Africa 2001: The AU

David Hiscock

Special to the G21

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The final Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit ended (WednesdaY, 11 July) with the decision to transform itself into a stronger African Union (AU). The AU is modelled along the lines of the European Union (EU) and will focus on economic development, good governance and the rule of law, eliminating conflicts and poverty, and fighting pandemics such as HIV-AIDS.

The AU will work toward conflict prevention and resolution, restore and maintain economic stability, promote human rights and democracy. In return for these efforts, it hopes the developed world will provide material support for peacekeeping, accelerate debt reduction for heavily indebted countries, increase spending on aid to at least 0.7% of GDP for each developed country, and admit African goods to its markets.

The fundamental aim is to move Africa into the mainstream of the global economy, to provide an antidote to African economic stagnation by forging a new partnership with the developed countries.

Is the AU's faith in the developed countries justified?

The developed countries' relations with Africa in the recent past do not lead to optimism:

• Between 1994 and 1999 Western public aid to Africa fell by a third
  
  
• Foreign investment in the continent remained under 5% of all investment in developing countries
  
  
• The UN's efforts in Africa were down 25% between 1992 and 1999

The social and economic dynamics of power are such that 20% of the world's population have 86% of the global gross domestic product.

The rich do not show any meaningful signs of changing these figures in favour of developing countries. When national and economic interests have been threatened, Africa has traditionally been the least of the West's concerns.

Funmi Adelwuni, a director of the Trade Union, Labour Studies and Human Rights Education Centre in Nigeria said in South Africa recently that there was a danger in relying on foreign investors.

"African governments should realise that foreigners cannot love you better than your own people," he said. "There was a danger," he continued, "in relying on foreign investors to create jobs in Africa &. African countries had surrendered their sovereignty to Western countries and international monetary institutions and were bending to the demands of foreign investors."

In the same vein, Kenneth Nunn, a law professor at Florida University, said globalisation had not brought growth or reduced poverty in Africa. Instead "the financial policies of unrestrained globalisation have only made things worse.... Globalisation in its current form actually looks like colonialist exploitation but hides its hand behind the free market..."

African unity and consciousness, he pointed out, had a critical yet overlooked role in addressing the negative effect of globalisation:

"Africans have to create alternative global networks based on their culture. This can lead to direct trade partnerships in multibillion dollar industries such as traditional clothing and decorative items."

For Africans exerting this sort of independence, however, is easier to articulate than to undertake. All too often it ends up in powerless posturing.

It confronts African leaders with the age-old dilemma: how does one open up one's economy to globalisation while, at the same time, meet the domestic needs of the poverty-stricken and unemployed?

To re-phrase the dilemma. Does the African government develop through poverty alleviation and redistribution or through wealth accumulation and growth?

African development through wealth accumulation and growth has proved to be a chimera. Can it be achieved by means of a dependence on countries whose policies which, so far, have strangled the policies of the poor countries?

So far, globalisation -- a modern form of imperialism based on the exploitation of developing countries --Ý has led to the marginalisation of Africa.

Perhaps an independent United Sates of Africa is the solution, but will the developed nations ever really welcome such an entity?

Africans must not depend upon it.

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DAVID HISCOCK is a freelance writer living in South Africa. This is his first article for The World's Magazine.