By Julio Godoy
PARIS, Feb 9 2002 (IPS)

Heads of government and senior officials of thirteen African states and of the richest countries of the world re- launched Friday in Paris a new plan of international economic co-operation for Africa.

The main subject of the summit was the declaration 16 African leaders signed last October in Abuja, Nigeria, titled “New economic partnership for the African Development” (Nepad).

Nepad has meanwhile been incorporated into the working projects of the so called G-8, the group the seven most industrialized countries of the world constitute with Russia.

During the Paris meeting, the African leaders committed themselves to respecting democratic norms, such as pluralism, the freedom of expression and the rule of law, as well as “sound economic management” as ways of enhancing development and reducing poverty.

At the opening ceremony Friday French president Jacques Chirac urged the industrialized world to increase its budget for international co- operation, and to fulfil the target of 0,7 percent of the gross national product for development aid, as defined by the United Nations General Assembly in 1970, and confirmed by the European Union in its latest summit in Laeken, Belgium.

Chirac said: “It is unacceptable and intolerable that in our world we permit that an economic model expands, in which rich countries become richer, and poor countries poorer.”

The Nepad envisages international development aid of some 65 billion dollars per year.

The heads of state of Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and Mauritius, as well as the vice president of South Africa took part in the Paris meeting.

Representatives of Canada and the United Kingdom participated in the summit, as to underline the importance that the so-called G-8 puts on the project.

Although the Nepad plan should be operational next June, and is expected to be finally approved at the meeting of G-8 in Kananaskis, Canada, observers believe that the meeting in Paris might well turn to be another ” enlightened but useless reunion on economic development”.

In any event, the summit in Paris marks the beginning of a series of international discussions on African economic development, that will lead to several world summits on the same subject, in Paris during the summer of 2003, and in Lisbon, at the end of the same year.

In Abuja, Nigeria, the African leaders said Nepad’s objective was “the consolidation of democracy and of the sound economic management of our continent”.

The Nepad is “a new framework (for Africa’s) interaction with the rest of the world, especially the industrialized countries and the international organizations … with which the African states engage to respect general democratic norms, such as political pluralism, the existence of several political parties and unions, and free elections,” the African leaders resolved.

Participants at the meeting called the African plan “innovative and opportune”, and stressed that for the first time, a poor region of the world offers its own vision of development and puts it to international debate.

Charles Josselin, French minister for international co- operation, declared that “over the years, the former colonial powers were accused of trying to impose their economic system to the Third world. “Now,” he added, “African leaders tell us, here is the model of economic development we want, let’s go.”

Michel Camdessus, former director general of the International Monetary Fund, and now French representative for the Nepad, said too, that “for the first time in history, African leaders acknowledge that development (should) be accompanied by free trade, sound macro-economic policies, and good governance. This is, briefly, an economic strategy to profit from globalisation,” Camdessus said.

But non-governmental organizations recalled that, in reality, the industrialised countries were not interested in an independent African development. Nor did most of the African states represented at Paris meeting attach much importance to the respect for human rights.

The non-governmental Reporters sans Frontières reminded that in 10 of the 13 African countries represented at the Nepad gathering, journalists had been imprisoned or were being mistreated and threatened. The news media were being censored.

Other non-governmental organisations claimed that the industrialized countries were mainly interested in having an easy access to African raw materials.

“See the Western Sahara,” one African diplomat said, demanding anonymity: “Although no solution has been found for the dispute between Morocco and the Front Polisario on the sovereignty of the region, the biggest European and North American oil companies have obtained concessions to exploit the oil fields there, without any respect for the will of the people.”

Morocco occupies since 1975 the former Spanish colony, Western Sahara, clashing with the Front Polisario, that claims to be fighting for independence.

The U.N. has since 1992 tried to hold a referendum to settle the dispute. But the mass exodus of the region’s population to Algeria, and the occupation of the territory by Moroccans, have impeded the vote.

Recently, the Moroccan government gave oil concessions to the French company TotalFina and to the U.S. American Kerr McGee. Additionally, Spain, the former colonial power, has recently allowed the own national oil company Repsol to begin oil exploration in the Atlantic ocean between the Western Saharan coasts and the Canary Islands.

The sources reminded that the U.N. representative for the Western Sahara is James Baker, former U.S. foreign minister and closely associated with Texan oil firms.

Judicial sources in Paris also underlined that some of the African heads of state present at the summit have been mentioned in corruption scandals, involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

The case of Omar Bongo, the president of Gabon, is particularly illustrating, the sources said. Bongo rules Gabon since 1967, following a coup d’etat organised in collusion with the French army, and has been linked by French and Swiss prosecutors to the corruption affairs of the former French state oil enterprise Elf Aquitaine.

Diplomats also noted that the president of Mali, Alpha Oumar Konaré, considered as a real champion of the new African democracies, had avoided taking part at the Paris meeting.

The African summit came in the wake of the disclosure of bleak economic and social perspectives for the continent. According to a report of the Paris based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, published this week, the African gross national product between 1995 and 2000 fell down on one third.

“The only domain in the world, in which the African participation increases, is the population,” the OECD claims.

The organization also stresses the impact of AIDS in Africa: “In Botswana and Mozambique, the life expectancy now lies under 40 years of age. ” Without AIDS, the figure would be around 56.

According to the OECD, the African economic dissociation from the industrialized world has one positive aspect: The African economies are mostly independent of the economic cycles in Europe and North America.

Only the oil producing countries, especially Nigeria, Angola and Gabon, suffer from economic hazards in the developed world.

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