'Advice is judged by results, not by intentions': Why Gordon Brown is wrong about Africa

International Affairs

Volumn 81, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 299-310

  Taylor, Ian ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 15844409427     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00451.x     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Gordon Brown, The challenges of 2005: forging a new compact for Africa', New Economy 11: 3, Sept. 2004, p. 127.
2. Gordon Brown, 'Global warning', Fabian Review, Jan. 2005.
3. Alex Vines, 'Into Africa', World Today, March 2005.
4. See Ian Taylor, Nepad: toward Africa's development or another false start? (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005).
5. Star (Johannesburg), 29 March 2004.
6. Business Day (Johannesburg), 24 March 2004.
7. Virtually all of these goals are of long standing and have been part of New Labour's ostensible agenda since at least 1999. See Rita Abrahamsen and Paul Williams, 'Britain and southern Africa: a "third way" or business as usual?', in Korwa Adar and Rok Ajulu, eds, Globalisation and emerging trends in African states' foreign policy-making process (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), p. 316.
8. The Daily Telegraph refers to it as 'Brown's Cash-for-Guilt programme under which the Chancellor (or, to be more precise, you) has agreed to improve the Afro-kleptocracies' cash flow': Daily Telegraph, 6 Feb. 2005.
9. Richard Dowden, 'Can Gordon save Africa?', Observer, 9 Jan. 2005.
10. The Times, 14 Dec. 2004.
11. Brown, 'The challenges of 2005', p. 130.
12. East African (Nairobi), 31 Jan. 2005.
13. Despite the fact that Nigeria already had at least eight international-sized grounds across the country - in 1999 Nigeria hosted the FIFA World Youth Championships.
14. Goldenberg International was established by corrupt businessmen and politicians as a vehicle to access pre-shipment financing and state compensation for gold and jewellery exports. Recent evidence from the government investigation has shown that over $335 million was initially siphoned from the state in this way, growing to more than $1, 116 million after numerous transactions involving officials at the Central Bank and very senior Moi allies.
15. Dilip Parajuli, What is driving educational ineffectiveness in Kenya? The role of economic inefficiency, institutional corruption and poverty (Nairobi: Transparency International-Kenya/Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Sept. 2001), p. 1.
16. See Ronald Hope and Bornwell Chiluko, eds, Corruption and development in Africa: lessons from country case studies (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000). For a specific case-study, see Arthur Nwankwo, Nigeria: the stolen billions (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1999).
17. See Ronald Hope and Bornwell Chiluko, eds, Corruption and development in Africa: lessons from country case studies (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000). For a specific case-study, see Arthur Nwankwo, Nigeria: the stolen billions (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1999).
18. Ross Herbert, 'Implementing Nepad: a critical assessment', in R. Culpeper, ed., Africa Report: assessing the new partnership (Ottawa: North-South Institute, 2003).
19. Christopher Clapham, Third World politics: an introduction (London: Croom Helm, 1985), p. 49.
20. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, 'Africa at large: British Marshall Plan for Africa: who is helping whom?', www.pambazuka.org, accessed 13 Jan. 2005. This is an important point to make. Far too many commentators on - and cheerleaders of - Brown's plans have a personalized stake, financially and/or career-wise, in ensuring that aid budgets increase year on year.
21. Beatrice Hibou, 'From privatising the economy to privatising the state: an analysis of the continual formation of the state', in Beatrice Hibou, ed., Privatising the state (London: Hurst, 2004).
22. Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh), 6 Feb. 2005.
23. Robert Guest, The shackled continent: Africa's past, present and future (London: Macmillan, 2004), p. 150.
24. Nicholas van de Walle, African economies and the politics of permanent crisis, 1979-1999 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 7-8.
25. International Herald Tribune (Washington DC), 29 Dec. 2004.
26. Interestingly, research has shown that it was policy conditionalities, not the investment or amounts of money attached to the Marshall Plan, that most assisted Europe's recovery. See Barry Eichengreen and Marc Uzan, The Marshall Plan: economic effects and implications for eastern Europe and the former USSR (London: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 1992).
27. Leonce Ndikumana and James Boyce, Public debts and private assets: explaining capital flight from sub-Saharan African countries, Working Paper no. 32 (Amherst: Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, 2002).
28. Africa Recovery 17: 2, 2003, p. 10.
29. George Ayittey, 'Nigeria: the high cost of erratic financial policies', Economic Reform Today, no. 1, 1995.
30. African Business (London), Sept. 2004, p. 8.
31. See David Mepham and James Lorge, Putting our house in order: recasting G8 policy towards Africa (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2005), pp. 36-47.
32. On the African side, the fact that only 10 African states (out of 53) have ratified the convention is not encouraging either.
33. Abdul-Raheem, 'Africa at large'.
34. Gordon Brown 'How to win the peace', Blueprint Magazine: Ideas for a New Century, 25 March 2002.
35. See R. Jackson, Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
36. Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, Democratic experiments in Africa: regime transitions in comparative perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 63.
37. Note, not all - just many.
38. Richard Dowden, 'The state of the African state: the past, present and future of the nation state in Africa', New Economy 11: 3, Sept. 2004, p. 142.
39. However, it is about time that the debate regarding the liberalization of western agriculture moved on. The campaign for this by various non-governmental actors, charities and assorted pop stars naïvely assumes that 'fair trade' is a magic bullet that will bring universal - if not immediate - benefits to Africa. Unfortunately, should liberalization take place, there will be a complex set of winners and losers, many of them African. See Richard Gibb, 'Developing countries and market access: the bitter-sweet taste of the European Union's sugar policy in southern Africa', Journal of Modern African Studies 42: 4, 2004, pp. 563-88.
40. UNCTAD, Duty and quota free market access for LDCs: an analysis of quad initiatives (New York: UNCTAD, 2002), p. 23.
41. Oxfam, Cultivating poverty: the impact of US cotton subsidies on Africa, Oxfam Briefing Paper 30, 2003.
42. Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, Freedom, prosperity, and security: the GS partnership with Africa: Sea Island 2004 and beyond, May 2004, p. 16.
43. Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, Freedom, prosperity, and security, p. 17.
44. Note that, thanks to Japanese obduracy, the G7's pledge is for 'up to' 100 per cent relief, not 100 per cent relief. Note also that this will be considered only on a case-by-case basis.
45. Scotsman (Edinburgh), 4 Feb. 2005.
46. The Times, 14 Dec. 2004.
47. He has spoken of the influence of his Christian upbringing (his father was a Church of Scotland minister) on his campaign to secure justice for Africa.
48. BBC News Online, 18 Jan. 2005.
49. Note that in a speech to the Commission for Africa in Cape Town in Jan. 2005, Brown referred to 'your New Economic Programme for African Development'. One assumes he was referring to the New Partnership for Africa's Development. See speech by the Rt Hon. Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the Commission for Africa meeting, Cape Town, South Africa, 17 Jan. 2005, United Kingdom Treasury press release.
50. Observer, 9 Jan. 2005. There is also the matter of the announced closure by 2006 of Britain's high commissions in Lesotho and Swaziland and the embassy in Madagascar. This comes on top of the closure of the British embassy in Mali in May 2003 - after it had been open for only 18 months. It could be argued that such facts tend to jar with the alleged 'passion' for Africa felt by the current British government.
51. Abdul-Raheem, 'Africa at large'.
52. International Herald Tribune (Washington DC), 29 Dec. 2004.