agrofuels from africa, not for africa

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Agrofuels from Africa, not for AfricaCarol B. ThompsonPublished online: 10 Oct 2008.

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Review of African Political Economy No. 117:467-521© ROAPE Publications Ltd., 2008

Briefings

Mining Investment &Community StrugglesDaniel Owusu-Koranteng

Dependence on the mineral sector iscentral to economic reforms in Africa.These reforms have the objective of in-creasing economic growth and reducingpoverty. Mineral endowed countries suchas Ghana have been successful in at-tracting foreign direct investment (FDI)to the mineral sector through liberalisa-tion of mining codes, which providegenerous concessions to foreign multi-national mining companies. UNCTAD(2005) indicates that a large proportionof FDI to Africa has gone into the miningsector with the continent attracting min-ing investment to the tune of $15 billionin 2004. This represented 15% of theglobal total and a considerable increaseof 5% from the mid-1980s.

According to Kwasi Barning (n.d.) for-eign exchange earnings from mineralproduction in Ghana increased from$108 million in 1985 to $710 in 1999.This could be attributed to the gold pricehikes, reforms of the mining regulatoryframework of Ghana, which providedmining companies generous tax exemp-tions, facilities for profit repatriation andstability of investment. Mining districtssuch as the Wassa West District becamethe location of eight multinational sur-face mining companies from the late1980s.

Gold Mining in Ghana – TheJungle Booms

The gold industry goes through ‘boomand bust cycles’. Ghana has experiencedthree gold rushes in periods described asJungle Booms. These were:

1st Jungle Boom: 1892 and peaking in1897. It marked the period of indus-trial mining in Ghana in places likeTarkwa, Obuasi, Konongo and Pres-tea. The resistance against Britishdomination during the Yaa AsantewaaWar disrupted the 1st boom in 1901;

2nd Jungle Boom: from 1925 when ef-forts were being made to revive theeconomic distress associated with theWorld War One. Also disrupted byWorld War Two from 1939;

3rd Jungle Boom started in the mid-1980s as part of the efforts to addresseconomic decline of the early 1970s.

Conditions for the 3rd Jungle Boom in-clude but are not limited to:

• Economic decline and debt burden;• High Gold prices;• Privatisation of state gold mining con-

cerns;• Technology for mining low grade ore

and adopting cost effective modes ofmining; for instance, changing fromunderground mining to surface min-ing;

• Neo-Liberal economic policies;• Strong desire of government to attract

FDI through generous incentives, e.g.AngloGold Ashanti and NewmontGhana Gold Limited have negotiateda retention of 80% of gross mineralsales in off-shore accounts;

ISSN 0305-6244 Print, 1740-1720 Online/08/030467-55DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411115

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468 Review of African Political Economy

• Weak environmental standards;• Incentives for attracting multinational

mining companies;• Weak and liberal regulatory frame-

work which allowed repatriation ofprofits; stability agreements; low roy-alty payments and tax exemptions;over protection for foreign companiesin cases of disputes; poor compensa-tion payment regimes and relativelylower remuneration for employees.

Regulatory Frameworks & theChallenges to Community Rights

The weak environmental standards helpmining companies to externalise envi-ronmental cost, which helps companiesto maximise profits. There are no legallybinding environmental standards; EPAaccepts that there are no laws on cyanidespillages.

Inadequate protection of community rightsin the mining law. For example, whilstthe 1992 Constitution of Ghana makesprovision for citizens to go to the HighCourt on original Jurisdiction on Com-pensation issues, in the case of mining,compensation grievances are supposedfirst to be made to the Minister responsi-ble for mines without direct recourse tothe High Court.

Section 20 of the constitution states that‘Records, documents and informationfurnished or attained should be treatedas confidential and shall not be divulgedwithout the written consent of the holder’.This section gives blanket confidential-ity to all information including informa-tion on mining impacts on communitiesand the environment. It thus makes itdifficult for the public to have access toreports such as Environmental Auditreports.

The Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act703) gives the power to the President toacquire land for mining through com-pulsory acquisition or to authorise itsoccupation and use (Section 2 of Act703).

The Challenge to Development& Governance

The expectation is that the success inattracting FDI in the mining sector wouldcontribute to economic development ofGhana and improve the living condi-tions of mining communities.

The UNDP concept of development statesthat the basic objective of human devel-opment is to enlarge the range of people’schoices to make human development moredemocratic and participatory. These choicesshould include access to income andemployment opportunities, educationand health and clean and safe physicalenvironment. Each individual should alsohave the opportunity to participate fullyin community decisions and to enjoyhuman, economic and political freedoms(UNDP, 1991).

The 1992 Constitution of Ghana guaran-tees property ownership by individualcitizens whilst mineral ownership isvested in the President of the Republic ofGhana. It is the inalienable right ofmining communities to use their landsand resources for economic and socialwellbeing in the context of the UNDPconcept of development.

The mining problem raises the constitu-tional issue of compulsory acquisition ofcommunity lands and properties to beappropriated by private mining compa-nies. Another issue is the appointment ofParliamentarians in mining areas toserve as members of the Board of Direc-tors of mining companies. Parliamentar-ians who have a constitutional mandateto serve the interest of their electorateswork instead to serve corporate interest.

Surface mining is an enclave economicactivity. It is predatory on other sectors ofthe economy. It leads to the loss of land-based economic activities because of thecompetition between farming and sur-face mining for land. Newmont’s Ahafomine would displace about 20,000 farm-

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ers at the end of the first and secondphases of the mine’s operations. Theoperations of Goldfields Ghana Limiteddisplaced 30,000 people in 5 years in thelate 1980s. Low compensation paymentand loss of incomes demonstrates theeconomic phenomenon often describedas the ‘Dutch disease’. For example,Newmont paid 69,000 cedis (about $8)for a Cocoa tree to Cocoa farmers inKenyase when a Cocoa tree can earn afarmer about half a bag of Cocoa beansfor a year (about $25 per year) and theeconomic life of a Cocoa tree is between40 and 50 years.

Notwithstanding the failures of compen-sation to adequately account for the lossof assets and earnings government ofGhana officials and mining companyexecutives argue strongly that the ben-

efits of mining outweigh the costs. Thebenefits include:

• Payment of royalties: Companies pay3% of gross minerals mined as royal-ties but we need to note that theMining Law sets the royalty paymentat 3-6% of the value of gross mineralsmined;

• Mining accounts for about 38% of thecountry’s foreign exchange earningsand yet its contribution to GDP is 5-6%. Contribution of gold productionto GDP is far less at about 1.8%;

• Payment of Income tax;

• Mining employs about 15,000-18,000people which is less than 1% of the totalworkforce in the country (TUC, 2007);

Figure 1: Map of Gold Deposits in Ghana

Briefings: Mining Investment & Community Struggles 469

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• Mineral revenues: UNCTAD (2005)noted that from total mineral revenueof about $870 million in 2003, only$46.7 million, or 5%, was retained inthe Ghanaian economy. Newmont’sAhafo mine, for instance, would con-tribute $300 million in 20 years to theeconomy of Ghana but the annualgold production for Ahafo mine is500,000 ounces at a production cost of$250 per ounce. In 2008 the gold pricebroke the $1,000 barrier;

• Corporate Social Responsibility ofmining companies: Private EnterprisesFoundation (PEF) estimates that cor-porate bodies spend 0.5-1% of profitafter tax on CSR.

Land Use Conflicts

One of the most significant areas ofconflict between mining companies andlocal communities relates to land. Thecompulsory acquisition of large tracts ofindigenous lands for surface miningoperations has unleashed many landuse conflicts. Surface mining operationsare undertaken in rural communitieswhere the people are predominantlyfarmers. Some of the consequences ofmining investment to Ghana include:

• Social disruption;• Capital flight;• Displacement of communities;• Resettlement/Relocation problems;• Low compensation;• Land use conflicts;• Loss of biodiversity;• Environmental degradation;• Increased diseases;• Pollution of water bodies;• Cyanide spillages: there had been

about 13 officially reported cyanidespillages since the 3rd Jungle boom;

• Destruction of sacred/cultural sites;• Human rights abuses;

Mine Legacies

• Creation of ghost towns;• Problems of rock waste dumps and

abandoned pits;• Acid mine drainage;• Socio-economic problems of resettled

communities;• Water stress, e.g. in Dumase the opera-

tions of Golden Star Resources hadkilled 6 streams and the communitysurvives on water supplied by thecompany.

Challenges in Mining Advocacy

• The capacity gap between miningcommunities and multinational min-ing companies;

• Lack of organisation for mining com-munities;

• The tendency of government agenciesto protect corporate interest as againstthe sovereign rights of citizens andmining communities;

• Weak legal framework for mining;weak environmental standards; weakregulatory institutions;

• Attraction of mining investment inAfrica – the ‘race to the bottom’;

• Intimidation of communities whichresult in the loss of confidence instruggles to protect community rights;

• Difficulties in using the judicial sys-tem to redeem community rights. Thecase of forced eviction brought up bythe people of Nkwantakrom againstAngloGold Ashanti, Iduapriem minehas been in court for almost 10 years;

• The tendency of research/academicinstitutions and experts to serve cor-porate interests;

• Pushing neo-colonial policies as de-velopment agenda to exploit develop-ing countries and deliberatelybranding mining advocacy groups asanti-development agents;

• Intimidation of activists and resourceconstraints.

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Interventions of WACAM

WACAM is a community-based HumanRights and Environmental mining advo-cacy NGO working to build the capacityof mining communities to have effectiveengagement with multinational miningcompanies. Our organisation had organ-ised communities affected by surfacemining operations around their criticalissues of concern and engaged in advo-cacy and campaigns for the protection ofthe rights of mining communities. Ourinterventions include:

• Understanding the struggle and de-veloping the appropriate strategies toempower communities for effectiveparticipation in decisions affectingthem. Information and education astools for empowerment of affectedpeople;

• Addresses weak capacities of commu-nities through sensitisation usingRBA;

• Formation of community groups toaddress lack of organisation and tobetter articulate communities’ view/concerns;

• Development of youth programmes;

• Using community concerns to buildcampaigns at the local, national andinternational levels

• Use of courtroom advocacy to redeemrights and test the efficacy of laws/regulations;

• Policy advocacy based on communi-ties’ concerns e.g. mining law reformsand mineral policy for Ghana;

Figure 2: Demonstration by Student Activists, WACAM &Community People Against Newmont in Accra

Briefings: Mining Investment & Community Struggles 471

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• Amplifying the voice for the miningcommunities through mediasensitisation and developing linksbetween the media and affected peo-ple.

Community struggles had raised na-tional awareness on mining issues andalso influenced public opinion. Somecomments of important institutions andindividuals on the mining situation inGhana had been captured as follows:

Prof. Kassim Kasanga, an eminent valua-tion Consultant, Land Economist, formerChairman of Land Valuation Board andformer Minister for Lands and Forestrystated in a presentation in 1997 and 2002that there is injustice in the payment ofcompensation by mining companies tomining communities.

The former Minister for Mines, MrsCecilia Bannerman was reported to havesaid that Ghana had run short of gold to beused by the local jewellery industry, inspite of the gold boom (Daily Graphic, 11November 2004).

According to the TUC (2007), miningemploys about 15,000-18,000 people whichis less than 1% of the total workforce in thecountry but causes employment lossesthrough displacement of communities.

Mineral revenues: UNCTAD (2005) men-tioned that out of a total mineral revenue ofabout $870 million generated in 2003, thegovernment of Ghana earned only $46.7million representing 5%.

H.E. Mary Robinson (Former UN HighCommissioner for Human Rights andFormer Prime Minister of Ireland) inNovember 2006 at the UN Global Com-pact meeting in Ghana expressed worryabout the minimal benefits of mining toGhana and human rights abuses/viola-tions in mining communities.

H.E. Vice President of Ghana on 15January 2007 expressed concern about

the minimal benefits from the miningsector to Ghana at the internationalmeeting of the Extractive Industry Trans-parency Initiative (EITI) in Accra.

H.E. the President of the Republic ofGhana in May 2007 was reported in theDaily Graphic that there was the need tochange the mining policy of Ghana to makemining beneficial to the country.

President J. A Kufour stated recently atAGOA Conference that FDI inflowsshould not be in the extractive sector onlybut should shift to manufacturing.

The Western Regional Minister said inSeptember 2007 that activities of miningcompanies had led to loss of livelihoods andpoverty in mining communities.

The Wassa West District Chief Executivesaid in September 2007 that activities ofmining companies had worsened povertyof mining communities.

Conclusion

An assessment of the performance ofMining in Ghana by the World Bank’sOperations Evaluation Department(OED) noted:

It is unclear what gold mining truebenefits are to Ghana. Large scale miningby foreign companies has high importcontent and produces only modest amountsof net foreign exchange for Ghana afteraccounting for all its outflows. Similarly,its corporate tax payments are low due tovarious fiscal incentives necessary toattract and retain foreign investors. Em-ployment creation is also modest given thehighly capital intensive nature of modernsurface mining techniques. Local commu-nities affected by large scale mining haveseen little benefits to date in the form ofimproved infrastructure or services pro-vision because much of the rents frommining are used to finance recurrent, notcapital expenditure. A broader cost-ben-efit analysis of large-scale mining that

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factors in social and environmental costsand includes consultations with the af-fected communities needs to be under-taken before granting future productionlicences (World Bank, 2003).

Daniel Owusu-Koranteng and his wifeare the founders of WACAM, the WassaAssociation of Communities Affected byMining in the Tarkwa Area, Ghana,West Africa; e-mail: [email protected]

Bibliography

Barning Kwasi (nd), ‘Case study of ForeignInvestment in Mining: The case of Ghana’; http://www.unctad.org/infocomm/Diversification/cape/pdf/barning.pdf; accessed 26 March 2008.

UNCTAD (2005), ‘Economic Development inAfrica-Rethinking the Role of Foreign DirectInvestment’.

World Bank (2003), ‘An assessment of theperformance of Mining in Ghana’; http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servelt/WDS_IBank_Servlet?pcont=details&eid=000094946_03081404004344

Hope & Oil: Expectationsin São Tomé e PríncipeGisa Weszkalnys

When there is the smell of oil, minds getstirred up … It creates a mirage inpeople’s heads. If we do not know how tomanage it, it will be hell here (ManuelPinto da Costa, former president ofSTP, cited in Shaxson, 2007:164).

Perhaps the best hope for STP is that thereis sufficient external pressure from inter-national institutions, creditors and theincipient civil society to ensure greatertransparency in the distribution of oilrevenues. Otherwise, STP is likely tosuffer the same ills as other oil-rich statesin Africa, except that any civil war orsocial unrest is highly unlikely in thegentle Santomean society. STP has alwaysbeen very peaceful and, from this perspec-tive, a highly positive role model for thecontinent (Frynas et al. 2006:19).

There is no certainty yet that there’s goingto be economic production of oil. There is agood chance that there may not be. Andpart of me feels, well, that’s probably agood thing, for if there was, it’s just goingto be … a disaster (oil industry em-ployee, STP, March 2007).

‘Do you think there’s oil in São Tomé?’was a question I repeatedly heard duringmy fieldwork. It is a question that hasgripped São Tomé e Príncipe (STP), thetiny island state located in the Gulf ofGuinea, for the last 10 years.1 The notionthat there may be vast offshore oil re-sources in STP’s waters has spurredintense international interest (e.g.,Bruzaca de Menezes, 2003; Frynas et al.2003, 2006; Seibert, 2005; Shaxson, 2007;Soares de Oliveira, 2007). Oil companies,journalists, economic experts, NGOs, andthe large transnational institutions nowspeculate about the future of São Tomé ePríncipe, frequently portrayed as a coun-

Briefings: Hope & Oil: Expectations in São Tomé e Príncipe 473

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411156

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try which has the hope, unlike elsewherein Africa, of becoming prosperous whilstremaining democratic. STP is to set anexample.

For the ethnographer, people’s anxiousquestion about the country’s oil poten-tial re-poses itself as: ‘How might onestudy an oil economy without oil?’2 Justhow much oil there is and whether it is‘commercially viable’, as they say in theindustry, is to date highly doubtful. So, isit possible to speak of an oil economy ifno oil is being extracted, transported,sold, and refined? One way of beginningto examine STP’s emergent oil economyis to look at the materialisation of theassumed presence of oil in the country.

There is, for example, the impressive newbuilding of the National PetroleumAgency, co-financed by the World Bankin which a cadre of local technicians isbusy managing the islands’ future oileconomy. There are public discussionsand newspaper reports on the latestdevelopments. In addition, there are themore and the less desirable by-products:the genuine and the shady businesspeople; the illegal immigrants, tradersand peddlers; the prostitutes; the banks(whose number has almost tripled in thelast few years); the inflation; the risingproperty prices and the real estate specu-lation. There are also the latrines spon-sored by Chevron under its ‘socialprogramme’ obligations and the trucksrecently given by Chrome Energy – inpreparation, it is suspected, for theirparticipation in an upcoming licensinground. Similarly, a relatively non-violentcoup d’état in 2003 has been interpretedas symptomatic of a resource curse af-flicting Santomean society (Frynas, 2006;Humphreys et al. 2006; but see Seibert,2003). As Frynas et al. conclude, ‘[t]heprevalence of resource curse effects werealready apparent even before STP startedproducing any oil’ (2006:14).

In short, the assumed presence of oil hashad a number of effects and provoked

particular activities in anticipation of an(un)certain future. Numerous consult-ants, NGO representatives, and foreignadvisors have been attracted by whatthey identify as the country’s great needfor expertise in the face of incipient oilwealth. They offer technical assistanceand advice, and hold workshops, publicdeliberations and conferences. Of crucialimportance, in this regard, has been theso-called management of expectations. Itinvolves placing boundaries around peo-ple’s hopes and dreams, which are as-sumed to be irrational, destabilising andpotentially dangerous. Key to this hasbeen the notion of a ‘resource curse’,today a key term in the analysis of oil-rich African states and of Santomeans’vocabulary in describing their country’sfuture, as well as a rich example allow-ing us to observe an enactment of socio-economic theory.

Background & History

On 30 June 2007, the US representationin STP invited ex-pat Americans, offi-cials and the local ‘who’s who’ to anearly Independence Day party. This washeld in STP’s fortress São Sebastião, builtin the 16th century by the Portuguesecolonial settlers and turned into a his-torical museum after independence in1975. With its limited resources, themuseum is an effort to display a nationalhistory for a young independent Africanstate. Within its thick walls now came tomingle the existing and possibly the newpowers that be. US presence on theisland is currently limited to the vastcompound of the Voice of America thatbroadcasts from here all over South-WestAfrica and an occasional naval shipsitting just outside São Tomé’s shallowport, a faint echo of what has apparentlybecome a near continuous US navypresence in the region. The US hasprovided training for Santomean mili-tary under the ‘African Partnership’programme, and US ‘Seabees’ have car-ried out works in local schools andhospitals. Their main task, however, has

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been to help build up STP’s coast guardfacilities and to complete, in 2007, one ofthe radar elements of the maritime do-main awareness system. The systemfacilitates the rapid exchange of dataamong participating countries and seeksto cover the entire Gulf of Guinea region,which has been declared of strategic USinterest, not least because of its existingand potential oil resources (McFate, 2008;Shaxson, 2007; Soares de Oliveira, 2007).

A fortnight later, 12 July, it was STP’sown Independence Day. The festivitiestook place in Porto Alegre, São Toméisland’s southernmost community, con-nected to the capital by a single coastalroad. I hitched a ride with the Americanambassador who had flown in fromGabon, down the road that was to berepaired for the occasion with Equato-rial-Guinean money. But it didn’t getdone on time, possibly because the moneyran out or, as some people suggested,because too much of it disappeared intothe pockets of entrepreneurs. The cer-emony was attended by a series of localofficials and foreign diplomats, includ-ing the Portuguese, the Brazilian, theFrench, the Nigerian, and the Gaboneseambassadors. Finally, a helicopter ar-rived with the president and his guestsof honour, the presidents of Gabon,Congo-Brazzaville and Equatorial-Guinea. A bus, recently gifted by Tai-wan, carried them from the airfield thathad been cut into the dense forest, to thelocation of the festivities. As a display ofSantomean state and nation, the Inde-pendence Day festivities appear impro-vised, charming and a little parochial.Yet they are also a display of foreign andinternational powers that are seeking tocircumscribe STP’s place on the geopo-litical map of oil.

The expectation of vast offshore oil re-sources has given STP a significance ithasn’t had since its days as Portugueseentrepôt and as world-renowned cocoaproducer. Despite the recent $314m debtrelief under the HIPC scheme, STP is

likely to remain one of the poorest Afri-can countries and almost totally depend-ent on foreign aid. Its approximately160,000 inhabitants are the descendantsof African slaves and contract workers,mainly from Cape Verde, and the Portu-guese colonial settlers who lived on theislands from the 16th century onwards,and introduced sugar, coffee, and cocoa.STP remained a plantation economyuntil the end of the colonial period(Seibert, 2006:46). Political independ-ence was achieved in 1975, followed bythe establishment of a socialist one-partysystem. The economy was nationalisedand the former plantations were broughtinto state ownership. Cocoa productionbased on plantations had been unprofit-able since the 1920s (Frynas et al. 2006:2;Seibert, 2006:45) and by the late 1970smismanagement and falling global co-coa prices led to its virtual collapse. Fromthe late 1980s, STP underwent a democ-ratisation process, accompanied by eco-nomic reforms and the dismantling ofthe large estates and privatisation oflanded property with uneven, but over-all disappointing, results. Cocoa stillrepresents 90% of all exports, and thecountry’s economy remains extraordi-narily fragile. In this context, oil seemeda blessing.

Oil extraction in STP appeared to becomea real possibility with developments inultra deep-sea exploration, coupled withthe growing significance internationallyof West African oil. The 1990s werecharacterised by new discoveries andrapid growth in production, for example,in Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Asidefrom some speculative onshore drillingsin the 1970s and 80s, STP’s petro-era isgenerally seen to have started in 1997,with the ill-fated agreement signed witha small company called ERHC (Environ-mental Remediation Holding Company).Oil can now appear a firm part of STPpolitico-economic identity. As one of thedirector’s in the National PetroleumAgency noted in conversation, Santo-means have always associated them-


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selves with oil. But this oil economy hashad a difficult start (see also Frynas et al.2003; Seibert, 2006; Shaxson, 2007 &Soares de Oliveira, 2007). First, togetherwith ERHC the STP government set up adubious joint venture petroleum com-pany named STPetro. Both ERHC, andsubsequently Mobil, were guaranteedrights to exploration and revenue shares,which vastly exceeded what is deemedstandard in the industry. Especially theERHC deal, later acquired by the Ameri-can-Nigerian Chrome Energy, is nowwidely criticised as detrimental to thecountry’s interests. Border disputes withNigeria led to a lengthy process ofnegotiations. These were settled in Feb-ruary 2001 with the agreement of a JointDevelopment Zone (JDZ) of which Ni-geria holds 60% and STP 40%, governedby a so-called Joint Development Au-thority (JDA) with a head office in Abuja.President Fradique de Menezes, whocame into office in 2001, is viewedfavourably by most foreign observersimpressed by his attempts to correct themistakes made by his predecessor, bycalling on foreign assistance and byemphasising the country’s intentions toremain transparent. In a first biddinground in 2003/4, only Block 1 wassigned off for $123 million to a consor-tium of three companies, Chevron Texaco(51%), ExxonMobil (40%) and the Nige-rian-Norwegian Dangote Energy EquityResources Limited (9%). A further roundin 2005 for Blocks 2, 3 and 4 involved toomany small, unknown corporationspartly with Nigerian connections. Thisresult was seriously questioned (Procura-doria Geral, 2005) but not annulled.

Exploration has yet to show significantpositive results: Chevron Texaco deemedthe finds of its first drill in Block 1 of theJDZ, conducted in 2006, as not commer-cially viable. In early March 2007, theChinese company Sinopec and the Ca-nadian corporation Addax operating inBlocks 2 and 4, announced that they hadhired an Indian vessel to conductdrillings in 2008, but these drillings are

likely to be postponed until 2009. Chev-ron, too, announced plans to perform asecond drill in 2008. In late 2007, ExxonMobil’s interests in Block 1 were boughtby Addax. In short, STP’s future as apetro-state appears elusive. STP has re-ceived a $49 million share of the signa-ture bonus for Block 1. Much of this hasbeen spent on advances received fromNigeria, including $13 million towardsthe operational costs of the JDA in Abuja(see also Seibert, 2006). Even if there is acommercial discovery any time soon,actual exploitation is not expected tobegin before 2012 or later. Outstandingpayments for the signature bonuses forblocks 5 and 6 seem increasingly un-likely. Risking and hoping, however,will continue.

Diagnosing the Resource Curse

Newspaper articles on STP have specu-lated how the discovery of offshore oilmight change São Tomé e Príncipe rap-idly and dramatically. In 2002, the NewYorker magazine published a long articleasking, ‘Who needs Saudi Arabia whenyou’ve got São Tomé?’ Only two yearslater, Fortune magazine posed the wor-ried question, ‘Will oil spoil this AfricanParadise?’ Most recently, The Guardiansuggested, quoting a representative ofInternational Alert – one of the largeinternational NGOs seeking to preventoil-related conflict in STP – that it wouldbe best if there was no oil at all. Similarly,academic research on STP oscillates be-tween diagnoses of an incipient resourcecurse, facilitated by a long-standing sys-tem of clientelism and corruption, andhalf-hearted assertions that the tiny coun-try might follow a different path from itspetro-neighbours. In 2007, São Toméansparticularly from the urbanised, edu-cated parts of society – including civilservants, administrative and private sec-tor employees – seemed disappointedregarding the advent of oil. They increas-ingly considered it futile to expect oil toimprove their situation. Many of themhave participated in one of the numerous

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seminars and workshops held on thetopic of oil and are keenly aware of itspotentially negative consequences. Theirself-consciously reasonable outlook, Iwas told, is markedly different from thehigh hopes that were being traded in thestreets, bars and homes of Santomeansonly a couple of years ago, and which areclaimed to be still prevalent among theuneducated poor, living in the formerplantations.

Continuing high hopes and expecta-tions are generally blamed on the gov-ernment and politicians, trying to gainvotes and attract investment to the coun-try, or on the media, keen to build up apicture of STP as the ‘new Kuwait’.Sensationalist reports on the prospectsof STP in the early 2000s dealt in hugelyinflated figures of several billion of bar-rels of oil reserves. A third source ofexaggerated expectations are expert docu-ments. I heard angry comments, forexample, about an ‘irresponsible’ IMFworking paper, published only in thesummer of 2006, which begins by statingthat ‘São Tomé and Príncipe is on theverge of becoming an oil-rich country’(Seguar, 2006:4). The paper assumes asits base line the existence of a 500 millionbarrel oil field in the JDZ, and suggeststhat provided there is adequate regula-tion a prosperous future for STP will bealmost certain. While the IMF may insistthat this is purely a working paper, withall its implications of provisionality, andmoreover, does not reflect the view of theorganisation at large, to more scepticalobservers such pronouncements seemdangerously open to – deliberate orinadvertent – misinterpretation.

Hope in relation to oil, and an alleged‘cargo cult’ attitude, are considered prob-lematic. If unrealistic hopes get disap-pointed, it is feared, the result is likely tobe increased social conflict. In my con-versations with World Bank technicians,UNDP employees, staff of the PetroleumAgency, NGO workers, and ordinarylocals two imaginaries of the future were

dominant. In the academic literaturethey are known as the ‘resource curse’and the related ‘Dutch disease’. Theresource curse has become an influentialheuristic since the late 1980s both in thescholarship concerned with resource eco-nomics and in the large global financialagencies (e.g. Humphreys et al. 2007).The term was invented to explain whatappeared inexplicable: countries rich inoil, diamonds, or other natural resourcesdid not always enjoy rapid developmentequally in all sectors (Auty, 1993;Humphreys et al. 2007; Karl, 1997;Rosser, 2006; Sachs and Warner, 2001;Watts, 2004). Today ‘the curse’ is vari-ously taken to imply detrimental eco-nomic performance, violent conflict,corruption, or the entrenchment of au-thoritarian political regimes (Rosser,2006:7-8). The ‘Dutch disease’ is some-times seen as a version of the resourcecurse – or its herald. The notion de-scribes the effect of the influx of huge oilrevenues, the depreciation of the localcurrency, the neglect and decline of othereconomic sectors, first and foremost, ofagriculture.

Students and observers of STP havespotted signs of the resource curse andthe Dutch disease in the reliance onforeign aid, in the way Santomeans eat(an estimated 50% of their diet consists ofimported produce), in the well-knownbut rarely punished corrupt behaviour ofSTP’s elite, and in just about everybody’slaid back lifestyle summed up by theCreole term lêve-lêve (e.g., Frynas et al.2006). There are also the rural flight, thewage increase, and the inflation, whichare all understood to be key symptoms(Soares de Oliveira, 2007). STP’s fragileposition has not been helped by thenotorious instability of its government.The 2003 coup d’état is sometimes inter-preted as an early expression of discon-tent with the way the government(mis-)handled STP’s arrival in the oil era.However, it may be more precise to saythat rather than oil having caused thecoup, the coup comes to matter because of


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now common negative expectations re-garding oil in STP. What is interesting,here, is the plethora of activities that hasbeen effected, directly and indirectly, bythe anticipation of a resource curse and,conversely, the economy of expectation,consultancy and advice that this antici-pation has provoked. This is the resourcecurse’s performative effect (cf. Osborneand Rose, 1999) in the tiny equatorialisland state.

Anticipation

On paper, São Tomé e Príncipe appearsto constitute an exemplary oil economy.Its legal framework regarding oil is con-sidered to be even better than that regu-lating the Chad-Cameroon pipeline,which was for some time held up asexemplary in the African context (Pegg,2005). The so-called Abuja declaration,signed with Nigeria, defines a will totransparency in the JDZ. STP possessesan Oil Revenue Management Law en-acted in December 2004, which includesthe establishment of a National Petro-leum Council and, currently, an over-sight commission and a publicinformation office. In addition, a Na-tional Petroleum Agency (ANP) has beencreated. STP also has a National OilAccount as well as a ‘Permanent Fund’for future generations. More recentlystill, the Santomean government hasendorsed the UK-led Extractive Indus-tries and Transparency Initiative (EITI)and is busy setting up a national com-mittee.

The country’s status as a legal exemplaris partly due to what I term the anticipa-tory activities of international experts,transnational agencies and the nationalgovernment itself. These activities in-clude the technical assistance given bythe World Bank, UNDP, or more recentlythe Millennium Challenge Corporation,but go beyond that. They include theprojects implemented by internationalNGOs and the advice given by well-meaning experts who see the tiny coun-

try a convenient laboratory for theirtheories. Crucially, laws, documents, andpaper alone are deemed insufficient inguaranteeing a prosperous and well-managed future for STP. Santomeanshave little faith in the effectiveness oftheir state institutions and judiciary sys-tem which they know lets those doingwrong get away with impunity. And alook at other petro-states in the regionshows that laws and committees do notreadily translate into well-governed re-source driven economies. Anticipatoryactivities have not stopped at the level ofthe state, the law or institutional reform.What is especially needed, it was sug-gested to me, is the creation of civilsociety and a ‘change in mentality’.Here, I will briefly discuss four ratherdifferent projects that all intend to con-tribute to STP achieving this institutional,social and behavioural transformation.

In 2003, a team of professors and gradu-ate students from the Earth Institute atColumbia University, New York, underthe leadership of the institute’s directorJeffrey Sachs travelled to STP to imple-ment a legal advisory project. Invited byPresident Menezes, and partly spon-sored by the Open Society Institute, theColumbia team advocated a holistic ap-proach that took into account all thevarious aspects of Santomean society,including malaria, sanitation, and elec-trification. A central objective was todevelop a framework for transparency inpublic expenditure. Their efforts werehighly appreciated: they lay the basis forthe petroleum law, and delivered a pres-tigious project that helped the countrydemonstrate its willingness to good gov-ernance.

The Columbia team was key in making‘oil’ an explicitly public issue. They tookadvantage of the National Forum, organ-ised as a response to the 2003 coup d’étatand intended to bring unity to the coun-try destabilised by military and socialunrest and split into factions. In thiscontext, the team organised meetings in

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56 roças, villages, and towns, to explainthe current and potential future develop-ments regarding oil in STP. Deliberativegroups, led by local facilitators, an-swered questionnaires to assess peo-ple’s wishes and expectations regardinga future with oil. The Columbia teamnow commends its intervention as asuccessful process of deliberation withmeasurable effects (Sandbu, 2004; butsee also Humphreys et al. 2006). TheForum, the questionnaire, and the delib-erations are claimed to have transformedpeople’s preferences in such a way thatthey would be more reasoned, less self-ish and more public-spirited (Sandbu,2004). They have been regarded as im-portant instruments in re-constitutingboth officials and ordinary Santomeansas future inhabitants of an oil-rich coun-try.

The World Bank’s current InternationalDevelopment Assistance for STP includes$5 million for a so-called GovernanceCapacity Building Project. It supportspublic finance management and helpsbuild the institutional framework of thenascent petroleum sector. The focus onoil, governance and public finance man-agement is to be continued in the comingyears with further $4 million budgetarysupport funding. It reflects the WorldBanks changing policy of wedding pov-erty reduction programmes to supportfor the extractive industries sector (as inChad-Cameroon pipeline case, Pegg2005). Institutional thinking now partlyreflects a scholarly critique of previousapproaches made, for example, byMichael Watts (2001; 2004), which goesbeyond a simplistic resource determin-ism. Bad governance, rather than oil perse, becomes seen as the central cause ofthe resource curse. Critical to the Govern-ance Capacity Building Project in STPhas been the design of a national petro-leum law, the establishment of a Court ofAccounts – as a general auditing body –and the set up of a National PetroleumAgency. The training provided by oilcompanies involved in STP’s Joint De-

velopment Zone – and rivaled by thosefinanced by and conducted in Taiwan –has supposedly provided civil servantsand government employees with indis-pensable skills and knowledge. ANPstaff have been busy preparing a licens-ing round for the Exclusive EconomicZone, and the revision of STP’s oil lawfor the purpose. The ANP has also heldseminars on issues to do with oil. Forexample, in April 2007, a day-long semi-nar on ‘Local Content’ served to presentthe findings of a study commissioned bythe ANP, financed by the World Bank,and conducted by a Portuguese consul-tancy firm. It attracted a sizeable audi-ence of perhaps 100 civil servants andstate administrators, people from thebanking and business sector, from inter-national organisations, NGOs, and oilcompanies. It demonstrated to people theneed for preparation, especially the crea-tion of mechanisms to maximise thewealth that oil is likely to generate. Theaim, to borrow James Ferguson’s term isto ‘thicken’ the presence of the oil indus-try in STP (Ferguson, 2005).

The London-based NGO InternationalAlert (IA) has had a presence in thecountry for several years. Together withUNICEF and with partial funding fromUSAID, it has set up a media centre forlocal journalists and two communityradio stations. Together with the PublishWhat You Pay Campaign, IA held twoconferences in STP which allowed civilsociety actors from diverse countries inthe region to exchange experiences andinformation about living with oil, in-cluding institutional and contractualframeworks, economic and political re-percussions, the relevance of the EITI, theimportance of fiscal discipline, and themanagement of expectations. It also or-ganised a trip to Norway, on which amixed group of parliamentarians, localbusiness representatives, journalists andcivil society representatives were intro-duced to how Norway has become aprime example of an oil economy whichmanaged to escape the resource curse.


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All these activities have been part of aconcerted effort to strengthen ‘civil soci-ety’ in STP, which is considered ratherweak and ill-prepared for the coming ofoil.

A further element in this process of STPconstituting itself as prudent and trans-parent oil state has been the signing upto EITI, the UK-led initiative which aimsto devise principles to assure transpar-ency in the extractive industries sector. Akey mechanism has been the publicationof company payments and revenuesreceived by governments which are moni-tored by the national EITI committeesthat bring together the presumed oppos-ing stakeholders: governments, the in-dustry and civil society. In STP, the setup of the EITI committee was pursuedwith much pressure in the second half of2007, due to a looming deadline. Ironi-cally, the initial delay and subsequenthaste with which the process was con-ducted has led to concerns about a lackof transparency and civil society in-volvement in this process. There werealso tensions regarding the parallel set-up of the Oversight Commission in-cluded as a monitoring body in STP’s oilrevenue management law. Planning ofthe two entities initially went aheadseparately but there is now talk aboutmerging them to achieve greater effec-tiveness. Interestingly, some of thoseinvolved ascribed a clear advantage to‘global’ initiatives, such as EITI, overlocal ones. Even though they are notbinding they are felt to carry more weightthan a commission anchored in STP lawwhich is deemed, in large part, ineffec-tive.

Conclusions

STP’s oil economy is an economy inwhich expectations have been a keyobject of concern. Their production, cir-culation and exchange are carefullyguarded. One of these expectations isnow the resource curse itself. Its flipsideis the expectation of transparency and

good governance. In other words, at-tempts to control and manage people’sexpectations have generated other kindsof hope in STP. Both types of ‘imagina-tions of the future’ are made and promul-gated partly through the initiatives andprojects, seminars and workshops, thereports and legal documents that I havediscussed, here. Depending on the re-sults of the upcoming drillings, Santo-mean national planning may soon haveto consider a ‘no-oil’ scenario.

While the hope for oil in STP has notcompletely faded away, one can seepeople quietly welcoming the delay inthe take-off of the country’s oil economy.Especially for members of the urbaneducated class on whom this researchhas focused, and for whom the ‘curse’ ofoil appears to be a real possibility, time issalvation. The postponement of the oilfuture, they say – which is produced by aset of political, economic, technical, andgeological conditions and circumstances– might allow STP to prepare itselfsufficiently or to continue seeking alter-native routes for development. This brief-ing has highlighted the significantresources have been poured into prepar-ing STP for its potential oil future. It alsosought to open up a critical perspectiveon the huge claims involved. Betweenthem, the activities of advisory agencies,government, NGOs, and oil corporationsexplicate potential futures and the famil-iar (and insufficiently researched) conse-quences of the extractive industries,specifically oil, in order to divert them.But will they make a real difference?Indeed, are there any simple solutions tothe resource curse, which research in-creasingly shows to be a highly complexset of affairs? Or will these activitiessimply aid in a sophisticated make-believe?

Gisa Weszkalnys, University of Oxford,[email protected]

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Endnotes

1. This preliminary analysis draws on eightmonths of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in2007, conducted with support from the BritishAcademy and the John Fell Research Fund. Itincluded more than fifty interviews withrepresentatives of the local administration,transnational agencies, oil corporations, NGOs,as well as ex-pats and ordinary Santomeans.The project has benefited tremendously fromdiscussions with Andrew Barry as well as fromthe comments of the participants in the ‘Oil andPolitics’ Conference, Goldsmiths, London, May2007.

2. The research intends to contribute to a growingbody of work on oil by human geographers andanthropologists (e.g., Apter, 2005; Barry, 2004,2006; Ferguson, 2005; Roitman & Roso n.d.;Sawyer, 2004; Watts, 2001, 2004).

Bibliography

Apter, A. (2005), The Pan-African Nation: oil andthe spectacle of culture in Nigeria, Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Auty, R. (1993), Sustaining Development in MineralEconomies: The Resource Curse Thesis, London:Routledge.

Barry, A. (2004), ‘Ethical Capitalism’ in, GlobalGovernmentality by W. Larner & W. Walters(eds.), London: Routledge; (2005), ‘Cracks inthe Oil Economy: Hubbert’s Peak’, paperpresented at International Center for AdvancedStudies, New York University, April 2005.

Bruzaca de Menezes, A. (2003), ‘Implicaçõessócio-económicas da exploração de petróleo emSão Tomé e Príncipe’, Instituto Superior deEconomia e Gestão, Lisbon: Universidade Técnicade Lisboa.

Collier, S. J. & A. Lakoff (2005), ‘Regimes ofLiving’, in Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics,and Ethics as Anthropological Problems by S. J.Collier & A. Ong (eds.), Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Ferguson, J. (2005), ‘Seeing Like an OilCompany: Space, Security, and Global Capitalin Neoliberal Africa’, in American Anthropologist,107(3):377-382.

Frynas, J. G. & M. Paulo (2007), ‘A New Scramblefor African Oil? Historical, Political, andBusiness Perspectives’, in African Affairs 106(423): 229-251.

Frynas, J.G., G. Wood & R.M.S. Soares deOliveira (2003), ‘Business and Politics in SãoTomé e Príncipe: From cocoa monoculture topetro-state’, in African Affairs 102(406): 51-80;

(2006), ‘Business and Politics in São Tomé ePríncipe: From cocoa monoculture to petro-state’(updated version), http://www.sase.org/conf2003/papers/frynas-wood-deoliveira.pdf

Humphreys, M., W. Masters & M. Sandbu(2006), ‘The Role of Leaders in DemocraticDeliberations: results from a field experiment inSão Tomé e Príncipe’, in World Politics 58: 583-622.

Humphreys, M., J. Sachs & J. Stiglitz (2007),Escaping the Resource Curse, New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press.

Karl, T. (1997), The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Boomsand Petro-states, Berkeley, CA.: California UP.

Leach, M., Scoones, I. & B. Wynne (eds.) (2005),Science and Citizens: Globalization and the Challengeof Engagement, London: Zed Books

McFate, S. (2008), ‘Briefing: US AfricaCommand: Next Step or Next Stumble’, AfricanAffairs, Vol. 107(426): 111-20.

Osborne, T. & N. Rose (1999), ‘Do the SocialSciences Create Phenomena? The Example ofPublic Opinion Research’ in, British Journal ofSociology 50(3): 367-396.

Pegg, S. (2005), ‘Can policy intervention beat theresource curse? Evidence from the Chad–Cameroonpipeline project’, in African Affairs 105 (418).

Procuradoria Geral da República São Tomé ePríncipe (2005), Investigação e AvaliaçãoSegundo Leilão Zona de DesenvolvimentoConjunto; http://www.juristep.com/rela-torios/PGR.pdf; accessed 6 March 2008.

Roitman, J. & G. Roso (n.d.), ‘Being “Off-Shore”:the Submersion of Equatorial Guinea in Regionaland International Enjeux’ (unpublished manu-script).

Rosser, A. (2006), ‘The Political Economy of theResource Curse: A Literature Review’, WorkingPaper 268, Institute of Development Studies,University of Sussex.

Sachs, J. & A. Warner (2001), ‘The Curse ofNatural Resources’ in European Economic Review,45: 827-838.

Sandbu, M. (2004), ‘Does Deliberation Matter?A study of deliberative democracy in São Tomée Príncipe’s National Forum’; http://martins-andbu.net/papers/deliberation.pdf

Sawyer, S. (2004), Crude Chronicles: indigenouspolitics, multinational oil, and neoliberalism inEcuador, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Segura, A. (2006), ‘Management of oil wealthunder the permanent income hypothesis: Thecase of São Tomé e Príncipe’, IMF Working PaperWP/06/183.


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Seibert, G. (2003), ‘Coup d’état in São Tomé ePríncipe: Domestic causes, the role of oil andformer “Buffalo” Battalion soldiers’, ISS Paper81, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria; (2006),Comrades, Clients and Cousins: Colonialism,Socialism and Democratization in São Tomé ePríncipe, Leiden: Brill; [1999] (2006), Comrades,Clients and Cousins: Colonialism, Socialism andDemocratization in São Tomé e Príncipe, Leiden &Boston: Brill.

Shaxson, N. (2007), Poisoned Wells: The DirtyPolitics of African Oil, New York: PalgraveMacmillan.

Soares de Oliveira, R. (2007), Oil and Politics inthe Gulf of Guinea, London: Hurst & Co.

Watts, M. (2001), ‘Petro-Violence: Community,Extraction, and Political Ecology of a MythicCommodity’ in, Violent Environments by N.L.Peluso & M. Watts (eds.), Ithaca & London:Cornell University Press; (2004), ‘Resource curse?Governmentality, oil and power in the NigerDelta, Nigeria’, in Geopolitics, 9(1): 50-80.

Editor’s NoteAlso see ROAPE’s back issues: ‘The Bush Ad-ministration and African Oil: The SecurityImplications of US Energy Policy’ by DanielVolman (No. 98, December 2003, pp.573-584);also by Volman, ‘US Military Involvement inAfrica’ (No. 103, March 2005, pp.187-189);‘America, China & the Scramble for Africa’s Oil’by Michael Klare & Daniel Volman (No. 108,June 2006, pp. 297-309); ‘US to Create NewRegional Military Command for Africa:AFRICOM’ by Daniel Volman (No.114, Decem-ber 2007, pp.737-744) and last,‘Chad-CameroonOil Pipeline: World Bank and ExxonMobil in‘Last Chance Saloon’ by Jeremy H. Keenan(No.104/5, June/September 2005, pp. 395-405)which specifically looks at the issues raised inthis Sao Tomé briefing:

One of the biggest issues facing globaldevelopment is that oil exports havecontributed so little to the welfare ofdeveloping countries. The ‘paradox ofplenty’, or the ‘resource curse’ as it isgenerally known, is that countries rich innatural resources, especially oil, tend tosuffer from lower living standards, slowergrowth rates and higher incidence ofconflict than their resource-poor counter-parts. Between 1970-1993, for example,resource-poor countries, without petro-leum, grew four times more rapidly thanresource-rich countries, with petroleum,

despite the fact that they had half thesavings. The World Bank and Interna-tional Monetary Fund (IMF) have bothconfirmed that the greater a country’sdependence on oil and mineral resources,the worse its growth performance.

See also, Association of Concerned AfricanScholars at http://concernedafricascholars.org

Founded in 1979, the Association of ConcernedAfrica Scholars (ACAS) is a group of scholarsand students of Africa dedicated to formulatingalternative analyses of Africa and US governmentpolicy, developing communication and actionnetworks between the peoples and scholars ofAfrica and the United States, and mobilizingsupport in the United States on critical, currentissues related to Africa.

Copper & Controversy inthe DR Congo

Henry Kippin

This briefing is concerned with the min-ing industry in the DRC, which spanscopper-cobalt, diamonds, gold, uraniumand tin.1 It pays particular attention tosome recent headlines and controversiesin the copper industry, especially in thelight of a report from British NGO GlobalWitness published in October 2007. Acommonly-heard perspective on the DRCsuggests that, following ostensibly demo-cratic elections in early 2007, a resurgentformal extractive sector represents thecountry’s best chance of emerging from aseemingly continuous cycle of povertyand conflict. Yet as this briefing willshow, any material benefits to the Con-golese population will be contingentupon two key factors: a successful reso-lution to the government’s commissionto review its mining contracts, and thepotential impact of increasing Chineseinvestment in the country.DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411180

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The Copperbelt – which runs throughZambia and Katanga province in theDRC – is said to contain ‘34% of theworld’s cobalt and 10% of the world’scopper’. Although Zambia is betterknown as a copper exporter, huge depos-its lie in the DRC, and during the 1980sthe country’s output amounted to asmuch as ‘7-8% of global production’(Global Witness, 2006:13). During the1990s however, the industry was run toground as state-owned companyGecamines collapsed, along with theeconomic and social infrastructures con-structed around it. And as the countrydescended into war following the top-pling of President Mobutu in 1997, thedestiny of several of its mines changedhands according to the complex andappalling machinations of a conflictinvolving multiple protagonists and in-terests.

In 2002, negotiations between PresidentJoseph Kabila and rebel forces in the eastof the country precipitated a fragilepeace of sorts, and brought forth a periodof transitional government in the coun-try. Many of the problems the Congolesegovernment now seeks to address stemfrom this period, wherein several contro-versial mining contracts were arrangedamidst the embers of the conflict and a‘restructuring’ of Gecamines.

This period of restructuring was overseenby the World Bank, and was centred on‘rewriting the country’s mineral andforestry codes to facilitate private sectorparticipation’2 – the result, according toGlobal Witness, was that ‘numerouslucrative mining agreements were signedin opaque deals between unaccountableand unelected political leaders, miningcompanies and other economic opera-tors’ (Global Witness, 2007:3). One sucharrangement – which will be exploredbelow – has captured the imagination ofthe international press, lending some-what of a ‘soap opera’ element to thecontract review begun in April 2007.

Newly elected officials in the Ministry ofMines well understand the importanceof their review, both in terms of securinga ‘better deal’ for the treasury on royal-ties and ownership, and also in terms ofimpressing on the international commu-nity a perception of positive change inthe country. This is especially importantnow that Chinese interest has begun toimpact in tangible ways – with miningconcessions acting as potential ‘bait’ forluring large-scale investment into indus-trial infrastructure.

Global Witness & the TGI

The October 2007 report from GlobalWitness identified four serious weak-nesses in the contract review, the Tribu-nal de Grand Instance (TGI) being carriedout in Lubumbashi. In brief, these were:

1) A lack of transparency and clarity;

2) An unrealistic timeframe for com-pletion of the review;

3) Inadequate safeguards to protectits independence; and

4) Limited involvement of civilsociety.

If left unaddressed, argued the report, afeeling would remain that a potential‘turning point’ for the industry would bemissed, and that western investors wouldcontinue to tread warily in the sector. Inaddition, D.R. Congo is a signatory to theExtractive Industries Transparency Ini-tiative (EITI), which requires (albeit vol-untarily) that the details of miningcontracts are made available for interna-tional scrutiny. Such weaknesses in thereview process would certainly under-mine these sentiments. In sum, it wasargued that if the above concerns werenot addressed, the outcome would repre-sent ‘business as usual’ in the industry(Global Witness, 2007:2-3).

Briefings: Copper & Controversy in the DR Congo 483

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Potential shortcomings of the TGI are,however, only half of the story, as ‘busi-ness as usual’ owes a great deal to themanoeuvrings of private operators in theCongo. In Katanga, this is epitomised bythe Central African Mining and Explora-tion Company (CAMEC) – a Britishcompany that has been involved in ahigh-profile dispute over the validity ofthree exploration licenses. The tale ofCAMEC’s assets in the region is a goodillustration of the types of issues theMinistry of Mines must deal with if theirreview is to make any meaningful differ-ence, and is a testament to the complexnature of liberalised mining in Africa.

Spinning Controversy

CAMEC is seen as a relatively newcomerin Katanga, yet has established a rapidvisibility (and easy headlines) thanks toassociation with some well-known per-sonalities. Its chairman is Zambian PhilEdmonds, former England spin bowlerand also chairman of White Nile Ltd.which enjoys significant assets in theSudanese oil industry. Another Rhode-sian3 is Billy Rautenbachwith – wantedfor fraud in South Africa, and wasdeclared persona non grata by the DRCgovernment in July 2007.4

The CAMEC controversy centres aroundthree copper-cobalt mining licenses(Mukondo, C19 and C21),5 which wereoriginally owned by Gecamines, butwere transferred to a joint-venture be-tween two different companies in No-vember 1998. One of these – CentralMining Group – was controlled by then-Minister of State in the Presidency Pierre-Victor Moyo; the other was RidgepointeOverseas Development Ltd., controlledby Rautenbach.

It is alleged that the deal was made aspart of an agreement between formerPresident Laurent Kabila and Zimba-bwean President Robert Mugabe (withwhom Rautenbach has enjoyed a favour-able relationship), in return for military

intervention on behalf of the Congolesegovernment. The licenses were trans-ferred apparently without compensa-tion, and, even more controversially,Rautenbach himself was Chief Executiveof Gecamines at the time. In retrospect,this appears to be quite a staggeringconflict of interest.6

The fate of these licenses in the followingten years is confusing,7 but what is clearis that they were passed between compa-nies owned by Rautenbach and JohnBredenkamp – himself another Zimba-bwean tycoon and sometime associate ofIan Smith during the 1970s. Fast forwardto 2007, and the three aforementionedlicenses were secured by CAMEC as partof an 80% take-over of Boss Mining –once again, a company linked withRautenbach. To add another twist to thetale, Rautenbach is currently a signifi-cant shareholder in CAMEC, with astake of approximately 17% at the time ofwriting.

Examining the C19, C21 and Mukondolicenses has been a central plank of theTGI’s review of mining contracts. DeputyMinister Kasongo has been outspoken inhis criticism of CAMEC and Rautenbach,and the company even alleged that anintended take-over of Canadian com-pany Katanga Mining launched in Au-gust 2007 was fatally undermined due todeliberate timing of the aforementionedlicenses being revoked. In the event, aTGI hearing of 17 September approvedand reinstated the contested licenses –perhaps confirming some of the fears ofGlobal Witness, and certainly providinga boost to CAMEC’s share price.8

The story, albeit in truncated form, high-lights the real limits to government con-trol over its mining industry, and servesas an abject example of the precipitouseffects on extractive industries of civilconflict, shock adjustment and unac-countable government. And whilst Glo-bal Witness may be correct as to the needfor transparency and strength from the

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country’s new political leaders, this willcontinue to be undermined without simi-lar sentiments of openness and account-ability from the myriad companies andindividuals involved in the industry.

China in the D.R. Congo

Of course, proper regulation of the cop-per industry in the DRC is of even morepressing concern to the west now thatChina has begun to make its presence feltin the country. In addition to a growingmultinational presence, Chinese invest-ment has also been framed in terms of‘exchange’ – of massive bilateral, multi-sectoral investment ostensibly in returnfor future concessions in copper, dia-mond and gold-producing areas. Recentevidence of this is a proposed $5 billlionloan earmarked for transport, health andeducation infrastructure projects, includ-ing a new railway connecting the miningregions in the south to the western port ofMatadi. The loan has reportedly con-cerned the IMF, who had seen their ownlending initiative halted in 2006 due to‘poor implementation’ of its conditions.DRC country representative Xavier Marethas also warned of the potential macr-oeconomic impact of the loan which, heargued, could problematically distortimports, exports and the exchange rate.9

The international community is clearlyaware of the need for investment in thecountry, yet it appears that this move byChina has taken some people by sur-prise. In actual fact, this is not the firstinstance where Chinese business inter-est in Africa has been enhanced by thewillingness of its government to prop upgovernments with large-scale finance. InAngola a seemingly ‘done deal’ betweenIndian oil multinational ONGC, Shelland Angolan state agency Sonangol wasoverturned at the last minute in favour ofChinese company Sinopec. The clincherwas a Chinese $2bn loan, which allowedthe Angolan government to bypass theconditionalities upon which IMF sup-port had been predicated (Alden,

2007:44). It is not hard to understandwhy the Congolese government sees thistype of support as an attractive option.As Alden (2007:135) puts it: ‘seen froman African perspective, the most signifi-cant dimension on Chinese engagementis that it is a potential source of invest-ment capital and development assist-ance which western sources are eitheruninterested or unwilling to provide’.Nevertheless, it seems that, in one impor-tant sense, Global Witness is absolutelyright about the ‘turning point’ the DRCcurrently finds itself at. If the country’spopulation are to see any benefit frominvestment in its resources, the processof mining contract negotiations mustcontinue to be robust and accountable –and so, too, must the behaviour of theinvestors it seeks to examine. This is trueacross the board, whether Chinese orotherwise.

This briefing has highlighted two recentcontroversies that have brought the Con-golese mining industry back into theinternational press in recent months. Asstability in the country has improved, themining industry once again appears tobe an attractive place to make money,and the two examples given here reflect a‘scramble’ for position within the indus-try as metals and mineral markets boomunder Chinese demand. Having comethrough democratic elections with rela-tive success, the challenge for the DRC’snew government is now to build aneconomic infrastructure that can deliverincreasing prosperity and security to itspopulation. Separating controversy fromcopper is of fundamental importance tothis task.

Henry Kippin, Research Director, AfricanDevelopment Information Services andHonorary Research Fellow, PoliticalEconomy Research Centre (PERC), Uni-versity of Sheffield; e-mail: [email protected]

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Endnotes

1. See AfDevInfo report (2007), ‘ExtractiveIndustries in the DR Congo’: http://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/CG32.aspx

2. Bank Information Centre, ‘World BankImplicated in Controversial DR Congo MiningContracts, 22 Nov. 2006; accessed at http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3021.aspx; see alsoFinancial Times, ‘World Bank faces Questionsover Congo Mining Contracts’, 17 November2006.

3. Edmonds is from northern Rhodesia – nowZambia; Rautenbach is from Zimbabwe.

4. See Mining Weekly (Creamer Media, SouthAfrica), ‘DRC Confirms CAMEC’s Rautenbachwas Deported’, 23 July 2007.

5. C19 and C21 (also known as 467 and 169respectively) are licenses for profitable copper-producing areas of Katanga region. The C19area is home to the Luita copper/cobaltprocessing facility, which is supplied by mineswithin the C19 and C21 areas. According toCAMEC, Gecamines had estimated C19 andC21 to contain ‘circa 1.5 million tonnes copperand 500,000 tonnes cobalt.’ See CAMEC officialwebsite at http://www.camec-plc.com/countries/droc.php. In addition to this, theMukondo concession has been described aspotentially one of the most lucrative in the world.

6. A similar concluion was apparently reachedby the UN Security Council Panel investigatingthe issue; see United Nations (2002), ‘Final Reportof the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitationof Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealthof the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, UNReport Ref: S/2002/1146

7. For a comprehensive review of the process, seeBarry Sergeant’s indispensable article inMineWeb: ‘CAMEC Selling the Family Silverthrough lack of Copper and Cobalt’, 18September 2007; accessed at http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page67?oid=27246&sn=Detail

8. Financial Times: ‘Camec boosted as revokedCongo license is regained’, 20 September 2007.Confirmation was received in March 2008 thatCAMEC’s licenses in the DRC are ‘safe’. As partof this resolution, CAMEC has agreed to increasestate (Gecamines) share in their copper/cobaltventures.

9. See Financial Times: ‘Alarm over China’s CongoDeal’, 19 September 2007; and Reuters, ‘IMFWorried over China’s $5bln loan to Congo’, 3October 2007; accessed at http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL03119345

Bibliography

Alden, C. (2007), China in Africa, London &New York: Zed Books.

Global Witness (2006), ‘Digging in Corruption:Fraud, Abuse and Exploitation in Katanga’sCopper and Cobalt Mines’, Global WitnessReport, July 2006; (2007), ‘The Congolese MiningSector in the Balance’, Global Witness Briefing, 1October 2007.

The Zimbabwe ArmsShipment Campaign

Miles Larmer

Little good news has yet emerged fromZimbabwe’s 2008 elections. However,the refusal by Durban dockworkers inApril to unload Chinese arms importsdestined for Zimbabwe was an impres-sive display of solidarity by unionisedAfrica, one that was supported by wideraction by civil society throughout south-ern Africa and internationally. Veteransof the Anti-Apartheid Movement willhave recalled the action of unioniseddockworkers in the British port of Liver-pool in July 1987, who similarly blockedthe export of uranium to South Africa, aspart of solidarity actions against theapartheid state.

The dockworkers’ initiative provided astark contrast to the apathy of most (butnot all) southern African Heads of Statein confronting the reality that the Zimba-bwean elections were being stolenthrough a systematic process which com-bined bureaucratic delay and system-atic, and highly organised, militia andmilitary violence. This violence was di-rected by the Joint Operations Commandagainst opposition supporters and civilsociety organisations, to disrupt (and

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411198

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even eliminate) the structures of theMovement for Democratic Change (MDC),by physically harming its members, sup-porters and lawyers, stealing ID cardsnecessary for voting and driving peoplefrom their localities, thus preventingthem voting. Perhaps most importantly,the action against the shipment exposedthe inaccurate though widely held viewthat Mugabe’s African critics supportand are influenced by pro-western andimperialist positions, and who can there-fore be characterised and dismissed asthe agents of neo-colonialism.

Whilst the movement against the armsshipment was a dramatic and, at least tosome, surprising initiative, this displayof solidarity did not appear out of no-where. Rather, it can be understood toreflect a number of underlying processeswhich are examined here. The first is ageneral (although highly uneven)strengthening of independent civil soci-ety movements across the southern Afri-can region over the last decade. Secondly,it was a demonstration of the growingalienation of the South African govern-ment (although not the African NationalCongress as a party) from its alliancepartners, the South African CommunistParty (SACP) and the Congress of SouthAfrican Trade Unions (COSATU), aswell as much of wider civil society.Thirdly, it represented the fruits of strenu-ous (and, at times, apparently fruitless)efforts to build regional solidarityamongst trade unions and social move-ments in solidarity with Zimbabweancounterparts over the last five years.Whilst the MDC leadership has focusedon gaining the support of the ‘interna-tional community’ (an effort which hasenabled Mugabe to portray the MDC asthe puppets of western powers), Zimba-bwean civil society – particularly labour,women’s and church-based organisa-tions – have steadily built cross-borderlinks that bore fruit in this campaign.

Timeline of Events

Following the first round of the Zimba-bwean elections on 29 March 2008, thedelay in the release of results whichwould have shown a victory for theMovement for Democratic Change (MDC)provided cover for systematic violenceagainst opposition supporters and othercritics of the ruling Zimbabwe AfricanNational Union – Popular Front (ZANU-PF) party. In this context, the arrival ofthe Chinese container ship, the An YueJiang, off Durban harbour on 14 Aprilprompted fears that the Zimbabweanauthorities were arming themselves inpreparation for the further repression ofMDC supporters during the secondround of elections (fears based on his-torical precedence and ones whichproved well founded, with widespreadviolence subsequently forcing MorganTsvangirai’s withdrawal from the sec-ond round of the Presidential electionson 27 June). The ship’s manifest, leakedto the South African press and the SouthAfrican Transport and Allied WorkersUnion (SATAWU), the union which rep-resents dockworkers, revealed that theAn Yue Jiang was carrying 77 tonnes ofarmaments destined for onward trans-portation to Zimbabwe: these were spe-cifically rocket-propelled grenades,mortars and small arms, three millionrounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortarrounds.1

The reaction of the South African govern-ment was predictable: January Masilela,the South African Defence Secretary,declared that the shipment had beenapproved that week by the NationalConventional Arms Control Committee(NCACC), which he chairs. Masilelaconcluded: ‘This is a normal transactionbetween two sovereign states and we don’thave to interfere.’2

In contrast, Randall Howard, GeneralSecretary of SATAWU, publicly declared:

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We do not believe it will be in the interestof the Zimbabwean people in general ifSouth Africa is seen to be a conduit ofarms and ammunition into Zimbabwe at atime when the situation could be de-scribed as quite volatile.3

Howard, who also serves as the Presi-dent of the International Transport work-ers Federation (ITF), contacted the ITFSecretariat in London, initiating the in-ternational arm of the campaign.

Meanwhile, human rights groups inSouth Africa quickly petitioned the Dur-ban High Court for a freeze on themovement of the arms. The petitionersincluded the Bishop of Durban RubinPhilip, supported by the South AfricanLitigation Centre (SALC) and the OpenSociety Institute of Southern Africa(OSISA).4 They obtained an interim legaljudgement on 18 April that the armscould not be transported overland inSouth Africa, by utilising the Conven-tional Arms Control Act of 2002. TheInternational Network on Small Arms(IANSA) Johannesburg office supportedthese efforts and also mobilised theresources of its London-based secre-tariat. IANSA’s aim was the impound-ing of the ship, to stop not only theoffloading of the arms in Durban, butalso their movement elsewhere.5 Thiswas not successful; although the inter-dict was granted, the Ann Yue Jiang leftDurban harbour on the day of the courtjudgement.

SATAWU and the other campaignersnow sought to ensure that the arms werenot offloaded elsewhere in southern Af-rica; Howard declared:

We again strongly call on all Africangovernments and dock workers to refusethe vessel docking access and to refusehandling the weapons with a view toensuring that the vessel leaves Africanshores immediately. We call on the UnitedNations to bring pressure to bear on theChinese government to practically dem-

onstrate their commitment to recall andstop using the politics of deception …Satawu’s interest only lies with the sixcontainers of lethal weapons on boardbeing boycotted and returned to Beijinguntil the political crisis in Zimbabwe isresolved, in the context of the possibility ofgenuine democracy reinstated based onthe will of the people there. To that extent,we urge local, African and global media toensure that this important humane storyremains in the public discourse until thevessel returns with the weapons on boardas the struggle did not end in Durban on18 April 2008.6

The ITF now used its expertise andnetwork of contacts in the industry totrack the vessel’s movements.7 The shipinitially sailed north to Mozambique;labour unions were alerted to the ship’simminent arrival and prepared to lobbytheir government. However, the An YueJiang lacked a permit to dock in Maputoand the authorities declared that it wouldnot be accepted into Maputo port be-cause, in the words of Transport andCommunications Minister Paulo Zucula,‘we wouldn’t allow it into Mozambicanwaters without prior arrangements.’8 Itthen turned south, as Mozambique re-vealed that its next scheduled destina-tion was Luanda, in Angola. Thepossibility that the ship might land ineither Namibia or Angola, both of whichhave governments previously sympa-thetic to the Mugabe government, raisednew concerns. After liaison with theirSouth African counterparts, civil societyorganisations mobilised in Namibiaagainst the An Yue Jiang, which initiallysought to refuel at Walvis Bay. On 24April, 200 Namibians, mobilised bychurch-based organisations and the Le-gal Assistance Centre, marched to theChinese embassy in Windhoek in protestagainst the shipment. Bishop ZephaniaKameeta told the demonstration that thearms shipment threatened to destroygood relations between China and Af-rica.9

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This emphasis on in-country activityreflected a major priority for IANSA andother organisations, that the campaignshould be locally owned. As JosephDube, IANSA’s Africa Coordinator basedin Johannesburg argues, the SADC Headsof States’ reluctance to respond to ‘out-side voices’ on Zimbabwe meant it wascrucial that the campaign activities werereflective of the priorities and approachesof civil society in the countries involved,so that it could not be portrayed as awestern-controlled campaign.10 IANSA’sLondon-based Secretariat sought to en-sure continued media interest in theship’s movements, linking it to its widercampaign for an international ArmsTrade Treaty. Sustaining press coveragebecame more difficult once the vesselwas out of South African waters.

On 24 April, the ship was rumoured to beheading for Lobito. The following day,the Angolan government declared that itwould allow the An Yue Jiang to dock inLuanda, but that the vessel would onlybe allowed to offload ‘merchandise des-tined for Angola’.11 The Angolan Councilfor Human Rights was mobilised, andlocal trade unionists were contacted, butit proved more difficult to establish anopen campaign against the shipment inAngola (for reasons examined below). Atthe same time, the ship was recalled toChina by its owners, the state-ownedChinese Ocean Shipping Company(Cosco). The An Yue Jiang remained inLuanda harbour for some days, off-loading cement and other supplies. Itwas reported to have left Luanda on 6May.

In mid-May, there were widespread re-ports that the arms had in fact foundtheir way to Zimbabwe – having beenoffloaded in (variously) Luanda, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, orCongo-Brazzaville. Some civil societyorganisations and the ITF ridiculed theseclaims, whilst the Chinese embassy inSouth Africa explicitly stated that theweapons were being returned to China.12

Nevertheless, doubts have been raisedregarding the success of the campaign,something which is addressed below.

Local & Global solidarity, Old &New Tactics

The brief and successful campaignagainst the arms shipment incorporatedboth traditional and more modern socialmovement tactics. On a regional andinternational level, email, web links andcell phones enabled the rapid sharing ofinformation. Organisers were able toidentify and contact civil society activ-ists in particular countries where it wasfeared the arms shipments would betaken to next, or possibly be transportedthrough, to reach Zimbabwe. The latestintelligence was shared in seconds withactivists across the region and the world.

Important activist and campaigning net-works served to coordinate the globalcampaign: Avaaz and the InternationalNetwork on Small Arms (IANSA) bothplayed an important role, establishingand circulating a petition, which wasthen posted on many websites. Mean-while, a host of bloggers monitored thereported movements of the vessel usingLloyds of London’s Maritime Intelli-gence Unit; this proved impossible for acouple of days, when the An Yue Jiang’stransponder was temporarily turned off.13

Of course, such short-term internationalcampaigns, organised largely in hyper-space, have a tendency to escape thecontrol of their initiators. Stories, peti-tions and emails were forwarded con-tinuously with little reference to theirorigin; blogs blend unverifiable fact withoccasionally unpalatable opinion.Internet-based techniques are undeni-ably useful for such urgent campaignswith specific aims, but also carry thedanger of a loss of ownership andlegitimacy when applied to longer-termcampaigns with more complex objec-tives. In this case, stories and rumoursregarding the ship abounded on the


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internet – it was reported to have beenlanded in Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville,14 and rumours circulatedthat the ship had been ‘offloaded’ ontosmaller vessels at sea, despite the techni-cal impossibilities involved; the ITFsought to scotch such rumours, but thiswas not entirely successful.15

One important story which continues tocirculate on the internet is that origi-nated by Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister ofInformation Bright Matonga, who an-nounced some weeks ago at a pressconference that the arms shipment hadin fact been delivered to Zimbabwe.16 Hisclaim was not supported by other gov-ernment officials and was specificallydenied by the Minister of Defence, but ithas continued to circulate. The ITF,having tracked the movements of the AnYue Jiang closely, ultimately to its returnto Shanghai in mid-June, are certain thatthe arms remain onboard, with no op-portunity for them to be unloaded unob-served.17

If much of the campaign’s internationalpublicity and profile was generated onthe internet, it was on the ground inSouth Africa where the campaign began.Here, it was initiated by rank-and-filedockworkers, utilising one of the oldestforms of solidarity action – a refusal byworkers to handle goods. Durban is ofcourse a centre of working-class actionwith a long and proud history; the 1973dock strikes were central to the resur-gence of the internal struggle againstapartheid. SATAWU was established in2000 to represent not only dock workersbut also railworkers, who have initiatedmilitant and sometimes violent wagecampaigns in recent years. SATAWUwas central to the campaign, represent-ing the local membership which couldensure the boycott of the goods waseffective, but also utilising its interna-tional linkages to the ITF in particular.The ITF, as well as monitoring the move-ments of the vessel, also sought to mobi-lise labour organisations in the region,

but was hampered by both communica-tions problems, and by the uneven devel-opment of international labour linkagesin southern Africa. They worked withInternational Trade Union Confedera-tion officials to identify union contacts inAngola and Mozambique who couldalert local dockworkers to the issue. TheITF also worked alongside establishednetworks of international NGOs; here,the need for consultation and coordina-tion of activities did not always reflectthe need for urgent concrete actions.

South-South Solidarity

The campaign of solidarity in southernAfrica in general, and South Africa inparticular, would not have been possiblewithout nearly a decade of patient soli-darity work by a range of civil societyorganisations and social movements,linking Zimbabwean activists and theircounterparts in the region. In a context inwhich the South African governmenthas been habitually sympathetic to itsZimbabwean counterpart, the range andextent of this solidarity has generallybeen overlooked by observers.

Those involved in such initiatives havefaced considerable challenges. In Johan-nesburg, the wider Gauteng provinceand other parts of northern South Africa,the influx of millions of Zimbabweanrefugees over the last decade has fuelledthe xenophobic feelings of many poorSouth Africans. The widespread stere-otyping of Zimbabweans resident inSouth Africa as both criminals and asworkers desperate enough prepared toundercut South African wages createdsignificant anti-Zimbabwean feeling, ex-pressed in the horrifying wave of xeno-phobic attacks in South Africa in May2008. Against this, organisations suchas the Solidarity Peace Trust have soughtto raise awareness of the oppression ofZimbabweans at home, and their suffer-ing inside South Africa, for example theirpoor treatment by inadequate immigra-tion services. The Centre for the Study of

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Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) inJohannesburg hosted many of these ac-tivities. OSISA and the Media Institute ofSouthern Africa played an importantrole in coordinating meetings in Johan-nesburg from around 2002, whilst ElinorSisulu played a leading role in raisingmedia attention of the plight of Zimba-bwean refugees in South Africa.18 Thesegroups struggled to mobilise the vastZimbabwean exile population in thecountry – few were willing to drawattention to themselves, thereby riskingtheir precarious residential status. Nev-ertheless, it was precisely these organi-sations and the networks they createdwhich were key to the rapid organisa-tional and legal mobilisation which tookplace over the arms shipment; indeed, itcan be argued that such a responsewould not have been possible withoutthe painstaking effort in laying thegroundwork over recent years.

Sectoral solidarity has also become in-creasingly important. Women’s organi-sations, particularly Women ofZimbabwe Arise (WOZA), made linkswith their counterparts in South Africa.Similarly, ties between particularchurches with a base in both countriesenabled practical solidarity efforts suchas the provision of food and medicines;such activities took place below theradar of larger civil society organisa-tions. The labour movement, in particu-lar, has built on existing but relativelyweak official linkages via the SouthernAfrican Trade Union Coordination Coun-cil (SATUCC) to good effect, contributingto a significant estrangement betweenCOSATU and the ANC government overthe issue. For example, in the run-up tothe Presidential run-off in June, COSATUsought to raise solidarity with the lead-ers of the Zimbabwe Congress of TradeUnions, who have been charged with‘spreading falsehoods prejudicial to thestate’.

Regional State-Civil SocietyRelations vis-à-vis Zimbabwe

Nevertheless, the capacity of civil societyto influence regional policy and actionon Zimbabwe should not be overstated.Indeed, the influence of civil society andsocial movements on the policies ofsouthern African governments remainsboth limited and highly uneven.

In South Africa, COSATU’s backing ofthe new ANC President, Jacob Zuma,has borne fruit with his highlighting ofthe problems in Zimbabwe, declaring inlate June that the situation in the countrywas out of control and that ‘We cannotagree with Zanu-PF. We cannot agreewith them on values.’19 Zuma’s remarkswere in marked contrast to the increas-ingly embattled complacency of govern-ment President Thabo Mbeki, who hadnotoriously stated during his post-elec-tion visit that there was ‘no crisis’ inZimbabwe.20 Zuma’s credentials in theliberation struggle, and his Africanistand populist appeal, might at first glancemake him an unlikely champion of lib-eral democracy. Whatever his personalfeelings, the Zimbabwe issue has ena-bled Zuma to further embarrass andisolate Mbeki, reflect the concerns of hissupporters in COSATU, and reach out tointernational opinion concerned aboutthe prospect of a Zuma presidency.Nevertheless, during his meeting in Lon-don with UK Prime Minister GordonBrown in April, Zuma was not preparedto publicly support a full arms embargoagainst Zimbabwe.

One of the demands of the Zimbabweanopposition has been the removal of Mbekias the Southern African DevelopmentCommunity’s (SADC) mediator on Zim-babwe, and his replacement with Zam-bian President Levy Mwanawasa, thecurrent head of the regional body. Fol-lowing Mozambique’s action in rejectingthe vessel, Mwanawasa issued a specificrequest to SADC member states on 22April to bar the arms shipment from their


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territory, arguing that the arrival of theweapons could exacerbate Zimbabwe’spolitical crisis: ‘I hope this will be thecase with all the countries because wedon’t want a situation which will esca-late the tension in Zimbabwe more thanwhat it is’, Mwanawasa declared.21 Thiscreated severe diplomatic tension be-tween Zambia and Zimbabwe, with bothgovernments trading insults in the me-dia on an almost daily basis in May.Mwanawasa’s critical stance towardsZimbabwe is undoubtedly symptomaticof his government’s pro-western lean-ings, but is also a reflection of thecountry’s renewed sense of purpose andprosperity, symbolised by its achieve-ment of debt relief and rising governmentrevenue achieved via recent increases inmine taxes. Having previously clashedwith Zambian domestic civil society overissues such as constitutional reform,Zimbabwe provides an issue aroundwhich the Zambian government and itsdomestic critics can unite. Despite thefact that the Chinese are major investorsin Zambia, Mwanawasa also offered amild and somewhat oblique criticism oftheir role, arguing that the ‘Chinese canplay a very useful role in Zimbabwewithout the use of arms.’22

In sharp contrast, the Angolan govern-ment remains largely impervious to bothinternal political pressure and, insu-lated by high oil prices, internationaldonor pressure. It is evident that, with-out the campaign’s efforts and the real-time scrutiny of the ship’s movements,the An Yue Jiang would have docked inLuanda and the armaments would havebeen offloaded. The ITF ensured that itscontacts were presented in Luanda at thetime the ship docked; these individualswere able to monitor the veracity of theAngolan government’s pledge that thearms would not be offloaded.23 The PortWorkers’ Union of Angola appears tohave been an important source of infor-mation to the campaign; in a countrywhere independent civil society remainsweak, international trade union connec-

tions appeared all the more significant.However, IANSA struggled to persuadeAngolan civil society representatives tomake on-the-record statements, for fearof reprisals.24 Coverage of the Angolansituation was also severely limited by thelack of English-speaking media in thecountry.

Nevertheless, the Angolan government’srapid announcement that the Zimba-bwean arms shipment would not beoffloaded in Luanda was perhaps also areflection of its close and coordinatedrelationship with China, which has ap-parently distanced itself somewhat fromthe ailing Mugabe regime in recentmonths, having tired of denying Harare’sunilateral declarations of Chinese in-vestments in the country, as well as notbeing paid for their supplies. Character-istically, Chinese statements initiallysought to defend the arms shipment as anormal commercial operation; however,as has occurred in relation to its opera-tions in Sudan and elsewhere, the Chi-nese state is increasingly aware of thelimitations of its attempts to deny anyresponsibility for the political conse-quences of its commercial operations inAfrica.

Finally, the arms shipment campaignalso provided a timely reminder that themost effective grassroots opposition tothe Mugabe regime has, over the lastdecade, been provided not by politicalparties, but by civil society and socialmovements. Whilst the MDC has createdproblems for itself by its western orienta-tion and partial adoption of neo-liberalpolicies, it should not be forgotten thatthe party had its origins in the wave ofpopular discontent of 1997-99, when theZCTU, then headed by MorganTsvangirai, played a central role in es-tablishing the MDC, which initially pro-claimed itself a social democratic party.In its first few years as an independentpolitical party, the MDC alienated manyof its social movement supporters byabandoning approaches based on mass

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mobilisation and by adopting a pro-western stance that aided Mugabe’s ef-forts to portray it as a neo-colonialpuppet. It was slow to realise that at-tempts to gain support solely on thebasis of Harare’s human rights recordhad little purchase in Africa, appearingto reflect Western concerns rather thanthe need to overcome the (still relevant)colonial legacy, particularly inequalitiesover land ownership (something whichMugabe has of course failed to overcomein his 28 years in power).

Despite this, and notwithstanding thesuppression of their activities by theZimbabwean state, the country’s socialmovement activists have continued toplay an important role in raising aware-ness about their plight and seeking tomobilise solidarity action in southernAfrica in general, and South Africa inparticular. The fruits of this ongoingactivity, little noticed by the mainstreammedia, were realised in the successfulboycott campaign against the An YueJiang. Following the failure of the 2008election to realise the Zimbabwean peo-ple’s hopes for political transition, itmay be that a coordinated combinationof local, regional and international civilsociety initiatives on provides an impor-tant beacon of hope in a generally bleakvista.

Endnotes

1. ‘Dockers refuse to unload China armsshipment for Zimbabwe’, Times (UK) Online, 18April 2008; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3772113.ece

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. ‘Sent Sailing: How SA legal experts fought offarms ship’, Legal Brief, 14 May 2008; http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20080514164912609

5. Interview, Louise Rimmer, IANSA Commun-ications Officer, and Joseph Dube, AfricaCoordinator, 25 June 2008.

6. ‘Satawu cautions on Chinese arms ship still atsea’, SABC news.com, 8 May 2008; http://

www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,2172,169102,00.html

7. Interview, Sam Dawson, InternationalTransport workers Federation, 18 June 2008.

8. ‘Zimbabwe arms ship heads for Angola,Mozambique says’, Reuters, 19 April 2008;http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1862930420080419

9. ‘Namibians say no to arms’, The Namibian, 25April 2008; http://www.lac.org.na/news/inthenews/news-20080425.html

10. Dube interview.

11. ‘Chinese arms ship allowed to dock in Angola:report’, ABC News (Australia), 26 April 2008;http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/26/2227915.htm

12. ‘Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson: ‘AnYue Jiang’ now on its way home, ‘weaponsdelivered’ utterly groundless, 23 May 2008; http://www.chinese-embassy.org.za/eng/zxxx/t439666.htm

13. Dawson interview.

14. ‘Zimbabwe arms shipment still at large’, 8May 2008; http://www.osisa.org/node/11105


16. See for example, ‘Chinese arm shipmentarrived in Zimbabwe?’, Danwei, 9 May 2008;http://www.danwei.org/china_and_africa/chinese_arm_shipment_arrived_i.php


18. The author attended a number of thesemeetings in 2005-06.

19. ‘Zuma: Zimbabwe is out of control’, Mail &Guardian (South Africa), 27 June 2008: http://ww2.mg.co.za/article/2008-06-24-zuma-zimbabwe-is-out-of-control

20. ‘No crisis in Zimbabwe, says Mbeki’, Mail &Guardian (South Africa), 12 April 2008; http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-04-12-no-crisis-in-zimbabwe-says-mbeki

21. ‘China may recall Zimbabwe weapons’, BBC,22 April 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7360438.stm

22. ‘Zambia calls on regional states to barChinese arms ship, France 24/Reuters, 22 April2008; http://www.france24.com/en/20080422-zambia-calls-african-states-bar-chinese-arms-ship-china-zambia


24. Rimmer interview.


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Child Poverty in Africa

Meredeth Turshen

The African Child Policy Forum,1 a non-profit pan-African policy and advocacycentre working on the rights and wellbe-ing of children, convened the ThirdInternational Policy Conference on theAfrican Child from 12 to 13 May 2008 atthe UN Conference Centre in AddisAbaba.2 A biennial event, this year’sconference focused on child poverty andapproached it from the angle of chil-dren’s rights, a position not frequentlytaken. More commonly, poverty is de-scribed in terms of humanitarian disas-ters, food shortages, health crises such asthe AIDS pandemic, education deficits,and a decline in the capacity of futuregenerations of Africans to improve theirlives. Human rights and poverty seem tobe separate fields with bodies of litera-ture that rarely overlap.

The keynote speaker was ProfessorYanghee Lee (Sungkyunkwan Univer-sity, South Korea), who is the currentchair of the UN Committee on the Rightsof the Child. Defending child rights andsupporting the importance of analysingpoverty as a rights issue, she describedchildren living in poverty as those de-prived of their right to protection, deniedaccess to food, water, and sanitationfacilities, and cut off from basic educa-tion, shelter, and healthcare services.Poverty is most threatening and harmfulto children, leaving them unable to enjoytheir rights, to reach their full potential,and to participate as full members ofsociety.

Over 40% of sub-Saharan Africans liveon less than US$1 per day, according tothe World Bank; the extremely poor arethose living on less than 50 cents a day.The proportion of children living belownational poverty lines is higher thanadults in many African countries. House-hold size makes a difference: the inci-

dence of child poverty is higher amonglarge families. For example, 55% of SouthAfrican households with four or morechildren are in the lowest income quintileas compared to 14% of households withone child. Among the most vulnerableare children in women headed house-holds, orphans, and children with dis-abilities. Armed conflict and the AIDSpandemic are thought to be responsiblefor pushing children into these situa-tions of greater vulnerability to poverty.

Poverty is the likely reason children failto attend school or fail to reach the lastgrade of primary education. The cost ofchild poverty is high in terms of bothhuman and financial capital: death ratesbefore the age of five in the poorest 20% ofthe population are at least twice as highas rates in the richest 20%. Over 26% ofall 5 to 14 year olds are working in sub-Saharan Africa.

Child poverty is not exclusive to Africaand four speakers addressed problemsof child poverty in India and Europe. A.K. Shiva Kumar, Professor at the Institutefor Human Development, New Delhi,compared India with the African conti-nent and found India behind on suchmeasures of child wellbeing as the per-centage of malnourished children (43%moderately to severely underweight inIndia, 28% in sub-Saharan Africa), whichhe attributed to stark inequalities andacute discrimination against girls inIndian society. Despite the past decadeof economic growth, child poverty de-clined only 1%, showing that economicgrowth does not necessarily translateinto reduced poverty or less inequality.For growth to lead to improvements inIndian children’s lives there would haveto be more public investment, betterpublic management, greater public par-ticipation with a louder public voice (forexample in social audits, independentmedia, and vigilance in monitoring andreporting on government programmes),and a change in public values, especiallyrespect for the law.

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411214

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Marta Santos Pais, Director of the UNICEFInnocenti Research Centre, reviewed theplight of children in the Central Euro-pean shift to market economies. Despitehigh percentages of children in theirpopulations, few Central European gov-ernments place children high on theagenda in their national action plans onpoverty. One in four children lives inextreme poverty, and disparities betweenand within countries are widening. Themultidimensional aspects of poverty re-main unstudied and disaggregated dataare lacking: little information is availableon social exclusion and the stigmatiza-tion of ethnic minorities like the Roma,while the correlation of poverty withhigh rates of child abandonment andinstitutionalization is assumed ratherthan demonstrated.

Hugh Frazer, advisor to the EuropeanAnti-Poverty Network, discussed the2001 strategy of the European Union topromote social inclusion and eradicatepoverty especially among children, aplan made urgent by ageing populationsand slow population growth that callinto question the future of social securitysystems. Four core areas of needs emergedfrom analyses of the data: adequateincome, improved access to services,

early prevention, and participation (earlyintervention and prevention as well as abalance between universal and targetedpolicies were cross-cutting themes). Thedata on child poverty reduction acrossthe European Union are stunning, andmost of the gains are due to socialtransfer programmes (the only exceptionis Turkey, an anomaly that was notexplained).3

Peter Townsend, Professor of Interna-tional Social Policy, London School ofEconomics, picked up on the theme ofchild benefits, declaring that they couldsave 300 million African children fromextreme deprivation. To pay for the bene-fits, he proposed a new type of currencytransfer tax (like the Tobin tax): 1% ofpayroll taxes from transnational corpo-rations operating in regions with largenumbers of children in poverty (yieldingabout $500 billion); the tax would fund aUN network of centres that would givecash or in-kind benefits to families withchildren. Townsend argued that the lan-guage of human rights changes theanalysis of world conditions, shiftingfrom personal failures of the poor to theresponsibilities of international finan-cial institutions, the G8, and transnationalcorporations. He cited the paltry $2.4billion the World Bank has loaned for

Briefings: Child Poverty in Africa 495

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social protection, comparing it to the$210 billion the UK has spent.

The Gender Dimension of ChildPoverty

My own brief was to consider the genderdimension of child poverty. Althoughoffices of national statistics are makingprogress on publishing disaggregateddata in vital statistics, health, and educa-tion, they do not publish data on childpoverty disaggregated by sex since childpoverty is a reflection of family circum-stances. In effect the poverty of boys isnot separate from the poverty of theirsisters. Yet African women represent70% of the poor, so the issue is to findways to measure the impact of the dis-criminatory systems operating in child-hood that lead girls to greater poverty inadulthood. If we are to correlate povertywith gender, then we need both datadisaggregated by sex and gendered in-formation about the different roles, socialstatus, economic, and political power ofwomen and men in society. A gendereddefinition of poverty measures more thanwealth and income, but policy makerstend to treat gender in isolation fromstructural analyses of inequality. Anexclusive emphasis on gender roles leadsto a focus on behavioural change at theindividual level, rather than on policychange at the societal level.

Because gender means more than male/female differences, we need to know thedynamics of discrimination and subor-dination between the sexes. Without thesocial and economic contexts that estab-lish power differentials, gender is mis-used as a synonym for the female sex.These social and economic contexts arefound within families and communities,within nations, and in global relationsbetween North and South. In societiesthat prefer and privilege sons, we knowthat daughters may not survive preg-nancy and childbirth, may suffer or diein infancy and childhood from malnutri-tion and lack of medical attention to

childhood diseases, and will attendschool irregularly and receive fewer yearsof education than their brothers.

To assess the multilayered aspects ofsubordination, the United Nations Com-mission on Human Rights has devel-oped the concept of intersectionality, theexperience of discrimination on morethan one ground. Racism, patriarchy,economic disadvantage, and other dis-criminatory systems create layers of in-equality that structure the relativepositions of females and males, racialand other groups. Intersectionality de-scribes the way that specific acts andpolicies create burdens that flow alongthese intersecting axes, creating a dy-namic of disempowerment (Coomara-swamy, 2001).

The Commission on Human Rights dis-tinguishes three types of intersectionalsubordination: targeted discrimination(ethnically motivated gender-specificforms of violence; rape in civil conflicts isan example); compound discrimination(discrimination against girls and womenwho are also members of a subordinateracial or ethnic group); and structuraldiscrimination (where policies intersectwith underlying structures of inequalityto create a compound burden for particu-larly vulnerable girls and women).

Although gross poverty data exist forNorth/South differences and for male/female income differences, the data onracial, ethnic, and religious numericalminorities within countries of the Southare largely nonexistent. In an issue of theBulletin of the World Health Organizationdevoted to the theme of inequality andhealth, a comparative study of childmortality in nine developing countriesshows that the largest difference be-tween poor and non-poor occurs inBrazil (Wagstaff, 2000), which is a highlyunequal society. Such comparative stud-ies are rare and unfortunately this onedoes not differentiate between boys andgirls. Another article on child mortality

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in the same issue of the WHO Bulletinobserves ‘there has been no systematicexamination of ethnic inequality in childsurvival chances across countries in the[sub-Saharan African] region’ (Brocker-hoff & Hewitt, 2000:30). Geographicallocation of ethnic groups (residence inthe largest city), household economicconditions, educational attainment andnutritional status of the mothers, use ofbiomedical maternal and child healthservices including immunization, andpatterns of fertility and migration werethe criteria for determining inequality.The authors report no breakdown by sex.Racism, sexism, class prejudice, anddiscrimination – as either the legacy ofcolonial rule or the result of internecinepower struggles – were apparently notissues considered relevant to inequality.

Although statistical offices have docu-mented the association of high levels ofincome inequality and poor health, re-searchers have not explained the unevenexperiences of minority communities thatdo not have the same rates of sicknessand death. Societies privilege some mi-norities like whites in Namibia, andsocial cohesion mitigates risk in otherminority communities. It is not enough,however, to trace disparities in healthstatus to disparate treatment, or to showthe different outcomes that result fromthe minimal and delayed care of disad-vantaged minorities when we control forsocioeconomic status and access to healthcare. Intersectionality promises a muchricher and deeper understanding of girls’and boys’ poverty and health.

War dramatically and fundamentallyalters life prospects for girls and boys. Itmay provide new opportunities – a fewboys may use the military to advanceand a few girls may take on roles previ-ously denied them – but most girls facemore constraints in wartime. Govern-ment protections falter or fail, their fami-lies may be displaced or even broken up,and their communities often becomemore conservative and xenophobic dur-

ing armed conflict. Poverty in wartimetakes on a different character; war re-veals the stark nature of poverty shorn ofthe mitigating context of neighbourlysolidarity and familial networks of mu-tual assistance.

One assumes that the purpose of improv-ing qualitative and quantitative dataabout child poverty is to better target aidprogrammes. Targeting is the approachthat, unfortunately, is currently the norm,and an older style of universal pro-grammes that had neither means tests toqualify for aid nor other limitations likeage and group affiliation is out of favour.The objections to targeted programmesare that they are expensive to administer,not transformative, not redistributive (de-spite claims to the contrary), and do notlead to structural change.4 At best tar-geted programmes bring about incre-mental improvements in the lot of targetedgroups, which are often defined as ‘vul-nerable’ with little elaboration of thestructures that create vulnerability.

Feminists have criticized a falseuniversalism that masks male-biasedarrangements, yet they have founduniversalistic social policies effective ineliminating forms of inequality in socialframeworks that assume that males arethe breadwinners and heads of house-hold. Policies friendly to women andgirls are found in societies that base theirsocial policies on notions of social citi-zenship and on universalism as anintegral part of social policies (Mkanda-wire, 2005).

If we are to address the gender dimen-sion of child poverty, it seems that adifferent sort of research design – lead-ing perhaps to other kinds of projects – isneeded. Research could be designed togather data on girls’ and boys’ pathwaysfrom poverty in childhood and adoles-cence to an impoverished or better-off lifein adulthood. Examination of these tra-jectories in cohort studies might revealthe points of divergence in girls’ and


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boys’ lives that lead to more poverty inadulthood for women. Such researchshould be both qualitative and quantita-tive, tracing children’s life chances andsetbacks in gendered settings.

The young lives research project onchildhood poverty in Ethiopia5 revealsthe many contradictions involved incurrent poverty reduction programmes:for example, the conflict between labour-intensive development approaches andchild welfare (labour-intensity under-mines child welfare by increasing chil-dren’s work burden). If boys are typicallypulled out of school to work in familyenterprises or earn wages, and girls dropout to work at home substituting formothers occupied by income-generatingprojects, why is the outcome of their lackof education different? Do boys requireless education to get out of poverty or dothey learn skills on the job that help themin adulthood? Do girls require moreeducation to overcome gender stereotypesand discriminatory systems or do do-mestic chores deprive them of the practi-cal knowledge and experience they willneed to take advantage of occupationalopportunities? Only a combination ofqualitative and quantitative field researchwill yield answers to these questions,and only operations research will pro-vide the designs for projects that helpovercome the obstacles to eliminatingchild poverty.

Food Security & AIDS

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Insti-tute at Columbia University, addressedthe current food crisis. Africa is a netfood importer, and grain prices haverisen two to three times as energy pricessoar. Africa is chronically hungry be-cause its food productivity is the lowestin the world. Yields are typically 3-5 tonsper hectare elsewhere and 1 ton perhectare in Africa because of poor seedsand little fertilizer. Poverty precludes thepurchase of inputs, and soil depletionamplifies low productivity. African agri-

culture is 96% rainfed (in a period ofdwindling rainfall), while population isrising and subdivisions create ever-smaller farms.

The current food crisis is a conjunction ofrising world demand, which is outpacingproduction under an increase in climateshocks, and the diversion of food cropsinto biofuels to counter scarce oil sup-plies. Sachs believes we are in a new eraof rising commodity prices (and not justfood). Emergency food supplies are not asolution to long-term problems. Africaneeds a Green Revolution, a revolvingfund to finance critical inputs –irrigation, fertilizer, and genetically modi-fied high-yield seeds. Increased invest-ment in agriculture must accompanymore schooling (with no fees), clinics formalaria (with no user fees), and betterinfrastructure (roads, electricity, cellphone coverage, water and sanitation).

Sachs blamed the rich countries forfailing to honour pledges of 0.7% of GDPin aid and on spending too much on themilitary. He had an echo chamber inpanelists from the International FoodPolicy Research Institute (ShahidurRashid & Alemayehu Seyoum), the UNWorld Food Programme (Jakob Mik-kelsen), and the World Bank (HaroldAlderman).

Stephen Lewis, former UN Special En-voy for AIDS in Africa, also took the richcountries to task for failing to write offThird World debt (while saving banks inthe mortgage crisis), continuing to subsi-dise agriculture, protecting patenteddrugs, and giving a fraction of promisedaid (the USA gives 0.18% of GDP whilespending $3 billion on the war in Iraq).AIDS complicates everything and exac-erbates poverty.6 It wrecks children’slives when their families and communi-ties fall apart; 85% of orphans receive noform of aid and most (40-60%) are lookedafter by grandmothers. Gender inequal-ity and poverty drive the pandemic.Lewis recommended the creation of a

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new UN agency for women and sug-gested $1.6 billion initial funding. Whilehe mentioned the food crisis in passing,he made no direct link between AIDSand food security

In response, Dharam Ghai, former Ex-ecutive Director of UNRISD, wonderedabout the global context of the food crisis,which was occurring worldwide, notjust in Africa. Why is the crisis happen-ing now? Is it a short-term crisis? Or,remembering the 1970s food crisis whenworld population was only 4 billion andpressures on the environment were fewer,is it a cyclical phenomenon? Or is it along-term structural crisis? Ghai said hewas disillusioned and no longer believesin aid; the South must become self-reliantif it is to gain strategic strength and makethe world listen (viz. China). Africanleadership is dysfunctional, he said, adeclaration contested by Urban Jonsson,former senior advisor to UNICEF onHuman Rights Based Approach to Pro-gramming. Jonsson pointed out that Af-rica has changed since 1960; there ismore peace, more efforts for democracy,an end to apartheid. AIDS has crushedmany dreams.

Creation of the Africa Movementfor Children

A satellite conference – the Second AllAfrica Consultative Conference of Child,Youth and Human Rights Organisa-tions – met on 11 May 2008 and createdthe Africa Movement for Children(AMC).7 AMC, which is composed ofover 200 NGOs around Africa, has sev-eral purposes: to build solidarity amongAfrican NGOS, to be a lobby to speak onbehalf of children, and to build supportfor NGOs under pressure at home.

Four principles govern the AMC:panAfricanism, universalism, children’srights, and children’s participation. ThepanAfrican approach is seen as essen-tial to standardizing legislation for theprotection of children and in resolving

issues like paedophilia and trafficking,which require an Africa-wide approach.Children’s participation is a first prior-ity, and questions were raised about howto associate children. The UN GeneralAssembly will celebrate the 20th anniver-sary of Convention on the Rights of theChild in 2009. For this occasion theAfrica Movement for Children will createa plan of action and decide on theorganisation’s final structure.

Meredeth Turshen, Rutgers University; e-mail: [email protected]

Endnotes

1. The African Child Policy Forum is based inAddis Ababa; Assefa Bequele is ExecutiveDirector, and Salim Ahmed Salim is Chairpersonof the International Board of Trustees. http://www.africanchildforum.org. ACPF is supportedby International Child Support, Plan Inter-national, Save the Children UK, ILO, UNICEF,and UNFPA.

2. The ACPF prepared several backgroundpapers for the conference, notably country studiesof child poverty in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia,Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania (see thewebsite for all ACPF documents http://www.africanchildforum.org).

3. Hoelscher, Petra. 2008. Assessing the impactsof policies on children. UNICEF Global ChildPoverty Study, CEE/CIS Regional Meeting,Tashkent, 2-4 April 2008.

4. A targeting rationale drives World Bankstructural adjustment programmes and PSRPs(Mkandawire 2005).

5. Young Lives Research Project: ChildhoodPoverty in Ethiopia, www.idrc.ca/en/ev-73382-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

6. See statistics in Report of the Secretary-General‘Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS andPolitical Declaration on HIV/AIDS: midway tothe Millennium Development Goals’. http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2008/07_unaids_annual_report1_en.pdf and Report of theUN Secretary General, ‘Declaration ofCommitment on HIV/AIDS: five years later’.http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2006/20060324_SGReport_GA_A60737_en.pdf

7. The AMC Steering Committee convenor isWambui Njuguna (African Network for thePrevention and Protection of Child Abuse and


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Neglect); Steering Committee members areAssefa Bequele (African Child Policy Forum),Tounkara Tambake (African Movement ofWorking Children), Moussa Sissoko (Coalitionof African NGOs Working with Children),Fabrizio Terenzio (ENDA TM Jeunesse Action),Samantha Waterhouse (Resources aimed atPrevention of Child Abuse and Neglect), GeorgeNyakora (SOS Kinderdorf), Stella Ayo Odongo(Ugandan Child Rights NGO network).Individuals can join as well as organizations.Wambui Njuguna was elected President andMoussa Sissoko Vice President; ACPF willprovide the Secretariat. In addition five regionalcustodians were elected (using the AUdemarcation of African regions).

References

Brockerhoff, M. & P. Hewitt (2000), Inequalityof child mortality among ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa, Bulletin of the World HealthOrganization 78(1):30-41

Coomaraswamy, R. (2001), Contribution on thesubject of race, gender and violence againstwomen. World Conference against Racism,Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and RelatedIntolerance. A/CONF.189/PC.3/5 27 July.

Mkandawire, Thandika (2005), Targeting andUniversalism in Poverty Reduction UNRISDSocial Policy and Development ProgrammePaper No. 23.

Wagstaff, A. (2000), Socioeconomic inequalitiesin child mortality: comparisons across ninedeveloping countries. Bulletin of the World HealthOrganization 78(1):19-29.

Memories of Ruth First inMozambiqueJoão Paulo Borges Coelho

João Paulo Borges Coelho is a Mozambicanhistorian working at the UniversityEduardo Mondlane in Maputo. Born in1955, he grew up Beira, in the centre ofMozmabique. He studied at University inMaputo and completed his Ph.D. at theUniversity of Bradford on ‘State Resettle-ment Policies, Development and War’(1993). His academic work has focused onnationalism, war, demobilisation, reinte-gration, and peace resolution.

Since 1995, João Paulo Borges Coelho haswritten seven novels (As Duas Sombrasdo Rio, 2003; As Visitas do Dr. Valdez,2004; Índicos Indícios I. Setentrião, 2005;Índicos Indícios II. Meridião, 2005; Crónicada Rua 513.2, 2006; Campo de Trênsito,2006; and Hinyambaan, 2007) and wonthe Craveirinha prize of the Mozambicanwriters’ association in 2006. His novelCampo de Trânsito deals with a controver-sial episode in post-colonial history, namelythe deportation of thousands of so-calledunproductive people in the countryside inan operation named ‘Operation Produc-tion’.

This text was presented at a workshopheld in Maputo in August 2007 in thememory of Ruth First, one of the foundingeditors of the Review of African PoliticalEconomy. The workshop was entitled:‘Moçambique no Contexto da África Aus-tral e os Desafios do Presente: Repensandoas Ciências Sociais’ [Mozambique in thecontext of Southern Africa and the chal-lenges of the present: rethinking the socialsciences].

Introduction and translation by Eric Morier-Genoud (University of Oxford) and RosaWilliams (University of Chicago).

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411222

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What brings us together today is thememory of Ruth First. The memory aboveall of her role as an intellectual and anacademic and of the time she spent inMozambique as a part of our Universityand our Centre of African Studies. Herstay of five years began in 1977 and cameto an abrupt end on 17th August 1982with her sudden death, 25 years agotoday (August 2007).

The five years Ruth First spent here werean important period in the history of theregion and of this country. In line withthe logic of the world in those days,Southern Africa was divided into twoirreconcilable zones which were in in-tense conflict – the region that we calledthe Southern White States (Rhodesia andSouth Africa) and the countries ruled bytheir majority. In 1977, this conflict hadtwo years before been aggravated by theindependence of Mozambique and An-gola. For us the most concrete expressionof the conflict was the frontier warconducted by Smith, the man we calledthe ‘tobacco farmer Smith’, who wasfighting ferociously to maintain his ac-

cess to the Beira Corridor for the export ofhis tobacco and fighting, above all, forthe survival of his anachronistic regime.Seen from this angle, the recent fate ofZimbabwe appears both ironic andtragic: a country ruled by anachronisticregimes desperately fighting for theirsurvival. A little further south the loom-ing conflict with apartheid South Africa,muted up to that point, was about to startto claim its first victims in Mozambique.It would eventually claim Ruth First’sown life.

Those five years were also a time whenmany profound transformations weretaking place within the nation under theinfluence of the most important event inour recent history: the Third FrelimoCongress. This congress in some senseput an end to a relatively ‘liberal’ periodof transition characterized by confusionbut also by enthusiasm, and aimed tooutline and implement a socialist order.

We could not of course see things in 1977with the clarity with which we see themtoday. Only the past can be arranged in

Briefings: Memories of Ruth First in Mozambique 501

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the drawers of our analytical categories.The present must be lived through itsown forms of clarity and obscurity. Andthirty years ago this past which I amtalking about was our present. A difficultpresent, one in which we were slowlycoming to feel the tempering of theeuphoria of independence. Graduallywe were seeing the re-establishment ofwartime life, along with its rationing offood, gas and so on.

How did we at the University live thispast which was then our present? Welived it in a rather messy way, with someconfusion, but above all with great en-thusiasm . Though still an elitist arena,our university simmered with ideas. Wedid not have much of a guilt complex inrelation to the past; we looked for ways toparticipate in the great transformationwhich had begun. Everything was ur-gent; the need to build a defence againstthe aggressions waged against us wasmixed with the need to think aboutdevelopment. Not forgetting the need toput food on the table.

The building which we now call CEA(Centre of African Studies) used to be-long to the Mozambican Institute ofScientific Investigation (IICM) which com-prised the cream of academia in the lastphase of colonialism. It is a buildingwhich summed up neatly the spirit of theperiod, serving a space in which the old,dying, structures confronted the emerg-ing ones, a struggle which was just aboutmanaged by the director, Pedro Alcântara.

While the inertia suffered within the oldstructures was discernible in the dressand habits of faculty and staff, it is onlyfair to recognize that the representativesof the former era did their best to respondto changing times. We see this in thenumber and quality of the issues of theInstitute’s publication Memórias piled inthe cellars of the Documentation Centre.In 1974, for example, Rita-Ferreira pub-lished his Etno-história e cultura tradicionaldo grupo angune (Nguni) [Ethno-history

and traditional culture of the Angune(Nguni)]. The following year LeonorCorreia de Matos translated and anno-tated Henri-Alexandre Junod’s Cantos eContos dos Rongas [Ronga songs and sto-ries].

At the time we were not the least pre-pared to accommodate these contribu-tions, which we would consider laudabletoday, in what could have been one of themost productive dialogues of the transi-tion period. We loftily declined fromengaging in such a dialogue, which gaveus some satisfaction, but left us withoutthe benefit of the experience of wellrespected social scientists – those I havementioned and others. Consequently,Luís Polanah passed by us in his strawhat, Rita-Ferreira still gave a few classes,Leonor Correia de Matos arrived in herlittle car, beige if I remember correctly(maybe a Simca or a Morris, cars no onedrives today and which were becomingrare even then) and no one seemed tonotice them anymore. Sitting on thepadded chairs of a relatively luxuriousbar (the colonial academics’ bar whereeven alcoholic drinks were unremark-able), we would see them pass by and, tous, they looked like ghosts from the past.

Meanwhile new structures appeared. Inearly 1976, where the CEA library standsnow, the Centro de Técnicas Básicas para oAproveitamento dos Recursos Naturais(TBARN) [Centre for basic techniques forthe use of natural resources] was estab-lished, the true precursor to the debatesover the best models of development forthe country. Run, intellectually and ad-ministratively, by the painter and writerAntónio Quadros, we went there to readRené Dumont and Leroi-Gourhan whilestudying ways to store cereals, to buildeffectively and cheaply with the materi-als at our disposal, to use animal tractionand to use water-power in small damsand hydraulic ram pumps. In otherwords we were trying to outline, in aperhaps somewhat naïve but very enthu-siastic way, a material solution for a new

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society, just and horizontally organized,where men lived ‘with nature at theirside’. What my brief account cannotconvey of the spirit of TBARN is moreclearly captured in the verse of MutimatiBarnabé João, the occasional heteronymof António Quadros:

(...) Eu o PovoVou aprender a lutar do ladoda NaturezaVou ser camarada de armasdos quatro elementos[a terra, o ar, a água eo fogo].1 (…) I the PeopleI will learn tofight with Nature at my sideI will becomrade of arms with the four elements-[earth, air, water and fire].

At the same time, next door, the Centre ofAfrican Studies was also taking its firststeps under the direction of Aquino deBragança. You could not have anythingmore different from TBARN than thisCentre of African Studies, attentive to therecent history of Mozambique’s libera-tion, attentive to geopolitics, attentive tothe regional political economy, and tothe larger questions of the Cold War.This was the period when the firstgeneration of CEA researchers producedthe study Zimbabwe: alguns dados ereflexões sobre a questão rodesiana [Zimba-bwe: some facts and reflections about theRhodesian question].2

The differences in the nature of the twocentres, as well as the differences in thecharacter of their mentors, were the basisof the tension between the two places.Indeed, there could not be two moredifferent individuals than AntónioQuadros and Aquino de Bragança. Whilethe former spent the day dealing withbees and designing commendable thingswith soil under his fingernails, smokinga pipe which helped him think, Aquinode Bragança was a man of society with afine sense of humour, always whisper-ing a new secret in our ears about thosein power, or, in more public moments,finding a witty saying appropriate toeach situation, preferably in French.While António Quadros would leave thedrawing-board where he spent the day

to go and check on a detail, taking brisksmall steps and hidden behind his darkglasses, Aquino de Bragança remainedseated in a sofa with his hand extendedto underscore an idea and with his legbalanced across him, thus making hisbelly balance, in a gesture so characteris-tic that all those who knew him remem-ber it well. It is not surprising then thatAquino de Bragança referred to TBARNas ‘the crazy man’s project’ whileAntónio Quadros talked about CEA as‘that setting of the international plotters’.

We, as disciples of one and students ofthe other, were in the privileged positionof being able to benefit from both ways ofthinking about the world: one whichsome saw as too political and anotherthat others saw as too poetic. We learnedfrom those who, in spite of living withinUniversity, would not for a momenthesitate to contemplate the world be-yond it. In those days (and I say thiswithout modesty), we believed in learn-ing from masters.

It is around this time, in the first half of1977 if I am not mistaken, that Ruth Firstarrived. When I think of her, the firstimage that comes to my mind is auditory:her high-heels furiously hammering thecorridor floor. Only after that do I recallher arched legs capable of that vigorouswalk, her aquiline nose and strong chin,her dark glasses, her always impeccablematching skirt and jacket. And thenfinally her powerful and authoritarianvoice. In my memory, she always ap-pears surrounded by researchers. Orrather, she always has researchers at herdisposal, in offices where she bursts inand comes out hurriedly with somepapers in her hand.

It seems to me that this was the CEA’smost prosperous period, so to speak. Inpart, in good part in fact, this prosperitywas due to the work of Ruth First. Herbiographies have shown what her bril-liance and intellectual sharpness werecapable of when combined with an


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organising spirit forged in the struggleagainst apartheid.

I daresay that Ruth First accepted theinvitation to come to Mozambique be-cause she would be closer to her owncountry and she could more effectivelydirect from here the work begun at what Ithink was known as the Nucleus for theStudy of Southern Africa, a sort of ob-servatory of the geopolitical and eco-nomic evolution of the region, and ofSouth Africa in particular – if need beproviding academic support to the ANC.But once here, she not only continued todevelop this work but also ably organ-ized and directed research projects andsocial and economic analyses of life inMozambique, the best known, without adoubt, being the 1977 study of theMozambican miner.3 Other importantprojects followed, producing reportswhich still support my teaching on thisperiod today. These included researchon rural transformations in Gaza (1979),on the transformation of family agricul-ture in Nampula (1980) and severalothers on agrarian commercialization(1980/81), to cite only those from thatperiod.4 In 1980 the first issue of thejournal Estudos Moçambicanos on the sub-ject of underdevelopment and migrantwork appeared, reflecting the two sidesof life in Mozambique and its connec-tions with the larger region. Finally, Imust mention her role in the organiza-tion of the Course on Development whichstill marks a generation of Mozambicans,and which in turn reflected back on herown research, empowering and enrich-ing it.

I think however that to attribute thesuccess of CEA during this period onlyto Ruth First, however deserved and just,would be somewhat incorrect. It wouldbe the same as attributing it only toAquino de Bragança and to his own,particular, manner of directing CEA,pulling unseen strings. In my view, inthe same way as the strength and creativ-ity of IICM emerged from the tensions

between different departments duringthe transition, the success of CEA hadmuch to do with the creative tensionswhich developed as a result of themeeting of diverse forces, with differentways of putting reality in perspective.We might say that there were severalCEAs: the Centre on Southern Africa, theCourse on Development and the projectssupervised by Ruth First, the HistoryWorkshop directed by Jacques Depelchinand closely connected with Aquino deBragança (aimed at rethinking the recenthistory of the liberation of the country),and yet other small ideas of projects suchas those which Aquino de Bragança wasalways recruiting us for (a study ofMozambican nationalism in the mannerof Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, a pro-gramme of interviews of former combat-ants, etc., etc.).

On balance, it is fair to reserve a share ofthe credit for Aquino de Bragança, inview of the skill that he deployed innegotiating the activities of CEA withinthe sphere of politics and government, ata time when there was usually little roomto manoeuvre. He not only accomplishedwhat we would today call marketing,promoting the considerable serviceswhich the centre had to offer to those atthe highest levels of the circles of power.He also managed, at the same time, toabsorb some of the shockwaves emanat-ing from any research which expressedtoo heterodox an opinion.

At this point, it is appropriate to pauseand ask the purpose of this incursioninto the past, one which crosses terrainwhich others in this room know far betterthan I, merely a neighbour to the CEAand its occasional collaborator. The past,of course, does not exist; it evaporateswith each day that passes. What do existare discourses about the past, discourseswith intentions, all fed by that past so asto operate in the present.

The French historian Le Goff once ob-served that memory only tries to capture

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the past so as to serve the present.5 And,in spite of our seeing the past in the lightof the present, in spite of the fact that weuse the past as a weapon in the strugglesof the present, it is often forgotten when itdoes not serve our purpose or when itbecomes bothersome.

I and others, in this room, are agreed thatthis moment in the past, thirty years old,could be useful for our present and that itshould therefore not be forgotten. Atleast, this is how I understood the objec-tive of our meeting today: to consider towhat extent the social sciences of thirtyyears ago, which emerged in the climatethat I have briefly described, can illumi-nate the social sciences of today, born ofa totally different context?

I will try to answer this question, in thespace I have left, by choosing, fromamongst many others, three characteris-tics which in my view correspond tomany of the virtues of the context which Ihave sketched out. Or, if you prefer, threelessons that I draw personally from thisexercise of remembering Ruth First’sdays in Mozambique.

I will call the first lesson that of Diversity.It is not by chance that I have focused somuch on the tensions which existedbetween the different actors: tensionsbetween TBARN and CEA; tensions be-tween TBARN and the Centre for theStudy of Communication, which I havenot yet mentioned; tensions betweenthese centres and the dynamic Faculty ofArt; tensions, as I will call them, withinCEA; finally, the tension that for a whilewas much talked about between CEAand the Department of Anthropology,over the question of whether anthropol-ogy could free itself from its colonialpast.6

My argument here relies on the oftenused botanic metaphor according towhich a monoculture is always poorerand more vulnerable than a naturalforest. The latter, beautiful, lush, is made

up of diverse species, all of which adaptthemselves to the environment and es-tablish complementary relations. Differ-ently put, I contend that these inter orintra-departmental tensions, when theyresult from the healthy confrontation ofdiverse academic perspectives, consti-tute the kernel of university life; theyguarantee the progress of the socialsciences.7

The social sciences, like other sciences,are made up of investigations and con-tradictions. That is to say they are aliento certainty, to absolute truth. Absolutetruth is sterile; it brings to mind orderand hierarchy, but also stagnation, eve-rything that immobilises the world.Adorno says that the absolute, totality, isa lie. Steiner writes that incompletenessand the fragment are the passwords ofmodernism.8 The fundamentalism of ab-solutes, in its defence of a definitive andsupposedly ‘true’ text, in its hatred of theuncontrolled and secular word, is theprinciple enemy of science, which canonly live if it breathes the air of liberty.Only critical interrogation, born out ofcontradictions, provokes change and thesearch for the new. Transformation, then,can only take place in a context ofdiversity.

The second lesson that this moment inthe past teaches us, closely linked to theprevious one, I call Hospitality. Hospi-tality in the sense that the philosopherEmmanuel Lévinas uses it: a gesture ofwelcome, or a predisposition to receive theOther, to receive he who is different fromus in our midst. One thing which re-mains with me from this time thirty yearsago is the memory of the people whoarrived daily at this University, and inparticular at the CEA building. Fromevery direction came dozens and dozensof national and above all internationalscholars (there were few Mozambicansinvolved in research at the time). Let megive you here a few names I remember:Kurt and Masha Madörin, BarryMunslow, António Pacheco, David


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Wield, Marc Wuytts, Bridget O’Laughlin,Kurt Habermeier, Helena Dolny, ColinDarch, Judith Head, Dan O’Meara, RobDavies, Alpheus Manghezi, SipoDlamini, Valdemiro Zamparoni, JacquesDepelchin, John Saul and also Pierre-Philipe Rey, Claude Meillassoux,Christine Messiant, Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Christian Geffray, YvesLacoste, Marc Ferro, Philippe Constantin,Nadine Wanono, Lúcio Flávio Regueira,Constante Pereira, João Azevedo, TeresaMuge, Marcelo Ramos, Miguel Arrais Jr,Christine Vershuur. And, of course, RuthFirst herself. This list could carry on, Ihave only mentioned the visitors of thatera and have still left many out. Manybecame specialists in subjects related toMozambique after their stay here, otherswere already well-known academicswhen they came here or passed through.All of them, in one form or another,contributed to enriching our intellectuallife. And we received all of them withhospitality.

When I speak of hospitality, I speak ofimportant, even fundamental, ethical di-mension of respect for the Other, but notonly this. I also mean, like Lévinas, adimension of growth, of learning, in sofar as (and I cite him) the Other ‘comesfrom the exterior and brings me morethan I contain’.9 That is, the presence ofthese Others, with their diverse research,perspectives and problematics, consti-tutes an invaluable source of wealthwhich enlarged not only our vision butalso the number and quality of perspec-tives about our reality. It brought us morethan we contained. It enriched us andenriched the discourses about our real-ity.

In contrast, an inhospitable attitude ofself-sufficiency is, in the academic world,the attitude of a self-satisfied person,someone who has lost curiosity and theambition to know more, to learn more. Itis the attitude of a person who has givenup on academia, even if lethargy, theircareer or some other obscure reason have

kept them within it. It is the attitude ofsomeone who can see only a threat in theOther.

So my question is: what are we doingtoday to cultivate this hospitality whichpopulated the corridors of the socialsciences faculties with associate re-searchers and extended our knowledge?My question is: why are our corridorsdevoid of researchers? My question is:how do we populate our corridors again?

Finally, the third and last lesson I wantto draw from this period in time is onewhich concerns what I will call Trustand it has to do with the complexrelationship between the spheres of poli-tics and academia. I have already notedthe incredibly important role whichAquino de Bragança and Ruth Firstexercised in defence of CEA before thepolitical sphere. Alongside FernandoGanhão, the rector of University at thetime, they gave a voice to academia,ensuring that it was not a subordinatepartner, but a critical interlocutor in aproductive dialogue with the powersthat be. In this respect, I cannot resistreferring to the theorist Edward Saïd,who wrote that our function as academ-ics is to enlarge the spheres of debate, notto establish limits which suit the domi-nant authority.10 Science develops from abase of contradictions; it is founded onuncertainty. Since science, by definition,is what academia does, it will always bebad at carrying out orders. By definition,there is entropy in the scientific processand much loss of energy. Sometimemany failures are necessary to obtain asingle success. The destiny of academiais radical: create or be useless.

I believe that the individuals I am talkingabout were creating something. Theyendeavoured to define themselvesthrough debates rather than wait forothers to define them. They debatedwhich path to follow rather than wait tobe told which path needed to be fol-lowed. In consequence they gained re-

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spect from all sides of the political fieldand diverse sectors of the state, peoplewho were soon knocking on the doorasking for studies and critical opinionsabout this and that.

I remember with great clarity the last dayI heard Ruth First’s heels hammering thefloor of the corridor. Ruth looked throughour door and announced that she wouldbe opening a bottle of wine in her office,to bid farewell to our colleague JohnSaul. She turned on her heel and left. Wetidied our desks and were on our waywhen the explosion happened. A fewhours later, when the echoes of theterrible attack faded away, I rememberthinking that nothing would be the samefrom then on.

It is our duty to recall these scholars whowere interested in far more than theircareers and who took pleasure in thework they did. Uneasy about the world,they felt the need to do something,something which would contribute to it.These were academics whose purposewas not to describe or carry out rituals(including that of earning money), nor toprove their obedience. Their purposewas to help diminish the suffering ofexistence (in the literal, scientific andcultural sense); to fight ignorance; tohelp transform a particular place with-out losing sight of the fact that theybelonged to something universal.

To me this past, with the values it held,constitutes a reference point. One whichwe should try to return to whenever wefeel we have moved too far away from it.We shall have to see whether we arecapable of transmitting to future genera-tions this legacy of principles and valueswhich was generously left to us.

Endnotes

1. Mutimati Barnabé João, Eu, o Povo. Poemas daRevolução, Maputo: Frelimo, 1975.

2. Completed in 1976, and published two yearslater as: Centro de Estudos Africanos daUniversidade de Maputo, A Questão Rodesiana,Lisbon: Iniciativas Editoriais, 1978.

3. Ruth First, Black gold. The Mozambican miner,proletarian and peasant, Brighton: Harvester Press,1985.

4. See Centro de Estudos Africanos, Problemasde transformação rural na Provincia de Gaza, Umestudo sobre a articulação entre aldeias comunaisselecionadas cooperativas agricolas e a Unidade deProdução do Baixo Limpopo, Maputo: CEA, 1979;A Transformação da Agricultura Familiar naProvíncia de Nampula, Maputo : CEA., 1980; andComercialização agrária : métodos de planificação,Maputo: CEA, 1982 or Comercialização agrária aonível distrital : um estudo sobre o Alto Molocue,Maputo: CEA, 1982

5. Cited in the frontispiece of Tzvetan Todorov,Les Abus de la Mémoire, Paris: Arléa, 2004.

6. Ironically, in spite of the accusations advancedby CEA intellectuals who held a rather orthodoxview typical of the time, anthropology eventuallyproved more sensitive to the first signs of internalcivil conflict in 1980s Mozambique.

7. In the same way as tensions between differentpolitical forces constitute the kernel of thedemocratic functioning of a society and of itsprogress.

8. George Steiner, Gramáticas da Criação, Lisbon:Relógio d’Água, 2002, p. 352

9. Jacques Derrida, Adeus a Emmanuel Lévinas,São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 2004, p. 35-6.[Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1999, p. 27]

10. Edward Said, Orientalismo, Lisbon: Corovia,2004, p.xix


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Africa: International FoodPrice Rises & VolatilityVincent Tickner

As often happens to Africa, externalfactors have crucial implications for thelives of many Africans. This is particu-larly the case with the steep rises ininternational food prices in the last twoyears, and the particularly abrupt spikein international prices of a number ofbasic foodstuffs that has taken placesince February/March 2008. The volatil-ity in these prices has also left manypeople uncertain as to how best to react.The circumstances are changing fromday to day, and vary substantially be-tween different economies. Some observ-ers considered that these prices hadpeaked in late May, but they continued togrow in early June, and the likelihoodremains that they will stay high, but alsostay volatile, leaving many operators inthe food supply chains uncertain.

The factors contributing to these pricerises are complex. They range from sup-ply/demand imbalances with slow de-mand response in certain circumstances,run-down stocks, under-investment inagriculture and pertinent infrastructure,decreasing land availability, agriculturalproductivity growth slowing down, ex-port oriented agriculture over local de-mand needs, decreasing water resources,structural adjustment policy-orientationresulting in food import increases inmany poorer countries, index tradersand hedge and risk fund traders diversi-fying swiftly into commodities, over-hasty support and incentives to bio-fuelfeedstock production, climatic instabili-ties (some of which are influenced byclimate change), increased inter-linkagesbetween commodity prices (particularlyof agricultural inputs and agriculturalproducts with oil-product prices), knee-jerk reactions with trading restrictionsby different governments and operators.

The weighting of the comparative impor-tance of each contributing factor hasonly taken place in a fairly haphazardway to date, and often bias1 has occurredin the importance attributed to differentfactors (see Von Braun, 11 & 22 April2008 for some simple attempted weight-ing).

The crux of the matter is, however, thatdespite the denials, a major contributorto the food prices spike has been interna-tional capital holders, responding to theweakened US dollar, shake-out of the USsub-prime loans chaos and creditsqueeze, and high-energy prices, byspeculative investment through the‘swaps loophole’ in agricultural com-modities, with the inherent instabilitiesof this liberalised capitalist exchangesystem. Such traders (particularly indextraders) have been buying up commodi-ties and holding their positions, creatingartificial premiums. The current profitdomination of much food productioncontributes to this distortion.

In the first three months of 2008, thevolume of globally traded grain futuresand options increased by 32% on thecomparable volume in the same periodin 2007. There would also appear to havebeen considerable direct investment incommodities by what are referred to as‘deep pool’ investors (private investorsusing banks, but by-passing commodityexchanges), but the difficulty is that suchinvestments are not transparent, and noteasily measurable in present circum-stances. A second key factor, which USrepresentatives have tried to play down,is the rapid increase in bio-fuel feedstockproduction from food crops that hasbeen artificially supported and subsi-dised. Even IFPRI (International FoodPolicy Research Institute, Washington,DC) has advocated changing bio-fuelspolicies (Von Braun, May, 2008)

At the receiving end of this crisis aremany Africans and African countries. A

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411248

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specific World Bank study on likelyimpacts (Ivanec & Martin, 2008) con-cluded that ‘the recent large increases infood prices appear likely to raise overallpoverty in low income countries sub-stantially’, although it also says that‘little hard information appears to beavailable on actual impacts on poorpeople’. They also indicate that the im-pacts are likely to ‘differ considerably bycommodity and by country’ (e.g. greaterimpact in Madagascar in relation to riceprices than in Zambia or Malawi that aremore oriented to maize). There is consid-erable diversity in circumstances andresponses of African countries to date,and many aspects are still changing, andlikely to change. Nevertheless, manyAfrican households (the majority) arelikely to suffer as a consequence, andresort to diets with an even poorernutritional content, particularly:

• Poorer urban households with lim-ited income-generating possibili-ties, and limited incomes already;

• Landless rural populations, orsmallholders that are deficit intheir household food balances (bothgroups often having limited foodsecurity at present);

• Smallholders in more isolatedzones, who have increased inputsupply costs (prices of fertiliserhave increased even more thanthose of food prices), as well asincreased marketing costs (becauseof weak transport infrastructureand increased fuel prices), whocannot easily increase supply in aviable, economic way;

• Small-scale food supply intermedi-aries, primarily in the system withlimited capital to get some sort of aliving, because alternative employ-ment is also limited.

Many African governments are alsosqueezed by all this, regardless as to

whether their orientation to their peopleis altruistic or self-seeking. They cannotsit idle, waiting for the negative impactsto happen or to be analysed in detailedsocio-economic studies. They need toreact, both with short-term initiativesand putting in place longer-term policiesand investments. Many are trying to takeshort-term action in a number of ways,particularly in the following:

• Securing adequate national sup-plies of food for the immediatefuture, at sometimes considerablecost now, with limited budgetaryresources to do so, while this issimultaneously limiting their ef-forts to develop their economies;

• Reducing import tariffs on basicfood products (e.g. Nigeria, Mo-rocco – both of which had poorerharvests in 2007, as well as Egypt,Ghana and Senegal) to encourageswift food imports, despite result-ant decreases in government rev-enue;

• Establishing appropriate safety-netmechanisms for food supply, whensometimes the appropriate institu-tions are not in place, not function-ing well, or have limited coverage,even if this is only done crudely byconsumer subsidies (e.g. South Af-rican government has been consid-ering introducing food vouchersand extending tax relief on basicfoodstuffs; the Egyptian govern-ment has expanded food aid recipi-ents). The cost of such programmeshas to be met, however;

• Sometimes trying to control prices(Benin, Senegal) by price-fixing oranti-hoarding measures, whichrarely succeed for long, and oftencause tensions, corruptions, andby-passing of the ‘controlled’ dis-tribution system;

Briefings: Africa: International Food Price Rises & Volatility 509

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• Efforts (often too late!) to establishsuitable food stocks or food stockrelease measures that would cush-ion such price volatility and fluctu-ating food supplies (a practicediscouraged in many countries byexternal forces in recent years);

• For countries that periodically ex-port basic food crops, limiting theirexports (e.g. Egypt, Ethiopia, Tan-zania, Zambia) to ensure local avail-ability, with resultant losses inforeign exchange for the economy,leaving aside trade ‘distortion’ is-sues;

• Endeavouring to manage the re-sultant growth in crime, dissentionand rioting that inevitably occursamongst desperate populations de-termined to survive, particularlyurban ones (food-related protestsin late 2007/early 2008 have takenplace in Burkina Faso, Cameroon,Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory

Table 1: African Countries that import all their petroleum products, & theirmajor grains imports as a per cent of domestic apparent consumption,

ranked by prevalence of undernourishment

Countries Major grains % imported % under-nourishment

Eritrea 88 75Burundi 12 66Comoros 80 60Sierra Leone 53 51Liberia * 62 50Zimbabwe * 2 47Ethiopia 22 46Zambia 4 46Central African Republic 25 44Mozambique 20 44Tanzania 14 44Guinea-Bissau 55 39Madagascar 14 38Malawi 7 35Rwanda 29 33Botswana 76 32Niger * 82 32Kenya 20 31

Sources: FAO 2008 Table 4, using data from FAOSTAT, Archives Commodity Balance Sheets. Average 2001-03 forwheat, rice and maize and FAOSTAT, Food Security Statistics, Prevalence of undernourishment in total population(2002-2004 preliminary). *Those countries that already have large current account deficits. The World Bank ,FAO and WFP have pinpointed other vulnerable African countries as well, including Benin, Chad, Republic ofCongo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, The Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Mauritania, Sudan,Swaziland, Togo and Uganda (see Evans, 2008; Wiggins & Levy, 2008).

Coast, Madagascar, Mauretania,Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal,Somalia and South Africa);

• Managing the balance between foodcrop production, feed productionand bio-fuel feedstock productionIn 2007, 16,000 tonnes of maizewere exported from Mozambiqueto Mexico by the Argentine traderwho has a near monopoly of bulktrade in the north of the country, inorder to supply deficits of maize forlocal food consumption in Mexicodue to excessive exports of maizefrom there to the USA for bio-fuelproduction. Now the Mozambicangovernment is struggling betweentrying to prevent such exports ag-gravating local food needs, whilesimultaneously trying to promoteproduction for these ends on moremarginal land.

Africa accounts for about 22% of theglobal share of cereal imports, while its

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Table 2: Monthly percentage changes in the CPI and share of foodexpenditures in CPI for selected African countries/groups

Country Jan. 2007 to Jan. 2008 Feb. 2007 to Feb. 2008 % change % change

Total CPI Food Total CPI Food

Kenya 4.6 12.6 15.4 24.6Botswana 10.6 18.2 7.7 18.3South Africa 5.8 10.9 8.6 13.6Egypt 15.4 24.6 9.5 13.5Senegal 3.6 7.3 5.8 10.9Malawi 6.8 11.4 n.a. n.a.UEMO * 6.9 14.6 3.6 7.3

Source: FAO 2008 Table 11*Includes: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo.

share in exports is roughly 3%. Africa’stotal cereal import bill in 2007/08 isforecast at US$2.7 billion, 23% higherthan in 2006/07. In some poorer coun-tries, increased food import bills couldeasily lead to substantial widening of thecurrent account deficits, further impact-ing on other macroeconomic variables:exchange rates, monetary reserve posi-tions or increased indebtedness. Globalprices do not always transmit immedi-ately to domestic prices in African coun-tries for a number of reasons, but localmarkets cannot remain disconnectedfrom world markets over the longer term.In the short term, national trade policies,public procurement and distribution ofcereals, roots & tubers, and poor infra-structure, seem to play an important rolein determining African domestic prices.Countries in southern Africa with largecereals imports relative to their domesticrequirements, such as Lesotho, Swazi-land, Botswana and Zimbabwe, haveexperienced much stronger price trans-mission from South African prices, theregion’s main exporter.

Which are the most vulnerable Africancountries? The FAO, in preparation forthe June 2008 High-Level Food SecurityConference in Rome with other interna-tional organisations, indicated the fol-lowing African countries (although usingslightly dated figures) (see Table 1); thatbecause of the already low levels of

nutrition in the country, their food sup-ply weaknesses, their energy fuel vulner-ability, and their limited purchasingpower, are particularly at risk.

Commodity Price Indices (CPIs), al-though often having an urban bias, cangive some indications in the rates of priceincrease in basic foods. Recent data for anumber of African countries have beensupplied by FAO (see Table 2):

The World Food Programme (WFP) hasrecently been monitoring developmentsin 30 ‘at risk’ countries, including An-gola, Benin, Burundi, Chad, DemocraticRepublic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, theGambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya,Madagascar, Malawi, Mauretania, Mo-zambique, Niger, Sao Tomé and Principe,Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Zambiaand Zimbabwe. To date the results of thismonitoring have not been widely publi-cized.

How have African governments beenresponding to the problems presented tothem? The response has so far been veryvaried. Interestingly, the FAO found(2008:42), having surveyed 77 countries,that up to now the responses of a numberof African countries have been much lessthan in other parts of the world. Anumber of actions have been taken byNorth African countries, but amongstsub-Saharan countries, the actions taken


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have been much less. This may be be-cause such governments are waiting tosee how their main food crop harvests for2008, due to commence in May/June, arelikely to turn out. The more commonresponses in sub-Saharan African coun-tries have been the reduction of taxes onfood grains and different forms of pricecontrols and/or consumer subsidies.About 20% of these countries had beenreleasing supplies from food stocks andanother 20% had been involved in intro-ducing export restrictions on food grains,but about 21% of sub-Saharan Africangovernments had not undertaken anyresponsive measures, according to theirsurvey.

A range of institutions from the USCommodity Futures Trading Commis-sion (CFTC) to the International FoodPolicy Research Institute (IFPRI),ECOSOC, UNCTAD, the Food and Agri-culture Organisation of the UN (FAO),World Food Programme (WFP), OECD,to a range of donors and NGOs, areseeking, or presenting, their ‘solutions’for short-term responses, and for moremedium-term and longer-term responses.Few of these envisage radical reform ofthe international agricultural commod-ity trading system, nor any types of traderestriction.

The free-traders are a bit dubious aboutthe hypocrisy of bio-fuel supports (in-cluding subsidies) in developed coun-tries, when those same countriessimultaneously advocate liberalizedtrade options, but surreptitiously keeptheir own trade restrictions. Greater in-vestments are needed in agriculture andinfrastructure to facilitate crop market-ing in African countries, but investmentsfor whom in those countries?

• Already we see the pro-GM cropslobby positioning their case;

• Outsiders (including the Chineseand agribusiness firms) wanting toget hold of land in Africa and

develop more-efficient agricultureon it;

• the developed economy philan-thropic tycoons with their ‘privateequity approaches’;

• The population-restriction lobbywanting to restrict populationgrowth of ‘certain’ populations;

• The international food aid lobbyshouting for immediate increasedfood aid, administered and sup-plied by them in their way, evenwith more local supply provision,and with token responses to socialwelfare system development andmonetary transfers instead of in-kind transfers..2

Short-term responses are needed, as wellas longer-term ones. Unfortunately, atthe moment these seem to be dominatedprimarily by increasing food and hu-manitarian aid in the short-term, fol-lowed by research into improving cropproductivity and high-tech fast-impactfood production approaches (includingsubsidization of such development) inthe more medium term. A wider range ofresponses is needed. IFPRI advocates‘calming the markets’ by monitoring,and setting of maximum limits on fu-tures trading positions and increasingmargin deposits to discourage specula-tive trading, but eschews more radicalsolutions. Interestingly, they are alsoadvocating ‘modest grain reserves’ withIMF-supported import-financing facili-ties, but make no mention of the in-creased profits of international graintrading companies, fertilizer companiesand seed companies during the recentperiod. Besides these, some of the morecommunal responses that have beendeveloped in countries such as Cuba,Venezuela and Brazil, need to be consid-ered in a number of African contexts,with efforts to achieve productivity in-creases amongst smallholder producers,as well as a range of more permanent

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social welfare support systems. One fearis that electoral and other political pres-sures in ‘developed’ countries, combinedwith the usual vested interests, will limitconsideration by governments in thosecountries primarily to their own inhabit-ants, leaving only a food aid option(delivered on their terms) to help out theworst cases (probably mainly where itlooks like causing political instabilitywhere ‘developed’ country interests areinvolved). African local policy-makersare facing a difficult balancing act be-tween an urgency to respond, on the onehand, and taking enough time to under-stand the consequences of what they aredoing in a complex situation, on theother. Countries and governments arebeing exhorted to determine their ownpolicies, but then are being discouragedto do so if they challenge liberalizedtrade approaches, or do not adopt com-prehensive approaches, despite the di-versity of circumstances.

In the meantime traditional capitalistlabour markets continue driving downreal incomes, and only certain types ofAfrican producers will be in a position torespond to the price increases.

The UN/FAO Regional Conference forAfrica held from 16-20 June 2008 inNairobi hardly touched on these press-ing issues in its background papers,even though the Director-General, JacquesDiouf made passing reference to them.We will see where things are by the timeof the G8 Summit in July and the UNSecretary-General’s summit meeting onthe Millennium Development Goals inNew York in September 2008.

Vincent Tickner of Government and Ag-ricultural Marketing Consultants (GAM-CO) has been a freelance consultant inaspects of the marketing of basic foodsand food security issues for over 25years, having worked in over 50 coun-tries, particularly in Africa and Asia.

Endnotes

1. It would appear that the factor of rapidly-increasing meat demand in certain countries,mainly put out by USDA in relation to Indiaand China, has not only been over-exaggerated,but it is actually wrong (see Ray, 30 May 2008and following briefing); hence it is not evenincluded as a factor here.

2. See also MacMillan 2008 on the food crisisbeing a new vehicle for old ideas.

BibliographyBello, Walden (2008), Destroying AfricanAgriculture in ‘Foreign Policy in Focus’, 3 June;www.fpif.org

CFTC, Agriculture Forum, Washington, DC, 22April 2008; www.cftc.gov

Evans, Alex (2008), ‘Rising Food Prices: Driversand Implications for Development’, ChathamHouse Food Supply Project, London, April.

Horta, Loro (2008), The Zambezi Valley: China’sFirst Agricultural Colony? in ‘Africa Policy Forum’,CSIS; http://forums.csis.org/africa/?p=120

Ivanic, Maros & Will Martin (2008), ‘Implica-tions of Higher Global Food Prices for Poverty inLow-Income Countries’, Policy Research WorkingPaper 4594, World Bank, Washington, DC, April.

Krishan Bir Chaudary (2008), ‘Should the banon commodity futures be widened? Futurescaused the market manipulation’, FinancialExpress, 17 April.

MacMillan, Tom, Food Ethics (editorial) Vol. 3,issue 2, summer 2008 <www.foodethicscouncil.org>

MacWhirter, Iain, The trading frenzy that sentprices soaring in ‘New Statesman’, 17 April 2008http://www.newstatesman.com/200804170026

Magdorf, Fred (2008), ‘The World Food Crisis:Sources and Solutions’, Monthly Review, May2008

Ray, Daryll E. (2008), ‘One could say thecupboard is bare, but actually there is nocupboard’, Weekly Policy Articles, APAC,University of Tennessee, 4 April; (2008), ‘USDAtop officials versus USDA data’, Weekly PolicyArticles, APAC, University of Tennessee, 30 May2008.

Sinclair, Stewart & Paul Waldie, (2008), ‘Whois responsible for the global food crisis?’ in, Globeand Mail, 31 May.


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UN/FAO (2008), ‘Soaring Food Prices: Facts,Perspectives, Impacts and Actions Required’;paper presented at High-Level Conference onWorld Food Security: The Challenges of ClimateChange and Bioenergy, Rome, 3-5 June, 2008.

Von Braun, Joachim (2008), ‘Poverty, ClimateChange, Rising Food Prices, and the SmallFarmers, IFPRI/IFAD, Rome, 22 April; (2008),‘High and Rising Food Prices: Why are theyRising, Who is Affected, How Are They Affected,and What Should Be Done?’, IFPRI, Washington,DC, 11 April; (2007), ‘The World Food Situation– New Driving Forces and Required Actions’,IFPRI, Food Policy Report No.18, Washington,DC, December.

Von Braun, Joachim et al. (2008), ‘High FoodPrices: The What, Who and How of ProposedPolicy Actions’, Policy Brief, IFPRI, May.

Von Braun, Joachim, Jonathan Dworken,Daniel Gustafson & Charlotte Hebebrand(2008), ‘Panel Discussion on Rising Food Prices:Implications and Consequences’, IFPRI, 12February.

Wiggins, Steve & Stephanie Levy (2008),‘Rising Global Prices: A Global Crisis’, ODIBriefing Paper No.37, London: ODI, April.

USDA Top Officials vs.USDA DataDaryll E. Ray

A couple of weeks ago (30 May 2008) wewrote a column in which we said:

China has increased its consumption ofmeats [beef, pork, broilers*] at a rate wellabove the rate of population increase.

We also noted,

China produces virtually all of the meatthat is domestically consumed, and thensome. In fact China was a net meatexporter for the last 7 years and 14 of thelast 18 years.

At the 19 May 2006 USDA briefing withreporters, Chief Economist Joseph Glau-ber said:

If you were to look at countries like Indiaand China where the GDP there has beenincreasing on the order of 5 to 10%annually, that has expanded demand,particularly demand for meat products,which has contributed to both a growth inlivestock exports in the case of thiscountry and also demand for proteinmeals, soybean meal, other sorts of things.And, that has continued and is projectedto continue (http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2008/05/0130.xml).

That made us wonder if we had made amistake so we went back to the data tosee if there was an error in our calcula-tions. We are well aware that Chineseimports have sustained the worldsoybean complex market for some time,but were we wrong about China and thegrowth in livestock exports? And, whatabout India? Let’s look at the data.

To start with, what does Glauber meanby countries like China and India? To befair, are there other countries we shouldinclude in our analysis? Together thepopulation of China and India is 2.5billion people – nearly 37% of the world’spopulation. The next largest country isthe US with 304 million followed byIndonesia (232 million) and Brazil (187million).

Looking at Indonesia, the USDA PS&D(Production, Supply, And Distribution(http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdQuery.aspx) numbers shows that In-donesia is a minor player in the meatmarket, importing a mere 9,000 tonnes ofbroiler meat a year. When it comes to theoilseed complex and grains, Indonesiahas been a net exporter for the last fiveyears with net exports of nearly 7 milliontonnes in 2007. The very modest increasein Indonesia’s demand for meats (broil-

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ers) has not affected either grain andoilseed complex imports and meat im-ports, so they are not a factor in theincreasing demand that is said to be acomponent of the increase in the price ofcorn and other grains.

In Brazil meat consumption has doubledsince 1990, growing from 8 million tonnesto 17 million tonnes in 2007. At the sametime, Brazil’s exports of meats has in-creased from 0.3 million tonnes to 6.0million tonnes. Likewise Brazil’s com-bined exports of oilseed complex andgrains has grown nine-fold from 5 mil-lion tonnes in 1990 to 45 million tonnesin 2007.

The numbers we have just looked atsuggest that USDA’s focus was specifi-cally on China and India. A re-examina-tion of our data confirm that China’s2007 consumption of broilers was nearlyfive times what it was in 1990, with asmall amount of imports. Pork produc-tion in 2007 is twice what it was in 1990and China exports a small amount. Beefconsumption is now 7 times what it wasin 1990 and again China exports a smallamount. When all meats are combined,China has been a net exporter of meatssince 2001. Currently pork accounts for70% of China’s consumption of majormeats, followed by poultry at 18% andbeef at 12%.

Despite the repeated expectations thatChina would become a major importer ofgrains to feed the increased meat animalproduction, it has remained a net ex-porter of all grains since the 1996/1997crop year. Since the 1999 crop year,China’s year-ending grain stocks havedeclined from 88% of annual usage to28% of usage in 2007. That reduction instock levels has provided the grain thatChina needed in order to increase itslevel of meat production. Even thoughstock levels are down from their highsand one might anticipate that they soonwill need to import when their stocks runout, it is instructive to note that China’s

production of grains has exceeded itsconsumption for each of the last threeyears, while maintaining significant netexport levels.

When it comes to soybeans and oilseedcomplex in general, the story is quitedifferent. With the 1994 crop year Chinashifted from being a net exporter ofoilseed complex (seed, meal, oil) to beinga major net importer. In 2007, Chinaimported 44 million tonnes of oilseedcomplex, the bulk of it coming fromsoybean and its products. Certainly,China would not have been able toincrease its meat production in the ab-sence of these imports.

In the current environment, China’s in-crease in demand for oilseed complexneeds to be put in context. Rather thanplacing a significant upward pressureon world crop prices over the last dec-ade, it could be argued that China’sincrease in soybean imports for use asanimal feed has lit a bonfire under thefeet of Brazil’s agricultural sector, vastlyincreasing the world’s food growingcapacity both now and in the future. Formost of those years China’s soybeancomplex imports prevented soybeanprices from tanking quite as badly ascorn and the other grains. With at least300 million acres of land available fortillage, we ain’t seen nothing yet when itcomes to Brazil’s ability to producesoybeans and corn. China’s importshave helped spark a major round ofinvestment in Brazil’s agricultural pro-duction capacity that may lead onceagain to production levels that exceedconsumption levels, resulting in declin-ing prices in the coming years.

India’s story is much the same as Chi-na’s, only simpler. India has been anexporter of oil meals that could be usedfor meat animal production and animporter of palm oil and soybean oil thatwere used for food consumption. Whenit comes to grains, India has been a netexporter for 15 out of the last 18 years.

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India has also been a net meat exporterfor the last 18 years. Most of the exportswere beef. India’s consumption of beef isabout the same as it was in 1990 whilebroiler consumption has risen from 0.2million tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes in2007. Given that the eating of meat, asproscribed by Hindu beliefs, one wouldexpect that the growth in meat consump-tion, particularly beef and pork would bevery slow.

In that same press briefing, US Secretaryof Agriculture Ed Schafer said:

But we’re also seeing a new dynamic onthe demand side of the ledger in the form ofcontinued strong economic growth world-wide and growing prosperity in develop-ing nations. That translates to a greaterdemand for food of all kinds and especiallyhigher value foods such as meat and dairyproducts in nations like India and Chinawhere the growing middle class is emerg-ing. That trend increases demand for feedgrain for livestock as well.

As we have already seen, there is nodemand for feed grains from China andIndia, and none from Indonesia andBrazil as well. The next smaller countriesare Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria –not a very large and growing middleclass there. As far as dairy goes, theincreases come from internal productionnot international markets. In fact, Chinaand India have increased their con-sumption of these products. India hasincreased its net exports of these prod-ucts while China’s net imports have notexceeded 100,000 tonnes in any one year.

Daryll E. Ray holds the BlasingameChair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy,Institute of Agriculture, University ofTennessee, and is the Director of UT’sAgricultural Policy Analysis Center(APAC). (865) 974-7407; Fax: (865) 974-7298; [email protected]; http://www.agpolicy.org. Daryll Ray’s column is writ-ten with the research and assistance of

Harwood D. Schaffer, Research Associ-ate with APAC. (Reprinted here withthanks.)

* Editor's Note: the term 'broiler’ is mostly usedin North America to describe chickens or turkeysraised primarily for their meat; ‘they are givenunrestricted access to a special diet of high proteinfeed delivered via an automated feeding system.This is combined with artificial lighting conditionsto stimulate growth and thus the desired bodyweight is achieved in 4-8 weeks, depending onthe approximate body weight required by theprocessing plant. After processing, the poultryis delivered as fresh or frozen chicken to thestores and supermarkets’.

Agrofuels from Africa, notfor Africa

Carol B. Thompson

‘2008 – The Year of Food Riots’

flashes across news headlines, as hun-gry people are taking to the streets inmore than 70 countries, protesting thehigh price of food.

Higher food costs result from manyfactors, such as drought, reduced grainreserves, and higher demand from popu-lation growth. A major factor, however,is increased production of food crops tofeed cars not people. At the start of thedecade, a small amount of grain – 18million tonnes – was used for industrialpurposes. This year 100 million tonneswill go towards agrofuels and otherindustrial purposes.

American cars now burn enough maizeto meet all the import needs of the 82countries classified as ‘low-income food-deficit’ by the UN Food and AgricultureOrganisation. As one commentator re-marked, ‘there could scarcely be a betterway to starve the poor.’

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Because the demand for agrofuels seemsto be insatiable, more global corpora-tions are looking at Africa in a differentway, not seeing the hungry, but rather,noticing the extensive land mass andcalling Africa the ‘green OPEC’.

• But is this land ‘available’ for fuelproduction?

• What are the impacts of fuel cropproduction on food crops?

A basic problem is that industrialisedcountries have set ‘green’ targets foragrofuel consumption which they can-not fulfill with their own local produc-tion. For Europe to grow crops for itsethanol targets, it would take 70% of itsfarmland, for the USA, 43%. Fulfilling‘green’ goals, therefore, very much de-pends on industrialised countries takingcommand of land in South countries inorder to grow agrofuel crops.

The amount of land under discussion foragrofuel crop production in Africa ismassive: over 2 million hectares in Mo-zambique, 1-2 million hectares in Ethio-pia, and even 3 million hectaresdiscussed as ‘available’ in tiny Benin.

No matter how much land is allocated,however, its use will be overwhelminglyfor foreign consumption. Such major tractsof land designated to meet foreigners’transport needs signals, once again, theexpatriation of African lands. Exportcrops for overseas consumption whileAfricans go hungry is a historical pat-tern all too familiar on the continent; it iscertainly not the hope of 21st centuryAfrican agriculture.

For efficiency, the current producers ofagrofuels use monoculture plantationsfor maize, soya, and sugar, maximisingfertiliser and water inputs for high yields.For crops, such as jatropha, most oftenplanted on the fringes of marginal land,the planting patterns would have todrastically change to large-scale

monoculture in order to grow sufficientfeedstock.

High yields are necessary because of themassive amount of plant material neededfor fuel. WorldWatch Institute offers thecomparison that the amount of grainrequired to fill the 90-litre petrol tank of a4x4 vehicle once with ethanol could feedone person for a year. The grain it takes tofill the tank every two weeks over a yearwould feed 26 people.

Requiring high yields also gives impetusto the industries wanting to profit fromgenetically modified organisms (GMOs),which could not take off in the globalmarketplace as food (maize, soya, canola),but seek to find new life in the agrofuelmarket. The plans are to geneticallymodify cassava to a higher sugar contentand to genetically modify other plants sotheir cellulose composition can be moreeasily broken down to extract the liquids.These GMOs, grown on vast tracts ofland, will genetically pollute indigenousstrains, altering their characteristics aswell as contributing to the loss ofbiodiversity.

What are the implications ofglobal agrofuel production onAfrican lands?• Loss of Food Security and Food

Sovereignty: Making hungry chil-dren compete with cars for fooddraws a clear image of loss of foodsecurity. As the continent of Africastrives to reduce hunger, the globalcorporations see plentiful land –millions of hectares – free for thetaking? Agrofuels therefore directlythreaten the human right to food;

• Loss of Biodiversity: Althoughbiodiversity is the future of food,especially with global warming,agrofuels value only monoculture;

• GM Contamination: Introducingplantation production of geneti-

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cally modified trees or cassava,sorghum, or maize will contami-nate local varieties and destroybiodiversity;

• Threat to Small-Scale Farmers:Industrial production of agrofuelsenhances the agricultural modelwhich pushes small-scale farmersaside as ‘inefficient’ and ‘insuffi-cient’ producers. If plantation farm-ing is the model, rural communitieswill once again become workers forforeign corporations which exportthe product and the profits;

• Anti-Development: Africa hasmuch experience with productionof tobacco, cotton or cut flowers forglobal markets. A few become rich,but there is no development, for theexport of unprocessed commodi-ties does not create new industriesor many jobs. Plantation agrofuelswould perpetuate this pattern.

Many African civil society organisationsare calling for a moratorium on agrofuelinvestment and production. The realcosts must first be transparently debatedby all.

Excerpted from a report, that has full references:Carol B. Thompson (2008), ‘Agrofuels forAfrica?,’ Community Technology DevelopmentTrust (Harare), May.

Bibliography

Rothkopf, Garten (2007), ‘A Blueprint for greenenergy in the Americas,’ Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank; available at http://www.iadb.org/biofuels

Smolker, Rachel, Brian Tolker, Ann Peter-mann & Eva Hernandez (2007), The Real Cost ofAgrofuels – Food, Forest and the Climate, GlobalForest Coalition.

Agrofuels & Foreign Land Use inAfrica

This preliminary chart of estimationsgives only a hint of the many discussionsacross Africa about foreign use of Afri-can lands to supply foreign markets.

Could you please help us toupdate the list opposite?

Carol Thompson, our US-based ROAPEeditor, will be collating the data and wewill be publishing these updates in theMarch 2009 issue.

Please send your findings to [email protected] and mark the sub-ject line ‘ROAPE/Agrofuels’.

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Agrofuels & Foreign Land Use in Africa

Country Corporations Crops Land Comments

Benin Interest by Malaysia, Jatropha, palm 240,000 ha, Agrofuels central to govt's‘agri- China, S. Africa, oil, sugar, manioc jatropha by 2012; cultural revival program’ Brazil 400,000 ha palm oil

appropriate’, 3m ha ‘available’

Cameroon Socapalm, Socfinal, Palm oil To expand beyond Forest peoples resisting both Belgium 30,000 haCAR EU Commission Cassava, sugar 29.8m ha Congo River Basin (6 countries) study soy, sorghum ‘very suitable’ has 18% of global rainforestsDRCongo Aurantia/Spain, Palm Oil 3m ha palm oil World Bank giving loans for ZTE Intl/China plantation planned; commercial logging

12m ha ‘available’Ethiopia Flora Ecopower/ Jatropha 14,000 ha of which No restitution yet – will increase Germany 87% destroyed to 200,000

forests of elephant sanctuary

Sun BioFuel/UK; Jatropha 325,000 ha drafted Ethiopian castor beans agrofuels strategy palm oil LHB/Israel Jatropha 140,000 to expand to Hovey Ag./Israel 500,000 Becco Biofuels 125,000 ha Natl Biodiesel Corp/ both USATotal 1.2m ha‘potential’ Negotiating with foreign corps

Kenya Bioenegy Intl/ Jatropha 93,000 ha Swiss Liberia Equatorial Biofuels/ Palm oil 700,000 ha UKMozambique State land con- Jatropha 3.5m ha ‘potential’ Mozambique Biofuel Industries cessions to palm oil managing concessions foreign corps. sugar, cassava

copraNigeria Telefonaktiebolaget, Sugar, palm oil 50,000 ha planned; For rural electrification LM Ericsson, cassava 400,000 ha ‘potential’ for telecommunications MTN/China Congo Magindustries/ Eucalyptus 68,000 ha Wood chips shipped to Europe

Canada for biomass

S.Africa D1 Oils Africa/UK Maize, sugar, 650,000 ha maize; ‘Govt seeking investment’,jatropha,sunflower 3m ha ‘former home- May 2007

lands’ available

Swaziland Cassava several 1000s ha Chronic food deficit country allocated by govt

Tanzania Sun Biofuels/UK Jatropha 18,000 ha Lindi Sweden (goal of no fossil fuels by 2020) Sugar cane 400,000 proposed In the Wami Basin wetlands;

proposed will displace rice farmers Malaysia, Indonesia palm oil 8,000 ha Kigoma PROKON/Germany Jatropha 10,000 ha Jatropha to expand greatly

Uganda SCOUL/E. Africa Sugar 7,100 ha Mabira Stopped by civil society Forest saved but 6,000 cleared on Kalangala, Bugala Islands

BIDCO Palm oil

Zambia D1 Oils Africa/UK Sugar, jatropha, 45,000 ha now; Forest reserves available cassava 500,000 ha ‘available’ for cultivation

Sources: Summarised from African Biodiversity Network (2007), ‘Agrofuels in Africa: the impact on land, food & forests,’July; GRAIN (2007), ‘The new scramble for Africa,’ Seedling – Agrofuels special issue, July, pp. 36-45.

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Apollo L. Njonjo8 FEBRUARY 1947 - 6 MARCH 2008

Apollo Njonjo, a former contributor toROAPE’s issue, ‘Kenya: The AgrarianQuestion’ (No. 20, March 1981) died inNairobi on 6 March 2008 after twentyfive years of dealing with a heart condi-tion complicated by diabetes. He wasborn in Limuru, attending distinguishedlocal primary and secondary schoolseven during Mau Mau and the Emer-gency. He graduated with honors inhistory and government from the Univer-sity of Nairobi in 1970. He then went toPrinceton University, supported by theRockefeller Foundation, receiving hisdoctorate from the Department of Politicsin 1977. His Ph.D. thesis on ‘TheAfricanization of the “White Highlands“and the Agrarian Class Struggle inKenya’ remains a classic and still iswidely cited.

Upon returning to Kenya, Apollo taughtin the Department of Government at theUniversity of Nairobi from 1977-79, thenworking for Technoserve, a US develop-ment organization. In 1981, he set up oneof the first Kenyan owned and operatedconsulting firms, the Business and Eco-nomic Research (BER) Bureau. His mainfocus was on water development projectsand his clients ranged from Kenyanministries to a number of bilateral andmultilateral organizations in Eastern andCentral Africa. He also assisted studentsfrom his home area with grants and withadvice and worked in other sectors aswell as bringing a number of develop-ment projects to Limuru.

Apollo spent his life fighting againstrepression and for democracy in Kenya.He was a part of Kenya’s ‘second libera-tion’ and the long and difficult struggleagainst the tyranny of former PresidentMoi. He was Secretary General of theprogressive Social Democratic Party(SDP) from 1991-2007 after which he

headed The Center for Multi-Party De-mocracy in Nairobi. He understood thatKenya’s future depended on its ability toestablish multi-ethnic political partiesand was disappointed when the SDPfailed to live up to its initial promise. Heran for M.P. from his home district ofLimuru three times, including in the lastelection.

Apollo is best remembered by his friendsas someone with a good sense of humor,a keen intellect, an argumentative style,and an utter distain for tribal politics. Hewas intellectually honest and incisiveand did not pander to popular views orto what others wanted to hear.

His own home and office were multi-ethnic and he was appalled by theviolence which engulfed Kenya after the2007 election. He also was singularlyunimpressed by many of Kenya’s newwave of politicians after 2002, viewingthem as predictable primitive accumula-tors. He saw the devastating results ofland grabbing and the building of vastshoddy complexes of flats in parts ofNairobi, where water and sewage re-sources were inadequate, something heknew from his own work.

The kinds of questions posed by Apolloand others in ROAPE’s issue on theAgrarian Question in Kenya and inApollo’s article, ‘The Kenyan Peasantry:A Reassessment’ remain relevant today:what sort of differentiation is Kenya’srural population experiencing, with whatconsequences, how does it compare withprevious types of capitalist develop-ment, and what does it tell us aboutKenya’s future? In his 1981 ROAPEarticle Apollo noted that Kenya’s peas-antry was increasingly being quasi-proletarianized, and that its continuedattachment to its small unviable bits ofland made it prone to fascism, somethingdisputed by other contributors to thevolume. That said, Apollo felt Kenya’srecent implosion into violence was not

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about land grievances, but ultimatelyabout a political class which was pre-pared to do anything to obtain andretain political power, including perpe-trating the worst sorts of violence alongethnic lines. He was shocked by whathappened and feared for Kenya’s future.

He leaves behind his family: his wifeIrene Wanjiku, his daughter Waringa,his son Kimani and his wife Carol, and agrandson, Tyler Ngigi as well as friendsand colleagues, all of whom miss himgreatly.

Susanne D. Mueller, Associate, Depart-ment of African and African AmericanStudies, Harvard University; [email protected]. Susanne Mueller at-tended graduate school at Princetonwith Apollo, and knew him and hisfamily for 38 years. She last saw Apolloin 2006 when she stayed with the familyand last spoke to him in January 2008during the violence.

We remember: Apollo L. Njonjo 521

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agrofuels from africa, not for africa

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