Bush To Africa: Call Us Next Year

by Jim Lobe

The ministers, who also had expressed hope of hearing new offers of expanded trade preferences beyond those provided under last year's Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), had to content themselves with a new, $20 million government "facility" to promote and insure U.S. investment in Africa, a boon that will chiefly benefit U.S. corporations.

"This really was a disappointment," one minister from southern Africa told IPS after the October 29 meeting, the first U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum, a new mechanism established under AGOA.

"We thought there'd be more meat on the bones," the minister, who asked not to be identified, added, noting that Bush's failure to promise more than the $200 million he committed earlier this year to a UN fund to fight HIV-AIDS was a particular disappointment.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked for commitments of up to $10 billion in order to stop the spread of the AIDS epidemic, which is killing an average of more than 6,500 Africans a day, or about 1,000 more people than were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for U.S. commitments of up to $1 billion over the next two years.

But Bush, in his only remarks on AIDS to the Forum, announced instead that Washington will contribute more money to the global AIDS fund only "once (it) demonstrates success," a benchmark which could take well into next year, according to experts.

"The Africans should have turned around and told Bush that 'we're prepared to support your global coalition against terrorism once you can show that it's really working'," noted Salih Booker, director of the advocacy group Africa Action.

"They're too polite to say that," said Booker, who called the Forum's proceedings "another lost opportunity to show Africans that the U.S. really cares about their problems."

The visiting ministers heard from an all-star administration cast including Secretary of State Colin Powell, Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

The message from the rostrum varied little. Bush called on African governments to ratify the 1999 Algiers Convention Against Terrorism and celebrated increases in trade between the United States and Africa since AGOA's passage.

Powell's message was much the same. "It is growth, growth, growth that is the engine we must all hook up to if we are going to go forward together," he said, adding that growth was made possible by increased trade and investment.

AGOA, which Congress passed last year after a three-year battle, provides for duty-free treatment for thousands of goods made in Africa in order to boost U.S. investment in the region. To be eligible for such treatment, however, countries must liberalize their economies, adhere to World Bank and International Monetary Fund adjustment programs, and grant U.S. investors the same rights as their domestic counterparts, among other conditions.

So far, fewer than a dozen nations have been fully certified and are exporting under AGOA's most favorable terms, although a total of 35 have been deemed eligible to take advantage of the Act.

While trade with a handful of non-oil-producing African nations has jumped since AGOA took effect, the Act has come under strong criticism from independent groups as well as some governments.

Development groups here have attacked AGOA as inadequate for Africa's needs. A statement released yesterday by Africa Action, Oxfam International, and ActionAID called specifically for the cancellation of the more than $300 billion in Africa's external debt; support for Africa's positions at the WTO; a major expansion of exports eligible for duty-free treatment under AGOA; a lifting of the economic conditions for eligibility; and a sharp increase in U.S. development aid.

Under current administration proposals, bilateral aid to Africa will shrink by about $5 million next year, from about $795 million this year.