Memorandum by The South African Institute
of International Affairs and Chatham House[1]
A CRITIQUE OF THE EU STRATEGY ON AFRICA
The EU Strategy on Africa attempts to bring
together the key instruments that govern the relationship between
the two regions to work towards coherence, while not eliminating
the need to treat sub-regions and countries individually. It is
a comprehensive document that highlights all the most important
aspects of Africa's challenges and the role that Europe can play
in ameliorating them. However, the devil is always in the detail
and in the logic behind the document.
The EU's Strategy on Africa states that its
primary objective is to assist the Millennium Development Goals
and to promote sustainable development, security and good governance
in Africa. It identifies three key priority areas:
— Peace, security and good governance,
considered prerequisites for attaining the MDGs;
— Economic growth, trade and interconnection,
that create an economic environment for achieving the MDGs; and
— Social cohesion and the environment,
directly targeting the MDGs.
THE EU'S
RELATIONS WITH
AFRICA
The EU's relations with the countries of North
Africa are based on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) and
Association Agreements, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)
and ENP Action Plans. North African states included in these agreements
are Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Libya is a member of
ENP but has observer status in EMP since 1999.
The Barcelona Declaration of 1995 launched a
set of economic, political, cultural, and social initiatives,
intended to reinforce one another in an open-ended process of
regional integration with the assistance of the EU. The stated
purpose of this process was to extend the European area of stability
southward. It relied on the notion of "partnership"
to signal the intent to create more interdependence between the
EU and non-EU Mediterranean countries. EMP has a regional trade
and integration objective. It aims to create a free-trade zone
by 2010.
All five North African countries are beneficiaries
under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), implementation
of which started in 2005 with the adoption of a first set of ENP
Action Plans, including those for Tunisia and Morocco. The official
EU doctrine is that the Neighbourhood Policy reflects a continuation
and reinforcing of the Barcelona Process. The ENP does not include
the perspective of membership to EU/or offer a role in EU institutions
for the North African states.
The EU's relations with Sub-Saharan Africa are
governed by the Cotonou Partnership Agreement—the heir to
the Lomé Convention. South Africa has a special status
in Cotonou because its economy is more developed. South Africa
is excluded from general trade arrangements and trade protocols
and therefore is not eligible for funding from the European Development
Fund.
South Africa and the EU have a separate mechanism,
the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) of 1999.
Aid is given to South Africa through a mechanism called the European
Programme for Reconstruction and Development.
Euro-Med might merit some scrutiny by the Sub-Committee.
Regional approaches can be seductive for policy makers as they
can give the impression of a strategic focus when there is significant
variability within the targeted region. Euro-Med has performed
poorly partly for this reason and there has been little discussion
inside the EU about its shortcomings. The EU is often insufficiently
reflective on its policies and there is little appetite for real
benchmarks for the policy success or failure and a tendency to
stick to policies in order to claim there is policy, even if it
clearly failed. Euro-Med is an example of this.
IMPLEMENTATION
Four areas are critical to the successful implementation
of the Strategy:
— Coordination and coherence;
This does not infer that the EC and its Strategy
fail on all these counts but that in analysing it these elements
are important.
PRIORITIES
Priorities refer to the substance of the analysis
of what plagues Africa (so to speak). There is a clear need for
time and money to be expended on the resolution of existing conflicts.
But the broader question is "How does one make Africa more
competitive in the global economy to allow it to grapple with
poverty and related developmental challenges?"
MDGs
The MDGs are good, but their attainment won't
necessarily mean that Africa can now compete better. In fact,
addressing the constraints to economic growth is critical to attaining
many of the MDGs. Thus the intermediate aims should perhaps include
helping African countries strengthen their commercial infrastructure
(roads, electricity generation, port capacity, customs clearance);
and promote rural economies, among others (see Agriculture below).
Therefore, the Business Forum and the Infrastructure
Forum proposed by the Strategy are appropriate. However, how they
are structured and how they go forward will determine whether
they can move beyond the talk-shop stage and achieve real delivery.
In both cases, it might be better to work with
key countries and key private sector businesses in developing
the agendas and making progress on actions—eg, South Africa,
Nigeria. The value of the Business Forum is that it would also
assist African business better understand the European business
and regulatory environment and European business the challenges
and opportunities of investing in Africa.
Research and development are seriously underfunded
in Africa, but are of immense importance in developing more competitive
economies—see India and China. The Strategy should perhaps
focus on how the EU can provide more assistance in that regard.
Peace, Security and Governance
The EU's Peace Facility is an innovative instrument
that can make a difference to the continent's peace and security
efforts.
However, if the EU wants to engage more seriously
with peace and security challenges in Africa it should engage
with more than the AU's Peace and Security Council and the Political
Affairs Department. For example, more funding support should be
given to the Human Rights Commission in the Gambia, which in the
last two years has shown promise—most notably with the tabling
of two highly critical reports on the situation in Zimbabwe. This
is necessary if one wishes to focus on the longer-term conflict
prevention and reconstruction approach.
On the more direct peace and security issues,
such as helping to ensure that the Peace and Security Council
works the EU has made an institutional grant. Sustaining the AU's
Peace Fund, given that it is carried by a few African countries
and the donors, is a very real problem. The EU should consider
funding allocations in the context of its Africa Strategy.
The Strategy's proposal to link aid to the African
Peer Review Mechanism through a Governance Initiative has potential,
especially if it is seen as providing support to areas that have
been identified by the individual states as priorities. However,
the EU needs to be careful not to inadvertently "subvert"
the APRM as an African initiative—there is concern among
some quarters that too close an involvement by the North in the
APRM may give fuel to those in Africa who would like to see the
process undermined.
Agriculture
While the Strategy refers briefly to agriculture
(as did the Commission for Africa report from 2005) it is an area
that requires much closer attention, given that 80 per cent of
Africa's population relies on the agricultural sector, and most
of this is subsistence. African agriculture (with some exceptions)
remains untouched by modern farming techniques. The EU should
look more closely at this sector as a means of improving livelihoods
and rural economies more generally.[2]
Regional Integration and Trade
Institution-building and EPAs
Some time should be spent reflecting on the
Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which will be the key
instrument through which relations between the EU and sub-Saharan
African states will evolve over the next few years. These EPAs
are comprehensive free trade agreements that will replace three
decades of non-reciprocal trade preferences by 1 January 2008.
Beyond market access issues, EPAs will also address other areas
relevant to trade including competition policy, intellectual property
rights etc. Their stated function is to be agents of development,
helping to foster regional integration. They are seen as helping
developing states to deal with liberalisation and a more globalised
world.
Perhaps one of the potential stumbling blocks
in this set-up is that the EU still sees Africa and the developing
world through the old ACP Lome geographical framework. The EPA
process is selective about the countries with which the EU will
negotiate regional integration schemes and FTAs. Thus because
the EU already has an agreement with South Africa, this country
is not part of the EPA negotiations; ironically its partners in
the Southern African Customs Union are negotiating EPAs, but are
also de facto part of the TDCA—how do you bridge these contradictions?
The strategy document does not really provide any insight in that
regard.
There is an ambiguity between the logic of tailoring
the agendas of EPAs to the imperatives of the respective regions
and the perceived need among the ACP countries to negotiate the
framework at a global level, which gives the states more perceived
clout.
Intra-regional trade is clearly an objective
to strive towards, and the EPA process is a unique opportunity
to provide developing countries with the impetus for embarking
on trade reform and liberalisation, but negotiating capacity is
a problem; as is the structural obstacle that African states are
still trying to overcome their colonial geographies which have
hindered intra-regional trade; and the lack of consolidation of
institutions.
Climate change
Africa will be one of the worst affected; there
should be a two-pronged approach: the first priority is short-term
disaster management (eg, flooding in Mozambique), and the second
is the more long-term aspects linked to more efficient energy,
more effective management of agriculture (soil erosion) etc.
COORDINATION AND
COHERENCE
The proliferation of initiatives on Africa by
a number of international actors[3],
while putting Africa on the global summit map, has not always
been coherent or consistent. Coordination among the various international
actors is an important part of any strategy and actors need to
try to identify a niche which they focus on in terms of the list
of priorities identified. Equally important is the need to coordinate
and cohere with the identified priorities of the African states
and institutions, particularly the poverty reduction strategy
programmes and in the case of countries that have undergone peer
review, their action plans.
Political dynamics among some key players:
— The Africa Strategy is driven by
DG Development. While it was approved by the Heads of Government
summit in December, it is not clear to what extent the other DGs
feel happy with the Strategy. DG Dev defines the policy but only
deals with the ACP component, while DG External Relations (under
which the EuropeAid Cooperation Office operates) deals with all
the others. At the same time DG Trade negotiates for the EU on
the EPAs. The institutional context of the European Commission
is therefore equally important in terms of how effective such
strategies become.
— The EC has said that it will produce
a separate Strategy for the "CP" of the ACP, implying
that there is a phased move towards differentiation within the
ACP, at least insofar as the EC is concerned. The ACP Secretariat
is opposed to the gradual move by the EC to differentiate and
fragment the ACP grouping—for understandable reasons of
strength in numbers. (The first such step was the decision to
negotiate EPAs not at the ACP level but directly with the regions.)
However, tactical reasons notwithstanding, differentiated engagements
with each of the regions may make more sense—although within
an agreed framework such as the Cotonou Agreement. In the context
of Africa, the existence of different EU instruments for North
Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa reflect that dilemma,
which also provide ambiguity about the EU's commitment to work
closely with the AU structures. In particular, the European Neighbourhood
Policy, which applies to North African states (but not to the
rest of the continent) and offers them "participation in
many areas of EU economic cooperation, and in particular the single
market, and is said to be based on an `everything except the institutions'
logic."[4]
This discourse, however, reflects the
old colonial paradigms and perhaps should be discarded to reflect
new dynamics within each of the regions—with due regard
though for the legitimate concerns of the ACP states about the
potential erosion of their negotiating position.
The EU may have the capacity to work on a wide
range of issues, but if its interventions are to be the result
of dialogue and hence ownership by Africans themselves, account
must be taken of the continent's thinly-stretched capacity, at
national, regional and continental level.
The most important constraint in cooperation
is the vast gap in capabilities among the various regional economic
communities (RECs), which both the AU and the EU see as key actors
in implementation. Some are more capable or active than others.
Furthermore, they don't necessarily see themselves as "subsidiaries"
of the AU. This means that any number of AU documents may not
always be taken into account by the RECs.
While the Strategy refers to monitoring imperatives,
it is important that very clear action plans with timeframes are
developed. It is also important that the EC is able to show what
was achieved but also the sustainability of projects five years
down the line—is a particular road, water project etc still
working, being maintained and so on.
FINANCING
Two areas are critical—ability to absorb
funds; and proper monitoring, while reducing the red tape. At
the same time, the Strategy should help African governments increase
their domestic revenue sources, some of which require structural/systemic
changes to their economies, while others simply require establishing
a regulatory framework that actively seeks to collect domestic
revenue, (rather than perpetuating the sense in some African states
that domestic revenue collection is less important as long as
there are streams of international development aid. This perception
may be strengthened on the commitment by the North to increase
aid volumes over the next decade.)
It is important to adopt the Action Plan on
Aid Effectiveness, and Member States should ensure that this happens.
There is a real danger of getting caught up in the "fever"
of more aid, equals better aid and is a panacea to the developmental
challenges. That is not the case, as has been documented by much
research.
DIALOGUE
Many processes are already operating to ensure
dialogue between the EU and African institutions, but it is not
always the case that the communication is effective or that each
partner understands the rationale of the other. Political dialogue
within the Cotonou Agreement is increasingly perceived as a way
for the EU to interfere in the ACP countries (articles 8 and 96).
There should also be dialogue with other international aid partners,
but more importantly with the member states.
The Strategy says that this "partnership
will be formalised with the conclusion of a Euro-African Pact
at a second EU-Africa summit in Lisbon". The stumbling block
to this has been EU sanctions against Zimbabwe. If the Summit
is to formalise this partnership, ways around this obstacle need
to be identified.
The EU should also work more closely with "anchor"
countries in Africa who can be champions in their respective regions
on issues such as good governance, conflict resolution, democracy
and economic innovation. These anchor countries do need to be
carefully chosen as their continued political and economic stability
and growth are crucial for the wider Africa project.
IN CONCLUSION
What the EU Strategy on Africa document should
not be is another grand aspirational document on Africa from 2005.
The Sub-Committee should ask a critical question: what does the
EU really want from this document? Does it really want to prioritise
Africa? Or is it a "gap filler" paper policy document,
to fit the times? The answer to this question determines the rest.
February 2006
1 Elizabeth Sidiropoulos and Romy Chevallier of the
South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg
and Alex Vines and Tom Cargill of Chatham House's Africa programme. Back
2
For more analysis on African agriculture and some practical suggestions
see eAfrica, December 2003 and December 2005 at www.saiia.org.za Back
3
The Africa Action Plan at the Kananaskis Summit of the G-8 in
2002, followed by the Evian Summit in 2003, the Gleneagles Declaration
in 2005, and the Commission for Africa linked to the "Make
Poverty History" campaign. There was also the Financing for
Development summit in Monterrey and the UN's MDGs. In Africa,
the heads of state adopted the Nepad framework in 2001 and established
the African Union in 2002. Back
4
Ferna«ndez HA and R Youngs, "Introduction", in
The Euro-Med partnership: Assessing the First Decade. Madrid:
Fundacio«n para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Dia«logo
Exterior (FRIDE) and the Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales
y Estrate«gicos, 2005, p 17. Back
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