g-20 Archives - TalkAfrique

February 9, 2011

West ‘Facilitates Corruption in Africa’ Says Top Economist

CNN) — Industrialized countries have been enabling corruption in Africa by providing crooked officials with a haven for their money, according to Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank chief economist, one of the few economists to foresee the global financial crisis, was among the speakers at this year’s Global Poverty Summit, held in Johannesburg.

Speaking to CNN’s Robyn Curnow, Stiglitz expressed optimism about Africa’s economic prospects, but he said there should be more discussion about undisclosed bank accounts in the West that are used to facilitate high-level fraud in Africa.

“The advanced industrial countries have some responsibility,” said Stiglitz. “One of the things that’s on a standard form is for corrupt dictators to steal money and put it in a bank account in an advanced industrial country.

“There’s been a lot of discussion in the G-20 about secret bank accounts as tax agents — there hasn’t been enough discussion of secret bank accounts as corruption facilitators.”

Stiglitz said corruption could be reduced by increasing scrutiny of corrupt governments, using mechanisms such as freedom of information acts and a free press.

But he added that the West also had a role to play.

“One of the countries that hosted the G-20 and talked all the time about tax corruption, that same country is a haven for corrupt money and refuses to repatriate money that has been stolen from Africa,” he said.

“Now, this seems to me something that ought to be on the agenda. There’s a relationship, there are people making money off of it, and we ought to stop that.

“We shouldn’t enable that corruption and we’re doing that in the West when we allow them to have their secret bank accounts.”

Stiglitz added that there was reason for optimism about economic growth in Africa, with changes to economic policies in recent years starting to bear fruit.

“There is an enormous amount of dynamism in Africa, so I think it’s a moment of real opportunity,” he said.

But he stressed the need for Africa to reverse what he called its “process of de-industrialization over the last 25 years.”

“One of the things that Africa has to do is realize it cannot just be a source of natural resources, that it has to start industrializing, producing agriculture services — it’s not just the old industry,” he said. “I think it’s actually a very good time. Wages are rising in Asia and people are asking, ‘Where can we start producing in a competitive way?’ I think Africa provides an example of one of the important areas.”

November 21, 2010January 6, 2011

Africa’s youth can do great things, says UN Chief

African graduate leaving the continent for greener pastures

Africa’s young population can drive the continent’s future development, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told an international symposium taking place in Benin.

More than 60 per cent of Africa’s 1 billion people are under the age of 25 years, he noted in a message to the meeting in Cotonou.

“While it will be a tremendous undertaking to provide them with jobs and income opportunities, this energetic creative and vibrant workforce can do great things for African standards of living if only they are given the tools.

“Africa’s impressive economic growth during the past decade shows what is possible. The challenge now is to translate growth into improved social welfare for the people and faster progress towards the Millennium Development Goals,” Mr. Ban said, referring to the targets to slash hunger, poverty, disease and a host of other social and economic ills by 2015.

The other challenges the Secretary-General outlined for the continent to address included climate change, desertification and democratic backsliding, as well as continued armed conflict and sexual violence against women.

At the same time, he praised the achievements of African countries since their independence from colonial rule, with particular tribute paid to the African Union (AU), and the efforts it has made to improve the political and economic situation in the continent.

“Africa has taken charge of preventing and resolving its conflicts and promoting the economic and social development of its people,” he said.

Through African institutions, such as the AU, the continent had become less reliant on the international community for aid and support, Mr. Ban noted, while adding that the UN will continue to support Africa’s efforts to ensure stability and progress.

(United Nations)

November 20, 2010January 2, 2011

Africa can reach development targets if given a push-Migiro

Africa, with its immense human and material wealth, can achieve the globally agreed development targets world leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told United Nations agencies working on the continent, while also stressing the need for strong support from the international community.

“The continent’s people need neither pity nor charity, but rather the tools, institutions, stability and freedoms to create incomes and jobs,” Ms. Migiro stated in her remarks to the Regional Coordination Mechanism meeting held yesterday in Addis Ababa.

“International solidarity and a level playing field – especially in global trade – will go a long way toward helping the continent realize its noble objectives for its people, its prosperity and its stability,” she told the meeting, which seeks to ensure that various UN departments and agencies work more effectively together in the region.

She noted that the broad impacts of climate change and the multiple crises, including those related to finance, food and energy, continue to hamper development efforts in Africa and threaten to scale back hard-won development gains.

In spite of these challenging trends, Africa’s economic performance rebounded and has remained steadfast, with growth projected to be 4.8 per cent in 2010, driven mainly by recovery in mineral exports, official development assistance (ODA) inflows, strong government expenditure on infrastructure development, and remittances.

In September, world leaders meeting in New York noted the remarkable achievements that have been made, especially in terms of reducing poverty and expanding education and access to clean water, just some of the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

They sent a clear message, said Ms. Migiro: “If we step up our efforts, the MDGs remain achievable by 2015, including in the least developed countries.

“However, the Summit also stressed that more concerted efforts are needed, particularly in Africa,” she pointed out, adding that the September summit’s outcome document set out some of the key challenges.

These include addressing climate change, reducing inequalities, advancing the well-being of vulnerable groups, and continuing to implement the global action plan for the least developed countries (LDCs), 33 of which are in Africa.

Addis Ababa is the last stop on the Deputy Secretary-General’s current three-nation trip, which also included visits to Lebanon and Laos.

(UN Release)

November 12, 2010December 22, 2012

G20 Leaders Must Renew Their Commitment to Global Development

By Kofi Annan

Ahead of today’s G20 Summit in South Korea, two issues stand out for those of us who take an interest in international

development.

First, the concepts of fairness, balance, and the common good have experienced a welcome renaissance as world leaders have had to remind each other of these universal principles to avoid a potentially devastating escalation of their disagreements on currency values and trade imbalances.

Second, while it remains to be seen to what extent it will help to bring countries’ contending economic strategies into line, this rediscovery of basic values comes just as the G20 is beginning to include international development issues in its deliberations. Naturally, it is my profound hope that the principles of fairness, balance and the common good which have become so popular with G20 leaders lately will also inform these discussions — and not only those on issues like undervalued currencies, lopsided trade statistics or skewed consumption patterns however important they may be.

Unfortunately, the signs are decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the global repercussions of the financial and economic crises have clearly nourished an understanding of the true extent and consequences of our interdependence. At least for a moment, there seems to have been a consensus that a world that restricts the benefits of globalization to a few at the expense of many is neither fair nor stable; that one cannot address trade imbalances without addressing the development imbalances that underlie them; and that it is in everyone’s interest to see the developing world graduate out of instability and economic dependence as soon as possible.

However, all these realizations have not yet led to the fundamentally different policies that are so urgently needed. In fact, in many G20 countries the crises, and particularly their effects on the world’s poor, appear already all but forgotten and business and politics have resumed with little regard to the damage caused, the trust destroyed, and the lessons learned. Several G20 members have even used the economic upheavals as an excuse to tighten protectionist policies in direct contrast to their repeated pledges to keep markets open. As so often, developing countries have been among the primary victims.

This is deeply unfortunate as, in my view, the G20 states, both individually and collectively, are the natural drivers of development. They are, by definition, the countries with the capacity, resources, influence and, thus, the moral obligation and responsibility to help those less fortunate.

Many of them have only recently graduated into major economies and their developmental experiences are still fresh. These countries understand that the key to development is not charity but equitable, job creating, and ideally green economic growth fueled by investment in the productive sectors, agriculture, infrastructure, renewable energy, trade, knowledge and technical skills. They also appreciate that the most important sources of development finance must be domestic revenues and private sector investment and that aid’s main value other than in meeting urgent humanitarian needs, is to increase capacities, reduce dependence upon external support, and to lubricate and leverage investment in the sources of growth and good governance.

It is thus encouraging that the development agenda proposed by the South Korean presidency speaks as much to these realities as to a new sense of partnership and genuine mutual accountability. The document, as far as it is known, covers all the right points, including the unblocking of existing initiatives and the need to complement the efforts of other actors such as the G8, the G77 and, of course, the United Nations. If the leaders assembled in Seoul decide to take it on with the same universal values in mind that they now invoke in the areas of trade and exchange rates, we will have gained much.

Having said all this, the implementation of the valuable ideas entailed in the Korean proposal should not be made dependent on the G20 taking them on as a group. While a renewed commitment to development by the world’s most powerful group would certainly be a major step in the right direction and send an important political signal to developing countries, it is of course not enough on its own to overcome the immense challenges that these countries face. Nor does it necessarily invalidate some of the concerns raised regarding the G20’s legitimacy and capacity.

What really counts is that each member of the group internalizes the concepts of fairness, balance, and the common good and adapts its behaviour accordingly. If the G20 setup can help them do so by playing to its unquestionable strengths of composition, reach and sheer economic prowess, this will be all the better and should not only be welcomed, but encouraged.

Kofi Annan is Former UN Secretary General & Chair of the Africa Progress Panel.

October 26, 2010January 9, 2011

Will the G20 Deliver for the World’s Poor?

Ben Phillips, Save The Children’s Asia Strategy Director (The Guardian)

With over 8 million children dying each year from preventable causes, a global financial transaction tax could be the solution

To be in South Korea as part of its hosting of the G20 summit which will be held on 11 and 12 November is to witness a piece of history.

In the lifetime of South Korea’s leaders, and in a triumph of development, the country has gone from having a GDP per capita lower than much of sub-Saharan Africa to being one of the world’s largest economies, and is now a larger aid donor than some European countries. It didn’t get here by following the “guidance” of the international financial institutions. Instead, South Korean growth came from redistributing wealth, managing market engagement and making massive public investment in human capital.

Indeed, the success of east Asia, and the failure of the Washington Consensus, prompted me to ask the G20 representatives attending the recent High-Level Development Conference in South Korea earlier this month whether we should swap the Washington consensus for a Seoul consensus. The eclipsing of the G7/G8 by the G20 marks a change in the global political economy. It changes the culture of global meetings too. I’m pretty sure, for example, that this is the first time a host government of such a meeting has had an official pop song.

But for those who had hoped that the expansion of the old colonial G8 into the more inclusive G20 would bring a greater focus on poverty, there will be some disappointment. The G20 do not want to discuss aid or debt for example, and it was a struggle to even get development on the agenda. Even with development now an official topic of discussion, I had one (western) government representative at the meetings confess: “I don’t know much about development, I’m an economist.” And though the chairman of the African Union is invited as an observer, the AU is still not a permanent, equal member of the forum. “There has to be a balance between efficiency and inclusiveness,” goes the mantra. Those who complained about the old G8 but made it into the G20 go along with this. All reminiscent of the natural human tendency that when you’re waiting for a bus in the rain, you shout at the buses that keep driving past; but when you get into the bus, you join in with the others shouting to the driver that the bus is too full to keep stopping at all the stops to let rain-drenched passengers in.

The civil society groups attending the meetings of Civil G20 have taken a different approach, with more than 100 participants from across the world. It is a wonderfully diverse group: in my first five minutes at a meeting I met an obstetrician, a teacher, a lawyer and a priest. But it is a hard group to organise. At times we got a little sidetracked. Discussing a civil society submission paper to the G20, someone asked another participant: “Are you upset because of the comma?”

For those focused on global poverty, the most important issue being discussed at the G20 is the idea of an FTT, a financial transaction tax to help raise the money needed to fight poverty. It sounds wonkish, but at a rate of just 0.05%, and applied globally, this could raise between £256bn and £446bn annually, roughly four to seven times the current level of overseas aid. Among the G20 representatives, opinion is divided. A senior official from a major economy told a group of community activists from Asia, Latin America and Africa that while the idea of taxing irresponsible traders may seem attractive, in the end the costs would fall upon “ordinary people like me and you”. In the middle ground was the government representative who acknowledged that the FTT was a good idea but declared that it would be “hard to do”. (Can the world’s “premier economic forum” not do hard things?) But a representative from another G20 country urged me: “Please keep pushing on the financial transaction tax. We need you to do so. It’s like with the landmines treaty. Governments said it couldn’t be done. You in the NGOs kept pushing. And it happened. This can happen too. It will happen – if you keep pushing us.”

Civil society advocacy stands little chance when all governments are opposed to us – but when an issue is in contention, like this one, we can be the force that makes the difference, that pushes an issue beyond the tipping point. The world is short of more than 3.5 million health workers, and an FTT could help pay for them. For some of the more than 8 million children who die every year from preventable causes, that could mean life instead of death. An FTT won’t be agreed this month or next month, but if we can keep it on the agenda, as the French start to organise for their chairing of the G20 in 2011, we can help to ensure that it does happen, and that we make another piece of history.

South Korea has gone from having a GDP per capita lower than much of sub-Saharan Africa to being one of the world’s largest economies by not following the “guidance” of the international financial institutions. What should African countries learn from that?