Founded to keep African issues on the map in a fast-changing world, the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Ticad) now has some catching up to do itself.
The gathering of 86 countries ended in Tokyo on Wednesday with a largely rhetorical declaration. As President Thabo Mbeki pointed out to two dozen of his fellow African leaders at the start of the conference, participants still have to implement much of the detailed programme of action adopted by Ticad II five years ago. There was little point in setting further goals.
Ticad I in 1993 was held in the shadow of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Gulf War, when the world was looking everywhere but at Africa.
Ironically, Ticad III was also focused on shifting attention away from Iraq to Africa. This time it was against the backdrop of budgets being slashed for official development assistance to Africa. Japan came to the party with a promise of $1-billion in aid to Africa over the next five years.
However, on the issue that really got delegates steamed — trade barriers and the payment of subsidies to farmers in developed countries — Japan was on the bad-guy side of the fence.
Ticad is credited with getting African leaders into deliberations with leaders of the world’s eight most highly industrialised countries (G8).
Former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori — who chaired proceedings in Tokyo this week — could not get assent from his peers to invite the Africans to the millennium G8 summit in Okinawa, so he organised a special meeting on the eve of the event.
Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika pitched up. Since then the Africans — expanded to the five-man steering group of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) — have been invited in by the G8 leaders.
African issues have also been taken up more closely with a raft of United Nations organisations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union and the Nordic Group.
”Ticad has to find its place in a far more complex process,” said Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the UN Development Programme that is a co-sponsor of the process. ”In a sense this is a demonstration of its success. Ticad spawned the G8 process for Africa and now it has to find its place in the firmament.”
France will try to make sense of it all at a conference in Paris on November 10 that will bring together all the international groups supporting Nepad.
”There is some confusion in the donor community about organising support for Nepad,” said Malloch Brown. ”One way or another there has to be more simplification and structure. If Africa can get its act together through Nepad, then it is incumbent on the donor countries to get theirs together.”
While there were no concrete decisions taken at Ticad, the conference has ratcheted up support for Africa, he said.
”We keep pushing on. It is like hoops on a croquet field. The G8 was one, the Monterrey summit on financing development was another, as was the Johannesburg summit on sustainable development.”
These same milestones were, however, cited as setbacks by Gabon’s President Omar Bongo, who was selected to make the closing remarks on behalf of African leaders. ”The agreements of Johannesburg and Monterrey have not been honoured,” he said. ”The Cancun ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation has failed.
”Africa has vast potential, but if there is to be a true partnership with the developed world it will require major understanding and assistance.”
The Ticad III declaration specifically calls for ”initiatives to promote market access and fair trade in order to support the efforts of African countries to gain a meaningful foothold in the global market place”.
Delegates went home not knowing if there would be a Ticad IV, although Japan has committed to following up the action plan and suggestions made this week.
There was a positive response to French President Jacques Chirac’s invitation to the Paris conference to develop a partnership forum.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa had some reservations, however, about putting all the development partners in one bundle.
”It would be beneficial to harmonise all the development efforts,” he said. ”But it could also be disadvantageous. If you are not in the good books with one organisation, then your country has had it. For example we are regarded as the bad boys with the World Bank and the IMF. If all the organisations are influenced by this it would be the end for Zambia.”
For the first time 20 NGOs — 10 each from Africa and Japan — were invited to Ticad III. Many groups, however, called this a token gesture, noting that as observers their opinions will only be included at the discretion of the chairperson.
Nepad Secretary General Wiseman Nkuhlu called on the NGOs to take the initiative in implementing programmes for African development.
Some groups making presentations on the sidelines of the conference believe their views and input have been ignored because they clash with government interests.
Nuno Miguel of Kulima, a group involved in rural development in Mozambique, said he wanted to discuss problems and get some feedback in talks on specific issues, such as agriculture.
”We came here to really discuss problems in the [farm development] session, but they just let us sit in the room without offering to debate,” he said. ”All the issues were raised and covered, but no real discussions were conducted.”
”Environmental issues appear to have dropped from the picture,” said Keiko Ikemoto, campaign coordinator for the Japan Wildlife Conservation Society. The group is trying to raise awareness of the illegal trade in elephant tusks — a coveted commodity in Japan where ivory is popular.