Statement to the SADC-EU Ministerial Meeting, from the SADC-EU Civil Society Conference, 3-5 November 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark and the Civil Society meeting in Maputo 5-8 November:
We, members of Southern African and European civil society, have gathered in Copenhagen and Maputo in two interlinked civil society conferences on the eve of the SADC-EU Ministerial meeting in Maputo, Mozambique on 7-8 November 2002.
We share a common vision of an equitable society that cares for all its members, that strives continuously to enhance their socio-economic rights and political freedoms, and that places people not profit or power first. We also share a common vision of SADC-EU relations, in which the people and governments of the two regions meet in a partnership of equals, not shackled by exploitative relations.
We see development, a people-driven and a people-centered process, as the central objective of SADC-EU relations. We struggle for this development in the context of severe inequalities of economic and political power inherited from previous colonial relationships and the damage done to regional development and integration by apartheid. This adverse context also includes non-democratic governance, lack of media independence and limitations in the freedom of the civil society in some countries in the SADC region.
We believe that these unequal relations have been perpetuated by international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO and economic structures of dependency, including the debt trap and unfair trade relations that bind the SADC region to Europe. We believe that they are being abused to secure the unilateral imposition of trade liberalisation, privatisation and maximum repayment of debts. These processes undermine regional efforts to define alternative development frameworks, to pursue regional integration and to address structural problems of production and sustained resource management.
We note with concern, since our last meeting in Gaborone in November 2000, the emergence of a number of developments in SADC-EU relations which impede the achievement of an equal partnership. The current famine in Southern Africa demands an urgent response from European governments. Assistance must be provided with due sensitivity to the danger of reinforcing policy pressures and dependence. In the longer term, lessons must be learned about the local and international policy failures, which have contributed to the famine. The right of developing countries to pursue policies aimed at securing food security must be defended against inappropriate international policy advice.
Our vision is for African unity and equitable regional integration. We fully support regional initiatives to end African civil wars. We believe that a public peer review mechanism for African leaders should be compulsory and not voluntary, and that this should include all aspects of governance. The dominance of the economic aspects of NEPAD, particularly in engagements with Northern institutions, causes us to issue a warning: internationally supervised adjustment has failed to promote African development. This has been exacerbated by mismanagement of official development assistance by SADC governments, poor domestic governance of assets and the corrupt practices of public and private officials associated with development projects.
Any African recovery plan must clearly identify the failures of past conditions attached to aid, loans and investment and adopt African proposals for people-centered development. However, NEPAD replicates these failed frameworks and risks crowding out the rich tradition of Africa's own alternative thinking on development. NEPAD is mainly concerned with raising external resources, appealing to and relying on external governments and institutions. In addition, it is a top-down programme driven by African elites and drawn up by the corporate forces and institutional instruments of globalisation, rather than being based on African peoples experiences, knowledge and demands. A legitimate African programme has to start from the people and be owned by the people. We note particularly past plans such as the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, the 1989 African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes, the 1991 Arusha Declaration on Popular Participation and Democracy and the 1994 Kampala Declaration on Security and Peace.
The HIV-AIDS pandemic
Of all the people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, just under half live in Southern Africa. The 1990s saw massive strides forward in access to effective treatments in Europe but millions continue to die in Africa due to the lack of affordable access to treatment. Because HIV/AIDS affects women with household responsibilities and the young and economically active sections of the population, the epidemic has devastating implications on production and economic growth. It is already putting an unbearable burden on social services and reversing hard-won development gains. The HIV/AIDS pandemic represents an immense obstacle to reaching the national poverty reduction targets and development goals agreed upon at the United Nations Millenium Summit.
We call on EU Governments to:
- provide increased bilateral and multilateral funding, in particular for the Global Fund. They should make a contribution proportional to their share of global GDP, aimed at meeting the target of 10 billion dollars per annum;
- support calls for the resources of the Fund to be allocated proportionately to countries (according to their domestic resources) which carry the heaviest disease burden
- ensure that the implementation of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health improves access to affordable, high-quality medicines in SADC;
- support Africa Group proposals for an interpretation of Article 30 of the TRIPS Agreement which would enable other countries to export medicines and other inventions to meet the health needs of Africa,;
- significantly increase their public investment in research into the development of AIDS vaccines and ensure equal and affordable access.
We call on the SADC Governments to:
- publicly acknowledge and address, at the Head of State level, the existence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and that its rapid spread is fuelled by gender inequality and sexual violence;
- develop and implement comprehensive, gender-sensitive national HIV/AIDS plans with legally binding policies on prevention, treatment and care;
- develop and implement a regional plan to address the pandemic;
- ensure that national and regional plans include strategies aimed at the full attainment of the Millenium Development Goals and at mitigating the development impact of the pandemic on households;
- meet their Abuja Commitments to allocate 15% of their national budgets on health care;
- build unified positions towards the WTO and the Global Fund.
Debt and reparations
Southern African debt repayments are having a crippling effect on the ability of Governments of the region to implement development programmes, invest in health and education and cope with the devastating impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis. In addition current international policies, supported by the EU, such as the HIPC initiative and Poverty Reduction Strategies, are woefully inadequate and continue the failed policies of the structural adjustment programmes. They also do not provide a framework to tackle the special nature of Southern Africa's debt.
Apartheid-caused debt
The apartheid regime not only oppressed its own people – it waged a full-scale war against neighboring states. Faced with a sudden loss of income and the need to protect their people, the governments of the region borrowed heavily from international financial institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank. Despite the United Nations declaring apartheid a crime against humanity, private European banks continued to bankroll the apartheid regime, keeping apartheid alive longer than it would otherwise have survived. Apartheid as a system has to be understood as being both political and structural in nature.
Given that these apartheid caused debts served a criminal system we call on the EU Governments to:
- Accept that all apartheid caused debt is illegitimate and illegal;
- Recognise that their corporations and banks have aided and abetted apartheid and have reaped profits from it;
- Recognise that the peoples of Southern Africa therefore are entitled to full cancellation and reparation for apartheid-caused debt.
Structural adjustment caused debt
We call upon the EU to recognize that dependency by SADC countries on international financial institutions is caused by falling commodity prices of African exports, lack of access to markets in the EU and the USA because of protectionism and agricultural subsidies, and reductions in official development aid.
Reparations
Based on the premise that the apartheid-caused debt is illegal, then profits taken and received are also illegal. The profits are as odious as the debt itself. We call on the EU Governments to:
- Recognize that debts incurred by Southern African countries, supporting the legitimate struggle against apartheid, should be written off by the international public and private creditors. This act should be seen as the first step in addressing the social damages resulting from the regional destabilisation effected by apartheid. It is a pre-condition for starting a programme of regional reconstruction and development.
Management of debt
We call on SADC Governments to acknowledge and recognize that part of the unmanageable debt crisis is directly attributed to a complete lack of transparency and accountability in procurement, disbursement and management of loans by SADC governments. We call on each SADC government to implement transparent, accountable and public participatory processes as part of the procurement, disbursement and management of loans taken out on behalf of its citizens.
Privatisation
We believe that access to essential services, such as health, energy and water, are basic human rights and should not be subject to privatisation and profit, thus falling outside public control. The privatisation of such services and needs only serves to widen the gap between the rich and the poor, to increase the gender gap and to impact unfairly on women and girls who are the first to lose education and health services when user fees are introduced. Privatisation ignores the question of people's ownership and control of African resources, while benefiting European capital.
We call on the EU and SADC Governments to:
- recognise that access to health, energy and water are basic human rights and that it is undermining democracy if they are not under public control;
- stop using privatisation as a pre-requisite for granting development assistance and access to trade, especially as applied to the conditionalities imposed through the activities of the IFI's and the WTO;
- do away with the in-built modalities of privatisation, such as outsourcing, divestiture and management contracts, that are presently an integral part of NEPAD;
- ensure that any implementation of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) remains under public control and ownership, and ensures access to affordable services by the people;
- stop using development funds to promote private sector delivery of services;
- commit to pursuing, with the full involvement of civil society, comprehensive economic and social impact assessments prior to the implementation of any privatisation initiative;
- explore alternative strategies to upgrade public services, including gender budgeting, while keeping them under public control that is accountable and transparent;
- examine the hidden costs of privatisation in gendered impact assessment studies; these include higher user fees, loss of quality jobs and loss of public income;
- scrap failed cost-recovery policies on basic services and implement cross-subsidisation and budget subsidies;
- recognise that privileged elites, companies and countries are driving and benefiting from privatisation.
* For further statements on trade and agriculture, democracy and human rights, and workers rights and the labour market, please click on the "Further Details" link provided below.
Trade and Agriculture
The regional integration process underway in Southern Africa is a long-term, strategic effort by SADC countries to overcome the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. No country can develop in isolation or at the cost of others. These strategies should not be pre-empted or undermined to meet the needs of European interests. If Southern African interests are not promoted by the agendas under discussion in the WTO and under the Cotonou Agreement, SADC Governments must retain and exercise their collective sovereign right not to negotiate and to insists on a mutually agreed agenda.
We believe that economic development should lead to human development and that trade must be subordinate to this objective. ‘Free trade’ between powerful and weaker economies and regions will inevitably result in domination and exploitation. International trade agreements must therefore recognise the special needs and vulnerabilities of developing countries and promote their interests. They must be made through transparent, democratic and accessible multilateral negotiations and must be made coherent with international human rights treaties and multilateral environmental agreements.
We recognise the major role of agriculture in EU-SADC trade relations. Bearing in mind that most SADC countries depend on agriculture as their primary source of income and future development, we would like to raise the following concerns:
· Trade liberalisation in agriculture is a threat to small-scale farmers and will destroy the pillars of food security in SADC countries as well as contribute to malnutrition, in particular of mothers and children. E.g. the Mozambican Cashew Nut Processing Industry was closed down due to forced liberalisation. On the other hand, protection of the development of agricultural sectors within the SADC region should be allowed.
· Access to EU-markets by SADC-region agricultural products which is impeded by the current EU tariff escalation system that also limits the possibility of exporting value-added products to the EU.
· In the process towards expanding EU it has been agreed to maintain the Common Agricultural Policies of EU and the EU agricultural subsidies at the present level at least until 2013 although they are extremely harmful, and discriminatory for, agricultural exports from developing countries including from SADC- countries.
With regard to the World Trade Organisation
Amongst the many contentious issues and challenges, we prioritise the following.
We call on the European Union to:
· undertake in good faith, the current negotiations on agriculture to remove its agricultural subsidies,
· work with African governments to ensure that WTO rules on special and differential treatment and regional trade agreements are made the basis for international agreements affecting Africa,
· stop promoting new issues and a new round of negotiations.
We call on SADC Governments to
· stand together to resist divisive ploys, such as the forthcoming Sydney ‘mini ministerial’, that are designed to break developing world unity against a new round,
· to refuse to negotiate liberalisation of service sectors within their countries under the GATS negotiation which will have adverse affects on governments’ regulatory responsibilities and rights in these areas,
· promote agreed joint African positions – particularly those within TRIPS and the Agreement on Agriculture designed to ensure food security and to promote the needs of women and small farmers in particular.
With regard to negotiations over future EU-ACP trade relations under the Cotonou Agreement
We call on the EU to
· withdraw their existing proposals for reciprocal free trade (Economic Partnership Agreements) forcing free market access of goods and services from the EU,
· negotiate alternative arrangements appropriate to African development needs. This would be consistent with the WTO ‘enabling clause’ signed by EU member states,
· desist from its current efforts to pre-empt ACP discussions on regional configurations for the negotiations,
· unconditionally remove all tariff and non-tariff barriers against all exports from all ACP countries,
· stop pushing ‘WTO plus’ issues that have not been agreed within the current and ongoing WTO process.
We call on SADC Governments to
· maintain unity and solidarity amongst themselves and with the wider ACP group, and adopt a jointly-mandated ACP position,
· use the annual ministerial meeting with regard to the Cotonou agreement to demand liberalisation of access to European markets
· resist external pressures towards free trade policies within SADC and between SADC and other countries;
· should balance between the need for emergency food relief and the need to restrain the introduction of GMO’s.
Democracy and Human Rights
Within Southern Africa
Many of the groups gathered at the Civil Society Conference contributed to the achievement of self-determination, independence and democratic rule in Southern Africa.
The civil society groups took note of the past imbalances caused by the racist, colonial and apartheid systems which denied the majority of citizens access to land, which is the basic economic resource throughout the SADC region. These and many other imbalances have created pressures on individual SADC governments to put in place policies to redress these imbalances. However, many of these gains are under threat from local and international events.
The impact of international policies supported by the EU, including structural adjustment and the privatisation drive, are undermining democratic freedoms, rights and progress in the promotion of women’s rights as well as contributing to increasing corruption. These policies need to be abandoned. It is doubtful whether Europe will provide the solution to governance problems in Southern Africa. However, sovereignty should not be used as an excuse for the absence of Southern African solutions to gross violations of human rights. We believe and support the struggles of peoples to effectively participate in decision making and people-centered political systems and access to human rights, throughout the SADC region.
In particular we note with concern
Abuse of civil and political rights, the denial of social and economic rights and the manipulation of democracy as exemplified by:
· interference with the judiciary by the government of Swaziland,
· third term bids in Malawi and elsewhere in the region,
· the use of youth militia, war veterans and arms of the state by the Zimbabwean government to silence dissent.
We call on SADC Governments to
· have equitable, transparent and pro-active land redistribution programmes with specific references to the landless with a view to achieve food security and wealth redistribution.
· Guarantee peace and security in the region through the establishment and strengthening of national and regional mechanisms to prevent and resolve conflict and to enforce civil, political, socio-economic rights.
· Promote, protect and fully implement the international, regional and sub regional standards of human rights and democratic governance, including those pertaining to rights of women and children.
· Guarantee freedom of expression including that of the media.
· Guarantee gender equality.
Within Europe
The EU and global institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO, within which the European states wield so much power, suffer from a chronic democratic deficit. The nature of the relationship between multinational companies and the European Commission and member governments prevents the rest of civil society from effectively representing the commitment of European people to international solidarity.
We call on EU Governments to
· actively support the democratisation of the international financial institutions and the WTO,
· create a framework in international law to hold multinational companies accountable for their actions,
· in all arenas, to provide for full public disclosure and genuine participation of civil society.
Workers rights and Labour Market
Workers rights are closely linked to the general social and economic development of EU as well as SADC countries.
However the current development in the SADC region gives reason for grave concern.
Many countries in their quest to attract needed foreign investment are willing to offer potential investors conditions that undermine laws and ILO core conventions, which results in:
· Low minimum wages
· Violations of human rights and Trade Union rights.
· No obligations to contribute towards employees social benefits.
· Workers being expected to work excessive hours
This, together with the widespread use of tax exemption and expatriation of profits to attract investors, leads to impoverishment of workers without generating income or capacity building to develop the countries.
Services of general interest (water, energy, infrastructure, transport, health and education a.o.) play an important role in the development of countries and the welfare of its citizens.
The demands for privatisation or restructuring of the SADC economies means loss of jobs, undermining of the availability of these basic public services and result in closure of local production.
In order for the workers and countries in the region to experience a sustainable positive development we call upon EU and SADC governments:
· To establish a strong regional cooperation in order to create common standards for working conditions, real adherence to international standards (e.g. ILO and SADC social charter) and tax equality regarding investments without exception.
· To establish a strong and viable cooperation between governments, civil society and trade unions.
· To establish a monitoring structure with representation from all stakeholders (government, employers and Trade Unions), which will ensure that the workers rights, are respected.
· That demands for restructuring and privatisation should not be conditional for obtaining support or investments from the EU.
· To provide resources for capacity building at national and regional level.
Most of these demands are already stated in international conventions, standards and declarations (e.g. ILO Core Conventions and SADC Social Charter etc.). It is therefore the legitimate demands of civil society and trade unions in both SADC and EU that the governments of both regions do their utmost to live up to their obligations in accordance with these international standards.
We, as members of Southern African and European Civil Society are ready to play our part. We commit ourselves to exercising our democratic rights and freedoms, and to building equitable North-South partnerships.
Organisations present at the EU-SADC Civil Society Conferences in Copenhagen and Maputo, Nov. 3-8 2002.
SID General Workers Union of Denmark
SINTAF Sindicato Nacional do Trabalhadores Agricola e Florestais (Agricultral and Forestal Workers’ Union of Mozambique )
ZLSAWU Zimbabwe Leather, Shoe and Allied Workers’ Union
ZTWU Zimbabwe Textile Workers’ Union
ITGLWF International Textile, Garment and lether Workers’ Federation
LECAWU Lesotho Clothing and Allied Workers’ Unions
SAPAAWU South Africa Agricultural Plantation and Allied Workers Union
CONSILMO Confederacao Nacional Sindicatos Independente e Libre de Mozambique – Confederation of Free and Independent Unions in Mozambique
SATAWU South Africa Transport and Workers’ Union
CARE Denmark
MS Danish Association of International Co-operation
Ibis Development Organisation Ibis, Denmark
SODNET Social Development Network, Kenya
WLAC Women Legal Aid Centre, Tanzania
Umokazi Mozambique
NASCOH National Association of Societies of Handicapped, Zimbabwe
CSPR Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, Zambia
TANGO Tanzania Alliance of NGOs
SAC Southern Africa Contact, Denmark
APF Anti Privatisation Forum, South Africa
Crisis Zimbabwe
PUDEMO Peoples’ United Democratic Organisation, Swaziland
AIDC Alternative Information and Development Centre, South Africa
JUBILEE South Africa
RDSN Rural Development Service Network, South Africa
WASN Women and Aids Support Network
FCT Farm Workers’ Community Trust, Zimbabwe
GENTA Gender and Trade Network, South Africa, Swaziland
CCZ Christian Council of Churches, Zambia
TAC Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa
NIZA Netherlands
IEPALA Spain
AGIS Afrikagrupperna, Sweden
KOSA Kirchlische Organization fûr Südliche Afrika (Germany) member of ENIASA
ACTSA Action on Southern Africa, member of ENIASA
EDDA Greece
KULU Women and Deevelopment, Denmark
MSF Médecins sans Frontières, Denmark
Danish NGO Platform
ENIASA European Network for Information on Southern Africa
Author
Anonymous (not verified)
