The G8 conference in Kananaskis is two weeks away. Security people are bracing for trouble and Calgary restaurants are hoping for the best. There have been numerous stories in the media about the costs and the benefits of the 30 hours that the leaders of the world will spend together. There is also something puzzling and enigmatic about the agenda.
Apparently three topics are to be discussed, the continuance of prosperity among the G8 countries, the ongoing war on terrorism and Africa. The first two make sense, but why Africa?
The Prime Minister has declared that neither global prosperity nor terrorism will derail discussion of Africa. "We decided to have one summit on one specific problem: it's Africa. The time has come to give it priority, and I intend to follow this through." Africa, he said, is on the edge of a renaissance; prosperity and democracy are about to flourish. President Bush might want to discuss terrorism or the possibility of war between India and Pakistan, he allowed, "but I'm the chair. I have a bit of experience. I've had to chair a few meetings in my life."
Last April in Dakar, Senegal, Jean Chrétien explained further: "When you give me a job, I do it." In fact, of course, no one gave him the job. He took it upon himself, and the reasons for so doing are no more clear than the solutions he proposed for the undoubted problems of that continent.
A few weeks later, he dropped another hint as to why Africa deserved so much attention. This time he was in Europe, touring the capitals of the European Union to ensure support for his Africa agenda. It's important, he said "to show how we are not tied only with the Americans but also to the Europeans."
The subtext, then, is a predictable anti-American pose. But it seems to be combined with the view that the wealth of the G8 countries is based on the poverty and sickness of Africa. On his April trip, Nelson Mandela told Chrétien that Canada has a moral obligation to finance Africa because of imperialism and colonialism. Chrétien did not disagree.
Canadians have learned, however, that a disproportionately large amount of money intended to deal with the real problems of Africa has ended up in the Swiss bank accounts of dictators. To avoid this unseemly outcome, the Canadian government now supports a program called NEPAD, the New Partnership for African Development. The unfortunate acronym, pronounced knee pad, suggests protection for a continent on its knees.
NEPAD, however, claims to be just the opposite, a way for African countries to appear deserving of investment, not relief, of trade not aid, of a hand up, not a hand out, and all the other clichés that obscure some basic facts. The central feature of NEPAD is that African countries will "peer review" each other, as if they were academics submitting scholarly articles to professional journals. "If it is not done very professionally," said Chrétien, "they will have no credibility. If the decisions were to be not serious, they know that they will pay the price for it."
Chrétien did not say what the price was, but if it involves anything serious, it is bound to smack of imperialism. Besides, does he really think that Zimbabwe will be "professional" when it comes to a peer review of Zaire?
There is an alternative, the same globalization that so many of the misguided G8 protesters decry. There is no doubt that increases in trade volumes have come about as a result of lowering trade barriers and reducing transportation and communications costs. As President Bush noted last March, in the prelude to Kananaskis in Monterrey, Mexico, "when nations close their markets and opportunity is hoarded by a privileged few, no amount of development aid is ever enough." Just contrast North and South Korea.
In the context of Africa, the economies that are doing relatively well, and promise to do even better in the future, are those with relatively stable governments, or those with minerals or petroleum resources. The initial efforts have gone to expanding and modernizing ports and transportation facilities, for the perfectly obvious reason that the single greatest obstacle to trade on the continent is logistics. Most of this investment has been undertaken by international corporations, without the need of anything so humiliating as "peer review" by anyone.
There is another lesson: If critics of globalization are really interested in helping the poor of Africa and alleviating the enormous suffering and misery of its people, they would quickly switch sides in the debate.
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