Suddenly debt relief is all the rage. Everybody is trying to get in on the act, saying that not enough is being done to provide financial help to the poorest nations. From United States President Bill Clinton to International Monetary Fund (IMF) director Michel Camdessus: you name them, they’ve got a plan.
Make no mistake, this is a famous victory. It is a triumph for morality, a triumph for conscience and a triumph for good. It is a deeply significant moment for grassroots activism and democracy, and the Jubilee 2000 coalition, which includes vocal advocates of debt relief such as Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, has every reason to feel proud of itself for what it has achieved.
But this is just the start of the battle. The principle that the heavily indebted poor countries, the bulk of them on our own continent, need to be revamped has been accepted but that is all. What happens next is pivotal.
There is plenty that the West could do to make long-term development a reality. Critical to this is a need for a reform of the World Trade Organisation, the global capital markets and transnational corporations.
But most of all there is the need for a reform of the IMF’s structural adjustment programmes. The IMF’s top-down approach has clearly been an abject failure. For too long the debate has been about what the West is prepared to accept rather than what the poor countries need or can afford to pay.
This is not to say we agree with those who insist that debt relief should be granted without strings attached. We are aware of the problems: the notorious levels of corruption in many African countries; the priority of rulers to spend to consolidate their power bases and arm their militias rather than extend benefits to all their people; and the disintegration of the state which makes spending on long-term development almost non-existent.
But nor should unworkable economic and political scenarios assembled in Washington be foisted on Africa.
Within this context, the priority must be to ensure that debt relief is well spent and goes to those who need it most. Support will dwindle fast if money for debt relief is siphoned off to Swiss bank accounts or ends up lining the pockets of arms dealers.
Money and services need to reach those in Africa who are increasingly being factored out of the equation. Education budgets should be spent on primary schools and not on universities or limousines for education ministers; health budgets should not go on lavish teaching hospitals or farms for presidents.
The terms of the debate have been changed so there is now a chance to build from the bottom up. Moving forward does not mean the West writing blank cheques. It means holding world leaders to their pledge to halve global poverty by 2015 through debt relief, increased aid, institutional reform and fairer trade prices. The trick is to ensure that it goes on working.
No place for Mrs T
The latest ”star” in the Democratic Party’s political firmament, Nigel Bruce, has had more publicity than his political career to date merits. But his performance on Radio 702’s Jenny Crwys-Williams show on Monday was so symptomatic of a malaise which seems to be descending on the DP we cannot resist returning to the subject.
Bruce spent much of his time on air defending his accent and his Jermyn Street shirts, and explaining, in tones reminiscent of a nursery school teacher communicating one of life’s more obvious verities to his grubby charges, the logic of monetarism when it comes to creating wealth.
We have no quarrel with him on those counts. Most of the male electorate would no doubt aspire to the same sartorial address, were they familiar with it, as would the female electorate to buying their knickers from Bond Street.
We would not even disagree with his stand on monetarism, so long as he does not expect the country to stand with him by adopting it as policy. As Britain discovered in the far-off days of Mrs Thatcher, such wealth creation comes at a high price in terms of social values and, in a country as socially dislocated as South Africa, the pursuit of Thatcherism is entirely inappropriate.
South Africa is still suffering from what might be described as post-traumatic shock disorder – not to mention openly suppurating wounds – created by apartheid. What it needs at this point in its history is a caring society, not one created by a modern Boadicea running amok among her own citizens on a war chariot armed with the spinning blades of privileged self-interest. But that is where the DP seems to be drifting. On Monday we had Bruce on 702. On Wednesday Tony Leon was to be heard on the SABC’s Tim Modise show advocating ”boot camps” and a ”short, sharp shock” for juvenile offenders. What next: denouncements of the unemployed as spongers and malingerers?
Bruce told listeners he was prepared to apologise to anyone who took offence at his now notorious remarks. Evidently, in light of the qualification, Bruce himself has still not seen the offence it gives.
Presumably the DP also fails to recognise it.
”There are none so blind as those who will not see,” goes the English proverb. On present indications it could be the DP’s epitaph.