OUR WORLD IN THE 21ST CENTURY

BRIC TO MENA STOCK MARKETS

2008-09-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

Investors move away from Bric

4th September 2008 17:13

Investors are turning away from Brazil, Russia, India and China (Bric) in favour of the Middle East and North African (Mena) stock markets.

According to Alexander Shalash, head of emerging market equities at Swiss wealth management firm Julius Baer, Mena is providing an attractive alternative to countries in the Bric region.

He told the Times that "North Africa has 'come of age'" with a rash of inward investment providing a positive economic outlook.

"Local industries are developing thanks to inward investment and there's more confidence due to economic reforms, a better banking climate and a growing credit sector," he said.

Several Mena countries have enjoyed strong economic growth over recent months. Morocco has enjoyed growth of eight per cent this year, while Egypt and Tunisia have recorded growth of seven and six per cent, respectively.

However, caution has been advised to investors looking at the Egyptian market where a 51.5 per cent rise in the stock market from August to April was offset by a fall of 20.3 per cent.

Oliver Bell from Pictet's Mena fund, added to the Times: "Egypt remains a worry, although clear value opportunities are appearing and some of the froth appears to be coming out of the more expensive regional markets and stocks."

Leveraging knowledge, India now a $1 trillion economic powerhouse

2008-09-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Leveraging knowledge, India now a $1 trillion economic powerhouse

August 14th, 2008 - 7:10 am ICT by IANS -

By Arjun Sen
When Jack Welch, former chief of General Electric, the world’s second largest company, said a few years ago that “India is a developed country as far as intellectual capital is concerned”, it was time to sit up and take notice. Welch made his remarks at the beginning of the new millennium when he was still at the helm of General Electric. Seven years down the line, India has overshot expectations to clock several consecutive years of high-speed growth.

Now, as India enters its 62nd year of independence, the country is well on the path to leveraging this intellectual capital and transforming itself into a global knowledge economy powerhouse - having already clocked $1 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP) during 2006-07.

“I am happy to say India has experienced vigorous growth at an average of 8.8 percent per year for the past four years,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the 15th Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) - the eight-nation South Asian regional forum - in Colombo earlier this month.

India is also well on its way to fulfilling the projections made by the world’s top investment bank Goldman Sachs that it will emerge as the third largest economy in two decades and the world’s second largest economy by 2050, behind China but exceeding the US.

Even the otherwise conservative head of India’s central bank, Reserve Bank of India Governor Y.V. Reddy, while moderating India’s economic growth projection for the current fiscal, said the pace of growth would remain fast by any global standard.

“We continue to remain the second-fastest growing economy in the world,” Reddy said, while reviewing the performance of the Indian economy and the central bank’s monetary policy earlier this month.

Over the past 17 years, since India embarked on the path of economic reforms, there have been six governments and five prime ministers, but the economy has moved in just direction - a sustained eight-percent-plus economic growth.

“I am happy that in these past 17 years, despite the many changes in government with different political parties wielding power in New Delhi and in the states, there has been no reversal of the processes of economic reform and liberalisation,” the prime minister said.

There are other facets of India as well that speak volumes about its resurgence as a growing and emerging economy between 1990 and now.

-GDP grew from Rs.5,150 billion to Rs.42,830 billion ($1.7 trillion)

-GDP growth expanded from 4.9 percent to 9.1 percent.

-Per capita income almost doubled from $390 to $740.

-Foreign exchange reserves jumped from barely $1 billion to $310 billion.

-Inflows from foreign funds rose from $1 million to over $60 billion.

-Foreign direct investment shot up from $97 million to $25 billion.

-Exports jumped from $18.1 billion to $155 billion.

-Software and services exports rose from $50 million to $40 billion.

-Mobile phone subscribers base grew from one million to 286 million.

-Food grain output rose from 176 million tonnes to a record 230 million tonnes.

Among the key factors driving this growth is its human capital where India is estimated to have the fourth largest reservoir of scientific talent pool. This has enabled the creation of a formidable knowledge economy.

“Today, the world looks at India - and the enterprising people of India - with respect and admiration,” the Cambridge- and Oxford-educated economist-prime minister said recently.

“By creating an environment in which the creativity and genius of the Indian people has been able to find freer expression, we have strengthened India’s global standing,” added Manmohan Singh, considered the architect of the country’s reforms programme.

As a result, the country has logged a phenomenal 33.7 percent average annual growth in its knowledge-intensive software and services industry over the last few years, taking its revenues from a mere $12.4 billion in 2002-03 to $52 billion in 2007-08.

Similarly, in knowledge process outsourcing, India is growing at around 25-27 percent and gross revenues are expected to shoot up to over $10 billion by 2012 from the current $4 billion, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), a leading industry lobby.

Even in telecommunications - where the country’s tele-density was abysmally low even five years ago - some 8-10 million subscribers are being added to the network every month. India has also overtaken the United States, with as many as 286 million subscribers, and ranks just below China.

“If the last few years of telecom were exciting in India, it will be even more exciting in the coming years,” said Nripendra Misra, chairperson of the industry’s watchdog, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

“In terms of numbers, we would easily achieve the target of 500 million by 2010.”

In other knowledge-intensive industries, especially pharmaceuticals and biotech, Indian companies such as Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and Biocon are steadily climbing the global corporate pecking order to emerge among the top 5-10 global players.

To leverage the potential, the prime minister also announced three years ago the formation of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) under noted technocrat Sam Pitroda - the man responsible for ushering in the telecom revolution in India in the eighties.

The broad goal of the commission was to recommend ways to convert India’s demographic advantage of having the world’s largest set of young people - estimated at over 300 million - into knowledge capital by following a knowledge-oriented development path.

“The time has come to create a second wave of institution-building and of excellence in the field of education, research and capability building so that we are better prepared for the 21st century,” Manmohan Singh said.

The commission’s recommendations have resulted in the government attaching top priority to education, reflected by a five-fold increase in budgetary allocation. At Rs.2,700 billion ($67.5 billion), the allocation for education constitutes 20 percent of India’s planned allocation for the next five years.

“Indian policy makers are already starting to implement some of the key actions that are necessary to bolster India’s effective transformation to the knowledge economy,” the World Bank said, looking at the policy decisions taken in recent years.

The fund bank also said that the notion of a knowledge economy was neither new nor foreign to India. The country’s past achievements in science, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy reinforce the notion that the country has for millennia been a leading “knowledge society”.

In fact, India was the world’s largest economy in the first millennium and also at the beginning of the industrial revolution around 1,700 A.D. But subsequently, its share in the world economy headed south, being a latecomer to the industrial revolution.

Now, three centuries down the line, India is again poised to become the second largest, if not the largest, economy in the world as it increasingly assumes leadership of the current knowledge revolution.

As Manmohan Singh told industry leaders recently: “I am confident that the Indian economy will continue to grow at 8-9 percent rates of growth and India will emerge as one of the growth engines for the world economy as a whole.”

China to top Asian consumer markets in 2009

2008-09-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

China to top Asian consumer markets in 2009

www.chinaview.cn 2008-09-08 18:30:43

XIAMEN, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- By 2009 China will become the largest consumer market in Asia said Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming.

Speaking at the 12th Xiamen International Trade and Investment Fair on Monday in the east Fujian Province, Chen predicted entertainment, housing and tourism will expand their shares in the domestic market.

"As one of the world's fastest growing consumer markets, China is a world leader in mobile phone sales, domestic tourism, and broadband network penetration," said Chen.

He also noted China is the second largest seller and buyer of gold and automobiles in the world. The country ranks third in consumption of luxury items and health care supplies.

The average per capita GDP reached 2,456 U.S. dollars last year, said Chen. He added that consumption had bigger shares than investment for the first time in the nation's economic growth.

For the past five years, China's annual consumption growth rate had been 13.1 percent. If the growth rate continues at just 10 percent, China's consumer market scale will exceed 30 trillion yuan (4.38 trillion U.S. dollars) by 2020.

Chen predicted China will top the global luxury market by 2014,with a market share of 23 percent. He also said by 2015, the country could become the world's fourth largest provider of outbound tourists.

Currently, China is the second largest consumer market in Asia next to Japan. That is predicted to change by 2015. According to areport by the Boston Consulting Group, done in 2007, China is likely to become the world's second largest consumer market next only to the Unites States.

AU LEADER VISITS US

2008-09-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

Tanzania: President Bush Meets with President Kikwete


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The White House (Washington, DC)

PRESS RELEASE
29 August 2008
Posted to the web 29 August 2008

Washington, DC

PRESIDENT BUSH: It is such an honor to welcome a man I've come to admire a lot to the Oval Office, President Kikwete of Tanzania. He comes representing a great country. He also comes representing the African Union. And therefore, we've had a wide-ranging discussion about our bilateral relations, as well as the President has kindly given me a briefing on how he sees the different situations and opportunities on the continent of Africa.

Laura and I will never forget our trip to your country. First of all, it's a beautiful country. The people were so gracious and so friendly. And I came back to America telling our fellow citizens how proud they would have been to have seen the outpouring of affection for the American people, as a result of the American people's generosity in such matters as education, or HIV/AIDS, or the President's Malaria Initiative.

I am confident in saying to the American people that your money is being spent wisely and compassionately in Tanzania. And a lot of it has to do with the leadership of the President. He stood up and said, we've got a problem and I'm going to take the lead. And his government has been responsive to the needs of the people.

And, Mr. President, I can't thank you enough on behalf of the American people for your compassion and your leadership.

I also am looking forward to continuing our discussions on issues like Zimbabwe or Darfur. These are issues that the President is most familiar with. It's the President -- issues in which he has got good judgment about how to proceed on these matters.

And so, Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I welcome you here to the Oval Office.

PRESIDENT KIKWETE: Thank you. Well, thank you, President. First I thank you for the invitation. It's an honor for me; it's an honor for Tanzania; it's an honor for Africa. Well, I came here to say thank you on behalf of the people of Africa, on behalf of the people of Tanzania. You've done so much for Africa, so much for Tanzania. When you compare, no U.S. President has done so much for Africa and for Tanzania as you have done.

Our goal has been extended; it extends the horizons of the possibilities of economic growth in Africa. PEPFAR is helping us tackle HIV/AIDS scourge. Many lives -- many, many children now who were -- who would have been orphaned are no longer orphaned because of that. PMI has helped us so much in the fight against malaria. Many innocent lives of children -- women and children -- are being saved. And Tanzania is one of those examples of the great successes of PMI.

Malaria in Zanzibar has almost been -- is being eliminated now. In the past there used to be 50 percent cases being reported in hospital; now it's only 1 percent that's been reported in hospital, thanks to PMI.

There are a number of -- of course, our biggest challenge now in Zanzibar is how to sustain that success, because only 20 miles on the mainland, in Dar es Salaam, malaria is still there. So if people go to Zanzibar with malaria, then the problem is -- so our biggest challenge is how to sustain it. And we are working together with the PMI and CDC on how to respond to this kind of situations.

Of course, with the MCA again, the support you've given us to infrastructure development in the country, it's again -- it helps us build the capacity, to tackle poverty and economic development in the country.

So all that I can say really -- I came here to say thank you so much for the support. But of course, you saw it yourself when you came home, how the people came in huge numbers --

PRESIDENT BUSH: They were.

PRESIDENT KIKWETE: -- huge numbers. I was even amazed when they poured in the streets. There the issue was really to express their appreciation to the people of the United States for, again, the support you have been extending to our country.

Of course, we discussed the issues on the continent. We again, we thank you for your leadership. We'll continue to work together. Zimbabwe is a common problem. Darfur is a common problem. We are the front line; but of course, those of us who are on the front line always look toward -- look to the rear -- (laughter) -- to what you do to support us. And there has been such extraordinary support for us in the continent.

We continue to work together. I thank you, President.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, sir.

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Thank you all.

Africa: ACP Countries Consolidate Stand

2008-09-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Africa: ACP Countries Consolidate Stand


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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)

26 August 2008
Posted to the web 26 August 2008

Lukong Pius Nyuylime

Delegates of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries have declared their intension to send a hand of fellowship to their counterparts of Central and Latin America so they sit on one negotiating table in order to reach a compromise that can be endorsed by the competent authorities of the World Trade Organisation and put an end to the long drawn so called banana war.

The delegates who include Eric Delucci, president of the Guadeloupe and Martinique banana producers and Vice president of the European Banana Producer Association, Alfred Almond, Member of Parliament for Martinique and Mayor of Schoelcher, Emmanuel Jean-Michel, vice president of the Guadeloupe producer group and delegates from three African countries, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Ghana among others, are meeting in Yaounde to rehearse their stand ahead of the next negotiation. In effect, after failing to strike a deal at the last WTO negotiations in Geneva, ACP countries want to reiterate their position on the decision of the European Union, the major consumers of Latin American banana to gradually reduce the EU's tariff of 176 Euros per tonne to 116 Euros by 2015. Cameroon's Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, who doubles as the spoke person for the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries on banana issues, staged a walk out during the meeting to express the disgruntlement and disagreement of the ACP countries on the proposal.

In his speech at the opening ceremony yesterday, Mbarga Atangana wondered why ACP countries could be part of the multilateral Trade process when they cannot be able to produce and sell or to simply be buyers of what is produced by stronger countries. "This preoccupation must be integrated and understood by the WTO especially as concerns the Doha negotiation cycle reputed to be e development cycle", he said.

The banana problem, though being an economic issue, has become a political problem, he said, stating inter alia that the signing of the treaty of Rome to create the European Union was delayed because of geo-strategic considerations linked to banana. The pertinence of the banana war is such that it has held the WTO talks hostage for over a decade. "If there is no accord with banana producers on imports in Europe, then there could be no wider deal on global trade liberalisation", European Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson warned. Mr Mandelson said a deal worked out by WTO head Pascal Lamy had to be accepted by both Latin American and African, Caribbean and Pacific producers. But from every indication, no such concession has been reached.

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For two days running, the delegates will have working sessions with Cameroonian officials and emerge with a Yaounde declaration on the issue.

Nigeria, Venezuela to Discuss Global Energy Crisis

2008-09-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

Nigeria: Nigeria, Venezuela to Discuss Global Energy Crisis


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This Day (Lagos)

28 June 2008
Posted to the web 28 June 2008

Juliana Taiwo
Abuja

President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua yesterday in Abuja disclosed that he would soon meet his Venezuelan counterpart, President Hugo Chavez, to discuss the current energy situation as well as lay a framework for enhanced bilateral relations.

The planned meeting is coming on the heels of soaring oil prices, which hit another record high of $142 per barrel during trading yesterday.

Yar'Adua disclosed his planned meeting with Chavez during a farewell meeting with the out-going Venezuelan Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Boris Henrique Martinez.

He said such a meeting had become imperative because "fingers are being pointed at both countries as a result of the energy situation in the world."

The president, while acknowledging that both countries have a common responsibility to improve the welfare of their people, stressed the need for "much greater cooperation and collaboration especially in the petroleum sector."

He wished the outgoing Ambassador well in his future endeavours and urged him to continue to promote the interests of Nigeria.

Dr. Martinez thanked the government and people of Nigeria for making his two-year stay in the country a happy one.

No indication was given of whether steps had already been taken to set up a meeting between the two leaders.

Crude oil, which rose to a record of over $142 a barrel in New York, Friday, sent shivers down the spines of many across the globe.

Crude oil for August delivery rose as much as $2.62 a barrel, or 1.9 percent, to $142.26 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $141.95 at 12:31 p.m. London time yesterday.

The President of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chakib Khelil said prices might reach between $150 and $170 within months.

Khelil said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer before declining later in the year. However, he does not think prices will reach $200 a barrel.

Concerned about rising oil prices and the impact on the global economy, Saudi Arabia, last weekend, held a one-day summit of oil producers and consumers.

However, the summit failed to reach a concrete agreement on how to stem the rise in oil prices, with several consumers leaving the summit disappointed.

In response to record prices, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices.

Venezuela, an anti-U.S. price hawk in OPEC, has consistently opposed calls to raise oil production to stem soaring prices despite heavy pressure from consumer nations.

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Nigeria pumps around two million barrels per day of crude and has said it aims to double output by 2010, but with militant attacks in the Niger Delta and funding shortfalls hampering its industry, most analysts agree that target is rather ambitious.

Zambia: ZRA Rakes in K250 Billion From Mines

2008-09-07T10:03:00.000-07:00


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The Times of Zambia (Ndola)

14 August 2008
Posted to the web 14 August 2008

THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) collected K255.6 billion in mining taxes in July under the new mining fiscal regime.

Of this amount, K109.5 billion accounted for windfall tax, K105.1 billion for company income tax and K41.0 billion from mineral royalty tax.

All the mining companies complied with the new tax regime and paid mineral royalty at 3.0 per cent.

Speaking at the ZRA second quarter media briefing in Lusaka yesterday, ZRA commissioner general, Chriticles Mwansa said the total amount paid under the mineral royalty tax in the second quarter stood at K70.54 billion of which K6.39 billion, K29.67 billion and K34.48 billion was collected in April, May and June respectively.

Mr Mwansa said mineral royalty paid so far in the last two months under the new mining fiscal regime averaged K25.75 billion per month, compared to K5.2 billion per month that the mines used to contribute to the treasury previously.

The new mining fiscal regime came into effect on April 1, and the first returns for mineral royalty were due in May.

Mr Mwansa also said ZRA collected K3, 179.9 billion in gross taxes while refunds stood at K777.9 billion representing 24.5 per cent of gross taxes.

He explained that after refunds totaling K777.9 billion, the net tax take stood at K2, 402.0 billion against a target of K2,153.1 billion, registering a surplus of K248.8 billion or 11.6 per cent above target.

"This surplus is attributed to higher tax revenue collection recorded largely under company tax, Pay As You Earn (PAYE), withholding tax, mineral royalty, excise duty and trade taxes," he said.

Mr Mwansa also said ZRA had embarked on targeted anti-smuggling operations in Eastern Province to curb smuggling of unfortified sugar into Chipata and other districts in the province.

He said the operations involved day and night patrols along the border, warehouse searches and mounting of roadblocks on the Great East Road to check on any smuggled goods.

ZRA has also installed a mobile road communication network to enable staff communicate effectively whilst carrying out the anti-smuggling operations.

And Mr Mwansa said ZRA had recorded a tremendous improvement in clearance time for imports at Chirundu and Livingstone ports.

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Clearance of trucks had been reduced to about six minutes compared to the previous two days or more that was spent on physical inspection.

Zambia: State Bans BP

2008-09-07T09:47:00.000-07:00


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The Times of Zambia (Ndola)

15 August 2008
Posted to the web 15 August 2008

Reporter

THE Government has banned British Petroleum (BP) from buying petroleum products from Tanzania Zambia Mafuta (Tazama) until the giant oil firm liquidates a debt of K26.1 billion.

Energy and Water Development Permanent Secretary, Peter Mumba said BP had been in a habit of defaulting on payments for the diesel it buys from Tazama.

Mr Mumba said at a Press briefing at his office yesterday that the diesel shortage in the country was a result of BP not stocking up the commodity.

He said BP had the largest number of filling stations in the country and in most of the stations, it did not have diesel, thereby creating a shortage of the commodity.

He said other oil marketing companies (OMCs) such as Total and Engen were doing better than BP.

"One wonders what has happened to the giant known as BP. We have stopped BP from picking fuel because they are owing Tazama huge sums of money," he said.

Mr Mumba said initially, BP owed Tazama K42.1 billion as at last week and the amount stood at K37 billion over the last 35 days.

The company made a part payment yesterday to bring down the debt to K26.1 billion.

"We have put pressure on BP to pay just like anybody else is doing in this sector. BP enjoys a lot of presence on the market and have a big network and commands a lot of influence," he said.

Mr Mumba said there were enough fuel stocks at Tazama which did not warrant any diesel shortage in the country.

He said last week, BP bought 450,000 litres of diesel from Tazama but wondered why its filling stations did not have the commodity.

Mr Mumba said BP was a major supplier of diesel to the mines and that it had brought instability in the operations of the mines because of the shortage.

He urged the mines to start buying diesel from other oil marketing firms following BP's ban from buying fuel from Tazama.

He also appealed to the Zambia Competition Commission (ZCC) to ensure that there was a level playing field among all oil marketing companies.

Mr Mumba said the Energy Regulation Board was pursuing the matter with ZCC to seek fairness in the sector.

He said the distorted playing field had resulted in the consumers bearing the effects.

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Mr Mumba said there was need for more players in the sector currently dominated by BP, which has a market share of 46 per cent.

Zambia: President Dies

2008-09-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

The Post (Buea)

24 August 2008
Posted to the web 25 August 2008

Clodette Ndanda & Ledi Akwo

After suffering from a stroke attack in June, at an African Union Summit in Egypt, Zambian President, Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, died on August 19, in Percy Military Hospital Paris, France. He died at the age of 59.

According to BBC report, the announcement was made few hours after his death on Zambian State Television by Vice-President, Banda Rupiah, who is expected to take over as acting president of the country.

He also informed the Zambians that national mourning would last for seven days beginning from the day of his death, urging Zambians to remain calm and mourn their President with dignity.

BBC reports that on Monday, the acting President said, the Head of State underwent an emergency surgery, after his health suddenly deteriorated.

"President Mwanawasa's health has always been a problem even before he started his presidential mandate."

On December 8, 1991, Mwanawasa was involved in a serious traffic accident in which his aide died on the spot. He suffered multiple body injuries and was flown to Johannesburg, South Africa, for medical attention. He was hospitalised for three months. A lasting effect of the accident was his noticeably slurred speech.

Mwanawasa suffered a minor stroke in April 2006, barely four months before the general elections.On July 3, rumours made the rounds that Mwanawasa had died in a Paris hospital due to his stroke. As the rumours were spreading, South African President, Thabo Mbeki, called for a moment of silence in honour of Mwanawasa.

Zambian Minister of Information, Mike Mulongoti, speaking for the government, had dismissed the information as "false". The South African government quickly apologised for the misapprehension and expressed Mbeki's hopes for Mwanawasa's recovery.Banda gave an update of Mwanawasa's condition on July 24, saying that he was making steady progress in his recovery.

Uncertainty regarding Banda's optimistic updates was reportedly widespread.The Minister of Health, Brian Chituwo, speaking before the National Assembly on August 8, said that Mwanawasa's healing process will indeed be long due to the serious nature of his illness.

President Mwanawasa became prominent recently, because, he was one of the most critical African leaders of the divisive election in Zimbabwe. He said he sympathised with Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangarai for diminishing from the run-off because of attacks on his supporters.

After pressing for Frederick Chilluba's immunity from prosecution to be lifted, the former Zambian President charged with stealing money during his term of office, Mwanawasa fell out with his predecessor, who selected him to lead the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy, MMD.

Who Is Mwanawasa

Levy Mwanawasa was born in Mufulira, Northern Rhodesia as the second of 10 children in 1948 .He held a law degree from the University of Zambia and was married to Maureen Mwanawasa. He had six children, two from his first marriage and four with Maureen.

He worked in private law firms from 1974 until 1978 when he formed his own firm; Mwanawasa & Company.

In 1985, Mwanawasa served as Solicitor General in the Zambian government but he went back to private practice in 1986. After Frederick Chiluba was elected President, he appointed Mwanawasa as Vice-President in December 1991.

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Since 1973, he had been a practicing lawyer. In his most famous case, he defended former Vice-President, Lieutenant General Christon Tembo and others who were charged with plotting to overthrow Kenneth Kaunda in 1989.

Zambia: Sharing the Copper Windfall

2008-09-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Zambia: Sharing the Copper Windfall


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Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

19 August 2008
Posted to the web 20 August 2008

Danstan Kaunda
Lusaka

Australian mining giant Equinox Minerals is developing the Lumwana Copper Mine (LCM) to take advantage of strong prices for copper on the international market. When it opens later this year, the mine will be the largest in Africa, but critics say Zambia's share of the profits of minerals is smaller than it should be.

This open-pit mine in north-western Zambia, some 45 kilometres from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo, is expected to bring in large amounts of foreign investment. The Lumwana project is expected to generate over 1,500 jobs during the construction phase and about 1,055 direct jobs in its full operation phase starting in December.

Zambia holds Africa's biggest copper reserves. In 2006, the country produced 515,618 metric tonnes of copper -- up by 1.5 percent from previous year.

The Zambian government recently announced an upward adjustment of the tax regime for mining firms. They say the taxes are designed to capture a greater share of windfall profits from the mining companies operating in the country.

Announcing the new regime in April, Ng'andu Maganda, Minister of Finance and National Planning, said that the development agreement between the Zambia government and mining companies operating in the country is lopsided.

"These measures are competitive, reasonable and balanced. So with this (new tax), the government will be able to improve education and health services and make investments that will create more jobs in other sectors of the economic and improve livelihoods of Zambian citizen," Maganda said.

The mineral royalty tax levied on copper ore produced has been increased from 0.6 percent to 3 percent, while the tax on corporate profits has jumped from 25 to 30 percent. Maganda said the government is expected to gain an estimated $415 million in additional revenue in 2008 alone.

But Harry Michael, chief operation officer for the Lumwana Copper Mine (LCM), told IPS that government needs to consider the impact of this on new taxes regime on investors like Lumwana mine.

"I do not speak on behalf of government or the Chamber of Mines in Zambia. But coupled with the increasing fuel prices, the operations of mines will be affected. As for the Lumwana mine, we have not started operations, but there are already changes to the development agreements. I hope we will stick to the old agreement with government on taxes."

Michael conceded that the mine's owners planned to recuperate the investment they are putting in before the majority of Zambians would start seeing meaningful benefits from the project.

"We have put in the largest investment in this project, in excess of $800 million, to develop this mine. The total investment is expected to come up to over $1 billion. So you should understand that we are a business," Michael told IPS.

Some mining companies are considering taking legal action to prevent changes to the development agreements they have already signed.

The Lumwana Copper Mine is expected to produce about 20 million tonnes of copper ore each year at an average of 450, 000 tonnes of copper concentrate per annum.

Protecting the environment

The government is not merely reviewing profit-sharing with the mining sector. It is also tightening protection of the environmental laws. The mining town of Kabwe, is the most polluted places on earth, where decades of unregulated copper smelting have left a toxic legacy: children tested in 2006 had levels of lead in their blood averaging four to eight times higher than the maximum considered safe. The government-owned mine principally responsible was closed in 1994, three years before new legislation governing pollution standards was passed.

Three years ago, more than 50 mine workers died in an explosion at the privately-owned mine.

There are some encouraging signs of enforcement: just last year a manganese mine owned by Chiman Manufacturing Limited was closed down for exceeding allowable air pollution limits which affected nearby townships in Kabwe; the mine was also sanctioned for failing to provide sufficient personal protection for its staff.

On uranium production, government is reviewing the regulations and framework for licensing under the Mines and Minerals Act.

According to an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), obtained from the Environmental Council of Zambia in Lusaka, the Lumwana Copper Mine will be required to develop a tailing storage facility and waste rock dumps to protect surface and underground water from uranium and other heavy metal pollution.

The EIA also outlines that the mining company should comply with the air pollutions law under the Zambian law.

Nathan Chishimba, LMC corporate affairs officer, said the mining project fully supports action to reduce toxic gas emissions and other solid waste.

"We have put up a very good management team that is committed to build and develop low carbon emission technology at the mine plant. This includes a chemical storage shed and a twin tower laboratory," Chishimba explains to IPS.

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This modern technology at the plant could reduce carbon dioxide and other toxic gas emissions into the atmosphere by 70 percent compared to other plants without carbon capture measures.

South Africa : Energy Politics

2008-09-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

South Africa: Chavez Oils Way Into Country, Sarkozy Splits Atoms


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Business Day (Johannesburg)

COLUMN
5 September 2008
Posted to the web 5 September 2008

Johannesburg

THE government's preoccupation with security of supply, in electricity and energy, was always going to trigger the interest of energy rich countries.

This year alone SA has played host to two leading statesmen - French President Nicolas Sarkozy in March and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week.

Their visits, although months apart, were almost an identical execution of the single-minded pursuit of foreign policy. That Sarkozy's visit came soon after the government published its nuclear energy policy and strategy document, and -- even more importantly -- as Eskom was looking for bidders for its multi billion-rand nuclear programme was hardly a coincidence.

Sarkozy put on the agenda what French nuclear company Areva can do as a major player in nuclear energy. Areva CEO , Anne Lauvergeon, who was part of the French delegation could have stayed at home.

Sarkozy was capable of punting the group eloquently. Engaged in a neck- and-neck race with rival US group Westinghouse, Areva could do with a little Sarkozy magic.

Enter Chavez. He came to charm SA this week . And boy he made all the right noises. But, while impressing his hosts, he was not going to take his eyes off the ball -- to be SA's "best energy friend forever".

Given our economy's overreliance on energy, SA can do with oil-rich friends.

In SA Chavez has found a government eager to set up its national oil company, PetroSA, on the world stage. PetroSA has the ask of ensuring that we do not run out of fuel.

Hence the mooted multi-billion-rand crude oil refinery at Coega. And the Venezuelans have a foot in the door. Discussions between PetroSA and its Venezuelan counterpart PDVSA include the Venezuelans investing in the refinery.

President Umaru Yar'Adua Also becomes ill

2008-09-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Nigeria: 17 Days of Waiting for Mr President


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Vanguard (Lagos)

7 September 2008
Posted to the web 7 September 2008

Ben Agande

WHAT started as rumour became a serious matter ten days after President Umaru Yar'Adua left Nigeria for Saudi Arabia in what official explanation said was a trip to perform the lesser Hajj, an obligation performed by Muslims but less known than the annual Hajj which every Muslim who has the capacity is expected to perform at least once in a life time.

After announcing the retirement of the top echelon of the military, the special adviser to the president on communications, Segun Adeniyi, had said the President was proceeding on to Mecca to perform Umrah.

Although he did not include the day Yar'Adua was expected to return, many observers in the President Villa believed that the President would be back in a matter of days since a scheduled trip to Brazil was just days away. But as people say, man proposes, God disposes. The trip to Brazil was cancelled and the exact date of Yar'Adua's return has since been a subject of speculation.

If the President had retired from politics after serving for eight years as the governor of Katsina State and gone back to teaching analytical chemistry at the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria as was being speculated before he was drafted into the presidential race by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the brouhaha that his continued stay in Saudi Arabia has generated would have been confined to his immediate environment and family. But from the moment he threw his hat into the ring, Yar'Adua has, like no other President in the history of Nigeria, had to have his medical record closely examined to the minutest details.

At the heat of his nationwide campaign to become the president, Yar'Adua had to break his campaign trail to dash off to Germany, where, as subsequent events proved, he had been a regular visitor to attend to his medical needs.

But for a man whom many agree is deeply reserved and emotionally reticent, the responsibility of making known to the Nigerian public the reason for his visit to Germany fell on the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which many people believe poorly handled the information about his departure.

Three days into his trip, rumours about the deterioration in his health heightened so much so that it took a dramatic telephone call from Obasanjo which was televised and routed through a loud speaker for the anxiety of millions of Nigerians to be doused. Even after assuming office and severally assuring Nigerians that his health conditions were exaggerated, Yar'Adua has continually found himself in the public glare with questions being raised perpetually about his state of health.

Unfortunately, his ingrained reticence has tended to obscure rather than reveal his true strength.But, how did we get to this state where the nation was almost at a stand still with rumour making the rounds that the President's health has so much degenerated such that he was alleged to be on life support machine in a Saudi Hospital where, ab initio, he was said to have gone to, not on medical grounds but to perform a religious obligation? When news of Yar'Adua's indisposition in Saudi Arabia was first mooted by Saharareporters, the New York-based Nigerian website, the issue was only disclosed in hushed tones.

But when the same website reported and was later confirmed by officials of the Brazilian government that the planned state visit had been cancelled ("readjusted" in the words of the foreign affairs minister, Ojo Maduekwe), what was initially thought to be in the realm of speculative journalism" was gradually assuming the toga of truth. And, indeed, the issue could no longer be kept secret.

In deed, the concern by many Nigerians over the health of the President is borne out of two considerations; for many Nigerians, it is borne of a genuine concern that a President who struck a good cord with many Nigerians because of his perceived sterling qualities was being unnecessarily bogged down by sickness, while to the feeble political opposition, the "perennial" sickness of the President was a confirmation of their long held view that he ought not to have been there in the first place.

But, as if to compound the already complex issues surrounding Yar'Adua's health, there is scant information from official quarters on the true state of things. While the Minister of Information and communications, John Odey, and Maduekwe insisted that the president's long stay at the holy land and the cancellation of his planned trip to Brazil were nothing unorthodox, there were daily information which tend to create the impression that those saddled with the responsibility of managing the information of the President are either truly ignorant of the true position or are being economical with the truth. It would appear that the former appears to be more appropriate.

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While there is a loud silence on the true state of the president's health and indeed whether he is in hospital, the rumour mill has found a fertile ground to thrive. In fact, the last week, rumour about the death of Yar'Adua was so strong that the Minister of Information had to issue a two- paragraph statement reaffirming that the President was "hale and hearty". As it was during his campaign to be elected as president, rumour about death is again a constant thing about our President. Unfortunately, there appears to be nobody in the mould of Obasanjo to call Yar'Adua on speaker phone to assure Nigerians that he is not dead.

Despite the assurances from Odey that the President is well, there is no let to the anxiety and rumour about his health in the land. The local media have been trying to outdo each other on who would bring out the biggest 'scoop'. While some reported that the President had had a kidney transplant and was on a life support machine, others said the operation had not been done as a matching kidney has not found. The confusion in the coverage of Yar'Adua's health underscores the confusion in the land about the true position of the President's health.

The question being asked is,since Yar'Adua has consistently admitted that he is a human being and can be sick, why has his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly to seek medical help, been so shrouded in secrecy?

According to impeccable sources in the Villa, with the exception of the Vice President and some Presidency key officers, many officials in government are equally unaware of the true position of things which informs the apparent confusion in the land. Nothing demonstrates this truism than the vague explanation from key government officials that the President will come back as soon as possible."

And to demonstrate that all is well with Yar'Adua, news was passed around that having performed his lesser hajj, the President was due to come back to the country, Tuesday last week, to chair the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting for the first time in three weeks the following Wednesday.

Though there was high expectation in the larger society about Yar'Adua's return plan, there was no sign in the Presidential Villa that such return was imminent. The usual activities associated with presidential movement was non-existent and there was deliberate silence by key officials to say exactly whether the President would come back on Tuesday as reported or not. Not surprising, Wednesday came and went and the President was nowhere around the council chambers.

While Yar'Adua is away,activities in the Presidential Villa appears to have come to a standstill in the over fifteen days that he has been out. Instead, the rumour mill is waxing stronger and the media especially the web based news services are striving to outdo one another on who has the most "authentic" update on the president's health. But the question that has kept agitating the minds of many Nigerians is why would the president's men deliberately keep Nigerians out of the true position of Yar'Adua's health when the President, on several occasions, has openly admitted that his health is not in the best of state and as a human being there is nothing extraordinary about it?

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The implication of the events of the last two weeks has done incalculable damage to the perception of Nigerians about their Presidency. The implication is that everything that emanates from such a government no matter how well intentioned might be taken with a pinch of salt. For a government that came in with so much goodwill, this is not the best way to be perceived. .

Zimbabwe: Hidden Hand Behind MDC-T's Intransigence

2008-09-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

The Herald (Harare)

OPINION
6 September 2008
Posted to the web 7 September 2008

Harare

"The Bush administration said yesterday it no longer considers President Mugabe to be the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe and called upon the 'body politic' of his country 'to go forward and correct that situation'.

"We are continuing to work on what are some of the strategies that we can use to isolate Mugabe in the sense that he has to realise that the political status quo is not acceptable." He said the US and some European countries are working with the civil society in Zimbabwe, including human rights groups and private media journalists. -- The Washington Times, citing US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner, August 21 2002).

WE begin with the passage from The Washington Times of August 21 2002 in order to put into context the direct link between US-UK interference in Zimbabwe's internal affairs and the continuing demand for illegal transfer of power by MDC-T as well as Morgan Tsvangirai's refusal to accept the mandate of "inclusive governance" which voters created through the March 29 harmonised elections and the subsequent presidential run-off election of June 27 2008.

In other words, there is a direct link between the external manoeuvres of the regime change forces led by the US and UK and the internal manoeuvres of the internal proxies of those same in the form of MDC-T and its NGO cohorts here in Zimbabwe. The demand for the illegal transfer of power comes from exactly the same voters. But the same voters hold the key to solving the same problems.

First let us examine the external manoeuvres by the US, the UK and the allies. Having failed to stage the coup d'etat which the US State Department called for on August 20 2002, the US, the UK and the EU in June 2008 sought to subvert Zimbabwe's constitutional and electoral process in order to achieve the same objective stated by the State Department on August 20 2002: The overthrow of the elected Government and the unilateral cancellation of the people's vote.

How exactly did these powers try to achieve this objective?

l First, the US State Department again rejected the sovereign mandate of Zimbabwe's voters in the 2005 parliamentary elections which all the participating observers declared free and fair.

l Second, Bernard Kouchner for the European Union presidency; Gordon Brown for the British Labour government; and Condoleezza Rice and Jendayi Fraser for the US government -- all stated in June 2008 that the only government of Zimbabwe they were willing to recognise was one led by Tsvangirai.

l Third, the same leaders sought to force Zimbabwe to cancel the presidential run-off, even though it was required by our Constitution. They wanted to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the voters to revert to the indecisive election results that gave the opposition a slight edge over the liberation movement, Zanu-PF.

l Fourth, when 80 percent of the presidential run-off vote went to President Mugabe, the same white powers denounced the result and demanded the installation of Tsvangirai of the MDC as President of Zimbabwe.

l Fifth, they successfully recruited at least three leaders in Sadc to agitate for the position of the UK, US and EU -- that is to urge Sadc and the AU not to recognise President Robert Mugabe as the legitimately elected head of state of Zimbabwe. It took the firm resolutions of AU and Sadc summits to silence those three heads of state.

l Sixth, and finally, the UK and US manipulated the G8 and the UN Security Council to invoke Chapter Seven of the UN Charter against Zimbabwe in order to obtain UN permission for a military invasion of Zimbabwe which the US and the UK had been contemplating since the days of their Iraq invasion in 2003.

These political and diplomatic manoeuvres by the US, the UK and the EU were packaged as aimed only at removing one man, President Robert Mugabe, in the very same way that the vicious and illegal economic sanctions against all the people of Zimbabwe have also been misrepresented as targeted against the same President and his so called "cronies".

Yet a close analysis of all the manoeuvres by the white powers shows that their aim is to cancel the will of the people and the emphatic results of the people's vote. This was the aim of Walter Kansteiner's declaration on August 20 2002 as much as it was the aim of all the pronouncements by Gordon Brown, Bernard Kouchner, Condoleezza Rice and Jendayi Fraser in June 2008. What these white racist powers have been saying since 2001 is that the aspirations and votes of the people Zimbabwe do not count. What counts are the interests of white Britain, Europe, North America and the proxy groups they have chosen to sponsor within Zimbabwe.

But Sadc, through the mediation efforts of President Thabo Mbeki, has recognised both the aspirations and the votes of the people of Zimbabwe as the only bases for legitimate governance.

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The people of Zimbabwe aspire to fully reclaim and use their once stolen land. The people of Zimbabwe aspire to secure and exploit the natural assets and human resources of their country. The people of Zimbabwe aspire to choose their trade and development partners in the world. And the people of Zimbabwe elected a multi-party Senate and House of Assembly to pursue and implement these aspirations and objectives through mechanisms of "inclusive governance" to be led by President Robert Mugabe and to be based on the results of the presidential run-off on June 27 2008. That is democracy at work.

Sadc has conveyed these aims and aspirations of the people to the AU and to the Non-Aligned Movement who have also endorsed them. Together, Sadc, AU and NAM have also succeeded in getting China, Russia, Vietnam and Libya to block the Anglo-Saxon attacks on Zimbabwe at the UN Security Council.

So far it would seem as if the Euro-American onslaught from Walter Kansteiner in 2002 to Bernard Kouchner in 2008 has been fully rebuffed by Sadc, AU, NAM and those members of the UN Security Council who are friendly to Zimbabwe. However, there is need for an internal spear to complement the external diplomatic shield against foreign intrusion.

The majority of the people of Zimbabwe, the true and intended victims of sanctions and destabilisation, hold the internal spear against the internal proxies of the external powers. Since the end of the presidential run-off election President Robert Mugabe and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa have been pleading with those who may have become proxies of the external powers against Zimbabwe without knowing the tragic implications of such collaboration. The two leaders have been advising all those who became prodigal sons or prodigal daughters, without much though, to come back home and affirm the unity of Zimbabwe and the wish of the overwhelming majority for inclusive governance, national unity and an immediate end to sanctions.

It is now September, a long way from June 2008, and it looks as if MDC-T has definitely not listened to the appeals of the two leaders. The following evidence leads to this conclusion and our readers must judge for themselves each of the following examples.

The unelected military leader of Botswana, Ian Khama, is one of the three Sadc leaders once recruited to divide Sadc over Zimbabwe and to help the UK and US governments to destabilise the country. Yet it is that same leader and that same country which MDC-T and its leader are now using as a financial, diplomatic and propaganda rear-base from which to divide and destabilise Zimbabwe on behalf of the British and the North Americans.

The external infiltration of Zimbabwe through Botswana is so rife that even the EU and US shooting list of Zimbabwean patriots is being circulated and implemented by the Khama regime and the Botswana Diocese of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa. One Reverend Archford Musodza frequently communicates with the regime change elements inside Zimbabwe.

In the run-up to the June 27 presidential run-off election Musodza wrote a letter to one Christine in which he assumed that MDC-T was going to bury Zanu-PF and President Robert Mugabe on June 27. He wrote the following astounding things, among many others:

"Once the old man, Mugabe is ousted, either by the ballot box or by the MDC-T's other plan as discussed over the phone, that will also be the end of (Bishop Nolbert Kunonga). Once MDC-T's Tsvangirai takes the reins, then all former white farmers are assured of a return to their farms. The church will be restored and we can mobilise all Anglicans to now vote for a Bishop of Zimbabwe from Britain who is not polluted.

"The British bishop will be mandated to return the Zimbabwean Church back (sic) to correct hands, the English Church with proper British ethos."

It is only MDC- T president Morgan Tsvangirai who is mentioned by name in the letter to Christine as deserving imperialist support in Zimbabwe. Several other persons (including one MDC-T Member of Parliament who is a prominent lawyer) are also mentioned. Former Selous Scouts agents remaining in Zimbabwe are also mentioned as among the forces, which will help Morgan Tsvangirai, consolidate power.

Some readers could argue that the Musodza letter to Christine is fake. This would make sense if we were relying on just that leaked letter to reach our conclusions.

But there are other indicators. Apart from the anti-Sadc Zimbabwe postures and activities of the Botswana English Church and the military regime of Ian Khama, there has been Morgan Tsvangirai's prolonged stay in Botswana after the March 29 harmonised elections as well as his campaign to reverse the result of the June 27 poll from Botswana.

Most recently there are disturbing allegations that at least seven MDC Mutambara MPs-elect were lured to Botswana just before their swearing-in and lured with foreign currency in order to make them vote with MDC-T.

The same media reports also reports also allege that the same seven MPs, after their swearing-in and on the eve of the opening of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe, decided to abandon the accommodation officially booked for them by Parliament officials.

They joined MDC-T MPs at the Meikles Hotel where they continued to consult on ways to achieve regime change, contrary to the idea of an all-inclusive government led by President Mugabe.

Then during President Robert Mugabe's official speech opening that Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe, about 20 or more opposition MPs disrupted Parliament on camera. It is alleged by legal experts that disruption of Parliament was clearly in violation of Section 21(schedule) of the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act, Chapter 2:08.

The fact that neither the opposition nor individual members have apologised for what happened at the opening of the Seventh Parliament is consistent with role of the opposition required by the UK, the US and the EU, but totally inconsistent with the expectations and aspirations of the majority of the people of Zimbabwe who want an inclusive government focused on reversing the damage caused by unilateral and illegal sanctions invited by the same opposition in 2000-2001.

It is therefore important at this stage in the history of the Anglo-Saxon onslaught on Zimbabwe for the media to alert the majority of the people of Zimbabwe to the dangers which the opposition continues to pose for this country.

l First, from its beginning in 1999, the opposition and its "civil society" NGOs have allowed the Anglo-Saxon powers to parade the same opposition as part and parcel of the illegal regime change apparatus and as an internal proxy of the white West. When the leader of the Mutambara faction of this opposition recently allowed a belated interview to tell the same white powers to leave Zimbabweans to solve their own problems, that was exactly when seven MPs from that faction allegedly deserted the faction and rejoined the intransigent MDC-T.

l Since late 2007, Zanu-PF and the Government of Zimbabwe have been urging the opposition to join them in denouncing and resisting the illegal, unilateral and racist sanctions invited upon the country by the same opposition back in 2000. The opposition continues to refuse to join Zanu-PF and the Government in this urgent effort.

Instead, a large number of officials and supporters of that opposition continued to lie about the reality of economic sanctions, choosing to define them as just travel bans. Morgan Tsvangirai, Learnmore Jongwe, Nelson Chamisa, Obert Gutu, Douglas Mwonzora, Rashweat Mukundu and scores of others have misled the people into believing that the sanctions were just travel bans meant to keep President Mugabe and a few of his "cronies" from travelling. The unashamed denials were made on television, although other footage already existed on ZTV and BBC, in which Morgan Tsvangirai and Fidelis Mhashu had openly begged the world, and especially South Africa, to cut off the flow of petrol, diesel, electricity, finance, trade and everything else of consequence going to or coming out of Zimbabwe.

It was only after the British Labour government, the US Republican administration, and the EU began to target and threaten specific multinational companies over Zimbabwe in July and August 2008 that Tapiwa Mashakada of MDC-T finally admitted on ZTV that the sanctions were real economic measures targeting the whole economy and the people and not just travel bans on a few individuals. Yet, even after that, the opposition has remained silent on the issue of sanctions here, while its supporters abroad openly celebrate the effects of those same sanctions on the entire population of Zimbabwe.

l In late 2002, NGOs supporting the MDC showed their support for Anglo-Saxon efforts to divide and destroy Zimbabwean society. They published a big document called "Is Zimbabwe on the Brink of Genocide?" They proceeded to answer their own question, indicating which alleged "tribe" was going to set up and massacre which other "tribe" using what issues and what means.

The MDC formations for their part helped the efforts of their NGO supporters by claiming that genocide was indeed an ongoing process in Zimbabwe, targeted against the opposition. How the MDC formations could be defined as a tribe or race subject to genocide remains beyond comprehension.

l During the opening of the Seventh Parliament, those members of the opposition disrupting the proceedings clearly shouted that President Robert Mugabe and Government had no right to honour Kirsty Coventry as a sports heroine of national and international stature who won gold and silver medals for Zimbabwe at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It was in this part of their disruption of Parliament that the 20 or more MPs displayed the binary logic which the MDC-T has adopted from the rightwing who sponsored and founded the party.

The MPs shouted that, because Kirsty Coventry was of Caucasian ancestry, she could not and should not be hailed on behalf of the people by President Robert Mugabe and his Government. They went further to say that Kirsty Coventry belonged to them, to the opposition by virtue of her being of Caucasian ancestry.

This display of racist dualism has been an integral part of opposition thinking in Zimbabwe especially since 1999.

As a project sponsored by Anglo-Saxon powers, the MDC has adopted as one of its responsibilities the duty to erase the history of the African liberation movement by equating it with that of Nazism, fascism, apartheid and even UDI. The techniques used include what Naomi Klein calls recasting and conflating or conflation.

In recasting, the African land reclamation movement which seeks to enable the dispossessed African majority to reclaim their land which was once stolen by white settlers is presented as reverse racism which leaves no room for whites who are reconciled to Zimbabwe. But, in fact, this movement merely requires all Zimbabwean citizens of all racial origins to accept that the State now controls land on behalf of all.

The people and that all those who have reconciled themselves with the new Zimbabwe are entitled to queue for land on an equal basis and they shall be resettled. The sponsors of the MDC formations want the opposition to portray the land reclamation movement a racist war by Africans and against all the people of Caucasian descent.

This recasting erases the fact that Guy Clutton-Brock, a Caucasian Briton from Wales, was among the first Zimbabwean heroes to be buried at the National Heroes Acre. This recasting erases the fact that former East Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and former Soviet republics, together with China, were among the most faithful supporters of the African liberation movements of Southern Africa. This recasting seeks to erase the historical fact that it was President Mugabe who as Prime Minister in 1980 invited all Zimbabweans of all races to join the liberation movement in a process of national healing and reconciliation.

From the recasting, it becomes easy for the MDC formations and their white sponsors to conflate the interests of the few unreconstructed Rhodesians and Britons who rejected the hand of African reconciliation as if they are the universal interest of every Caucasian person who has ever lived on this planet. For it is only the few unreconstructed and defiant former Rhodesians and Britons who have so lost is because, by refusing to be resettled, they have refused to share that land with the dispossessed Africans.

The MDC formations are on the record claiming that the Daily News which used to be published by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, was meant to be their mouthpiece.

It is from that mouthpiece that we find the roots of binary linking (in the MDC formations) which claims that President Mugabe, Zanu-PF and the Government of Zimbabwe cannot and should not honour a national star of Caucasian ancestry because "she is not yours; she is ours (MDC)." In other words, by virtue of her ancestry, Kirsty Coventry or any other white heroine or hero belongs to the foreign-sponsored MDC formations.

Proof of this binary logic and the assigned role of the MDC formations can be found in the Daily News, April 19 2002. R. S. Mazoyo published a letter entitled "White Presence in MDC gives Zanu-PF hallucinations". The writer claimed that white people began to sit in harmony with Africans for the first time in the MDC and because of the MDC.

From there it was easy to claim that the African land reclamation movement was merely an African revenge orgy against all white people. It was driven not by desire for justice, fairness and restitution but by sheer black hatred of whites. The Daily News, June 15 2002, published a lengthy letter by one Marko Phiri, which conveyed this conflated message: Mugabe's white hate gospel has failed to poison race relations. The writer returned to paternalistic Rhodesian language of the late 1950s, race relations, rather than revolutionary solidarity.

Then on March 26 2003, The Daily News took the recasting and conflation to extremes. The President, in an address to mourners at Heroes Acre, scoffed at British efforts to portray him as an African Hitler's reputation is one of over-running other people's countries and destroying other people's nations and institutions.

On the contrary, President Mugabe's only ambition was to enable the people of Zimbabwe to reclaim and control the territory and assets of Zimbabwe and nothing more. However, The Daily News of March 26 2003 turned the meaning of the President's remark completely up side down and inside out, declaring: "Mugabe equates himself to Hitler"

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This MDC mission on behalf of white Rhodesians and the Euro-American white right explains the remarks shouted by the rowdy opposition MPs and Kirsty Coventry. This consistent mission, dating back to the founding of the MDC, also suggests that the opposition may not improve its behaviour even if it signs an agreement with Zanu-PF. A piece of paper may not change the mission or the history of the MDC documented here.

UK recession in '08, warns OECD

2008-09-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

02/09/2008

Britons should prepare for recession this year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned Tuesday.

The UK economy is set to contract at an annual rate of 0.3% during the third quarter, according to the Paris-based think tank, then by 0.4% in the final quarter of 2008. Two quarters of negative growth counts as a technical recession.

Data released by the Office for National Statistics last month showed the economy ground to a halt between April and June, prompting calls for the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

Annual growth came in at its weakest since the end of 1992, having been revised down from 1.6% to 1.4%, the same as predicted by the International Monetary Fund. The OECD cut its forecast to just 1.2% from 1.8%.

"Financial market turmoil, housing market downturns and high commodity prices continue to bear down on global growth while at the same time evolving rapidly," said the OECD's head of economics Jorgen Elmeskov.

The UK's prospects are the worst of all the G7 nations, with third quarter growth set to stall in both Germany and Italy before growing again in the following quarter by 0.1% and 0.6% respectively.

Japanese growth is seen slowing to 1.4% in the fourth quarter from 2.4% in Q3, while the US will manage growth of 0.9% in the three months to September and 0.7% at the end of the year.

Africa now attracting more foreign investment

2008-09-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

Dong Fang Development Company, a Chinese textile shop in Nairobi. The Sino-Africa trade increased to $55 billion in 2007. Photo/ANTHONY KAMAU

By CATHERINE RIUNGU

Posted Saturday, August 30 2008 at 15:28

Africa is becoming a preferred destination for foreign direct investment despite the failure by the G8 countries to keep their Gleeneagles commitment.

Investors brought in $36 billion in 2007, almost double the 2005 figure, according to a report published by the Africa Re-insurance Corporation (Africa Re).

The report attributes the FDI growth mainly to the influx of Chinese companies.

The Sino-Africa trade increased to $55 billion in 2007 with a positive balance of $2.1 billion in favour of the continent.

The report says the increase in FDI is a reflection of a general positive growth on the continent for the fourth consecutive year.

The continent has recorded an average growth rate of more than 5 per cent, matching a general average for the world.

The rate of growth, however was dampened by the increase in oil prices and agricultural products and the resulting inflationary pressure.

The economic well being in Africa is attributed to a number of factors key among them the cessation of conflicts in the Great Lakes region, the entrenchment of peace in West Africa — Liberia and Sierra Leone — improvement in public and private governance brought about by the new generation of political leaders who are more focused on development, and the increase in the revenue from exported raw material.

The continent has defied warnings from the West that it runs the risk of accumulating its debts.

However, African countries now approach China for, which grants them significant loans within a short time, whereas the traditional lenders take time to respond to only a few of their needs and often with stringent conditions.

The biggest borrowers from China are South Africa, Angola, Nigeria and Sudan.

China, together with Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have taken over the role of lenders to the world economy.

The leading economy on the continent — South Africa — saw a 4.5 per cent increase in gross domestic product in 2007 after an average of 3 per cent over the past 10 years.

This was attributed to an improvement in the national budget, from a deficit of 2.8 per cent in 1999 to only 0.6 per cent at the end of last year and a better debt management, which was 30 per cent of GDP, down from 50 per cent in 1994.

But inflation, which stood at less than 6 per cent then, has now increased to about 8 per cent following the surge in prices of oil and food products.

Angola attained a 24 per cent growth in its GDP due mainly to the sharp increase in the price of oil and other minerals.

The non-oil sector — agriculture, mines and construction — has regained its vitality following the resurgence of subsistence and export agriculture (coffee), diamond extraction, and the onset of reconstruction programme necessitated by the destruction caused by the civil war that ravaged that country for the past three decades.

In East Africa, Kenya, which recorded a growth of 7 per cent due to transfer of funds from the diaspora, tourism and tea, experienced post-election violence early this year marring its celebrated stability.

Analysts have projected that due to the violence, the country’s economy will grow by 4 per cent this year. But authorities say that the economy, which five years ago was on negative growth, will hit 10 per cent by 2012.

Uganda’s GDP increased by 6.2 per cent despite a deficit in energy supply while Tanzania, with similar difficulties attained a growth of 8 per cent.

The economy of Ethiopia is beginning to overheat following an 8 per cent growth in 2007 for the third year in a row, while the rate of inflation stood at 16 per cent mitigated by the purchase of cereal to be re-sold at a subsidised price by the state. That exceptional growth is attributable to vibrant agricultural activity, especially coffee, horticulture and oil seed.

A fresh view of history in East Africa

2008-09-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

Rating

Neolithic stone tools from Machaga Cave, Zanzibar and right, one of the island’s attractions. Photo/FILE

By DANA APRIL SEIDENBERG

Posted Saturday, August 30 2008 at 16:09

WHO MIGHT HAVE GUESSED THAT broken bits of pottery, beads and bones dug up or found in caves and other sites around East Africa could change the way world history is currently viewed?

Yet today, a whole new generation of East African archaeologists are recovering artifactual remains that are radically reshaping the whole story of the Western Indian Ocean littoral.

Far from being an insignificant backwater, there is near-incontrovertible evidence that the area connected as it had been to Pharaonic Egypt, to ports around the Indian Ocean and beyond, had been pivotal to world trade.

This emerging new picture has been long in search of an author familiar enough with old documents as well as new discoveries of the past several decades to weave them into a text of lasting value.

Last month in Zanzibar, itself a centre of trans-oceanic trade going back to 3000 BC, I picked up The Unity of African Ancient History by acclaimed Tanzanian archaeologist Felix Chami at the Beit el Ajaib (House of Wonders) shop. True to its name, in between dusty displays of famous dhows and doors in miniature and battered Arab coffee pots, a wondrous treasure was to be discovered.

Who is Felix Chami and why is his new book so timely and significant? Dr Chami is perhaps Tanzania’s most prolific archaeologist, educator and theoretical innovator. While many different academics have written on aspects of East Africa in Classical Antiquity, his was an original approach to the subject at hand, written for the scholar and layperson alike.

The result is a persuasive work of synthesis that is part site-work, part contemporary academic history and part imaginative re-creation.

Chami constructs a large picture of continent-wide unity from which the book’s title is drawn.

A fresh explanation to East Africa’s coastal multi-ethnic mix revolves around a series of internal migrations over centuries to the area, relegating to the proverbial dustbin the old canard of consecutive invaders bringing sophisticated urban society to the backward people of the Western Indian Ocean.

It makes sense and is best thinking on the subject in years for understanding East Africa’s changing social landscape over the period 3000 BC to AD 500.

Referring to conventional wisdom on Ancient Egypt as the colonial paradigm so prevalent over the past 130 years, he summarises the archaeological record to date, also citing ancient and modern historians.

HERODOTUS, WRITING IN THE 5TH Century BC, already knew what it would take another 2,500 years to discover: that Egyptian Pharaonic civilisation, a constellation of unparalleled architecture, gorgeous statuary and complex cosmology remarkable for its time and for all time, had been the work of Africans.

Yet during the 19th century, Victorian academics under the spell of pseudo-science thought Africans incapable of producing institutions of such complexity and beauty.

Why? Social Darwinists particularly saw human evolution as linear — a direct line from, say, slithering lizards to the British aristocracy. Segued into ideas of white supremacy, these outlandish presuppositions with their destructive implications became convenient subtexts for imperial expansion and colonial racism.

PERHAPS MORE INSIDIOUS, the glorious civilisations of Egypt and Classical Greece had been built by Europe’s white ancestors. It was not until the l980s that Martin Bernal, a Briton working out of Cornell University, New York, produced a profoundly anti-establishment treatise subversively entitled “Black Athena.” He suggested that Ancient Egyptians were neither European nor white but rather Afro-Asiatic, a multiethnic integration of Africans and Semites that Chami interprets as simply another way of saying Africans of many hues.

Chami’s ambitious work is not just an easy armchair narrative of historical synthesis but the product of years of experience in the field and hence a valuable archaeological archive as well.
Cave sites on the islands of Mafia and Zanzibar have yielded remains of domesticated animals that have been dated to between 2800 and 800 BC.

At another cave site in Zanzibar, chicken and cattle bones have been recovered that have all been dated to between 3300 BC and O BC. As chickens were first domesticated in Mesopotamia (Modern Iraq), their spread, involving human agency, had reached East Africa in ancient times, probably as early as 3000 BC, the same time African cereals had crossed to Asia.

Also related to the 3rd millennium BC, the date marking the earliest occupation of Zanzibar, is a pendant of gum copal, derived from a tree grown in East Africa that was found in a grave in Mesopotamia, suggesting that contact between the two areas began from this period if not earlier.

About 40 kilometres into the interior in the Rufiji Delta region, pottery of Roman or Indian origin has been found — suggesting that East African trade links with Ancient Rome was not restricted to the Indian Ocean islands and littoral but had extended deep into the interior.

Potsherds from Mafia island identified as having originated in the Nile Valley and dated to 800-400 BC support early dates for trade between the Nile Valley and the East African coast.

A CARNELIAN BEAD FOUND IN a Zanzibar cave was thought to have come either from India or Egypt, while a glass bead found in the same cave is thought to have originated in India, the carbon-14 dating for this bead being 135 to 45 BC.

Also discovered at Mafia Island were more beads and pottery from India attesting to a brisk trade between the two areas as well as two glass beads of Mediterranean origin dated from 300 BC to AD 400.

Chami’s exhaustive work, though a gem, is unfortunately unpolished. A crack editor should have been called in to keep the texture and contours of this complex, invaluable narrative in harmony, on track and lucid.

The author’s anarchistic English, his meandering sentences and tedious repetition of ideas and phrases, the result perhaps of returning again and again to the manuscript after long lapses in time, leave the reader gasping for air.

Manuscripts produced everywhere demand serious attention by skilled professionals. In this part of the world, dilettantism in publishing scholarly work is a general problem that surely must be resolved before the area can become truly competitive in the industry.

It bears repeating that no scholarly work or for that matter journal and newspaper articles as well as works of fiction should be allowed to go to press without the expertise of experienced editors. Book jackets are also crying out for talented graphic designers to make them attractive.

Without the input of these too often unacknowledged professionals, Chami’s endeavour falls just a bit short of being the crowning achievement of a life’s work that it aspires to be, at those giddy heights of universal scholarly excellence on East Africa in antiquity waiting to be scaled once more.

UK firms losing business in Kenya to China, India

2008-09-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

By CHARLES WACHIRA

Posted Saturday, August 30 2008 at 15:53

When Kenya purchased Toyota vehicles for its military forces, instead of the all-pervasive Land Rover, it signalled a seismic change — in effect ending the most favoured status enjoyed by imports sourced from its erstwhile colonial master the UK.

Another example is De la Rue, a UK-based printing and security firm that has uninterruptedly printed Kenyan currency since independence. It is fighting to retain its contract.

The administration of Mwai Kibaki broke with tradition, inviting other internationally recognised firms to bid for the job.

The London-based firm J&S Franklin Ltd served as a single-source supplier of uniforms and combat kits for the armed forces since Kenya “unshackled” itself from British colonial rule in 1963.

It has recently been blackballed by Kenya’s Department of Defence when its contract was terminated to the benefit of a Chinese firm.

Similarly, Brooke Marine and Vosper Thornycroft, two British companies that have exclusively supplied ships to Kenya’s navy since independence, have had to contend with the phenomenon of open tendering.

This change of fortune for British firms is captured in the official annual economic survey cobbled together by the country’s Ministry of Finance. In 2007, imports from the UK were worth Ksh29,414 million ($4.9 million) — compared to China’s Ksh45,668 million ($7.6 million) or India’s Ksh56,815 million ($9.5 million).

Compare this with 2001 during the peremptory reign of Daniel arap Moi. UK imports then totalled Ksh21,989 million ($3.7 million) while China was at a much lower Ksh6,792 million ($1.1 million) and Indian imports amounted to a relatively puny Ksh12,830 million ($2.1 million).

Since the replacement of Moi’s government in 2003, it has taken China and India three years only for their imports to Kenya to overtake those from the UK, formerly a premier source of imports.

“It is as a result of prudent decision-making that the Kenyan government opened up the country to the Far East, including Asian countries. As a result, Kenya has been able to access countries that provide better deals,” says Dr Gerrishon Ikiara, a former permanent secretary in the Kibaki administration and currently a senior lecturer at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi. “In the past, procurement of government goods was shrouded in mystery. Then political considerations mattered more than economic sense,” he said.

According to the economist, Asian countries offer competitively priced goods and services compared with the UK.

“Right now most of Kenya’s roads are either being refurbished or built anew by Chinese firms. And all our international airports are also being upgraded by Chinese owned firms. This is after going through the process of open tendering,” Dr Ikiara said.

Kwame Otieno, a senior researcher with the local think-tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), blames “the rigidity of the British system” as the fillip triggering the dip in British imports. The IEA is a non-governmental organisation that promotes debate on policy issues.

22 successful years of NRM Visionaries in Uganda

2008-01-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

The Vision of NRM is a peaceful, united, democratic, harmonious, industrialised, transformed and prosperous Uganda within a strong and united Africa.

The Mission of NRM is to transform Uganda from a poor peasant society into a modern, industrial, united and prosperous society.

NRM is a national, broad based, inclusive, democratic, non-sectarian, multi-ideological, multi-interest and progressive mass organization.

The Mission of NRM is to transform Uganda from a poor peasant society into a modern, industrial, united and prosperous society.

NRM is a national, broad based, inclusive, democratic, non-sectarian, multi-ideological, multi-interest and progressive mass organization. The NRM helped lift Uganda out of cyclic misery; got them out of the pit of tyranny and dehumanization. It also ended the shameful sectarianism promoted by colonialism and characteristic of the backward pre-industrial societies that do not have enough horizontal linkages. There is no doubt that the Movement was and still is the best system for a pre-industrial society like Uganda. The Movement system has been very democratic and very progressive. Apart from restoring the vote to the dis-enfranchised people of Uganda, NRM have empowered, in a very special way, the women, the youth, the disabled and the workers.

Power has been decentralized up to the village level. This is a most democratic system that brought unity to our people by ending unprincipled frictions in the villages. Such people should be identified and punished. There is no need to coerce a free Ugandan to agree with you. If somebody does not agree with you or is sceptical about your position, that is his/her right. You have no right to resent him or be violent towards him/her. Such attitudes are a negation of the freedom that is a product of the NRM Revolution. There is now political opposition and activity that goes unhindered provided its by peaceful means aiming for peaceful. It is their right.

World Economic Forum on Africa 2008

2008-01-25T03:03:00.000-08:00

Cape Town, 4-6 June 2008

The World Economic Forum on Africa 2008

Vigorous, sustained growth is continuing to lay the foundations for a genuine paradigm shift in Africa. Thus the World Economic Forum on Africa in 2008 will explore how the continent’s leaders can ensure that this trend continues and leads to positive change.

To address these issues and building on opportunities arising from continued growth, emerging partnerships, burgeoning South-South linkages as well as groundbreaking technology innovations, the meeting will generate critical insight and identify those priorities for action that will have a lasting impact on Africa's bright future.

Co-Chair

E. Neville Isdell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, USA

Contact

For more information about the World Economic Forum on Africa, please contact:
Africa@weforum.org

Africa Has Functioning Equity Markets

2007-11-27T10:46:00.000-08:00

The Voice (Francistown)

27 November 2007
Posted to the web 27 November 2007

Chedza Simon

Sub Saharan Africa is said to be having excellent and functioning equity markets, which are an added and competitive advantage to investor confidence for the continent.

Stephen Jennings, CEO of the Renaissance Group said while doubters, investors and African continent observers claim that high commodity prices are alone propping up Africa's economic vitality, the continent has exciting and functioning equity markets.

"Prior to1989, there were only five (5) stock markets in Sub Sahara Africa. Today there are 16 countries with fully operational bourses. These exchanges have seen a dramatic growth in market capitalisation rising from $14,5 billion in 2002 to nearly $100 billion now, a compound annual growth of nearly 50 percent," he said.

Jennings said while liquidity is still limited, it is increasingly rapid. According to his company's finds, equity turnover in Sub Sahara Africa year to-date is $15,7 billion, a two-fold increase from all of 2006. "Thriving stock markets and robust capital markets officer considerable benefits. They prompt more robust financial disclosure, improved corporate governance, a focus on shareholding rights and regulatory best practices. They boost domestic savings and they increase the quantity and quality of investment and investors.

Renaissance Group was, this year, involved in two landmark $300million equity capital markets transactions, one for Access Bank and the other for Union Bank. There is at least $1 billion offering in the wings for early next year, said Jennings.

Domestic demands and investment are key drivers in Sub Sahara Africa's economic expansion. "There are pent up savings in both government and the private sector which when put to work will further increase the speed of economic growth of Africa. Many governments have saved rather than spent their commodity and debt relief windfalls. Companies are also ready to increase borrowing because the cost of debt has fallen below expected rates of return."

For economies to prosper, Jennings said, there is need to foster sustainable domestic private sector. He is confident that for Sub Sahara Africa to prospect, governments need to accelerate enactment of legislation and developing regulatory regimes to reduce the cost and barriers of doing business in Sub Sahara Africa. "Land ownership and reforms is one very important case which is crucial to creating a strong and flourishing domestic private sector. Lowering and creating a level playing field for foreign investors is also necessary because the participation of foreign investors in the region's capital markets will drive valuation to international levels," said Jennings.

Ghana: TUC Warns Government Against 'EPA-Light'

2007-11-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

Public Agenda (Accra)

26 November 2007
Posted to the web 26 November 2007

Selorm Amevor

The Trade Union Congress (GTUC) has warned the government against any deception by the European Commission (EC) for an interim agreement concerning the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

According to the TUC, information available to them suggests that the government is seriously considering the EC's proposal for an interim agreement or a so-called 'EPA-light' which means the government would be committed to eliminate all tariffs up to 80 per cent of European imports into Ghana and the West African region for about twelve years.

In a press statement signed by the Secretary- General of the TUC, Kwasi Adu-Amankwah it commended the decision by the government together with its West African counterparts that it cannot rush to conclude an EPA by the end of this year.

According to the statement such a decision was in the best interest of the country since it has been widely acknowledged that a rushed EPA can inflict serious damage on the Ghanaian industry.

The Secretary-General said the EPA-light which has already been presented to a number of regions within the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries would still have dire consequences on the economies and jobs.

"The fact that the liberalization of tariffs on goods, including agriculture, will happen at such a level and rate that would threaten our small farmers and infant industries could spell disaster for our fragile economy."

In addition, the rapid loss of government revenue will paralyze government's ability to invest in education, health and decent jobs all of which are crucial to sustainable development and poverty reduction.

The statement further said the EPA-light being suggested by the EC does not in any way lower the ambition of the EC regarding the kind of trade agreement it wants to conclude.

"The EC still hopes to do a comprehensive deal on all issues such as investment, government procurement, competition and public services as well as intellectual property protection which Ghana and other developing countries have fought for years to keep out of the World Trade Organization (WTO)," it added.

AFRICA ARISES

2007-11-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

The EU-Africa Strategic Partnership
"The Lisbon Summit represents a turning point in the history of Euro-Africa relations. A moment when both continents decide to upgrade their partnership, to make sure they can live side by side, in peace, security, prosperity and dignity. A moment when both continents decide to tackle global challenges and shape the future of the planet together. A moment when women, men and children at both sides of the Mediterranean join forces, building a partnership of people."
Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and humanitarian aid and for relations with Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

The Joint EU-Africa Strategy provides a long-term vision for a strategic partnership between Africa and the EU for the benefit of the people of Africa and Europe, while the initial Action Plan 2008-2010 sets out priorities that should be implemented in the next 3 years.

Sixty facts and figures
Did you know that…

Africa is on the move
1. The number of African countries that held multiparty elections has increased from three in 1973 to 40 in 2005.
2. In 2007, for the second year in a row, GDP grew at over 5 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, posting 5.7 percent growth in 2005.
3. Nine countries were near or above the 7 percent growth threshold needed for sustained poverty reduction: Angola, Cape Verde, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Tanzania.
4. Intra-regional trade in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which established a free trade area in 2000, grew by 25% in 2003 to about €5 billion
5. Foreign Direct Investment increased thirteen-fold in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2005, from $1.2 billion to $16.5 billion.
6. In 2006 two thirds of the countries in the region made at least one positive reform to make doing business easier, putting Sub-Saharan Africa in third place in business reforms.
7. By 2006, there were more than 110 million mobile phone subscribers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This means that approximately 17 percent of the population of Sub-Saharan. Africa has a mobile phone, up from below 1 percent in the 1990s.
8. The total revenue generated by the ICT sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is equal to 5-7% of the total GDP of a country. This is higher than any other region in the world.
9. Gross enrolment in primary schools in Africa has risen from 72% in 1991 to 93% in 2004
10. Over the past decade, many low-income African countries, including Senegal, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana, and Cape Verde, have lifted significant percentages of their citizens above the poverty line, well on course to meet the income poverty MDG target of halving poverty by 2015.
11. Focused attention on HIV/AIDS is beginning to pay off. In the last two years, twentyeight of the 36 countries reporting data are showing reductions over time in HIV prevalence; 32 of the 36 are achieving monthly increases in ARV coverage.
12. Eritrea, Comoros, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Guinea have recorded sharp reductions in child (under 5) mortality.
13. The gender gap, still on average nearly 15 percent in primary education, is closing in 30 of the 36 countries for which we have information. And in the 45 countries reporting on the composition of their national parliaments, 31 are showing increases in the share of women holding parliamentary seats.
14. There are about 4.6million Africans legally residing in Europe

15. In 2005, African diaspora around the world send home about US$6.5 billion remittances to the 34 Sub-Saharan countries.
16. Tertiary students from sub-Saharan Africa are the most mobile in the world, with one out of every 16 – or 5.6 % - studying abroad.
17. Up to 2006, 800 Chinese companies have invested USD 1 billion, 480 joint ventures have been established and 78 000 Chinese workers employed
18. China imports 32% of its oil from Africa, oil related investments in recent years amount to at least 16 bn USD

Africa matters to Europe
19. Through the Everything But Arms scheme, the EU allows the least developed countries - most of them being African - to export to the EU duty free.
20. Through the Economic Partnership Agreements, the EU has proposed to extend fully free access to the EU market for all products (but one) to all Sub-Saharan African countries (except South Africa), from 2008.
21. The EU is importing more agricultural products from developing countries the he rest of the G8 countries plus Australia together. As a result, the EU is the biggest export market for African products.
22. In 2001-2003, the value of EU farm imports from Africa averaged € 7 billion per year and its exports to Africa were roughly half that. The U.S is Africa’s second major importer, but its imports are just one sixth the value of those that go to the EU.
23. EU agricultural imports from Africa are not restricted to traditional tropical commodity products. Almost half are fruit and vegetables (other than bananas), meat and oilseeds.
24. The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the implementation of WTO commitments are leading to a decrease in trade-distorting support to EU agriculture.
For example, whereas almost a third of EU agricultural and agri-food exports benefited from export refunds between 1996 and 2000, in 2002 this figure was reduced to 17%. In 2002, only 16% of subsidised EU agricultural and agri-food exports went to Africa.
25. The European Union is the largest donor for development aid, making available in 2005 more than half of all public aid or more than 55 billion USD worldwide.
26. The EU has decided to increase development aid by half between 2006 and 2010 in its efforts to effectively put an end to poverty.
27. The EU decided in 2005 to raise aid spending by at least €20 billion per year by 2010 and to reach, by 2015, the UN’s 0.7 per cent target.
28. Since 2005, the EU reviews yearly the coherence of twelve EU policy areas, including migration, agriculture and fisheries, with development objectives.
29. In 2004 101'429 students from Sub-Saharan Africa studied in European universities and other tertiary education institutions.
30. The EU will increase its aid for trade to € 2 billion a year from 2010 for all developing countries, in order to help developing countries take advantage of new and existing trade opportunities.
31. The EU is negotiating so called "FLEGT agreements" with Ghana and will start negotiations with countries in Central Africa soon. These agreements will allow only legally harvested timber products to be imported into the EU from FLEGT partner countries and will provide for a licensing and control system.
32. The EU has adopted an ambitious climate policy aimed as a long term goal to limit climate change to an average of 2°C as compared to pre-industrial levels; this policy will directly or indirectly benefit African countries, which are most vulnerable to climate change.
33. Since 2003, export subsidies and trade-distorting-domestic subsidies have been reduced drastically. By 2011, at which time the CAP reforms launched in 2003 and 2005 will be fully implemented, almost 90% of EU direct payments will be decoupled from production. In the context of the WTO negotiations, the EU has offered to eliminate all export subsidies by 2013 and to reduce trade-distorting-domestic support by 70%.
34. 22 EU Member States have ratified the "OECD Anti-Bribery Convention", which came into effect in February 1999. This agreement is aimed at reducing corruption in developing countries by encouraging sanctions against bribery in international business transactions carried out by companies based in the convention' member countries.
35. All EU Member States except Estonia and Slovenia have signed the 'United Nations Convention against Corruption'. To date 14 EU Member States have ratified it. This convention has the objective of fighting corruption within both the public and private sector.
36. In the negotiations for a the Cotonou Agreement, governing the relations between the EU and the ACP countries, the Commission has proposed to the ACP States a new Article that contains an obligation for all contractors under European Development Funds financing to respect and apply the different key ILO conventions linked to the protection of workers and children.
37. Total EU support – that is from the Commission and from the Member States bilaterally – to the African Union peace operation in Sudan (Darfur) amounts to over €435 million since the start of the operation in 2004.
38. The EU set-up a new instrument to finance peacekeeping operations, the African Peace Facility, with an amount of over 300millions. The EU agreed to free another €300 million for the period 2008-2010
39. The EU dedicated a sum of €2.7 billion a Governance Initiative in 2007 to support African countries adopted or are ready to commit to a credible plan of concrete actions and reforms.
40. The EU earmarked 5.6 billion € EU-Africa Partnership on Infrastructure aims to secure the interconnetivity of the African continent and its different regions Day in day out, Europe and Africa work together
41. In Angola, the European Commission put in place a €26m Programme of demining, return and resettlement. Through a combination of mine-clearance and institutional capacity-building, the programme helped Angola to overcome the legacy of almost 30 years of civil war and prepared the ground for the country’s sustained development.
42. The EU contributed to the first free and fair elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 40 years (July 2006) by granting € 165 million to the process – more than any other donor – and by sending its largest ever election monitoring team
43. With the aid of the EU’s Centre for the Development of Industry, the Ethiopian Firm “Dire Industries” has raised its production from 150 pairs of shoes a day in 2004 to 2 500 pairs a day now. Its sales have skyrocketed by 1600% in 18 months and its staff has grown fivefold.
44. The EU has granted over five million euros in aid to revive Madagascar’s production of leather. The project, being implemented by associations of local exporters, has improved the productivity and enlarged plantations. An origin and quality label, “Madagascar Vanilla“, has been created and is now recognised internationally.
45. The EU has finances (20 million €) small and medium enterprises in Tunisia, such as the CYMOD, a clothing firm operating in Manouba. It helped CYMOD to buy new equipment to enlarge its factory and to set up an ambitious staff training programme, increasing its turnover by 50% in 12 months and doubled its staff.
46. In Tanzania, thanks to the programme financed by the EU (34 million €), three water tanks have already been built, as well as a supply system. For the town of Mbeya alone, 500 to 700 new users a month have been able to get connected to the distribution system.
47. The EU is financing (€19 million) the repair of the road from Niamey, through Torodi and on to the border with Burkina Faso, accounting for 40% of Niger’s total traffic and benefiting an estimated one million people.
48. The EU has co-financed (€14 million) the building of two bridges on the Ntem river, in Eboro, along with 81 km of roads. As a result, for the first time ever an uninterrupted asphalted road connects Libreville (Gabon) to Yaoundé (Cameroon).
49. The EU has financed (10 million €) the construction of 908 classrooms, 321 primary schools, and the establishment of canteens in three of Burkina’s Faso’s poorest regions. As a result, the schooling rate has climbed in those regions from 29% to 41%.

50. In some 15 poor rural areas of Egypt, the EU has co-funded (100 million €) the construction of 160 schools, supplied 15 000 pupils with books, uniforms, satchels and school supplies and provided modern equipment for 300 schools. The aid has also made it possible to hire 11 500 new teachers and to train 55 000 headmasters.
51. The EU supports (2 millions €) in Ougagadougou, the capital of Bukina Faso, a programme creating a mobile health care unit creating awareness among 50 000 women who are pregnant or of childbearing age and providing food aid for the children of HIV-positive mothers.
52. An EU-supported programme (3.8 million €) combating AIDS reaches 650 000 people living in the corridors linking Malawi and Indian Ocean via Mozambique.
53. The EU decided in 2004 that €500 million be allocated for the Water Facility. The first tranche (€230 Million) helped over 10 million people to get access to safe drinking water by 2010, and helped around 5 million people to benefit from improved access to basic sanitation facilities.
54. The EU has developed a far-reaching programme that has led to the creation of protected zones in seven countries of Central Africa, the construction of tracks and observation points, the training of guards, surveillance measures to prevent poaching, and initiatives to protect trees and fauna. The programme is also working on alternative solutions to help the local inhabitants, who are highly dependent on forest resources for their survival. It has developed eco-tourism activities, like creating a gorilla sanctuary in the Lossi lands in the Congo.
55. In West Africa, the EU is supporting a project (11.7 million €) to improve climate monitoring and forecasting of monsoons and drought, and their impact on water resources and food security.
56. The EU is finding programs to fight against desertification in two vulnerable regions in central Morocco (municipality of Ouled Dlim) and Tunisia (Imada de Skjiret), where the planting of fodder shrubs like the locust tree and prickly pear provide a reserve of green fodder for drought periods.
57. In south-west Morocco the Commission and the EIB have, since 2003, financed a €40m project to improve the living conditions of women working with the argana tree.
The attraction of argana oil has directly benefited 4,500 women giving them sustained revenue over a long period of time.
58. The PUMA initiative, initiated at the request of five African Regional organisations in 2000 and funded by the EU (11 M€), has ensured the access to information on the environment and satellite data to all 53 African countries for early warning of natural disasters, improved food security, better health management, more efficient water and energy use.
59. In 2004, the EU and Africa concluded a Partnership on cotton to respond to the cotton crisis on the continent, comprising both trade and development components. In this framework the EU has made available over € 200 million to strengthen the competitiveness of the cotton sectors in Africa and has supported Africa in negotiating a favourable cotton solution in the WTO. The EU has no import duties or quotas for
cotton, provides no export subsidies and has largely decoupled its farmer support from cotton production.
60. For over 40 years the EU has supported livestock vaccination and disease eradication campaigns in Africa for a value of more than € 200 million. This has resulted in the containment and near-eradication of rinderpest from Africa. The recent approval of another € 4 million should allow the eradication of the disease in the remaining area (north-east Kenya, South Ethiopia, South Somalia).

Brown threat to boycott EU-Africa summit

2007-11-27T08:38:00.000-08:00

By John O’Doherty

Published: September 19 2007 23:28 | Last updated: September 19 2007 23:28

Tensions over Europe’s policy on Africa have come to a head after Gordon Brown said he would not attend a crucial EU-Africa summit in Lisbon in December, to protest the attendance of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.

“President Mugabe is the only African leader to face an EU travel ban,” the prime minister said in an article in Thursday’s Independent newspaper in the UK. “There is a reason for this – the abuse of his own people. There is no freedom in Zimbabwe: no freedom of association; no freedom of the press. And there is widespread torture and mass intimidation of the political opposition.”

EDITOR’S CHOICE
Labour moves to curb UK poll spending - Oct-31Cameron steps up pressure over EU treaty - Oct-15Westminster blog: Lib Dems axe Sir Menzies - Sep-24Matthew Engel: Storm tears limb from oak - Oct-10Brown seeks to learn from past disasters - Sep-28Bolton wonders whether poll is imminent - Sep-28Mr Brown said he believed that Mr Mugabe’s presence would undermine the summit, diverting attention from the important issues that needed to be resolved. “In those circumstances, my attendance would not be appropriate.”

European diplomats had been quietly hoping that Mr Mugabe would not attend the summit.

However, several months ago the 53 members of the African Union made clear to José Socrates, Portugal’s prime minister, that they would boycott the summit if the EU did not allow Zimbabwe to attend.

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is believed to have told a meeting of EU foreign ministers earlier this month that Mr Brown would not attend the summit if Mr Mugabe was invited.

The announcement that Mr Brown is to boycott the summit will come as a blow to Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU and has made the success of the summit a priority.

The EU is keen to increase co-operation with Africa on issues of immigration and development as China steps up its investment in the continent.

The Lisbon summit is to be the first of its kind since an EU-Africa meeting in Cairo in 2000. Attempts to hold another summit in 2003 were derailed by the possibility of Mr Mugabe attending.

This latest setback presents the hosts with an excruciating choice – either blacklist Mr Mugabe and risk a boycott by other African countries, or allow Mr Mugabe to attend and risk the absence of Britain and perhaps other European countries.

War in Somalia must end - Kagame

2007-11-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

War in Somalia must end - Kagame
Monday 26 November 2007 - 11:38
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Solomon
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The ACP-EU summit officially opened in Kigali on Tuesday with Rwandan President Paul Kagame calling for a concerted effort by the international community in ending the misunderstandings in Somalia.

Kagame used the opportunity of this 14th session of the African, Caribbean and pacific and the European Union joint Parliamentary Assembly convening at Serena Hotel to his government position on the Somalis state of war- it is simply a neglected country.

''It is unacceptable for us to watch while people die every day, in a situation made worse by the fact that Somalia has not had functioning state organs for more than a decade'', he said. He added that key parties, including African countries and the international community should join hands in restoration of peace and harmony in the horn of Africa, at least to the interest of millions suffering in this part of Africa, says the Rwandan President.

And, the Kigali establishment, he said, is already playing her part in the peace campaign by training Somali security forces. ''War in Somalia must end'', Kagame said, adding that the ingenuity of the international community must be seen to ensure that the war ravaged Somalia regains stability.

Kagame's plea comes at a time when heads of state started intervening. The French navy on Monday escorted two ships carrying food aid to Somalia to deter possible attacks from pirates. The waters off the war-torn country are among the most dangerous in the world-26 ships, including three carrying food aid, have been attacked this year.

Some 580,000 Somalis have fled their homes in 2007 due to increased conflict, the UN says. The country has also been ravaged by drought. For the issue of Durfur, the Kigali leadership observed that there seems to be a drastic improvement since the approval of the UN-AU hybrid force. The ACP-EU member countries rallied behind Kagame's concerns.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC FREEDOM

2007-11-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

Those who exploit human beings to serve their own self-interests do not want socio-economic freedom to be granted to people. That is why they continue their psycho-economic exploitation in such a way that people do not clamour for socio-economic freedom. They do not directly exploit the people in the social or economic sphere, but in the psycho-economic sphere, and they do it so intelligently that people are totally unaware of it, and hence are unable to develop their outlook properly.

Moreover, the exploited masses are also unable to develop economically because the exploiters control the economy in a subtle way. However, a day comes when some intelligent people emerge from the exploited masses having detected the exploiters’ techniques to dupe the people, even though the media is controlled.

At this stage the exploiters become active intellectually to prevent the germination of the seed of liberation. They take control of the education system, the printing presses and the propaganda agencies in a last and desperate attempt to raise high embankments to contain the surging tide of public discontent.

But soon after comes the day of change when the disgruntled masses rise up in revolt and the high sand embankments get washed away by the floods of revolution. After this the masses make an independent appraisal of the type of socio-psycho-economic exploitation they were subjected to. Before the revolution they may have discussed social injustice in private amongst themselves, but if they had tried to propagate their discontent publicly their tongues would have been cut.
-
Shrii Prabhat R Sarkar

African economies growing steadily

2007-11-15T15:49:00.001-08:00

Thursday, 15th November, 2007 E-mail article Print article

By Sylvia Juuko

AFRICAN economies have registered robust growth mainly fuelled by oil and mineral exports, a trend that is set to continue, the World Bank has said.

“Average growth in the sub-Saharan economies was 5.4% in 2005 and 2006, and the consensus projections are that growth will remain strong,” it said in a report published on Wednesday.

The report shows that exports rose from $182b in 2004 to $230b in 2005, representing a 26% rise.

It classifies African countries into three categories. The first group of seven countries comprises the seven major oil exporting economies, home to 27.7% of Africa’s population.

The second group of 18 countries, representing 35.6% of the region’s population, show diversified, sustained growth of 4%.

The third group of 17 countries, home to 36.7% of the population, is resource-poor, volatile, afflicted or emerging from conflicts, or in slow growth of less than 4%.

Uganda falls in the second category and is ranked number five with 6.1% growth.

Mozambique tops this list at 8.3%, followed by Rwanda (7.6%), Sao Tome and Principe (7.1%) and Botswana (6.7%).

The bank said for the first time in three decades, African economies are growing in tandem with the rest of the world.

“Something decidedly new is on the horizon in Africa, something that began in the mid-1990s. Many African economies appear to have turned the corner and moved to a path of faster and steadier economic growth.”

The report attributes the change in fortunes to improved policies, where inflation, budget deficits, exchange rates, and foreign debt payments are now more manageable. African countries have also improved in good governance and have stepped up efforts to fight corruption.

“These better economic fundamentals have helped to spur growth, but equally important to avoid the growth collapses that took place between 1975 and 1995,” the report says.

Rwanda and Uganda have made the greatest gains in life expectancy in the last decade, increasing by 12 and seven years respectively. Life expectancy, on the other hand, has decreased by 21 years in Botswana, 17 years in Lesotho and 16 years in Swaziland.

Uganda is one of the countries where national policies are re-oriented towards better education, the bank said. Private secondary education and training is expanding as well as emphasis on post-primary education.

The bank, however, calls for economic growth and development to be spread more equally within and among African countries.

“More than 40% in sub-Saharan Africa still live on less than $1 a day, life expectancy improvement has stalled in some countries, and poor health and poor schooling hold back improvements in people’s productivity.”

Dr Watson’s racist findings and Africa’s chronic slide

2007-10-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

October 30, 2007
One of the world’s most prominent scientists, Dr James Watson who shared a Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule in 1962 burnt his fingers when he tried his hand at the hot potato of race and intelligence.

Dr Watson claimed that “most tests” had shown that overall Africans were not as intelligent as people of European descent and that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa.” He later apologised “unreservedly” for the comments adding that “there is no scientific basis for such a belief!”

Sadly, Africans always come at the tail end of most important aspects of human development and progress, somewhat lending credence to the purveyors of the racially prejudiced idea that attributes intelligence -or the lack of it- to race.

Many stand on these premises and claim that perhaps Africans would have been “better off” if the colonialists had stayed on “a little bit longer” to see through their dubious project of “civilising” the supposedly backward Africans. The proponents of this argument sneer when challenged by those who assert that colonialism and its effect on governace, was the bane of Africa’s progress.

They point to the fact that many other parts of the world such as Asia and the Americas whose (occupants are not predominantly black) were also colonised at some point but have come off much better than (black) Africa.

Because, Africa was one of the last places to be colonised, by the time the colonialists came to Africa they had learnt great lessons from their abortive experience elsewhere and perfected the art of colonisation. They knew that colonialism would never be acceptable as a permanent condition and would at some point in time be resisted by the “natives.” They had to be shrewd. Ways were devised to gain eternal control and that the continent would be in a state of everlasting dependence and chaos.

A global economic system was perfected to ensure that the South (Africa) perpetually provided raw materials for processing in industries based in the North (Europe) at a minimal cost.

To access lucrative markets, unfeasible standards were set such that African finished products found it impossible to gain entry. The territories in Africa that were not colonised would later suffer this consequence and end up like the rest of the continent– economies with uncertain and insufficient economic bases.

Furthermore to fit into this arrangement, Africans were disadvantaged since they had to abandon their language (and culture) as a medium of communication in trade, education and daily operations, for predominantly English and French. A good percentage of their life time would be spent trying to learn and “catch up;” with their European counterparts as a necessity.

When colonialism ran out of fashion, power was handed back to the “wrong” people ie “democratically elected” fellows (the Obotes) instead of kings and chiefs who “owned” it at the onset of colonialism, in “republics” which were in effect different nationalities that were hastily and haphazardly merged. The contentions between nationalities would feature prominently in the politics of the continent with disastrous consequences.

Naturally these “democratically elected” leaders were resisted. They in turn dug in to protect their new found privilege of power. They fell back onto their tribes mates whom they could trust for their protection and perpetuation. (The concept of Generals coming from one area is no accident). Politics and leadership became a game of one tribe displacing another and trying to hang on as long as possible.

With this came along the evils of sectarianism, and corruption since recruitment was not on merit. Inefficiency, low motivation and productivity set in because being at one’s best did not guarantee promotion in ones field of expertise. Knowing the right people, did. The military coups of the late 60s and the early 70s funded by the dynamics of the cold war, stifled democracy, free thought and created an atmosphere of perennial fear and uncertainty which was definitely not conducive in bringing out the best of Africans.

It sparked unending devastation, with a good amount of the (productive) human resource (16-45 years) wasted either as refugees or as “combatants” practicing the art of destruction and not construction. Foreign aid and its high interest became inevitable yet in real terms encroached further on the continent’s resources, since most of it is either stolen or goes back to the donors as payment to expatriates tied to it.

The continent’s revenues ended up in unproductive defence expenditure instead of research, education, health, infrastructural development and investment and yet these are the aspects that would set a favourable environment and Africans would function and be judged correctly.

Many Africans and blacks, who have had studied and worked in (European) environments that cherish merit, invest in human resource, value and pay fairly for the input of individuals and their ideas, plus create an atmosphere of certainty, security progress and development have shot holes in the idea of race and intelligence.

China digs deeper into Africa with bank deal

2007-10-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

October 26, 2007, 15:15

China has served notice it is accelerating its investment drive in Africa towards full throttle with the planned $5.6 billion cash purchase of a major stake in Standard Bank by Beijing's biggest lender.

China's ICBC bank said yesterday, it is to buy 20% of South Africa's Standard Bank, the biggest foreign acquisition by a Chinese commercial bank yet. So far, China has focused its African ventures on mining companies as well as oil to feed its exploding economy.

The planned acquisition, which will also be the largest foreign investment in Africa, leaves no doubt that China has bigger things in mind. "It opens our eyes to the fact that China's strategy is about more than state-owned mining companies. A big investment in a major South African financial institution in Africa is a step up," said Philip Alves, an economist at The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).

ICBC's stake in Standard Bank will give it sustained leverage to penetrate financial networks in South Africa, the continent's biggest economy, as Beijing pushes major state firms to expand abroad, particularly in developing countries.

Johannesburg-based Standard Bank operates in 18 African countries, including South Africa, and 21 other countries across the world. Benefits will flow both ways, an idea that China has been pushing as it expands its economic base in Africa.

Standard Bank will gain access to the world's fastest-growing economy, boost its capital base and its ability to finance trade flows between Africa and Asia, Standard Bank Chief Executive Officer Jacko Maree said.

China's relentless investment offensive in Africa has been welcomed by impoverished countries. But it has drawn fire from Western nations and aid groups, who accuse Beijing of turning a blind eye to misrule, corruption and human rights abuses.

China argues it is spreading prosperity in the world's poorest continent where the West has failed. "Their engagement with Africa is not dominated by this discussion of how to transform the continent. They are willing to deal with Africa on its own terms and that has been very successful for them," said Chris Alden, director of the China in Africa research project at SAIIA.

China pumps cash into Africa and avoids politics
China's tactics in Africa have been straightforward: hotly pursue commercial deals and try to avoid politics. It has demonstrated skills in manoeuvring around political minefields in countries such as Sudan, where critics allege its military aid and oil investment has fuelled the Darfur conflict.

Investing has proven risky on the ground. Rebels in Ethiopia killed nine Chinese workers in a raid on an oil installation in April. A Darfur rebel group which said it attacked Sudan's Defra oil field on Tuesday, killing 20 government soldiers and taking two foreign hostages - described the assault as a message to China. Sudan's government denied any such attack, though China's embassy in Khartoum confirmed it.

China's CNPC has the biggest stake in the group that runs the field, alongside India's ONGC. But a steady flow of big deals since President Hu Jintao announced a drive to boost relations with Africa in 2004 suggests rewards may outweigh risks in the foreseeable future.

Chinese loans, donations and debt relief have been made along the way. Some African government officials wonder why countries like the United States invest in China while questioning the country's record in Africa.

"The Chinese investments are not tied to too much (political or economic) analysis compared with the West, they move quickly," Zambian Commerce and Trade Minister Felix Mutati said. "If China is good for the West, why should it not be good for Africa? We want to harvest the same benefits the West is getting from China," he said.

Lack of transparency from Beijing on details of its investments and aid in Africa has also alarmed Western donors, who have watched China become a player in countries such as oil-rich Angola, where Chinese credit is believed to be between $4 billion and $11 billion.

"Angolans will probably generally like it. It helps to a degree to alleviate the international pressure regarding the Angolan government arranging its finance facilities from China," said a banker in the Angolan capital Luanda.

"After all, if the scion of South African banking in sub-Saharan Africa takes on a major Chinese bank as 20% investor, that sort of gives the good housekeeping seal of approval to the Chinese in Africa." - Reuters

The Global Economy

2007-10-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION

The world's economies have developed ever-closer links since 1950, in trade, investment and production.
Known as globalisation, this process is not new, but its pace and scope has accelerated in recent years, to embrace more industries and more countries.
There have been losers as well as winners from globalisation, with China the biggest winner, and blue-collar workers the biggest losers.
The changes have been driven by liberalisation of trade and finance, changes in how companies work, and improvements to transport and communications.

TRADE

Since 1955, the volume of the world trade has grown much faster than the world economy as a whole, and for many countries it has been the engine of growth.
The gains of trade have been unevenly distributed, as first Europe, and then Asia joined the world trading system.
Other poor regions, such as Africa, dependent on commodities, have been left behind.
Trade talks helped boost trade in manufactured goods between rich countries as tariffs were cut.
Countries which aimed at export-led growth, such as Japan, Korea, and China, have benefited.
But liberalising trade in services - such as accounting - or agriculture has proved harder.
Now talks aimed at opening up markets in agriculture to benefit poor developing countries have stalled.

MULTINATIONALS

The way manufactured goods are produced has changed dramatically in the last 50 years as the cost of transport and communications has fallen.
More and more goods are produced by global multinational companies with production plants around the world.
This set-up enables them to take advantage of cheaper labour and gives them better access to local markets.
More recently, "virtual companies" have outsourced their production to other firms around the world. These use the internet to manage their global supply chain, or their IT services like billing.

MONEY

As well as the free movement of goods, there has also been a dramatic increase in the flows of money (capital) around the world.
Banks and private investors now hold trillions of assets invested overseas since the liberalisation of world capital markets in the l980s.
These capital flows are highly concentrated among rich countries and a few developing countries, and can fluctuate from year to year.
While some big developing countries like China have benefited from capital flows, smaller countries have been vulnerable when capital flows suddenly reversed, as in the 1997-8 Asian crisis.

RICH & POOR

The world distribution of wealth and income is highly unequal. The richest 10% of households in the world have as much yearly income as the bottom 90%.
Wealth - total assets rather than yearly income – is even more unequal. The rich are concentrated in the US, Europe and Japan, with the richest 1% alone owning 40% of the world's wealth.
Poverty, on the other hand, is widespread across the developing countries - which have five-sixths of the world's population. But it has fallen sharply in China.

Science 'can lift India's poor'

2007-10-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

Mr Kalam hopes his plans can be seen as a blueprint for prosperity
India's hopes of becoming an economically developed nation by 2020 depend on its continuing to drive forward through science and technology, the country's president Dr Abdul Kalam has said.
Mr Kalam, himself a former scientist, said that nearly a quarter of the country's population could be moved out of poverty if the government continued to back technology as the source of growth.

"That means about 230m out of a billion people will have been lifted up," he told BBC World Service's Discovery programme.

"The growth of the economy is very important - and if the growth of the economy is important, so is science and technology, because it drives this growth."

Economic key

Dr Kalam, who in 2002 became India's 11th president, was formerly an aeronautical engineer and father to the country's missile programme.

"Science brings two changes in life," he said.

Mr Kalam believes space is one area India has proved its success
"One is a way of thinking - it elevates people.

"The second is that, as science transforms technology, it brings faster development to the nation. That's how, from 1947 onwards, science and technology became the top priority for all the governments."

Following the country's independence from Britain, India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, described science as "one of the keys to economic development."

Dr Kalam explained that science had come to India's aid before - in 1953, when it was struggling with famine and required shipments of wheat to come in.

At that time, scientists and political leaders came together and decided to develop new methods of driving agriculture, he said. The result was 200m tonnes of domestically-produced food.

To aid the development of science in modern world, bureaucracy and government regulation has been relaxed, and Indian science and technology has moved in a new way. There is now, President Kalam argues, an ambition for Indian scientists to achieve as much at home as they do abroad.

Dr Rahunath Mashelkar, president of the Indian National Science Academy, said that the so-called "brain drain" had "always haunted us" - but that now, changes are taking place.

"During the last three years, more than 30,000 top-class professionals - scientists and engineers - have come back to the country," he added.

More than 200 multi-nationals have now set up research and development centres in India, including IBM, Microsoft, Shell, and General Electric.

"India is gradually becoming the land of opportunity," Dr Mashelkar said.

"The latest Intel chip is not being designed in the US - it's being designed in Bangalore."

'Three Ds'

But what is also of interest is the precise type of science being looked at.

For reasons that remain debateable, Indians have tended to excel in mathematics and physics, while life sciences have lagged behind.

But as biosciences become ever more important globally, the country is making efforts to restore the balance.

IBM expects to triple investment in India over the next three years

India is also looking over its north-eastern border, and the challenge coming from China.

China is India's rival for political influence, for manufacturing contracts, and also a rival in the worlds of science and technology.

"Countries like China are romping, whereas we are walking," Dr Mashelkar said.

"The kind of commitment and investment China has made is spectacular. They are giving their top 10 universities $125m. At the end of the day, they are saying they want 100 universities to be among the top 500 in the world.

"That kind of investment is something that, unfortunately, has not happened in India."

He added, however, that he believes India will ultimately triumph - owing to what he called the "three Ds."

"Firstly, democracy - which allows you to think freely.

"Secondly, demography - 55% of our people were born within the last 30 years. So we will have an enormous working population at a time when the rest of the working world is going to age.

"And the third is diversity. You need to be diverse to be innovative and creative, and we have phenomenal diversity."

But for President Kalam, there need not be such direct competition.

He told Discovery that his message is that an evolved, enlightened society - based on Indian ideas - can lead to "a peaceful, prosperous and happy planet."

"It's a three-dimensional approach, involving education with a value system, religion transforming into spirituality, and the most important, economic development for societal transformation in all the nations," he explained.

"The global implementation of this three-dimensional approach, in an integrated way, will lead to a peaceful planet yet."

20TH CENTURY EUROPE

2007-10-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

EMERGING ECONOMIC GIANTS

2007-10-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

POPULATIONS

One in three people worldwide lives in either China, the largest communist country, or India, the largest democracy.
For the moment, China remains the most populous nation, with 1.3 billion inhabitants, followed by India, which is home to 1.1 billion.
But India's higher fertility rate means the gap is narrowing and the UN expects it to overtake China before 2030.
Both countries are also experiencing rapid growth in their urban populations.
In China, the number of people in towns and cities is likely to exceed the number in the countryside by 2015.

AGEING POPULATIONS

India and China have to face the challenge of providing for their ageing populations, just as many Western nations do.
As people live longer and fertility decreases, there will be millions more people in retirement and fewer workers to support them.
It has been suggested that China will have to ease its strict one child policy to overcome the problem.
In India, where only 10% of the workforce is covered by formal pension schemes, there are questions over how the elderly will be supported.
Some experts say such problems could hamper the nations' economic growth.

ECONOMIES

China's emergence as a world economic power follows years of expansion, with growth of 9% or more the norm.
It is a major exporter and may now be the world's fourth largest economy, having overtaken Italy and possibly the UK and France.
India has also seen dramatic growth - of more than 7% a year - and is the recipient of much foreign investment.
Figures from the Economist Intelligence Unit suggest the US will remain the largest economy in real terms.
But on a measure based on purchasing power, China could overtake the US by 2020.

LIVING STANDARDS

Economic, social and environmental problems are a concern in India and China.
Vast wealth gaps exist, with the majority of people left on the margins of the nations' rapid economic growth. Social discontent has affected both.
Air and water quality is a concern in both countries. Many of the world's most polluted cities are in China.
Despite such problems, however, it is suggested that continued growth will drive up living standards for the populations as a whole.
Life expectancy is continuing to rise and infant mortality is falling. Access to education has improved, as has literacy.

India and China 'to boost Africa'

2007-10-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

Africa can use Indian know-how to access world markets

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says a booming India and China can be of benefit to economies in Africa.
In a policy insight document, the Paris-based think-tank said there are a number of ways the continent can gain.

The OECD says Indian and Chinese growth has dampened world inflation pressures, lowered global interest rates, and raised raw material prices.

This in turn, it says, has helped to improve Africa's terms of trade.

'Skill formation'

It also says China and India are markets for African goods as well as competitors, especially in the export-oriented clothing and textile markets in which quotas to protect African exporters were removed in January 2005.

"On the other hand, African consumers gain from cheap consumer goods sourced from the Asian drivers [India and China] and African investors from cheap and appropriate capital goods" the report says.

The research paper also points out that China and Indian firms are increasingly outward-oriented and resource-hungry.

It says this opens up many opportunities to African governments as Asian corporate presence in India increases.

This can in turn be used by African nations as "a source of technology, skill formation and world market access, apart from foreign finance that come with the investment".

Microsoft Is Yielding in European Antitrust Fight

2007-10-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

By STEVE LOHR and KEVIN J. O'BRIEN
Published: October 23, 2007
Microsoft has given up its nine-year fight against antitrust regulators in Europe, saying yesterday that it would not challenge a court judgment from last month and would share technical information with rivals on terms the software giant had long resisted.

The European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, negotiated the terms for Microsoft to share information with rivals.

European regulators and some software groups in Europe hailed the deal as a breakthrough that should open the door to freer competition, especially in the market for the server software that powers corporate data centers and the Internet.

The agreement was struck in Europe, but it will have consequences worldwide because the terms for licensing Microsoft’s intellectual property will be extended to competitors in the United States and in other markets. If the new terms enhance competition, as the regulators say, consumers could benefit from lower prices and faster innovation in software.

The Microsoft deal leaves untouched the ruling last month by Europe’s second-highest court that provides a strong legal foundation for the European Union’s power to force a dominant company to share its intellectual property with rivals.

But just how much effect the agreement will have on the global software marketplace remains uncertain because many issues in the case already have been addressed, either by engineering or by previous legal settlements, according to some industry analysts.

As part of its past efforts to settle its antitrust problems, Microsoft has reached costly agreements with competitors that were the company’s most outspoken critics, including Sun Microsystems, I.B.M. and Novell.

In general, analysts said, the private settlements between Microsoft and competitors provided for cross-licensing and sharing technology.

What is clear is how much Microsoft’s room for legal maneuvering was limited by the ruling last month by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. The court reaffirmed that Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, had abused its market power and said the company must obey a 2004 European Commission order to share confidential computer code with competitors.

After the courtroom setback, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, wrote a conciliatory letter to Neelie Kroes, the European competition commissioner, according to a commission staff official. During the first week of October, Mr. Ballmer was on a scheduled trip to Europe and made an impromptu visit to the Netherlands, where Ms. Kroes lives. Over a long dinner, they met and agreed on the broad terms of the deal. To reach the final terms, Mr. Ballmer and Ms. Kroes spoke daily after the dinner meeting, according to a Microsoft executive.

The upper hand in these talks, legal experts say, certainly belonged to Ms. Kroes. “She was really negotiating from a position of strength, which she did not have before the ruling by the Court of First Instance,” said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University.

Ms. Kroes cast the agreement as a victory for Microsoft’s rivals, especially companies that rely on open-source software like the Linux operating system, an increasingly popular alternative to Microsoft’s products on servers.

To thrive in the marketplace, open-source software must work well with Microsoft’s desktop programs, notably the Windows personal computer operating systems. More than 90 percent of PCs run on Windows. Microsoft software also powers about 70 percent of the market for servers, so access to that technology will be crucial for competitors.

The European order mandates that Microsoft share its technology information on fair terms, so competing software can work smoothly, or interoperate, with Windows software. It is those terms to ease interoperability that will become more favorable to Microsoft competitors.

“These changes in Microsoft’s business practices, in particular towards open-source developers, will profoundly affect the software industry,” Ms. Kroes said in a statement. “The repercussions of these changes will start now and will continue for years to come.”

Under the agreement, Microsoft said it would not pursue a final appeal to the European Court of Justice, which could have drawn the case out two to three years more. Microsoft said it would make the server protocols available for purchase through its Web site, at www.microsoft.com/protocols.

Under the agreement, software developers must now pay only a one-time fee of 10,000 euros, or $14,300, to gain access to Microsoft’s communications protocols, which specify how to exchange data between Windows and rival products. These protocols are trade secrets, not patents. If competitors want more information than those trade secrets, they must license Microsoft’s patents, paying a royalty of 0.4 percent of the competing product’s sales. Microsoft had originally demanded 5.95 percent of sales as royalties.

“This is a huge breakthrough,” said Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, which had challenged Microsoft’s practice of withholding technical information. “Microsoft is finally doing what the commission ordered it to do. This will level the playing field.”

American industry analysts were skeptical that Microsoft’s concession would have a big impact in the marketplace. “This is an important but incremental step,” said Dan Kohn, the chief operating officer of the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium.

For years, Mr. Kohn noted, open-source engineers in a project called Samba have legally picked apart the Microsoft communications protocols and written code that mimics them. This reverse-engineered code, he said, is now included in Linux. “So we have generally good interoperability with Windows now,” he said.

But the hope, Mr. Kohn said, is that the new licensing terms will make it easier for competing software to work smoothly with Windows, without the need for reverse engineering.

He said, however, that he doubted that the agreement signaled a new spirit of openness on Microsoft’s part. He noted that the company was still pushing to make its Office document formats an international standard, a move seen by rivals as an effort to make it more difficult to develop competing personal computer software and Web-based applications. These formats are the digital frameworks that turn bits of data into formatted documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

A group of companies led by I.B.M. have complained to European regulators about Microsoft’s use of its Office formats.

“I think what we’re seeing today is a strategic retreat by Microsoft, a concession in one market and no more,” Mr. Kohn said.

Still, the move by Microsoft does show that the company is intent on removing the cloud that the European antitrust conflict has kept over the company’s business and stock price, analysts said.

“Financially, the antitrust issues have not had a material effect on Microsoft, and it’s not yet clear that this agreement will have much impact on the software market,” said Charles di Bona, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “But it does help to remove the European cudgel that has been hanging over the company’s head. It removes an element of uncertainty, which shareholders hate.”

Microsoft shares rose 1.13 percent yesterday in regular trading, to close at $30.51.

Microsoft has paid nearly 1 billion euros ($1.43 billion at current exchange rates) in fines since the commission’s initial ruling and could face fines of up to 1.6 billion euros more that began accumulating in December 2005 after Microsoft did not start sharing technical information as freely as the European Commission had demanded.

Ms. Kroes said she would decide before the end of the year whether Microsoft must pay the additional fines. But as of yesterday, she said, “The major issues concerning compliance have been resolved.”

France; Let them be killed

2007-10-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

By ZACHARY OCHIENG

Despite France’s persistent denial of its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which left close to a million people dead within 100 days, a new book says Paris had knowledge of the impending slaughter. The Role of France in the Rwandan Genocide, a 330-page work by Daniela Kroslak, published by Hurst and Company of London, explores the historical and contextual background of the Rwandan genocide and French involvement in Africa.

The book goes further to explore the often raised questions: What advance knowledge did Paris have about preparations for genocide? Was the French diplomatic and military establishment capable of stopping the preparations for and commission of the genocide?

Francois Grignon, International Crisis Group Africa Programme director, says the book is, “A superb job of looking systematically at French responsibility in the Rwanda genocide. From a research point of view, Kroslak provides the best analysis I have read of the motivations behind Operation Turquoise.

“The book also provides key insights into French policies at the UN in New York and during the Arusha negotiations. The argument is strong, well presented and unbreakable.

“But this book also goes much further than just explaining the disaster of French policy and proving French responsibility. It presents a fundamental set of questions regarding international responsibility and action against mass murder, which are still relevant 13 years later.

“It is not an anti-French diatribe, and that’s why it is strong. It is balanced, and also highlights in conclusion the contradictions and inadequacies of America and Britain’s post-genocide policies.”

After the Holocaust, the victorious allies pledged “never again” to allow genocide. This promise, enshrined in the UN Convention on Genocide, stipulates a responsibility to prevent genocide or mitigate the suffering of its victims.

In this regard, the author asks: To what extent can external actors, such as the French government, be held responsible for not preventing or not suppressing genocide in Rwanda and how can this responsibility be evaluated? Why, almost 50 years after the signing of the Genocide Convention, did the outside world remain passive while Hutu extremists perpetrated genocide against the Tutsi minority and Hutu moderates in Rwanda?

“French involvement in Rwanda was marked by a close relationship between French and Rwandan authorities. As part of the Francophone grouping of states, Rwanda represented an important ally in the pursuit of Francophone interests in Central Africa.

“With reference to a military co-operation, therefore, it was no surprise that then French president Francois Mitterand did not hesitate to help the Rwandan regime against a rebel invasion,” Kroslak writes.

By providing a comprehensive and critical analysis of France’s role in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994, the author reveals that France was indeed well informed about the deteriorating situation in Rwanda prior to and during the genocide.

She writes: “It was heavily involved on the ground and maintained good relations with the elites that eventually committed the genocide. Furthermore, it possessed the capability to intervene — politically and militarily — on behalf of those who were victimised by the government.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS and interviews support the argument that the French government bears responsibility for its inaction in relation to the prevention and suppression of the genocide.”

Kroslak writes that the analysis of diplomatic correspondence and government statements from October 1990 to March 1994 shows that the deterioration of ethnic relations was an issue that preoccupied French officials in Kigali and Paris.

The propaganda campaign waged against the Tutsis and the political opposition did not go unnoticed. In a diplomatic cable of December 19, 1990, then French ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres, stated, “The rapid deterioration of the relations between the two ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi... leads to the imminent risk of a slip with harmful consequences for Rwanda and the whole region.”

According to Kroslak, further evidence of the French government’s knowledge concerning the worsening situation is found in the correspondence of its military attache in Kigali.

In two messages, Col Rene Galinie informed Paris about the worrying state of affairs in the country. As early as October 12, 1990, Col Galinie said that, “This conflict will end by degenerating into an ethnic war.”

Twelve days later, he branded the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) as foreign invaders, and predicted that if the RPF tried to gain power, this would “in all likelihood lead to a physical elimination of the 500,000 to 700,000 Tutsis inside Rwanda by the 700,000 Hutus.”

Despite this prediction, Col Galinie aligned himself behind the government rhetoric, namely that the Tutsi invaders were out to re-establish the political power they lost in 1959.

Another French official, General Jean Varret, the head of the military co-operation mission to Rwanda from October 1990 to April 1993, on his arrival met the Rwandan Col Rwagafilita, who explained the Tutsi question to him thus: “They are very few, we will liquidate them.” Kroslak further argues that Kigali’s diplomatic community in general was concerned about the deteriorating situation.

On December 19, 1990, the ambassadors of France, Belgium and Germany and the representatives of the European Union in Rwanda jointly prepared a report warning that, “The rapid deterioration of the relations between the two ethnic groups — the Hutu and the Tutsi — runs the imminent risk of terrible consequences for Rwanda and the entire region.”

The author says, “Considering these various communications and statements from the early days of the civil war, one can plausibly argue that the French government was aware of the ingredients for an explosive mix in Rwanda. President Mitterand was informed about the dangerous situation, but believed that the tide would turn. After all, that is why the French troops were there.”

Besides the French government’s own sources of information regarding the preparation of the genocide, there were also external sources, including reports from inside and outside Rwanda, appeals from civil society, as well as concerns voiced by journalists and researchers.

Kroslak admits that it is difficult to be categorical that this information reached the French government and its representatives. However, she adds that there are strong grounds for assuming that reports in the public sphere would be known by Paris, especially considering the French government’s interest in Rwanda. Further information was available to the French government via its seat on the UN Security Council and its role in the UN.

After France had pushed for a peacekeeping mission for Rwanda, as agreed by the Arusha Accords, this force provided yet another pool of knowledge from which the French government could draw.

ACCORDING TO THE ARUsha Accords, the UN had to play a significant role in the Rwanda peace process. The agreement provided for a neutral international force that would assist with the implementation of the peace agreement.

In New York, France was heavily involved in the drafting of Resolution 872, which created the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (Unamir). Once it was established, Unamir’s reports revealed that the situation was increasingly worrying in Rwanda, and that the force commander had to passively watch this spiral towards genocide.

“Probably the most famous document in the months preceding the Rwanda genocide is the so-called Genocide Cable, written by Unamir’s force commander Major General Romeo Dallaire on January 11, 1994,” writes Kroslak.

“This cable notified UN headquarters of an informant who revealed that the Interahamwe trained men in camps and that the personnel were able to kill up to 1,000 Tutsis in 20 minutes,” the author adds.

THE INFORMANT SAID HE was told to register all Tutsis in Kigali for them to be killed. He also disclosed plans to kill Belgian soldiers (which subsequently happened on April 7), which would be followed by the Belgian battalion’s withdrawal.

A cable of January 12, 1994, told Paris about the situation: “The information obtained by Unamir is serious and plausible. In fact, several pieces of evidence show that arms are actually distributed to certain elements of the population.”

But the French government ignored this. Although France, with its troops, representatives and intelligence services on the ground was far better informed than Unamir, it could also draw on the reports of Unamir.

Although information was available about the threat to exterminate the Tutsi, there was no reaction by the French permanent representative to the UN Security Council concerning the increasing violence.

The French presence on the ground in Rwanda gave France certain knowledge of the situation, which other Security Council members never obtained.

The French government ignored warnings such as the one voiced by the UNHCR special delegate to Rwanda, Michael Moussali, who expressed his unease in late February, by predicting a bloodbath if the political stalemate was not overcome soon.

Kroslak writes that, “All this while, the French had the military capability to prevent the genocide. The troops on the ground could have taken advantage of their position to influence the regime or place certain conditions on the assistance provided.

“Furthermore, proper attention could have been given to the candidates being trained by the French. Better co-operation between French troops and Unamir during the last months of 1993 might also have helped to uncover arms caches and protect citizens at risk.”

Politically, the French government’s presence in Rwanda and its close relationship with the Rwandan government was bound to influence Juvenal Habyarimana’s regime.

By refusing to condone the extremist measures being instigated by the elites, Mitterand could have forced through a change in policy. After all, Rwanda was heavily dependent on France’s support, financially, economically and militarily.

JUST AS THERE WERE NO SERIous efforts to demand that the elites adopt a less extremist attitude, there was hardly any reaction to the news of the many massacres committed prior to the genocide. “Despite the fact that the creation of documented structures of violence (death squads, death lists, and later, hate propaganda inciting violence) provided warnings of a potential genocide, the French government remained silent,” Kroslak writes.

The French government should have shown its disapproval because the massacres and the repression were themselves designed, in part at least, to probe the resolve of the UN and other international actors.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, former UN special representative to Burundi, says, “These killings were all little tests of how the international community would react.”

During its heavy involvement in Rwanda, Paris tolerated racist propaganda speeches, such as the one made in November 1992 by Leon Mugesera, a close confidante of Habyarimana, promulgating anti-Hamitism.

No pressure was put on the government to curb such speeches.Although Paris adopted a rhetoric of democratisation after the 1990 La Baule conference, its support for democratic opposition parties in Rwanda was limited.

More effort could have been made to foster its influence and importance within Rwandan society.

“Attempts to openly encourage democracy were limited to some token statements from the embassy and from Paris. Instead, the French government equated an ethnic with a democratic majority,” writes Kroslak.

The author argues that the French government had several other opportunities to avert the killings in Rwanda. The most obvious measure would have been a more critical and open attitude towards the French public concerning its dealings in Rwanda.

Opening up these dealings to public scrutiny might have thrown up a debate about French engagement in Rwanda, which might in turn have altered the attitudes of officials in Paris and even in Kigali.

The French government still refuses to acknowledge the fact that the RPF force was made up of refugees that had fled Rwanda a generation before and was not committing an “external aggression” in any normal sense.

If the French authorities had had a more balanced attitude towards the RPF, and the refugee issue in general, their military support for the Habyarimana regime might have been less wholehearted.

The Rwandan president might in turn have been more willing to negotiate with the RPF and have realised that a negotiated settlement was the solution. But the backing of Paris made him and his allies too self-confident.

Let’s first discuss the US African Command proposal

2007-10-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

THE PROPOSED military engagement of the US in Africa through its Africa Command is a strategic move that cannot just be left to the US alone.

The initiative may have good intentions but there are those who say it will increase the possibility of war in Africa. Still others believe the US is spreading its brand of imperialism after Europe, China, Turkey and the rest showed new interest in African resources.

Currently, Africa is divided into three regional combatant commands. The US Central Command covers the Horn of Africa, the European Command covers sub-Saharan Africa while the Pacific Command covers the islands in the Indian Ocean.

It is not the first time the US is embarking on a large-scale programme in Africa. We have had the Africa Growth Opportunity Acts, the Millennium Challenge Account, the African Contingency Operation for Training and Assistance, and the Global Peace Operation.

Why would the US want to impress upon Africans the need to form a strategic Africa command when there are already so many US engagements in Africa?

Several reasons are advanced, such as the botched operation in Somalia in 1993, the devastating effect of 9/11, the inability of African countries to counter terrorism adequatelly, general lack of proper infrastructure and the persistent ongoing conflicts in Africa.

All the same, Africans should find out if creating the Africa Command is viable and beneficial to the continent.

The Africa Command will definitely consolidate US interests in Africa. However, Africa should think out the African Command and still be involved in US initiatives in Africa.

Eugene Jernigan

Africa loses $18b to armed conflict annually — study

2007-10-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

By PHILIP NGUNJIRI
Special Correspondent

Africa is losing about $18 billion a year to armed conflict. In addition, civil war or armed insurgency shrinks the African economy by 15 per cent, says a new study.

On the other hand, the cost of conflict in terms of African development was approximately $300 billion between 1990 and 2005 — equal to the money received in international aid during the same period, according to the study entitled Africa’s missing billions, by International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).

“If this money were not lost due to armed conflict, it could solve the problems of HIV and Aids in Africa, or address the continent’s needs in education, clean water and sanitation, and prevent tuberculosis and malaria,” says the report, compiled for IANSA by Oxfam International and Saferworld, and released last week.

This is the first time analysts have estimated the overall effects of conflict on GDP across the continent.

The countries where the study was carried out were: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan and Uganda.

The study comes as diplomats from around the world arrive at the United Nations to discuss an Arms Trade Treaty.

Armed violence is one of the greatest threats to development in Africa,” said Irungu Houghton, Oxfam’s African policy advisor. “The costs are shocking. Our figures are almost certainly an underestimate,” he added.

The costs are incurred in a variety of ways. There are the obvious direct costs of armed violence — medical costs, military expenditure, the destruction of infrastructure, and the care of displaced people — which divert money from more productive uses. The indirect costs from lost opportunities are even higher.

The research also estimates that 95 per cent of Kalashnikov rifles used in these conflicts come from outside Africa. Kalashnikovs are the most common weapon in Africa’s conflicts. The combatants who ignore the rules of war and commit human rights abuses are almost always supplied from outside the continent.

Joseph Dube, IANSA Africa co-ordinator, said: “As an African, I implore all African governments and weapon-producing governments to support a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty. This is a call for global co-operation and cannot be achieved working alone.

“The government whose factory produces the rifle is as responsible as the government who permits its ships to transport them. Similarly the states that unload the cargo must monitor whose hands these weapons end up in. Without this regulation, the cost and suffering borne by Africans will continue to be immense.”

Between 1990 and 2005, 23 African nations have been involved in conflict. During this time it is estimated how these countries’ GDP would have grown if there had been no conflict, by comparing them to peaceful countries of a similar economic status. For example, during Guinea-Bissau’s conflict in 1998/99, the projected growth rate without conflict would have been 5.24 per cent, whereas the actual growth rate was minus 10.15 per cent.

This methodology almost certainly gives an underestimate. It does not include the economic impact on neighbouring countries in terms of political insecurity or a sudden influx of refugees. The study only covers periods of actual combat, but some costs of war, such as increased military spending and a struggling economy, continue long after the fighting has stopped.

In countries affected by war, the direct costs of violence (such as military expenditure or the destruction of infrastructure) pale in comparison with the indirect costs of lost opportunities. These include, inflation, debt and high unemployment. They also include income from natural resources going to private individuals, rather than being invested in the nation as a whole.

More people, especially women and children, die from the consequences of conflict than in the fighting itself.

African governments are convinced of the need to control arms transfers and have already taken encouraging initiatives at regional level. These are important steps but will not solve the problem on their own. The arms trade is a global industry and needs a global, legally-binding treaty.

Oxfam, IANSA and other NGOs are campaigning for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to prohibit arms transfers if they are likely to be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian or human-rights law, or undermine sustainable development. Such a treaty would not prevent responsible arms transfers for defence, policing or peacekeeping.

So far, African support for an ATT has been crucial to its success. Negotiations in the United Nations are reaching a critical stage. It is vital for governments, in Africa and around the world, to support these negotiations and demand a strong result.

IANSA is the global movement against gun violence — a network of 700 civil society organisations working in 100 countries to stop the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons.

Saferworld is an independent non-governmental organisation that works to prevent armed violence and create safer communities in which people can lead peaceful and rewarding lives, while Oxfam is a development, relief, and campaigning organisation that works with others to overcome poverty and suffering around the world.

How Britain lost the plot in Kenya

2007-10-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

Written by John Kamau

Nairobi State houseOctober 22, 2007: Bogged by a fading influence on local politics and business alike and unlike his predecessors, British High Commissioner Adam Wood gets little Press coverage and courts little controversy opting for the quiet life of a diplomat.

Mr Wood, who was posted to Kenya from neighbouring Uganda in 2005--and for the second tour of duty in the country--is less controversial and might never match in the public arena his two predecessors: the verbose Edward Clay of ‘they-are-vomiting-on-our-shoes’ fame and Sir Jeffrey James, who came to Kenya in 1997 at the height of tribal clashes and a looming general-election.

Sir Jeffrey --who later became Tony Blair’s special envoy to chaotic Nepal-- left a mark and as he departed after four years he was given a tongue-lashing by former President Moi who openly called him a “meddler” as he, as required by protocol, went to bid the then head of state goodbye.

Ever since the UK had been losing its foothold on Kenyan politics and business too - especially after “new” Labour took power.

Moi, was close to the Tories especially the now 82-year-old Margaret Thatcher. It was a political closeness that saw a library named after Thatcher at the Moi University at the height of Anglo-Kenya relations and Kenya get close to three percent of the entire DFID bilateral funding.

Like Thatcher - both are separated by a one year gap- Moi was a conservative and the two had a special bonding after the later became the first head of state to meet Thatcher when she was elected Prime Minister in 1979 - two greenhorns, heading separate governments.

Thatcher, who had defeated Labour’s James Callaghan nine months after Kenyatta’s death allowing Moi to take over, turned a blind eye on Kenya’s human rights record while Moi reciprocated on Thatcher’s stand on apartheid South Africa and twice invited her to Kenya for a State-visit. It was a scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your-back arrangement that was ended by the defeat of the Tories by Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997.

The exit of the Tories saw the arrival of Sir Jeffrey James as Blair’s Kenya envoy which explains the enmity between the envoy and Moi. As he left the UK withdrew its direct Budget support of £15 million opting to fund civil societies or to channel its funding via locally-based British financial management firms such as KPMG and PWC.

But still Britain has remained the second largest bilateral donor to Kenya after US whose total Overall development assistance to Kenya totals about $700 million per year.

There is reason for that: “Britain needs Kenya and Kenya still needs Britain,” argues Dr Adams Oloo, a University of Nairobi political science lecturer.

Although, since 2001-2002 the UK government has spent a total of £170 million in Kenya statistics show that since 1997 – when Tories lost power- the UK expenditure in Kenya has been cut by more than 50 per cent from a high of 2.8 per cent of the entire UK DFID bilateral programme to a low of 1.3 per cent by 2004-04 financial year.

In 2005/06 DFID spent over £60 million in Kenya with over 80 per cent of that spent on health, education and humanitarian assistance- but still no penny for budgetary support.

And as the cash dries up so has been the British influence and diplomatic contacts. Kibaki finishes his first-term without making any formal state visit to UK.

“I wouldn’t read too much into that. I think the level of diplomatic contact between the two countries has been excellent,” says Dr Ludeki Chweya, a University of Nairobi political scientist. “When you see friction then the level of contact must be very close.”

At an old Victorian house on 2 Tchui Road in the reclusive Muthaiga suburb, the Union Jack still flies high. For ages, it has been the residence of past British High Commissioners where a well kept garden, bamboo trees and an undulating ground hide the fading influence.

Down the street is President Kibaki’s private residence where he shaped the first bits of his government after he defeated the Kanu candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2002 general elections and before he was driven to State House on the morning of January 2, 2003 in an old family Mercedez Benz car.

While the British had hoped that the new government would restore the wavering relationship damaged in the last years of Moi regime, Kibaki opted to work with the US, for security purposes, and moved east for economic support and where he could get unconditional aid.
Britain had pegged their aid to democracy and fighting graft.

While Liberal democrats in the UK were hoping that Kibaki would be accommodated – or would play ball the Labour counterparts appeared to be more concerned with “unfinished business”

It was one of the first questions tabled by Labour Mps in UK parliament on January 21, 2003 asking Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth affairs the fate of “unfinished business” with the previous Kenyan regime.

Peter Bradley, then Labour MP for The Wrekin asked: “Is the minister aware however that many British citizens, including constituents of mine, have unfinished business with the previous Kenyan regime. I am thinking of those whose assets, property and land have been withheld…”

Bill Rammell told parliament that he would organize a meeting with the Kenyan High Commission “to see how we can press the new Kenyan government on the issue.”

While those significant happenings were hardly reported in Kenyan press he admitted one thing: “We [the UK government] are at a critical juncture.”

The next on stage were the Liberal Democrats.

Fifty-six days after he was sworn in as President, Lord Steel, a liberal democrat who was brought up in Kenya (as David Steel) and attended Nairobi School (Then Prince of Wales School) asked Baroness Valerie Amos, the minister for Africa, whether UK would resume bilateral budget support to Kenya as a result of the peaceful transition.

By this time it was still hoped that the UK would automatically resume aid.

“If they pursue the right policies, we will return to giving a limited amount of budget support,” said Amos adding. “…[but] we are very concerned about corruption in Kenya.”

No. 10 Downing StreetAmos had been sent to Kenya a month after the Kibaki election and had on January 28, 2003 met a wheel-chaired President Kibaki at State House as a follow up to another visit by Clare Short – the maverick Secretary of State for International Development who quit four months later over the Iraq crisis.

When Clare visited Kenya, Kibaki was in a Nairobi hospital bed after a nagging clot was discovered. But in London the future of Kenya was getting raised in Westminister with Conservatives heaping praise on Kibaki.

On January 22, 2003 Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle), a Tory, said he had “known and admired” President Kibaki “for more than 30 years and that he is undoubtedly the personality best equipped to grapple with Kenya’s very serious problems.”

Sir Peter- who as a soldier and student roamed Kenya and Tanzania in 1950s- wanted to know whether Clare Short would “use all her influence to make sure that Britain and the international community give every possible help to Kenya, where we could change the situation, whereas we are not likely to have much influence on Zimbabwe?”

Britain no doubt wanted to influence the political and economic stage in Kenya after failing in Zimbabwe. In her answer, Clare Short was tactical: “The new President is a great hope for the country. Unfortunately, he is in hospital because of a deep vein thrombosis, but I gather that the prognosis is good”.

Clare wanted to move fast to court Kibaki. She had meetings with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the EU and others, “and we are going to try to mobilise an enormous international effort to help the country forward, deliver to its people and deliver the reform that Kenya needs,” she told parliament.

A week after that issue was raised UK minister for Africa Baroness Valerie Amos took off to Nairobi on the day Kibaki left Nairobi Hospital and announced that the British government was ready to resume full aid to Kenya once discussions between Kenya and international financial institutions are finalized. Amos said Britain was waiting for a report on the new reform programmes before it resumes donor funding.

But if the British had hoped to cultivate some close rapport with Kibaki what followed shocked them.

Two weeks after that State House meeting between Amos and the President - and from behind the scenes - Kibaki on March 14 pulled a trigger on British interests by ordering his long time ally and Finance minister, David Mwiraria and the newly-appointed Governor of Central Bank Dr Andrew Mullei to cancel a ten-year multi-billion shilling currency printing tender that had been awarded to British company De la Rue by former Governor Nahashon Nyaga without tendering.

De la Rue, the largest British investment in Kenya since independence was to lose its key client.
Dr Chris Murungaru, Kibaki’s first minister of State for Provincial Administration and National Security – and now banned from setting foot in UK because of his “conduct, character and association– has always claimed that he was sacrificed for this fall-out.

“I think the former High Commissioner Edward Clay was to hard on Kibaki and they (Kibaki’s handlers) decided to hit back,” argues Dr Adams Oloo, a university of Nairobi political scientist.

It was during Murungaru’s tenure also that Southampton-based Ship Builder, Vosper Thornycroft, faced new competition in its supply of ships to Kenya.

Although it clinched its first deal in 1966 when it delivered three fast patrol craft and had been doing business with Kenya’s military ever since.

The Kibaki government opened the supply to tendering and so was the supply of police and government vehicles which saw the arrival of Toyota Land Cruisers in place of the British Land Rovers.
While these were treated as side-shows in the storm that became Anglo-leasing saga they remained important business issues.

While the British were privately arguing over business deals US moved faster than expected and invited Kibaki for a State Visit in October 2003 where an “alliance on war on terror” was born with a promise of $100 million to train security apparatus.

In diplomatic circles, the US kept off the anglo-leasing debates or casually followed it leaving Edward Clay to lead the choir.

As the row hit top notch Kenya pulled a political trigger on UK and legalized the Mau Mau movement, which fought the British establishment in colonial Kenya. The ban for the first time legalized Kenya’s war on liberation and according to BBC it ended “the stigma that has hung over the movement, even after independence in 1963.”

Kibaki upped the game by unveiling a statue on freedom hero Dedan Kimathi (still regarded as a terrorist in British books) in Nairobi and on the 50th Anniversary of his hanging by British authorities and secret interment in an unmarked grave.

“The unveiling is of historical significance because it shows a sense of diplomatic maturity. Kenya decided to honour its heroes and revisit the Mau Mau issue without harming the Anglo-Kenya relationship. Again, countries do not normally agree on who is a hero and it appears that Kenya and UK have decided to forge forward by finally putting the issue into history,” says Dr Mutuma Ruteere, the Dean of Kenya Human Rights Institute.

Interestingly, UK papers did not pick the Kimathi statue story. But the Anglo-leasing saga has been played out in both BBC, The Guardian and The Times.

Parliament BuildingsWhile it was true that De la Rue’s tender was cancelled because it was single-sourced its French international rival in currency and security printing Francois-Charles Oberthur Fiduciaire (FCOF) was on the verge of getting into Kenya’s lucrative printing scene with a Sh2.7 billion passport and visa project without open tendering. It was the first scandal that hit the Kibaki government.

At the international arena the geo-politics of security printing came to fore while locally key Kibaki allies were deeply ensconced into the scandal.

Inside Kibaki’s State House two groups had emerged taking advantage of the ailing President. It was in this fight that saw John Githongo, the Ethics Permanent Secretary who had been fished from Transparency International to add credence to war on corruption, sandwiched between two warring groups promoting different interests.

His attempt to investigate the Anglo Leasing scandal saw him dubbed as “British spy” and his self-exile into UK and release of confidential documents later only compounded the rumour.

For his part, Murungaru filed a case against Githongo saying the dossier “consist of a pack of falsehoods, rumours, gossip, inconclusive inferences, suspicion, hearsay (that) are the product of the defendant’s fertile, creative and artistic imagination.”

Professor Paul Collier is currently riding high with his book The Bottom Billion. A respected Oxford University economist, Prof Collier is the man who “sheltered” John Githongo when he quit his job while on a UK trip.

Prof Collier is well connected in the echelons of the British system. When a House of Commons Select Committee on International Development held a session last year, he was one of those invited to give evidence.

Some of the examples he gave were on how he sheltered Githongo: “because I believed that his grievances were right and we had better support him. I passionately believe in the redress of grievances.”

The Anglo-Leasing row, Mr Githongo’s self-exile — and the diplomatic furore the leakages triggered — made the gap between UK and Kenya widen at a time when there was hope that a meeting between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Tony Blair would heal the wounds.

Kibaki visited UK in October 2003, on his way back from Washington, and in October 2005 — none of which were State visits and stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, London.

When he met Mr Blair, there was no significant shift in the war of words that was taking place in Nairobi where Edward Clay had to be summoned by the Foreign Affairs ministry to explain his public utterances. A summon in diplomacy denotes the lowest mark in diplomatic relations. The next is expulsion.

For many months, Kibaki did not appoint a high commissioner to UK and Daniel Koikai acted as commissioner before the appointment of Joseph Muchemi and presentation of his credentials in February 2004, two years after Kibaki was elected.

Back at Oxford, where Prof Collier found Mr Githongo a place to work, he finished the Anglo- Leasing dossier and gave it to the UK Press and later posted it on the Internet.

While the dossier damaged the Kibaki government’s credibility in fighting corruption, it also saw the relations between the two countries dip to an all time low.

While Kibaki purged his government — and later reinstated the ministers accused of the scandal apart from Mr Murungaru—the thawing relations did not improve.

In January 2006, Hillary Benn, the UK Secretary of State for International Development, was driven to State House to meet President Kibaki. Part of the talks centred on the Githongo Report as he was to later inform parliament.Internally, Kibaki’s government improved the collection of revenue, which rose from Sh200 billion to Sh400 billion and the Kenya Revenue Authority coined the slogan Kulipa Ushuru ni Kujitegemea.

In most of his public addresses, Kibaki suavely told off donors who had kept off budgetary support insisting that Kenyans were able to finance 95 per cent of their budgetary requirement. While the corruption allegations failed to have a global impact, Benn was to make an admission in parliament that there was little they could do on Kenya.

“I do not foresee the corruption allegations making a significant impact on international assistance in the short term. Most of the development agencies, including DFID, believe that just because poor people live in a country where corruption is a major problem, it does not mean that they do not deserve our assistance,” he told parliament in June last year.

Six months later he quipped: “The Government of Kenya is clearly not tackling corruption as effectively as they could and we need to adopt a co-ordinated and common response across the donor community. Direct budget support is not appropriate for Kenya …”

But by opting to engage with “other agencies”, the former colonial power appears to have lost its place over the years and its fortunes dwindled.

While the level of diplomatic contacts may not have deteriorated, Kibaki’s handlers have had little rapport with their British counterparts.

In the world of geo-politics, the recent events may look like backwater, but unlike the Margaret Thatcher years, the relations between UK and Kenya may be at the coldest level.

Turning poverty into an industry

2007-10-23T14:46:00.001-07:00

By PHILIP NJUNGIRI

AFRICA-BASED NON GOVernmental organisations (NGOs) are playing a bigger role in expanding and consolidating neoliberal hegemony in the global context, says a new book.

“It may not have been as direct or as underhand as some of the activities willingly undertaken by colonial missionary societies and voluntary organisations. However, that is not to say it is any less significant,” argues one of Africa’s most articulate critics of the destructive effects of neoliberal policies in Africa — Issa G Shivji — in his new book: Silences in NGO discourse: The role and future of NGOs in Africa.

The book is published by Fahamu — a publishing house that supports the struggle for human rights and social justice in Africa.

In two extensive essays, Shivji shows that the role of NGOs in Africa cannot be understood without placing them in their political and historical context.

Aid, in which NGOs play a significant role, is frequently portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables the wealthy to help the poor.

The two essays have appeared in abridged form elsewhere. “But because of the importance of the subject and the richness of the arguments presented by Shivji need to be heard in full, we are pleased to be able to make them available to a wider audience,” notes the publisher in the forward.

The book examines the role and future of NGOs in Africa in the light of its self-perception as a non-governmental, non-political, non-partisan, non-ideological, non-academic, non-theoretical, non-profit association of well-intentioned individuals dedicated to turning the world into make it a better place for the poor, marginalised and downcast.

Faced with an avalanche of accusations over the “end of history,” the Tanzanian scholar says that he finds it necessary to emphasise the history of Africa’s enslavement, from the first contacts with the Europeans five centuries ago, through the slave trade, to colonialism, and now globalisation.

“The aim of this historical detour is to demonstrate the fundamental antithesis between the national and the imperial, so as to identify correctly the place and role of NGOs within them.

“I locate the rise, prominence and privileging of the NGO sector in the womb of the neoliberal offensive. Its aims are ideological, economic and political.”

He argues that NGO discourse, or more correctly, non-discourse, is predicated on the philosophical and political premises of the neoliberal or globalisation paradigm.

Shivji’s regular essays in the Tanzania press have been a beacon for those who grapple with understanding the post-independence onslaught on their countries that has led to a situation where it is accepted that social and economic policies should be determined, not by the electorate, but by a small elite that gets its legitimacy (and power) from London, Washington, Berlin and Paris.

Undoubtedly, Shivji’s book is highly critical and sometimes ruthlessly gets to the NGO world, but notable is the fact that the author has been involved in NGO activism for about some 15 years, mostly in his native Tanzania. However, he makes it clear that he does not doubt the noble motivations and good intentions of NGO leaders and activists.

“But we do not judge the outcome of a process by the intentions of its authors. We aim to analyse the objective effects of actions, regardless of their intentions.” Aid, in which NGOs play a significant role, is frequently portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables wealth to flow from rich to poor, poverty reduced and the poor empowered.

“The market and voluntarism have a long association; the first and most celebrated period of ‘free trade,’ from the 1840s to the 1930s, was also a high point of charitable activity throughout the British empire,” he argues.

In Britain itself, the industrial revolution opened up a great gulf between the bourgeoisie and the swelling ranks of the urban proletariat. In the 1890s, when industrialists were amassing fortunes to rival those of the aristocracy, as much as a third of the population of London was living below the level of bare subsistence. Death from starvation was not uncommon.

At this time, private philanthropy was the preferred solution to social need, and private expenditure far outweighed public provision.

IT IS HARDLY SURPRISING THAT in the current era of neoliberalism we are seeing, once again, a burgeoning of NGOs: the new missionaries to Africa.

While such institutions had some presence in Africa in the post second world war period, it was really only in the 1980s and 1990s, as structural adjustment programmes were imposed across Africa by the international financial institutions and development agencies, that NGOs really flourished, gradually taking over the work of the retrenching state that had been persuaded to disengage from the provision of social services to its populations.

The bilateral and multilateral institutions set aside significant funds aimed at “mitigating” the “social dimensions of adjustment.” The purpose of such programmes was to be palliatives that would minimise the more glaring inequalities perpetuated by their policies.

Funds were made available to ensure that a so-called “safety net” of social services would be provided for the “vulnerable,” but this time not by the state (which had after all been forced to “retreat” from the social sector) but by the ever-willing NGO sector.

The possession of such funds was to have a profound impact on the very nature of the NGO sector.

This was a period in which the involvement of Northern NGOs in Africa grew dramatically. In the 10 years between 1984 and 1994, the British government increased its funding to NGOs by almost 400 per cent, to £68,700,000 ($137.4 million). NGOs in Australia, Finland, Norway and Sweden all saw similar increases in official funding from the early 1980s.

As a consequence of the increased levels of funding and increased attention, the number of development organisations in Western countries mushroomed, and many established NGOs experienced spectacular growth.

Over the past two decades, development NGOs have become an integral, and necessary, part of a system that sacrifices respect for justice and rights. They have taken what has been described elsewhere as the “missionary position”. This means — delivering services, running projects that are motivated by charity and pity, and doing things for people (who, implicitly, cannot do for themselves), albeit dressed up with the colours of participatory approaches.

It would be wrong to present the relationship between Western NGOs and official aid agencies in the 1980s as the product of some conscious conspiracy, as was clearly the case with colonial missionary organisations. The precondition for the co-option of NGOs into the neoliberal causes merely reflect a coincidence in ideologies, rather than a purposeful plan.

The proponents of neoliberalism saw in charitable development the possibility of enforcing the unjust social order they desired by consensual rather than coercive means

Comesa’s single-document transit scheme to cut costs

2007-10-23T14:36:00.001-07:00

By MAZERA NDURYA
Special Correspondent

Member countries in the Common market for East and Southern Africa have taken a step closer to economic integration with the introduction of a single document on customs guarantee for transit traffic within the bloc.

The volume of trade and business within the Comesa region is expected to grow following the launch of the Regional Customs Transit Guarantee Scheme by cutting down transport costs and delays in cancellation of transit bonds.

Speaking during the launch of the Comesa Carnet in Mombasa, Assistant Secretary General (programmes) Sindiso Ngwenya said transport costs alone accounted for about 40 per cent of the value of goods being transported within the region.

“Anything being put in place to reduce this cost will greatly enhance the region’s competitiveness and generate more income for the people,” he said.

The issue of competitiveness can not be addressed unless something was done urgently about the escalating cost of doing business in the region which is limiting direct foreign investment.

Mr Ngwenya said the new scheme allows transporters to use one document from the country of origin without waiting for clearance from customs officials at border points. This will eradicate the Customs bonds that companies have to lodge with their respective revenue authorities.

“Recent estimates show that over $1.2 billion worth of Customs bonds are tied up in guarantees, which adversely affects the economy. Even if we are able to reduce the cost by just 20 per cent, our businesses will reap huge profits that will trickle down to the producers at the grass root,” he said.

The piloting of the scheme will be followed by an evaluation of the entire system ahead of the Comesa Head of States Summit in May, 2008.

Kenya Revenue Authority Deputy Commissioner Kevin Safari said the practice of raising cash or bank guarantee or insurance bond in each country of transit was cumbersome and time consuming.

“Nationally executed bonds, for instance, have tied up colossal sums of money belonging to importers, clearing and forwarding agents and transporters which, if released could be used for productive purposes,” he said.

A recent study, he said, indicated that a general 10 per cent increase in transport costs will lead to a reduction in trade by about 20 per cent.

Mr Safari said the launch of the scheme has come when players in the cargo business have been waiting for its implementation since the adoption of the Common External Tariff for the Comesa Customs Union during the 12th Summit of the Heads of State and government held in Nairobi last May.

However, the challenge now rests with the National Customs Administration in the Northern Corridor countries to put in place necessary administrative mechanisms to ensure the successful piloting of the Comesa scheme.

Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe — have already ratified the scheme.

Kenya Reinsurance Corporation assistant director Jadiah Mwarania said the new system will cut down cases of tax evasion significantly as it will be easier to monitor the movement of cargo. Kenya Re is co-ordinating the scheme.

SDV Transami regional commercial manager Giancarlo Bonanno said his company has about Ksh3 billion ($44.7 million) in bonds tied up with the KRA for guarantees.

“We are one of the major players in the transportation of cargo to the East African countries. So we are well-placed to appreciate the interest and the benefits of the Comesa Carnet Piloting Scheme,” he said.

A senior official of the East African Freight Forwarders Association (FEAFFA) John Bosco Rusagara said the bond was long overdue.

“This is going to cut time wasted by about 70 per cent once the scheme is fully operational. In fact, we expect the border offices to be removed because it will be much easier to transact business through online acquittals,” he said.

Canadian giant, Vangold, signs deal to explore for oil in Kenya

2007-10-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

By A CORRESPONDENT

Canadian-based, Vangold Resources Ltd, has signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with Kenya’s Ministry of Energy to explore oil on Block 3A in the North Eastern Province.

This is the third exploration contract to be signed with an international oil company in three weeks.

Block 10A went to Camec International of the UK, Block 11 to the Geneva-based Swedish firm Lundin International and Block 3A to giant Vangold Resources.

Kenya, it would seem, has decided to intensify efforts to find oil. At a recent ceremony in which Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi signed the deal with Lundin, he said the ministry had come under pressure to explore for oil after its neighbours — Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia and Sudan — found the commodity.

Energy permanent secretary Patrick Nyoike recently said the government will shoot its own seismic data and sell it to prospective oil explorers.

“Next year, we want to review the situation and dedicate resources in the budget to map data and sell it to companies interested in exploring for oil in Kenya,” he said.

The increased activity comes against a backdrop of doubts as to whether there is oil in Kenya especially after UK-based Woodside came up dry after spending over $20 million in the process.

During the signing ceremony, Ashley Heppenstall, president of Lundin Group was compelled to address the doubts.

“We want to take the risk because we believe it is worth it. Eventually, oil will be discovered in Kenya. East Africa is a fertile area for oil and natural gas,” he said.

Top Ministry of Energy officials are convinced that there is oil in the country. In a conversation with The EastAfrican, chief geologist in the ministry, Don Riaro, expressed confidence that oil discovery in Kenya was just a matter of time.

“There is no doubt that there is great potential for hydrocarbons (oil) in Kenya. What, however, remains to be established is whether it is commercially viable,” he said. He pointed out that companies such as Chinese National Oil Company (CNOC), UK-based Camec International, Lundin Petroleum and Vangold Resources have committed to drill a well each within the next three years.

Oil exploration in East Africa’s rift basin has increased, especially after the discovery of oil in Uganda by Australian firm Tullow Oil.

For years, petroleum geologists had discounted the potential of oil being discovered in the region.

However, with the Ugandan discovery, significant data was obtained on the rift basin and potential source rocks that host hydrocarbons.

Mr Riaro said Vangold’s block in the Anza basin, where Lundin and CNOOC are also exploring, has harsh exploration conditions mainly because of volcanic rocks covering the region, making it difficult to obtain seismics.

But he added that with modern technology, especially the three dimension seismic technology, it was now possible to get accurate data.

Vangold’s president Dal Brynelsen said the company has chosen block 3A on technical merit based on a study it conducted in the area.

During the study, the company’s geologists found five prospects and one lead. He said that the next phase will be to reprocess part of the seismic data with new technology to establish if the prospect is a deep structure and if the rocks host hydrocarbons.

“If the results are positive, the company will fast-track its drilling programme,” he said.

He said the company had established its offices in the country and has hired local experts who have many years of experience with companies such as the National Oil Corporation of Kenya, AMACO and Shell.

Vangold is hoping to share technical resources and data with CNOOC and Lundin who are also active in the Anza basin.

This basin has been compared to Sudan’s Mug lab basin where Lundin Petroleum made a major discovery.

International oil exploration companies that have in the past concentrated on West and Southwestern Africa are now seeking opportunities in new areas of the continent, partly spurred by high global oil prices.

Four international companies have won rights for oil exploration in the Ruvuma Basin in northern Mozambique and are expected to invest an estimated $300 million and drill eight wells in the five blocks within eight years.

These are Canada’s Artumas Group, US-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Italy’s ENI and Petronas of Malaysia.

Last month, Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo agreed to collectively explore and use any oil found on the border by setting up a joint commission.

The commission will among other things review the terms of the June 1990 oil exploration agreements between the two countries. Henry Okello Oryem, State Minister for International Affairs, has supported the commission as a way of easing tension at the border.

US policy toward Africa becoming more militarised – analysts

2007-10-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

By KEVIN J. KELLEY
Special Correspondent

The United States has been giving increased attention to Africa during the Bush years, but that focus is now taking a mainly military form, a panel of policy analysts suggested at an African studies conference held in New York.

“The continent is on the map today in Washington in a way that was unlikely or even unimaginable seven to 10 years ago,” said Alex de Waal, a British researcher working at Harvard University.

Enhanced American involvement can be seen most clearly in Bush administration undertakings such as the president’s Emergency Programme for Aids Relief and the Millennium Challenge Account, Mr de Waal noted.

This closer US engagement is partly attributable to the influence of interest groups that have become newly or more deeply involved in Africa, suggested Stephen Morrison, an Africa specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Mr Morrison cited the examples of religious organisations, foundations formed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former president Bill Clinton, and grassroots campaigns, sometimes led by celebrities, to halt genocide and alleviate poverty in Africa.

Growing US reliance on African oil was also identified as a driving force for the intensified focus. The Bush administration’s global offensive against forces it associates with terrorism also accounts for the higher priority assigned to Africa, said the analysts.

Both these motivating factors are contributing to what Mr de Waal described as the militarisation of US-Africa relations.

The recent launch of the Pentagon’s Africa Command may well lead to even greater US reliance on military might, Mr de Waal said. The United States already stations some 1,700 troops in Djibouti at the headquarters of the Pentagon’s Horn of Africa Task Force, he noted.

Mr de Waal and other members of a panel at the annual African Studies Association conference warned of potentially negative consequences stemming from the emphasis on the military dimensions of US policy.

“Counter-terrorism has taken precedence,” said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group. “We’re seeing hard power being used more than soft power, and that’s a damaging direction to go.”

Ken Menkhaus, a Horn of Africa specialist teaching at Davidson College in the US, agreed that the official American presence in Africa has become predominantly military. “An extraordinary shrinkage” of US diplomatic involvement in many African countries results in part, Mr Menkhaus said, from civilian officials’ reluctance to “go outside their fortress embassies.”

The lack of day-to-day diplomatic activity in some crisis zones stands as “the biggest failure” in the Bush administration’s record on Africa, Mr Prendergast said.

Mr Morrison spoke approvingly of the “profound shift” in official US attitudes toward military engagement in Africa during the past decade. He also warned against exaggerating the scope of US military involvement in Africa. The sum total of US bilateral security assistance in Africa is $250 million a year, he noted.

“That’s peanuts in the overall picture,” he said, comparing the military outlay to the $5 billion the US spends annually on health initiatives in Africa.

Chissano scoops $5m for stepping down

2007-10-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

Chissano scoops $5m for stepping down, K’la unimpressed
PETER NYANZI & EMMANUEL GYEZAHO
KAMPALA
MR Joachim Chissano, the former President of Mozambique, who stepped down gracefully, has been announced winner of the inaugural Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, the largest individual award in the world.

The prize, a perfect birthday gift for Mr Chissano who turned 58 yesterday, comprises $5 million (about Shs8.5 billion) over 10 years and $200,000 (about Shs350 million) annually for life thereafter.

Additionally, Mr Chissano will get up to $200,000 a year for 10 years towards his public interest activities and good causes, according a press release issued by the Mo Foundation in London yesterday.

Announcing the Laureate in London yesterday, Mr Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general and the chair of the Prize Committee, said: "Mr Chissano's achievements in bringing peace, reconciliation, stable democracy and economic progress to his country greatly impressed the committee. So, too, did his decision to step down without seeking the third term the constitution allowed."

He also commended him for providing "a powerful voice for Africa on the international stage."

Mr Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born telecommunications entrepreneur, set up the prize as a way of encouraging good governance on a continent wrecked by corruption, human rights violations and authoritarian rule.

"The Prize celebrates more than just good governance. It celebrates leadership - the ability to formulate a vision and to convince others of that vision; and the skill of giving courage to society to accept difficult changes in order to make possible a longer term aspiration for a better, fairer future," Mr Annan said.

Mr Chissano, who is the special envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to Northern Uganda, was in the country at the weekend on a mission to brief President Museveni on the progress of the South Sudan mediated peace talks between the Government and the Lord's Resistance Army.

On Monday, Mr Chissano and South Sudan Vice President and chief mediator Riek Machar met LRA leader Joseph Kony at Ri-Kwangba. They are in Ri-Kwangba largely to resolve a deadlock over the way the talks are being managed.
Responding to Mr Chissano's prize, President Museveni's press Secretary, Mr Tamale Mirundi, said yesterday the award is motivated by ill will.

"The people behind this award have a misconception about Africa; that you have to offer an inducement for African leaders to step down," he said. "I know President Museveni would never accept this money because the intention is bad and I don't think $5million is a big deal," he said.

Mr Mirundi added that no amount of money would influence "revolutionary leaders [like President Museveni] to step down because revolutionary parties will always select that person they feel is most fit to carry the lubengo [grinding stone]. Certain leaders just need to remain at the top."

But a cross section of opposition leaning opinion leaders applauded the award.
Dr Abed Bwanika, a former presidential candidate said: "Now is the time for us to begin to debate Mr Museveni's exit. We hope this award will encourage him to retire but of course we know $5million is nothing. We need to debate a send off package for him, outside monetary terms. He is a close friend of Mr Chissano so he should take counselling from him."

Mr Chissano was selected from a list of 13 candidates by a panel of six eminent individuals who assessed every sub-Saharan African leader who has peacefully handed over power in the last three years.

A retired Major General, Mr Chissano was president of Mozambique for 19 years. He ascended to power in 1986 after his predecessor Mr Samora Machel's presidential aircraft crashed in South Africa.

Mr Chissano helped reconcile radical and moderate Marxists in the Frelimo party, after the end of the Mozambican civil war, which saw the Renamo rebels become a regular political party. He won the multi-party elections that followed in 1994 and again in 1999, but opted not to run for a third term, even when it was constitutionally permissible.

President Museveni is currently serving his third constitutional term, after successfully orchestrating the deletion of presidential term limits in 2005. In 2011, when his term ends, he will have spent 25 years in power, six years more than Mr Chissano, although it is still not clear that he will retire then.

Commenting on Mr Chissano's prize, Mr Mo Ibrahim, founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, said: "I am absolutely delighted that Mr Chissano has been selected as the first Laureate. As a man who has reconciled a divided nation and built the foundations for a stable, democratic and prosperous future for the country, he is a role-model not just for Africa, but for the rest of the world."

Former presidents Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, Mathieu Kerekou of Benin, Sam Nujoma of Namibia, Albert Rene of Seychelles and Domitien Ndayizeye of Burundi were some of the notable candidates on the list.

Additional reporting by Frank Nyakairu

What’s Pan Africanism?

2007-10-21T18:13:00.001-07:00

Pamela Ankunda
Pan-Africanism is a way of life that is based on the belief that African people share common bonds and objectives, which calls for greater unity to achieve these targets.
However, the Black race is largely misconstrued as a race of shame, of poverty, of no ideology or vision, forming the false assumption of the notion of “third world.”

This mentality spreads into the falsehood about Pan Africanism as well. Now, before I started attending the Friday gatherings at the Pan African Movement office in Kamwokya, I had shamelessly never really gotten the pulse of Pan Africanism. Every Friday, people come together to discuss topical issues concerning Africa regardless of party affiliation.

Pan Africanism is an everyday calling, and therefore, the call for a greater East Africa and African Union is not new. The issue of climate change has been here for a while, and it is best summed up in the award winning documentary of the 2007 Nobel Prize winner; Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States.

While there was a call in the papers for Members of Parliament to go watch Al Gore’s Award winning documentary an Inconvenient Truth, there we were, already watching it at PAM. What then has Pan African Movement got to do with the climate? If we love Africa as much as we want to believe, then there is no better way to treat Africa as a True Pan Africanist would; practicallydoing what’s best for Africa in dealing with all issues even yes; the environment.

I have discovered that Pan Africanism is celebrated more than Black history. For the documentary to show at the Pan African Movement, meant that we need Pan Africanism in dealing with floods, insurgency in northern Uganda, Chogm, issues of health, wealth distribution, disasters and HIV/Aids, and even the environment. Pan Africanism believes in what is right for Africa, through bravery and that is the way to go.

That means, that people who swindle from one African brother to fulfill their individual needs in whatever sector-political, economic and social are betraying the cause of Pan Africanism.

On the journey to Pan Africanism, I nothing takes the central part of our lives and our humanity like celebrating the cause to realise Africa’s potential. Africa has so much dignity lying underneath the greed and instability. We just have to shake those off.
Kwame Nkrumah said “until the whole of Africa is free, independent and united, there will be no lasting peace in the world...” and again, that “Africa is on the march, there is no turning back.”

He didn’t lie, only that we have been on the march much too long with the endless wars and poverty and diseases, to which scholars and celebrated lawyers and assuming staticians, civil societies and political hungry leaders blame those in power-always without taking stock of their own contribution to developing Africa!

pankunda@gmail.com

Hamilton was wrong on Zimbabwe

2007-10-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe

THE letter on Zimbabwe by Acting British High Commissioner, Charles Hamilton in Sunday Vision of October 14, is misleading. The UK’s commitment to funding the transfer of land from the minority white commercial farmers to the landless black majority was part and parcel of the Lancaster House agreement, which led to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

While the funding commitment was not in writing, it was clearly understood by all parties to the Agreement. Indeed the talks almost collapsed on the land issue at one point until this understanding was arrived at.

It is therefore an integral part of the decolonisation process agreed to at Lancaster House. No conditions or “principles” were set for this understanding. Indeed some modest progress was made between 1980 and 1985 when £47m was made available by the conservative governments of prime ministers Mrs. Margaret Thatcher and later Mr. John Major.

After the coming into power of the Labour Party in 1997, there was a sharp policy U-turn on funding the land reform in Zimbabwe. This policy shift is summed up in a 1997 letter from the then Secretary of State for International Development, Ms Clare Short, to the then Zimbabwe Minister of Lands and Agriculture, Mr. Kumbirai Kangai.

The letter reads in part as follows:
“I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe.

“We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish, and as you know, we were colonised, not colonisers.”

The argument by the Acting High commissioner that Zimbabwe failed to abide by the “principles” (read conditionalities) for land reform funding is therefore null and void as there were no such conditionalities in the original understanding. Zimbabwe’s land reform programme has been carried out in accordance with the country’s laws which were duly enacted by Parliament.

The so-called flouting of principles is nothing but a smokescreen to justify punitive action by the UK on Zimbabwe for daring to embark on a full scale land reform programme without the former colonial power’s concurrence.

It is appreciated that the Acting High Commissioner’s country and the EU as a whole welcome the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Initiative.

It is our sincere hope that this welcome will translate into implementation of one element in the SADC initiative over which the UK has an important role to play. This is the call by the SADC Heads of State for the lifting of sanctions that have caused so much hardship for the ordinary person in Zimbabwe.

Ambassador K. Nkomani

Khartoum explains SPLM boycott

2007-10-18T19:29:00.001-07:00

Thursday, 18th October, 2007 E-mail article Print article

Amb. Hassan Gadkarim

By Hassan Gadkarim

The recent political development in the Sudan is a solely political manifestation of partisan exercise between the two major political parties that currently constitute Sudan Government of National Unity (GONU), along with other political parties, mainly; NDA, DUP, the UMMA, the Communist and others.

As such, this suspension does not amount to a complete pull-out by the SPLM from the CPA nor is it a full-withdrawal by the SPLM from the constitutional setting and national institutions established by both the CPA and the Transitional National Constitution of the Republic of the Sudan.

This development does not constitute any threat to the CPA, nor does it imply an intention of either of the two parties to instigate confrontation or return to war.

This development will not negatively affect regional security and stability, nor jeopardise, in any way, the on-going Juba Peace talks and mediation process between the Government of Uganda and the Lord Resistance Army (LRA); as hosted by the Sudan. It also has no negative impact at all on the respective bilateral relations between the Sudan and sisterly neighbouring countries; especially Uganda.

This event will also not hamper, in any way, interests and activities of Ugandan businessmen and traders currently resident or prospectively visiting all Sudanese territories, including the South.

The misperceptions and allegations that important deadlines were either missed or not honoured in the process of implementing the CPA, do not stem out of lack of political will on the part of either of the two concerned sides. In fact other external factors such as time constraint, weather, mobility, logistical capacities could be held more responsible and accountable for the delay in the implementation of the CPA.

To cite just a few examples and illustrations in this connection; the Embassy outlines the following cases:

a) The Pre-Interim period of six months that was supposed to precede the transitional period of six years (for the implementation of the CPA, which is supposed to commence immediately after the signature of the CPA); has actually started nine months later, behind the schedule; due to practical bottle-necks and obstacles; including the unfortunate incident of passing away of late Dr. John Garang on the July 30, 2005.

b) Another impeding factor is the weather and the rainy season that have obstructed the adherence of both sides to the prescribed time-table. As a consequence, the SPLM has managed to meet only 6.4% withdrawal of its troops from territories in the North (specifically Blue Nile and Eastern States); while the government has completed a withdrawal of 87.6% from territories in Southern Sudan.

c) Border demarcation between North and South Sudan is also a case in point, whereby the SPLM has failed to name its representatives in the National Border Commission only after an elapse of a whole year from the date of establishment of the Commission. The work of the border commission was further delayed by the current excessive rainfall and floods that have beset almost the whole Southern and Central Sudan. Consequently; it was practically impossible for the Commission to access the lands and territories surrounding the border areas, let alone the challenges precipitated by lack of logistical facilities such as authentic maps and other related documents.

This issue is bound to be settled and contained, in all its dimensions, through the existing modalities and mechanisms built-in and enshrined in the CPA, in particular:-
•The Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC)
•The Committee to draw the 1/January 1956 between North and South Sudan.
•The National Petroleum Commission.
•The Joint Committee for monitoring and calculation of oil net revenue.
•The Ceasefire Political Commission (CPC)
•The Joint Defence Board (JDB)
•The Joint Integrated Units (JIUs)
•The National Census Council
•The New Currency Commission
•The National Council for De-Mining and DDR
•The Political Partnership between the NCP and the SPLM
•The Constitutional Court.
•Etc.

The final settlement of this contentious issue rests solely in the hands of the Sudanese people, their will, their determination and national zeal. The two parties have already engaged in elaborious and direct dialogue and consultation currently proceeding at Khartoum, the National Capital, with the full support and encouragement of the Sudanese Political leadership.

The writer is the ambassador of the Republic of the Sudan in Kampala

Free trade or protectionism?

2007-10-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

Published: October 9 2007 18:24 | Last updated: October 11 2007 16:31

“Turn to the leading US newspapers these days and you will read about the ‘loss of nerve’, even ‘loss of faith’, in free trade by economists”, writes Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics and law at Columbia University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But, he argues, “free trade is alive and well.”

Does imperfect global competition really mean free trade is an unachievable ideal? Does protectionism do more good or harm? And what do globalisation, the emerging mega-economies of China and India, and the offshoring of jobs mean for free trade?

Mr Bhagwati answered FT readers’ questions on free trade in an online discussion.

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Should the European Union not have developed Airbus in the name of free trade, buying instead Boeings?
Jose Oscategui, Peru

Jagdish Bhagwati: A very good question. I would say that, given the scientific expertise and endowments that are broadly similar between the US and the EU, I would expect that there would be knife-edge advantage on air planes in ”steady state”, and that the development of the Airbus does not violate the basic economics of comparative advantage. But if Airbus needs continuing subsidies to compete, then I would say: let it go. ”National champions” who have to be bottle-fed and mollycoddled are hardly champions!

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Free trade economists have not lost their nerve. But some US politicians have. Do you view this as another cyclical bout of protectionism to which well-honed answers are required or a more fundamental shift in American attitudes towards globalisation that must be addressed with new ideas?
Eoin Callan, Financial Times, Washington

As an admirer of your writings in the FT, I welcome your question. I am afraid the problem in the US today is a Fourth item that I dealt with and dismissed on scientific grounds in the FT (op ed on January 4, 2007): that labour groups and many workers generally, and perhaps some segments of the middle class post-outsourcing-alarms,are convinced that trade with the poor countries is depressing real wages. Nearly all the New Democrats have bought into this; and the Democratic Primary candidates, Hillary included, have had to fall in line.

In the Afterword to the new Edition this July of my Globalization book, I deal with this question and offer a holistic view of why globalisation today creates volatility of comparative advantage - not its absence as Tom Friedman’s Flat Earth analogy implies - and how we need an altogether new set of institutional changes to meet this challenge. I urge you to read this Afterword as the US politicians have to understand that responding to modern, international competition in this ”new epoch” with protectionism, is not a solution but that implementing systematic and wide-ranging changes in our institutions, keyed into the central features of this new epoch, has to be the creative answer.

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A recent report from the IMF said that the way some free trade arrangements that had been implemented recently had worsened income distribution. Is it correct?
Juan Manuel de Nigris

Jagdish Bhagwati: FTAs are something else again. I have a little book coming out in early Spring from Oxford, titled Termites in the Trading System: How Preferential Trade Agreements are Undermining Multilateral Free Trade.

The main problem with them is that the hegemonic powers are using them to drive trade-unrelated agendas, forcing small countries often in one-on-one negotiations, to accept all kinds of inappropriate demands by simply pretending that these are “trade related”!

Now, any policy reform can have income distributional effects: rarely does any policy change lead to everyone gaining, like Russell Crowe’s Roman legions where everyone marches at the same pace.

The question we need to ask is whether this inequality matters; and to remember that there are very many different ways in which inequality may be measured and that their political and social salience will vary with the country in question.

Also, the emphasis placed by the World Bank and IMF, and by some NGOs, on inequality may be counterproductive to the far more important battle against poverty: inequality-fighting policies more typically degenerate into growth-reducing policies (as they did in India for over a quarter of a century of slow growth) that increased poverty.

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Are developed world trade barriers holding back the developing world as many argue - or is this a smokescreen for internal issues within the developed world? If so, what are the key barriers and what can be done about it?
Paul Sharma

Jagdish Bhagwati: My friend Dani Rodrik recently wrote in the FT that the world was now characterised by hugely open trade and even immigration, so barriers on them were not important to worry about. I think that is close to nonsense. Within trade, many countries find themselves seriously affected by substantial subsidies and price supports in the EU and the US. Service sectors are still very restricted. Within migration, many estimates show that even a small relaxation of existing barriers would lead to huge gains.

Which barriers are the most important? The answer depends on which issue we are talking about, if priorities are to be established. Thus, for the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters, removal of subsidies in the west promises enormous gains: as it does for the cotton growers and exporters in Africa.

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According to you and most other economists, free trade is here to stay. Most of you also seem to agree that international trade will increase in both scale and scope. My question is: if free trade is the general trend, which major events or phenomena could disturb or alter the course towards market integration on a global scale?
Roland Engkvist, Stockholm, Sweden

Jagdish Bhagwati: I am afraid I do not share the view that free trade is necessarily here to stay.

We have had reversals in the Interwar Period, as you doubtless know, when the globalisation on trade, investment and migration in the decades prior to the first world war was interrupted, only to be resumed once again in the postwar period. To the extent that trade expands due to technical change like communications and transport innovations, that would continue. But policies are reversible, so we always have to be vigilant about man-made policy reversals. And since economists’ ideas do play some role, I decided to examine the US media hype about the alleged collapse of economists’ consensus on freeing trade.

What worries me about trade is, not disillusionment about trade, but the fact that we still have not learnt how to prevent financial crises (like the Asian financial crisis) which can be like tsunamis. That is the soft underbelly of globalisation; and that keeps me awake. If you are hit by a devastating financial crisis, with huge amounts of capital flowing out and creating havoc, the affected public is not going to distinguish between trade and finance: they are all part of ”globalisation”! So, I was reassured a little when the far eastern countries managed to get back to trade liberalisation when the financial crisis had been surmounted. But that need not hold in other, less pragmatic cultures.

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Your polemic attack on free trade sceptics seems to me to be based on the false presumption that it is the theories of economists that guide trade policy. Would trade policy not rather be the result of interests? Of course, politicians and their intellectual acolytes scurry to legitimise their deeds through some version of economic theory. Crusading for free trade in order to save the purity of the economic doctrine should not blind us for analysing the causes for the ups and downs of particular policy ideas.
Dirk De Bivre, assistant professor of international politics, Universiteit Antwerpen, Flanders, Belgium

Jagdish Bhagwati: First, I must say that my ”attack” is neither polemical nor ideological. If the media, which in the US is hardly trained in economics - I started the Media Program many years ago in Columbia University’s School for International Affairs where we have students from areas including economics, political science, international law and regional specialisation, because I felt that our famous School of Journalism basically trained English literature students who then learnt how to write but not what to write - often hypes up non-existent dissent and builds up even half-informed people into star ”dissidents”, this has serious political consequences. So, I was documenting that. There is a long paper which documents these arguments, and recurring such episodes, in far greater detail which you can get from me by writing to me at jb38@columbia.edu.

Second, it is incorrect to say that we are crusaders who, we know, were driven by faith in Christianity. Free traders, at least the sophisticated ones today, believe in it after much argumentation and empirical evidence. Their faith is based on reason. That interests (ie lobbies) matter also is important. The interaction of ideas, interests and institutions in trade policy over many decades is discussed by me in an older book, Protectionism (MIT Press: 1987) which I urge you to read: it is SHORT!

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Is it not interesting that the overwhelming majority of free-trade proponents live in the rich industrial or post-industrial west, while those living in the developing world – acutely aware of globalisation - are mostly against it? If free-trade was such a great thing for the poor, wouldn’t the poor actually support it? Why are they so massively against it?
Steve Jennings, Germany

Jagdish Bhagwati: Many polls show that even in developing countries, there are majorities for trade, though I take most polls with a sceptical eye. Do people really understand what trade liberalisation implies, when they answer such questions? Thus, the Pew poll here often finds majorities saying that they want ”free trade” but also then going on to say that they want ”fair trade” which sounds like you are for fraternity and liberty. Few of them realise that the phrase” fair trade” is often used to deny poor countries access to rich country markets in one form or another by finding fault with the poor countries’ politics etc, as one sees today in the FTAs being implemented by the US with Peru, Colombia and Cafta (in Costa Rica).

The reason why free trade is good for the poor is because, as I point out at length in Chapter 5 of my book, In Defense of Globalisation, trade generally leads to more prosperity and growth; that, in turn, creates jobs for the poor (the extent of this effect depending on the nature of the growth, of course) and this means that you are ”pulling up” the poor into gainful employment and out of poverty.

More prosperity also means more revenues which, in turn, can be spent on social spending for the poor: as India has been doing since growth rates accelerated after the reforms in 1990s which included trade liberalization. Whether the poor are aware of this connection is a matter of whether the politics in any country are informed or not. There is little doubt, however, that their elites are aware of this and that the poor, while unaware frequently of economic relationships, benefit from freer trade.

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Some people seem to agree with free trade in principle but think barriers to trade should only be reduced gradually, and so allow a country time to establish an industry that can compete. Do you think this approach has some merit, or will protection from competition merely foster inefficiency?
Kim de Glossop, London

Jagdish Bhagwati: First, I do not believe in ”shock therapy”, as I have written frequently including in the Globalization book (Chapter 18). That is a technocratic solution of the kind that my colleague Jeffrey Sachs sold to Russia with manifest ill-effects; this technocratic approach is again something that he offers to Africa today, ignoring important issues like the absorptive capacity of many of these countries. Therefore, the best speed of reform such as trade liberalisation is not likely to be the maximum speed.

Second, this does not mean that we should shy away from trade liberalisation. I have been arguing for building safety nets in the developing countries now that they understand that trade is helpful, not a threat. If we do not have safety nets like in the OECD countries, poor-country politicians will be reluctant to take the risks of trade liberalisation.

Third, the ”infant industry” argument you allude to is grossly overdone. There are so many infants who move into senility with diapers on. A short period of import substitution followed by genuine outward orientation such that the infants learn rapidly from competition is what is necessary: that is also what the successful Far Eastern countries achieved. Countries that stuck to sheltered domestic markets unfortunately found that these lead to what I call the ”goofing off” effect!

EA Business report

2007-10-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

Monday, 01 October 2007
By Humphrey Liloba

NAIROBI, KENYA — The cost of doing business in East African is once again on the spotlight following a decision by giant household items manufacturer, Reckitt Benkiser, to shut down its operation in Kenya.

Officials told reporters last week high operational costs were the key contributory factor to their decision to relocate to Egypt, which they said is comparatively cheaper in business expenses.

The shock announcement came just a day before a World Bank report declared Kenya among the top 10 reformers worldwide.

Kenya is also one of two African countries with Ghana, which made the most significant advances in aggregate ease of doing business on the continent, according to the report.

Subsequently, Reckitt has sold and handed over the manufacture of at least 40% of its products to Orbit Chemical Industries. Some of its products include Jik, Harpic and Dettol, which are household names in the region. Reckitt’s General Manager, Mr. Attar Safdar told reporters high licence costs, huge electricity bills and effects of globalisation were the main reasons for the closure.

"The changes in the sourcing strategy would enable the business to concentrate its manufacturing in the least cost manufacturing locations within the COMESA region and the Middle East," said Safdar.

He said the restructuring process would involve retrenchment of some 37 staff but added that the company had set aside KSh30m (US$4.5m) to support the affected employees.

“The company will also provide business management and entrepreneurship training to the retrenched employees,” Safdar said.

Reckitt’s closure now validates another recent report that indicted that Kenya was the most affected country by high business costs and Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs).

The report said this has led to the highest cost of doing business in the East African region.

The annual Business Climate Index released recently by the East African Business Council, the private sector arm of the East African Community, said the severity of the barriers was most felt in Kenya as compared to Uganda and Tanzania.

The report which focuses on the impact of NTBs and other business climate factors further said the country must work hard towards eliminating the barriers or risk losing investor confidence.

Reckitt is the latest to join a long list of an exodus of multinationals operating in Kenya.

Economists and business analysts have criticised the Kenyan government for dragging its feet in the elimination of licencing bureaucracy, a major turn-off for would be investors in the country.

However, early this year, Kenya scrapped some 700 business licences and announced that another 1000 were being reviewed. Not much has been done since then, except promises of future ease, thus causing anxiety in the business community.

The EABC report had cited that whereas some areas of the business environment have improved, factors such as insecurity in Kenya and power rationing in Tanzania and Uganda are still major challenges to doing business in the region.

Other areas cited then included customs procedures, immigration and work permits, business registration and licensing, police roadblocks, weighbridge stations and quality standards and certification.

Rwanda and Burundi, which joined the EAC recently, were not sampled but both countries will be include next year.

Currently goods entering Kenya from Uganda and Tanzania are tax-free but those exported from Kenya to the two partner countries attract tax on select items under an arrangement that will see free flow of trade by 2010 under the customs union.

Kenya will therefore have to contend with fleeing investors if the licencing and business cost issues are not addressed in time.

Some of the investors who have fled the country in the past have set shop right in neighbouring countries where the costs are perceived to be a bit friendly.

Kenya early this year launched an ambitious economic development plan, Vision 2030 that among other things depends heavily on foreign investment. But in the light of the poor business environment, analysts predict tough times ahead unless something is urgently done.

World Bank’s IFC to finance EAC small medium firms

2007-10-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Monday, 15 October 2007
By Abwao Oluoch

NAIROBI, KENYA––East African financial markets will be the new financing vehicle for the region’s small and medium enterprises in a new initiative.

The World Bank’s private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has opted to help smaller businesses across the region with sustained financing through local commercial banks.

IFC says it will concentrate its lending activities to the financial sector in East Africa, targeting at least 200 small and medium businesses with initial operational capital of at least Ksh3.5 million (US$53,000).

Mr. Jean-Philippe Prosper, IFC Senior Manager for Eastern Africa, told reporters at the start of the World Bank's publicity week in Nairobi last week that the IFC would set aside funds targeting women entrepreneurs in Eastern Africa, including private schools across the region.

"Our three main sectors of investment were infrastructure, tourism and the financial markets," Mr. Prosper said on the sidelines of the publicity week at Nairobi's Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC).

The IFC estimates that each of its associate bankers could get upto $50 million in the East African Community (EAC) member states. Considering that each of the eligible borrowers get an overage of $200,000, several entrepreneurs would then benefit.

Prosper said: "If we do about $50 million for onward lending, at least 200 SMES would be financed. The benefits would be much bigger," he said. East Africa has a relatively developed financial sector as opposed to other regions on the continent, with a combined banking portfolio of about 100 banks.

Kenya has the largest concentration of over 50 commercial banks, two mortgage firms and over 52 foreign-exchange bureaux while Tanzania has 31 banking institutions, 24 of which are private commercial banks and seven-non-bank financial institutions.

Tanzania's financial sector also spreads its wings to 32 insurance brokerage firms, 10 insurance companies and 267 insurance agents. There are also 23 loss adjusters.

Uganda on the other side has 15 commercial banks, seven credit institutions and 19 insurance firms.

Rwanda has six commercial banks, about four insurance firms and a few non-financial institutions while no information was available for the Burundi banking sector.

IFC hopes to use the well-developed financial infrastructure in the region to distribute loans to the small and medium enterprises.

"The way we provide funding to the SMEs is through local intermediaries.

Our activity is to provide long-term financing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) through the local intermediaries," Prosper said.

IFC, a multilateral lender whose overall investments in East Africa peaked around $287 million in its financial year 2006, which elapsed on 30 June, says the level of its investments in the three most important sectors would be driven by demand.

"We provide funding to the SMEs through the local financial institutions or we take some equity investments in the financial intermediaries/ banks we are working with and we use the equity for long-term investments," Mr. Prosper explained.

Studies about possible investments areas in Kenya have shown the horticulture industry, with 38 percent of the European flower market share, is one of the most eligible investment sectors, followed by tourism, transport and telecommunications.

In Tanzania, the private sector is dominated by small-family owned businesses in retail trade, import-export, and transport and hospitality areas. Some of these small companies are involved in small-scale manufacturing activities such as soap-making, bottling, packaging and food packaging.

Uganda, with 100,000 existing enterprises, mostly small and medium enterprises, is expected to become a major beneficiary of the new World Bank's growth plan. The IFC, through its SME Solutions Centre based in Nairobi, would advance loans for small businesses with a capital base of at least Ksh3.5 million through local banks or financial intermediaries such K-Rep Bank in Kenya, Prosper said.

The World Bank's private sector lending arm has been active in Africa and invested at least US$500 million in the continent through equity stakes in existing businesses.

He said the Corporation also invested $130 million in an infrastructure project in Bujagali, Uganda and was also active in infrastructure investments in Kenya and Rwanda .

"We are active in the infrastructure and the financial markets," he said after addressing hundreds of participants who turned up for the start of the bank's publicity week in Nairobi.

World Bank's country director for Kenya Colin Bruce announced last week the bank would conduct a six-week publicity campaign, dubbed "connecting with you" to raise awareness about its funding activities in Kenya.

The publicity week is aimed at showcasing the bank's funding activities and partly trying to change the bank's public image from an institution known best for its stringent lending conditionalities and widespread reform measures that public managers dread.

Ibrahim Index of African Governance

2007-10-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

“We are shining a light on governance in Africa, and in so doing we are making a unique contribution to improving the quality of governance. The Ibrahim Index is a tool to hold governments to account and frame the debate about how we are governed. Africans are setting benchmarks not only for their own continent, but for the world. ” Mo Ibrahim

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance has been created in recognition of the need for a more objective and quantifiable method of measuring governance in the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The Ibrahim Index provides both a new definition of governance, as well as a comprehensive set of governance measures. Based on five categories of essential political goods, each country is assessed against 58 individual measures, capturing clear, objective outcomes.

Safety and Security
Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption
Participation and Human Rights
Sustainable Economic Development
Human Development

Key features of the Ibrahim Index include:
Comprehensiveness – the large number of measures included in the Ibrahim Index makes it one of the most comprehensive assessments of the governance in sub-Saharan African ever undertaken. Focus on political goods – the Ibrahim Index uniquely defines governance as the delivery of key political goods, capturing defined, measurable outcomes rather than subjective assessments.

Geographical coverage – the Ibrahim Index examines all 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa for three years (and hereafter annually), making it among the most complete and up-to-date indexes ever compiled.

Ranking – The Ibrahim Index is the first such attempt to explicitly rank sub-Saharan African countries according to governance quality.

Progressiveness - the Ibrahim Index will be expanded and refined on an annual basis, offering a continually improving assessment of governance.

On the website you can explore the full data set for the 2007 Ibrahim Index (using a dataset from the year 2005) and retrospective data sets for 2002 and 2000. You will also find a number of papers on benchmarking governance.

Browsers on low-bandwidth connections can access a text only version of the website.

The Ibrahim Index is a project of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and has been developed under the direction of Robert I. Rotberg and Rachel Gisselquist of the Kennedy school of Government at Harvard University.

The Foundation welcomes your feedback on this project, which can be submitted via this website

G8 firm on Africa development aid

2007-10-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

By Hugh Williamson in Addis Ababa

Published: October 4 2007 02:37 | Last updated: October 4 2007 02:37

German chancellor Angela Merkel will tell the African Union in Ethiopia on Thursday that the G8 group of rich nations is committed to meeting its aid pledges to the continent. This will include an increase in development assistance by $25bn by 2010, German officials said.

Speaking on the first leg of a five-day trip to Africa that also includes South Africa and Liberia, the German chancellor will try to counter scepticism among some African governments that the G8 has in the past too frequently broken such promises.

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Germany has promoted Africa’s development as part of its G8 presidency this year but critics argue that promises at the summit in June in Heiligendamm, northern Germany, went little further than similar pledges – such as the $25bn aid goal – made at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. Since then Western aid spending on Africa has stagnated.

In separate talks in Addis Ababa with Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, the chancellor will raise human rights concerns over the violent crackdown on opposition supporters following elections in 2005.

The sensitivity of the issue was highlighted on Tuesday when the US House of Representatives backed a bill that would force Ethiopia to improve its record on democracy and human rights or risk losing substantial US aid.

Under Angela Merkel’s leadership, the G8 at Heiligendamm
• repeated a pledge from 2005 to increase aid to Africa by $25bn but refused to give a timetable, despite pressure from African countries

• offered to work towards giving $60bn for Aids and other diseases in Africa and elsewhere, without specifying deadlines or funding promises

• committed to “fostering investment and sustainable economic growth” in Africa via for instance micro-finance support and oil industry transparency initiative

• promoted “peace and security” in Africa via support for the African Union and conflict prevention.

• Pledges to be reviewed at G8 summit in Japan next year.

Sources: German government
Diplomats said Ms Merkel would use her visit to South Africa on Friday to urge president Thabo Mbeki to intervene in a dispute over Robert Mugabe’s possible participation at a European Union-Africa summit in December. Germany saw as unhelpful the comments last month by Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, when he threatened to boycott the summit if Mr Mugabe attends.

An advisor said that Ms Merkel: “is convinced the summit must go ahead” in order to reinforce the EU’s relations with Africa at a time of major advances by China on the continent. The chancellor will ask Mr Mbeki, to work on a diplomatic solution to the dispute over the Zimbabwe president’s summit role.

The first major Africa visit by Ms Merkel’s predecessor Gerhard Schröder came after five years in office. Ms Merkel – who came to power in 2005 – wants to use the visit to add to her international reputation but also highlight Germany’s long-term and changing strategic interest in Africa.

Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German development minister told the Financial Times: “The message [of the trip] is to make clear that Germany remains interested in Africa after Heiligendamm - we are interested in a sustainable partnership”.

Stefan Mair, Africa expert at Berlin’s SWP foreign affairs think-tank, says there is growing common ground between Germany’s approach to Africa, and those of Britain and France, countries with deeper historical and geo-political interests in the continent.

Berlin’s approach is still more based on an ethical commitment to supporting the world’s least developed continent via development projects, but the last five years have seen a “lessening of the differences”, he says.

External trends likely to be addressed by Ms Merkel – including concerns over terrorism, uncontrolled migration, energy security and climate change - have played a role in this shift, as has Berlin’s reach for more power on the world stage via a UN Security Council seat. “Germany cannot succeed without Africa’s political support in this process”, Mr Mair says.

A senior member of Ms Merkel’s government, who declined to be named, welcomed this change. “Africa has traditionally featured in Germany when catastrophes occur – unlike in Britain and France, where the continent is an ever-present [in foreign policy]”.

Despite differences over Zimbabwe, Ms Merkel has bonded quickly with Mr Brown on Africa - for instance working together on a new health aid initiative - but she is more circumspect towards Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, her aide argues, following the mixed messages emerging from his first few months in power.

The French president has promised to make Africa both a French foreign policy priority and an emblem of change from the era of his predecessor Jacques Chirac, but analysts question whether things are that different, noting that Mr Sarkozy’s first stop in Africa as president was to see Omar Bongo, the autocratic ruler of Gabon for the last 40 years.

Business leaders travelling with the chancellor hope the trip will advance Germany’s economic interests, which lag those of Britain and France. German trade with Africa grew by 18 per cent last year to a record €33bn, but this still only represents about two per cent of German trade worldwide. Several German carmakers produce vehicles in South Africa, while Germany imports around 15 per cent of its oil needs from Africa, mostly from Libya.

Additional reporting by Ben Hall in Paris.

EU rethink on trade threat to ex-colonies

2007-10-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

By Alan Beattie in London and Andrew Bounds in Brussels

Published: October 8 2007 02:01 | Last updated: October 8 2007 02:01

The European Union appears to have backed away from a threat made just last month to end unilaterally trade privileges extended to its former colonies unless they sign new trade deals.

Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, had warned the so-called African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries that, unless they agreed to open up their services and government procurement sectors, he would be forced to reduce their tariff-free access to the 500m-strong market on January 1.

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The news sent shockwaves through the business community in the 31 richer ACP countries, which would find themselves having to apply for import permits. The rest of the 70-plus ACP states are so poor as to benefit from World Trade Organisation rules allowing quota-free, duty-free access.

Last week, however, Mr Mandelson announced he was prepared to sign an interim deal with the Pacific region of about 20 island states covering goods only. Other controversial areas Brussels had fought for, where its companies have an edge – such as services trade, investment rules and opening the government procurement market – could wait until a second stage.

Campaigners said that second stage might never come. “Finally the cracks are beginning to show and the Commission is facing the reality that it cannot impose provisions in EPAs [Economic Partnership Agreements] that the ACP does not want,” said Alexander Woollcombe, of Oxfam. “Nonetheless a goods-only agreement could still be harmful. The devil is in the detail. Now is the time to focus on development, not a WTO deadline.”

The EU offered the same terms to west African countries this month, in a letter seen by the Financial Times. However, a goods-only deal has been rejected by the region. An official from the Economic Community of West African States said on Friday that it wanted instead to extend talks by two years.

In the letter Mr Mandelson and Louis Michel, the development commissioner, said it would be illegal to continue policies struck down by the WTO once an initial five-year waiver ended on December 31. The WTO also required some market opening by ACP countries, though this would be less than for the EU, which would immediately scrap tariffs on more than 99 per cent of products, whereas west African countries could have up to 25 years on the most sensitive products.

The Commission is under intense pressure to avoid a clash. The UK and other EU countries pressed Mr Mandelson to settle for a goods-only deal at a meeting in Madeira last month. Don McKinnon, the secretary-general of the Commonwealth of 53 mainly English-speaking countries, also met Mr Mandelson and emphasised that point.

“This sort of thing is of concern to us because you are dealing with a heavyweight against many flyweights. They are not equal. The deadline is all about creating a crisis and in those situations the big guy is going to win,” he said in an interview with the FT. “The EU has to give more than it is getting.”

Nigeria blunts graft inquiry

2007-10-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Green in Abuja

Published: October 9 2007 18:21 | Last updated: October 9 2007 18:21

Britain’s chief prosecutor has accused the Nigerian authorities of jeopardising attempts by UK police to recover funds they suspect were looted by powerful politicians under the previous government in Abuja.

The criticisms, contained in a letter seen by the Financial Times, appear to confirm fears that infighting in President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration is undermining his pledges to crack down on graft.

The controversy centres on investigations into James Ibori, the former governor of Delta state, which has enjoyed soaring income from oil production. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is investigating Mr Ibori on suspicion of stealing state funds during his eight-year tenure as governor, which ended in May. British police are investigating him under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Britain is a popular destination for wealthy Nigerians seeking to buy houses and open bank accounts. UK officials have worked closely with the EFCC on several investigations of former state governors.

Sir Ken Macdonald QC, the UK’s director of public prosecutions, wrote to Michael Aondoakaa, Nigeria’s justice minister and attorney-general, to request evidence compiled by the EFCC against Mr Ibori. He said a failure by the Nigerian authorities to supply evidence had led to “major difficulties” with the case.

Activists see the investigation as a test of whether Mr Yar’Adua’s government will build on the limited progress made under his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, in bringing senior figures before the courts. Mr Ibori’s case is being watched closely since he is widely regarded as having been instrumental in the campaign that brought Mr Yar’Adua to power in April’s general elections.

Mr Ibori declined to comment on the case while it was pending. He has not been charged in the UK or Nigeria.

Britain’s Metropolitan Police obtained a freeze on $35m (€25m, £17m) of Mr Ibori’s assets on August 2 while they pursued investigations. The investigation dates back several years and has been carried out in co-operation with the EFCC. But the police suffered an embarrassing setback last week when a judge lifted the freeze, citing the time the investigation had taken and the lack of progress on a decision on whether to charge Mr Ibori.

Mr Macdonald said a lack of co-operation by Nigerian authorities was endangering the Ibori case. The letter said investigations against other former governors were also pending.

“The difficulty and lack of progress in obtaining hard evidence from Nigeria is causing major difficulties in relation to the court proceedings in the United Kingdom and putting these other cases in jeopardy,” Mr Macdonald wrote in his letter, dated October 2.

The letter said officers from London were due to arrive in Nigeria on Wednesday to collect evidence from the EFCC. Mr Macdonald asked Mr Aondoakaa to assure him that the requested evidence would be made available, warning he would otherwise have to abandon an appeal against the judge’s lifting of the asset freeze. The High Court in London on Monday upheld the prosecutors’ right to appeal.

Mr Yar’Adua’s government raised hopes it would not shrink from confronting once untouchable politicians when the EFCC, an anti-graft agency, took the unprecedented step of charging five other ex-governors soon after they lost their immunity to prosecution after their tenures ended in May.

But activists say a growing power struggle between branches of the judicial system in Nigeria has undermined investigations in both that country and Britain. Campaigners have accused Mr Aondoakaa of attempting to undermine the independence of the EFCC since he took office in July by insisting he should take over prosecutions by the agency.

But the EFCC has also been accused of targeting opponents of Mr Obasanjo, whose government created it in 2003. Each side blamed the other for delays in providing evidence to British police in the Ibori case.

Markets on alert for G7 shift on currency

2007-10-14T17:20:00.001-07:00

By Krishna Guha in Washington

Published: October 14 2007 17:09 | Last updated: October 14 2007 17:09

Currencies and the regulatory response to the credit crisis will top the agenda when world finance ministers, central bank governors and private sector bank executives meet this week in Washington for the Group of Seven summit and the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Foreign exchange markets in particular are on alert for any changes to the G7 communiqué that raise even the remote possibility of co-ordinated international intervention to support the dollar, which has fallen to its lowest levels against the euro in recent weeks.

This heightened sensitivity follows a high-profile public campaign by many European governments, led by France, for something to be done to halt the euro’s appreciation.

Banks feared media would misinterpret subprime woes
Banks were reluctant to disclose their exposure to US subprime mortgages during the credit squeeze for fear of being misinterpreted by the media, according to the head of the PwC accounting firm.

Speaking to the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society in Deauville, France, Sam DiPiazza, global chief executive officer of the Big Four accounting firm, said: “The media handled that very poorly because they didn’t understand and they didn’t take the time to communicate the facts.”

Mr DiPiazza said he had met a number of bank executives who had fought shy of going public about their exposure.

“They said, ‘If I go out and tell the world we hold $10bn of subprime debt, the media will write we have $10bn of losses and we’re bankrupt.’ ”

The subprime mortgage crisis rippled through world credit markets this summer, undermining trust among banks, many of which stopped lending freely to one another. In the UK, that helped trigger a funding squeeze for Northern Rock, which led to a rush by savers to withdraw money. Some observers blamed the media for exacerbating this crisis of confidence. Reporting by Andrew Hill

Click here for further coverage and video interview from the Women’s Forum 2007Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, last month said the eurozone “should not be the only area in the world where the currency is not put at the service of growth”.

Two former US Treasury officials told the Financial Times that it could be in the US’s interest to create some uncertainty about possible currency intervention – not in order to boost the value of the dollar but to ensure any further decline is orderly.

However, neither thinks that Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, will adopt this strategy. Mr Paulson, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, believes that politicians have no business trying to establish the value of currencies that trade in deep and liquid markets, and would not succeed if they tried.

The US Treasury has signalled that it will not agree to any G7 statement that suggests that Washington wants the dollar to appreciate against the euro.

The UK, meanwhile, has sided with the US. Asked about whether the G7 should change its language on currencies, Alistair Darling, chancellor of the exchequer, said: “I think the G7 really needs to concentrate on, perhaps, some of the longer-term structural reforms that are necessary in the economies of the world.”

A hedge fund manager told the FT he worried that the French had overplayed their hand by raising expectations of the G7 meeting to the point where the absence of a policy shift could be seen as a green light for further dollar depreciation.

However, a head-on collision between the eurozone and the US at the G7 looks unlikely, following the European Union’s decision last week to tone down its rhetoric on the dollar, in response to the US formally backing a strong dollar and the need for China to allow the renminbi to appreciate.

This brings Europe into line with US thinking that the problem is not the fall of the dollar against the euro, but other currencies not sharing the burden of the currency’s decline.

In private, though, European governments, led by France, are expected to push for some new wording in the communiqué.

A former US official said the G7 would probably agree to “tweak” the language. This could involve some tougher words on the renminbi and, perhaps, the yen, with possible compromise language about monitoring “volatility” or “abrupt movements” in exchange rates.

He said the Europeans would probably spin this as being “really about getting the euro down”. But he said the US would not support this interpretation.

There is broader agreement on the regulatory agenda, with a “to-do” list that focuses on credit rating agencies, disclosure of banks’ exposure to off-balance-sheet investment vehicles, regulatory and incentive problems in the system by which financial institutions sell mortgage debts on to securities markets, and difficulties surrounding complex structured credit products.

The UK wants new international regulations that focus on liquidity rather than just credit risk.

These issues will be discussed at the G7 on Friday and the annual meeting of the IMF the following day, which brings together all the world’s finance ministers.

Differences over hedge funds – particularly between the US and Germany – still remain but have narrowed and are not a core issue.

However, the US wants policymakers to take time to analyse the crisis before leaping to regulatory solutions, a view backed by the IMF and central bankers and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. Washington is also inclined to see more scope for market-based solutions to many of the failures exposed than are most European states.

In spite of domestic political pressure, Mr Paulson remains unwilling to scapegoat the rating agencies, emphasising the need to reform but not destroy them.

Additional reporting by Chris Giles and Gillian Tett in London, Bertrand Benoit in Berlin, Ben Hall in Paris, Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt and Tony Barber in Brussels.

South Sudan minister explains pull out

2007-10-14T17:02:00.001-07:00

Sunday, 14th October, 2007 E-mail article Print article

Dr. Samson Kwaje

The SPLM pulled out of the unity government, citing concerns over the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The New Vision’s Els De Temmerman and Milton Olupot interviewed the Minister of Information of South Sudan, Dr. Samson Kwaje, by tele-conference.

Q: You cited oil revenue sharing as one of the reasons for withdrawing your ministers from the national government. But Khartoum claims it is releasing about $160m every three months in oil revenues to the South?
A: The issue is not about remitting money. The issue is lack of transparency in the entire oil sector. Southern Sudanese are not involved in the production process or the marketing. We don’t know how much is being extracted. They don’t tell us the truth. According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), we are supposed to get 50% of the oil produced in South Sudan. Calculations two years ago in Naivasha established that we would be getting between $80m and $115m per month. At that time the price of oil was $35 to $37 per barrel. Right now it has gone beyond $70 per barrel. But the revenues we are getting range between $28m and $60m per month. Considering that two more oil fields were added, in Paluoch and Adar, we should be getting over $150m per month.

Q: So how is your share being determined?
A: They just tell us: this month production has fallen because the old oil fields are producing less than usual. The problem is that the government of South Sudan and the SPLM are not involved in the oil sector. We are not represented in the ministry of energy or the ministry of finance, where the calculations are done. We feel that there is cheating.

Q: Another outstanding issue is the North/South border demarcation. Khartoum claims that the border commission and the commission for the allocation of natural resources have been formed but that their work is hampered by the rains.
A: According to the agreement, the North/South border commission was supposed to finish its work between January 9 and July 9, 2005. The government of Khartoum has been dragging its feet. Even after the SPLA named its members, the commission was not formed until the end of 2005. And when the commission was formed, the ministry of finance did not want to fund it. There was no funding until early 2007, when they began the actual work. The Khartoum government is not interested in the demarcation of the border, because when the border is formed, most of the oil now called northern Sudan oil is actually in South Sudan. The delay is not because of the rain. It is because they don’t want the commission to finish its work.

Q: What about the idea of bringing in British experts to demarcate the border?
A: For the North/South demarcation, it is the SPLM and the Government of Sudan to determine the borders, but they are free to engage national or international experts. So far, Khartoum has refused to bring in experts, claiming we are capable of doing it ourselves. For the Abyei boundary commission, five international experts and five members from the SPLM and the Sudan government each were appointed.
They produced their report. But the Khartoum government rejected its findings. Up to now, the Abyei Protocol has not been implemented because Khartoum rejected the experts’ report and subsequently failed to set up an administration in Abyei.

Q: You claim that the North has not withdrawn all its troops from the South, as agreed in the CPA. But Khartoum, in turn, claims the SPLA has not withdrawn all its troops either.
A: Khartoum has not yet withdrawn its troops from Unity State and Upper Nile. These are states where oil is being produced. They still have 16,000 troops in those two states. This is a clear violation of the CPA, which said that all troops should have been withdrawn by July 9, 2007. Our information is that instead of withdrawing, they are deploying more troops in those areas. As for us, we have withdrawn all our troops from the Nuba Mountains and the eastern Front. We are left with less than 50 troops in a place called Kurmuk in Blue Nile who are guarding our heavy arms. They have not been able to cross because of the rains, which have made the roads impassable. We are waiting for the floods to go down so that we can drive our tanks out of the area.

Q: One of the demands on the list handed to the Sudan President was the reshuffle of ministerial posts. What is the problem?
A: The government of unity is composed as follows: 52% the National Congress Party, the party of President Bashir, 28% SPLM, and the rest from other northern political parties. There are 30 cabinet ministers, 34 state ministers and a number of advisors. Out of that, we have eight cabinet ministers, 10 state ministers and two advisors. According to the agreement, these are nominated by the chairman of the SPLA, with the recommendation of the party, and given to President Bashir for appointment. Each party has a right to replace its members. Three months ago, the President of South Sudan, who is the chairman of the SPLM, sent a letter to reshuffle some of its ministers. He appointed new ones and reassigned others. But President Bashir has refused to implement it. Yet, according to the agreement, it is not a prerogative of the President to refuse a recommendation of any party that wants to reshuffle it members. This is again a clear violation of the CPA.

Q: What is the way forward?
A: We are still in negotiations. We have sent a high level negotiating team to Khartoum to present our complaints to the government of national unity. The SPLA is not going to start a war. We are just expressing our disappointment in the non-implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Q: Is this going to affect the peace talks you are brokering between the LRA and the Government of Uganda?
A: It is not going to affect the Juba peace talks in any way because this is an initiative of the government of South Sudan, which is functioning normally. We are only suspending our participation in the government of national unity.

Q: Should Ugandan businessmen in South Sudan be worried?
A: Not at all. South Sudan is normal. There is no war. We are only handling our problems with the Khartoum government, not at the level of the government of South Sudan.

Independent Africa: Is it a sinking or sailing ship?

2007-10-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

INDEPENDENCE ERA | Nicholas Sengoba

October 9, 2007
Today, Uganda celebrates forty five years of independence and is in league with several African countries as they inch towards a golden jubilee (50 years) of self rule.
This period is considerably long enough to write a magisterial report card about whether they will sink or swim - the former being the greater possibility as things stand.

The immediate former Secretary General of the East African Community Nuwe Amanya Mushega lamented recently that “the state of affairs of the people of Africa and black Africa in particular, is nothing to be proud of” which profound statement is in tandem with the famous “Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world” made by the former British Premier Tony Blair.

Be it mortality rates, HIV/Aids prevalence, life expectancy, poverty levels, productivity, corruption, freedoms and governance indices, independent Africa comes last- with very depressing statistics.

So, how did all the enthusiasm and euphoria that characterised the attainment of self rule drown into a turbulent sea of despair to the extent that almost everything in Africa that can move has literally gone to the dogs and turned the blissful dream of independence into a harrowing nightmare?

Writing for the defunct Weekly Topic (November 22, 1991) in his column A View From Boston, Charles Onyango- Obbo opined that “great institutions as well as nations are built and nurtured by men and women who give to them (at least) more than they take away.”

Africa is not a great place and may not be for a long time to come, simply because the actions and spirit of most of its leaders point towards a pathetic future not a destiny of prosperity.

At the launch of the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative (STAR) in New York last month, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, and World Bank President, Robert Zoellick revealed that a quarter of the gross domestic product or the market value of all the goods and services produced in a year by labour and assets located in African countries (about $148 billion) is lost to theft and corruption.

Put another way more money is (mostly) stolen or ‘diverted’ as bribes by leaders and sidekicks of ‘donor dependant’ independent African countries from the deserving recipients, (the poor in Africa,) than is received from the western donors or ‘development partners’ and aid institutions which is about $13 billion.

The loot is safely and profitably banked or invested overseas -with full awareness of western governments and donor agencies- at the expense of social programmes including healthcare, education, infrastructural development and poverty alleviation.

Sad to say, good old Africa is led by raw thieves in suits (and military fatigues) and people led by thieves throughout history rarely cut respectable figures. They will fight wars, kill, manipulate the law, steal elections, bribe and suppress the opposition, muzzle the media, stuff all levels and spheres of influence relying on tribalism and nepotism as a basis of recruitment, all for the sake of perpetuity and self preservation to safeguard the looting.

Consequently, whichever system has been tried in post independence Africa, from socialism, capitalism, mixed economy, to multiparty democracy to one-party rule, from all inclusive “movement democracy,” to outright military dictatorship, the results have been similarly futile.

Two centuries since the abolition of slavery the African is led in such a manner that (s)he still lives precariously at the mercy of God and the whims of nature, despised even at his best and taken as the third class citizen constantly caught between pillar and post, works in deplorable conditions, and is treated shabbily as a slave both at home and abroad.

The western world like the slave traders of old profits immensely by conniving with African rulers in an illegitimate, immoral and unbalanced trade relationship to fleece Africans of their labours’ sweat.

Herein lies the genesis of Africa’s backwardness, for which race is falsely attributed. Africans have been made to appear as a gullible and hapless lot capable of enduring any level of fraud and oppression at the hands of the continent’s leaders who rob, and sell off for a pittance whatever wealth they lay their hands on.

An agonising reality is that as a result of the machinations of the leadership provided after independence, the ordinary African is so traumatised that he has become unbothered, apathetic, fatalistic, and cynical towards his own predicament and is therefore hapless as a factor in the process of changing the destiny of the continent.

Sadly, this leaves the other potential agents of change, the opposition and civil society without a powerful domestic base financially, materially and morally. Instead, they look to the West for a panacea to rein in dictators and kleptocrats yet in many cases the West and its agents are opportunistic bedfellows of the leaders on the continent.

That is why one must be either very naïve or dishonest to still speak of a bright future for this continent as was envisaged at the dawn of independence. Happy Independence Day!

nicholassengoba@yahoo.com

Oil, Not Terrorists, the Reason for US Attack on Somalia

2007-10-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

A UN Somalia Monitoring Group report released in November 2005 reveals that a dozen countries, namely Yemen, Djibouti, Libya, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Iran, Syria, Eritrea, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Uganda were all poking their noses into the Somalia pie.

What the UN Somalia Monitoring Group didn’t reveal, however, is that these were not the only countries which were interested in the country. The little known yet well-heeled contact group, consisting of Norway, the US, UK, France and Tanzania (just an appendage) are also deeply enmeshed in Somalia.

While the terrorism theory holds some water, the reality of the factors contributing to the mess in Somalia is pegged on natural resources. Oil and gas are Somalia’s Achilles heel. It is an open secret that four US oil giants are sitting pretty on money-spinning concessions expecting to reap huge windfalls from massive resources of both oil and gas in Somalia.

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Monday, 22 January 2007
By Wanjohi Kabukuru

01/22/07 "ICHBlog" -- -- Just why did the US attack Somalia two weeks ago? Of course, the answer given for the US military intervention and the generally accepted notion is the hunt for terrorists. But is it? Are terrorists the only bone of contention the US has with Somalia? When the US military devised “Operation Restore Hope” in 1993 which was short-lived after they were whipsawed by rag-tag militia in and around Mogadishu, were they fighting the ‘war on terror’?

They couldn’t have been because this war was to start much later, If anything it is a post-Sept 11 phenomenon. So then why did the US bomb ICU extremists in the name of Al Qaeda terrorists and not throughout last year when they occupied Mogadishu?

Just why is Somalia so important to the US, and by extension the big boys of Europe and some Gulf states? A UN Somalia Monitoring Group report released in November 2005 reveals that a dozen countries, namely Yemen, Djibouti, Libya, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Iran, Syria, Eritrea, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Uganda were all poking their noses into the Somalia pie.

What the UN Somalia Monitoring Group didn’t reveal, however, is that these were not the only countries which were interested in the country. The little known yet well-heeled contact group, consisting of Norway, the US, UK, France and Tanzania (just an appendage) are also deeply enmeshed in Somalia.

While the terrorism theory holds some water, the reality of the factors contributing to the mess in Somalia is pegged on natural resources. Oil and gas are Somalia’s Achilles heel. It is an open secret that four US oil giants are sitting pretty on money-spinning concessions expecting to reap huge windfalls from massive resources of both oil and gas in Somalia.

The story of Somalia and oil goes back to the colonial period. British and Italian geologists first identified oil deposits during that period of imperialism. The first oil wells historically referred to as the Daga Shabell series were dug in the 1960s. Tiny gas discoveries adjacent to Socotra were also noted.

The race for these precious natural resources took a new turn in 1988, when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, with the support of the governments of Britain, France and Canada and backed by several Western oil companies financed a regional hydrocarbon study of the countries bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Eden.

The countries were Somalia, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was later dropped, but not before it had been established that within the study area, massive deposits of oil and gas existed. The results of the findings were presented to a three-day American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Eastern Hemisphere group conference, in London in September, 1991. Is there oil in Somalia? Listen to the answer:

“It’s there. There’s no doubt there’s oil there,” said geologist Thomas E. O’Connor, the World Bank’s principal petroleum engineer, who steered the in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in Somalia’s Gulf of Eden in the northern coastal region.

The study was intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations. The conclusions of their findings are quite telling as the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers.

While presenting their results during the conference, two geologists involved in the study (an American and an Egyptian) reported that the investigation of nine exploratory wells dug in Somalia pointed out that the region was “situated within the oil window, and thus (is) highly prospective for gas and oil.”

Geologist, Z. R. Beydoun, who was involved in the survey, noted that “the geological parameters conducive to the generation, expulsion and trapping of significant amounts of oil and gas” were within the offshore sites. Soon after a race for lucrative deals kicked off in earnest.

Four US oil companies, namely Conoco, Chevron, Amoco and Philips have concessions in nearly two thirds of Somalia. This quartet of oil conglomerates was granted these contracts in the final days of Somalia’s deposed dictator, Siad Barre. The US first military engagement in Somalia was fully supported by Conoco.
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About the Author: Mr Kabukuru is a Nairobi-based freelance journalist.

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Last Updated January 23, 2007 12:27 PM

Criticism

2007-10-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

When Africans talk about Africa, America is often blamed for not doing enough to help this poor continent. America is to blame for AIDS, poverty, high rates of infant mortality, etc. Often these anti-Americans call on the country they despise to help America, if necessary by starting a new Marshall Plan. Now, I've called for a Marshall Plan for Africa as well (and am by no means anti-American), but Revel is quite right when he writes that people seem to forget that "the international aid received by Africa since decolonization is equivalent to four or five Marshall Plans, all of which was squandered, embezzled or outright stolen, when it wasn't swallowed up in incessant wars or wiped out in stupid 'agrarian reforms' modeled on the suffocating collectivism of Russia and China." However, despite that, it remains "convenient to throw back on America all responsibility for one's own mistakes or crimes – while still appealing to her for rescue."

Rwanda Govt breaks dependency syndrome

2007-09-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

ROBERT MUKOMBOZI
KIGALI
RWANDA's attempts to break the dependence syndrome, which has hampered most African countries development, could have paid off.

Thirteen years after the 1994 genocide that devastated this tiny central African country, the Kigali leadership has pushed an economic, social and political growth that depends largely on home-made solutions.

Although the issue of borrowing continues to play a role, as the case is in all global markets, in Rwanda, it has become reasonably minimal.
The country is shifting towards utilizing all her resources, human and material to solve development chancellor. The government is working hard to involve every Rwandan in the reconstruction task without relying on foreign expertise.

Immediately after the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army had captured power in 1994, after the bush war struggle that put an end to the debacle in which over million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred, the most urgent task was to build trust among Rwandans, and reconcile them.

The RPF government bonded victims and culprits that had participated in genocide and encouraged them to live in harmony again. Among confidence building strategies was the institution of a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. The commission has engaged Rwandans of all walks of life in the country and in the Diaspora on how to rebuild their own motherland.

Most of the Rwandan professionals had either died or fled the country, while those that were steering national policies were often inexperienced. Now the RPF-led government of President Paul Kagame has continued to reject the idea that, as a people emerging out of conflict, others should conceive and design systems, processes and strategies for Rwanda.

Mr Kagame has always made his view very clear on this matter that in any event, a development programme that is conceived and executed by external actors is unsustainable in the long run.

Gacaca system
A classical illustration of a home grown policy is the Gacaca court system which addressed genocide cases that would require a lot of time and resources to be resolved.
The Gacaca system is a centuries-old Rwandan community-based justice system in which the accused and the accuser meet in a village square, led by a council of elders, to settle cases.

In the history of this country, it was a tool for reconciliation since the penalties were mutually binding. In modern Rwanda, the Gacaca court system has been modernised to handle part of the bulk of genocide crimes -the less serious cases, while other categories of crimes against humanity are executed by the conventional western style courts.
However, the international community's view on this communal court system in Rwanda is indifferent.

Sometimes the West has reacted out rightly hostile to this initiative, arguing that Gacaca does not fit the principles of conventional court systems. But, in his address to the African Business Leaders Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa, recently, Mr Kagame challenged the critics to provide an alternative to Gacaca.

"We also point to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The tribunal has since 1995 tried 31 people at a cost of over US$1 billion," he noted.

G8 making wrong diagnosis for Africa

2007-09-24T05:44:00.000-07:00

Moses Byaruhanga
I read in the media that the G8 countries concluded their meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany last Friday by pledging $60 billion to combat HIV/Aids, TB and malaria.

The G8 also renewed their commitment made two years ago to increase other aid to Africa by $50 billion a year by 2010. This was another lost opportunity by the developed countries to address the problems of Africa. Borrowing from Jeffrey Sachs in his book; The End of Poverty in the chapter “clinical economics,” he argues that the problem of the Breton Wood Institutions with Africa is that they make a poor diagnosis and as a result give wrong prescriptions.

The G8 countries continue to make a wrong diagnosis of the problems of Africa, hence prescribe a wrong medicine by increasing aid. The problem of Africa is not aid or the lack of it. If aid was a solution to Africa’s problem, with the amount of aid the developed nations have pumped in Africa (Africa receives an annual aid flow of $13 billion), African countries would be developed by now. When Europe was in an economic recess after the World War, it was not helped by mere aid but by the Marshall Plan which was a comprehensive economic development plan meant to ensure Europe’s economic stability and strategic security in the postwar era.

Before the plan was passed, Congress set up a bipartisan committee led by Christian Herter which made a crucial trip to Europe to study the problem on the round and report back to Congress. George Marshall under whom the plan was named was the United States Secretary for Finance during President Truman’s administration. What the US did through the Congressional committee above was to use Jeffrey Sachs’ clinical economic diagnosis of the economic problems of Europe at the time.

This is what the G8 leaders are lacking in trying to help Africa overcome its economic problems. With aid, unless that aid is targeted to promoting investment and trade, nothing will become of it. Africa will not develop because of aid. Instead Africa needs value addition to its raw materials and end the inequitable relationship with the West by selling raw materials.

Africa should stop selling coffee beans but sell roasted or instant coffee, stop selling lint but finished garments, stop selling tobacco leaves but cigarettes, stop selling cocoa but chocolate, stop selling crude oil but oil products, etc. For a long time the West took a protectionist approach by denying finished goods from Africa entry into their markets. A finished good from Africa would be charged a high tax compared to a raw material. The idea was to discourage finished goods from Africa and the third world at large.

When you add value to raw materials and sell them as finished goods, you gain two advantages. Firstly, a finished good fetches more value than a raw material.
President Museveni in his numerous speeches has always given an example of cotton where a kilo of lint cotton fetches one dollar while if you turn that same lint into a garment, you earn about $10. For every one kilo of lint exported from Africa, we lose nine dollars.

With increased earnings from finished goods, farmers would earn more and would be guaranteed a steady market. When farmers incomes increase, then they can spend more on social services like education, health, sanitation and consumption at large leading to industries selling more because of a high purchasing power.

Secondly, value addition creates employment in the local economy. On the other hand selling raw materials creates jobs in the countries that import our raw materials.
So if the G8 is to do anything to help Africa, it should be, among others, to encourage companies in the West to invest in Africa and in promotion of trade in finished goods between Africa and the West.

This point was well articulated by President Museveni during his address to the African Business Forum organised by the Commonwealth Business Council in London last Tuesday. A lady from Nigeria who was seated next to me at the forum listening to Museveni make his points congratulated Uganda for having Museveni as our leader.

A member of the House of Lords told one of the Ugandan ministers that he agreed with 75 per cent of what President Museveni said, but even with the 25 per cent which he disagreed with, he enjoyed the manner and logic in the way Museveni articulated his points to the audience. That is Museveni for you on African matters.

The writer is special presidential assistant on political affairs

Email: political@infocom.co.ug

Museveni calls for one African army

2007-09-24T05:10:00.001-07:00

TABU F. BUTAGIRA & RONALD BATRE
KAMPALA/ARUA

President Yoweri Museveni has criticised his African peers for relying on foreign military forces to maintain peace and security on the continent.

Gen. Museveni said Africa needs to immediately build one strong army that would intervene swiftly to restore calm in any beleaguered state and end unnecessary western benefaction. "Should Africa continue to seek defence patronage from abroad?" Mr Museveni asked on Friday, adding: "In whose interest is this patronage?"

Presently, over 13, 000 UN troops under the United Nations Mission in Congo are struggling to restore calm in the restive eastern DRC where renegade rebel chief Gen. Laurent Nkunda is fighting the Kinshasa government of Joseph Kabila.

On August 1, the UN approved the deployment of 26, 000 military and police personnel to Sudan's volatile Darfur region where an estimated 200, 000 people have died and another 2 million displaced since a conflict erupted in the oil-rich western province in 2003.

The home-grown African Union troops deployed there earlier are over stretched and have under performed mainly due to logistical bottlenecks and lack of money.
"While we may get help from bodies like the United Nations, it is imperative that we take initiative in promoting peace and preventing conflict," Mr Museveni said in a speech read for him by State Finance Minister (general duties), Jachan Omach at International UN Peace Day national celebrations in Arua on Friday.

"We need to build a credible military force that can guarantee the future of the African race". The President said many of the wars ravaging African Countries have continued to escalate and claim more lives due to delayed response arising from over reliance on foreign armed forces.

He said conflict resolution must be given a new priority on Africa's development agenda if harmony is to prevail within and between the continent's 53 nations. "Africa must strive to be ideologically independent if we are to secure and maintain peace and stability across (national) borders. We must share the same vision for our continent," Mr Museveni who had initially disagreed on fast tracking formation of a single African government, said.

"Conflicts have devastated the African continent, causing loss of millions of lives, human rights have been abused and entire populations forced to abandon dwellings and take on refugee status," he said.

"It is not only appalling but also abhorrent that the perpetrators of such acts normally attack defenseless civilians, children and women in order to advance their causes". The International Peace Day was celebrated under the theme: Promoting Cross-border Peace and Stability; Our Commitment, Struggle In Our Development and Progress.