[Civsoc-mw] Wash Post on Africa Free Trade Zone meeting

[cammack at mweb.co.za]

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Edited by Ruby Mellen



 
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What an African free-trade deal means for the world

 
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806674/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/11/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> 

(AP photo) 

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — There was a strange atmosphere at the edge of
Africa. Cloudless skies and balmy spring breezes greeted the delegations of
regional and business leaders who met last week for a major annual summit on
the future of the continent. But they gathered in a city reeling from
trauma.

After news emerged of the violent rape and murder of a student at the
prestigious University of Cape Town, protesters massed at the gates of the
convention center where the World Economic Forum was being held. Their
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806675/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/12/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> ire over “gender-based”
violence compounded the sense of tension smoldering elsewhere in the
country, which has seen
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806676/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/13/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> a resurgence of
xenophobic attacks by local mobs on foreign migrants and shopkeepers.


 
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806677/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/14/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had to break away from the forum’s
proceedings to address the protesters’ concerns in a session of Parliament.
But he returned the next day to extol the virtues of a potentially
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806678/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/15/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> monumental African
free-trade pact, stitched together over more than a year of diplomatic
effort
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806679/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/16/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> to little fanfare
elsewhere in the world. The optimism of the World Economic Forum would not
be dimmed by the unease outside its halls.

The deal is “going to be the greatest opportunity for economies on the
continent to generate growth through trade,” Ramaphosa said.

On paper, that seems true. After Nigeria
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/180667a/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/17/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> signed on to the
African Continental Free Trade Area on the sidelines of the African Union
summit in July, investors, wonks and politicians all started to dream of
what may follow: a $3.4 trillion economic zone of some 1.3 billion people.
In a report earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/180667b/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/18/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> dubbed the free-trade
deal a “game changer” if African governments are able to bring down tariffs
and boost trade within the continent.

A deal that ushers in a successful, more integrated Africa would make the
region a “food basket to the rest of the world,” present a “huge consumer
base” attractive to global investors, stem migration flows to Europe and
help bring political stability to parts of the continent, said Saif Malik,
head of Africa banking for Standard Chartered.

It also would buck a global trend. “With all the trade tensions that are
going on between the U.S. and China, Africa is trying to find its own
homegrown solution,” Malik told Today’s WorldView.

That was a view shared widely in Cape Town this past week. “We need to all
acknowledge and celebrate the fact that as the rest of the world is raising
barriers and building walls, Africa has decided to embrace change,” Albert
Zeufack, the World Bank’s chief Africa economist, said at a plenary session
at the forum.

But Zeufack, Malik and many other experts offered plenty of cautionary
notes, too. Major obstacles remain before a pact stitching together more
than 50 disparate nations across a vast landmass could even start to look
like anything resembling the European Union. Beyond
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806678/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/19/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> the sizable political
and bureaucratic hurdles standing between governments and the implementation
of the deal, there are broader challenges vexing African economies.

By some calculations, the continent needs to generate a million jobs a month
to satisfy the demands of a booming generation of young people desperate for
employment — and to ensure that what could be
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/180667c/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/20/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> a demographic dividend
doesn’t become a dangerous liability. Africa needs an estimated $90
billion-100 billion a year in investment in infrastructure, including a huge
expansion of its woeful power supply. And it needs to achieve all this while
also
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/180667d/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/21/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> reckoning with the
ravages of climate change: As Africa’s energy and agricultural exports go
up, it’ll remain
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/11974c1/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/22/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> the most vulnerable
continent in the world to extreme weather patterns caused by global warming.

Analysts also warned that the free-trade deal may disproportionately benefit
a few relatively rich nations with an existing industrial base, like South
Africa, over smaller countries with less developed economies. Income gaps
within the continent’s countries may also get exacerbated.


 
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/180667e/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/23/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> 

“We need to learn from trade in the era of globalization, trade that was
inextricably linked to a race to the bottom on regulation. In an era without
rules nor referees, the rich bullies took charge to take most of the
spoils,” Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, told
Today’s WorldView. “Richer countries, richer companies and richer people
gained most from liberalized trade.”

Byanyima’s organization serves as the town crier at the World Economic
Forum’s various annual events, warning the global jet-setting elites of the
yawning divides their policies have created. A free-trade deal, Byanyima
added, “will be great for Africa only if it reduces economic inequality and
creates good quality jobs, especially for women and for our young people.”

So what’s to be done? Many of the African attendees at the forum expressed
exasperation with the continent’s political elites. “The young people who
are out there are extremely angry,” said Oby Ezekwesili, a prominent former
Nigerian politician and civil society activist. She argued that the steady
progress of a Pan-African trade pact meant little if political leaders
didn’t confront the systemic problems within their societies. “We have a
problem of bad politics on the continent.”

The conference’s solution for this is now familiar: A focus on the myriad
innovative projects and business initiatives — from solar tech to
micro-electricity grids to digital banking to companies that seed clouds
with artificial rain — that are pushing the continent forward despite its
laggard governments.

But geopolitics is never far away. A more integrated African market only
raises the stakes for what some have dubbed
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/180667f/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/24/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> a new “scramble” for
Africa. China’s ever-expanding footprint on the continent has
<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/1806680/5d75dc57fe1ff64568bab5e6/Y2FtbWFja0Bt
d2ViLmNvLnph/25/83/5ae138fb3161b675724b4e03e0a8e84b> provoked frequent
complaints of neocolonialism. But there’s also been a flurry of recent
investment and engagement from India, Japan, Turkey and Brazil, as well as
the major powers of the West. This, ultimately, may be a boon for Africa.

“When you talk about the word ‘scramble,’ it’s to make the assumption that
people on the continent are uninvolved and uninterested,” said Frannie
Léautier, Nairobi-based chief operating officer of the Trade and Development
Bank. She argued that is far from the case now: “Africa is wiser. Africa is
learning. Africa is choosing.”

 


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