allAfrica.com: Eritrea: President Isaias Afwerki's Paper Submitted to the EU

Eritrea: President Isaias Afwerki's Paper Submitted to the EU - African Summit in Lisbon

Mr. Chairman,

Honourable Heads of State and Government,

Distinguished Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me join previous speakers to express our gratitude to President Antonio Cavaco Silva and to the Government and people of Portugal for the warm hospitality accorded to us.

This forum is symbolic of, and vital for, consolidating the special historical ties that bind our two continents together. But more pointedly, it serves as an indispensable vehicle for facilitating a candid exchange of views on issues of mutual importance. As Your Excellencies will agree with me, this is of course critical for cultivating a communality of views, attitudes and approaches for the road map of our future cooperation.

In this spirit, allow me to focus on some of the agenda items of the Summit to express the view of my Government.

The asymmetry of the relationship when benchmarked against key economic, industrial, social and knowledge parameters is of course glaringly obvious. Africa remains a largely marginalized continent even when the internal distinctions that exist within the continent are taken into account. Infrastructure, in terms of extensive grid of national roads as well as air and sea regional and international links, is far from fully developed. Wide access to modern telecommunication facilities remains very much limited. In most of our countries, modern irrigation methods still constitute an insignificant part of the production process exposing agricultural output to the vagaries of an increasingly fragile ecosystem. Social services largely remain confined to isolated portions of urban centers. Corruption, in most cases fuelled by external actors, is still endemic. Subservience to foreign interests, coupled with internal cleavages, polarization of our societies along ethnic, religious and racial lines, have only aggravated the reality to foment perennial cycles of crises and conflict. In most cases and instances, these crises and conflicts are compounded by external actors. The lack of and subversion of a robust continental organization which can measure up to these challenges or that can chart its road map on a realistic appraisal of our realities is another major drawback. At the sub-regional levels too, the picture in terms of effective institutions and mechanisms of cooperation is mostly cosmetic.

Contemporary Africa that is grappling with those multi-faceted problems and challenges will thus have to forge enduring and mutually beneficial ties with Europe that is economically advanced, that has fostered robust institutions of governance and whose march towards continental economic integration has been progressing with increased dynamism and ever-expanding geographical space.

Against this backdrop, the cooperation that existed in the past and that prevails today cannot be but lopsided. It is inevitably focused on emergency and development assistance while two-way trade and investment are relegated to the backseat. Furthermore, the modalities and conditionalities that govern the Cotonou and other Agreements have been skewed to reflect the asymmetry as evidenced in Articles 8 and 96 respectively. Implementation schedules and procedures further contain elaborate processes and bureaucratic hurdles that often overlook the exigencies of speedy output that is of paramount importance to those of us who find ourselves on the receiving end. The advents of globalization (with its challenges, opportunities and attendant controversies) may further accentuate the prevailing asymmetries unless conscious steps are taken to bridge the gap and widen the scope of sustainable interaction in an environment that creates, incrementally, a level playing field.

In our view, these are in fact the challenges of this Summit. How can we enhance the basis for a genuine partnership and what should be the parameter of measurement? How do we foster a symmetric relationship in a situation of asymmetry? And how do we ultimately bridge and reduce the material, institutional and knowledge gaps so that we can march together in lock-step and full harmony?

That all these will require radical change of the culture and the attendant rules and regulations governing the relationship is of course obvious.

But apart from attitudinal changes, the critical shift must occur at this juncture of globalization through a pronounced focus on cultivating robust market ties between Europe and Africa. Cooperation rooted on emergency and development assistance with Africa remaining a net exporter of raw materials must be altered and supplanted by more impacting support geared towards creating an enabling environment for Africa to export value added goods. The yardstick for progress needs to be measured against these benchmarks.

The task of transforming underdeveloped African economies and stimulating substantial growth and dynamism in their markets is admittedly formidable. Africa's purchasing power will remain negligible as a share of the world market (1 to 2%) until and unless Africa can earn substantially through exports. These must be value-added, competitive, products focusing on agro-industrial and industrial goods. But transformation of this nature cannot be undertaken without huge investment in Africa's human capital in the continent as well as in the Diaspora. The work and negotiations that have been underway in the Economic Partnership Agreements are therefore critical in many respects.

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