Category: National News

Africa’s success won’t come from WTO, charities.

By: Gonzaga Muganwa

Africa’s success will not come to fruition if major aid donors who happen to dominate opposition at the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks continue using their leverage to force poor nations into accepting less. A threat to withhold aid is more significant as individual regimes know how crucial the monies are for survival. That is why many African finance ministers declared success after the ministerial meeting in Asia when actually nothing of substance was achieved.

For more decent results, negotiations without constraints and blackmail are the way forward. Otherwise the ministers will remain in the hands of the charity workers activists like Action Aid, Oxfam and individuals like Bono, Bob Geldoff, Bill Gates and all those UNICEF good will Ambassadors. But these are rich white people helping out the ‘unfortunate’ black man. Remember charity has never transformed a society and is not about to do so.

In a letter to leaders of the group of eight rich industrialized nations (G8) and five major developing economies on the eve of their just concluded meeting in St. Petersburg in Russia, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz appeared literally begging the world’s richest nations to act and save the Doha round of talks on world trade.

Wolfowitz wrote, “We can work to lift millions from poverty, boost developing countries incomes, improve global market access and reduce taxes and consumer costs for all and allow the whole efforts to collapse, with harm to everyone.” From these words, Africa’s prime interest is unlimited access to global market which will subsequently reduce poverty.

The global trade talks seem to create an impression that rich countries with their protectionism are responsible for the abject poverty in small countries like Rwanda. To a certain extent it might be true, but this is not the core cause and even if Africa got all her demands at the WTO, the 3rd-world situation will remain, unless other changes take place. Despite the structural adjustment programmes (SAP’s) fronted by the world Bank and IMF our economies still don’t absorb the free market dynamics that help the poor dramatically and can lead to transformation of entire societies.

The political, social and economic structures remain unfavourable though good leadership in a few countries like Rwanda is making progress. However, real issues are almost never discussed like the interests of the political elites in Africa, psychological state of African peoples especially the black peoples, strategic interests and global role of Africa and specifically Rwanda in the world orders and of course the selfish nature of capitalism as a system of distributing and creating wealth.

Foremost, there is need to analyze why the global trade talks are not making headway in favour of the 3rd-world. The dramatic collapse of the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun Mexico a few years ago highlighted a few counts of interest including, varying interests among the developing world group, willingness of the west to exploit them and finally the role of foreign aid in influencing government positions taken by poorer countries (aid recipients).

Within the developing world group, there is the difference between the bigger LDC’s and smaller poorest countries. As reflected at the time in the letter Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni wrote to his trade minister, the bigger LDC’s namely India, Brazil, China, South Africa et al were the most likely to benefit greatest from the scraping of subsides to western farmers and unlimited access to global market.

Competition from these countries is equally a problem for Rwanda among others as is the United States and the European Union. It’s a sad fact that might not be able to reap benefits accruing from trade talks at least in the short term, yet the emerging powers are riding on the sympathy the very poorest are commanding. No country is willing to sacrifice short term individual interests for the common good in the far away uncertain future.

In comparison, the current regional integration trend and most importantly Rwanda and Burundi’s move to join the East African Community (EAC) is a good one and in the right direction. The people of the larger EAC should give their all to benefit from the integration. The sacrifices necessary should be made. The primitive outlooks like tribal and communist era patriotism responsible for the recent unconditional expulsion of Kinyarwanda speakers from Tanzania are unacceptable if integration should have meaning.

The evolution position taken by the leadership in Rwanda of accepting people from whatever backgrounds should be reflected across the region as a means of attaining uniform and meaningful regional societal integration. Not only should free flow of goods and services across the region be the priority, but also inhabitant’s right to migration and settlement in whatever place within the larger regional community should be guaranteed.

America greatness is certified to immigrants and a look at the EU currently shows what to expect. Expansion of the EU has led to the mass movement of labour with more than one million estimated to have moved to Britain with no plans of returning. Can Africa therefore match this trend of affairs when a presidential candidate in Democratic Republic of Congo is calling for the elimination of all Kinyarwanda speakers from the vast mineral rich politically fragile country?

The trend of globalization and emergence of the ‘Brics’ (Brazil, Russia, India and China) shows that there is a big way to go. African countries have been members of the WTO for several decades but instead China which joined recently is the one reaping the benefits. China enjoys extraordinary good balance of payments with her trading with the West-world especially USA.

This is an indication that the internal dynamics of competitive efficient mass production were ready. The global interest especially the multinational corporations in my mind remain agents of exploitation or at least serving the interests others than Africa’s. Supporting the indigenous entrepreneurs is crucial with the will of protectionism if necessary.

True for a number of analysts that Africa’s elite have looked at Africans problem and found that they can actually do nothing about it. Precisely it’s a basket case. They have thus decided only to manage it and get the very best out of it as individuals. In short, development may not be in their interests. Finally the continued high rates of corruption and sheer neglect of responsibility, the fact that people are willing to murder en-masse to acquire and or maintain power and the unending quest for ‘third term’ have been sorry excuses for democratic elections.

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