Another damper in US aid for Africa
The ministers, who also had expressed hope of hearing new offers of expanded trade preferences beyond those provided under last year's Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), had to content themselves with a new, US$200 million government 'facility' to promote and insure US investment in Africa, a boon that will chiefly benefit US corporations.
"This really was a disappointment," one minister from southern Africa told IPS after last week's meeting, the first US-sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Co-operation Forum, a new mechanism established under AGOA.
"We thought there'd be more meat on the bones," the minister, who asked not to be identified, added, noting that Bush's failure to promise more than the US$200 million he committed earlier this year to a UN fund to fight HIV-Aids was a particular disappointment.
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has asked for commitments of up to US$10 billion in order to stop the spread of the Aids epidemic, which is killing an average of more than 6,500 Africans a day, or about 1,000 more people than were killed in the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for US commitments of up to US$1 billion over the next two years.
Another lost opportunity
But Bush, in his only remarks on Aids to the Forum, announced instead that Washington will contribute more money to the global Aids fund only "once (it) demonstrates success",' a benchmark which could take well into next year, according to experts.
"The Africans should have turned around and told Bush that 'we're prepared to support your global coalition against terrorism once you can show that it's really working'," noted Salih Booker, director of the advocacy group Africa Action.
"They're too polite to say that," said Booker, who called the forum's proceedings "another lost opportunity to show Africans that the US really cares about their problems".
Last Monday's all-day conference, which spilled over into Tuesday for a morning session with US Agency for International Development administrator Andrew Natsios was originally scheduled for last month.
Most of the ministers left last Tuesday for Philadelphia, where they were scheduled to hold another two-day conference sponsored by the Corporate Council on Africa.
The visiting ministers heard from an all-star administration cast including Secretary of State Colin Powell, trade representative Robert Zoellick, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
Go forward together
The message from the rostrum varied little. Bush called on African governments to ratify the 1999 Algiers Convention Against Terrorism and celebrated increases in trade between the United States and Africa since AGOA's passage.
Powell's message was much the same. "It is growth, growth, growth that is the engine we must all hook up to if we are going to go forward together," he said, adding that growth was made possible by increased trade and investment.
The forum was designed mainly to highlight AGOA's benefits, reinforce the importance of further economic liberalisation in Africa, and persuade African trade ministers to support the launch of a new round of global negotiations at this month's World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar.
Some US officials had hoped the Africans would sign on to a joint statement at the Forum calling for the new trade round at Doha but this initiative was dropped amid signs that the visitors would not go along.
In recent meetings, African leaders have stressed they want a greater say in WTO decision-making, which now appears far more responsive to priorities set by wealthy countries, according to Severina Rivera, a trade expert at Oxfam International.
Credible assessment
They also want a "credible assessment of the impact of existing trade rules on their economies" to ensure that they are really benefiting from free trade and investment "before committing themselves to a new round of liberalisation," she said.
AGOA, which Congress passed last year after a three-year battle, provides for duty-free treatment for thousands of goods made in Africa in order to boost US investment in the region. To be eligible for such treatment, however, countries must liberalise their economies, adhere to World Bank and International Monetary Fund adjustment programmes, and grant US investors the same rights as their domestic counterparts, among other conditions.
So far, fewer than a dozen nations have been fully certified and are exporting under AGOA's most favourable terms, although a total of 35 have been deemed eligible to take advantage of the Act.
While trade with a handful of non-oil-producing African nations has jumped since AGOA took effect, the Act has come under strong criticism from independent groups as well as some governments.
Development groups in Washington have attacked AGOA as inadequate for Africa's needs. A statement released last week by Africa Action, Oxfam International, and Action Aid called specifically for the cancellation of the more than US$300 billion in Africa's external debt; support for Africa's positions at the WTO; a major expansion of exports eligible for duty-free treatment under AGOA; a lifting of the economic conditions for eligibility; and a sharp increase in US development aid.
Under current administration proposals, bilateral aid to Africa will shrink by about US$5 million next year, from about US$795 million this year.
