Recent research by the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust in Zimbabwe examines the implications of current Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) for Eastern and Southern Africa. There are many problems with the negotiations including a threat to existing regional integration efforts, a lack of negotiating capacity on behalf of the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of nations and a threat to local producers, who will have to compete with more powerful European Union (EU) competitors. Faced with these problems is it prudent to continue with the negotiations for the EPAs with the EU? Are there any alternatives to the EPAs? These are the questions the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust set out to answer.

Background

The African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of nations have traditionally been dependent on preferential market access into the European Union (EU) markets under the Lomé Agreement. The preferences were in the form of reduced or zero tariffs on key ACP exports to the EU. In addition, commodity protocols were incorporated in order to accommodate traditional ACP exports such as sugar, beef, veal and rum.

After the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of talks and the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995, the trade preferences became illegal because they violated the WTO Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle. As such, the EU and the ACP states had to get special permission (waiver) to temporarily continue their special trading favours at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, It is in this context that the EU proposed new trading arrangements which are WTO compatible. The EU further argued that Lomé preferences had not brought any trade benefits to most ACP countries as compared to non-ACP countries. For instance, whilst trade between the EU and non-ACP countries increased, EU - ACP trade declined from 6,7 % in the 1970s to 3% in 1998.

At the insistence of the EU, a new ACP-EU co-operation Agreement was signed in June 2000 in Cotonou, Benin (Cotonou Agreement). Under this agreement, ACP states would enter into reciprocal trade arrangements called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Under this scenario, ACP countries would be required to give the EU the same market access that the EU gives to them. Different regions in the ACP group can negotiate the trade issues and create their own EPA with the EU. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) regions are in the process of negotiating such EPAs with the EU. These reciprocal trade arrangements are often described as WTO compatible in the sense that they are presumed not to violate the WTO rules on regional trade agreements. However it is far from clear that negotiating EPAs with the EU is the best option for the development of the ESA/SADC region.

There are many problems associated with the current negotiations. Reciprocal trade between the ESA/SADC countries and the EU is meant to start by January 2008. The negotiations for the EPA were meant to have started in September 2002. However these started way after this date around 2004. ESA/SADC countries are simply not ready for these negotiations. Important procedures such as analyzing the impact of the EPA on national and regional economies were done at a very late stage, and years after the ESA/SADC states had signed the Cotonou agreement.

ESA/SADC states have in the past been building institutions to promote regional economic development through trade and cooperation in various areas. These efforts saw the birth of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU, the oldest customs union in the world), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East Africa Customs Union (EAC). Instead of strengthening these regional institutions the manner with which the negotiating groups have been structured risks dismantling these institutions and also historical efforts made towards regional integration.

Although ESA/SADC and the EU states have competing interests in these negotiations, the ESA/SADC states are largely dependent on the EU especially with respect to the funding of the negotiations. It is difficult to see how the ESA/SADC states can effectively promote and protect their producers in these negotiations over markets when they are financially and technically compromised.

ESA/SADC countries lack the effective capacity to negotiate the EPA with the EU. This includes the human and technical resources to do so. On the other hand the EU has a strong and technical bureaucracy with decades of experience in handling tricky international trade issues.

There are reasonable fears that opening up ESA/SADC markets will wipe out local producers and have them replaced by EU exporters. Further ESA/SADC economies are largely agro-based and local agricultural producers will find it difficult to compete against resource rich EU-based agricultural producers who are invariably cushioned by hefty subsidies.

Faced with these problems is it prudent to continue with the negotiations for the EPAs with the EU? Are there any alternatives to the EPAs?

It does not appear as if the Cotonou agreement gave ESA/SADC countries real alternatives to EPAs. Although Article 37 of the Cotonou agreement talks of alternative trade arrangements with those non-LDC ACP states which are not ready to negotiate EPAs with the EU, there is no real alternative mentioned in the agreement. Article 37 promises to give those non-LDCs not ready for EPAs alternative trade arrangements with benefits similar to those under the Lome conventions. This is a dubious promise. The only possible alternative under Article 37 is the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), a system of favours which must be granted to all developing countries. By definition this cannot result in favours similar to those under the Lome conventions because the later were meant for particular (ACP) developing countries, not all developing countries. Effectively Article 37 offers no real alternative to EPAs. Having said this, it is ironical that despite claiming to be unprepared for EPAs all ESA/SADC countries are negotiating one with the EU, and none have attempted to use the so-called alternative under Article 37.

ESA/SADC states must think of options to the current EPA negotiations. But what are these options, and how effective can they be?

1. Maintaining the status quo. Ideally many producers in the ACP group, including those in the ESA/SADC region would like the Lome preferences to be kept or even improved upon. They would like to continue getting special favours over and above other developing countries. This would see ESA/SADC states keeping special market access on favourable terms for example, for sugar and beef exports. To keep these favours ESA/SADC countries and their ACP counterparts must wait for the EU to be given another waiver to permit these one-way favours. However this is increasingly becoming a remote possibility for a number of reasons:

- Banana producing countries of Latin America have bitterly complained against the EU’s ACP preferences, arguing that they are discriminatory. The WTO has ruled that these preferences are indeed discriminatory and violate the MFN rule;

- There is a strong lobby in the EU and beyond (e.g. certain Asian countries) which is against Lome type trade preferences and is advocating for their ban at the WTO.

2. No reciprocity. Under this option ESA/SADC would not need to enter into damaging reciprocal arrangements with the EU, but to create non-reciprocal schemes. These are limited by the WTO rules to those non-reciprocal arrangements which are WTO compliant. This entails schemes under the GSP which is open to all developing countries. There are other GSP schemes which favour LDCs over developing countries, e.g., the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA which gives LDCs products - except arms - entering the EU zero percent duty) scheme which is exclusive for LDCs. In this respect ESA/SADC countries would split along LDC and non-LDC lines. The EBA and the general GSP must be measured with the real market access under the Lome preferences. Even with these preferences ESA/SADC exports did not achieve a high level of penetration into the EU market.

A number of barriers prevented this, such as:

- Non-tariff barriers; subsidies granted to EU producers, especially under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) made it difficult for ESA/SADC producers to compete in the EU.

- Stringent rules for human, plant and animal health (Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures created obstacles against ESA/SADC exports as exporters could not afford to meet the requirements.

- Administrative procedures to satisfy rules of origin requirements also dissuaded ESA/SADC exporters from fully taking advantage of the Lome preferences. Already the beef, cereals and dairy sectors in ESA/SADC states are facing dwindling opportunities as a result of the CAP reforms.

These barriers are still relevant under the GSP and its EBA variety, if they are not removed the GSP and the EBA options are not really options for ESA/SADC.

3. Some level of Reciprocity. This option allows ESA/SADC states to partially open up their markets to the EU by liberalizing specific sectors whilst shutting out certain EU products and services for the protection of infantile producers. EU exports to the ESA/SADC region face tariff and non-tariff barriers. However the case for lowering barriers to EU imports may have several negative results, for example:

- government revenue losses, worst affected would be Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Tanzania which would lose more than 30% of customs revenue;

- local industry may not be able to compete with stronger EU-based competitors;

- there will be an increase in EU imports compared to a decline in ESA/SADC exports, there is a possibility that the food and beverages sectors would suffer as a result of more EU competing products entering the market; While the short-term result is that cheaper food imports will benefit consumers, the food processing and milling industries will face ultimate ruin;

- lower ESA/SADC duties on EU imports will negatively affect trade amongst ESA/SADC countries with respect to their own FTAs such as under, EAC, COMESA and the planned SADC FTA.

ESA/SADC states may opt to shut out specific EU products and unilaterally liberalise their economies in areas they are ready to do so. From an ESA/SADC perspective this is reasonable because it protects vulnerable sectors from damaging competition. However both light market opening (some level of reciprocity) and the non-reciprocal unilateral tariff structuring have to comply with the WTO rules. At present Article XXIV which caters for RTAs does not permit such deviations. To accommodate this option Article XXIV has to be amended to:

- recognize the disparities between industrialized and developing countries;

- make the interpretation of the requirement for “substantially all trade” to be liberalized more flexible for developing countries which have economic sectors which are too sensitive to competition from industrialized trading partners;

- grant developing countries in a proposed FTA with an industrialized country more time and opportunity to adjust to the new arrangement (transition period), for example by up to 18 years or more.

The ACP states have tabled this proposal before the WTO for possible negotiation at the December 2005 summit. However the weight of influence seems staked against the ACP proposal. Japan and Australia are opposed to this proposal, added to these is the traditional hostility to ACP preferences as shown by Latin American countries, and sometimes with USA backing.

Tying Trade Liberalisation to Developmental Benchmarks

Proposals forwarded by Trades Centre under its study on New Enhanced Economic Agreements (ERA) provide practical options for future EU-ACP trading co-operation. Essentially, the proposal ties trade liberalisation by African countries to certain developmental benchmarks which include:

- Agreed measures of development and overall vulnerability of each African Regional Partner (e.g. SADC or ESA). For example, opening up of Africa’s markets to the EU must be tied to substantial debt relief by the EU to Africa. In other words, the EU pays a price for preferential market provided to it.

- LDC members retain their special access to EU markets without reciprocity for an extended period.

- Opening up of Africa’s markets is related to agreed benchmarks in reform of the CAP.

- EU trade diversion avoided by liberalizing at own pace within the WTO frameworks thus giving improved access to non-EU markets.

- Aid component of ERA is used to enhance trade capabilities and increase export diversification.

- Aid is also used to cushion the transition to more liberal trading conditions (especially changes in protocols).

- There is a contract enforcement mechanism (including dispute procedures) in place.

- Rules of origin are simple and facilitate cumulation.

- Review of WTO provisions on RTAs.

More aid, investment, and new issues.

ACP states (inclusive of ESA/SADC countries) seem to be involved in the EPA negotiations for the purposes of accessing more aid and investment from the EU. It is not clear that more aid and investment will only come from the EU if ESA/SADC states agree to EPA arrangements with the EU. Above this ESA/SADC states have committed themselves to supporting negotiations on investment, competition and intellectual property related issues both at an EPA level and at the WTO. This is despite their resistance to the discussions of these issues at the Cancun WTO summit. This shows a level of confusion as there is no guarantee that more aid and investment will materialize from the EU as a result of the EPA under negotiations.

Recommendations

The EPA negotiations should either be drastically slowed down or stopped. This will give ESA/SADC time to make real assessments of future trade relations not only with Europe but with the rest of the world. The present concern for ESA/SADC states like the rest of the ACP group is to maintain historical favours from the EU. At the same time ESA/SADC states want to benefit from the multilateral framework under the WTO. As explained above there is a conflicting legal responsibility here. In the short-term ESA/SADC states should:

- engage WTO partners to ensure that post-Lome trade arrangements do not get implemented by 2008 as planned under the Cotonou agreement.

- actively table alternatives to the EPAs proposal. This involves having to pull out of the current negotiations, or seeking a reprieve. The short-term plan obviously includes conflicting positions, the more reason why it is not ideal.

- ESA/SADC states should revisit their regional integration commitments and give effect to deeper integration. Emphasis should be on food security as the priority for the region. And with respect to trade relations with the rest of the world ESA/SADC states should.

- assess their historical dependence on Europe in the light of shifting geopolitical priorities. EU trade preferences have not and will not increase African productivity and economic security. Some sectors of ESA/SADC economies are at the mercy of EU CAP reforms and the EU is no longer a viable market for them.

- work collectively with other developing countries to ensure that the WTO framework works to the advantage of developing countries. ACP states have used the WTO summits as a place to secure the continuity of EU preferences. Instead better use of the multilateral framework can be made if ACP states focus on issues common to the trading prospects of all developing countries. Though some ACP states are active on issues common to all developing states, there is always the EU trade preferences issue.

- take a lead in negotiating the implementation of development country friendly WTO concessions, in this case the market access commitments of developed countries under Part IV of GATT. These concessions do not require reciprocal action from developing countries especially with respect to liberalization commitments. The WTO rules did not make flexible rules to govern RTAs involving developed-developing country configuration precisely because it makes no economic sense. Hence ESA/SADC states should insist on the actualization of those rules made with developing countries in mind.

* Many thanks to Dr. Medicine Masiiwa from the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust (Trades Centre) for providing this summary of research into EPAs being conducted by the Trades Centre.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The sixth ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) wrapped up just before Christmas, but the results were anything but a present for Africa. The general consensus on the outcome was that a ‘development package’ failed to obscure losses in the areas of services, agriculture and export subsidies. In this article, Mohau Pheko and Liepollo Lebohang Pheko from the Gender & Trade Network in Africa, argue that Hong Kong will be remembered for creating an anti-development platform for Africa and the African people, especially women.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) evokes a complex game at a casino. Bets are placed, teams are formed and reformed. The G90, G33, G20, NAMA 11 and of course the quads comprising the richest countries of the US, EU, Canada and Japan all line up. Typical of negotiations between rich and poor countries, the rules of the game shift according to the interests of the rich players who make the rules as they go along. In the end the rich industrial nations scheming and reverting to their old bag of tricks like ‘aid for trade’, extract even more concessions from poor African countries who have once again lost the game.

Much time in Hong Kong was spent by rich nations plotting their divide and conquer ‘development’ packages. Yet, even the so-called ‘development’ package was a case of romance without finance, empty, pathetic and premised on the notion of loans to further indebt poor African countries. The least developed countries came under attack as threatening to collapse the summit if they refused their suitors efforts at romancing them by increasing their debt in a take-it-or-leave-it assistance package.

Even the rare boldness of African parliamentarians earlier in the week in insisting that ‘the development concerns in all aspects of negotiations that have been raised by African Members be addressed as an integral part of the negotiations’, was ignored. African trade ministers thought otherwise and endorsed the final text with all its flaws. After six days of acrimonious negotiations, everyone including the unholy trio of the EU, US and Pascal Lamy, the WTO director-general, knows that a multitude of serious problems facing the WTO were papered over to avoid a third collapse and yet another visit to the intensive care unit. The concluded negotiations are a clear indication that the ‘free trade’ system is manifestly hypocritical, inconsistent, and ineffective for African women in particular. The WTO talks in Hong Kong have vividly highlighted these contradictions.

We cannot blame the rich countries alone; they needed to co-opt some countries from the global south to succeed in spinning a deceptive deal. The culprits emerge as the G-20 countries led by countries with large emerging economies such as Brazil, India, China, Pakistan and South Africa. The G-20 headed by Brazil’s Celso Amorin and India’s Kamal Nath have led the developing countries down the garden path in exchange for some market access in agriculture for Brazil and services outsourcing for India. The result of this is that developing countries will be forced to swallow the bitter pill of aggressive services market access. This will force African countries to provide foreign investors with the same rights as local suppliers in areas like water. This is an attack on public services that women depend upon for their families. For South Africa this will work against efforts towards broad-based BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) and women’s economic empowerment with these groups having to compete with foreign investors for tenders in the services sectors.

Through the adoption of a Swiss formula on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), African countries will be forced to undertake drastic cuts in their industrial tariffs. This will potentially lead to the further collapse of local industries, de-industrialisation and massive job losses in mining, fishing and manufacturing and will wipe out women’s home-based industries, displacing local producers.

In the area of agriculture, Africa’s critical interests have been ignored. The end date of 2013 for the elimination of export subsidies, which amounted to three billion euros, looses significance when compared to the damage that African farmers will endure by domestic support measures which amount to 55 billion euros. It is clear that the rich countries, in particular the US and EU, found an escape route on this sticking point. The losers are African women who will be displaced by companies like Monsanto who produce genetically modified seeds and are creating a food security crisis for the African world.

The resistance of countries such as the G90 (mostly developing countries), Venezuela and Cuba were systematically thwarted by immense pressure from the rich nations. What is clear now is that the use of the Doha Development Round was a smokescreen by rich countries to force developing countries to comply with their WTO commitment to open up their markets, even if this was not compatible with national development goals. The ideological imperative of free trade is like a moral prescription of errant religious leaders – do as I say, not as I do. When African countries made demands for special treatment, they were regarded as charity cases by wealthy countries. The rich countries also intimidated developing countries by asserting that they have only two options – meet the challenge of adapting to trade liberalisation or retreat into the dark past of protectionism. This is a false dichotomy. The real dichotomy is the power play between development and the unequal rules of free trade as defined by the rich countries.

Instead of Hong Kong becoming a milestone towards achieving the much-lauded development round, it will be remembered as creating an anti-development platform for Africa and the African people. The economic gains promised when the WTO was launched 11 years ago never materialised and the economic conditions for the majority of African people has deteriorated. It reminds one of that old Billie Holiday song “them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose”.

A recent World Bank study shows that poor nations will be the net looser if the current Doha agenda is continued. It is incredibly cynical - even by WTO standards - to try and label these negotiations as pro-development. Included as net losers are Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and most of the Middle Eastern countries. A careful read of the Hong Kong Ministerial text shows that despite days of hype about development being at the centre of the Doha agenda, in reality, Africa has been mortgaged to subsidise the economic future of rich industrial countries.

* The writers are members of the Secretariat for the Gender & Trade Network in Africa based in Johannesburg. GENTA participated at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

“Who will stand up for the poor?” asks Percy F. Makombe from the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information Negotiations Institute in the light of the recently concluded World Trade Organisation meeting held in Hong Kong 13-18 December. Makombe writes: “By agreeing to the Hong Kong ministerial text, developing countries are accepting short term and insignificant gains in agriculture for the serious loss of the right to develop policy space and options.”

It was the English poet John Milton who made the famous statement that "They who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness." Milton was of course speaking of other times. Yet after monitoring six days of World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade talks in Hong Kong between December 13-18, one could be forgiven for thinking that Milton was referring to these times.

After a week of haggling, 149 WTO countries gave their thumbs up to a statement that is supposed to keep alive the prospect of a global trade deal. There seemed to be a touch of inappropriateness when Chair, John Tsang, Hong Kong's Commerce Secretary, banged his gavel and authoritatively declared "It is so decided". Perhaps the appropriate words would have been “It is so ordered!” This way any pretensions to a consultative decision making process would be done away with.

According to the declaration, rich countries are supposed to end their export subsidies by 2013 and also speed up cuts to other forms of government farm support. On cotton, rich countries must phase out export subsidies next year (2006) but there is no agreement on subsidies for US farmers. Lowest Developing Countries (LDC) have also been made to believe that the “deal” is good for them as rich countries will allow duty and quota-free access for 97% of products from LDCs from 2008. These countries will be given special allowances for meeting market-opening requirements. The WTO has set April 30 as the deadline for the completion of negotiations in agriculture and industrial goods. Despite opposition by developing countries to negotiations on liberalisation of trade in services, the text commits them to begin negotiations in 2006.

There is very little from the ministerial declaration to suggest that the world’s richest countries are committed to helping developing countries. The declaration represents nothing more than an offering of mere crumbs at the table. In the area of agriculture, developing countries are urged to open their markets ostensibly so that free trade can take place, but in reality to give a place for rich countries to dump heavily subsidised agricultural products. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cotton issue for instance. An Oxfam report reveals that the US government subsidised its 25 000 cotton farmers to the tune of US$4.2 billion in 2004. This places the US farmers at an unfair advantage and enables them to take a 40% chunk of the global market. This has serious repercussions for millions of cotton farmers in Africa especially in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali whose countries depend on cotton for almost half their exports. It borders on obscenity for the US government to give that kind of support to agribusiness and then preach the doctrine of free and fair trade to African farmers.

The promise by the declaration to eliminate cotton export subsidies in 2006 has been touted as an example that rich nations are willing to lose something in these negotiations. Yet to argue that way is an exercise in deception for two reasons. First, the European Union does not have cotton export subsidies. Second the US cannot claim to be doing anyone a favour by eliminating them because it is required to do so anyway to comply with a WTO panel ruling.

The deal that allows Least-Developed Countries to get duty-free, quota free access for 97% of exports from 2008 is as meaningless as it is worthless. This is not least because all the LDCs account for less than one per cent of world trade. Allowing unrestricted entry of their products in developing and developed countries’ markets is therefore inconsequential. This is more so given the fact that Japan for instance will not permit the entry of sugar, rice and fishery products into its market. EU farmers strongly lobby their governments not to permit the entry of beef and sugar in their countries. US considers textiles from Bangladeshi and Cambodia to be competitive and will therefore not grant duty and quota-free access to it. So we have a farcical situation where Cambodia can be granted duty and quota free access to the US market if it is selling Boeing 707 aeroplanes but not textiles. Where does Cambodia begin to get the money to manufacture a Boeing 707?

On Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) the text proposes the cutting of tariffs using the so-called ‘Swiss Formula’. While it is clear that this is the ‘preferred’ formula, what is not clear is what the coefficients for developed and developing countries will be like. Whatever the coefficient, there is no doubt that the formula will radically reduce tariffs thus exposing vulnerable industries in developing countries to aggressive and unfair competition.

Developing countries have agreed on the Swiss formula but have got nothing in terms of policy flexibility in the NAMA negotiations. Since developing countries have much higher tariffs than the rich countries, this means much larger tariff cuts by developing countries in terms of percentage points. Yet an ideal situation is one where developing countries with a weak and vulnerable industrial base should have the policy freedom and flexibility to choose their own commitments regarding which sector and at what rate of reduction their commitments are to be. The argument that competition from cheaper imports will induce local firms to be more competitive flies in the face of facts. The fact of the matter is that the developed countries of today industrialized under high tariff and import protection, and those countries that liberalized too fast suffered closure of local industries and job losses.

While there has been progress on negotiations on issues like agriculture and non-agricultural market access which are on the priority list of developed nations, there has been little or no movement on issues like the Special & Differential Treatment (S&D) which are of importance to developing countries. Countries are different and the same rules should not apply to all countries because they are in different stages of development. It is not fair to require countries to make concessions and undertake commitments that are inconsistent with their development. Only a satisfactory resolution of S&D treatment will contribute to the redress of the present imbalances in the multilateral trading system.

By agreeing to the Hong Kong ministerial text, developing countries are accepting short term and insignificant gains in agriculture for the serious loss of the right to develop policy space and options. The 2013 deadline for the elimination of export subsidies is not even a deadline. Further down, the text is very clear that the deadline “will be confirmed upon completion of the modalities…” This looks more like an exit strategy for the developed nations; it gives them space to explain why they have not met their commitments. In return for this shaky commitment, developing countries will be asked to open up some more. They will be asked not to protect their infant industries. Further down, they will be asked to privatise basic services like water and health leaving their citizens exposed to the vagaries of the market. All this for what?

Who will stand up for the poor? To question those who want to auction our lives is not only our right it is our duty. To challenge those who seek to commodify our lives is not only a necessity, it is our responsibility. It’s certainly not easy to fight big business and capital, but as has often been said, “Every journey begins with a single step.”

* Percy F. Makombe is an editorial board member of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information Negotiations Institute.

* Please send comments to

Human rights defenders from over 70 countries around the globe participated in a Dublin conference hosted by Front Line Defenders, the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (http://www.frontlinedefenders.org), in October 2005. The three day platform saw individual human rights defenders give moving testimonies of the work they do and the hardships, challenges and risks they face daily. Pambazuka News will be publishing a series of these testimonies over the coming weeks, beginning with that of Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, who recounts the experiences of the Sudan Social Development Organization in Darfur.

“I am giving this testimony on behalf of my organization, Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), and myself.

What is Sudan?

The word in Arabic (Sudan) literally means the blacks. It was used in ancient history to describe the land South of Egypt. In modern history it was used as a name to describe inhabitants of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, Chad (the French Sudan) and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Sudan in its now known political boundaries, came as a result of the territory’ sharing between the colonial powers in the 20th century.

This country is characterized by its multi-ethnic, multi-cultural multi-religious population. There are more than 600 groups living in the country. These groups when setting the boundaries were not consulted as to whether or not they wanted to live together to form one nation. They were packed in these boundaries without consultation.

That means in reality that there is no one nation called Sudanese, but a country lived in by groups with diverse races, cultures and religions.

How it is ruled?

The colonial powers adopted a governance structure which is centralized, run and controlled by Khartoum. This system was inherited by a clique of Sudanese after independence in 1956, who preserved the same social, economic and political structure.

The basic features of this structure are:

- A small section of the Sudanese people are active in exploiting the resources of the country and have control over the state apparatus and the resources of the country, and impose policies and culture that serve their greedy interests.

- The majority of the population with their ethnic, religious and cultural diversities are ruled by this minority. Their right to be masters over the wealth that they produce and to participate in the general affairs of their country and regions is denied. Also their right to express their cultures and heritage is denied.

In spite of slogans and allegations of implementing decentralization, regionalism, federation and the just redistribution of power and national wealth, the hegemony and domination of the minority has deepened much more.

On the cultural aspect, traditions, cultures, and customs of the majority of the peoples were marginalized and a racial, narrow-minded vision of the identity of the country established.

The majority of people, as a result of the continuation of this structure, experienced the suffering of poverty, ignorance, diseases, and deprivation, and faced different kinds of calamities, like war, famines and epidemics which affected to a great extent the rural areas. This led to increasing numbers of emigrants and displaced people towards cities to dwell in miserable conditions. Misery became the general feature of their life in urban and rural areas.

The following manifests the essence of this system of governance structure:

- The strict centralization avails to the government of Khartoum an absolute power to decide on all crucial local and national issues. This situation marginalizes and deprives the will of all people.

- The preservation, by the different governments, of the aspects of uneven development inherited from the colonial state is made even worse to the extent that the least developed regions were much more underdeveloped. The phenomenon of economic collapse and the decline of the standard of living is common to all the nation but has hit rural areas with great severity and damage.

- The adoption of a dangerous and incapable concept of Sudanese identity that stands on the ground of religious and ethnic superiority.

- The establishment of the religious state giving all the mentioned grievances their institutional embodiment and their most horrible expression as manifested in the existing wars and in the ethnic and religious purging and mass annihilation. The religious state also deprives people from their rights of citizenship and creates a second-class citizen, it also supports economic and social inequality and renders the unity of the country impossible.

Due to these policies, Sudan has never lived in peace since its independence. War in the south began even before the colonial troops left the country. The central government in Khartoum adopted policies of divide and rule and used local conflicts to wage war against its opponents. The regular army has always fought by proxy using tribal militias. The more people start demanding equality and justice the more brutal becomes the central government. In the south of Sudan, in a long war, 2 million people have been killed, Five million persons were displaced or took refuge. The ongoing war in the Darfur killed 300,000 persons, about 2 million persons are displaced.

Emergence of SUDO

In this environment, looking at the condition of the country and the people, some 54 Sudanese men and women gathered and formed a national NGO, under the name of the Sudan Social Development Organization, known as SUDO, to work towards the welfare of the Sudanese people.

The SUDO mission is to contribute to the creation of a general human rights movement capable of defending itself and seeking a society free from all forms of human rights violations.

SUDO considers providing and availing basic needs and services a basic human right. It adopts a rights based approach on all its interventions. SUDO finds it impossible in societies like Sudan to advocate for political rights without economic and social rights. Therefore drilling a borehole or building a clinic or school is a very good event to advocate for political and social rights. Training and advocacy programs can be conducted concurrently while providing the service.

Given the conditions of the country, being ruled by a dictatorship and controlled by security, registering an NGO with such a mission was on its own a challenge.

From the first day of its registration SUDO started to work, and adopted an approach of going directly to the grassroots community.

In this short testimony I will just give a brief about the SUDO experience in the defense of human rights in Darfur as an example.

While working in Darfur since it was formed in 2001, SUDO recognized the ongoing conflict in the region. Although very young and vulnerable SUDO started advocating about what was going on in the region. We approached diplomatic missions in the Sudan as early as 2002, telling them about abuses in the region, attacks on villages, killing of civilians, burning of houses, and the looting and destruction of property. SUDO reported the systematic trend of attacks, systematic killing of individuals and mass killings of certain tribal groups.

SUDO reports were not listened to, not because they were discredited but because the political environment was not accepting to believe what had been said. SUDO worked closely with Amnesty International to highlight the gravity of what was going on in the region, in terms of human rights abuses, but both Amnesty and SUDO were not listened to. Although we managed to get out credible reports throughout 2002 and 2003, western governments were not wanting to accept the fact that there was another war going on in the Sudan. Western governments were by that time very involved in the peace process between the so-called South and North. One of the diplomats was even telling us “Why Darfur now?” Our reply was: “It is not our choice, we have not invented it.”

Hundreds were detained arbitrary and SUDO worked closely with Amnesty International for their release. We mobilized local communities and thanks to these efforts we managed to free many who were innocent, but with severe regret many lost their lives under torture. Slowly the war started to get a political dimension. By the end of 2002, a political/armed group named itself as the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) and later transformed to the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement SLA/M. The trend of the war has changed. Instead of militias backed by government forces attacking villagers the government army started to launch systematic attacks against civilians. SLA has launched very painful, planned attacks against government army garrisons, and the government has retaliated by using heavy bombardment, air raids against villages, and concurrently used militias to attack villages burn, loot, rape and kill.

SUDO and other international organizations started reporting what was happening to the public and the Western missions in Khartoum, but still very little response was noticed. The government reacted by putting restrictions on INGO (international NGOs) movement, confining them to the main cities in Darfur, Geneina, Fasher and Nyala. The government started to gather outlaws, free criminals from the prisons, grant them amnesty and recruit them to join it on its war campaign.

SUDO, being a national NGO, has not abided by the restriction of movement. SUDO staff and members went to all areas in Darfur, seeing the misery of the fighting and the burden inflicted upon the civilians. Hundreds, thousands of women and children were forced to leave the burned villages, their dead husbands, sons and fathers and flee bare footed for days and weeks. They were without water and food, forced into camps at the outskirts of deserted towns, and away from the eyes of the humanitarian organizations. They were without shelter and clothes and subject to the attacks of the government militias called Janjaweed. SUDO reported in one instance, in one of these collection of people, the death of a child every second day. By the end of 2003, the international community started its very slow movement, forced by the magnitude and gravity of the situation.

In its effort to highlight the Darfur cause SUDO suffered a lot. Many of its members, volunteers and staff were arrested and tortured, but in spite of that continued to work. SUDO intervened with humanitarian assistance to the people in need and managed to pull in many international organizations to come in, and give assistance. Our staff has carried the risk on their shoulders, under fire and bombardment, in Kaila, Mershing, Zalingei and many other places. They are in the front assisting people. Young men and women, risking their own lives, opening a road for international assistance. SUDO staff have faced militias and talked in very dangerous situations to the tribes who were involved in the conflict. Still to date SUDO staff is working, delivering a service to the people in need, despite the danger they face. Our staff is working in areas designated by UN security as unsafe.

Although it is an emergency, SUDO, still based on its mission, is protecting people, our field monitors, victims of rape, victims of other violations. Our protection officers are resource persons at the forefront, assisting UN agencies to deliver their duties. They are training police and other law enforcement forces, at camps and towns, in human rights, trying to ensure their abidance with international human rights conventions.

A Short Personal Testimony

I have gone through different detention experiences by the ruling regime, since they came to power in 1989. But I had also had my share with other colleagues in relation to the Darfur conflict. I was arrested three times since December 2003. The first was meant to shut my mouth on the 24th of December 2003. I was arrested from home by 8 security members with Kalashnikovs in plain clothes, at 11.00 pm. My house and my office were searched. I was interrogated for two days at security offices and then transferred to the security detention centre in the general federal prison of Sudan called Kober. After being kept in that detention center for more than 45 days, I went on hunger strike on the 8th of February. On the 10th of February I was transferred to the prosecutor of the crimes against the state and charged under 9 articles of the Sudanese penal code. Five of these charges carry the death penalty. I went on trial for about 8 months, until the case was drawn from the court by the prosecutor general, due to lack of evidence, internal and international pressure.

Again I was detained from my village with a friend on the 24th of January 2005, and kept in solitary at a ghost house called Abu Ghyreib, for two months. I went on hunger strike for 12 days, after which due to internal and international pressure I was transferred to the Prosecutor of the crimes against the state and charged with an attempt of suicide and then transferred to the hospital to be treated from the effect of the hunger strike. I lost 10 kilogrammes of my weight on the hunger strike. I was released from the hospital, without the charge being dropped. On the 8th of May, while I was due to board a plane to Dublin to receive an award from Front Line I was detained again, my passport was confiscated and I was banned from travel. I stayed 3 days at the security detention centre together with my friend and my driver, and was then transferred to the prosecutor of the crimes against the state under accusation of espionage and photographing military areas. I walked out from the prosecutor office 10 days later without being stopped.

Still I ask, whether I deserve being awarded a prize (for human rights work), when I can recall individuals, paying with their lives trying to protect their people’s rights. Do I really deserve it?”

* Please send comments to

Globalisation is often presented as something from which one cannot escape. It is compared to gravity; to resist it is seen as going against gravity. As Margaret Thatcher proclaimed, “There is no alternative” to neo-liberal capitalism. So, mainstreaming in the 1990s and since then has meant joining the bandwagon of capital-led globalisation. It has been widely pronounced to be Africa’s inevitable destiny too, but Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) is an initiative that attempts to provide a framework for alternative policies and strategies, which can bring about sustainable, human development. Their aim is to stimulate the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for Africa.

Exposing The Myth

A passive acceptance of destiny forced on Africa from outside goes against the grain of Africa’s history. Africans fought to resist colonial occupation, and in some places resistance went on for some three decades after the carving up of Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884-5. Then, when Africa was finally subjugated and occupied, Africans put up resistance against the occupation itself for another five decades and more, and finally liberated themselves from colonial rule, and its vicious offsprings such as apartheid. In other words, resistance against oppression has been the principal mode of African existence, almost a way of life for most Africans for the best part of a hundred years.

Unfortunately, the first generation political leaders after political independence from 1957 (when Ghana got its independence) through the 1960s and 70s were caught up in the cold war and the ideological battles of the period. Some of them, like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, tried to experiment with their own versions of African socialism; others like Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya followed the capitalist model; and yet others tried various versions of “scientific socialism”. After the end of the cold war, and the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the capitalist system came out triumphant, and all alternative options appeared to have vanished. Hence the increasingly strident assertion of the unavoidability of neo-liberal globalisation.

However, the myth of the inevitability of globalisation is as misleading as the myth about Africa’s passive acceptance. Globalisation is nothing but a policy response of the capitalist nations in crisis, the beginning of which goes back to the mid-1970s. Contemporary globalisation is part of the strategy of transnational corporations backed by the military, political and institutional (including WTO, WB and IMF amongst others) power of the G8 states, collectively constituting the Empire. Its alleged gravitational property has nothing to do with reality; it is a self-serving myth perpetuated by the imperial nations through systematic media disinformation and fatuous academic discourse.

Indeed, capital-led globalisation is even at the root of the crisis in Africa. It is by now agreed by wide sections of Southern African society that the neo-liberal paradigm of development has failed the people. Poverty has not only been entrenched but it has also deepened, and the gap between the rich and the poor has increased.

The ANSA Initiative

It follows that there must be an alternative and that such an alternative is of vital importance. The Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) initiative represents an attempt to address this need. Its roots reach back as far as 1993, when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZiCTU) took the initiative to formulate an alternative to the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, ESAP, which had been introduced in Zimbabwe in 1991.

Based on the experience gained in Zimbabwe, in 2003 the ANSA initiative took off, but now as a regional programme and initiative. Initially, a small group of individuals linked to the ZiCTU worked out the principles of an alternative approach and provided scientific and research materials. The project was gradually broadened until, in January 2005, representatives from affiliates of SATUCC adopted the programme. Since then, the initiative has aimed at and gained wider name and recognition among progressive academics, unions, social movements and beyond, both within and outside Africa.

From the beginning, ANSA’s aim has been not to produce another academic report, but to stimulate the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for our region.

The Root Causes of Underdevelopment

ANSA’s overall economic analysis revolves around dualism and enclavity and external dependency as the root causes of pervasive unemployment, and hence underdevelopment, in Southern Africa.

In plain language, dualism and enclavity describe Southern African economies that are generally characterised by a relatively small formal sector, which co-exists but is separate from a large informal sector, the latter one located both within urban areas and rural regions (the communal sector).

The formal economy consists of capitalists interested in profit making and workers who primarily depend on wages for their sustenance. In Africa it can be assumed that less than 20% of the labour force earns a living in the formal sector. The sector consists of large, medium, small and micro enterprises that are formally registered and recognised; as such they encompass activities in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.

The urban informal is a residual sector, which has come to have a high degree of permanence in many African countries. It is a sector characterised by easy entry and exit, driven by self-employment activities that reflect linkages with the formal sector and rural sector as well as the ingenuity of the individuals involved in the sector. Levels of productivity are low in terms of returns per hour worked, while wages tend to be below poverty levels. This sector absorbs surplus labour from the rural and the formal sector such as retrenchees. Generally about one third of the labour force in many countries tends to be involved in urban informal sector activities. In some regional countries the informal economy is in fact the ‘mainstream’ economy.

The communal sector is the original traditional or pre-capitalist sector with all the variations this entails in the African context. The present-day communal sector is also highly differentiated and has a number of linkages with the formal and urban informal sectors. However, the majority of the households are involved in low productivity farm and non-farm pursuits in which surplus generation is low and primarily not directed at accumulation but consumption. In most African countries, the majority of the households live and work in what we are labelling the communal sector.

The root problem of under-development now lies in the fact that the majority of the labour force is involved in low productivity pursuits that result in incomes and consumption levels that are close to poverty. The relationship between the three sectors and the external world is such that it tends to reproduce the continued marginalisation of the majority and continues to constrain the development of the economy as a whole.

Internal and External Distortions

Underlying this problem of underdevelopment are internal and external distortions, distortions which the ‘free’ capitalist market system has not been able to solve. Indeed, it has even caused, reproduced and strengthened these distortions. They therefore have to be carefully analysed and understood, after which a successful strategy to solve them can be formulated.

The formal sector shows a bias toward large-scale enterprises and against the evolution of dynamic micro, small, medium enterprise. It favours relatively capital intensive methods of production that are not warranted by the amount of labour available, given high unemployment rates. It is biased toward externally driven demand given that the majority of the domestic population lacks effective demand. It favours imports of capital and intermediary goods as well as high income consumer goods given the inability to produce these locally due to lack of critical minimum level of effective demand.

The formal sector is not able to play its dynamic role in terms of transforming the economy through trickle down effects, since the linkages with the non-formal sector are minimal and mostly restricted to use of cheap labour.

The urban informal sector is well known for its deficiencies in terms of lack of capital, improvised technology, high transaction costs and inadequate access to infrastructure. There is an absence of an adequate facilitating legal, regulatory and institutional regime for assets, intellectual property and market transactions As a consequence, the urban informal sector is prone to lateral expansion, depressed returns that verge toward subsistence, stunted growth and endemic poverty for many.

Although the communal sector may have developed production methods and non-farm activities that are appropriate for the environment in which they live, the sector has not been able to be fully integrated into modern forms of economic organisation. The sector shares a number of the characteristics of the urban informal sector, like the absence of social and economic infrastructure, the absence of an adequate facilitating legal, regulatory and institutional regime, high transaction costs and inadequate access to information useful for participation in the modern economy. There is an outward migration of able-bodied males. In some countries the shortage of land due to land degradation or land appropriation is also resulting in increasing marginalisation of peasants.

Thus, participants in both the urban informal sector and the rural communal sector are unable to lift themselves since their capabilities and their environment is highly compromised. They are also not able to benefit from trickle down effects from the formal sector or abroad in the absence of facilitating interventions.

The global environment has had the tendency to perpetuate the underdevelopment based on enclavity. For example, with regard to its interaction with the formal sector, this has been such that it reinforces both primary export and import dependency in a manner that does not facilitate the transformation and upgrading of the domestic economy. Terms of trade have generally been to the disadvantage of the formal sector in African economies. Monopolistic tendencies and protectionism among the developed countries have made it difficult to acquire competitive advantage that would allow the developing countries to compete on an equal level with the developed countries and even allow them to reconfigure their exports and imports.

More generally the international economy has been dominated by private and public interests which have systemically pushed for economic transaction regimes that work primarily to serve their interest rather than the development needs of countries such as those in Africa.

As another consequence of the above problems, African countries find themselves in a dilemma whereby disarticulations at the national level, coupled with external dependency, militate against effective regional co-operation and national development within a regional context as well.

The ANSA Declaration

This analysis shows why a neo-liberal ‘free’ market system can not solve our problems and, at the same time, provides a concrete framework for alternative policies and strategies, which can indeed bring about sustainable, human development. It is the foundation upon which a comprehensive ANSA Declaration has been developed, which, in turn, serves as the basis for ANSA’s further plans and activities.

The declaration sets out the 10 principles of the ANSA strategy:

1. At political and social level, a people-led strategy (as opposed to IMF-WB-WTO-donor-led).

2. At the economic level, an alternative production system, one that is based on domestic demand and human needs and the use of local resources and domestic savings, that is autocentric development (as opposed to the present system that is dominated by an export-oriented strategy, based on foreign investments and ownership).

3. Grassroots-led regional integration (as opposed to the current fragmentation of the region by the Empire).

4. A strategic, selective delinking from neo-liberal globalisation (as opposed to further deepening of integration within the existing iniquitous global system), and preparing for leveraged negotiated relinking in a restructured and transformed global production and distribution system.

5. An alternative policy on science and technology based on harnessing and owning the collective knowledge and wisdom of the people (as opposed to the present blind emulation of techno-science of the empire).

6. A strategy of alliance and networking with national, regional and global progressive forces (as opposed to the present system of co-optation of social forces in the capital-led globalisation process).

7. A strategy with a politically governed redistribution of the wealth and opportunities from the so-called formal sector in society to the informal sectors (as opposed to the present system of misallocation of resources, and the integration of the informal sectors through their providing cheap inputs and a reservoir of semi-employed labour).

8. A strategy where women’s rights are in focus as the basis for a healthy and productive society (as opposed to the present system based on the exploitation of women labour).

9. A strategy where education addresses the needs for sustainable human development, and which is aimed at improving the technical and managerial as well as research and development skills of workers and those directly in control of matters of production and governance (as opposed to education for a bureaucratic and academic elite).

10. A strategy where peoples’ mobilisation and visible demonstrations, and open hearings, in support of the evolving ethical and developmental state, are seen as embodying the democratic strength of the society, creating a dynamic, participatory and radical democracy (as opposed to the present system, where mobilisation is seen as a threat to the existing system, and where the representative democracy can sign away the future rights of people).

Framework for an Alternative Policy

Based on the above analysis and guided by the 10 principles, the ANSA Declaration then submits a detailed alternative policy and strategy for sustainable human development in Southern Africa. It does that both in general terms as well as for the various sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, trade and mining; for macro-economics and finance; for policies like education & training, science & technology and infrastructure; and for cross-cutting issues like gender and culture. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this article to present them here.

It should be well understood that the ANSA Declaration only sets out the general alternative policy framework for the region. It is necessary that each country will formulate and push for its own specific alternative policy and strategy within this regional framework. The ANSA Programme is actively working towards this follow up. A training and advocacy programme is also being developed.

As said before, the ANSA programme is not a separate academic exercise; it is aimed at stimulating and facilitating the growth of a mass movement, the ideal being that the numerous localised centres of resistance and initiatives for alternatives will in the end pressurise for change from a common perspective.

ANSA therefore seeks active co-operation and mutual reinforcement with progressive individuals, unions, churches, youth and women groups, social movements etc. within the region, the continent and beyond to join forces to pressurise for often very practical and local alternatives, placed within a broader vision and strategy.

A start has been made already with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) where Trade Unions in the SADC are getting together to deliberately and systematically lobby and campaign for alternatives to the anticipated EPAs which are being imposed on us by the EU. Privatisation and commercialisation issues are definite other possible areas of action and levers for a common demand for an alternative policy.

ANSA is not a grouping, a political party or a movement. It is not an advance party either. You cannot become a member. ANSA is a non-partisan, facilitation project, the function of which is to act as a focal point, guide and catalyst that stimulates people, institutions and movements in the region and beyond to join hands and forge alliances in a common pursuit of an alternative to neo-liberalism.

In January 2006 the ANSA Declaration will be launched at the Africa Social Forum in Bamako, Mali. After that it will become available in print, a full version in English and a popularised version in both English, French and Portuguese.

* This article was compiled by the ANSA Co-ordinating Committee
December, 2005 (For more information about the ANSA-initiative, contact us at [email protected] or, alternatively, at [email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN) campaigns for just economic policies by engaging in economic literacy programmes, budget monitoring and lobbying on trade issues and trade agreements that relate to Malawi. Historically, the space for civil society organisations to engage government has been limited or non-existent, leaving MEJN and other civil society organisations (CSOs) with much to do in offering alternative suggestions to influence economic policies.

In the five years (2000-2005) of its existence, the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN) has recorded tremendous achievements in the areas of economic literacy, formulation of Malawi’s PRSP, budget monitoring and trade and trade agreements in Malawi. Through the economic literacy programme, MEJN has reached many people to make them understand the dynamics of the political economy of the country. Its interventions in policy formulation processes show the critical role of civil society organisations (CSOs) as partners with government and donors in poverty reduction programmes.

However, a question that is often asked is to what extent has the work done by MEJN shifted the boundaries of engaging with government to influence economic policy change for the country?

The danger of cooption

The danger and dilemma faced by CSOs working with government, especially in the areas of economic justice, relates to maintaining independence and legitimacy. There is a fine line between implementing their programs so as to be able to influence change of policy and being submerged or co-opted into the government machinery in the process.

This has a lot to do with the political governance that a country has as well. For instance, in Swaziland and Lesotho, which are monarchies or semi-monarchies, the role and influencing abilities of CSOs in the fields of economic justice is greatly diminished. Giving alternative suggestions to the budget process is seen to be opposing the powers of the monarchy to control the economy, hence the weak role of CSOs in Swaziland and Lesotho.

In Malawi, MEJN has been associated mostly with monitoring the national budget. To that effect, MEJN has been making statements as to how budget allocations could be improved through advocating for a prioritized budgeting process and also by involving other stakeholders to scrutinize the national budget. Through its district chapters, MEJN has been able to track budget allocations and even to do satisfaction surveys to check on the quality of the outcomes of the budget allocations.

Government’s View of MEJN’s Role in Economic Justice

A snap survey on the extent to which MEJN’s role is influencing government policy in Malawi indicated varying answers. From government circles, MEJN is seen as a very important partner in development of Malawi’s Economy and it is for that reason that MEJN is always brought aboard whenever government is discussing economic programmes. They regard MEJN as the most active NGO/Network in Malawi that is helping to disseminate information on poverty reduction and educating people in Malawi to understand budgetary issues.

However, according to government officials, MEJN cannot influence government policy in terms of changing economic policy developed by government. Consultations and involvement of MEJN in economic policies is meant to solicit views on the development of economic policies. According to officials from government, it is the role of government thereafter to decide on the formulation of economic policy.

Civil Society’s View of MEJN’s Role in Economic Justice

In civil society circles in Malawi, MEJN is applauded for the work that it has done in the field of economic justice in Malawi, more especially in the area of giving economic literacy to people. However, the country is yet to see the real impact of MEJN’s work in changing policy direction in government circles.

Involvement of MEJN in economic policy formulation by government could be cosmetic in that decisions may already have been made and, for the sake of inclusion of CSOs, MEJN could be called in but not to change anything. There is also the problem which was so apparent with the Muluzi Government whereby people were allowed to talk but government would not listen. And so the government was stubborn despite allowing dissenting or alternative views from civil society. In that type of atmosphere, no matter how good MEJN’s alternative views could be, they would not be effective because of government’s unwillingness to listen and use the ideas.

Another point which has been remarked about MEJN’s role is the fact that MEJN at times has made too much noise without giving alternative criticism or without giving expert advice as an alternative. MEJN has made statements on many aspects, some of which were not within its mandate. A good example is where MEJN commented on purely political matters as opposed to economic issues. This irritated policy makers but also showed lack of focus on the side of MEJN and to a certain degree did undermine MEJN’s credibility.

Lack of focus, lack of specialization and making unnecessary comments has the potential of derailing the work of MEJN and its ability to be taken seriously by policy makers in government.

Conclusion

Influencing policy change and making in government by civil society is a process that requires a democratic, transparent and accountable culture to achieve. It is an on-going process. For the case of Malawi, participation of NGOs in government policy is a recent phenomenon that is still being understood by both parties.

During the Banda era nobody ever thought of opposing a national budget let alone the national assembly. And so the change of the political system has also brought in a political economy that allowed dialogue with NGOs in Malawi. What remains to be honestly achieved is reaching a point where the government would be influenced positively by civil society in policy formulation for the good of the country’s economic growth. MEJN and other CSOs have much to do in giving expert and focused alternative suggestions to influence economic policies.

* Francis Ng’ambi works for the Malawi Economic Justice Network

* Please send comments to

Imagine an educational process that produces 200 graduates with no internal or external funding, where the institution running the course has no offices or support staff and where knowledge is viewed as a negotiated common commodity for all. Impossible? Unrealistic? Read on to find out about how The Swaziland Environmental Justice Agenda developed their course on environmental justice.

The Swaziland Environmental Justice Agenda (SEJA) is a social movement concerned with a variety of social issues. The issue of environmental injustice is central to SEJA’s concerns. SEJA has developed the Swaziland Participatory Course in Environmental Education, known as the ‘environmental course’, which uses an alternative approach to education to develop a critical understanding of environmental injustice.

According to SEJA’s viewpoint, environmental injustice is embedded in the global economic system, a system that is built around non-humanistic values. Over the years, the system has been sweet-coated by policy announcements that do not translate to sustainable support for people or the environment. The recent military actions that have been launched by the architects of the globalization process have proven that the capitalist values are still the same as those that informed the colonialisation process.

Swaziland is a society where people are not on the information super train. Many people in Swaziland, even the middle class, have no economic means to access the information in magazines and books, on the internet, etc. They are thus kept from the issues that define policy directions and programmes.

Swaziland is a country with an education system that is heavily influenced by its colonial past. It is a system which discourages the development of critical thinking. Free speech is banned in Swaziland by a 1973 decree and the education system has been able to enshrine a culture of compliance to this decree.

The Environmental Course

The SEJA environmental course is a humble act of activism to address this reality and start the process of social emancipation. It has opened up several alternatives to the way in which Swaziland society approaches issues of education.

The purpose of the course is to create an opportunity for environmental and development workers and activists to acquire the knowledge base that will allow them to critically debate the issues that define the progressive agenda. The course has been designed to make it possible for marginalized groups in the Swazi society to access tertiary-level education. The fundamental principle informing enrollment is the “open entry open exit” principle. This means that the course participants come from different educational backgrounds and levels.

Teaching a class with, for example, domestic workers, bus conductors and university lecturers is an experience that is sobering in many ways. It challenges our assumption about knowledge and the way knowledge is “developed”. It also requires alternative means on how education is conducted. The approach and methods of this course are not unique, they draw on Paulo Freire’s ideas, articulated in the book, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”.

The reason why we developed the course was the realization that many environmental educators and activists have no deep understanding of the issues. International groups are organizing campaigns in several fronts. Swaziland is always being left behind.

The course is structured around four key themes, namely:

- Theme 1: The Environmental Crisis: Issues, Problems and Risks
- Theme 2: The Response to the Environmental Crisis
- Theme 3: Environmental Education: Processes and Methods
- Theme 4: Curriculum and Programme Development

Each theme is introduced by a core text, which provides an overview of the issues and concepts. Every year, the tutors look at the core text and make changes based on the assignments of the past participants. This is done in an attempt to contextualise the core text to the realities of Swaziland.

In addition to the core text, there is an attachment of further readings, which include academic papers, newspaper cuttings, past participant’s assignments, case studies, reports etc. This allows the participants access to a diversity of perspectives, thus enriching the debates.

To use the first theme as an example, the core text introduces the issue of the economic system as the cause of the environmental crisis. Discussion is informed by a Theodor Shanin essay, “Idea of Progress”. The participants engage the question as to whether the international economic regimes result in improvement of the third world. They debate the availability of loans that continue to worsen the debt crisis.

Environmental education includes a four-dimensional framework for analysis of issues, namely the economic, political, social and biophysical dimensions. This framework opens up a broader spectrum for the analysis of issues. It deepens the ethos of critical thinking, which is an essential element of the development of social praxis. Praxis is the ability of participants to translate learned theory to social action and to translate the experience gained into improved theory.

What has become apparent is that most people in Swaziland have an in-built self-censorship. This is a major contributor to the reality that Swaziland is lacking literature that defines its unique political, social, economic and environmental crisis. The course, by allowing an environment of free speech, is helping to heal this problem.

Contextualization, Reflexivity, Praxis and Reflection

The course process is based on four fundamental principles. The first is the contextual principle, based on the view that a socially meaningful educational process should address itself to the issues that are relevant to that society. The course includes four assignments which act as a mechanism by which the participants discuss and review their individual context. This may be drawn from the work that the participant is engaged in, the campaigns that he or she is currently working on, etc. The course has an immediate benefit for various social programmes. It allows the participants to identify the political conditions that enable or disable social progress. It encourages the application of social praxis.

The reflexivity principle is about the internal mobilization of the participants to take appropriate action to mitigate and correct a social problem that is identified in the contextualisation of their reality. To date, Swaziland’s progressive forces have been able to narrate the political, social and economic conditions prevailing in the country. But, definite actions that can address the conditions have not been taken. This is due to a lack of reflexivity, which is embedded in an education system that discourages critical thinking.

The third principle is that of social praxis. There is a huge difference between theory and practice. An approach to social change that is led by a group of intellectuals that are excited by externally-developed theories and ideologies tends to emphasise theories without making the connection to practice. The course teaching and learning is informed by social constructivism. Knowledge is constructed by people in a social setting. This process detects that knowledge development cannot be created by academics to the exclusion of the people and the social reality. Social programmes of meaning are informed by a sound theory and that theory is continuously being informed by the reality.

Swaziland in the mid-nineties saw the progressive movement wage its greatest challenge to the state yet. The actions, including mass stayaways, demonstrations, petitions and boycotts, were informed by a particular revolutionary theory. Unfortunately the leaders of the different groups did not practice praxis. As a result, the masses lost the necessary steam to sustain the action.

It is essential that an educational process empowers the participant with the ability to take time out from the on-going activities, that he or she engages in reflection. In the social milieu, a number of processes are at play. There are many times that you find that the comrades you are working with do not share the same values as you or the movement you all belong to. The revolutionary comrade, Mphandlana Shongwe, once said during a college class boycott, “It is necessary for one to move out of a supposed straight road, in order to verify that it is still a straight road”. The reflection principle is basically about that, being able to think deeply about process. The power of reflection lies in its ability to bring clarity.

NGOs and Funding

The course is readily distinguishable from those routinely offered in the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector. Many people have been disillusioned by the reality that social programmes under the leadership of NGOs that are purported to be people driven are all too often nothing of the sort. They are conceived by NGO elites. NGO officers in executive offices in capital cities have been able to define the people’s agenda and content of programmes of action. Practice has shown that, even with NGO-driven educational programmes, the content and scope is also determined in a non-participatory manner.

These activities are entirely dependent on the availability of foreign funding. Moreover, the greatest percentage of funds that goes to NGOs is not taken by project activities but by personnel costs that go to finance the unsustainable lifestyles of the NGO elites. It is a sad reality that NGO offices are generally far removed from the problems experienced by their so-called target groups. These groups are defined in different ways, depending on the current fashionable donor description. People are defined in NGO official documents as marginalized people, Orphans Vulnerable Children (OVCs), etc. These descriptions create a barrier to meaningful consultation with them. In subtle ways, those that use these descriptions elevate themselves above their target groups.

The cost of food, accommodation and travel at many civil society gatherings limits the extent to which these programmes are accessible to the people defined by NGOs as poor and not privileged. This artificial over-costing of civil activities is in effect a marginalisation of the people. I was shocked by the paradox that emerged at the annual Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) conference, namely that members continuously complained about the “poor standard” of conference venues. This is not a comment about the organizational shortfalls of the conference, it is rather an indictment of the materialistic values of those that attended. This is true of many conferences of groupings that work for sustainable development and sustainable living environments. There is a related problem in that many comrades hide their true values behind politically acceptable words in fancy documents, publications, conferences, seminars and workshops, while their actions do not demonstrate a shift from the values of the corporate world.

All too often, social groups are not able to develop programmes that address their issues because there is no external funding. But the lack of financial resources is a challenge that has to be overcome. The Swaziland Environmental Justice Agenda has not received any external or internal funding to support its programmes. More than 200 people have graduated from the environment course without the course having received any funding in the NGO sense.

When SEJA embarked on this course, there was no physical office of the organisation. It was started by a small civic group of people concerned about particular issues or problems. There were eight of us, the majority of whom were not members of any political group. Environmental processes are political in nature, but affiliation to a political grouping was never an issue.

The participants brought food for tutorials and ate together. After participants graduated, many volunteered to become tutors for the next round of participants. The course has continued to depend on the ability of tutors to volunteer their time and knowledge. (By volunteering, we do not mean the existence of allowances that are far more than other people’s salaries. These are the tricks other people perform with our good hearts and intentions.)

The course provides a platform on which a new alternative approach to education can be launched. The educational process is emancipatory in a sense that knowledge is a negotiated common commodity for all. It opens up the boundaries of the course content to all stakeholders. It is truly driven by participants, giving meaning to the philosophical orientation that it a participatory course.

The true value of the course must be measured by the extent to which the participants influence people to approach their context with an attitude based on critical thinking and the degree to which it stimulates civic programmes that are no longer informed by liberal economic ideas.

Sivumelwano Nyembe, [email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Lalit, a political party in Mauritius, has been conducting a campaign for “an alternative economy”. As Lalit’s Alain Ah-Vee, Lindsey Collen and Ram Seegobin explain, its just not acceptable that those who own land refuse to produce food for people to eat, while people who want to produce food to eat have no land.

Since 2004, Lalit, the political party we are members of in Mauritius, has been accentuating its campaign for what we call “an alternative economy”. This involves looking at questions like: “What are the demands that working people and the unemployed today see as eminently reasonable and that, at the same time, put into question the entire economic system? And, how do we identify these demands collectively? What is the process?”

Stated differently, “What is the content of the political program (and by what processes is it developed?) that would bring us, as socialists, off the defensive on economic issues, and on to the counter-offensive? What political demands, in these times, simultaneously pose questions of ownership and economic control?”

This paper is a brief outline of what our campaign means, both as an idea, and in practice, focusing on two of our demands as examples.

Politics in the economy

At certain times in history, the economy moves to the centre of the political stage all by itself. In the press, the “economy” is on separate pages; in the universities, economics and politics are in different departments; and during elections, newspapers and radios avoid any genuine debate on control over the economy. Bourgeois ideologues believe in the two following contradictory statements: that the economy is not linked to politics, and that it ought not to be. The truth is that it is linked, and it ought to be consciously linked to every human being’s political opinions and interests.

Today, sugar and free zone textiles, two of the major sectors of the Mauritian economy, have both become politically hot issues. The price of petroleum products is also being discussed politically. All this is on the agenda because of contradictions within capitalism, exposing very clearly the international realities of the Mauritian economy.

The open-ended political agreement between African, Caribbean, Pacific countries and Europe, known as the Lome Convention, included a sugar protocol. Earlier this year, the sugar quotas and guaranteed prices under the convention’s Sugar Protocol came to an abrupt end. A World Trade Organization Disputes Settlement Unit judgment, provoked by sugar producers in Australia, Thailand and Brazil, ruled that European subsidies on sugar are illegal. So, all the Mauritian Ministers are running around looking for political palliatives to the immense price drop that has ensued, but they are looking within a very narrow choice of economic alternatives.

The first of January saw the demise of the Multi-Fibre Agreement, another political treaty that gave privileged access to European markets to countries like Mauritius for their industrialists’ textiles. So, these two economic sectors, together with oil prices, have leapt out into the political arena. And this is where our Lalit campaign comes in.

Past political debates, strategies, positions and activities help. Lalit, from its earliest beginnings as the Lalit de Klas monthly political magazine from 1974, was well known for constant criticism of the short-term limited form of “development” that could be expected from sugar and textiles. These stands were accompanied by thorough arguments around the need for diversification of the agricultural and agro-industrial sector, for both local consumption and for export, and the need for developing renewable non-polluting energy. One of our early campaigns, in 1984, was called “What future is there in sugar?” It was famous partly because the Government banned our popular slide show on beet sugar and Brazilian workers’ struggles. So, when these two sectors, sugar and textiles, are in crisis, people look to us.

What is the Lalit campaign for an alternative economy, and who is in it? Our aim is to have ongoing economic and political analyses that are sufficient to put us one or two steps ahead of the next moves of the different sections of the ruling class, of the State, the press, and of the political parties in power, so that we are often predicting what will happen next.

At the same time, we involve working class people, union members, women and young people in active research. We publicise this through leaflets, neighbourhood informal meetings, slide shows and public meetings on street corners with PA systems. We use the press, whenever they are not in practice banning us. We make our perspectives known through participation in electoral campaigns, often putting up candidates for parliament or municipalities, through poster campaigns, sometimes hand-painted, sometimes printed, even through court cases, for example challenging the constitutionality of the Privatization Fund Act.

This all involves a two-way movement of ideas not just within our party, from its centre to its branches and districts, but within the women’s movement, the homeless peoples’ movement, education organizations, language promotion organizations, and through working with the trade unions, preferably at delegate or grass roots level. It also involves us being on the political arena during elections, sometimes by putting up candidates, other times by defining the agenda through other means.

By working this way, we come up with demands that workers and unemployed people, whatever their political affiliations for the moment, consider reasonable right now. At the same time, even while we all find these demands eminently reasonable, it is also evident that, as we push for them, we will increasingly find that the present way society is organized will prevent us winning our demands, or winning in full. Thus, there develops a conscious awareness that the demands also involve putting into question the social organization of the economy.

The first effect of both the cuts in sugar prices and the end of the Multi-Fibre Agreement is that bosses and government have only one type of solution. They cut production costs by sacking people, cut losses by closing down factories and make profits by exporting capital to where labour is cheaper (in Madagascar, other parts of Africa, China) or by bringing in cheaper labour on a contract basis. In overall terms, the solution of the bosses and government means making a large percentage of human beings redundant, and as many as possible as poor as possible. They say so themselves.

Let us take the example of the sugar sector, to explain our campaign. Our aim is this: “To build up enough popular support for our demands so that the government is obliged to force the sugar estates bosses to implement them. Or else, how can the sugar estate bosses justify their monopoly control over land and capital?”

Everyone’s political consciousness permits the idea that the people can influence the Government. This is where people’s ideas are at. Everyone also knows that it is difficult to force the sugar estates to do anything they don’t want to. Thus the importance of the “or else”, which opens up the possibility of questioning their ownership and control of the means of production.

If, by contrast, we just said: “Nationalize the Land!”, people would not think the demand reasonable. And they would be right in a way, because it implies that the present government and its state would run agricultural production, whereas our demand does not. Ours implies that the people will mobilize behind a government, which forces the bourgeoisie to act in favour of the people or else risk sacrificing its monopoly control over production. That’s the program.

So, to get down to the nitty-gritty, we have developed, amongst others, the following two related demands:

* That the government obliges the sugar estates to arrange the way they plant their rows of sugar cane so that they can plant other useful crops in between the rows. This inter-line-cropping, as it is called, has already been successfully used, and this is known by all workers, but the sugar estates have limited its use to only once every seven years, when the cane is pulled up. We are proposing a wider spacing, either between all the rows or between half of them, allowing inter-line-cropping every year, before the cane gets too high. This way they will need to take on more workers, instead of destroying jobs. It also means that, instead of burying their heads in the ground ostrich-like over the price of sugar, they would, as we already are, be facing the reality. And it means, with exchange rates making imported things more costly, we could get cheaper potatoes, onions, vegetables, canned and freeze-dried vegetables and cooking oil, as well as food crops for export earnings. It also means that the economy would be more flexible: if it was necessary to pull up some cane altogether, this could be done. The alternatives will already be in the process of taking over. Seeds, know-how, fertilizers, markets, will all already have been acquired, tried and tested. It means, in broader terms, that people are consciously putting political pressure to an economic end.

* That the sugar estates not be given the government permit that they already require by law to close down a sugar factory. Instead, they should be granted a permit to convert their factory into some other agro-industry, such as processing tomatoes, making oil or freeze-drying. Again, this means workers would be taken on instead of being fired, and the economy would be developing. The form of development would be related to what the land produces.

Both demands immediately involve a new fluidity of certain capitalist categories. The concept that the owners have total control over “their” factories and expanses of land stands questioned. The idea that peoples’ labour is just like any other commodity that can be demanded or supplied stands challenged. The idea gets born that some crops are more useful than others.

We also point out the collusion of the State with sugar, by reminding people of the massive subsidies that could be shifted from sugar to whatever people think more useful. All we have to do at a meeting is call on people to list the actions and institutions that support sugar, over time. Many are often entirely government funded. From 1853 to 2005, the State has supported the sugar industry in various ways, including the building of dams and irrigation systems, the opening of tertiary education institutions for agriculture and the establishment of the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute, Bulk Sugar Terminal and Sugar Authority. It has introduced insurance and related funds, devalued the rupee, given concessions on and finally removed the export tax on sugar, granted tax concessions for land conversion and allowed factory closures and job destruction.

This makes us all realize that to change the direction of the economy is not so difficult. Governments that we all elect can and do support parts of the economy.

Now, where do the demands take us? If you win your demands (which is possible), then the victories give everyone who has participated in the campaign confidence, a very particular kind of confidence: that political action can change the way the economy runs. This in turn creates possibilities that working people think up further common demands that will make humans more human, and life more liveable. These can then be put forward, and worked on. And, the more people there are in jobs, means the more people free to participate in political life, and the higher their hopes for a fulfilling life become.

If you lose, then time is immediately ripe for political activists and for Lalit, as a party, to put into question how it is that the bosses can control the means of livelihood, in this way, to the exclusion of other human beings on the planet.

But of course, the winning and losing, because we are thinking beings, are discussed all the time, on the way. Some discussions are around the most theoretical of questions. In particular, Lalit has held dozens of sessions on “What is labour?” based on Karl Marx’s writing, which we have made available in Kreol. We have also initiated debate on the Marx and Engels Manifesto and have developed CD-audio and booklet versions in Kreol.

Other discussions are around practical issues. Here are some further demands that have come out of the campaign:

* The government must use any “European Compensation” money (for which negotiations are taking place) for the conversion from cane to food production, for local use and export.
* Work conditions in the agricultural diversification sector must be improved to the level of the (better) conditions already won in the cane and sugar sector.
* Government must prevent the estates from continuing making people redundant and give them targets for job creation.
* Government must convert the existing “Sugar Authority” into an “Optimal Land Utilisation Authority”. Similarly, it must convert all the institutions that support sugar into institutions that support food production.
* The Cyclone and Drought Fund must be extended to vegetable planters and animal keepers.
* Government must give advances (“fezans”), which are currently only given to cane planters, to all small vegetable planters and animal rearers.
* There must be a stop the destruction of traditional agriculture. Scientific knowledge must be built on to the existing knowledge and experience of the people.
* Profit-based GMO production must be stopped at once. The government must amend the law on bio-technology so that it is based on the precautionary principle.
* Government must compel the private sector to invest in fishing on a large scale, enforcing rights over the Economic Zones around all the islands of our Republic. This includes Chagos and Diego Garcia, now housing the US military base, and Tromelin, occupied illegally by France. The US military base must be closed. A big, nature-friendly fishing industry would be a source of new employment, and would replace the pillage that goes on at the moment.
* Government must itself invest in Barachois, marine farms, and the transformation and preservation of marine products, not just the “Sea-Food Hub” they now have that is like a fisheries “free-zone”.
* Energy production should not be privatised. This process must be reversed, and the CEB Bureaucracy replaced by a “CEB under democratic control”. There should be a massive development of ‘clean’ and ‘renewable’ energy, like solar energy, wind energy, tidal and wave energy. Thus, Mauritius (with a well-organised CEB) can situate itself as a country at the avant-garde of clean, durable and cheap energy production.
* The process of privatization where it has started and the privatization of any further sectors must be stopped.
* Government must oppose any new WTO “round”, and put all existing agreements on hold till a “World-Wide Audit” of the effects of liberalization exposes its crimes.

Our conclusion is that it is just not acceptable that the people who have the land and capital refuse to produce food, while people who want to produce food do not have land and capital. It is not acceptable that people who possess capital don’t create employment while people who need work do not have control over the capital that they themselves produced.

It is not just in Mauritius that capitalist rule is exposing itself as bankrupt. Its rot is showing up all over the place, perhaps most clearly at its centre. The US economy is in double-debt (balance of payments and budget), it is resorting to criminal military activity to exert its influence and it is unable to look after its own people after the cyclone in New Orleans.

Its allies are weakened. Blair has 40 of his own backbenchers not prepared to vote for 90 days’ detention without trial. Howard has had to face 600,000 striking Australian workers. In France, 300 cities were recently taken over by rioting youths, unhappy with unemployment, burning cars by the thousand. In Latin America, challenges to US capitalism grow apace.

Eventually, this destructive capitalist system must be overthrown and replaced by a socialist system where people organise collectively in association with one other. Already, especially in the case of women, we run much of our lives this way. This change will need to happen world-wide, so that, wherever we are, we are part of this future. This will need very clear political demands for the economy, as part of its program, every step of the way.

NOTES: LALIT is a political movement born out of the mass workers’ movements of the 1970s, out of the women’s movement and students rebellion of the same epoch. Its name means “struggle” in Mauritian Kreol and “beautiful” in Hindi.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Rudolf Amenga-Etego argues against the privatization of water in Ghana and introduces an example of community driven water delivery managed for the public good instead of profits. In a country where in some parts the average citizen earns only 50 cents a day, but is expected to pay the full market price for water, he argues for a water management system that “incorporates the collective wisdom of the community as an operative rule”.

The neo-liberal ideology that is driving water policy globally is rooted in the in the so-called “Washington Consensus”, which is nothing but a market fundamentalist conspiracy to corner the world’s resources to satisfy the greed of a tiny minority. It is an ideology that puts profits before people, threatens our eco-systems through excessive exploitation and turns the essentials of life into mere articles of trade.

Ghana, a country of 20 million people with 10 million of them earning less than 2 dollars a day, is a typical example of a well-endowed country reduced to begging. After decades of trying to adjust our economy to fit into a global trading system crafted by a few corporations with the complicity of the Bretton Woods institutions and spineless governments at their beck and call, we are consigned to the fringes of humanity where life is cheaper than condoms. There are parts of Ghana, the Upper East region being typical, where the average citizen earns only 50 cents a day and is now also expected to pay the full market price for water.

This is a consequence of the signing of a management service contract in November this year, handing over the management of the water service to the private sector. The signing of the contract is significant in a number of ways:

- It signals a change in the World Bank policy, which hitherto favoured leases and concessions. The assumption then was that the private sector would invest in the water sector. This didn’t happen.
- It is an indication that the water corporations now prefer management service contracts that guarantee upfront payments with little or no risks.
- The World Bank remains essentially the smokescreen behind which the corporations operate.
- To the activist, it means “not yet uhuru”.

Management service contracts are essentially attempts to take over public utilities for the purpose of making money without investment risk. The operational principle remains full cost recovery from consumers, irrespective of the ability to pay. Creative and innovative ways of providing safe water, especially to the poor, are ignored and therefore no investment flows into alternative thinking.

In Ghana, keeping water in public hands is an expression of sovereignty. The country has been declared a “highly indebted poor country” (HIPC) by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who structurally adjusted her into debt in the first place. This is a country at the mercy of aid agencies. Surrendering her water to foreign corporate control will be the final act of capitulation.

There is no shortage of talent in Ghana. What is needed is a management system that incorporates the collective wisdom of the community as an operative rule. It is by involving people not as mere consumers but as citizens with rights, including the right to participate and to hold the management system accountable that will ensure the changes necessary for good water governance and universal access.

Certain policy interventions are key to eliminating the current neoliberal inequalities in water delivery to better achieve the ‘public good’ aspects of water services. These include:

- no prepaid meters for poor households;
- increased amounts of free water;
- better regulation of tariff structures so that they do not penalize the poor; and
- a non- discriminatory infrastructural plan that ensures that poor areas are equally served.

There should also be increased public funding for improving the efficiency of water systems and access. There should be a programme aimed at promoting public sector alternatives including community-based systems.

A celebrated example in Ghana which clearly demonstrates innovativeness is the Savelugu-Ghana Water Company partnership. In 2000, the Savelugu community and the Ghana Water Company signed an agreement to supply water to the Savelugu Township. Roles for both parties were defined, and the terms of the agreement were negotiated. The agreement involves the supply of bulk potable water to the township, which has the responsibility of retailing the water to community members. The bulk price is negotiated from time to time and a community water and sanitation board meets to set the retail price and discuss exemptions.

The success of the Savelugu experiment derives largely from its underlying principle that a community is able to work with a public utility to provide a service for its members efficiently. A recent base line survey by the Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa (GrassRootsAfrica) stated some of the ways that the township and the Ghana Water Company have benefited from the partnership as follows:

The township:
- It has guaranteed supply of potable water from a public utility.
- It is relieved from the complex process of producing and treating water as in other small towns practicing community management.
- The means exists to negotiate with the utility on price and quantity of water to be supplied.
- There is democratic decision-making among community members on tariffs and exemption procedures.
- Profits accrued from water sales are used for expansion and other community development projects.
- There is capacity to negotiate with private sector companies to provide services.
- There is the opportunity to benefit from technical support from the public utility at acceptable costs.
- Equitable access to water supply is promoted through participatory decision-making and management processes.
- Women are involved in decisions on water delivery.
- Social control measures are used to check pilfering and illegal connections and ensure prompt detection and containment of leaking pipes to reduce losses.

The Ghana Water Company:
- It saves on the cost of personnel to bill and collect tariffs from the community.
- It attains a relatively higher economic return per unit of water supplied to domestic consumers, as compared to other parts of Tamale.
- Unaccounted for water reduces to a minimum (near zero), as the community pays for all water consumed.
- It enjoys an intimate and healthy relationship with consumers.
- Pilfering and collusion with consumers to manipulate revenue due to the company is eliminated as the community pays to the company through crossed checks.

The argument that there is no efficient way of delivering safe water without the participation of the private sector peels off in the face of the Savelugu example. Shockingly, in spite of this exciting news, the World Bank is refusing to look that way. The World Bank’s privatization fixation is entirely inappropriate in the delivery of water to the people of Ghana. Activists in Ghana have argued that the government of Ghana and the donor community, if they are really serious about addressing the accountability and efficiency issues alleged to be bedeviling the Ghana Water Company, should be investing in the Savelugu model and investigating ways of replicating it. Wholly community-based systems should also be supported as alternatives to privatization.

* Rudolf Amenga-Etego is with the Foundation For GrassRoots Initiatives In Africa

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Did you know that, according to an Oxfam report, America has 25,000 cotton farmers and every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230 ($3.9 billion in 2001/2)? In fact America’s cotton farmers receive so much money in subsidies that it adds up to more than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso – the comparison being particularly relevant seeing as though more than two million people in Burkina Faso depend on cotton production. It’s facts like these that hammer home the imbalances of the global trading system and act as a reminder of what’s at stake for millions of people in discussions over agriculture at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Read on for more quick facts, a glossary of WTO terms and links to background reading on the WTO.

Quick Facts on Trade

* Forced trade liberalisation has cost Sub-Saharan Africa US$ 272 billion over the past 20 years.

* The amount of money lost as a result of trade liberalisation could have paid all of these countries’ debts plus pay the vaccinations and school fees of every child.
SOURCE: http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/506liberalisation/index.htm

* The privatization of water in Ghana has meant that fees have increased by 95% and will probably rise by another 300% to meet the “market rate.”
SOURCE: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/wate-s07.shtml

* Farmers in G8 countries are subsidised approximately $1 billion a day, which is roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. SOURCE: http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040725-031636-7601r.htm

* 24 sub-Saharan African countries face food emergencies. Some 30.5 million people will need food assistance.
SOURCE: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/107852/index.html

* Uganda’s textile sector used to employ 500,000 people and earn $100 million in annual exports, but has virtually been brought to its knees by imports. 80% of clothing available in Uganda is imported and second hand. SOURCE: http://www.newint.org/issue373/currents.htm

* America has 25,000 cotton farmers and every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230 ($3.9 billion in 2001/2.) America’s cotton farmers receive more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso – a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. This figure constitutes three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.
SOURCE: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/bp30_cotton.htm

* An estimated 25 million adults and children were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2003. During that year, an estimated 2.2 million people died from AIDS. The epidemic has left behind some twelve million orphaned African children.
SOURCE: http://www.avert.org/subaadults.htm

* In 2002 ten of the highest grossing pharmaceutical companies each had sales over $11.5 billion. The world’s top 5 drug companies have a combined worth twice the Gross Domestic Product of sub-Saharan Africa. Mergers are leading to behemoths with ever increasing power. In 1995, 25 drug companies controlled over half the global drugs market; by 2000, just 15 managed to do the same thing.
SOURCE: New Internationalist (362) November, 2003

* It is reported that since the discovery of oil in 1956, Nigeria has made about $400 billion in profits. 70% of the 130 million Nigerians live on less than a dollar a day. SOURCE: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-10/11majavu.cfm

WTO Glossary

ACP: Stands for Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific.

Agreement in Agriculture: Occurred under the Uruguay round and set out to protect the G8 countries’ interests in terms of agriculture.

Doha Round: This round of World Trade Organization negotiations aims to lower barriers to trade around the world, with a focus on making trade fairer for developing countries. Talks have been hung over a divide between the rich, developed countries, and the major developing countries (represented by the G20).

Cotonou Agreement: A treaty which sets out the relationship between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific governments. The agreement was established in June 2000 in Benin, succeeding the Lomé Convention, and provides for replacing the unilateral trade preferences that the EU accords to the ACP countries under the Lomé Convention with Economic Partnership Agreements involving reciprocal obligations.

Development Box: Rules and exemptions that would allow poor nations to protect their agricultural industries (these are an extension of “special and differential treatment” WTO principles, which intend to help developing countries integrate into the global economy of trade and implement their commitments).

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs): The European Union has been bargaining with African countries in order to enable market access to European goods and services in Africa, which go beyond what is required of African countries according to the WTO.

Five Interested Parties: Comprised by US, European Union (EU), Brazil, India and Australia, the Five Interested Parties constitute the core negotiating group for the Doha round. (http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2005/11/205)

Free Trade: The untaxed flow of goods and services between countries, and is a name given to economic policies and parties supporting increases in such trade.

Free Trade Area (FTA): An area in which member states eliminate tariffs among themselves but maintain individual tariff schedules on imports from non-member countries. (http://www.eu-ldc.org)

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT): Functions as the foundation of the WTO trading system, and remains in force today. The GATT, is an international agreement and is based on the "unconditional most favored nation principle." This means that the conditions applied to the most favored trading nation (i.e. the one with the least restrictions) apply to all trading nations.

Group of 90 (G90): An umbrella body of the African Group, the least developed countries and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group. It is the largest grouping of members in the World Trade Organisation. (http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/gtrends16.htm)

Group of 77 (G77): A loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations.

Group of 21 (G21): A bloc of developing nations established in 2003. The group emerged at the 5th Ministerial WTO conference, held in Cancún in 2003. In trade negotiations, the group has pressed for rich countries to end subsidies to their farmers and opposed liberalisation of their own agricultural sectors.

Lome Convention: First signed in 1975, it arose out of Europe's wish to guarantee itself regular supplies of raw materials, and to maintain its privileged position in its overseas markets.
Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA): These talks centre around industrial goods, but also include natural resources, and the goal of these talks is to open up the economy and make access to these products easier.

Special and Differential Treatment: The argument of developing countries that special circumstances require specific consideration and trade restrictions can be legitimate and appropriate instruments for development purposes. (www.soutchcentre.org)

Trade liberalization: Another term to refer to free trade.

Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS): An international treaty which sets down minimum standards for most forms of intellectual property regulation within all member countries of the WTO.

Uruguay Round: A trade negotiation lasting from September 1986 to April 1994 which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

World Trade Organisation (WTO): An international rules-based and member driven organization which oversees a large number of agreements defining the "rules of trade" between its member states.

* All definitions, unless otherwise noted, come from Wikipedia.

Links

EPA Watch - http://www.epawatch.net
Eco News Africa - http://www.econewsafrica.org/
ACP EU Trade - http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/
International Gender and Trade Network - http://www.igtn.org/
Third World Network Africa - http://www.twnafrica.org/
SEATINI - http://www.seatini.org/

Further Reading

Does Foreign Equal Cheaper, Better, More? http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31286
Egypt Cottons On To Its Interests http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31269
Will WTO Shrink or Sink? http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/wto/news/2005/1203doha_ho…
Nothing to Gain, Everything to Lose: Developing Country Prospects at the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial and Beyond
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/3637.html
Disneyland, Doha and the WTO in Hong Kong: The Spectacle of Corporate Fear, Absurdity and the New Universalism
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=9164
Action Aid Report – Down the Plughole: Why Bringing Water Into the WTO Services Negotiations Would Unleash a Development Disaster
http://www.actionaid.org.uk/wps/content/documents/GATS_report.pdf
Oxfam Report – Africa and the Doha Round: Fighting to Keep Development Alive
http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/bp80_Africa_and_the_Doha_Round.pdf
EU must negotiate itself out of a corner
http://tinyurl.com/b6p47

With the sixth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting taking place in Hong Kong, the core of on-the-streets protest will be drawn from organisations in Asia. Pambazuka News asked Nicola Bullard from Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based group that researches international finance and globalization issues, about strategy, messages, WTO reform and the links between African and Asia in resisting an unfair deal.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In April, Focus on the Global South articulated a "strategy of derailment" for the WTO in an article 'The End of an Illusion: WTO Reform, Global Civil Society and the Road to Hong Kong'. The article said: "Essentially, derailment involves zeroing in on the key point of vulnerability of the WTO: its consensus system of decision-making. Concretely, it means working to prevent consensus from emerging in any of the key negotiating areas prior to and during the Sixth Ministerial in Hong Kong." Has anything changed and does this strategy remain the focus of activity?

NICOLA BULLARD: Well, the first thing to say about preventing a consensus is that it’s a short term strategy, aimed to slow down the process in the WTO, and the reason we want to slow it down is because we firmly believe that under the present conditions of unfair agreements, unequal power and undemocratic processes, most developing countries have little to gain in the WTO.

Our larger critique is that the overarching model, based on the assumption that export oriented trade liberalisation will lead to growth and hence development, is based on a faulty model. This critical view is supported by economic data on employment, incomes and growth which show that over the past 10 years, although there has been a boom in the volume of trade, this has not resulted in increased living standards, employment or broader benefits to the society.

In terms of the concrete strategy leading to Hong Kong, we are still working in every way that we can to strengthen the solidarity of developing country groups and to maximise the contradictions and disagreements between the negotiating countries in an effort to stall a consensus: we are working with trade delegations in Geneva, working at the national level to increase the pressure on the domestic front, and working with the media to heighten their awareness of what’s at stake and who is calling the shots in the WTO. So, blocking consensus remains an important objective.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What is the role of mass public pressure in pursuing the goal of derailment and how successful has it been in the run up to the WTO meeting? What role do you expect it to play in the immediate period before the meeting, as well as during the meeting?

Public pressure, mobilisations and demonstrations are key: the work that we do “inside” the WTO, like policy analysis and lobbying, is pointless unless it is part of a larger process of mobilising public opinion, democratising the debates over trade, and bringing real in-the-streets pressure to bear on politicians at the national level. In addition, demonstrations can draw the media spotlight to what is going on inside the WTO. However one of the perennial struggles is to get the press to focus on the content of our arguments against the WTO rather than whether or not there will be violent protests in Hong Kong. However, I think this battle is being slowly won as the press becomes better informed about trade and development.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What are the key messages that you are pushing ahead of the summit?

NICOLA BULLARD: One of the slogans that many groups agree to is “no deal is better than a bad deal”. By this we mean it’s better for developing countries to walk away from the table than to accept a shoddy deal that is not in their interests.

We are also focussing on the ten year record of the WTO. What we see is a litany of broken promises as the rich countries time and time again refuse to deal with the issues of central concern to developing countries such as ending dumping, protecting their agricultural sectors, access to life saving drugs, an assessment of the impacts of the Uruguay Round liberalisation (that is, the last ten years of trade liberalisation) and consideration of the costs of adjusting to the WTO trading rules. All of these issues, and many more, have been systematically ignored by the powerful countries who stand to gain from the system.

So our overarching message is that the WTO is a faulty system, there is a fundamental design flaw in the trade model it is promoting, and we need a different approach before the damage gets even worse.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: From Africa, it often seems as if some of the most dynamic and powerful resistance to the policies of the WTO and the World Bank and IMF take place in Asia. How much of a mass public awareness is there and if you think there is, what do you think are the factors that have contributed towards its creation?

NICOLA BULLARD: Funnily enough, from Asia we think that some of the most powerful resistance to the WTO comes from Africa! After all, it was the African ministers who walked out in Seattle, it was the G90 that walked out in Cancun, it was four small cotton producing countries – Benin, Mali, Bukino Faso and Chad – that brought the scandal of US cotton subsidies into the public eye, and it was the African countries who fought so hard to get a reconsideration of the TRIPS and health provisions.

Of course they may not be winning these battles but they are certainly courageous, especially when you consider how vulnerable they are to pressures from the EU and the US, threats about not having their debts rescheduled and so on.

Many Asian countries are much more competitive in the global trading game and often their positions are more aggressive. This is partly because of the industrialisation that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, which saw many of the East Asian “tigers” made tremendous economic leaps by adopting state-driven development strategies, such as directing investment to certain sectors and protecting fledgling industrial sectors. Many of these measures are now illegal under the WTO regime or the bilateral trade agreements which are proliferating in the region. In addition, many sectors of the society, especially workers and farmers and even small local enterprises, realise that the WTO does not protect their interests. For these reasons, there are now large, vocal national campaigns against the WTO and FTAs across the region, including in Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan and India.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: There still seems to be a school of thought that maintains that the WTO can be reformed. From your perspective, is there any credibility left to this view? Why?

NICOLA BULLARD: The WTO refuses to reform itself, even in the most fundamental aspects of its operations. For example, there are no clear rules about decision making, keeping records, making information available to the members and so on. A long list of proposals made by a large group of developing countries post-Doha on how to improve internal procedures was shelved, never to reappear. As one commentator remarked, a local Scout Club is more transparent than the WTO.

On substantial issues the rich countries have been intransigent – and why wouldn’t they be: the name of the game in the WTO is to maximise access to other people’s markets, while protecting your own. It’s a game that can only be played by rich countries, and these are the very same countries who make the rules. There is no incentive for them to reform the WTO.

Let me give you an example: in Doha the membership agreed to the TRIPS and health declaration which aimed to improve access to low-priced generic drugs to combat life threatening diseases. So, there was a small victory. However, after 12 months of wrangling that “victory” was tuned into a failure because the EU and the US hatched a deal between them which imposed a so-called “solution” which did nothing to resolve the problem and everything to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical companies and the intellectual property regime.

No, there is no hope for reforming the WTO.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A great deal of euphoria was felt after Cancun. Our own publication, Pambazuka News, carried an article that stated: "Africa emerged from the talks a major negotiating player, no longer the dinner of other trading partners, but defining the direction and outcome of the talks in Cancun." (http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=17486) Somehow it seems like that euphoria hasn't been carried forward, not only in Africa, but globally. What happened to the promise of victory?

NICOLA BULLARD: Well, we let our guard down! Cancun was a great victory, but the EU and the US were able to turn the tables when they pushed through the framework agreement at the July General Council meeting the following year. And they did this in a very clever way by bringing India and Brazil into the “inner circle” of negotiations by creating the FIPS – the five interested parties which is the EU, the US, Brazil, India and Australia. By getting the agreement of this group they were able to enforce it on the rest of the members, despite rumblings in the corridors.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Lastly, how can stronger links be built between the people of Africa and Asia in pursuing a common agenda with regards the WTO?

NICOLA BULLARD: Of course one can’t talk about Africa as a whole or Asia as a whole: there is so much diversity and different realities in each region. However, many countries have similar problems; rural livelihoods are disappearing, the agricultural sector is being destroyed by dumping, unemployment and underemployment is the norm, incomes are falling due to declining terms of trade, industries are being driven to the ground by cheap imports, and foreign direct investment is proving to be an unreliable development partner. In addition, many countries shoulder a heavy debt burden. However, it’s terribly difficult to build solidarity amongst these countries when they are operating in a trading system which is based on competition, and this competition is particularly destructive when all countries have to trade is cheap labour and cheap natural resources and raw materials.

However, I am optimistic that things can change: there is a new discourse emerging in many different quarters which talks about “policy space” – the idea that countries should be able to set their own economic and development strategy rather than having one imposed by the rich and powerful countries through the WTO and the IMF.

The evidence is clear that trade liberalisation is a dead-end street for many countries and they need an alternative – and they need it now. Civil society stands ready to support any governments that are brave enough to put the interests of their people ahead of the interests of the local and global elite. For our part, all we can do is to strengthen the ties between the people of Asia and Africa, to share information and strategies, and to support each other’s campaigns not only on trade but also on issues such as debt, democracy, and against the ongoing domination of the big powers and the big institutions.

Ironically, one issue that might bring many countries together is the impact that the impressive entry of China into the global markets is having, and will continue to have, on smaller and less competitive countries. But it’s too early to tell how this will evolve.

* Interview conducted by email. Please send comments to [email protected]

In the gloomy world of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, developing countries are being asked, in the words of one commentator, to “chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded”. Riaz Tayob takes us into the corridors of the WTO and introduces us to the complicated and confusing world of negotiations on issues that affect the lives of millions in the Global South. Agriculture, health, services – it’s all up for grabs and rich countries will stop at nothing to get their hands on as big piece of the pie as they can cram into their mouths. In this context, and with a dash of manipulation and strong-arm tactics thrown in for extra spice, the danger is of a deal that is an empty gift but sold as real, concludes Tayob.

The importance of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) belies its relatively obscure birth in 1995. Since then it has been quietly chugging along, spreading economic terrorism of the fundamentalist kind. Market fundamentalism is dressed up in the clothes of growth, trade and development and yet this emperor is still naked. And the emperor will stay naked irrespective of what happens in Hong Kong, China. Whatever deal is brokered during this round of negotiations in Hong Kong or thereafter, developing countries cannot benefit much.

Past experience shows that developing countries can put their foot down and stop the process. However, until now they have been unable to extract anything meaningful from a show of unity and are still prone to the “divide and exploit” tactics of the rich countries. The systemic imbalances of the process work against developing countries and it is interesting to see how the audacious negotiating tactics of the rich countries has forced developing countries to move from being antagonists to protagonists on the same issues in a short space of time. The one redeeming feature of the current system is that the empty gift development deception so painstakingly cultivated by the rich countries and their coterie of media is being unravelled from within and without.

Essentially three outcomes are possible. Firstly, no deal is brokered at all. The talks then promptly resume after Hong Kong. Secondly, some sort of minimum deal is worked out to narrow the differences and then to pursue further discussions after Hong Kong. Thirdly, a big deal is brokered. The rich countries must consent to this as they effectively have a veto. A development deal that really meets some or all of the developing country interests may happen, after all this is a development round. But this is unlikely if developing countries continue to be clear about their demands for development space, corrections to inherited imbalances and the inclusion of new opportunities. This is because the essence of the round is about rich countries seeking market access in the developing countries and not about development. So while expectations of a deal in Hong Kong may be low, developing countries have high expectations of the negotiating round. However, the ever present danger to citizens of the world is that the liberalisation machinery may get its way after all, as happened with the rejected Cancun text being accepted almost verbatim six months later by the General Council in Geneva. The lesson to be drawn from this is nothing less than constant vigilance. Deep technical and political analysis is required to ensure that development is not a casualty of the Doha Negotiations.

The high level of ambition in these current Doha Development Agenda negotiations is being recalibrated. High ambitions, it seems, are likely to harm the prospects of a deal and all parties who have an interest in the multilateral system need to be constructive to make progress. This sounds reasonable enough, but only if one discounts the entire experience of developing countries in the WTO. Why should countries who are facing increasing poverty and inequality compromise on high development expectations? The rich countries have continuously made excessive demands on the agenda, to deflect attention away from the demands of the poorer countries, to undermine legitimate demands for changes in agriculture and to limit policy instruments that can be used for development. Besides defending their current policy space, developing countries have sought greater balance in the system by redress of built in inequities, access to promised opportunities that are meaningful and a change to agricultural subsidies regulation.

This overly modest set of demands has been greeted with aristocratic extravagance of the rich countries who have demanded over the years inter alia:

- a 0% tariff on manufactured goods by 2020 (so called Non-Agricultural Market Access – NAMA);

- rules on competition, investment, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation (the “Singapore Issues” or the “New Issues”);

- reversals on the rights on intellectual property to prevent adequate access to medicines;

- limits on miniscule developing countries agricultural subsidies (de minimus supports);

- more liberalisation on services including essential and public services.

Recalibration of expectations for Hong Kong is a direct consequence of the rich country strategies. The strategy and tactics are so excessive that developing countries have over the years found themselves being protagonists and antagonists for the same issue. This is a reflection not only of their adaptability and “constructive engagement” at the WTO, but the sheer might and power of the rich countries in the negotiations.

For instance, in the services negotiations, developing countries were very hesitant to undertake further commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The general opposition to liberalisation was well recognised and when the rich countries saw that they were not getting market access into poor countries they sought to change the negotiating process from a bilateral request-offer to one that ensured that all countries liberalised a specific number of sectors. Developing countries faced with this audacious demand now spend a lot of their time defending the original GATS negotiating process. The initial proposals on competition policy started by some developing countries were perverted into something that the developing countries later had to oppose. Contrast this with the European Union (EU) first dropping their demands on the four Singapore Issues in Cancun then, according to Martin Khor of Third World Network, “undropping” it so that it is squarely on the agenda now. Developing countries cannot even get issues of major national interest on the agenda whereas the EU has the liberty to drop and undrop an issue. And they perceive themselves to be more development friendly.

The services negotiations are important for the rich countries because most of their new employment is in this sector. It has been packaged by the first world media marketing it as an opportunity for the developing countries when in fact the rich countries are desperate for this access. The services negotiations have not reached a point where outstanding issues have been sorted out. At this stage a country has very little idea about the scale and size of a liberalisation offer because the rules have not been worked out. In addition, there has been no progress on measures to protect domestic service suppliers if there is an import supply surge. Developing countries are being asked in these negotiations, as Chakravati Raghavan in his candid way has put it, to ‘chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded.’ The recent US/Mexico case has shown that if a country liberalises services at the WTO, pursuing national development goals may be made illegal.

It is not as if the stakes are not high for developing countries. The damage that can be inflicted on developing countries as a result of this round is enormous. In agriculture, the legal fiction of subsidies needs to be addressed. The developed countries deception was stylised into different legal boxes that allowed them to continue to pay subsidies. By definition, some subsidies were prohibited (blue box), others were targeted for reduction (amber box) and a door was opened to sanitise trade distorting support by calling it non-trade distorting support (green box) that has no limits and is legal.

The fiction that the green box is non-trade distorting is now well exposed. Pertinent for rich country citizens is that these supports go mainly to large agricultural corporations and not to their small farmers, so the issue is not about rural livelihoods and the well being of their citizens. Private corporations receive direct payments from the tax payers and still charge exorbitant prices to consumers for agricultural products. It shows a high degree of regulatory capture of the rich country political system which has been shown to cause untold misery, suffering and environmental degradation throughout the developing world – for which no amount of aid can compensate.

Peter Mandelsohn, the EU trade commissioner, has recently alluded to the importance of food production as an issue of national security. He said: "I don't believe in a free market in agriculture... If we had a free market ... we'd be in the hands of a relatively small number of producers who could hold us hostage." Internally, he does not want a system that would compromise the ability of Europe to cater for her needs. Externally, holding the entire developing world hostage to a system that compromises their food security is not an issue for discussion.

Implicitly, Mandelsohn recognises that the political control that the current trade deal gives the rich countries over the citizens of the developing countries is far too important to be given up. After all, if you can control the food supply of the poor countries, as the rich world does, then it is easier to exert other forms of control. The more brazenly imperialist US does not give as much credence to the European perspective and recognises that ownership of productive resources in the developing countries provides far more political leverage, and is seemingly willing to compromise more on agriculture but also not by much. The EU and US expect the poor countries to salivate over their offers, because of their generosity. They offer to cut the ceiling of what they are allowed to pay. It has no impact on the actual subsidies they are paying, because they are paying less than what they are legally entitled to pay. In any event, they do not want to place any limits on the Green Box subsidies which are legal and have no ceiling. This keeps the possibility open that they can shift their subsidy cuts from one box to the other, meaning that their offer is actually worthless. Less than 10% of their gross domestic product is in agriculture while in many African countries it is over 50%. The logic of the rich countries is: “why teach a person to fish when you can give them a meal”. This is what the rich countries sell to their citizens as “development.”

The rich countries are also pursuing major cuts on tariffs in industrial goods, fisheries, forestry and mining products (NAMA – Non Agricultural Market Access). They propose to cut tariffs by a formula on each and every line of tariffs. Rich countries already have low tariffs and have a proposed a formula that cuts the tariffs of developing countries much more than it would cut their own, in real terms. Yet, in terms of the agreements, the tariff cuts are supposed to non-reciprocal, with developing countries cutting their tariffs less. Argentina, Brazil and India have proposed a formula with a medium cut. The Caribbean nations have proposed a formula that proposes a very small cut for developing countries. Despite the attractiveness of the Caribbean proposal support for their proposal has not been forthcoming. The draft report produced by the Chairman of NAMA predictably sidelines the Caribbean proposal for the Ministerial.

There is an even better alternative method to tariff cuts under NAMA, if tariff cuts are required of developing countries at all. Yilmaz Akyuz says that an average cut in tariffs, as opposed to a line by line cut, will allow developing countries the flexibility to better meet their future needs because they could protect some sectors while opening up others for competition, as long as the changes do not exceed the average tariff limit. What is very worrying about Akyuz's analysis is that the average tariffs of developing countries are already much less than the average tariffs used by the rich countries during their developmental stage. What is even worse is that least developed countries and some others are being asked to place a ceiling (bind) on all their tariffs in exchange for not making any tariff cuts. This is a very serious limitation on their policy flexibility, especially if they are supposed to be getting this round for free. But with usual rich country aplomb, the packaging of the “gift” matters much more than the real contents inside.

In public health, the rich world and the WTO Secretariat in Geneva are all party to a fraud that can directly be linked to the suffering and deaths of millions of our people. In 1995, developing countries secured legal rights to violate patent laws which were protected under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. Developed countries then promptly proceeded to prevent countries from using these flexibilities and in 2001 in Doha, developing countries secured an agreement that merely restated the rights they already had. The flexibilities in the TRIPs agreement to promote access to medicines had a limit, however. If a country was violating a patent right using a compulsory license to legally make generics, it could only produce primarily for its domestic market.

African countries with limited local production capacity faced the risk of not being able to secure adequate supplies of generics and sought a waiver. The waiver would allow them to secure enough generic drugs, allowing the producers to produce more than the limits in TRIPs. This may have been a tactical error that history may judge harshly because Africa pursued a waiver instead of relying on the flexibilities provided in article 30 of TRIPs, that gives wider flexibility. By pursing the waiver we undermined the possibility of developing article 30, which is more flexible and provides greater access to drugs. In any event the waiver has proven so onerous to be positively useless as no developed or developing country has made use of it in spite of a huge need for drugs.

The waiver had two components, a signed agreement and the text of a speech read out by the Chairperson of the TRIPs council. The agreement placed conditions on using the waiver and the Chairperson's text had many more onerous conditions. The signed agreement did not refer to the Chairman's statement when it was signed. The WTO Secretariat then fraudulently added an asterisk and a footnote referring to the Chairman's text, in an effort to make the use of the waiver nigh impossible. The developing countries protested about this and to date the Secretariat of the WTO refuses to remove the asterisk and the footnote. The developing countries refuse to recognise the Chairman's text as part of the agreement because it was not agreed to and also undermines the purpose of the waiver. So the dispute on the TRIPs agreement is a false dispute created and orchestrated by the rich countries to protect profits at the expense of millions of lives.

The danger inherent in the TRIPs agreement was made very clear at the Second African Union Extraordinary Session of Trade Ministers in Arusha. South African and Kenyan officials attempted to withdraw the Africa Group proposal. The Africa Group proposal is the basis for opposition to the fraud on the waiver and an attempt to secure a solution that is practical. Using tactics that can only be called highly synchronised, South Africa and Kenya tried to get the Africa Group proposal withdrawn. They did this without making it explicit that this is what they intended. Thankfully with concerted effort by other Africans this was averted. It is interesting to note that South Africa indicated unequivocal support for the Africa Group proposal during its consultation with civil society. The change in position therefore undermines the value of the consultations. With Kenya of course, the change in position occurred at a time when the entire cabinet was fired and yet there was a continuity in the position of TRIPs. The powers behind these changes seem to have an influence on African politics that is as opaque as it is powerful.

There is a real problem with transparency, accountability, good governance and democracy at the WTO. The WTO processes are simultaneously crude and sophisticated in their dictatorial tendencies. The draft texts for discussion in Hong Kong have been prepared by Chairpersons who have been accused of ignoring developing countries proposals and putting in elements where there is no consensus. Overall the bias of these chairpersons is toward the rich countries. The rich countries make a point of complaining that they have been sidelined by the chair in an effort to create an impression that the chairpersons texts/reports are not biased. Developing countries have not been as easily hoodwinked as the rich country media on this. The representative of Venezuela, upset at the text presented by a Chair, asked him “where does your responsibility [for the text] end and where does ours [the members] begin.”

From the very beginning developing countries have to start negotiations from a point of weakness that has been built into the process. The fact that Pascal Lamy is now the Director General of the WTO should also not be forgotten. He was unanimously selected for the job and has moved from being the bully boy in the school yard to the teacher with the whip. What is clear is that he has not seemed to have changed his tendency to tell developing countries what is good for them. He did this in his previous position as EU Trade Commissioner and continues to this day. In what must have been one of his lowest moments in his career, he addressed the AU Trade Ministers meeting in Arusha. He said that expectations must be recalibrated and that African countries should develop a bottom line. This was not a problem. However like Father Christmas he came carrying the “gift” of “aid for trade” and the promise of an increase in assistance for African countries. Now it can be seen as genuine, but in the context of North-South relations it can also be seen as an attempt to buy up the ministers. After all, many African states are aid dependant and are easily influenced in this way.

The danger of a deal that is an empty gift, well packaged by Lamy and his de facto political bosses in Washington and Brussels, is real. The Lamy factor should not be underestimated. The WTO may be a medieval institution, as Lamy once called it. He now has the power of the medieval lords behind him to drive a deal whatever the cost to developing countries. Developing countries should remain vigilant and ensure that they get what they want from the round. They do need to do a lot more to expose the injustices that they face in the process because without such exposure, the rich countries maintain and extend their power. If they do this more and more, then any failure of this round can be clearly blamed on the rich countries instead of them.

* Riaz Tayob works for the Southern and Eastern African Trade Negotiation Institute (SEATINI) www.seatini.org

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Agriculture has always been the make or break issue of the sixth WTO ministerial in Hong Kong and as the meeting approaches it would take a miracle for agreement to be reached. But Raj Patel from the Centre for Civil Society at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal notes in an interview with Pambazuka News that even if a deal was reached it would have to ignore the demands and needs of agriculturalists in the Global South. That’s because “nothing, not one thing, in the detail of the EU and US proposals, promises any substantive change in their policies of subsidising rich farmers in the EU and US, while exploiting poorer ones elsewhere.”

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The agricultural sector has been an area of focus for you. What are your views on this World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Hong Kong? Is there any hope at all for an improvement in relation to the agricultural sector?

RAJ PATEL: Since the WTO began in 1995, the agreement on agriculture has been a battlefield, mainly between the European Union and the United States. There have been ministerial meetings in Singapore 1996, Geneva 1998, Seattle 1999, Doha 2001, Cancun 2003 and Hong Kong is the sixth ministerial conference.

At each of these conferences, save perhaps Singapore, the fight over agriculture has caused a great deal of collateral damage, particularly in terms of the demands made of developing countries. By the same token, though, when developing countries have had the opportunity and courage to raise their voices, the advance of WTO-style trade liberalisation has been halted - this happened in Seattle and Cancun in particular.

In Doha, however, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was written, and it's a roadmap for trade liberalisation to which many poor countries chose, under duress but with the possibility of aid, to subscribe. The US and EU have been effective in using the DDA as a sop to countries concerned about how trade liberalisation in agriculture will affect their rural populations - usually the poorest people. But the EU vs US agricultural trade spat continues to fester. And in recent weeks, despite a great deal of diplomacy, strong-arming, sweet-talking and belly rolling, the EU and US haven't managed to come to any agreement on agriculture.

As the Hong Kong ministerial approaches, it's unlikely that an agreement will be reached. The important point, though, is this - if an agreement *is* reached, it will have to be one that ignores the demands and needs of agriculturalists in the Global South - because nothing, not one thing, in the detail of the EU and US proposals, promises any substantive change in their policies of subsidising rich farmers in the EU and US, while exploiting poorer ones elsewhere.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The major sticking area with regards negotiations over agriculture lies in the issue of farm subsidies. The European Union and United States pay billions of dollars of subsidies to their farmers, undermining the ability of farmers in other parts of the world to compete with products from the EU and USA. What progress do you think there will be on this issue? Isn't the focus on subsidies slightly misleading in that it obscures the problems associated with an export based agricultural system that undermines food sovereignty?

RAJ PATEL: Among the reasons that the WTO is unfair is that it allows the EU and US to maintain their agricultural systems and supports in place, while demanding that developing countries remove their protections for agriculture. In the press and in certain NGO circuits, this debate has collapsed into one about subsidies, with strong arguments being made that subsidies are hurting the poor in the Global South. The argument runs like this - the EU and US massively subsidise their farmers. The subsidies encourage farmers to over-produce. The surfeit of agricultural goods needs to be disposed of somewhere, and that somewhere is the Global South. This means that farmers in the Global South are competing against products that have a much lower cost of production precisely because of the subsidies.

This undoubtedly happens in some circumstances. Most recently publicised has been the case of cotton, where the subsidies given to US cotton producers directly affects the output in West Africa, to the tune of $250 million in direct costs, and $1 billion in indirect costs, according to the Cotton Producers Association of Africa.

In the main, however, the subsidies debate is a red herring. The best way to see this is to consider what would happen if the US were, for example, suddenly to make all its subsidies disappear. An increasing number of studies addressing this issue have found that supply wouldn't change in the short or medium term. Indeed, under some scenarios, production would increase, as US farmers struggled to increase output to cover the shortfall in their subsidies. This would have the effect of worsening the situation for farmers in the Global South in the short term, and in the long term, world prices would increase only modestly (3% by 2020, according to one model).

The US recently put on the table an offer to reduce some of its farm supports by 60% in the next five years, in exchange for market access. But the devil lies in the details of these proposals - the US is taking something of a gamble that its exports will win on market access what they lose in direct farm payments. The gamble, however, isn't a fair one - the US still retains the right to expand its 'non-trade-distorting' subsidies, which will nonetheless keep farmers at a competitive advantage, while promising to cut the narrowly defined 'trade-distorting subsidies'. Their effective reduction in subsidies would be around 2%, but the market access they want in return is a reduction of between 50-90%. The chalice is, to switch metaphors, poisoned.

The good news, for those opposed to the WTO’s vision of agriculture at least, is that the EU response to this salvo is constrained. The EU trade Minister, formerly a disgraced UK minister, Peter Mandelson, is a firm believer in the free market. But he is not, however, able to negotiate as he pleases. The EU’s own intra-national politics has put some firm constraints down as to what he is, and is not, allowed to concede. The US is pushing for more than he is able to give – indeed, some French politicians have already argued that he has overstepped his mandate. And this means the very real threat of deadlock at the WTO in Hong Kong – any broad agreement can’t happen without an agreement on agriculture, and it doesn’t look like any agreement on agriculture is forthcoming.

This is not to say that US and EU farm support systems should remain untouched - far from it. The lion's share of EU and US agricultural subsidies go to the rich, with some estimates suggesting that 60% of subsidies go to the richest 20%. There's clearly need for radical change. But this change in and of itself won't bring the manna that many hope it will. The problem is more complex, and lies in the systemic overproduction of crops in the North, and in the vested and wealthy interests that profit from this overproduction, and from a model that promotes export-based agriculture.

Finally, it’s important to remember that the outcomes of Hong Kong, deadlock or otherwise, will still leave the WTO largely intact. This is an unhappy state of affairs, and one that needs urgent redress not within the Ministerial, but beyond it.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In a recent paper, ‘International Agrarian Restructuring and the Practical Ethics of Peasant Movement Solidarity’, (Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal) you set out to show "how the international agrarian counter-movement is not a reflex or knee-jerk response...but one that has to work with complex formations of identity, memory and militancy". Can you elaborate on the point that you are making here and how this relates to the WTO?

RAJ PATEL: The resistance to the WTO is complex and global. Many of the organisations that are fighting the increase of the WTO's ambit in agriculture are farming organisations with roots in a long history of liberation struggle. The Landless Peoples' Movement in Brazil, the MST, for instance, see themselves as the inheritors of the traditions of the Peasant Leagues in post-war Brazil. The Indian "Karnataka State Farmers Association", KRRS, with over 10 million members, sees itself as continuing the Gandhian vision of national liberation.

The way that these movements respond to the WTO isn't a call for increasing tariffs or subsidies or any of the other terms used by the international trade set. They want to take back the debate around agriculture from international capital, and that means taking back its meaning. Chukki Nanjundaswamy, one of the leaders of the KRRS, puts it like this: "We don't want the government to give us charity - we don't want subsidies in that sense. What we want is the fair price for what we grow - the 'scientific price'. This means a price that includes a fair price for the labour, and the inputs, and the land. Nothing more. Nothing less. But also, we want to take back control of how our food is distributed. We want to cut out the middlemen, the little thugs and the big corporations that steal from all of us. So we want to sell our food directly to the people who will eat it - we'll get more for our food, and they'll have to pay less. Our motto is 'One rupee more for the producer, one less for the consumer.'"

This is a solid example of the Gandhian idea of self-sufficiency at work, drawing on a history of anti-colonial struggle, and changing the way that agricultural commerce is structured. And this is a direct attack on the WTO, which seeks to structure domestic agriculture through structuring the international trade rules.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In the same paper, you write that apart from dumping, deskilling, inequality and concentration of ownership, one of the features of people in the agriculture sector under neo-liberalism is a kind of collective amnesia. This is an interesting point - can you explain what you mean?

RAJ PATEL: One of the processes of international commerce since the second world war has involved the rise of new technologies in farming. An example of this is the 'Green Revolution', a series of technologies that involved irrigation, agrotoxins (pesticides and herbicides) and improved varieties that were compatible with these kinds of technologies. The yields from these new varieties were undoubtedly higher than before they were introduced.

But there are two problems - the first is that with the introduction of these technologies that encourage a monoculture of one kind or another, other kinds of farming systems, often more sophisticated, involving intercropping a range of crops in ways suited to local conditions, has been forgotten.

This is a problem today, because the Green Revolution technologies are failing, leaving behind soils that require extensive reconstruction after years of being soaked in toxins. Agro-ecological forms of farming, which preceded the Green Revolution in some cases, would have offered a way of managing this situation - but the skills have been lost.

There is, however, a second kind of amnesia - one that relates to the technologies used on farms today. The technologies are presented, by the chemical companies, and then by governments, as the only solution out of the trap of low productivity agriculture. Yet, as Prof. S.S. Gill of the Punjab Agricultural University points out, the Green Revolution was a substitute for land reform – it was a way of tamping down popular aspirations for radical change in the face of hunger. His work on the increases in productivity that have happened when landless and land-insecure rural people have been given land show that, in fact, productivity also shoots through the roof.

This isn’t to say that the main reason for land reform should be productivity increases - there are many better reasons than that. Yet we are encouraged to forget these political options in the face of modern farming technology. And this is symptomatic of a broader forgetting - a forgetting of people living in rural areas. Farming policy in almost every country world wide has placed a lower value on the fates of people living in rural areas, and their persistently higher rates of poverty, disease and education are tragic testament to this.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How does/has the agricultural sector acted as a site of struggle against the neo-liberal system espoused by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and WTO? What examples are there from Africa?

In Africa, the history of colonialism has left its mark most centrally on the factor of production most necessary for agriculture – land. A number of governments, and the South African government is the most ardent exponent of these philosophies on the continent, have sought to redistribute land on a willing-buyer-willing-seller model. The model, approved and proselytised by the World Bank, is one where the owner of the land, who has invariably received the land through a process of colonialism, agrees to part with it at an invariably high market rate, and the buyer, invariably without the support s/he needs to successfully finance and grow on the land, pays for the land, only to default on the loan a few years later. At the recent Land Summit in South Africa, and due almost exclusively to three years of hard campaigning by the Landless Peoples’ Movement, the government admitted that the willing-buyer-willing-seller policy has been a failure.

More broadly, the loans doled out by the Bank and the Fund have imposed requirements to repay loans in dollars. These dollars can only be gained through exporting domestically produced goods. When African countries have been unable to repay the loans, the Bank and Fund have been willing to re-lend to governments, but with the loans have come conditionalities, or terms – governments are to reduce their ‘interference’ in the market by dismantling the supports for agriculture to which they have been committed. These supports include guaranteed prices, paid through marketing boards. With the end of guaranteed prices, and with farmers exposed to international competition, this has cemented African agriculture into a barely reconstructed version of their colonial form – providing cheap agricultural commodities to the Global North and, increasingly, large countries in the Global South, notably China.

Cotton, mentioned above, is just one example. African countries are driven by a range of key export crops, from coffee to cut flowers – all of which have a range of increasingly liberalised trade rules governing them, authored at the World Trade Organization. This process, of loan, conditions, and export agriculture, is why the Fund, Bank, and WTO are known as the ‘three sisters’ of neoliberalism.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Community struggles are often at the coal-face of resistance to decisions made at forums like the WTO. To what extent do you think these 'voices' are heard at meetings like the one in Hong Kong?

RAJ PATEL: The WTO is meant to be a forum of governments, and to the extent that governments represent the will of their people, peoples’ voices ought to be heard at the WTO. It just happens that very few governments represent any kind of popular will, and the few that are able to represent these are sidelined, bought off, or brow-beaten.

With this in mind, the international peasant movement, Via Campesina, arranged to meet directly with the head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, the man who had Peter Mandelson’s job until he was elected to be the ‘impartial head’ of the World Trade Organization. Unfortunately, the delegation was limited by the WTO to fifteen people, and when arriving at the WTO building in Geneva, only one member of the delegation, the Via Campesina representative from Norway, was allowed in. This is indicative of the extent to which ‘voices’ are heard at the WTO. In Hong Kong, there are already rumours of activists being blacklisted, and prevented from entering the country during the ministerial, and with the Hong Kong authorities making it difficult for these representatives to find accommodation so that they’ve somewhere to sleep after they’ve made their voices heard.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What would be some of the key features of a food sovereignty model?

There are alternatives to the WTO. Via Campesina has proposed a model called “food sovereignty”. It’s not something of which many people have heard, so it’s worth jotting down a quick definition: “is the right of peoples to define
their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self-reliant; [and] to restrict the dumping of products in their markets . . . Food sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather, it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production.”

The main point here is not to replace one neo-liberal dogma with another, but to take seriously the right of ‘peoples’ to define their own food and agriculture. In other words, a food sovereignty model would look significantly more democratic than the prevailing one. But this is to understate the case – because we’ve not yet seen this kind of democracy at work on a sustained basis at a national level anywhere in the world. It’s a call for a direct democracy, not a representative one. This means a call for engagement, debate and contestation – the kinds of things that we see very little of outside the smoke-filled rooms at the WTO. It calls for every person to take more direct responsibility and claim over their lives – it’s a call for empowerment. It means, of course, disempowering those who profit from the current agricultural system – but it also means empowering those who profit least – rural and urban producers, and consumers around the world. And we’re a constituency that richly deserves more control over our lives.

* Interview conducted via email. Please send comments to [email protected]

Representatives from governments, green organisations and business are currently meeting in Montreal, Canada to thrash out how to deal with the threat posed by climate change. As the meeting takes place, worldwide protests are underway to call for international governments to develop workable emissions reduction programmes and policies. Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada critically examine South Africa's response to dealing with pollution and call for genuine solutions to a very real problem.

Climate change damage, the subject of a major Montreal 'Conference of Parties 11' which aims to update the Kyoto Protocol from November 28-December 9, is apparent to anyone following the news.

* The ferocity of recent Gulf Coast hurricanes was blamed by a leading British climate scientist upon a 3 degree (centigrade) rise in water temperatures.

* Frequent bleaching of Indian Ocean corals due to sea surface temperature rise is fast reaching lethal levels.

* Siberia's tundra is thawing, releasing unprecedented amounts of methane.

* Polar icecaps are melting, as are mountain glaciers across Africa.

* An estimated 37% of terrestrial species are likely to disappear due to global warming by 2050.

* Droughts and floods are intensifying.

Here in South Africa, society is slowly coming to grips with apartheid's responsibility for the world's worst relative overdose of greenhouse gases. Tragically, the post-apartheid government's neoliberal orientation has made the situation much worse.

The Kyoto Protocol aims to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions from 'developed' countries by 2012, at a level 5,2% lower than 1990 levels. That target won't be met, and most scientists agree that instead, a 60% reduction is needed to undo the severe climate damage now underway.

The 1997 Protocol came into effect in February 2005, but South Africa is not subject to emissions reduction targets at this stage. However, since we will be in future, some state officials, international financiers and local corporations - and even a few NGOs that should know better - are promoting a gimmick: Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which substitutes investments in carbon-reducing projects for genuine emissions reductions.

Critics include dozens of environmental justice networks that signed last year's 'Durban Declaration on Climate Justice' (http://www.carbontradewatch.org) against the CDM and especially trading carbon pollution rights.

Carbon trading justifies letting the US, European Union and Japan continue their emissions, in exchange for a small profit payout to dubious South African firms and municipalities for reductions in local carbon that we should be making in any event.

For example, landfill gas (40-60% methane) that escapes from Africa's largest dump, at Bisasar Road in the Durban residential suburb of Clare Estate should be captured, cleaned and the methane burned safely and cleanly for energy. The neighbourhood's residents are Indian and African; the vast dump's location smack in the middle of a residential area typified racist urban planning under apartheid.

Instead, Durban officials aim to burn the unprocessed landfill gas on site - in the process, raising the level of gas flaring by a factor of fifteen. Moreover, the Durban plan entails keeping the dangerous dump open at least another seven years so as to make the venture profitable, even though the ruling African National Congress had promised Bisasar Road's closure in 1996 due to community opposition.

The Durban bureaucrats' goal is to sell carbon credits via the World Bank to big corporations and Northern governments. But a famous community activist, cancer-stricken Sajida Khan, appears to have frightened the World Bank off for now.

Unfortunately, South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism supports this form of carbon colonialism, which we term the 'privatisation of the air'. The government issued its National Climate Change Response Strategy in September 2004, arguing opportunistically that the 'CDM primarily presents a range of commercial opportunities, both big and small. This could be a very important source of foreign direct investment.'

Indeed, South Africa's five-fold increase in CO2 emissions since 1950 and 20% increase during the 1990s, can largely be blamed upon the attempt by state electricity company Eskom, the mining houses (led by Anglo American) and huge metals smelters (especially BHP Billiton) to brag of the world's cheapest electricity. Emitting twenty times the carbon tonnage per unit of economic output per person than even the United States, South African capital's reliance upon fossil fuels is scandalous.

Not only are vast carbon-based profits fleeing to the mining houses' offshore financial headquarters. There are very few jobs in these smelters, including the proposed $2.5 billion Coega aluminium project for which the notorious Canadian firm Alcan has been promised lucrative sweetheart deals from Eskom and other state agencies. Less than 1000 jobs will be created in the smelter, though it will consume more electricity than nearby Port Elizabeth, South Africa's fourth largest city.

Researchers at the University of Cape Town's Energy for Development Research Centre confirm that South Africa is 'the most vulnerable fossil fuel exporting country in the world'; scores extremely poorly 'on the indicators for carbon emissions per capita and energy intensity'; suffers a 'high dependence on coal for primary energy'; offers 'low energy prices' which in part is responsible for 'poor energy efficiency of individual sectors'; and risks developing a 'competitive disadvantage' by virtue of 'continued high energy intensity' which in the event of energy price rises 'can increase the cost of production'.

Aside from carbon trading, the main answer to the climate question provided by South African public enterprises minister Alec Erwin is to fast-track dangerous 'Pebble Bed' nuclear technology rejected by German producers like Siemens some years ago. That reckless strategy will continue to be fought by the superb environmental advocacy NGO Earthlife Africa, which has won two important preliminary court battles against Erwin and former environment minister Valli Moosa in the past year.

Although South Africa may be Africa's worst offender, other countries face similar problems. In Nigeria, powerful advocacy work by Iwerekhan community activists led the Federal High Court of Nigeria to judge gas flaring in Delta State a 'gross violation' of the right to life and dignity as promised in the Nigerian constitution (http://www.climatelaw.org/media/media/gas.flaring.suit.nov2005/ni.shell…). Yet the World Bank may give flaring mitigation official status as an investment in its Prototype Carbon Fund. According to the Climate Justice Programme, the proposed investments would justify flaring that should, in a just society, be outlawed outright, because they 'contain a toxic cocktail, including dioxins and particulates, and contribute to acid rain, respiratory illnesses, cancer and premature death', problems that the Nigerian court now considers a 'gross violation' of Iwerekhan people's human rights.

Whether in Nigeria, South Africa or elsewhere, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, wave, tidal and biomass are the only logical way forward for this century's energy system, but still get only a tiny pittance of government support.

Meantime, because of alleged 'resource constraints', Durban communities like Kennedy Road bordering Bisasar landfill - where impoverished people rely upon dump scavenging for income - are still denied basic services like electricity.

Hence there has arisen a new generation of municipal protests in South Africa, including a march by several thousand residents of shack settlements here in Durban on November 14. The week before, Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe banned the march, showing that neo-liberalism and state repression are often two sides of the same coin. The community activists marched anyway, and the police attacked them, leading to more than 40 arrests and dozens of injuries from rubber bullets. The police also used live ammunition but fortunately no one was killed (http://southafrica.indymedia.org).

South Africa has witnessed nearly 900 illegal protests over inadequate municipal water, sanitation, electricity and housing services over the past year. President Thabo Mbeki passes the buck to local government, and hasn't yet shown any commitment to redirecting resource flows, which today so illogically favour the biggest corporate consumers of fossil fuels.

While Durban's Kennedy Road activists are promised a few jobs and bursaries by the municipality and World Bank, the plan to burn the landfill's methane gas on-site could release a cocktail of new toxins into the already-poisoned air. The generator's filters would never entirely contain the aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides, volatile organic compounds, dioxins and furans.

An even more dubious carbon trade is now being marketed in South Africa by another state agency, Sasol, which produces petroleum from coal. Sasol's attempt to earn carbon credits for its new Mozambique gas pipeline is based on claims that the huge investment would not have been viable without carbon finance. That this is a blatant fib was conceded offhandedly to researchers by a leading Sasol official in August, and is the sort of incident which discredits the idea of commodifying the air through unverifiable carbon reductions.

Aside from the World Bank, the cash-rich companies that most need these deals to protect future pollution profits are the oil majors, beneficiaries of windfall profits as the price per barrel soared from $11 in 1998 to more than $70 this year.

The Bank itself even admits in a new study that these and other extractive firms' depletion of Africa's natural resources drain the national wealth by hundreds of dollars per person each year (see Bond's analysis at http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-10/04bond.cfm).

In the process, the oil fields are attracting a new generation of US troops to bases being developed in the Gulf of Guinea. According to NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General James Jones, 'The carrier battle groups of the future and the expeditionary strike groups of the future may not spend six months in the Mediterranean Sea but I'll bet they'll spend half the time down the West Coast of Africa.'

Once again, Pretoria is amplifying the worst trends, as Human Science Research Council writers John Daniel and Jessica Lutchman recently concluded of sleazy oil deals that encompass the Sudanese and Equatorial Guinean dictatorships: 'In its scramble to acquire a share of this market, the ANC government has abandoned any regard to those ethical and human rights principles which it once proclaimed would form the basis of its foreign policy.'

Those ethical principles should be urgently revisited now, since our future generations' very survival is at stake. In South Africa, the National Climate Change Conference last month failed to engage seriously with these critiques, and will be looked back on by ecological historians as a large part of the problem.

At the world scale, the Montreal conference will probably also be considered a travesty by future generations. Tragically, although Friends of the Earth International has joined the critique of carbon trading, the other giant environmental NGOs - many of which like Greenpeace appear to have been co-opted by their relationships with big oil - believe in market solutions.

In contrast, the signatories to the 'Durban Declaration' of October 2004 (http://www.carbontradewatch.org) continue to oppose a bogus for-profit approach to a problem caused mainly by advanced industrial capitalism. South Africa is a big part of this dual dilemma - i.e., emitting huge amounts of carbon, and serving as a guinea pig for a World Bank band aid scam - and it is up to environmental and social activists here to ratchet up the pressure and insist upon genuine solutions.

* Bond ([email protected]) and Dada ([email protected]) are editors of a new book, 'Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere', from the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Civil Society (http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/CCS_ENERGYSERIES_1005_COMPLETE.pdf). Dada's documentary film on Bisasar Road aired nationally in South Africa last month.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

On November 21 Kenyans went to the polls to vote 'Yes' or 'No' to a new constitution. When the final results were announced the 'No' vote represented by an orange on the ballot paper trounced the 'Yes' vote characterized by a banana. The draft charter of the constitution being voted over had been the subject of bitter divisions in the country in the lead up to the vote. Maina Kiai from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission reflects on the lessons learnt from the referendum. He writes that Kenyans have clearly shown that they believe in the right to vote as a way of making decisions and that once again voters have firmly rejected the culture of Moism - characterized by patronage and divide and rule tactics. Kenya's politicians should take notice of the vote and listen to the people, he says.

The people's verdict in rejecting, ostensibly, the draft constitution is more than clear. I say "ostensibly" because I am not convinced that voters were voting only on the merits or demerits of the draft. Indeed, I would guess that quite a significant number were expressing their views much more on the other issues that have dominated the processes since the Bomas meeting as far back as 2003, than on the substance of the document. These issues included the sense of protecting our own; sending a protest message; unhappiness with the process; use of state resources; presence of perceived corrupt people in the cabinet; arrogance of the small clique in power; and exclusion of most Kenyans from the "warmth" of power.

Moreover, the one-month period for civic education was plainly inadequate to reach the millions of Kenyans, and the political class - on both sides - hijacked the process. Since Bomas, the issues have been more about politics, power, ethnicity, revenge and protection of old and new corruption, than about delivering a new constitution. And it has been about controlling the process, leading to the birth of a new constitution for Kenya, with both sides doing whatever they can to thwart the other's purported (and real) control of the different processes that emerged since 2003.

Of course there are real issues of substance dividing both sides, but way beyond these issues, is the question of control of the process that leads to the final document. This is on the basis that whoever controls the process will get what they want in the final document without the need for compromise and negotiations. And it is in this sphere that the political class - on both sides - outwits us all in being able to then sell their personal views as views of communities.

It has been argued previously that it is critical to remove the process and control the issue from the table so that we can genuinely discuss a draft without too much politics, and also giving time to genuine and expansive civic education on substance rather than politics. Could it be, for instance, that the 30,217 people in Tetu constituency who voted 'Yes' were all convinced on the substance of the document, as opposed to the 255 who voted 'No'? Or that the 29,974 people in Nyando who voted 'No' all disagreed with the merits of the entire document, as opposed to the 260 who voted 'Yes'?

These margins reflect more a "protection" and "our own" mentality than anything else, for even in the closest of families, there are always real divisions and difference of opinions on fundamental issues and the only way to overcome these differences is to project a need for togetherness as protection against a larger outside enemy. And in our referendum, the tribe and its perceived interests, and power swamped the contents of the draft.

Given the control factors and processes that led to the Wako Draft, it was not surprising that politics topped the agenda.

It was in this context that the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights spent considerable time and energy with various political actors, advocating a formula on the process that would not be controlled by either side. We argued that the political class needed to accept that the country was divided and that there was virtually no Kenyan who would not be perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be supporting one side or the other; and that therefore the only possible way to move from process issues and into content was to get five to seven eminent, credible, distinguished African constitutional law experts who are above reproach, to then craft a draft from the various views and existing drafts that exist in the country. This would include the collation of views by the Ghai Commission, the Ghai, Bomas, Ufungamano, Law Society of Kenya and the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida) drafts to mention a few.

We were clear that we needed credible African experts who understand the African reality well, but who were also above Kenyan political control. And to ensure that no one said they were "appointed" by one side or the other, and that there was an accountability mechanism for these experts, we suggested that we approach Archbishop Desmond Tutu, or former South African president Nelson Mandela, and ask them to select the experts. Unfortunately our pleas fell on deaf ears all round.

I believe that the referendum outcome vindicates this approach and by rejecting the draft, we now have another opportunity to reconsider it. The key to building bridges lies not in the actual substance of any draft constitution; it lies in the process and the confidence around the process that we can generate. That way, we can then have debates on the contents without politics and power games, knowing that we can never all agree on the substance but at least this would ensure that we have a proper debate without politics and power intervening.

It will be tempting for the 'No' side, composed of Kenyan politicians, to interpret the vote as a mandate for them to lead and direct the process for a new constitution. This will be the road to ruin in as much as the Kiraitu approach led to ruin.

There are also other lessons that we can draw from this exercise to guide us into the future and bind us together. Important among them is that Kenyans have shown that they firmly believe in the right to vote as an indispensable tool in making decisions, or to send messages to the political class. I was very impressed by the calm and maturity exhibited by voters - in contradiction to the politicians. Even in areas where there were clear divergent views, the level of respect for the other side was overwhelming. This, despite the best efforts of politicians to incite violence and ethnic hatred; inflame passions; and raise our emotions. Clearly, our leaders have some lessons to learn from us, and we should now increase the pressure on them to start listening to us, rather than vice versa. This means that we, the public, must start holding our leaders accountable for breaking the law in trying to incite us to violence; hold them accountable for the misuse of state resources; and reject attempts to excite ethnic hatred through hate speech, for a start.

A third key lesson is that Kenyans, yet again after December 2002, rejected firmly the culture of Moism that has pervaded the political class in the country. This is the culture of patronage, the culture that views state resources as personal, the culture of divide and rule. This is the culture of decision-making by a small kitchen cabinet on the basis of their personal, not national, interests. It is the culture of arrogance and forcing issues down our throats, without the courtesy of explaining, simply because the State machinery is in their hands. And it is the culture of handouts as though money is the only thing that matters to us all. After a reasonable start in January 2003, and for about a year, key players in the Kibaki regime reverted to Moism as a way to maintain themselves in power, forgetting the reform promises they had made. Well, the voters have reminded us all - and I hope the victorious 'No' side learns this - that Moism is not just about Daniel Moi as a person: It is about a way of governing that is not only disrespectful, but also selfish, and cliquish.

I also draw the lesson that Kenyans want far more bolder and deeper reforms than have been carried out so far. In the early days of this regime, the support for reforms was amazing, and the bolder the better. It is time for the government to get back on this track. That must mean a complete "zero-tolerance" to corruption; a sweeping of the civil service including the retiring of those public servants - no matter how good - who have reached retirement age. With 65 per cent of the population being under the age of 30, few things affect the image of the government than its reliance on "old" men, when what it needs is energy.

It also means revamping the police to make it friendly not fearful; working to change attitudes in the public service; focusing more on delivery and accessibility; and bringing in more and competent women reflecting the face of the country, to high positions of governance. This necessarily means bringing in people from outside the government to serve (as public service should) from the private sector and civil society.

More reforms must also include more transparency and accountability to the people of Kenya. Nothing, for example, prohibits various politicians, government departments and agencies from holding public accountability forums where they submit their records to public scrutiny over and above the accountability to parliament. There are many questions that many of us still have from the referendum that we would like answered. For instance, how much was actually spent by the two sides in the campaigns? And where did the funds come from, outside the veil of "well-wishers"? Honesty in answering these questions will perhaps begin building some bridges between us the people and the political class on both sides.

The people of this country have many things to say, some good and some bad. They need to be listened to, even if one does not agree with them, and no matter how painful.

* Maina Kiai is the chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

* Read the report 'How and Where the Cause of Justice was Defeated in the Referendum Draft Constitution of 2005' for background information on the referendum.
http://www.mazinst.org/referendumdraft.html

Last week we published the first in a series of articles about the current negotiations over Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states and the European Union (http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30549). In the first article, Stephen Hurt looked at the shifting power relations in international trade between the ACP states and the EU, showing how the current EPAs can be understood by looking at the historical relationship between the various groupings. The second article on the subject is based on a report by EcoNews Africa and Traidcraft and looks at the impact of free trade on the lives of ordinary Kenyans.

"During the past two decades, we have seen Kenya slide systematically in to the abyss of underdevelopment and hopelessness." - Kenya government paper, June 2003

"We liberalised excessively in the 1990s because of the IMF and World Bank. But it de-developed us. The levels of education collapsed. The generation of the 1990s is the lost generation."- Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, Kenya Minister for Trade, June 2005

In the 1970s Kenya's future looked bright. The economy was growing and industry starting to thrive. But the country's fortunes reversed when it was forced to follow the rigid economic regime imposed by rich nations. During the 1980s, in return for aid Kenya was put on a strict diet of 'liberalisation'. This involved reducing government support for farmers, cutting tariffs and de-regulating markets. Then in the 1990s as a condition of joining the WTO Kenya liberalised even further. Cheap, sometimes subsidized goods have flooded the markets - everything from clothes to shoes, sugar to steel.

The result has been a generation without education, massive unemployment and shattered industries. Thrown in to competition with powerful companies and countries, Kenya's fledgling industries and vulnerable farmers didn't stand a chance. Many went under. The government lost income and was prevented from stepping in to help. The human cost of the liberalisation experiment has been enormous. 56% of people live in poverty (48% in 1990); under 30% of people are in formal employment (78% in 1988); 48% of children are not vaccinated (31% in 1993), there are less children in school and an increase in child deaths.

More of the same

"A good government must be able protect the local industry. If it is not able to protect local industry it is killing its own people." - Tom Owuor, Trade Union Secretary, Kenya

Despite the evidence from countries like Kenya that unfettered trade liberalisation does not reduce poverty, rich nations continue to prescribe the same medicine. Conditions attached to aid and debt relief and WTO rules all force poor countries in to an economic straight-jacket.

Added to the table now are Economic Partnership Agreements. These are free trade deals that the European Union (EU) is negotiating with 77 of its former colonies (including Kenya) in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP). The EU is demanding access to ACP markets for its goods. EPA negotiations started in 2002 and are due to come in to force in 2008.

From the start the ACP have voiced their objections. They say they are not strong enough to be thrown in to open competition with mighty EU industries. They've seen what liberalisation has done in the past. And they're not ready for more. But the EU isn't listening.

Many ACP countries rely on aid from the EU which makes it difficult for them to play hard ball. And with no alternatives on offer they have little choice. They may also have just one person negotiating several detailed aspects of trade on their behalf - they simply can't keep pace with the battery of EU negotiators.

Case studies from Kenya

Kenya has set out its own plan for cutting poverty. Traidcraft's studies reveal that an EPA will not help Kenya to hit its targets but would put millions of people at risk. And it's not just Traidcraft saying this. Even the EU's own independent study by Price Waterhouse Coopers says EPAs could cost Kenya dearly.

Slim pickings for cotton farmers

Meshack Oonje knows his cotton. He was once a wealthy cotton farmer and proud of his achievements. But now he struggles to get by. "We've seen a big change," says the elderly man, speaking from 30 years experience of farming.

Oonje remembers the three decades from independence to the 1980s when huge sums of money were spent developing cotton farming, ginneries, spinning and textile manufacturing industries. It was also a time when cooperatives were strong. "I farmed my 5 acres alone. From that I was able to raise money and pay dowry of 14 cows," says Oonje.

The profit from his small cotton farm provided enough for his 13 children. He bought another 11/2 acres of land, more cows and built two permanent houses with iron sheet roofing. "Everything I have has been built on cotton. But now there is no profit," he says, adding that farmers are paid less than half the suggested government price.

Oonje is amazed that cotton farmers do not get more support: "This cotton can turn our lives around in a couple of years. It's not one of those crops you wait for years to harvest. Cotton is the crop we know. We cannot abandon it," he says.

The industry is again in disarray as cheap goods flood the market and foreign direct investment relocates to cheaper destinations like China. Further liberalisation under free trade deals like EPAs threatens to destroy the investment in training and other initiatives that were meant to re-launch Kenya's cotton and textile industry.

The sector supports 140,000 people (compared to 200,000 in the 1980s). Production is currently at 20% of 1980s level despite the fact that increased production could benefit millions.

Free market 'madness' hurts dairy industry

John Njogu Wahome is earning a decent income for the first time in almost a decade. And he hopes the investment made in his cows will continue to pay off. Not so long ago a desperate Wahome fed fresh milk to the neighbourhood dogs. "Processors told us our milk was bad. What could we do? We gave it to the dogs," he says.

It's been a difficult few years for the Kenyan dairy industry. Cheap powdered milk imports glutted the market in the late 1990s and in 2001, putting local dairy farmers out of business. Unable to earn an income some farmers were forced to resort to extreme measures in a last-ditch effort to draw attention to their situation.

"Farmers threatened to burn down the processing factories in Nakuru," says Hellen Yego another dairy farmer. "Then they wrote to the government complaining of food dumping in Kenya." Following the protests and representations from farmers the Kenyan government increased tariffs on imported milk products limiting the flood of imports. This along with some internal restructuring has allowed the dairy industry to regain some muscle. "When we got into this free market, that was madness," Wahome says, "it hasn't helped me or any farmer of Kenya." Wahome's son had to miss five months of college in 2001 when the imports of milk were at their height.

Dairy farmers in Kenya understand that the industry has been inefficient in the past. But they believe given the time to regenerate, protected from the full impact of liberalisation the industry can compete internationally.

Stephen Ngososei has many years experience as an agriculturalist and a dairy farmer. He sees EPAs that may come on line in 2008 as a fresh danger coming in through another door. "The opening up of the market is a big threat. Our government must come up and say categorically that we are not ready." Having staggered back from one bout with liberalisation the Kenyan dairy industry may not survive another.

Hostages to free trade in sugar

Stranded hundreds of miles away from his home on the Tanzania border, Richard Omollo feels trapped. "It's as though I'm being held hostage in my own country," says the 34 year old Omollo who now depends on donations to survive.

Omollo worked as a clerk at Miwani Sugar Company until it was closed in 2000 after struggling for years against a flood of cheap imported sugar in the market. The best paying job he can find is casual work on nearby farms where he earns a mere 28p for working a 12-hour day. He needs to make at least #1.20 daily for his family to afford the absolute basics.

Primary education is free, but Omollo's four children do not go to school. "My children walk barefoot, they're nearly naked. So they can't go to school." Farmer Alice Akoth Okongo helps Omollo with food and a little cash when she can. Okongo blames sugar imports for the impossible struggles faced by the community in the area. "They want to kill us, to kill the factory."

Okongo says the way free markets are being handled has created mass poverty where it never existed before. The result is instability and soaring crime rates with prostitution becoming a way of life for women in Miwani who have no other means of earning an income.

Linet Muga is separated from her husband and survives with her five children on a three acre plot given to her by her parents. Linet and Alice are fighting hard to get the voice of the sugar farmers heard. In August 2004 they formed the Kenyan Women Sugar Cane Farmers Network. They are campaigning to their own government and wrote to the G8 ahead of the summit in Edinburgh.

But Linet cannot hide her anger: "The people making these rules should come to the ground and see how we live. We are very bitter. We are sad and we are stranded because we don't know what tomorrow will have for us. Will they come to help us when we are dead?"

The sugar industry directly employs 40,000 people and supports over 2 million people 20,000 jobs were lost during liberalization.

Back to basics for Kenyan leather industry

Peris Njeri sold a lot of leather when she first opened her small shop on the outskirts of Nairobi's central business district three years ago. The single mother bought leather supplies from several tanneries and retailed them to shoemakers for repairs.

Then the leather supplies became harder to find as tanneries across Kenya closed down. Njeri was eventually forced to find a place where she could do the tanning herself. "Business was not good. There was nowhere to get good quality leather," says Njeri who is a trained leather technologist. She turned to the Leather Development Centre in Kenya where she waits her turn for service. It is tiring and the chemicals are expensive, but this is Njeri's livelihood.

The number of people like Peris has swelled with the closure of the tanneries. In early 1990, there were 19 operational tanning companies in the country producing leather most of which was consumed by local leather industries. By 2005 that number was whittled down to 4. Many former employees are now struggling to set themselves up as independent tanners and traders, joining the queue with Njeri.

Closure of the tanneries is partly blamed on second-hand leather goods imports that have flooded the market following liberalisation in the 1990s. Workers like Peris are not blind to the huge changes that must be made locally but they are sure that with the right international policies the leather industry can be turned around. But in the current environment of unplanned and externally driven liberalisation the sector does not stand a chance.

90,000 jobs were lost in the sector after liberalisation of markets and government lost US$15.2 million in revenue. A revived sector could employ 100,000 more people.

Time for change

Further liberalisation under EPAs could devastate the lives of 750 million of the world's poorest people. Countries like Kenya are being forced to negotiate away their future and being wedged in to shoes which don't fit. Developing countries must be given the right to fight poverty using the economic tools that will work best for them. EPAs are up for review in 2006. It's vital we don't lose this chance to change the future of the negotiations.

The UK and EU governments must:

- respond to the concerns of ACP governments about EPAs; - push for changes to the EU's negotiating mandate so that they drop unfair demands for trade liberalisation and negotiations on issues that the ACP have already rejected - propose viable alternatives to EPAs that will help reduce poverty.

* This briefing is based on the report 'EPAs: through the lens of Kenya' produced by Traidcraft and EcoNews Africa. For a copy of the full report visit: www.traidcraft.co.uk/policy

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was essentially a big information and communications technology bazaar. Hundreds of organisations and thousands of their representatives all crammed into a big warehouse on the outskirts of Tunis and set up shop in the exhibition area of the summit. Networking and knowledge sharing was the order of the day for those who were there, but for those who weren’t the collective resource might as well not have even existed. Pambazuka News has listed some of the organisations, innovations and publications that were on show so that if you weren’t there you can browse the links, network and learn from what others are doing. View photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fahamu/

Association of Progressive Communications (APC)
www.apc.org
APC is an international network of civil society organisations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of information and communications technologies (ICTs).

Base Network Africa
[email protected]
Base Network Africa is a youth led not for profit organisation geared towards guiding rural teenagers using information and communication technology.

Behind the Mask
www.mask.org.za
Behind the Mask aims to empower and support LGBT people throughout Africa – politically, culturally, socially and economically, by the gathering and dissemination of information via the internet.

Centre for International ICT Policies Central and West Africa (Cipaco)
www.cipaco.org
Cipaco is a Panos Institute West Africa project aimed an strengthening the capacity of West and Central African stakeholders for a better participation in international decision-making processes.

Computer Aid International
www.computer-aid.org
Computer Aid international is the world’s largest not-for-profit supplier of quality refurbished Pentiums to schools and community organisations in the developing world.

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works

Freedom Toaster
www.freedomtoaster.org
A Freedom Toaster is a conveniently located unit where users bring their own blank CDs and make copies of the FOSS and open content they require, at no cost.

Frontline Defenders
www.frontlinedefenders.org/
Front Line is the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, defending those who champion the Universal Declaration of Human rights.

Gender and ICTs network
www.famafrique.org/regentic/accueil.html
The Gender and ICTs Network promotes gender analysis of the information and communications sector in Senegal and initiates a dialogue between the regulation authorities, women’s organisations and civil society

GenderIT.org
www.GenderIT.org
GenderIT.org is a tool for women’s movements, ICT advocates and policy makers to ensure that ICT policy meets women’s needs and does not infringe on their rights.

Global Knowledge for Development List
www.gkdknowledge.org
The GKD list is a powerful source of high quality expertise and vital information on ICT for development.

Global Knowledge Partnership
www.globalknowledge.org
The GKP is the leading international multi-stakeholder network committed to harnessing the potential of information and communications technologies for sustainable and equitable development

Global Voices Online
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/
Global Voices is an international effort to diversify the conversation taking place online by involving speakers from around the world, and developing tools, institutions and relationships to help make these voices heard.

Human Rights in the Global Information Society
www.mitpress.mit.edu
The contributors to this volume examine the links between information technology and human rights from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Human Rights Watch: False Freedom – Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa
http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/
This report looks at the spread of the internet and how governments have moved to crack down on its potential as a tool for freedom of expression.

Kewl.NextGen
www.avoir.uwc.ac.za/kngfiles
KEWL.nextGen (Knowledge Environment for Web Learning, the next generation), is a free software e-learning system from the African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources Project and the University of the Western Cape.

Kubatana
www.kubatana.net
Kubatana is Zimbabwe’s civic and human rights web site incorporating an online directory for the non-profit sector.

Mainstreaming ICTs: Africa lives the information society
www.womensnet.org.za
A handbook for development practitioners that acts as a contribution towards efforts to bridge the “policy-practice” divide. The book is aimed at development practitioners and ICT innovators interested in inventive technology applications.

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
[email protected]
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is an organisation whose mission is to defend the human rights of Africans in America and promote self-determination.

NGO-in-a-box
www.tacticaltech.org/ngoinabox
NGO-in-a-box offers a set of reviewed and selected Free and Open Source software (F/OSS), tailored to the needs of NGO's. It provides them not only with software, but also with implementation scenarios and relevant materials to support this. Its aim is to increase the accessibility of F/OSS to non-profits in developing and transition countries.

Open Knowledge Network
www.openknowledge.net
Open Knowledge Network is an initiative to support the creation and exchange of local content in local languages across the South, supported by a range of information and communication technologies (ICTs)

Panos West Africa
www.panos-ao.org
Panos West Africa informs and communicates a culture of democracy, citizenship and peace in Africa.

Schoolnet Namibia
Schoolnet Namibia provides sustainable, low cost technology solutions and internet access, as well as technical support, training support and rich educational content to schools, community based educational organisations and educational practitioners throughout Namibia.

The Free and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA)
www.fossfa.net
FOSSFA is an organisation that was formed to promote the use of open source software in Africa.

The Information Revolution and Developing Countries
www.mitpress.mit.edu
In this book Ernest Wilson provides a clear, nuanced analysis of the major transformations resulting from the global information revolution.

Ungana Africa
www.ungana-afrika.org
Ungana Africa aims to address the technology capacity crisis by building innovative support programmes and tools that are empowering the development community.

Voices
www.voicesforall.org
Voices was born out of a realization that people’s empowerment through different forms of communication plays a critical and vital role in the process of socio-economic and political change.

Witness
www.witness.org
Witness uses the power of video to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. By partnering with local organisations around the world, Witness empowers human rights defenders to use video as a tool to shine a light on those most affected by human rights violations.

Women’s statement on the human rights situation in Tunisia
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?w=r&x= 91870

WSIS gender caucus
www.genderwsis.org
The WSIS Gender Caucus is a multi-stakeholder group promoting gender integration and women's rights in the WSIS process.

WSIS youth caucus
http://www.wsisyouth.org/
The Youth Caucus of the WSIS is a loose group of youth who are active leaders in all kinds of areas.

WSIS Draft Civil Society Statement
http://wsis.ecommons.ca/node/view/659

Just days before the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) got under way in Tunis last week, United States State Department spokesman Adam Ereli expressed concern about restrictions on freedom of speech and political activity in Tunisia (http://tunis.usembassy.gov/tunisian_cooperation.html). Over the next few days, the Tunisian government made quite clear that it would not tolerate freedom of expression. Journalists were harassed and beaten, an alternative civil society meeting was effectively shut down, and meetings discussing human rights and freedom of expression were disrupted. This prompted the official US delegation to the United Nations sponsored summit to express some disappointment at the role of the Tunisian government. “We are therefore obliged to express our disappointment that the government of Tunisia did not take advantage of this important opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of expression and assembly in Tunisia,” said a press note issued by the delegation (http://tunis.usembassy.gov/tunisian_cooperation.html).

Interestingly, at the same time as the US decries the human rights situation in the country, Tunisia remains an important ally in the US ‘war on terror’. The US Department of Defence International Military Education and Training (IMET) program has trained over 3,600 Tunisian military officers and technicians since its inception in the mid-1980’s. In 2004, 87 Tunisian military personnel took part in the IMET program at a value of $1.88 million. The U.S. Department of Defense also supports Tunisia’s counter-terrorism program through bilateral training exercises and special counter-terrorism training courses for selected Tunisian participants. (http://tunis.usembassy.gov/tunisian_cooperation.html)

The US has previously supplied the Tunisian government with military hardware in the form of aircraft parts, machine guns and ammunition (http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/655-2002/FMS/Tunisia.pdf). According to a 2005 report from the World Policy Institute, Tunisia received $4,646,000 in military assistance despite a poor human rights record and serious abuses by the government (This figure is for 2003, the latest year for which details are available).

The report’s executive summary is worth noting: “Perhaps no single policy is more at odds with President Bush’s pledge to ‘end tyranny in our world’ than the United States’ role as the world’s leading arms exporting nation. Although arms sales are often justified on the basis of their purported benefits, from securing access to overseas military facilities to rewarding coalition allies in conflicts such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these alleged benefits often come at a high price. All too often, US arms transfers end up fueling conflict, arming human rights abusers, or falling into the hands of US adversaries.” In 2003, the report notes, more than half of the top 25 recipients of US arms transfers in the developing world were defined as undemocratic by the US State Department’s Human Rights Report because their citizens did not have the right to change their own government. (http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html)

US companies also assist the Tunisian regime in its crackdown on dissenters. Software from US company Secure Computing, called SmartFilter, is used by the Tunisian internet agency to block websites that the government does not approve of. One of the websites blocked during the course of the summit was that of the Citizen’s Summit on the Information Society (CSIS). The CSIS event ended up not taking place due to the efforts of the Tunisian government to shut it down. It was supposed to provide a forum where issues that were not a part of the main summit venue could be discussed, but the Tunisian government feared it would be used as a platform to denounce its human rights abuses. Websites mentioned in a training session on how to circumvent internet filtering were also blocked, although its not clear if they were already blocked or had been blocked during the course of the summit.

According to a Human Rights Watch report released at the summit, the Tunisian Interior Ministry employs 500 people to monitor electronic communication. Activists told Human Rights Watch of email arriving late or not at all, of responses to emails coming from third parties posing as the recipient when the intended recipient said he never received the original message, of email inboxes being filled to saturation by repeated emails saying only, for example, “You are traitor.”

The report says Tunisia has cited counterterrorism and the need to curb incitement to hatred and violence as among its justifications for censoring information online. However, tests carried out for the report showed that only four out of forty-one radical Islamist web sites were actually blocked. “The pattern of Tunisia’s online censorship suggests that, in practice, its policy has been guided less by a fear of terrorism or incitement to violence than by a fear of peaceful internal dissent,” says the report (http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/7.htm#_Toc119125755). In the name of the ‘war on terror’, the US, though its military and commercial support, is therefore propping up a regime that uses repressive policies against its own people in order to stay in power.

At the conclusion of the summit media and freedom of expression
groups called for a full investigation by the United Nations into attacks on human rights and freedom of expression that took place in Tunisia during the summit. Steve Buckley, President of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters and Chair of the Tunisian Monitoring Group of freedom of expression organisations said: “Never again should a United Nations World Summit be held in a country that does not respect its international commitments to human rights and freedom of expression.”

“This week in Tunis, both inside and outside the official Summit, we have witnessed serious attacks on the right to freedom of expression including harassment of delegates, attacks on Tunisian and international journalists and human rights defenders, denial of entry to the country, the blocking of websites, the censorship of documents and speeches, and the prevention and disruption of meetings.” (http://www.crisinfo.org/content/view/full/1029, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15613)

The worrying trend highlighted by the holding of the WSIS in Tunisia, is the ease with which issues such as freedom of expression are sidelined as an important footnote, or simply sidelined all together. This approach allows governments to present glossy figures on their internet rollout while at the same time escape criticism over their human rights records.

Freedom of expression is a core component of a future information society and it should not be sidelined in the interests of diplomacy – nor should organisations working in the field of information and communications technology fail to acknowledge that this is an issue that should be at the centre of the agenda.

Tunis has highlighted issues related to human rights in the information society, but it should be clear that the problem is not confined to Tunisia. Efforts by governments to control internal dissent through repression, including through internet censorship, are on the increase, and pose a very real threat to the future structure and form of the information society. It will take a united front to reverse the trend.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Windows, bridges and cafes. That’s how blogs were described in a panel discussion at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis on Thursday. The discussion, entitled “Expression under Repression”, was organized by Dutch non-governmental organisation Hivos and Global Voices, a non-profit global citizens’ media project. Blogs, which are a form of citizen’s publishing that makes it easy for people with internet access to run their own website, were windows because they shone a light not only on the inside of a country but also gave a view of the outside world. They were bridges because they created social islands in divided countries, for the first time giving a voice to marginalized communities such as women. They were cafes because they created a space away from the monopoly of the government where important debates could take place that might have long-term political effects.

This was how Iranian blogger and event panelist Hoosein Derackshan saw the effects of blogging on his country, where about 10 percent of the population have internet access and where there are an estimated 700 000 blogs. Blogs had become a phenomenon in the country, he said, presenting a threat to the government who were afraid of the organizing potential of the internet and its possible disruption to the social and political order.

In the lead up to the event, it was unclear whether or not it would go ahead. The Tunisian authorities had indicated that they were unhappy with any events that dealt with the subject of freedom of expression or human rights and had marked out five events due to be held at the official exhibition centre – the Kram exhibition centre outside Tunis – that they felt did not keep strictly with the theme of information and communications for development. High-level diplomatic interventions meant that the event was eventually able to go ahead, but throughout the period in which it was held there was wrangling in the corridors outside between Tunisian authority representatives and event organizers. At one stage during the meeting instructions were given to those attending that they were not allowed to hand out material to those assembled. The WSIS has been marred by the Tunisian authorities barring an alternative civil society meeting, by attacks on journalists and by the disruption of meetings.

Rebecca MacKinnon, co-founder of Global Voices, said a powerful shift was taking place in terms of global citizens media, which had the potential to democratize the media. In the past there had been no way to access and understand what people in other countries were saying, but as a result of the internet and the development of blogging, people were able to share their voices with the rest of the world.

While some people had questioned how relevant the internet was to the improvement of economic and social well being, it was critical because without individual empowerment development was not sustainable. Censorship was therefore very much connected with impeding development.

The issue of increased attempts by governments to control the internet came under the spotlight in a presentation by Nart Villeneuve, director of technical research at the Citizen’s Lab. Villeneuve has been studying filtering of the internet for the last three years. He described how states were beginning to create borders in cyber space through placing controls on the points of centralization on the internet infrastructure. Filtering was described as a specific technique used to implement controls and was in most cases about content. It could be implemented in various ways, from software on personal machines or through specialized technology at Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or upstream at international connection points.

Most of the technology used for filtering was imported from the US, as was the case in Tunisia, where a US company had supplied the technology for blocking websites.

For the most part, governments were not transparent or accountable in their filtering activities. Some denied that it happened at all or obscured the fact that filtering was in place. Most were unable to answer what the blocking criteria was, or if there was a review or grievance process.

For the most part, filtering began as attempts to control content such as pornography, but an interesting trend, said Villeneuve, was that once filtering began it tended to migrate into other areas, with filtering seen as a quick fix to a larger social or political problem.

One of the worrying trends was that countries relied on commercial products for filtering, meaning that control over what was filtered therefore got ceded to the company developing the technology. There was also a large amount of “collateral damage” involved in filtering in that blocking one website could often lead to the blocking of thousands of others.

Filtering was in effect one mechanism and was linked with repressive controls and laws that caused people to self-censor. Reverse filtering was another problem, whereby filtering took place on the basis of geographic location. For example, because of the US embargo on Iran, websites were blocked for US web surfers.

Villeneuve said in some countries a “national interest” model was being pursued, with countries creating what were effectively intranets that could be accessed from within the country at lower cost than the international network. This meant that the local content would only be approved content and only wealthier internet users would be able to access the mainstream internet.

“What we are seeing is that non-transparent filtering is starting to turn into forms of political censorship and this has an impact on the internet and on democratic participation in a country. What filtering does is to isolate nodes of a network and cut them off – isolating them so that they can be more easily repressed. This is the opposite of what the internet is meant to be,” Villeneuve said.

Taurai Maduna, information officer for www.kubatana, a forum for civil society voices in Zimbabwe, also spoke as a panelist at the event. He said freedom of expression in Zimbabwe had been eroded through a variety of factors including repressive legislation such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). Adopted in 2002, POSA had been used by the government to make it difficult to hold public meetings. AIPPA had contributed to curtailing people’s freedom of expression. Zimbabwe media had been shrinking over the years.

He said the internet remained one of the few uncensored methods of communication and information dissemination and described the use of the internet to distribute information relevant to the civil society sector in Zimbabwe, the powerful use of email in civil society campaigns and Kubatana’s involvement in the training of organisations in the use of email and the internet in their activities. “You find that most civil society organisations, when a human rights violation happens, don’t know how to disseminate the information. Using email they can get the word out.” “What Kubatana does is to focus on local content – there is a lot of content out there but not a lot that focuses on Zimbabwe. We are helping Zimbabwean organisations to come together.”

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The Tunisian authorities prevented foreign and Tunisian associations, including Front Line, from holding a meeting to organize a “Citizens Summit” in parallel with the UN World Summit on Information Technology (WSIS) in Tunis on Monday 14th November. Front Line, together with other NGOs, cancelled planned parallel events in the main conference centre which should have been held on Tuesday 15th November as a protest against the activities of the Tunisian authorities and the ongoing harassment of Tunisian human rights defenders. Over fifty policemen, who refused to identify themselves, prevented NGO members from entering the German Cultural Centre in Tunis. They shoved the participants and pushed one to the ground. The Citizen’s Summit on Information Society official website has also been blocked in Tunisia and is only accessible from The WSIS Media Centre.

Andrew Anderson, Deputy Director of Front Line, one of the participants said: "It is outrageous that the Tunisian authorities are using these bullying tactics at a world summit. They are showing a visible contempt for freedom of association and assembly."