Dorothy-Grace Guerrero and Firoze Manji (ed) (2008) China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective. 
Back Issues
Pambazuka News 220: Aid dependence and the MDGs
The authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa
**************************************************************************
This is part one of this week's Pambazuka News.
The second part of the newsletter, headed Pambazuka News: Links and Resources, will be published on Friday and includes the remaining categories that form a part of the existing newsletter.
Remember that the full edition will still be available on the Pambazuka News website from Thursday evenings. Please send your views on the new arrangement to editor@pambazuka.org
**************************************************************************
Pambazuka News is the authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa providing cutting edge commentary and in-depth analysis on politics and current affairs, development, human rights, refugees, gender issues and culture in Africa.
To view online, go to http://www.pambazuka.org/
Want to get off our subscriber list? Write to unsubscribe@pambazuka.org and your address will be removed
CONTENTS: 1. Highlights from this issue, 2. Features, 3. Comment & analysis, 4. Pan-African Postcard, 5. Letters, 6. Books & arts, 7. Blogging Africa, 8. Women & gender, 9. Human rights, 10. Refugees & forced migration, 11. Elections & governance, 12. Corruption, 13. Development, 14. Health & HIV/AIDS, 15. Education, 16. Environment, 17. Media & freedom of expression, 18. Advocacy & campaigns, 19. Conflict & emergencies, 20. Internet & technology, 21. eNewsletters & mailing lists, 22. Fundraising & useful resources, 23. Courses, seminars, & workshops, 24. Jobs, 25. Global call to action against poverty
Support the struggle for social justice in Africa. Give generously!
Donate at: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/donate.php
Highlights from this issue
Featured in this issue
2005-09-08
In search of MDG progress
In September 2000, 189 world leaders adopted the Millennium Declaration. They committed to "free all men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty".
In pursuit of this noble end, eight Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed to: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Achieve universal primary education; Promote gender equality and empower women; Reduce child mortality; Improve maternal health; Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; Ensure environmental sustainability; and Develop a global partnership for development. The deadline set for achieving these goals was 2015.
From 14-16 September 2005, the United Nations will host a Millennium+5 Summit to evaluate the progress towards the MDGs. Perhaps not surprisingly in a world where global agreements are not often worth the paper they are written on, world leaders will find a litany of broken promises and lack of political commitment. In Africa, it is estimated that some of the goals won’t be met until the middle half of the next century, at current rates of progress.
It doesn’t look like world leaders are likely to make any great efforts to change this rate of progress. A draft declaration for a UN text on the MDGs looks unlikely to get agreement after the US made demands that are seen by some as a reversal of the draft declaration and difficult to accommodate.
This week, our collection of articles in the Editorial and Comment and Analysis sections, tackle the MDGs, examining them from the perspective of aid dependency, women’s rights, and their application to grassroots communities. Throughout many of the articles, a clear trend emerges. Without debt cancellation, fair terms of trade and increased resource flows, Africa is unlikely to achieve the MDGs.
EDITORIAL: Demba Moussa Dembele explains the hidden political and economic costs of the aid dependency syndrome
COMMENT&ANALYSIS:
- The MDGs can advance women’s rights only if they adopt a rights-based approach, argues Yifat Susskind
- Esther Mwaura-Muiru goes looking for the role of grassroots communities in the MDGs
- The MDGs might be flawed but “they’re all we’ve got and they’re worth striving for” says Ezra Mbogori
- Cancellation of debt, increased resource flows and fair trade are needed to make the MDGs a reality, writes Charles Mutasa
- It’s not all doom and gloom, Hellen Tombo believes. Some of the MDGs can be achieved
- Rebecca Ajabo Asaba wonders how many hundreds of years Africa will have to wait before the global economic, financial and trade architecture is restructured
- Find out how Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia are doing in their efforts to reach the MDGs
LETTERS: Capitalism as genocide, indigenous as relevant, poverty and injustice
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Hurricane Katrina could teach the US that it is a co-tenant in the world and not a landlord, writes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
- The US response to Katrina, links for further information and fundraising sources
BLOGGING AFRICA: Bloggers get poetic
GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION AGAINST POVERTY: 300 000 say NO! to poverty in Accra, find out about an event near you for White Band Day 2, Use your cellphone to demand an end to poverty
CONFLICT&EMERGENCIES: Hunger threatens southern Africa
HUMAN RIGHTS: Rich countries hold world hostage on human rights
REFUGEES: Improving decision-making in asylum determination
WOMEN&GENDER: Progress of the world's women 2005: women, work & poverty
DEVELOPMENT: UN MDG report urges global leaders to avoid 'one more empty promise'
HEALTH&HIV/AIDS: In search of an HIV/AIDS vaccine
ENVIRONMENT: Export subsidies for dams: a Trojan horse for environmental destruction
ADVOCACY&CAMPAIGNS: Sign a letter to President of Botswana Festus Mogae urging him to reverse his expulsion of academic Prof. Kenneth Good
PLUS
Internet, Courses, Fundraising, Jobs and Books.
Features
Aid dependence and the MDGs
2005-09-08
Demba Moussa Dembele
Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requires billions of dollars. The fix-all solution often mentioned is simply to increase aid flows. Demba Moussa Dembele critiques the foreign aid industry, explaining why aid is more of an enemy than a friend, how aid dependency has been augmented by IMF and World Bank conditions and what the hidden political and economic costs are for African countries.
The present focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has reignited the debate on the need for more aid to developing countries to help them meet the MDGs by 2015. However, this has inevitably rekindled the parallel debate as to whether more aid is really the answer. Will extra money simply shore up inefficient governments and feed government corruption? One response to this is to say we must bypass government and make money available directly to NGOs and other organizations. At the same time, others claim that what is needed is not more aid, but a fundamental transformation of international power relationships, especially reform of international trade and finance rules to allow African and other developing countries to sell their goods and services at a fair price.
A number of ideas for raising more money to meet the MDGs have been floated recently. While the UN Millennium Project’s report, Investing in Development,[1] calls for an overall huge increase in aid, the Commission for Africa report calls for a doubling of aid to Africa.[2] The French government’s Landau Report suggests a number of innovative sources of financing,[3] while Gordon Brown’s International Finance Facility proposal envisages selling bonds issued by industrialized countries with a view to raising money in financial markets to finance development.
A central misconception about aid
But before going into the debate on whether aid does encourage dependency and inefficiency, we need to address a particular misconception: that aid to developing countries, known as official development assistance (ODA), is an act of simple generosity towards poor countries in dire need of capital to invest in education, health, infrastructure, and so forth, and that it comes with no strings attached. Development assistance is neither value-free nor benevolent. It has served and continues to serve the economic, political and strategic interests of ‘donor’ countries. This was particularly so during the Cold War period. It is even more evident today, especially from the USA.
The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), for instance, the Bush Administration’s main tool for foreign ‘aid’, is laden with ideological, political and economic conditions. Eligible countries should support, or not oppose, US foreign policy; they should adopt ‘free market’ reforms, good governance practices, and so forth. It could also be added that so far, not a single dollar from the MCA has been delivered to African countries.
Furthermore, with the onset of the debt crisis in the late 1970s, Western governments and multilateral institutions under their control started imposing crippling conditions on aid to impoverished countries.
An instrument, not a gift
So aid is an instrument, not a gift. For many Western countries and institutions, it plays a key role in their overall strategy to maintain and even expand their influence in Africa. This is particularly true for former colonial powers such as France and Britain, which have used aid to maintain their influence in former colonies, in economic, financial, military and strategic areas. This type of aid does create dependency and it is intended to, since its primary objective is to shore up regimes that are ‘friendly’ to Western countries, regardless of the nature of those regimes. This explains, among other things, why a dictatorial and inept regime like Mobutu’s in the former Zaire was kept afloat despite the looting of his country’s resources and the rampant corruption that characterized his regime. Billions of dollars looted by Mobutu are still stashed in Western banks while the Congolese people continue to live in abject poverty.
Giving with one hand
Another problem with aid is that it mostly benefits donor countries. Despite the formal end to the practice of ‘tied aid’, the money disbursed as aid goes mainly to foreign-controlled enterprises and aid flows are used to buy goods and services from donor countries. The prices of those goods are often higher than the market price of similar goods. Export credit agencies and banks in Western countries have played a key role in that area. A recent report by ActionAid pointed out that for every dollar disbursed by France and the US in the form of aid, 89 per cent and 86 per cent return home, respectively.[4]
More strings attached
Moreover, since the start of the debt crisis, aid dependency has been aggravated by conditions imposed by the IMF and World Bank. Since the 1980s, aid from Western countries has been conditional on recipient countries implementing policies dictated by these two institutions. Even aid from former colonial powers to their former colonies is now conditional on signing an agreement with the IMF. But it has become clear that these policies have done more harm than good. A recent report by Christian Aid indicates that over the last 20 years, the imposition of trade liberalization has cost African countries a staggering $272 billion, a sum that could have paid back the continent’s debt.[5] The report adds that the loss was roughly equivalent to the amount of foreign aid received by African countries during the same period.
The Christian Aid report corroborates findings by UNCTAD in 2001[6] which show that policy conditionalities imposed on African countries, especially trade liberalization and deregulation, have also cost the continent in deteriorating terms of trade and increased capital flight, which is higher than in any other region in the world. UNCTAD observed that, had Africa’s terms of trade remained at their 1980 level, the continent’s share in world trade would have been twice its current share; per capita income could have been 50 per cent higher; and annual growth would have increased by an additional 1.4 per cent. Worse still, this deterioration, combined with increased capital flight and debt repayments, led to a net transfer of real resources from Africa to the rich countries! Clearly, with stable terms of trade, African countries would have been much better off and would depend less on foreign aid.
Unfair trade and aid dependency
To give an illustration: in 2002, subsidies for cotton provided by the US caused a 25 per cent decrease in cotton prices, which translated into a loss of $300 million by African exporters, such as Mali, Benin and Burkina Faso, a higher sum than the entire ‘debt relief’ ($230 million) promised by the IMF and the World Bank to all African countries eligible for the HIPC Initiative.[7] Subsidies by OECD countries – which, according to UNDP, cost more than six times what they spend on aid to poor countries – have increased African countries’ food deficit and dependency.[8] By flooding African markets with cheap, subsidized food, industrialized countries destroy domestic food production and increase African countries’ dependency on food imports, which are paid for through new loans or ‘aid’ from the same industrialized countries.
The debt crisis and aid dependency
These things – the cost of complying with conditions imposed by donors and lenders and subsidies on domestic produce by OECD countries – help explain, among other things, the worsening of the debt crisis, which in turn has meant greater dependency on foreign aid. In the 1980s and 1990s, the average debt service was roughly equal or even higher than foreign aid to African countries. Part of that aid was even used to pay back old debts, including multilateral debts. All this reinforced dependency on external sources, especially the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank. And, as a report by UNCTAD in 2004 indicates, Sub-Saharan Africa’s debt soared in the 1980s and 1990s, the peak years of structural adjustment.[9] According to the report, though African countries had reimbursed $550 billion to creditors against $540 billion in loans between 1970 and 2002, Africa is still saddled with a debt estimated at $300 billion. This is a vicious circle which, up to now, has shown no sign of being broken.
Internal factors
What about the question as to whether aid simply encourages corruption and inefficiency? According to a recent article in the Ugandan daily, The Monitor, the country depends on international donors for 50 per cent of its budget. But the Uganda Revenue Authority collects only about 57 per cent of taxes due because of institutional weaknesses in tax administration and because ‘the rich and politically powerful don’t pay taxes’. Meanwhile, Uganda spends $200 million on the military, where $70 million is enough for its security needs, and a Ministry of Finance study shows that public administration expenditure could be cut by 50 per cent. Uganda, therefore, does not need aid, says the article; what it needs is to improve its tax administration, clamp down on tax evaders, and abandon its corrupt and profligate military and public administration expenditure.
It is true that corruption is still rampant in many African countries and African civil society organizations have raised this problem time and again. In several countries anti-corruption NGOs are working tirelessly to raise public awareness and expose corrupt officials and practices. This is part of our struggle for more democratic, accountable and transparent governments. There is no doubt that the elimination of corruption would contribute to reducing dependency on foreign aid through improvement in public savings and more effective tax collection systems that would help raise significant amounts of money for the state.
But, once again, the problem of corruption has two sides: the corruptor and the corrupt. However, Western governments and multilateral agencies tend to focus exclusively on African governments and overlook the role of foreign companies and banks in maintaining corruption.
But here too Western countries have had a crucial influence. First, the imposition of structural adjustment programmes by the IMF and World Bank has considerably weakened African states and impaired their ability to fight corruption more effectively. In the 1990s, for instance, many countries lost some of their best civil servants as a result of ‘voluntary leaves’ recommended by these two institutions, more concerned by the wage bill than the quality of the civil service. In addition, they propose fighting corruption by a further financial squeeze of the state through the establishment of a myriad of ‘independent’ agencies that take away resources that should normally go to the state. But this is a mistake, since corruption may simply move from central government to local governments and so-called ‘independent’ agencies. The best way to fight corruption is through democratic scrutiny and accountability of elected officials.
African economies have inherited structural weaknesses from colonization, which have made them more vulnerable to external shocks, such as commodity price fluctuations and higher interest rates. In addition, these economies depend to a large extent on trade and financial flows with former colonial powers. This also tends to foster aid dependency: when exports fall, African countries rely on hard currencies for imports of equipment, foodstuffs and essential goods.
The costs of aid dependency
The dependency on foreign aid has political as well as economic costs. It is obvious that a country that depends on foreign assistance for up to 40 per cent of its budget cannot control its own policies. Instead, as the IMF and World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes show, donors dictate economic and financial policies, based on their own world view and interests. The structural adjustment programmes, imposed by the IMF and World Bank, are a reflection of that reality. As already indicated, this has worsened the economic crisis and deepened external dependency, while the conditions attached to such multilateral aid are the principal cause of the abject poverty affecting more than half of the African population.
In short, much of the so-called aid given by Western countries and the loans made by multilateral institutions are not based on developing countries’ real needs, nor on any performance criteria, but primarily on the interests of ‘donors’. It’s time, now, to consider some possible alternatives.
What is the alternative?
Obviously, there is no easy solution to the problem of aid dependency. There are no quick fixes nor a general policy applicable to all countries. However, we think that the following proposals should be explored by African and Western countries as a basis for a lasting solution to the problem.
- Cancel unconditionally the debt of all African countries. This is a precondition for any possibility of recovery. Once the burden of debt is lifted, aid will no longer be simply a means of perpetuating an instrument of domination.
- Repatriate stolen wealth. Even the Commission for Africa Report acknowledges that tens of billions of dollars in stolen wealth are kept in Western countries. Some estimates put that stolen wealth at 70 per cent of private wealth, excluding land. The repatriation of that would significantly limit African countries’ need for foreign aid.
- End IMF and World Bank policies. Trade liberalization, deregulation, fiscal austerity and privatization have been some of the leading factors behind the worsening of African countries’ financial crisis and their growing dependence on foreign aid. They have also increased capital flight, which reached unprecedented proportions during the 1980s and 1990s.
- Abolish unfair trade policies and promote fair trade. Africa needs fair trade (rather than ‘free’ trade, which has exacerbated African countries’ need for hard currencies and thus their dependence on foreign aid).
In a fair trade framework, one acknowledges the asymmetry between African and industrialized countries’ economies. Fair trade would therefore keep in place special preferences for African exports, especially agricultural exports. Subsidies in Western countries which make African imports prohibitively expensive would be abolished. It would stop the dumping of subsidized products in African markets to the detriment of local production. Finally, it would support proposals for international agreements, as often suggested by UNCTAD, aimed at stabilizing commodity prices so as to limit, if not eliminate, the decline in African terms of trade.
This set of policies is the opposite of ‘free’ trade, which pretends to establish a ‘level playing field’ between African and industrialized countries!
- Change internal policies. The above policies must be complemented by fundamental internal changes. They include eliminating wasteful spending and fighting corruption more effectively. They also include more transparent decision-making and more accountable governments and institutions. At the continental level, the African Union must pursue its efforts to hold member states to some common standards so that economic and financial policies can be improved for the benefit of their citizens.
Summing up
Does aid create dependency? The short answer is that, on the terms on which it has generally been given, it does, but it need not. Aid dependence is the result of both internal factors and deliberate external policies. Aid has been made to serve both the foreign policies of Western states and their wider economic interests. The terms of that aid, combined with Western protectionism, have been designed to keep Africa as a source of commodities and a consumer of manufactured goods from industrialized countries. This creates further aid dependence as the need for hard currencies is made more acute by the deterioration in the continent’s terms of trade.
On the other hand, aid which is consistent with African countries’ needs and priorities can certainly be a positive factor. The solution to aid dependence does not lie in a further privatization of that aid through corporations, like the MCA, or through Western NGOs. It lies rather in fundamental policy changes, both at the international and internal levels, which will rebalance many of the transactions, both economic and political, between Africa and the richer countries. More fundamentally still, Africa needs to put its own house in order and count first and foremost on its own resources. No amount of foreign aid alone will ever develop the continent.[10]
* Demba Moussa Dembele is Director, African Forum on Alternatives, Dakar (Senegal). He can be contacted at dembuss@hotmail.com or forumafricain@yahoo.fr
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
* This article first appeared in the September issue of the Alliance Magazine and is gratefully reproduced here with permission. Alliance is the leading magazine on philanthropy and social investment across the world. Published quarterly by Allavida, it tracks the latest trends and developments providing expert analysis from northern and southern perspectives. Visit http://www.allavida.org/alliance/alliancehome.html
References:
1 See www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports
2 Commission for Africa (2005) Our Common Interest. Report of the Commission for Africa London. The doubling of aid to Africa by 2010 was in fact agreed at the recent G8 Summit.
3 The Landau Report contains five tax proposals, including a tax on air and maritime travel, a tax on multinational corporations’ profits, a tax on arms sales, and a tax on financial transactions, known as the Tobin Tax.
4 ActionAid (2005) Real Aid: An agenda for making aid work. See www.actionaidusa.org/Action Aid Real Aid.pdf
5 Christian Aid (2005) The economics of failure: the real costs of ‘free’ trade. See www.christianaid.org
6 UNCTAD (2001) Economic Development in Africa. Performance, prospects and policy issues. New York & Geneva: United Nations.
7 UNCTAD (2003) Trade and Development Report 2003 New York & Geneva: United Nations.
8 UNDP (2003) Making Global Trade Work for the Poor London: Earthscan.
9 UNCTAD (2004) Economic Development in Africa. Debt Sustainability: Oasis or mirage? New York & Geneva: United Nations.
10 For further information on African positions that are critical of the whole set of relationships between Africa and Western countries, see Firoze Manji and Patrick Burnett (eds) (2005) African Voices on Development and Social Justice. Editorials from Pambazuka News 2004 Dar es Salaam: Mkuki Na Nyota Publishers. See also AFRODAD Reality Check on Development Aid Annual Reports. See www.afrodad.org.zw
Comment & analysis
A rights-based approach to the MDGs
2005-09-08
Yifat Susskind
Yifat Susskind explains why, if the MDGs are to be a tool for advancing women’s human rights, they will have to adopt a rights-based approach that goes beyond improving statistical indicators to addressing the root causes of human rights violations.
In 2000, world leaders representing all 191 countries that belong to the United Nations pledged to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Since then, the goals have become the main framework for development policy worldwide. They have even been adopted by many of the international agencies and banks that control the budgets of most poor countries, giving the MDGs real currency in the political economy of UN declarations. The MDGs create opportunities for advancing women's human rights, but only if we are able to participate effectively in the process of realizing the goals.
Governments' commitments to the MDGs appear to be an extraordinary step forward, but when we scratch the surface of the goals, we find that their progress is measured by a set of technocratic "targets" and "indicators" that are limited in scope, contradictory in approach, and more concerned with statistical change than with creating the structural change that is crucial to improving the lives of women and their families worldwide.
Take Goal 3, for example (promoting gender equality and empowering women): its "target" is to eliminate gender disparity in education. Yet it will take much more than girls' education to combat the deeply entrenched violence, discrimination, stereotypes, laws, and customs that generate grave violations of women's human rights in every country of the world. The indicators intended to measure progress towards this goal are equally problematic.They include:
They include:
1. the ratio of girls to boys at all levels of schooling (with no regard for the quality or content of education and without addressing the social forces that keep girls out of school);
2. the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament (without regard for the more crucial question of whether these women respect human rights);
3. the share of women in non-agricultural sectors of the workforce (without recognition of the need for decent wages, working conditions, and public services such as day care, health care, clean water, and transportation that ease the time burden of women who are expected to work outside the home and fulfill their responsibilities within the family).
As we can see, the MDGs call for change, but not for creating the conditions to make real change possible. To address the root causes of the problems that the goals are supposed to rectify, we need to grapple with precisely those phenomena that the MDGs take for granted. These include policies that have increased poverty and inequality around the world (such as free-trade agreements, wage freezes, and hostility to worker organizing) and subordinated human rights to "national security" as defined by the Bush Administration. In fact, at a moment when the rights of both women and men have been badly eroded by such policies, we can see clearly the limitations of pursuing gender "equality." To whom should women be equal? Should women in Colombia demand "equality" with male co-workers who are being killed for union organizing? Should Rwandan women who are HIV-positive seek "equality" with Rwandan men who are denied high-priced AIDS medications? The real goal is not equality, but justice; and one of the best ways we have of ensuring justice is the fulfillment of human rights.
But the MDGs fail to even mention sexual and reproductive rights, women's labor and property rights, or one of the most fundamental obstacles to ensuring these rights, namely, violence against women. The glaring absence of these issues from the MDGs reflects the powerful role played by right-wing and fundamentalist governments such as the United States in their negotiation.
Reproductive rights, in particular, have been under fire by the US since 2000, when Bush took office and began defunding international family planning programs and revamping US reproductive health policy to placate his religious fundamentalist base. Women's human rights advocates have pointed out that sexual and reproductive rights are central to achieving at least four of the MDGs: women's equality and empowerment (Goal 3); reducing child mortality (Goal 4); improving maternal health (Goal 5); and combating HIV/AIDS (Goal 6). Moreover, since human rights are indivisible, empowering women is crucial to realizing all of the goals. Conversely, none of the goals can be realized without ensuring that goal.
One way to gain insight into any policy is to look at its authors. The MDGs are sponsored jointly by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the United Nations operates within a human rights framework, the missions of the World Bank and IMF are to advance a set of economic policies that are often at odds with human rights. In fact, the MDGs infuse neoliberal priorities into development policy using the language of human rights. They seek to "eradicate extreme poverty and hunger" (Goal 1), but rely on the discredited notion that economic growth at the national level (GNP) can eliminate poverty; and they assume that privatization of services is a strategy for rather than an obstacle to-economic development. At the heart of the MDGs beats a fundamental contradiction: poor countries are expected to meet the MDGs by implementing the very neoliberal economic policies that have, in large measure, caused the crises that the goals are intended to address. These policies include cutting government spending, privatizing basic services, liberalizing trade, and producing goods primarily for export.
As we have seen, the methodology and assumptions of neoliberal economics inform the MDGs, which rely heavily on the indicator of "absolute poverty" (which measures the proportion of the population surviving on less than a certain amount of income each day). The MDGs use the World Bank standard of an income of US $1 per day to indicate extreme poverty.
This income-based measurement of poverty obscures the experience of millions of people, for whom poverty is not primarily a function of income, but of their alienation from sustainable patterns of consumption and production. Indigenous women, for example, assert that their poverty and wealth are determined primarily by access to, and control of, their natural resources and traditional knowledge, which are the sources of indigenous culture and livelihoods. In indigenous communities, human rights (namely, governments' recognition of collective indigenous rights over land, natural resources, and traditional knowledge) are key to fighting poverty.
But the MDGs do not recognize that poverty is a function of human rights violations (such as the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to freedom from discrimination, and the right to development). Indeed, the MDGs posit housing, health care, and access to food and water not as non-negotiable and universal rights, but as "needs" to be met. By extension, the poor are not seen as autonomous subjects demanding that governments meet their legal obligations, but as a passive "target group" of policymaking. Sustainable development - which depends on broad civic participation, social justice, and a fundamental shift in the balance of power - is sidelined by this failure of the MDGs to operate within a human rights framework.
In fact, human rights standards are a useful yardstick for evaluating the MDGs. They reveal that the MDGs are not a spontaneous expression of governmental goodwill. Rather, the MDGs constitute pre-existing international obligations, some dating back more than 50 years.
Ultimately, for the goals to be a tool for advancing women's human rights, they must be treated not as a technical process, but as a political process. MADRE is working with our sister organizations and other women's organizations internationally to push for a rights-based approach to the MDGs that goes beyond improving statistical indicators to addressing root causes of human rights violations.
* Yifat Susskind is associate director of Madre. This article first appeared on Madre’s website at www.madre.org/articles/int/mdgcritique.html
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Grassroots Communities and the MDG Framework
2005-09-08
Esther Mwaura-Muiru
Esther Mwaura-Muiru introduces two women’s self help groups in Kenya and asks why the contribution of thousands of grassroots organisations are not recognized in helping to achieve the Millennium Devolvement Goals.
It is absolutely clear that the trend the debate on the Millennium Devolvement Goals (MDGs) is taking will have a significant influence on policies and resource allocation in every corner of the world for the next several years. Many national governments are already using the MDGs as the basis for developing policies while development agencies are focusing their resources on institutions and efforts that demonstrate contributions to the targets of the MDGs. While this trend is not necessary bad, there are a number of questions that still remain unclear to many grassroots communities.
These questions include:
Is the MDG framework an exhaustive tool to address inequality between the rich and poor as well as gender disparities? Will the framework assist the world in eradicating extreme poverty? (The majority of poor are women living in urban slums and interior rural areas where accessibility is limited.) One other pertinent question that ultimately must be addressed is whose development and with whom are we talking about? Are the MDGs just one more buzz-word among development agencies that will soon fizzle out ?
Five years since the debate on MDGs kicked off, the language is still very much within development institutions and government offices at the national level. Therefore, it is too much to expect collective efforts that also bring particularly grassroots communities on board in the debate unless deliberate effort is made to unpack and share this language. The irony is that while many agencies and governments are gearing themselves to the development of programmes and tools that will help them account for their contribution to achieving the MDGs, many of the grassroots communities are busy contributing to the set targets oblivious of the ongoing debates.
Consider Tuelewane and Mathare, self-help groups both located in the sprawling Nairobi Mathare slums. These two women self-help groups reclaimed abandoned public toilets over seven years ago. The group has an adjacent water point from which they sell water to the public. Today this project provides several households with access to proper sanitation, clean drinking water and substantial incomes to tens of households, all from resources generated by charging for these facilities.
These women are also members of Mathare Mothers Development Centre that undertakes various capacity building initiatives that benefit communities in Mathare slums, provide entrepreneurship skills to orphaned girls of 13-19 years old, give home care to approximately 400 sick, and provide day care shelter to infants. In addition, these women have formed coalitions and contribute daily savings to buy land with the hope that they will one day provide decent housing to their families. The Mathare Mothers Development Centre spearheaded implementation of the local-to-local dialogue that brings together government officials with local communities to discuss challenges of existing governance structures.
Essentially, these women’s groups are addressing their development holistically. It is needless to say that there are thousands of such many “invisible” innovations all over the world. The experience of GROOTS Kenya in partnering with hundreds of self help groups of women in Mathare makes us convinced that its time that the MDG debate considers grassroots communities.
The return for such investment includes the fact that governments and development agencies will have a credible base to allocate resources to upscale appropriate community driven solutions that are already ongoing. National reports on the MDGs may not be taking into account some of these remote contributions that continue to improve the lives of many people in the slums and are owned by the poor people themselves.
* Esther Mwaura-Muiru works for GROOTS Kenya (grootsk@grootkenya.org)
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
MDGs: a case for pragmatism?
2005-09-08
For Ezra Mbogori, writing off all southern debt, changing the trade regime and raising the level of aid constitute three of the four major steps necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and these are the responsibility of the North, not the South. The fourth step is addressing issues of governance. But behind the MDGs are larger moral and intellectual implications for the North as well as the South, he believes, which relate to finding out how lifestyles can be informed by the basic principles of sustainability and social justice.
It’s become almost a commonplace to find fault with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): they are minimal in their ambitions; they are based disproportionately on the views of the North rather than the needs of the South; they reduce to statistical targets matters of human aspiration and human need; they involve simply throwing money at questions whose solution is not primarily a matter of money – the list could go on. In spite of this, argues Ezra Mbogori of MWENGO,[1] they’re all we’ve got and they’re worth striving for.
There is no question, he feels, that the MDGs are not all that they might be. They do not so much represent progress in the development argument as a kind of holding of the line: “The Millennium Development Goals are really for all intents and purposes minimum development goals. They fall far short of development commitments that were made in the past. But in our current situation, I think, the MDGs do help those who want to maintain some sort of focus on development to at least arrest the flight or regression
and they enable us to start building up arguments again for being a little more ambitious in pursuit of development.”
A spirit of pragmatism
So while the MDGs are unambitious, “they do offer a starting point”. He believes that both developed and developing countries are approaching the MDGs in a pragmatic spirit. He sees the need for the South to make compelling arguments to reinflate the notion of development, which had to some extent gone flat in the North.
In Mbogori’s view, this relates in part to more ambitious goals having been missed in the past. He begins his resume of the recent history of development with the ending of apartheid: “With the dismantling of apartheid and the coming into the fold of the community of states of South Africa, one of the biggest blights to humanity was overcome. And the new enemy of humanity on the planet was poverty
One doesn’t have to think too far back to remember the demands for health and education for all by 2000. Then came the year 2000 and none of those goals had been met. So I think that as the Millennium Declaration was being signed, there were pragmatists who thought, ‘Let’s not be too ambitious, let’s face it we’ve missed targets we’ve set in the past. So let’s set some modest targets that we can meet that will make a difference.’”
However, with terrorism becoming the top priority for northern countries after September 11, he believes poverty and development initiatives were sidelined. “The sudden shift of focus to terrorism tended to shift the attention almost entirely from the development goals that had been set, however modest they were. That’s why the MDGs now appear like such a radical set of targets.”
Moreover, while the MDGs are undoubtedly “less ambitious than developing countries would go for”, they do provide a framework that touches on some of the aspirations of southern countries. “The fact that they at least start to address some of the right questions is important for many of us. It’s almost a question of saying they’re better than nothing.”
Who framed the MDGs?
Another point of criticism of the MDGs is that they are a largely northern initiative that the South had no option but to go along with. Without being quite so categorical, Mbogori agrees that, while the Millennium Declaration was signed by leaders from both the South and the North, “I think quite frankly that the leadership came to a large extent from the North.” This touches on the question of the dynamics of power, about which he has much to say.
The heart of the matter
The dynamics are clearly reflected in the way the Goals are formulated, he argues. “If you analyse the MDGs, you see that Goals 1-7 are all focused on what southern countries and southern governments need to do.”
However, he suggests, the real key to success is Goal 8: “Goal 8 is for me the real clincher. It’s to do with the resources that are required and the structural shifts that need to happen, for instance in the areas of trade and writing off debt. I continue to get really frustrated,” he adds, “at the thought that if we were to write off all debt, and change the trade regime, and double the amount of aid – or take it to the level of 0.7 per cent of GNP that was agreed 35 years ago – the chances of meeting these goals would be increased many fold.”
For Ezra Mbogori, writing off all southern debt, changing the trade regime and raising the level of aid constitute three of the four major steps necessary to achieve the Goals, and these are the responsibility of the North, not the South.
What about corrupt and inefficient governments in the South, many northern commentators would ask at this point. However much aid you throw at the problem, nothing will be done until governance and efficiency are improved. The fourth step, he agrees, is addressing issues of governance, “because that would have a direct impact on the question of corruption and address accountability in relation to application of resources.”
He believes, though, that the common argument that unless governance and efficiency improve, a good deal of aid will be wasted, is largely an “escapist” one. In other words, it is advanced by people who “want to find an excuse for not meeting their commitments anyway”.
Modest goals, massive challenge
Of course, the ambitiousness of any aim is proportionate to the means available to its attainment. In the case of the MDGs, their achievement is dependent on the existence of sufficient will and means among the international community. Seen in this light, 2015 might actually be overambitious as a date for achieving them. Mbogori cites economist Jeffrey Sachs, who claims that at the pace some countries are moving, the MDGs “won’t be met by 2100 let alone 2015”, especially in Africa. At the present rate, some goals may be achieved only in 2150. The MDGs may seem minimal and inadequate, but meeting them by 2015, Mbogori reminds us, would be a major achievement.
Nor does the apparent modesty of the Goals mean that they are not worth pursuing in themselves. Take the example of moving from living on $1 a day to $2 a day – considered in the light of what would be an acceptable standard of living in the North, this aim is so modest as to be offensive. But, he feels, “these sorts of measures give you something to work with”.
He tells a story that he came across during a piece of research for the Commonwealth Foundation. A Malawian woman, asked if she thought she lived in a good society, replied: “It is better to be a dog in the North, in a place like America, than to be a person here.” “It’s in that light,” says Mbogori, “that I look at switching from living on $1 a day to $2 a day to $3 a day. There’s a starkness about it.”
Where do grantmakers come in?
What questions does this pose for grantmakers? Mbogori sees a challenge particularly for those grantmakers who work primarily in the area of social justice. The challenge for them will be to support efforts to achieve the MDGs while continuing to maintain “their interest and creativity around achieving structural changes”.
But there is a bigger challenge still implicit in this, because it is at this point, for Ezra Mbogori, that “one starts to make connections between, for instance, the wasteful lifestyles of the North and the ability of the planet to sustain these lifestyles. If people were to say that development equates to similar kinds of lifestyle for everyone, what would that mean for this world? It requires a certain amount of creativity to begin to act in ways that educate everybody on the planet to see that there is a need for major structural changes. I think that’s a challenge for grantmakers.”
So behind the MDGs are larger moral and intellectual implications for the North as well as the South. “I think that there definitely needs to be a change in lifestyles – I’m not saying a reduction in standards, I’m saying a change in lifestyles. We have to recognize that, for instance, fossil fuel supplies are not infinite. They will run out at some point. So how do we ensure that our lifestyles are informed by basic principles of sustainability and social justice?”
A beginning, not an end
As already stressed, it’s important to keep in mind that while the MDGs can play an important part in development, they are still a minimum. There will be no occasion for complacency on the part of the international community if and when they are met. “I think grantmakers have a role here too. It’s like watching a fairly emotional movie, when the end is one that you feel good about. Now the challenge I see for grantmakers is to bring everybody’s attention to the fact that, even if the MDGs are achieved, it’s not going to be happy ever after. There are still major challenges around sustainability. We live in one world, one planet, and we have to make certain adjustments in order for it to really be a happy ever after situation.”
The role of southern NGOs
According to Mbogori, many southern organizations will already have been through a good deal of soul-searching before deciding to support the MDGs, and they will often have done so from a pragmatic conviction that, while deficient in many respects, the MDGs are “what there is”.
But he raises a final point in this connection. In spite of their willingness to throw their weight behind the MDGs, the contribution southern NGOs can make towards the formulation and achievement of development objectives is limited because they are on the wrong end of the power equation. “I always go back to the question of mutual respect and trying to create a platform on which we can debate these things as equals, which is almost impossible because of the power games that we’re playing all the time.”
In any case, he stresses, it is almost impossible for NGOs to provide any real support for the MDGs in a situation where they are struggling to survive. “I just came back from a meeting in South Africa where even as we tried to gear up the MDGs campaign, a lot of NGOs are on their deathbeds simply because they don’t have the resources to meet their basic operational needs on a day-to-day basis. One NGO leader I spoke to hadn’t been paid for three months.”
This is partly a matter of donors’ well-known reluctance to fund core costs. “Donors continue to exercise this strange control, where sometimes they agree to fund a programme but won’t fund any core costs. We are just going to have to keep pushing donors,” he says, “and telling them, look, for goodness sake, begin to see our point of view, and start to support some of these basic things. Even if it means getting out of your current mode and taking risks and actually helping to build an infrastructure of civil society organizations.”
This is something that’s “at the top of my mind right now”, says Mbogori. “I’ve been looking at how much time I spend simply worrying about whether I can meet my basic operating requirements and how much more I could do if I didn’t need to worry about that. I wonder if our northern partners ever really think about this. And I constantly wonder, how can we get them to a table where we can talk about it?”
A question of balance
The discussion has taken us a long way beyond the MDGs but for Ezra Mbogori the progression is a logical one. His final message seems to be that there is a balance to be struck in any view of the MDGs. While they represent a very modest advance in some respects, in other ways they are significant. Materially, limited though they are, achieving them will constitute a great advance for people in developing countries. Morally, they imply a rethinking of values and lifestyles for the world in general.
In any case, we should guard against the danger of thinking that their achievement – whether it happens sooner or later, and most current forecasts seem to suggest that it will be later – is anything more than a beginning. Development is a continuing process, not an event or series of events. And it’s not just a matter of poor people in poor countries. It concerns us all.
1 MWENGO is one of the focal points for the MDGs campaign in Southern Africa, supporting the building of national coalitions in several countries in the region.
* Ezra Mbogori is Executive Director of Mwelekeo wa NGO (MWENGO) in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted at ezra@mwengo.org.zw
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
* This article first appeared in the September issue of the Alliance Magazine and is gratefully reproduced here with permission. Alliance is the leading magazine on philanthropy and social investment across the world. Published quarterly by Allavida, it tracks the latest trends and developments providing expert analysis from northern and southern perspectives. Visit http://www.allavida.org/alliance/alliancehome.html
Meeting the MDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa
2005-09-08
Charles Mutasa
Africa's development indicators are a worrying sign that progress towards the MDGs is lagging. Unconditional cancellation of all debt, the commitment of greater resources to the continent by rich countries, a reformed international trading system and the voices of African people at the centre of the process will all be essential to reinvigorating progress towards the MDGs, says Charles Mutasa.
It is no secret that many developing countries, donors and non-governmental organizations have made reaching the MDGs their top priority, but as the world reaches the 2005 MDGs review there are worrying signs of stagnation and reversal. Although rapid advances by some countries do show that the MDGs are achievable, Sub-Saharan Africa is yet to mobilise resources, political and financial support to meet specific global challenges, especially the fight against HIV/AIDS.
A 2003 UNDP review of sub-Saharan Africa's social development indicators provides a bleak picture of the region's progress towards the MDGs. The number of Africa's population living on less that $1 a day is increasing. It is also true that while most of the world made significant progress in the fight against hunger during the 1990s, the prevalence of underweight children remained at nearly 50% in South-central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The debt crisis, unfair international trading practices, tied aid interwoven with endless conditionalities, HIV/AIDS, conflicts, problems associated with economic indiscipline, lack of sustainable democracies and poor governance are among the host of stumbling problems to Africa's ability to attain the MDGs. Nowhere are the signs more ominous than in Sub-Saharan Africa, the world's poorest and least developed region. Africa entered the new millennium with the highest poverty and child mortality rates, and the lowest school enrolment figures in the world.
Looking at Uganda as a case in point, the debt stock soared from US$800million to US$4.3billion in 2003, continuing to be a heavy burden for a population of approximately 26 million. 75% of Uganda's debt is owed to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Most African countries, more so Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) graduates, continue to spend more on debt servicing than on health and education.
A number of African countries still need to customize the MDG targets to reflect national circumstances and priorities, which will increase the sense of national ownership and adapt development objectives to the socioeconomic and political realities of each country. For example, countries facing an acute HIV pandemic cannot be expected to achieve the same levels of progress as those not confronting one. In Southern Africa, for instance, there is a severe health crisis, with nine of its member states featuring in the ten African countries with the highest HIV/Aids prevalence rates. Malaria and tuberculosis also continue to wreak havoc in the region, leading to reduced economic productivity, high infant mortality rates and plummeting life expectancy. The problem of insufficient funding and red tape in the release of much-needed donor funds continues to hamstring progress in fighting health and social problems.
One of the problems with the goals is the inconsistency in reporting whether countries are on track to meet the MDGs. UNDP and national MDG reports have shown considerable differences, raising concerns about the reliability and credibility of indicators being used. Global, regional and national frameworks, strategies and processes must be harmonized so that accurate predictions and evidence-based policy decisions can be made.
The outcomes of the G8 on debt, aid and trade have been minimal indeed, failing to meet the desired expectations of many economic justice activists and governments in the South. The UN Millennium Campaign points out that many developing countries are saddled with such high levels of debt that paying off just the annual interest costs more than what is spent on health care and education combined.
While the Scotland G-8 debt deal is a step forward and sets an important precedent in terms of granting a 100% cancellation of debt to all severely indebted poor countries, which is what civic activists have long advocated for over years, the deal only represents one eighth of what Africa needs in terms of debt cancellation, as this means canceling only US $40 billion out of Africa's burgeoning debt stock of over US$330 billion. The $40 billion to be cancelled represents less than 10% of debt cancellation required for poor nations to meet the MDGs in 2015. The plan does not include middle-income countries that are heavily indebted and impoverished. Globally, the 18 countries that qualify immediately represent less than a third of countries (at least 62) that need full cancellation to meet the internationally agreed MDGs.
The G-8 debt agreement does not address the real global power imbalances. The question of creditor-debtor co-responsibility of the South's debt remains unresolved, as issues of odious and illegitimate debts continue to be swept under the carpet. It is not a lasting solution in which all stakeholders - debtors and creditors - have a say. It is just a piecemeal measure that seems to deal with the symptoms of the problems and not the causes.
It is important to note that the MDGs reinforce each other; progress on one front has positive spill-over effects on other variables. For instance, a breakthrough on Goal 8's debt question will definitely lower income poverty and increase household income in Africa which will then facilitate higher school enrolment levels, while better access to clean water reduces the toll of disease, and affects school drop-out rates.
The desire to attain the MDGs among development partners in a given country has had its positive impacts in Africa. In Uganda, for example, bilateral donors are now channeling about half of the country's aid into budgetary support, instead of funding individual projects. This reform gives governments more flexibility in spending decisions, reduces time and paperwork, and helps to align donor programmes with national development priorities. Uganda has in recent years recorded high school enrolment rates, though the quality of education is something still debatable.
In Tanzania, with the MDGs came the concept of donor harmonization, alignment and result based development planning which seems to be yielding results by reducing transaction costs, donor missions per year, corruption and procurement hick-ups.
As global targets the MDGs are as much applicable to countries in conflict or emerging from conflict as they are to countries that are not in the throes of civil unrest. Responses to conflict in Ivory Coast and Sudan's Darfur region demonstrate that the international community has the ability to unite against conflict and its associated ills as long as the political will to fostering a world free of civil unrest is there.
If Africa and other developing regions are to make significant and sustainable progress, far greater resources will have to be generated from all sources - debt relief, overseas development assistance, foreign direct investment, trade, and domestic investment and savings. As the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, rightly noted, apart from developing countries setting national strategies for the attainment of MDGs, "we will also need more convincing action from the developed countries to support those strategies by phasing out harmful trade practices, by providing technical assistance, and by increasing both the volume and quality of aid to levels consistent with the goals."
There is need for total unconditional debt cancellation from both multilateral and bilateral donors in order to give Africa a new start and a chance to attain the MDGs. Debt service in Africa continues to tear down schools and clinics without which MDGs will not be attainable.
Creditors and donors need to commit themselves to a timeline on which to fulfil the long overdue 0.7% of their GNP promised at Monterey's Financing for Development Conference. One of the most important challenges regarding the achievement of the MDGs is that co-operation between rich and poor countries must not turn into a recital of broken promises. The need for increased co-operation among donor governments, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies and African states to increase drug accessibility and strengthen health infrastructure cannot be over-emphasized.
Aid needs to have no strings attached; untied aid will help build local capacities in African countries which are a prerequisite to attaining the MDGs. Many a times local human resource capacity remains undeveloped as donors insist on their countrymen coming to work in the name of technical assistance without necessarily building local capacities.
MDGs will only become reality when those living in poverty have their voices heard. A human rights based development approach in which local grassroots people in Africa are the claim holders, holding their governments and donors accountable for their actions and obligations will foster development. In a nutshell, it is crucial for development practitioners to realise and acknowledge that people are not developed but they develop themselves.
The international trade regime needs to be democratized if Africa is to attain the MDGs. The failure of the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun in September 2003 was a further setback to Africa's development prospects. This has been worsened by the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that the European Union is promoting. Trade that removes subsides to European farmers and opens markets for African products is a great stride towards the MDGs in Africa.
There is urgent need to end all World Bank and IMF policies that hinder people's access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education, and the right to organize. Pursuit of the MDGs could well be undermined in the future, as it has been in the past, if there is no change in structural adjustment policies. These policies include user fees, privatization and economic austerity programs forced upon recipient countries in the south, Africa being the chief victim.
Last but not least, political will, social action and the ability to galvanise resources for the MDGs is key. Partnership between the North and the South must be genuine, local participation and ownership of development at grassroots levels should not be cosmetic but real and meaningful. Attaining the MDGs require radical structural, institutional and policy changes at national, regional and global levels. Half baked solutions and measures will only leave Africa in deeper poverty.
* Charles Mutasa is a research and policy analyst and currently the acting coordinator of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Snapshots on the MDGs: Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia
2005-09-08
Egypt
Education – According to the UNDP, school enrolment rates in Egypt increased during the 1990s, and between 1995 and 2002 the enrolment rates in primary education for boys improved by 5% and 9% for girls. However, in rural areas, the illiteracy rate for females is almost twice that of males (15.5 and 8%, respectively) for children aged 12 to 15. For those aged between 15 and 25, literacy rates have improved for males, by about 12% and 25% for females. As is the case for children, adult literacy rates vary greatly by region, but on average, the estimated illiteracy rate for the entire population of Egypt (15 years and older) dropped only from 25.7% in 2000 to 24.3% in 2003. The UNDP report of 2004 identified barriers to education, which involve the conditions of school facilities, the methods by which students are taught and the implemented curriculum.
Gender - While girls and women are integrating themselves into Egypt’s educational system at a reasonable rate, their participation in the economy lags behind. The gender composition in the economy is more balanced in urban areas. According to the UNDP, the unemployment rates for women decreased from 23.8% in 1995 to 22.6% in 2001, when the rate for men was 5.6%. Politically, Egypt lags behind in terms of the number of women involved in government. There is only a 2.4% representation of women in the People Assembly and 8% in the Shura Council. The Egyptian government is, however, drafting a new election law that may include measures to ensure increasing numbers of women in parliamentary seats.
Health –The infant morality rate dropped from 44 out of 1000 live births to 38 and for children under 5. The eradication of Malaria and TB are showing good progress in Egypt, as Malaria has been under control for almost 10 years, while Tuberculosis only has an infection rate of about 32 cases per 100 000 people. The UNDP report states that HIV/AIDS rates are low in Egypt, at 0.01 percent, but there is a problem with Hepatitis C. Some villages have prevalence rates as high as 57%, and strong public awareness raising campaigns as well as infection control programs are needed to reverse this trend.
http://www.un.org.eg/Documents/MDGREnglish.pdf
Nigeria
Education – School enrolment rates for primary and junior secondary school in Nigeria fluctuated immensely between 1990 and 2000, according to the UNDP’s 2004 report. Enrolment increased between 1990 and 1994 from 68% to 86%, but declined to 70% in 1996. Literacy rates have also deteriorated for the population as a whole, falling from 58% in 1990 to 49% in 2001. Literacy rates among women and girls for this same time period fell from 44% to 41%. The UNDP report states that the challenges faced by the education system include resource and institutional constraints, poverty, culture and the quality of teaching.
Gender – Participation of women in secondary and tertiary education is limited, according to the UNDP, which has an overall effect on the involvement of women in stable wage employment and economic empowerment, although data shows that women are becoming increasingly represented in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector. Membership of women in politics is also limited, with only 1 woman out of 57 in the Senate and 3 of 445 in the Federal House of Representatives.
Health – Not a lot of progress has been made in reducing child mortality in Nigeria, according to the UNDP report. Under-five mortality rates have deteriorated since the 1990s and are now at rates of 243 and 153 out of 1000 births for urban and rural areas, respectively. It is very unlikely than Nigeria will be able to meet its goals for this target, due to obstacles such as poverty, low access to health care facilities, HIV/AIDS and poor maternal health. The HIV/AIDS rates for Nigeria are high, with estimates of between 3.2 to 3.8 million adults and children living with the disease at the end of 2003. In response, Nigeria’s HIV & AIDS Emergency Action Plan aims to increase awareness, promote behavioral change, foster community specific action plans, promote care and support, mitigate the effect of the disease, monitor and produce research.
http://www.undp.org.ng/Docs/NHDR/Executive_Summary.pdf
South Africa
Education – Enrolment rates in primary and secondary schools compare favorably with developed countries, at around 95%. However, there are low rates of high school completion for South Africans, and over half of high school graduates are white. The difference in attendance rates between girls and boys is nominal, according to the UNDP report of 2003, and in some cases is even higher for girls. The adult illiteracy rate for the whole of the country in 1991 was 14.6%, but has today fallen, with over 96% of the population literate.
Gender – While gender parity is at an acceptable level in the educational sphere, men dominate senior employment opportunities, and in turn, earn higher wages. Thus, women are relinquished to lower paying and less skilled positions. This can be seen in the decline of women in senior or managerial positions from 26.3% to 22.7% (1995 to 2001). The UNDP report states that politically, women hold almost one third or all seats in South Africa’s national parliament, comparing favorably to other developed countries.
Health – Under-five mortality has decreased in South Africa, from 93 to 70 per 1000 births, between 1990 and 1000, which is in line with the target of reducing child mortality by two thirds. This number was, however, higher in rural areas, with large disparities between the provinces. HIV/AIDS is an extremely pressing issue for South Africa, with one of the highest prevalence rates in the world. In 2002 an estimated 5.3 million people were infected. The UNDP report states that the areas that South Africa has targeted for improvement include prevention, treatment, care and support and research monitoring and surveillance.
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000875/docs/UNDP%20MDG%20Indicators%20-%202004.pdf
Zambia
Education – Zambia is experiencing reversals in educational attainment, with the primary net enrolment ration dropping by 4% between 1990 and 2003. However, the proportion of students reaching grade 7 increased from 64% to 73% between 2000 and 2003. Literacy rates for girls continue to be lower than those of males. A significant reason for these rates is the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has caused a decline in the number of teachers, besides other obvious consequences. Rural schools suffer more than urban areas, due to overcrowding and lack of resources. The 2003 UNDP report states that Zambia’s government has attempted to reverse these trends through the partnership of various organizations, both public and private sector.
Gender – The full participation of girls and women in secondary levels of education due to early marriage, pregnancy and domestic chores has resulted in fewer female university graduates, directly impacting the number of women in skilled, non-agricultural jobs. According to the UNDP, the number of women in Parliament has increased from 6% in 1991 to 12% in 2001, but remains below the target of 30%.
Health - In 1992 the infant mortality rate was 107 per 1000 births, but has dropped to 95 in 2002. Under-five mortality has dropped from 191 to 168 per 1000 births between 1992 and 2002, according to the UNDP. Malaria, inadequate health services and the high incidence rate of HIV/AIDS are some of the leading factors in infant and under-five mortality, but the Zambian government plans on instituting National Immunization Days, an Integrated Management of Childhood Infection Program, prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and nutrition and breastfeeding support programmes.
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000856/P968-MDG_Zambia_2003.pdf
Ethiopia
Education – Rates of enrolment in primary school jumped dramatically from 32% in 1990 to 57.4% in 2000, meaning that it will be possible for the Ethiopian government to meet the target goal, according to the 2005 UNDP report. The number of females enrolled in primary schools has also increased, from 29.4% to 52% between 1990 and 2000.
Health – Rates for under-five mortality have decreased, from 190 out of 1000 births in 1990 to 167 in 2000, and maternal mortality has decreased from 1400 in 100 000 births to somewhere between 500 and 700 in 2000. The HIV/AIDS rates, in 2000, sat at 7.3%, which is on target for the goals, according to the UNDP.
http://www.undp.org/mdg/goodpractices/Ethiopia-casestudy.pdf
* Compiled by Karoline Kemp, Fahamu
The good, the bad and the possibility of the MDGs
2005-09-08
Hellen Tombo
The MDGs are characterized by a top-down approach, fail to recognize the intangible aspects of poverty and distract from the macro-economic constraints poor countries experience in accessing finance. Despite this, some of the goals are achievable and there is no excuse for missing them, writes Hellen Tombo. Committed leadership, stronger partnerships, extra money, debt cancellation, infrastructure development and deeper participation by the poor can all play a role.
At the beginning of the new millennium (2000), the United Nations set up eight goals that need to be realized by 2015 that became known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The leaders and heads of state of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration, which set a series of targets for global action against poverty. Meeting the MDGs would not end economic poverty; but meeting them could make a positive difference to millions of people. This month 189 world leaders re-convene in New York to attend the UN Millennium +5 Summit and review progress in implementation of the MDGs. The question that is constantly ringing in our minds is: Have many countries achieved the goals at all?
Reviewing the positive aspects of the MDGs
The MDGs cover the relative dimensions of poverty, not just income poverty. The goals reflect a broad terrain of basic human wellbeing, representing the many dimensions of poverty as part of an integrated whole. The visible signs of poverty can be calculated in terms of access to basic needs such as food, shelter, sanitation, water, health care and education. The goals underscore the fact that tailored interventions in many sectors are essential if human development is to be achieved.
The MDGs are implicitly linked to the human rights framework although such links are not strong enough. The MDGs link directly to the articles of the universal declaration of human rights, which states that everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for health and the wellbeing, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services. Everyone has a right to education. Furthermore article 28 of the UNHR calls for an international order supportive of implementation of human rights, which is reflected in MDG 8.
The MDGs are global and national. The process through which they were elaborated means that they have an impact both at national level and the global level. There is no other source of authority other than heads of state agreeing through a global forum.
There are concrete output targets for the MDGs: The goals offer clear, agreed and quantifiable targets to galvanize the rich and poor counties and to hold their leaders to account. This means that they can be objectively verified, but still it leaves the question of process wide open.
Poverty reduction is regarded as a direct result of economic growth. This is indicated clearly in MDG 1 where the relationship between poverty and other key social indicators is clearly defined.
Although the MDGs might not be ambitious enough, they are achievable. As goals set by world leaders they represent the shared ambitions that can be achieved if there is political will to do so. There are no physical, ecological, and technical or other autonomous reasons to make achieving the MDGs impossible.
Reviewing the negative aspects of the MDGs
There is a persistent top down approach leading to lack of ownership and participation of local actors. It is believed to be owned by leaders. The solution by leaders is not to tell their subjects about global targets, which are barely relevant to them. Rather the people should be involved in bringing the targets closer to home, to a level where they become tangible and relevant, and can make a difference to their daily lives.
Furthermore, there is a lack of attention to the intangible dimensions of poverty. It is no secret that basic needs extend beyond material goods to include needs to be valued or treated with dignity, or to be free to participate politically, culturally or economically in society. Other important psychological dimensions of poverty are powerlessness, voicelessness, dependency and humiliation. The MDGS do not deal with the intangibles but rather concentrate on the tangible aspects. This severely affects the credibility of the MDGS.
There is over-emphasis on external finance volumes rather than the reform that would lead to greater participation and ownership. Most African countries normally prepare their budgets based on external assistance. Sometimes donors do not respond, which clearly limits the MDGs. The current volatility and unpredictability of aid flows is a serious problem in meeting the MDGs. This is further complicated by the debt burden.
The MDGs distract attention from the macro economic constraints underpinning the ability of developing counties to access finance. The policy advice offered by the IMF and the World Bank seems to undermine the potential of countries in reaching the MDGs. The goals and conditionality set by the World Bank and IMF are really hindering these countries from achieving the MDGs.
Africa has been struggling to meet the MDGs. It remains a daunting task for countries in Africa to achieve the goals. The goals are not new at all because they duplicate the National Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP). If what is contained in the PRSPs cannot be achieved, then it is like squeezing water out of a stone to achieve the MDGs.
This inter-linkage with the PRSPs creates further complications. With the World Bank pushing a PRSP model and the UN the MDGs, the risks of PRSPs being exclusively or primary designed around the MDG goals appear to be very real. This unleashes the development process in countries where it is more than likely that the action on factors creating and sustaining poverty is completely left out of the countries development plan, which in turn may be directed by the MDG plans. This process twists the locus and ownership of national poverty planning, taking it a long distance away from poor people and their concerns.
Overview and Recommendations
Africa saw some success stories during the 1990s but, on balance, the continent’s record in moving towards the MDGs has been inadequate, especially for the poor. Progress is slow for child mortality, basic education, malnutrition, improved water supply, maternal mortality and gender discrimination in primary enrolment. With the exception of safe water, regional progress was less than one-tenth of the agreed target between1990 and 2000. Since the MDGs are to be achieved over a 25-year span starting in 1990, 40 per cent of the road should have been covered by 2000meaning that Africa’s progress represents about one-fifth of what should have been accomplished by now. Even worse, little or no progress was achieved in reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIV prevalence rates continue to rise in numerous countries, whereas only a few succeeded in reducing the spread of the virus. Not only was progress inadequate, much of it by-passed the poor.
Global goals are primarily meant to help improve the situation of the poor and the disadvantaged, not only that of better-off and privileged people. There is no good reason why universal primary education should not yet be a practical reality. Its cost is perfectly affordable; no new technological breakthroughs are needed to get all children in school; there is consensus that it makes good economic sense; and basic education is a fundamental human right that must not be denied to any child. If these conditions are not enough to ensure success, then the question arises as to what it will take to meet the other MDGs.
In opening the Children’s Summit in May 2002, Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, stated, “We the grown-ups must reverse this list of failures”. The MDGs remain unfulfilled, but they also remain feasible and affordable.
If the legacy of our generation is to be more than a series of broken promises, then the following is needed: committed leadership, stronger partnerships, extra money, debt cancellation, infrastructure development and deeper participation by the poor. It is not too late to realize the dream by 2015.
* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme. She is a member of GCAP and co-chair of the GCAP youth group.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
The road to the Millennium Development Goals
2005-09-08
Rebecca Ajabo Asaba
Just how long are the poor of Africa expected to wait for poverty to be defeated? asks Rebecca Ajabo Asaba. Until 2015? Not likely – according to current projections it will take hundreds of years for Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Ajabo Asaba states that that before it is too late, the entire global economic, financial and trade architecture needs to be restructured.
The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) campaign in Africa by civil society organizations and prominent international activists has affirmed civil society as a major player in bringing the plight of the poor in Africa to the fore of the global development agenda. The initiative has mobilized continent wide popular campaigns led by vigilant umbrella civil society groups in the East, North, West and Southern African sub-regions. Civil society in Africa has made steadfast progress on pressuring global leaders to address the impact of poverty, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other poverty challenges confronting Africa. Global leaders are challenged to meet their pledges on the MDGs and in particular address the debt burden on African countries and expand trade opportunities to improve the lives of millions of Africans.
The battle against poverty must be won. How long should the poor of Africa wait for the opportunity for education or the certainty of food or basic health care? Is the answer 2015, the deadline for achieving the MDGs?
No, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2003. The report cautions that “unless things improve”, it will take Sub-Saharan Africa until 2129 to achieve universal primary education, until 2147 to halve extreme poverty and until 2165 to cut child mortality by two thirds. Baffled by the region’s worsening food security situation there is no date set to end hunger. The report is optimistic that achieving the MDGs is a possibility for Latin America, East Asia, the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, but once again Africa has been left out.
Among its major challenges, Africa must overcome HIV/AIDS and Malaria, both responsible for devastating economic and human welfare, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. About 150 million Africans are directly affected by HIVAIDS, an estimated 25 percent of the population of the sub-region shouldering a 90% share of the global impact of HIV/AIDS.
The severity of poverty in this region is also of particular concern given that countries have since the 1980s pursued what International Financial Institutions consider the ‘right’ economic policies of market liberalization, privatization, and macroeconomic stability measures. What these policies have not done ‘right’ is to aleniate the masses from meaningful participation in the economy. The architects of liberalization argue that the costs of liberalization are short term while its benefits come in ‘handy’ in the long-term. This has not been the case for most economies in Africa and thus poses questions on how long-term or short term the poor should pay the costs of liberalization.
Despite some GDP achievements in terms of growth, the region’s Least Developed Countries still do not have the growth levels of seven 7% necessary to achieve the MDGs. Besides this, governments face huge budgetary shortfalls that make it difficult to invest adequately in health, education, and the provision of water services.
Rightly, Africa has been reminded that it needs to find solutions to its internal governance evils that demean its social and economic development, chiefly corruption, undemocratic leadership and human rights abuses. With this in mind, the external solutions are equally important. The whole global economic, financial and trade architecture has a fundamental role in the future of Africa’s poor. Definitely there can only be hope of ending the marginalization of Africa in the global economic system when the global partnership for development increases trade opportunities, aid and cancels debt.
To contain poverty in Africa, one of the things that have to improve is the commitment by world leaders to address the region’s challenges that keep it behind other regions of the world in achieving the MDGs. Africa’s economies, compared to other regions, face stagnation. Therefore the levels of progress in education and health achieved in success stories like Uganda and Ghana, will most likely not be sustainable. This is why Africa’s marginalization from the global economy are so important to the achievement of the MDGs in Africa.
Without doubt Africa’s road to the MDGs is a long one. Now that its leadership and the global partnership have pledged their responsibility in reducing poverty in Africa, the MDGs must be taken to the new political height of commitment, without which the prevailing poverty trends will most probably continue.
* Rebecca Ajabo Asaba is Programme Assistant at the African Women’s Economic Policy Network (AWEPON)
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Pan-African Postcard
Hurricane Katrina: Lessons for the US
2005-09-08
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
Hurricane Katrina could become a catalyst for global cooperation if only the US would learn from the disaster that it is co-tenant in the world and not a landlord. In the meantime, writes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Africans have a duty to show solidarity towards the victims of the natural disaster.
I have never really understood how Hurricanes are named and by whom. The scale of the devastation of New Orleans means that anytime one hears the name Katrina, images of mass suffering will readily come to mind.
Second week into the natural disaster we are nowhere near a common understanding of why the world's richest and allegedly most powerful country appeared prostate before the forces of nature. A bigger part of the controversy is based on a number of questions.
One, how natural was it if it had been long forewarned? Two, could it have been prevented? Three, if it could not be prevented should the communities not have been better prepared to deal with the consequences? Four, what was the level of culpability of local, state and federal officials in making the consequences of the disaster even more tragic either by acts of omission or commission, actions and inactions? But above all is the question of political accountability and responsibility for the consequences of the disaster.
George W. Bush, self-appointed saviour of the world, gung ho macho-militarist and prophet of pre-emptive action in far-flung places around the world either did not see the Hurricane under his nose or did not have any missiles to throw at it.
He has rightly been criticised for his reluctance (yet again) to get out of his holiday bed. But this slow reaction has become typical of Dubya. The man has been such an executive truant that he simply could never be found where he is supposed to be. Even when 9/11 (that he hijacked as his life's purpose and regime-defining issue) happened Bush was missing and remained in hiding for several days.
The rest of the world has continued to watch with both horror at the devastation and subdued bemusement and incredulity at the ill-preparedness of the Americans in the face of this tragedy. If it was in some third world country (especially Africa) there would be loud cries (no more louder than those from Washington) about irresponsible leadership.
There are three immediate lessons that I see. The first lesson is a very simple one. Every one of us, in emergencies, need help, rich or poor, big or small. Who would have thought that less than a year after the tragedy of the Tsunami that devastated several countries mainly in South East Asia and parts of East Africa, some of these countries including Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia would be coming forward to offer help to the USA!
The second one is that natural disasters do happen and can happen to any country. It only proves that we inhabit the same world even if some countries may deceive themselves that they are God's Landlords on earth. There is no territorial sovereignty over natural disasters.
The third lesson has to do with being humble and never saying never. As in a popular soap, the rich also cry and the poor also laugh. Last September, a Category 5 hurricane devastated Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. Cuba evacuated 1.5 million of its citizens before the storm. Consequently even though many homes were destroyed not a single Cuban died! The USA does not have all the answers to both its problems and global challenges. It can and must learn from others whose system it may like, whose leaders it detests but who have better knowledge and experience than the US in managing emergencies.
The other aspect of the disaster has to do with what it teaches us about America and the American way of life, its self-image, the projection of global military power and the reality inside the country.
The controversies are still raging as to whether racism or class are the main reasons why Bush and the US establishment have responded so shoddily. Personally I do not think it is a case of either or and I do not believe that one reason alone can explain the situation. It has to be a combination of reasons at the heart of which both class and race are fundamental factors.
America does not care about its poor people. This is not unique to the US ruling class since so many rulers do not care about their poorest, as most Africans will attest. However America as the richest country on earth is expected to look after its own. If it cannot why should anybody in the world accept its claims to wanting to solve other people's problems for them?
The truth is that the American dream has always been a self rationalization ideology for the rich. It has always been a harvest of huge nightmare for the poor and underclass in the system. Structurally and historically a disproportionate majority of these groups are of African-American origin therefore they bear greater part of the suffering. I am sure middle class African-Americans, with their 4-by-4’s, wider social networks beyond New Orleans and credit cards got out of harm's way as quickly as their white counter parts, but the bulk of their poor cousins had nowhere to go and perished in their thousands. Even those who could go elsewhere could not do so in good time because poverty had already condemned them to inadequate and vulnerable housing that Katrina gulped up at its first deadly kiss.
As a predominantly black place the majority of the victims would be black. Therefore race cannot be far from the surface. Indeed so black is the face of suffering globally that many people, including many Africans, initially thought the pictures were from yet another blighted African country. The shock was that these are pictures from America. Africans are known for their generosity, solidarity and kindness in the face of extremes of adversity but somehow we have not responded predictably to the tragedy in New Orleans despite the obvious connection. Are we so numbed by it that we are also shocked into delayed reaction or have become inured by familiar suffering that we cannot be bothered any more?
This is not just about African government’s responding. It is about African leaders in the diaspora too. It is not about Africans in Africa alone. It is about global Africa, at home and abroad. Where are we at this hour of need for our peoples stranded in New Orleans? We have to show that we as Africans have a duty to care and take the obligation seriously. That solidarity comes in different forms. America needs the rest of the world even if it was initially reluctant to ask for it. It has no missile shield defence system against natural disasters.
One good that may come out of this could be a grudging restoration of American faith in global institutions like the UN whose humanitarian agencies (in spite of general criticisms) are better equipped to deal with these type of emergencies. If the US learns from this disaster that it is a co-tenant, not the landlord of the world, then this tragedy could become a catalyst for global cooperation that may make the suffering of the people of New Orleans not to have been in vain.
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa. (tajudeen28@yahoo.com or thursdaypostcard@justiceafrica.org)
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
US response to Hurricane Katrina: From rogue state to failed state
2005-09-08
Troops began combat operations to take the city back. Snipers fired on rescue helicopters. Refugee camps housed thousands of homeless. This was the scene in New Orleans over the last week in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which killed hundreds, left thousands homeless and destroyed New Orleans as it ripped through the Gulf region. As with any disaster, focus turned quickly to the rescue efforts, and it wasn’t long before the Bush Administration came under fire for a lacklustre response to the rescue effort.
Critics were quick to point out that the Bush Administration’s slow response to the disaster was a clear indication of their racial bias, given that New Orleans was a majority Afro-American city. Not only that, but the media quickly seized on images of looters, mainly black, without providing the context that people were without food and had to feed themselves. The events that transpired in New Orleans somehow removed a veneer and exposed a hidden side of American race relations – and it wasn’t pretty.
Writing for Znet, Justin Podur, in questioning the naming of Katrina victims as refugees in their own country, (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=8680) explained the response by describing a “cruel nationalism” that had emerged amongst elites after 9/11, whose first impulse was to “blame foreigners, and then to strike out at them, expel them, and bomb them”.
But unlike in Afghanistan or Iraq, there were no outside forces to blame for Katrina and so the poor and predominantly black population who desperately needed assistance came into the firing line. “The government’s response to Katrina was a different kind of racism: not hatred of foreigners, but contempt and utter disregard for Black people’s lives, and for the extraordinary city they had made,” wrote Podur.
He went on to write: “It seems that the American government is treating Black Americans on the Gulf Coast with the contempt that it normally reserves for the citizens of other countries. After decades of struggle and sacrifice for the right to be full American citizens, Black people are being treated like the rest of the world is treated - as problems to be solved as cheaply as possible, not fellow citizens and human beings with dignity.”
The disaster has exposed the myth of America as the land of wealth and equality. Calling America a “failed state”, Dan La Botz, in an article for the online magazine Counterpunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/labotz09032005.html), wrote: “Every American city harbors millions of people with high rates of unemployment, low incomes, poor housing, no health insurance, low levels of education. In the United States 25 percent of our children are raised in poverty. Nearly 50 million people have no health insurance.” If this was the picture of a neo-liberal success story, where did that leave the rest of the world on the path to trickle down nirvana? Katrina focused attention on the seedier side of American society often obscured by the corporate media.
The implications went further than exposing the apartheid nature of American society, however. One of the reasons advanced for the sluggish response to the disaster was the Bush administration's focus on the ‘war on terror’ and its aggressive promotion of corporate globalization. Not only had this undermined rescue efforts because emergency personal were depleted, but it had also eaten into the soul of American society. La Botz wrote: “The United States, the failed state, is so because it was first a rogue state. The United States failed to sign the Kyoto Treaty, the International Court of Justice treaty, or the land mines treaty. The United States violated international law with its wars in Iraq and Iran, and with its unsuccessful coup d,état in Venezuela. What has happened over time has been that the general distortion of ethics and values in foreign policy has also seeped into domestic policy.”
Compiled by Pambazuka News. For more analysis on Katrina and the latest news from New Orleans, visit the following websites:
http://www.zmag.org/
http://www.counterpunch.org
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=09-02-05&storyID=22223
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&storyID=2005-09-02T194621Z_01_SCH271140_RTRUKOC_0_US-WEATHER-KATRINA-RACE.xml
http://www.allhiphop.com/editorial/?ID=275
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16476747%255E401,00.html
http://neworleans.craigslist.org/
Hurricane Katrina: Tides Rapid Response
Tides Rapid Response Fund works to help fill the funding gaps where community groups or underserved populations may be overlooked. The Rapid Response Fund pools donors' resources to increase the impact of their giving and our staff researches and distributes the funds as quickly and strategically as possible. As always, Tides staff will work closely with groups to identify how money can best be distributed, looking for effective grassroots and advocacy organizations working for short-term relief and long-term structural change.
You can make an instant online donation to Tides Rapid Response Fund for Hurricane Katrina Relief and Rebuilding. Just click the DonateNow button at the Tides Foundation website.
www.tidesfoundation.org
Katrina Aid: Support Community-based Relief & Reconstruction for Mississippi Delta Farmers & Fishworkers
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund (FSC), a member of Grassroots International’s ally the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), has set up an Emergency Relief Fund for relief and long-term reconstruction to help Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama farmers rebuild facilities and markets and help with direct emergency assistance for housing, food and water. GRI will be making a solidarity grant to support this effort. To find out how to donate, visit http://gol.c.topica.com/maadWScabj4wDa8ZUPccaeQzgF/
Letters
Capitalism as genocide
Sokari Ekine
2005-09-05
Despelchin's article is an excellent analysis on the correlation between capitalism and genocide - not just genocides that happened on "individual" scales such as the holocaust and Rwandan genocide, but the systematic genocide that is an ongoing dehumanization of the planet.
“There is a tendency, even among the most critical voices not to see the connections between what could be described as the inaugural homelessness of the Amerindians and the African’s Hitler’s lebensraum, today's homelessness in the richest countries of the Planet and the same phenomenon in the streets of Fallujah, Palestine and South Africa".
This statement reminded me of a comment on my blog Black Looks, in response to the now famous speech by Mrs. Anthony Fatayi Williams whose son had been murdered by the London bombers of 7th July. A few days later my son's uncle was murdered having been shot 4 times by armed robbers in front of his two very young children and his wife in Abuja, Nigeria. Most of the comments I received condemned Islam and Muslims rather than the individuals who actually committed the act, the usual Islamophobic diatribe. My son came in on the discussion and attempted quite eloquently to make a connection between the London bombers and the robbers who had killed his uncle and the system that underpinned these kind of acts whether in London, Fallujah or Lagos.
Unfortunately, everyone missed the point in their blind dash to only see the superficial which feeds their prejudices and naivety. The AIDS pandemic that is killing millions of Africans today is one example of the genocidal nature of capitalism. The refusal to allow cheap generic drugs over expensive brand name drugs, lack of access to medical care, poorly equipped hospitals and clinics, poverty and unfit housing are all part of the system that feeds off and destroys humanity. Another more recent example is the racial drama played out in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where we were presented with the most disgraceful treatment of poor African Americans reminding us that the mind of white America is still cast in that of the slave master, albeit recast and modernized.
Thank you for this excellent piece of writing.
Indigenous as relevant
Clive Nettleton
2005-09-08
Angela Khaminwa's article 'On the Margins: Indigenous as relevant' is very interesting indeed. Our organisation, Health Unlimited, has extensive programmes working with indigenous peoples in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the question on the relevance of the term indigenous in Africa is one that is being debated internally in the organisation next week. I intend to use her article as a reference, but would be interested in following up on some of the issues.
Keeping the spirit of Africa alive
Jean Jacques Ngandu
2005-09-06
Since refugee week last June I have started visiting your website and I must congratulate you for the wonderfull job you are doing in informing millions of people around the continent. Keep up the good work and the spirit of Africa alive.
Participating in Pambazuka
Myra Sidika Karani, Kenya
2005-09-06
I am a gender activist and your e-newsletter is good in terms of addressing issues affecting women and the girl child.I would like to be receiving the newsletter and also be among the contributors especially when it comes to issues affecting young women. I look forward to participating in this space.
PZ Replies: Thanks for your email. Contributions are welcome and can be set to editor@pambazuka.org
Poverty an injustice
Alieu Darboe, The Gambia
2005-09-06
I fervently believe that the massive poverty existing in Africa, and the world, is an injustice; that it will take deliberate and conscious concerted efforts to establish and reap the goals of social justice.
Books & arts
Africa Development: New Issue Published
2005-09-05
This issue includes:
* The Alternative Genealogy of Civil Society and Its Implications for Africa:
Notes for Further Research by Ebenezer Obadare,
http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=127& id=22293
* The Role of NGOs in Fostering Development and Good Governance at the Local Level in Africa with a Focus on Kenya by Walter O Oyugi,
http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=127& id=22294
* The Politics of Marginal Forms: Popular Music, Cultural Identity and Political Opposition in Kenya by Peter Wafula Wekesa,
http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=127& id=22297
Visit Africa Development at http://www.ajol.info/
HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Law
Network for Justice for Justice and Democracy
2005-09-05
The Network for Justice for Justice and Democracy, a Nigeria- based NGO dedicated to promoting and defending reproductive rights, the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and gender equlaity is pleased to announce its publication titled "HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Law".
HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Law
The Network for Justice for Justice and Democracy, a Nigeria- based NGO
dedicated to promoting and defending reproductive rights, the rights of
people living with HIV/AIDS and gender equlaity is pleased to announce
its publication titled "HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Law.
The book is a treatise of 10 chapters of 217 pages containing basic
facts on HIV/AIDS, impact of the disease, prevention, treatment, care and
control of HIV/AIDS, strategies to combat the HIVAIDS pandemic,
vulnerablity of girls, women and youths to HIV/AIDS, Gender and HIV, HIV/AIDS
and Human Rights, Case laws and legislations on HIV/AIDS world wide
etc.
The book will serve as a valuable reference text to healthcare
providers, NGOs, legal practitioners and those interested in researches and
advocacy in the area of HIV/AIDS and human rights
Interested buyers, agents, publishers, donor agencies, Human Rights
agencies, NGOs and other stakeholders in the fight against HIV/AIDS should
direct their enquiries to:
NETWORK FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY
Attention: Olaide Gbadamosi Esq
No. 42 Mission Road,
P.O.Box 286,
Bnein City
Edo State
NIGERIA
Tel. Nos. 234-251082; 234-80-3717817; 234-80-56415512
More...
Languages of Instruction for African Emancipation
Edited by Brock-Utne, Birgit and Hopson, Rodney Kofi
2005-09-07
http://www.africanbookscollective.com/
With rhetoric in the twenty-first century focused on the African Renaissance, the central role of language in the development and emancipation of the continent seems to have taken a backseat. The fact that many countries on the continent are operating with pre-independent and colonial language policies is catastrophic to large numbers of people who are not in a position to participate in the political democracies of their countries. This collection of case studies from seven African countries poses questions such as: What alternatives are there for educational language policies towards African emancipation?
The Vitality of Karamojong Religion
Ben Knighton
2005-09-05
https://www.ashgate.com/shopping/title.asp?key1=&key2=&orig=results&isbn=0%207546%200383%200%20
How long can a traditional religion survive the impact of world religions, state hegemony, and globalization? The ‘Karamoja problem’ is one that has perplexed colonial and independent governments alike. Now Karamojong notoriety for armed cattle raiding has attracted the attention of the UN and USAID since the proliferation of small arms in the pastoralist belt across Africa from Sudan to stateless Somalia is deemed a threat to world security. The consequences are ethnocidal, but what makes African peoples stand out against state and global governance?
Blogging Africa
Africa Blog Roundup
2005-09-06
Sokari Ekine
The African blogging scene is as diverse in its content as it is in its representations of culture and politics. One of the great things about blogs and blogging is that anyone of us can become a writer, poet, political or sports commentator, book or film reviewer or just write and publish our daily lives online.
Mshairi Mshairi (www.mshairi.com) is a Kenyan blogger who has taken up the mantle of poetry and journal writing on her blog. I visit Mshairi regularly as it is a haven of tranquillity to read her poems and posts and I would like to invite Pambazuka readers to join me there.
A year ago today this blog was begun. Out came the pad and the purple (ink) pen. In total I have posted more than 50 poems. Of the poems, I have a growing group of anonymous people who trust me enough to send me theirs. 150 posts on life and love and on women, on Africa and on people. In between are the posts on music, books, Star Trek, science fiction...Inspired by people already in my life and those I met through blogging, I have written about the little things that make sense and big things that did not.