Global Policy Forum

By Jane Ocaya-Irama

Finance ministers from 11 African countries, including Uganda met an equal number of their opposite numbers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia over the weekend for an informal dialogue under the UN's Economic Commission for Africa. Nepad was discussed. Below is an analysis of the relevance of this strategy for Africa's recovery.

The right to access to clean water, food, and power is one that should never be left to the whims of the private sector in Africa.

There are reasons for this.

After the leading African heads of government (those of South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal and Algeria) had discussed the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), they appear to have gone first to Western capitals where they met representatives of international private capital before consulting with their own people.

This was not smart, because the mood in Africa is changing. The people will not tolerate this business of putting the representatives of the donor countries and international private capital ahead of them.

It's important that our leaders appreciate that focus on national and regional priorities must take precedence when they negotiate with development partners in the West.

Like all initiatives, Nepad has as it ultimate goal poverty alleviation but how does it expect to achieve that end? There can be no doubt that the path Nepad offers is the neo-liberal path espoused by the International Financial Institutions and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

This path puts "integration" into the globalised economy on the basis of the liberalisation of markets and the free movement of capital at the centre of the development paradigm.

Thus, Nepad's key strategy in the African Renaissance project gets caught in what some might see as a conflicting mission. The one being "African renaissance" and the other "the building of a strong and competitive economy as the world moves towards greater liberalisation and competition".

It remains to be seen if it can work but Nepad believes it can and should once the "right" kind of conditions have been created within Africa. These are good governance, open economy, and partial measures on debt relief, increased aid from the North, and greater access to their markets.

It does recognise that globalisation "has increased the ability of the strong to advance their interests to the detriment of the weak", but this observation on the current asymmetrical power relationship is quickly forgotten.

Nowhere, for example, does Nepad recognise that "liberalisation" and the "open economy" are practically forced on Africa, of which the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference at Doha was a living testimony. African governments, under the framework of the Africa Group resisted a new round of trade negotiations. However, by the end of the Conference we saw the launch of the Doha Development Round.

What alternatives do we have in the quest for "self reliance and ownership?

The point to start with is not further integration of Africa's economy into the process of globalisation that Nepad suggests. Let us begin with is human needs. This is a strategic difference. For example, the people of Soweto in South Africa and Katwe in Uganda need, among other things, access to drinkable water.

There are two ways of going about it - the Nepad way, and the peoples' way. Once you open the essential service of water provision to international competition; whoever is able to bring capital from outside can have control over the distribution of water, and must be able to charge "cost recovery" price to the water users.

If people cannot pay, then their water pipes must be closed until they are able to pay. In the process, the government of South Africa or Uganda must create a climate of confidence (above all, the ability of the investor to externalise his profits and eventually the capital value of his assets). That way an investor is induced to come to South Africa rather than to, say, Vietnam or Peru or Romania (because capital is global, and must be induced with attractive terms to come to Africa) this is the Nepad way.

The people's way however, starts with the recognition that whether or not foreign capital comes to South Africa or Uganda to provide water to the people, water is a basic human right.

Its provision to all households in Soweto or Katwe (our example in this case) is government's responsibility that cannot be turned on or off on the basis of the peoples' ability to pay for the water. Access to water is not a privilege. And the same is true of food, electricity and basic education among others.

Subject these to the whims of profit, and you have subverted the human rights of the people.

African countries must attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) to finance the provision of these services.

Thus, from a peripheral matter (as under Structural Adjustment Programmes), services now occupy a central place for investments on a competitive bid. African states must now struggle amongst themselves to attract FDIs so that these can be employed to provide water, electricity and other services, to the population of Africa.

In trying to attract foreign capital for essential services, African governments are going to be dragged into a downward spiral. They will be offering to the owners of capital competitive terms, including tax incentives, free land etc.

In bringing services into the centre of its "vision" for the future of Africa, what Nepad does is to risk the lives of the people in a volatile and fluid global investment situation. In spite of the worthiness of Nepad's stated goal of creating self-reliance on the continent, we cannot leave that to the whims of volatile and untrustworthy global capital.

We should draw lessons from the troubles of Argentina and more recently Brazil.

Nepad's noble intentions may be embraced, yes, but the strategy for self-reliance is self-reliance.

African governments must pledge to provide the basic services to the people - drinking water, basic food and access to energy - as necessary elements of their basic human rights.

They must then work upwards from there and see how the production and distribution (including savings and investments) are organised in order to meet these basic needs.

We must address issues, which further marginalise Africa.

The continued denial of women's rights particularly land rights and violence against women.

Recently my heart went out to two baby girls on different parts of the continent. One, the daughter of the now famous Amina Lawal of Northern Nigeria sentenced to death by a Sharia court; and the other a baby whose name and parentage I neither know, and whose tragic story has probably been forgotten by many.

This four month old baby girl who was removed from suckling her dead mother's breast, eight hours after her mother was killed in a refugee camp in Northern Uganda. This tragedy signifies the reality of our continent.

The HIV/AIDS, which has so, affected our continent with over 28 million people now living with the virus needs concerted efforts to tackle.

Our leaders must be fully committed to addressing these key issues, the human side of development, if we are to see any meaningful change in the lives of every woman, man, boy and girl in Africa.

* Presented during a seminar late last year on Nepad organised by the South African High Commission in Kampala. The author is Policy Coordinator, Action-Aid Uganda.

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