Outsourcing and Nigeria

On July 5, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush visited six West African nations in Africa to call attention to issues ranging from disease control to military intervention in Liberia. President Bush praised South African President Mbeki for his role in supporting the New Partnership for African Development, condemned slavery in a speech from Senegal’s Gorée Island, and discussed the Economic Community of West African States with President Kufour of Ghana.

The trip is significant because as recently as three years ago, the Bush Administration did not place a high priority on Africa – a continent that, until now, has been largely bypassed by globalization. Today, though, instability in the Middle East and heightened fear of terrorist activity are prompting the U.S. to reexamine its policy toward the troubled continent.

Bush's visit can thus be seen as a sign that Africa has become a priority for the United States, one of the chief world architects of globalization. The U.S.’s professed commitment to fight AIDS, a possible deployment of peacekeepers in Liberia, and renewed pressure
for oil-rich states like Nigeria to negotiate more openly with Western oil
exploration companies, are all important first steps towards integrating
Africa into the world economy.

But U.S. proposed military intervention and oil exploration may not be enough to deliver economic stability for ordinary Africans.

Military Intervention in Liberia – Deliverance or Catastrophe?
Observers are doubtful that short-term military intervention will result in any tangible long-term benefit to Liberians. Most of Liberia’s 3.3 million people are starving or sick, and a third are homeless, the result of continuous fighting since 1989. And according to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the woman most likely to succeed Liberian President Charles Taylor, it will take at least two years to stabilize the country once a U.S. led intervention is complete.

With the U.S. heading into an election year and concerns about the rising death rate of U.S. forces in Iraq, a long-term military commitment in Liberia might be politically untenable – particularly as the U.S. is currently facing criticism both at home and abroad for failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Bush administration is thus forced to justify military intervention in failed states like Liberia solely on the basis of pre-empting future terrorist attacks – already, Bush has called for a $100 million initiative to help governments in East Africa combat terrorist networks. But this initiative may prove too limited to ease humanitarian crises such as that which the Liberians face.

Oil Exploration in West Africa is Fraught with Difficulties
With political fires smoldering in the Middle East, the U.S. is focusing on securing alternative sources of oil. West Africa is a hotbed of new oil exploration, and it is estimated that by 2008, production will rise 33 percent, from the current 4.5 million barrels of oil per day to 6 million per day.

But in West Africa, oil exploration and local corruption associated with oil royalty payments are frequently inseparable. Western governments are thus often seen as directly supporting brutal dictators and corrupt bureaucracies, as they funnel millions of dollars in royalty payments to the regimes that control oil.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and international human rights groups have recently exerted tremendous pressure on oil companies and African states to end this corruption and increase transparency regarding these transactions. As a result, two oil rich African states, Nigeria (the 13th largest oil producer in the world, and the fifth largest oil supplier to the United States) and Sao Tome, recently announced that details of future oil production agreements will be made public. Observers hope that this new transparency will lessen corruption, and will enable citizens of these countries to have greater input in how their governments spend national oil wealth.

AIDS Prevention and Treatment: Underfunded Assistance?
Africa is a continent withering from the heavy toll that AIDS has taken on its inhabitants. This modern day plague has so far cost 18.8 million people their lives, with 34.3 million more suffering from the HIV/AIDS virus worldwide. As well, AIDS in Africa contributes mightily to malnutrition, as productivity in the farm sector has declined dramatically because of the epidemic.

It is therefore heartening that President Bush’s African agenda includes a commitment to help combat AIDS. In his State of the Union Address, Bush urged Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years to fighting AIDS in African and Caribbean nations.

This amount still falls short, however, of the annual $10.5 billion the UN Commission on HIV/AIDS estimates will be needed to effectively fight the epidemic in low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, the U.S.’s AIDS initiative, although now law, must still go through the legislature’s appropriation process – and already, the House has budgeted one third less than the $3 billion called for in 2003.

A U.S.-African Partnership: Hope for the Future or Election Year Pandering?
Some commentators and journalists have questioned whether President Bush’s African visit signals a commitment to helping the continent emerge from disease and stalled economic development, or whether it’s a ploy to attract African American voters during an election year. If the U.S. is serious about retooling its Africa policy, it will be a triumph of globalization. Money to slow the number of AIDS cases and greater government transparency (particularly in managing natural resources like oil) will greatly benefit the poor in Africa.

There are indications that the U.S. is committed to trading with African countries. During his visit, Bush touted the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000, noting that U.S. imports of manufactured goods from Sub-Saharan Africa rose 8 percent from 1996 to 2001. If, however, Bush’s trip is just another public relations gambit, not backed up with beneficial policies for Africa, it will be seen as a globalization failure – and a cynical use of the global media conglomerate to further the Bush administration’s goal of re-election in 2004.

Contributed by Amanda Howe, JD.

To read another Global Envision article about globalization in Africa, see A New Start for Africa.

A New Start for Africa

The New Partnership for Africa's Development is used as a springboard for Africa to engage more fully in the global economy.

Indicative of an evolving attitude in the developing world that underscores the need for countries to take charge of their own destinies, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is an African program designed to discover ways to promote African development. Formed in July 2001, NEPAD is a cooperative effort between the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Program and the OMEGA Plan. NEPAD represents a commitment by African leaders to rid their continent of poverty and to place it on a path of lasting growth and development. It was founded on the belief that, in order to achieve development, Africa must have peace, security, democracy, and good governance.

As an integrated sustainable development initiative for the economic and social revival of Africa, NEPAD’s mandate involves a constructive partnership between Africa and the developed world. Anchored in the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalizing world, African leaders in NEPAD have pledged to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development. At the same time, they have committed to participate actively in the world economy.

NEPAD is an important milestone in the history of Africa. On September 16th, the President of the African National Congress and of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, who is also the co-founder and architect of NEPAD, addressed the UN General Assembly. During the address he said, "The New Partnership is designed radically to change the paradigm that has driven international African development programs.”

To the Assembly, Mbeki affirmed that NEPAD was designed to completely alter the design of current African development programs. "To indicate that change, we reaffirm that we, the Africans, are the architects of the NEPAD renewal plan. As Africans,
we now own Africa's development agenda.”

Mbeki addressed the fact that NEPAD is trying to move Africa away from merely being an aid recipient, and trying to move it toward facilitating and controlling its own development projects. "We seek to ensure that we move away from the donor-recipient relationship with the developed world, to a new partnership based on mutual respect as well as shared responsibility and accountability”, he stated.

Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, echoed Mbeki’s words, “This partnership is first and foremost a partnership between African leaders and their peoples, and between states within Africa. In addition, NEPAD envisages a new partnership between Africa and the international community, especially the highly industrialized countries – based on mutual respect and interdependence, as well as transparency and accountability, including peer review and performance monitoring among both African countries and international partners. NEPAD has adopted the Millennium Development Goals as the centerpiece of Africa's development agenda.”

At the opening of the Nigerian Trade Union Leadership Conference on Globalization, jointly organized by NEPAD, Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo said that NEPAD would place Africa on a path of sustainable growth. He also said that NEPAD has a commitment to accelerating the integration of the African continent into the global economy.

Obasanjo expressed his dedication to the idea that NEPAD is not only a framework for a new African partnership with the rest of the world, but it is also a call to the world to team up with Africa under its own leadership for its own development.

In his address, the Nigerian Minister of Employment, Labor and Productivity, Alhaji Musa Gwadabe, said that the basic issues of globalization, poverty reduction strategy papers and NEPAD are interconnected and interrelated in meaning, purpose and significance.

NEPAD reaffirms the challenges facing Africa. As Annan said during the Assembly meeting, “By framing its aims around the Millennium Development Goals, NEPAD challenges Africa's development partners to deepen their commitment to global poverty reduction. NEPAD's stated objective is to achieve the overall 7 percent annual growth necessary for Africa to meet one of the Millennium Development Goals: halving poverty by 2015. Meeting this target requires more than doubling Africa's recent growth rates.”

Gwadabe goes on to say that, “The architects of NEPAD realized that Africa had been reacting for too long to ideas and offers of support from the rest of the world, without developing and articulating its own vision and program of action. What now remains is for the principles of NEPAD to be converted into action, so that NEPAD makes a real difference for the ordinary people in Africa. Through NEPAD, African leaders have shown that they consider political and economic reforms as essential if lasting development is to be achieved. They have stressed human rights, fundamental freedoms, and democracy. They have reaffirmed the importance of government with the consent and the authority of the governed. Increasingly, African leadership has itself spoken out against corruption and bad governance, and there is growing emphasis on ensuring accountability and transparency.”

Africa has faced a long history of poverty and suffering in Africa. Realizing that it is more empowering for developing countries to be in charge of their own development projects, NEPAD is an initiative that is logical and timely. This principle does not diminish the need, however, for support from the developed world in order for NEPAD to be successful. Supporting efforts of poverty reduction makes sense. As Mbeki said, "the success we will and must achieve in Africa will be a victory for all humanity because the poverty of any people in any part of the globe is the poverty of all humanity."

Similarly, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is another initiative founded in Africa, to help Africans. Promising to create a 130 million-person southern African common market by 2000, this economic community is dedicated to the ideals of free trade, free movement of people, a single currency, democracy, and respect for human rights.
 

Contributed by Lyla Bashan, Assistant Editor.