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Africa Round Table Discussion

Panel Responses by Hon. David Kilgour M.P. Edmonton-Mill Woods- Beaumont
The Institute of Public Administration of Canada's National Capital Regional Chapter (IPAC-NCR), in concert with the Society for International Development (SID) presents:
“Democratization and Development in Africa: Current Challenges and Future Options”
Tuesday, February 1, 2005.
Rm. 200 West Block, House of Commons, Ottawa


Panel Question #1

1) What are the current challenges to promoting democratization and development in Africa?

I’d like to start by reaffirming what you suggest in the question itself; there is an inextricable relationship between democratization and development across the world. In Africa, as in most places in the developing world, with perhaps the exception of Cuba, the standard of democracy in any given country normally defines the standard of living for its citizens. Put simply, the authoritarianism, despotism, and unlimited rule demonstrated by a number of African leaders, has done little to improve the lives and dignity of the nationals of their respective countries. Without the freedom to speak out, to write, to protest, and to vote, citizens are denied a forum to question government spending and demand the basics of access to food, education, and healthcare. 

Today, we see a number of countries in Africa, where the basic standard of living continues to plummet as a direct result of misrule and corruption. Take Zimbabwe, formerly one of the most stable and economically sound countries in Africa, that had one of the highest HDI ratings in sub-Saharan Africa in 1985, and whose population is now almost entirely dependent on food aid. Economic mismanagement has created 400 percent inflation and 80-per-cent unemployment, compounded by shortages of basic foodstuffs, fuel and agricultural inputs. Roughly 5,000 people a week die from AIDS in Zimbabwe.

In contrast, Botswana, with a government that is widely accepted as having maintained a stable and democratic electoral and governing process, shows positive social indicators and that despite its own enormous struggles with HIV/AIDS.

We could spend all day giving examples, but let me to get to the question at hand; what hinders us from promoting democratization and development?

Speaking as a Canadian and an elected public servant, I think it fitting to address Canada’s failures to live up to our human rights and development commitments.

As you all know, our own international policy review has spent the last year addressing this very question, or at least it’s hoped that it will be discussed in the soon to be released policy statement which provides a critical assessment of how little we actually give in aid, who we give that aid to, and the way, i.e. the problematic “ties” with which it is given. We have, indeed, failed in a number of ways:

At the most basic level, we’ve failed to live up to a commitment given almost 35 years ago by Prime Minister Pearson to increase ODA to O.7% of GDP. With our current ODA as percentage of Gross National Income at 0.28%, we pale next to countries like Norway at 0.89% and Denmark at 0.96% and rising.

As we heard just hours ago from witnesses in the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development, there is a consensus among development and justice organisations that more accountability and an integrated international approach. This approach, they argued, should be based on and driven by the existing human rights agreements that nearly all countries have singed on to. I’ll discuss that a bit further in the second answer.

And yet, although an increase and redesign of the way in which we provide aid is greatly needed, one area we don’t address nearly enough is how we’ve failed on the diplomatic level. This is equally important as it addresses the crucial relationship between democratization and development.

“Diplomatic Complacency”

Our negligence and inaction can be characterized as “diplomatic complacency.”

We continue to meet with, welcome, and have elaborate dinners with leaders that condone, and take part in grave human rights violations, widespread corruption, and in some cases even genocide.

Our failure to criticize regimes guilty of funding and orchestrating widespread violence, mass murder and corruption is unacceptable to most Canadians.

The fact that we spend tax payers money visiting and welcoming dangerously corrupt political leaders, while civil society groups and oppositions leaders from these same countries are denied such royal treatment, denies the better of angels of our country.

That we continue to trade with such regimes, essentially investing in the same human rights abuses that we are so quick to sign up against in declarations and charters, is unacceptable.

Arguments that stopping trade with regimes guilty of widespread human rights abuses will only hurt their already disenfranchised citizens are inconclusive at best. There’s a great wealth of recent studies that provide realistic ways in which countries like Canada can better lever their trade relationship and influence within international organizations such as the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF.

Darfur

I’m sure many of you have seen the recent report by Errol Mendes, a professor of International and Human Rights Law and Adviser to the Office of the Secretary General of the UN, in which he outlines the theory and strategy behind a practical way for Canada to take a leadership role in stopping the genocide in Darfur. He notes that Canada’s approach could take a number of forms, including military logistical support, travel bans for NIF officials, and an arms embargo. Mendes urges the use of what could be one of the most powerful levers against the Khartoum government, their enormous international debt, as a force to stop crimes against humanity and genocide in Sudan.

In a recent exchange of ideas about “diplomatic complacency” with Professor Pablo Idahosa, program coordinator of the African Studies program at York University, he offered an insightful way of looking at this concept. In the context of Canada, it has an historical element in that Canada can be implicated in a number of obvious examples, among them Rwanda, the DRC and Sudan. And conceptually, in the sense that there is now this repository of what we have and have not learned from these events. Not least of which, he notes, is the relatively small cost of having grounded early warning systems.

Civil society groups, humanitarian organizations, and even everyday citizens, foresaw what was going to happen in Rwanda well before April 1994. Today, these and other groups foretell what has and what will continue to happen in Sudan, and yet we either ignore them entirely and invest vast sums of money sending delegations and peace envoys instead of relying on already established local networks of information and planning.

This problem, of course, is endemic not only to our peacekeeping efforts, but our development efforts as well.

As we all know, the challenges that much of Africa faces today in democracy and development are great.  So are the challenges many of us here face; as politicians, policy makers, and promoters of democracy, to try to find ways in which Canada can have a more meaningful, coherent, integrated, and in some cases a more constructively critical interaction with African governments, in the hopes that our foreign policy begins to show more transparency and reflects our commitments to human rights, fair trade and peacekeeping.

 

Panel Question #2 (Due to time constraints the response to question 2 was not delivered.)

2) What is required to ensure successful democratization and development in Africa for the future?

Indeed, this question is as huge and as complex as the first, and again, I will try to answer it by focusing on just a few key areas, namely accountability, commitment to the human rights charter, and support for existing civil society groups and pan-African organisations.  

If we’ve learned anything from the last 50 or so years of post- and neo-colonialism in Africa, it is that, to put it bluntly, foreign intervention in Africa has done little to calm the instability and civil conflicts established and/or exacerbated by the colonial powers and it has, in many cases, increased dependency and failed to invest in the reconstruction of local systems of government, and civil society.

Again, even our own recent policy review has pledged to address Canada’s often irresponsible lack of direction, continuity and focus in dispensing aid over the last few decades.

In Professor Idahosa’s words, “While there's much vacuous talk of good governance and capacity building, the real issue is the need to operationalize genuine distributive notions of sustainable democracy and of building up welfare, that is, the quality of democracy, which is NOT the same thing as poverty reduction, which is at best a palliative of localism.”

I would hope that that’s one of the goals in our government doing the IPR; to stop throwing money, often tied money, to superficial, unsustainable projects in countries whose own governments often work to undermine the efforts, and in many cases feed off of aid revenues and manipulate its distribution to further their own agendas.

In today’s Subcommittee meeting, Kathy Vandergrift of World Vision elaborated on what a rights-based approach to development could look like. She rightly questioned why rights charters are not incorporated into development plans, and she encouraged the linking of rights with responsibilities, using that as a basis to assess current development programs and trade relations. For example, we could be asking what the linkage is between the right to food and Canada’s trade policies in food and agriculture, thus assessing the impact of our trade, particularly with the South.

Clearly, supporting, funding, and encouraging African-based solutions is key, as is looking at the examples, both in Africa, and in other areas around the world, for creative solutions. Despite increasing conflict in areas of Sudan, Uganda, and the Congo, support for democracy has grown in many areas. Increased freedom of the press and new communications media such as the internet have expanded public access to information, and citizens are now more aware of their basic human rights. According to Freedom House, over the last decade, the number of free democracies in Africa has more than doubled from four to 10 and more than half the countries on the continent are in the transition process. The successful 2002 elections in Kenya and the anti-corruption drive in Zambia further underscore this trend.

The mechanisms and strategies that have led to constructive development in these countries should be examined and for applied into regional strategies.

In a chapter from the book, “Peace In Africa—Towards a Collaborative Security Regime,” the authors compare security arrangements in Latin America and Africa and argue that the OAS offers an applicable model for promoting regional security and development in Africa. They argue that because the OAS relies heavily on democracy and trade to promote peace and security, it emphasizes and, for the most part, has succeeded in building confidence in its member states. Furthermore, that the OAS’ institutions, that is, its committees, commissions, working groups and declarations, which were created to manage security concerns and relations between members, may help provide a plan for a collaborative security effort for the continent.

This, of course, should become the primary concern of the AU. 

As you know, the Security Council of the AU, founded last May, has laid the legal framework for resolving disputes among member states. Yet, following in the disappointing footsteps of the OAUs mere five peacekeeping efforts in it’s 40 year history, the obstacles it faces, whether they be externally imposed or self-inflicted,  are great; a limited mandate, a lack of political will among its members, capacity problems, the lack of financial resources, and the chasms endemic to the international political environment.

At present, the AU can not be expected to operate adequate peacekeeping and security forces in Africa. Western governments, and particularly countries like Canada that do not have colonial ties to Africa, should be at the forefront of supporting and developing a more powerful and operational AU.

Indeed, many have lauded the AU in light of the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s reports last May stating that the economic growth rate of the continent was expected to reach 4.4 percent in 2004, compared with 3.2 percent in 2002 and 3.6 percent in 2003.  

The role of the AU in promoting regional cooperation and pushing forward economic development is mainly manifested by its actions to include the New Partnership For African Development (NEPAD) into its framework and take measures to implement the program as the organization’s creed.

Again, this should be Canada’s role to aid and encourage existing regional strategies and partnerships. With the proper investment and management, the AU has the potential to become a powerful, cohesive body in Africa, and a voice of peace, security and development to the region.

We should also recognize that democracy cannot be imposed from the top down. Building a stable democracy requires a firm foundation, nurtured from local and regional civil society groups. The desire for democracy in Africa is there, what is still lacking is a strong apparatus through which democratic values and ideals may be diffused and applied. By lending greater support for the facilitation of interactions between Canadian civil society and African civil society, Canada can make a significant contribution toward strengthening the capabilities of African civil society to institutionalize democracy.

Of course, I’ve only just touched on a topic that certainly merits more discussion and support. If any of you are interested, I encourage you to contact my office to get the transcript from today’s very relevant Subcommittee hearing, where the witnesses from World Vision, the CCIC and Rights and Democracy succinctly and clearly made the case for a new approach to promoting democracy and development; an approach that Canada should consider if we truly want to have a more significant and beneficial impact in the world.

Thank you.

 
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