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Africa: How G8 Has Failed the Continent
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The East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
14 July 2008
Posted to the web 14 July 2008
Oscar Kimanuka
The rich nations' club known as G8 recently met in Japan with African heads of state and discussed among other things how to alleviate Africa's poverty.
The topic keeps returning on the agenda of the G8, but the Western leaders keep making pledges that they never fulfil. It is not a secret any more that the group has not gone far enough in its efforts to assist Africa.
But while the G8 has an obligation to assist the less developed parts of the world, especially Africa which has the bulk of the much needed raw materials desperately required for the developed world's industries, far more has to be done by Africans themselves.
Aid will never deliver us from poverty. According to Paul Collier, professor of Economics at Oxford University, Africa faces three distinctive economic problems, each requiring a distinct policy.
THE FIRST, HE SAYS, IS THE failure to diversify into labour-intensive manufacturing. For instance, 60 per cent of the world's buttons are today made in just one Chinese city.
Asian cities now have massive concentrations of manufacturing activities geared for export, generating "economies of agglomeration" which lower costs of production. It is no wonder that our business people are now flocking to China to purchase anything from nappies to furniture.
Professor Collier suggests that one way to genuinely help Africa is by giving us a temporary advantage over Asia in the G8 markets.
Europe and the United States are already providing what is known as Europe's Everything-but-Arms (EBA) and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
BOTH SCHEMES LET GOODS in duty-free if they are manufactured in Africa but impose tariffs on goods from Asia.
However, as Professor Collier argues, the devil is in the detail and both schemes are not without flaws.
While, for instance, Kenya can export its shirts duty-free to the US, it cannot do so with Europe or Japan.
EBA is so flawed that it is ineffective.
China's renewed interest in Africa could be a good thing for us and a lesson to the G8 after all.
What we need is not aid but opportunities that can create jobs for the millions of our people who are jobless.
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Oscar Kimanuka is a commentator on social and economic issues based in Kigali.
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