[Dryerase] AGR The G8 in Canada: an African agenda

[Shawn G]

G8 lead up piece

The G8 in Canada: an African agenda

By Sean Marquis

June 25 (AGR)— This week thousands of people will converge on the Canadian 
city of Calgary to protest a meeting of G8 leaders being held in the remote 
town of Kananaskis, Canada, June 26-27. What will get lost in the news 
accounts of police vs. protesters will be what the protesters had to say and 
what the G8 was doing to warrant protesting.

The Group of Eight (G8) made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, 
Japan, the United States, and Russia, is meeting to discuss issues ranging 
from terrorism and Israel/Palestine to global economic policies. This summit 
will have a focus on Africa.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is a heavy backer of the New African 
Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The G8 Summit is expected to 
endorse the NEPAD initiative.

The mandate for NEPAD had its genesis at the Organization of African Unity 
(OAU) Extraordinary Summit held in Sirte, Libya during September 1999.

After more economic and trade summits several proposals had been envisioned. 
An integration process of the various initiatives followed, and on July 11 
2001, NEPAD (or the New African Initiative (NAI) as it was temporarily known 
at the time), was adopted as Africa’s principal agenda for development.

What makes NEPAD a very attractive neo-liberal policy to G8 leaders is that 
it comes from African countries and is an initiative of African leaders, in 
particular Presidents Tabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of 
Algeria, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and Abdalaye Wade of Senegal.

According to NEPAD’s own documents, it is “an instrument for advancing a 
people-centered sustainable development in Africa based on democratic 
values,” and has continent-wide objectives such as “economic growth and 
development and increased employment; reduction in poverty and inequality; 
and enhanced international competitiveness and increased exports.”

President Wade met with US President George W. Bush on June 19, just ahead 
of this week’s summit.

According to the US State Department the two discussed the “war on 
terrorism” and NEPAD, with both men in support of “the importance of the 
private sector’s investing in regional development.”

A detailed NEPAD Program of Action will be presented to the G8 Summit and to 
the inaugural Summit of the African Union in South Africa in July. The 
European community, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund(IMF) and 
the United Nations will also participate in the Kananaskis meeting.

Benefit for elites, detriment for poor

A common complaint of civil society groups and non-governmental 
organizations (NGOs) is that the primary objective of NEPAD is to make 
Africa investment-friendly for the benefit of African elites and foreign 
investors at the detriment of already impoverished African populations.

On June 6 the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) issued 
an assessment of NEPAD in a document, Un-blurring the Vision: An Assessment 
of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development by South African Churches.

While the SACBC supported NEPAD’s goals on decreasing poverty and promoting 
peace initiatives among African nations, the report criticized NEPAD’s 
“blurred vision” of how to achieve its stated goals.

“NEPAD’s vision is blurred by fixing its sights on increased global 
integration and rapid private sector growth as the answer to overcoming 
poverty, and by its failure to engage with Africa’s people to transform the 
continent,” the report said.

The SACBC also said that “[NEPAD]’s economic strategy is discredited by the 
harsh impact on the poor in African countries that have already adopted 
similar policies. It pretends to be unaware of the severe negative social 
impact that rapid privatization of basic and social services has on 
impoverished communities in Africa.” As to process, “NEPAD has neglected 
Africa’s people both in the process of its construction and in its primary 
focus,” said the SACBC report.

World Vision, Canada, a Christian humanitarian organization, suggests an 
eight-point plan, which is somewhat critical of national and collective 
policies of G8 nations in regard to African nations.

Some of the suggested points are: support peace and conflict prevention - 
stop shipping weapons to Africa; adopt fair trade rules - end resource 
exploitation; and require accountability to the people - stop propping up 
dictators.

While echoing World Vision’s sentiments on peace and arms shipments, other 
groups also point to the furthering economic destruction that is most likely 
to be carried out under the auspices of NEPAD.

In Apr. 2002, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, together with the Mazingira 
Institute and the African academy of Sciences, held its African Forum for 
Envisoning Africa: Focus on NEPAD in Nairobi, Kenya to critically examine 
NEPAD and its underlying principles.

The Forum concluded that NEPAD follows the same neoliberal principles that 
are heavily criticized by civil society worldwide. These policies are 
responsible for increasing gaps between the rich and the poor and result in 
economic disasters, such as the recent clashes in Argentina.

“In spite of the recognition of the central role of the African people, 
civil society has not played any role in the conception, design and 
formulation of NEPAD. Furthermore, NEPAD adopts social and economic measures 
that contribute to the marginalization of women,” according to a statement 
by the Forum.

A report by the World March of Women, NEPAD, Gender and the Poverty Trap, 
questions NEPAD’s ability to achieve it’s stated objective to “promote 
women’s participation in the political life of African countries.”

In part this is due to the fact that NEPAD is seen as an extension of 
South-Africa’s own neoliberal macroeconomic policy, known as Growth, 
Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR).

GEAR, according to the report, “has promoted deregulation, which has led to 
deteriorating conditions of employment, and trade liberalization…This 
economic restructuring has had a disastrous impact on the two key centers of 
footwear and leather production in the country [the provinces of the Western 
Cape and KwaZulu Natal].”

“As the footwear and leather sector is overwhelmingly dominated by women 
workers, they are the most affected by the disastrous impact [of these 
policies],” the report states.

The report also questions the ability of NEPAD to be “democratic” and 
“inclusive” when “the records of the major promoters of the NEPAD – i.e. the 
Presidents of South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal -- include the 
repression of dissent, bloodshed, mass popular protests and social unrest.”

Same policies, new name

Many groups contend there is no difference between NEPAD and the structural 
adjustment programs (SAP) that have been promoted by the IMF and the World 
Bank.

SAPs are largely responsible for the privatization of the social sector in 
developing nations leading to the sale of state-owned water, electricity and 
health services to private, and often foreign, interests.

In a June 17 Canadian Press article, Sarath Fernando, a member of Sri 
Lanka’s movement for land and agricultural reform, drove home this point.

“Debt, aid, advice, structural adjustments, remodeling of economies — more 
than the money part, it is a mechanism for having control over our lives, 
over our resources, over the whole economies in our countries,” said 
Fernando.

NEPAD is little more than re-colonization of Africa and is just an extension 
of GEAR, said protesters at a meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at 
the International Convention Center (ICC) in Durban, South Africa on June 6.

The event was reported by The Witness, a Durban daily. “The name NEPAD is a 
myth -- there is nothing new about it. It is just GEAR for [all of] Africa 
and, just as GEAR resulted in the loss of one million jobs in South Africa, 
so too will NEPAD further plunge Africa into poverty,” said Ashwin Desai of 
the Concerned Citizens’ Group.

According to The Witness, Professor Dennis Brutus of Jubilee South Africa 
said the WEF is part of the global corporate process which is expected to 
support NEPAD.

“The essence of the document is that Africa promises to obey all requests 
from the West and will submit to their demands, particularly in the area of 
investment. Africa will be enslaved to satisfy the demands of the West,” 
Brutus said. “NEPAD will lead to privatization of basic services which will 
then be sold back to Africa at a profit.”


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