By Annelise Sander
GENEVA, May 20 2009 (IPS)

The global economic crisis may spell the end of the Washington Consensus and the structural adjustment programmes imposed on the South and lead to the emergence of new economic powers, the so-called ‘‘Next 11”, of which some will be in Africa.

Hakim Ben Hammouda: The end of the Washington Consensus is nigh. Credit:

These are some of the provocative theses of ‘‘La crise” (The crisis), a recently published book by North African economists Hakim Ben Hammouda, Hédi Bchir and Mustapha Sadni Jallab that provides some fresh and encouraging perspectives on the current international situation. Annelise Sander asked one of the authors, Tunisian economist Hakim Ben Hammouda, some questions.

IPS: Africa will be one of the regions most severely affected by the global economic crisis. What are the solutions? Hakim Ben Hammouda (HBH): I have been one of the first to say that Africa would be badly hit by the crisis – which almost nobody believed at the beginning. Today it is a fact: the poor are suffering more than the others. Growth on the continent is estimated to be only two percent this year, compared with seven percent in 2007, which was considered insufficient to lift Africa out of poverty.

With two percent growth, the situation becomes catastrophic and it could even lead to greater political instability. Appropriate responses by Africans are needed, but these countries are poor and cannot afford to launch rescue plans. Financial flows from outside – official development assistance and loans by the African Development Bank – are more necessary than ever.

IPS: Is it the end of the Washington Consensus and the beginning of a new form of capitalism, more favourable to developing countries? HBH: The end of the Washington Consensus has been announced several times by now but liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation have always come back as solid bases of economic policy.

But this time it is finished once for all and the state is becoming again the investor and regulator, while for decades the market was supposed to play this role. It is a big change for the South because the Washington Consensus inspired the adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s.

IPS: In the book you place a lot of hope in the ‘‘Next 11”, a group of emerging economies among which three are African: South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. Is that realistic? HBH: The world economy has witnessed a major evolution since the beginning of the 1980s, when development was limited to the West and the South was considered impermeable to modernity, for cultural or religious reasons, and a magma of countries and peoples where conflicts, instability and violence dominate.

Since the beginning or the 1990s, consecutive waves of Southern countries have started to develop and some have even become members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club.

After the Asian Tigers in the 1980s (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong) and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the 1990s, the Next 11 is a new generation of emerging economies. The perimeter of Southern countries that are better off is getting larger to include African ones like Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa.

To this group we can reasonably add Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritius and Botswana. The whole question, today, is to see whether they will overcome the crisis that is severely hitting developing countries.

IPS: The book says that the South finances the North. What do you mean? HBH: A large number of Southern countries have been able to put aside important reserves after the rapid increase of commodities’ prices (particularly oil) and, for some of them, the accumulation of an important trade surplus.

They have created sovereign funds (funds that belong to the state and are invested for future generations) that have made significant investments in the North, particularly in international banks. But these sovereign funds have suffered important losses after the recent crisis.

IPS: Will Arab capital benefit Africa too? HBH: Some Arab investments are directed towards Africa, both North and Sub-Saharan. It is mainly in the building sector, with important projects that have, because of the crisis, been delayed or cancelled in mobile telephone companies and in the management of harbours.

Dubai Harbour is running several harbours, like Dakar’s. There is also a stronger presence of Gulf airlines in Africa. Dubai and Doha are becoming important hubs between Africa and Asia.

IPS: You say that the South is becoming a new trade power. Africa too? HBH: It is much less the case with Africa because it has a lot of difficulty to get out of marginalisation. Africa’s part of world trade is no more than two percent and the continent badly needs to diversify its economic structures to overcome the rent model inherited from colonisation. It must enter into much more advanced and sophisticated sectors, including industry and services.

IPS: Has globalisation benefited the North more than the South? HBH: Globalisation has been at the origin of an unprecedented extension of the crisis to the whole world, hence the need to regulate it. There have been two phases in globalisation: in the 1980s, it very much benefited the North and marginalised the South.

But, after the mid-1990s, it started to benefit a certain number of Southern countries that have become new trade powers, imposing greater competition with the traditional economic powers.

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By Annelise Sander
GENEVA, Apr 24 2009 (IPS)

Trade affects women and men differently. Women’s livelihoods, in particular, can be undermined by trade liberalisation. Despite this fact, gender analysis is usually absent from trade negotiations and agreements.

Simonetta Zarrilli: ''Don't make gender mainstreaming a criterion in trade policies.'' Credit: Diego Oyarzun/IPS

Trade influences the labour market, migration flows, small and medium enterprises and the agricultural sector. Changes in these sectors are more likely to have negative impacts on women than on men. But trade policies and agreements are gender-blind and ‘‘neutral”.

Decisions-makers are not trained to take gender into consideration. At a meeting organised last month by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), experts argued about whether this should change.

But gender should not be an additional criterion for market access as developing countries, particularly in Africa, would have difficulty meeting new conditions, argues Simonetta Zarrilli, the UNCTAD officer who coordinated the expert meeting, in an interview with Annelise Sander.

IPS: Does trade liberalisation improve or worsen the lives of women? Simonetta Zarrilli (SZ): The results are not just one way. There are cases where trade has improved the conditions of women, especially by creating new employment opportunities in the formal and informal sector. In other cases, trade liberalisation has had a negative impact by destroying the sectors where women work.

IPS: How does trade affect particularly African women? SZ: Generally speaking, trade liberalisation creates new jobs but to be able to benefit from them, individuals have to adapt and acquire new skills. For women this is particularly difficult because they are less skilled, less mobile and have many more tasks in the household. Usually women get the worst jobs because of the mismatch between their skills and the market’s requirements.

Trade liberalisation also increases migration. Around 50 percent of international migrants are women. But in the host countries they end up doing jobs for which they are overqualified because they face a double disadvantage as women and migrants. Despite this, they earn money and send it home, usually to other women who are empowered by these remittances.

Women migrants tend to send a higher share of their income home, and more regularly, than male migrants.

Trade also affects agriculture because trade liberalisation is good for cash crops, such as coffee and cacao. The problem is that these crops are usually harvested by men, whereas women work in subsistence agriculture. The liberalisation of agricultural markets is not beneficial for women.

And the shift from traditional to cash crops can even generate problems for food security, which particularly affects women as they are (still) responsible for the household. Trade liberalisation creates dynamism in the part of the agricultural sector where women are not present.

Finally, trade liberalisation has an impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In Africa, like in other developing regions, women run 40 – 50 percent of SMEs. International trade creates opportunities for small enterprises, provided they become more competitive in a liberalised market.

But to do so, they need better technology and an upgrading of skills. The problem is that women have difficulty to find time to get trained and to improve their skills. They often lack information about markets and knowledge about new technologies.

Tradition and strict rules governing their behaviour also often make it difficult for them to travel out of their towns and villages. (Which means that) women just often don’t have the skills that the market requires.

IPS: How can trade policies take on board African women? SZ: What kind of trade policies? When trade policies are developed and trade agreements negotiated, the gender component is almost always absent. Trade negotiators don’t think of the impacts on the very poor, on women, on youth. The idea is (merely) that trade is good for economic growth.

Trade policies are usually gender blind, both in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and in bilateral and regional agreements.

IPS: Why ? SZ: Because policy makers are not trained to look into this aspect. Also, assessing the impact of trade on women is complex. You need data, you have to know in which sector women are employed. It requires an analytical capacity that most of the developing countries don’t have because of limited financial and human resources.

IPS: At the UNCTAD meeting in March, what was the picture that emerged of gender mainstreaming in trade policy, specifically in the African context? SZ: There is very little gender mainstreaming, even in developed countries. Many countries are paying lip service. They say that women should be empowered but it remains merely a statement of intent that is difficult to incorporate into programmes and actions.

Trade and cooperation agreements refer more and more to gender. But usually these references are in the sections of the agreement that are not mandatory, like the preamble. Or the agreement says that countries should try to pay attention to the gender component along with other environmental and social constraints.

However, gender-related requirements should not become a new precondition for market access. It is one thing is to help empower women and another to start imposing very strict requirements and introducing new conditionalities that countries would not be able to cope with. It would be counter-productive and become yet another impediment.

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