A rchive Date
[ 07-03-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Africa ]
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[Jump Start for Africa Questioned
By ANDREW ENGLAND
Associated Press Writer
AP/Sayyid Azim [29K]
JUNE 26, 01:41 ET
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The men pounding sheets of steel in shabby workshops on the edge of a Nairobi slum stare blankly when asked about the latest, much-hyped rescue plan that is supposed to herald a new start for Africa. They just know that they are poor and that Africa - the world's poorest continent - desperately needs change.
``The economy is very bad,'' said Richard Odhiambo as he and others, dripping with sweat, relentlessly hammer steel into frying pans. He earns $3 to $5 per day. ``There's no way we Kenyans can help ourselves. Even if we have been to school there is nowhere to go (for jobs),'' Odhiambo said.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development, known as NEPAD, is the latest in a string of initiatives intended to turn around Africa's economy. The plan - forged by the leaders of South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal - will be discussed at this week's Group of 8 summit in Canada of the world's seven major industrialized nations and Russia.
NEPAD has been hailed as the first African-led plan to solve Africa's problems, but whether it can succeed will depend on the cash of rich nations.
The plan says that to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty, African countries must have economic growth above 7 percent annually for the next 15 years - double the continent's average growth in 2001. It also recommends accelerated debt relief, increases in development aid and better trade terms.
To meet NEPAD's growth targets, Africa needs an extra $64 billion per year, the bulk of which will have to come from outside the continent, the plan says. But donors and companies are unlikely to invest more without demanding greater stability and more reforms.
Africa receives less than 1 percent of the world's foreign investment, and much of this is concentrated in the extraction of natural resources, such as diamonds and oil. Since 1990, development aid to Africa has fallen 43 percent to $16.4 billion in 2000.
Trade unions complain the NEPAD initiative is too dependent on business forces.
``If you always rely on market forces ... they will concentrate on producing more and more sophisticated services in the urban areas and ignore the rural areas where there is real poverty,'' said Patrick Craven, a spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
It is unlikely the United States or European countries will drop trade barriers or reduce subsidies to their own farmers. Critics say struggling African farmers, who make up the continent's largest industry, are being shut out of developed nations' markets.
If G8 countries don't lower trade barriers, tariffs and subsidies, it will be ``no real partnership, it's business as usual,'' said Ian Gary, an Africa adviser at U.S-based Catholic Relief Services.
Touring Africa last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the United States is willing to help Africa, but assistance will be focused on those who reform their political and economic systems.
Under NEPAD, African leaders will be policing its spending, a process that has had little success in the past.
``Since independence our governments have failed so much. They could have found a way to build up industry,'' said Frederick Otieno Dawa, a trustee of the Kamakunji Jua Kali Association, which oversees the metalworkers at the Nairobi slum. ``You can see the energy here.''
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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