Washington, DC — "Outstanding problems" and "very slow progress" confront Africa today, said Uganda's Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Gerald Ssendaula, speaking to reporters on the eve of this year's Spring Meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Post-conflict needs, inadequate development assistance, trade barriers and the prospect that post-war reconstruction in Iraq will divert money away from Africa are worries that finance ministers attending this weekend's Washington meetings plan to put on the table. "Iraq will need to be reconstructed just as Afghanistan is being reconstructed; resources will certainly be required. Our plea to our donors is that we still require support as well," said Ssendaula.
According to United Nations World Food Programme head James Morris, food aid to Iraq's 27 million people, may become the WFP's "largest single humanitarian operation in history," and is likely to cost $1.3 billion over six months.
However, Morris told the UN Security Council in a statement earlier this week, almost 40 million Africans, "[who] would find it an immeasurable blessing to have a month's worth of food," are in "greater peril" than Iraqis right now but the WFP has only been able to raise $800 million out of an estimated $1.8 billion it needs to cope with the crisis on the continent.
"Africa's problems are development problems," said Charles Konan Banny, Governor of the Central Bank of the States of West Africa (BCEAO), "That means [these] are long term problems. We cannot say that this year we have solved these problems."
Banny said that internal conflicts were an important part of Africa's crisis and despite the concern about falling aid, there was also a need "to focus a little bit on the internal problem." Banny, who is from Côte dIvoire, said events in his own home country helped fuel his concern. "Some years ago I was proud to be a governor of a very stable region. Now I am not proud because we are facing a very important internal conflict in my own country."
African officials here stressed the theme of African initiatives and African responsibility to address African needs. "Let us not lose sight of the broad direction that the Nepad framework provides," said Lesotho finance minister, Timothy Thahane. "The alternatives are just not there. What we have to do is to press on."
Trade, more than aid, is what they plan to press the developed nations on. "There is no way we can achieve millennium goals if we do not have sustainable access to markets," said Thahane. The World Bank estimates that agricultural subsidies in industrialized nations, mainly given to big agribusinesses, total more than US$350bn. Tariff and non-tariff barriers also block the export of many African goods, especially to Europe.
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Nonetheless, Thahane and others insist that the uncertainties about money doesn't make their situation hopeless. "We are pressing on," he told allAfrica.com later. "We are saying [to the Bank and Fund] that we are doing certain things that you should pay attention to. Instability is borne out of poverty."
A stronger voice for Africa may be what begins to take shape in these meetings. World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn seemed to suggest this possibility Thursday. "The [World Bank] Board has taken the lead in terms of enhancing voice and participation and the question of voting... there appears to be consensus [to] strengthen the offices of those countries - particularly in Africa - where there is a single representation for very many countries - that we will build capacity in the offices and in the countries themselves to ensure more effective representation."
