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AFRICAN CIVIL SOCIETY DECLARATION ON NEPAD: "WE DO NOT ACCEPT NEPAD !! AFRICA IS NOT FOR SALE !! "
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7. NEPAD, TRADE AND GLOBALISATION
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We fully discussed the role of trade in Africa and the current global
system, and noted that indiscriminate trade liberalisation has led to de-industrialisation ,
increased unemployment and growing poverty, and has reinforced Africa's role in the global economy as suppliers of cheap raw materials and labour.
We noted that NEPAD
- ignores experience and the huge body of evidence and analyses discrediting the theories that trade leads to growth which leads to development;
- accepts export-led growth and the expansion of Africa's traditional exports which has already aggravated the deteriorating terms of trade for Africa;
- reinforces Africa's focus on 'market access' into the richest countries through unilateral but false offers such as the EU's Everything But Arms (EBA);
- endorses the aims of reciprocal free trade and other policy conditionalities demanded by the EU and the US, such as privatisation, labour deregulation, and investment liberalisation in the Cotonou Agreement and the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), respectively;
- accepts the erroneous depiction of the 'marginalisation' of Africa, whereas Africa has long been deeply and disadvantageously integrated into the global economy;
- promotes the deeper integration of Africa into the current globalisation process which fundamentally serves the interests of the rich;
- misunderstands the imbalanced nature of WTO trade agreements and trade-related agreements, particularly the General Agreement on Trade in Services which will extend global appropriation of African services and resources.
We conclude that
- We need to continue our efforts to create different types of local, regional and inter-regional trade, and a different role for trade in our economies.
- We will continue to campaign for our governments to resist unilateral, bilateral and multilateral trade agreements which do not address the inequities of the international economic system.
- We will continue to campaign and mobilise the African peoples to pressurise their governments to resist an expansion of the scope and powers of the WTO through the introduction of ever more new issues, and to resist a new WTO round being pushed since the Doha Ministerial Conference.
- We will continue to build the popular movement at national, continental and international levels against neo-liberal economic globalisation, and against the World Trade Organisation as the main institutional force driving globalisation.
On the basis of the above, we do not accept the NEPAD plan, as a process and in its content. We are to committed to joint efforts for Africa's development and emancipation, and we call upon all African peoples' organisations and movements to continue their longstanding efforts to produce sustainable, just and viable alternatives that will benefit all the people of Africa.
ANOTHER AFRICA IS POSSIBLE !
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE !!
Third World Network Africa
Economic Justice Network
Jubilee South Africa
Environment Monitoring Group
Environmental Monitoring Group
ROPPA
Department of Economics (University of Swaziland)
ENDA TM
Africa Youth Forum
NAFAU
Social Development Network
Department of Sociology
Women for Change
AIDC
Gender and Trade Network in Africa
Inter-Africa Group
Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt & Development
Gender & Forum National De Lutte Centre LA
AFRODAD
BOCONGO
TSOET / TCDD
Ecumenical Support Services
ESSET
EJC
Human Rights Committee of Youth Africa
Women in Business
Kenya Debt Relief Network
FEMNET
Development Network
Tanzania Social and Economic Trust
Zambia Congress of Trade Unions
Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union
LALIT
South African Council of Churches
Wits University
Centre for Civil Society
Malawi Council of Churches
CECIDE
Friends of the Earth
Association of Farmers Education & Traders
Espcace Associatif
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