Crossfire
Sipho Pityana
Sipho Seepe’s polemic against the Millennium Africa Renewal Programme (MAP) and Greg Mills’s article in your newspaper last week hopefully mark the onset of an interesting debate. I take issue, however, with both of them.
MAP is an important, timely initiative by African leaders to lift the continent from poverty and conflict to peace, democracy and sustainable development. It aims to change economic relations between Africa and the developed world. It is a significant shift from the paradigm of the ”begging bowl” to that of partnership.
The exploitative relationship between Africa and its erstwhile masters is well documented. It helps account for Africa’s exorbitant debt to the developed world and the fall-off in foreign direct investment. Add to this the problem of sometimes undemocratic and autocratic governance, interstate conflicts and macroeconomic mismanagement, and the result is an unfavourable environment for socio-economic development.
To suggest that our leaders are naive about the origins of Africa’s relationship with the developed world and an imperialist system, as Seepe suggests, is outrageous. Some leaders involved in the initiative have outstanding anti-imperialist credentials. The difference between these leaders and Seepe, however, is that the former do not have the time to lament these challenges; African leaders have a responsibility to engage problems and alter these relations.
Globalisation takes the form it does for a plethora of reasons. Among them are the rules governing the world economy that are often designed by the World Trade Organisation, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others. The rules are not set by the invisible hand of the market. MAP recognises the need to reform these institutions and ensure adequate participation by the developing world. The aim is to ensure rules that do not disadvantage Africa. We do not believe everything about globalisation is negative. Its positive dimensions include freer movement of capital, goods, technology and people.
Seepe appears unable to go beyond a rhetorical and descriptive characterisation of international power relations. These relations are well-known and need no repetition; the challenge is how to liberate the continent from them. MAP proposes a way to do so; Seepe just whinges.
Much has been achieved through interventions by world leaders. Progress has been made towards agreement on the debt burden facing the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC). Headway has also been made on, among other things, agreements between the European Union and the African Caribbean and Pacific nations; with the United States on market access under the American Growth and Opportunities Act, and with the group of eight leading industrial countries (G8) to address the digital divide between Africa and the developed world. These developments hold promise. But Africa must press.
One of the key elements of MAP is the challenge of human resources development. This covers not only education and training, but also health. MAP recognises the need to deal with all communicable diseases on the continent including HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. It recognises the difficulties posed by weak infrastructure to efficient administration of health services. MAP seeks a comprehensive approach promoting primary health care, access to affordable medicines and efficient health systems.
Greg Mills incorrectly refers to a cabal of leaders as if self-anointed spearheading this initiative. It is important to remember that MAP originates from an Organisation of African Unity mandate in 1999 to Presidents Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Thabo Mbeki, chairpersons of the OAU and Non-Aligned Movement respectively, to champion Africa’s cause against the debt burden. The next year the G77 summit of leaders of the south added its chairperson, President Olusegun Obasanjo, to the group. The three concluded that debt was not the only factor undermining the south’s development efforts they needed a comprehensive approach. Thus MAP was born. Earlier this year, the OAU added the presidents of Senegal and Egypt to the group. Talk of a cabal is ill-informed.
Mills expresses concern about the participation of civil society in MAP’s development. MAP is an initiative of African leaders but this does not prevent broader participation.
Mills correctly cautions that MAP may have raised unrealistic expectations. When details of the MAP programme become known this concern will be allayed. In the first phase, eight MAP projects have been developed to involve partnerships with the developed world. These cover good governance, economic governance, market access, beneficiation, infrastructure development, closing the digital divide, human resources development and environment. These are focused interventions to be implemented in a targeted, coherent manner. Other phases will be made public later.
MAP holds great promise for the continent. It needs to be debated thoroughly and constructively. We have a historic opportunity to shape the destiny of future generations. We dare not miss it.
Sipho Pityana is Director General of Foreign Affairs and a member of MAP Steering Committee