17 - 23 May 2001
Issue No.534
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 17 - 23 May 2001 Issue No.534 |
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Lots of pudding but no eating
Poor countries simply cannot profit from globalisation, whatever the platitudes of the rich, argues Gamal Nkrumah
The third United Nations conference on the world's Least Developed Countries (LDCs) takes place in Brussels this week. It is yet another costly talking shop. The European Union, which hosts the five-day event, has spent over seven million dollars on flights and lavish accommodation for the 5,000 delegates. The delegates include heads of state of poor nations, the director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Mike Moore, and World Bank President James Wolfensohn. The now familiar coterie of distinguished characters, their faces twisted into unconvincing parodies of the plastic smile, know all too well that parroting politically correct phrases is far easier than rigorously implementing policies designed to make a difference to the lives of the poor.
President of the European Commission Romano Prodi told delegates of "the cancer of poverty." Notwithstanding all his good intentions, poor countries feel that the cost of the meeting may have been better spent on poverty eradication programmes. "With the Lome Convention (between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries), the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), and now the Cotonou Agreement, we have pioneered a truly innovative approach to development co-operation. One that successfully combines aid and trade instruments," said Prodi. The problem, though, is that in a world of globalisation those "trade instruments" have become the driving force behind the peripheralisation of the world's poor.
The three fundamental woes LDCs suffer are chronic poverty, crippling debt and health-related pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. According to World Bank figures three billion people, half the world's population, live in "dire" poverty. Moreover, 1.2 billion, almost exclusively in developing countries, live in "abject" poverty. This means that they lack the modern amenities and access to health, education and social welfare services that the inhabitants of rich countries take for granted. If you live in one of the world's 50 poorest countries you can expect to die aged only 45. One in six African children do not live to the age of six. And, the situation is worsening. Only 30 years ago only 25 countries were categorised as LDCs. Today there are 49.
But the rich world seems oblivious to the urgency. In practical terms, humanitarian assistance and aid from rich nations to LDCs plummeted from $17 billion in 1990 to only $12 billion in 1999. The UN urges rich countries to give a meagre 0.7 per cent of their gross national product to poor countries in aid. They cannot even manage that. At present they give a mere 0.25 per cent of their GNP in aid to the poor South, amounting to some $60 billion.
Others, though, were more determined. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo put his finger on why previous gatherings of this sort have failed. "In the past we have too often paid lip service to international cooperation. Today we must realise that the response of the international community has paled into insignificance This perhaps explains why in the last three decades of global action, presumably in support of the LDCs, only one country (Botswana) has graduated from its ranks." Action backed up Obasanjo's words. Even as he spoke, Nigeria, an outspoken campaigner for Third World debt cancellation, rejected foreign debt demands worth $240 million.
Perhaps the ease with which the lives of the world's poor could be improved, if the rich world put its mind to it, prompted Obasanjo's furious intervention. "Today, the international community has all it takes to eradicate poverty," he noted. Only the parsimony of the richer countries, except perhaps for the Scandinavians, stands in the way of assisting the poorest of the poor. Americans, for example, give $11 billion to "arts" charities but only $2.5 billion to international humanitarian assistance and development aid.
Perhaps this is not a surprise. America's real priorities are elsewhere. Nearly two decades after former US president Ronald Reagan's so-called Star Wars speech, the George Bush administration now proposes to introduce a hugely costly new US national missile defence system. Not even Washington's European allies approve. Powers like China, India and Russia are suspicious. The views of the LDCs are, of course, neither solicited nor heeded.
The real problem, though, is that the current system of global trade, which is designed for the enrichment of wealthy nations, is directly implicated in the worsening conditions of the world's poor. International trade regulations impose grossly unfair standards and tariffs on LDCs. Sheikha Hassina, prime minister of Bangladesh, explained. "Products with distinct comparative advantage from LDCs face tariffs and non-tariff barriers in the world markets," she told the gathering. Protectionism deprives poor countries of $700 billion every year. The LDCs' share of world exports declined from 0.5 per cent in 1990 to 0.4 per cent in 1999. Sheikha Hassina did make some suggestions: "$25 billion can be made available for the development of LDCs by simply reaching the agreed target of official development assistance. This is a modest target and should be attained," she said. "The last two Programmes of Action had been missed opportunities. Let us resolve to make a difference this time round."
Third World observers are not optimistic. Many projects are sabotaged when the financial loss to rich world firms becomes plain. As an example, the EU's well-meaning "Everything-but-Arms" initiative to encourage poor countries' exports has been ruined by Europe's protectionist and agricultural lobbyists. Short term relief is invariably offset by the questionable economics of globalisation: privatisation, liberalisation and economic deregulation.
During the meeting in Brussels, French President Jacques Chirac, host of the second UN conference on the LDCs, rightly pointed out that rich countries, "cannot and must not resign ourselves to these violent contrasts and this fundamental injustice. The least developed countries must be helped. Solidarity must be globalised." But his use of the word "globalised" was unfortunate. The rich world's poverty elimination strategies are based on the premise that globalisation can be made to benefit the world's poor. Past historical experience abundantly demonstrates that it cannot.
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