Re: (i'm going to continue) millions in Africa on 'brink of starvation
[quote=rhipkin]That's really what it boils down to..... it's corrupt leadership, not Africa that is a dump. Africa is rich in natural resources. Nigeria accounts for a huge portion of the worlds Oil consumption (that would account for about 40% of the US oil consumption). [/quote]
Yessir. The potential is huge, and there's nobody I know that does not acknowledge that. The main problem is indeed as I said before corruption, and of course mismanagement.
[quote=rhipkin] European countries came and mined the crap out of Africa, but the money was not funneled back into Africa, it went to the development of European countries. Africans were enslaved in their own countries, many African countries were taken by force and raped of THEIR natural resources. Then when they did win independance the companies which benefitted so hugely from African resources packed up their entire operations and left, leaving nothing behind but forcing Africans to try and revitalize those industries which required enormous captial outlays. Once those loans were established getting to sell those products were impossible due to trade embargo's and so the vicious cycle began.[/quote]
The current situation is a sick one IMO. Western companies that invest in African countries often do so on the basis of conditionality: they hardly really invest in the region they come to, personell is still mainly expats and not locally hired labour. Basicaly, when a Western company invests in a local initiative or actually sets up a factory for example, it is simply to lower productions costs and increase profits. Not to help the country they are investing in to advance.
Add to that extractive way of investment the completely faulty trade conditions: high tariffs for processed goods exports (in order to disencourage local manufacturing and processing of raw materials), varying prices of commodities like cocoa and coffee, insane subsidies for European and American agriculture. The whole construction is set up to make the profit for the Western countries, plain and simple.
An example: in 2002 the net loss of revenues in cotton production for Africa was about $300 million (cause by the subsidies of cotton farmers mostly in Europe and the US), while the total debt relief for 9 cotton producing nations in Africa under the HPIC initiative was $230 million! This is a net profit of 70 million for the EU/US, despite the at first sight enormous amount of debt relief granted. It's all a fake contruction in the end, and very effective in keeping the right side of the financial balance in the West, not in Africa.
The same can be said about the political conditionalities that became attached to development aid in the '80s and '90s: neo-liberal market system, less govt expenditures, agricultural reform and trade reforms. This is where 'good governance' came into the development lexicon. The real effect was, and still is today, that the African market became dominated by western industries, education and health care virtually dissappeared from the political agenda (they weren't cutting down on army expenses, no way!), miserably failed agricultural reforms (the farmers got low prices, the profits were for the govt and agricultural boards, so the farmers [I]en masse[/I] took the exit option and abandoned commercial production) and still completely ridiculous trade conditions, since the improvements in trading tariffs were limited to those products that would not generate a serious capital inflow for Africa and were not economically very important for the West.
Then you have your neopatrimonial system, carefully upheld by the ruling elites, siphoning off scores of money since despite the 'democracies' in many African nations the state is still a prize to be won and to be exploited. Slowly the realisation is coming through in the idealist groups in the West that with democracy the African means something fairly different than the European. More like conquering the state without the use of the military (or violence per s?), but still something to take advantage of.
Although this view is highly contested, I am in fact moving towards the idea that economic development comes before political stability (not necessarily democracy!!). This is underlined by the fact that there is actually a yearly income that serves as the bottom value for the potential of installing a stable democracy: $6000,- a year. Above that average yearly income, democracies are usually fairly stable, above $6500,- there are virtually no coup d'?tats recorded.
[quote=rhipkin] Admitedly due to warring factions and greed many African countries have become unproductive and have fallen from grace. But countries like South Africa, Nigeria (ironically), Botswana, Angola (now the war is over), Mozambique (now that the war is over.....lol) and a whole bunch of others are working tirelessly to remedy that situation. Many countries in Africa have thriving economies, you cannot take a few countries and state that AFRICA is a pit, that is ignorant. We South African's are at the forefront of establishing Africa back on the map.[/quote]
I agree, though I have to comment on Mbeki's conduct of late. He was the one initiating NEPAD in the first place, but has had to virtually strip it completely to get African nations aboard. National elites were not amused with the fact that at first it could actually assess the political conduct and progress of national governments and 'punish' them if they did not abide with the self inflicted standards.
When he suddenly publicly removed the political element out of the APRM (African Peer Review Mechanism) under pressure of other governments that otherwise threatened not to join the initiative, he got heavily criticised by the G8 because it was one of the key features upon which they had decided to support NEPAD. But when in the case of Zimbabwe the Commonwealth leaders made an appeal to Mbeki to act consistent with what he had been saying and undetake political action, he labeled them racist who were "inspired by notions of white supremacy" and who felt "uneasy at their repugnant position imposed by inferior blacks".
To me this means that economically South-Africa may be on the forefront, but politically that not the case. Your country is championing NEPAD as the solution to Africa's underdevelopment problem, but just as the West it will be South-Africa profiting the most it, simply because it will in the end only boil down to economic reforms which actually aren't reforms but the SAP's and Lagos Plan for Action under a layer of new paint.
[quote=rhipkin] With regards to food aid, one must remember that Central Africa is prone to drought, severe drought. This is not Africa's fault, this is not caused by war or greed this is nature. A drought in Africa can last YEARS, crippling drought, haverst destroying droughts - plagued with locusts - entire crops and food stocks are destroyed. I know this because we stock pile food from World Food Program and transport these to starving people around Africa. No food no money, no money no development, no development no upliftment - Africa is in the grips of a vicious circle and trust me we working damn hard to fix that - but what needs to happen is debt relief and the scrapping of trade embargo's. People are "scared" to invest in Africa because how can they see a return on their investments when Africans cannot even get a return on their investments??[/quote]
It has also on numerous occasions happened that during a famine there was indeed enough food produced in another part of the country or a nearby country, but simply as a result of the high demand in such cases the prices increased so much that food aid was much cheaper than buying it locally/regionally. How fucked up is this?
I do advocate scrapping trade embargo's and tariff walls, but I don't think there should be the debt relief as is proposed ($64 bln a year to fill the resource gap). When adressed appropiately, solving the corruption problem will account for most of that money already. Africa has nothing with asking for that amount of money if in a number of cases the national foreign debt equals the capital sitting in overseas bankaccounts from the national elite (Nigeria: $32bln roughly each!!!).
More money will only perpetuate the current neopatrimonial system, and keep at bay the moment when a real fundamental change has to be made in order to revive the continent.
[quote=rhipkin] Their is HUGE investment potential in Africa, hell South Africa is proof of that :) the answer to that is we need to stabilise the continent first, put people who have the best interest for their countries in leadership, Africa is not a pit, it is a beautiful continent with beautiful people.
Friday tomorrow......... :)[/quote]
South Africa is without a doubt the best kid in class when it comes to economic development. Despite Mbeki's shortcomings, this is also true for political development. And yes, there is indeed a huge investment potential, which unfortunately in many cases cannot be taken advantage of (yet) unless some fundamental changes take places on African as well as European/American side.
I love Africa, and I'm looking forward to my research trip to Ghana this summer bro...can't wait to breathe the air there and experience a totally different culture again!