[PEN-L:27402] Blaming the victim

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

The blame the victim summit

Western leaders promised so much to Africa and delivered so little. Yet the greatest scandal of
last week's G8 summit is not the failure to deliver more resources but the way the world trade
rules are rigged against the poorest, argues the Director of the World Development Movement.

Observer Worldview
Barry Coates
Sunday June 30, 2002

>From their hideaway in the Canadian Rockies, far from the intrusion of demonstrators, the
scrutiny of their Parliaments and the voices of the world's poor, the G8 delivered a stunning
blow to the prospects for Africa's recovery. Their ironically named "Action Plan for Africa" was
a humiliating slap in the face to the four African leaders who were summoned to the feast. More
importantly, it was a cynical betrayal of the 300 million people who are living on less than $1
per day (nearly half of Africa's people), 28 million who are HIV positive and the one third of
Africa's children who are malnourished.

Yet the real scandal is not that they did not deliver new resources to help Africa - the world
has come to expect little from the G8 - but that they did nothing to stop the ways in which the
G8 exploits Africa and inhibits its development.

The crucial test for the G8 was always going to be the rules on international trade. African
governments and NGOs called for the G8 to change the unfair rules that are impoverishing
Africa's farmers and inhibiting the development of new industries. But the G8 stuck to their
line they are pursuing in the World Trade Organisation negotiations - they will not reform their
bloated agricultural subsidies or reduce their trade barriers until African countries give new
advantages to multinational companies, particularly in basic service sectors.

The price is high. Rather than submitting services to the rules of world trade, to "risk the
lives of African people and their access to basic essentials of life", Ugandan trade negotiator,
Professor Yash Tandon calls for people-centred policies: "African governments must pledge to
provide the basic services to the people - drinking water, basic food, essential housing and
transport, and access to energy, etc. - as necessary elements of their basic human rights".

Trade is not a new issue - each G8 summit in the past three years has promised to reform trade.
Tony Blair acknowledged that trade rules are stacked in favour of the rich G8 nations against
the poor when he said: "It really is hypocrisy for us, the wealthy countries, to talk of our
concern to alleviate poverty of the developing world, while we block their access to our
markets." Exactly.

But when it came to doing anything about it, he and the other G8 leaders abjectly failed. It
really is hypocrisy for the G8 to talk of aiding Africa when are exploiting Africa's people
through unfair trade rules.

The second test was set by the Organisation for African Unity in 1999 when they gave the task of
preparing a plan for Africa's development to the presidents of Nigeria, Algeria and South
Africa, as a means to renegotiate the terms of the debt deadlock. Three years later, the
resulting plan, the New Partnership for AfricaËs Development (NEPAD), was presented to the G8
summit in Kananaskis.

The vicious cycle of debt and poverty has been well-documented. A week before the G8 Summit, a
UN report described how further inaction will consign into absolute poverty 100 million more
people in the world's poorest countries, most of them in Africa. Other reports have shown that
the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction will be substantially missed if there is
no further debt cancellation. Even the World Bank and IMF reported in March that the much
vaunted Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is failing.

The G8 applied a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. They undertook to provide up to $1 billion,
as a one-off top-up to the HIPC initiative. Yet Africa pays $15 billion each year to the rich
nations in debt payments. Half of the African nations spend more on their foreign debts than on
health care. The rich world is still draining desperately needed resources from Africa.

The $1 billion is less than the G8 have spent on staging their last five meetings; and contrasts
starkly with the $40 billion allocated by the US for the "war on terror" or the $350 billion
spent annually by the rich nations on farm subsidies.

The final insult was to spin the outcome as if the G8 had agreed more aid for Africa. They
re-announced a promise made last March (in Monterrey, Mexico) for more aid, but then could not
even agree to allocate half of it to Africa.

As predicted by a conference of African bishops earlier this year, the G8 are "supporting the
cost free aspects of NEPAD while avoiding renewed commitment to provide additional resources for
Africa's development".

The G8 effectively ignored NEPAD as proposed by the African leaders, and responded with their
own Action Plan. Instead of concentrating on their own responsibilities, the G8 lectured African
nations on what they should do, perpetuating the myth that African are themselves fully to blame
for their poverty.

Included in the statement are a call for African nations to regulate illicit arms sales,
ignoring the fact that the G8 supply 80% of the arms to developing world; a call for the "use of
tried and tested new technology, including biotechnology"; and, of course, the usual calls for
Africa to open its markets and restructure their economies for the benefit of foreign
multinationals.

The G8 has done little except lecture Africa while continuing to rig the global rules against
them. After all of the grand talk of Africa's Marshall Plan and a new era for development, so
much rhetoric has led to so little delivery.

Barry Coates is Director of the World Development Movement (www.wdm.org.uk) You can write to him
at wdm@xxxxxxxxxxx