowered significant numbers of Africans to meet their most basic

needs, write *Boniface Dulani, Robert Mattes and Carolyn Logan.

Little change in poverty after adecade-long growth in Africa


income at least once in the previous yeartherefore poses a major development chal-lenge, as many adults on the continent can-not afford to buy resources for immediateuse or invest in assets.

Overall averages, however, hide sub-stantial country differences across the conti-nent. For instance, at least two thirds of allcitizens experienced food shortage at leastonce in Burundi (78%), Liberia (75%),Lesotho (73%), Madagascar (70%), SierraLeone (69%), Niger (67%) and Swaziland(66%). In contrast, one-third or fewer facedthe same problem in Egypt (33%), Ghana(27%), Cape Verde (25%), Tunisia (21%),Morocco (19%), Mauritius (9%), andAlgeria (7%).

Similar patterns prevail with respect toshortages of water and medical treatment.While access to clean water remains a lin-gering challenge for many African citizens,the extent of deprivation again varies wide-ly. At least six-in-ten went without inCameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, BurkinaFaso, Tanzania, Guinea and Lesotho. Butless than four-in-ten experienced shortagesof clean water in Mali, Malawi, Algeria,Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritius.

The Lived Poverty Index (LPI)The responses to this set of

Afrobarometer questions can be combinedto calculate an average score for each indi-vidual respondent, and for each country,that captures overall levels of “lived pover-ty.” The Lived Poverty Index (LPI) scoreranges along a five point scale from 0(which can be thought of as no lived pover-ty) to 4 (which would reflect a constantabsence of all basic necessities).

The mean level of lived poverty scoreacross all 34 countries in 2012 is 1.26 (onthe scale of 0 to 4). However, there is signif-icant cross-national variation around thatmean. At their worst, average scores inTogo (1.89), Burundi (1.85), Niger (1.81),Guinea (1.78), and Lesotho (1.77) suggestthat the average person in these countriesexperiences shortages across all basic neces-sities “several” times in a year. At their best,the LPI scores in Mauritius (0.20) andAlgeria (0.32) mean that the typical personin those countries “never” goes without anybasic necessities.

In general, it is evident that WestAfrican countries are clustered at the bot-tom of the scale, while North African coun-tries dominate at the top. A comparison ofaverage LPI scores by region confirms that

these apparent regional differences are real:average lived poverty is highest in bothWest Africa (1.47) and East Africa (1.46),and lowest in North Africa (0.77), withSouthern Africa (1.17) about halfway inbetween. It is telling, however, that that thetwo worst performing North African coun-tries, Sudan and Egypt, have beenembroiled in internal political conflicts.

Because this is the first Afrobarometersurvey in these countries, the data cannotshow whether poverty has led to the con-flicts, or has gotten worse as a result of thediscord.

Trends in lived poverty, 2002-

2012 (16 countries)The Lived Poverty questions have

been asked in exactly the same way over thepast decade in 16 countries, so the data can

track changes in the experience of povertyover this time.11 Taken as a group, there isa very slight decrease in the experience ofpoverty across this set of countries: the LPIincreased from 1.26 in 2002 to 1.31 in 2005,but then fell slowly, and marginally, to 1.22in 2012. On its face, this might suggest thatthe adoption by many African countries ofvarious anti-poverty interventions in recentyears has thus far failed to have a substantialeffect in ameliorating the everyday experi-ence of poverty.

To further scrutinize the results,Afrobarometer classifies LPI scores intothree poverty categories: very low or nolived poverty, with LPI scores of less than0.50; moderate lived poverty, with scoresfrom 0.5 to 2.5; and extreme lived poverty,with scores of 2.5 and above. Overall, twot h i r d s ( 6 5 % ) o f c i t i z e n s i n t h e s e 1 6

MEASURING LIVED POVERTY USING SURVEY DATA IN AFRICA

Poverty is measured in a number of different ways. At the national level, all countries producenational accounts data to calculate their Gross National Income, which is used to summarize nation-al wealth and the total state of the economy. However, the capacity of many African countries'national statistics systems to generate these numbers has recently been criticized.

At the personal or household level, national statistical offices also conduct large household surveysto measure income, expenditure, assets and access to services, which are then used to calculatenational poverty lines and place individuals above or below that line. The Millennium DevelopmentGoal that focused on reducing the number of people living on less than US$1.25 a day is a goodexample. However, such surveys are expensive and conducted infrequently in many African coun-tries. Other development organizations, such as the United Nations, collect data on the conse-quences of poverty such as the proportion of people who use improved drinking water sources orsanitation services, or the proportion of underweight children under five, in a given country.

As a contribution to the debate about poverty in Africa, the Afrobarometer offers the Lived PovertyIndex (LPI), an experiential measure that consists of a series of survey questions that measure howfrequently people actually go without basic necessities during the course of a year.

It measures a portion of the central core of the concept of poverty that is not well captured by exist-ing measures, and thus offers an important complement to official statistics on poverty and devel-opment. Because people are the best judges of their own interests, respondents are best placed totell us about their quality of life, though they might not be able to do it with a great deal of preci-sion. If Amartya Sen is right and the value of one's standard of living lies in the living itself, an expe-riential measure of shortages of the basic necessities of life takes us directly to the central core ofwhat the concept of poverty is all about.

The Afrobarometer asks respondents: Over the past year, how often, if ever, have you or your fami-ly gone without enough: food to eat; clean water for home use; medicines or medical treatment;enough fuel to cook your food; a cash income? A range of response options are offered, starting withnever for those that experienced no shortages, to just once or twice, several times, many times andalways. Because these questions are asked in all Afrobarometer countries, we are able to monitornot only shifts in the levels and nature of poverty over time, but also to compare experiences acrosscountries and regions.

POLITICS

POLITICS


countries fall into the moderate poverty cat-egory; another one in ten (9%) experienceextreme poverty. These average figuresremain essentially unchanged since 2002,when they were 66% and 10%, respectively.

However, the overall stability pro-duced by pooling these 16 countries maskssome important overtime changes withincountries: successful poverty reduction inseveral countries is counterbalanced byincreases in lived poverty in others.

The largest visible decline occurred inGhana, where the LPI fell from 1.00 in 2002to 0.61 in 2012, followed by Malawi, whichsaw a decline from 1.70 to 1.35 during thesame period.

Expressed in population percentages,this means that the total proportion of adultGhanaians living in moderate or extremepoverty fell by 24 percentage points, from69% to 45%, between 2002 and 2012. InMalawi the decline was a smaller but stillimportant nine percentage points, from93% to 84%. There were also clear down-ward shifts in Cape Verde and Zambia overthis same period. Reported economicgrowth rates in these countries over the lastdecade range from 5.7% per annum inMalawi to 6.8% annually in Ghana.

There was also a substantial declineover the last four years in Zimbabwe.During that country's prolonged politicalcrisis, lived poverty increased substantially,from 1.71in 2002 to 2.02 in 2008.Following the disputed and highly flawed2008 election, a government of nationalunity was put into place, and the previousopposition party, the Movement forDemocratic Change (MDC), gained con-trol of the Ministry of Finance. One appar-ent result of this “peace dividend” was arapid fall in lived poverty from 2.02 to 1.36.

At the same time, lived poverty hasincreased significantly in five countries. Thelargest increase was bserved in Senegal, ris-ing from 1.32 in 2002 to 1.77 in 2012.Tanzania increased from 1.13 to 1.37 overthe same period. There were smaller, butreal increases in lived poverty in Botswana,Mali12 and South Africa. This is despite thefact that these countries reportedly enjoyedvery similar rates of economic growth tothose observed in the countries mentionedabove, ranging from 3.6% annually in SouthAfrica to 7.0% per annum in Tanzania.

Lived poverty remained stable, or oth-erwise displayed trendless fluctuations overthe last decade in the other six countries.

The roots of lived povertyPrevious research on the LPI data has

shown that the two most important driversof lived poverty were formal education andthe extent to which individuals have accessto basic development infrastructure in theirimmediate area of residence.

With surveys across a much widerrange of African countries, Afrobarometerre-examined this finding. The analysisshows that across 34 countries, individuallived poverty scores indeed fall sharply aseducation level increases, from 1.62 amongthose with no formal schooling, to 0.87among those with post-secondary educa-tion. Thus, the relatively low levels of edu-cation in West African states such as Niger,Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea helpaccount for the high levels of poverty inthose countries.

Individual poverty scores also varysharply according to whether or not keyservices are present in the respondent'scommunity. The average LPI is 1.05 in cen-sus enumeration areas that have an electric-ity grid, but 1.64 where there is none.Similarly, it is 1.08 where piped water serv-ices are available, versus 1.53 where they arenot.17 States have done a far worse job ofextending electricity grids in West and EastAfrica than in other parts of the continent.

These simple correlations strongly sug-gest that the availability of key infrastructur-al services (electricity and water, pavedroads, sewage systems and health clinics)has a major influence on the experience oflived poverty.

The political consequencesData on lived poverty also provide an

important opportunity to re-examine theongoing debate about whether poor peoplemake poor democrats and are likely to par-ticipate less in politics. Consistent with pre-vious studies, we find that the effects ofpoverty on democracy and political partici-pation are mixed. On one hand, Africa'spoorest people are less likely to demanddemocracy (and reject authoritarian alter-natives), and less likely to be satisfied withdemocracy, compared to the better off,although the effects on demand are verymodest.

On the other hand, lived poverty doesnot appear to be a major hindrance to polit-ical participation. In fact, the continent'spoorest citizens tend to be more active par-ticipants in political and civic affairs thantheir better off counterparts. Thus while

lived poverty may slightly reduce demandfor democracy, it does not appear to be pre-venting the poor from participating fully inthe socio-political life of their countries.

ConclusionAfrobarometer data on lived poverty

provide an important basis for testing wide-spread assumptions and claims about theeffects of the continent's recent economicgrowth on poverty reduction. While eco-nomic data suggests that African countriesmay be making important strides in achiev-ing and sustaining high growth rates, surveydata from 34 countries shows that there is adisconnect between reported growth andthe persistence, in both frequency andseverity, of poverty among ordinary citi-zens.

Meeting their basic daily needs remainsa major challenge for a majority of Africans,even at a time when their countries arereporting impressive economic gains. Whileseveral countries demonstrate progress inreducing the experience of poverty, thereare as many where lived poverty hasincreased. These findings suggest thateither economic growth is not tricklingdown to average citizens and translatinginto poverty reduction (and in fact, isinstead leading to growing income inequali-ty), or that there is reason to questionwhether reported growth rates are actuallybeing realized. In either case, it is evidentthat African governments need to focus asmuch attention on poverty reduction effortsas they are on growing their economies.The evidence suggests that investments ineducation and infrastructure may be amongthe most effective ways to extend economicgains to the continent's poorest citizens.

The Afrobarometer is produced collab-oratively by social scientists from more than30 African countries.

* Boniface Dulani is a lecturer at theUniversity of Malawi and operations managerfor fieldwork with the Afrobarometer, [email protected]; Robert Mattes is a professor ofpolitical studies and director of the Democracyin Africa Research Unit (DARU) in theCentre for Social Science Research (CSR) atthe University of Cape Town, and a co-founderof and senior advisor to the Afrobarometer,[email protected]; Carolyn Logan isassistant professor of Political Science atMichigan State University and deputy directorof Afrobarometer, [email protected].


HEALTH

THERE is no dispute over the dangers thatfake medicines pose. Often containing fewor no active ingredients, they are typicallyineffective - and are sometimes activelyharmful. Some contain enough of an activeingredient to affect a disease but notenough to eliminate it, contributing to thegrowth of drug-resistance. And they costalmost nothing to manufacture but bringhuge profits to their makers and distribu-tors.

The problem is thought to be wide-spread in countries with weak regulatoryoversight; in 2003, Nigerian health officialsestimate that 70 per cent of drugs in circula-tion in the country were either counterfeitor adulterated.

But international agreement over howto deal with fake medicines has been elu-sive, with discussions getting bogged downover exactly what kinds of drugs should betargeted. The problem is that the phrase

normally used in the debate - “counterfeitmedicines” - can refer to far more than chalkpills with forged labels.

The World Health Organization(WHO) defines a counterfeit drug as “amedicine, which is deliberately and fraudu-lently mislabelled with respect to identityand/or source.

“Counterfeiting can apply to bothbranded and generic products, and counter-feit products may include products with the

The controversy over "counterfeit" drugs

One of the biggest hurdles to stemming the global tide of counterfeit medicines is disagreement

over the term itself, which drug companies are accused of hijacking for commercial rather than

public health reasons, reports IRIN.

HEALTH


correct ingredients or with the wrong ingre-dients, without active ingredients, withinsufficient active ingredients or with fakepackaging.”

Yet pharmaceutical companies consid-er even safe, efficacious drugs “counterfeit”when their expensively developed andpatented formulas are copied without theirpermission, or even when their own drugs,licensed and packaged for sale in one coun-try, are diverted, repackaged and sold else-where at a higher price.

A meeting at WHO in Geneva,Switzeland in November will try to naildown more firmly what international con-trol measures should cover and, just asimportantly, what they should not.

The meeting of the Member StateMechanism on Substandard/spurious/fal-sified/falsely labelled/counterfeit medicalproducts will focus not on drafting a treaty -such an ambition has been abandoned for

the time being - but rather on developing a“programme of work” to curb the sale ofsuch products. This will look at best existingpractices and can be tailored to the situa-tions in different regions.

WHO's project manager for qualityassurance and safety of medicines, MichaelDeats, is cautiously optimistic. “This topic ismired in controversy,” he said, “because ofthe conflict between protection of publichealth and protection of intellectual proper-ty. But we are now getting to the stagewhere negotiations are starting to settledown, and we have got a better chance ofmoving forward.”

A focus on trade or health? For Oxfam's senior medical policy

adviser, Mogha Kamal-Yanni, the concernsof drug companies are purely a trade issue,with no relevance to public health initia-

tives. By conflating the two, “you are trans-

ferring the duty of checking and enforcingintellectual property rights from the privateowner of those rights to governments,which have very limited resources, andyou're not sorting out the problem; the realproblem is about bad-quality medicines,”Kamel-Yanni told a meeting at London'sChatham House.

Despite efforts to harmonize copyrightand intellectual property laws by countrieslike the US and Japan, which are home tomany pharmaceutical companies, theselaws vary greatly around the world.

There have been a number of cases inwhich generic drugs manufactured legally incountries like India, on their way to othercountries where those drugs would also beregarded as legal, such as Nigeria or Brazil,have been seized in transit through Europeon the grounds that they violate patents rec-

ognized under European legislation. The result has been bitter opposition

to attempts to reach an international agree-ment on combating counterfeit medicines.Countries like India, China and Brazil allegethat big drug companies are trying to useWHO to suppress competition from moreaffordable generics.

Chatham House's Centre for GlobalHealth Security, Anna George says thepharmaceutical industry needs to stopinsisting on the catch-all term “counterfeit”.

“The industry needs to move away,”she told IRIN. “They need to drop thatword that causes so many problems, saythat their own intellectual property rightswill be pursued elsewhere, and allow thedebate to focus on health issues.”

Shoring up supply chain Kamal-Yanni says more lasting solu-

tions can be found by investing in supplychains in the developing countries worstaffected by the problem.

“As a patient,” she said, “if I have accessto a trained pharmacist and a good supplychain system, the counterfeiters and thepeople supplying bad-quality drugs willhave limited access to the market. So invest-ing in the supply chain - and in stoppingdrug shortages in the public sector, whichforce people to go to private markets withzero regulation - this is the kind of invest-ment that we need before we go for an inter-national treaty.”

At the moment, the issue of a treaty ison hold, says WHO's Deats. He told IRIN,“WHO now has a solid platform and anagreed mandate, clearly focusing on publichealth. We are still at the talking stage ratherthan the doing stage, but there is now a spir-it of cooperation rather than the hostilitywhich existed a few years back.

“The pharmaceutical companies aremajor stakeholders in the field, so I don'tthink you can exclude them, but the amountof influence they have mustn't be dispropor-tionate. The low-income countries, whichare really suffering badly, would do better toinvest in their supply chain and systems ofoversight, but there's no 'one size fits all'solution. Our task now is to identify priori-ties and then get to work with a view to min-imizing harm to patients in our memberstates.”

“If I have access to a trained

pharmacist and a good supply

chain system, the counterfeit-

ers and the people supplying

bad-quality drugs will have

limited access to the market.

So investing in the supply

chain - and in stopping drug

shortages in the public sector,

which force people to go to

private markets with zero

regulation - this is the kind of

investment that we need

before we go for an interna-

tional treaty.”


HEALTH

Ghana's drug agency clashes with a localpharma giant; bans Indian pharma co

In battle against fake drugs:

Africa is awash in fake medicines. The problem is believed to be much worse in West Africa.

Thus an escalating dispute between Ghana's drug agency and two major pharmaceutical

companies, one local and the other Indian, over fake medicines on the local market is laying

bare the scale of the menace, writes *Kwesi W. Obeng.

A high stakes drama around fake drugs haspitched Ghana's Food and Drugs Authority(FDA) against one of the country's mostprominent local pharmaceutical establish-ments, Tobinco Pharmaceutical Company.

The FDA has since Septemberdestroyed unspecified quantity of drugsseized from some warehouses of Tobinco.Awaiting destruction is a much larger quan-tity of about 100 different products ofTobinco. Tobinco established 13 years agoand headquartered in Accra, Ghana's capi-tal, is accused of flooding the local market

with fake, unregistered and dangerousdrugs mainly from Bliss GVS PharmaLimited of India. The FDA has also bannedthe Indian company from exporting itsmedicines to Ghana.

In reaction, Tobinco has charged thenational drug agency of pursuing a plot todestroy its reputation. Tobinco has sincesued the FDA. The pharmaceutical compa-ny has also applied for an interim injunctionagainst the FDA to restrain the drug agencyfrom further incinerating products of thecompany until the final determination of

the suit. “Our drugs that were and are being

destroyed by the FDA are not fake drugs”,the Chairman of Tobinco Pharmaceuticals,Nana Samuel Amo Tobin was quoted in thelocal press. Tobinco's chairman has alsowarned that staff of the distressed companymay be laid off - to compound the alreadyhigh unemployment rate in the country.

Ghana has one of the most dynamicpharmaceutical industries in West Africa.Major Ghanaian pharmaceutical companiesinclude Aryton Pharmaceuticals, Ernest


HEALTH

Chemist Limited, DanadamsPharmaceuticals, Kama Industries, LetapPharmaceuticals and Kinapharma. Many ofthese companies also export some of theirproducts to other West African countries.

But in October, Ghana's drug agencybanned with immediate effect, all medicinalproducts manufactured by Bliss GVSPharma Limited of India into Ghana. TheGhanaian drug authorities also asked allhospitals, pharmacies and other health facil-ities to return every product made by BlissGVS. According to the FDA, the companymanufactured a fake anti-malarial drug,Gsunate Plus Suppository, which wasimported onto the local market. TobincoPharmeuticals imports Bliss GVS Pharmaproducts to Ghana.

According to the Ghanaian authorities,the efficacy and safety of the medicine hasnot been ascertained, as there had not beenany clinical study to justify the use of theproduct for the treatment of malaria. BlissGVS also has no authorization to useGhanaian children as clinical trial subjects.

The manufacturer, says Ghana'snational drug agency, had not registered thedrug in India, although malaria is prevalentin that country and much of South and EastAsia. Bliss GVS Parma had also manufac-tured and distributed on the Ghana marketseveral medicinal products which have notbeen evaluated and duly registered asrequired by law.

The FDA is mandated by law to ensurepublic health and safety. By this mandate,the FDA is to ensure that medicines thatenter the country have been duly evaluatedand approved prior to their importation anddistribution.

The credibility of the FDA has beencalled into question by a raft of independentpolicy research and advocacy institutions inthe country as many other pharmaceuticalcompanies have their unregistered productson the market.

Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana(PSGh) has also questioned how the localmarket came to be flooded with fake drugsif the FDA was doing its work of ensuringthat only genuine medicines were sold inthe country.

The president of the PharmaceuticalSociety of Ghana (PSGh), James OhemengKyei, has said that there is a breakdown inthe regulatory system of the FDA.According to Ohemeng Kyei, the “knee jerkreaction” of the FDA to the importationand distribution of products the national

drug authority indicates are unwholesome,was a clear indication that there is a “sys-temic regulatory failure and lack of techni-cal assessment and input into regulatorydecision-making” at the FDA.

But Ohemeng Kyei has a rather check-ered record. In 2010, Ohemeng Kyei wasthe chief pharmacist of Ghana's Ministry ofHealth when the FDA used the same post-market surveillance intelligence system touncover a large quantity of substandard psy-chiatry medicines imported by the Ministryof Health. The FDA ordered the immediatere-exportation of the fake psychiatry medi-cines.

In a sharp rebuttal to a statement by theMinistry of Health (MOH) in which theministry called for a review of the FDA'sregistration processes, the acting head ofthe FDA's Pharmaceutical IndustrialSupport Department, Samuel AsanteBoateng charged the MOH of underminingthe work of the drug agency.

“It is…ridiculous and embarrassing toread a press release by the Ministry ofHealth talking about review of the process-es of medicines registration of the FDA andby whom?” Asante Boateng said, pointingout that “Our (FDA's) medicines registra-tion guidelines are WHO guidelines and weshall always go by international best prac-tice”.

“The question now is whether thisintervention (by the MOH) is to reduce thestandards to suit some individuals who areuncomfortable with the processes due totheir selfish gains at the detriment of public

health and safety. Why are some peopleuncomfortable whenever the FDA exposescounterfeit medicines”, Asante Boatengasked.

In 2011, the Pharmacy Council ofGhana, a another statutory body estab-lished to ensure pharmaceutical serviceproviders practice in accordance with theprescribed standards to ensure public safe-ty, instituted disciplinary actions against atotal of fifty seven (57) pharmacists, phar-maceutical companies and licensed chemi-cal sellers for various infractions.

Incidentally, MPedigree, a mobiletechnology innovation which allows peopleto check the authenticity of a drug by SMSwas recently invented by a Ghanaian, BrightSimmons. The innovation already adoptedin a number of African and Asian countriesincluding Nigeria is now undergoing trialsin Ghana.

Official reports do indeed indicate thatthe local market is awash in counterfeit anddownright phoney medicines. These fakemedicines can be found in even public hos-pitals and pharmacies across the country.

The country is already staring at amajor public health crisis. In April this year,the FDA seized 130 million counterfeit con-doms made-in-China and supplied toGhana's Health Services (and distributed tohealth facilities across the country) aftertests at Ghana's drug agency's medicaldevices laboratories revealed the condomswere flimsy, undersized and riddled withholes. The condoms were valued at aboutUS$6 million.

The condoms, BeSafe, were manufac-tured by Henan Xibei Latex Companybased in Xinxiang city in China's HenanProvince. Global Unil ink Limited, a

“It is…ridiculous and embar-

rassing to read a press release

by the Ministry of Health talk-

ing about review of the

processes of medicines regis

tration of the FDA and by

whom?” Asante Boateng said,

pointing out that “Our (FDA's)

medicines registration guide-

lines are WHO guidelines and

we shall always go by interna-

tional best practice.”


HEALTH

Ghanaian company sourced the unsafe con-doms from Harley Limited, an Indian com-pany based in Kenya.

According to the South China MorningPost, China's National Health and FamilyPlanning Commission for PopulationControl buys about three-quarters of themore than 40 million condoms sold inChina in 2012 and in a review of its 13 con-dom suppliers in 2011, the Commissionranked Xibei 12th, with the second lowestscore for quality.

The fake drug industry is a global prob-lem. A 2011 World Health Organisation(WHO) survey of seven African countriesfound that between 20 and 90 per cent of allanti-malarials failed quality testing. Theseincluded chloroquine-based syrup andtablets, whose failure rate range from 23 to38 per cent and sulphadoxine /pyrimethamine tablets, up to 90 percent ofwhich were found to be below standard.

WHO has also established that inNigeria, Africa's largest market for medi-cines, 64 per cent of anti-malarial drugswere fakes. Over two-thirds of drugs con-sumed in Nigeria are imported from Indiaand China, widely regarded as the biggestsource of fake drugs.

Another study in The Lancet conclud-ed that up to 40 per cent of artusenate (anti-malarial) products, which is about the bestmedicine to combat resistant malaria today,contain no active ingredients and thereforehave no therapeutic benefits. That studyshowed that counterfeiters' ability to repro-duce holograms and other sophisticatedprinting techniques had dramaticallyimproved between 2001 and 2005, makingdetection even more difficult.

Malaria is particularly lethal for chil-

dren under five and pregnant women.Indeed, malaria is the number one cause ofOut Patient Department (OPD) atten-dance and the highest cause of child mortal-ity in Ghana and much of tropical Africa.

According to Ghana's FDA “the use offake anti-malarial medicine can result intreatment failures, complications and pre-ventable deaths in children. This poses athreat to the attainment of MillenniumDevelopment Goal (MDGs) four and six,which seek to reduce child mortality andcombat HIV, malaria and other diseases”.These phony medicines threaten to under-mine decades of progress in tackling malar-ia.

The danger posed by fake medicines isreal. In 2008, 84 Nigerian babies died fromingesting fake baby teething drug. Thesyrup, My Pikin Baby Teething Mixture,was sold to treat infant teething pains. Thedeadly syrup contained a lethal mix of dieth-ylene glycol, better known as anti-freezeand used mainly in fridges and cars. Inbabies, the highly toxic liquid causes vomit-ing, diarrhea, liver damage, kidney failure,central nervous system damage and some-times death.

In 1999, at least 30 people died inCambodia after taking counterfeit anti-malarials prepared with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (an older, less effective anti-malarial) which were sold as Artusenate.

A report by the International PolicyNetwork shows that 700,000 deaths eachyear were attributable to fake malaria andTB drugs in Africa.

According to the United NationsOffice on Drugs and Crime agency(UNODC), 45 million courses of anti-malaria medication valued at about half a

billion dollars were trafficked to West Africafrom Asia, mainly India and China.

The global trade in fake drugs hitUS$75 billion dollars in 2010, says theCentre for Medicines in the Public Interest.That represents a massive 92 per cent risefrom 2005.

The trade in fake drugs in Africancountries is almost inelastic as these nationshave porous and shambolic systems includ-ing weak drug regulation control andenforcement systems, shortage and/orerratic supply of basic medicines, poorlyregulated markets and unaffordable prices.

The US Food and DrugAdministration estimates that counterfeitsmake up more than 10 per cent of all globalmedicines market and are present in bothdeveloping and industrialized countries.The agency also estimates that up to a quar-ter of the medicines consumed in poorcountries are counterfeit or substandard.

In parts of Africa, Asia and LatinAmerica, the UNODC estimates that fakedrugs amount to as much as 30 per cent ofthe market. Fake drugs pose multiple chal-lenges in terms of health threats, develop-ment challenges and the role of organisedcrime on a transnational scale.

According to the WHO's WorldMalaria Report 2008, Africa accounts formost of the world's malaria incidence, whileWest Africa has the highest estimated rateon the continent, with nearly 98 millioncases of malaria each year.

West Africa is a major target of a rangeof fake medication, including antibiotics,antiretroviral drugs and medicines to fightmalaria and tuberculosis. In its 2009 reporttitled “Transnational Trafficking and theRule of Law in West Africa: A ThreatAssessment”, in which UNODC assessedthe impact of counterfeit medications inWest Africa, it noted that most of these fakepharmaceutical products which appear tobe genuine but contain little or no activeingredient, are imported, particularly fromSouth and East Asia, but some come fromthe local pharmaceutical industry.

The FDA's battle with Tobinco andBliss GVS of India would seem to representjust the tip of the iceberg. It thereforeremains to be seen how the lessons fromthis crackdown will help shape the pharma-ceutical industry in Ghana and possibly thesub-region.

* Kwesi W. Obeng is assistant editor of AfricanAgenda.

Ghanaian trainee nurses

HEALTH


EVEN as researchers announce that amalaria vaccine could be available by 2015,the threat of resistance - by the malaria par-asite to the most effective drugs and bymosquitoes to frontline insecticides - con-tinues to grow. Donor funding for malariahas plateaued, and African countries arestruggling to finance the scale-up of somecrucial interventions.

The Sixth Pan African MultilateralInitiative on Malaria, the world's largestconference on malaria, took place inDurban, South Africa, in early October,where results from the most clinicallyadvanced trials showed that over 18 monthsof follow-up, the RTS, S vaccine almosthalved the number of malaria cases inyoung children and reduced by about aquarter the number of malaria cases ininfants.

Armed with these latest results, pharmaceu-tical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) “nowintends to submit, in 2014, a regulatoryapplication to the European MedicinesAgency (EMA),” said GSK, which hasspent three decades developing the vaccine.

RTS, S is designed to prevent the malariaparasite from infecting, maturing and multi-plying in the liver, after which the parasitewould normally re-enter the bloodstreamand infect red blood cells, leading to diseasesymptoms.

Efficacy The fact that the vaccine is only partial-

ly effective, "only tells part of the story,when we look at its public health impact,"David Kaslow, vice president of productdevelopment at the health organizationPATH, told IRIN. The real story lies in thenumber of malaria cases that could be avert-ed. About 941 cases of clinical malaria wereprevented for every 1,000 children vacci-

nated, while severe malaria cases werereduced by 36 per cent. In addition, malariahospitalizations were reduced by 42 percent.

The effectiveness of the vaccine hasweakened over time. In 2011, researchersfound after one year that the vaccinereduced the risk of developing clinicalmalaria - when the disease requires medicaltreatment - by 56 per cent in young childrenand 31 per cent in infants.

“The [vaccine's declining] efficacyover time is not unexpected. What we don'tknow now is what that means and what willhappen in the longer term,” Kaslow noted.Additional results, expected in 2014, willgive more information on the longer-termprotection provided by the vaccine candi-date and on the impact of a booster dosegiven 18 months after the first three dosesof the vaccine.

According to GSK, the World HealthOrganization (WHO) has indicated that itmay recommend use of the RTS,S vaccineas early as 2015 if EMA regulators back itslicence application. It will then be up toAfrican governments to decide whether tointroduce the vaccine into their publichealth systems.

But even a moderately effective vaccinecould have a huge impact in sub-SaharanAfrica, which accounts for about 70 percentof malaria deaths each year - most of themchildren. Duncan Earle, the director of theMalaria Control and EvaluationPartnership in Africa (MACEPA), told del-egates at the conference that when statisticswere gathered three years ago, there were219 million reported cases of malaria infec-tions resulting in the deaths of 660,000 peo-ple.

"Approximately half of the world's pop-ulation is at risk of [contracting] malaria.Most of the malaria cases and deaths occurin sub-Saharan Africa. However, Asia, LatinAmerica, and, to a lesser extent, the Middle

East and parts of Europe are also affected,"he added.

Risks ahead The conference also heard how "popu-

lations of mosquitoes resistant to all avail-able insecticide (including DDT) are beingincreasingly reported", raising fears thatanother 120,000 people could die from thedisease every year.

Professor Hillary Ranson of theLiverpool School of Tropical Medicinewarned that the impact of insecticide resist-ance could be "devastating". With no newanti-malaria insecticides on the horizon,Ranson urged governments in Africa andother malaria belts to monitor insecticideresistance and to rotate the variety of insec-ticides used to reduce the spread of the dis-ease.

Global funding for malaria, however,has reached a plateau well below the levelrequired to reach the health-relatedMillennium Development Goals and otherinternationally agreed-upon global malariatargets.

An estimated US$5.1 billion is neededfor every year between 2011 and 2020 toachieve universal access to malaria inter-ventions in the 99 countries with ongoingmalaria transmission. While many countrieshave increased domestic financing formalaria control, the total available globalfunding remained at 2.3 billion in 2011 -less than half of what is needed.

"We also hope that the wealthy coun-tries would not only talk the talk but wouldalso contribute generously to the funds thatare aimed at eliminating the disease. At themoment, Africa is facing crises of funding,and we hope that companies would alsofund these initiatives," Elhassan Hassan, aresearcher at the University of Gezira inSudan, said at the conference.

* IRIN.

As resistance grows, malariavaccine raises hopes

Malaria kills about 600, 000 people annually worldwide with Africa accounting for more than

half of this figure. The development of a malaria vaccine marks an important milestone.


ALTHOUGH it is debatable whether itwarranted an extraordinary session of theAfrican Union (AU) Assembly, the rela-tionship between Africa and theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) is animportant one deserving robust debate. Ifthis debate were to be framed appropriatelyand directed towards rectifying variousproblems in the ICC, thereby making itmore just and effective, it would be of hugeservice to both Africa's quest to end impuni-ty and the international legal order in gener-al.

The extraordinary session that the AU

Assembly (the highest decision-makingbody of the AU) held on October 12, 2013was mainly dedicated to Africa's relation-ship with the ICC. Unfortunately, the out-come of the summit showed that the sub-stantive issues of public interest were notthe factors that informed the decision to callthe extraordinary session. Two other moti-vations prompted the convening of thesummit by African governments.

The first of these motivations is bailingout the Kenyan leaders currently on trial atthe ICC in The Hague - the extraordinarysummit was called upon the request of

Kenya with the support of the EasternAfrica region. According to the Rules ofProcedure of the Assembly, the support oftwo-thirds of AU member states is requiredfor calling an extraordinary session. Thesummit was accordingly convened whenthe required majority had been reached.

Kenya campaigned aggressively for thissummit to use the AU platform to mobiliseagainst the ICC and to secure wide supportfor the bid by President Uhuru Kenyattaand Vice President William Ruto to dodgethe ICC process. Most immediately, theywish to be excused from having to attend all

AU's ICC summit: A case of elitesolidarity for self preservation

In reducing the issue of Africa's relationship with the ICC to elite interests and political expedien-

cy, Africa's leaders have betrayed the continent's wider interests, *Solomon Ayele Dersso.

Chamber of the African Union Commission

RIGHTS


the sessions of their trials in The Hague. Ifthey are not granted such relief, they willface a serious problem in discharging theirresponsibilities in leading the Kenyan gov-ernment. Understandably, there is strongsympathy for the undesirable consequencesthat this may have for Kenya and its people.In seeking to secure the two leaders thisrelief, African states are also acting in theinterest of the Kenyan nation.

The main other motivation for Africanleaders in supporting the extraordinarysummit is, of course, self-interest. There isno guarantee that the ICC will not pursueother African leaders as well. The supposi-tion that self-interest is the motivationbehind the support of African leaders forKenya's bid has been borne out by the deci-sions they adopted at the summit. In one ofthese decisions, African leaders now wish toreverse the course of international law andrelieve serving heads of state and govern-ment from prosecution for serious crimes.In the words of the summit's resolution, “nocharges shall be commenced or continuedbefore an international court or tribunalagainst a serving president or senior mem-ber of a government in power”.

Under the Rome Statute (Article 27),the issue of the immunity of heads of statefor “grave” international crimes has beenput to rest. It is very difficult to see how thiscan be reversed within the existing rules ofthe ICC, short of a comprehensive revisionof the Rome Statute.

The other AU decision - on a UNSecurity Council (UNSC) deferral of thecases against the leaders of Kenya andSudan - is equally baffling. First, UNSCdeferral under Article 16 of the RomeStatute does not end the cases. It only leadsto the suspension of an ongoing investiga-tion or prosecution for an initial period of12 months. Significantly, suspension of thetrials may also result in loss of the evidenceon which the ICC Prosecutor may rely on.Second, the UNSC can exercise its authori-ty under Article 16 only after determiningthat continuing with the prosecution con-stitutes a threat to international peace andsecurity within the framework of ChapterVII of the UN Charter. Looking at the casesagainst Kenyatta and Ruto, there is little evi-dence to suggest that their trial would leadto such a threat - unless UNSC membersdetermine that the threat of terrorism facingKenya (following the Westgate attacks) isreason enough to warrant the deferral.

The concern over the trials' interfer-

ence in Kenya's leaders' ability to effectivelydischarge their responsibilities is best left tothe Appeals Chamber of the ICC toaddress. The Appeals Chamber is currentlyconsidering the Prosecutor's appeal toreverse the Trial Chamber's decision reliev-ing Kenyatta and Ruto of the obligation toattend all their trial sessions.

Sadly, the heads of state and govern-ment who attended the summit defendedtheir position to insulate themselves fromICC prosecution based on the political idealof “African solutions to African problems”.Hiding behind this to serve their self-inter-est is both a misuse and a perversion of theideal. Such instrumentalisation of this idealerodes its moral force as well as its politicaland institutional significance for enablingthe continent to take the lead in dealingwith the challenges it faces.

In their preoccupation with expediencyand self-protection, Africa's leaders havefailed to use the summit appropriately tofocus on and prioritise the formulation ofworkable recommendations for rectifyingcurrent drawbacks in the ICC system. Theyhave also failed to put Africa's relations withthe court on a more solid ground, wherebythe ICC could be used to fill the impunitygap arising from the failure to address issuesof justice for serious crimes nationally andafford victims an opportunity they wouldnot otherwise have.

Clearly, both the decision on theimmunity of heads of state and governmentand the one on a UNSC deferral of the trialsof current leaders sought by the ICC aredirected at insulating leaders from ICCprocesses. This is a clear case of the AUbeing used as a forum of elite solidarity forself-preservation, along the lines of thedescription of its predecessor, theOrganisation of African Unity (OAU), as aclub for dictators.

In reducing the issue of Africa's rela-tionship with the ICC to elite interests andpolitical expediency, Africa's leaders havebetrayed the continent's wider interests,namely the achievement of a fairly appliedsystem of international criminal justice thatallows societies in transition to debate andformulate processes of justice and reconcil-iation without compromising accountabili-ty.

At a policy level, these decisions repre-sent an instance in which the tensionbetween human security and regime securi-ty upheld by the AU is resolved in favour ofregime security. This constitutes an erosion

of the AU's much acclaimed normativechanges, notably its right to intervene inmember states under Article 4(h) of theConstitutive Act embodying the principleof non-indifference.

Such an elite-centered formulation ofthe debate on Africa's relationship with theICC is unlikely to yield any constructive orpositive outcomes. While the affirmation byAU Assembly chairperson, Ethiopian PrimeMinister Hailemariam Desalegn that “ourgoal is not and should not be a crusadeagainst the ICC” is assuring, particularly inthe light of the much talked about threat ofmass withdrawal of African members fromthe Rome Statute, the main decisions of thesummit remain controversial. This, alongwith the plan to review progress on theimplementation of their decision at anothermeeting that may be called next month,means that the relationship betweenAfrican states and the ICC is sure to tra-verse a more turbulent path in the monthsto come unless the Appeals Chamberupholds the decision of the Trials Chambercreating an opportunity to ease the opposi-tion being mobilised against ICC.

* Solomon Ayele Dersso, Senior Researcher,Conflict Prevention and Risk AnalysisDivision, ISS Addis Ababa

RIGHTS

“In their preoccupation withexpediency and self-protec-

tion, Africa's leaders havefailed to use the summit

appropriately to focus on andprioritise the formulation ofworkable recommendationsfor rectifying current draw-

backs in the ICC system. Theyhave also failed to put Africa'srelations with the court on amore solid ground, whereby

the ICC could be used to fill theimpunity gap arising from thefailure to address issues of jus-tice for serious crimes nation-

ally and afford victims anopportunity they would not

otherwise have.”

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