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Feb 08, 2007 15:46 PST
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 290
http://www.pambazuka.org
3 Comment and analysis
THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA'S RESOURCES
by Henning Melber
Henning Melber presents a "state of the continent" report and
comments on the "new African order" as designed by the global power
structures of the World Economic Forum.
Almost 50,000 people from social movements all over this world
gathered in Nairobi during the second half of January at the World
Social Forum (WSF). Originally initiated in the Brazilian city of
Porto Allegre a few years ago, it is organised as a counter meeting
to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) during this time of the year
in the Swiss town Davos. The WEF brings together those in command of
politics and economy in this world and those "celebrities" who like
to be close to them. They represent a world in which Africa remains
at the receiving end of the global power structures and increasingly
again the object of external interests. This article summarises and
comments upon recent developments on the continent.
Old wine in new bottles
It is anything but new that the African continent's human and other
natural resources are the object of more or less systematic looting
from the outside world. Who still believes that "globalisation" is a
very recent phenomenon simply needs to look in an African perspective
on the devastating impact of the slave trade to understand, "how
Europe underdeveloped Africa" (so the title of a seminal book
published by the late Walter Rodney during the early 1970s). Already
Karl Marx had observed (though in a rather insensitive language) in
his Critique of the Political Economy that the hunt for black skins
signalled the dawn of capitalism.
Since the days of the Trans Atlantic human resource transfer various
subsequent forms of brutal exploitation through colonialism and
imperialism were ultimately by means of formal decolonisation
processes at least modified. But the "winds of change" created
sovereign African states, whose societies remain to a large extent
characterised by the structural legacy of an externally oriented
dependency. Beneficiaries of such limited socio-economic development
are still mainly externally based, with the limited participation of
- all too often parasitic - small local elites, who exploit their
political control over national wealth for their own gains.
They collaborate with those operating from the outside offering them
the most convenient (and unashamed) access to the small slice of the
cake they are able to keep for themselves in such sell out deals.
Seen in this light, some (if not most) of the recent critical
accounts of the aggressive expansion of Chinese interests into
African countries and societies and their collaboration with local
autocratic elites and despots has a hypocritical taste or at least
bears traces of amnesia. After all, the Chinese penetration only
rears the ugly face of predatory capitalism, which for far too long
has already abused the dependency of the majority on the continent.
One therefore is tempted to wonder, if the concern expressed is
actually not more about the Western interests than about the welfare
of the African people, given that what we witness today is anything
but new with regard to its forms and effects. While this critical
observation does not exonerate the at times appallingly imperialist
nature of the Chinese expansion into Africa, it does undermine the
credibility of those critics, who find no similar words for the other
forms of imperialism, which for far too long had (and continue to
have) crucial responsibilities for contributing to the state of
misery many of the African people are in.
Africa since the end of the bipolar world order
The collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of a more than forty
year period of bloc confrontation was by no means "the end of
history" (as suggested by Francis Fukuyama). It was the beginning of
a new global order for hegemonic rule with far reaching consequences
also for African governments. Gone were the days, where in midst of a
Cold War some manoeuvring space for limited opportunistic bargaining
existed, which allowed for a bit of strategic positioning. Not that
this was necessarily to the best of the African people: all too
often, this constellation encouraged and protected self-enrichment
schemes for dictators and/or small local elites through forms of rent
seeking or sinecure capitalism, as examples from A (like Angola) to Z
(like Zaire) document. The bi-polar world order was in no ways a
suitable breeding ground for development "from below", but offered
parasitic agents the opportunity to position themselves as satellites
in return for their own gains within the East-West polarisation.
The consolidation of the US-American dominance during the 1990s and
its impact on the global order resulted in several changes also for
the African continent. A regionally inter-linked "appeasement"
strategy (with the Russian retreat from Afghanistan and the Cuban
withdrawal from Angola) secured in Southern Africa the final
decolonisation of Namibia (1990) and paved the way for an end to
Apartheid and democratic elections in South Africa (1994). During
this period the economic paradigms represented by the international
financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) resumed the only power of
definition. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) emerged as the broker
to regulate comprehensively binding the global exchange relations of
goods. The most to say in these regulating processes with far
reaching implications for not only "classical" trade relations but
wider defined exchanges has the club of the G8 members, which defines
the rather one-sided rules of "global governance".
Towards a new African order: NEPAD and AU
Significant inner-African dynamics complemented at the beginning of
this century the global re-arrangements. With the democratically
elected and legitimised new governments in South Africa and Nigeria
the two economic powerhouses on the continent South of the Sahara
left behind their pariah status. Based on internal and international
acceptance, they resumed leadership roles in international policy
arenas. At the turn of the millennium presidents Thabo Mbeki and
Olusegun Obasanjo emerged (with active support by Senegal, Algeria
and Egypt) as new figureheads representing the collective interests
of the South and in particular Africa vis-à-vis the industrialised
Western countries. Originally tasked to negotiate debt cancellation
arrangements in direct communication with them they moved on to seek
new forms of interaction under the premises of the acknowledged socio-
economic premises as defined by the WTO. As kind of junior partners
in the global market they became the architects of what was finally
termed the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
After some incubation period and assumingly intensive political
negotiations behind closed doors this blue print was upgraded to the
status of an official economic programme and institution of the
African Union (AU). The AU itself was a parallel transformation of
the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In the course of its change
it undertook some significant corrections to the hitherto established
continental policy pillars. Most importantly it moved away from the
erstwhile almost holy principle of non-intervention into internal
affairs of member states.
With a lot of confidence and trust and substantive political support
offered by the G8 since its 2001 summit in Genoa the NEPAD-architects
could bring back home the reassuring message that the industrial West
is on board and willing to support the initiative. This contributed
to the acceptance both in Africa as well as by the United Nations
system, which in a General Assembly resolution officially recognised
NEPAD as the economic programme for Africa. While this looks like a
success story, the critical policy issues were to some extent at the
same time aborted or at best watered down. The good governance
discourse in line with the new uni-polar world system and to some
extent imposed by the Western-capitalist hegemony was after all not
only cosmetic rhetoric, but in some parts indeed a meaningful
deviation from past practices of unquestioned autocratic rule by
African despots and oligarchies.
The AU Constitution was adopted at the same summit in Durban when
NEPAD was incorporated. It introduced a collective responsibility so
far absent, justifying joint intervention for specified reasons. This
has in the meantime provided several results, as cases like Darfur,
the DRC, the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Togo have among others shown in
different ways (and varying degrees of success), all seeking to
contribute to conflict reduction or enhanced legitimacy of the
political systems. In contrast to this new responsibility, the
African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), conceptualised by NEPAD as a
cornerstone for enhancing the notion of good governance, did not meet
the expectations. The disappointment over non-delivery was maybe
biggest when it came to the absence of any determined policy action
by the NEPAD initiators in the case of Zimbabwe (where the South
African president preferred his so-called silent diplomacy to any
meaningful political intervention). Nonetheless, the demand for
democracy, human rights and respect for constitutional principles
articulated by the NEPAD blue print as a prerequisite for sustainable
socio-economic development might have been a contributing factor to
the new phenomenon of an increasing number of African heads of state
more or less voluntarily (and peacefully) vacating their offices
(which does not mean that the rotten apples have been eliminated, as
Museveni, and even - though less successfully - Obasanjo as well as
some others have shown in their recent efforts to extend their stay
in office beyond the originally stipulated period of time).
New multi-polar tendencies and the competition for securing African
resources
Systematic new efforts to access African markets and tap into the
local resources became visible with the adoption of the African
Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) by the out-going Clinton
administration. Through this initiative the USA openly underlined the
relevance of the African dimension for its external trade relations
(Africa ranks higher than Eastern Europe in the US trade balance).
The break down of the AGOA trade volume, however, also discloses that
with the exception of a few smaller niches (e.g. the temporary
opportunities created for a locally based - though not owned -
African textile industry with preferential access to the US market)
the trade volume is mainly composed by exporting US-manufactured high
tech goods and machinery and importing oil, strategic minerals and
other natural resources for meeting demands of US-based industries.
Soon after AGOA was enacted, the trade department of the EU
headquarters in Brussels initiated negotiations for a re-arrangement
of its relations with the ACP countries of Africa, the Caribbean and
the Pacific through so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
The declared aim was to enter a post-Cotonou agreement phase meeting
the demands for WTO compatibility. The EPA negotiations have since
then entered critical stages meeting the resistance of many among the
ACP countries. They are afraid of losing out on trade preferences and
feel that Brussels seeks to impose a one-sided trade regime in its
own interests, which also denies the declared partners the right to
autonomous negotiations by re-drawing the map of regional
configurations in Africa to comply with EU expectations.
Both initiatives, AGOA and the EPA negotiations, seem to reflect less
so the genuine desire in fairer trade than securing access to
relevant markets not least in the own interest of the USA and the EU.
The competition for preferential trade agreements with South Africa
(successfully negotiated by the EU during the late 1990s and
currently facing an impasse with regard to the USA) are illustrating
at the same time the point, that the industrialised states are
anything but sharing the same interest when it comes to securing
their individual links with other countries.
The new offensive pursued by China, which expands aggressively into
African markets and seeks access to the fossil energy resources and
other minerals and metals it urgently needs to fuel its own further
rapid industrialisation process, adds to the rivalry and conflicting
interests. In a matter of time, India, Brazil and Russia (as well as
a number of other actors such as Malaysia and Mexico) are likely to
add further pressure on the scramble for limited markets and
resources. This new stage of competing forces on the continent has
resulted in a plethora of recent analyses dealing mainly if not
exclusively with the Chinese impact and practices. Interestingly
enough, the EU and US-policies and practices seem to almost fade away
from the picture. The current type of Cassandra-prophecies presents
at times a rather one-sided story. Such selected narrative tends to
downplay if not ignore the damaging external effects, which the
existing socio-economic imbalances and power structures have created
and consolidated. It appears at times, that the criticism raised
towards China is more so an indicator of an increasing fear for
losing own interests than for being motivated by a genuine concern
for the African people.
Into more dependency or towards enhanced manoeuvring space?
The global initiatives for liberalisation under the WTO regime pose
the question, if the markets and producers in the so-called
developing countries are able to meet the challenges of a relatively
free competition with the industrialised world or instead would
require continued protection. At a closer look, it becomes obvious
that this is a question wrongly posed. It had been indeed the markets
and producers of the industrialised OECD countries, which were one-
sided beneficiaries of state protection and distorting subsidisation
policies. This turned any form of proclaimed fairness in trade and
market relations into an illusion and ideological humbug.
Those advocating a liberalisation of trade relations contribute to
the misperception that such steps would be identical or at least
similar to a de-regulation of exchange relations with goods. As a
matter of fact, the trend is quite the opposite. The so-called
liberal global trade structures and networks have never before been
to such an extent contractually defined and put into clauses.
Numerous additional rules, such as hygienic and sanitary
specifications, regulate access to markets even more so at times than
tariffs. They are open to abusive control resulting in undue pressure
and could turn into a tool for sanctions in cases of disagreement.
The historically-structurally disadvantaged societies should however
at least be enabled to gain socio-economic strength based on own
initiatives. This requires a framework, which would as a matter of
principle allow for a kind of protectionist policy as legitimate
survival strategy to empower local producers and foster own markets.
This could create preconditions, from which in subsequent exchange
relations the people in both the industrial as well as the African
societies could benefit (but maybe at the expenses of unhindered
profit maximisation for those who earn most).
With new rivals such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and a series of
further countries at the threshold to meaningful own industrial
production the competition for entering favourable relations with
African countries might increase. This is in itself not negative to
the interests of the African people. But it requires that the tiny
elites benefiting from the currently existing unequal structures put
their own interest in trans-nationally linked self-enrichment schemes
behind the public interest to create investment and exchange
patterns, which provide in the first place benefits for the majority
of the people.
Selected Further Reading
Alden Christopher/Daniel Large/Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds)
(2007), China Returns to Africa: The Politics of Contemporary
Relations. London: Hurst
Broadman, Harry G. et. al. (2007), Africa's Silk Road. China and
India's New Economic Frontier. Washington: World Bank
Brüntrup, Michael/Henning Melber/Ian Taylor (2006), Africa, Regional
Cooperation and the World Market. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa
Institute (NAI Discussion Paper; 31) (accessible for download at
http://www.nai.uu.se)
China in Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs, vol.
13, no. 1, 2006
Fombad, Charles Manga/Zein Kebonang (2006), AU, NEPAD and the APRM.
Democratisation Efforts Explored. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa
Institute (Current African Issues; 32) (accessible for download at
http://www.nai.uu.se)
Manji, Firoze/Stephen Marks (eds) (2007), African Perspectives on
China in Africa. Nairobi & Oxford: Fahamu
Melber, Henning (2002), The New Partnership for Africa's Development
(NEPAD) - Old Wine in New Bottles? In: Forum for Development Studies,
29(1), S. 186-209
Melber, Henning (2004), The G8 and NePAD - more than an elite pact?
University of Leipzig Papers on African Politics and Economics
(ULPA), no. 74
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2005), Trade, Development, Cooperation. What
Future for Africa? Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current
African Issues; 29) (accessible for download at http://www.nai.uu.se)
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2007), China in Africa. Uppsala: The Nordic
Africa Institute (forthcoming)
Southall, Roger/Henning Melber (eds) (2006), The Legacies of Power.
Leadership Transition and the Role of Former Presidents in African
Politics. Cape Town: HSRC Press & Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute
Taylor, Ian (2005), NEPAD. Towards Africa's Development or Another
False Start? Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner
Taylor, Ian (2006), China and Africa. Engagement and compromise.
London & New York: Routledge
Tull, Denis M. (2006), China's engagement in Africa: scope,
significance and consequences. In: Journal of Modern African Studies,
44(3), pp. 459-479
* Dr. Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld
Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. He has been Research Director of The
Nordic Africa Institute (2000-2006) and Director of the Namibian
Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992-2000).
* Please send comments to edi-@pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
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