The Courier

Mustapha Dimé, La petite danse, 1995, 241 x 117 cm, wood, metal, wire, nails. ‘Afrique Europe: rêves croisés’.

© European Commission and artist

The ways in which trade and aid tools can help donors with the big development issues of good governance, climate change, migration, security and biodiversity, were poured over by participants at the European Union Development Days conference.

China was viewed by participants as both an opportunity for African exporters and at the same time a competitor in overseas markets. Its pledges to up aid to the continent were both welcomed and questioned in so far as what this might mean for aid attached to respect for human rights. One thing is definite, said Paul Wolfowitz, then World Bank President, “African countries lag behind in economic growth and business. It costs the African entrepreneur three times more to export the same distance”.

The conference’s emphasis on promotion of good governance in African nations was acknowledged by the African Union’s Commissioner for Peace and Security, Saïd Djinnit: “The greatest challenge is the challenge of governance”, adding that his organisation favoured an “African charter for democracy and governance’’ built on, “shared common values.’’

Many conference participants called on donors to consider all components of good governance in providing donor aid. For Botswana’s President, Festus Mogae, this included a “legitimate constitution and rule of law, broad-based participation in the way governed, effective public institutions and gender equity’’. Sierra Leone’s President, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, listed the cornerstones of good governance in his previously conflict-wrenched country: “Peacekeeping and building, reformed security forces, fighting corruption, public sector reform, justice and poverty reduction.’’

Good governance needs infrastructure

Many echoed the view of Mark Malloch Brown, United Nations’ Deputy Secretary General: “Democracy and good governance needs roads, hospitals, prosperity and jobs.’’ Several African leaders called for more direct budget support so funds can quickly reach where they are most needed.

For Liberia’s President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, whose country is emerging as a model for other post-conflict societies, good governance amounted to “the effective management of natural resources of the people, by the people, for the people”.

“Wealth shared leads to the prevention of conflict. For me, continuing to export raw materials is part of bad governance”, Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, told the event’s concluding plenary session, which included 18 African Heads of State. Calling for more overseas investment in Uganda in medium to large industries of between US$20–100 million, Museveni questioned: “How can you have sustainable development for 45 years without transition? Continuing to export raw materials is bad governance.’’ Uganda is ranked fourth biggest coffee producer in the world, selling beans for just one US dollar per kilo to the UK. The commodity fetches US$15 per kilo in the UK for the European processing company doing the grinding and roasting.

For Jean-Michel Séverino, Director General of France’s government cooperation agency, Agence Française de Développement, too many actors were doing the same things, in the same spot, leading to what he called an “aid Disneyland”. Other participants raised questions over the long-term effectiveness of foreign experts parachuting into a country for a short time to carry out projects.
Koos Richelle, Director General of EuropeAid, the body implementing European Commission aid projects, feared there was too much duplication by the international community. “In the social sector alone in Tanzania in 2006, there were 400 donor projects”, indicated Richelle, a key speaker at the conference’s workshop on ‘new paradigms’. He said EuropeAid was “looking into ownership on the demand side and quick delivery”.

Polish Director of Cooperation, Jerzy Pomianowski, drew attention to the importance of making aid more visible. He said his country felt its lack of visibility in international cooperation and had a lot of work to do to “educate our society on development”. Many participants noted the enduring inconsistencies in EU aid and trade policies. Monoculture in Uganda, encouraged by importer countries dependent on supplies of a single commodity, was destroying his country’s biodiversity, said Chebet Maikut, President of Uganda’s National Farmers’ Union.

Sally Nicholson, Brussels Officer with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told participants at a ‘side-event’ of the conference that it was time for the EU to act on all its declarations about preserving biodiversity in developing nations. The ‘Biodiversity in European Development Cooperation Conference’ held in Paris, September 19–21, 2006 mounted by the ‘World Conversation Programme’, drew up a multi-pronged programme to reduce the ecological footprints of the EU in developing nations.

For the Geneva-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), “conflict sensitive’’ trade and aid policies were priorities. IISD Project Manager, Oli Brown, told another ‘side event’ that this involved exporters, “moving away from the export of one or two unpredictable commodities’’, building markets for “non conflict resources”, as well as restricting exports of “conflict resources’’. He also wants businesses operating in “fragile States’’ to be more “conflict sensitive”.

Commissioner Louis Michel agreed that the EU, in its half century history of development cooperation, had been “too paternalistic”. He told journalists that the EDD event had set out to create a real partnership and not impose any new conditionality on African nations. “We are still behaving like schoolmasters”, he added, calling for more political dialogue with African nations and “mutual respect between development partners”.

“The meeting intends to lay a new path with African partners’’, stated Louis Michel at the start of the week’s events. The Brussels meeting generated pointers for new ‘paradigms.’ It signposted priority issues and linkages between them, what is and what isn’t working to make aid more effective and the need for more cooperation between donors to pool resources and avoid duplication. Portugal’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Luis Amado, whose country will stage the next European Development Days in Lisbon scheduled in the second half of 2007, will run with the Brussels baton.

Building governance ‘bottom-up’ in Mauritania

“For the first time in Mauritania, project management is not in the administration’s hands,’’ says Zakaria Ould Amar, associate director of Mauritania’s governance Centre (ADAGE) whose joint research and report with the Brussels development think-tank, the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), has laid the flag stones for a multi-dimensional programme to build civil society ‘bottom up’.

The three-year EU funded €4.5 million ‘Programme d’Appui a la Societe Civile et a la Bonne gouvernance’ (PASOC – Support Programme for Civil Society and Good Governance), got off the ground in February 2007. It puts a legal framework for civil society in place, builds civil society networks and dialogue on national policies, enables civil society to create a culture of citizenship and human rights and allows local governance to gain expertise facilitating donors in managing their projects locally.

In the ‘pre-project’ phase, ECDPM and ADAGE worked side-by-side, October 2004 – June 2005, identifying what needed to be done to support civil society in Mauritania to lead to a “true democratic culture”, explains Jean Bossuyt, ECDPM Project Officer. Identifying the nature of and numbering civil society groupings in Mauritania was the first step.

There was initial reticence: “We have regular general assemblies but we don’t change Presidents”, asserted one member of an association in Hodh, South East, relates Amar. “We are elected by the people. As for the NGOs, they have no legitimacy. In whose name do they speak?” remarked a mayors’ grouping from Adrar in the North of the country. PASOC was also stalled by a coup d’etat in Mauritania, in August 2005.

Two years on, and there’s a better understanding, the project gaining ground by its own momentum. A seminar organised under the project, May 2006, open to all civil society, drew up a ‘who’s who’ of Mauritanian civil society.  Going to press, the awaited legal framework for civil society was to be finalised. An autonomous technical facilitation and implementation unit will decide on eligibility of individual requests for funds from civil society.

A €100,000 ceiling is placed on projects to build human rights and other networks such as for the handicapped. Innovative applications for funding are expected in the budget line capacity building of civil society bodies, such as putting over what ‘citizenship’ means with the use of comic strips. Given the vastness of the country, three out of Mauritania’s 13 communes in the most populated areas are singled out to receive training in local governance for better management of locally based projects funded by donors. To ensure that funds are well spent, spreading the word with brochures and other material about PASOC’s successes and failures is a vital part of the project, explains Amar.