Global Policy Forum

Africa is the birthplace of humanity, home to an eighth of the world's population, and an extraordinary treasure trove of natural resources, says the Financial Times (p.10) in an editorial. But it is wracked by war, sapped by disease, and looted by rulers who have hidden their ill-gotten wealth in other continents. Why should the rest of the world care about Africa?

Compassion is a powerful argument, says the editorial. AIDS has become a plague of Biblical proportions. Every year more than three million African children dies of preventable diseases before they reach the age of five. Poverty is increasing, education is declining, and health services are collapsing. But more than compassion should drive Western policy. Africa's multiple crises cannot be confined to its boundaries. The battle against AIDS cannot be won in the developed world if it is lost in Africa. That is not all. Drug dealers in the West are frequently supplied by African middle-men. The loss of flora and fauna, desertification of woodlands by charcoal burners and the elimination of Africa's tropical rainforests for timber exports all have serious consequences for a world in which the environment is a global issue.

At least Africa is increasingly receptive to the case for reform. Africans have fewer inhibitions about criticizing their governments. They speak out more confidently for human rights and against corruption. One piece of good news is the emergence of a powerful constituency in the developed world sympathetic to Africa's plight. The campaign by Jubilee 2000 for radical debt relief for the world's poorest countries successfully spurred Western leaders into action. Debt relief for 22 countries, 18 of them in Africa, will save them about $34 billion in debt service obligations. That is no mean achievement.

It may seem ironic that such relief comes at a moment when aid flows from the developed world are falling, says the editorial. The continent is being given mixed signals. But one of the most important lessons from the decades since independence is that external assistance is not enough. Africa's ability to spend efficiently is one of the biggest obstacles to recovery. Yet its management capacity is weaker today than it was at independence. Hope lies in the planned initiative by African leaders such as South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who argue that good governance, including a crackdown on corruption, should be the foundation for a new development pack with the international community.

The comment comes as World Bank President James Wolfensohn writes in Le Soir (Belgium) that while debt relief is critically important, it will help reduce poverty only if developing countries continue the hard work of improving economic management. There is much to discuss about which policies best support poverty reduction. But there is no argument that runaway deficits and inflation punish the poor most; subsidies which benefit the elite are unfair; and corruption strangles the weakest first. Fortunately, real progress is underway.

Debt relief cannot replace development assistance, Wolfensohn adds. And here is where a broad and vigorous public conversation is badly needed. There is a widely held fiction that masses of money are poured into aid. In fact, industrialized countries spend roughly one-quarter of one per cent of their GDP for assistance to the world's poor countries. Aid works, and we can do more to make it work for more people. For those who have fought for debt relief, says Wolfensohn, we know what can be accomplished by working together. We must keep this spirit alive.

Meanwhile, Peadar Kirby of the Irish Times writes that world leaders have finally come to realize that poverty is the ultimate systemic threat facing humanity. Just before he retired in February, the head of the IMF, Michael Camdessus, warned that the widening gaps between rich and poor nations were potentially socially explosive. If the poor were left hopeless, he said, poverty would undermine societies through confrontation, violence and civil disorder.

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