cc Zimbabwe’s new lease of life is under threat, as signatories to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) fail to implement the deal, writes Richard Kamidza. Fresh farm invasions, the re-arrest of political prisoners and disrespect for the pluralistic processes of democracy set out in AU and SADC statutes are sending out the wrong signal to investors and damaging the Unity Government’s ability to unlock financial and technical assistance from global donors and western governments, Kamidza argues. The Harare administration needs US$8 billion to revive the country’s social and economic sectors. Zimbabwe has a monthly public sector wage bill of US$400 million and revenue of just US$30 million.

cc With Zimbabwe in the grip of an economic freefall, Richard Kamidza analyses the country's financial woes and the failure of multiple macroeconomic strategies to revitalise the economy. The collapse of public infrastructure facilities and utilities along with persistent, entrenched difficulties within the education system are just some of the pressing problems the country faces, which combined with its chronic inability to satisfy its population's food needs add up to the most serious humanitarian crisis the country has faced. In light of Zimbabwe's decade-long failure to effectively revitalise its economy through domestic resources, Kamidza argues that the country will indisputably require a financial package backed by other regional and international players, a package that will call upon civil society groups to collectively offer effective monitoring of both the use of economic resources and the move towards genuine political transition.

Negotiations between African countries and the European Union aimed at finalizing free trade deals known as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are continuing apace. As part of the process that will finalise EPA deals sometime in 2007, Eastern and Southern Africa countries have just submitted a draft EPA document to the EU. But, in this article, Richard Kamidza documents the astonishing lack of consultation in the negotiating process, claiming that in some cases even cabinet ministers don’t know the details. One of the sectors that could face the biggest battering is agriculture, already buckled by three decades of structural adjustment and rich country subsidies.

Southern Africa hosted several Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) events between September and November 2006. Of these, the 7-8 September 2006 regional conference organized by the Trade and Development Studies Centre (Trade Centre) - whose theme was ‘Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) experiences in negotiating the EPAs with the European Union (EU)’ - is my point of reference. Senior officials of the ESA configuration, the EU delegation in Harare, policy makers and civil society organizations (CSOs) attended the event.

At that meeting, the ESA-EPA draft document, which was officially submitted to the EU with a response timeframe of end of September 2006, was circulated to participants. An excited Dr Moses Tekere, ESA-EPA Advisor, remarked: “It is a wise strategy meant to outwit our counterparts in the EU…The ball is now in the EU’s court, and a timed response is likely to work in favour of the ‘happy family ESA’…”

However, this mirrors a competitive race of African configurations of wanting to be the first to reach out to the EU’s negotiating machinery in spite of limited capacity, timeframes and space to assess outcomes in light of emerging national and regional economic units and the aspirations of consumers.

But, being the first to knock at the EU negotiating machinery’s doors not only fuels pessimism in the process, but also points to a bleak future for ESA economies under a legally binding trade regime. While the ESA-EPA advisor expresses triumph and optimism on the draft, the failure to widely consult at various stages of the process has a strong bearing on outcomes, especially with regards to consumers, smallholder farmers and other small to medium-producers.

ESA-EPA intellectual leadership [1] opted for ‘text-based’ negotiations, hence compiled a comprehensive ‘wish list’ document to form the basis for actual negotiations with the EU. Its main highlights include the scope of the agreement coverage: trade cooperation, trade related issues, trade in services, fisheries, economic and development cooperation, development finance cooperation, institutional framework and dispute settlement; and the schedule for eliminating customs duties a day after the agreement’s entry into force. These provisions aim to increase production, supply and trading capacities as well as enhance capacity to lure investment and technology.

The submission of the draft has fuelled fears of negative implications and outcomes likely to tie ESA economies to Europe in an unbalanced framework. This scenario perpetuates an unjust trade regime that has the potential to undermine national and regional economies, and in the process, compromise regional integration efforts.

Various meetings of the ESA processes and lobbying missions to the EU have continuously raised the need to redress supply-side constraints including unreliable public utilities (electricity and water); poor public infrastructure (run down roads, bridges and railways); weak institutional policy frameworks (fluctuating exchange rates, high inflation rates and poor fiscal measures); low labour productivity (arising from poor education, health and housing provisions); and an unfavourable investment climate coupled with inadequate resources to foster socio-economic transformation. In addition, countries have weak production structures and/or capacities.

While the above requires huge resources in order to improve the situation, many countries do not have the capacity to mobilise such resources both externally and internally due to a poor investment climate and low gross national savings (GNS) ratios, respectively. In addition, many countries have been experiencing dripping developmental assistance inflows.l

In this respect, the ESA-EPA draft text says “…every 5 years the ESA-EU EPA Council shall undertake a formal and comprehensive review to ascertain if the development benchmarks have been attained by individual ESA countries as well as determine whether EU’s trade and development policies and assistance have contributed to individual ESA countries achieving the development benchmarks.” This vindicates the prevailing fear that outcomes may fail to assist in the development of respective countries and that development may be overlooked, and in the process remain elusive to the future developmental trajectory of the respective ESA countries.

The ESA text was crafted against the backdrop of increasing pressure from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to open up their markets and let their farmers “compete” with the heavily subsidised food and other agricultural produce dumped into their economies by the EU and other industrialized economies. The same economies have been subjected to neo-liberal policies driven by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for over three decades, which forced African governments to dismantle public agricultural research and extension programmes and drop whatever protection and incentive mechanisms existed for their small farmers and other small-to-medium-size producers. In addition, the same African governments are then forced by the same agencies to devote their most fertile land to the growing of export commodities for markets in the North, thus pushing small farmers off their land and food production out of rural economies.

The concluded South Africa-EU Trade and Development Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) has impacted on the economies of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and other regional countries, especially on agricultural development, market competitiveness of both agricultural and non-agricultural products and policy space for future intervention in support of vulnerable sectors (such as rural farmers) and consumers.

To date TDCA exposes other regional economies (SACU and non-SACU countries) to the highly competitive EU environment which heavily subsidises its agricultural producers. It is therefore possible that products from EU end up flooding the markets of non-TDCA signatories due to porous boarders that are difficult to police, a development that leads to de-industrialisation (downsizing), de-agriculturalisation (forcing farmers off their agricultural activities), unemployment, underemployment and poverty.

EPAs are associated with huge adjustment costs relating to revenue losses. As the TDCA shows, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia and Botswana, which prior to the new trade regime were guaranteed 45, 42, 28 and 17 percent respectively of the total SACU imports are estimated to lose between R1.9 billion and R3.5 billion in revenue. This translates to falling fiscal expenditures necessary to support agricultural development, social service delivery, infrastructural development and livelihoods.

In the case of ESA, the rejected text acknowledges that agriculture supports a significant number of people (about 70% of the population) whose production is solely for household consumption with a minor role in commercial agricultural market. The text further lists areas that require assistance from the EU. What is instructive is the fact that EPAs are likely to flood ESA markets with subsidised agricultural products, a development that has future negative implications to the sector and the entire economy.

Many ESA citizens have memories of the negative implications of the neo-liberal policy project on their economies and subsequently to their livelihoods. Many economic units are now exposed to globally driven ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy agendas in addition to EPA driven global market competition. While many stakeholders through various levels of interventions hope to contribute to the outcome, it seems that the ESA-EPA intellectual leadership is now immune to such crying voices in addition to being unwilling to reach out to many noble ideas through consultation.

Knowing very well that most ESA countries are largely dominated by agriculture and agricultural related activities, failure to involve constituencies in this sector display ESA-EPA intellectual leadership’s insensitivity to the plight of smallholder farmers, other producers of agricultural related products and consumers.

To date a significant number of the population live on one meal a day. Wide consultation and deep involvement of other stakeholders and citizens is in line with the spirit of the Cotonou Agreement. Consultation is not about making assumptions on other social and economic units, but rather about direct or indirect soliciting of their views. While the ESA-EPA leadership has not appreciated the above, it is sad that an opportunity that should have facilitated ESA stakeholders and citizens inputting to the process prior to the submission of the said draft is missed. ESA-EPA intellectual leadership has less confidence in wide consultations and deep involvement. They seem to only consult those with moderate views. So in the process, they leave out the views of broader constituencies. Given this critical moment, it is thus imperative to consult even radical views, including those calling for a stop to EPAs.

Since the launch of the ESA-EPA road map in Mauritius, February 2004, the intellectual leadership has not organized a single meeting with non-state actors’, particularly civil society, a separate platform that is necessary to broaden their horizon on issues of livelihoods and survival strategies of ordinary citizens. This is not a resource-constraint weakness, for on some occasions, configurations of officials have failed to avail themselves when resources were made available. This is equated to snubbing civic body meetings and processes meant to benefit the future trade regime between Africa and EU; and to lack of ‘open door policy’ ready to embrace civic bodies’ voices – both moderate and radical, a platform that has been ably provided for by their EU counterparts.

In this respect, many campaign missions by civic bodies to the EU, have seen them directly engaging with the EU Commissioner, Director-General Trade, Director-General Development, EU Parliament and other influential institutions. However, a lot of inputs from these missions have failed to filter into the said draft because the ESA-EPA intellectual leadership has failed to open its doors for such voices, which are deemed radical. Lobbying powerful EPA institutions and structures in Europe require radical elements. One wonders why those in charge are not yet ready to accept and value such inputs.

Historical bilateral trends show EU emerging a ‘winner’, a position likely to mirror the current EPA process. African configurations need to learn why this is always the outcome. While it is necessary to appreciate the prowess of EU in defining trade relationships with its former colonies, it is equally important to harness all available resources, particularly views of non-state actors which have not filtered through.

The ESA region can improve its negotiating capacities by harnessing all available human resources, including critical voices. Many stakeholders engaging EPAs have valuable inputs, which have the potential to add value to the outcomes. Coordination of all voices, especially of critical constituencies calls for an “open door policy” coupled with expressed intent to accommodate different views. Coordination is about accountability of outcomes; reaching out to broader constituencies; and building synergies and networks aimed at ensuring positive outcomes necessary to promote pro-poor development and address livelihood needs in ways that ameliorate widespread poverty. Coordination is about soliciting other views on emerging positions deemed not yet official.

While there have been appeals to popularize the draft, one wonders what are the appropriate messages and strategies to use, and which constituencies to target given that the fourth draft has been rejected by the EU and the ESA team has remained numb about it. Its rejection filters from European civil society networks. Why the draft was not shared with stakeholders boggles the minds of citizens, especially those likely to be affected by the outcomes.

The appeal to popularize the draft raises questions including: should we focus on the weakness of the document with the view to improve the final output or to lobby its acceptance in the EU negotiating machinery? Should we focus on the inherent intellectual weakness at the ESA leadership level that fails to widely consult broader constituencies before serving the ‘menu’ on the EU’s table? Should we focus our energies on exposing those, who, all along have been seeking glory, that is, eager to append their signatures regardless of the flawed process and outcome? Should we focus our energies on intellectual ESA-EPA leadership, which is increasingly detaching itself from the reality on the ground?

The above not only raises serious challenges within all African configurations, but also points to deficiencies in synergy building, strategic alliance formations and policy driven strategies among various stakeholders aimed at concluding a just trade regime. Soliciting opinions of other stakeholders has remained elusive in the ESA-EPA intellectual leadership.

At the 21st Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, it emerged that the EPA processes have not been shared adequately with other organs of states in respective member-states despite the relevance of such institutions. Though MPs are important they are largely at the periphery of the process. From the discussions, it was clear that no sharing of countries’ positions was done. In fact, from the sentiments, most of them were not consulted and in many states EPAs are yet to be discussed at the Cabinet level. Indeed, some MPs in this Forum are Ministers who profess ignorance on the process. This development illustrates poor coordination of all organs of state, and non-state institutions in the process; and lack of intellectual supervision by those in charge with the view to ensure that all the voices are consulted.

• Richard Kamidza is a senior researcher at The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)

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

Notes

[1] Its role is to guide the EPA process, provides technical direction and is responsible and/or accountable for the outcomes.

On paper, negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) allow for the involvement of a range of organisations that should to some extent ensure the voice of the poor are heard in the construction of the agreements. Richard Kamidza outlines how in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) the reality is far different. The process of negotiations has deliberately excluded the poorest in Africa though their structure, complexity and a general lack of political will to be inclusive. “Surely poor constituencies cannot dream for a positive EPA when the process totally excludes them,” writes Kamidza.

There are sixteen countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) configuration that are preparing negotiations on the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU). The negotiations are focusing on six clusters: agriculture, development issues, fisheries, market access, services and trade-related issues. All EPA-related work at regional level is being coordinated by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), to which all ESA member-states are signatories. Other regional secretariats attend as observers. To facilitate preparations in the process, several structures were established but only the National Development Trade Policy Forum (NDTPF) and the Regional Negotiating Forum (RNF) are analyzed for the purpose of this discussion.

Who represents the poor constituencies?

In line with the Cotonou agreement, the ESA-EPA road map allows non-state actors (including the private sector, non-governmental organisations, the media, community based organisations, religious organisations and trade unions) to participate in the on-going EPA negotiations both at the national and regional levels. Civic bodies, since their work involves interacting with both policy-makers and grassroots communities, are assumed to represent the poor constituencies. Thus, engaging civic bodies implies involving and consulting poor-constituencies in the EPA process, a development that enables them to appreciate the dynamics associated with the process. Impliedly, the structures facilitate the participation of the poor in the on-going EPA negotiations. But, are the poor constituencies’ voices already influencing the structures?

What is the extent of the poor constituencies?

The ESA configuration is the poorest in Africa with some countries having between 60-80% of the people living below the poverty datum line and up to 80% unemployment. Twelve member-states are classified as least developing countries (LDCs), which also suffer from serious supply-side bottlenecks that impose equally serious limitations for locally produced commodities to compete favouably with the EU market despite the provision of duty free access under the “everything else but arms” (EBA) initiatives. Anecdotal evidence shows that the existence of EBA initiatives has nothing positive to show in terms of benefits accruing to countries. Even countries categorized as non-LDCs such as Zimbabwe are not only facing similar production constraints, but also massive de-industrialization and de-agriculturalisation as a result of both neo-liberal policy frameworks and irrational nationalistic policy agendas. Indeed, the rates of socio-economic and political indicators prevailing in some ESA member-states are at variant with the zeal to “fast-track” the EPAs process.

A significant number of countries are also classified as highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) meaning that the huge but growing external debt overhang is not only retarding economic growth and development of respective member-states, but has also become economically exhausting and unsustainable; politically destabilizing; and ethically unacceptable. The debt is denying member-states resources to improve the supply-side constraints, particularly human resources development at a time when poor socio-economic conditions and political instability in many states is causing massive brain drain to developed economies. Both EBA and HIPC initiatives assume the existence of a higher proportion of poor constituencies, which are also finding it difficult to cope with any emerging trade regime. Also, lack of political will by institutions and individuals coordinating the process to include poor constituencies has remained a challenge that seems to be allowed to continue - albeit some few months before the deadline for the conclusion of an EPA between the ESA configuration and EU.

ESA negotiating Structures and the State of Play

National Development Trade Policy Forum

Each ESA member-state has established the National Development Trade Policy Forum (NDTPF) whose main function is to develop national positions that will be subsequently tabled at the Regional Negotiating Forum (RNF). NDTPFs are all cluster-inclusive and/or multi-sectoral, and cut across all stakeholders in the country. They are supposed to ensure wider and deeper consultations or involvement of key stakeholders and citizens, including the poor constituencies in this process. Stakeholders at the national level are supposed to collectively come up with strategies, synergies and options leading to just and fair EPA outcomes for respective member-states. In this respect, stakeholders are supposed to participate in EPA-related national conferences, seminars and workshops organized to discuss proceedings, processes and findings of commissioned sustainable impact assessment (SIA) studies and cluster studies. Each NDTPF is expected to produce written progress reports for onward presentation to RNF meetings and submission to the COMESA secretariat for future references. Lastly, NDTPFs are expected to come up with both offensive and defensive cluster interests and positions which feed into regional preparation agendas.

However, the events to date indicate that NDTPFs lack wide and deep consultations or involvement of all stakeholders. It has been observed that participation in NDTPFs of some countries excludes those stakeholders who are perceived as critical of the prevailing governance and political systems and socio-economic conditions. This means that the limited democratic space constrains free participation of civic bodies in the process.

For instance in Zimbabwe, a sour relationship between civic bodies and government means that mostly regional civic bodies have been participating in this process. To date, no members of nationally-based civic bodies have been part of the government delegation attending RNF meetings. In other countries, the civic bodies are largely inactive and very weak, therefore unable to mount a serious engagement in NDTPFs activities. This means that wide and deep involvement of all stakeholders, particularly the poor constituencies, still remains one of the biggest challenges facing NDTPFs in their engagement in EPA negotiations. This also means the low mobilization of citizens and/or exclusion of the poor in this process. Further, this means weak networking and synergies of strategies among stakeholders. Ultimately, this leads to relatively weaker negotiable positions vis-à-vis the EC, and dangerous and unviable EPA outcomes that are incapable of assisting in transforming economies to the benefit of poor constituencies.

Due to deliberate exclusion of civic bodies from the process, the publicity of EPAs has remained largely unsatisfactory. Most EPA-related events and activities have gone without notice by the media at the level of both the NDTPFs and RNF. Chances are therefore that the citizenry, let alone poor constituencies, may fail to follow the process with the view to how to deal with the pitfalls of any agreement.

In addition, the COMESA secretariat seems to have failed to monitor and ensure that countries comply with their own rules and procedures of engagement in the EPA process. Indeed, failure to deposit reports make it impossible for interested stakeholders in the ESA configuration and beyond to review the process with the view to understand the dynamics at each NDTPF, and subsequently RNF negotiation process. Without publicity and close scrutiny, it becomes difficult to assess the level of NDTPFs’ accountability, transparency and the democratic process, let alone encompassing poor constituencies in the process.

Regional Negotiation Forum

The Regional Negotiating Forum (RNF) is a structure that brings together representatives from NDTPFs, four regional secretariats and a regional civic body; Brussels-based ambassadors, especially cluster lead spokespersons; and selected observers and consultants to deliberate progress and ultimately prepare EPA positions for the ESA configuration. Participation support at the RNF is given to two government negotiators, a representative of non-state actor in each ESA country, representative of the regional civic body, regional secretariat officials and invited observers, experts and consultants. All supported participants have speaking rights and status during the meeting.

However, given the complexity of the negotiations coupled with deficiencies in both technical and financial capacities to undertake EPA negotiations in most ESA member-states, the coordination becomes equally complex and technical, requiring an equally broad-based and sound technical depth. This unfortunately, has not been satisfactory, leading to instances where crucial documents ended-up being distributed during the onset of the meetings and deliberate omission of items from the programme that had earlier on been circulated. This has a negative impact on member-states contribution at the regional meetings. However, this is not entirely of COMESA’s making but also a function of too much congestion on the EPA calendar and limited technical advisory (It is only this year that the Chief Technical Advisor has been hired to assist in the process) coupled with other regional mandates requiring similar attention.

Some countries have been sending only two participants to the RNF meetings in spite the availability of resources which end-up being returned to the EU – the sponsor of the process. This raises the question, “whose problem is it?” as well as pointing to the state of governance systems that are guiding the process in respective member-states. This development further indicates weak status of NDTPFs in terms of consulting and involving widely and deeply all stakeholders. Other countries have failed to establish viable NDTPFs that are capable of generating offensive and defensive positions to be subsequently tabled at the RNF meetings. In this respect, a few countries have been bringing more delegates using their own resources to support the process, a development that is encouraging in terms of providing the necessary moral support to negotiators.

It is thus fair and just to allow more civic bodies, especially the social movements, to become part of governments’ delegations to RNF and other meetings. Only when this happens, will the crying voice still at the periphery of defining a long-term trade regime with the EU, become louder. This is more so given that the invitation extended to regional civic bodies in 2004 meant to bring the voice of poor constituencies into the process has been withdrawn. The purging means no invitations to future RNF meetings and no accessing of sustainable impact assessment (SIA) studies of member-states that are deposed at the regional secretariat. But, the major casualty of COMESA’s reaction remains the “crying voice” that is watching the unbalanced and heavily biased match from outside the pitch.

Given the above, it seems as though COMESA lacks the political will to assist in widening and deepening the level of involvement and consultations. It also suggests that the organization has assumed the role of monitoring intervention of critical voices in this process with the view to purge all those who happen to be critical of them.

From the table, many countries’ delegations consist mainly of government officials and to some extent private sector representatives. Only Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe have widened the size of their delegation to RNF by including officials from relevant ministries and departments. From the table Kenya too has brought more participants to all the RNF meetings including a member of parliament.

The Secretariat as at the beginning of 2005 reported that it had not received any written reports on the activities of NDTPFs. This means that all past presentations by delegations on the progress and constraints were/are verbal, a development that often mislead the process aiming at achieving positive EPA outcomes. As expected, no criticism has arisen from country presentations, and as it stands, it is difficult to review the process in future.

Conclusion

The above discussion clearly shows limitations to including poor constituencies in the process of negotiating an EPA with the EU. There is generally lack of political will to centrally involve and consult civic bodies regarding the on-going process. There is no political will to ensure availability of resources for mobilizing poor constituencies.

At the beginning of 2005, only five studies out of 16 countries were deposited with the regional secretariat. While the studies have been produced, no rigorous engagement of the findings has taken place with the view to translating the pitfalls to poor constituencies. This position is further worsened by limited space for civic bodies to participate in the process. It therefore tends to reason that the participation of civic bodies are constrained by imperatives on the ground such as limited democratic space, poor state-civic relationships and outright exclusion by coordinating institutions in the capitals and beyond. The “poor’s voice” continues to cry out, pleading with the technocrats that “ESA is not for sale”. Surely poor constituencies cannot dream for a positive EPA when the process totally excludes them.

* Richard Kamidza is Senior Researcher at the African Centre for Constructive of Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD).

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Given the prevailing economic and social circumstances facing the African continent, exactly how can Africa begin to chart a path for the future? A conference due to be held this weekend in Durban, South Africa, brings academics together to discuss this question and decide exactly how Africa can reclaim the 21st century.

Introduction

The West tried for centuries to impose its models for development on Africa with limited success and without taking into account existing vast differences in culture and politics on the Continent. In this regard, most post-colonial African states adopted Western blueprints in the form of capitalism or socialism with limited trickling benefits to the general populace. It thus seems that Africa is in most cases worse off now than during colonialism despite billions of aid and investment being poured into the Continent. The continent has witnessed the controversy around which agency is more central in driving the development process between state and markets in an environment dominated by foreign actors, especially the Bretton Woods institutions, through their “one-size fit all” policies in addition to a host of imposed conditionalities. While this controversy continues, the socio-economic and political conditions in a number of States continues to deteriorate by the day.

Development paradigms and policies

Since the 1960s Africa has witnessed a contestation or confusion of development agendas, namely, the nationalist agenda of an autonomous development path anchored upon a derigiste economic nationalism in ideological terms on the one hand, and the Bretton Woods institutions propounding a neo-liberal economic adjustment programme premised upon free market enterprise in ideological terms on the other. The former has been and still is deliberately State-centric and encourages State interventionism in economic management. The latter has evolved as a market-driven development strategy and, as such, deliberately set out to roll back the State.

This ideological contestation has forced the Continent’s leadership to embrace several developmental paradigms and policies, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, in support of the two positions. The debate moved towards convergence in 1997 when the World Bank, through the question “Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?” accepted and appreciated the key role of the State in the socio-economic development of their respective countries. In response African leaders fashioned their own developmental paradigms such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) whose central thrust is collective responsibility towards improving the Continent, including getting directly involved in the search for long-term political stability and sustainable development. Assertive leadership of this responsibility is producing democratic fruits in former troubled nations and regions such as the Great Lakes region, where the return to democracy and constitutional route has resulted in positive socio-economic transformation.

Africa’s Challenges

Political conditions

Africa continues to face political challenges including many politically induced conflicts that have, and will, continue to destabilize both the respective member-State and/or the region. Scarce resources are allocated annually to defense, security and military ministerial portfolios in many African countries as a way of dealing with the prevailing conflicts and/or as a precaution to peace, security and humanitarian concerns, especially in those countries not directly involved in conflict. Post-colonial States have fallen prey to the ploy of destabilization, a factor that scares away both domestic and foreign investors. The prevailing socio-economic conditions have deteriorated in some countries to the point of contributing to the unfolding conflicts. As a result millions of people have been killed, displaced or forced into exile. This development also denies Africa access to its resource – human capital – which is now contributing to global capitalism without any compensation being paid to “our” Continent.

Socio-economic conditions

Africa continues to face unimpressive socio-economic conditions characterized by low economic growths; falling per capita income and life expectancy; rising inflation rates, interest rates and infant mortality rates; deteriorating external and domestic debt stocks; worsening poverty situations evidenced by food dependence, malnutrition and the fact that between 65% to 80% of the Continent’s population is living below the poverty datum line; and lack of access to basic social services (health, education, housing and water).

Macro-economic fundamentals

African countries are at different levels of economic development, depicting wide disparities in their macro-economic fundamentals. Such development impacts negatively on regional economic development strategies. In addition, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are yet to persuade member-States to move towards the convergence of their macro-economic fundamentals, which are explained by other factors. Of great concern at this juncture is also the duplicity of RECs which makes them both weak and vulnerable to external shocks and influence.

Production structure and trade

Production structure on the Continent has remained largely primary production-oriented, a trend that renders Africa the largest net importer of goods and services from the industrialized nations. This means that the Continent specializes in the production of raw materials, but has no input to global pricing. In addition, countries have, in most cases, competed seriously against each other since failure to diversify the economic base means the production and exportation of similar commodities. Africa’s contribution to global trade remains insignificant – just under 2%. This poses the question as to how long can Africa continue to remain in this position.

Access to international markets

Throughout the Continent market reforms have failed to develop the productive sectors. This has resulted in the underdevelopment of industrialization strategies. Even the religious adoption of Western driven economic reforms have failed to rejuvenate the industrial base of most countries on the Continent. The industrial base remains largely narrow and characterized by mono-commodities for export to the same market. This is more pronounced in Southern Africa where, for instance, Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Namibia produce and export diamonds to the same market. Other common export products include tobacco, copper, fish, tea, coffee, horticulture and cotton. This unfortunately generates less foreign currency necessary to meet national import requirements since the majority of member-States are net-importers. In the process this serves as a constraint to industrial development. At the same time debt service obligations means the availability of fewer resources to support the social sector; the very foundation for building a sound human resource base which is deemed critical for the Continent’s developmental needs.

The debt burden

At a time when the Continent is grappling with many challenges, member-States have accumulated large, but growing external debt which takes away a significant proportion of available resources for debt servicing. Industrial development requires foreign currency which is used to service debt, while sacrificing social service provisions in the process. In addition, no significant innovation is taking place to improve the future prospects of the Continent. A high debt overhang creates uncertainty for both domestic and foreign investors. It is a situation that adversely affects a country’s credit ratings and perception of risks. Furthermore, it limits potentially viable firms from accessing finance from the international capital markets. Moreover, the qualification of most countries to the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative, has failed to extricate the Continent from this position. This means that the debt burden is not only retarding economic growth and development, but it has also become economically exhausting and unsustainable, politically destabilizing and ethically unacceptable.

Aid flows and donor-recipient relations

While industrialized economies pledge to increase aid flow to countries with sound socio-economic policies and democratic practices, in many cases this pledge has come with conditions and selective application. Inter-State relations has come to the fore, raising the question of whether aid is a developmental instrument or a vehicle to globalize capitalism, which is in search of markets. It appears that aid flows have gone beyond the realm of economic policies to include new conditionalities of good governance; respect for the rule of law and the environment; and observance of human rights. In addition, foreign direct investments (FDIs) tend to ignore certain regions. In particular sub-Saharan Africa has remained an unfavourable destination of this capital formation.

The current situation in Africa is not promising in terms of crafting sustainable endogenous policy directions, options and space. Despite decades of implementing developmental paradigms and policies on her own and/or in collaboration with global strategic partners, Africa has remained the poorest region in the world. Indeed, of the 53 countries on the Continent, only 7 countries have graduated onto the globally ranked middle income category (Countries include Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa [World Development Indicators database, World Bank, July 2005]).

The least developing countries (LDCs) category are of great concern which suffer from huge, but growing external debt overhang and limited capacity to industrialize and generate foreign currency necessary to meet national requirements. To date, Africa contributes less than 2% to the total global market, while it attracts only 2% of the FDIs inflows. In addition, the adoption of Western driven initiatives, presumed to offer lifelines to millions of poverty stricken people in the form of debt relief and free access to European markets under “everything else but arms (EBA)” initiatives, has failed to produce positive tangible results. Similarly, the adoption of neo-liberal policies has also failed to produce a success story to act as a model for policy options. Notable also is the failure of developmental State paradigms and policies to produce success stories. Indeed, Africa has remained stuck in the same predicament of an underdevelopment web characterized by unimpressive socio-economic indicators, unstable political environments and conflict situations, while countries in other Continents are making progress.

While Africa is preoccupied with identifying and correcting policy errors of the past, the formulation of its relations with developed regions is premised within the neo-liberal paradigm despite entrenching weak and vulnerable States towards the ambit of global institutions and agendas. A significant number of States have become increasingly vulnerable to the donor payroll, a development that weakens State capacity to offer alternative policy options, policy space and policy directions. This further exposes the same weak State to the dictates of donors, resulting in a vicious cycle of borrowing, harsh conditions, and unavoidable compromises in terms of a State’s responsibility to its citizens.

In this context, The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and the African Futures Institute (AFI) are holding a two day conference focusing on the question: “Can Africa (re)claim the 21st Century?” In this spirit there are many questions regarding development that remains unanswered which the conference can raise and provide pointers on. A revisit to developmental paradigms and policies requires further interrogation by African scholars, given the prevailing socio-economic and political conditions prevailing on the Continent. Therefore the conference will bring together various scholars and policy makers from the Continent to discuss these issues.

Building sustainable strong state-citizens relationship offers unique opportunity to empower the organs of the states to become truly African with the “strong” belief that “Africa is for Africans”. This is imperative to mould the pillars of states to uniquely guide socio-economic and political transformation in a manner that facilitates development. In this respect, the conveners are expecting the debate to focus on how Africa should de-industrialize the donor sector and all its tentacles, which for long, has undermined the acceptance of “uhuru” developmental strategies and paradigms on the basis that Africans can not kick-start the developmental steps of their territories without externally driven resources and guidance, a development that demonizes the self-reliance concepts as baseless and unsustainable.

Indeed, as conveners, we will be happy to be associated with the creation of the right attitude in which Africans appreciate that poverty alleviation is in our own interest rather than the donor sector; that externalization of Africa’s resources is the main contributor to the growing external debt overhang; that domesticating Africa’s resources provides the basis for native industrialization strategies; that trade negotiations requires African resources to prepare in consultations of all the constituencies; and that demonisation of self-reliance principles is a “defeatist attitude” based on the “blame game” theory.

Africa has all the right signs for claiming the 21st Century. In this regard, it is imperative for her to exploit every opportunity that arises with positivist attitude. Indeed, the time to lament historical injustices and causal relationships for the present “status squo” is over. It’s high time that Africa realizes that globalization has no room for philanthropic and benevolent gestures, hence the expectation for the right attitude and a continent-orientated policy framework.

* Richard Kamidza is a Senior Researcher at The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), Durban, South Africa

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Richard Kamidza is not optimistic about the outcome of EPAs, arguing that they will ultimately undermine Africa’s economies. Kamidza explains that negotiations are taking place in the context of a skewed relationship between Africa and Europe that already hinders development prospects. This means that the EU is unlikely to face strong opposition to its desire to fast track EPA negotiations.

Introduction

The first round of the Cotonou Agreement ended without the legally binding document that is necessary for future references. Indeed, the European Union (EU) emerged the victor, a development that is haunting the ongoing economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and the EU. As the EPA negotiations fast approach the EU-imposed deadline, the predictions are that the score will be EU 1, ACP 0, because the process firmly allows the EU to protect its interests against those of a begging trading partner.

Europe as a ‘partner’

As a partner, Europe is fortifying its vertical links with Africa, which also benefits its bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. Unfortunately, vertical integration with Europe is unlikely to facilitate the industrial development of African economies, because the EPA process does not take into account the differences in development between Europe and Africa, and within Africa itself. For instance, 34 of the 48 countries currently negotiating an EPA with EU are least developing countries (LDCs). They should have continued to benefit from the Lomé Convention’s Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative but under the EPA process they will have to do without such special treatment.

The current thrust of the EPA negotiations suggests that their main concern is solving Europe’s overproduction and profitability crisis by opening up more markets for its products and services in Africa. EPAs are essentially 'free trade areas' between partners that are both economically and politically unequal. They come supported by 'one size fits all' neoliberal policies, a development that provides a further example of the combined effort of global forces (the EU, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) to thwart the development of poor countries. Trade relations that were non-reciprocal are now being made reciprocal thereby removing the developmental component that characterised the previous Lomé Conventions. Indeed, EPAs seek to replace past special preferences, a development that also suits Europe’s political interests well, particularly now that the 25-member body is increasingly sensitive to the demands of the new member-states, which are reluctant to be guided by past colonial relationships.

The EU as a major trading ‘partner’

The EU is well positioned to ensure that its negotiating options and financial, institutional and technical resources all serve its interests in both bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. Indeed, the European Commission (EC) has a layer of technical experts whose sole duty it is to prepare these negotiations. It is likely to exploit its superior bilateral bargaining power to push for EPA outcomes that maximise the EU’s political and economic interests at the WTO negotiations. The EU’s push for EPAs is inextricably linked to the WTO’s political processes, where decisions are based on a one-country, one-vote consensus. So, EPAs provide the ideal political framework for the EU to neutralise the potential for opposition to its agenda in the WTO from a large constituency of the G90 grouping – the multilateral body of which the ACP countries constitute the larger proportion.

In addition, the EPA process will assist the EU politically by fostering a community of interest between it and the ACP in future WTO negotiations. The EU is also fast-tracking the negotiations in order to meet the end of the current waiver date of the WTO, which is December 2008. The above clearly shows the promotion of Europe’s interests at the expense of Africa’s long-term sustainable development as well as the failure of the dominant partner to muster the political will to defend future pro-Africa positions at the WTO.

While Africa is concerned about developmental issues and resources, Europe is busy prioritising issues within the six clusters (development, agriculture, services, trade-related issues, fisheries and market access) that countries are to negotiate with the EC. Europe is also working out how to bring back the rejected Singapore issues of competition policy, investment policy, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation, issues that are much easier to manage at the WTO level. This is also the reason why the EU is fast-tracking the process, so that the EPA negotiations are concluded before the finalisation of the Doha Development Agenda. As a result, the EU is ready to use all its leverage to put pressure on the four African configurations to come up with EPA outcomes that favour Europe, even though this may not necessarily promote the Africa’s long-term sustainable development through trade.

The EU as a ‘donor’

Europe provides developmental assistance to individual countries and debt relief to the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) of the continent. Having realised the vulnerability of African economies, Europe then dangled the 'developmental aid purse', which resulted in the split of Africa into four configurations that totally disregard existing regional economic communities. The division of Africa into small, weak and fragmented negotiating structures suits the EU politically, especially since to date no country has received the promised developmental assistance despite the development challenges they face.

The EU also supports many projects across Africa and provides assistance to fiscal financing. In some African countries, this budget support is estimated to be over 60% of the total fiscal budget. At a regional level EU support has gone to implementing developmental projects and bankrolling regional integration efforts on the continent. These regional groupings were able to establish trade protocols that seek to facilitate trade and development within and outside the regions. However, largely through the EPA process, the EU is sacrificing the very regional integration it has long been bankrolling. In the process, it is deligitimising the existing regional integration agenda simply because of its desire to experiment with the new wave of regional negotiating structures that are set to negotiate a new medium- to long-term trade regime with Europe.

Of interest is the EU’s desire to bankroll an EPA with the Eastern and Southern African (ESA) region - the 'high breed configuration' which does not have the legal standing and structures that ought to be required by any donor. But because the donor is an interested party, which expects to gain from the conclusion of the negotiating rounds, it simply overlooks the ESA’s legal and structural deficiencies. Under normal circumstance, no donor could bankroll the activities of a recipient through another 'entity’s structure' the way the EU is supporting ESA-EPA activities through COMESA. This raises a number of questions: Why bend the rules of donor funding? Whose interests are at stake if proper legal structures are established, albeit at a slow pace? What will happen if ESA member-states refuse to honour funds coming from the EU through COMESA? All this points strongly to the EU having considerable interests at stake over EPA negotiations. It therefore appears that forming these new regional configurations is likely to produce desirable results for the EU comparable to those of the 1884 Berlin Conference, which carved Africa into small but controllable states solely for the benefit of Europe.

The EU’s divide and rule policy

EPA negotiations have bundled countries in Africa into new regional political structures a development that separates them from the existing regional integration frameworks and hampers regionalisation efforts. Since countries belong to multiple economic integration blocs, the EPA structures have further split and bundled them into a weak and loose trade negotiating machinery. For instance, this process has split the EAC, ECCAS and SADC regional groupings, a development that raises the question of what will happen to Tanzania, the four original members of SADC (Malawi, Mauritius, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and the three ECCAS member-states (Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo) in the event of a good or bad ESA–EPA deal. This is part of divide-and-rule tactics associated with the EU and other bigger powers at the multilateral level. The result is total control over the other partner (Africa) and compliance with the EU’s interests. Africa is aware of well-documented threats the EU has made in the past, including withdrawing development aid, existing trade, aid and investments, contracts and budgetary support; interfering with national and regional security policies; re-imposing trade barriers; and removing ambassadorial representations from WTO and ACP-EU headquarters where key events take place.

Africa as a ‘partner’

EPAs will tie Africa to Europe in an unbalanced framework, and in so doing will undermine the continent’s economies, particularly the producers of goods and services and the regional integration effort. Africa is experiencing serious developmental challenges including supply-side constraints, growing unemployment and declining economic activity. The supply-side constraints include: the unreliable provision of public utilities (electricity and water); a poor public infrastructure (run-down roads and railways); weak institutional and policy frameworks (leading to fluctuating exchange rates and high interest and inflation rates); and low labour productivity (arising from poor education, health and housing provision).

In addition, all the African countries negotiating an EPA are locked into an unhealthy post-colonial dependence on Europe for development aid, fiscal support and markets, which hinders Africa’s competitiveness in the national, regional and international markets. This dependence and these economic weaknesses ensure that the EU is unlikely to face strong opposition to its desire to fast track EPA negotiations. Europe is aware that African configurations not only lack independent preparation, but are also small, weak, poor and too fragmented to mount a strong position in the timeframe that is being determined by Europe. Europe is also aware that African countries do not have the resources to mount any serious resistance to its long-term agenda and that her negotiators at every level lack the experience of their EC counterparts.

This clearly illustrates that Africa is being denied an opportunity by its partner and the referee of this process to revitalise its industrial development so that its products and service can become more competitive. Surely, the EU is set to win this bilateral round of negotiations. It is also certain to score victories at the WTO given its strategy for neutralising the larger organic group in the south.

* Richard Kamidza has just joined the African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) as a senior researcher. You can reach him on [email protected] or +27315023908.

* Please send comments to [email protected]