PHA-Exchange> HOW AFRICA DEVELOPS EUROPE (AND THE REST OF THE RICH WORLD)

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From: pambazuka-news at pambazuka.org
HOW AFRICA DEVELOPS EUROPE (AND THE REST OF THE RICH WORLD): REAL 
DEVELOPMENT AND AID.

Antoinette Ntuli

Increasingly attention is being given to documenting the extent to =20
which Africa (and the rest of the developing world) is in fact =20
providing development aid, as opposed to being a recipient of Aid. This
aid is being provided through myriad ways including financial =20
relations, subsidising ecological resources, provision of ready trained
skilled labour and, increasingly, providing holiday resorts of =20
unbeatable value.

The slave trade was the most visceral manifestation of the ongoing =20
exploitative relationship between Africa and the rich world. The =20
haunting images of manacled Africans toiling in the cotton fields of
the USA have now been replaced with images of starvation, war, =20
brutality, fecklessness and HIV. These graphic images, beamed =20
throughout the world, perpetuate a sense of need and dependence that
serves the purposes of powerful and wealthy states. Such images make it
easy to believe that Africa both requires and could benefit from =20
Western Aid. This however belies the real relationship between Africa
and the West. In reality, in order to understand Africa=92s
relationship with the developed world, it is important to look at 
figures which show that, far from contributing nothing to the economy 
of developed countries and taking everything in return, Africa's 
contribution to
developed countries could be considered as its own form of development
aid.

According to Jubilee Research the accumulated external debt of the =20
world=92s richest country, the USA, is $2.2 trillion =96 almost the
same as the $2.5 trillion owed by the entire developing world including 
India,China and Brazil. They calculate that this means that every 
American citizen owes the rest of the world $7,333 while every citizen 
of all the developing countries only owes the rest of the world $500. 
=20
Meanwhile the poor are financing the debt of the developed world, as
capital flows from poor countries, helping to lower rich countries =20
interest rates and inflate the value of their currencies, enable them
to purchase goods from the rest of the world far more cheaply than they
would otherwise have been able to do.

Jubilee Research have also quantified the economic damage attributable
to natural disasters arising from climate change as being more than =20
$300 billion per annum. Industrialised countries (at least 
historically) are almost entirely responsible for human driven global
warming although 96% of all deaths from natural disasters occur in =20
developing countries. The value of economic output built on growing =20
=91carbon debt=92 (in which carbon debt is calculated according to the
amount by which a country exceeded its fair share in the emission of
greenhouse gasses) attributable to the G7 countries, was estimated as
being in the region of $13- 15 trillion for a typical year in the =20
1990s while the conventionally indebted poor countries had a =
carbon credit that could be valued at three times their orthodox debt. 
Thus if this concept of debt is used, the developing world is 
subsidising the
rich world and should perhaps be considering what structural adjustment
processes the rich world needs to put in place in order to meet their
debt repayments.

UNDP calculated that by 1987 nearly one third of Africa's skilled
people had moved to Europe - Sudan lost 17% of doctors and dentists,
20% of University teaching staff, 30% of engineers and 45% of surveyors
in 1978; 60% of Ghanaian doctors trained in the early 80s are now =20
abroad; and Africa as a whole is thought to have lost up to 60 000 =20
middle and high level managers between 1985 and 1990. This reverse =20
subsidy seems set to continue. Some estimates indicate that mechanistic
and flawed developed country staff forecasting needs mean that the USA,
for example, will require 1 million additional nurses in the next ten
years to meet its shortfall.

Writers on human resources such as Bundred and Martineau put the cost
of training a GP as US$60 000, calculating a reverse subsidy from the
developing world of US$500m per annum just for health personnel. In =20
South Africa alone, the loss of more than 82,000 skilled personnel over
an eight-year period between 1989 and 1997 is estimated to have cost
the country US$5 billion. UNCTAD quantified US savings of US$3.86 =20
billion in training costs as a result of importing 21 000 Nigerian =20
doctors over a ten year period.

Central to these startling statistics are structural adjustment =20
programmes. Rather than providing restitution for the period of formal
occupation of African Countries that took place between the 1880s and
1960s, the West channelled large sums of monies into newly independent
African countries through massive bank loans. In the process a number
of Banks became severely stretched. With the 80s came an intense period
of structural adjustment programmes, the immediate objective of which,
according to Walden Bello, was to rescue banks that had become =20
overextended; the longer-term objective was to further integrate =20
Southern countries into the North dominated world economy. Although =20
initially few countries were keen to take structural adjustment loans,
as more and more countries ran into difficulty servicing the huge debts
made to them, so they had no option but to =91structurally adjust=92.

Structural adjustments demanded that, as a pre-condition to receiving
aid, developing countries open their markets to globalisation and =20
privatise their utilities such as water and electricity services. Among
the other requirements were tightening of state expenditure and =20
devaluation of currencies resulting in an end to free health and =20
education and dramatic cut backs in these services.

The withdrawal of resources for education and health initiated a cycle
of deprivation in which working conditions, including salaries =20
deteriorated, triggering an exodus of staff and further debilitating
the services. Simultaneously, funding of academic training institutions
was reduced, and there was a concurrent flight of intellectuals and =20
decimation of institutions of higher learning. Philip Altbach =20
calculates that roughly 1.5 million students (most of whom leave the
South to study in the North) study in countries outside their own, and
a significant number do not return.

The net effect has been to strip countries of a significant component
of their social capital and create a vacuum of skill, conveniently =20
providing jobs for highly trained Westerners, (to be paid for in hard
currency) and simultaneously the conditions for Africa to be reduced to
providing technical level education and producing a workforce only fit
to do the dirty jobs of the rich world.

And just as there seems to be broad agreement that Structural =20
Adjustment has not been beneficial to Africa, General Agreement on =20
Trade in Services (GATS) is ready and poised to fill the gap. The =20
combined worth of health and education markets is estimated to be US$5
Trillion according to Bertrand and Kalafatides. If the major proponents
of GATS have their way, all these services will be up for grabs by =20
powerful Transnational Corporations, and the right of African States to
provide these common goods will be emasculated.

What the figures above show is that, combined with conditions like =20
structural adjustment and GATS, the cycle of development aid from =20
Africa to Europe and the rest will be continued. For African =20
intellectuals, students, political activists and Africanists everywhere
this signals a call for international solidarity of the kind inspired
by the anti-apartheid movement - as a countervailing force against the
new world order that compels Africa to continue to feed the bloated =20
stomach of greed.

* Antoinette Ntuli is Director of HealthLink and Chairs the Co-
ordinating Committee of the Global Equity Gauge Alliance.
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