In DEAD AID,Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist, lays out a brash argument: that the more than $1 trillion in foreign assistance given to Africa over the past 50 years is the root cause of the continent's enduring poverty, widespread corruption, civil wars, and isolation from the global economy. Following this logic to its conclusion, Moyo argues that the best way donors could help Africa today would be to phone officials there and tell them all aid will be cut off within five years. Given recent calls by Bono, the economist Jeffrey Sachs, and others to increase aid, Moyo's thesis is controversial, to put it mildly. And it's also misleading in several key ways. But it's worth taking seriously, for it's already caused a huge sensation in the donor community and among Africans frustrated by the slow pace of development—and eager for ways to speed the process.
There is no question that outsiders have been complicit, wittingly and otherwise, in compounding Africa's problems over the years, especially during the Cold War. But aid is not always as harmful as Moyo claims. True, in some cases—like U.S. support for Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko—it has abetted bad governance, and in others it has fed conflict. But this is overly simplistic. Take Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia. It was outside military assistance, not foreign aid per se, that helped fuel the long-running civil wars in the first two. And to say that the conflict in Somalia is primarily a competition for control of large-scale food aid—as Moyo does—is a selective, if not facile, reading of the complex dynamics driving the chaos there.
To bolster her case against aid, Moyo argues that countries that have voluntarily abandoned outside assistance in recent years, such as South Africa and Botswana, are thriving. But again, this oversimplifies things. While it's true that these two states lowered the amount of aid they receive as a percentage of national revenue, they have continued to benefit from donor largesse; for example, South Africa has received $2 billion in support for housing and health care from the United States since its transition to democracy in 1994, and Botswana still gets hundreds of millions of dollars annually to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and strengthen its health sector. In fact, the success of South Africa and Botswana demonstrates that foreign aid and progress can coexist in Africa when there's proper oversight and good governance, and there are many other instances.
Despite these flaws, Moyo's slim, 208-page book remains critically important. For while she may get some details wrong, her insistence that current aid should be designed in a way that makes it less necessary in the future is essential if the continent is ever to manage on its own. Moyo, who worked at the World Bank and on global finance at Goldman Sachs, is particularly adept at outlining how African governments can start to fund development on their own. Her top recommendations include accessing international capital markets, developing domestic bond markets, and ensuring that local governments obtain international credit ratings. Recent experience shows that international finance can act as a powerful resource—for example, when Ghana issued a $750 million bond in 2007, it was ultimately oversubscribed by $5 billion of unmet investor demand, far more than the estimated $2 billion Ghana needs to meet its Millennium Development Goals for the next five years. Then there are remittances, the money sent home by the 33 million Africans living outside the continent, which reached $20 billion in 2006. If even a portion of money were invested in, say, Ugandan Treasury bills that pay 10 percent interest, it would build serious cash fast. Indeed, such measures have the best odds of ensuring that someday soon a phone call like the one Moyo envisages gets made. But it would be better still if it's an African leader who makes the call, with a simple message: "Thanks, but no thanks; we've learned to finance development on our own."
By Witney W. Schneidman | NEWSWEEK
Published Jun 27, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jul 13, 2009
Schneidman Served As U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For African Affairs In The Clinton Administration.
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Monday, June 29, 2009
Americans seek their African roots
First it was Oprah Winfrey's wistful reach for the continent, now other prominent African Americans are finding their roots.
In 2005 Oprah Winfrey underwent DNA testing in an effort to determine the genetic make-up of her body's cells.
The popular American talk show host wanted to know where her ancestors, taken as slaves to the United States, had come from.
Famous genes
Since then thousands of other African Americans have followed suit, many of them household names in the US.
Comedian Chris Rock discovered that he was descended from the Udeme people of northern Cameroon.
LeVar Burton, an actor who played the slave Kunta Kinte in the TV drama Roots, linked himself up genetically with the Hausa in Nigeria.
Civil rights leader Andrew Young traced his lineage to the Mende people of Sierra Leone and is also believed to be a distant relative of one of the leaders of the 1839 Amistad slave ship mutiny.
DNA testing has also resulted in some African Americans being bestowed with honorary African titles.
The Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, who portrayed the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, was made an honorary chief of Igboland in south-eastern Nigeria.
He was given the title of Nwannedinambar of Nkwerre which means "brother in a foreign land", during a visit to Nigeria in April.
Getting results
There are more than two dozen genealogy organisations in the US selling genetic ancestry tests but African Ancestry is the only black-owned firm.
It is also the first to cater specifically to African Americans. Of the half a million Americans who have purchased DNA tests, around 35,000 of them are African American.
African Ancestry charges $349 to test either a person's maternal or paternal lineage.
Once the fee is paid, swabs used to collect a DNA sample from the inside of the cheek are sent to the customer and then back to African Ancestry's laboratory.
“ We did not talk about where we came from when I was growing up ”
Lyndra Marshall
The DNA's genetic sequence is extracted and compared to others in the firm's database.
The company claims this contains 25,000 samples from 30 countries and 200 ethnic groups, and is the largest collection of African lineages in the world.
African Ancestry say that they are very precise in tracing where a person's ancestors originate from.
Once this is known, a "results package" is sent out, including a print-out of a person's DNA sequence, a certificate of ancestry and a map of Africa.
"It's a kind of welcome to Africa package," said Ghanaian-born Ofori Anor, editor of the African expatriate magazine, Asante.
Transformation
Gina Paige, a founder of African Ancestry, wants to transform the way people view themselves and the way they view Africa.
When many African Americans visited Africa in the past, they were interested mostly in kente cloths and masks, nowadays they want to know more about the country they are visiting.
Although they still visit the slave castles, they are now also interested in the price of property.
Purchasing a townhouse in the Ghanaian capital Accra or a commercial property in Sierra Leone's Freetown feels less implausible.
"What we need now is for people to get deeply involved in one particular country or region or culture," said Andrew Young, the civil rights leader whose consulting firm acts as a liaison for American companies wanting to do business in Africa.
There has been a change too in the way Africans see African Americans and claims of kinship that were once viewed with amusement are now embraced.
This is partly due to the emergence of President Barack Obama and because of the role played by African Americans in his historic election.
As a result, African politicians and businessmen want African Americans to lobby in the US on the continent's behalf.
Traditional African rulers have also been busy handing out honorary chieftaincies to African Americans in the hope it will lead to an increase in investment and a boost in tourism.
“ With Obama being both African and American, and our president, this has made many of us interested in where we came from ”
Lyndra Marshall
Guinea-Bissau's Tourism Ministry encouraged comedian Whoopi Goldberg to visit when in 2007, DNA tests showed she was descended from the Papel and Bayote people of the country.
Unfortunately, Goldberg has not taken up the offer as she has a fear of flying and has not been in an aeroplane for 20 years.
Unlike the Hollywood actress, as soon as Lyndra Marshall, a 56-year-old retiree from Maryland near Washington DC discovered her African heritage, she immediately boarded a plane for Ghana's Ashanti region.
"We did not talk about where we came from when I was growing up," said Ms Marshall.
Since she found out she was of Ashanti descent, she has been trying to get other people to visit and invest in the country.
Along with DNA technology, Ms Marshall credits President Obama with kindling an interest in Africa.
"With Obama being both African and American, and our president, this has made many of us interested in where we came from, too."
Getting it right
Although many people are excited about the prospect of tracing their ancestry, critics say the work of America's genealogy companies is far from accurate.
“ African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world ”
Ofori Anor Editor, Asante magazine
On a visit to South Africa in 2005, Oprah Winfrey said that DNA testing had conclusively revealed where she is from. She thought she was Zulu but subsequent DNA testing showed she was a descendent of the Kpelle people of Liberia.
Professor Deborah Bolnick of the University of Texas is particularly critical of African Ancestry.
She says its database is too small to fulfil its marketing promise that it is "the only company whose tests will place your African ancestry in a present day country or region in Africa".
"Consumers should know the limitations and complexities before they spend hundreds of dollars thinking they're going to find an answer to who they really are," said Professor Bolnick.
"It's really much more uncertain than the testing companies make out."
Despite these limitations, African Ancestry customers like Ms Marshall are convinced her results are correct.
"I have lots of family that look very Ghanaian, they are short like them, dark like them and I have a cousin that looks just like the Ashanti king."
However, comments like this offend the Editor of Asante magazine.
"African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world," said Mr Anor.
He feels that African governments and traditional rulers should stop the practice of granting citizenship and chieftaincies to African Americans.
"Just because your genetics show you came from a place, should that mean you can lay claim to that group of people or place now?"
Story from BBC NEWS:
By Leslie Goffe BBC Focus on Africa magazine, New York
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8117258.stm
Published: 2009/06/29 07:05:18 GMT
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
In 2005 Oprah Winfrey underwent DNA testing in an effort to determine the genetic make-up of her body's cells.
The popular American talk show host wanted to know where her ancestors, taken as slaves to the United States, had come from.
Famous genes
Since then thousands of other African Americans have followed suit, many of them household names in the US.
Comedian Chris Rock discovered that he was descended from the Udeme people of northern Cameroon.
LeVar Burton, an actor who played the slave Kunta Kinte in the TV drama Roots, linked himself up genetically with the Hausa in Nigeria.
Civil rights leader Andrew Young traced his lineage to the Mende people of Sierra Leone and is also believed to be a distant relative of one of the leaders of the 1839 Amistad slave ship mutiny.
DNA testing has also resulted in some African Americans being bestowed with honorary African titles.
The Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, who portrayed the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, was made an honorary chief of Igboland in south-eastern Nigeria.
He was given the title of Nwannedinambar of Nkwerre which means "brother in a foreign land", during a visit to Nigeria in April.
Getting results
There are more than two dozen genealogy organisations in the US selling genetic ancestry tests but African Ancestry is the only black-owned firm.
It is also the first to cater specifically to African Americans. Of the half a million Americans who have purchased DNA tests, around 35,000 of them are African American.
African Ancestry charges $349 to test either a person's maternal or paternal lineage.
Once the fee is paid, swabs used to collect a DNA sample from the inside of the cheek are sent to the customer and then back to African Ancestry's laboratory.
“ We did not talk about where we came from when I was growing up ”
Lyndra Marshall
The DNA's genetic sequence is extracted and compared to others in the firm's database.
The company claims this contains 25,000 samples from 30 countries and 200 ethnic groups, and is the largest collection of African lineages in the world.
African Ancestry say that they are very precise in tracing where a person's ancestors originate from.
Once this is known, a "results package" is sent out, including a print-out of a person's DNA sequence, a certificate of ancestry and a map of Africa.
"It's a kind of welcome to Africa package," said Ghanaian-born Ofori Anor, editor of the African expatriate magazine, Asante.
Transformation
Gina Paige, a founder of African Ancestry, wants to transform the way people view themselves and the way they view Africa.
When many African Americans visited Africa in the past, they were interested mostly in kente cloths and masks, nowadays they want to know more about the country they are visiting.
Although they still visit the slave castles, they are now also interested in the price of property.
Purchasing a townhouse in the Ghanaian capital Accra or a commercial property in Sierra Leone's Freetown feels less implausible.
"What we need now is for people to get deeply involved in one particular country or region or culture," said Andrew Young, the civil rights leader whose consulting firm acts as a liaison for American companies wanting to do business in Africa.
There has been a change too in the way Africans see African Americans and claims of kinship that were once viewed with amusement are now embraced.
This is partly due to the emergence of President Barack Obama and because of the role played by African Americans in his historic election.
As a result, African politicians and businessmen want African Americans to lobby in the US on the continent's behalf.
Traditional African rulers have also been busy handing out honorary chieftaincies to African Americans in the hope it will lead to an increase in investment and a boost in tourism.
“ With Obama being both African and American, and our president, this has made many of us interested in where we came from ”
Lyndra Marshall
Guinea-Bissau's Tourism Ministry encouraged comedian Whoopi Goldberg to visit when in 2007, DNA tests showed she was descended from the Papel and Bayote people of the country.
Unfortunately, Goldberg has not taken up the offer as she has a fear of flying and has not been in an aeroplane for 20 years.
Unlike the Hollywood actress, as soon as Lyndra Marshall, a 56-year-old retiree from Maryland near Washington DC discovered her African heritage, she immediately boarded a plane for Ghana's Ashanti region.
"We did not talk about where we came from when I was growing up," said Ms Marshall.
Since she found out she was of Ashanti descent, she has been trying to get other people to visit and invest in the country.
Along with DNA technology, Ms Marshall credits President Obama with kindling an interest in Africa.
"With Obama being both African and American, and our president, this has made many of us interested in where we came from, too."
Getting it right
Although many people are excited about the prospect of tracing their ancestry, critics say the work of America's genealogy companies is far from accurate.
“ African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world ”
Ofori Anor Editor, Asante magazine
On a visit to South Africa in 2005, Oprah Winfrey said that DNA testing had conclusively revealed where she is from. She thought she was Zulu but subsequent DNA testing showed she was a descendent of the Kpelle people of Liberia.
Professor Deborah Bolnick of the University of Texas is particularly critical of African Ancestry.
She says its database is too small to fulfil its marketing promise that it is "the only company whose tests will place your African ancestry in a present day country or region in Africa".
"Consumers should know the limitations and complexities before they spend hundreds of dollars thinking they're going to find an answer to who they really are," said Professor Bolnick.
"It's really much more uncertain than the testing companies make out."
Despite these limitations, African Ancestry customers like Ms Marshall are convinced her results are correct.
"I have lots of family that look very Ghanaian, they are short like them, dark like them and I have a cousin that looks just like the Ashanti king."
However, comments like this offend the Editor of Asante magazine.
"African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world," said Mr Anor.
He feels that African governments and traditional rulers should stop the practice of granting citizenship and chieftaincies to African Americans.
"Just because your genetics show you came from a place, should that mean you can lay claim to that group of people or place now?"
Story from BBC NEWS:
By Leslie Goffe BBC Focus on Africa magazine, New York
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8117258.stm
Published: 2009/06/29 07:05:18 GMT
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Michael Jackson: the soundtrack of a generation
If the fascination with celebrity reflects a longing to escape from the mundane then in Michael Jackson this was reflected back in his own unfulfilled longing: "what I wanted more than anything was to be ordinary," he once wrote.
"May Allah be with you Michael, always," Jermaine Jackson said on Thursday, while announcing the death of his brother. His remark rekindled speculation that the pop icon had in the last months of his life converted to Islam.
With those words, "Michael's association with Islam and Muslims - wanted or not – was made eternal," wrote Zahed Amanullah in an obituary at altmuslim.
Ali Eteraz looked into the question of whether the singer had converted to Islam and found a mixture of fact and fiction but no evidence that the claim was true.
"In the Muslim world Jackson was very well received and never lost his iconic stature. He was so loved that rumours of his conversion to Islam had been in existence for countless years. (I heard them in Pakistan when I was growing up there in the 80's).
"These rumours probably began as a case of Muslim wishful thinking - which I previously analysed and refer to as Muslamism - whereby every famous person, from Shakespeare, to Napoleon, to Will Smith, to Jackson, is turned into a Muslim. (Recently the wish seems to be stronger if the individual happens to be black).
"All these rumours probably gained steam sometime after 1989 when Jermaine Jackson, Michael's brother, reportedly converted to Islam. He has spoken at length on the subject.
"They became more insistent when after his acquittal for child molestation charges Michael left the United States and settled in the ... Gulf through the support of the Bahraini royal family - who paid his millions of dollars in legal fees and entered into a failed business venture with him."
The Syrian journalist, Sami Moubayed, wrote in The Washington Post: "To young teenagers growing up in the Arab world [in the 1980s], there were three cherished pop idols to those aged 13 and above: Madonna, George Michael, and Michael Jackson. With the passing of time, Madonna became too outrageous for the Arab East and George Michael sunk into obscurity. The only name that was constantly in the news was Jackson. As teenagers, we learned to moonwalk, sported red leather jackets like the one he wore in Thriller, and danced to his music at private parties - long before nightclubs had invaded the night life of Damascus.
"We brought ourselves to believe that Michael Jackson 'liked' the Arab World because he wore a jacket that 'looked Arabic' in We are the World. He reportedly had a fling with Brooke Shields in the 1980s - a woman who was adored by young people throughout the Middle East, and a poster of them walking the red carpet into the Oscars soon became a must in the bedrooms of young teenagers.
"Then suddenly, a baseless rumour ripped throughout the Arab world, saying that Michael Jackson hated the Arabs, and had hostile feelings towards Muslims. This affected the popularity of Michael in the Arab world, and coincided with career setbacks for the King of Pop, which made him literally disappear from news, until the early 1990s. Then, ugly stories of the artist began to surface in the international press, with story after another, of improper sexual behaviour with minors. That had a very negative affect on his image, and probably explains why very little was said about him on the day of his death, in the Arab world. Strangely, his tour of Dubai, temporary residence in Bahrain, and friendship with Saudi billionaire Prince Walid Bin Talal, did little to polish his shattered image in the eyes of Arab media."
The Saudi commentator, Faisal J Abbas, wrote at The Huffington Post: "On Facebook, my school colleague Fahad, who now lives in the US, mentioned that he is remembering when he used to practice the Moonwalk in front of the mirror as a kid, while Sami - a friend who left us years ago to go study and work in the US, but now is back in Saudi Arabia, immediately began posting clips of his favourite music videos, such as Smooth Criminal and Bad.
"However, just as I was wondering if I could find any negative comments regarding the incident, a friend of mine called me from Dubai complaining about all the hype Jackson's death is getting; he is arguing that the man wasn't a Princess Diana socially, or even a Bob Marley musically. Nevertheless, he uses a statement which I immediately recognised as the 'punch line' I was looking for, he said: 'Despite everything, I have to admit that Michael Jackson's music was the soundtrack of our generation's life'.
"Perhaps this video of a young Yemeni dancing to Billie Jean in a way that mixes the local fighting techniques of using a 'Khangar' (tradtional Yemeni dagger) with the twists and turns of the King of Pop, would demonstrate just how much this man has managed to rock the desert."
In Foreign Policy, Hua Hsu said: "The reason Michael mattered - continues to matter - is because he was one of the first truly international stars.
Not just transatlantic, not just big in Japan: He was global. The obvious effect was economic. Michael opened markets around the world; he made the world safe for MTV (after first making MTV safe for nonwhite performers, it should be said). He sold records and sold-out tours everywhere. He was, by most accounts, a gracious guest and a kind ambassador.
"Most importantly, in this moment before communication was instant and cheap, Michael was one of the most powerful access points to American culture from abroad - his star didn't tarnish at the same rate elsewhere. Perhaps it was the wonder and magic of his music or the subversive hue of his skin that exempted him from accusations of cultural imperialism.
"Michael belonged to the world - in part ... because America gave him up. Perhaps it was a vision of American possibility. Perhaps it was that he represented no discernible politics (unless we were to take the Black Panther imagery of Black or White literally) other than a deep, abiding, and occasionally intense commitment to the children. It was probably the music.
"In a recent piece in Foreign Policy on the future of 'globalisation,' Editor in Chief Moisés Naím pointed out that globalisation is much more than just an economic condition. The current crisis will not dull our pursuit for information and style. Globalisation is also a celebration of the unpredictable porosity of borders, the shock flow of information across lands far and wide. It is Michael Jackson selling records - but it is also a stall in Malaysia selling bootlegged Michael Jackson tapes and T-shirts (which, I might add, were way cooler than the American T-shirt designs). It is a flea market in South Africa where they sell framed illustrations of Michael Jackson and Jesus. It is a generation, scattered across continents, that remembers a world tour. It is '#michaeljackson' neck and neck with '#IranElection' on Twitter."
pwoodward@thenational.ae
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
"May Allah be with you Michael, always," Jermaine Jackson said on Thursday, while announcing the death of his brother. His remark rekindled speculation that the pop icon had in the last months of his life converted to Islam.
With those words, "Michael's association with Islam and Muslims - wanted or not – was made eternal," wrote Zahed Amanullah in an obituary at altmuslim.
Ali Eteraz looked into the question of whether the singer had converted to Islam and found a mixture of fact and fiction but no evidence that the claim was true.
"In the Muslim world Jackson was very well received and never lost his iconic stature. He was so loved that rumours of his conversion to Islam had been in existence for countless years. (I heard them in Pakistan when I was growing up there in the 80's).
"These rumours probably began as a case of Muslim wishful thinking - which I previously analysed and refer to as Muslamism - whereby every famous person, from Shakespeare, to Napoleon, to Will Smith, to Jackson, is turned into a Muslim. (Recently the wish seems to be stronger if the individual happens to be black).
"All these rumours probably gained steam sometime after 1989 when Jermaine Jackson, Michael's brother, reportedly converted to Islam. He has spoken at length on the subject.
"They became more insistent when after his acquittal for child molestation charges Michael left the United States and settled in the ... Gulf through the support of the Bahraini royal family - who paid his millions of dollars in legal fees and entered into a failed business venture with him."
The Syrian journalist, Sami Moubayed, wrote in The Washington Post: "To young teenagers growing up in the Arab world [in the 1980s], there were three cherished pop idols to those aged 13 and above: Madonna, George Michael, and Michael Jackson. With the passing of time, Madonna became too outrageous for the Arab East and George Michael sunk into obscurity. The only name that was constantly in the news was Jackson. As teenagers, we learned to moonwalk, sported red leather jackets like the one he wore in Thriller, and danced to his music at private parties - long before nightclubs had invaded the night life of Damascus.
"We brought ourselves to believe that Michael Jackson 'liked' the Arab World because he wore a jacket that 'looked Arabic' in We are the World. He reportedly had a fling with Brooke Shields in the 1980s - a woman who was adored by young people throughout the Middle East, and a poster of them walking the red carpet into the Oscars soon became a must in the bedrooms of young teenagers.
"Then suddenly, a baseless rumour ripped throughout the Arab world, saying that Michael Jackson hated the Arabs, and had hostile feelings towards Muslims. This affected the popularity of Michael in the Arab world, and coincided with career setbacks for the King of Pop, which made him literally disappear from news, until the early 1990s. Then, ugly stories of the artist began to surface in the international press, with story after another, of improper sexual behaviour with minors. That had a very negative affect on his image, and probably explains why very little was said about him on the day of his death, in the Arab world. Strangely, his tour of Dubai, temporary residence in Bahrain, and friendship with Saudi billionaire Prince Walid Bin Talal, did little to polish his shattered image in the eyes of Arab media."
The Saudi commentator, Faisal J Abbas, wrote at The Huffington Post: "On Facebook, my school colleague Fahad, who now lives in the US, mentioned that he is remembering when he used to practice the Moonwalk in front of the mirror as a kid, while Sami - a friend who left us years ago to go study and work in the US, but now is back in Saudi Arabia, immediately began posting clips of his favourite music videos, such as Smooth Criminal and Bad.
"However, just as I was wondering if I could find any negative comments regarding the incident, a friend of mine called me from Dubai complaining about all the hype Jackson's death is getting; he is arguing that the man wasn't a Princess Diana socially, or even a Bob Marley musically. Nevertheless, he uses a statement which I immediately recognised as the 'punch line' I was looking for, he said: 'Despite everything, I have to admit that Michael Jackson's music was the soundtrack of our generation's life'.
"Perhaps this video of a young Yemeni dancing to Billie Jean in a way that mixes the local fighting techniques of using a 'Khangar' (tradtional Yemeni dagger) with the twists and turns of the King of Pop, would demonstrate just how much this man has managed to rock the desert."
In Foreign Policy, Hua Hsu said: "The reason Michael mattered - continues to matter - is because he was one of the first truly international stars.
Not just transatlantic, not just big in Japan: He was global. The obvious effect was economic. Michael opened markets around the world; he made the world safe for MTV (after first making MTV safe for nonwhite performers, it should be said). He sold records and sold-out tours everywhere. He was, by most accounts, a gracious guest and a kind ambassador.
"Most importantly, in this moment before communication was instant and cheap, Michael was one of the most powerful access points to American culture from abroad - his star didn't tarnish at the same rate elsewhere. Perhaps it was the wonder and magic of his music or the subversive hue of his skin that exempted him from accusations of cultural imperialism.
"Michael belonged to the world - in part ... because America gave him up. Perhaps it was a vision of American possibility. Perhaps it was that he represented no discernible politics (unless we were to take the Black Panther imagery of Black or White literally) other than a deep, abiding, and occasionally intense commitment to the children. It was probably the music.
"In a recent piece in Foreign Policy on the future of 'globalisation,' Editor in Chief Moisés Naím pointed out that globalisation is much more than just an economic condition. The current crisis will not dull our pursuit for information and style. Globalisation is also a celebration of the unpredictable porosity of borders, the shock flow of information across lands far and wide. It is Michael Jackson selling records - but it is also a stall in Malaysia selling bootlegged Michael Jackson tapes and T-shirts (which, I might add, were way cooler than the American T-shirt designs). It is a flea market in South Africa where they sell framed illustrations of Michael Jackson and Jesus. It is a generation, scattered across continents, that remembers a world tour. It is '#michaeljackson' neck and neck with '#IranElection' on Twitter."
pwoodward@thenational.ae
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Iraq oil industry hangs in the balance
The world will be watching Iraq this week as it broadcasts a unique live auction of oil contracts.
What is certain is that billions of dollars will be put on the table to develop some of the country’s biggest oilfields. But little else is assured. Even nature intervened to delay the bidding, as a sandstorm engulfed Baghdad yesterday and shut down the city’s airport.
The two-day event, now postponed by one day to tomorrow and Wednesday, is bound to end with a cliffhanger. In the balance is the future of Iraq’s oil industry, which is expected to fuel the economic engine behind the country’s recovery after decades of war and sanctions.
The auction marks the first time big foreign firms have been invited to Iraq to bid on oil and gas projects since 1972, when the late dictator Saddam Hussein expelled them from the country and nationalised the oil industry. But observers are questioning whether Iraq’s tattered oil industry is yet ready for international prime time.
The 32 companies shortlisted to bid for 20-year contracts to service fields that have been called “the jewels of the Iraqi oil industry” are not being welcomed with open arms. The contract terms are so tough that profits are in doubt, the companies are not allowed to book reserves or take a share of oil production, and the government is seeking US$2.6 billion (Dh9.54bn) from them in refundable “signature bonuses” to help balance its books.
What is worse, some of the bidding round’s domestic opponents, notably including most Iraqi oilfield workers, hold foreign oil producers in the same regard as diamond thieves. That could cause an array of problems, including increased security risks, for foreign operators that are required to work with Iraqi partners and employ a large proportion of Iraqi nationals as field staff.
Nonetheless, the auction’s participants are likely to include a Who’s Who of the world’s biggest international oil companies – the likes of Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP – vying with powerful state-owned concerns such as China National Petroleum Corporation for access to 44 billion barrels of proved oil reserves and 22 trillion cubic feet of untapped gas.
That is roughly a third of Iraq’s total proved oil reserves, which are the world’s third largest, and nearly 20 per cent of its gas reserves, making this the biggest single auction of oil and gas licences held anywhere in the world.
Increasingly squeezed for access to resources, big international oil companies cannot afford to stay away. By establishing bulwarks in Iraq, they hope to better their chances of winning exploration concessions in a country believed to hold more than 200 billion barrels of undiscovered commercially exploitable crude that could eventually put Iraq’s reserves ahead of Saudi Arabia’s.
“International oil companies are short of reserves and opportunities, and countries control almost 88 per cent of oil reserves. The only real opportunity is Iraq,” said Thamir Ghadhban, the chairman of the Iraqi prime minister’s advisory board.
“Iraq is the big prize in the region,” said Raja Kiwan, a Dubai analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm. “There’s a huge amount of pressure on all international companies looking at Iraq to make sure they have the first foot in.”
The atmosphere of the auction promises to be a cross between a game show and Oscars night. After the first contract is awarded, competing companies, which may team up as consortiums, will get a chance to revise the terms of their next bid, but they will have to do so under time pressure, forging new alliances as they go. Individual companies are each allowed to win only one contract as the project leader, and to be a minority partner in another two, which should foster strategic switching. The live TV cameras will ensure maximum transparency, and the potential for drama is high.
Instead of taking weeks or months to evaluate detailed development proposals, as usually happens with other countries’ oil licensing rounds, Dr Hussein al Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, will announce the contract winners on air, right after publicly opening the envelopes containing the stripped down bids.
But for the winners, the risks are enormous. On top of financial uncertainties, they face an unstable security situation in Iraq that is deteriorating ahead of the imminent pullout of US combat troops. With contracts unprotected by a federal oil law, they may be wading into a legal quagmire. They will have to deal with sharp political divisions over whether they should be allowed in the country at all – an issue sure to be hotly contested in Iraq in the run-up to national elections at the end of January. Western-based firms are also looking askance at a process that reduces the government’s decisions on who will execute complex, technically challenging energy projects that are vital to Iraq’s economic interest to just two numbers: the remuneration fee per barrel, and the production target. They are worried that years of groundwork in Iraq as unpaid energy advisers – time spent since the 2003 US-led invasion on training nationals, conducting field studies and building relationships – could go to waste.
One thing everyone agrees on is that Iraq needs to export more oil in order to pay its mounting bills. The country’s crude production of about 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) is still below the 2.5 million bpd reached before the invasion. With crude prices much lower than last year, that is a big problem for the government, which derives about 95 per cent of its revenue from oil exports.
The trouble is, there is no consensus within the country on how to achieve the increase, or on who should be mandated to make crucial decisions on the role that foreign oil companies should play.
The bidding round has set Iraqi parliamentarians against government leaders, the regional government of semiautonomous Kurdistan against the Baghdad central government, and the technocrats and engineers staffing Southern Oil Company (SOC), Iraq’s biggest state oil company, against the country’s oil ministry. Feelings are running so high that it is a miracle the auction is at last taking place, after months of unexplained delays.
Just last week, Dr al Shahristani was hauled before parliament for two days of questioning on the bidding round. His responses were well enough received to avert a vote of no confidence, which empowered Baghdad to press ahead with the auction.
But political rhetoric this past week has been heated, with rival groups exchanging barbs that reflect a web of interconnected sectarian and ethnic conflicts over oil jurisdiction, financial and economic management, power sharing and territory.
“This auction is a violation of Iraq’s federal constitution,” Nichirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, said on the regional government’s website. “The proposed oil ministry contracts are not in the best interest of the Iraqi people.”
Kurdish forces, peshmerga, handle security for the northern oilfields of Kirkuk and Bai Hassan, which are included in the auction despite their location in territory disputed between Baghdad and Kurdistan. The peshmerga have been known to shut down production from the fields over political spats, so companies planning to bid on those fields will pay attention.
Exxon Mobil, one of the contenders for Kirkuk, a giant field containing about 8 billion barrels of remaining reserves that was badly damaged by Saddam-era reservoir mismanagement, was still considering as recently as the middle of this month whether to bid.
For its part, Baghdad has refused to recognise more than a score of oil exploration and production agreements that the Kurds have signed with foreign oil companies. Dr al Shahristani has repeatedly called the deals “illegal” and has blacklisted firms doing business with the Kurds from oil projects in the rest of Iraq. Now, Baghdad is pondering whether to disqualify the Chinese state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec from the auction, after Sinopec agreed to acquire Addax a Canadian company pumping oil in Kurdistan.
That would be a risky step for Baghdad, as China is one of the biggest buyers of Iraqi crude.
Another critic, Ali Balou, the chairman of the parliamentary oil committee, has vowed that parliament would “totally reject” contracts from the bidding round unless allowed to ratify them: “We will not allow the oil ministry to move ahead, ignoring parliament.”
Fayed al Nema, who was appointed the director general of SOC just last month, told parliament that under the licensing round, Baghdad would lose control of Iraq’s resources. He said the government should abandon its plan to issue long-term contracts, and resurrect an earlier scheme to limit foreign participation in Iraq’s oil sector to short-term technical services deals. The bidding round would “put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years”, he said.
This must be unsettling to the companies preparing to bid. But the final straw could be Iraq’s security climate, which has recently taken a turn for the worse after nearly two years of improvement. In the past week, a new wave of violence has left more than 200 people dead, raising concerns about the ability of Iraqi troops to maintain stability as the US withdraws.
“How the security situation materialises is of great importance,” Ray Irani, the chairman and chief executive of the US oil and chemicals group Occidental Petroleum said in April.
Among other things, rising unrest would push up costs for oil firms venturing into Iraq, requiring them to undertake more measures such as hiring security contractors and building airstrips near remote work sites to keep personnel out of political hot spots. Insurance costs would also soar.
Still, companies such as Occidental believe they have little choice. “Anybody serious about being an international oil company over the next few years has to enter Iraq,” Stephen Chazen, the company’s chief financial officer, told Bloomberg last week.
tcarlisle@thenational.ae
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
What is certain is that billions of dollars will be put on the table to develop some of the country’s biggest oilfields. But little else is assured. Even nature intervened to delay the bidding, as a sandstorm engulfed Baghdad yesterday and shut down the city’s airport.
The two-day event, now postponed by one day to tomorrow and Wednesday, is bound to end with a cliffhanger. In the balance is the future of Iraq’s oil industry, which is expected to fuel the economic engine behind the country’s recovery after decades of war and sanctions.
The auction marks the first time big foreign firms have been invited to Iraq to bid on oil and gas projects since 1972, when the late dictator Saddam Hussein expelled them from the country and nationalised the oil industry. But observers are questioning whether Iraq’s tattered oil industry is yet ready for international prime time.
The 32 companies shortlisted to bid for 20-year contracts to service fields that have been called “the jewels of the Iraqi oil industry” are not being welcomed with open arms. The contract terms are so tough that profits are in doubt, the companies are not allowed to book reserves or take a share of oil production, and the government is seeking US$2.6 billion (Dh9.54bn) from them in refundable “signature bonuses” to help balance its books.
What is worse, some of the bidding round’s domestic opponents, notably including most Iraqi oilfield workers, hold foreign oil producers in the same regard as diamond thieves. That could cause an array of problems, including increased security risks, for foreign operators that are required to work with Iraqi partners and employ a large proportion of Iraqi nationals as field staff.
Nonetheless, the auction’s participants are likely to include a Who’s Who of the world’s biggest international oil companies – the likes of Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP – vying with powerful state-owned concerns such as China National Petroleum Corporation for access to 44 billion barrels of proved oil reserves and 22 trillion cubic feet of untapped gas.
That is roughly a third of Iraq’s total proved oil reserves, which are the world’s third largest, and nearly 20 per cent of its gas reserves, making this the biggest single auction of oil and gas licences held anywhere in the world.
Increasingly squeezed for access to resources, big international oil companies cannot afford to stay away. By establishing bulwarks in Iraq, they hope to better their chances of winning exploration concessions in a country believed to hold more than 200 billion barrels of undiscovered commercially exploitable crude that could eventually put Iraq’s reserves ahead of Saudi Arabia’s.
“International oil companies are short of reserves and opportunities, and countries control almost 88 per cent of oil reserves. The only real opportunity is Iraq,” said Thamir Ghadhban, the chairman of the Iraqi prime minister’s advisory board.
“Iraq is the big prize in the region,” said Raja Kiwan, a Dubai analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm. “There’s a huge amount of pressure on all international companies looking at Iraq to make sure they have the first foot in.”
The atmosphere of the auction promises to be a cross between a game show and Oscars night. After the first contract is awarded, competing companies, which may team up as consortiums, will get a chance to revise the terms of their next bid, but they will have to do so under time pressure, forging new alliances as they go. Individual companies are each allowed to win only one contract as the project leader, and to be a minority partner in another two, which should foster strategic switching. The live TV cameras will ensure maximum transparency, and the potential for drama is high.
Instead of taking weeks or months to evaluate detailed development proposals, as usually happens with other countries’ oil licensing rounds, Dr Hussein al Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, will announce the contract winners on air, right after publicly opening the envelopes containing the stripped down bids.
But for the winners, the risks are enormous. On top of financial uncertainties, they face an unstable security situation in Iraq that is deteriorating ahead of the imminent pullout of US combat troops. With contracts unprotected by a federal oil law, they may be wading into a legal quagmire. They will have to deal with sharp political divisions over whether they should be allowed in the country at all – an issue sure to be hotly contested in Iraq in the run-up to national elections at the end of January. Western-based firms are also looking askance at a process that reduces the government’s decisions on who will execute complex, technically challenging energy projects that are vital to Iraq’s economic interest to just two numbers: the remuneration fee per barrel, and the production target. They are worried that years of groundwork in Iraq as unpaid energy advisers – time spent since the 2003 US-led invasion on training nationals, conducting field studies and building relationships – could go to waste.
One thing everyone agrees on is that Iraq needs to export more oil in order to pay its mounting bills. The country’s crude production of about 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) is still below the 2.5 million bpd reached before the invasion. With crude prices much lower than last year, that is a big problem for the government, which derives about 95 per cent of its revenue from oil exports.
The trouble is, there is no consensus within the country on how to achieve the increase, or on who should be mandated to make crucial decisions on the role that foreign oil companies should play.
The bidding round has set Iraqi parliamentarians against government leaders, the regional government of semiautonomous Kurdistan against the Baghdad central government, and the technocrats and engineers staffing Southern Oil Company (SOC), Iraq’s biggest state oil company, against the country’s oil ministry. Feelings are running so high that it is a miracle the auction is at last taking place, after months of unexplained delays.
Just last week, Dr al Shahristani was hauled before parliament for two days of questioning on the bidding round. His responses were well enough received to avert a vote of no confidence, which empowered Baghdad to press ahead with the auction.
But political rhetoric this past week has been heated, with rival groups exchanging barbs that reflect a web of interconnected sectarian and ethnic conflicts over oil jurisdiction, financial and economic management, power sharing and territory.
“This auction is a violation of Iraq’s federal constitution,” Nichirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, said on the regional government’s website. “The proposed oil ministry contracts are not in the best interest of the Iraqi people.”
Kurdish forces, peshmerga, handle security for the northern oilfields of Kirkuk and Bai Hassan, which are included in the auction despite their location in territory disputed between Baghdad and Kurdistan. The peshmerga have been known to shut down production from the fields over political spats, so companies planning to bid on those fields will pay attention.
Exxon Mobil, one of the contenders for Kirkuk, a giant field containing about 8 billion barrels of remaining reserves that was badly damaged by Saddam-era reservoir mismanagement, was still considering as recently as the middle of this month whether to bid.
For its part, Baghdad has refused to recognise more than a score of oil exploration and production agreements that the Kurds have signed with foreign oil companies. Dr al Shahristani has repeatedly called the deals “illegal” and has blacklisted firms doing business with the Kurds from oil projects in the rest of Iraq. Now, Baghdad is pondering whether to disqualify the Chinese state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec from the auction, after Sinopec agreed to acquire Addax a Canadian company pumping oil in Kurdistan.
That would be a risky step for Baghdad, as China is one of the biggest buyers of Iraqi crude.
Another critic, Ali Balou, the chairman of the parliamentary oil committee, has vowed that parliament would “totally reject” contracts from the bidding round unless allowed to ratify them: “We will not allow the oil ministry to move ahead, ignoring parliament.”
Fayed al Nema, who was appointed the director general of SOC just last month, told parliament that under the licensing round, Baghdad would lose control of Iraq’s resources. He said the government should abandon its plan to issue long-term contracts, and resurrect an earlier scheme to limit foreign participation in Iraq’s oil sector to short-term technical services deals. The bidding round would “put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years”, he said.
This must be unsettling to the companies preparing to bid. But the final straw could be Iraq’s security climate, which has recently taken a turn for the worse after nearly two years of improvement. In the past week, a new wave of violence has left more than 200 people dead, raising concerns about the ability of Iraqi troops to maintain stability as the US withdraws.
“How the security situation materialises is of great importance,” Ray Irani, the chairman and chief executive of the US oil and chemicals group Occidental Petroleum said in April.
Among other things, rising unrest would push up costs for oil firms venturing into Iraq, requiring them to undertake more measures such as hiring security contractors and building airstrips near remote work sites to keep personnel out of political hot spots. Insurance costs would also soar.
Still, companies such as Occidental believe they have little choice. “Anybody serious about being an international oil company over the next few years has to enter Iraq,” Stephen Chazen, the company’s chief financial officer, told Bloomberg last week.
tcarlisle@thenational.ae
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
UAE wins support from US on Irena - International Renewable Energy Agency
SHARM EL SHEIKH // The US will join the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) today and throw its support behind Abu Dhabi’s bid to host the headquarters at Masdar City at this evening’s vote, according to three US State Department officials interviewed here yesterday.
The officials did not wish to be named because they did not want to pre-empt an announcement expected to be released in Washington today. A decision by the world’s largest energy consuming nation to join Irena would reverse the policy of the previous US administration, under George W Bush, which argued against creating a new institution when existing UN regulatory organisations and the International Energy Agency already dealt with the development of renewable energy.
An endorsement of the bid to host the headquarters would represent an important boost in a months-long lobbying effort to bring the headquarters to Abu Dhabi.
“The way I look at it, we’ve done our homework,” said Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the Minister of Foreign Trade. “We capitalised on our strong bilateral relationships with so many countries and also the commitment we have through our diversification of the economy.”
Officials from more than 114 member states will gather here to decide among competing bids by Abu Dhabi, Vienna and Bonn, as well as choose a director and allocate budget for the new agency.
“We have a very comprehensive, committed bid,” Sheikha Lubna said. “The bid is not merely about having an office in there as a secretary. We’re committed in many aspects in terms of co-investment with other countries towards renewable energy development.”
Irena’s creators say it will serve as focal point for information and policy on renewables, and the Government hopes a base in Abu Dhabi would elevate the emirate’s status as a global energy player.
The UAE Foreign Ministry has mounted a visible and aggressive campaign to bring Irena to Abu Dhabi, with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, concluding a tour of dozens of countries in the past few months, said Ahmed al Za’abi, the UAE ambassador to Egypt.
“The diplomats of the UAE, under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, have exerted unprecedented diplomatic efforts,” he said.
Mr al Za’abi said that as a diplomat he was “warily optimistic” that the UAE would win the vote.
“After meeting the heads of the delegations in Sharm el Sheikh, most of them showed appreciation and support of the Emirates,” he said, adding that he thought the percentage of supporters was high.
Sheikha Lubna said the Government was “pretty comfortable and confident” going into the vote.
The UAE’s delegation kept up the lobbying yesterday: Mr al Za’abi was on hand at the airport to personally greet arriving delegates, and kandoras were a common sight in the hotels among dozens of officials deployed to Egypt to make the case for Abu Dhabi’s bid.
A number of European countries have also come out in favour of the UAE, including France, Portugal, Spain and Finland, noting that it is better placed than a European city to reach out to developing countries.
Irena will collect information on renewable energy, make recommendations to governments, and even train companies and officials in methods for implementing energy projects, said Arthouros Zervos, the president of the European Renewable Energy Council, who is one of four candidates for the post of director general.
It was likely that the group’s first priority would be to participate in climate change talks later this year, he said.
From the UAE’s point of view, Irena played into a larger objective by the Government to preserve stability in the energy market, since it would promote diversification of energy supply, Mr al Za’abi said.
Even though it is a member of Opec and an exporter of oil, he said, the UAE is interested in alternative energy because of its interest in the stability of the international energy market and the stability of the world economy.
cstanton@thenational.ae
mhabboush@thenational.ae
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
The officials did not wish to be named because they did not want to pre-empt an announcement expected to be released in Washington today. A decision by the world’s largest energy consuming nation to join Irena would reverse the policy of the previous US administration, under George W Bush, which argued against creating a new institution when existing UN regulatory organisations and the International Energy Agency already dealt with the development of renewable energy.
An endorsement of the bid to host the headquarters would represent an important boost in a months-long lobbying effort to bring the headquarters to Abu Dhabi.
“The way I look at it, we’ve done our homework,” said Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the Minister of Foreign Trade. “We capitalised on our strong bilateral relationships with so many countries and also the commitment we have through our diversification of the economy.”
Officials from more than 114 member states will gather here to decide among competing bids by Abu Dhabi, Vienna and Bonn, as well as choose a director and allocate budget for the new agency.
“We have a very comprehensive, committed bid,” Sheikha Lubna said. “The bid is not merely about having an office in there as a secretary. We’re committed in many aspects in terms of co-investment with other countries towards renewable energy development.”
Irena’s creators say it will serve as focal point for information and policy on renewables, and the Government hopes a base in Abu Dhabi would elevate the emirate’s status as a global energy player.
The UAE Foreign Ministry has mounted a visible and aggressive campaign to bring Irena to Abu Dhabi, with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, concluding a tour of dozens of countries in the past few months, said Ahmed al Za’abi, the UAE ambassador to Egypt.
“The diplomats of the UAE, under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, have exerted unprecedented diplomatic efforts,” he said.
Mr al Za’abi said that as a diplomat he was “warily optimistic” that the UAE would win the vote.
“After meeting the heads of the delegations in Sharm el Sheikh, most of them showed appreciation and support of the Emirates,” he said, adding that he thought the percentage of supporters was high.
Sheikha Lubna said the Government was “pretty comfortable and confident” going into the vote.
The UAE’s delegation kept up the lobbying yesterday: Mr al Za’abi was on hand at the airport to personally greet arriving delegates, and kandoras were a common sight in the hotels among dozens of officials deployed to Egypt to make the case for Abu Dhabi’s bid.
A number of European countries have also come out in favour of the UAE, including France, Portugal, Spain and Finland, noting that it is better placed than a European city to reach out to developing countries.
Irena will collect information on renewable energy, make recommendations to governments, and even train companies and officials in methods for implementing energy projects, said Arthouros Zervos, the president of the European Renewable Energy Council, who is one of four candidates for the post of director general.
It was likely that the group’s first priority would be to participate in climate change talks later this year, he said.
From the UAE’s point of view, Irena played into a larger objective by the Government to preserve stability in the energy market, since it would promote diversification of energy supply, Mr al Za’abi said.
Even though it is a member of Opec and an exporter of oil, he said, the UAE is interested in alternative energy because of its interest in the stability of the international energy market and the stability of the world economy.
cstanton@thenational.ae
mhabboush@thenational.ae
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Russia resumes efforts for influence on Africa
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday ended a four-day trip to Africa that took him to Egypt, Nigeria, Namibia and Angola.
The tour was highlighted by the signing of a series of documents ranging from a strategic cooperation pact to energy deals.
Medvedev's visit, the second by a Russian president to sub-Saharan Africa, sent a signal to the world that Russia is striving to regain the influence it had on the resource-rich continent before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
ECONOMIC TIES
Medvedev, with a delegation of officials and businessmen in tow, seems to have focused his trip on helping Russian firms that have lagged behind their western peers in the pursuit of a bigger business presence on the natural resources laden continent.
Egypt, the first stop on Medvedev's trip, is Russia's largest trade partner among the four countries he visited. Trade volume between the two countries was 1.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, and the number of Egypt-bound Russian tourists reached 1.8 million in 2008, the Kremlin said.
During his visit to Cairo, Medvedev and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak signed a strategic partnership treaty that specifies the main areas of bilateral cooperation, including a planned free trade zone between the two countries.
The Russian president also called for expanded commercial ties, saying projects in the energy field, high-tech industries and outer space are promising.
Energy cooperation topped Medvedev's agenda in Nigeria as Gazprom, Russia's state gas monopoly, had been picked as a core investor in the exploration of the African country's gas reserves.
Gazprom and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. signed documents on establishing a joint venture. Boris Ivanov, head of Gazprom International, said the venture would invest up to 400 million dollars to build a 360 km pipeline from the southern Niger Delta to northern Nigeria, with construction beginning next year.
"Gazprom still wants to buy all gas produced around Europe and resell it on its own terms," said Mikhail Korchemkin, head of the East European Gas Analysis, a U.S.-based consultancy.
As a business model, re-exporting African gas does not make sense, but geopolitical motivations play a part there, said Korchemkin, suggesting that Russia intends to reinforce its grip on Europe's energy supply.
In a move to boost Russian investment in Namibia, Gazprombank signed a deal with the national oil company Namcor, pledging to finance the construction of a gas power plant that would export electricity to South Africa.
Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency and Namibia's Ministry of Fisheries and Sea Resources also signed a memorandum of understanding, under which Russian fishermen would be allowed in the waters off Namibia, one of the biggest fish exporters in Africa.
Medvedev's last leg was Angola, which currently holds the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Russia's state diamond monopoly Alrosa has already started a branch in the Angolan capital of Luanda. Apart from cooperation on diamond mining,
Medvedev promised to help Angola modernize industries such as manufacturing and telecommunication, and launch an Angolan telecom satellite called "AngoSat."
MIDEAST PEACE PROCESS
Although Medvedev's trip to Africa might be driven by a desire to boost economic ties, the political significance of the visit should never be neglected.
The visit came on the heels of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Egypt. Obama delivered a keynote speech at Cairo University during the trip and vowed to find a fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The region has already rocked by mass protests over the Iranian presidential elections, making Medvedev's visit to the regional power broker "extremely timely," The Moscow Times quoted Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, as saying.
Medvedev and Mubarak "spent quite some time" during the visit discussing conflicts in the Middle East, in particular continuing the Russian push for a peace conference to be held in Moscow by the end of this year.
"Russia is exerting its best efforts to resume the peace talks in the Middle East according to the two-state solution and freezing settlements," Medvedev said after talks with Mubarak, who hailed
Russia as "one of the greatest countries in the world and has clout on the Middle East peace process."
Russia is a member of the International Quartet that is intent on resolving the Middle East conflict. The Quartet, which also includes the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, endorsed the Roadmap that calls on Israel and the Palestinians to take a series of steps ending with Palestinian statehood.
Meanwhile, Medvedev, in his first visit to the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, said he welcomes all Arab countries to attend the international peace conference in Moscow.
"Lasting security can not be achieved in the Middle East without just and comprehensive compromise to the Arab-Israeli conflict," Medvedev said.
"This comprehensive compromise has to end up with establishing an independent Palestinian state living in peace with all nations in the region including Israel, with its capital in East Jerusalem," he stressed.
Medvedev proposed in January a Middle East peace conference to be held in Moscow in the first half of 2009.
The proposal was welcomed by Palestinians and Arabs, but was rejected by the United States and Israel, which were concerned with Russia's alleged engagement with militant Hamas and its military aid to the moderate Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
Neither Medvedev nor Obama unveiled any sensational initiatives, but both reiterated the well-known stances of their countries on the Middle East peace process, said Maria Appakova, a commentator with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
"The Russian policy in the Middle East cannot be more balanced than it already is," and the key is what will happen if Moscow and Washington coordinate the principles of their Middle East policies, she said.
By Xinhua writer Yu Maofeng Editor: Mu Xuequan
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
The tour was highlighted by the signing of a series of documents ranging from a strategic cooperation pact to energy deals.
Medvedev's visit, the second by a Russian president to sub-Saharan Africa, sent a signal to the world that Russia is striving to regain the influence it had on the resource-rich continent before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
ECONOMIC TIES
Medvedev, with a delegation of officials and businessmen in tow, seems to have focused his trip on helping Russian firms that have lagged behind their western peers in the pursuit of a bigger business presence on the natural resources laden continent.
Egypt, the first stop on Medvedev's trip, is Russia's largest trade partner among the four countries he visited. Trade volume between the two countries was 1.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, and the number of Egypt-bound Russian tourists reached 1.8 million in 2008, the Kremlin said.
During his visit to Cairo, Medvedev and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak signed a strategic partnership treaty that specifies the main areas of bilateral cooperation, including a planned free trade zone between the two countries.
The Russian president also called for expanded commercial ties, saying projects in the energy field, high-tech industries and outer space are promising.
Energy cooperation topped Medvedev's agenda in Nigeria as Gazprom, Russia's state gas monopoly, had been picked as a core investor in the exploration of the African country's gas reserves.
Gazprom and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. signed documents on establishing a joint venture. Boris Ivanov, head of Gazprom International, said the venture would invest up to 400 million dollars to build a 360 km pipeline from the southern Niger Delta to northern Nigeria, with construction beginning next year.
"Gazprom still wants to buy all gas produced around Europe and resell it on its own terms," said Mikhail Korchemkin, head of the East European Gas Analysis, a U.S.-based consultancy.
As a business model, re-exporting African gas does not make sense, but geopolitical motivations play a part there, said Korchemkin, suggesting that Russia intends to reinforce its grip on Europe's energy supply.
In a move to boost Russian investment in Namibia, Gazprombank signed a deal with the national oil company Namcor, pledging to finance the construction of a gas power plant that would export electricity to South Africa.
Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency and Namibia's Ministry of Fisheries and Sea Resources also signed a memorandum of understanding, under which Russian fishermen would be allowed in the waters off Namibia, one of the biggest fish exporters in Africa.
Medvedev's last leg was Angola, which currently holds the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Russia's state diamond monopoly Alrosa has already started a branch in the Angolan capital of Luanda. Apart from cooperation on diamond mining,
Medvedev promised to help Angola modernize industries such as manufacturing and telecommunication, and launch an Angolan telecom satellite called "AngoSat."
MIDEAST PEACE PROCESS
Although Medvedev's trip to Africa might be driven by a desire to boost economic ties, the political significance of the visit should never be neglected.
The visit came on the heels of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Egypt. Obama delivered a keynote speech at Cairo University during the trip and vowed to find a fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The region has already rocked by mass protests over the Iranian presidential elections, making Medvedev's visit to the regional power broker "extremely timely," The Moscow Times quoted Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, as saying.
Medvedev and Mubarak "spent quite some time" during the visit discussing conflicts in the Middle East, in particular continuing the Russian push for a peace conference to be held in Moscow by the end of this year.
"Russia is exerting its best efforts to resume the peace talks in the Middle East according to the two-state solution and freezing settlements," Medvedev said after talks with Mubarak, who hailed
Russia as "one of the greatest countries in the world and has clout on the Middle East peace process."
Russia is a member of the International Quartet that is intent on resolving the Middle East conflict. The Quartet, which also includes the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, endorsed the Roadmap that calls on Israel and the Palestinians to take a series of steps ending with Palestinian statehood.
Meanwhile, Medvedev, in his first visit to the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, said he welcomes all Arab countries to attend the international peace conference in Moscow.
"Lasting security can not be achieved in the Middle East without just and comprehensive compromise to the Arab-Israeli conflict," Medvedev said.
"This comprehensive compromise has to end up with establishing an independent Palestinian state living in peace with all nations in the region including Israel, with its capital in East Jerusalem," he stressed.
Medvedev proposed in January a Middle East peace conference to be held in Moscow in the first half of 2009.
The proposal was welcomed by Palestinians and Arabs, but was rejected by the United States and Israel, which were concerned with Russia's alleged engagement with militant Hamas and its military aid to the moderate Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
Neither Medvedev nor Obama unveiled any sensational initiatives, but both reiterated the well-known stances of their countries on the Middle East peace process, said Maria Appakova, a commentator with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
"The Russian policy in the Middle East cannot be more balanced than it already is," and the key is what will happen if Moscow and Washington coordinate the principles of their Middle East policies, she said.
By Xinhua writer Yu Maofeng Editor: Mu Xuequan
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
A Buffett Turns to Farming in Africa
Warren’s son Howard has quietly become a player in the fight against global hunger
After a meeting with farmers in Fufuo, Ghana, Howard Buffett stood up to shake hands, African style. He extended his right arm, marked with a faint scar from a cheetah bite, and then launched into a rapid combination of finger snapping and palm slapping.
The middle child of Warren Buffett is an unassuming Illinois soybean and corn farmer. But for the past four years, he has played a behind-the-scenes role in the global war against hunger. Given a small portion of his father’s fortune for philanthropy, he spends much of the year traveling through Africa, experimenting with ideas for helping poor farmers produce enough crops to feed their families and so lessen the continent’s food shortage. His foundation is spending about $38 million this year on projects such as developing a disease-resistant sweet potato, encouraging poachers to switch to farming, providing micro credits, and helping farmers market their crops to United Nations’ hunger-relief programs. Probably his most ambitious project under way would give African corn breeders royalty-free access to Monsanto’s biotechnology for drought-tolerant corn.
As the global economic downturn sets back decades of work to end world hunger, Warren Buffett's son, Howard Buffett, takes on a surprising, little-known role on the front lines. Mr. Buffett travels from Ghana to Togo to Benin, trying to spread approaches to farming that he's found successful on his Illinois farm. Scott Kilman and Roger Thurow report.
His father’s very public decision in 2006 to bequeath no more than a fraction of his fortune, then worth $40 billion, to his children’s foundations has put Howard on his unusual course. The famous stock picker opposes big inheritances; they coddle the second generation and concentrate wealth, he argues. Each of his children receives an annual donation of Berkshire Hathaway shares, which shrinks in size each year, for their charitable foundations. The sage of Omaha has never been to Africa and, of his son’s arduous lifestyle, says, “I would hate it.”
When Howard, 54 years old, was 23 he cashed in stock from his grandfather to buy a bulldozer to start an excavating business. What he really wanted to do was farm, but he didn’t have the money. His father agreed to buy a modest Nebraska farm for his son, but in classic Buffett fashion, he charged him market-rate rent.
Howard became chairman of a state agency aimed at encouraging the construction of ethanol plants in Nebraska and then won election to the Board of Commissioners that governs the county in which Omaha sits. Howard’s grasp of farm politics, as well as his last name, put him on the radar of Dwayne Andreas, the cagey chairman and chief executive of grain-processing behemoth Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. in Decatur, Ill.
Mr. Buffett joined ADM’s board and became a corporate vice president, posts that gave him a global perspective on agriculture as he began buying land for an Illinois farm. Mr. Buffett left ADM in 1995, upset about a price-fixing scandal at the company and joined a nearby manufacturer of steel grain bins called GSI Group. Soon he was off to South Africa to drum up business from its large grain farmers.
He traces his interest in fighting global hunger to his hobby taking photographs on those business trips in Africa. As he was photographing migrating wildebeest and zebra in 2000 from a rickety plane, trying to position his camera for a picture, he saw scars on the ground where poor farmers had used fire to clear desperately needed land. Mr. Buffett realized that he couldn’t protect Africa’s environment without first fighting its food shortage.
View Full Image
Melissa L. Hickox
Howard Buffett teaches farmers in a Burundi cornfield. Agriculture is the main livelihood for citizens of the country, one of the world’s poorest.
“I’m watching this thinking, ‘They are going to destroy the last forest,’” Mr. Buffett later recalled. “It was an epiphany for me: The hungry can’t worry about conservation. I realized you can’t save the environment unless you give people a chance to feed themselves better.”
The death of his mother, Susan Buffett, from a stroke in 2004 helped to crystallize his focus on the poor. It also gave him the means to make a difference. The Buffett children had always expected that their mother’s foundation would oversee the distribution of their parents’ vast wealth. She had long supported medical research, education, abortion rights and nuclear disarmament, and had encouraged her children to be socially conscious. She brought young Howard along when she went into Omaha’s housing projects to help a Cub Scout troop.
Her death at 72 forced Warren Buffett to confront how to start giving away his fortune. He settled on directing the bulk of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He trusted Mr. Gates, a Berkshire Hathaway board member and friend who played bridge with him. What’s more, the Gates Foundation had the infrastructure to handle a gift of such size.
On top of this, Warren Buffett promised each of his three children’s foundations annual gifts of stock initially worth $50 million. For Howard, the gift meant that the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, from which he doesn’t draw a salary, could increase its annual spending at least eightfold.
It was ordained that Howard and his two siblings would see the family fortune given away rather than have it to spend on themselves. His father, who lives far below his means in a modest Omaha house, has argued publicly that it does little good for society when children inherit great wealth by virtue of an “ovarian lottery.” The multiplier effect is far more powerful, the argument goes, if fortunes are used to help the less fortunate rather than to suckle a bloodline of trust funders. Warren Buffett went to Congress in November 2007 to argue in favor of the estate tax, saying it counters an unhealthy concentration of wealth. Of his middle child, he says, “he’s got my money and his mother’s heart.”
With one foot in American farming and the other in Africa, Mr. Buffett has developed his vision for African farming. With oil prices so volatile, he thinks few farmers in African villages should use the same type of high-tech, mechanized farming he practices in Illinois. A typical farm in the Midwestern U.S.—of the sort Mr. Buffett owns—is an investment of millions of dollars.
“It takes a lot of fuel to run my equipment. And for inorganic fertilizer. And pesticides. How can that be the right answer for someone who has the opportunity to start from the beginning?” Mr. Buffett says.
While many economists and anti-hunger advocates call for a Green Revolution in Africa, Mr. Buffett shuns the phrase because it refers to the agricultural boom that swept Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. Modern seeds as well as hefty applications of fertilizer and water caused Asia’s wheat and rice crops to rapidly swell.
Mr. Buffett believes that getting Africa to feed itself is a lot more complicated. Africa’s geography is so diverse that its population has to depend on far more than two crops for its calories. Many of Africa’s farmers are poorer, less educated and even more isolated from infrastructure such as roads and irrigation systems than Asia’s were.
So Mr. Buffett is looking for ways to help African farmers increase their harvests without increasing their costs, thus his interest in developing plants that resist disease and drought.
To lobby for Africa aid, Mr. Buffett invites politicians, scientists, entertainers, and corporate executives to squeeze into the cab of his Deere tractor in Illinois, where he has their full attention as he navigates corn and soybean fields with global positioning technology. One of the few people he has let drive his harvesting combine, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, is Shakira, the pop singer from Colombia who has an education foundation.
It’s hard to measure the impact of Howard Buffett’s foundation, something Mr. Buffett himself acknowledges. He does most of the work finding and visiting projects. He employs eight people, mostly in administrative roles. One man is based in South Africa overseeing research on Mr. Buffett’s 6,000 acres of farmland outside Johannesburg. It was there on a wildlife preserve that he set up that a cheetah bit him.
Mr. Buffett figures his foundation’s projects have helped about 1.5 million Africans so far. He hopes that the crop-breeding work he is supporting will eventually help millions more African farmers feed their families.
His father, for one, counsels patience. “If you bring your heart to something it makes a big difference,” says Warren Buffett. “And he has time. He didn’t have to wait until he was 80 years old.”
For the first time since the early 1970s, the prevalence of hunger in the world is climbing. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, 15% of the world’s population is hungry, up from 13% at the middle of this decade. FAO economists are predicting that the number of chronically hungry people will climb this year to 1.02 billion, up 11.5% from 2008.
As soon as next year the world could resume consuming more grain than its farmers produce. That global trend earlier this decade is what drained world grain stockpiles, setting the stage for last year’s price shocks. The fear is that food prices will leap when the world economy recovers.
“I am more discouraged than I was when I started. The problems are so huge,” Mr. Buffett says.
In February 2007, his SUV pulled into Fufuo, a village in central Ghana. Accompanied by Ghanaian agronomist Kofi Boa, he hurried into a large cinder-block building where 30 farmers had been waiting, sheltered from the sun.
Back home, Mr. Buffett owned 800 acres of corn and soybeans and a fleet of the most modern John Deere implements. Now, he hoped to learn something from farmers who scratched the dirt with sticks and machetes. Mr. Boa, the agronomist, had been coaching them to replace slash-and-burn farming with a practice he called “no-till.”
In many African villages, poor farmers—who are often women—had traditionally made room for their crops by chopping down the brush and trees on a few acres of tribal land. It is hard on the farmer and the environment. The land is laid bare to erosion. As the soil deteriorates, farmers work harder and harder to produce food until they have to move on to another spot, repeating the cycle.
Mr. Boa told Fufuo’s farmers to disturb the ground as little as possible. Other than poking holes in the dirt to plant their seeds, the ground was not to be hoed or vegetation burned. Organic residue—such as leaves, stalks, and roots—was valuable, not trash. Fufuo’s farmers were taught to make room for their seeds shortly before planting time by squirting the competing vegetation with Chinese-made weed killer dispensed from backpacks.
The village quickly discovered that no-till plots yielded bigger crops with far less labor. The mulch acts as a sponge when it rains, banking water for crops, and then breaks down into plant food. The time the farmers saved by no longer hoeing weeds and cutting brush was time for money-making endeavors. Some started to raise cocoa trees, a crop prized by Ghana’s government for its export earnings; others began to raise chickens, feeding them with their surplus grain.
“How many seeds of corn do you plant on a hectare?” asked Mr. Buffett as he peered through thick eyeglasses and jotted down answers in a notebook. “Can you farm more land now?” he continued. “How much corn did you harvest?”
Further convinced he should support the no-till training of farmers, Mr. Buffett left. After his SUV drove off, swallowed in red dust, the farmers were told that their visitor was the son of a billionaire named Warren Buffett.
By SCOTT KILMAN and ROGER THUROW - in the The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904574246440378843148.html
—Adapted from “ENOUGH: Why the World’s Poorest Starve In an Age of Plenty” by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Copyright 2009 by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
After a meeting with farmers in Fufuo, Ghana, Howard Buffett stood up to shake hands, African style. He extended his right arm, marked with a faint scar from a cheetah bite, and then launched into a rapid combination of finger snapping and palm slapping.
The middle child of Warren Buffett is an unassuming Illinois soybean and corn farmer. But for the past four years, he has played a behind-the-scenes role in the global war against hunger. Given a small portion of his father’s fortune for philanthropy, he spends much of the year traveling through Africa, experimenting with ideas for helping poor farmers produce enough crops to feed their families and so lessen the continent’s food shortage. His foundation is spending about $38 million this year on projects such as developing a disease-resistant sweet potato, encouraging poachers to switch to farming, providing micro credits, and helping farmers market their crops to United Nations’ hunger-relief programs. Probably his most ambitious project under way would give African corn breeders royalty-free access to Monsanto’s biotechnology for drought-tolerant corn.
As the global economic downturn sets back decades of work to end world hunger, Warren Buffett's son, Howard Buffett, takes on a surprising, little-known role on the front lines. Mr. Buffett travels from Ghana to Togo to Benin, trying to spread approaches to farming that he's found successful on his Illinois farm. Scott Kilman and Roger Thurow report.
His father’s very public decision in 2006 to bequeath no more than a fraction of his fortune, then worth $40 billion, to his children’s foundations has put Howard on his unusual course. The famous stock picker opposes big inheritances; they coddle the second generation and concentrate wealth, he argues. Each of his children receives an annual donation of Berkshire Hathaway shares, which shrinks in size each year, for their charitable foundations. The sage of Omaha has never been to Africa and, of his son’s arduous lifestyle, says, “I would hate it.”
When Howard, 54 years old, was 23 he cashed in stock from his grandfather to buy a bulldozer to start an excavating business. What he really wanted to do was farm, but he didn’t have the money. His father agreed to buy a modest Nebraska farm for his son, but in classic Buffett fashion, he charged him market-rate rent.
Howard became chairman of a state agency aimed at encouraging the construction of ethanol plants in Nebraska and then won election to the Board of Commissioners that governs the county in which Omaha sits. Howard’s grasp of farm politics, as well as his last name, put him on the radar of Dwayne Andreas, the cagey chairman and chief executive of grain-processing behemoth Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. in Decatur, Ill.
Mr. Buffett joined ADM’s board and became a corporate vice president, posts that gave him a global perspective on agriculture as he began buying land for an Illinois farm. Mr. Buffett left ADM in 1995, upset about a price-fixing scandal at the company and joined a nearby manufacturer of steel grain bins called GSI Group. Soon he was off to South Africa to drum up business from its large grain farmers.
He traces his interest in fighting global hunger to his hobby taking photographs on those business trips in Africa. As he was photographing migrating wildebeest and zebra in 2000 from a rickety plane, trying to position his camera for a picture, he saw scars on the ground where poor farmers had used fire to clear desperately needed land. Mr. Buffett realized that he couldn’t protect Africa’s environment without first fighting its food shortage.
View Full Image
Melissa L. Hickox
Howard Buffett teaches farmers in a Burundi cornfield. Agriculture is the main livelihood for citizens of the country, one of the world’s poorest.
“I’m watching this thinking, ‘They are going to destroy the last forest,’” Mr. Buffett later recalled. “It was an epiphany for me: The hungry can’t worry about conservation. I realized you can’t save the environment unless you give people a chance to feed themselves better.”
The death of his mother, Susan Buffett, from a stroke in 2004 helped to crystallize his focus on the poor. It also gave him the means to make a difference. The Buffett children had always expected that their mother’s foundation would oversee the distribution of their parents’ vast wealth. She had long supported medical research, education, abortion rights and nuclear disarmament, and had encouraged her children to be socially conscious. She brought young Howard along when she went into Omaha’s housing projects to help a Cub Scout troop.
Her death at 72 forced Warren Buffett to confront how to start giving away his fortune. He settled on directing the bulk of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He trusted Mr. Gates, a Berkshire Hathaway board member and friend who played bridge with him. What’s more, the Gates Foundation had the infrastructure to handle a gift of such size.
On top of this, Warren Buffett promised each of his three children’s foundations annual gifts of stock initially worth $50 million. For Howard, the gift meant that the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, from which he doesn’t draw a salary, could increase its annual spending at least eightfold.
It was ordained that Howard and his two siblings would see the family fortune given away rather than have it to spend on themselves. His father, who lives far below his means in a modest Omaha house, has argued publicly that it does little good for society when children inherit great wealth by virtue of an “ovarian lottery.” The multiplier effect is far more powerful, the argument goes, if fortunes are used to help the less fortunate rather than to suckle a bloodline of trust funders. Warren Buffett went to Congress in November 2007 to argue in favor of the estate tax, saying it counters an unhealthy concentration of wealth. Of his middle child, he says, “he’s got my money and his mother’s heart.”
With one foot in American farming and the other in Africa, Mr. Buffett has developed his vision for African farming. With oil prices so volatile, he thinks few farmers in African villages should use the same type of high-tech, mechanized farming he practices in Illinois. A typical farm in the Midwestern U.S.—of the sort Mr. Buffett owns—is an investment of millions of dollars.
“It takes a lot of fuel to run my equipment. And for inorganic fertilizer. And pesticides. How can that be the right answer for someone who has the opportunity to start from the beginning?” Mr. Buffett says.
While many economists and anti-hunger advocates call for a Green Revolution in Africa, Mr. Buffett shuns the phrase because it refers to the agricultural boom that swept Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. Modern seeds as well as hefty applications of fertilizer and water caused Asia’s wheat and rice crops to rapidly swell.
Mr. Buffett believes that getting Africa to feed itself is a lot more complicated. Africa’s geography is so diverse that its population has to depend on far more than two crops for its calories. Many of Africa’s farmers are poorer, less educated and even more isolated from infrastructure such as roads and irrigation systems than Asia’s were.
So Mr. Buffett is looking for ways to help African farmers increase their harvests without increasing their costs, thus his interest in developing plants that resist disease and drought.
To lobby for Africa aid, Mr. Buffett invites politicians, scientists, entertainers, and corporate executives to squeeze into the cab of his Deere tractor in Illinois, where he has their full attention as he navigates corn and soybean fields with global positioning technology. One of the few people he has let drive his harvesting combine, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, is Shakira, the pop singer from Colombia who has an education foundation.
It’s hard to measure the impact of Howard Buffett’s foundation, something Mr. Buffett himself acknowledges. He does most of the work finding and visiting projects. He employs eight people, mostly in administrative roles. One man is based in South Africa overseeing research on Mr. Buffett’s 6,000 acres of farmland outside Johannesburg. It was there on a wildlife preserve that he set up that a cheetah bit him.
Mr. Buffett figures his foundation’s projects have helped about 1.5 million Africans so far. He hopes that the crop-breeding work he is supporting will eventually help millions more African farmers feed their families.
His father, for one, counsels patience. “If you bring your heart to something it makes a big difference,” says Warren Buffett. “And he has time. He didn’t have to wait until he was 80 years old.”
For the first time since the early 1970s, the prevalence of hunger in the world is climbing. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, 15% of the world’s population is hungry, up from 13% at the middle of this decade. FAO economists are predicting that the number of chronically hungry people will climb this year to 1.02 billion, up 11.5% from 2008.
As soon as next year the world could resume consuming more grain than its farmers produce. That global trend earlier this decade is what drained world grain stockpiles, setting the stage for last year’s price shocks. The fear is that food prices will leap when the world economy recovers.
“I am more discouraged than I was when I started. The problems are so huge,” Mr. Buffett says.
In February 2007, his SUV pulled into Fufuo, a village in central Ghana. Accompanied by Ghanaian agronomist Kofi Boa, he hurried into a large cinder-block building where 30 farmers had been waiting, sheltered from the sun.
Back home, Mr. Buffett owned 800 acres of corn and soybeans and a fleet of the most modern John Deere implements. Now, he hoped to learn something from farmers who scratched the dirt with sticks and machetes. Mr. Boa, the agronomist, had been coaching them to replace slash-and-burn farming with a practice he called “no-till.”
In many African villages, poor farmers—who are often women—had traditionally made room for their crops by chopping down the brush and trees on a few acres of tribal land. It is hard on the farmer and the environment. The land is laid bare to erosion. As the soil deteriorates, farmers work harder and harder to produce food until they have to move on to another spot, repeating the cycle.
Mr. Boa told Fufuo’s farmers to disturb the ground as little as possible. Other than poking holes in the dirt to plant their seeds, the ground was not to be hoed or vegetation burned. Organic residue—such as leaves, stalks, and roots—was valuable, not trash. Fufuo’s farmers were taught to make room for their seeds shortly before planting time by squirting the competing vegetation with Chinese-made weed killer dispensed from backpacks.
The village quickly discovered that no-till plots yielded bigger crops with far less labor. The mulch acts as a sponge when it rains, banking water for crops, and then breaks down into plant food. The time the farmers saved by no longer hoeing weeds and cutting brush was time for money-making endeavors. Some started to raise cocoa trees, a crop prized by Ghana’s government for its export earnings; others began to raise chickens, feeding them with their surplus grain.
“How many seeds of corn do you plant on a hectare?” asked Mr. Buffett as he peered through thick eyeglasses and jotted down answers in a notebook. “Can you farm more land now?” he continued. “How much corn did you harvest?”
Further convinced he should support the no-till training of farmers, Mr. Buffett left. After his SUV drove off, swallowed in red dust, the farmers were told that their visitor was the son of a billionaire named Warren Buffett.
By SCOTT KILMAN and ROGER THUROW - in the The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904574246440378843148.html
—Adapted from “ENOUGH: Why the World’s Poorest Starve In an Age of Plenty” by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Copyright 2009 by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Foreign Investment Cushions Downturn in Africa
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Foreign investment from China and the Persian Gulf nations is helping Africa weather the global downturn, but some say the funds come at a high cost.
Jiang Jianqing, chairman of the state-run Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., told African leaders here this month at the World Economic Forum on Africa that Chinese investment in Africa is growing and becoming more diversified, even as the global downturn curbs investment by other countries.
China, which has been an African investor for more than a decade, plans to step up activities and work on its reputation in Sub-Saharan Africa as an employer and business partner.
This month, ICBC and Standard Bank Group Ltd., of South Africa, finalized a deal to expand Botswana's main coal-fired power station. China National Electric Equipment Corporation, a top ICBC client, was awarded the $970 million contract to supply and expand the station to ramp up the diamond-rich nation's energy supply.
ICBC is pursuing 65 multimillion-dollar projects across the continent through its partnership with Standard Bank, in which it bought a 20% stake in 2007, Mr. Jiang said.
Chinese investment, initially focused on shoring up access to raw materials as its economy grew, is moving into sectors beyond infrastructure and mining.
Persian Gulf investors, too, although hammered by the downturn, say they are sticking with African projects. Soud Ba'alawy, executive chairman of Dubai Group, the state-owned investment group, said Dubai is pursuing opportunities in the continent. Falling oil prices and a plummeting real-estate market forced many big Dubai investors to retrench and rethink projects, particularly ones far from home. But as oil prices rebound and local stock markets rise, Persian Gulf investors are combing Africa for opportunities.
Foreign-investment flows could be a critical lifeline for some Sub-Saharan African economies. The region's income has been hit by falling commodity prices and dwindling government revenue. Remittances have declined as Africans abroad have been laid off. This year, foreign inflows to developing countries are expected to drop 82%, the Institute of International Finance says.
The increased interest from China and Gulf countries, as well as India, has helped to embolden some African governments to demand more favorable terms or to create a more competitive business environment. Officials in a number of African governments say the Chinese and Arab governments, compared with their Western counterparts, attach relatively few conditions to aid or investment projects.
In African countries where China has invested, many local people complain that the Chinese companies import everything -- including bottled water and toilet paper -- from home, bypassing the domestic economy. In mineral-rich countries such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, some Chinese companies have a reputation for exploiting workers.
China's government has said it believes its investments in Africa benefit both sides, and that its involvement there is welcomed by most Africans.
In 2005, 46 Zambians were killed in an explosion at a copper mine owned by China's state metals conglomerate. A government inquiry showed the company had cut corners on safety and banned union organizing.
The Chinese company paid compensation to the victims' families and allowed a union to be formed. The following year, Chinese security guards at the mine opened fire on Zambian workers who were protesting the company's failure to improve working conditions and to deliver back pay promised in a new union deal.
In 2007, a representative said the company was complying with Zambian law and had given a full report on the matter to the Zambian government. The incidents remain a sensitive subject for local miners and politicians in Zambia's Copperbelt, the country's industrial base.
"Bringing the Chinese into our industry is like importing poverty and exporting wealth," said Chishimba Kambwili, the member of parliament from Luanshya, in the Copperbelt, in an interview this year. "They pay very low salaries, and they deplete our resources without our country getting value."
In Congo, the International Monetary Fund has criticized a multi-million-dollar infrastructure deal China made last year in exchange for metals.
Mr. Jiang acknowledged that there have been problems in the past and said the Chinese government is working to improve relations.
By SARAH CHILDRESS - Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A8
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124607031091264351.html
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Jiang Jianqing, chairman of the state-run Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., told African leaders here this month at the World Economic Forum on Africa that Chinese investment in Africa is growing and becoming more diversified, even as the global downturn curbs investment by other countries.
China, which has been an African investor for more than a decade, plans to step up activities and work on its reputation in Sub-Saharan Africa as an employer and business partner.
This month, ICBC and Standard Bank Group Ltd., of South Africa, finalized a deal to expand Botswana's main coal-fired power station. China National Electric Equipment Corporation, a top ICBC client, was awarded the $970 million contract to supply and expand the station to ramp up the diamond-rich nation's energy supply.
ICBC is pursuing 65 multimillion-dollar projects across the continent through its partnership with Standard Bank, in which it bought a 20% stake in 2007, Mr. Jiang said.
Chinese investment, initially focused on shoring up access to raw materials as its economy grew, is moving into sectors beyond infrastructure and mining.
Persian Gulf investors, too, although hammered by the downturn, say they are sticking with African projects. Soud Ba'alawy, executive chairman of Dubai Group, the state-owned investment group, said Dubai is pursuing opportunities in the continent. Falling oil prices and a plummeting real-estate market forced many big Dubai investors to retrench and rethink projects, particularly ones far from home. But as oil prices rebound and local stock markets rise, Persian Gulf investors are combing Africa for opportunities.
Foreign-investment flows could be a critical lifeline for some Sub-Saharan African economies. The region's income has been hit by falling commodity prices and dwindling government revenue. Remittances have declined as Africans abroad have been laid off. This year, foreign inflows to developing countries are expected to drop 82%, the Institute of International Finance says.
The increased interest from China and Gulf countries, as well as India, has helped to embolden some African governments to demand more favorable terms or to create a more competitive business environment. Officials in a number of African governments say the Chinese and Arab governments, compared with their Western counterparts, attach relatively few conditions to aid or investment projects.
In African countries where China has invested, many local people complain that the Chinese companies import everything -- including bottled water and toilet paper -- from home, bypassing the domestic economy. In mineral-rich countries such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, some Chinese companies have a reputation for exploiting workers.
China's government has said it believes its investments in Africa benefit both sides, and that its involvement there is welcomed by most Africans.
In 2005, 46 Zambians were killed in an explosion at a copper mine owned by China's state metals conglomerate. A government inquiry showed the company had cut corners on safety and banned union organizing.
The Chinese company paid compensation to the victims' families and allowed a union to be formed. The following year, Chinese security guards at the mine opened fire on Zambian workers who were protesting the company's failure to improve working conditions and to deliver back pay promised in a new union deal.
In 2007, a representative said the company was complying with Zambian law and had given a full report on the matter to the Zambian government. The incidents remain a sensitive subject for local miners and politicians in Zambia's Copperbelt, the country's industrial base.
"Bringing the Chinese into our industry is like importing poverty and exporting wealth," said Chishimba Kambwili, the member of parliament from Luanshya, in the Copperbelt, in an interview this year. "They pay very low salaries, and they deplete our resources without our country getting value."
In Congo, the International Monetary Fund has criticized a multi-million-dollar infrastructure deal China made last year in exchange for metals.
Mr. Jiang acknowledged that there have been problems in the past and said the Chinese government is working to improve relations.
By SARAH CHILDRESS - Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A8
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124607031091264351.html
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
South Africa - Moeletsi Mbeki: Analyst, Entrepreneur and Author
Little brother pulls no punches about BEE’s failures, writes Chris Barron.
Moeletsi Mbeki dismisses as a “fallacy” and a “myth” the line that the government’s black economic empowerment policy was necessary to give blacks a stake in the mainstream economy of the country.
They already had a very sizeable stake in the economy through their pension funds, said the free-thinking political analyst and brother of the former president in an interview with Business Times after the release of his book, Architects of Poverty.
And the initiative for the policy which saw the transfer of equity to and overnight enrichment beyond their wildest dreams of a few politically well-connected blacks came not from the ANC but from big business itself to stave off nationalisation.
“There was a strategy by big business to co-opt the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa who were the political leaders of the black people, and to devise ways of co-opting them,” he said. “And this was initiated by big business.”
The idea was to get the political leaders onside, to make them allies of big business.
What about the political imperative of giving blacks a stake in white-owned companies?
“It is a fallacy to think that blacks don’t own the big corporations in this country,” said Mbeki. “They do, via their pension funds.”
It’s a popular mistake to believe that BEE is redistributing the wealth only of whites.
“The reality of BEE is that it is also distributing the assets of the black workers to the black politicians. When a listed company whose shareholders include the black workers’ pension funds gives 10% of its shares to the black politicians it is redistributing the wealth of the black worker as well to the politicians.”
Why has Cosatu gone along with that?
“Because Cosatu don’t understand the political economy of SA, they think they are not the owners of these companies. The reality is that they are. But because they don’t understand the political economy of SA they are going along with something that is dispossessing them.
“They think they can ingratiate themselves with the politicians of the ANC, so in the past four years they have been crawling to Jacob Zuma, thinking that they will use him. But Zuma has ignored them once he got into power. He ignored them and privatised Vodacom.”
Who will win the current battle for control of the government, does he think?
“Zuma already has.”
What about ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe? Isn’t he calling the shots from Luthuli House?
Mbeki gives a knowing chuckle.
“No. Gwede doesn’t call any shots. He’s a big mouth, but don’t mistake a big mouth with calling the shots.”
When Moeletsi Mbeki, 63, went into exile in 1964 he decided that, unlike his brother, he wasn’t going to be beholden to any particular political party or group. He was going to be his own man.
In the words of Mark Gevisser in his biography of Thabo Mbeki, Moeletsi “developed a work identity independent of the liberation movement”.
When he left SA he began studying physics, chemistry and maths at the University of Lesotho. But his political activism caused complications and after a year he left for Britain where he threw himself into the rebellious student movement of the 1960s with a joyous abandon that his older brother found both distasteful and irresponsible.
He studied engineering and sociology and worked as an engineer and journalist in Britain, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where he lived for 10 years.
After returning to SA he could, as Thabo’s brother, have sunk his snout into the trough big time and made billions. Instead, he became a successful entrepreneur and an astute political analyst who was never afraid of stepping on any toes.
He was openly critical of the government’s gently-gently policy on Zimbabwe. The way to get rid of Mugabe, he said, was to pull the plug on Zimbabwe’s electricity supply from SA.
So instead of embracing BEE, what should the new ANC government have done?
“Acknowledge poverty and unemployment, the consequence of the National Party’s economic model, as the biggest challenge. They should have changed that economic model to build an inclusive economic system whereby entrepreneurship is open to everybody, black or white, and supported entrepreneurs to create jobs and exports for the country.”
The trouble with BEE is that “the guys who were given shares are not creating jobs, they’re not creating new products, they’re not creating anything that will increase our exports.”
What about government efforts to create a broad-based BEE?
“They’re a smokescreen to cover up for the fact that BEE is a politician’s Ponzi scheme,” he snorted.
Affirmative procurement, for example, simply makes things more expensive for blacks because it forces them to buy from a black middleman.
“Affirmative procurement enriches the middleman who is not producing anything himself. Black people, mostly the poor and working class, are being ripped off to enrich these guys.”
Why can’t they see it?
“They have no leadership. Cosatu lost their leaders in 1994. The unions are left with leaders who have no education, no knowledge, no expertise. That’s why the poor are being ripped off.”
Mbeki also comes out strongly, as he has for years, against affirmative action.
Would “white” companies have employed black people in sufficient numbers if the government hadn’t held a gun to their heads?
“Absolutely. The reality of SA is that there are half-a-million professional vacancies in the country. We don’t have enough qualified professionals. If you have a qualified doctor or engineer or architect, whatever his colour he will be employed in SA. You don’t need government legislation. Anyone with skills will get a job.”
Hasn’t affirmative action been instrumental in expanding the black middle class?
“The sad thing about the black middle class in this country is that most of them are service administrators — they’re not entrepreneurs.
“The middle class we really need to create in this country are entrepreneurs. We need people with technical skills to build the companies and create the jobs.”
Affirmative action has been a major disincentive combined with an education system that does not produce people with the requisite technical skills.
Talking about affirmative action: is there anything in the rumour that he offered Thabo a job in his TV production company?
Absolutely not, he said.
“I guess we could put him in the Big Brother house,” he chuckles, “but I don’t know if he has that sense of humour.”
Certainly not — if he reads little boet’s book first.
In brief
Marital status: Not married, one child
Defining moment: The arrest of my father in 1963
Personal philosophy: Hard work always wins
Current reading: China’s African Challenge by Sarah Raine
Relaxation: Listening to music
By Chris Barron Sunday Times Johannesburg
http://www.thetimes.co.za/Business/BusinessTimes/Article1.aspx?id=1024540
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Moeletsi Mbeki dismisses as a “fallacy” and a “myth” the line that the government’s black economic empowerment policy was necessary to give blacks a stake in the mainstream economy of the country.
They already had a very sizeable stake in the economy through their pension funds, said the free-thinking political analyst and brother of the former president in an interview with Business Times after the release of his book, Architects of Poverty.
And the initiative for the policy which saw the transfer of equity to and overnight enrichment beyond their wildest dreams of a few politically well-connected blacks came not from the ANC but from big business itself to stave off nationalisation.
“There was a strategy by big business to co-opt the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa who were the political leaders of the black people, and to devise ways of co-opting them,” he said. “And this was initiated by big business.”
The idea was to get the political leaders onside, to make them allies of big business.
What about the political imperative of giving blacks a stake in white-owned companies?
“It is a fallacy to think that blacks don’t own the big corporations in this country,” said Mbeki. “They do, via their pension funds.”
It’s a popular mistake to believe that BEE is redistributing the wealth only of whites.
“The reality of BEE is that it is also distributing the assets of the black workers to the black politicians. When a listed company whose shareholders include the black workers’ pension funds gives 10% of its shares to the black politicians it is redistributing the wealth of the black worker as well to the politicians.”
Why has Cosatu gone along with that?
“Because Cosatu don’t understand the political economy of SA, they think they are not the owners of these companies. The reality is that they are. But because they don’t understand the political economy of SA they are going along with something that is dispossessing them.
“They think they can ingratiate themselves with the politicians of the ANC, so in the past four years they have been crawling to Jacob Zuma, thinking that they will use him. But Zuma has ignored them once he got into power. He ignored them and privatised Vodacom.”
Who will win the current battle for control of the government, does he think?
“Zuma already has.”
What about ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe? Isn’t he calling the shots from Luthuli House?
Mbeki gives a knowing chuckle.
“No. Gwede doesn’t call any shots. He’s a big mouth, but don’t mistake a big mouth with calling the shots.”
When Moeletsi Mbeki, 63, went into exile in 1964 he decided that, unlike his brother, he wasn’t going to be beholden to any particular political party or group. He was going to be his own man.
In the words of Mark Gevisser in his biography of Thabo Mbeki, Moeletsi “developed a work identity independent of the liberation movement”.
When he left SA he began studying physics, chemistry and maths at the University of Lesotho. But his political activism caused complications and after a year he left for Britain where he threw himself into the rebellious student movement of the 1960s with a joyous abandon that his older brother found both distasteful and irresponsible.
He studied engineering and sociology and worked as an engineer and journalist in Britain, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where he lived for 10 years.
After returning to SA he could, as Thabo’s brother, have sunk his snout into the trough big time and made billions. Instead, he became a successful entrepreneur and an astute political analyst who was never afraid of stepping on any toes.
He was openly critical of the government’s gently-gently policy on Zimbabwe. The way to get rid of Mugabe, he said, was to pull the plug on Zimbabwe’s electricity supply from SA.
So instead of embracing BEE, what should the new ANC government have done?
“Acknowledge poverty and unemployment, the consequence of the National Party’s economic model, as the biggest challenge. They should have changed that economic model to build an inclusive economic system whereby entrepreneurship is open to everybody, black or white, and supported entrepreneurs to create jobs and exports for the country.”
The trouble with BEE is that “the guys who were given shares are not creating jobs, they’re not creating new products, they’re not creating anything that will increase our exports.”
What about government efforts to create a broad-based BEE?
“They’re a smokescreen to cover up for the fact that BEE is a politician’s Ponzi scheme,” he snorted.
Affirmative procurement, for example, simply makes things more expensive for blacks because it forces them to buy from a black middleman.
“Affirmative procurement enriches the middleman who is not producing anything himself. Black people, mostly the poor and working class, are being ripped off to enrich these guys.”
Why can’t they see it?
“They have no leadership. Cosatu lost their leaders in 1994. The unions are left with leaders who have no education, no knowledge, no expertise. That’s why the poor are being ripped off.”
Mbeki also comes out strongly, as he has for years, against affirmative action.
Would “white” companies have employed black people in sufficient numbers if the government hadn’t held a gun to their heads?
“Absolutely. The reality of SA is that there are half-a-million professional vacancies in the country. We don’t have enough qualified professionals. If you have a qualified doctor or engineer or architect, whatever his colour he will be employed in SA. You don’t need government legislation. Anyone with skills will get a job.”
Hasn’t affirmative action been instrumental in expanding the black middle class?
“The sad thing about the black middle class in this country is that most of them are service administrators — they’re not entrepreneurs.
“The middle class we really need to create in this country are entrepreneurs. We need people with technical skills to build the companies and create the jobs.”
Affirmative action has been a major disincentive combined with an education system that does not produce people with the requisite technical skills.
Talking about affirmative action: is there anything in the rumour that he offered Thabo a job in his TV production company?
Absolutely not, he said.
“I guess we could put him in the Big Brother house,” he chuckles, “but I don’t know if he has that sense of humour.”
Certainly not — if he reads little boet’s book first.
In brief
Marital status: Not married, one child
Defining moment: The arrest of my father in 1963
Personal philosophy: Hard work always wins
Current reading: China’s African Challenge by Sarah Raine
Relaxation: Listening to music
By Chris Barron Sunday Times Johannesburg
http://www.thetimes.co.za/Business/BusinessTimes/Article1.aspx?id=1024540
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Address by the Minister in The Presidency, National Planning Presidency’s Budget Vote debate Trevor A Manuel, MP
President Zuma, in announcing his new Cabinet last month, established a Ministry for Planning in The Presidency. Before discussing the broad objectives, key institutions and the proposed Green Paper, I wish to briefly sketch the context and rationale that gave rise to the need for a planning ministry.
Countries that have grown rapidly over two to three generations have often had clear strategies which required difficult trade-offs and a careful sequencing of policies. Often, long run growth and development requires long term investments in people, in democratic institutions and in infrastructure. Countries are often reluctant to make correct trade offs because trade offs sometimes imply pain in the short term or pain for some people, with long term uncertainty. If a country chooses to spend more on education, it must spend less on something else. If a country chooses to invest more, it must consume less today.
Governments all over the world are confronted with this dilemma of how to make trade-offs that involve long term benefits and short term pain. Democracies instinctively deal with policies that provide benefits within a single term of office. But many of the challenges that confront us today require a much longer term perspective. Addressing our skills constraints requires a long term perspective.
Reducing unemployment requires a long-term strategy. Reducing CO2 emissions requires a long-term plan. Addressing our future water and food requirements require long term plans that have opportunity costs in the short term with payoffs in the longer term. The creation of a planning ministry in The Presidency is about incorporating these ideas into our policy thinking and enabling government to make long term investments even though the return may accrue long after we’ve left office. Most importantly, it is about governments learning to do better.
A government which is focused on the development imperative and on improving on both the quantity and quality of services to citizens must place an emphasis on its own learning. Much of this learning arises from the rigour of analysis of the implementation of its policies. The authors Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, in their book “Fixing Failed States”, share the following observation of how things fall apart.
They observe various centres of power vie for control, multiple decision making processes confuse priorities, citizens lose trust in the government, institutions lose their legitimacy and the populace is disenfranchised in the most extreme cases, violence results. This negative cycle creates a sovereignty gap.
Mister speaker, it is this fragmentation that we seek to avoid.
To sketch the context for the planning ministry, allow me to outline what the broad roles and functions of The Presidency are in relation to planning. To do this, we need to locate the functioning of The Presidency in our system of government. The seat of the executive of government is Cabinet, headed by the President. The executive arm of government has to operate collectively. This implies that key decisions are taken collectively and members of the executive share collective responsibility and accountability for the decisions of the executive.
The Presidency has many functions, three of which are key in setting out the context today. The first is the policy coherence function. It is the task of The Presidency to ensure policy coherence throughout government, that policies support the overall objectives of government that inconsistent policies are changed, unintended consequences are recognised and managed and contradictory policy outcomes in government are minimised.
A strategic approach to planning that sets out a coherent vision backed by clear and measurable targets and programmes does not materialise out of thin air. Institutions and mechanisms are needed. The economist James K Galbraith sets out the argument for planning thus, the experience of the wider world even that of the most despised countries—provides no general case against economic planning and also none in favour of unfettered markets as a substitute for a planning system. On the contrary, it shows that in a properly designed system, planning and markets do not contradict each other. They are not mutually exclusive. Rather, the choice of one or another for any particular problem is a matter of what works best for the purpose - it's a question of a social and political division of labour, of what tools are needed for what goal.
Hence, the output of the planning function is clear direction, a coherent vision for the future supported by medium and long term plans. These plans should encapsulate the priorities of government and articulation of the policy tradeoffs it faces and its key policy choices. These plans and policy choices are to be made by the executive, collectively. The role of The Presidency is to lead the process of developing a coherent agenda and plan for government.
The second role of The Presidency is to ensure that the agreed upon agenda is reflected in the work and priorities of all of government, to ensure policy co-ordination in government. In any system, individual ministers, government departments, provinces, municipalities, state enterprises and other agencies should shape their actions in terms of an overall agenda or plan.
This policy co-ordination function is carried out through Cabinet directly by the President, through cabinet committees by the respective chairs of cabinet, through clusters of directors general, through Minmecs, the President’s co-ordinating council, through the budget and numerous other institutions and processes in government. The policy co-ordination function is critical to ensure that government’s agenda is implemented with the vigour and consistency that citizens expect and hence it is located in The Presidency. In summary, it is about driving the agenda of government.
The third function is the performance management function. The Presidency must develop the capability to monitor the performance of government, evaluate the impact of programmes and to intervene where performance is sub-optimal. This function is not about removing the accountability that vests in individual ministers, provinces or municipalities. It is a recognition that citizens expect more and better from their government and holds the executive collectively responsible for delivery.
There are several techniques to drive better performance, the details of which will emerge in the next few weeks. Our marching orders here are the clear focus on performance and accountability set out by President Zuma in his State of the Nation Address. Two elements in this toolbox are the ability to set clear targets linked to government’s priorities and to intervene to unblock institutional blockages to better performance.
These three functions of The Presidency are interlinked. They cannot be separated through artificial barriers. Government’s plan and priorities must drive the setting of targets. Assessments of performance must feed into the co-ordination role of government and informs what the agenda should be in various government clusters. Information gleaned in the monitoring function informs government’s agenda and the agenda determines what is measured and monitored.
President Zuma, Deputy President Motlanthe, Minister Chabane and I have collective responsibility for these three roles. We are politically accountable for these roles. However, all ministers, parliament and each institution in government are also accountable for performance and delivery and have specific responsibilities to ensure that government achieves its objectives.
Minister Chabane and I have agreed to release two green papers simultaneously - one on planning and co-ordination and one on performance monitoring and evaluation. The purpose of these green papers is to provide all stakeholders with a sense of government’s thinking in this regard and provide them with an opportunity to input into the process of deciding how these functions will be performed.
The precise role and function of the Planning Ministry and National Planning Commission as well as the importance of a national strategic plan and vision that has the support and backing of the wider society will be outlined in a Green Paper to be released for discussion by the end of July.
It is intended that this green paper will be presented to parliament as a discussion document in the next month or so. We look forward to an active engagement with you on these issues.
Let me turn now to one or two of the specifics of the planning function. The planning function will co-ordinate the process whereby government develops its long term vision and plan. This long term plan must take into account the key long term challenges facing South Africa and articulate the vision for the type of society that South African’s desire.
The process whereby Cabinet collectively agrees to the Medium Term Strategic Framework is the second major task of the planning function. This document sets out governments priorities, informs resource allocation and provides a framework for the sequencing of programmes and reforms. The Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) then needs to be broken down into detailed outcomes that can then be used to inform the priorities of government. For example, if the MTSF says that raising the literacy rate of Grade three school learners, then this is what The Presidency will measure and this is what will inform interactions between the Minister of Basic Education and The Presidency.
The Planning Ministry has a key role to play in building the organisational and technical capability of the state to ensure government delivers on its policy commitments. We envisage the creation of a nerve centre in The Presidency which would develop links with organisations such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and other science councils, universities and relevant think tanks to provide expert opinion on long term developmental issues such as water security, climate change, food security, defence capability and migration. The expertise exists in the country and does not have to be replicated in The Presidency. What we do need is the capacity to commission research, to synthesise the evidence and to be able to feed these into the policy processes in government.
There is also a need to encourage a more systematic approach to long term planning in government and in state owned enterprises. This is particularly true in sectors such as spatial planning, energy, transport and water security where long term perspectives are important. This is critical for private sector investment too. Investments in the mining sector require policy certainty and energy security in the energy sector. Land use planning and agricultural investment are intertwined.
What will the planning function not do? There is a notion floating around in some circles that The Presidency will take over existing planning responsibilities from national departments and State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), and even from provincial and local governments. As my preceding points on the role and functions of the planning ministry show, nothing can be further from the truth. Micro-planning and sectoral planning will not be undertaken from the centre. Rather the Planning Ministry will seek to encourage, support and harness sectoral and sub-national strategic plan making and initiatives and mainstream these within the national planning process. That is giving concrete expression to sectoral priorities and priorities emanating from provinces and municipalities.
A further misconception that has been created is that The Presidency will play the role of gatekeeper for plans and that all government institutions would be required to get clearance from The Presidency before a plan is adopted. This would be foolish and undesirable, let alone totally impractical leading to massive delays in implementation. On the contrary the task of The Presidency would be to ensure that the quality of planning by government departments, state owned enterprises and provincial and local governments achieves a high standard, and that the quality of planning in these institutions continues to improve.
Finally, honourable speaker, these are many questions that still have to be answered. This administration has only been in place for six weeks. We request the patience and space to be able to work through this very complex set of issues. In several cases, ministers have to sit down together to work out who does what, what the relationships are and how we account for what is delivered. In doing this, I want to assure this house that we will be guided by a spirit of co-operation and collective accountability. Turf wars are unacceptable. It will take time to resolve some of these issues.
We are working tirelessly to refine the system of government to define our roles and to allocate responsibilities. In some ways, this is an ongoing process, a process of perpetual improvement. In other ways, some of the institutions are new and require time to mature. I assure you that we will involve you and all stakeholders in discussions on these critical issues facing our country. The green paper processes will contribute towards refining the way in which the centre of government works.
Our endeavours, honourable members, are premised on the need to strengthen democracy, to strengthen the trust that citizens have in this democratic government and its institutions. Our efforts are for a better democracy, capable of anticipating and responding to the needs of all of our citizens.
Thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
24 June 2009
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
U.S. Official Sheds Light on Possible Upcoming Obama Africa Policy
The new U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs said the Obama administration plans to invest substantial amounts of money over the coming years in agricultural development to promote food security in Africa.
Ambassador Johnnnie Carson spoke Monday in Washington to a constituency of Africa advocacy groups.
He outlined what is likely to be the Obama administration's Africa policies for the next four years.
Carson told the African American Unity Caucus that over the next four years the Obama administration will focus on four key issues as part of its Africa policy.
These, he said, include promoting and strengthening democratic institutions and the rule of law, preventing and resolving conflicts, encouraging sustained growth and working with African countries to address what he called the new and old global challenges.
Ambassador Carson praised Africa for the progress the continent has made over the last 15 years in strengthening democratic institutions. He referenced recent successful elections in Ghana, South Africa and Malawi.
But he said challenges still remain as evident by recent electoral problems in Zimbabwe and Kenya. He said Washington will do all it can to help strengthen democratic institutions.
"We constantly have to encourage those in civil society to be the voice and conscience of their countries, and we have to promote constitutional democratic governments, strong court systems, strong legislatures, regular elections, free media, and religious tolerance," he said.
Carson praised the African Union for the role it played in resolving the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Angola.
He said challenges also remain as evident by the continued conflicts in Somalia, eastern Congo, and Sudan.
"We have to do as much as we possibly can to help resolve those conflicts," Carson said.
Carson said President Obama has taken a keen interest in resolving the conflict by his appointment of General Scott Gration as special envoy on Sudan.
He said the Obama administration plans to focus on food security and agricultural development in Africa.
"The administration plans over a number of years to put a substantial amount of money into agricultural development to do two things. One is to lift people out of poverty and the other one is to help grow…agriculture," Carson said.
On what he called the new and old global challenges, Ambassador Carson said the Obama administration plans to work with African countries to address the issues of climate change and illicit drug trafficking
Carson said President Obama will elaborate on some of these topics when the president visits Ghana on July this year, the earliest visit to Africa by a sitting American president.
By Chris Beatty
Associate | KRL International LLC
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Southern Africa - Interim Economic Partnership Agreement
On 4 June 2009 the State Representatives of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland (BLMS) signed an Interim Economic Partnership Agreement (IEPA) with the Member States of the European Union after years of negotiations. The Agreement provides in article 105 that signature and ratification or approval are required to express the Party’s consent to be bound. The terms signature and ratification bear specific legal meaning.
Signature is one of the first steps in the process of becoming a party to a treaty. The IEPA provides in art 105 that a signatory State will become a party to the agreement through ratification or approval. In addition article 18(a) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 determine that the signature of an agreement confers an obligation on the contracting parties to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of the agreement in the period prior to its entry into force. Once a State signs an agreement it is barred from taking action which may undermine its entry into force.
The ratification or approval of an agreement represents an international act whereby a State establishes on the international plane its consent to be bound by a treaty. In this instance, the parties are required to deposit an instrument of ratification or approval to the Secretary General of the Council of the European Union. This institution will function as depositary of the Agreement and shall be responsible for the proper execution of the provisions of the treaty. The Agreement shall enter into force one month after the depositary receives the last instrument of ratification or approval. This will mark the moment on which the treaty becomes legally binding and enforceable on the State parties. In the case of the BLNS countries this will only happen once the final EPA is in force. These States agreed to continue negotiations to extend the scope of the agreement beyond trade in goods. Article 67 of the IEPA provides that the second stage of negotiations will include trade in services, investment, competition and government procurement.
Notwithstanding ongoing negotiations article 105 of the IEPA determines that pending its entry into force the States shall provisionally apply the provisions of the Agreement. The provisional application of an agreement entails giving effect to its provisions notwithstanding the fact that constitutional or internal rules and procedures on ratification or approval have not been concluded.
Additionally provisional application will be effected 10 days after the last notification of provisional application is made to the depositary. However nothing prevents a State from unilaterally applying the Agreement before provisional application.
The case of Namibia is more complicated. Namibia decided not to sign the IEPA due to the inability of the negotiating partners to address the concerns it had raised upon initialing the IEPA text. If Namibia should decide not to join the second stage of negotiations it would have to start the process of ratification.
In addition, article 19(1) of the IEPA determines that the agreement establishes a free trade agreement between the Parties in conformity with article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Thus the agreement must respect and abide by the principles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In this regard, paragraph 1(a) of the Transparency Mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements provides:
(a) Members parties to a newly signed RTA shall convey to the WTO, in so far as and when it is publicly available, information on the RTA, including its official name, scope and date of signature, any foreseen timetable for its entry into force or provisional application, relevant contact points and/or website addresses, and any other relevant unrestricted information.
Therefore the IEPA must be notified to and considered by the WTO Committee on Regional Trade Agreements. The Transparency Mechanism explicitly requires notification before the provisional application of an agreement. This provision is particularly important considering the agreement between the parties to apply the provisions of the IEPA pending its entry into force. The Transparency Mechanism also makes provision for the notification of subsequent changes to a notified agreement.
Moreover, each individual party will ultimately (after the conclusion of the full EPA) have to seek domestic approval of the agreement in accordance with its own constitutional provisions. The procedure for transplanting treaty commitments into the domestic legal regime might vary considerably among the Parties depending on their constitutional orders. It may involve the enactment of national legislation to enable the domestic implementation of the agreement. Once the agreement has entered into force the real challenge to State Parties will be to ensure that treaty obligations are continuously and effectively met.
JB Cronjé, a Tralac Researcher, comments on the signing of the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement.
http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=68787&cause_id=1694
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Signature is one of the first steps in the process of becoming a party to a treaty. The IEPA provides in art 105 that a signatory State will become a party to the agreement through ratification or approval. In addition article 18(a) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 determine that the signature of an agreement confers an obligation on the contracting parties to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of the agreement in the period prior to its entry into force. Once a State signs an agreement it is barred from taking action which may undermine its entry into force.
The ratification or approval of an agreement represents an international act whereby a State establishes on the international plane its consent to be bound by a treaty. In this instance, the parties are required to deposit an instrument of ratification or approval to the Secretary General of the Council of the European Union. This institution will function as depositary of the Agreement and shall be responsible for the proper execution of the provisions of the treaty. The Agreement shall enter into force one month after the depositary receives the last instrument of ratification or approval. This will mark the moment on which the treaty becomes legally binding and enforceable on the State parties. In the case of the BLNS countries this will only happen once the final EPA is in force. These States agreed to continue negotiations to extend the scope of the agreement beyond trade in goods. Article 67 of the IEPA provides that the second stage of negotiations will include trade in services, investment, competition and government procurement.
Notwithstanding ongoing negotiations article 105 of the IEPA determines that pending its entry into force the States shall provisionally apply the provisions of the Agreement. The provisional application of an agreement entails giving effect to its provisions notwithstanding the fact that constitutional or internal rules and procedures on ratification or approval have not been concluded.
Additionally provisional application will be effected 10 days after the last notification of provisional application is made to the depositary. However nothing prevents a State from unilaterally applying the Agreement before provisional application.
The case of Namibia is more complicated. Namibia decided not to sign the IEPA due to the inability of the negotiating partners to address the concerns it had raised upon initialing the IEPA text. If Namibia should decide not to join the second stage of negotiations it would have to start the process of ratification.
In addition, article 19(1) of the IEPA determines that the agreement establishes a free trade agreement between the Parties in conformity with article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Thus the agreement must respect and abide by the principles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In this regard, paragraph 1(a) of the Transparency Mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements provides:
(a) Members parties to a newly signed RTA shall convey to the WTO, in so far as and when it is publicly available, information on the RTA, including its official name, scope and date of signature, any foreseen timetable for its entry into force or provisional application, relevant contact points and/or website addresses, and any other relevant unrestricted information.
Therefore the IEPA must be notified to and considered by the WTO Committee on Regional Trade Agreements. The Transparency Mechanism explicitly requires notification before the provisional application of an agreement. This provision is particularly important considering the agreement between the parties to apply the provisions of the IEPA pending its entry into force. The Transparency Mechanism also makes provision for the notification of subsequent changes to a notified agreement.
Moreover, each individual party will ultimately (after the conclusion of the full EPA) have to seek domestic approval of the agreement in accordance with its own constitutional provisions. The procedure for transplanting treaty commitments into the domestic legal regime might vary considerably among the Parties depending on their constitutional orders. It may involve the enactment of national legislation to enable the domestic implementation of the agreement. Once the agreement has entered into force the real challenge to State Parties will be to ensure that treaty obligations are continuously and effectively met.
JB Cronjé, a Tralac Researcher, comments on the signing of the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement.
http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=68787&cause_id=1694
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
U.S. - Africa Trade Relations: Creating a Platform for Economic Growth
Subcommittee on commerce, trade, and consumer protection
and
Committee on Foreign affairs
Subcommittee on africa and global health
Notice of Joint Subcommittee Hearing
The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection and the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health will hold a joint hearing on “U.S. - Africa Trade Relations: Creating a Platform for Economic Growth” on Wednesday June 24, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.
There will be a bipartisan briefing for staff of Members on the Subcommittees on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. in room 2218 Rayburn House Office Building. A Democratic staff briefing will be held immediately following the bipartisan briefing in the same room.
For more information, please contact Angelle Kwemo with the Committee staff at 6-2424.
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Friday, June 19, 2009
Climate change in our back yards - New report shows how climate change is affecting the US
For the past few years Americans have been dealing with erratic and often extreme weather conditions. And now according to a new report titled Global Change Impacts in the United States, there is evidence that these patterns are attributable to global warming.
Average temperatures in the US have risen by1.5F (-17C) over the last 50 years, according to the report. It also warns that physical infrastructure on the US Gulf Coast could be threatened with storm surges and sea level rises of up to eight inches.
The 200-page US study released on Tuesday is written in simple, non-technical language and was announced by two members of Obama's 'green team', Science Advisor, John Holdren, and the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Jane Lubchenco.
"I really believe this report is a game changer. I think that much of the foot-dragging in addressing climate change is a reflection of the perception that climate change is way down the road in the future and it affects only remote parts of the world," she told a press conference on Tuesday. "This report says climate change is happening now. It is happening in our own back yard."
Lubchenco's statements lend a sense of urgency to the US ratification of a decisive climate deal in Copenhagen in December, at the COP15 Climate Change conference.
Significantly, the report states that climate change cannot be viewed in isolation and is part of a global trend of warming.
Indeed, UNEP'S 2009 Year book warns that "climate feedback systems and environmental cumulative effects are building across Earth systems, demonstrating behaviours we cannot anticipate."
The UNEP Year Book also states that "the potential for runaway greenhouse warming is real and has never been more clear".
The US Climate Change report is one of several recent calls for urgent action against global warming.
In a statement earlier this week, the head of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) urged Asia-Pacific countries to draw long-term solutions and invest more in green technology to combat the adverse effects of climate change.
Meanwhile, reacting to the UK Climate Projections 2009 report (UKCP09) launched on Thursday, UK Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said, "these projections show us the future we need to avoid, and the future we need to plan for."
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=589&ArticleID=6223&l=en&t=longUS EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Southern Africa - Trade Policy
In recent press reports the South African Minister of Trade and Industry and a senior trade official warned about trade barriers and border controls between South Africa and those SACU members which had signed an EPA with the EU. They claim that the common external tariff would actually cease to exist; bringing about the end of SACU in the technical sense. There would be separate tariff regimes and the Common Revenue Pool would be another victim. The latter development may be viewed by some in South Africa as good news; with billions more to spend locally.
These issues have been around for some time and have not been attended to at the highest levels in SACU. Now they threaten the region with potentially catastrophic consequences; should public revenue sources in neighbouring states evaporate and border controls be enforced. It will be a mistake to think that South Africa would be left intact. The concomitant regional turmoil will spill across borders; as events in Zimbabwe have taught us. There will be instability, retaliations and perhaps a mini trade war. Not bad for the oldest customs union in the world.
The diplomatic fallout will go wider. The AU may have a new crisis on its agenda as its plans for deeper regional integration in Africa (all the way to an African common market) are threatened. It would be forgiven if confused by the fickleness of Ubuntu in Africa. Others may want to read up again on the promises made when Nepad was launched. Closer home there may be question marks about recently announced plans for a Tripartite FTA between SADC, COMESA and the EAC. Will it face the same challenges a few years down the road when problems typically associated with regional and global integration have to be faced? Is this a sign of deep seated weaknesses in the institutions underpinning regional arrangements in Africa when exposed to multilateral rules?
These developments should not become a regional crisis and should be attended to at the highest levels. The Minister’s statements were not contained in an official communiqué issued by the South African Government. What is the official South African policy? The BLNS countries, SACU and eventually the EU are all involved and should eventually play a role in defusing matters. This is a complicated package of different issues and should not be dealt with further via press interviews.
Before the various legal, trade related and tariff angles are tackled important preparatory discussions should first be held; at the right level and in the appropriate forum. There should be a plan of action on how to resolve this looming crisis. This requires a strategy and a distinction between procedure and substance. There are several technical issues to sort out, but that requires the resolve to do so. Do the SACU Members have the necessary commitment to work out a joint solution? The recent press reports unfortunately create the impression that Pretoria has already decided what should happen and that it will unilaterally implement its views.
Technically complicated matters (about which there are no agreement ) such as Article 31 of the SACU Agreement, how tariffs may converge by 2012 when the TDCA will be implemented, how the EU should accommodate SA and Namibian concerns (as it should) and other issues cannot be resolved through unilateral statements. When discussions about a solution have been started it may even become necessary to opt for mediation.
Who will set the ball rolling and display the leadership now required?
Gerhard Erasmus, a tralac Associate, asks the question: What is happening to SACU?
http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=68342&cause_id=1694
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
These issues have been around for some time and have not been attended to at the highest levels in SACU. Now they threaten the region with potentially catastrophic consequences; should public revenue sources in neighbouring states evaporate and border controls be enforced. It will be a mistake to think that South Africa would be left intact. The concomitant regional turmoil will spill across borders; as events in Zimbabwe have taught us. There will be instability, retaliations and perhaps a mini trade war. Not bad for the oldest customs union in the world.
The diplomatic fallout will go wider. The AU may have a new crisis on its agenda as its plans for deeper regional integration in Africa (all the way to an African common market) are threatened. It would be forgiven if confused by the fickleness of Ubuntu in Africa. Others may want to read up again on the promises made when Nepad was launched. Closer home there may be question marks about recently announced plans for a Tripartite FTA between SADC, COMESA and the EAC. Will it face the same challenges a few years down the road when problems typically associated with regional and global integration have to be faced? Is this a sign of deep seated weaknesses in the institutions underpinning regional arrangements in Africa when exposed to multilateral rules?
These developments should not become a regional crisis and should be attended to at the highest levels. The Minister’s statements were not contained in an official communiqué issued by the South African Government. What is the official South African policy? The BLNS countries, SACU and eventually the EU are all involved and should eventually play a role in defusing matters. This is a complicated package of different issues and should not be dealt with further via press interviews.
Before the various legal, trade related and tariff angles are tackled important preparatory discussions should first be held; at the right level and in the appropriate forum. There should be a plan of action on how to resolve this looming crisis. This requires a strategy and a distinction between procedure and substance. There are several technical issues to sort out, but that requires the resolve to do so. Do the SACU Members have the necessary commitment to work out a joint solution? The recent press reports unfortunately create the impression that Pretoria has already decided what should happen and that it will unilaterally implement its views.
Technically complicated matters (about which there are no agreement ) such as Article 31 of the SACU Agreement, how tariffs may converge by 2012 when the TDCA will be implemented, how the EU should accommodate SA and Namibian concerns (as it should) and other issues cannot be resolved through unilateral statements. When discussions about a solution have been started it may even become necessary to opt for mediation.
Who will set the ball rolling and display the leadership now required?
Gerhard Erasmus, a tralac Associate, asks the question: What is happening to SACU?
http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=68342&cause_id=1694
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
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