BRAZIL: Lula Promotes Closer South-South Ties on Fourth African Tour

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 11 2005 (IPS) - -Promoting South-South cooperation in general, and forging closer ties with Africa, are clearly top priorities for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently on his fourth official African tour since taking office in January 2003.

After arriving in Cameroon on Sunday, Lula headed to Nigeria on Monday. He will also visit Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal on his five-day tour of five West African nations. During his brief stay in each, his main goal will be to strengthen cooperation, particularly in the social sphere, according to the director of the Africa desk at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, Pedro Motta.

But Lula’s visit will also contribute to the pursuit of two other objectives: garnering support for Brazil’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and seeking out a wider range of markets for the South American giant’s exports.

Trade between Brazil and Africa has grown significantly over recent years, more than doubling since 2000, when it totalled 4.25 billion dollars. Last year, trade in both directions reached nearly 10.42 billion dollars – reflecting a 69.7 percent increase over the previous year – with a 1.9-billion-dollar trade deficit on Brazil’s side, resulting from oil imports.

The Lula government is making good progress towards an "effective African policy" that responds to the real interests of both sides, although there is still too much of an emphasis on immediate goals, said Edson Borges, a researcher with the Centre for Afro-Asian Studies at Cándido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro.

The forging of closer ties with Africa is one of the few areas in which Lula is remaining faithful to his leftist Workers Party’s platform of steering foreign policy towards strengthening South-South relations and diversifying the centres of power while maintaining traditional ties with the industrialised countries, Borges told IPS.

The African nations represent "new markets for exporting everything from needles to automobiles," while some are even potential buyers of more sophisticated products, thanks to their oil export revenues, he noted.

Yet the pursuit of this objective and of support for the government’s Security Council aspirations constitutes a narrow approach to a policy that should ideally be aimed at identifying Africa’s most essential needs and a set of common interests, including Brazil’s shared cultural and linguistic heritage with the Portuguese-speaking African nations, as fellow former colonies of Portugal.

Borges, who is also a professor of African history at Cándido Mendes University, said there are high expectations in Africa, especially among intellectual circles, for a Brazilian policy that would more fully and deeply address the interests of both sides.

Africa needs investment, he noted, but since the Brazilian state lacks the necessary capital, any investment would have to come from the private sector, which for now has little interest in pursuing operations in Africa. For example, the oil deposits in Sao Tome and Principe – a former Portuguese colony – have had to depend on U.S. companies for development.

The oil produced by African countries like Nigeria and Gabon will become especially important in the future, since Brazil has limited reserves and lacks competitiveness in terms of productivity, he noted.

A more ambitious strategy could include aspects like education, the fight against AIDS, and the implementation in Africa of social programmes developed in Brazil, like the "school grant" initiative, through which families who keep their children in school receive a government subsidy.

Brazil "has a great deal to gain," because its large population of African descendants, its culture, and the high regard it enjoys throughout Africa could allow it to achieve a degree of influence similar to that of past colonial powers like France and Britain, Borges concluded.

A country of 182 million, Brazil has the ninth largest economy in the world.

Lula’s current tour encompasses a range of different interests. Nigeria, the largest African country in terms of population – with 140 million inhabitants – is emerging as a major trading partner, according to the Brazilian foreign ministry. Bilateral trade totalled 4.004 billion dollars in 2004, which was twice the amount for the previous year.

Brazil’s imports of Nigerian oil have led to a total trade deficit of 2.99 billion dollars, which it is hoping to reduce through trade deals in agriculture, construction and defence. There are also plans for the transfer of Brazilian technology to produce AIDS drugs in Nigeria.

Guinea-Bissau is the only Portuguese-speaking African country that Lula has not yet visited. In addition to this motive for his visit, Brazil will be providing assistance for the presidential elections scheduled to take place in the African nation on Jun. 19, which are aimed at consolidating a democracy threatened by recent coups.

Ghana is also viewed as a potentially important trade partner by the Brazilian foreign ministry. Although bilateral trade grew by 600 percent between 2002 and 2004, it is still limited to 170 million dollars annually. Lula will be the first Brazilian president ever to visit Ghana.

With regard to Cameroon and Senegal, education and technical cooperation in agriculture will be at the top of the agenda. Brazil is contributing to the fight against a plague of locusts afflicting the region through the donation of a fumigation plane and training assistance.

Exchanges of students and professors have become more frequent, especially since Brazil incorporated African history and culture into its primary school curriculum. At present, around 700 African students go to Brazil every year, but many are forced to return home before completing their courses of study because of financial difficulties, said Motta.

To remedy this situation, Lula will be announcing a programme of grants for African students to attend Brazilian universities, as well as agreements to bring African professors to the South American nation.