Strong support expected from G8 leaders for Africa recovery plan

Just over a year ago, we paid a working visit to Great Britain in the context of the normal work of SA-UK Joint Commission. This was immediately followed by an official visit to the United States. Not long afterwards, we joined the Nordic Prime Ministers at their annual meeting which was held in Denmark. This was to be followed shortly thereafter by the bi-annual meeting of the EU Heads of Government which met in Portugal. We also attended this important meeting.

Together with the Presidents of Algeria and Nigeria, we also had occasion to interact with the G7 Heads of Government in Tokyo, immediately preceding last year's G8 meeting in Okinawa, Japan. Later in the year, we participated in the historic UN Millennium Summit, the largest ever gathering of Heads of State and Government. During this Summit, we also had occasion to interact with a number of these Heads on a bilateral basis. Last year we were also visited by the President of the World Bank and the Managing Director of the IMF, Messrs Jim Wolfensohn and Horst Kohler respectively.

In all these interactions we raised the concern of the government and people of South Africa for the global community to act together with the peoples of Africa to address the twin challenges of poverty and underdevelopment. As much as we are concerned with these issues in our country, so are we also interested that they should be dealt with throughout our Continent.

In the period since the Second World War, there was much hope that, as it was said, the African giant would awaken. This related to the conviction that once the countries of our Continent regained their independence, they would use that liberation radically and speedily to improve the standards of living and the quality of life of the millions of the people of Africa. Everybody was concerned that Africa should overcome the legacy of half-a-millennium of slavery and colonialism and take her rightful place among the community of nations as an equal player.

Much of what has happened on our Continent in the last forty years has disappointed these hopes. All of us are familiar with the history of these decades, much of which has been marked by many wrong things. So sustained were these negative tendencies, that some felt justified to describe ours as "the hopeless Continent". This description of Africa could be justified on the basis of such unacceptable things that have happened on our Continent as the succession of military coups, the wars and violent confrontations, the massacres of people and the genocide that took place in Rwanda, the denial of human rights and the abuse of political power for corrupt purposes.

As all this was happening, the standard of living and the quality of life of the masses of African people declined consistently and rapidly. As all regions of the world were achieving progress in the development of their economies and therefore the creation of the material conditions for the improvement of the lives of the people, many African countries were sinking deeper and deeper into poverty.

We must however make the point that one of the great achievements scored by our Continent during this same period, was the total liberation of Africa from colonialism and white minority rule. Whatever else that may be said, the reality of the matter is that even as we may speak of the African crisis of independence, we must also speak of the African victory against foreign and colonial oppression.

It was this victory that, finally, created the conditions that would enable the African Continent to focus on the issue of the provision of a better life for all the peoples of our Continent. This could now be done without the requirement that Africa should, at the same time, attend to the conclusion of a struggle for liberation that had started from the time when foreign powers started forcibly exporting Africans as slaves.

In the fourteen years between 1980 and 1994, starting with the liberation of Zimbabwe, through the independence of Namibia and ending with the emancipation of South Africa, our Continent completed the process of ending the long history of the colonisation of our Continent. During this period, apartheid aggression against Angola came to an end with the withdrawal of the SADF from that country. The apartheid campaign for the destabilisation of Mozambique, during which the Pretoria regime had supported Renamo, also came to an end with the agreement between the government of Mozambique and Renamo.

With these achievements, it was thought that freedom, democracy, peace, stability and progress would, at last, descend not only on Southern Africa, but also over the entirety of our Continent. This reward would accrue to the Continent as a whole partly because, in real terms, the African Continent had made major sacrifices to ensure that the objective of the total liberation of Africa was achieved.

As Africa and the rest of the world progressed through the last decade of the 20th century, towards the beginning of a new century and millennium, many African countries formed democratically elected governments.

The message was clear and consistent. Africa wanted to enter the new century and millennium having rid itself of all remaining vestiges of colonial and white minority domination. She wanted to begin the new century and millennium being governed by governments elected by the people, rather than governments that had imposed themselves on the people by force of arms.

At the same time, many across the world were celebrating the process of globalisation, which these saw as opening the doors to a world of prosperity for all. Indeed, the point could no longer be contested that humanity possessed the capital, the technology and the know-how to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment throughout the world.

Many of the Heads of State and Government who spoke at the UN Millennium Summit that we have mentioned, confirmed this point. They agreed that the challenge facing the world community of nations was the provision of the leadership that would enable the release of the resources that would help to end poverty and underdevelopment in Africa and the rest of the world.

It was in the context of the totality of these considerations that, as a country, we took up the matter of building a global millennium partnership encompassing Africa and especially the developed world, to end poverty and underdevelopment on our Continent.

Having interacted with a good number of the political leaders of this developed world, we then approached the 2000 OAU Assembly Heads of State and Government held in Lome, Togo, to agree that the Continent should draw up and agree on an African Recovery Programme. The Assembly approved this proposal and, as we have said in previous issues of ANC Today, authorised the Presidents of Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa to work on this programme, which was ultimately entitled the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP).

Today, these African Presidents will be joined by two other African Presidents, those of Senegal and Mali to present this Programme, as amended by its merger with Omega, to the G8 Summit of Heads of State and Government that will take place in Genoa, Italy. The purpose of this presentation is to secure the support of the political leaders of the developed world that have grouped themselves into the G8. This support will help to build the Millennium Partnership foreseen and described in MAP.

The agreement that will be arrived at, as we expect that it will, will mark a new beginning both for Africa and the developed world. For the first time ever, the developed world will have accepted a plan of action for the reconstruction and development of African Continent that will have been prepared by the peoples of Africa for themselves.

The Continent itself will have presented a programme of action for whose success it is taking responsibility. As Africans we are saying that however meagre our own resources, we will do everything we need to do to ensure that we succeed in our effort to achieve Africa's Renaissance. We are also saying that we are confident that we will secure the support of the G8 because of the publicly announced positions of the member states of the G8 in favour of precisely the positions that have been elaborated in the programme of action agreed by the OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Lusaka just over a week ago.

Earlier this week, President George W. Bush of the United States spoke at the Headquarters of the World Bank in Washington. In this important speech, he announced the positions of the US government on various matters that form a critical part of our own African Recovery Programme. In saluting the President of the World Bank, Jim Wolfensohn, President Bush made the point central to our efforts when he said:

"I appreciate the fact that he has raised the profile of global poverty and has underscored the importance of erasing it."

He went on to say:

"Tomorrow I will travel to Europe to meet with leaders of the world's most industrialised countries, as well as Russia, to discuss the developing world and its needs, and the developed world and our duties.

"The needs are many and undeniable. And they are a challenge to our conscience and to complacency. A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day is neither just, nor stable. As we recognise this great need we can also recognise even greater promise. World poverty is ancient, yet the hope of real progress against poverty is new.

"We have, today, an opportunity to include all the world's poor in an expanding circle of development, throughout all the Americas, all of Asia, and all of Africa. This is a great moral challenge.

"This cause is a priority of the United States foreign policy, because we do recognise our responsibilities."

President Bush went on to mention some of the things that we call for in our own Recovery Programme. For example, on the issue of market access for our products, he said that "we know that giving developing countries greater access to world markets can quickly and dramatically raise investment levels and incomes. We must reject a protectionism that blocks the path of prosperity for developing countries".

President Bush also correctly called for a "true partnership with developing countries to remove the huge obstacles to development: to help them fight illiteracy, disease, unsustainable debt".

Among other things, he also said: "I propose that up to 50 percent of the funds provided by the development banks to the poorest countries be provided as grants for education, health, nutrition, water supply, sanitation and other human needs. The proposal today doesn't merely drop the debt, it helps stop the debt."

The strong and open expression of all these goals by the leading member of the G8 as well as other members of the group that have spoken in a similar vein, gives us hope that the G8 Summit in Genoa will result in the support for the African Recovery Programme that will justify the hopes of Africa's peoples that we are on the eve of the establishment of an historic Millennium Partnership. As President Bush said, the needs of the poor are many and undeniable. They are a challenge to everybody's conscience and to complacency.

Africa and ICT

New technology offers the continent opportunities for development

New information and communications technology has the potential to significantly boost Africa's social and economic renewal, according to the Human Development Report released last week by the United Nations Development Programme.

The report, which is produced annually, ranks countries on a human development index, measuring life expectancy, education levels and income. Focusing this year on the effect on countries of new technologies, the report concludes information and communications technology (ICT), along with biotechnology, can make major contributions to reducing world poverty, "because it can overcome barriers of social, economic and geographical isolation, increase access to information and education, and enable poor people to participate in more of the decisions that affect their lives".

Significantly, the report was released in the same week as Africa's leaders meeting in Zambia adopted the African Initiative strategy to eradicate poverty and place Africa on a path of sustainable growth and development. The strategy identifies the development of ICT infrastructure as one of the continent's key economic and social priorities.

"In Africa, poor ICT infrastructure, combined with weak policy and regulatory frameworks and limited human resources, has resulted in inadequate access to affordable telephones, broadcasting, computers and the internet. Africa has been unable to capitalise on ICT as a tool for enhancing livelihoods and creating new business opportunities," the strategy says.

It notes the world is in the middle of an economic revolution, made possible in part by advances in information technology, which has reduced the cost of communications across the globe and has made possible the integration of national systems of production and finance. This has greatly increased the scale of cross-border flows of goods, services and capital.

As with other developing regions, Africa has not benefited from this economic revolution. The disadvantaged position of developing countries has instead been further entrenched: "Globalisation has increased the ability of the strong to advance their interests to the detriment of the weak, especially in areas of trade, finance and technology."

Bridging the digital divide between developed and developing countries is therefore an important part of correcting this imbalance. Without a developed ICT infrastructure Africa has little chance of building the kind of cross-border linkages within the continent and with global markets that have so greatly benefitted other regions.

There is currently less than one telephone line for every 100 Africans. Manhattan in New York and Tokyo each have more telephones than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. The telephone connection cost in Africa averages 20 per cent of GDP per capita, compared with the world average of nine percent and one percent for high-income countries.

Despite this, there has been a substantial increase in the number of African Internet users in recent years. There are around 4 million users in total, with about 1.5 million outside of South Africa. This works out to around one internet user for every 200 people, compared to a world average of about one user for every 30 people, and a North American and European average of about one in every three people. The Human Development Report points to uneven access to technology even between developing countries. The total international bandwidth for all of Africa is less than in the city of São Paulo in Brazil. "Much older technologies have yet to reach the world's poor. Electricity, in widespread use since the invention of the light bulb in the 1870s, is still not accessible for some two billion people, a third of the world's population," it notes.

Bridging the digital divide

The African Initiative strategy identifies as a strategic priority improved access for households and firms, with a short term objective of doubling teledensity to two lines per 100 people by 2005, with an adequate level of access. Affordability must also be addressed: "lower cost and improved service reliability for firms will lower the costs of production and transactions throughout the economy, and enhance growth."

Achieving this goal will require an estimated US$8 billion in core infrastructure alone, which is beyond the resources of Africa's public and private telecommunications operators. The strategy therefore advocates attracting private sector investors through policy and regulatory reform, the creation of a human resource base, including engineering and software skills, and the development of effective financing mechanisms.

The UNDP report identifies other impediments to the use of important technology opportunities for poor people, including the lack of market demand and inadequate public funding. Technology creators in the private sector respond to the needs of high-income consumers, rather than the needs of those who have little purchasing power. In every technologically country today, governments have provided incentives and funding for education and training. But not enough resources have been mobilised, from either domestic or international sources, to do the same in many developing countries.

The report calls for greater international funding for research and development, differential pricing between rich and poor countries for essential high-tech products; and fair implementation of global intellectual property rights, including compulsory licensing of patents. It calls urgent research into low-cost computers, wireless connectivity for poor people and isolated communities and low-cost energy systems, including solar power, to bring electricity to the two billion people which currently have no access to it.

It suggests rich countries and international financial institutions could support a global effort to create incentives and new partnerships for research and development. The report endorses a proposal that high-tech companies devote a percentage of their profits to research on non-commercial products.

MORE INFORMATION:

• Human Development Report 2001
• A New African Initiative, July 2001

Technology and development

Improving access to high-tech solutions for the world's poor

Global initiatives recommended by the UNDP Human Development Report to ensure new technologies benefit the world's poor closely resemble measures adopted by the South African government to reduce the cost of medicines.

These measures were the subject of legal action earlier this year, when several large pharmaceutical companies challenged the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, which introduced measures like parallel importation and compulsory licensing to make medicines more affordable for the country's poor. The companies abandoned their legal action after reaching an agreement with government.

The report says the difficulties experienced by poor countries in accessing vital new technology to combat disease, reduce poverty and encourage economic development could be overcome by differential pricing and more fair implementation of global intellectual property rights. This includes measures like compulsory licensing and parallel importation. It also calls for greater international funding for research and development.

While breakthrough medical technologies have already raised life expectancies dramatically even in poor countries without much health infrastructure, a substantial gap still exists. Only 10 percent of global health research focuses on the illnesses that constitute 90 percent of the global disease burden. In 1998, for instance, global spending on health research was US$70 billion, but only $300 million was for HIV/Aids vaccine research and around $100 million for malaria research. The report says agricultural and energy research focusing on the specific needs of developing countries is also being neglected.

Responses to this imbalance include differential pricing, in which poor countries pay lower prices for products such as pharmaceuticals than richer countries. The report notes that with high-tech products such tiered pricing could lead to an identical product being sold in poor countries for just one-tenth, or one-hundredth, of the price in Europe or the United States. While this is likely to meet resistance from technology producers and consumers in rich countries, the issue of differential pricing should be dealt with in upcoming international trade negotiations.

The report also concludes that developing countries need help implementing the World Trade Organisation agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The agreement includes safeguard provisions such as compulsory licensing and parallel importing to ensure access to vital high-tech products of overriding national importance.

While such provisions are already in widespread use in Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States for products like pharmaceuticals and computers, developing countries seem ill-equipped to confidently implement such provisions to access products which they need but are currently unable to afford. "The high costs of disputes with the world's leading nations are daunting, discouraging developing countries from asserting their legal rights," according to one of the report's authors.

The growing international awareness of, and support for, the legal rights of developing countries suggest increased opportunities for accessing important technologies for development - just as the agreement between pharmaceutical companies and the South African government has removed a significant obstacle to more affordable medicines for the country's poor.

MORE INFORMATION:

• 'Historic agreement lays the basis for co-operation', ANC Today, Vol.1, No.13
• 'Health for the poor is a fundamental human right', ANC Today, Vol.1, No.6

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