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Africa: Policy Outlook 2002
Africa: Policy Outlook 2002
Date distributed (ymd): 020211
Africa Action Document
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
+security/peace+ +US policy focus+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains Africa Action's annual summary Africa policy
outlook. This year it is also being published as a policy paper by
Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org), a joint project of
the Institute for Policy Studies and the Interhemispheric Resource
Center.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Africa Policy Outlook 2002
In 2001, African leaders, as well as African and international
civil society, successfully promoted wider recognition of the
urgency of responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. At the Doha meeting
on world trade, developed countries were forced to acknowledge the
principle that public health must take priority over rigid patent
protections.
African leaders also formally launched the transformation of
the Organization of African Unity into the African Union, which
will hold its inaugural summit in South Africa in July 2002. They
also reached agreement on the New Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD), intended to serve as a common platform for
economic planning and negotiating with international partners.
There was no major escalation in African conflicts during the year.
Ceasefires remained in effect in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, in Sierra Leone, and on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border.
However, warfare continued unabated in Sudan and Angola, while
civilians were threatened by systematic violence in eastern Congo
and by serious if less pervasive abuses in a number of other
countries.
In 2002, with African economies battered by the global recession,
the AIDS pandemic still unchecked, and the threat of new conflict
in key countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Kenya, the
challenges for both African leaders and the "international
community" will be enormous. The prospects are sobering, and the
initial responses to the first high-profile tests of the year--a
volcano eruption in already-devastated Goma, and an arms depot
explosion in Lagos--are not encouraging.
Nevertheless, the groundwork has been laid for the first largescale
effort to fight back against AIDS. And African resilience and
creativity still take unexpected forms, as illustrated by the
launching of two new Internet service providers in Somalia within
months of the shutdown by U.S. financial sanctions of the one
previous provider.
HIV/AIDS
Last year saw major advances on international AIDS policy: Activists
joined in forcing multinational drug companies to withdraw a suit
challenging South Africa's right to obtain more affordable
medicine, and developing countries at the World Trade Organization
summit won acknowledgment of the primacy of public health over
patents. African leaders held a summit on AIDS in Abuja in April,
and the UN staged a special session of the General Assembly in
June. The principle that treatment and prevention are both
indispensable became the official consensus, despite foot dragging
in Washington. Kofi Annan's global health fund had moved from idea
to institutional reality by the end of the year.
Despite modest increases in availability of lower-priced drugs,
however, a study by international health experts estimated that at
the end of 2001 only 200,000 of more than 7.5 million HIV-positive
people who could benefit from antiretrovirals were receiving
treatment (
http://www.africafocus.org/docs01/par0112.php>). The
Global Fund estimated it would only have between $500 million and
$700 million to spend in 2002, less than 10 percent of the
estimated amount needed each year. And, despite stronger
declarations on AIDS by African leaders in Abuja, New York, and
increasingly at home, the test of matching speeches with action was
still largely unmet.
The issues in 2002 in the war against AIDS will be both operational
and political. At the operational level, key tests will be whether
the resources allocated to the global fund begin to flow to those
on the frontlines to be used both to save lives and to build local
capacity. Many fear that contributors to the fund will cut
resources for other urgent needs, as in President Bush's budget
proposal that reduces other international health funding by $95
million. The fund is also intended to provide resources for
tuberculosis and malaria, and competition for funding will be
intense. Activists will be watching closely to see whether
treatment with antiretroviral drugs at the lowest cost gets
significant resources, and whether the multilevel country mechanism
facilitates funding or imposes additional delays. Opponents of
public funding for global health will be looking for excuses to
deny additional resources.
At the political level, the two greatest impediments to the fight
against AIDS--disregard and denial--are epitomized by two
leaders who ostentatiously failed to attend the special UN session
on AIDS last year: George W. Bush of the United States and Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa.
Mbeki's denial and ambivalence is still crippling the South African
response to AIDS. By opposing treatment for South Africans with
HIV/AIDS, his government has come into conflict not only with
AIDS activists but also with the medical community and much of its
own political base. Unless Mbeki shifts course, this confrontation
is certain to escalate.
Bush, for his part, symbolizes outright disregard for the fate of
those with AIDS. Despite Congressional resolutions calling for
contributions of up to $750 million, Bush's budget proposal for the
fiscal year beginning October 2002 included only $200 million for
the global fund, the same meager level as the current fiscal year.
There is momentum for mobilizing more resources on AIDS in 2002.
Unfortunately, the chances are much less for forcing a serious
global debate on the fundamental economic obstacles that weaken
African capacity to confront the pandemic. While European and
Canadian leaders at least acknowledge the need for debate, the Bush
administration has shown no signs of openness. The president's
State of the Union address at the end of January contained no
mention of AIDS, global health, poverty, or any other global or
African issue except terrorism.
Development Deficit
In December 2001, the World Health Organization Commission on
Macroeconomics and Health released the results of its two-year
study showing that scaling up global investment in health would
produce enormous economic gains. The report provides a wealth of
supporting arguments in favor of investment in public goods such as
health, education, and other infrastructure as essential
prerequisites for development on all fronts. At the beginning of
2002, however, there were few signs that there would be
breakthroughs in the continuing debates on trade, aid, and debt.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund announced that estimates
of the economic growth rate for the African continent 9n 2001, with
the added impact of September 11 and the global recession, fell to
3.5 percent (3.1 percent in sub-Saharan Africa). Prospects for
recovery in 2002 were not strong.
A multi-year UN effort to promote new thinking about global
financing for development culminates in March in Monterrey, Mexico.
The framework agreed for the conference contains many common
elements with the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development
(NEPAD) framework adopted by African leaders in 2001: new
"ownership" of economic development plans by developing countries,
mobilizing domestic resources, "untying" of aid in favor of support
for agreed plans, regional cooperation, greater access to markets
in developed countries, increases in both donor support and private
capital flows, and debt reduction.
Behind the bland language of these compromise documents lie
substantial disagreements on particular issues. Among them:
* On trade: promise and reality of market access
Washington and the international financial institutions continue to
stress trade liberalization, along with other measures to attract
foreign investment, as the high road to development. Yet while the
pressure on developing countries for more liberalization continues
unabated, opening rich country markets remains a pious wish. As IMF
director Horst Koehler stressed in January, rich countries still
spend hundreds of billions of dollars on subsidies "in areas where
developing countries have a comparative advantage--as in
agriculture, processed foods, textiles and clothing, and light
manufactures."
Meanwhile, African exports continue to be concentrated on
vulnerable primary commodities. High-profile initiatives such as
the U.S. Africa Growth and Opportunity Act have had little impact
on this pattern. The second report on the act released in January
by the U.S. International Trade Commission, for example, shows
significant increases in U.S. imports from Africa in 2001, but
these were overwhelmingly dominated by oil and other energy-related
products.
* On "aid": how much and who decides
European countries and the World Bank have joined UN agencies and
African countries in calling for significant increases in official
development assistance, arguing that such investments in health,
education, and other sectors are indispensable requirements for
economic advance and poverty alleviation.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has won significant support from
other "donors" for the goal of doubling official development
assistance. U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has joined critics
of the conventional development model in calling for a shift from
loans to grants to finance development in the poorest countries. At
the same time, however, O'Neill has seized every opportunity,
including the World Economic Forum in New York, to reiterate
Washington's hard-line refusal to accept even a rhetorical
commitment to providing increased funds.
Despite the Monterrey Consensus "noting with concern current
estimates of dramatic shortfalls in resources required to achieve
the internationally agreed development goals," debate in Washington
remains mired in the stereotype of aid as optional and wasteful
charity. Without a shift in paradigm (partially visible in the
debate over the global health fund), public investment for global
and African development is likely to face further setbacks rather
than gains in Washington.
* On debt reduction: HIPC or more?
Despite claims of success by creditors for their Heavily Indebted
Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative for debt reduction, the IMF
estimated that Africa's debt service payments would only go as low
as 17.1 percent of export earnings in 2001 (down from 20.3 percent
in 1999, before rising again to 18.4 percent in 2002. This is still
a crippling economic burden, as African leaders as well as debt
cancellation campaigners continue to stress. The overwhelming
majority of the debt is owed to the World Bank and the IMF. But
neither the international financial institutions nor the rich
creditor countries gave any indication they were willing to
consider more than marginal adjustments in the HIPC program.
In 2002, there will be abundant opportunities to discuss these
issues and the related fundamental economic inequalities: in
Monterrey, Mexico at the financing for development summit in March;
in Canada at the G-8 summit of rich countries; in South Africa at
both the inaugural summit of the African Union in July and the
World Summit on Social Development in August. Without major shifts
in the political climate in rich countries, however, the prospects
for change on these issues are slim.
Conflict Resolution and Democracy
At the end of 2001, in most African countries the structural
violence of disease and economic injustice posed much larger
threats to human security than the reality or risk of open
conflict. While fragile, implementation of the peace processes in
Sierra Leone and on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border advanced
significantly during the year. The principal zone of instability
and humanitarian need on the continent continued to be the region
from Angola in west central Africa through the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and portions of Uganda to Sudan in
the northeast.
With the U.S. and other outside powers preoccupied with the threat
from global terrorism following September 11, focus on resolving
Africa's internal conflicts may well rank even lower on the agenda
of the "international community" than in 2001. Even if overt U.S.
intervention, as speculation focusing on Somalia suggested early in
the year, does not occur, the tendency to reinforce selected
partners and ignore human rights abuses under the guise of fighting
terrorism is certain to be powerful.
Agreed peace processes with very uncertain outcomes were under way
with limited international support in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Burundi. Progress toward greater security in 2002
would require significantly greater political will from both
contending parties and outside mediators. Both countries remained
among the most serious humanitarian emergencies in the world,
together with Sudan and Angola.
Despite a limited ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains region in Sudan
at the beginning of the year, and increased civil society pressure
for peace in Angola, the prospects for a breakthrough to a genuine
peace process in 2002 were not high in either country. Major
outside powers seemed more likely to show interest in expanded oil
production in both countries than in the search for peace.
Implementation of sanctions against "conflict diamonds" remained
inconsistent. Trade in diamonds, timber, and valuable minerals such
as coltan continued to provide resources for conflict in Angola,
central Africa, and the Mano River area in West Africa.
Elections in a number of African countries during 2001, including
Benin, Chad, Gambia, Madagascar, Uganda, and Zambia, added to
skepticism about manipulation of the process by incumbents,
violence, and other barriers to democratic participation. In each
case internal and external criticism was vocal, but the threat of
open internal conflict was avoided.
With Zimbabwe due to hold elections in March, Kenya before the end
of 2002, and Nigeria early in 2003, the danger is great
that repression, manipulation, and other tensions leading up to
elections could provoke escalated conflict. This would have
enormous consequences not only for the countries themselves but
also for their regions within the continent, and for Africa's
efforts to address continent-wide problems.
While Europe and the United States are steeping up pressure on
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to allow free elections and reduce
violence, it is Zimbabweans and their neighbors in southern Africa
who will have the most weight in determining what happens, and who
will bear the brunt of further deterioration in that country. So
far, Mugabe shows little sign of heeding calls for restraint from
any quarter.
In Nigeria, internal violence due to multiple causes is rising in
this pre-election year. Instead of promoting security, the Nigerian
military has contributed its own share of violence against
civilians. Many question the capacity of President Olusegun
Obasanjo's government to maintain stability and deliver on the
promises of democracy. Kenyans meanwhile fear a repetition of the
last elections in 1997, when government-instigated violence and
opposition disunity helped return incumbent President Daniel arap
Moi to power.
Pro-democracy activists in these three countries and around the
continent are profoundly skeptical of political elites who offer
nationalist rhetoric, managed elections, and violence against
opponents as a substitute for democracy. But they are also
skeptical of outside powers for being inconsistent in support for
conflict resolution and democracy. To cite only a few examples,
Western critiques in 2001 were almost inaudible with respect to
the lack of democracy in Egypt (Washington's favored aid partner)
Sudan (being wooed as an oil-producer and security ally), and
Zambia (with an election widely regarded as fraudulent).
Human Security
In 2002, there are multiple threats to human security in Africa.
To meet those threats, Africans and others must collaborate in a broad vision
to prove that another Africa in a different world order is possible. Fortunately,
there are hints of greater awareness by some among world elites of the threats
to our common humanity. But the narrow visions of free-market fundamentalism
and militaristic counterterrorism still hold sway among global
policymakers.
The advances in the AIDS debate in 2001 demonstrated that small steps can lead policy in
strategic new directions. In 2002, the challenge will be to continue the strategic advances.
This material is distributed by Africa Action (incorporating the
Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the
American Committee on Africa). Africa Action's information
services provide accessible information and analysis in order to
promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa that advance
economic, political and social justice and the full spectrum of
human rights.
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