The EU has resorted to threats of loss of market access, development aid and other “benefits” in a bid to end the reluctance on the part of African governments and regions to sign the interim agreements which they had been compelled to initial at the end of 2007. The EU is also applying similar methods to break the current deadlock over the negotiations of ‘comprehensive EPAs’ in its favour.
Some regions and governments have resisted such pressures and remained committed to their negotiation positions. However, the EU’s offensive has so far led to gradual and steady shifts in the overall positions of African regions. Thus, the East African Community recently came close to signing its interim agreement and West African negotiators are poised to give up on some of the critical positions in the negotiations. In Central Africa, the departure from negotiation positions ordered by political authorities has led to a stalemate in the process.
In relation to the WTO, the Doha negotiations continue to stagnate with no sign of imminent move “forward’. However, the demands for an early conclusion of the round that many African delegates at the 2009 WTO Ministerial Conference give cause for concern. Even where they were nuanced, the fact that, among other things, these demands were made as a response to the on-going global economic crisis shows continued hold of the neo-liberal free trade dogma and agenda among African leaders and the vulnerability to manipulations and pressures of Northern forces in the negotiations.
Added to the above are the continuing implications and challenges of the global financial and economic crises. In spite of numerous official proclamations, these crises that began two years ago have not ended. On the contrary, the Greek debt debacle and its financial impacts on the Euro zone economies point to further ‘‘hidden” ramifications of the global crises that are yet to play out. This comes on top of the effects of the devastations already caused by the crises and to which Africa’s economies have been particularly vulnerable. In the light of these, the official posture of most African governments and inter-governmental institutions continue to be woefully inadequate.
Above all there is the challenge of climate change. The challenge of an appropriately effective response to climate change is bound up with options for the equitable development, particularly of African and other developing countries. Some of the challenges that African countries are engaged in international trade and finance are implicated in this.
However, the (non) outcomes of the Copenhagen and developments since then have demonstrated the determination of the global North to dismantle the principles of equitable development at the heart of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its provisions for responding to climate change.
This is a repeat of the imbalance of power and its abuse in international processes to which African countries have been subject in the WTO, the EPAs and other instances of multilateral decision-making. In this instance as in the others, African leaders have been (unwitting) contributors to their own marginalisation.
If the principles of the UNFCCC are to be upheld to the benefit of African and other developing countries, then African governments need, at the highest level, to consolidate their common positions and alliances with other developing countries.
An increased role of ATN and other campaigning networks in alliance with climate justice networks such as PACJA can be positive in this regard. This is in the run-up to the meetings of the UNFCCC in Cancun, Mexico, in December this year, as well as in December 2011 in South Africa.
OBJECTIVES
In response to challenges outlines above, the ATN meeting for 2010 will seek to:
(a) Policy
provide analyses and assessment of current conjuncture and the strategic challenges related to:
(i) the multilateral trading regimes
-- within the framework of the WTO,
---in the context of emerging EPAs and other free trade agreements
ii) issues in the continuing evolution of the global financial and economic crises and the responses from Africa
(iii) issues of the climate change negotiations from Copenhagen and in the run-up to Cancun
(b) Political:
(i) identify ways, to build on strategic inter-governmental alliances in Africa in relation to the EPA campaign, and to contribute to strengthening the emerging inter-governmental alliances among developing countries of the South, in relation the global crisis and climate change,
(ii) identify ways to develop and/or strengthen alliances among African civil society organisations working on trade and development issues, and counterparts for the south as well as the north;
(c) Organisational: Develop strategies and mechanism to broaden ATN’s interaction with other networks and alliance on emerging issues and improve the overall interaction of the ATN
(d) Advocacy:
(i) Develop a platform for advocacy on the above issues in the coming period;
(ii) Develop a plan of action for joint activities etc.
Contacts:
Jacob Kotcho of ACDIC on
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and Patience Kanyi of TWN-Africa on
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