Globalisation is often presented as something from which one cannot escape. It is compared to gravity; to resist it is seen as going against gravity. As Margaret Thatcher proclaimed, “There is no alternative” to neo-liberal capitalism. So, mainstreaming in the 1990s and since then has meant joining the bandwagon of capital-led globalisation. It has been widely pronounced to be Africa’s inevitable destiny too, but Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) is an initiative that attempts to provide a framework for alternative policies and strategies, which can bring about sustainable, human development. Their aim is to stimulate the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for Africa.

Exposing The Myth

A passive acceptance of destiny forced on Africa from outside goes against the grain of Africa’s history. Africans fought to resist colonial occupation, and in some places resistance went on for some three decades after the carving up of Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884-5. Then, when Africa was finally subjugated and occupied, Africans put up resistance against the occupation itself for another five decades and more, and finally liberated themselves from colonial rule, and its vicious offsprings such as apartheid. In other words, resistance against oppression has been the principal mode of African existence, almost a way of life for most Africans for the best part of a hundred years.

Unfortunately, the first generation political leaders after political independence from 1957 (when Ghana got its independence) through the 1960s and 70s were caught up in the cold war and the ideological battles of the period. Some of them, like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, tried to experiment with their own versions of African socialism; others like Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya followed the capitalist model; and yet others tried various versions of “scientific socialism”. After the end of the cold war, and the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the capitalist system came out triumphant, and all alternative options appeared to have vanished. Hence the increasingly strident assertion of the unavoidability of neo-liberal globalisation.

However, the myth of the inevitability of globalisation is as misleading as the myth about Africa’s passive acceptance. Globalisation is nothing but a policy response of the capitalist nations in crisis, the beginning of which goes back to the mid-1970s. Contemporary globalisation is part of the strategy of transnational corporations backed by the military, political and institutional (including WTO, WB and IMF amongst others) power of the G8 states, collectively constituting the Empire. Its alleged gravitational property has nothing to do with reality; it is a self-serving myth perpetuated by the imperial nations through systematic media disinformation and fatuous academic discourse.

Indeed, capital-led globalisation is even at the root of the crisis in Africa. It is by now agreed by wide sections of Southern African society that the neo-liberal paradigm of development has failed the people. Poverty has not only been entrenched but it has also deepened, and the gap between the rich and the poor has increased.

The ANSA Initiative

It follows that there must be an alternative and that such an alternative is of vital importance. The Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) initiative represents an attempt to address this need. Its roots reach back as far as 1993, when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZiCTU) took the initiative to formulate an alternative to the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, ESAP, which had been introduced in Zimbabwe in 1991.

Based on the experience gained in Zimbabwe, in 2003 the ANSA initiative took off, but now as a regional programme and initiative. Initially, a small group of individuals linked to the ZiCTU worked out the principles of an alternative approach and provided scientific and research materials. The project was gradually broadened until, in January 2005, representatives from affiliates of SATUCC adopted the programme. Since then, the initiative has aimed at and gained wider name and recognition among progressive academics, unions, social movements and beyond, both within and outside Africa.

From the beginning, ANSA’s aim has been not to produce another academic report, but to stimulate the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for our region.

The Root Causes of Underdevelopment

ANSA’s overall economic analysis revolves around dualism and enclavity and external dependency as the root causes of pervasive unemployment, and hence underdevelopment, in Southern Africa.

In plain language, dualism and enclavity describe Southern African economies that are generally characterised by a relatively small formal sector, which co-exists but is separate from a large informal sector, the latter one located both within urban areas and rural regions (the communal sector).

The formal economy consists of capitalists interested in profit making and workers who primarily depend on wages for their sustenance. In Africa it can be assumed that less than 20% of the labour force earns a living in the formal sector. The sector consists of large, medium, small and micro enterprises that are formally registered and recognised; as such they encompass activities in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.

The urban informal is a residual sector, which has come to have a high degree of permanence in many African countries. It is a sector characterised by easy entry and exit, driven by self-employment activities that reflect linkages with the formal sector and rural sector as well as the ingenuity of the individuals involved in the sector. Levels of productivity are low in terms of returns per hour worked, while wages tend to be below poverty levels. This sector absorbs surplus labour from the rural and the formal sector such as retrenchees. Generally about one third of the labour force in many countries tends to be involved in urban informal sector activities. In some regional countries the informal economy is in fact the ‘mainstream’ economy.

The communal sector is the original traditional or pre-capitalist sector with all the variations this entails in the African context. The present-day communal sector is also highly differentiated and has a number of linkages with the formal and urban informal sectors. However, the majority of the households are involved in low productivity farm and non-farm pursuits in which surplus generation is low and primarily not directed at accumulation but consumption. In most African countries, the majority of the households live and work in what we are labelling the communal sector.

The root problem of under-development now lies in the fact that the majority of the labour force is involved in low productivity pursuits that result in incomes and consumption levels that are close to poverty. The relationship between the three sectors and the external world is such that it tends to reproduce the continued marginalisation of the majority and continues to constrain the development of the economy as a whole.

Internal and External Distortions

Underlying this problem of underdevelopment are internal and external distortions, distortions which the ‘free’ capitalist market system has not been able to solve. Indeed, it has even caused, reproduced and strengthened these distortions. They therefore have to be carefully analysed and understood, after which a successful strategy to solve them can be formulated.

The formal sector shows a bias toward large-scale enterprises and against the evolution of dynamic micro, small, medium enterprise. It favours relatively capital intensive methods of production that are not warranted by the amount of labour available, given high unemployment rates. It is biased toward externally driven demand given that the majority of the domestic population lacks effective demand. It favours imports of capital and intermediary goods as well as high income consumer goods given the inability to produce these locally due to lack of critical minimum level of effective demand.

The formal sector is not able to play its dynamic role in terms of transforming the economy through trickle down effects, since the linkages with the non-formal sector are minimal and mostly restricted to use of cheap labour.

The urban informal sector is well known for its deficiencies in terms of lack of capital, improvised technology, high transaction costs and inadequate access to infrastructure. There is an absence of an adequate facilitating legal, regulatory and institutional regime for assets, intellectual property and market transactions As a consequence, the urban informal sector is prone to lateral expansion, depressed returns that verge toward subsistence, stunted growth and endemic poverty for many.

Although the communal sector may have developed production methods and non-farm activities that are appropriate for the environment in which they live, the sector has not been able to be fully integrated into modern forms of economic organisation. The sector shares a number of the characteristics of the urban informal sector, like the absence of social and economic infrastructure, the absence of an adequate facilitating legal, regulatory and institutional regime, high transaction costs and inadequate access to information useful for participation in the modern economy. There is an outward migration of able-bodied males. In some countries the shortage of land due to land degradation or land appropriation is also resulting in increasing marginalisation of peasants.

Thus, participants in both the urban informal sector and the rural communal sector are unable to lift themselves since their capabilities and their environment is highly compromised. They are also not able to benefit from trickle down effects from the formal sector or abroad in the absence of facilitating interventions.

The global environment has had the tendency to perpetuate the underdevelopment based on enclavity. For example, with regard to its interaction with the formal sector, this has been such that it reinforces both primary export and import dependency in a manner that does not facilitate the transformation and upgrading of the domestic economy. Terms of trade have generally been to the disadvantage of the formal sector in African economies. Monopolistic tendencies and protectionism among the developed countries have made it difficult to acquire competitive advantage that would allow the developing countries to compete on an equal level with the developed countries and even allow them to reconfigure their exports and imports.

More generally the international economy has been dominated by private and public interests which have systemically pushed for economic transaction regimes that work primarily to serve their interest rather than the development needs of countries such as those in Africa.

As another consequence of the above problems, African countries find themselves in a dilemma whereby disarticulations at the national level, coupled with external dependency, militate against effective regional co-operation and national development within a regional context as well.

The ANSA Declaration

This analysis shows why a neo-liberal ‘free’ market system can not solve our problems and, at the same time, provides a concrete framework for alternative policies and strategies, which can indeed bring about sustainable, human development. It is the foundation upon which a comprehensive ANSA Declaration has been developed, which, in turn, serves as the basis for ANSA’s further plans and activities.

The declaration sets out the 10 principles of the ANSA strategy:

1. At political and social level, a people-led strategy (as opposed to IMF-WB-WTO-donor-led).

2. At the economic level, an alternative production system, one that is based on domestic demand and human needs and the use of local resources and domestic savings, that is autocentric development (as opposed to the present system that is dominated by an export-oriented strategy, based on foreign investments and ownership).

3. Grassroots-led regional integration (as opposed to the current fragmentation of the region by the Empire).

4. A strategic, selective delinking from neo-liberal globalisation (as opposed to further deepening of integration within the existing iniquitous global system), and preparing for leveraged negotiated relinking in a restructured and transformed global production and distribution system.

5. An alternative policy on science and technology based on harnessing and owning the collective knowledge and wisdom of the people (as opposed to the present blind emulation of techno-science of the empire).

6. A strategy of alliance and networking with national, regional and global progressive forces (as opposed to the present system of co-optation of social forces in the capital-led globalisation process).

7. A strategy with a politically governed redistribution of the wealth and opportunities from the so-called formal sector in society to the informal sectors (as opposed to the present system of misallocation of resources, and the integration of the informal sectors through their providing cheap inputs and a reservoir of semi-employed labour).

8. A strategy where women’s rights are in focus as the basis for a healthy and productive society (as opposed to the present system based on the exploitation of women labour).

9. A strategy where education addresses the needs for sustainable human development, and which is aimed at improving the technical and managerial as well as research and development skills of workers and those directly in control of matters of production and governance (as opposed to education for a bureaucratic and academic elite).

10. A strategy where peoples’ mobilisation and visible demonstrations, and open hearings, in support of the evolving ethical and developmental state, are seen as embodying the democratic strength of the society, creating a dynamic, participatory and radical democracy (as opposed to the present system, where mobilisation is seen as a threat to the existing system, and where the representative democracy can sign away the future rights of people).

Framework for an Alternative Policy

Based on the above analysis and guided by the 10 principles, the ANSA Declaration then submits a detailed alternative policy and strategy for sustainable human development in Southern Africa. It does that both in general terms as well as for the various sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, trade and mining; for macro-economics and finance; for policies like education & training, science & technology and infrastructure; and for cross-cutting issues like gender and culture. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this article to present them here.

It should be well understood that the ANSA Declaration only sets out the general alternative policy framework for the region. It is necessary that each country will formulate and push for its own specific alternative policy and strategy within this regional framework. The ANSA Programme is actively working towards this follow up. A training and advocacy programme is also being developed.

As said before, the ANSA programme is not a separate academic exercise; it is aimed at stimulating and facilitating the growth of a mass movement, the ideal being that the numerous localised centres of resistance and initiatives for alternatives will in the end pressurise for change from a common perspective.

ANSA therefore seeks active co-operation and mutual reinforcement with progressive individuals, unions, churches, youth and women groups, social movements etc. within the region, the continent and beyond to join forces to pressurise for often very practical and local alternatives, placed within a broader vision and strategy.

A start has been made already with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) where Trade Unions in the SADC are getting together to deliberately and systematically lobby and campaign for alternatives to the anticipated EPAs which are being imposed on us by the EU. Privatisation and commercialisation issues are definite other possible areas of action and levers for a common demand for an alternative policy.

ANSA is not a grouping, a political party or a movement. It is not an advance party either. You cannot become a member. ANSA is a non-partisan, facilitation project, the function of which is to act as a focal point, guide and catalyst that stimulates people, institutions and movements in the region and beyond to join hands and forge alliances in a common pursuit of an alternative to neo-liberalism.

In January 2006 the ANSA Declaration will be launched at the Africa Social Forum in Bamako, Mali. After that it will become available in print, a full version in English and a popularised version in both English, French and Portuguese.

* This article was compiled by the ANSA Co-ordinating Committee
December, 2005 (For more information about the ANSA-initiative, contact us at [email protected] or, alternatively, at [email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]