World Still Failing Sub-Saharan Africa
by Rajesh Makwana
"The number of people living on less
than one dollar a day has barely changed over the past seven years."
This
article originally appeared in STWR, Share
the World's Resources.
A recent report by
the United Nations has revealed that not a single country in sub-Saharan Africa
is on track to achieve the internationally agreed target for halving extreme
poverty by 2015. This dire failure is unsurprising given the G8's undelivered
aid commitments, the inability of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to
negotiate development-friendly trade rules, and the financial burdens imposed
on many African countries by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The
World Bank.
According to the report, published at the midway point
in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) process, the number of people living
on less than one dollar a day has barely changed over the past seven years,
declining less than 5 per cent to 41.1%. As much of a concern is the
increasingly slow rate by which the number of people living in extreme poverty
is reducing.
In line with this disappointing trend
there has been little change in the number of children under five who remain
hungry and underweight; a mere four per cent decrease was observed between 1990
and 2005. Over the same 15 year period, mortality rates for children under five
dropped by less than three per cent and only an additional five per cent of the
population have gained access to basic sanitation, leaving 37% of people
without this necessity. The number of deaths from AIDS is also accelerating - a
staggering two million people in 2006.
The report also highlights the impact of global
warming which is already being felt throughout the region. Recent examples
include the intensification of droughts and desertification in Kenya, the
accelerated melting of ice field peaks in Tanzania, and the increased flooding
experienced in the Niger Delta. The effect of climactic change in sub-Saharan
Africa inevitably heightens the scarcity of resources such as food and water,
fuels conflict and exacerbates poverty. For instance, only 42% of the rural
population presently have access to clean water but this, according to the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), could soon include up to 250 million Africans.
"The number of deaths from AIDS is also accelerating - a staggering two
million people in 2006."
Despite important yet limited improvements in
education, healthcare and agricultural productivity in a few countries, the
overall trends for poverty reduction, access to clean water and basic
healthcare are continuing to plummet.
The G8 leaders concur in theory that nothing could be more important
than preventing the imminent deaths of millions of Africans who are being
indirectly denied the right to these essential resources. Yet as the failed Gleneagles
promises for increased aid to Africa demonstrate, global political
priorities and economic policy address poverty indirectly, if at all, focusing
instead on creating economic growth and a strong corporate sector.
G8 ministers managed to placate many campaigners at
the end of the 2006 Gleneagles Summit with inflated promises for more aid. The
conclusion of this year's Heiligendam summit, however, has once again united
civil society in its condemnation of the G8's
apparent self interest. According to
the UN, the MDG to half extreme poverty will only be achieved if the current
pace of aid donation is doubled. Not only is such commitment extremely
unlikely, but research also shows that economic growth and
international aid will never be sufficient to address poverty to any meaningful
extent. The Chronic Poverty Research Centre has calculated
that even if the Millennium Development Goal for poverty and hunger is achieved
by 2015, 900 million people will still be living on less than one dollar a day.
According to the IMF
, Africa is currently enjoying robust economic growth. It is also exporting
more food than ever before through world trade and corporate investment,
alongside an improvement in productivity.
In light of the persistence and prevalence of extreme poverty, however,
the relationship between these economic improvements and the provision of the
most basic welfare is intangible at best. Although it is undeniable that this
equation is complicated by biased international trade rules
and the corruption of both African governments and multinational corporations,
it is also clear that the neoliberal policies adopted by the IMF, World Banks and WTO are
incapable of addressing poverty in regions where it remains a priority.
A new strategy is long overdue
The data on poverty in Africa strongly suggests that
the internationalisation of market
forces over the past quarter century has kept Africa impoverished, whilst
simultaneously creating unimaginable wealth for a relative minority in the
global north. The ‘trickle-down effect', which claims that financial returns
from commercial exports and growth will eventually benefit lower socio-economic
groups, seems to have been reduced to an ‘intermittent-drip effect' in the case
of Africa. This is unsurprising given that domestic production is increasingly
geared toward exporting cash crops to the international market, a sector
dominated by agribusiness giants. As a consequence of this arrangement, which
is in line with international free trade rules for developing countries, local
producers and economies loose out as corporate profits are repatriated abroad
or paid out in executive salaries and shareholder dividends.
"The ‘trickle-down effect' seems to have
been reduced to an ‘intermittent-drip effect' in the case of Africa."
Any economist can confirm that a market economy will
increase inequality by disproportionately rewarding those with greater
economic, financial or political power. Only government intervention to
redistribute wealth can remedy this basic flaw, yet redistributive mechanisms
are absent both in the global economy and in many African countries where
economic adjustment is geared to debt repayment and not welfare, courtesy of
the IMF.
The good news about economic growth rates in
sub-Saharan Africa is further compromised by the fragility of booming commodity
prices. Being primarily an agricultural continent, Africa relies on the export
of a small number of commodities to create the growth that can eventually
finance welfare services. Not only is this dependency on exports to global
markets a risky way to underwrite the social safety net, but it undermines the
simple logic of prioritising food security. Instead of securing food for
African children, a third of whom are underweight, the free trade regime
redistributes domestic food production to other parts of the world. Given the
urgent needs of the continent, such measures defy economic, social and moral
sense.
Africa has, for the past 25 years, provided a clear
demonstration of the dislocation between economic growth and the provision of
basic human needs. The case reveals overwhelming evidence of the need for an
alternative principle upon which to organize the global economy, yet this fact
continues to be ignored by key policy makers in the US and EU.
"Instead of securing food for African
children the free trade regime redistributes domestic food production to other
parts of the world."
Any significant shift in international economic policy
away from a purely market based system will inevitably be difficult to
implement given the political and financial dominance of the G8 nations.
However, a total lack of willingness to even accept that there may be a more
efficient way to organize resource distribution is negligent in the extreme.
This conservative view is likely to be expounded by those who gain most from a
competitive economy, namely the strongest and fittest nations, their ministers
and corporations. For these vested interests, sharing the resources
which they have ownership or control over would simply mean diluting their
strength, reducing their profits and curtailing their economic growth.
The decision that humanity as a whole must make is
whether we are prepared to serve the needs of the majority or perpetuate a
system that perverts economic democracy and dismisses any sense of common unity
and morality.
Rajesh Makwana is the Director of STWR and can
be contacted via rajesh@stwr.netThis email address is being
protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it.
In this week’s segment we discuss a new book analyzing the need to confront counterinsurgency and fight against repression domestically and internationally. But first we hear from an activist on the…
Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Washington to discuss Donald Trump’s declaration of emergency power to take over the operations of…
Joy James is a scholar and a political philosopher who works with organizers. She is editor of the new book Confronting Counterinsurgency: Cop Cities & Democracy’s Terrors, which is published by…
The treachery of the Black misleadership class knows no bounds. While Trump’s latest racist dog whistle about “born criminals” is condemned, double-talking scoundrels may pretend to be horrified…
The Trump administration’s declaration of war on American cities is a logical escalation of the white supremacist project. This is not a policy shift but a clearer revelation of the settler state's…
