ePolitix.com - Clare Short

This article was originally featured in the
June 2004 issue of BBC On Air magazine.

A prominent and vocal spokesperson for international development issues, Clare Short MP visits Ethiopia and Nigeria for BBC World Service. In a personal view, she reflects on how African nations can best achieve progress and put poverty, conflict and corruption behind them

Africa has made a lot of progress in recent years. African leaders have committed themselves to working to end conflict and drive forward reform through the newly established African Union and the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad). After a long period when most African economies continued to decline, there is now positive economic growth across the continent – with the terrible exception of Zimbabwe. But, on present trends, Africa is set to get poorer. The question I ask in my forthcoming series The Short View, is: can Africa break out of the cycle of increasing population and growing poverty?

At the United Nations General Assembly meeting held in 2000, the world agreed to work together to halve poverty by 2015. On present trends, this target will be achieved worldwide but missed in Africa. And the related goals – all children in school, big reductions in child and maternal deaths, better access to clean water and sanitation – will also fail. This is a very serious matter. Africa is the poorest continent. Of the one billion people in the world who live in profound poverty, two thirds live in Asia and one third in Africa. But the poverty in Africa is deeper and wider; nearly half the people of sub-Saharan Africa live below the international poverty line. This means a miserable and short life for large numbers of people. With the material plenty, knowledge, technology and capital humanity now has at its disposal, it is intolerable that one in five of all people should still be living with such poverty.

This is undoubtedly the biggest moral question facing the world. It is also key to the future safety and sustainability of the planet. These levels of poverty are linked to conflict, displacement, disease and environmental degradation. Africa lies 20 miles from Europe. If Africa continues to sink into poverty, the growth of conflict and the failed states, criminality and suffering that goes with it, will lead to continuing catastrophe that will affect the people of both continents. And the risks of this need to be learned both by the international community and the African elite. There has been, since independence, in many African countries a selfish elite that have lived well and cared little for their countries and people. If they continue in this way the consequences of their greed and corruption will come back to haunt them.

Hope for the future lies in the few examples of success. Mozambique, after a desperately tough history and years of civil war, has seen economic growth of 10% for nearly a decade; Uganda, after all the loss and suffering of the Amin/Obote years, has contained HIV/Aids and made major advances in providing universal education and reducing poverty; Ghana is moving forward again; Rwanda has achieved remarkable progress since the genocide in 1994; Tanzania is achieving economic growth and improvements in public services. But it would be wrong to exaggerate these successes. All of these countries are still very poor. Many of their people continue to suffer great deprivation. Corruption has not been eliminated. All is not perfect. But considerable progress has been achieved and if it is maintained through to 2015, these countries could come close to achieving the Millennium Developments goals.

There is also a growing determination in Africa to end the conflicts that cause terrible suffering and destroy development. The end of the Cold War led to an explosion of conflict in Africa as Great Power interest was withdrawn and countries were left with bloated armies and weak government. Then, following the failure of the US-led intervention in Somalia, the world turned away from Africa and shamefully ignored the genocide in Rwanda, allowing one million people to be hacked to death. More recently there has been some improvement. The UN intervention in Sierra Leone, with UK backing, has brought the civil war to an end and the country is rebuilding. The end of apartheid in 1994 has re-united South Africa with its continent and South African leadership has helped to bring progress to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi. The war in Angola has at last come to an end after 40 years of fighting, while ceasefire and peace talks continue in Sudan and could bring to an end a conflict that has lasted for all but ten years since the country gained independence in 1956. There is of course more to do. Somalia remains a failed state. Côte d’Ivoire is in difficulty, and peace has not been secured in Burundi or Eastern Congo. But there has been progress and Africa is beginning to initiate action rather than depending on the good will of the permanent members of the Security Council.

This is the backdrop to my visit to Ethiopia and Nigeria with producer Annette MacKenzie, to discuss with people in Africa what is to be done. We chose these countries partly because they are so populous – 70 million in Ethiopia and 130 million in Nigeria. The reformers in Africa are small countries. The continent cannot make a breakthrough without the larger nations moving forward. The two countries also represent the primary dilemmas of the continent.

Ethiopia is desperately poor with a GDP of little more than US$100 per head. It has suffered for the past 30 years from cycles of drought, famine and food aid – which leaves people dependent on aid while undermining agricultural production so that each succeeding cycle affects more people and comes round more quickly. Ethiopia has a government determined to make progress. We talked with people in the marketplace, drought-stricken villages, members of regional government, development partners and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Our report is one of hope, but the challenge is enormous.

Nigeria is different. Like other resource-rich countries in Africa, it is blighted by the corruption and misgovernment that its oil resources have generated. This is a pervasive issue in Africa – Sierra Leone’s diamonds, Angola’s oil, Zaire’s valuable minerals. Such resources should be a blessing but too often have been a curse. These treasures have been misused since colonial times and misgovernment continues to this day. Nigeria is now in its fifth year of democratic rule. Most Nigerians have found progress disappointing as 80% continue to live in poverty while the elite continue to prosper. But democracy has also created more space for Nigerians to begin to protest. We met honest businessmen, campaigners against corruption and the impressive new finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was asked to return to Nigeria by President Obasanjo, leaving a very successful career at the World Bank. She is determined to drive forward reform and root out corruption and has a team of reformers around her. Supported by President Obasanjo she is nevertheless attacked and smeared by those whose vested interests she threatens. However there is hope in Nigeria if she and the other reformers get enough backing.

We’ve talked with K Y Amoako, the executive secretary of the UN Commission for Africa, and Patrick Mazimhaka, the Deputy Chairperson of the Commission for the African Union, about the size of the challenge and what the international community needs to do. The answer is very clear: make trade rules fairer, back Africans’ peacemaking efforts and provide aid. But aid which helps countries improve their economic management and government effectiveness, rather than as a series of charitable projects run by expensive Western consultants. The development relationship is changing to a more equal partnership but the international community still talks more than it listens and delivers less than it promises. There is an urgent need for a real commitment to implement the agreements reached at the UN Millennium Assembly in 2000, the 2001 WTO meeting at Doha which promised fairer trade rules, the UN Conference at Monterey which promised more finance for Development in 2002 and, in the same year, the UN Conference at Johannesburg on delivering environmentally sustainable development.

There is hope. But current progress is inadequate. The answers lie in Africa. Leadership is improving and democracy is creating more room for people to demand change. There is much wisdom and dignity in Africa. Most African people have a sense of respect for nature and community that we are losing in the west. Africa has so much to enjoy and share if only the curse of poverty can be lifted.

The first of The World Service three part series: ‘The Short View’ will go on air Thursday 17 June 2004, 09.05

Audio clips:

Interview with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Bank Minister of Finance
Interview with Callisto Madavo, World Bank Vice President of the Africa Region
Interview with K Y Amoako, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa
Interview with Guido Latella, Italian Ambassador to Ethiopia
Interview with Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Interview with Pascal Lamy, EU Trade Commissioner
Interview with K Y Amoako, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa
Clare Short on African Development
Clare Short’s conclusion

(these MP3 files need a media player such as Microsoft Media Player)