- The NEPAD’s challenge to Northern donors and institutions for a “new partnership” with Africa, in our view, requires the latter to address the fundamentally unequal power relationships that currently shape North/South “partnerships.” The NEPAD speaks of the obligations of developed countries and multilateral institutions [188]. Seeking a renewed partnership with Africa, therefore, implies political will for changing Northern policies and multilateral institutions that influence the political dynamics for positive changes for the reduction of poverty in Africa. In this regard, a new partnership implies that Northern donors, including Canada, will respond with new initiatives in reforming trade and investment regimes affecting Africa and the least developed countries; in financing for development and ODA reform; in legislating so as to
ensure corporate social and environmental responsibility; and in ensuring transparency and fairness in the governance of multilateral institutions.
- Reforming Trade and Investment Regimes
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As noted earlier, the NEPAD recognizes that globalization “has increased the ability of the strong to advance their interests to the detriment of the weak” [33]. There is substantial evidence from Southern civil society organizations and governments, as well as from Northern policy analysts, that the current regimes governing trade and investment are stacked against the interests of many developing countries. The conclusion reached by many is that negotiation for fair and just global rules requires more fundamental reform of the mandate and governance of the institutions that manage the global system. The NEPAD largely ignores these more fundamental reforms and rather seeks technical assistance for more effective African participation, a rationalization of existing treaties to ensure real benefits to Africa, and more open markets for African goods within the World Trade Organization (WTO) multilateral framework.
The NEPAD side-steps the fact that African governments have tabled major proposals at the WTO for substantive reform and reworking of current global trade rules, for example calling for a comprehensive review of the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) particularly concerning its treatment of life patenting issues. A number of African countries have also called for changes in the Agreement on Agriculture, that would allow governments to take proactive measures to support and protect smallholder agriculture as a development priority. African governments have also been at the forefront of critiques of trade rules that enforce strict patenting rules on drugs.
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Canada joined the “consensus” at the November WTO Ministerial conference at Qatar to launch a new “development” round of trade negotiations. The large majority of developing countries, with the exception of South Africa and a handful of others, had opposed launching a new round. Major developing country concerns, including those articulated by African countries as described above, were not addressed at Doha. Some progress was made on clarification of flexibilities in Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) for public health considerations. However, the issue most important for Africans – how countries without production facilities for generic medicines will be able to access them given TRIPS restrictions on exportations of drugs produced under compulsory license – was assigned to another year of discussion. The proposal by Least Developed Countries to study the impacts of reductions in industrial tariffs on their industries before agreeing to new market access was also not accepted. New negotiations (in areas like environment) as well as study groups for new issue areas in government procurement, investment, trade facilitation and competition policy, have been struck, which will tax time and resources from already overstretched African delegations. The pressure tactics and consensus forcing methodologies that have been described by close observers of the Doha process also inhibit effective participation. The NEPAD initiative should take up with greater focus the need for more effective rule making and true democratization of participation and governance of multi-lateral institutions.
- Financing for Development and ODA Reform
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African leaders challenge Northern donors to reform ODA delivery mechanisms and to reverse the decline in ODA flows to Africa and meet the UN target of 0.7% of their GNP. In terms of aid volume, Canadian aid to Sub-Saharan Africa declined by 40% between 1991/92 and 1999/00, while the overall decline in Canadian aid was 20%. UK Chancellor Gordon Brown came to the World Bank/IMF meetings in November 2001 with a dramatic proposal to increase ODA by $50 billion globally in a fund dedicated to meeting UN International Development Targets. At the March 2002 UN Financing for Development Conference, the European Union collectively announced it would increase aid by US $7 billion to reach 0.39% of GNP by 2006, while President Bush promised to propose to Congress an increase in US aid of US $5 billion over three years starting in 2004. Canadian Prime Minister Chrйtien told the Conference that Canada has increased aid by 8% per year and will continue to pledge at least that much in coming years.
These surprise aid announcements camouflaged the absence of any progress on debt, unequal trade or reform of international financial institutions at the Monterrey Conference. The Canadian December 2001 Budget added only one-off increases, totaling Cdn$1 billion over the next three years, including Cdn$500 million for Africa and the priorities established in the forthcoming G8 Action Plan for Africa. Chrйtien’s announcement of 8% annual growth in Canadian ODA no doubt includes the December 2001 announcements, although it is not clear whether these increases will be permanent, thus compounding the year-over-year increases. The December 2001 budget did not increase the planning base for Canadian aid in subsequent years from that established for the 2000/01 fiscal year. As a result, Canadian ODA is unlikely to rise above 0.3% of GNP during these three years.
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Since publication of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) Shaping the 21st Century in 1996, donors have coalesced around several new directions for aid delivery, including improved coordination consistent with the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Framework, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, and Sector Wide Approaches for improved “ownership” by African governments of their development strategies. While recognizing that aid practices need reform to improve their effectiveness in tackling poverty reduction, Canadian NGOs have been critical of important aspects of CIDA’s policy paper on Strengthening Aid Effectiveness, which commits CIDA to follow these strategies (see the Development Policy Web Page at www.ccic.ca).
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The NEPAD proposes a forum of African countries to develop common African positions on ODA reform and to have more systematic continental dialogue with donors in the DAC. They also propose a complementary, independent assessment mechanism for monitoring donor performance [151]. As donors move to implement these reforms, they may increasingly act on their conclusion that aid is most effective where developing country governance is strong and the “right” reform policies are in place.
Officials travelling with the Canadian Prime Minister in Africa in April 2002 told the media that the objective of NEPAD is a long-term commitment to increase aid to developing countries that embrace the “required development model,” and that a list of successful countries will be created who will receive more aid from G8 countries (Globe & Mail, April 3, 2002). In the African context, such triage may result in even further reductions in aid to those countries that are most disadvantaged by the global economy and by impacts from inappropriate structural adjustment policies imposed over the past two decades by these same donors. The NEPAD’s united African appeal for a new partnership with Africa may result in even further disparities within Africa. Further, such a top-down approach to “good governance” is unlikely to succeed, as there are problems with rights and democracy in all countries that cannot be dealt with through aid conditionality. A more promising approach is to encourage democratization from the ground up, by redirecting significantly more of ODA to African unions, media, associations, human rights groups, etc.
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African leaders through the NEPAD are also calling for “the extension of debt relief beyond its current levels (based on debt ‘sustainability’), which still require debt service payments amounting to a significant portion of the resource gap [to meet African development needs]”. They make an appeal to creditor countries to link debt service ceilings to a fixed proportion of fiscal revenue, with different ceilings for International Development Association (IDA, the World Bank’s concessional lending arm) and non-IDA eligible countries. They will establish a forum in which African countries may share experiences and mobilize for the improvement of debt relief strategies [149, 150]. NGOs through the global Jubilee Initiative have called for full cancellation of debt owed by the poorest countries, most of which are African, and for de-linking debt relief from continuing structural adjustment conditionalities. The NEPAD does not go this far in its appeal, but the litmus test of the political will of donor countries to realize a new partnership with Africa will be their urgent and immediate implementation of much deeper debt cancellation with fewer policy strings attached.
- Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility
- The NEPAD points to the lack of “the necessary policy and regulatory frameworks for private sector-led growth” in Africa [85]. We noted above concerns expressed by the Africa-Canada Forum on current impacts and trends in Canadian and other foreign companies investing in mining and energy operations in Africa. While strengthened African regulatory frameworks are essential, the impact of the NEPAD proposals will be to weaken these frameworks in the interest of attracting investment to the continent. Northern governments have the responsibility to ensure that companies based in their countries operating in Africa conform to the highest levels of social and environmental responsibility.
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