Sunday, July 19, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Specialists Debate How U.S. Aid to Africa Can be More Effective
By James Butty
As both the Obama administration and Congress discuss reform proposals in U.S. foreign aid and development assistance, experts at a panel discussion in Washington have called on the United States to make U.S. foreign aid more supportive of effective governments and citizen-led institutions.
In his speech to the Ghanaian Parliament and Africans in general a week ago, President Barack Obama promised substantial increases in U.S. foreign aid to Africa.
Thursday’s panel discussion in Washington among development professionals and aid recipients offered some suggestions how U.S. foreign aid can be more beneficial to recipients.
Paul O’Brien, director of the Aid Effectiveness Team at OXFAM America, an international relief and development organization said local ownership of aid was one of the key ways toward smart development.
“For many of us who focus on development exclusively, we think the best way to serve U.S. national interests - our defense interest, our diplomatic interests - would be to focus on development as an end in itself. Yes, we need to give information, yes we need to build capacity, but ultimately if we want responsible leadership in the field, we’re going to let countries lead,” he said.
O’Brien described what he called “a control paradox” in U.S. foreign aid policy in the form of legislative earmarks.
“They are a function of the fact that the executive branch on the one hand and Congress on the other don’t trust each other. And so they feel that if they are going to get impact for their money they’ve got to decide exactly what that money is going to be used for. The consequence of that break down of relationship is that we can’t give any control out in the field to the development professionals who supposed to be listening to what people are doing on the ground,” O’Brien said.
Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda, a regular critic of Western aid, said African countries should think more about how to do away with aid rather than how to make it effective.
“Rather than deal with their own citizens, governments in Africa find it more productive to enter into negotiations with the international community for aid. The consequence of that is of course ineffective public institutions,” he said.
Mwenda said if African governments were to depend more on their own citizens for revenues, they would be driven by self-interest to listen to their citizens about policies.
He said aid should be given to African countries or institutions that are succeeding rather than to those who are failing.
“Once you have identified those nations, aid should go to those nations that are effective.If you have a country that can use aid effectively, then you do not need conditionalities from the West, and you do not need lectures from the West,” Mwenda said.
Liberia’s Minister of State for Development and Reconstruction O. Natty Davis II said international aid has been helpful to his country’s reconstruction efforts following years of civil war.
“We’ve increased the number of school children going to school. We’ve now put in a school feeding program. We’ve increased health service delivery. Over the course of the last three years we’ve been able to rehabilitate some of the principal roads within the capital, and that is now been extended out,” he said.
Davis admitted corruption is systemic in Liberia but said the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has taken steps to fight corruption.
“We have set up the Anti-Corruption Commission; we are investing more heavily in the justice system and the justice ministry. We are working to try to improve the court system. We are putting in those kinds of reforms, particularly in our public financial management system that reduces the space and the opportunity for corruption,” Davis said.
He denied local news reports that Liberia was on the brink of losing its eligibility status for the Millennium Challenge Corporation Funding because of the lack of political will to fight corruption.
As both the Obama administration and Congress discuss reform proposals in U.S. foreign aid and development assistance, experts at a panel discussion in Washington have called on the United States to make U.S. foreign aid more supportive of effective governments and citizen-led institutions.
In his speech to the Ghanaian Parliament and Africans in general a week ago, President Barack Obama promised substantial increases in U.S. foreign aid to Africa.
Thursday’s panel discussion in Washington among development professionals and aid recipients offered some suggestions how U.S. foreign aid can be more beneficial to recipients.
Paul O’Brien, director of the Aid Effectiveness Team at OXFAM America, an international relief and development organization said local ownership of aid was one of the key ways toward smart development.
“For many of us who focus on development exclusively, we think the best way to serve U.S. national interests - our defense interest, our diplomatic interests - would be to focus on development as an end in itself. Yes, we need to give information, yes we need to build capacity, but ultimately if we want responsible leadership in the field, we’re going to let countries lead,” he said.
O’Brien described what he called “a control paradox” in U.S. foreign aid policy in the form of legislative earmarks.
“They are a function of the fact that the executive branch on the one hand and Congress on the other don’t trust each other. And so they feel that if they are going to get impact for their money they’ve got to decide exactly what that money is going to be used for. The consequence of that break down of relationship is that we can’t give any control out in the field to the development professionals who supposed to be listening to what people are doing on the ground,” O’Brien said.
Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda, a regular critic of Western aid, said African countries should think more about how to do away with aid rather than how to make it effective.
“Rather than deal with their own citizens, governments in Africa find it more productive to enter into negotiations with the international community for aid. The consequence of that is of course ineffective public institutions,” he said.
Mwenda said if African governments were to depend more on their own citizens for revenues, they would be driven by self-interest to listen to their citizens about policies.
He said aid should be given to African countries or institutions that are succeeding rather than to those who are failing.
“Once you have identified those nations, aid should go to those nations that are effective.If you have a country that can use aid effectively, then you do not need conditionalities from the West, and you do not need lectures from the West,” Mwenda said.
Liberia’s Minister of State for Development and Reconstruction O. Natty Davis II said international aid has been helpful to his country’s reconstruction efforts following years of civil war.
“We’ve increased the number of school children going to school. We’ve now put in a school feeding program. We’ve increased health service delivery. Over the course of the last three years we’ve been able to rehabilitate some of the principal roads within the capital, and that is now been extended out,” he said.
Davis admitted corruption is systemic in Liberia but said the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has taken steps to fight corruption.
“We have set up the Anti-Corruption Commission; we are investing more heavily in the justice system and the justice ministry. We are working to try to improve the court system. We are putting in those kinds of reforms, particularly in our public financial management system that reduces the space and the opportunity for corruption,” Davis said.
He denied local news reports that Liberia was on the brink of losing its eligibility status for the Millennium Challenge Corporation Funding because of the lack of political will to fight corruption.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
African vs. African American
It's a tension Unspoken; a love-hate relationship that often pits the African experience against the African American experience. It often lurks undetected but like a Mamba slithering through the tall wispy blades of our black sub-conscious when provoked it strikes with an indiscriminately potent and unforgiving venom. Its a tension born out of misunderstanding; a tension rooted in misconceptions; and a tension fueled by a misguided interpretation of each others' values.
We often reduce each other to mere stereotypes and caricatures as we assign characteristics that are ill-conceived and uncomplimentary; stereotypes that are further reinforced by the media. The African at times may see the African American as nothing more than a sell-out, an "uncle Tom" or "Menace to Society" while the African American reduces the African to nothing more than those "Hakuna Matata", "Blood Diamond", dashiki-wearing stereotypes. I trust your intellect and so I need not explore or submit a plethora of examples that expound on what I am talking about primarily because I believe that if you're black then you're not blind to it and if you're anything else you can often see it play out with your own kind, the Mexican vs. the Mexican American; the Asian vs. the Asian American and so on.
You see, there is a tension that often forgets that we are a people who share a common legacy and although we were separated by a common injustice, it is this shared heritage we should celebrate. It's a legacy and heritage that predates Michael Jackson and Bob Marley, a history bigger than Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela, Miriam Makeba or Rosa Parks; a history with more talent than Kobe Bryant, Pele, Okocha or Brian Lara; a legacy and heritage more tragic than colonialism & slavery and yet more monumental and awe-inspiring than the Pyramids of Giza or the Great Zimbabwe.
Sincerely yours,
Kwapi
Copyright 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
China Provokes Debate in Africa
By Walden Bello:
At the Seventh World Social Forum (WSF), held in Nairobi, Kenya, in late January, the most controversial topic was not HIV-AIDS, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, or neoliberalism. The topic that generated the most heat was China’s relations with Africa.
At a packed panel discussion organized by a semi-official Chinese NGO, the discussion was candid and angry. “First, Europe and America took over our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy,” Humphrey Pole-Pole of the Tanzanian Social Forum told the Chinese speakers. “You don’t even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labour.”
Stung by such remarks from the floor, Cui Jianjun, secretary general of the China NGO Network for International Exchanges, lost his diplomatic cool and launched into an emotional defense of Chinese foreign investment, saying that “we Chinese had to make the same hard decision on whether to accept foreign investment many, many years ago. You have to make the right decision or you will lose, lose, lose. You have to decide right, or you will remain poor, poor, poor.”
The vigorous exchange should have been anticipated since many Africans view China as having the potential to bring either great promise or great harm. If African civil society representatives were hard on China, this was because they desperately wanted China to reverse course before it was too late, so that it would avoid the path trod by Europe and the United States.
Beijing’s High Profile in Africa
The debate at the WSF took place amid a marked elevation of Africa’s profile in China’s foreign policy. In early February, President Hu Jintao made his third trip to Africa in three years, following the success of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which took place November 4-5, 2006. Attended by 48 African delegations, most of them led by heads of state, the Forum was the largest international summit held in Beijing.
At the start of the summit, Beijing unveiled a glittering trade and aid plan designed to cement its “strategic partnership” with Africa. The key items in the package committed China to doubling its 2006 assistance within three years, providing $3 billion worth of preferential loans and $2 billion worth of export credits, and canceling all interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 and were owed by the heavily indebted and poorest African countries. In addition, the two sides agreed to raise the volume of trade from $40 billion in 2005 to $100 billion by 2010 and set up of a China-Africa Development Fund that would be capitalized to the tune of $5 billion to support Chinese companies investing in Africa.
If not yet the biggest external player in Africa, China is certainly the most dynamic. It now accounts for 60% of oil exports from Sudan and 35% of those from Angola. Chinese firms mine copper in Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville, cobalt in the Congo, gold in South Africa, and uranium in Zimbabwe. Its ecological footprint is large, says Michelle Chan-Fishel of Friends of the Earth International, consuming as it does 46% of Gabon’s forest exports, 60% of timber exported from Equatorial Guinea, and 11% of timber exports from Cameroon.
Contrasting Images of China:
China is popular with African governments. “There is something refreshing to China’s approach,” said a Nigerian diplomat who asked not to be identified. “They don’t attach all those conditionalities that accompany Western loans.” Adds Justin Fong, executive director of the Chinese NGO, Moving Mountains: “Whether accurate or not, the image Africans have of the Chinese is that they get things done. They don’t waste their time in meetings. They just go ahead and build roads.”
An African development specialist working with a western aid organization claimed that Chinese projects are low cost affairs compared to western projects. “Labor costs are low, they integrate African labor, so some transfer of skills takes place, and the Chinese workers live in the village, and this means living like the villagers, down to competing with them for dog meat.”
While they might dispute this characterization of China’s impact, most NGOs are nuanced in their assessments. They acknowledge that China has a different trajectory in Africa than Europe and the United States. Whereas the West began by exploiting Africa, China initiated its relations with Africa with “people-to-people” medical and technical assistance missions in the 1960s and 1970s, the most famous of which was the building of the now fabled Tanzania-Zambia (Tanzam) Railway. But with China’s rise as a modernizing economic superpower after the definitive decision in 1984 to use capitalism as the engine of growth, the old solidarity rationale has been replaced by a dangerously single-minded pursuit of economic interests -- in this case, mainly oil and mineral resources to feed a red-hot economy.
If African governments were accountable to their people, say NGO critics, Chinese aid could play a very positive role, especially compared to World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans that come with conditions to bring down tariffs, loosen government regulation, and privatize state enterprises. But with non-accountable, non-transparent governments, such as those in the Sudan and Zimbabwe, say the critics, Chinese loan and aid programs contribute instead to consolidating the rule of non-democratic elites.
Crossing the Line in Sudan:
Where China has definitely crossed the line is in Sudan. Using its veto power at the UN Security Council, China has prevented the international community from creating and deploying a multinational force to protect people in Darfur who are being killed or raped by militias backed by the Sudanese government. Even one African diplomat sympathetic to China asserts, “China’s strong backing for the Sudanese government has discouraged African governments that are trying to push it to accept an African Union solution to the problem.”
China has very substantial interests in Sudan. These are set out in detail in an important collection of studies launched at the WSF entitled African Perspectives on China in Africa, edited by Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks. China obtained oil exploration and production rights in 1995 when the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) bought a 40% stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, which is pumping over 300,000 barrels per day. Sinopec, another Chinese firm, is building a 1500-kilometer pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where China’s Petroleum Engineering Construction Company is constructing a tanker terminal. Author John Rocha estimates Chinese investment in oil exploration to reach $8 billion.
Chinese interests go beyond oil. Its investment in textile mills is estimated at $100 million. It has emerged as one of Sudan’s top arms suppliers. In one particular barter arrangement, China supplied $400 million worth of weapons in return for cotton. It is active in infrastructure, with its firms building bridges near the Merowe Dam and two other sites on the River Nile. It is involved in key hydropower projects, the most controversial being the Merowe Dam, which is expected to ultimately cost $1.8 billion.
The construction of the Merowe Dam has involved forced resettlement of the Hambdan people living at or near the site and repression and an armed attack on the Amri people who have been organizing to prevent the Sudanese government’s plan to transfer them to the desert. Local police and private agencies now provide 24-hour security to Chinese engineering detachments, but civil society observers say the aim of these groups is less protection of the Chinese than repression of growing opposition. As Ali Askari, director of the London-based Piankhi Research Group, puts it, “The sad truth is, both the Chinese and their elite partners in the Sudan government want to conceal some terrible facts about their partnership. They are joining hands to uproot poor people, expropriate their land, and appropriate their natural resources.”
Chinese and Sudanese officials tend to dismiss such criticism as the machinations of western powers. Such powers are alarmed at China’s becoming the top international player in a country long treated as being in the West’s sphere of influence. But, according to Beijing and Khartoum, the West’s dismal record of colonial plunder deprives its statements of any moral authority. Defending its close relations with the Sudanese government, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Zhai Jun, noted the contrast in African governments’ reception of China and the West: “Some people believe that by ‘taking’ resources and energy from Africa, China is looting Africa...If this was so, then African countries would express their dissatisfaction.”
Chinese officials are, however, wrong to think that African NGOs are merely parroting the rhetoric of self-interested western governments. In fact, civil society groups also consider such western criticism hypocritical. Commenting on the remark of a World Bank official to the effect that “Chinese handouts without reforms” would not be beneficial to Africa, John Karumbidza, a contributor to the China in Africa volume, acidly remarks, “It is the case...that this same bank and Western approach over the past half century has failed to deliver development, and left Africa in more debt than when they began.”
Other Problematic Partnerships:
These criticisms are unlikely to go away, not only in Sudan but in many other countries where Chinese involvement with controversial regimes runs deep. With relations with the West and even South Africa deteriorating over his political record, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has increasingly turned to China, which one of his key ministers has characterized as an “all weather friend.” Chinese investment in mining, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, and other sectors was estimated at $600 million at the end of 2004, with another $600 million pledged in June 2005. The price, however, has been high, according to critics, who claim that Mugabe’s government has handed de facto control of key strategic industries to the Chinese. A contract with China to farm 386 square miles of land while millions of Zimbabweans remain landless has come under fire, with rural sociologist John Karumbidza blasting it as “nothing more than land renting and typical agri-business relations that turn the land holders and their workers into labor tenants and subject them to exploitation.”
The Nigerian government is another problematic Chinese partner, according to civil society activists. China has extensive interests in Nigeria, particularly in oil exploration and production. The China National Offshore Corporation (CNOOC), notes researcher John Rocha, has acquired a 45% working interest in an offshore enterprise, OML 130, for $2.3 billion; the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has invested in the Port Harcourt refinery; and a joint venture between the Chinese Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the L.N. Mittal Group, plans to invest $6 billion in railways, oil refining, and power in exchange for rights to drill oil.
These interests have led to an increasingly tight alliance with the faction of the ruling People’s Democratic Party dominated by President Olusegun Obasanjo. This relationship has a controversial security dimension. As Ndubisi Obiorah, another contributor to the China in Africa volume who is director of the Center for Law and Social Action in Lagos, notes: “The Nigerian government is increasingly turning to China for weapons to deal with the worsening insurgency in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The Nigerian Air Force purchased 14 Chinese-made versions of the upgraded MiG 21 jet fighter; the navy has ordered patrol boats to secure the swamps and creeks of the Niger Delta.” Not surprisingly, the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND) has warned Chinese companies to keep out of the region or risk attack.
With their integrated political, military, economic, and diplomatic components, China’s “strategic partnerships” with governments such as those of Nigeria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe increasingly have the feel of the old U.S. and Soviet relationships with client states during the Cold War.
Will Civil Society Make the Difference?
Nevertheless, many civil society activists do not discount the possibility that things may yet be turned around. Though critical of current Chinese policies, Humphrey Pole-Pole of Tanzania appealed at the Nairobi meeting for a “win-win-win” strategy -- that is, “a win for China, a win for African governments, and a win for African people. This is not impossible.”
The key to such a change may be the growth of Chinese civil society organizations, some of which are increasingly independent of and indeed critical of government policies within China.
But closer ties between Chinese and African NGOs are not enough, says Justin Fong. Mechanisms to ensure Chinese government accountability are needed. One point of vulnerability he identifies is the practice of Chinese government entities, such as the China Export-Import Bank, of going for co-financing for their Africa projects to international banks such as HSBC and Citigroup. When it comes to controversial projects, pressure might be indirectly placed on the Chinese by lobbying these institutions, which are more sensitive about their image than Beijing. Such tactics, which sometimes worked with western governments and firms, may not, however, succeed with China.
But whatever their differences, civil society activists, African and Chinese, agree on one thing. It will be a hard, uphill struggle to change the Chinese juggernaut’s direction in Africa.
FPIF columnist Walden Bello is executive director of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South.
At the Seventh World Social Forum (WSF), held in Nairobi, Kenya, in late January, the most controversial topic was not HIV-AIDS, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, or neoliberalism. The topic that generated the most heat was China’s relations with Africa.
At a packed panel discussion organized by a semi-official Chinese NGO, the discussion was candid and angry. “First, Europe and America took over our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy,” Humphrey Pole-Pole of the Tanzanian Social Forum told the Chinese speakers. “You don’t even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labour.”
Stung by such remarks from the floor, Cui Jianjun, secretary general of the China NGO Network for International Exchanges, lost his diplomatic cool and launched into an emotional defense of Chinese foreign investment, saying that “we Chinese had to make the same hard decision on whether to accept foreign investment many, many years ago. You have to make the right decision or you will lose, lose, lose. You have to decide right, or you will remain poor, poor, poor.”
The vigorous exchange should have been anticipated since many Africans view China as having the potential to bring either great promise or great harm. If African civil society representatives were hard on China, this was because they desperately wanted China to reverse course before it was too late, so that it would avoid the path trod by Europe and the United States.
Beijing’s High Profile in Africa
The debate at the WSF took place amid a marked elevation of Africa’s profile in China’s foreign policy. In early February, President Hu Jintao made his third trip to Africa in three years, following the success of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which took place November 4-5, 2006. Attended by 48 African delegations, most of them led by heads of state, the Forum was the largest international summit held in Beijing.
At the start of the summit, Beijing unveiled a glittering trade and aid plan designed to cement its “strategic partnership” with Africa. The key items in the package committed China to doubling its 2006 assistance within three years, providing $3 billion worth of preferential loans and $2 billion worth of export credits, and canceling all interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 and were owed by the heavily indebted and poorest African countries. In addition, the two sides agreed to raise the volume of trade from $40 billion in 2005 to $100 billion by 2010 and set up of a China-Africa Development Fund that would be capitalized to the tune of $5 billion to support Chinese companies investing in Africa.
If not yet the biggest external player in Africa, China is certainly the most dynamic. It now accounts for 60% of oil exports from Sudan and 35% of those from Angola. Chinese firms mine copper in Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville, cobalt in the Congo, gold in South Africa, and uranium in Zimbabwe. Its ecological footprint is large, says Michelle Chan-Fishel of Friends of the Earth International, consuming as it does 46% of Gabon’s forest exports, 60% of timber exported from Equatorial Guinea, and 11% of timber exports from Cameroon.
Contrasting Images of China:
China is popular with African governments. “There is something refreshing to China’s approach,” said a Nigerian diplomat who asked not to be identified. “They don’t attach all those conditionalities that accompany Western loans.” Adds Justin Fong, executive director of the Chinese NGO, Moving Mountains: “Whether accurate or not, the image Africans have of the Chinese is that they get things done. They don’t waste their time in meetings. They just go ahead and build roads.”
An African development specialist working with a western aid organization claimed that Chinese projects are low cost affairs compared to western projects. “Labor costs are low, they integrate African labor, so some transfer of skills takes place, and the Chinese workers live in the village, and this means living like the villagers, down to competing with them for dog meat.”
While they might dispute this characterization of China’s impact, most NGOs are nuanced in their assessments. They acknowledge that China has a different trajectory in Africa than Europe and the United States. Whereas the West began by exploiting Africa, China initiated its relations with Africa with “people-to-people” medical and technical assistance missions in the 1960s and 1970s, the most famous of which was the building of the now fabled Tanzania-Zambia (Tanzam) Railway. But with China’s rise as a modernizing economic superpower after the definitive decision in 1984 to use capitalism as the engine of growth, the old solidarity rationale has been replaced by a dangerously single-minded pursuit of economic interests -- in this case, mainly oil and mineral resources to feed a red-hot economy.
If African governments were accountable to their people, say NGO critics, Chinese aid could play a very positive role, especially compared to World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans that come with conditions to bring down tariffs, loosen government regulation, and privatize state enterprises. But with non-accountable, non-transparent governments, such as those in the Sudan and Zimbabwe, say the critics, Chinese loan and aid programs contribute instead to consolidating the rule of non-democratic elites.
Crossing the Line in Sudan:
Where China has definitely crossed the line is in Sudan. Using its veto power at the UN Security Council, China has prevented the international community from creating and deploying a multinational force to protect people in Darfur who are being killed or raped by militias backed by the Sudanese government. Even one African diplomat sympathetic to China asserts, “China’s strong backing for the Sudanese government has discouraged African governments that are trying to push it to accept an African Union solution to the problem.”
China has very substantial interests in Sudan. These are set out in detail in an important collection of studies launched at the WSF entitled African Perspectives on China in Africa, edited by Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks. China obtained oil exploration and production rights in 1995 when the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) bought a 40% stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, which is pumping over 300,000 barrels per day. Sinopec, another Chinese firm, is building a 1500-kilometer pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where China’s Petroleum Engineering Construction Company is constructing a tanker terminal. Author John Rocha estimates Chinese investment in oil exploration to reach $8 billion.
Chinese interests go beyond oil. Its investment in textile mills is estimated at $100 million. It has emerged as one of Sudan’s top arms suppliers. In one particular barter arrangement, China supplied $400 million worth of weapons in return for cotton. It is active in infrastructure, with its firms building bridges near the Merowe Dam and two other sites on the River Nile. It is involved in key hydropower projects, the most controversial being the Merowe Dam, which is expected to ultimately cost $1.8 billion.
The construction of the Merowe Dam has involved forced resettlement of the Hambdan people living at or near the site and repression and an armed attack on the Amri people who have been organizing to prevent the Sudanese government’s plan to transfer them to the desert. Local police and private agencies now provide 24-hour security to Chinese engineering detachments, but civil society observers say the aim of these groups is less protection of the Chinese than repression of growing opposition. As Ali Askari, director of the London-based Piankhi Research Group, puts it, “The sad truth is, both the Chinese and their elite partners in the Sudan government want to conceal some terrible facts about their partnership. They are joining hands to uproot poor people, expropriate their land, and appropriate their natural resources.”
Chinese and Sudanese officials tend to dismiss such criticism as the machinations of western powers. Such powers are alarmed at China’s becoming the top international player in a country long treated as being in the West’s sphere of influence. But, according to Beijing and Khartoum, the West’s dismal record of colonial plunder deprives its statements of any moral authority. Defending its close relations with the Sudanese government, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Zhai Jun, noted the contrast in African governments’ reception of China and the West: “Some people believe that by ‘taking’ resources and energy from Africa, China is looting Africa...If this was so, then African countries would express their dissatisfaction.”
Chinese officials are, however, wrong to think that African NGOs are merely parroting the rhetoric of self-interested western governments. In fact, civil society groups also consider such western criticism hypocritical. Commenting on the remark of a World Bank official to the effect that “Chinese handouts without reforms” would not be beneficial to Africa, John Karumbidza, a contributor to the China in Africa volume, acidly remarks, “It is the case...that this same bank and Western approach over the past half century has failed to deliver development, and left Africa in more debt than when they began.”
Other Problematic Partnerships:
These criticisms are unlikely to go away, not only in Sudan but in many other countries where Chinese involvement with controversial regimes runs deep. With relations with the West and even South Africa deteriorating over his political record, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has increasingly turned to China, which one of his key ministers has characterized as an “all weather friend.” Chinese investment in mining, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, and other sectors was estimated at $600 million at the end of 2004, with another $600 million pledged in June 2005. The price, however, has been high, according to critics, who claim that Mugabe’s government has handed de facto control of key strategic industries to the Chinese. A contract with China to farm 386 square miles of land while millions of Zimbabweans remain landless has come under fire, with rural sociologist John Karumbidza blasting it as “nothing more than land renting and typical agri-business relations that turn the land holders and their workers into labor tenants and subject them to exploitation.”
The Nigerian government is another problematic Chinese partner, according to civil society activists. China has extensive interests in Nigeria, particularly in oil exploration and production. The China National Offshore Corporation (CNOOC), notes researcher John Rocha, has acquired a 45% working interest in an offshore enterprise, OML 130, for $2.3 billion; the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has invested in the Port Harcourt refinery; and a joint venture between the Chinese Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the L.N. Mittal Group, plans to invest $6 billion in railways, oil refining, and power in exchange for rights to drill oil.
These interests have led to an increasingly tight alliance with the faction of the ruling People’s Democratic Party dominated by President Olusegun Obasanjo. This relationship has a controversial security dimension. As Ndubisi Obiorah, another contributor to the China in Africa volume who is director of the Center for Law and Social Action in Lagos, notes: “The Nigerian government is increasingly turning to China for weapons to deal with the worsening insurgency in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The Nigerian Air Force purchased 14 Chinese-made versions of the upgraded MiG 21 jet fighter; the navy has ordered patrol boats to secure the swamps and creeks of the Niger Delta.” Not surprisingly, the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND) has warned Chinese companies to keep out of the region or risk attack.
With their integrated political, military, economic, and diplomatic components, China’s “strategic partnerships” with governments such as those of Nigeria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe increasingly have the feel of the old U.S. and Soviet relationships with client states during the Cold War.
Will Civil Society Make the Difference?
Nevertheless, many civil society activists do not discount the possibility that things may yet be turned around. Though critical of current Chinese policies, Humphrey Pole-Pole of Tanzania appealed at the Nairobi meeting for a “win-win-win” strategy -- that is, “a win for China, a win for African governments, and a win for African people. This is not impossible.”
The key to such a change may be the growth of Chinese civil society organizations, some of which are increasingly independent of and indeed critical of government policies within China.
But closer ties between Chinese and African NGOs are not enough, says Justin Fong. Mechanisms to ensure Chinese government accountability are needed. One point of vulnerability he identifies is the practice of Chinese government entities, such as the China Export-Import Bank, of going for co-financing for their Africa projects to international banks such as HSBC and Citigroup. When it comes to controversial projects, pressure might be indirectly placed on the Chinese by lobbying these institutions, which are more sensitive about their image than Beijing. Such tactics, which sometimes worked with western governments and firms, may not, however, succeed with China.
But whatever their differences, civil society activists, African and Chinese, agree on one thing. It will be a hard, uphill struggle to change the Chinese juggernaut’s direction in Africa.
FPIF columnist Walden Bello is executive director of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South.
Denouncing Dictatorship in Uganda
By Beth Tuckey
Three years ago, I would get into long discussions with a friend in Uganda about the United States, global political affairs, and the situations in African countries. On Ugandan politics, he delivered impassioned speeches about democracy and responsible governance, and I often thought I was looking at Africa's next great leader. He knew the rules of Ugandan politics but refused to accept them. Instead, he advocated for a higher standard in government, one that put the interests of the country's citizens ahead of political gain.
When I visited him in Uganda this February, we shared our excitement over the election of Barack Obama, and he described the depth and breadth of expectations for the new president with regard to African issues. But as we continued talking, he narrowed Obama's agenda down to one request. "If Obama would just denounce dictatorship, that would be it," he said. "Nothing else."
In other words, after years of seeing Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni rewrite the constitution to run for yet another term, my friend wants something different. He, too, wants change.
Undemocratic Allies
In the Great Lakes Region, Uganda is one of the most important U.S. allies. For years, Uganda was an aid and investment haven, and one of Africa's rising stars. Today, State Department officials continue to receive critical intelligence information from the Ugandan government, and its military is trained and deployed for peacekeeping in Somalia. Additionally, Museveni is still sometimes cited as an exemplar on HIV/AIDS in Africa, despite recent years of increasing prevalence rates — largely a result of Bush administration pressures.
And yet Museveni isn't a responsible democratic leader. He has been in power since 1986 and plays political favoritism with those from his alleged birthplace in western Uganda. Perhaps most notoriously, he has marginalized the people of the north, cheating them of development aid and prompting the formation of a brutal rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Human Rights Watch has cited Museveni's military, the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF), numerous times for committing serious crimes against the civilian population. The UPDF also invaded and occupied the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during Museveni's rule, which led to the killing and torture of Congolese civilians, as well as the pillage of Congo's mineral wealth.
The LRA terrorized northerners for 20 years without any serious action from the Ugandan government. In 1996, rather than effectively dealing with the LRA problem, the government forcibly displaced much of the population into camps. There they were vulnerable to mass attack by the LRA and died of disease, hunger, and inadequate sanitation. International pressure eventually became so strong that Museveni could no longer ignore the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in his country. A peace process was initiated in Juba, South Sudan in 2006 with buy-in from the LRA, the government of Uganda, and the United States. It was the most comprehensive process to date, although it lacked any serious measures of accountability for the atrocities committed by Museveni's government.
The peace process failed in December 2008, when LRA leader Joseph Kony refused to sign the final peace agreement. The International Criminal Court warrant against the LRA might have been the primary reason for Kony's absence. Or perhaps he was never serious about the peace process and simply used the opportunity to re-arm. Whatever the reason, the failure of the talks prompted the Ugandan military to wage a disastrous attack against the Lord's Resistance Army in the DRC. AFRICOM, the U.S. military command for Africa, supported the attack, though the Pentagon tried to deny any responsibility for its failure.
Another intervention, some argue, would end Kony's violent rampage. Among the many reasons to oppose another military strike is that the United States would be repeating its Cold War mistake of supporting an undemocratic regime's armed forces. Northern Ugandans have innumerable stories about the abuses committed by the UPDF in their communities. Although the UPDF's behavior has been slightly better in recent years, it would be a mistake for the United States to train and equip such a force for combat. Museveni has shown no interest in relinquishing his presidency, and yet the United States continues to shower his so-called democracy with aid and military support.
Obama's Move
None of this should negate the good things Museveni has done for Uganda. But it's important to recognize that many Ugandans — particularly those not from southwestern Uganda — question the legitimacy of his multi-decade rule. They highlight corruption, the violence in the north, and his ethnically unbalanced approach to governance. Museveni's oppressive actions and dictatorial attitudes to the presidency effectively rob his government of the "democratic" title.
Obama said in his inaugural address, "to those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." But what happens if the United States has already extended that hand so far that it resembles an embrace? It may be difficult for Obama to rescind his predecessors' undying affection toward Uganda, but he should know that people like my friend are expecting a firmer stance.
If he is bold enough, Obama will heed my friend's advice and denounce undemocratic governments such as Uganda during his trip to Ghana this week. If he does not, African civil society will continue to face regimes that, despite outside support, remain hollow at their core.
Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Beth Tuckey is the associate director of Program Development and Policy at the Africa Faith and Justice Network in Washington, DC.
Three years ago, I would get into long discussions with a friend in Uganda about the United States, global political affairs, and the situations in African countries. On Ugandan politics, he delivered impassioned speeches about democracy and responsible governance, and I often thought I was looking at Africa's next great leader. He knew the rules of Ugandan politics but refused to accept them. Instead, he advocated for a higher standard in government, one that put the interests of the country's citizens ahead of political gain.
When I visited him in Uganda this February, we shared our excitement over the election of Barack Obama, and he described the depth and breadth of expectations for the new president with regard to African issues. But as we continued talking, he narrowed Obama's agenda down to one request. "If Obama would just denounce dictatorship, that would be it," he said. "Nothing else."
In other words, after years of seeing Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni rewrite the constitution to run for yet another term, my friend wants something different. He, too, wants change.
Undemocratic Allies
In the Great Lakes Region, Uganda is one of the most important U.S. allies. For years, Uganda was an aid and investment haven, and one of Africa's rising stars. Today, State Department officials continue to receive critical intelligence information from the Ugandan government, and its military is trained and deployed for peacekeeping in Somalia. Additionally, Museveni is still sometimes cited as an exemplar on HIV/AIDS in Africa, despite recent years of increasing prevalence rates — largely a result of Bush administration pressures.
And yet Museveni isn't a responsible democratic leader. He has been in power since 1986 and plays political favoritism with those from his alleged birthplace in western Uganda. Perhaps most notoriously, he has marginalized the people of the north, cheating them of development aid and prompting the formation of a brutal rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Human Rights Watch has cited Museveni's military, the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF), numerous times for committing serious crimes against the civilian population. The UPDF also invaded and occupied the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during Museveni's rule, which led to the killing and torture of Congolese civilians, as well as the pillage of Congo's mineral wealth.
The LRA terrorized northerners for 20 years without any serious action from the Ugandan government. In 1996, rather than effectively dealing with the LRA problem, the government forcibly displaced much of the population into camps. There they were vulnerable to mass attack by the LRA and died of disease, hunger, and inadequate sanitation. International pressure eventually became so strong that Museveni could no longer ignore the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in his country. A peace process was initiated in Juba, South Sudan in 2006 with buy-in from the LRA, the government of Uganda, and the United States. It was the most comprehensive process to date, although it lacked any serious measures of accountability for the atrocities committed by Museveni's government.
The peace process failed in December 2008, when LRA leader Joseph Kony refused to sign the final peace agreement. The International Criminal Court warrant against the LRA might have been the primary reason for Kony's absence. Or perhaps he was never serious about the peace process and simply used the opportunity to re-arm. Whatever the reason, the failure of the talks prompted the Ugandan military to wage a disastrous attack against the Lord's Resistance Army in the DRC. AFRICOM, the U.S. military command for Africa, supported the attack, though the Pentagon tried to deny any responsibility for its failure.
Another intervention, some argue, would end Kony's violent rampage. Among the many reasons to oppose another military strike is that the United States would be repeating its Cold War mistake of supporting an undemocratic regime's armed forces. Northern Ugandans have innumerable stories about the abuses committed by the UPDF in their communities. Although the UPDF's behavior has been slightly better in recent years, it would be a mistake for the United States to train and equip such a force for combat. Museveni has shown no interest in relinquishing his presidency, and yet the United States continues to shower his so-called democracy with aid and military support.
Obama's Move
None of this should negate the good things Museveni has done for Uganda. But it's important to recognize that many Ugandans — particularly those not from southwestern Uganda — question the legitimacy of his multi-decade rule. They highlight corruption, the violence in the north, and his ethnically unbalanced approach to governance. Museveni's oppressive actions and dictatorial attitudes to the presidency effectively rob his government of the "democratic" title.
Obama said in his inaugural address, "to those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." But what happens if the United States has already extended that hand so far that it resembles an embrace? It may be difficult for Obama to rescind his predecessors' undying affection toward Uganda, but he should know that people like my friend are expecting a firmer stance.
If he is bold enough, Obama will heed my friend's advice and denounce undemocratic governments such as Uganda during his trip to Ghana this week. If he does not, African civil society will continue to face regimes that, despite outside support, remain hollow at their core.
Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Beth Tuckey is the associate director of Program Development and Policy at the Africa Faith and Justice Network in Washington, DC.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Race In Arica - Ethnicity
Ethnicity and Race in Africa - Ethnicity Debates In Africa
The tensions in these approaches have polarized studies on ethnicity in Africa. Okwudiba Nnoli, for example, takes up the primordialist position, accepting that ethnic groups do exist, are real with clearly defined interests, and play a pervasive role in African politics. Arguing along the same lines that ethnic conflict needs to be taken seriously, Ibbo Mandaza ends with an entirely different conclusion, suggesting that the persistent danger of ethnic conflict imposes a necessary reconciliation of the elites of the various groups (he includes tribes) in the nation-building project of postcolonial Africa. In response to this widespread position among African leaders and scholars, Mohamed Salih advances the opinion that recognizing rather than denying ethnicity may be the key to the democratization project in Africa. Taking the ethnic basis of political mobilization at face value, Salih argues that this reality rests awkwardly next to the public denial of ethnicity manifested in the banning (across Africa, except in Ethiopia) of political parties that are explicitly ethnically based with an unambiguous ethnic constituency. On the basis of an impressive array of empirical evidence, Salih makes the point that most African political parties are ethnically based in any case, and it is time to simply recognize this reality to allow for it to play a positive legitimizing force in contemporary African politics. While it is clear that ethnicity is endemic in Africa, Salih does not elaborate on how to overcome the inevitable problems of exclusion and inclusion in a political process that is ethnically based. Put bluntly, if ethnically based political parties win an election, then they would have to deliver to an ethnic constituency that would obviously define the winners and losers in ethnic terms. It is extremely difficult to imagine how this could translate into a legitimate polity.
Archie Mafeje scolds Nnoli and others for not providing an analysis of ethnicity and for treating ethnic groups as things in themselves, following the empiricism rife in American political science. Instead he dispels the idea that there are discrete, naturally occurring entities of belonging that may be called ethnic groups in Africa. He draws a distinction between social groups and social categories, where the former are characterized by inevitable patterns of social interaction such as lineages or associations, and the latter does not imply such regular interaction at all but is rather defined by common identity, such as members of the same religion. Mafeje's argument is that ethnicity is related to the national competition for scarce resources in response to the centralization of power rather than to local particularistic conflicts. In this sense, ethnicity has a recent derivation since it refers to an ideological ploy used by political elites to yield the benefits of power and wealth. In this view, ethnicity does not represent some preexisting African cultural essence but a convenient means of political mobilization for elites.
In a paper delivered at the Networking with a View to Promoting Peace conference in 1999, Dan Nabudere attempts to reconcile these two perspectives by drawing a distinction between positive and negative aspects to ethnicity, where the former refers to the notion of self-identification, self-expression, and enjoyment in membership of a stable entity in a "posttraditional" manner capable of coping with the demands of modernity. The negative aspect of ethnicity accommodates Mafeje's concern with elite manipulation of ethnic sentiment for narrow political ends of positions in the state.
In the postcolonial period, there was a flurry of scholarly activity as the new elites tried to redefine their pasts in ways that placed the ambivalent significance of the colonial period in its proper perspective. The question of race and ethnicity was crucial, especially in the southern African settler societies. History was being rewritten just as history was being made. New myths were invented in an effort to construct united national cultures since separate ethnicities were regarded as threatening to the nation-building project.
According to Mahmood Mamdani, one of the key challenges of the process of independence from colonial rule was to break down the barriers between ethnically defined rural subjects and racially defined urban citizens. However, Mamdani argues that decolonization did not have "an agenda for democratising customary power." Michael Chege provides a very critical review of Mamdani's thesis, arguing that it is simplistic in its dualism and does not appreciate the nuances of rural African society. Chege is particularly scathing about Mamdani's use of tribe, tribespeople, tribalism, and customary law "as concrete categories of political behaviour.
South African historiography, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, was dominated by endless debates on the relation between race and class in attempts at explaining the nature of the apartheid regime. For some there was a contingent relation between the two; for others the relation was an instrumental one, with race being used as a convenient tool for the class exploitation of blacks; for still others race had an independent existence. The race/class debate in South Africa provides a useful historiographical glimpse of an important era in the evolution of social science thought.
The tensions in these approaches have polarized studies on ethnicity in Africa. Okwudiba Nnoli, for example, takes up the primordialist position, accepting that ethnic groups do exist, are real with clearly defined interests, and play a pervasive role in African politics. Arguing along the same lines that ethnic conflict needs to be taken seriously, Ibbo Mandaza ends with an entirely different conclusion, suggesting that the persistent danger of ethnic conflict imposes a necessary reconciliation of the elites of the various groups (he includes tribes) in the nation-building project of postcolonial Africa. In response to this widespread position among African leaders and scholars, Mohamed Salih advances the opinion that recognizing rather than denying ethnicity may be the key to the democratization project in Africa. Taking the ethnic basis of political mobilization at face value, Salih argues that this reality rests awkwardly next to the public denial of ethnicity manifested in the banning (across Africa, except in Ethiopia) of political parties that are explicitly ethnically based with an unambiguous ethnic constituency. On the basis of an impressive array of empirical evidence, Salih makes the point that most African political parties are ethnically based in any case, and it is time to simply recognize this reality to allow for it to play a positive legitimizing force in contemporary African politics. While it is clear that ethnicity is endemic in Africa, Salih does not elaborate on how to overcome the inevitable problems of exclusion and inclusion in a political process that is ethnically based. Put bluntly, if ethnically based political parties win an election, then they would have to deliver to an ethnic constituency that would obviously define the winners and losers in ethnic terms. It is extremely difficult to imagine how this could translate into a legitimate polity.
Archie Mafeje scolds Nnoli and others for not providing an analysis of ethnicity and for treating ethnic groups as things in themselves, following the empiricism rife in American political science. Instead he dispels the idea that there are discrete, naturally occurring entities of belonging that may be called ethnic groups in Africa. He draws a distinction between social groups and social categories, where the former are characterized by inevitable patterns of social interaction such as lineages or associations, and the latter does not imply such regular interaction at all but is rather defined by common identity, such as members of the same religion. Mafeje's argument is that ethnicity is related to the national competition for scarce resources in response to the centralization of power rather than to local particularistic conflicts. In this sense, ethnicity has a recent derivation since it refers to an ideological ploy used by political elites to yield the benefits of power and wealth. In this view, ethnicity does not represent some preexisting African cultural essence but a convenient means of political mobilization for elites.
In a paper delivered at the Networking with a View to Promoting Peace conference in 1999, Dan Nabudere attempts to reconcile these two perspectives by drawing a distinction between positive and negative aspects to ethnicity, where the former refers to the notion of self-identification, self-expression, and enjoyment in membership of a stable entity in a "posttraditional" manner capable of coping with the demands of modernity. The negative aspect of ethnicity accommodates Mafeje's concern with elite manipulation of ethnic sentiment for narrow political ends of positions in the state.
In the postcolonial period, there was a flurry of scholarly activity as the new elites tried to redefine their pasts in ways that placed the ambivalent significance of the colonial period in its proper perspective. The question of race and ethnicity was crucial, especially in the southern African settler societies. History was being rewritten just as history was being made. New myths were invented in an effort to construct united national cultures since separate ethnicities were regarded as threatening to the nation-building project.
According to Mahmood Mamdani, one of the key challenges of the process of independence from colonial rule was to break down the barriers between ethnically defined rural subjects and racially defined urban citizens. However, Mamdani argues that decolonization did not have "an agenda for democratising customary power." Michael Chege provides a very critical review of Mamdani's thesis, arguing that it is simplistic in its dualism and does not appreciate the nuances of rural African society. Chege is particularly scathing about Mamdani's use of tribe, tribespeople, tribalism, and customary law "as concrete categories of political behaviour.
South African historiography, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, was dominated by endless debates on the relation between race and class in attempts at explaining the nature of the apartheid regime. For some there was a contingent relation between the two; for others the relation was an instrumental one, with race being used as a convenient tool for the class exploitation of blacks; for still others race had an independent existence. The race/class debate in South Africa provides a useful historiographical glimpse of an important era in the evolution of social science thought.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Scholarship Programme for African Students - UK and South Africa
