From Africa Recovery, Vol.14#2 (July 2000), page 24

South Summit hits global economic gap

Havana conference assails "marginalization" of developing countries

Global economic issues dominated Africa's agenda at the Group of 77 (G-77) South Summit in Havana. The 10-14 April conference, the first-ever meeting of heads of state and government of the 133-member organization in its 36-year history, denounced the "increased marginalization" of developing countries in the world economy. The G-77 called on industrialized countries to open their markets to developing countries' exports, offer faster and more comprehensive debt relief, and increase official development assistance and foreign direct investment flows.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose country currently holds the chairmanship of the G-77, set the tone for the summit when he told delegates, "Globalization has failed to spur economic recovery, faster growth, greater employment opportunities and poverty eradication in developing countries. Rather it has exhibited a tendency to accentuate the income and welfare gaps between rich and poor among and within countries and regions." The North's reluctance to address the growing impoverishment in the South, he cautioned, "constitutes a major threat to international peace and security." Mr. Obasanjo called on the summit to "send a clear message" to industrialized countries about the urgent need for reform of the institutions and rules governing the world economy to benefit those left behind in the rush to market liberalization and freer trade.

Liberalization under fire

It is a message that has been delivered with increasing forcefulness by developing countries since the collapsed World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in December 1999. The WTO failed in part because African and other developing countries revolted against the refusal of the major trading states to consider their reform proposals. Efforts to harness the global economy in the service of development picked up additional momentum at the 10th UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) conference in Bangkok in February (see Africa Recovery, April 2000).

South African President Thabo Mbeki, speaking in Havana on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, said that while the world economy has generated unprecedented prosperity in developed countries, the resulting "atomization of the family and the individual" has caused serious social problems in the North and produced opposition to further trade and market liberalization among US and European youth and workers. With protests scheduled for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, Mr. Mbeki urged the G-77 to "work for the mobilization of the masses of the countries of the North to sensitize them to the imperative to eliminate global poverty and inequality."

Greater UN role

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan emphasized the importance of governance issues, including respect for human rights, transparency in decision-making and public accountability, in creating an enabling environment for development. Globalization, he said in Havana, could make it possible for developing countries to move rapidly out of poverty, "but this depends on our success in making the global economy more equitable, by underpinning it with rules based on shared social objectives and institutions in which the South is fairly represented.... First and foremost among these institutions should be a renewed and strengthened United Nations."

The G-77, in turn, expressed "deep concern" over the reduction of funding for UN development programmes and the UN's diminished voice in debates over world economic issues. The summit called for an expansion of the Security Council membership and an end to the veto power of the five permanent members. The heads of state and government rejected the widely-debated concept of a "right" to humanitarian intervention -- external involvement in the affairs of another state in pursuit of humanitarian objectives -- as inconsistent with the UN Charter. They affirmed that respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states should remain the basis for international relations.

Alarm about Africa

The summit expressed "deep alarm" about the economic decline in many sub-Saharan African countries and called for urgent measures to reduce Africa's debt burden and increase market access for the region's exports. "Poverty in Africa has now reached intolerable levels," the Havana Declaration noted, "with negative consequences for the stability of most countries and regions of the continent." The conference also called on developed countries to adopt a package of special measures to benefit all least developed countries, including tariff-free access to Northern markets, increased official development assistance and eased admission and integration into the WTO.

In contrast to the chilly reception given the protests at the WTO Seattle meeting by the trade ministers of most developing countries, the G-77 leaders embraced US protesters trying to disrupt the IMF and World Bank meetings. Speaking to reporters in Havana on 15 April, Nigerian Ambassador to the UN Arthur Mbanefo said the heads of state "give their full backing and solidarity to the demonstrators. I personally support whatever demonstrations make the IMF and the World Bank think positively about our problems."

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