Is Africa reaping from the much hyped globalisation?

So much has been written on the much-talked about subject of globalisation. But as Larry Elliot of the Guardian has conceded, “there is a gulf in perception and understanding between those who call the shots in globalisation and those who are powerless.” Joseph Stigliz, a former Chief Economist at the World Bank and a Nobel Prize-winning author, speaking a few years ago at Yale Law School on financial crises, commented that the ‘failures to manage globalisation have gotten worse in the past few years” Let us turn to those ‘who call the shots’ and ‘those who are powerless’. It is no news that the development agenda is driven by the G7 to the detriment of the powerless developing countries. But the catalogue of paradoxical questions that have remained largely unanswered offer interesting reading. Why is it that ‘in a world where human capital is supposed to be the new wealth of nations,’ labour is treated with such contempt? How is it that the G7 can export neo-liberal economic policies to Africa yet the US would not dream of accepting “structural adjustment” for its own economy that hasn’t been performing too well? Why is it that when a country like Zambia, for instance, deviates from its IMF-imposed programme gets punished, but if France thumbs its nose at the instability and growth pact, nothing happens? Interestingly, we are seeing cases of countries in Europe – from Greece, well known for her thinkers who influenced the world in yesteryears – to Italy, Spain, Portugal and others in the league of non-performing economies, at the receiving end! No one disputes the positive side of the language of globalization which underscores, among other things the importance of democracy, free trade and sharing the benefits of technological advancement. The reality on the other hand is different. It is about rule by elites, mercantilism and selfishness. As one observer recently pointed out: “the rich nations, and those within rich nations, gaining control over a greater and greater proportion of the world’s wealth and becoming increasingly ruthless to retain that control, particularly as resources become stretched, pollution mounts and the number of hungry mouths multiplies”. Stiglitz says that it is better to be a cow in Europe than a farmer in Africa—at least comparing European farm subsidies to American economic support for African farmers. He argues that despite the initial enthusiasm with which globalization was received, by the end of the 1990s, pessimism and uncertainty had set in. The story of a good number of African countries, now in the throes of political malaise, is a story of debt-stricken countries that have been forced against their will to adopt the famous stabilization measures prescribed by the medicine men of the IMF and the World Bank: cuts in public spending, tight monetary and fiscal policies, export-led growth, trade and investment liberalisation, de-regulation of internal prices, privatization of state-owned enterprises, the rolling back of the state and the abrogation of the right to control their own economic destinies. According to this line of thinking by the IMF and the World Bank, countries that are pursuing these neo-liberal economic policies should definitely be doing much better. But the reality is very much different: peasants have been deprived of their livelihoods as a result of the liberalization of the agricultural sector which has led to an increase in number of people malnourished from 23% to 25% during the 1990s. I am not oblivious of the positive optimism that has followed a decade of economic stability in Africa. However the reality on the ground is very much different. More than a half of Africa’s population today depends on agriculture for almost their entire livelihood. According to the African Union, feeding 1.5 billion Africans by 2030 and 2 billion by 2050 will is a daunting undertaking that the continent has to meet. As someone has observed, Africa’s food situation remains embarrassingly dire. The United States today provides slightly over $4billion in form of subsidy to 25,000 farmers. According to Stiglitz, the subsidy was ultimately harmful, as it economically disadvantaged 10 million African farmers. Stiglitz asserts that the US government subsidized its own farmers to produce more cotton, which they should not have been doing because it is economically inefficient! So Africans open up their markets and the developed countries close theirs or set up conditions that make our exports simply not have the chance to penetrate their markets. I am very eager to hear how we can make our markets work in the face of the flawed rules of globalization. I need some help on this. The writer is a consultant and visiting lecturer at the Senior Command and Staff College, Nyakinama.

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Is Africa reaping from the much hyped globalisation?