Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 5 • 12th February 2002
News From The Regions: Africa
New African development initiative garners high-level buy-in
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), adopted by African heads of state in Nigeria in October 2001, received high-level support last week from WTO Director-General Mike Moore and key Western leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Previously, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the World Economic Forum on 1 February that his country would set aside a US$ 500m fund for NEPAD.
According to the document setting out the parameters of the NEPAD (see http://www.dfa.gov.za/events/nepad.pdf), the Partnership is "a pledge by African leaders…that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic." It is a call for a new partnership between Africa and the international community, particularly developed countries, to overcome the "development chasm" between Africa and the industrialised world.
Sources indicate that France and Britain, who have recently agreed to coordinate their Africa policies, will promote the NEPAD at the next G- 8 (seven developed countries plus Russia) summit in Kananaskis, Canada in June. Leaders from 13 African countries met in Paris with French President Chirac on 8 February to work on the NEPAD, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair promoted the plan during his tour last week of four African countries. Speaking in Lagos, Nigeria on 7 February, Blair said, "this is the best chance in a generation for us to make their partnership work. There is a generation of African leaders who are prepared to say ‘it’s our responsibility’".
A G-8 team will be in Cape Town, S. Africa on 14-15 February to discuss the main elements of a G-8 Action Plan for Africa with NEPAD executive director Wiseman Nkuhlu and representatives of the NEPAD 15-country executive committee. The discussions are to prepare for this year’s June summit. Leaders took the unprecedented step at last year’s G-8 meeting of naming personal representatives to draft an African Action Plan for approval at Kananaskis. The drafting team will reconvene in Senegal and Canada prior to finalising its plan of action for the June summit.
Speaking at the end of a three-day visit to South Africa on 11 February, WTO Director-General Moore said that the NEPAD was complementary to the WTO’s new round of trade negotiations launched in Doha, Qatar last November, and to the Doha mandate’s capacity-building work for developing countries. "We have to build capacity…so that when we make the decisions they can be implemented on the ground," Moore said in a radio interview. "I think we should move on areas like investment, to get up investment regimes that are transparent (and) good governance regimes on things like trade facilitation," he said. The issues of investment, competition, government procurement and transparency in government procurement remain contentious areas for many developing and least developed countries at the WTO, however. A number of African countries, together with Like-Minded Group members such as India and Pakistan, are concerned that they lack the capacity to negotiate on these topics, and are not convinced that negotiations will benefit their economies.
On trade, the NEPAD advocates a number of areas where Africa should focus its efforts. These include the development of a best-practice framework for technical regulations that meets both the requirements of the WTO’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the needs of Africa; negotiating measures and agreements to facilitate market access for African products to the world market; encouraging foreign direct investment; strengthening country and sub-regional capacity in trade negotiations; implementing the rules and regulations of the WTO, and identifying and exploiting new trading opportunities that emerge from the evolving multilateral trading system. The NEPAD also urges African heads of state to identify strategic areas of intervention and, together with the international community, strengthen the contribution of trade to the continent’s recovery.
NEPAD is spearheaded by South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
SACD Economist offers optimistic outlook
Principal economist for the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) Fudzai Pamac Cheche said on 11 February that SADC hoped to achieve tariff waivers of at least 85 percent by 2008 and zero tariffs by 2012. However, citing the need to remove hindrances to market access such as immigration controls, Cheche cautioned that, "the reduction of tariffs will not bring about an increase in trade unless some of the key elements governing trade are attended to." In his introduction to a three-day meeting of SADC foreign ministers slated to begin on 12 February in Zanzibar, Tanzania, he advocated for political stability in the region. "In any economy if there is some degree of political instability, certainly the economic base suffers…But I think in terms of policy implementation that cannot be compromised, we are progressing very well; what can be compromised is the rate of implementation," he said.
SADC produced an aggregate gross domestic product of 3.4 percent in 2000, up from 1.8 percent in 1999 but still below the growth target of 6 percent defined in the UN’s New Agenda for Development in Africa (see http://www.un.org/esa/africa/un-nadaf.htm) as the minimum growth rate required for sustainable economic development. The SADC market of 195 million people is estimated to be worth $US 185 billion.
"S African Nations Hoping For Econ Integration - Official" ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11 February 2002; "WTO director general supports Africa’s development initiative," AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 11 February 2002; "G8 Leaders Show Support For Nepad," BUSINESS DAY (Johannesburg), 12 February 2002.