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"GO BACK TO AFRICA" - NO LONGER A DREAM BUT A REALITY FOR BLACKS IN AMERICA
Focus on the African Union's summit
ADDIS ABABA, 5 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - African leaders are due to meet in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday for a summit of the African Union (AU), where they will discuss an ambitious road map in an effort to herald a new era, end years of conflict, fight poverty and combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS on the continent.
During the summit, AU Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare will unveil a three-pronged plan - a vision, a mission and a strategy – for the world’s poorest continent. But the burning question facing the leaders is how to finance their grandiose schemes.
Konare estimates that to launch Africa into the 21st century and make it more competitive would cost at last US $600 million. He is therefore proposing that the AU’s 53 members pledge 0.5 percent of their national budgets to the pan-African organisation. But for a body whose current annual budget is around $45 million - a tiny sum approximating members’ arrears – there is little chance that Konare’s targets will be met.
Yet the AU is adamant that the continent must be seen picking up the bill for its own problems before turning to rich nations and expecting greater support. And, it stresses, without that pledge, key institutions or strategies for building a new Africa and revitalising the world’s poorest continent may face the axe.
"We want to create an integrated, peaceful, prosperous Africa," Adam Thiam, Konare’s spokesman, told IRIN, saying these were part of six objectives and 25 AU-led priority programmes focusing on greater social, political and economic integration.
Konare, he added, acknowledged that a round of bargaining over funding would take place, and that he might not get the 0.5 percent he wants. "He is realistic," Thiam said. "We realise we probably won’t get that. For us, $300 million would be a good compromise. The heads of state know if they don’t put up the money, we cannot reach our aims, but they are not saying they will not put the money up; they are just impressed at the amount, and that is what we must look at."
Proposed institutions include a $200 million peace fund with its own standing army, a $30 million pan-African parliament, and a $3 million court of justice. Some $600 million is to be ploughed over three years into the much-heralded continent-wide anti-poverty blueprint – the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
A plan to double the number of staff at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa would also raise running costs to the region of $130 million a year, the AU said.
Konare will make his appeal to an audience of 35 heads of state who are expected to attend, as well as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other top officials.
By its sheer size – some 30 million sq km – and a population of 813 million people, the AU holds lofty ambitions in believing that the continent could become a global powerhouse. But the continent’s gross domestic product of $612,916 million is dwarfed by its combined debt - a colossal $305 billion.
Bankrupt countries also face a heavy burden created by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and wars have created millions of refugees. Another complaint already emerging is that African countries are already contributing to the UN, so paying into a second peace fund is a double tax.
Other larger countries, like South Africa, Nigeria, Libya, Algeria and Egypt, which already foot most of the AU bill, are seeking a more dominant voice. One Nigerian diplomat told IRIN that between $100 and $150 million would be a more realistic figure that countries could agree to.
"Even this would mean tripling contributions," the diplomat said. He noted, however, that constitutional laws would preclude any of the expected 27 heads of state from making the 0.5 percent pledge without first putting it before their own parliaments.
At the heart of the AU's plans is the Peace and Security Council, to which African countries currently contribute a meagre $1.6 million a year. The AU estimates that since the 1960s, Africa has witnessed some 30 conflicts, claiming seven million lives and costing $250 billion.
By 2010, the AU hopes to have its own stand-by rapid-reaction force of 15,000 men, made up of five regional brigades, to quell conflicts in Africa. "Funding so far is totally inadequate," Sam Ibok, a top AU official, said. "You have to put your money where your mouth is," he told IRIN.
"The only way we can sound credible to the rest of the world is by putting something on the table. This really is a make-or-break summit for us. If you establish these institutions, then you have got to pay for it," he added.
The AU was established in July 2001 to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was founded as part of the African independence movement in 1963. The OAU has been criticised as having been a toothless talking shop with a policy of nonintervention, in the context of which African nations did little or nothing to prevent massive abuses.
Ibok, a career diplomat, insists that the new-look AU will be taking a stronger stand. He says peacekeeping troops have been deployed to Burundi, where more than 300,000 people have been killed in the last decade, and ceasefire monitors sent to the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
Conflicts and peace initiatives in Cote d’Ivoire, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea would also be on the agenda, he added.
The irony of holding the summit in Ethiopia, currently embroiled in a standoff and stalled peace process with neighbouring Eritrea, was not lost on him. "Ethiopia and Eritrea is in our back yard," he said. "This is our headquarters. If we cannot resolve the problem here, which problem can we resolve? What does that tell you about our peace and security mechanisms when we have one of the most serious, and potentially most dangerous, crises in our back yard? It is embarrassing for us because we cannot afford to be quiet," he added.
AFRICA
War against disease failing - African Union
ADDIS ABABA, 5 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - African countries are failing to win the war against malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, the African Union (AU) plans to tell the continent’s leaders on Tuesday.
A report to be presented to AU leaders says insufficient progress has been made in combating disease despite major increases of financial support from the Global Fund, World Bank and Western countries. Limited capacity and underdeveloped health systems, it notes, are largely to blame for the "slow progress" made by governments in this respect.
Many governments, the AU added, were still taxing life-saving mosquito nets despite pledging to waive or reduce charges. Malaria, the AU warns, is costing Africa US $12 billion every year and is the leading cause of death in children under five years of age, killing 900,000 people annually.
On HIV/AIDS, almost half of countries have not adopted legislation to prevent discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, the report states. More than two-thirds of countries have virtually no treatment programmes for anti-retroviral therapy for pregnant women and the newborn, the AU adds.
And just four countries say more than half of patients with sexually transmitted diseases – which are linked to the virus - are being diagnosed, counselled and treated. The report also notes that HIV prevalence in African cities is alarming, with, for example, Gaborone in Botswana having 40 percent of women aged 15 to 49 infected with the virus.
According to UNAIDS, countries with prevalence rates of 20 percent and above will see their gross domestic product reduced by an average of 2.6 percent. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation also estimates that seven million farm workers died between 1985 and 2000 in the most-affected countries.
The UN also estimates 16 million people will die in the next 20 years, compounding high levels of poverty and risk of hunger and malnutrition.
According to the AU's 22-page report, just a handful of countries have complied with international guidelines to defeat the spread of tuberculosis. "Although a lot is being done, much more needs to be done if Africa’s renaissance is to be realised," the report notes.
The report addresses progress made under the Maputo Declaration, a seven-point pledge aiming to fight infectious diseases made at the AU summit in Mozambique last year. This followed the Abuja declaration of 2001, in which leaders pledged 15 percent of their national budgets to improve health care on the continent.
Just a handful of the 53 member states of the AU "have or are near" to having ploughed 15 percent of national budgets into their chronically underfunded health sectors, the report says. Although the AU recognises an "upsurge" in political commitment, the report says rhetoric is not enough, and that countries must meet their pledges.
ZIMBABWE:
Rights activists welcome AU moves to address abuses
JOHANNESBURG, 5 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - Civil rights activists in Zimbabwe have welcomed a move by the African Union (AU) to address allegations of ongoing rights abuses, but called on the regional group to take "concrete steps" towards resolving the current political crisis.
In what has been described as the "harshest criticism" to date by the 53-member body, the AU executive council at the weekend adopted a report critical of the Zimbabwean authorities for the arrests and alleged torture of opposition party members and human rights lawyers, harassment of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression and abuse of civil liberties.
The report, prepared by experts from the AU Commission on Human and People's Rights, was based on findings during a mission to Zimbabwe in 2002, and is expected to be considered by the AU's annual summit of heads of state that begins in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday.
"The mission was presented with testimony from witnesses who were victims of police violence and other victims of torture while in police custody. There was evidence that the system of arbitrary arrests took place. The mission is prepared and able to rule that the government cannot wash its hands of responsibility for these happenings," Reuters news agency quoted the document as saying.
Brian Kagoro, chief executive of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a group of pro-democracy NGOs, said the AU rebuke was "significant" as it signalled a shift in attitude among African nations towards President Robert Mugabe's government.
"The AU must now move beyond condemnation towards increasing the pressure on Mugabe to undertake immediate remedial steps to resolve the current crisis. Civil society has always maintained that the disbanding of the youth militia and the war veterans is an important measure as both groups only serve to facilitate the ongoing repression," Kagoro told IRIN.
Although the mission was unable to find definitively that rights violations by ruling ZANU-PF activists were part of an orchestrated government policy, "there was an acknowledgement (by government officials) that excesses did occur".
Zimbabwean officials have reportedly protested against the adoption of the report, saying that the government had not been given an opportunity to review and respond to its findings.
ZANU-PF chairman John Nkomo on Monday told IRIN that he had not been briefed on the proceedings in Addis Ababa and could not respond to the report until he had read the document.
The report also called for the repeal of tough legislation which "shackled the media". According to an annual survey by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Zimbabwe is allegedly the most repressive country in Southern Africa in terms of media freedom. Last year media freedom alerts received from Zimbabwe represented 54 percent of the total recorded by MISA in 10 countries.
"The AU must cajole the authorities to open up democratic space in Zimbabwe so that there is greater freedom for citizens to protest. There should also be considerable effort towards the equitable treatment of citizens irrespective of their political affiliation," said Kagoro.
In the past African governments have been accused of ignoring the alleged rights abuses of the government, as it clamped down on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
However, there has been growing pressure from the international community, especially donors, for the AU to take a lead over Zimbabwe, one locally-based analyst said on Monday.
"The AU has never really condemned member states unless the situation was really critical for example in Rwanda or the Congo. But there has been considerable pressure on African leaders from Western countries to deal with the Zimbabwe situation," John Makumbe, a senior political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, told IRIN.
"There is also concern among AU member states that unless African leaders are seen to be tackling the problems on the continent, it is unlikely that the West will be sympathetic to their call for funding, especially for NEPAD [New Partnership for Africa's Development]," he added.
AFRICA:
Annan calls for "green revolution" to reduce hunger
ADDIS ABABA, 6 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday that halving hunger in Africa by 2015 under global anti-poverty goals seemed more of a "far-off fantasy" than an achievable target. He called for a "green revolution" if the lives of 200 million people suffering from chronic hunger on the continent were to be radically changed.
"Africa is the only continent where child malnutrition is getting worse rather than better," Annan said. "Tragically, the past decade has seen very little progress."
Addressing an audience which included seven African leaders, scientists and development experts, he said the green revolution in Asia had tripled food productivity there. "Africa has not yet had a green revolution of its own," he told told a seminar on reducing hunger at the UN Conference Centre in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Women often bore the brunt of shortages, Annan noted, adding that they also did "the lion’s share" of agricultural work, preparing food and gathering water and firewood. However, they lacked access to credit and technology training, and were often denied legal rights, including the right to own land, he said.
Girls, Annan noted, suffered disproportionately in terms of nutrition, with the result that they gave birth to underweight children. "Thus the plight of poverty and disease is carried forward to the next generation," he said.
"We are here today to end this pattern, and ensure that Africa’s children enjoy a different inheritance," he stressed.
He argued that by applying scientific and technological know-how, the continent could generate its own green revolution for the 21st century. This would involve the expansion of small-scale irrigation, the improvement of soil health, electrification and the provision of access to information technology and hunger early warning schemes.
Annan also dwelt on the AIDS pandemic, which is claiming 6,500 African lives a day, thereby robbing the continent of a generation of farmers. "In Africa, fighting hunger and fighting AIDS must go hand in hand," he said.
The seminar addressed by Annan was jointly sponsored by the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger and the Ethiopian government, and was entitled "Innovative Approaches to Meeting the Hunger MDG in Africa".
Participants in the high-level gathering will focus on practical and innovative steps to halve the number of hungry and malnourished people in Africa by 2015. They aim to address ways of improving agriculture, health care and nutrition, and of rectifying weaknesses brought about by poor infrastructure, weak markets and massive environmental degradation.
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