Check against delivery
It is a pleasure to be here in New York today.
Coming here six years after September 11th I recall the resilience and bravery shown in this city in the face of tragedy. Indeed, America has shown by the actions of all its people that while buildings can be destroyed, values are indestructible; and while lives have been put at risk, the cause of liberty never dies.
And let me begin by thanking the UN Secretary General warmly for the work he is undertaking to bring peace to the troubled region of Darfur.
For today is an important decision day for Darfur - and for change.
The situation in Darfur is the greatest humanitarian disaster the world faces today. Over 200,000 dead, 2 million displaced and 4 million on food aid. Following my meeting with President Bush, and I thank him for his leadership on Darfur, the UK and the French have now, with US support, agreed and tabled a UN Security Council resolution that will mandate the deployment of the world's largest peacekeeping operation to protect the citizens of Darfur. And I hope this plan - for a 19,000 African Union-UN force - will be adopted later today. Immediately we will work hard to deploy this force quickly. And the plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a ceasefire, including an end to aerial bombings of civilians; drive forward peace talks starting in Arusha Tanzania this weekend on 3rd august; and as peace is established, offer to and begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction. But we must clear if any party blocks progress and the killings continue, I and others will redouble our efforts to impose further sanctions.
The message for Darfur is that it is time for change. And I am here to say that its also time for change so that we can meet the world's millennium development goals.
We do this best when we all join together in common cause. So I want to discuss with you how starting from the shared needs, common interests and linked destinies of all countries across the world - rich and poor - as well as private and voluntary sectors, we can come together to forge a new global alliance for peace and prosperity.
When one month ago I took office as Prime Minister, one of my first acts was to ask Ministers of the United Kingdom Government - from International Development and Foreign Office to Business and Trade, Treasury and the Environment - to report to me on what we must do to meet the world's Millennium Development Goals and to eradicate the great evils of our time: illiteracy, disease, poverty, environmental degradation and under-development.
Earlier this month, the UN Secretary General launched the UN's 2007 progress report on the goals. He said there was a clear need for urgent and concerted action.
Now one month later I have come to New York - to the city where the world convenes - to support the Secretary-General's call and to tell the truth: the goals the world has set are not being met and we face an emergency - a development emergency - and we need emergency action if we are to meet them.
And I have come today to New York because it was here seven years ago...
in this United Nations conclave...
with the eyes of the whole world upon us all...
that every world leader, every international body, almost every single country signed a historic declaration for the new millennium, pledging to set and then to meet by 2015 eight development goals.
It was a remarkable moment --- the whole world coming together as one, the leadership of the poorest countries to be empowered by the obligations accepted by the richest. All of us accepting our shared responsibilities to work together for change.
But seven years on it is already clear that our pace is too slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk.
The Millennium Development Goal to be met in 2015, is to reduce infant mortality by two thirds. But unless we act, it will not be met by 2015, not even by 2030, not until 2050.
The Millennium Development Goal of 2000, to be met in 2015, is primary education for every child. Unless we act it will not be met by 2015, not even by 2050 but at best by 2100.
And unless we act, the planet will by 2015 be suffering not less but more environmental degradation and millions of people will still be struggling on less than one dollar a day with millions of children still hungry.
As the UN Secretary General said earlier this month pointedly and persuasively 'millions of lives quite literally hang in the balance'.
The calendar says we are half way from 2000 to 2015. But the reality is that we are we are a million miles away from success.
The world did not come together in New York in 2000, come together again in Doha in 2001, in Johannesburg and Monterrey in 2002, in Gleneagles and New York in 2005 and Heiligendamm in 2007 to make, re-make and reaffirm promises, for us then to break them.
We cannot allow our promises that became pledges to descend into just aspirations, and then wishful thinking, and then only words that symbolise broken promises.
We did not make the commitment to the Millennium Development Goals only for us to be remembered as the generation that betrayed promises rather than honoured them and undermined trust that promises can ever be kept.
So it is time to call it what it is: a development emergency which needs emergency action.
If 30,000 children died needlessly and avoidably every day in America or Britain we would call it an emergency. And an emergency is what it is.
So when the need is pressing, when it is our generation that has made historic commitments, when the time to meet them is now short, the simple questions that - to paraphrase the words of an American president - we must ask are:
If not now, when?
If not us, who?
If not together, how?
And I believe the scale of the challenge is such that we cannot now leave it to some other time and some other people but must act now, working together.
Yet despite all the failures, success is not beyond our vision or our grasp. And for all the measures of despair I have mentioned, there can also be reason for hope.
For we know that when we act, and act together, we can make progress.
We have shown how we can address polio, measles and tuberculosis.
The numbers of children out of school has fallen from 100 million to 77 million.
34 countries are now on track to meet the infant mortality goal.
44 countries now on track to meet the poverty goal.
47 countries now on track to meet the education goal - because of aid and debt relief.
So let no one say aid and debt relief don't make a difference and politics never works - what doesn't work is doing nothing.
And with 130 million children immunized in a life-giving movement to eliminate polio and smallpox, we have also shown we can act with boldness to vaccinate children. The International Finance Facility for Immunization - backed by the Gates Foundation, six European governments, Brazil and South Africa - is frontloading 4 billion dollars of funds and will enable, by 2015, 500 million children to be vaccinated and at least 5 million lives saved.
And if this can be achieved by one world-wide financial facility in one sphere of healthcare, how much more can be achieved by private and public sectors, and faith groups and NGOs working together - not just in health but across education, economic development and the environment?
And so my argument is simple: the greatest of evils that touches the deepest places of conscience demands the greatest of endeavour.
The greatest of challenges now demands the boldest of initiatives.
To address the worst of poverty we urgently need to summon up the best efforts of humanity.
I want to summon into existence the greatest coalition of conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes.
And I firmly believe that if we can discover common purpose there is no failing in today's world that cannot be addressed by mobilising our strengths, no individual struggle that drags people down that cannot benefit from a renewed public purpose that can lift people up.
For you also know what I know: that the world has the technology to cure, the science to heal, the medicine to save lives.
Past generations had the old excuse.
They could say:
If only we had the knowledge
If only we had the technology
If only we had the medicine
If only we had the science
If only we had the wealth.
Today we have the science, technology, medicine and wealth: what we now need is the unity and strength of purpose to employ the ingenuity and resources we have - and to employ them well - to help those who need it.
And we need a compact - the rich accepting their responsibilities to invest, to support, to end protectionism and to deliver our promises; the developing countries accepting their responsibilities to reform, to open up to trade, and to be transparent and free of corruption.
But our objectives cannot be achieved by governments alone, however well intentioned; or private sector alone, however generous; or NGOs or faith groups alone, however well meaning or determined - it can only be achieved in a genuine partnership together.
So it is time to call into action the eighth of the Millennium Goals so we can meet the first seven. Let us remember Millennium Development Goal eight - to call into being, beyond governments alone, a global partnership for development, and together harness the energy, the ideas and the talents of the private sector, consumers, NGOs and faith groups, and citizens everywhere.
The sum of all the individual actions working together to achieve real change.
Some people call it the mobilisation of soft power...I call it people power.
People power in support of the leadership of developing countries.
So let me say to governments of developing countries: you are the leaders in charge of the destiny of your countries. And you have told us that that destiny is not to be poor. The world has moved from the age of colonialism to the age of political independence but economic dependence, to what must become the new age of empowerment: and our task is to support and empower you in the open, transparent decision-making and reforms you need to make, and to keep our promises.
Let me say to business: you know better than anyone that in the long run you simply cannot succeed in places where the roads are impassable, where people have no access to markets, where employees are under-educated or under-fed, where the rule of law is poorly established or poorly respected. Not only does business have the technology, the skills, the expertise for wealth and job creation that if fully mobilised for global purpose will help meet our goals, it is also in your best business interest to help poor countries develop.
Let me say to faith groups and NGOs -- your moral outrage at avoidable poverty has led you to work for the greatest of causes, the highest of ideals, and become the leaders of the campaign to make poverty history. Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose and expose harnessed to the energy to propose and inspire is given more support by the rest of us -- businesses, citizens, and governments.
Let me say to individuals....I know that many of you want to help make a difference, want to be responsible consumers, want to make your voices heard, want to be active citizens of the world. You can play a part as individuals in ensuring that when the history books look back on 2007 and 2008, they talk of a popular campaign for change so big, broad, deep and wide that governments around the whole world had to sit up, listen and act.
Let me say to all our global institutions and international financial institutions: We have been standing at the crossroads of change for too long. It is time to implement the reforms needed, prove your relevance for the global age, and make the difficult choices that will give us an international system that is truly fit for the 21st century agenda ---- one that reflects new shared purpose for the age of globalisation, delivering change to those who need it most.
And let me say to governments of developed countries: We must deliver on our previous promises --- on 0.7 per cent, on making our aid more effective, on debt cancellation, on trade, on universal access to AIDS treatment, on reducing carbon emissions. And let us not just fulfil the commitments we have already made but work with everyone who has a contribution to make. Not just more reports or more studies - for we know what needs to be done - but action.
A programme of action on education to end illiteracy and to ensure opportunity for all.
A programme of action on trade and economic development to end poverty and ensure prosperity for all.
A programme of action to challenge degradation and to protect the environment, to promote safety and security for all.
And a programme of action to eradicate disease to ensure decent health for all.
So today 14 world leaders and 21 top businessmen and women have come together to sign up to a new commitment to action to meet this development emergency.
I am delighted that the UN Secretary General is here today to witness and respond.
Together we are calling on all - not just governments but also private sector, civil society and faith groups - to come together in a worldwide initiative to form new partnerships to help accelerate our progress.
I want us to come together as one world - public, private, voluntary sectors including faith groups and international institutions -
in education - government, teachers, schools, universities, business, NGOs and faith groups;
in trade and wealth creation - government, business, trade unions, cities, NGOs and faith groups;
in the environment - government, business, scientists, cities, NGOs and faith groups;
in health - governments, doctors, scientists, businesses, NGOs and faith groups.
I want us to call an emergency meeting next year at which we report on where we are and what we have to do.
In the coming year we must turn these renewed commitments into immediate action. We must agree in the autumn a global trade deal that delivers for the poor not just the rich; we must in Bali, in December, agree the outline for a bold climate plan and at the G8 in Japan in July 2008 we must deliver on the promises we made on aid and debt.
And each year from 2008 in our countdown to 2015 we must mobilise action around detailed objectives: lives saved from killer diseases like TB or polio, children in school, people with clean water, people on anti-retrovirals, people in jobs, businesses created. All the individual actions can be measured and aggregated as steps towards our goals.
I welcome the work already being done in the United Nations, particularly the start this year of Annual Ministerial Reviews of the Millennium Development Goals by the Economic and Social Council, and the preparations for a major Financing for Development conference in Doha next December.
And around them we must build a consensus to support the urgent actions we must all take, with everyone playing their part.
Education
Let me set out what I believe our partnership for 2015 can achieve for our first goal - to end illiteracy by ensuring schooling for all.
Last year in Mozambique, under the inspiration of Nelson Mandela's leadership, the international community launched a new 'Education For All' initiative: the demand that the promise of free education must be kept, school by school, class by class, and child by child.
And I ask all NGOs, churches and faith groups to demand of every country that they support this great literacy initiative that will help ensure that young children are given hope.
In Indonesia I have seen barefoot children living above open sewers; in India I have witnessed hundreds of children sleeping rough in the streets; in Nigeria I met AIDS orphans who have AIDS and TB themselves; and in Mozambique I heard from children being taught on the floor with leaking roofs and four shifts a day.
Today in Africa governments, local and national, provide the majority of school places but up to one third of schooling is provided by churches and faith groups, and hundreds of businesses and charity foundations are involved in supporting schools.
So how can we move forward ?
Already 25 African and Asian countries have agreed to submit ten year education plans.
The Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, France, Australia, Germany, Spain and Japan have made new commitments.
The US and G8 have pledged to help fill the immediate funding gaps in the Fast Track Initiative.
And to set a ten year goal the UK has pledged 15 billion dollars - locking in the long-term financial commitment that is vital to delivering high quality education for all.
We will call on others in education, business and the voluntary sector to join us so that we can put in place long-term predictable funding to finance long-term education plans.
We will encourage schools and colleges and universities in rich countries to reach out to partner with schools and others in poor countries.
In Britain we will review 'gift aid' charity reliefs to maximize the contribution of everyone - individuals, businesses and foundations.
And it is because we are committed to the rights of every child that we will do for education what the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres do for health and seek to provide education not just in places of comfort and peace but everywhere in the world - for the 40 million children living behind frontiers in conflict zones and failed states. And it is a measure of the engagement we need that this new initiative can be led only by voluntary action.
And let me tell you why I believe schooling for all can be achieved. Education is not only the most economically efficient and socially beneficial investment we can make but also the cheapest and most cost effective. For in the developing world it costs just 100 dollars per child per year for schooling. Just 2 dollars a week. And so to finance all the schools and teachers we need costs 9 billion dollars a year.
For every person in the richest part of the world that is less than two pence a day, or four cents, a day.
If every person in the rich world contributes 10 pounds - or 20 dollars - a year today, we could meet our education goal tomorrow.
Trade and Economic Development
While education is the key to empowerment, trade, wealth creation and job creation are the only routes to long term prosperity.
And it is time to agree a new partnership for prosperity:
in each country, the government undertaking a rigorous examination of the obstacles to business formation...
in each country, development agencies helping to create the infrastructure necessary for growth...
in each country, the power of entrepreneurship unleashed...
in each country, a focus on agricultural productivity...
in each country, government and businesses being long term partners in a joint mission on economic development.
In the 1990s the talk was structural adjustment; in 2007 it is sustainable development. But perhaps for too long we have talked the language of development without defining its starting point in wealth creation - the dignity of individuals empowered to trade and be economically self sufficient.
No country has moved to development without opening up to trade.
So I accept an immediate obligation on world leaders to address protectionism and work to make what we promised - the development trade round - happen this year.
It is urgent that heads of government stand ready to break the deadlock, using all our resources of leadership. In recent days I have talked to Chancellor Merkel, President Barroso, Prime Minister Socrates and President Lula, President Mbeki and Prime Minister Singh, as well as Pascal Lamy. And I am determined that contacts between leaders are stepped up so that we are ready to quickly finalise an agreement in the near future.
And we must not only open the door but enable people to walk through it, so alongside our fight for a trade agreement must come a multi-billion pound 'aid for trade' programme for poor nations - for which the US, Japan and Europe have already contributed 9 billion dollars - to build the infrastructure, the communications and education to take advantage of trading opportunities and to prevent their most vulnerable people from falling further into poverty as they become integrated into the global economy.
Climate Change
I address you today as many of you go into important discussions taking place at the General Assembly later this morning and again in September on climate change. And I strongly welcome the leadership the Secretary General has shown on this issue in the run-up to the Bali conference in December.
We know that the gains from global prosperity have been disproportionately enjoyed by the people in industrialised countries and that the consequences of climate change will be disproportionately felt by the poorest who are least responsible for it --- making the issue of climate change one of justice as much as economic development.
And we know that developing countries are already living in their daily lives with what we live in fear of in ours:
in Southern Africa malaria has spread into new areas where it was never previously a threat;
Lake Chad is no longer a lake but a dust bowl;
farmers in Kenya are unable to identify the seasons in order to know when to sow their crops;
the Pacific islanders of Tuvalu - only 3 metres above sea level - are already negotiating the right to move to New Zealand;
water scarcity across Asia and Africa is forcing women to walk miles further for water.
And because we are already having to spend $6 billion of aid a year simply to respond to humanitarian crises caused by environmental neglect, we are spending to deal with the consequences of failure - resources diverted to tackle the short term consequences of environmental change, when we need to invest now to create the low carbon conditions for success in the future.
And I want to say to you today that there is no trade off between meeting our goals on economic development and meeting our goals on the environment and climate change - that tackling poverty is just not possible without also tackling climate change. Indeed that economic progress social justice and environmental care now go together.
That is why Millennium Development Goal seven - that we ensure environmental sustainability - is central to what we do.
Creating a sustainable planet not just for some but for all means doing much more to help developing countries invest to adapt to the immediate consequences of climate change. For our part, Britain is offering a new Environmental Transformation Fund worth 1.6 billion dollars which will help meet our international commitment to poverty reduction through investment in clean energy, sustainable forestry, adaptation and environmental protection.
And building on the global Clean Energy Investment Framework of the World Bank and multilateral development banks - we should make the World Bank a bank for environment as well as development and strengthen its role to stimulate investment in energy access, energy efficiency, low carbon supply, and adaptation in developing countries - not least through innovative new mechanisms joining public and private finance in common cause.
At the same time, rich countries must significantly cut our own greenhouse gas emissions with the European Union committing itself to a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions - 30 per cent if part of a new global effort - as we move to an ambitious, comprehensive and binding international agreement for the period after 2012, putting the world on the path to halving global emissions and including commitments to develop, deploy and transfer low carbon technologies, to create a global carbon market and to help finance developing country investment in clean energy.
And building on the historic commitments made by the G8 earlier this year it is vital that all countries work to achieve such an agreement by the end of 2009.
But working together - harnessing the innovation of business to develop new technologies, the responsibility of consumers and individuals to change their own behaviour, and the conscience of NGOs - we can achieve even more. In particular I want the private sector involved in designing a global carbon market that genuinely benefits the poor.
Health
Public and private sectors can also now work together more effectively to address the fourth evil: disease. For the greatest of human afflictions demands the greatest genius science can offer.
There is no greater causes than that every child in the world should be able to benefit from the best medicine and healthcare.
And today we have it in our power the ability to create lives free form the burden of preventable disease, a gift of life unimaginable even ten years ago, a gift that enriches us all.
Before us is the dream that we can triumph over ancient scourges and for the first time in the history of the world we can conquer polio, TB, tetanus, measles and then - with further advances and initiatives - go on to eliminate pneumoccocal pneumonia, malaria and eventually HIV/AIDS.
I want to encourage pathbreaking public private partnerships not just in research but in development and delivery of treatments and drugs.
At Gleneagles in 2005 the G8 agreed the target of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010. Over 50 countries led by the United States have contributed to the Global Fund for HIV, TB and malaria. And France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile and Norway, joined now by some other donors, have launched UNITAID - an international drug purchase facility designed to provide additional predictable funding to scale up access to drugs and diagnostics - and lower their cost.
Yet too often we talk only of mobilising money to cure individual diseases. The biggest challenge is to devise organise and manage health care as a whole - not just for curing individual diseases or for the distribution of single drugs but to build overall health care systems that will serve generations.
So drugs and vaccines are only part of the answer. Weak health systems and insufficient doctors and nurses are also among the main obstacles to access to basic healthcare.
Take Malawi - with 12 million people - and just 250 doctors -- one doctor for 50,000 people. And just 3800 nurses.
For 20 million people in Mozambique, just 500 doctors and 4000 nurses.
For 38 million people in Tanzania. Just 800 doctors and 3600 nurses.
So we should set a new objective - to match advances in drugs and treatments by advances in the capacity of healthcare systems to deliver.
Later this year we will launch a new initiative to better align finance from donors and from within countries themselves with comprehensive national health plans and provide more long term predictable financial support.
And in the next year I want the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation to have more power to use international finance to build health care systems for the future.
Today, across the world, medical science, human altruism backed by the innovation and ingenuity of financial services have joined together as one in a humanitarian effort of unprecedented scale and influence.
The private-public partnership which has given birth to the international financial facility for immunisation is, in my view, a model in one sphere in health for what we can achieve in public-private co-operation across health, education and infrastructure.
The principle is that by investing money now in addressing the causes of poverty and underdevelopment we save money that we would have to spend later on addressing the symptoms. In this way the rates of return from investment are greater than the cost of borrowing and make it cost effective.
Moving immunisation from just a fortunate minority to all the population dramatically cuts the risk of contagion and by investing now in preventing disease saves the costs of treatment of that disease later.
This approach however is relevant to other areas too: it can be extended to building the capacity for the provision of health care itself - indeed for the very creation of national health services.
And this model can be applied also to education, money spent up front on schooling and skills paid back by the productive gain from educated people.
But to make this work we need a genuine partnership between governments and markets, the best and most cost effective way of meeting many of our Millennium Development Goals: Long term commitments from donor countries sufficiently secure for markets to front load finance. Public and private sectors working together.
A New Partnership
So my call today is not just to the public purpose of this generation but to the idealism of this and the next generation - that great causes can inspire new energy and transformative change.
Let us call on the world's entrepreneurs to put their talents to create businesses and jobs in the new economies - and to encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs for the future.
Let us call on the world's scientists to put creative genius and innovative flair at the service of solving the technological challenges that face poorer countries as well as richer countries - and to train the scientists of the future.
Let us call on the world's engineers from IT to water and sanitation experts to apply their problem solving expertise to address the infrastructure needs of the under-developed as well as the developed economies - and then to train a new generation of engineers.
Let us summon up the energies of the world's doctors, nurses and healthcare workers to help us cure the diseases and plan the healthcare systems of all and not just some countries - and then to train a new generation of doctors and nurses and health carers.
Let us call upon the teachers of the world not just to teach but to inspire the young - and then to train a new generation of teachers.
In 1960 here in America President John Kennedy called for a peace corps - an international commitment to harness the idealism many felt in the fact of threats to human progress and world peace. Today we should evoke the same spirit to forge a coalition for justice.
And when conscience is joined to conscience, moral force to moral force... think how much our power to do good can achieve
Governments, business, scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses, charities and faith groups coming together to make globalisation a force for justice on a global scale.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Africa Insight - the New Africans Called Afropolitans
Africa: Africa Insight - the New Africans Called Afropolitans
The Nation (Nairobi)
ANALYSIS
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 30 August 2007
Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu
Nairobi
There is a new breed of internationally mobile, young people of African descent making their mark on the world. They are neither Africans nor Americans or Europeans for that matter but children of many worlds. Afropolitans they are, writes TAIYE TUAKLI-WOSORNU
Artiste Akon Thiam: A true Afropolitan, he was born in the US, brought up in Senegal and lives in the US.
It is just midnight on a Thursday night at Medicine Bar in London. Zak, boy-genius DJ, is playing a Fela Kuti remix. The little downstairs dance floor swells with smiling, sweating men and women fusing hip-hop dance moves with a funky sort of djembe.
The women sport enormous afro hairstyles, tiny t-shirts and smile to reveal gaps in their teeth. As for the men, you wouldn't ask where they are from by the look of the torsos unique to and common on African coastlines.
The whole scene speaks of a cultural melting pot - kente cloth worn over low-waisted jeans and 'African Lady' over Ludacris bass lines. Here London meets Lagos and Durban, Dakar. Even the DJ is a fine specimen of ethnic fusion with Nigerian and Romanian blood flowing in his veins as he bobs his head and the crowd dances to 'Sweet Mother'.
Were you to ask any of these beautiful people "where are you from?'" you would get no single answer. This one was born in Accra, raised in Toronto and lives in London. That one works in Lagos but grew up in Houston, Texas. 'Home' for this lot is many things. It can be where their parents are from; where they go for vacation; where they went to school; where they see old friends or where they live (or are living this year).
At home in G-8 cities
Like so many African young people working and living in cities around the globe, they belong to no single place but feel at home in many.
They are Afropolitans - the newest generation of African emigrants, in the industrialised world. You'll know them by a funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics and academic success.
Global citizens, their accents are American but some espouse African values and speak an African language.
Also, there is at least one place on the African continent to which they tie their sense of self. Now that could be a nation-state, city or auntie's kitchen. Then there's a city or cities in the eight most industrialised nations (G-8) which they know like the backs of their hands, and the various institutions that know them for their famed focus. Afropolitans are not citizens, but Africans of the world.
It isn't hard to trace their genealogy. It started in the 1960s when their young, gifted and broke would-be parents left Africa in pursuit of higher education and happiness abroad.
A study conducted in 1999 estimated that between 1960 and 1975, about 27,000 highly skilled Africans left the continent for the West. Between 1975 and 1984, the number shot to 40,000 and then doubled again by 1987, representing about 30 per cent of Africa's highly skilled manpower. It is not surprising that the most popular destinations for these emigrants included Canada, Britain and the United States. The Cold War Era also produced scholarship opportunities in Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, former Soviet Union, Romania and others as well.
Some three decades later, this scattered tribe of pharmacists, physicists, doctors (and the odd polygamist) has set up camp around the globe. The caricatures are familiar: The Nigerian physics professor with faux-coogi sweater; the Kenyan marathonist with long legs and rolled rs; the heavyset Gambian braiding hair in a house that smells of burnt Kanekalon and the Somali running a food house in Toronto.
Even those unacquainted with synthetic cultural extensions can conjure an image of the African immigrant with only the slightest of pop culture promptings.
Somewhere between the 1988 release of Coming to America and the 2001 crowning of a Nigerian Miss World, the general image of young Africans in the West changed from the goofy to gorgeous. Leaving off the painful question of cultural condescension in Coming to America, one wonders what happened in the years between Prince Akeem and Queen Agbani?
Earned a string of degrees
One answer is adolescence. The Africans that left the continent between 1960 and 1975 had children mostly overseas. Some of them were bred on African shores then shipped to the West for higher education. Others were born in much colder climates and sent home for cultural re-indoctrination.
Either way, they spent the 1980s chasing after accolades, eating fufu at family parties, and listening to adults argue politics.
By the turn of the 20th century (the (last one), they were matching their parents in the number of degrees acquired and, or, achieving things their "people" in the grand sense only dreamed of.
This new demographic - dispersed across Brixton, Bethesda, Boston and Berlin has come of age in the 21st century, redefining what it means to be African.
Whereas their parents sought safety in traditional professions like medicine, law, banking and engineering, Afropolitans are branching into media, politics, music, venture capital, graphic design and so on. Nor are they shy about expressing their African roots (such as they are) in their work. Artists such as Keziah Jones, novelist Chimamanda Achidie - all exemplify what Trace editor, Claude Gruzintsky, calls the 21st century African.
What distinguishes this lot and its likes (in the West and at home) is a willingness to complicate Africa - namely, to engage with, critique, and celebrate the parts of Africa that mean most to them.
Perhaps what most typifies the Afropolitan consciousness is the refusal to oversimplify -the effort to understand what is ailing in Africa alongside the desire to honour what is wonderful and unique.
Rather than "essentialising" the geographical entity, Afropolitans seek to comprehend the cultural complexity, honour the intellectual and spiritual legacy and sustain their parents' cultures.
For Afropolitans, being African must mean something. The media portrayal (war, hunger) won't do. Neither will the New World trope of a bumbling, blue-black doctor. Most Afropolitans grew up aware of "being from" a blighted place; of having last names from countries which are linked to corruption. Few of them escaped those nasty "booty-scratchy" epithets, and fewer still that sense of shame when visiting their fathers' villages.
Whether they were ashamed of themselves for not knowing more about their parents' culture, or ashamed of that culture for not being more "advanced" is not clear. What is manifest is the extent to which the modern adolescent African is tasked to forge a sense of self from wildly disparate sources.
You'd never know it looking at those dapper lawyers in global firms, but most were once supremely self-conscious of being so "in between". Brown-skinned without a bedrock sense of "blackness," on the one hand and often teased by African family members for "acting white" on the other, the baby-Afropolitan can get what I call "lost in transnation".
Ultimately, the Afropolitan must form an identity along at least the national, racial and cultural dimensions with subtle tensions in between. While our parents can claim one country as home, Afropolitans must define their relationship to the places they live in. How British or American they are (or act) is in part, a matter of affect. Often unconsciously, and over time, we choose which bits of a national identity (from passport to pronunciation) to internalise as central to our personalities. So, too, the way we see our race - whether black or bi-racial or none of the above, is a question of politics, rather than pigment. Not all of us claim to be black. Often this relates to the way we were raised, whether proximate to other brown people (e.g. black Americans) or removed.
Making sense of themselves
Then there is that deep abyss of culture, ill-defined at best. One must decide what comprises African culture beyond pepper soup and filial piety. This can be utterly baffling whether one lives in an African country or not. But the process is enriching, in that it expands one's basic perspective on nation and selfhood. If nothing else, the Afropolitan knows that nothing is neatly black or white; that to 'be' anything is a matter of being sure of who you are uniquely.
To 'be' Nigerian is to belong to a passionate nation. To be Yoruba is to be heir to a spiritual depth while to be American is to ascribe to a cultural breadth. Being British is to pass customs quickly. This is what it means for me and that is the Afropolitan privilege. The acceptance of complexity common to most African cultures is not lost on the Afropolitans. Without that intrinsically multi-dimensional thinking, they cannot make sense of themselves.
And if it all sounds a little self-congratulatory, what about a little 'aren't-we-the-damn-coolest people-on-earth?' I say: yes .
It is high time the African stood up. There is nothing perfect in this formulation; for all our Adjayes and Achidies, there is a brain drain back home. Most Afropolitans could serve Africa better in Africa than at Medicine Bar on Thursdays. To be fair, a sizable number of African professionals are returning; and there is consciousness among the ones who remain, an acute awareness among this brood of too-cool-for-schools that there's work to be done.
There are those among us who wonder to the point of weeping: where next, Africa? When will the scattered tribes return? When will the talent repatriate? What lifestyles await young professionals at home? How to invest in Africa's future? The prospects can seem grim at times. The answers aren't forthcoming. But if there was ever a group who could figure it out, it is this one, unafraid of the questions.
Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu is a Nigerian-Ghanaian writer based in New York City. This article was written for The LIP magazine. Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group's Africa Media Network Project.
The Nation (Nairobi)
ANALYSIS
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 30 August 2007
Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu
Nairobi
There is a new breed of internationally mobile, young people of African descent making their mark on the world. They are neither Africans nor Americans or Europeans for that matter but children of many worlds. Afropolitans they are, writes TAIYE TUAKLI-WOSORNU
Artiste Akon Thiam: A true Afropolitan, he was born in the US, brought up in Senegal and lives in the US.
It is just midnight on a Thursday night at Medicine Bar in London. Zak, boy-genius DJ, is playing a Fela Kuti remix. The little downstairs dance floor swells with smiling, sweating men and women fusing hip-hop dance moves with a funky sort of djembe.
The women sport enormous afro hairstyles, tiny t-shirts and smile to reveal gaps in their teeth. As for the men, you wouldn't ask where they are from by the look of the torsos unique to and common on African coastlines.
The whole scene speaks of a cultural melting pot - kente cloth worn over low-waisted jeans and 'African Lady' over Ludacris bass lines. Here London meets Lagos and Durban, Dakar. Even the DJ is a fine specimen of ethnic fusion with Nigerian and Romanian blood flowing in his veins as he bobs his head and the crowd dances to 'Sweet Mother'.
Were you to ask any of these beautiful people "where are you from?'" you would get no single answer. This one was born in Accra, raised in Toronto and lives in London. That one works in Lagos but grew up in Houston, Texas. 'Home' for this lot is many things. It can be where their parents are from; where they go for vacation; where they went to school; where they see old friends or where they live (or are living this year).
At home in G-8 cities
Like so many African young people working and living in cities around the globe, they belong to no single place but feel at home in many.
They are Afropolitans - the newest generation of African emigrants, in the industrialised world. You'll know them by a funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics and academic success.
Global citizens, their accents are American but some espouse African values and speak an African language.
Also, there is at least one place on the African continent to which they tie their sense of self. Now that could be a nation-state, city or auntie's kitchen. Then there's a city or cities in the eight most industrialised nations (G-8) which they know like the backs of their hands, and the various institutions that know them for their famed focus. Afropolitans are not citizens, but Africans of the world.
It isn't hard to trace their genealogy. It started in the 1960s when their young, gifted and broke would-be parents left Africa in pursuit of higher education and happiness abroad.
A study conducted in 1999 estimated that between 1960 and 1975, about 27,000 highly skilled Africans left the continent for the West. Between 1975 and 1984, the number shot to 40,000 and then doubled again by 1987, representing about 30 per cent of Africa's highly skilled manpower. It is not surprising that the most popular destinations for these emigrants included Canada, Britain and the United States. The Cold War Era also produced scholarship opportunities in Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, former Soviet Union, Romania and others as well.
Some three decades later, this scattered tribe of pharmacists, physicists, doctors (and the odd polygamist) has set up camp around the globe. The caricatures are familiar: The Nigerian physics professor with faux-coogi sweater; the Kenyan marathonist with long legs and rolled rs; the heavyset Gambian braiding hair in a house that smells of burnt Kanekalon and the Somali running a food house in Toronto.
Even those unacquainted with synthetic cultural extensions can conjure an image of the African immigrant with only the slightest of pop culture promptings.
Somewhere between the 1988 release of Coming to America and the 2001 crowning of a Nigerian Miss World, the general image of young Africans in the West changed from the goofy to gorgeous. Leaving off the painful question of cultural condescension in Coming to America, one wonders what happened in the years between Prince Akeem and Queen Agbani?
Earned a string of degrees
One answer is adolescence. The Africans that left the continent between 1960 and 1975 had children mostly overseas. Some of them were bred on African shores then shipped to the West for higher education. Others were born in much colder climates and sent home for cultural re-indoctrination.
Either way, they spent the 1980s chasing after accolades, eating fufu at family parties, and listening to adults argue politics.
By the turn of the 20th century (the (last one), they were matching their parents in the number of degrees acquired and, or, achieving things their "people" in the grand sense only dreamed of.
This new demographic - dispersed across Brixton, Bethesda, Boston and Berlin has come of age in the 21st century, redefining what it means to be African.
Whereas their parents sought safety in traditional professions like medicine, law, banking and engineering, Afropolitans are branching into media, politics, music, venture capital, graphic design and so on. Nor are they shy about expressing their African roots (such as they are) in their work. Artists such as Keziah Jones, novelist Chimamanda Achidie - all exemplify what Trace editor, Claude Gruzintsky, calls the 21st century African.
What distinguishes this lot and its likes (in the West and at home) is a willingness to complicate Africa - namely, to engage with, critique, and celebrate the parts of Africa that mean most to them.
Perhaps what most typifies the Afropolitan consciousness is the refusal to oversimplify -the effort to understand what is ailing in Africa alongside the desire to honour what is wonderful and unique.
Rather than "essentialising" the geographical entity, Afropolitans seek to comprehend the cultural complexity, honour the intellectual and spiritual legacy and sustain their parents' cultures.
For Afropolitans, being African must mean something. The media portrayal (war, hunger) won't do. Neither will the New World trope of a bumbling, blue-black doctor. Most Afropolitans grew up aware of "being from" a blighted place; of having last names from countries which are linked to corruption. Few of them escaped those nasty "booty-scratchy" epithets, and fewer still that sense of shame when visiting their fathers' villages.
Whether they were ashamed of themselves for not knowing more about their parents' culture, or ashamed of that culture for not being more "advanced" is not clear. What is manifest is the extent to which the modern adolescent African is tasked to forge a sense of self from wildly disparate sources.
You'd never know it looking at those dapper lawyers in global firms, but most were once supremely self-conscious of being so "in between". Brown-skinned without a bedrock sense of "blackness," on the one hand and often teased by African family members for "acting white" on the other, the baby-Afropolitan can get what I call "lost in transnation".
Ultimately, the Afropolitan must form an identity along at least the national, racial and cultural dimensions with subtle tensions in between. While our parents can claim one country as home, Afropolitans must define their relationship to the places they live in. How British or American they are (or act) is in part, a matter of affect. Often unconsciously, and over time, we choose which bits of a national identity (from passport to pronunciation) to internalise as central to our personalities. So, too, the way we see our race - whether black or bi-racial or none of the above, is a question of politics, rather than pigment. Not all of us claim to be black. Often this relates to the way we were raised, whether proximate to other brown people (e.g. black Americans) or removed.
Making sense of themselves
Then there is that deep abyss of culture, ill-defined at best. One must decide what comprises African culture beyond pepper soup and filial piety. This can be utterly baffling whether one lives in an African country or not. But the process is enriching, in that it expands one's basic perspective on nation and selfhood. If nothing else, the Afropolitan knows that nothing is neatly black or white; that to 'be' anything is a matter of being sure of who you are uniquely.
To 'be' Nigerian is to belong to a passionate nation. To be Yoruba is to be heir to a spiritual depth while to be American is to ascribe to a cultural breadth. Being British is to pass customs quickly. This is what it means for me and that is the Afropolitan privilege. The acceptance of complexity common to most African cultures is not lost on the Afropolitans. Without that intrinsically multi-dimensional thinking, they cannot make sense of themselves.
And if it all sounds a little self-congratulatory, what about a little 'aren't-we-the-damn-coolest people-on-earth?' I say: yes .
It is high time the African stood up. There is nothing perfect in this formulation; for all our Adjayes and Achidies, there is a brain drain back home. Most Afropolitans could serve Africa better in Africa than at Medicine Bar on Thursdays. To be fair, a sizable number of African professionals are returning; and there is consciousness among the ones who remain, an acute awareness among this brood of too-cool-for-schools that there's work to be done.
There are those among us who wonder to the point of weeping: where next, Africa? When will the scattered tribes return? When will the talent repatriate? What lifestyles await young professionals at home? How to invest in Africa's future? The prospects can seem grim at times. The answers aren't forthcoming. But if there was ever a group who could figure it out, it is this one, unafraid of the questions.
Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu is a Nigerian-Ghanaian writer based in New York City. This article was written for The LIP magazine. Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group's Africa Media Network Project.
Sudan: Can Europe and China 'Save' Darfur?
Sudan: Can Europe and China 'Save' Darfur?
allAfrica.com
GUEST COLUMN
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 31 August 2007
John Prendergast
After all the U.S. government's rhetoric about Darfur's genocide, and all its finger-wagging over the inaction of other nations, it is an instructive irony that the forces finally emerging to actually address Darfur's ills are on the other sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. Indeed, the governments that seem mostly likely to walk the walk are in France, the UK, and - surprise - China.
Three years ago, the U.S. Congress harangued President Bush about not calling the Darfur crisis "genocide" until he finally did so. His administration then spent the next few years using the term repeatedly, bird-dogging other nations about their lack of action, issuing vague statements about the use of force for which the Pentagon has not done serious planning, strong-arming one of the rebel groups to sign a peace deal that made matters worse on the ground, imposing unilateral sanctions that had no impact on the culprits, and sending millions of dollars of humanitarian aid to substitute for effective political action.
During this timeframe, the U.S. could be forgiven for being disappointed in China and Europe. Beijing ran interference for the Khartoum regime in the UN Security Council while pumping Sudanese oil and selling arms to the government. France and the UK provided no direction to the European Union and sat on the sidelines, despite a reservoir of leverage in Paris from its relationship with Chad, and high octane speeches from former Prime Minister Blair about no-fly zones.
However, in one of those kairos moments, everything is suddenly changing. China has come under intense pressure from activists for its support for the Sudanese regime, which it wants to shake off so it can host a controversy-free 2008 Olympics. France elected a president who wants to work with the U.S. on Darfur. Britain's new prime minister plans to go with the new French president to Darfur to move the peace process forward. All three countries played constructive roles in getting the UN Security Council to pass a resolution a few weeks ago authorizing a force of over 20,000 troops to help stabilize Darfur.
This is the diplomatic and political equivalent of low-hanging fruit for President Bush, as he considers how to begin shaping his legacy. If his administration can set aside all its posturing, roll up its sleeves, send a diplomatic team to the region, and start working multilaterally, a real success story could be written.
And for the first time on an African issue, resolving the crisis in Darfur would have positive domestic political ramifications. Over the past few years, a movement has grown among politically active Americans to confront genocide in Darfur. In churches, synagogues, town halls, and university classrooms all over the U.S., citizens are telling their elected officials that it is unacceptable to stand idly by while genocide unfolds. More than a million Americans have asked to be on the Save Darfur Coalition's email action list. The book I wrote with "actorvist" Don Cheadle rocketed to number 6 on the NY Times Bestseller List, and at every stop of our book tour we spoke to thousands of people hungry to learn what they could do to get our politicians to act. The highest rated show on television last week was a "60 Minutes" episode on Darfur. Until there is a political cost for inaction in the face of genocide, author Samantha Power has written, we will get inaction.
What is needed isn't exactly rocket science. I've been working in Africa's crisis zones for 25 years, and contrary to popular perceptions, the continent is ripe with success stories about countries that have been ripped apart by civil war, but have been able to resolve their issues and move on. Mozambique, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, and others can attest to the formula: a serious peace process combined with the deployment of relevant force works
A quartet of President Hu, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Brown, and President Bush should pursue a peace and protection initiative that would prioritize a peace deal between the regime and rebel groups, and enforce the rapid deployment of the Security Council's authorized multinational forces to Darfur and eastern Chad. They should be prepared to back targeted sanctions in the UN Security Council (President Putin, you are welcome to join in) against anyone - government or rebel - who tries to obstruct these objectives. Not only would Darfur be "saved," but transatlantic and transpacific cooperation would also be enhanced at a time when such multilateralism is desperately needed.
President Bush, your legacy is calling. Will you answer?
John Prendergast co-chairs the ENOUGH Project (www.enoughproject.org) and is co-author with Don Cheadle of Not on Our Watch.
allAfrica.com
GUEST COLUMN
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 31 August 2007
John Prendergast
After all the U.S. government's rhetoric about Darfur's genocide, and all its finger-wagging over the inaction of other nations, it is an instructive irony that the forces finally emerging to actually address Darfur's ills are on the other sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. Indeed, the governments that seem mostly likely to walk the walk are in France, the UK, and - surprise - China.
Three years ago, the U.S. Congress harangued President Bush about not calling the Darfur crisis "genocide" until he finally did so. His administration then spent the next few years using the term repeatedly, bird-dogging other nations about their lack of action, issuing vague statements about the use of force for which the Pentagon has not done serious planning, strong-arming one of the rebel groups to sign a peace deal that made matters worse on the ground, imposing unilateral sanctions that had no impact on the culprits, and sending millions of dollars of humanitarian aid to substitute for effective political action.
During this timeframe, the U.S. could be forgiven for being disappointed in China and Europe. Beijing ran interference for the Khartoum regime in the UN Security Council while pumping Sudanese oil and selling arms to the government. France and the UK provided no direction to the European Union and sat on the sidelines, despite a reservoir of leverage in Paris from its relationship with Chad, and high octane speeches from former Prime Minister Blair about no-fly zones.
However, in one of those kairos moments, everything is suddenly changing. China has come under intense pressure from activists for its support for the Sudanese regime, which it wants to shake off so it can host a controversy-free 2008 Olympics. France elected a president who wants to work with the U.S. on Darfur. Britain's new prime minister plans to go with the new French president to Darfur to move the peace process forward. All three countries played constructive roles in getting the UN Security Council to pass a resolution a few weeks ago authorizing a force of over 20,000 troops to help stabilize Darfur.
This is the diplomatic and political equivalent of low-hanging fruit for President Bush, as he considers how to begin shaping his legacy. If his administration can set aside all its posturing, roll up its sleeves, send a diplomatic team to the region, and start working multilaterally, a real success story could be written.
And for the first time on an African issue, resolving the crisis in Darfur would have positive domestic political ramifications. Over the past few years, a movement has grown among politically active Americans to confront genocide in Darfur. In churches, synagogues, town halls, and university classrooms all over the U.S., citizens are telling their elected officials that it is unacceptable to stand idly by while genocide unfolds. More than a million Americans have asked to be on the Save Darfur Coalition's email action list. The book I wrote with "actorvist" Don Cheadle rocketed to number 6 on the NY Times Bestseller List, and at every stop of our book tour we spoke to thousands of people hungry to learn what they could do to get our politicians to act. The highest rated show on television last week was a "60 Minutes" episode on Darfur. Until there is a political cost for inaction in the face of genocide, author Samantha Power has written, we will get inaction.
What is needed isn't exactly rocket science. I've been working in Africa's crisis zones for 25 years, and contrary to popular perceptions, the continent is ripe with success stories about countries that have been ripped apart by civil war, but have been able to resolve their issues and move on. Mozambique, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, and others can attest to the formula: a serious peace process combined with the deployment of relevant force works
A quartet of President Hu, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Brown, and President Bush should pursue a peace and protection initiative that would prioritize a peace deal between the regime and rebel groups, and enforce the rapid deployment of the Security Council's authorized multinational forces to Darfur and eastern Chad. They should be prepared to back targeted sanctions in the UN Security Council (President Putin, you are welcome to join in) against anyone - government or rebel - who tries to obstruct these objectives. Not only would Darfur be "saved," but transatlantic and transpacific cooperation would also be enhanced at a time when such multilateralism is desperately needed.
President Bush, your legacy is calling. Will you answer?
John Prendergast co-chairs the ENOUGH Project (www.enoughproject.org) and is co-author with Don Cheadle of Not on Our Watch.
Eritrea: President Isaias Dismisses As Baseless Anti-Eritrea Accusation By U.S. State Department Officials
Shabait.com (Asmara)
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 1 September 2007
Asmara
President Isaias Afwerki dismissed as baseless anti-Eritrea accusation by U.S. State Department officials, and underscored that it emanates from the failed strategy they pursued in Somalia.
The President made the remarks in an interview with Aljezeera TV yesterday. He pointed out that so-called talks that "Eritrea is supporting the Islamic Courts Union" is astonishing when viewed against claims that "the ICU has been destroyed and wiped out." President Isaias further indicated that the US State Department officials are resorting to such unfounded allegation and defamation in a futile bid to justify the mistakes they had committed.
Pointing out that the situations in Somalia is the outcome of US open invasion and intervention through its mercenary agent, the Ethiopian regime, he underscored that if the desired target is to enable the Somali people reconstitute their country, the UN should play its due role.
As regards the Eritrea-Ethiopia border issue, President Isaias noted that the issue had reached legal conclusion through the Boundary Commission's final and binding ruling in accordance with the Algiers Agreement of 2002. He went on to explain that the implementation of the ruling has been hindered for the past 5 years due to non-compliance of the TPLF regime and those who prop it up.
In reference to the meeting organized by the Boundary Commission that is scheduled to take place in The Hague on September 6, the President stressed that provided the implementation of the ruling is carried out in its legality, there would be no issue for new crisis between the two countries.
On relief aid, President Isaias said that "we will request aid when needed, but we will not accept any party that tries to enforce it on us." He elaborated that Eritrea is currently exerting vigorous efforts to achieve food security.
The President said that for the US to ensure its strategic interests in any part of the globe, it should be through fostering civilized and constructive relations, as well as mutual respect and positive engagement, and not through threat and intimidation. In this regard, he reminded the US to mend its behavior.
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 1 September 2007
Asmara
President Isaias Afwerki dismissed as baseless anti-Eritrea accusation by U.S. State Department officials, and underscored that it emanates from the failed strategy they pursued in Somalia.
The President made the remarks in an interview with Aljezeera TV yesterday. He pointed out that so-called talks that "Eritrea is supporting the Islamic Courts Union" is astonishing when viewed against claims that "the ICU has been destroyed and wiped out." President Isaias further indicated that the US State Department officials are resorting to such unfounded allegation and defamation in a futile bid to justify the mistakes they had committed.
Pointing out that the situations in Somalia is the outcome of US open invasion and intervention through its mercenary agent, the Ethiopian regime, he underscored that if the desired target is to enable the Somali people reconstitute their country, the UN should play its due role.
As regards the Eritrea-Ethiopia border issue, President Isaias noted that the issue had reached legal conclusion through the Boundary Commission's final and binding ruling in accordance with the Algiers Agreement of 2002. He went on to explain that the implementation of the ruling has been hindered for the past 5 years due to non-compliance of the TPLF regime and those who prop it up.
In reference to the meeting organized by the Boundary Commission that is scheduled to take place in The Hague on September 6, the President stressed that provided the implementation of the ruling is carried out in its legality, there would be no issue for new crisis between the two countries.
On relief aid, President Isaias said that "we will request aid when needed, but we will not accept any party that tries to enforce it on us." He elaborated that Eritrea is currently exerting vigorous efforts to achieve food security.
The President said that for the US to ensure its strategic interests in any part of the globe, it should be through fostering civilized and constructive relations, as well as mutual respect and positive engagement, and not through threat and intimidation. In this regard, he reminded the US to mend its behavior.
Eritrea: Securing Global Dominance - U.S. Administration's Impractical Dream
Eritrea: Securing Global Dominance - U.S. Administration's Impractical Dream
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Print This Page
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Shabait.com (Asmara)
EDITORIAL
1 September 2007
Posted to the web 3 September 2007
Asmara
The world is now going through a dangerous and at the same time an eye-opening period under the dominance of the world's super power, the United States.
A handful of capitalists controlling the political and economic resources as well as the military and intelligence organizations of the U.S. are subjecting billions of people to conflict and unrest in an attempt to secure the world's resources for their own use by applying a brutal Machiavellian principle of 'the end justifies the means'.
The world has seen the rise and fall of many kingdoms and empires, which in their heyday seemed incontestable. And the primary cause for the fall of most of the world's renowned empires had been the insatiable greed for expansion and the conceited desire to exploit others' resources. The proverb 'pride comes before failure' was not coined without a reason. Sheer arrogance and a misguided overconfidence in one's knowledge and abilities leads to the development of wrong and destructive frame of mind which then leads to blatant violation of the law. And it is only natural that an approach guided by such a frame of mind would provoke forceful opposition.
After securing independence in the 18th century by waging a revolutionary war, the U.S. was able to rise to the status of today's supreme power because it had for a century and had been engaged in domestic development endeavors and also because it avoided involvement in the various wars that had weakened the European powers. Still, even the abundant wealth they amassed from the rich and vast lands in America, which was not even theirs to begin with, was not enough to quench the greed of U.S. capitalists. Thus, starting from the end of the Cold War, the U.S. capitalists set out to secure indisputable dominance over the world, confident of their advanced warfare technology. However, this impractical 'dream' will eventually lead them to a similar fate as that of the world's fallen empires. Washington's interference in the internal affairs of peoples and countries in different parts of the world resulting in political and economic turmoil, emanates from this dream, and has consequently incited strong and dangerous popular opposition.
Relevant Links
East Africa
Eritrea
United States, Canada and Africa
Washington's masterminds who outlined U.S. geo-political strategy for securing complete dominance through power ideology often try to cover up their conspiracies with peacekeeping missions and seek to present their country as the acme of perfection in democracy and respect of human rights. However, the world can be fooled no longer and people have become aware that the U.S. Administration's blind pursuit to secure its own interests above all else is in fact a gross violation of their basic rights as well as international laws and principles.
The U.S. mission of promoting 'democracy and respect of human rights' is merely a cover up for its conspiratorial actions in creating a crisis and then perfecting the art of 'crisis management'. U.S. officials have no other mission but to compromise the sovereignty and national interests of others, instigate religious conflict in the name of religious rights and create divergence and conflict among peoples.
It has been clear for sometime now that the U.S. national security strategy of weakening and intimidating other people to establish dominance is impractical. It has not only failed to subjugate people and secure submission but also backfired on the U.S. itself. There is no force in the world that can defeat the unity of the people, although this fact does not seem to have been taken into account on the part of the U.S. Administration. The current instability in the Horn of Africa created as a result of U.S. interference and the resulting popular opposition is one of the many examples verifying the failure of Washington's misguided geo-political strategy.
Email This Page
Print This Page
Visit The Publisher's Site
Shabait.com (Asmara)
EDITORIAL
1 September 2007
Posted to the web 3 September 2007
Asmara
The world is now going through a dangerous and at the same time an eye-opening period under the dominance of the world's super power, the United States.
A handful of capitalists controlling the political and economic resources as well as the military and intelligence organizations of the U.S. are subjecting billions of people to conflict and unrest in an attempt to secure the world's resources for their own use by applying a brutal Machiavellian principle of 'the end justifies the means'.
The world has seen the rise and fall of many kingdoms and empires, which in their heyday seemed incontestable. And the primary cause for the fall of most of the world's renowned empires had been the insatiable greed for expansion and the conceited desire to exploit others' resources. The proverb 'pride comes before failure' was not coined without a reason. Sheer arrogance and a misguided overconfidence in one's knowledge and abilities leads to the development of wrong and destructive frame of mind which then leads to blatant violation of the law. And it is only natural that an approach guided by such a frame of mind would provoke forceful opposition.
After securing independence in the 18th century by waging a revolutionary war, the U.S. was able to rise to the status of today's supreme power because it had for a century and had been engaged in domestic development endeavors and also because it avoided involvement in the various wars that had weakened the European powers. Still, even the abundant wealth they amassed from the rich and vast lands in America, which was not even theirs to begin with, was not enough to quench the greed of U.S. capitalists. Thus, starting from the end of the Cold War, the U.S. capitalists set out to secure indisputable dominance over the world, confident of their advanced warfare technology. However, this impractical 'dream' will eventually lead them to a similar fate as that of the world's fallen empires. Washington's interference in the internal affairs of peoples and countries in different parts of the world resulting in political and economic turmoil, emanates from this dream, and has consequently incited strong and dangerous popular opposition.
Relevant Links
East Africa
Eritrea
United States, Canada and Africa
Washington's masterminds who outlined U.S. geo-political strategy for securing complete dominance through power ideology often try to cover up their conspiracies with peacekeeping missions and seek to present their country as the acme of perfection in democracy and respect of human rights. However, the world can be fooled no longer and people have become aware that the U.S. Administration's blind pursuit to secure its own interests above all else is in fact a gross violation of their basic rights as well as international laws and principles.
The U.S. mission of promoting 'democracy and respect of human rights' is merely a cover up for its conspiratorial actions in creating a crisis and then perfecting the art of 'crisis management'. U.S. officials have no other mission but to compromise the sovereignty and national interests of others, instigate religious conflict in the name of religious rights and create divergence and conflict among peoples.
It has been clear for sometime now that the U.S. national security strategy of weakening and intimidating other people to establish dominance is impractical. It has not only failed to subjugate people and secure submission but also backfired on the U.S. itself. There is no force in the world that can defeat the unity of the people, although this fact does not seem to have been taken into account on the part of the U.S. Administration. The current instability in the Horn of Africa created as a result of U.S. interference and the resulting popular opposition is one of the many examples verifying the failure of Washington's misguided geo-political strategy.
Monday, 3 September 2007
An American View on current Global market
No historical reason why recent turmoil should spark a recession
Gerard Baker:
The stock market, somebody once said, has accurately predicted nine of the past three recessions. In these testing times of market mayhem, that thought may sound a little like whistling to keep your spirits up. But if you ponder the historical connection between financial events such as the one the world experienced last week and life in the real economy – employment, incomes, consumer spending – you’ll find no clear link at all between the two.
It is certainly the case that, in a modern developed economy that has been cruelly starved of real economic misery for years now, financial journalists love these moments in the gloomy spotlight. They can wax lyrical about the fundamental flaws in our system and prognosticate portentously on our inevitable economic ruin. The rest of us should take the longer view.
It is true that once, a long time ago, financial panics led more or less directly to broader economic distress. In fact, in the classic credit cycle, a meltdown in financial markets was more or less a standard precursor of recession. But in the past 20 years, as that old saying about the stock market and recessions goes, there have tended to be far more financial panics than economic slumps. Take the past three great market dislocations before last week’s: the stock market crash of October 1987, the credit squeeze of August to October 1998 and the financial distress in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001.
The Great Crash of 1987 turned out, in economic terms, to be a Small Bump. Despite almost universal fears that we were in for a modern version of the Great Depression, the economy carried on regardless. (The stock market carried on regardless, too, by the way.) A recession did come, but not until after another ten quarters of rapid growth, and when it did it was a classic postwar boom-and-bust story – inflation took off and had to be reined back by interest-rate increases.
The 1998 panic was a more complex event, caused by a sudden turnaround in sentiment in credit and currency markets that wrong-footed a sizeable number of investors. It was described, without hyperbole, by people caught up in it as the worst freezing of the financial system in more than 50 years.
But again what followed, in economic terms, was minimal. In 1999 and 2000, in fact, the US and global economies recorded their strongest growth in a decade. A recession came, sure enough, but not for another 2½ years. The post-September 11 crunch was much shorter, but for a while it induced a similar amount of Cassandra commentary in the media. Yet its connection with the real world was so weak that it actually marked the end of a US recession, not the beginning of one.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that there is no connection between financial markets and the real economy. Banks and financial institutions are arteries of the global economy. If arteries become clogged, the potential damage can be enormous. What I am saying is that there is no inevitable connection between a financial market mess, such as the one we have now, and a necessarily unpleasant consequence for people whose only interaction with a financial institution is their monthly bank statement. A critical reason that none of these recent past events caused a real economic crisis was the policy response. In 1987 the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times in six weeks. In 1998 the Fed cut rates three times in seven weeks. In 2001 the Fed cut rates three times in seven weeks – and further thereafter. Spot a pattern?
Timely reaction by the central bank is critical to shielding the broader economy from a crisis. We won’t know for a while yet whether the Fed’s actions so far – including last week’s discount rate cut – will prove to have been timely. But we know now that the Fed is fully alert to the dangers – and hinted last week that it is ready to cut its key federal funds rate at its next scheduled meeting on September 18, if not before.
Of course, even Fed action may not be enough this time. A key difference between now and previous crises is the level of uncertainty. No one really knows exactly where the fallout from the US mortgage crisis lies. There are worrying signs that this may be making banks and other lenders even more cautious this time and reining in lending even to creditworthy customers.
But I suspect that, given a supportive environment by the Fed, this will not last. As others have noted, the scale of the real problems in the US mortgage market, though large in nominal terms, are still only a small fraction of the total housing sector, let alone of the broader US economy. That suggests there are real opportunities out there for bold investors. And markets being what they are, I would be surprised if such investors did not seize them quickly.
Of course, it is possible to argue that the policy response to previous financial crises has adversely affected the economy in the longer term. By cutting interest rates aggressively each time, the Fed has made financial conditions too easy – on each occasion leading to an inflationary surge or a credit boom that proved unsustainable. That is a risk that a central bank has to take. But the history of the past 20 years suggests that it is a rather small one.
Gerard Baker:
The stock market, somebody once said, has accurately predicted nine of the past three recessions. In these testing times of market mayhem, that thought may sound a little like whistling to keep your spirits up. But if you ponder the historical connection between financial events such as the one the world experienced last week and life in the real economy – employment, incomes, consumer spending – you’ll find no clear link at all between the two.
It is certainly the case that, in a modern developed economy that has been cruelly starved of real economic misery for years now, financial journalists love these moments in the gloomy spotlight. They can wax lyrical about the fundamental flaws in our system and prognosticate portentously on our inevitable economic ruin. The rest of us should take the longer view.
It is true that once, a long time ago, financial panics led more or less directly to broader economic distress. In fact, in the classic credit cycle, a meltdown in financial markets was more or less a standard precursor of recession. But in the past 20 years, as that old saying about the stock market and recessions goes, there have tended to be far more financial panics than economic slumps. Take the past three great market dislocations before last week’s: the stock market crash of October 1987, the credit squeeze of August to October 1998 and the financial distress in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001.
The Great Crash of 1987 turned out, in economic terms, to be a Small Bump. Despite almost universal fears that we were in for a modern version of the Great Depression, the economy carried on regardless. (The stock market carried on regardless, too, by the way.) A recession did come, but not until after another ten quarters of rapid growth, and when it did it was a classic postwar boom-and-bust story – inflation took off and had to be reined back by interest-rate increases.
The 1998 panic was a more complex event, caused by a sudden turnaround in sentiment in credit and currency markets that wrong-footed a sizeable number of investors. It was described, without hyperbole, by people caught up in it as the worst freezing of the financial system in more than 50 years.
But again what followed, in economic terms, was minimal. In 1999 and 2000, in fact, the US and global economies recorded their strongest growth in a decade. A recession came, sure enough, but not for another 2½ years. The post-September 11 crunch was much shorter, but for a while it induced a similar amount of Cassandra commentary in the media. Yet its connection with the real world was so weak that it actually marked the end of a US recession, not the beginning of one.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that there is no connection between financial markets and the real economy. Banks and financial institutions are arteries of the global economy. If arteries become clogged, the potential damage can be enormous. What I am saying is that there is no inevitable connection between a financial market mess, such as the one we have now, and a necessarily unpleasant consequence for people whose only interaction with a financial institution is their monthly bank statement. A critical reason that none of these recent past events caused a real economic crisis was the policy response. In 1987 the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times in six weeks. In 1998 the Fed cut rates three times in seven weeks. In 2001 the Fed cut rates three times in seven weeks – and further thereafter. Spot a pattern?
Timely reaction by the central bank is critical to shielding the broader economy from a crisis. We won’t know for a while yet whether the Fed’s actions so far – including last week’s discount rate cut – will prove to have been timely. But we know now that the Fed is fully alert to the dangers – and hinted last week that it is ready to cut its key federal funds rate at its next scheduled meeting on September 18, if not before.
Of course, even Fed action may not be enough this time. A key difference between now and previous crises is the level of uncertainty. No one really knows exactly where the fallout from the US mortgage crisis lies. There are worrying signs that this may be making banks and other lenders even more cautious this time and reining in lending even to creditworthy customers.
But I suspect that, given a supportive environment by the Fed, this will not last. As others have noted, the scale of the real problems in the US mortgage market, though large in nominal terms, are still only a small fraction of the total housing sector, let alone of the broader US economy. That suggests there are real opportunities out there for bold investors. And markets being what they are, I would be surprised if such investors did not seize them quickly.
Of course, it is possible to argue that the policy response to previous financial crises has adversely affected the economy in the longer term. By cutting interest rates aggressively each time, the Fed has made financial conditions too easy – on each occasion leading to an inflationary surge or a credit boom that proved unsustainable. That is a risk that a central bank has to take. But the history of the past 20 years suggests that it is a rather small one.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Dealing with Africa’s resources
Dr Ravinder Rena
Africa is a vast and exotic continent of about 900 million people in 54 independent countries. It has a total area of over 30 million square kilometres. Africa is rich in mineral and natural resources. It possesses 99 percent of the world's chrome resources, 85 percent of its platinum, 70 percent of its tantalite, 68 percent of its cobalt, and 54 percent of its gold, among others. It has significant oil and gas reserves. Nigeria and Libya are two of the leading oil producing countries in the world.
Further, Africa is the home to timber, diamonds, and bauxite deposits. Revenues from their extraction should provide funds for badly needed development, but instead have fuelled state corruption, environmental degradation, poverty, and violence. Rather than being a blessing, Africa's natural resources have largely been a curse.
UNSAFE WATER: A girl fetches water from a river. Instead of only extracting resources from Africa, rich countries must get involved in helping African nations make such fundamentals like safe water available to her people. Internet photo
Africa's vast mineral wealth and strategic significance have encouraged foreign powers to intervene in African affairs. During the Cold War era, 1945-1990, there was increasing superpower intervention in Africa. The United States and the Soviet Union were major players on the African scene.
The 19th-Century scramble for Africa saw the great powers rush to control land so they could exploit natural resources. The key question for many is: will the exploitation of Africa's rich resources benefit anyone other than the continent's elites?
Oil is perhaps the most important lure, with competition between foreign states and companies to secure resources so intense it attracts more than 50 per cent of all foreign direct investment. In 2006, annual Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) raised to a historic high of $38.8 billion, exceeding record levels of 2005 — a growth of 78 per cent from 2004.
According to the UN World Investment Report, FDI cash was concentrated in a few industries, notably oil, gas and mining. And six oil-producing countries — Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, and Sudan — hogged around 48 per cent of it.
European firms represent roughly two-thirds of the total FDI in Africa. More than half of European investment originates from the UK and France, going mainly to countries with which they have historic ties. French oil companies such as Total, locked out of the Middle East through France's opposition to the Iraq war, have made large investments in Francophone countries such as Cameroon, Chad, and Gabon.
The US is interested in the region as a cheap and reliable alternative to the increasingly volatile Persian Gulf. West Africa already supplies about 12 per cent of US crude oil imports, and America's National Intelligence Council predicts that this share will rise to 25 per cent by 2015. As is often the case with oil, military involvement follows behind trade. In February 2007 the US set up an Africa command (Africom).
It has established bases in and signed access agreements with Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Gabon, and Namibia. Despite its own big backyard, as it were, China is generally resource-poor and Africa offers the natural resources vital to fuel its rapidly growing economy.
China looks to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia for copper and cobalt, to South Africa for iron ore and platinum, and to Gabon, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) for timber. For oil, it has been wooing Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea. China is now the second largest consumer of crude oil after the US, and was responsible for 40 per cent of the global increase in demand between 2001 and 2005. Indeed, it imports 25 per cent of its crude oil from Africa.
Beijing has charmed African rulers with a triple whammy of arms sales, cancelled debt, and soft loans. Last year, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited 10 African countries, including Uganda, and this increasingly intimate relationship was consummated at the China-Africa summit in October 2006, when Beijing rolled out the red carpet to almost 50 African heads of state and ministers.
The global demand for natural resources will bring benefits to Africa — increased FDI and, as exports grow, improving balance of trade figures — but one of the main concerns is that the scramble for Africa is fuelling corruption, environmental degradation, and internal dissent.
The windfall gains from resource extraction cause more problems in Africa. It reduces a state's incentive to impose a free and just taxation system, and encourages corruption and acquisition of weaponry and thus develops wars.
In the form of Neo-colonisation, Africa is being fragmented into many pieces at the will of super power countries and concentrating more on the exploitation of Africa’s rich resources than providing them the development aid. For example, the recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report indicates that the world's major donors (22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, DAC), provided $103.9 billion in aid in 2006, which fell by 5.1 percent from the 2005 figure. This figure includes $19.2 billion of debt relief, notably exceptional relief to Iraq and Nigeria. Excluding debt relief, other forms of aid fell by 1.8 percent.
The fall was predicted. ODA was exceptionally high in 2005 due to large Paris Club debt relief operations (notably for Iraq and Nigeria) which boosted ODA to its highest level ever at $106.8 billion. In 2006, net debt relief grants still represented a substantial share of net ODA, as members implemented further phases of the Paris Club agreements, providing a little over $3 billion for Iraq and nearly $11 billion for Nigeria.
Excluding debt relief, ODA fell by 1.8 percent. Preliminary data show that bilateral net ODA to sub-Saharan Africa rose by 23 percent in real terms, to about $28 billion. However most of the increase was due to debt relief grants, excluding debt relief for Nigeria, aid to sub-Saharan Africa increased by only 2 percent.
Charities and NGOs working on the issue believe that even governments that are members of the OECD are reluctant to investigate allegations against western companies of corruption or complicity in human rights abuses.
In Equatorial Guinea — where US companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron are active — the regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has been accused of torture, electoral fraud, and corruption. Despite this, President Nguema was welcomed at the US State Department by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in April 2006 and described as a "good friend."
The environmental impact is also alarming. The clearing of forests for timber exports increases vulnerability to erosion, river silting, landslides, flooding, and loss of habitat for plant and animal species. Gas flaring from oil production, where unusable waste gas is burned off, pumps large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
There is a fear that access to natural resources will fuel the kind of violent conflict seen recently in Sierra Leone, the DRC, and Liberia. The developed countries should realise and think to provide the development aid to Africa where millions are suffering with HIV/Aids, poverty, and other vulnerable diseases for their development instead of extracting their resources.
Dr Rena is associate professor of economics at the Eritrea Institute of Technology
www.AfricaEconomicAnalysis.org
Africa is a vast and exotic continent of about 900 million people in 54 independent countries. It has a total area of over 30 million square kilometres. Africa is rich in mineral and natural resources. It possesses 99 percent of the world's chrome resources, 85 percent of its platinum, 70 percent of its tantalite, 68 percent of its cobalt, and 54 percent of its gold, among others. It has significant oil and gas reserves. Nigeria and Libya are two of the leading oil producing countries in the world.
Further, Africa is the home to timber, diamonds, and bauxite deposits. Revenues from their extraction should provide funds for badly needed development, but instead have fuelled state corruption, environmental degradation, poverty, and violence. Rather than being a blessing, Africa's natural resources have largely been a curse.
UNSAFE WATER: A girl fetches water from a river. Instead of only extracting resources from Africa, rich countries must get involved in helping African nations make such fundamentals like safe water available to her people. Internet photo
Africa's vast mineral wealth and strategic significance have encouraged foreign powers to intervene in African affairs. During the Cold War era, 1945-1990, there was increasing superpower intervention in Africa. The United States and the Soviet Union were major players on the African scene.
The 19th-Century scramble for Africa saw the great powers rush to control land so they could exploit natural resources. The key question for many is: will the exploitation of Africa's rich resources benefit anyone other than the continent's elites?
Oil is perhaps the most important lure, with competition between foreign states and companies to secure resources so intense it attracts more than 50 per cent of all foreign direct investment. In 2006, annual Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) raised to a historic high of $38.8 billion, exceeding record levels of 2005 — a growth of 78 per cent from 2004.
According to the UN World Investment Report, FDI cash was concentrated in a few industries, notably oil, gas and mining. And six oil-producing countries — Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, and Sudan — hogged around 48 per cent of it.
European firms represent roughly two-thirds of the total FDI in Africa. More than half of European investment originates from the UK and France, going mainly to countries with which they have historic ties. French oil companies such as Total, locked out of the Middle East through France's opposition to the Iraq war, have made large investments in Francophone countries such as Cameroon, Chad, and Gabon.
The US is interested in the region as a cheap and reliable alternative to the increasingly volatile Persian Gulf. West Africa already supplies about 12 per cent of US crude oil imports, and America's National Intelligence Council predicts that this share will rise to 25 per cent by 2015. As is often the case with oil, military involvement follows behind trade. In February 2007 the US set up an Africa command (Africom).
It has established bases in and signed access agreements with Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Gabon, and Namibia. Despite its own big backyard, as it were, China is generally resource-poor and Africa offers the natural resources vital to fuel its rapidly growing economy.
China looks to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia for copper and cobalt, to South Africa for iron ore and platinum, and to Gabon, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) for timber. For oil, it has been wooing Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea. China is now the second largest consumer of crude oil after the US, and was responsible for 40 per cent of the global increase in demand between 2001 and 2005. Indeed, it imports 25 per cent of its crude oil from Africa.
Beijing has charmed African rulers with a triple whammy of arms sales, cancelled debt, and soft loans. Last year, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited 10 African countries, including Uganda, and this increasingly intimate relationship was consummated at the China-Africa summit in October 2006, when Beijing rolled out the red carpet to almost 50 African heads of state and ministers.
The global demand for natural resources will bring benefits to Africa — increased FDI and, as exports grow, improving balance of trade figures — but one of the main concerns is that the scramble for Africa is fuelling corruption, environmental degradation, and internal dissent.
The windfall gains from resource extraction cause more problems in Africa. It reduces a state's incentive to impose a free and just taxation system, and encourages corruption and acquisition of weaponry and thus develops wars.
In the form of Neo-colonisation, Africa is being fragmented into many pieces at the will of super power countries and concentrating more on the exploitation of Africa’s rich resources than providing them the development aid. For example, the recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report indicates that the world's major donors (22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, DAC), provided $103.9 billion in aid in 2006, which fell by 5.1 percent from the 2005 figure. This figure includes $19.2 billion of debt relief, notably exceptional relief to Iraq and Nigeria. Excluding debt relief, other forms of aid fell by 1.8 percent.
The fall was predicted. ODA was exceptionally high in 2005 due to large Paris Club debt relief operations (notably for Iraq and Nigeria) which boosted ODA to its highest level ever at $106.8 billion. In 2006, net debt relief grants still represented a substantial share of net ODA, as members implemented further phases of the Paris Club agreements, providing a little over $3 billion for Iraq and nearly $11 billion for Nigeria.
Excluding debt relief, ODA fell by 1.8 percent. Preliminary data show that bilateral net ODA to sub-Saharan Africa rose by 23 percent in real terms, to about $28 billion. However most of the increase was due to debt relief grants, excluding debt relief for Nigeria, aid to sub-Saharan Africa increased by only 2 percent.
Charities and NGOs working on the issue believe that even governments that are members of the OECD are reluctant to investigate allegations against western companies of corruption or complicity in human rights abuses.
In Equatorial Guinea — where US companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron are active — the regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has been accused of torture, electoral fraud, and corruption. Despite this, President Nguema was welcomed at the US State Department by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in April 2006 and described as a "good friend."
The environmental impact is also alarming. The clearing of forests for timber exports increases vulnerability to erosion, river silting, landslides, flooding, and loss of habitat for plant and animal species. Gas flaring from oil production, where unusable waste gas is burned off, pumps large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
There is a fear that access to natural resources will fuel the kind of violent conflict seen recently in Sierra Leone, the DRC, and Liberia. The developed countries should realise and think to provide the development aid to Africa where millions are suffering with HIV/Aids, poverty, and other vulnerable diseases for their development instead of extracting their resources.
Dr Rena is associate professor of economics at the Eritrea Institute of Technology
www.AfricaEconomicAnalysis.org
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