This publication, produced by the United Nations Population Fund, focuses on national efforts to reduce poverty. It presents seven arguments for why national public policy makers should give more attention to young people, if these efforts are to be successful. It offers a conceptual framework to work out what arguments and supporting evidence in relation to young people are likely to be most appropriate to apply in the context of developing or refining a national poverty reduction strategy.

EPA negotiations have been underway since September 2002 and must be completed by the end of 2006. On 25 July 2005, at a meeting of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Negotiating Group on Rules, WTO members will debate the introduction of flexibilities and special treatment for developing countries into rules governing regional trade agreements (RTAs). This is a crucial area for the ACP group of countries with regards negotiations over EPAs, writes Christina Weller.

On 25 July 2005, at a meeting of World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Negotiating Group on Rules, WTO members will debate the introduction of flexibilities and special treatment for developing countries into rules governing regional trade agreements (RTAs).

For the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries, these are high-stakes issues: effective provisions for special and differential treatment will mean that development can truly be put first in economic partnership agreements (EPAs) and that trade reforms can be made to fit with national and regional development strategies. Without them EPAs will be bound to impose arbitrary and stringent timeframes for the elimination of tariffs on the majority of imports from the EU.

Over the last two months, there has been a flurry of activity in a notoriously difficult and slow area of WTO negotiations in recognition of the need to address this important anomaly in WTO rules.

Last month, the African Union (AU) called for WTO Rules governing regional trade agreements (RTAs) to be 'appropriately amended to allow for necessary special and differential treatment, less than full reciprocity principles and explicit flexibilities that are consistent with the asymmetry required to make EPAs pro-development' (AU 2005).

The European Commission (EC) only a few weeks previously made its own submission which, while it contains no concrete proposals, recognises that 'the developmental dimension of regional trade agreements must also constitute an integral part of the clarification and improvement of WTO rules for RTAs' (WTO 2005b) The WTO secretariat's paper of the same month (Crawford and Fiorentino 2005) describes the application of criteria of reciprocal and comprehensive trade liberalisation as a 'peculiarity' and recognises the 'formidable challenge of transition' that such RTAs would pose, citing EPAs as a case in point. These issues will be discussed this month when the EC's submission and redrafting of the ACP's initial paper on the topic (which put these issues on the table back in April 2004) will be debated by the Rules Negotiations Group.

The momentum for addressing this problem has not come too soon. EPA negotiations have been underway since September 2002 and must be completed by the end of 2006. Some regions are already well into substantive negotiations. Until the systemic issues of these WTO rules are resolved, negotiators are at best negotiating blind and at worst being obliged to look for least worst options that might allow them to protect their most important sectors now, even though this might leave their hands tied for the future.

What needs to change?

By some quirk of WTO history, flawed rules have meant that up until now the well-established principles of special and differential treatment and less than full reciprocity have not been applied to an area where they are strongly justified, that is in RTAs between unequal trading partners (see especially Onguglo and Ito 2003).

Because RTAs between developed and developing country partners were not envisaged when these rules were devised, developing country governments are constrained by overly strict rules from obtaining in negotiations the necessary flexibility to pursue agricultural and industrial development strategies, with the result that their producers and traders are pitted against competition from more powerful, efficient and frequently subsidised counterparts in developed countries.

Just as in RTAs between two (sets of) developed countries, developing countries are currently legally required to liberalise 'substantially all trade' in goods over a 'reasonable' period of time (interpreted as 10–12 years). Note that RTAs between two developing country groupings are governed by the Enabling Clause of 1979 and are therefore exempt from these requirements. GATS Article V, also under review as part of the Doha Round, already contains provisions for flexibility for developing countries within north–south agreements, although these have also been criticised as ineffective.

The Doha Declaration (para 29) mandated members to clarify and strengthen the provisions of Article XXIV of the GATT 1994, taking into account development aspects of RTAs.

Although there is an emerging consensus to introduce special and differential treatment into RTA rules, the nature of this special treatment is not agreed. The ACP's first proposal was considered too extreme by some, including the EC. Some countries, for example Japan, questioned the inclusion of 18 years as 'indicative' of an extended transition period.

The EC's approach is to 'clarify the flexibilities already provided within the existing WTO rules on RTAs, in order to give greater security to developing country parties to RTAs'. In the case of EPAs, the EC (and academics) have calculated that using this asymmetry, ACP countries could exclude their sensitive sectors from liberalisation. The EC often cites the example of the EU's own Trade and Development Cooperation Agreement with South Africa whereby the EU liberalised a greater percentage of its own trade so that South Africa needed only to liberalise 86%, the averaging out of coverage being deemed sufficient to comply with WTO rules. A number of RTAs have also exceeded the accepted 10–12-year transition period.

However, this approach does not take into account the differing regional interests in negotiations, and therefore undermines the process of regional integration that EPAs are intended to support (Stevens and Kennan 2005). The asymmetrical option also takes a static view, the need for flexibility being calculated on current trade flows. To develop, ACP countries need to have flexible trade policies that will allow them to diversify into value-added production. This will require them to be able to raise tariffs in the future in some areas currently not important to their external trade.

The alternative view is that there should be no compulsion for developing countries to 'offer' concessions on market access to 'win' increased market access from developed countries. This is the view shared by EU and ACP civil society. It is consistent with the findings of the Commission for Africa that countries should not be forced to liberalise, including through trade negotiations. It is the only way to properly ensure that trade agreements are supportive to development strategies and that the declaration by ACP ministers that 'RTA rules should take into account the specificities and development needs' of ACP states can be addressed.

Since developing countries have already undertaken a large amount of 'autonomous' liberalisation under the influence of the Bretton Woods institutions and donors, the idea that they should offer more access to, for example, the EU in return for market access that should be (and for the ACP countries already was under previous Lomé arrangements) unilaterally granted by developed countries, is perverse.

The limited flexibility that remains to these countries is important and should not be further curtailed. Their ability to raise as well as lower tariffs as industrial development progresses needs to be maintained and strengthened. This development is difficult to predict and the inexorable lowering of tariffs over a fixed transition period has proven harmful in the past. These damaging effects far outweigh the already questionable benefits of encouraging foreign investment through 'locking in' reforms. Instead market opening should be linked directly to development needs – benchmarks instead of arbitrary timeframes should govern liberalisation commitments and 'escape clauses' should be introduced so that harmful policies can be reversed as necessary.

The concept of less than full reciprocity, used by the African Union in its statement, is not well defined. This terminology in the enabling clause exempted developing countries from obligations to offer any concessions in market opening. Under current market access negotiations, the same terminology implies that developing countries will make some concessions, but that these would be significantly lower than those for developed countries. The tenor of the AU's statement suggests that the onus is on maximising flexibility within the current political realities.

Is a consensus likely to emerge?

As with other areas of the Doha agenda, the chair of the rules group will be required at least to make a progress report at the WTO General Council meeting this month. At the time of writing, there is much speculation about expectations for July. The idea of 'first approximations' is a vague one, and as progress is painfully slow in key areas, it is unclear whether anything as ambitious as draft agreements can be expected. Yet the intention still holds that the Hong Kong ministerial meeting should not be the forum for significant brokering of agreements.

Rules talks are notoriously slow and difficult as they tinker with the infrastructure of international trade rules, tend to open up controversial issues, inconsistencies or lack of definitions that may have benefited some members over others. This is certainly the case for RTA rules. The number of RTAs has increased dramatically over recent years (World Bank 2004). These RTAs have varied significantly in scope and transitional arrangements (WTO 2002). If proposals for 'grandfathering' (i.e. retrospective application) of changes in rules are accepted, then these talks could be opening Pandora's box.

A further political complication is posed to the ACP countries by the EC’s agenda to target larger developing countries, such as India and Brazil, in this round. In its submission, the implied quid pro quo for special and differential treatment provisions is that there be an acceptance that RTAs between larger developing countries become subject to stricter disciplines and no longer be governed by the enabling clause (WTO 2005b).

The position of the USA is not yet clear. Their main interests in rules negotiations lie elsewhere (for example in anti-dumping). In theory, they could have an interest in also seeking provision of special and differential treatment in RTAs, as their own trade arrangements with developing countries, for example AGOA (the African Growth and Opportunity Act), are not in conformity with current rules. However, the seeking of waivers for these arrangements suggests that this might not be the case in practice.

Despite this, there does seem to be convergence around the need to introduce special and differential treatment in these rules, with even 'hardliners' who are looking for their most strict application now accepting this principle (WTO 2005a).

ACP countries with other WTO members now face a greater challenge of making this principle work in practice. The EC must hold firm to its commitments to put development first in EPAs and to ally with the ACP countries to make any necessary changes in WTO rules to ensure their legality. [Article 36, Cotonou Agreement]

* Christina Weller works for Christian Aid on issues of trade.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

References

African Union (AU) (2005) 'Ministerial declaration on EPA negotiations', 5-9 June 2005, Cairo, Egypt

Crawford J-A and Fiorentino R (2005) 'The changing landscape of regional trade agreements', Discussion Paper 8, WTO, Geneva

Onguglo B and Ito T (2003) 'Towards special and differential treatment in Article XXIV of GATT 1994 in the context of economic partnership agreements', Brussels: ACP Secretariat

Stevens, C and Kennan J, 2005, 'EU–ACP economic partnership agreements: the effects of reciprocity', Briefing Paper, June, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex

World Bank (2004) Global Economic Prospects 2004, Washington DC: World Bank

World Trade Organisation (WTO) (2002) 'Coverage, liberalisation process and transitional provisions in regional trade agreements: background survey by the secretariat, Geneva: WTO, Geneva

World Trade Organisation (WTO) (2005a) 'Submission on Regional Trade Agreements by Australia', TN/RL/W/180. Geneva: WTO

World Trade Organisation (WTO) (2005b) 'Submission on regional trade agreements by the European Communities', TN/RL/W/179. Geneva: WTO

The language might be the same but the divide between what the European Union and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries want from Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) is huge, explains Bibiane Mbaye. The EU has largely bulldozed its way through the negotiations so far. “Not only has not a single commitment in favour of an agreement benefiting development been made by the EC, but additionally, the EC is actually using the EPAs to obtain what it has not been able to obtain multilaterally,” writes Mbaye.

Cooperative relations between the European Community (EC) and its former colonies of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region are governed by a Partnership Agreement between the two parties. These agreements concern development aid (technical and financial assistance), economic and trade cooperation, and political cooperation. In June 2000 at Cotonou, the ACP countries agreed to draw up new trade agreements, putting an end to the trade regime in place under the preceding Lomé agreements.

Based on non-reciprocal preferences, accorded by the EC in favour of the ACP countries, Lomé was judged to be incompatible with World trade Organisation (WTO) agreements. The Cotonou agreement of which the principal stated objective is to combat, reduce and eventually eradicate poverty advocates the clinching of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EC and the different ACP regions. These EPAs are essentially free trade agreements. All the ACP regions are today engaged in the negotiation of the EPAs: Africa comprises four regions: SADEC, east and southern Africa, West Africa and Central Africa.

For the ACP countries and regions, the negotiation of an EPA is a first step that poses several challenges:

- Countries must for the first time negotiate the substance of trade cooperation with the EC, the leading global trading power, which is moreover their leading economic partner and provider of government development aid.

- The negotiations are taking place between each ACP region and the EC. This means the end of a single arrangement for all the ACP countries. The principle implications are partly a question of geographic groupings (several countries are at the same time members of several regional organisations) and partly that they entail more direct relationships than in multilateral negotiations.

- The EPA is a free trade agreement, which aims to establish free trade zones between the different ACP and EC regions, implying overt north-south regionalism and strongly unequal reciprocity and competition between the two entities at the level of development.

- The negotiations will be conducted concomitantly with other trade negotiations: at a regional level (ongoing process of regional integration) and at a multilateral level (WTO), with the notable necessity of maintaining coherence between the national development choices and commitments at different levels.

Last but not least, these regions have an extraordinarily short period of time available of three years (the negotiations at regional levels began for certain regions at the end of the year 2003, and for others in 2004) to achieve the process of regional integration or to create regional free trade zones which are required for the implementation of the EPAs and to finalise negotiations of the EPAs themselves.

In summary, and taking everything into account, the major challenge remaining is the capacity of the ACP regions in terms of analytical capacity to articulate and define their interests, and institutional capacity to allow them to conduct negotiations with the European Commission, in their best interests.

For the ACP regions as well as for the EC, the declared objective of the EPA is development. Its added value is financing development, and the favoured strategy is to lend support to existing processes of regional integration. However, even if the two parties are appearing to speak the same language, fundamental differences are emerging at each stage of the discussions regarding the real substance of the negotiations and of the future EPAs. Worse, the gap in understanding between the two parties seems to be growing as the discussions progress, which despite everything, are still going ahead.

Effectively, beyond the purpose of the EPA itself (is it a free trade agreement or economic and trade partnership?), the ways in which certain fundamental questions such as regional integration and development questions (West Africa constitutes ECOWAS and Mauritania) are being addressed in the EPA negotiation with West Africa, serve as examples that illustrate this dichotomy, and the double-speak of the European Commission and its neo-liberal free-trade orientation which prevails in the ongoing discussions.

The negotiation process, although not yet very advanced, has undergone important stages such as the adoption of the negotiating plan, and technical groupings linked with regional integration. Thematic discussions have begun and high-level civil servants of the two regions have already met twice over the course of 2005. They have debated amongst other matters, the structure of the reference framework of the EPAs without arriving at a consensus, and they have adopted the report together with the first working group on the Free Trade Zone, the Customs Union and the Facilitation of Trade.

The EPA negotiating plan between West Africa and the European Community was adopted on the 4 August 2004 after almost one year of discussions. The principal points of divergence are regional integration, support for ‘competivity’ as well as the questions pronounced at Singapore.

On regional integration, the position of West Africa was that it would first be necessary to strengthen regional integration with the help of the partnership, and to create a regional market before negotiating the substance of the free trade agreement between the two zones, West Africa and the EU. The EU however would not submit to the opening of trade negotiations before the finalisation of the process of regional integration in West Africa.

The second stumbling block concerned questions of financing adjustment costs and of strengthening ‘competivity’. When the plan was negotiated, the EC asked purely and simply for the paragraphs on the improvement of ‘competivity’ and the strengthening of capacities to be eliminated. According to the EU these were not appropriate to the EPAs, having already been addressed by the Cotonou Agreement and managed within the framework of the European Development Fund (EDF). West Africa considers on the one hand that it needs to strengthen its ‘competivity’ in order to compete with European products, and on the other hand, that it would have to withstand adjustment costs, and massive losses on receipts. It would therefore require additional resources dedicated solely to the problems and the shocks allied with the creation of the free trade zone between West Africa and the EU.

The third point of divergence concerns coherence with multilateral negotiations at the WTO, notably, opening discussions on the Singapore themes. West Africa did not willingly conform to the Doha and Cancun commitments, whilst the EU was most favourable about it.

The consensus reached after 10 months of discussions is aligned in substance with European positions. The strengthening of regional integration has been retained as a priority, but completion of the process will not be a preamble to trade negotiations. At the same time, improving ‘competitivity’, strengthening capacity and financing adjustment cost will be taken account of, although the responsibility for this section falls on West Africa; the EC is effectively not committing to additional resources whilst at the same time admitting – on the insistence of West Africa – that complementary resources might be found to these ends. This concession of the EU has however extremely reduced scope; the planning document sets out in effect that a possible complement to the allocated funds within the framework of the European Development Funds could be found, notably from the member states as well as from other donors.

As to the Singapore questions, the region persists in refusing to take part in any related discussions so long as the issue is not settled at the WTO. However the EC has achieved its ends, through the bias in the discussions on regional integration.

The EC is the principle beneficiary of this first ‘round’, which that negotiating plan sets out. The EC has succeeded in not having to commit to supporting the process of strengthening integration, neither to improving ‘competitivity’; and it has imposed that all the necessary supports should not directly be a part of the negotiation. This aspect is to be examined by the Task Force for Regional Preparation (TFRP), which is not a negotiating organ, rather a support to the negotiations. Moreover the TFRP is under the sole authority of the EDF. The EC has however not stopped in its tracks. That which it has not managed to obtain in the negotiating plan, notably on the Singapore questions, it has achieved very well in the operationalisation phase, and particularly on regional integration.

For the EC, strengthening regional integration signifies merely guaranteeing that the region proceeds to make reforms that facilitate access to markets and return on investments for European businesses. Whilst for the West African region, it is as much a question of acquiring the means to complete the integration process, and to strengthen and improve productivity and ‘competitivity’, as to permit access to the markets, and to offer a minimum of necessary guarantees to the partnership.

The negotiations on strengthening regional integration, notably the adoption of the thematic groupings, demonstrate that the region has continued to cede to the pressures of the EC without however gaining anything in exchange. The emphasis has been on the questions pronounced at Singapore which are to be found at least in three groups, and the questions of production remaining for the time-being non-existent. From the moment the region agreed to discuss investment and competition with the EU, within the framework of its integration process and creation of a free trade zone, the region gave up its position de facto, to refuse to negotiate on the Singapore questions.

The strengthening of regional integration could thus turn out to be a trap or a Trojan horse that would allow the Commission to regulate inter-regional commitments to suit itself. On the pretext that it is singly about processes and interregional commitments, the negotiations are able to take in all of the questions initially refused by the region. On the one hand therefore, the integration process risks being lost, and on the other hand, to resemble at the time of the creation of a free trade zone with the EU, linked by processes or commitments that were initially intra-regional.

The EC on its side has not budged an inch on the question of improving ‘competivity’ and productivity. From its point of view, this is principally about policies and development strategies strictly internal to the region, and the EC is not to intervene. Justifying itself elsewhere through dogmatic arguments, it has reaffirmed that the only change in policies would necessarily be to entail growth and development.

The thematic negotiations are only reinforcing the orientation wanted by the EU, in favour of a purely commercial agreement, as the results as well the orientation of the negotiations are demonstrating. The insistence and pressures of the EC on questions such as the facilitation of trade and politics of competition, besides investments and public markets, have paid off in the end. West Africa on the other hand supports that the EPA must encompass both aspects of development and trade. Concerning the Singapore questions, West Africa agreed to discussions on investment, trade facilitation and competition policy, but this does not extend to discussing the attribution of public markets within the framework of regional integration.

Despite a common language, the facts and the ongoing discussions demonstrate that for the EC, the EPA is a purely commercial agreement, whilst for the ACP countries it is chiefly concerned with an economic and trading partnership. The ACP countries have agreed to further open their markets, on the condition of receiving support for the adjustments and the necessary transformations of their economies to make them more competitive.

Civil society organisations are of the opinion that the EPA negotiations, such as they are conceived by the EC as a free trade agreement, must stop. Not only has not a single commitment in favour of an agreement benefiting development been made by the EC, but additionally, the EC is actually using the EPAs to obtain what it has not been able to obtain multilaterally.

The negotiating mandate from the heads of States of the West Africa region places development at the centre of the EPA negotiations. But according to the EC, questions of improving ‘competivity’ do not directly form a part of the EPA negotiations. Therefore is this dialogue falling on deaf ears? It would seem as if the current tendency – that the EC will easily obtain the desired free trade agreements, and that West Africa will have to say goodbye to its efforts of industrialisation – will be confirmed.

* Bibiane Mbaye is from the Senegal based international non-governmental organisation ENDA.

* Translated from the original French version by Stephanie Kitchen. Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

La negociation des Accords de Partenariat Economique ou le partenariat en panne: Le cas de l'Afrique de l'Ouest

Pour les régions ACP comme pour la CE, l’objectif déclaré des Accords de Partenariat Economique (APE) est le développement. Pourtant Bibiane Mbaye Gahamanyi du ENDA TIERS MONDE expose les raisons pourquoi malgré un langage commun, les faits et les discussions en cours montrent que pour la CE, l’APE est un accord purement commercial tandis que pour les ACP il s’agit bien d’un partenariat économique et commercial. Il arrive à la conclusion que le CE obtiendra facilement les accords commerciaux souhaités et que l’Afrique de l’Ouest devra dire adieu à ses efforts d’industrialisation.

Bibiane Mbaye

Les relations de coopération entre la Communauté Européenne et ses anciennes colonies d’Afrique, Caraïbes et Pacifique sont régies par un Accord de Partenariat entre les deux parties. Ces accords concernent l’aide au développement (assistance technique et financière), la coopération économique et commerciale ainsi que la coopération politique. En juin 2000 à Cotonou, les ACP ont accepté de conclure de nouveaux accords commerciaux et de mettre fin au régime commercial en vigueur sous les précédents accords de Lomé. Basé sur des préférences non réciproques accordées par la CE en faveur des ACP, Lomé est jugé incompatible avec les accords de l’OMC. L’Accord de Cotonou dont l’objectif principal est la lutte contre la pauvreté, sa réduction et a terme son éradication, préconise la conclusion d’Accords de Partenariat Economique entre la CE et les différentes régions ACP. Ces APE sont essentiellement des accords de libre échange. Toutes les régions ACP sont à ce jour engagées dans la négociation de l’APE : L’Afrique compte quatre régions : la SADEC, la région Est et Australe ainsi que l’Afrique de l’Ouest et l’Afrique Centrale

Pour les pays et régions ACP, la négociation d’un APE est une première qui les met face à plusieurs défis:

- Ils doivent pour la première fois négocier le contenu de la coopération commerciale avec la CE première puissance commerciale mondiale qui est aussi leur premier partenaire économique et leur premier pourvoyeur d’Aide Publique au Développement

- La négociation se déroulera entre chaque région ACP face à la CE. C’est la fin d’un régime unique pour tous les pays ACP. Les principales implications sont d’une part, la question des configurations géographiques (plusieurs pays faisant partie en même temps de plusieurs organisations régionales) et d’autre part, le rapport de force plus direct dans cette négociation que dans les négociations multilatérales

- L’APE est un accord de libre échange visant l’établissement de zones de libre échange entre les différentes régions ACP et la CE. Un régionalisme ouvert nord-sud, impliquant la réciprocité et la compétition entre deux entités au niveau de développement fortement inégal.

- Ces négociations seront menées concomitamment avec d’autres négociations commerciales au niveau régional (processus d’intégration régionale en cours) et multilatéral (OMC) notamment, d’où la nécessité de garder une cohérence entre les choix nationaux de développement et les engagements aux différents niveaux.

- Last but not least, ces régions disposent d’une période extraordinairement courte de 3 ans (les négociations au niveau des régions ont débutés pour certaines régions à la fin de l’année 2003 et pour d’autres en 2004) pour achever leur processus d’intégration régionale ou de créer des zones de libre échange régionales nécessaires à la mise en ?uvre de l’APE ainsi que de mener et conclure la négociation de l’ APE elle même.

En résumé et compte tenu de tout ceci, le défi majeur reste celui des capacités des régions ACP, capacités analytiques pour articuler et définir leurs intérêts et capacités institutionnelles leur permettant de mener les négociations face à la Commission Européenne, au mieux de leurs intérêts.

Pour les régions ACP comme pour la CE, l’objectif déclaré de l’APE est le développement, sa valeur ajoutée est le financement du développement, la stratégie privilégiée est l’appui aux processus d’intégration régionale existants. Cependant, si les deux parties semblent s’entendre, quant au langage, sur les objectifs et les stratégies de l’APE, des divergences fondamentales apparaissent à chaque étape des discussions quant au contenu réel des négociations et du futur APE. Pire, l’écart sur la compréhension des uns et des autres semble se creuser au fur et à mesure de l’avancée des discussions qui malgré tout suivent leur cours.

En effet, au-delà de l’objet de l’APE lui-même (accord commercial de libre échange ou partenariat économique et commercial ?), le traitement de certaines questions fondamentales telles que l’intégration régionale ainsi que les questions de développement, dans la négociation APE avec l’Afrique de l’Ouest (A.O. constitué de la CEDEAO + la Mauritanie) serviront d’exemples pour illustrer cette dichotomie, le double langage de la Commission Européenne et l’orientation libérale libre échangiste qui prévaut dans les discussions en cours.

Le processus de négociation bien que n’étant pas encore très avancé, a connu des étapes importantes telles que l’adoption de la feuille de route des négociations et l’adoption des groupes techniques conjoints sur l’intégration régionale. Les discussions thématiques ont commencé et les hauts fonctionnaires des deux régions se sont déjà réunis deux fois au cours de l’ année 2005. Ils ont discutés entre autres de la structure du cadre de référence de l’APE sans arriver à un consensus et ils ont adoptés le rapport conjoint du premier groupe de travail sur la Zone de Libre Echange, l’Union Douanière et la Facilitation des Echanges.

La feuille de route de la négociation APE entre l’Afrique de l’Ouest et la Communauté Européenne a été adoptée le 4/8/04 après presque un an de discussions. Les principaux points de divergence concernaient l’intégration régionale, le soutien à la compétitivité ainsi que les questions dites de Singapour.
Sur l’intégration régionale, la position de l’A.O. était qu’il fallait d’abord, avec l’aide du partenaire, renforcer l’intégration régionale et créer le marché régional avant de négocier le contenu de l’accord de libre échange entre les deux zones A.O. et U.E. Celle ci quant à elle, n’entendait pas assujettir l’ouverture de négociations commerciales au préalable de l’accomplissement du processus d’intégration régionale de l’A.O.
Le second point d’achoppement concernait la question du financement des coûts d’ajustements et du renforcement de la compétitivité. Lors des négociations sur la feuille de route, la CE demandait purement et simplement de supprimer les paragraphes sur l’amélioration de la compétitivité et le renforcement des capacités qui pour elle n’avaient pas leur place dans l’APE, ces questions étant déjà traitées dans l’Accord de Cotonou et gérées dans le cadre du Fonds Européen au Développement (FED). L’A.O.considérait que d’une part il lui fallait renforcer sa compétitivité pour faire face aux produits européens et que d’autre part elle aurait à supporter des coûts d’ajustements et des pertes massives de recettes. Il fallait par conséquent des ressources additionnelles consacrées uniquement aux problèmes et aux chocs liés à la création de la zone de libre échange entre les deux entités AO et UE.
Le troisième point de divergence concernait la cohérence avec les négociations multilatérales à l’OMC notamment l’ouverture des discussions sur les thèmes de Singapour. L’A.O. n’en voulait pas conformément aux engagements de Doha et de Cancun tandis que la CE y était très favorable.

Le consensus trouvé après 10 mois de discussions s’aligne en substance sur les positions européennes. Le renforcement de l’intégration régionale garde sa priorité, mais l’achèvement du processus ne sera pas un préalable aux négociations commerciales. De même, l’amélioration de la compétitivité, le renforcement des capacités et le financement des coûts d’ajustements seront pris en compte bien que la responsabilité de ce volet incombe à l’A.O., la CE ne prend en effet pas l’engagement de fournir des ressources additionnelles, tout en admettant tout de même, suite à l’insistance de l’AO que des ressources complémentaires pourraient être recherchées à cet effet. Cet assentiment de la CE a cependant une portée extrêmement réduite, la feuille de route précise en effet, qu’un éventuel complément aux fonds alloués dans le cadre du FED pourrait être recherché notamment auprès des Etats membres ainsi que d’autres bailleurs.
Quant aux questions de Singapour, la région persiste a refuser toute discussion y relative tant que cette question ne sera pas réglée au niveau de l’OMC. Cependant, la CE est arrivée à ses fins par après, par le biais de discussions sur l’intégration régionale.

La CE est la principale gagnante de ce premier « round » que constitue la feuille de route, elle a réussit à ne pas prendre d’engagement quant à l’appui au processus de renforcement de l’intégration ni pour l’amélioration de la compétitivité et à imposer que tout ce qui concerne les appuis nécessaires ne fassent pas directement partie de la négociation. Cet aspect sera examiné au niveau de la Task Force de Préparation Régionale (TFPR) qui n’est pas un organe de négociation mais un organe d’appui aux négociations, de plus la TFPR n’est compétente que pour le FED. La CE ne s’est cependant pas arrêtée en si bon chemin. Ce qu’elle n’avait pas pu obtenir dans la feuille de route sur les questions de Singapour notamment, elle l’a bel et bien obtenue dans l’opérationnalisation de celle ci et en particulier sur l’intégration régionale. La 1ère étape des négociations entre les 2 régions appelée, renforcement de l’intégration régionale, consiste à se mettre d’accord sur le régime commercial de la région.

Pour la CE renforcer l’intégration régionale signifie uniquement obtenir de la région qu’elle procède aux réformes qui facilitent l’accès aux marchés et le retour de l’investissement aux entreprises européennes. Tandis que pour la région il s’agirait autant d’acquérir les moyens d’achever son processus d’intégration, de renforcer et améliorer la productivité et la compétitivité de la région que de permettre un accès aux marché et d’offrir un minimum de garanties nécessaires au partenaire. La composition des groupes techniques selon les uns et les autres permet d’en juger :
L’Afrique de l’Ouest a constitué 8 groupes techniques :
1. Zone de Libre Echange, Union Douanière, Facilitation des Echanges
2. Normes, Contrôle de Qualité, Services Connexes, SPS, OTC
3. Concurrence, Propriété Intellectuelle
4. Investissements
5. Agriculture
6. Pêche
7. Produits non agricoles (industriels et de l’artisanat)
8. Services

Après discussions les 5 groupes conjoints suivants ont été retenus :
1. Zone de libre échange, union douanière et facilitation des échanges
2. Normalisation, contrôle de qualité et services connexes, mesures SPS et OTC
3. Autres domaines liés au commerce : Propriété intellectuelle et concurrence
4. Investissements et Services
5. Analyses sectorielles : agriculture, pêche, produits non-agricoles

Les négociations sur le renforcement de l’intégration régionale notamment l’adoption des groupes thématiques montrent que la région a continué à céder aux pressions de la CE sans pour autant rien gagner en échange. L’accent est mis sur les questions dites de Singapour qui se retrouvent au moins dans 3 groupes, les questions de production étant pour le moment inexistantes. Dès lors qu’elle a accepté de discuter avec l’UE sur l’investissement et la concurrence dans le cadre de son processus d’intégration et de création de zone de libre échange, la région annulait de fait sa position qui consistait à refuser les négociations sur les questions de Singapour avant que cette question ne soit réglée à l’OMC.
Le renforcement de l’intégration régionale pourrait ainsi se révéler un piège ou un cheval de Troie qui permettrait à la Commission de régenter les engagements intra régionaux à sa convenance. Sous prétexte qu’il s’agit uniquement de processus et d’engagements intra régionaux, la négociation peut englober toutes les questions initialement refusées par la région. Celle ci risque d’une part de voir son processus d’intégration lui échapper et d’autre part de se retrouver lors de la création de la zone de libre échange avec l’UE liée par des processus ou des engagements initialement intra-régionaux.
La CE de son côté n’a pas varié d’un iota sur la question de l’amélioration de la compétitivité et de productivité. Ceci de son point de vue relève de politiques et de stratégies de développement strictement internes à la région et la CE ne saurait intervenir. S’appuyant par ailleurs sur des arguments dogmatiques, elle ré-affirme que le seul changement de politiques entraînerait nécessairement la croissance et le développement.

Les négociations thématiques ne font que renforcer l’orientation voulue par l’UE en faveur d’un accord purement commercial comme les résultats ainsi que l’orientation des négociations le montre. L’insistance et les pressions de la CE sur des questions telles que la facilitation du commerce, la politique de concurrence ainsi que les investissements et les marchés publics ont fini par payer. L’Afrique de l’Ouest quant à elle soutien que l’APE doit englober les deux aspects, développement et commerce. Concernant les questions de Singapour elle a accepter de discuter de l’investissement, la facilitation du commerce et la politique de concurrence mais n’entend pas discuter de l’attribution des marchés publics fut ce dans le cadre de l’intégration régionale.

Malgré le langage commun, les faits, les discussions en cours montrent que pour la CE l’APE est un accord purement commercial tandis que pour les ACP il s’agit bien d’un partenariat économique et commercial. Les ACP acceptent d’ouvrir encore plus leurs marchés à condition de recevoir un appui pour les ajustements et les transformations nécessaires à leurs économies pour les rendre plus compétitives et à même de bénéficier de cette ouverture et de l’accès au marché européen.
Pour les organisations de la société civile, les négociations sur un APE tel qu’il est conçu comme un accord commercial de libre échange doivent s’arrêter. Non seulement aucun engagement en faveur d’un accord favorisant le développement n’est pris par la CE, mais en plus, celle ci utilise l’APE pour obtenir ce qu’elle n’a pu obtenir au niveau multilatéral.
En ce qui concerne l’Afrique de l’Ouest le mandat de négociation des chefs d’Etats de la région place le développement au c?ur de la négociation de l’APE, selon la CE, les questions d’amélioration de la compétitivité ne font pas directement parties de la négociation APE , alors, dialogue de sourd ? Il semble si la tendance actuelle se confirmait, que la CE obtiendra facilement l’accord commercial souhaité et que l’Afrique de l’Ouest devra dire adieu à ses efforts d’industrialisation .

In 2004, asylum seekers, migrants, human rights and refugee organisations and the legal profession opposed drastic government cuts to legal aid for asylum and immigration work. They argued that the cuts would undermine a vital human right by denying individuals a fair hearing before an independent judiciary assisted by effective legal representation. A year on from the cuts, many legal practitioners have stopped doing publicly funded work and many asylum seekers and migrants are unable to find legal representation.

Review of Pradip N. Thomas and Zaharom Nain (eds), Who owns the media? Global Trends and Local Resistances, Southbound (Penang), Zed Books (London), World Association of Christian Communications.

A couple of years ago I was threatened with arrest as I tried to go through the turnstiles at a major sporting event in South Africa. My offence was that I carrying a bottle of soft drink that was not produced by the company sponsoring the event, the US corporation Pepsico.

So what does this have to do with the media? In our globalised world, absolutely everything.

The event was the cricket World Cup, a tournament most enthusiastically supported in the Indian sub-continent. At the time, Pepsi did not even market its products in South Africa (although they were available at an exorbitant price inside the stadium). The issue was advertising. Pepsi’s sponsorship was an opportunity for it to promote its product to a billion thirsty, cricket-loving Indians. I, with my non-approved soft drink – actually it was just orange juice diluted with Cape Town tap water – might attempt ‘ambush marketing’, displaying the forbidden concoction to the cameras (and presumably shaking the Pepsi empire to its foundations).

The episode was absurd, of course. But it tells us something about how the media work – and that Africa is not immune to these global trends. Progressive media analysts are sometimes fond of talking about the “commoditisation” of news and other media content. But it is really we, the audience, who are the commodity. In this example, one US company, News Corporation, was engaged in a contract with another US corporation, Pepsico, in relation to an event taking place in Africa. News Corp, the broadcaster, was selling Pepsi its predominantly Indian audience.

The timeliness of this book lies in the fact that the rapid consolidation of media ownership into the hands of a small number of corporations – mainly US-based – has been one of the most striking aspects of globalisation. The extent of the reach of these corporations can hardly be exaggerated. Even as I write these dissenting words, I am using software developed by one of these global media corporations. My message will be transmitted using cable or airwaves owned by these same corporations.

The rapidity of these developments is important to note, especially for those readers who may feel that corporate control of the media is an issue of marginal significance for Africa. As Robert McChesney points out in his chapter, none of the nine corporations that dominate the global media market existed in their present form 15 years ago.

When it comes to the question of media ownership, African journalists and media freedom activists typically only look at one dimension: state ownership of the broadcast media. (This is a mea culpa; I was for some years head of the Africa programme at a freedom of expression organisation, where we did precisely that.) Fifteen years ago, as those global media corporations were beginning to form, this was indeed the dominant question in Africa. How could we wrest control of public media from the government of the day? How could we create space for the private media?

The second task has been achieved more successfully than the first. There is still a need to develop a genuine public service model of broadcasting in Africa. But at the same time, the question of who owns the private media (sometimes erroneously described as the “independent media”) becomes increasingly urgent.

This is addressed from slightly different perspectives in three good chapters on Africa in this book. William Hueva, Keyan Tomaselli and Ruth Teer-Tomaselli review the political economy of the media in Southern Africa since 1990. This focuses, inevitably, on the role of South African corporate media in the sub-region.

Mohamed Musa and Jubril Mohammed have written a largely historical review of the development of the media in Nigeria. This provides textured detail on the impact that ownership has on the political character and content of the media.

Francis Nyamnjoh attempts to situate media ownership issues in Africa in the context of globalisation. He concludes that ownership still mainly rests with governments or global corporations, with local capital squeezed between the two. He does not further explore those situations – such as Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa – where local capitalist ownership of the media is far more developed, not necessarily to beneficial effect. His conclusion, however, is encouraging. He stresses the skill of Africans in developing alternative means of political communication, outside the technological and ownership constraints of the modern media sector.

However, those interested in future trajectories of the African media would be well advised to read some of the other chapters in this book. Slavko Splichal’s review of the media in East and Central Europe, for example, presents a picture that may be close to the Africa of a decade from now. Government-controlled state media remain major players. Alongside them are corporate media owned by members of the oligarchy. These owners are either political players using the media to bolster their position or capitalists with political ambitions. Does this media landscape mean that ordinary East Europeans receive good, accurate information through the media? My own recent research in two former Soviet republics suggests a decisive No.

Splichal calls this phenomenon Italianisation – referring, of course, to the ascent of Silvio Berlusconi, media capitalist and now Prime Minister. Might Italianisation be what the future holds in some African countries? It is certainly possible and underlines the need for some hard thinking about the alternatives.

? Richard Carver is director of Oxford Media Research.
Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

G8 is the term used to refer to the group of eight of the world’s richest and most powerful countries, namely the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Canada. It’s formation was solidified in 1976 as a response to a global economic crisis represented by a rise in oil prices, inflation and unemployment. The coming together of the G8 was an attempt by leaders of these nations to stabilize the world economy and guarantee the ability of capital to continue to function effectively. Click on the link below for more details on the G8 and links to recent critical articles on the G8 summit.

The greenwashing that corporations are now doing as their bit to clean up the environment cannot hide the damage they are causing, Meena Raman, chair of Friends of the Earth International said Saturday. In fact, any attempt to contain climate change must tackle the big corporations first, she said. Host Britain has made climate change one of two priorities, along with the development of Africa, at the summit of heads of government of the eight leading industrialised nations (the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Russia) to be held in Gleneagles, Scotland, July 6-8.

A leading campaign group has called for a substantial part of increased aid to Africa to be channelled directly to people, rather than governments. While G8 leaders talk of doubling aid to Africa, "we say that at least half of the doubling should be for more local initiatives," director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, Camilla Toulmin, told IPS.

"Behind the politicians and pop stars on display at the Gleneagles summit of the Group of Eight (G8) on 6-8 July, look out for another contingent of professionals: non-government organisations (NGOs). The aid agencies will be there in strength, promoting their solutions for Africa’s ills, rallying their troops and rattling collection-boxes." But this article on www.opendemocracy.net argues that Western NGOs’ desire to help Africans has led them into unhealthy relationships with host countries, donor governments, and media.

The 29 June announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) that the much-heralded '3by5' initiative is "unlikely" to be achieved by the end of 2005, places even greater urgency on the need to scale up access to other care options that keep people with HIV alive while they wait for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, says a press release from Aids Care Watch. The two UN agencies, who share responsibility for tackling the global pandemic, highlight progress during the past 18 months towards greater ARV access, and report that one million people with HIV/AIDS (PWHA) in poorer nations are now taking life-saving ARV drugs. They had hoped 3 million people would have access to the medicines by the end of 2005, but that now looks out of reach.

Capitalism came into the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt”, writes Issa Shivji. And the bottom line which drives capitalism in Africa is profits and accumulation. Africa offers both with relative ease and apparently little resistance.

The Asian Tsunami was a great human tragedy; so was the invasion of Iraq. In both cases, the US-led financial capitalism found a great opportunity. The opportunity was to “reconstruct” these far flung societies in the image of a neo-conservative ideological world-view: total hegemony of capitalism under the supremacy of the United States, euphemistically called globalization. Condoleeza Rice, the American Secretary of State, unashamedly described tsunami as “a wonderful opportunity” that “has paid great dividends for us.” What was this opportunity?

The answer is given by a group called Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters which says for “businessmen-politicians, the tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it literally wiped these coastal areas clean of the communities which had previously stood in the way of their plans for resorts, hotels, casinos and shrimp farms. To them, all these coastal areas are now open land!”

Some 80 per cent of the victims of tsunami were small fishing communities. Little has been done to restore their lives and communities. Instead, the likes of the World Bank, now headed by a neo-con called Paul Wolfowitz, is pushing for the expansion of tourism and industrial fish farms. Herman Kumara, head of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Sri Lanka, warns that his country was now facing “a second tsunami of corporate globalization and militarization.” He says: “We see this as a plan of action amidst the tsunami crisis to hand over the sea and the coast to foreign corporations and tourism, with military assistance from the US Marines.”

Mr. Wolfowitz was the US Deputy Secretary of State when Iraq was reduced to rubbles and Iraqis to corpses by the “coalition” forces. Bodies had been hardly buried before consulting firms started rewriting Iraq’s investment laws and selling off public companies. One of the corporations which bagged big “reconstruction” contracts, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, another country under “reconstruction”, was Halliburton. Halliburton is a giant oil-service company which has been awarded, under dubious circumstances, billions of dollars worth of military, defense and so-called reconstruction contracts by the US government. The US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, is the former Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton.

The transition from the bi-polar world, where we had two super-powers and two competing world views, socialism and capitalism, to the uni-polar world where monotheism (the single god being the god of capitalism, Profit) prevails, has been strewn with wars, conflicts, destruction, death and crass ideological propaganda, double-speak, double standards and blatant lies. Seen from a historical standpoint, this should not come as a surprise. After all, the transition from Britain’s imperial hegemony in the first half of the last century to that of the US itself involved the Great Crash of the 1930s, the rise of racist fascism, and two World Wars. From the ashes of WWII emerged the bi-polar world in which the US established its supremacy of the capitalist camp bringing Japan and Europe firmly under its wing. There too followed “reconstruction” which gave a new lease of life to capitalism. (By the way, US assistance for reconstruction was confined to Europe only. Both Japan and the then Soviet Union reconstructed through their own resources and efforts.)

In Europe, the Soviets and the US carved out their respective spheres of armed control while restricting their disputes and conflicts to the ‘war of ideas’ called the Cold War. In the rest of the world, they fought, directly or by proxy, hot wars to assert their spheres of influence. Between 1944 and 2004 there were at least 21 hot conflicts in which the US was directly involved; of these, 11 after the end of the Cold War. These include the gruesome Vietnam War in which hundreds of thousand were literally burnt to death by napalm and the two Gulf wars (still ongoing). In the Vietnam War, US forces sprayed some 21 million gallons of dioxin herbicides, including 800 pounds of Agent Orange, to destroy the foliage so as to flush out guerrillas. The Vietnamese and American troops are still suffering from the after effects of that deadly herbicide.

In the first Gulf War, the “coalition” forces rained bombs on Iraq equivalent of some 11 Hiroshimas. In the second Iraqi war no doubt even more bombs were thrust into the heart and soil of Iraq.

Capitalism came into the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” Witness the first genocide ever of the Native Americans and the vicious slave trade which destroyed the social fabric of African empires and depopulated the continent. It has since maintained itself by wars, death and destruction. It brought the peoples and the resources of the tri-continent (Asia, Africa and Latin America) under its hegemony through colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism whose newest edition is christened globalization.

Imperialism is inherent in capitalism just as war is inherent in imperialism. Just as the economic crash of South East Asia in the late 1990s was used by American corporations to hive off the assets of South Korean conglomerates and re-establish their control of the Asian economies, so the tsunami disaster has been used to globalize their coastal and water resources.

In Africa, the so-called aid and debt have been used both as a carrot and a stick. You switch them on and off as necessary. A nationalist African or third world government determined to retain its resources for its people would be threatened with cutting-off of aid and would certainly not find itself among the beneficiaries of debt cancellation, while a pliant and obedient state would get more aid and its debt may just be cancelled. Of course, nothing of this happens without strings attached. Debt cancellation goes hand in hand with more loans (since one is now credit-worthy) and aid is invariably used to create markets and an enabling environment for the multinationals which have a voracious appetite for Africa’s copper, cobalt, oil, timber, diamonds and gold and bio-resources and of course cheap labour.

The bottom line which drives capitalism is profits and accumulation and Africa offers both with relative ease and apparently little resistance. We are good converts to the religion of globalization. Colonialism was enabled by converting us to Christianity to save our souls and steal our resources; globalization teaches us to commoditize, marketise, and privatize to save our skins from poverty. In the process, the majority of us end up being deprived of both souls and skins while a few among us adorn “imported” souls and alien skins. Fanon called it Black skins, White masks.

Whoever said, ‘capitalism with a human face’! Yes, capitalists surely have a human face like the rest of us; a few may even be humane. But capitalism is faceless and colourless. It is defined by a drive; an insatiable drive for profits. “Accumulate, accumulate! That is the Moses and the prophets!” of capitalism.

© Issa Shivji. Shivji is Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

* Please send comments to

A Canadian federal official said Friday the government will look into accusations that a Canadian-incorporated mining firm allowed soldiers in Democratic Republic of Congo to use its equipment in an operation that killed unarmed civilians last year. "The Canadian government is concerned by the serious allegations concerning Anvil Mining regarding the events in Kilwa in October 2004 and will be questioning the company about the events,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Andre Lemay said late Friday.

The international community should put pressure on Ethiopia to respect a legally binding ruling over its disputed border with Eritrea, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said on Monday. Diplomats have warned that Ethiopia and Eritrea, which went to war from 1998-2000 over the border, run the risk of starting a new conflict unless there is a breakthrough.

On World Refugee Day 2005, Amnesty International turns its attention to the practice of arbitrary detention and unlawful expulsion of refugees and asylum-seekers. Amnesty International is launching three reports on detention and practices of expulsion. Many of those detained are in search of asylum. Some are detained automatically as soon as they arrive in a country of asylum if they do not have proper documentation or authorisation. Others are put in detention while their asylum claim is under consideration. For many, detention is used once their asylum claims have been dismissed following asylum determination procedures that fail to meet basic standards of fairness.

To mark World Day against Child Labour on Sunday, the United Nations labour agency is spotlighting the problems of over a million children around the world who help to support their families by working as miners, often for small unregulated enterprises in dangerous conditions. “Because the money they earn is crucial to ensuring that they and their families survive, many are unable to attend school at all. These children are digging for survival,” the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) says.

A global walk against child hunger is due to take place in 90 countries around the world.
The Walk the World event, organised by the UN World Food Programme, is raising funds for school meals in poor nations. Every year, about 6.5 million children under the age of five die because hunger leaves their bodies too weak to resist disease.

More than ten years after South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, apartheid’s social and economic legacy remains. The majority of its nearly 45 million people continue to live in conditions resembling those of a decade ago. The bulk of the country’s wealth remains in the hands of a small percentage of the population. Though corporate giving is one of the largest sources of funding for civil society,[2] companies remain reluctant to address inequalities and take on social justice grantmaking.

Ironically, it was apartheid, and its consequent social unrest and threat to the economy, that provided the first real stimulus for corporate social investment (CSI). After the 1976 student uprisings in Soweto, several companies banded together to establish the Urban Foundation, which focused on urban development, housing and education in black townships. At about the same time, the Sullivan Principles were introduced, requiring American companies to justify their presence in the country by contributing to local communities, which encouraged more formalized giving by the private sector in general. In 1984-85, the groundswell of the liberation movement against apartheid and the international attention it brought provided a further stimulus to corporate giving.

However, while the Urban Foundation supported community centres, education and training in black townships, it disposed of relatively small financial resources, and did little to dismantle the system that kept black people in those townships in the first place. Other efforts to pool company funds (the Joint Education Trust (JET), formed in 1992, and the Business Trust, formed in 1999) similarly focused more on service delivery than on attacking the root causes of problems. While JET did contribute to the development of government policies and programmes throughout the 1990s, it focused primarily on educational service delivery. The Business Trust’s main focus was on job creation, education and crime. Although it was established jointly by the private sector and government, it appears as yet to have focused little on policy reform.

CSI in South Africa today

Overall, the picture has changed little. The 2004 CSI Handbook covers issues such as knowledge management, employee involvement, evaluation, communications and sustainability, but there is no discussion of policy reform or advocacy. As of 2003/04, CSI funds have gone predominantly to education and training (46 per cent) and health and social development (24 per cent), with the remainder going to a combination of job creation, sports, environment, arts and culture, safety and security, and housing (in descending order of size of contribution).

Over the past four years, with companies recognizing the impact of HIV/AIDS, there has been a significant increase in funding for health and social development. One example is provided by Anglo American’s programme, principally directed towards its 13,900 employees. Initially focused on education and prevention, this has now grown to include voluntary testing and counselling as well as anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy, a controversial stance in South Africa, given the government’s initial reluctance to recognize the need for ARVs (see p58). Another example is Absa Bank, which has over 2,500 employees participating in its ‘give as you earn’ campaign, which deducts contributions from employees’ monthly salary. The contributions are then matched by the Absa Foundation (the separate organization responsible for the bank’s CSI) and given to NGOs focused on HIV/AIDS treatment and care.

These HIV/AIDS programmes represent some of the most creative and forward-thinking elements of CSI, but they hardly amount to social justice grantmaking. The private sector has been hesitant to fund advocacy organizations such as the Treatment Action Campaign. In general, the emphasis is on service delivery. Relatively few CSI initiatives advocate major policy reform or fund organizations that provide a voice for those who are usually outside the arena of policy formation. CSI has not tended to promote public debate on issues such as economic policy and the development of a social safety net that could result in greater attention to social justice. Nor has it paid much attention to rural areas or the needs of women.

Why is CSI not focused on the most marginalized?

An urban focus
Most companies are urban-based and their development efforts reflect this. In 2003, two-thirds of CSI spending was targeted towards urban and peri-urban areas, with only 34 per cent targeted towards rural communities. Given the high levels of poverty in rural areas, this funding pattern is in almost inverse proportion to need.

An insular focus
Fifteen per cent of funds from CSI programmes focus on company employees and their families and another 49 per cent on the communities in which the companies operate. While this may seem logical, it also means that those people and communities who have little or no connection to corporate South Africa, as employees or customers, are badly underserved. With the broadly defined unemployment rate at over 40 per cent, CSI is not reaching those who are most marginalized with least access to resources and information.

Promoting the government line
The new government has promoted the concept of public-private partnerships to address social needs and implement government programmes. Companies are encouraged to support this trend in order to achieve greater exposure and win government favour. It is unlikely, therefore, that companies will publicly criticize government policy or support local communities and organizations that do so. Promoting a social justice agenda would inevitably involve this.

Internal considerations
The majority of CSI budgets in South Africa are not determined through a formula, as they are in the UK and the US, which makes them more vulnerable to the arbitrary decisions of management and less likely to be strategically focused. When it comes to evaluation, companies tend to focus on inputs and anecdotal evidence, with little effort to assess developmental impact, lessons learned and implications for policy reform.

CSI in South Africa is thus limited in scope, often unstrategic, and emphasizing service delivery not structural reform. Without giving attention to the areas of weakness outlined above, it is unlikely to make any significant contribution to social justice. A set of initiatives that have encouraged greater reflection and improved reporting are described below. They are not specifically aimed at promoting social justice programmes, but it is possible that the greater reflection on the role of companies in society that they encourage could lead in this direction.

Broader corporate accountability needed

CSI needs to be complemented by broader corporate accountability in regard to workplace conditions, approach to the environment and sustainable development. In recognition of this, the UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) encourage a ‘triple bottom line’ approach. There are several developments in South Africa that have built on this approach.

* The King Report on Corporate Governance (King II) Launched in 2002, this provides a South African voluntary code of conduct, which embraces the ‘triple bottom line’ concept.
* The Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index Launched in 2004 on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, this assesses companies on a range of social, environmental and economic issues.
* Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Initially focused on extending black equity participation, predominantly to a small black elite, government now encourages BEE to take a broader approach to empowerment that includes guiding government’s procurement decisions to benefit black-owned companies, development of small businesses, skills development, etc. Unfortunately, to date, BEE has focused on redistribution at the apex rather than at the base.[3]
* Industry charters Developed by several industries (banking, mining and finance), with government encouragement, these provide a scorecard for transformation, featuring issues such as black ownership and control, skills development, financing and procurement, and CSI.

Working through other grantmakers

Working through other types of grantmaker, especially those that focus on human rights and reaching the most marginalized, offers a potential way for companies to give their CSI activities a social justice focus. Possible partner organizations include community foundations and women’s funds, two new institutional forms of philanthropy in South Africa in recent years.

Community foundations
A community foundation pilot programme led by the Southern African Grantmakers Association (SAGA) resulted in the creation of the Greater Rustenburg Community Foundation (GRCF) in Northwest province and the Uthungulu Community Foundation (UCF) in KwaZulu Natal. Both serve populations that are predominantly rural with high levels of poverty. Local corporations have shown great interest in the idea. Billiton (a mining corporation) provided UCF with R5 million in endowment support and Impala Platinum provides support to GRCF. Community foundations can channel CSI funds in a way that permits greater community control and influence on how the funds are spent. It remains to be seen, however, whether this will help shift funds away from charity towards social justice.

Women’s funds
There is even greater potential in the WHEAT (Women’s Hope Education and Training) Trust, a women’s fund in Cape Town, with an explicit social justice agenda. WHEAT focuses on issues of violence against women, women’s rights as human rights, HIV/AIDS and support to local women’s community organizations. WHEAT has tapped corporate funding from the retail and IT industries as well as building a R1 million endowment with contributions predominantly from individuals.

Other local grantmakers
Corporates have also begun to partner with other local grantmakers such as the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT) and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF). SCAT is a grantmaking development agency that funds rural, community-based organizations focusing on human rights, gender equity, HIV/AIDS and local economic development. It has received money from the De Beers Fund and has helped develop Ditikeni, an investment company that is building assets for a set of non-profit organizations, SCAT included. Given its name and profile, NMCF has received numerous corporate contributions. The organization has been affected by political influences but, given its R250 million endowment, may develop greater independence and a stronger social justice emphasis in the future.

Working through local grantmakers such as these could enable companies to reach those communities outside their immediate ambit. If that greater outreach combines with well-designed advocacy campaigns driven by local communities, there is the potential to influence corporate grantmaking for the better.

1. This article is part of a longer paper by Christa Kuljian commissioned by the Global Equity Initiative (GEI) at Harvard University as part of a series on philanthropy and equity in China, India, the Philippines, Brazil and South Africa. The full paper will be available later this year at www.fas.harvard.edu/~acgei/philanthropy.htm. For the purposes of this paper, social justice is defined as promoting advocacy and policy reform to benefit those who are most marginalized in society.

2 According to Mark Swilling and Bev Russell, ‘The Size and Scope of the Non-profit Sector in South Africa’, linked to the Johns Hopkins international comparative study, private sector funding accounts for 25 per cent of all non-profit income in South Africa compared to an average of 11 per cent in 28 other countries in the study.

3 For those interested in a longer analysis of BEE, see ‘Black Economic Empowerment: Elite enrichment or real transformation?’ by Frank Meintjies in the Isandla Development Communique at www.isandla.org.za

* Christa Kuljian is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg. She can be contacted at christa@cps.org.za

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

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