WSSD: NEPAD A ‘SAD DAY’ FOR AFRICA

WSSD: NEPAD A ‘SAD DAY’ FOR AFRICA

Patrick Burnett
Fahamu

JOHANNESBURG - The New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) endorsed the free trade agenda of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund while failing to acknowledge how harmful these policies had been for Africa.
In addition, the plan to boost Africa's position on the world stage was flawed because it had failed to consult Africa's people about the best way to uplift the continent.
These were some of the views expressed by speakers at an International Forum on Globalisation (IFG) meeting in Johannesburg held before the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and entitled 'Beyond Nepad: Sustainable Futures for Africa'.
Held the day after a peaceful march by participants of the IFG event was brutally broken up by police with stun grenades and teargas, speakers rallied against Nepad and insisted Africa was “not for sale”.
Mohau Pheko, from the International Network on Gender and Trade, described Nepad as a "sad day" for Africa. "Once again here is a document that has not listened to us and reflected our hopes and desires and the magnificent vision we have that another Africa is possible."
She said Nepad was a "devastating blow" that failed to acknowledge how Africa had been undermined by World Bank policies and was designed to suit not the African people but foreign investors.
"They say it is being done on our behalf. We know that this cannot be done without our experiences and knowledge."
Nepad endorsed the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) of the World Bank and IMF, allowing Africa to lose control of its resources by giving them away to foreign investors.
"It (Nepad) does not reflect on how the IMF, World Bank and Structural Adjustment Programmes have contributed to creating conflict and how the multi-national corporations have exploited our resources," she said. Pheko described the history of relations between Africa and the G8 as "painful and disempowering". She said: "Nepad refines the myth that globalisation is good for the poor. We need to send a strong message to the writers and promoters that Africa is not for sale."
Phineas Malepale, from the Anti Privatisation Forum in South Africa, likened Nepad to an animal that was trying to assume new names.
In South Africa, he said, the country had initially been colonised not by governments but a company in the form of the Dutch East India Company. The purpose had been to make a profit and the company had invited colonial powers to exploit the country and impoverish the people.
"It is not by design that we are poor," he said. The same animal that had made people slaves in their own country had created apartheid. With the defeat of apartheid, Malepale said corporate governance had been forced to assume new names.
It had started by calling itself Gear, the economic programme of the South African government, and had evolved into Nepad. "Nepad is nothing but an extension of Gear and a colonization into Africa; the recolonisation of Africa by a new name," he said.
"There is nothing new about Nepad. It is an old system coated with sugar so we can eat it and the poison will kill is."
Dot Keet, of the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC), said Nepad was not about changing Africa's role and position globally, but about deepening integration and accepting the World Bank's interpretation of Africa as being marginalized.
"Africa is not marginalized but deeply integrated and dependent and susceptible to changes over which we have no control and influence," she said.
She said Nepad argued for an increase in exports and crop production for the North "regardless of how this makes us vulnerable." She said: "We need alternatives. We need to say Africa is not for sale and another Africa is possible. It must be people-centred and a base for changing the current global capitalist system."
Dealing with South Africa's strong role in formulating Nepad, Oupa Lehulere, of Khanya College in South Africa, argued that Nepad posed important challenges for emerging social movements in Africa.
He said since 1994 South Africa had acted as an outpost of American imperialism and that Nepad represented the expansionist agenda of South African capital into the African continent.
"Gear and Nepad are new ways of expressing the globalisation of South African capital," he said.
Lehulere argued that South African social movements had not worked on exposing the role of South Africa's ruling class in world affairs.
"Nepad will stand or fall on the home struggles of the most powerful power on the African continent," he said, using the example of the emerging movements that were challenging state actions in the field of water and electricity disconnections and evictions from housing.
"When you do take up these struggles you are striking at Nepad. It is clear that it is not conferences and negotiation that will change Nepad … but what is crucial are the movements that have assembled." - ENDS