NAIROBI (dpa) – Western politicians from German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and France’s president Jacques Chirac are enthusing about a new African partnership.
A good dozen African head of states are hoping that the rescue plan which they have drafted could put the continent on the right, economic track.In the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, members of the “New Partnership for Africa’s Development” convened in May to take the last hurdle prior to the G8 June summit in Canada.An “African solution for Africa’s problems” is considered the most promising rescue package that the continent has ever had. Yet, critics wonder where the partners for this new partnership are to be found.The “Marshall Plan for Africa” allegedly differs from several of its failed predecessors. The plan’s motto is “trade instead of aid” and attempts to free Africa from the dictate of industrialised countries.Wiseman Nkuhlu, chairman of the Guiding Committee emphasises that: “NEPAD was developed by Africans and is managed by Africans”.He added: “We have not been forced to make any concessions in return.”The initiators of NEPAD, led by South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal and Algeria expect more open markets as well as an annual cash flow of 64 billion U.S. dollars from abroad.In return, the partners in Africa promise economic reforms, stability, democratic leadership and a whole string of other ambitious targets.These targets include halving the number of poor people on the continent who live on less than one euro or 0.92 U.S. cents daily by the year 2015. They currently number 350 million.The annual target for Africa’s economy is seven per cent. No easy task in view of World Bank figures which have shown an annual growth rate of only 2.6 per cent since 1990.Together, the 48 African countries have a gross national product equivalent to that of Belgium. Their share of world trade comes to a meagre one per cent.“Aid for Africa is a recurring refrain full of pompous rhetoric at many international conferences,” said Adebayo Adedji, the former head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, recently in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.Sceptical people think that the NEPAD initiators say one thing but do something completely different. Accordingly, Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian head of state calls for a remission of debt. He is also one of the founding fathers.Yet 70 million inhabitants of Nigeria live beneath the poverty level despite the fact that the country has huge reserves of oil.Obasanjo’s east African colleague Benjamin Mkapa from Tanzania invested 40 million U.S. dollars in a military aviation guiding system directly after achieving debt remission.He made his purchase in Britain, the land of NEPAD supporter Blair, at British Aerospace.While another NEPAD founding father South African president Thabo Mbeki thinks the African economy is on the verge of a renaissance, he is the very person who has done his utmost to endanger the battle against Africa’s most dire enemy namely HIV.Hitherto, Mbeki has denied the connection between HIV the virus that can lead to full-blown AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). International studies predict that 30 per cent of all labourers in South Africa will be HIV-positive within three years.Hans Reich, Chairman of the German Development Bank’s (Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau or KfW) Board of Managing Directors, recently took a firm stance against “general African pessimism” in Berlin.He enthused: “The investment location ‘Africa’ is better than its reputation.”Nevertheless, Africa’s potential business partners in industrialised countries are not taking advantage of it.As the NEPAD protocol points out, they pump about one million dollars in subsidies into agriculture per day – a sum seven times higher than development aid itself. This has a reverse effect on one of Africa’s biggest trade sectors.Wealthy countries are raising the obstacles for African farmers. Africans cannot get any footing on the world market when faced with competition from cheap, western products.
