China-Africa Relations – What is Next??

China-Africa Relations – Celebrating 1st FOCAC Anniversary
Leadership (Abuja)

ANALYSIS
23 November 2007
Posted to the web 23 November 2007

By Stanley Nkwocha
Abuja
The impact of trade and bilateral relation between countries and across continents has no doubt impacted positively as countries have benefited immensely from the various relationship that have been established and existed between partner countries.

Developing countries in Africa have no doubt benefited through this scheme as through it, technical, infrastructural, educational, agricultural, economic, health and various strides of development has been recorded.

The Chinese government under the prime ministership of Wen Jiabao has actually been at the fore-front of establishing bilateral trade between it and other countries/continents of the world. Needless to say that the revolution of the Chinese economy, which has made it the 2nd largest economy of the world, has positioned it to be the bride being wooed by many suitors.

On June 21, 2007, China and Africa initiated the Forum of China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), to, in light of the aspiration and needs of African countries, as well as the level of China’s economic development, promote China-Africa practical cooperation towards increasing African countries capability for self-development and achieving common development. A further aim is to deepen the traditional friendship and the advancement of the practical cooperation between China and Africa.

Against this background, at the June 21 summit of FOCAC in Beijing, eight policy measures were adopted. These include sincere friendship and consultation on an equal footing, aimed at cementing sincere friendship through many channels. To realize this, the Chinese government sent out five missions to 15 African countries. So far this year, four ministerial level officials from China’s ministry of commerce have visited nine African countries to follow up on specific projects,just as 16 working groups of the ministry were sent to Africa to study relevant associated projects.

Adopted, also, was the need for careful planning and sharing of benefit. This is said to be in the respect that all countries whether big or small, rich or poor, are equal, just as the Chinese are determined that every country and widest segments of the Africa population stand to gain.

The third policy that is that of feasibility and clear focus. The China -Africa partnership is based on reality and particular condition of the countries involved. It is opined that for these measures to produce desired results in economic and social terms, they should be in line with actual needs and conditions of Africa countries and within the capacity of China.

The doubling of China’s 2006 assistance to Africa by 2009 was also amongst the policy measures reached at the Beijing summit. The assistance will mainly be used for the following:

1. Infrastructure projects and complete sets of projects

2. Provision of hospitals, stadia, schools and other social, cultural and public facilities

3. Capacity building for self-development of African countries

4. Disease prevention and treatment, as up till 2007, China has signed bilateral assistance agreements with 44 African countries.

Furthermore, $3 billion of preferential loans and $2 billion of preferential buyer’s credits to Africa in the next three years was equally provided for in the policy measures adopted.

With no specific requirements on criteria in terms of recipient countries and quotas, companies from China and relevant African countries shall first discuss and agree upon the scale of the project and investment needed and submit the project proposal to the import and export of China for evaluation. The Chinese have signed a framework agreements on preferential loans with five countries and announced the provision of $100m preferential buyer’s credit to Namibia.

Other policies include building a conference centre for the Africa Union (AU) to support African countries, canceling debt in the form of all the interest-free government loans that matured by the end of 2005 owed by the heavily indebted poor countries and increasing from 190 to over 440 the number of export items to China receiving zero-tariff treatment for the least developed countries in Africa having diplomatic ties with China. Others include the establishment of 3 to 5 trade and economic cooperation zones in Africa in the next three years, just as strengthening cooperation in fields of human resources development, agriculture, medical care, social development and education will be enhanced.

One bottleneck which has come to be identified as a major obstacle, hampering the success of bilateral relations is the poor, and in-most cases lack of follow-up actions.

In FOCAC, however, this may not be the case as both China and its counterpart African countries have braced up, putting follow-up work immediately after the Summit.

While China put forward the plan for cooperation in following up the summit and formulated the general plan with detailed schemes on delivering the eight policy measures, based on the principle of mutual benefits, win-win results, friendly consultation, and efficient and practical cooperation, the African side has seen leaders and governments put forward a number of useful suggestions on carrying out the cooperation. A number of countries have set up special-cross developmental committees or coordination mechanisms headed by their leaders. The African Diplomatic Corps in China have held a number of meetings on the implementation work.

Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, has visited seven African countries in 2007, kick-starting the implementation of the outcome of the summit. An in-depth exchange of views with African leaders on the way to advance the new type of strategic partnership between China and Africa, aimed at expanding the practical cooperation and promoting common developments also held. With the leaders reaching new and extensive consensus, more than 70 agreements on bilateral cooperation have been signed, showing the seriousness of the Chinese, aftermath of chairman Jia Qinglin and NPC chairman, Wu Bangguo visits to separate countries of Africa.

According to FOCAC Beijing Action Plan (2007-2009), the two sides will set up a mechanism of regular political dialogue between Chinese and African foreign ministers within the FOCAC framework.The two sides are busy preparing the first regular political consultation of their foreign ministers on the sidelines of this year’s UN general assembly. China and Egypt, the host countries of the next FOCAC ministerial conference, have already agreed on the preliminary proposal for the consultation.

Indeed the China-Africa partnership under FOCAC has indeed proven to be worthy of emulation and a hope-raiser for African countries-highly underdeveloped

How far-reaching these relationships would benefit the two partners as well as the cueing of other countries in this most commendable scheme is what most Africans look forward to.

Africa Ponders Question… “What If There Were No Fish?”

And Then There Were No Fish
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

NEWS
21 November 2007
Posted to the web 22 November 2007
Johannesburg
In the not-too-distant future, several African countries will face the reality of collapsed fisheries and the permanent degradation of their marine environment, a new report has warned.

“This in turn will continue to adversely impact on food-security and economic development, with coastal communities dependent on fishing being the hardest hit,” noted The Crisis of Marine Plunder in Africa, published by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), a regional think-tank.

Poaching and overfishing in a number of African countries could lead to collapsed stocks and cause permanent damage to the marine environment, according to Andre Standing, author of the new ISS study. Some of these are issues also highlighted in the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Global Environment Outlook 4 (GEO-4).

“While the demise of marine biodiversity is not a peculiar problem for underdeveloped countries, there are strong reasons to suspect that once abundant fish stocks and marine biodiversity situated in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of African countries are threatened,” said Standing.

Exploitation of West Africa’s fish resources by European Union (EU), Russian and Asian fleets “increased sixfold” between the 1960s and 1990s, the GEO-4 report noted. “Much of the catch is exported or shipped directly to Europe, and compensation for access is often low compared to the value of the landed fish.”

Standing told IRIN that the problem did not “stem largely from rogue fishing companies who evade laws and break regulations with impunity”, but “vested interests” that allowed this situation to occur, and that these “vested interests span not only foreign governments and inter-governmental organisations, but also African elected leaders and public officials”.

The UNEP report points out that fish is a critical source of animal protein in poor countries; globally it provides more than 2.6 billion people with at least one-fifth of their average per capita animal protein intake. “Fish accounts for 20 percent of animal-derived protein in Low-Income Food Deficit (LIFD) countries, compared to 13 percent in industrialised countries, with many countries where overfishing is a concern also being LIFD countries.”

Standing cited the 2005 British Marine Resources Assessment Group, which “provided a conservative estimate that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Africa could be valued at approximately US$1 billion every year”.

“It was estimated that in Somalia the total annual value of illegal fishing in only the tuna and shrimp industries amounted to $94 million. In Angola illegal fishing was measured in the sardine and mackerel fisheries to be roughly $49 million annually, which equates to 21 percent of the total value of Angolan fish exports. In Mozambique, illegal fishing in the tuna and shrimp industry was set at approximately $38 million.”

These quantities were “comprehensible”, Standing wrote, “when one considers that in South Africa, for example, over a two-year period in the early 2000s some 320,000 tonnes of Patagonian Toothfish were harvested, whilst the annual Total Allowable Catch was set by the government at only 450 tonnes.

“Likewise, in 2001, in one single incursion, long-line fishing vessels from Taiwan illegally entered Tanzania’s EEZ and took approximately $20 million worth of tuna.”

Trade liberalisation

Fisheries access agreements, which allow foreign vessels into local fishing grounds, adversely affect fish stocks, reduce artisanal catches, and affect the food security and well-being of coastal West African communities, according to the GEO-4. Many of these agreements came into effect after the countries were pressured to liberalise trade.

Much of the catch is exported or shipped directly to Europe, and compensation for access is often low compared to the value of the landed fish

In Mauritania the fisheries sector is predominantly influenced by the terms of the Cotonou Agreement, which binds the 79-member African,Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group to the EU. “Cotonou provides for all ACP exports a customs-free entry to the European market. This has led to an export-oriented development of the fisheries sector,” said Anja von Moltke, of UNEP’s Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, in a study on Mauritania.

“Mauritania’s trade liberalisation measures are primarily characterised by a dismantling of customs duty on imports and exports, state redrawing of both public fisheries processing facilities, and numerous bilateral fisheries agreements with Algeria, Japan, Morocco, Russia, Senegal, Tunisia and the EU.”

The increased export revenue brought by trade liberalisation has helped reduced the national debt, but it has had a negative impact on food consumption and poverty reduction, “resulting in a situation of high dependence of the fisheries sector on these foreign financial payments,” von Moltke said.

Studies have also shown the environmental costs: a large number of Mauritania’s main fish stocks have decreased significantly over the past years, with many already being overexploited or close to overexploitation, the author commented. “The octopus stock, for example, is currently being overexploited by 24 to 40 percent.”

Job losses

Economically, the biggest repercussions in developing countries have been lost job opportunities and hard currency revenues, said the GEO-4 report. “After processing in Europe, the end value of seafood products from these resources is estimated at about $110.5 million, illustrating a huge disparity in value of the resources taken by EU companies and the licence fee paid to the countries, which is only 7.5 percent of the value of the processed products.”

The case study on Mauritania found that it processed only 12 percent of its catch. “This has several far-reaching impacts. First, it leads to a real disconnection between the production system under access agreements and the Mauritanian system. Second, there is no investment in Mauritania’s processing facilities, remaining uncompetitive.

Increased exports have lead to a lack of fish in local markets, particularly high-value fish, which has affected prices and led to the substitution of fish for poultry, which was now cheaper than fish. Von Moltke also found that traditional fish species were being replaced by new types of lower value species.

The GEO-4 report pointed out that overexploitation of fish was having a long-term impact on livelihoods and had forced artisanal fishers from coastal West Africa to migrate to some of the regions exploiting their resources. “Senegalese fishers emigrating to Spain claim the reason for leaving their homes is the lack of their traditional fisheries livelihood.”

Action needed

Standing said, “Although the solution to overfishing requires action on an international level, it does seem clear that African countries can do much more to improve the situation; it is not simply the case that African states lack the capacity to do more to protect their marine resources, although this is a major problem.

“What seems important to understand is that overfishing and some forms of illegal fishing flourish due to corruption and expediency by those in public office or government,” he claimed.

Mauritania processes only 12 percent of its catch

Von Moltke said there was a need for more transparency during negotiations for access to fisheries, which should be reflected in the design of the agreements.

“In this context it is important to recognise that government-to-government access agreements, although under scrutiny for their social and ecological impacts, could provide channels for developed countries to contribute to effective fisheries management (including support for effective monitoring, control and surveillance systems) and to sustainable development of host countries more easily than government-to-private access deals.”

The GEO-4 report said further action would be needed to induce governments to increase their political commitment to reduce fishing efforts globally, and to provide funds for regional fish-management bodies.

Lesson from extractive industry

Analysts have suggested emulating the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) by a coalition of governments, companies, civil society groups, investors and international organisations, which aims to strengthen governance in the extractive sector by improving accountability.

The ISS was trying to involve civil society in achieving this, said Standing. “Efforts by civil society to improve transparency in the extractive industries and logging industries should be a source of inspiration here. In particular, the Publish What You Pay Campaign has helped put pressure on governments and companies to address corruption.”

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]