Seeds of change
Bob Geldof had a message for the cynics who have already condemned the grandly titled Commission for Africa as nothing but a talking shop: "No sneering, please. Let’s go for it. Give us a hand." Mr Geldof is one of the commission’s 16 members who meet today in Addis Ababa, in the latest attempt to deal with what Tony Blair once described as a "scar on the conscience of the world". There can be little doubt that Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, remains a scar: since 1980 a series of African countries such as Zambia have seen their economies shrink and the promise of post-colonial development turn hollow. While some of the causes of decline have been unanticipated - the ravages of Aids - and some self-inflicted, other causes can be laid on the doorstep of the west: the shock treatment of inappropriate structural adjustment programmes, an unfair debt burden and unjust subsidy and trading policies. It is these issues the commission should urgently attempt to address.
So will the Africa commission make a difference? It is easy to paint the commission as another worthy but feeble attempt to help by the rich nations of the west. Some, though, see it in a more sinister light. The World Development Movement has labelled the commission "a diversionary tactic designed to draw attention away from 30 years of broken promises on Africa". Yet the commission has a real chance to keep Africa’s plight on the international agenda, partly because of the high profile of its membership - Mr Geldof being far keener on deeds than words - and partly thanks to Mr Blair’s pledge to make use of Britain’s presidency next year of both the G8 group of industrialised nations and the EU. As the aid agency Cafod notes: "The Africa commission may be a talking shop, but if it gives Africa’s problems some public profile and puts pressure on the world’s most powerful leaders, then so much the better."
In fact there are a number of concrete steps that the commission can recommend, which would have an important impact on the health and welfare of Africans. Knocking heads together at the IMF and World Bank to decide on the means of relieving the burden of the highly indebted nations would be one. Getting the world’s wealthiest nations to meet their international aid obligations, especially under the millennium development goals, would be another. And if Mr Blair is serious about using Britain’s presidency of the EU to help Africa, then he should consider the EU’s current round of trade negotiations.
Unable to get its own way through the World Trade Organisation, the EU is now shamelessly trying to corral some of the world’s poorest nations into bilateral trade agreements that would severely disadvantage them. It is pushing through a deal with the Africa, Pacific and Caribbean group of developing countries that would force the likes of Benin and Mauritania into opening their markets to reciprocal access with the EU. A good deal? In theory yes, but in practice the reciprocity will only go one way. Under the "economic partnership agreement" proposed by the EU, Zambia and the like would expose all but 10% of their economies to EU competition, setting up an uneven battle with Europe’s agricultural subsidy junkies. If the commission’s moral authority can stop practices such as this, it will have achieved a great deal.
Mr Blair, Mr Geldof and the other members of the commission, including South Africa’s finance minister Trevor Manuel and Ethiopia’s premier Meles Zenawi, will have plenty to discuss today. Mr Blair in particular has invested much political capital in the commission, and so will want to see more of a return than another report to file alongside those of the Brandt commission. If he doesn’t, Mr Geldof will surely express his disappointment in his most forceful manner.
