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Africa

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:51 pm

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AfricaFocus: Congo (Kinshasa): Inga Dam Mirage Recedes, Again
by worker
Congo (Kinshasa): Inga Dam Mirage Recedes, Again
AfricaFocus Bulletin July 17, 2017 (170717) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note
The latest projections for the Inga 3 hydroelectric project on the Congo River to become operational, cited in press reports last week, are 2024 or 2025. But even if the project is financed and constructed, says a new report, the project will likely provide only minimal electric power for the people of Democratic Republic of the Congo and burden the country with more unsustainable debt.

According to the report, "The project will sell most of its electricity to South Africa and to mines in eastern DRC. The report finds that losses along what would be the world's longest transmission line to South Africa could leave very little power available to the mines, and the Congolese people would receive little benefit in increased electricity. Under the most likely scenario, 88% of the power would be sold to South Africa, leaving just 90 MW for Kinshasa, rather than the 1000 MW claimed. Under the worst-case scenario, no power at all would be available for sale to consumers in Kinshasa."

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a press release and the executive summary of the report from International Rivers, by economist Tim Jones. The full report is available on the International Rivers website, http://www.internationalrivers.org (direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y8o4olgu)

For a summary background story on criticisms of the project, see Adam Wernick, "Congo pushes for a mega-dam project, with no environmental impact studies," PRI, July 3, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y76o55qm

For an update on the latest developments in plans for Inga 3, see Christophe Le Bec, "RDC: pour sauver le barrage hydroélectrique Inga III, l’union fait la force, Jeune Afrique, 12 July 2017 http://tinyurl.com/yc7gmbo3

For an article providing extensive background on the history of plans to dam the Congo River for hydroelectric power, see Charles Kenny and John Norris, "The River that Swallows All Dams," Foreign Policy, May 8, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/laadz7v

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Congo (Kinshasa), visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/congokin.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++

Inga 3 Dam Risks Plunging DRC Deeper Into Debt
New report finds that DRC likely to suffer financial losses, continuing energy poverty if hydropower project advances

International Rivers, June 27, 2017

http://www.internationalrivers.org - direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y9g9kssh

Today, International Rivers is releasing the first in-depth economic study of the proposed Inga 3 hydropower project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Authored by noted British economist Tim Jones, "In Debt and In The Dark" exposes glaring flaws in the assumptions about the dam's likely performance. The report finds that Inga 3 will likely plunge DRC deeper into debt, exporting needed power and delivering little, if any, to Congolese citizens while allowing international investors to reap the benefits.

The power from Inga 1 dam, which began operations in 1972, is far from sufficient even for the capital Kinshasa. Credit: Alaindg

"Claims about the benefits of Inga 3 are wildly overstated," says Jones. "In fact, the dam would be a huge financial burden for the government and the Congolese people and provide little if any electricity."

From the outset, Inga 3 has been plagued by dangerously optimistic assumptions about the dam's performance, including power output well above the world's most efficient plants, zero cost overruns, and unrealistically low transmission losses.

Using empirical evidence from the performance of similar hydropower projects in Africa and globally, Jones tested proponents' claims regarding Inga 3's socioeconomic benefits. He then forecasted the dam's potential performance across a range of scenarios.

His findings highlight the serious financial risks associated with the Inga 3 hydropower project, and should be deeply concerning to the DRC government, potential investors, and the Congolese people.

"The DRC is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, but suffers from massive energy poverty," says Freddy Kasongo of Observatoire d'Etudes et d'Appui à la Responsabilité Sociale et Environnementale (OEARSE).

Emmanuel Musuyu of Coalition des Organisations de la Société Civile pour le Suivi des Réformes et de l'Action Publique (CORAP), adds, "Unfortunately, this study shows that the Inga 3 Dam will further impoverish the DRC without delivering the energy that we need."

The analysis shows that in the most likely scenarios, the DRC government will lose money on Inga 3. Even with fairly conservative estimates of cost overruns and generous assumptions of power generated, electricity prices, and low interest rates, DRC would stand to lose $618 million per year on the project, or nearly $22 billion over the project's 35-year lifespan.

These financial losses could run as high as $1.5 billion to $2 billion per year under unfavorable conditions – up to $70 billion over the project's lifespan – ballooning DRC's debt levels and harming its long-term economic health.

"Not only will Inga 3 bring in no revenue, it will likely increase DRC's debt burden," says Rudo Sanyanga, International Rivers' Africa Program Director. "And it won't bring much-needed electricity access to the Congolese people. This would be a disastrous investment for the DRC."

The project will sell most of its electricity to South Africa and to mines in eastern DRC. The report finds that losses along what would be the world's longest transmission line to South Africa could leave very little power available to the mines, and the Congolese people would receive little benefit in increased electricity. Under the most likely scenario, 88% of the power would be sold to South Africa, leaving just 90 MW for Kinshasa, rather than the 1000 MW claimed. Under the worst-case scenario, no power at all would be available for sale to consumers in Kinshasa.

International Rivers' study shows that the DRC could achieve greater energy access for its population if it used the funds intended for Inga 3 on micro-hydropower and solar energy. Such investment would support the DRC to generate enough electricity to increase access by an estimated 2.7 million people throughout the country.

Kate Horner, Executive Director of International Rivers, says, "If the DRC wants to become a true economic leader that sets a model for energy access in Africa, it should press the pause button on the Inga 3 Dam and instead explore energy solutions that can make a lasting difference for the Congolese people."

[International Rivers is a global NGO with offices on four continents. It protects rivers and defends the rights of communities that depend on them.

Media contacts:

Rudo Sanyanga, Africa Program Director, International Rivers | rudo@internationalrivers.org | +27 76 842 3874

Josh Klemm, Policy Director, International Rivers | jklemm@internationalrivers.org | +1 202 492 8904

Emmanuel Musuyu, Technical Secretary, CORAP | emmamus42@gmail.com | +243 81 169 7699]

In Debt and In the Dark: Unpacking the Economics of DRC's Proposed Inga 3 Dam
by Tim Jones

International Rivers, June 2017

http://www.internationalrivers.org - direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y8o4olgu

Executive Summary
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) needs reliable energy to power economic development and increase its prestige and standing in Africa. Although it's one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, the DRC suffers from massive energy poverty. In 2012, only 16% of Congolese had access to electricity, and outside of big cities, this number drops to less than 6% – less than one of every 15 people. This energy deficit stunts economic development, as evidenced by the DRC having the lowest GDP per capita of any country in the world in 2013.

In its bid to address these urgent needs for electricity and economic development, the DRC government has pinned its hopes while other countries and international on the Congo River's Inga 3 Dam, the first in a planned series of hydropower projects known collectively as Grand Inga.

In its bid to address these urgent needs for electricity and economic development, the DRC government has pinned its hopes on the Congo River's Inga 3 Dam, the first in a planned series of hydropower projects known collectively as Grand Inga. Proponents of Grand Inga say that the project would harness the mighty Congo River and act as a battery for the continent, exporting power to all corners of the continent and even as far away as Europe.

This report analyzes the Inga 3 project to under-stand whether the dam will accomplish its goals of energy production and economic gain to benefit the DRC. Our analysis finds that Inga 3, in most scenarios, will sink the DRC deeper into debt while other countries (notably South Africa) and international investors reap the benefits.

The DRC should hit the brakes on Inga 3 and repurpose its investment share into alternative ways of powering mines in Katanga and bringing electricity and development to the Congolese people. DRC can power its future – and become a model for energy development on the African continent – by making visionary investments in small hydro, micro-hydro and solar energy.

Inga 3 Background
Inga 3 has a stated capacity of 4,800 MW, and its power is primarily intended for export to South Africa and mining companies in eastern DRC. Any remaining power would be sold to consumers in the capital, Kinshasa. The proposed dam and hydropower project is planned as a public-private partnership involving investment by both the DRC government and a consortium of private international companies.

Proponents of the project argue that Inga 3 will help reduce poverty and boost shared prosperity in the DRC by:

generating revenues for the DRC government, which could be allocated to poverty reduction pro-grams;
providing electricity to more people in DRC; and
creating jobs in a country with a chronically high unemployment rate.
Methodology
To examine these claims, we analyzed the project proponents' claims based on Inga 3's likely technical and financial performance. We used empirical evidence from the performance of similar hydropower projects in Africa and globally to test the claims regarding Inga 3's socio-economic benefits.

Our analysis lays out five possible scenarios for the socioeconomic performance of the Inga 3 project: best, good, median, worse, and worst-case scenarios. The bestcase scenario is based on the highly optimistic and favor-able conditions assumed by the project's proponents; our analysis discusses the factors that make these assumptions unrealistic. The worst-case scenario, on the other hand, assesses the project under highly unfavorable conditions. While equally unlikely as the best-case scenario, this scenario demonstrates the enormous risks that Inga 3 creates for the DRC government. The median-case scenario presents our assessment of the most likely outcomes, using the most realistic assumptions of project performance.

Revenue Generation
Proponents claim that Inga 3 will lead to a significant increase in revenue for the government, which can then be invested in underfunded sectors such as health and education. We conducted a financial analysis to determine the likely revenue levels for the DRC government, under the five scenarios, based on construction and operating costs, price and amount of power sold, technical losses, and borrowing costs. Our analysis shows that Inga 3 could generate modest revenues under highly favorable conditions in the best and good-case scenarios. However, under the worst, worse, and most realistic median-case scenarios, Inga 3 would not even cover the DRC government's debt payments for the project, let alone constitute a windfall that could fund development priorities. It would instead become a significant drain on the country's finances. Figure 1 illustrates the financial benefits and costs associated with each of the five scenarios.

According to this analysis, under the best-case scenario, Inga 3 would generate $749 million per year for the DRC government. This scenario is, however, based on highly unlikely and optimistic assumptions, including zero cost overruns, a capacity factor well above the world's most efficient hydropower plants, high prices for the electricity generated, very low transmission losses, and low rates of interest on financing that do not in-crease for 35 years. Furthermore, even if these assumptions were met, it is likely that a portion of the $749 million would accrue to the private investors as profit, rather than to the government.

In the good-case scenario, Inga 3 offers a marginal return of just $78 million per year for the DRC government. This scenario is based on slightly less optimistic assumptions compared to the best-case scenario. Thus, even if all assumptions in the good-case scenario are met, the DRC government would still receive only a modest financial return.

In the median, worse and worst-case scenarios, the DRC government will lose money on Inga 3. The median case – with fairly conservative estimates of cost overruns and generous assumptions of electricity tariffs, capacity factor, transmission losses, and interest rates – would result in a loss of $618 million per year. These financial losses could be as high as $1.5 billion per year in the worse scenario and over $2 billion per year in the worst-case scenario, demonstrating the extreme risk that Inga 3 poses to the country's fragile financial position.

Increase in Access to Electricity
Project proponents claim that Inga 3 will increase access to electricity in the country. Our analysis, however, shows that increased electricity access, if any, would be quite limited. The project will sell most of its electricity to South Africa and to mines in the Katanga region. In the median-case scenario, only 3% of electricity from Inga 3 would be available to non-mining businesses and residents of Kinshasa. In this median scenario, Inga 3 would provide electricity for only 340,000 additional people in Kinshasa, without any impact on electrification rates in other cities and rural areas, where the need is greatest. Under the worst-case scenario, no power at all would be available for sale to consumers in Kinshasa.

After observing the limited potential energy access benefits of Inga 3, we examined alternative ways to in-crease energy access in the DRC and compared them with Inga 3. DRC could achieve more energy access for its population if it used the funds intended for Inga 3 on other energy sources. The cost of the Inga project is currently estimated at $14 billion, with the DRC government expected to contribute $3 billion obtained via concessional loans. Private partners would provide the balance of $11 billion. Our analysis showed that if the DRC government spent that $3 billion on other sources of energy, including micro-hydropower and solar energy, it could generate enough electricity to increase access by 2.7 million people and to increase average electricity consumption by 48 percent.

Our analysis also shows that consumers would pay much less for electricity from micro-hydro than for electricity from Inga 3. Electricity from micro-hydro would cost between US 1.8 cents and 3.1 cents per kWh, well below the 7–8 cents per kWh projected as the cost of electricity for domestic users in Kinshasa from Inga 3. Furthermore, developers could build micro-hydro at many sites across the country, thereby achieving a far higher geographical distribution of electricity than Inga 3 and reaching more people in rural communities.

Our analysis demonstrates that investing in solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity, while not as attractive as micro-hydro, would still outperform an investment in Inga 3. The DRC would still bear significant financial risk if it used the concessional funds solely for solar PV, though less so than Inga 3. It would also achieve a high geographical distribution of power across the country and provide electricity to more people across more diverse areas. Globally, the rapid scaling up of solar PV technology has seen prices fall rapidly. Consequently, the return on investment in PV power is likely to enjoy progressive increases with time. Our analysis showed that an extra 960 million kWh to 3 billion kWh of PV power would enable between 400,000 and 1.5 million more people to gain access to electricity, and electricity consumption would increase by between 6% and 21% for those with access. Similar to micro-hydro, investing in solar would outperform an investment in Inga 3.

Our report therefore demonstrates that the DRC is more likely to meet its objectives of energy production and economic gain if it redirects funds intended for Inga 3 to micro-hydro and PV power.

Job Creation
Project proponents claim that Inga 3 would create jobs. Our analysis shows that Inga 3 is not likely to create significant numbers of jobs, and would actually destroy more livelihoods than it creates. The national electricity company, Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL), estimates that the construction phase would create 3,000 jobs on average, with a peak of 7,000 additional jobs. After construction is finished, the number of direct jobs would likely fall to a few hundred. In economic terms, our analysis shows that it would cost $1 million in concessional loans to create just one temporary job during the construction phase, and $6 million in concessional loans to create one permanent job during dam operation.

In contrast, an estimated over 10,000 people would be displaced and therefore stand to lose their livelihoods from loss of land or fishing resources because of the dam. This figure significantly outweighs the number of people who would gain livelihoods from the few hundred jobs generated.

Impact on DRC's Debt
Inga 3 will require large external borrowing by the DRC government. The most recent figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank say the DRC government's external debt is $6.5 billion, which is 16% of GDP for 2016. Under the best-case scenario, Inga 3 will lead to $3 billion of new debt for the government, rising to $6 billion in the worst case. The new debt will increase government external debt from $6.5 billion (16% of GDP) to between $9.5 billion and $12.5 billion (24% to 31% of GDP), and could change the IMF and World Bank's assessment of DRC from being at moderate risk of debt distress to high risk of debt distress. Such an assessment would further reduce the number of lower-interest loans available to DRC from various public bodies, ex-tending the DRC's cycle of poverty and indebtedness to foreign lenders.

Key Findings
Construction of Inga 3 is likely to cause a financial loss for the DRC government and become a drain on the country's limited financial resources, rather than a source of new revenues.
In the most likely scenarios, Inga 3 would generate little electricity for domestic users in the DRC. In the worst-case scenario, domestic consumers would receive no additional power at all.
Inga 3 would lead to a large increase in external government debt, risking a downgrade in the risk assessment of DRC's debt distress and harming DRC's long-term economic health.
If DRC invested its limited concessional loans in other energy options, that electricity would reach far more users at lower cost and in more diverse places, and create greater economic gain.
Inga 3 risks destroying more livelihoods than jobs that it would support.
In conclusion, our analysis shows that if the DRC wants to achieve its stated goals of increased energy access and economic development, and become a true economic leader that sets a model for energy access in Africa, the DRC should press the pause button on the Inga 3 Dam and instead explore micro-hydro and solar power.

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AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:02 pm

Africa/Global: Recent Books Read & Recommended
AfricaFocus Bulletin October 30, 2017 (171030) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note
As with other publications largely focused on current events, AfricaFocus Bulletin is confronted with an exponentially increasing bombardment of daily news. My approach as the editor is to select a particular topic of interest, sometimes highlighted in the news and sometimes not, and try to put it into context for readers with excerpts from the most relevant sources. But I also find it essential to try to step back and refresh my understanding of the wider context. For that, I find I must turn to books.

The list below, which I decided to share with readers, is all non-fiction, but it is not restricted to books explicitly on "Africa." As readers are aware, AfricaFocus Bulletin centers Africa, but with the understanding that Africa is an integral part of and fundamentally affected by the wider global context, including developments in rich countries that still dominate the global order and disproportionately reap the rewards of a deeply tilted global political economy. In this critical time for the United States, my reading has also strongly concentrated on books providing context for understanding the situation in this country, where racial, class, and other divisions both parallel and help to mold global inequalities.

So, for your browsing and possible future reading, the lists below include books I have recently read and recommend to others who are interested in the topics ("recent" means in the last two years), as well as books I have noted that I would like to read. There are three categories: "Africa Past and Present," "Current Global Issues," and "USA Past and Present." The comments are very brief, my own in the case of books I have read and taken from publishers' descriptions in other cases.

I have also included links to Amazon listings, which often give access to a preview of the text and to Kindle editions, although I also encourage you to purchase from your own independent book store or from the publisher directly or suggest to your library to order, when those options are feasible.

The last AfricaFocus Bulletin including a substantial list of recommended books was in April, 2017: "African Feminism Past and Present" (http://www.africafocus.org/docs17/wom1704.php).

This AfricaFocus Bulletin is somewhat of an experiment, and I don't know how frequently I will post such book lists, either as part of a topical Bulletin or as a separate Bulletin like this one. I do know I definitely won't be able to read all the books I would like to read! But if you find this of interest, and have additional titles to suggest to me for future inclusion, be sure to send me your feedback and recommendations by email at africafocus@igc.org

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++


Africa Past and Present
Recently Read and Recommended

Gilbert Achcar, Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising. 2016 Gilbert Achcar, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising. 2013. Howard W. French, China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building A New Empire in Africa. 2014. Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War. 2015.
The first three of these books, on topics often in the news, provide in-depth insights that go far beyond conventional reporting. Achcar's two books provide an analysis and overview, focusing first on the Arab Uprising and then on subsequent events highlighting the resilience of the old regimes. French provides a first-hand report based on extensive interviews, featuring not the most often discussed geopolitical role of China, but the diverse faces of Chinese migrants around the continent. Angola, rarely covered by Western media, is well served for both specialist and general readers by Soares de Oliveira, whose book is a well-informed and well-written account of Angola in the 21st century.
Nancy Mitchell, Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War. 2016.
Stephanie J. Urdang, Mapping My Way Home: Activism, Nostalgia, and the Downfall of Apartheid South Africa. 2017.
Both books, Mitchell's an academic study weaving together interviews and archival data and Urdang's a personal and journalistic memoir based on a lifetime of engagement with African liberation, provide new insights even for those who were participants in or closely followed the events they describe. Mitchell's primary focus is the Washington policy scene, where she digs deeply into the debates within the Carter administration on how to respond to Africa, given U.S. political realities. Urdang's memoir ranges from South Africa to New York City to Guinea-Bissau to Mozambique, with reflections both on her personal experience and the complex contradictions of unfinished struggles for liberation.
Hope to Read Sometime

[Unless otherwise attributed, comments are from publishers' descriptions.]

Ibrahim Abdullah and Ismail Rashid, eds., Understanding West Africa's Ebola Epidemic: Towards a Political Economy. 2017.

While championing the heroic efforts of local communities and aid workers in halting the spread of the disease, the contributors also reveal deep structural problems in both the countries and humanitarian agencies involved, which hampered the efforts to contain the epidemic.

Kris Berwouts, Congo's Violent Peace: Conflict and Struggle Since the Great African War. 2017.

"Berwouts is one of the very rare analysts who write what the population in eastern Congo thinks and feels." - Denis Mukwege, women's rights activist and gynecologist in eastern Congo

Mustafa Dhada, The Portuguese Massacre of Wiriyamu in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-2013. 2016.

"The murdered inhabitants of Wiriyamu, casualties of brutal Portuguese refusal to relinquish imperial rule, now have the recognition they deserve. Mustafah Dhada's heroic work of historical reconstruction relocates these lost lives." - Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburg.

Helen Epstein, Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda, and the War on Terror. 2017.

Epstein chronicles how America's naïve dealings with African strongmen and singleminded focus on the War on Terror have themselves becomes sources of terror.

Helon Habila, The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria. 2016.

Nigerian novelist Helon Habila, who grew up in northern Nigeria, returned to Chibok and gained intimate access to the families of the kidnapped to offer a devastating account of this tragedy that stunned the world.

Godfrey Kanyenze et al., eds. Towards Democratic Developmental States in Southern Africa. 2017. Free download.

Kanyenze and his colleagues have assembled a distinguished team of writers to take the temperature of the regional political economy, and chart a path for its future development.

Seth M. Markle, A Motorcycle on Hell Run: Tanzania, Black Power, and the Uncertain Future of Pan-Africanism, 1964-1974. 2017.

A towering achievement in the burgeoning field of Black internationalism." - Komozi Woodard, Sarah Lawrence College.

Sisonke Msimang, Always Another Country. 2017.

In her much anticipated memoir, Sisonke Msimang writes about her exile childhood in Zambia and Kenya, young adulthood and college years in North America, and returning to South Africa in the euphoric 1990s. She reflects candidly on her discontent and disappointment with present-day South Africa but also on her experiences of family, romance, and motherhood.

Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women Fighting Extremism in Africa. 2017.

This debut book by one of America's most acclaimed young journalists illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary.

John S. Saul, On Building A Social Movement: The North American Campaign for Southern African Liberation. 2016.

"Saul challenges us to demystify the national liberation movements many of us worshiped in order to see not only their strengths and weaknesses, but in order to understand the forces that have ground many of them to a halt. What an outstanding piece of writing!" --Bill Fletcher, Jr.,

Nick Turse, Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa. 2015.

"A dogged and intrepid journalist who won't take 'no comment' for an answer, Nick Turse has done a fantastic job of exposing the U.S. military's expansion into Africa and the proliferation of its secret missions on the continent." - Craig Whitlock, Pentagon correspondent, Washington Post

Hendrik Van Vuuren, Apartheid Guns and Money. 2017.

This meticulously researched book lifts the lid on some of the darkest secrets of apartheid's economic crimes, weaving together material collected in over two-dozen archives in eight countries with an insight into tens of thousands of pages of newly declassified documents.

Current Global Issues
Recently Read and Recommended

Bill Browder, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice. 2015.
Justin Gest, The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. 2016.
Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the Present. 2017.
These three books, in quite different ways, highlight the fact that the Trump election was the result not only of factors unique to the United States, but of global developments. Browder's first-person account sheds light on the transition of the Soviet Union into a kleptocratic state, and its links to a global financial system facilitating these trends, as well as to the motives behind Russian intervention in that election. Gest provides a detailed comparison of Youngtown, Ohio and East London, UK, based on both interviews and survey data, highlighting both economic decline and the targeting of resentment against both societal elites and racial outsiders. And Mishra offers an intellectual history of resentment by angry men adopting extremist ideologies across the religious and political spectrum, from 18th century Europe to present-day Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.
Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge, Intersectionality. 2016.
Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. 2017.
These two books challenge and guide readers to think more deeply about current issues. Collins and Bilge provide a succinct and clear exposition of the concept of "intersectionality" as indispensable for analyzing society "not as shaped by any single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each other." Tufekci provides a brilliant account of the complex effects and potential of social media drawing both on personal experience as an activist and keen scholarly insights.
Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. 2016.
Yanis Varoufakis, And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe, Austerity, and the Threat to Global Stability. 2016.
Yes, these books are by economists and include statistics and tables. But they are also well written, address fundamental issues, and are worth extra effort by noneconomist readers. Milanovic is the leading scholar on changes in inequality in the modern world, both "within-nation" and "between-nation." Varoufakis is the former foreign minister of Greece who tried, but failed, to combat the destructive and myth-based austerity policies imposed by Germany and others on his country.
Hope to Read Sometime

[Unless otherwise attributed, comments are from publishers' descriptions.]

Andy Clarno, Neoliberal Apartheid: Palestine/Israel and South Africa after 1994. 2017.

After a decade of research in the Johannesburg and Jerusalem regions, Andy Clarno presents here a detailed ethnographic study of the precariousness of the poor in Alexandra township, the dynamics of colonization and enclosure in Bethlehem, the growth of fortress suburbs and private security in Johannesburg, and the regime of security coordination between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Jeremy Leggett, The Test: Solar light for all: a defining challenge for humanity. 2017. Free download.

The conundrum of expensive and high-carbon kerosene vastly outselling inexpensive and zero-carbon solar is a defining test of humankind's instinct for collective survival, Jeremy Leggett argues. If we cannot quickly replace oil-for-lighting with solar lighting, he asks, given all the blindingly obvious economic and social imperatives for so doing, what chance do we have with all the many other global problems we face?

Sasha Polakow-Suransky, Go Back to Where You Came From: The Backlash Against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy. 2017.

From Europe to the United States, opportunistic politicians have exploited the economic crisis, terrorist attacks, and an unprecedented influx of refugees to bring hateful and reactionary views from the margins of political discourse into the mainstream. In this deeply reported account, Sasha Polakow-Suransky provides a frontrow seat to the anger, desperation, and dissent that are driving some voters into the arms of the far right and stirring others to resist.

Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes. 2017.

Who are our ancestors? Where did they come from? Geneticists have suddenly become historians, and the hard evidence in our DNA has blown the lid off what we thought we knew. Acclaimed science writer Adam Rutherford explains exactly how genomics is completely rewriting the human story—from 100,000 years ago to the present.

USA Past and Present
Recently Read and Recommended

Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. 2016.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. 2016.
Michael Tesler, Post-Racial or Most-Racial?: Race and Politics in the Obama Era. 2016.
These works by three scholars writing for the public as well as other scholars, all written before the Trump election, are complementary. Anderson provides the clearest succinct account I am aware of the history of white backlash to Black advancement, from Reconstruction through Obama. Tesler presents survey data highlighting "modern" (coded) racism as compared to old-fashioned racism through the Obama years. And Taylor highlights the role of "black faces in high places" in the uneven advance of Black liberation from the civil rights movement through the rise of #BlackLivesMatter.
William J. Barber II, The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear. 2016.
Charles E. Cobb, Jr., This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible. 2016.
Superficially, these two books, one on the imperative of a new civil rights movement today and the other on the history of the civil rights movement in the U.S. South, might seem contradictory. But they both have a deeper understanding of U.S. history, looking back to Reconstruction and based on personal experience of engagement on the front lines of struggle, than a simplistic contrast of non-violence and violence. Nonviolent protest and political organizing, whether in the days of Reconstruction, the 20th century, or the 21st century, depend on some force that can defend those engaged in peaceful organizing.
Ari Berman, Give us the ballot : the modern struggle for voting rights in America. 2016.
Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits. 2016.
These two books by journalists, although different in style (Palast is a gonzo journalist in the style of Michael Moore), both provide well-documented accounts on the decades-long and successful Republican campaign to remove voters from the voters' rolls, which continues to be a fundamental and potentially decisive feature of U.S. elections.
Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. 2016.
Jamie Longazel, Undocumented Fears: Immigration and the Politics of Divide and Conquer in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. 2016.
These two books by scholars are well-researched and well-written case studies, making use of both quantitative data and extensive personal interviews. Each explores in depth the views of a constituency that was critical in the 2016 Trump victory, going beyond stereotypes of "the Trump voter." Cramer focuses on small-town Wisconsin. Longazel on his home town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. 2017.
Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. 2016.
These are two fundamental books on the money and the minds behind the rise of the radical right in American politics and culture. Historian MacLean provides an in-depth analysis, based on archival sources, on the wide-ranging influence of "libertarian" economist James McGill Buchanan and the role of the billionaire Koch brothers in boosting his influence both in the academic and public policy arenas. Investigative journalist Mayer includes the Koch family, but also stresses that they are only one of a larger group of right-wing billionaires pushing the view that "liberty" means freedom of wealth from any public responsibilities.
Mark Landler, Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle over American Power. 2016.
Laurence H. Shoup, Wall Street's Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014. 2015.
These two books on the shaping of U.S. foreign policy into the 21st century take two very different approaches. Landler is a careful but conventional account focused on the inside story of the distinctive policies of President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Shoup provides a much deeper and historically rooted analysis of the the molding of foreign policy consensus on fundamental issues, which lies behind and constricts the debates over specific policy decisions. [Personal note: I was the co-author with Shoup of Imperial Brain Trust (1977), the early predecessor to this comprehensive second volume on the role of the Council of Foreign Relations, which takes the story from 1976 to 2014. Unlike Shoup, I have not followed up with our early research on this topic. I applaud the fact that he persevered and highly recommend this book to anyone trying to understand today's foreign policy.]
Hope to Read Sometime

[Unless otherwise attributed, comments are from publishers' descriptions.]

Hillary Rodham Clinton, What Happened. 2017.

"What Happened is not one book, but many. It is a candid and blackly funny account of her mood in the direct aftermath of losing to Donald J. Trump. It is a post-mortem, in which she is both coroner and corpse. It is a feminist manifesto. It is a scoresettling jubilee…. It is worth reading." - The New York Times

Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power. 2017.

"We were eight years in power" was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time.

E.J. Dionne Jr., Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann, One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported. 2017.

"If someone had hibernated through the 2016 election, woke up early this year and logged onto Twitter or turned on cable news and wondered, what the hell happened?, this would be the book to read" - The New York Times Book Review

Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. 2017.

Any study of Trump's rise to the presidency is unavoidably a study of Bannon. Devil's Bargain is a tour-de-force telling of the remarkable confluence of circumstances that decided the election.

Nikhil Pal Singh, Race and America's Long War. 2017.

Singh argues that the United States' pursuit of war since the September 11 terrorist attacks has reanimated a longer history of imperial statecraft that segregated and eliminated enemies both within and overseas.

Charles Sykes, How The Right Lost Its Mind. 2017.

Once at the center of the American conservative movement, bestselling author and radio host Charles Sykes is a fierce opponent of Donald Trump and the right-wing media that enabled his rise.

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:01 pm

Buffalo Soldiers Go To Africa
“The last thing any African in the US wants or needs is the prospect of death in pursuit of a corporate agenda in Africa.”

Image

In black barbershops across the U.S. where old school brothers talk trash about sports and beg young bloods to either comb or shave the tops of their nappy fades, there may be little knowledge of goings-on in Africa. There is however concern and bewilderment in those shops about the death of Sgt. La David T. Johnson in Niger last month.

America’s African community is drenched with its own blood, spilled during military conflicts instigated by an empire that uses soldiers drawn from the ranks of the poor and communities of color as cannon fodder. Like the Buffalo Soldiers who were ordered to kill Indians, Johnson is but the latest to be used and killed for an agenda his people did not set. In 1965 almost 25 percent of those who died in combat in Vietnam were African-descended soldiers. In 2003 blacks accounted for nearly 20 percent of deaths in Iraq. But the poignancy and special tragedy of Johnson’s death is that it occurred in Africa, the young man’s ancestral homeland. Not only is this fact not lost on the brothers in the barbershop, the Pentagon must also have long been concerned about the implications of sending latter-day Buffalo Soldiers to Africa.

“The first person appointed to head AFRICOM was Kip Ward, a black man.”

When U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established nearly a decade ago, the optics of the U.S. expanding its military presence in Africa must certainly have been a primary concern. Consider the evidence. The first person appointed to head AFRICOM was Kip Ward, a black man. Also, there were determined but unsuccessful efforts made to persuade any country to host AFRICOM headquarters in Africa rather than its ultimate location in Germany. Finally, the unstated objective of AFRICOM appears to be avoidance of U.S. casualties by training and directing Africa’s armies to act as proxies that carry out combat missions to ensure that Africa remains stable and conducive to the exploitative operations of major western corporations. For that reason great care has been taken to ensure that AFRICOM is not perceived as paternalistic. Specifically, the military forces of African countries are referred to as “partners” to incorrectly imply an equal relationship between the U.S. and African governments.

The nightmare scenario for AFRICOM is that U.S. soldiers of African descent and the communities from whence they come will not only see through the illusion and become aware of how they are being used as pawns, but they will also sympathize and empathize with some of the people who have been targeted by AFRICOM operations. For example, in the early years of the 21st Century when militant activists in Nigeria fought against environmental catastrophes caused by western oil corporations by sabotaging oil company operations and driving down profits, the creation of AFRICOM followed in short order. Because Africans everywhere can understand real people who struggle against oil companies and other multi-national corporations, AFRICOM obfuscates its true aims and claims that it is fighting only “terrorists.”

“The nightmare scenario for AFRICOM is that U.S. soldiers of African descent sympathize and empathize with some of the people who have been targeted by AFRICOM operations.”

As AFRICOM has increased the presence of U.S. military forces in impoverished and exploited regions of Africa, it has likely made areas that had little to no terrorist activity increasingly attractive territories for terrorist recruitment. Be it al-Qaeda, ISIS or some other group, some experts believe it is much easier when U.S. soldiers are actually lurking nearby for terrorist groups to persuade poor communities that the source of their misery is the U.S. This was the last lesson that Sgt. Johnson and three other U.S. soldiers learned when, according to reports, non-combatant villagers likely set them up for the attack that ended their lives.

While AFRICOM might point to the killings of the four soldiers as another justification for its construction of a major drone base in Niger, others can, with good reason, suggest that fighting terrorists for the sake of fighting terrorists is not the primary purpose of that base. The base is located in Agadez, which is a few hours away from the town of Arlit, where French companies conduct major uranium mining operations. France is the United States’ primary partner in imperialist crime in Africa, and logic suggests the drone base is to protect uranium mining operations and not Africa’s people from terrorists. This means that if Sgt. Johnson’s mission was to build support among the locals for the drone base it is likely that he tragically gave his life for imperialist access to Africa’s uranium.

“The drone base is to protect uranium mining operations and not Africa’s people from terrorists.”

America’s African community has the capacity to resist the U.S. militarization of Africa by simply refusing to participate. Between the years 2000 and 2007 black enlistment in the U.S. military declined by 58 percent. The military’s own studies showed that the unpopularity of the Iraq war was the primary reason for this development. One young would-be recruit referenced the Hurricane Katrina disaster and said: “Why should we go over there and help [Iraqis] when the [U.S. government] can’t help us over here?” He added that the war is unnecessary. “It’s not our war. We got our own war here, just staying alive.”

The war to stay alive in America has not abated, and the last thing any African in the U.S. wants or needs is the prospect of death in pursuit of a corporate agenda in Africa. Building greater awareness of AFRICOM’s reality will ultimately cause young Africans born and living in the U.S. to decline invitations to follow the tragic path walked by Sgt. La David T. Johnson.

https://blackagendareport.com/buffalo-s ... -go-africa
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Thu Dec 21, 2017 3:31 pm

The More Things Change, the More they Stay the Same
by worker
The More Things Change, the More they Stay the Same
- from Greg Godels is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

Saturday, December 16, 2017
The More Things Change, the More they Stay the Same
Some fifty years ago, ruling elites throughout the capitalist world settled into their overstuffed chairs and poured drinks to celebrate victory over the aspirations for independence held dear by formerly colonial peoples. In one case-- Ghana-- a popular leader, a venerated leader of African independence and African unity-- was deposed in a 1966 coup sponsored by foreign powers and carried out by national traitors. In the other case-- Guyana-- the most popular political party for decades, the most determined advocate for independence, was subverted and defeated in the rigged elections prior to the 1966 granting of formal independence.
Both Ghana and Guyana were long subjected to colonial rule, Ghana as part of Britain’s African colonial possessions and Guyana as part of the British empire’s Caribbean colonies. As pressures for independence mounted after the Second World War, both countries spawned dedicated and diligent leaders who had earned the trust of the people. Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party (CPP) and Cheddi Jagan and his People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had led their respective country’s fight for independence from the beginning, suffering imprisonment, threats, and trials.
Nkrumah and Jagan shared another characteristic as well, a characteristic that made them the pressing target of imperialism: a vision of social development outside of the confinement of capitalism. They knew that centuries of capitalist exploitation proved that escaping colonial domination would require a parallel break with capitalism and its institutions. In fact, Nkrumah wrote a pioneering work on the inevitable economic subjugation of newly liberated peoples who chose to continue on the capitalist road, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Kwame Nkrumah’s work was both brilliant in its application of Marxism and prescient in anticipating the lingering dependency of the former colonies that choose to remain tangled in the capitalist web.
Dark Days in Ghana
In his 1968 book (Dark Days in Ghana) recounting the circumstances of the coup, Nkrumah noted that many forces were arrayed against his programs from the day of formal independence in 1957. Nonetheless, he and his party were able to implement initiatives to rapidly bring social, cultural, and educational achievements to a high level. By 1961, technical and secondary school enrollment had increased 437.8% and university students 478.8% from pre-independence. In the same period, hospital beds had increased 159.9% and doctors and dentists by 220.5%. Roads increased around 50%, telephones 245.2%, and electrical power generated 38.4%. Ghana had achieved the highest per capita standard of living and highest literacy rate in Africa. And Ghana’s Seven Year Plan was to create a dramatic increase in industry, building upon the increased electrification flowing from the country’s massive Volta dam project.
But Ghana could only move forward if it escaped the raw material trap that nearly all former colonies suffered as the legacy of colonialism and dependency. For Cuba, it was sugar cane, for Chile it was copper, for Guyana, it was bauxite, and for Ghana it was cocoa. Today, of course in Venezuela it is oil. In every case, the colony existed in the past only as a supplier of inexpensive raw materials for the industries of the European colonizers.
In the late 1950s the international price of cocoa rose inordinately. Nkrumah’s party shrewdly taxed the growers to utilize the surplus for social advancement, stabilizing the cost of food and other consumer goods, and supporting the diversification of the Ghanaian economy. But by 1965 the price had collapsed, thus fueling the popular discontent sparked by the enemies of socialism. Raw material prices in the international market became a weapon against socialist development. The parallel with modern day Venezuela, the collapse of oil prices, and the escalation of opposition on all fronts cannot be missed. The economic hardships in Ghana were skillfully transformed into violence. In Nkrumah’s words:
An all-out offensive is being waged against the progressive, independent states. Where the more subtle methods of economic pressure and political subversion have failed to achieve the desired result, there has been a resort to violence in order to promote a change of regime and prepare the way for the establishment of a puppet government.
In addition to manipulating the price of cocoa exports (and Ghana’s import prices of finished goods necessary for industrialization), “..imperialism withheld investment and credit guarantees from potential investors, put pressure on existing providers of credit to the Ghanaian economy, and negated applications for loans made by Ghana to American-dominated financial institutions such as the I.M.F.”
By way of self-criticism, Nkrumah reflects:
We expected opposition to our development plans from the relics of the old “opposition”, from the Anglophile intellectuals and professional elite, and of course from neo-colonists… What we did not perhaps anticipate sufficiently was the backsliding of some of our own party members… who for reasons of personal ambition, and because they only paid lip-service to socialism, sought to destroy the Party.
Corruption proved to be a major problem in Ghana, as it does in every former colony, every emerging nation. The lack of robust democratic institutions-- denied by colonial and neo-colonial domination-- inevitably produces a corrosive contempt for the common good. Nor do the colonial masters leave proper mechanisms for reining in corruption after they reluctantly accepted independence. Countries like Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina that choose the path of national independence are plagued by this conundrum.
Of course, it is the security services of the imperialist countries that plant the seeds of reaction, nourish the seeds, and organize the harvest. In Ghana, they stirred secessionist sentiments of people in Ashanti, Togoland, and the Northern region. Previously, they had used the secessionist forces in Katanga to destabilize Congo and overthrow the patriot Patrice Lumumba. In our time, ethnic and religious differences were stoked in the former Yugoslavia and throughout the Middle East, including Iraq, Libya, and Syria to destabilize independent governments.
And the monopoly media in the capitalist countries unified around the joint themes that Nkrumah was an unpopular “dictator” and his government was entirely too close to the socialist countries, particularly the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the coup, a sham event was contrived to demonstrate Nkrumah’s unpopularity.
Much publicity was given in the imperialist press and on T.V., to the pulling down of the statue of myself in front of the National Assembly building in Accra. It was made to appear as angry crowds had torn the statue from its pedestal...But it was not for nothing that no photographs could be produced to show the actual pulling down of the statue… In fact when the statue was pulled down… no unauthorized person was allowed into the area. All those who were there at the time were those brought in by the military… Even the jubilant imperialist press evidently saw nothing strange in publishing photographs of bewildered toddlers, tears running down their checks sitting on a headless statue, while the same imperialist press extolled what it described as a “most popular coup”.
One cannot miss the parallel, thirty-seven years later, with the contrived, but dramatic overturning of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square, a staged media extravaganza engineered by US authorities to demonstrate Saddam’s unpopularity.
In retrospect, Nkrumah asserts:
In fact, the fault was that, from the very circumstances in which we found ourselves, we were unable to introduce more “dangerous ideas”... What went wrong in Ghana was not that we attempted to have friendly relations with the countries of the socialist world but that we maintained too friendly relations with the countries of the western bloc.
The champions of national independence, especially the advocates for socialism need to heed this lesson, embracing those “dangerous ideas” that drive the revolutionary process forward, strengthening the hand of the revolutionaries and weakening the hand of the opposition. Backtracking and accommodation are not options.
The West on Trial
If Nkrumah’s Ghana is an example of the engineered coup sponsored by imperialism and its toadies, if the 1966 coup is a repeat of Iran in 1953 and a precursor of Chile in 1973, then the rigged election in Guyana was the prototype for the so-called “color revolutions” sponsored by the US and its allies in the period since the demise of European socialism.
As the leading figure in the post-war independence struggle of what was then the colony known as British Guiana, Cheddi Jagan soon realized that aspirations for independence were thwarted not only by the British administration, but more decisively by the US government. After his party’s sweeping victory in the 1953 House of Assembly elections, the British sent troops and suspended the colonial constitution out of hysterical fear of a Marxist takeover.
Writing in his post-mortem account, The West on Trial: The Fight for Guyana’s Freedom, Jagan noted: “…the main cause, I believe, for the suspension of our constitution was pressure from the government of the United States… We were not surprised, therefore that the US government gave its blessing to the British gunboat diplomacy… Ostensibly, the United States was urging the colonial powers to grant independence to colonial territories. But in reality, the independence was nothing more than the nominal transfer of powers to those who either conformed or showed signs of conforming to US policies.”
From the 1961 elections, where Jagan’s PPP won its third consecutive election, gaining 20 of 35 seats, until formal independence on May 26, 1966, the US poured millions of dollars into every imaginable plan to erode the popular support of the PPP. The opposition promised huge investments and loans that would be forthcoming with a pro-capitalist government. The opposition boycotted or refused to collaborate with any and all development programs or social measures, including a budget.
The capitalist media echoed the opposition with a shrill anti-Communist campaign. “All of this was written at a time when it is alleged that we had destroyed the freedom of the press! We did not own our own daily newspaper to counter the distortions and lies of the press. This is a problem which confronts all national governments interested in change,” Jagan remarked.
Violence was sparked and fanned by the opposition, loudly labelling the PPP “authoritarian.” Racialism between African-origin and Indian-origin Guyanese was stoked. The US labor movement’s infamous AIFLD (a collaboration with the CIA) fomented strikes built upon lies and distortions.
Well-connected US columnist Drew Pearson, writing in March of 1964 explained the US involvement:
The United States permitted Cuba to go Communist purely through default and diplomatic bungling. The problem now is to look ahead and make sure we don’t make the same mistake again… in British Guiana, President Kennedy, having been badly burnt in the Bay of Pigs operations, did look ahead.
Though it was not published at the time, this was the secret reason why Kennedy took his trip to England in the summer of 1963… [It was] only because of Kennedy’s haunting worry that British Guiana would get its independence in July, 1963, and set up another Communist government under the guidance of Fidel Castro.
…[T]he main thing they agreed on was that the British would refuse to grant independence to Guiana because of the general strike against pro-Communist Prime Minister, Cheddi Jagan.
The strike was secretly inspired by a combination of US Central Intelligence money and British intelligence. [A]nother Communist government at the bottom of the one-time American lake has been temporarily stopped.
Pearson acknowledges the massive and determined campaign of destabilization that culminated in a US-sponsored coalition of US-friendly parties edging out the PPP in a calculated, delayed independence. The orchestrated campaign of rumor, lies, and promises was whipped into a powerful counterforce to a popular, independent government. In this regard, Guyana was not different from the many so-called “color revolutions” that are brought to a boil by heavily foreign-funded, non-government organizations. The Defunct AIFLD has been supplanted by Solidarity Center, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Republican and Democratic Institutes, and myriad other acronymic NGOs that serve US foreign policy in a government-funded, surreptitiously government-funded, or privately funded fashion. Their footprints are all over Georgia, Ukraine, and a host of other countries targeted by US foreign policy.
Lessons from the Past
It should be crystal clear that there is nothing new in the meddling of the US and its allies (and other imperialist centers) in the trajectory of smaller, less powerful countries; neo-colonialism and imperialism are the dominant forms of late monopoly capitalism. Nkrumah details twenty interventions in the affairs of African states alone between December 1962 and March 1967. From the Greek war of national liberation in the aftermath of the Nazi defeat to the latest CIA move, the latest sanction, the latest military threat, the US, in particular, has been promoting and forcing dependency at the expense of the national sovereignty of the peoples.
But lessons can be drawn from the long, difficult struggle for national independence, a history of great sacrifice, fierce and selfless battle, but treachery as well. Nkrumah was right: The only absolute guarantee of national independence is to break the chains to capitalism, to choose the path to socialism. Among the best examples of success are the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), Cuba, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), all small nations defying the most lethal power ever assembled. When faced with the full brunt of imperialist aggression, the three governments found resolve from their faith in working people, their confidence that working people would unite and fight for a clear, radical vision of social justice, and their refusal to retreat even an inch from principle.
Moreover, borrowing Nkrumah’s words, it is necessary to embrace and press “dangerous ideas,” most necessarily, the idea of command of the state by the agents of change; independence is not possible with the enemies of independence nested in the state.
Nkrumah prefaced his book with excerpts from a letter to him from Richard Wright, the expatriate US author. Wright’s complex, often contradictory relations with progressive movements did not deter him from writing with a feverish intensity:
I say to you publicly and frankly. The burden of suffering that must be borne, impose it upon one generation! ...Be merciful by being stern! If I lived under your regime, I’d ask for this hardness, this coldness…
Make no mistake, Kwame, they are going to come at you with words about democracy; you are going to be pinned to the wall and warned about decency; plump-faced men will mumble academic phrases about “sound” development; men of the cloth will speak unctuously of values and standards; in short, a barrage of concentrated arguments will be hurled at you to persuade you to temper the pace and drive of your movement…
And as you launch your bold programmes, as you call on your people for sacrifices, you can be confident that there are free men beyond the continent of Africa who see deeply enough into life to know and understand what you must do, what you must impose…
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 26, 2017 8:50 pm

Silences in NGO discourse:
The role and future of
NGOs in Africa

…the transformation from a colonial subject society to a bourgeois
society in Africa is incomplete, stunted and distorted. We
have the continued domination of imperialism – reproduction of
the colonial mode – in a different form, currently labelled globalisation
or neoliberalism. Within this context, NGOs are neither
a third sector, nor independent of the state. Rather, they are
inextricably imbricated in the neoliberal offensive, which follows
on the heels of the crisis of the national project. Unless there is
awareness on the part of the NGOs of this fundamental moment
in the struggle between imperialism and nationalism, they end
up playing the role of ideological and organisational foot soldiers
of imperialism…

Issa G. Shivji

Publisher’s foreword
Aid, in which NGOs play a significant role, is frequently
portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables
wealth to flow from rich to poor, poverty to be
reduced and the poor empowered. Such claims tend to
be, as David Sogge puts it ‘shibboleths, catch phrases that
distinguish believers from doubters. Indeed they are utterances
of belief. At best they are half-truths’.1
The market and voluntarism have a long association;
the first and most celebrated period of ‘free trade’, from
the 1840s to the 1930s, was also a high point of charitable
activity throughout the British empire. In Britain itself, the
industrial revolution opened up a great gulf between the
bourgeoisie and the swelling ranks of the urban proletariat.
In the 1890s, when industrialists were amassing fortunes
to rival those of the aristocracy, as much as a third of the
population of London was living below the level of bare
subsistence. Death from starvation was not unknown. At
this time, private philanthropy was the preferred solution
to social need, and private expenditure far outweighed
public provision.
It is hardly surprising that in the current era of neoliberalism
we are seeing, once again, a flourishing of NGOs:
the new missionaries to Africa. While such institutions
had some presence in Africa in the post second world war
period, it was really only in the 1980s and 1990s, as structural
adjustment programmes were imposed across Africa
by the international financial institutions and development
agencies, that NGOs really flourished, gradually taking
over the work of the retrenching state that had been per-
viii
suaded to disengage from the provision of social services
to its populations. The bilateral and multilateral institutions
set aside significant funds aimed at ‘mitigating’ the
‘social dimensions of adjustment’. The purpose of such
programmes was to be palliatives that would minimise
the more glaring inequalities perpetuated by their policies.
Funds were made available to ensure that a so-called
‘safety net’ of social services would be provided for the
‘vulnerable’ – but this time not by the state (which had
after all been forced to ‘retrench’ away from the social sector)
but by the ever-willing NGO sector.
The possession of such funds was to have a profound
impact on the very nature of the NGO sector. This was a
period in which the involvement of Northern NGOs in
Africa grew dramatically. In the ten years between 1984
and 1994, the British government increased its funding
to NGOs by almost 400 per cent, to £68,700,000. NGOs in
Australia, Finland, Norway and Sweden all saw similar
increases in official funding from the early 1980s onwards.
As a consequence of the increased levels of funding and
increased attention, the number of development organisations
in Western countries mushroomed, and many established
NGOs experienced spectacular growth.
Over the last two decades, development NGOs have
become an integral, and necessary, part of a system that sacrifices
respect for justice and rights. They have taken what
has been described elsewhere as the ‘missionary position’
– delivering services, running projects that are motivated
by charity and pity, and doing things for people (who,
implicitly, cannot do them for themselves), albeit dressed
up with the verbiage of participatory approaches.2

ix
It would be wrong to present the relationship between
Western NGOs and official aid agencies in the 1980s as
the product of some conscious conspiracy, as was clearly
the case with colonial missionary organisations. The precondition
for the co-option of NGOs into the neoliberal
cause merely reflects a coincidence in ideologies, rather
than a purposeful plan. The proponents of neoliberalism
saw in charitable development the possibility of enforcing
the unjust social order they desired by consensual rather
than coercive means.
The role NGOs have played in expanding and consolidating
neoliberal hegemony in the global context may
have been unwitting. It may not have been as direct or as
underhand as some of the activities willingly taken up by
colonial missionary societies and voluntary organisations.
But that is not to say it is any less significant. Indeed, one
could argue that it has actually been more effective.
Because many NGOs do provide much needed services,
because their motives are often honourable, because they
employ capable and often progressive staff, there has been
a reluctance amongst many to discuss critically the objective
impact of their work as distinct from the subjective
motives behind their work.
Issa Shivji has long been one of the most articulate
critics of the destructive effects of neoliberal policies in
Africa, in particular of the ways in which the gains of independence
have been eroded, not merely at the behest of
imperial powers, but also with the willing collusion of the
local comprador class. His regular essays in the Tanzania
press have been a beacon for those of us who grapple with
understanding the post-independence onslaught on our
x
countries that has led to a norm whereby it is accepted that
social and economic policies should be determined not
by the electorate, but rather by a small elite that seeks its
legitimacy (and power) from London, Washington, Berlin
and Paris.
The two essays in this book have appeared in abridged
form elsewhere. But because of the importance of the subject,
and because the richness of the arguments presented
by Shivji need to be heard in full, we are pleased to be able
to make them available to a wider audience.
Firoze Manji is editor of Pambazuka News and director of Fahamu.
Notes
1 David Sogge (2002) Give and Take: what’s the matter with foreign aid.
London: Zed Books.
2 Firoze Manji and Carl O’Coill (2002) ‘The missionary position:
NGOs and development in Africa’, International Affairs, 78(3): p567-83
**************************************************

This is an 84pp pdf, here:

https://oozebap.org/biblio/pdf/2011/shivji_forweb.pdf
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:26 pm

Africa/Global: World Trends in Inequality
AfricaFocus Bulletin January 15, 2018 (180115) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note
“The divergence in inequality levels has been particularly extreme between Western Europe and the United States, which had similar levels of inequality in 1980 but today are in radically different situations. While the top 1% income share was close to 10% in both regions in 1980, it rose only slightly to 12% in 2016 in Western Europe while it shot up to 20% in the United States. Meanwhile, in the United States, the bottom 50% income share decreased from more than 20% in 1980 to 13% in 2016.” – World Inequality Report, 2018

The first World Inequality Report, just released, represents sustained work by over 100 researchers to collect the best data available from multiple sources on income and wealth inequality both within and between countries. The project is ongoing, and the availability of data for different countries is very uneven. But for the first time there is a common basis for comparison, and both data and analysis are available to the public.

Notably, the project is also stressing the implications of the research for policy, and exploring ways of presenting the data in user-friendly graphic formats. The measures most often used are the percentage of national income (or wealth) held by different percentile groups of the population. A striking regional comparison (see graph below) highlights the percentage of national income received by the top 10% in 2016, from 37% in Europe to 61% in the Middle East. The percentage held by the top 10% is 47% in North America, and around 55% in Brazil, India, and sub-Saharan Africa. Not shown in this graph, but noted in a separate chapter and available in the on-line database (http://wid.world/country/south-africa/), the top 10% in South Africa received 65% of national income in 2012.

The report stresses that the levels of inequality are highly dependent on the progressivity of tax policy, with the obvious implication that the Trump/Republican tax bill will undoubtedly make inequality in the United States even more extreme.

The full database is available to access on-line or to download at http://wid.world/data.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the executive summary of the report. Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today, and available at http://www.africafocus.org/docs18/sa-us1801.php) contains excerpts from the chapters on South Africa and the United States.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on inequality, tax evasion, and related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

Recent articles on closely related topics include:

Amanda Erickson, “The world’s 500 wealthiest people got $1 trillion richer in 2017,” Washington Post, December 27, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y7splebt, and Gabriel Zucman, “Nearly 10% of the world’s wealth is held offshore by a few individuals. The rest of us pay the price for this theft.” Guardian, 8 Nov. 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y8apyp3v++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

World Inequality Report
Executive Summary
Full report and abundant additional information available at http://wir2018.wid.world/

II. #What are our new findings on global income inequality?
We show that income inequality has increased in nearly all world regions in recent decades, but at different speeds. The fact that inequality levels are so different among countries, even when countries share similar levels of development, highlights the important roles that national policies and institutions play in shaping inequality.

Income inequality varies greatly across world regions. It is lowest in Europe and highest in the Middle East.

Inequality within world regions varies greatly. In 2016, the share of total national income accounted for by just that nation’s top 10% earners (top 10% income share) was 37% in Europe, 41% in China, 46% in Russia, 47% in US-Canada, and around 55% in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, and India. In the Middle East, the world’s most unequal region according to our estimates, the top 10% capture 61% of national income (Figure E1).

In recent decades, income inequality has increased in nearly all countries, but at different speeds, suggesting that institutions and policies matter in shaping inequality.

Since 1980, income inequality has increased rapidly in North America, China, India, and Russia. Inequality has grown moderately in Europe (Figure E2a). From a broad historical perspective, this increase in inequality marks the end of a postwar egalitarian regime which took different forms in these regions.

There are exceptions to the general pattern. In the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Brazil, income inequality has remained relatively stable, at extremely high levels (Figure E2b). Having never gone through the postwar egalitarian regime, these regions set the world “inequality frontier.”
The diversity of trends observed across countries since 1980 shows that income inequality dynamics are shaped by a variety of national, institutional and political contexts.
This is illustrated by the different trajectories followed by the former communist or highly regulated countries, China, India, and Russia. The rise in inequality was particularly abrupt in Russia, moderate in China, and relatively gradual in India, reflecting different types of deregulation and opening-up policies pursued over the past decades in these countries.
The divergence in inequality levels has been particularly extreme between Western Europe and the United States, which had similar levels of inequality in 1980 but today are in radically different situations. While the top 1% income share was close to 10% in both regions in 1980, it rose only slightly to 12% in 2016 in Western Europe while it shot up to 20% in the United States. Meanwhile, in the United States, the bottom 50% income share decreased from more than 20% in 1980 to 13% in 2016 (Figure E3).
The income-inequality trajectory observed in the United States is largely due to massive educational inequalities, combined with a tax system that grew less progressive despite a surge in top labor compensation since the 1980s, and in top capital incomes in the 2000s. Continental Europe meanwhile saw a lesser decline in its tax progressivity, while wage inequality was also moderated by educational and wage-setting policies that were relatively more favorable to low- and middle-income groups. In both regions, income inequality between men and women has declined but remains particularly strong at the top of the distribution.
How has inequality evolved in recent decades among global citizens? We provide the first estimates of how the growth in global income since 1980 has been distributed across the totality of the world population. The global top 1% earners has captured twice as much of that growth as the 50% poorest individuals. The bottom 50% has nevertheless enjoyed important growth rates. The global middle class (which contains all of the poorest 90% income groups in the EU and the United States) has been squeezed.

At the global level, inequality has risen sharply since 1980, despite strong growth in China.

The poorest half of the global population has seen its income grow significantly thanks to high growth in Asia (particularly in China and India). However, because of high and rising inequality within countries, the top 1% richest individuals in the world captured twice as much growth as the bottom 50% individuals since 1980 (Figure E4). Income growth has been sluggish or even zero for individuals with incomes between the global bottom 50% and top 1% groups. This includes all North American and European lower- and middle-income groups.
The rise of global inequality has not been steady. While the global top 1% income share increased from 16% in 1980 to 22% in 2000, it declined slightly thereafter to 20%. The income share of the global bottom 50% has oscillated around 9% since 1980 (Figure E5). The trend break after 2000 is due to a reduction in between-country average income inequality, as within-country inequality has continued to increase.
III. Why does the evolution of private and public capital ownership matter for inequality?
Economic inequality is largely driven by the unequal ownership of capital, which can be either privately or public owned. We show that since 1980, very large transfers of public to private wealth occurred in nearly all countries, whether rich or emerging. While national wealth has substantially increased, public wealth is now negative or close to zero in rich countries. Arguably this limits the ability of governments to tackle inequality; certainly, it has important implications for wealth inequality among individuals.

Over the past decades, countries have become richer but governments have become poor.

The ratio of net private wealth to net national income gives insight into the total value of wealth commanded by individuals in a country, as compared to the public wealth held by governments. The sum of private and public wealth is equal to national wealth. The balance between private and public wealth is a crucial determinant of the level of inequality.
There has been a general rise in net private wealth in recent decades, from 200–350% of national income in most rich countries in 1970 to 400–700% today. This was largely unaffected by the 2008 financial crisis, or by the asset price bubbles seen in some countries such as Japan and Spain. In China and Russia there have been unusually large increases in private wealth; following their transitions from communist- to capitalist-oriented economies, they saw it quadruple and triple, respectively. Private wealth–income ratios in these countries are approaching levels observed in France, the UK, and the United States.
Conversely, net public wealth (that is, public assets minus public debts) has declined in nearly all countries since the 1980s. In China and Russia, public wealth declined from 60–70% of national wealth to 20–30%. Net public wealth has even become negative in recent years in the United States and the UK, and is only slightly positive in Japan, Germany, and France. This arguably limits government ability to regulate the economy, redistribute income, and mitigate rising inequality. The only exceptions to the general decline in public property are oil-rich countries with large sovereign wealth funds, such as Norway.
V. What is the future of global inequality and how should it be tackled?
We project income and wealth inequality up to 2050 under different scenarios. In a future in which “business as usual” continues, global inequality will further increase.

Alternatively, if in the coming decades all countries follow the moderate inequality trajectory of Europe over the past decades, global income inequality can be reduced– in which case there can also be substantial progress in eradicating global poverty.

The global wealth middle class will be squeezed under “business as usual.”

Rising wealth inequality within countries has helped to spur increases in global wealth inequality. If we assume the world trend to be captured by the combined experience of China, Europe and the United States, the wealth share of the world’s top 1% wealthiest people increased from 28% to 33%, while the share commanded by the bottom 75% oscillated around 10% between 1980 and 2016.
The continuation of past wealth-inequality trends will see the wealth share of the top 0.1% global wealth owners (in a world represented by China, the EU, and the United States) catch up with the share of the global wealth middle class by 2050.
Tax progressivity is a proven tool to combat rising income and wealth inequality at the top.

Research has demonstrated that tax progressivity is an effective tool to combat inequality. Progressive tax rates do not only reduce post-tax inequality, they also diminish pre-tax inequality by giving top earners less incentive to capture higher shares of growth via aggressive bargaining for pay rises and wealth accumulation. Tax progressivity was sharply reduced in rich and some emerging countries from the 1970s to the mid-2000s. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, the downward trend has leveled off and even reversed in certain countries, but future evolutions remain uncertain and will depend on democratic deliberations. It is also worth noting that inheritance taxes are nonexistent or near zero in high-inequality emerging countries, leaving space for important tax reforms in these countries.

A global financial register recording the ownership of financial assets would deal severe blows to tax evasion, money laundering, and rising inequality.

Although the tax system is a crucial tool for tackling inequality, it also faces potential obstacles. Tax evasion ranks high among these, as recently illustrated by the Paradise Papers revelations. The wealth held in tax havens has increased considerably since the 1970s and currently represents more than 10% of global GDP. The rise of tax havens makes it difficult to properly measure and tax wealth and capital income in a globalized world. While land and real-estate registries have existed for centuries, they miss a large fraction of the wealth held by households today, as wealth increasingly takes the form of financial securities. Several technical options exist for creating a global financial register, which could be used by national tax authorities to effectively combat fraud.

More equal access to education and well-paying jobs is key to addressing the stagnating or sluggish income growth rates of the poorest half of the population.

Recent research shows that there can be an enormous gap between the public discourse about equal opportunity and the reality of unequal access to education. In the United States, for instance, out of a hundred children whose parents are among the bottom 10% of income earners, only twenty to thirty go to college. However, that figure reaches ninety when parents are within the top 10% earners. On the positive side, research shows that elite colleges who improve openness to students from poor backgrounds need not compromise their outcomes to do so. In both rich and emerging countries, it might be necessary to set trans- parent and verifiable objectives– while also changing financing and admission systems– to enable equal access to education.
Democratic access to education can achieve much, but without mechanisms to ensure that people at the bottom of the distribution have access to well-paying jobs, education will not prove sufficient to tackle inequality. Better representation of workers in corporate governance bodies, and healthy minimum-wage rates, are important tools to achieve this.
Governments need to invest in the future to address current income and wealth inequality levels, and to prevent further increases in them.

Public investments are needed in education, health, and environmental protection both to tackle existing inequality and to prevent further increases. This is particularly difficult, however, given that governments in rich countries have become poor and largely indebted. Reducing public debt is by no means an easy task, but several options to accomplish it exist–including wealth taxation, debt relief, and inflation–and have been used throughout history when governments were highly indebted, to empower younger generations.

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:43 pm

From the African Union to the World Economic Forum: The Political Economy of Continuing Dependency
By Abayomi Azikiwe - Jan 26, 201891

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Summits in Addis Ababa and Davos represent the ongoing divide between Imperialist states and the developing countries

After the demeaning comments by United States President Donald Trump related to the preference for northern European immigrants over Africans both on the continent and in the Caribbean, is indicative of the post-colonial crisis of relations between global capitalism and the emerging nations in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean.

This division of wealth, power and influence could not be more glaringly illustrated than character of two summit meetings during the latter days of January. One gathering in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the 55-member African Union will meet at its headquarters built by the People’s Republic of China, represents on some level the aspirations of over one billion people who reside on the continent.

Another confab in Davos, Switzerland known as the World Economic Forum (WEF) will be dominated by the industrial and financial magnates of the West along with the heads-of-state of the imperialist governments. African leaders are present in Davos notwithstanding the disadvantageous status they are occupying.

The Addis Ababa gathering is the 30th Summit of the AU, the successor of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU), founded also in the same Ethiopian capital on May 25, 1963. Over the last fifty-five years the AU/OAU has sought in various forms to foster the rapid eradication of colonialism and the unification of Africa.

Another aspect of the AU in recent years has been the development of preferential trade areas, the strengthening of regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), among others, while providing mechanism for the resolution of internal conflicts many of which stem from the legacy of European slavery and colonial rule. These initiatives have gained mixed results while although progress has been made in economic growth along with political cooperation, AU member-states remain subject to the international market still controlled by the former colonial powers and contemporary neo-colonial strongholds within Washington, New York City, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Davos.

At the 30th Summit of the AU the focus has been placed on ending corruption within various nation-states. There is also the desire expressed for the organization to become 100 percent self-reliant within another two years.

According to a press release from the AU: “In his opening remarks, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat commended the quality work done by the Permanent Representatives’ Committee (PRC) with the view to establish appropriate conditions conducive to the success of this meeting of the Executive Council. He further commended the encouraging level of contribution to the Peace Fund aimed at consolidating peace efforts within the continent. The AUC Chairperson expressed the hope that by 2020 AU will be able to finance itself at 100% if we maintain this trend of increasing interest by the Member States willing to contribute substantively on peace keeping in Africa. The Chairperson underlined that the AU Commission can pursue this commitment and resolution and will rely on Member States to support the trend of self-financing.” (https://au.int/en/pressreleases/2018012 ... ion-kicked)

Davos and Capitalist Expropriations through Tax Captures by the Ruling Class

The WEF in Davos is taking place in the aftermath of the tax bill recently passed in the U.S. which is being attributed to the incessant rise in the Stock Market and the prospects for huge profits by the multi-national corporations and banks. Although Trump has alienated many within the business media and government, Wall Street apparently agrees with his thrust towards monumental amounts of public spending being redirected to the capitalist ruling class.

These firms are singing the praise of the Trump program at Davos. Prior to the gathering, large corporations such as Wal-Mart announced raises for its employees who are in the low-wage categories. Even though this makes good propaganda for the theory of trickle-down economics, the fact is that hundreds of retail outlets are slated for closings in the U.S. This downsizing within the malls and other brick and mortars shops has been blamed on the growth within e-commerce. However, no real concrete assessment of the lay-offs of hundreds of thousands of workers has ever been presented to the people in order to explain the redundancies.

The general view in Davos among the capitalist elites is that the tax heist has the potential to stimulate profitability along with enhancing direct investments. This tax legislation, the first tangible bill passed by the Republican-dominated House and Senate, lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. There are provisions which will ostensibly provide incentives for U.S.-based companies to bring money held overseas back into the country. Such a policy prompted Credit Suisse (CS) CEO Tidjane Thiam to suggest that the firm will seek investments in the U.S.

In an article published by CNN Money, it notes that: “Citigroup (C) CEO Michael Corbat predicted the change in tax rules would help power business expansion. ‘Maybe this is the catalyst that takes us from optimism to confidence,’ he said. The executives voiced concerns that with the U.S. economy at full employment, businesses may struggle to fill new jobs that result from this wave of investment. ‘The reality of bringing a lot of jobs back is difficult,’ said Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan.”

Although this notion that the economy in the U.S. is in “full-employment” at 4.1 percent blatantly ignores the reality that the Labor Participation Rate (LPR), the actual indices measuring involvement in actual jobs holdings, stands at only 62.3 percent leaving over one-third of the work force outside the formal labor market. Poverty levels remain high, approximately 43 million people (12.7 percent), and sharply higher within the African American and Latino communities, where the rates of official impoverishment are 23 and 19 percentage points respectively.

The AU and Prospects for Relations with the Imperialist States

Such a situation is not likely to attract substantial foreign direct investment in Africa on terms favorable to AU member-states and their constituencies. Moreover, the racist sentiments reflected in domestic and foreign policies enacted by the Trump administration would clearly give pause to any optimistic view by African leaders in regard to relations with the continent.

Consequently, some African business and political leaders have stated they would walkout of Trump’s speech to the WEF on January 26. The U.S. president has denied referring to African states as “shitholes”, however, admitting that he did use “tough language.”

Other reports indicate that the American head-of-state will meet one-on-one with Rwanda President Paul Kgame, along with other African leaders. The AU collectively and individual states have concurrently demanded an apology for these racist remarks. None has been forthcoming so far, weeks after the alleged offenses occurred.

Even if African corporate and political leaders protest the Trump speech in Davos, the long term questions remain over the relationship between the AU member-states and the world capitalist system. The character of these connections historically has been a by-product of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The growth over the last decade within African nations has been relative and still dependent upon the prices of commodities determined by international finance capital.

Therefore, several African economies are only now said to be emerging from recession including the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of Angola. These nations are producers of energy and mineral resources where prices have declined precipitously in the last four years.

Over the last few months, the oil market has witnessed a rise in prices-per-barrel on the global market. Nevertheless, currency values remain weak and the seeming “recoveries” remain fragile.

Ultimately, Africa must collaborate to a greater degree with other emerging economic regions to establish an alternative monetary and trading system which excludes the U.S. and all imperialist states as dominant forces. Only when this occurs will the sustainable development of the continent and the world be realized.

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Friday January 26, 2018

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 30, 2018 2:35 pm

Racism Beyond Trump: Not Just Attitudes but Also Structures
The links below include several recent short commentaries in direct response to Trump's remarks, but also two longer essays written more than a decade ago, one on the legal case for reparations for Africa as well as those of African descent, and the other on the structural persistence of race in the global world order as well as within nations. A common theme is the relevance of historical perspective and deeper analysis as well as acknowledging the racism in Trump's attitudes and policies.
Paul Tinyambe Zeleza, "On Trump's 'Shithole' Africa - the Homogenization and Dehumanization of a Continent," Nyasa Times, January 15, 2017 http://allafrica.com/stories/201801150449.html

Trump's derogatory dismissal of shithole Haiti and Africa reflects enduring tendencies in the American social imaginary about Africa and its Diasporas. This is to suggest, as outraged as we might be about Trump's provocative and pusillanimous pronouncements, the Trump phenomenon transcends Trump. The specter of racism, whose pernicious and persistent potency Trump has brazenly exposed to the world, has haunted America from its inception with the original sin of slavery, through a century of Jim Crow segregation, and the past half century of post-civil rights redress and backlash.

The disdain expressed for Haiti and Africa in the President's latest vicious verbal assault is a projection of an angry racist project to rollback the limited gains of the civil rights struggle and settlement of the 1960s that has animated the Republican Party's Southern Strategy and politics ever since. ... The intersection of domestic and foreign affairs tend to reflect, reproduce, and reinforce national and global racial hierarchies. more

Letter to President Trump from Former U.S. Ambassadors to Africa http://allafrica.com/stories/201801170032.html From 78 ambassadors who served in 48 African countries

As former U.S. Ambassadors to 48 African countries, we write to express our deep concern regarding reports of your recent remarks about African countries and to attest to the importance of our partnerships with most of the fifty-four African nations. Africa is a continent of great human talent and rich diversity, as well as extraordinary beauty and almost unparalleled natural resources. It is also a continent with deep historical ties with the United States.

...

We hope that you will reassess your views on Africa and its citizens, and recognize the important contributions Africans and African Americans have made and continue to make to our country, our history, and the enduring bonds that will always link Africa and the United States. more

Howard W. French, "Trump's profane description disregards Africa's crucial role in making America a world power," Washington Post, January 14, 2018 http://tinyurl.com/y9pakctu

President Trump's comments disparaging immigrants from Haiti and the African continent have stunned many in the United States and other parts of the world. I see this as an opportunity to challenge the American public to confront this reality: More than any other factor, it is the wealth derived from Africa, especially the labor of people taken in chains from that continent, that accounts for the rise of the West and its centuries of predominance in world affairs.

The facts of this history hide in plain sight, and yet Americans and others in the West have averted their eyes for 500 years. The West's ascension over other parts of the world has been attributed, instead, to innate Western qualities, including rationality and a talent for invention and innovation, or Western institutions. It is this distortion of reality — a delusion, really — that fuels attitudes of white superiority, whether subtle and pervasive, or as crude as those exhibited by someone like Trump. more

M Neelika Jayawardane," The very American myth of 'exceptional immigrants,'" Al Jazeera, 20 Jan 2018 http://tinyurl.com/yafxzqke

... Part of why Americans are susceptible to this violent, xenophobic, and nativist rhetoric is not because they are exceptionally thick, but because of how the national mythology of the US - one constructed on Puritan ideals of egalitarianism, "hard work" and perseverance against adversity - is constructed.

Americans are told, since childhood, that hard work and perseverance not only build character, but allow them to overcome obstacles, and achieve their goals and dreams. Because this powerful myth is repetitively drummed into their heads - be it through apocryphal narratives of kids who came from impoverished backgrounds who went on to become multimillion-dollar earning athletes, or women who beat the odds and attained positions of leadership in fields dominated by men - they learn to believe that their country is a meritocracy.

...

It is obvious that (white) Americans need to be disabused of the notion that the US's white population is special, and deserving, somehow, of privilege; it is time to get over the belief that they only received their privileges from having worked for it.

But just as importantly, those immigrants of more privileged backgrounds - those who are currently touting the percentage of people from their national group who have college and post-graduate degrees, as if waving these statistics and their material possessions are ways of proving that they are not, in fact, deserving of Trump's racism - also need an antidote for their misplaced smugness. more

Lord Anthony Gifford, "The Legal Basis of the Case for Reparations: A paper Presented to the First Pan-African Congress on Reparations, Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria, April 27-29, 1993" http://www.shaka.mistral.co.uk/legalbasis.htm

Once you accept, as I do, the truth of three propositions a. That the mass kidnap and enslavement of Africans was the most wicked criminal enterprise in recorded human history, b. that no compensation was ever paid by any of the perpetrators to any of the sufferers, and c. that the consequences of the crime continue to be massive, both in terms of the enrichment of the descendants of the perpetrators, and in terms of the impoverishment of Africa and the descendants of Africans, then the justice of the claim for Reparations is proved beyond reasonable doubt.

To those who may say that that is all very true in theory, but that in practice there is no mechanism to enforce the claim, or no willingness of the white world to recognise it, I would answer with a Latin legal maxim: ubi jus, ibi remedium: where there is a right, there must be a remedy. more

William Minter, "Invisible Hierarchies: Africa, Race, and Continuities in the World Order," Science & Society, July 2005 http://www.africafocus.org/editor/afric ... d-2005.pdf

********************************

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:53 pm

Food prices must drop in Africa: How can this be achieved?
9 February 2018 Development Matters Africa, data, Food security, policyAfrica, Agriculture, economy, Food, food prices, GDP, sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa
By Thomas Allen, Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD)

After the 2007-08 crisis, we got into the bad habit when discussing food prices of focusing almost exclusively on volatility and overlooking the question of the level of prices. Of course, reasons were good for this; between February 2007 and February 2008, world food prices jumped 60%. These increases combined with local factors had dramatic effects, particularly in West Africa, where millions of households already had insufficient income to cover their basic nutritional needs. Today, according to OECD and FAO projections, food prices are expected to remain stable in the medium-term. This is a good time to re-examine some important questions.

Are food products cheap in sub-Saharan Africa?

The question may seem surprising, as food is no doubt cheaper in the poorest countries. This is the first thing that any tourist would tell you, and it is confirmed by statistics. Sub-Saharan countries do indeed have the lowest prices in absolute terms (see figure). African food products are therefore much more affordable…for the European consumer. What about for the African consumer?

Image
Relationship between food prices and GDP per capita (2011)

Economists know households in rich countries pay more (per unit) for food but also benefit from better incomes. Any measure of affordability must therefore relate prices to income levels. Only then is it possible to assess whether sub-Saharan consumers are really better off than European consumers.

Again, we know the answer to this question. It is indicated by the shape and slope of the curve in the graph, and above all by common sense; they are worse off, and the proof is that they are forced to spend a large proportion of their income on food. In West Africa, households spend an average of 55% of their budget on food. But what may come as a surprise is that they are particularly badly off. In fact, they are worse off than expected when looking at the experiences in other countries.

30% to 40% higher than prices in the rest of the world at comparable GDP levels per capita

When differences in income are taken into account, our econometric estimates reveal that food prices in sub-Saharan Africa are 30% to 40% higher than prices in the rest of the world at comparable levels of GDP per capita. In other words, food is particularly expensive for sub-Saharan households relative to their income. This can also be seen from the figure: for the same level of per capita income, sub-Saharan countries are higher up in the graph than Asian countries (and, for that matter, much of the rest of the world).

If you are not yet struck by the figures, try a comparison with India. Although very different in demographic terms, India and West Africa have a similar GDP per capita. If West African households bought their food at Indian prices, they would save between 19% and 33% of their income, depending on the country. This loss in purchasing power is automatically reflected in the composition of the food basket and in non-food expenditures, with consequences for nutrition and access to basic services such as health or education.

Is this really a problem?

But is this really a problem? After all, aren’t Africans primarily producers? The effect of prices on household welfare varies; they represent income for producers, but costs for consumers. The overall net effect depends on the structure of the economy. In subsistence economies, the majority of households benefit from high food prices, in that they consume what they produce and sell their surplus. However, because of the dynamics of urbanisation and the diversification of the rural economy, fewer and fewer households depend just on their own food production. In West Africa, our estimates show that markets provide at least two-thirds of household food supply. Producers themselves are dependent on the markets for their food, due to both seasonal effects and the ongoing transformations in agricultural systems. These structural changes suggest that it is time to revise perceptions of the net impact of food prices and revisit agricultural policy. However, this should not be done indiscriminately.

We know that lowering consumer prices must not be achieved at the expense of producers’ incomes, as the majority struggle to meet their basic requirements at a time when investment needs are immense. It must not be achieved by resorting to large quantities of aid or cheap imported products. We know from Théodore Schultz[1] that this would penalise the primary income-generating force in developing economies, namely agriculture and the food sector as a whole. The solution to the high cost of food in Africa is endogenous, and will involve a transformation of the food economy.

Transforming the food economy is key to lowering prices

First, productivity gains are needed to drive down prices. For example, Africa is the region with the lowest share of irrigated land in the world (5% compared to more than 40% in Asia). Irrigated agricultural land, particularly in Southeast Asia, produces several crops per year and enables farmers to work all year round. Good quality seeds, agricultural extension services, and the use of fertilisers and modern equipment have also played an important role in increasing productivity. The most effective mix of investments is of course specific to each context, but improving labour productivity in the food sector is a prerequisite for a sustainable fall in prices.

Second, food prices reflect the sum of a series of activities throughout a value chain. Their levels are determined by the costs and constraints encountered at each step. What is now important is to address the challenges in the downstream segments of food value chains, i.e. in food processing, logistics and marketing. These activities also offer an opportunity to move upmarket to meet consumers’ new expectations. Processed foods have become an important part of food consumption in all income classes, even the poorest, and are expected to grow the fastest in the coming years. We therefore need to reconsider the value chains on which policy makers and investors should focus their attention. For example, our simulations show that, in some countries, interventions in emerging value chains such as fruits and vegetables rather than cereals result in greater decreases in the consumer food price index.

Third, strengthening and facilitating regional trade will also help reduce transaction costs and achieve economies of scale. In West Africa, the high price differential – from -28% in Mauritania to +14% in Ghana relative to the regional average – reflects the inefficiencies of the regional food market.

Finally, reinvesting in price monitoring systems is needed. Non-cereal commodities are not adequately covered by the systems in place in many countries. More than three-quarters of the price series in existing monitoring systems focus on cereals, which prevents comprehensive monitoring of consumer prices and food affordability. The lack of recognition of the relative unaffordability of food in Africa is also due to a lack of data. It is time to tackle this problem.[2]

The original article was published in French on the Fondation Farm blog: http://bit.ly/2BbWRaC.

[1] See Allen, T. (2017), ‘The Cost of High Food Prices in West Africa’, West African Papers, No 08, OECD Publishing, Paris. Link to the study: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/c2db143f-en

[2] A specialist in development and agricultural economics and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979.

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blindpig
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 28, 2018 6:10 pm

Akufo-Addo approves agreement for US military base in Ghana

The Government of Ghana has approved an agreement with the United States of America to set up a military base in Ghana and also allow unrestricted access to a host of facilities and wide-ranging tax exemptions to the United States Military.

According to the document intercepted by the Starrfmonline.com, the US military will use Ghana as a base to deploy its soldiers. US Military personnel may also “possess and carry arms in Ghana, while on duty if authorized to do so, by their orders, such authorization being made in consultation with the appropriate authorities of Ghana. Military personnel may wear their uniforms while performing official duties.”

According to the document, “United States Contractors shall not be liable to pay tax or similar charge assess within Ghana in connection with this agreement”. The US military is also authorised to control entry to the facilities meant for the exclusive use of their forces.

“This Agreement sets forth a framework for enhanced partnership and security cooperation between the Parties with the aims of strengthening their defence relationship further and addressing shared security challenges in the region, including those relating to the protection of Government personnel and facilities.

“This Agreement clarifies access to and use of agreed facilities and areas by United States forces, thereby facilitating training, including to maintain unit readiness, combined exercises, and other military engagement opportunities.

“United States forces may undertake the following types of activities in Ghana: training; transit: support and related activities; refueling of aircraft; landing and recovery of aircraft, accommodation of personnel; communications; staging and deploying of forces and materiel: exercises; humanitarian and disaster relief; and other activities as mutually agreed.

The agreement adds that Military personnel and civilian personnel may enter and exit Ghana with United States Government-furnished identification (for military personnel, an identification card and collective movement or individual travel orders, and for civilian personnel, a passport and official orders.

According to the agreement approved by Cabinet last week, “Ghana hereby provides unimpeded access to and use of agreed facilities and areas to United State forces, United States contractors, and others as mutually agreed. Such agreed facilities and area: or portions thereof, provided by Ghana shall be designated as either for exclusive use by United States forces or to be jointly used by United States forces and Ghana. Ghana shall also provide access to and use of a runway that meets the requirements of United States forces.

The agreement adds that the United States forces are hereby authorized to control entry to agreed “facilities and areas that having been provided for exclusive use by United States forces, and to coordinate entry with the authorities of Ghana at agreed facilities and areas provided for joint use by United States force and Ghana, for purposes of safety and security.

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