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.Specifically, the G8 agreement, inter alia, calls for   theelimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign.  33The conditions imposed by the G8 grow out of the 1996 World Bank   HeavilyjAfrica Challenges the Powell, Rice, and Bush Doctrine133Indebted Poor Countries  (HIPC) initiative.These eighteen countries havereached the so-called HIPC   completion point,  meaning that they have met theharsh reforms set down by the bank.Norm Dixon points out how these nationshave suffered already in their efforts to accommodate their World Bank overlords.He notes:In Tanzania, 45,000 public sector jobs have been lost due to privatization.In Zambia, the figure is 60,000.To reach the H.I.P.C.  completionpoint  Tanzania and Ghana were both required to privatize their urbanwater supplies.Mali was forced to agree to privatize its railways and cottonindustry.The World Bank insists that Mali s state cotton company payproducers the   world market price,  which is a big drop in income.Mali srailways are now owned by a Canadian-French consortium, which hasshed 600 jobs, closed two-thirds of the stations and decimated passen-ger numbers, sharply curtailing the livelihoods of thousands who relied onthe lines as a source of customers and a way to get their products tomarkets.34These circumstances are compounded by Western protectionism.Washingtonand other Western states still refuse to open fully their markets to Africanproducts without severe restrictions, high tariffs, and other obstacles.At the sametime, according to recent data, the EU and the United States provide over $300million a year in subsidies to domestic farmers and corporations.35 While keep-ing Western markets closed or tightly controlled, developing countries have beenforced to open their markets to foreign commodities that additionally have anunfair advantage due to subsidies.As noted above, the principle legislation foradvancing trade with Africa is the AGOA and its extension, the   AGOA Ac-celeration Act  (2004).These two pieces of legislation essentially force Africancountries to pursue not only free market economic policies, but those that arespecifically beneficial to U.S.corporations.Although the administration extolsthe growth in trade with Africa, the reality is that only a very small number ofAfrican states actually trade with the United States, and about 80 percent of thattrade is related to oil, core minerals, and metals.36 U.S.subsidies and protec-tionism prevent African agricultural products from being competitive; a devas-tating arrangement given that   agriculture supports 70 80 percent of the people,employs some 60 percent of the labour, accounts for 20 percent of merchandiseexports and 17 percent of GDP.  37Most important, the debt cancellation agreement did not include increases inaid.Not one poor country will suddenly turn into a Canada or a Sweden becausetheir debt has been erased.Separately, the British had proposed to double the aidjColin Powell and Condoleezza Rice134that goes to Africa and other poor regions to $50 billion, and to have richnations commit to increasing their official development assistance (ODA) forpoor countries to 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015,proposals that Bush seemed to find personally repugnant.The United Statescurrently commits only a miserly 0.16 percent of its GDP to ODA, the smallestof all major industrialized nations.38 Bush stated that such an increase   doesn tfit our budgetary process.  39 In a special trip to Washington in early June 2005,Blair personally lobbied Bush to raise the percentage of U.S.foreign aid given toAfrica but was rebuffed.Aware of the public relations disaster of dissing his mostloyal and long-suffering ally, Bush attempted to mollify critics by declaring  Over the past four years, we have tripled our assistance to sub-SaharanAfrica.  40As is so often his habit, Bush was again untruthful.A Brookings Institutionreport, written by former Clinton Africa policy specialist Susan Rice, documentsthat in real dollar terms, the increase has been far less than Bush claimed.Shewrites,   U.S.aid to Africa from FY2000 (the last full budget year of the Clintonadministration) to FY2004 (the last completed fiscal year of the Bush admin-istration) has not  tripled or even doubled.Rather, in real dollars, it has in-creased 56 percent (or 67% in nominal dollar terms).  41 Additionally, about 53percent of that increase was in emergency food aid rather than in overseasdevelopment assistance needed for long-term sustainable development.42Bush s canard was aimed at distinguishing his record from that of his pre-decessor as well as throwing a bone to Blair.The claim of   tripling  would makeits way into the final agreement of the G8, which included a listing of theincreased development aid that members and the European Union were makingto Africa.43 With his legacy in mind, Blair has scrapped to become identified asthe world leader most concerned and committed to bringing Africa out ofpoverty [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]