When Bob Dylan was singing about the times changing, I doubt he had in mind a Maasai Moran or a Turkana pastoralist in full traditional regalia negotiating the price of cattle on the international market with a mobile phone in some distant arid landscape.

While mobile phones are undoubtedly the greatest technological revolution in Africa, the next wave of communication technology is grounding itself well beyond urban centers. Like mobile phones which have empowered marginalized communities across Africa, the internet is quickly beginning to bridge that huge gap between those that have access to information and those that don’t. Ironically, the further we get away from traditional social necessities, the more we strive to recreate them in a virtual world. Simple human needs like shopping, dating, chatting and now “blogging”. . Blogs, or interactive online diaries, may certainly be new but the practice is as old as keeping a journal. They are actually one and the same thing – the only difference is that it’s public!

Today, there are over 72 million blog sites, making the practice of sharing your daily life and thoughts with the rest of the world one of the fasted growing areas on the internet. Interestingly, the impact of blogs on our world stretches beyond our immediate needs to be heard and is being used more and more to effect change. For example, the first blog-driven political controversy led to the eventual downfall of a U.S. Senate Leader exposed for his white supremacist sympathies.

And it’s not just humans that stand to benefit from access to virtual communication. Dr. Richard Leakey, a household name to anyone with an interest in conservation, has focused his efforts on the power of the medium to address one of the biggest problems in wildlife conservation: “After spending many years struggling to improve wildlife conservation in Kenya, I decided to start WildlifeDirect to solve a very real problem in Africa, the lack of adequate funds to protect our wildlife heritage. Persuading individual donors to give support was not easy because most people are unaware of what is going on in conservation until there is a crisis. I needed to find another way to raise awareness and funds on a continuous basis.” Hence, WildlifeDirect was born. The first of its kind, the organization was conceived as a way of facilitating exchanges between the front lines of conservation and the rest of the world. It brought two worlds together: a global community of sympathisers with good African conservationists.

Take the case of Atama-to Madrandele, a park warden who, in 2005, started working at the Ishango, sub-station of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He carried out his work in almost complete physical and financial isolation. In February 2007, Atamato began to blog on WildlifeDirect about his work. Through this blog he was able to raise some funds to help pay for patrol rations and equipment, as well as salary supplements for his five underpaid rangers (the official pay for a Congolese ranger is about three US dollars per month). From August this year, Ishango has become a fully functional park station, thanks to the donations received through his blog. His men are now fed and have enough fuel to be able to carry out regular patrols.

The previous issue of Swara featured the gorilla crisis in Congo. This was one of several stories written about this critically endangered species in the international television, print and radio media. The daily blogging on WildlifeDirect from rangers working on the ground stimulated a global drive to cover the story. Global awareness about the gorillas in the Virungas has never been so strong. The blog also provided an immediate avenue for desperately needed funding for the rangers who have virtually no support from the national authorities. After the slaughter of the Rugendo gorilla family, the donations reached reached $66,000/ in in the month of August -. The gorilla blog currently earns $18,000/- monthly in direct donations. WildlifeDirect has also managed to bridge the pitfalls of bureaucracy and crippling bank procedures to allow people to donate no matter how small the sum is and to allow the recipient to receive almost instantly. Moreover, for those who work in conservation and development, we all know how hard it is to raise funds for day to day items, salaries and other overheads. The bottom line is people need to eat and we tend to forget this. WildlifeDirect provides a platform for conservationists to raise funds for whatever they need, be it a pair of boots or medical supplies for rangers.

The early success of whose operations began in the fall last year, has led to a 10 fold increase in blogs over the last few months with over 40 conservationists from all over Africa and beyond using the blogs to communicate their work and needs. Everyone around the world can play an interactive role in conserving the planet’s endangered wildlife. As Dr. Leakey states, “Not only have we enabled a number of interesting and courageous conservationists to write blogs from the frontline, but I am encouraged that the world is reading, listening, and taking action.”

From 21st to 26th April 2008, an important event would be held on the African continent - the organization of the 1st International Conference on African Culture and Development (ICACD 2008) in Kumasi, Ghana. This conference is designed to draw attention to the missing link in the futile attempts to develop the African continent - culture. This is clearly illustrated in the 1995 report of the World Commission on Culture and Development: "Development divorced from its human or
cultural context is growth without a soul. Economic development in its full Flowering is a part of a people's culture".

Mukoma reflects on the recent extra-judicial killing of close to five hundred suspected Mungiki sect members in Kenya

As the story unfolds alleging that between the months of June and October 2007 close to five hundred young men in Kenya were summarily executed by the police, I find myself wondering whether African governments have put up the façade of democracy only to cover up the old heavy handed way of doing things.

I find myself asking whether democracy has taken the form of rhetorical voting – a gesture that does not deliver the content of justice promised by the fall of the Berlin wall and thawing of the cold war.

This questioning of the true nature of democracy is all the more urgent because the news of the mass killings comes a few weeks before Kenya's presidential elections on December 27th, and five years into Kenya's experimentation with democracy.

According to a preliminary report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) released on November 5th, the young men killed are mostly from the poverty stricken slums famously portrayed in the 2005 movie, The Constant Gardener. They were, the KNHCR report goes on, in all probability rounded up by the Police on the suspicion of belonging to Mungiki, a sect that claims to draw inspiration from the Gikuyu traditional way of life, and then summarily executed.

The Mungiki sect has not won any love from Kenyans because the group has been engaged in criminal enterprises such as violent exhortations to the extent of actually beheading victims. And also because it came into being and flourished with the blessing and support of former authoritarian president Daniel Arap Moi. In a country where the capital city is now referred to as 'Nairobbery', Kenyans are fatigued with violent crime.

So when in late May the police became heavy-handed with massive raids, mass arrests and occasional shooting of suspects in the slums, apart from human rights activists and those affected, everyone else shrugged it off. It was as if most of the country quietly approved off the de-facto shoot to kill orders. With the young men of Mathare criminalized, and looked down upon by the middle and upper classes, the Kenyan police had the unspoken permission to round them up and essentially cull the herd.

This is a classic case of further victimizing the victim. The residents of slums like Mathare are the poorest of the poorest. Even the definition of abject poverty (living on less than a dollar a day) does not capture the extent of deprivation. Neither do terms like under-class, 'labor reserves,' or the marginalized. These are the children of the forgotten.

The KNCHR has rightly called for a United Nations investigation. Kenyans can only hope that the whole truth will be out before the December elections. It is only right that Kenyans begin the next phase of democracy with the truth of what happened to these young men.

When under the watch of a democratic government close to 500 people are summarily executed this can only be called a perversion of democracy. For truly this kind of justice is blind killing the innocent and those whose guilt has not been weighed in a court of law.

There is a lesson for all us here. A democratic country must have principles that, no matter the circumstances, remain inviolable: It cannot condone or engage in torture, it must not imprison indefinitely or detain without trial, or threaten and intimidate its critics into silence, and it must not, it simply cannot, condone extra-judicial killings. Besides, who is to say that the killings will stop with suspected criminals and not lead to the assassination of political opponents?

Democracy must come with the content of social and economic freedom. It must commit itself to doing justice by its poorest, or it will have failed its mission of freedom.

* Mukoma Wa Ngugi is Co-Editor of Pambazuka News. He is also the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (AWP, 2006) and a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

In a few days Heads of State from Africa and Europe will meet in Portugal to discuss issues common to two continents whose histories, for good and bad, have intertwined for centuries. This is a historic opportunity to inaugurate a new era founded on shared values and a genuine friendship where we can support each other and learn from each other.

But that will not be possible while the summit meeting shies away from discussing two of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, those in Zimbabwe and Darfur. Despite Europe’s and Africa’s shared responsibility to address such crises, neither one is on the agenda. No time has been set aside for formal or informal discussion

What can one say of this political cowardice? We expect our leaders to lead, and lead with moral courage. When they fail to do so they leave all of us morally impoverished. Where they funk the difficult issues they make themselves irrelevant. Why should we listen to the mighty when the mighty are deaf to the cries of the afflicted? Millions of Africans and Europeans would expect Zimbabwe and Darfur to be at the very top of the agenda. It is not too late.

Déirdre Clancy analyses refugee human rights, statelessness and the African commission.

Despite diverse stories of exile and exclusion, refugees, internally displaced persons and the stateless all have one core experience in common: they have been removed from their communities as a result of a severe breakdown in the relationship with the State authorities charged with protecting their rights. In Africa, the severing of state protection and the exclusion of individuals and groups is widespread.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 2.4 million refugees in Africa are compelled to seek protection outside their country of nationality or residence. An even greater number are also displaced from their homes but unable to cross an international border—over 11 million Africans are classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs). Quantifying those who are stateless in Africa—whether through denationalisation, expulsion, or the imposition of barriers to proving membership of the community—is a more difficult task. It is estimated that worldwide the number of stateless persons is 11 million, but many believe that this is a gross underestimation.

The Open Society Justice Initiative’s multi-year research on citizenship and discrimination in Africa found that statelessness was a complex spectrum of experience, from de jure statelessness at one end, to those who are de facto stateless, or whose citizenship is under threat, at the other. Some victims are high profile politicians or activists who have been declared individually de-nationalised, such as Zambia’s founding President Kenneth Kaunda. In other cases, entire populations have been excluded from full and equal citizenship, such as 1.5 million Zimbabweans whose parents were born elsewhere. Using this approach, at the very least, 10 million persons can be qualified as stateless in Africa.

While international law recognizes that national governments have the primary responsibility for protecting the rights of those within their borders, individuals who are unable to create a strong link with the state are often left in a vacuum. Stripped of the protection of their own governments, these groups—refugees, IDPs and the stateless—constitute a millions strong population of disenfranchised persons who are increasingly looking to regional mechanisms to address their urgent needs. As the premier human rights institution on the continent, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (the Commission) has been at the forefront of the effort to carve out a new layer of protection for these African citizens.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Since it first started operating in 1987 the Commission has been the principle mechanism charged with promoting and protecting the human rights of all those on the continent of Africa. In its stewardship of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (the African Charter), the Commission has both a human rights monitoring role (which includes the examination of periodic State reports) and direct protection functions.

As a promoter of human rights, the Commission has identified the situation of refugees and displaced on the continent as a priority. In 2003 the Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNHCR dedicated to strengthening collaboration between the institutions [1] and in June 2004 the Commission confirmed the appointment of a new Special Rapporteur on Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (Special Rapporteur) [2].

It is perhaps, however, through the Commission’s direct protection functions that it has contributed most to the strengthening of the rights of the excluded on the continent. The Commission has the power both to launch investigations in special circumstances and, most importantly, to consider specific complaints, or ‘communications’, alleging rights violations, brought to its attention by individuals or organisations. Through a developing jurisprudence, the Commission’s consideration of the situation of the excluded has allowed for the elaboration of standards relating to their rights, a particularly vital function in a context where it is rare that that refugees or the stateless can seek protection at national level, due to practical and legal obstacles.

The role of the Commission as adjudicator: carving out a basic set of protections [3]

The Commission confirmed early on in its decision-making history that the rights protections granted by the African Charter were not limited to nationals should be secured to “all persons” within the jurisdiction of State parties to the treaty. The case of Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO) v. Zambia concerned the detention, ill treatment and eventual mass expulsion of 517 West Africans from Zambia. Since then the non-discrimination and equality protections in Article 2 and 3 of the Charter have been used by the Commission as the foundation stones for its construction of a folder of protection for the excluded. In Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture and Others v Rwanda the Commission later explicitly confirmed that refugees were among the categories of persons protected from discrimination on grounds of their status.

Unlike many international human rights treaties, the African Charter specifically guarantees the right of the individual “when persecuted, to seek and be granted asylum in a foreign territory, in accordance with the legislation of the state and international conventions [..]”. In Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT) and Others the Commission ruled that the expulsion of Burundian Hutu refugees from Rwanda constituted a violation of the right to seek and enjoy asylum, but also of the protections in the Charter against the expulsion of legally admitted persons and mass expulsion. In the same case the Commission also demonstrated how the due process provisions of the Charter could provide additional protection to the excluded, declaring that the manner of the expulsion of the refugees had violated Article 7 (1) – the right of every individual “to have his cause heard”. The Commission has yet to give guidance, however, on whether the right to have a “cause heard” could be interpreted to encompass the right of access by an asylum seeker to a fair refugee determination status procedure—in the OMCT case the persons concerned were already recognised as refugees.

The situation of the stateless has been tackled by the Commission in a number of cases, using a variety of provisions, particularly centred around extrapolating a right to protection against arbitrary denationalisation. Although the Charter does not specifically protect the right to nationality, the communitarian aspects of the rights regime established by the Charter affirm the principle of the “right to belong,” through protection of the rights of “peoples” to self-determination, development, a satisfactory environment and “existence” (Article 20).

In the Mauritania cases the Government of Mauritania was accused of harassing, detaining, and eventually forcefully expelling thousands of ‘Black’ Mauritanians, its own citizens. The Commission ruled that the expelled Mauritanians had been stripped of their citizenship in a discriminatory—and therefore illegal—way and that the government should take appropriate steps to facilitate their return. In the case of John K. Modise v. Botswana it was both the act of denationalisation and the treatment of Mr Modise that resulted which attracted the censure of the Commission. Mr Modise had been rendered stateless by the Government of Botswana and deported to South Africa. Further to his ultimate removal back to Botswana Mr Modise was confined by the authorities to a strip of no man’s land between Botswana and South Africa and rendered homeless. The Commission found that the treatment of Mr Modise taken as a whole violated his basic dignity—and Article 5 of the Charter. It will be interesting to see to what extent in the future the Commission will continue to interpret the types of conditions suffered by those forced into statelessness as amounting to a violation of Article 5.

The Charter and the findings of the Commission have also provided a context within which solutions to the breakdown of State protection can be sought. The Commission has tackled, for example, the root causes of exclusion, examining the human rights violations suffered by those who have lost the protection of their State. In the leading case of John D. Ouko v. Kenya the Commission showed itself as a forum where state responsibility for the creation of the refugee phenomenon could be analysed – an issue often neglected by refugee advocates where the focus is on the urgent need for States to provide refuge. The Ouko communication concerned a Kenyan citizen who had been recognised as a refugee in the Democratic Republic of Congo further to fleeing persecution and detention by Kenyan authorities. The Commission found that the persecution and forced flight of Mr Ouko had violated a number of articles in the Charter, including Article 12 which protected Mr Ouko’s right to leave, and return (voluntarily) to, Kenya.

The responsibility of the state which provides asylum has also come under scrutiny at the Commission. In the case of African Institute for Human Rights and Development v Guinea the communication centred on a spate of abuses, including rape, detention, and killing which were suffered by Sierra Leonean refugees, in the wake of a speech by the President of Guinea urging all foreigners “searched and arrested”. The Commission ruled that the President’s speech, as an incitement and de facto authorization for the resultant attacks and expulsions, violated article 12(5) of the Charter. The Commission also found that there had been violations of the right to life, property and dignity of the refugees in addition to noting that the targeting of Sierra Leonean refugees violated Article 4 of the OAU Refugee Convention on the Specific Problems of Refugees in Africa.

In the Mauritania cases the Commission not only focussed on the arbitrary denationalisation of the complainants’ but also on the deplorable conditions in which the deportees had been held, finding a violation of Article 16 – the right of every individual “to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health”. It is hoped that this approach will be followed in future cases relating to the standards of treatment in refugee or IDP camps, especially where freedom of movement is restricted by the authorities and people are confined to the settlements in contravention of international law.

The role of NGOs

All of the key cases considered to date by the Commission which touch on extrapolating the rights of the forcibly displaced and the stateless have been brought to the attention of the Commission by human rights and civil society organizations on the continent. It is not just in the realm of moving forward the Commission’s jurisprudence, however, that NGOs have been active. At the bi-annual meetings of the Commission it is usual for one of the statements to the Commission by NGOs to be dedicated to a review of the situation of refugees and IDPs on the continent, contributing to the overall monitoring function of the Commission.

It is acknowledged also that the work of NGOs dedicated to advocacy on refugee and IDP rights was critical to encouraging the Commission to create the position of Special Rapporteur. Since his appointment, first as focal point, and then as Special Rapporteur, Commissioner Nyanduga has been very active, conducting a series of missions which have done much to highlight the plight of the displaced (see article in this issue). The work of the Special Rapporteur, however, does need to be better supported to increase its effectiveness—resources at the Commission are highly stretched. NGOs can assist through seeking observer status before the Commission to play a more active advocacy role, and helping to mobilise funds for the functioning of the Rapporteur system.

Challenges

As an independent rights arbitrar the Commission suffers from a number of defects, the greatest perhaps being the non-binding nature of its rulings. It is also fair to say that as a deliberative body of State appointed experts, the Commission can find itself subject to political pressure. Despite this, the Commission can point to a history of courageous position-taking which has belied many of the predictions of politicisation. In recent years, however, it has been suggested that, the progressive stance which marked the evolution of the Commission is suffering a backlash. Some point, for example, to the fluctuating approach of the Commission’s jurisprudence to “exhaustion of domestic remedies”—a threshold consideration for admissibility of communications. In the past the Commission demonstrated a rather liberal attitude to interpreting this concept, particularly where asylum seekers, refugees and the stateless were involved, but it is now building a more elaborate set of hurdles.

Others note the difficulties encountered by the Commission in conducting its broader monitoring functions, particularly in reaching consensus on response to the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Darfur. The official report of the Commission of its mission to Darfur, presented at the third extra-ordinary session of the Commission in Pretoria in September 2004, has still not been published. This report was the first comprehensive African Union assessment of the human rights situation in Darfur, including focussing on the plight of IDPs. Although adopted officially by the AU, publication remains hostage to political manoeuvring, as the text awaits the comments of the Government of Sudan. [4]

What next for the Commission and for the excluded?

The foundation of the African Union in 2002 expressed a regional commitment to creating a more effective, integrated political and economic union with human rights situated at the heart of its principles and objectives. There are a number of areas where the Commission can be encouraged to use its position in the new African Union human rights firmament to promote the rights of the excluded. The new AU institutions, from the African Court to the AU Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOC) all present opportunities for the Commission to contribute to the setting of human rights benchmarks. The Commission has already been explicitly assigned functions, for example, with respect to the peer review mechanism under NEPAD and the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA). A

The Commission, however, is the human rights touchstone, not just for the new AU frame but for other continental processes which address human rights concerns—the International Conference on the Great Lakes is just one process comprising a series of new laws relating to the rights of the excluded. The Commission can ensure complementary efforts and exchange of jurisprudence with such mechanisms. It will be essential, also, for the Commission to act as a a guide to regional courts as they are increasingly called upon to adjudicate on the rights of the excluded who may also claim rights from a sub-regional organisation—the East African Community is currently, for example, adopting a Bill of Rigths where freedom of movement and protection of the regions “citizens” will be paramount. Attention also needs to the paid to the promotion of the Charter and its jurisprudence at national level where the potential for the case law of the Commission to be cited in domestic proceedings is ripe but rarely exploited. National human rights commissions might be mobilised by the Commission in this regard.

Finally, the Commission can be a forum for the promotion of the new norms and standards which will certainly be required to respond to the changing nature of displacement and exclusion on the continent. Among the areas requiring particular elaboration include access to citizenship and the reduction of statelessness, the right of freedom of movement for IDPs and refugees, due process guarantees in asylum proceedings, rights of access to domestic courts (often restricted for refugees), the social and economic rights of the displaced and their hosts, and the implications for State responsibility of delegating protection of the excluded to international organisations. NGOs of course must play a role in identifying the strategic opportunities for litigation that will facilitate this work. They may also need to explore, alongside the Commission, where normative developments—new protocols to the Charter (such as perhaps on the right to a nationality)—may be required.

*Déirdre Clancy is Co-Director of the International Refugee Rights Initiative. She was formerly the Director of the International Refugee Program at Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights).

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

* For notes, please click here

Henning Melber tackles the critical issues surrounding the EU-African summit.

Gone are the days of perpetuating historically entrenched interests and relations between “old Europe” and its in the meantime sovereign African colonies as unchallenged integral part of a global economic and political system in favour of the imperialist powers. The former hunting grounds for slaves fuelled European early capitalist development and pushed the continent ever since into structural dependency from a world market, which benefited others. Africa remained on the receiving end since then. But with increased competition for its natural resources, African economies emerge as a new attraction for a multiple range of potential partners, allowing the governments more choices than ever before.

The preparations for the EU-African Summit in Lisbon during December happen in the midst of what could be termed a new scramble for Africa’s resources. At a time when the US-American administration under the outgoing president Clinton enacted the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to secure mainly its own interests through a new preferential trade scheme, the trade department at the EC 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 an agreement meeting the demands for compatibility with the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The EPA negotiations have since then entered critical stages and should have been finalised by the end of this year. They provoke reluctance if not fierce resistance of many among the ACP countries, who feel that Brussels seeks to impose a one-sided trade regime in its own interests.

Meanwhile China as a new kid on the block 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. 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 to the scramble for limited markets and resources. It appears at times, that the criticism often raised these days in the West against China and other potentially emerging competitors is more so an indicator of an increasing fear for losing out on own interests than being motivated by a genuine concern for the African people.

The interests guiding decision-making in this new constellation are illustrated prominently by the discussion over Zimbabwe’s participation in the summit. The overwhelming majority of EU member states seem to be prepared to accept the presence of President Robert Mugabe in violation of the own sanctions decided earlier on. The main argument is the concern that his exclusion would result in a boycott of most African countries, weaken Europe’s status among African governments and thereby strengthen the Chinese influence further. More pragmatically, it is also maintained that using Mugabe’s presence for a discussion over the situation in Zimbabwe would allow the further pursuance of a negotiated solution. This could strengthen SADC’s mandate to Thabo Mbeki for seeking an acceptable exit option for the aging despot and a political solution to the ongoing crisis.

The new rivalry between external players strengthens at the same time the political bargaining role of African governments. In the presence of alternatives to the historically established exchange relations, their heads of state can easier agree on signs of solidarity among themselves, threatening to turn a back on Europe if it is not complying with their demands – such as the one to include the Zimbabwean despot in the list of invited guests.

The long lasting dependency syndrome, which characterised the North-South relations, is replaced by a feeling of having alternative choices at hand. While this expands the action radius of African governments, it has not necessarily a positive impact on improved governance. Quite the opposite: it might create new exit options for kleptocratic regimes to once again being able to literally get away with murder.

* Henning Melber is the Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Firoze Manji looks behind the mask of remittances and suggests that there are grounds for questioning the overall value of remittances as a vehicle for development or social progress.

How often do we hear the phrase “remittances to Africa are a key source of development funding”? The volume of funds being remitted to Africa are certainly impressive. In 2005, we are told, “they totalled $188 billion—twice the amount of official assistance developing countries received. Moreover, there is evidence that such flows are underreported. Indeed, remittances through informal channels could add at least 50 percent to global recorded flows. Most of the reported flows go to regions other than sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), but SSA has still been part of the overall rising global trend. Between 2000 and 2005, remittances to the region increased by more than 55 percent, to nearly $7 billion, whereas they increased for developing countries as a group by 81 percent.” (Gupta et al 2007).

Can such remittances be equated with ‘development funding’? What is the evidence that this contributes significantly to the elimination of poverty? And if remittances of funds from workers in the North to their families in the South be considered as part of the infrastructure of ‘development’, then should not remittances of funds from the South to the North be also be considered as part of the equation?

The overwhelming majority of studies demonstrate that remittances are primarily used by households and families to help them survive the inadequate incomes that they already have. In times of crises, such supplementary income is used to “smooth household consumption and welfare”. For the most part, these funds are used for consumption and payments for education, healthcare needs and food for subsistence. In other words, remittances are primarily used to supplement income because wages or income from agricultural production, petty-commodity production or ‘jua kali’ trade, or whatever activity people are engaged in to ‘make a living’ is inadequate. Remittances are not primarily used to create employment or develop new initiatives.

The reality is that the majority of rural families in Africa have long been dependent on the ability of members of their families who have jobs in urban centres to be able to remit a portion of their wages to help their families cope with impoverishment. This lies at the very heart of the system of underdevelopment that is characteristic of neo-colonial / post-apartheid economies as it was in the colonial and apartheid economies.

There is a close association between remittances and the maintenance of prevalence of low wages in Africa. One of the crucial determinants of low wages is the social cost of the reproduction of labour: from the employers point of view, the less it costs to enable the wage earner to survive and reproduce, the lower the wage needs to be. And the more people there are that are unemployed – the larger the ‘reserve army of labour’ – the harder it is for the worker to demand better wages, especially if they are unable to organise to put pressure on employers. If the families of workers are eking out an existence on marginalised land, a few pennies in the form of remittances from the employed worker makes all the difference.

When migrant workers (either transiently away from home or with more permanent residency in countries where wages are better) are able to supplement the cost of maintaining their families through remittances, then what they are doing is not only helping their families survive: they are also ensuring the maintenance of their families at no additional cost to their employer or the state. For the recipient, of course, these remittances are a lifeline since they have no other means of surviving – especially in the lean times.

But is this development? Surely not. Surely it is subsistence, barely enabling people keeping their head above the water. It is ‘development’ only if we were to consider that development is not about social progress but about providing charitable support to the poor. Remittances are essentially an individualised social support mechanism without which there would be even greater misery.

Now supposing the same funds were used, instead, to support people to organise for better living wages, for better social services, for better housing and healthcare. Such a use of remittances would certainly contribute to social progress, to real development. So long as remittances play only the role of providing charitable support, they perform the role of shoring up an existing unjust system that keeps people poor. Worse still, there is a potential for disabling Africa's people from becoming organised actors who can determine their own future.

As Paulo Freire (1970) put it: “… charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life’, to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so these hands – whether of individuals or entire people – need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world." Do remittances really help human hands transform the world?

But even if we were to accept that remittances may be legitimately considered as ‘development funding’ or as part of the infrastructure of development, then surely movements of funds in the opposite direction – from South to the North – should also be taken into account. It is surprising this aspect is systematically ignored by those obsessed with promoting the apparent benefits of remittances. When Africans send funds from the North to the South, this is called remittances. When multinationals remit profits to the North, or when countries in the South are made to remit a part of their gross domestic product to the banks in the North, somehow this is not considered as (negative) remittances. If movements of funds in one direction are to be taken into account in the process of development, then surely movements in the opposite direction also need to be taken into account.

Surely, what is sauce for the goose is good for the gander?

Third World repayments of $340 billion each year flow northwards to service a $2.2 trillion debt, more than five times the G8's development aid budget (Dembele 2006). At more than $10 billion/year since the early 1970s, collectively, the citizens of Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, the DRC, Angola and Zambia have been especially vulnerable to the overseas drain of their national wealth. As Brussels-based debt campaigner Eric Toussaint concludes, 'Since 1980, over 50 Marshall Plans worth over $4.6 trillion have been sent by the peoples of the Periphery to their creditors in the Centre' (quoted by Patrick Bond 2005).

Research by the Tax Justice Network estimates that a staggering $11.5 trillion has been siphoned 'offshore' by wealthy individuals, held in tax havens where they are shielded from contributing to government revenues. “Around 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP is moved offshore”, writes John Christensen (2006) of TJN, “As several studies have suggested, this rate of capital flight means that Africa - a continent we are continually told is irrevocably indebted - may actually be a net creditor to the rest of the world.”

In comparison, then, to the the wealth that is sucked out of Africa - which far exceeds the total amount of aid that comes from the North into Africa - the net value of 'remittances' (movements in both direction) is negative.

There are grounds, therefore, for questioning the overall value of remittances in development. That is not to say that sending money home doesn't help our families survive. Remittances remain essential for enabling the impoverished to cope with an unjust world that keeps them poor. But as a vehicle for social development and progress? I have my doubts.

* Firoze Manji is co-editor of Pambazuka News and executive director of Fahamu.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References

Patrick Bond (2005): Dispossessing Africa's Wealth. Pambazuka News
Demba Moussa Dembele (2005), Aid dependence and the MDGs, Pambazuka News http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2007/06/gupta.htm

Angola opposition on Monday denounced what it called government "strategy" to delay legislative elections scheduled for next year. In a statement, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) said that acts of "intimidation" and "increased attempts to curtail individual and collective freedoms in Angola" were evidence of the alleged strategy.

The head of Zambia's powerful drug-busting unit has been arrested and charged with stealing public funds and abuse of office for allegedly pocketing money confiscated from culprits, an official said on Thursday. Ryan Chitoba (53) was arrested on Wednesday by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), which has been investigating him for the past six months, ACC spokesperson Timothy Moono said in a statement.

Thousands of Zimbabwean war veterans gathered in Harare on Friday to lead a "million-man march" in support of President Robert Mugabe's bid to extend his rule despite a severe economic crisis blamed on his government. Mugabe (83) and in power since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, is seeking re-election in presidential and parliamentary elections set for March 2008 after some senior officials in his Zanu-PF party failed to stop him from running.

Under heightened security and heavy rain, Algerians began voting this morning to elect representatives to People’s Communal Assemblies (APC) and People’s Wilaya Assemblies (APW) for a five-year term. Recent floods and continued rain, however, may limit voter turnout. By 2 p.m., only 20% of the country’s 18 million eligible voters had cast ballots.

Ownership of the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river has finally been transferred from Portuguese control to Mozambican hands at a ceremony witnessed on 27 November by five southern African heads of state and government. The ceremony, which took place in the village of Songo, in the central Mozambican province of Tete, was preceded by last-minute negotiations on the terms of the deal which lasted well into the early hours of Tuesday.

The Nigerian government is investigating allegations that German telecoms and industrial conglomerate Siemens paid bribes to Nigerian officials in order to secure lucrative contracts for telecommunications equipment in the African country. Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has ordered an investigation and has said that the government will not cover up for anyone found guilty of violating the law.

The three latest Kenya opinion polls showed mixed results on Friday, with the main opposition candidate Raila Odinga leading President Mwai Kibaki in two of them. With less than a month to go before the December 27 election, surveys by Infotrak Harris and Strategic Research had Odinga leading with 43.9 and 43.2 percent, while Kibaki stood at 38.4 percent in both.

The country is far away from staging free and fair elections because voters in Zimbabwe still don’t enjoy broad freedom to criticize government, to publish their criticism and to present alternatives, according to a political analyst. The government recently published new electoral laws that it said would provide a better electoral framework. But Cape Town based political analyst Glen Mpani said only when the ruling Zanu-PF regime guarantees basic human rights, values tolerance, allows equality before the law and the due process of law, will people talk of free and fair elections.

MDC activists in Manicaland have started what they called a ‘period of defiance’ against police brutality and government restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly. Concerned at the little time left for campaigning between now and elections next year, the MDC has vowed to wage a campaign aimed at forcing authorities in the country to let them address their supporters or repeal the laws altogether.

Suspects belonging to both the ruling All Peoples' Congress (APC) and the main opposition Sierra Leone Peoples' Party (SLPP), 17 in all, have been released from police custody in Kono, eastern Sierra Leone. Suspects belonging to both the ruling All Peoples' Congress (APC) and the main opposition Sierra Leone Peoples' Party (SLPP), 17 in all, have been released from police custody in Kono, eastern Sierra Leone.

Recognizing the need to promote efforts to tackle issues such as poverty, exclusion and unemployment, the United Nations General Assembly has decided to observe 20 February annually – starting in 2009 – as the World Day of Social Justice. In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 192-member body also invited Member States to devote the Day to promoting activities at the national level in support of the objectives and goals of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen.

The full and rapid deployment of the hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is in jeopardy because of a series of objections and obstacles raised by the Sudanese Government and the lack of offers for crucial force units, a senior United Nations official has warned the Security Council.

The United Nations tribunal dealing with the worst crimes committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide has reduced the jail sentences of three former media executives convicted for inciting their compatriots to kill ethnic Tutsis. A five-member appeal panel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which sits in Arusha, Tanzania, upheld the convictions of Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza and Hassan Ngez.