Transcript Why the World Bank and IMF should be nixed (not fixed)

Political
economy, oil
and social
resistance in
Africa
Patrick Bond
University of KwaZulu-Natal
School of Development Studies and
Centre for Civil Society, Durban
Presentation to OilWatch
and groundWork, 11
September 2008 Durban
Africa’s oil map
• Substantial oil reserves
• Oil and wars: Sudan,
Angola, Chad, Congo
• US imports 16% from
Africa
• In ten years will import
25%
http://www.catholicrelief.org/
images/oil/Africa-MapWeb-PS0301-Da.jpg
(credit: Horace Campbell)
Africa’s ‘resource curse’: Excessive fossil fuel
resources in a context of growing int'l interest (US
Africa Command, Chinese patrimonial politics, EU
EPAs, SA arms acquisitions, persistent coups)
 Which
regions
have used
up their
‘own’ oil
already?
Source: C.J.Campell,
www.energycrisis.org
What is main concern about
‘keep the oil in the soil’ (or ‘coal in the
hole’, or ‘resources in the ground’)?
Answer: loss of financial resources, jobs,
opportunities for ‘development’
Can we argue that oil impoverishes
African countries; that oil threatens the
climate; and that in any case, the North
owes the South an ecological debt?
Can activists make these strategic
arguments convincing and establish
formidable tactical tools of struggle?
1) traditions of African
political economy
2) wealth extraction:
debt, capital flight
3) Ecological Debt
4) trends in aid, trade
and commodity prices
5) correcting GDP for
environment, society
6) energy rights
7) climate
1) Our
traditions
Walter Rodney
on the production
of poverty
The question as to who and what is responsible for
African underdevelopment can be answered at two
levels. Firstly, the answer is that the operation of
the imperialist system bears major responsibility
for African economic retardation by draining
African wealth and by making it impossible to
develop more rapidly the resources of the
continent. Secondly, one has to deal with those
who manipulate the system and those who are
either agents or unwitting accomplices of the said
system.
The national bourgeoisie will be quite
content with the role of the Western
bourgeoisie’s business agent, and it will
play its part without any complexes in a
most dignified manner... In its beginnings,
the national bourgeoisie of the colonial
country identifies itself with the
decadence of the bourgeoisie of the West.
We need not think that it is jumping
ahead; it is in fact beginning at the end. It
is already senile before it has come to
know the petulance, the fearlessness, or
the will to succeed of youth.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
African progressive leaders, political economists and
social justice strategists, including resource-watchers
Charles Abugre, Adebayo Adedeji, Jimi Adesina, Claude
Ake, Neville Alexander, Samir Amin, Peter Anyang’Nyong’o,
A. M. Babu, Ahmed Ben Bella, Steve Biko, Dennis Brutus,
Amilcar Cabral, Fantu Cheru, Jacques Depelchin, Demba
Dembele, Yasmine Fall, Frantz Fanon, Ruth First, M. P.
Giyose, Yao Graham, Gill Hart, Pauline Hountondji, Eboe
Hutchful, Khafra Kambon, Dot Keet, Rene Loewenson, Sara
Longwe, Patrice Lumumba, Samora Machel, Archie Mafeje,
Ben Magubane, Amina Mama, Mahmood Mamdani, Guy
Mhone, Darlene Miller, Thandika Mkandawire, Dani
Nabudere, Léonce Ndikumana, Njoki Njehu, Kwame
Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Oginga
Odinga, Ike Okonto, Adebayo Olukoshi, Oduor Ongwen,
Bade Onimode, Haroub Othman, Kwesi Prah, Eunice Sahle,
Thomas Sankara, Issa Shivji, Yash Tandon, Riaz Tayob,
Aminata Traoré, Dodzi Tsikata, Kwame Ture, Ernest Wamba
dia Wamba, Tunde Zack-Williams, Paul Zeleza
Who supports the tradition?
• For internet-based guide to the toughest contemporary arguments against
imperial power emanating from the continent, there is no better web resource
than fahamu.org’s ‘Pambazuka’ weekly news and analytical service;
• at Africa World Press, Kassahun Checole puts many of these writers into
print - as do Zed Books, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Codesria in Dakar
• International supporters of African poli econ include Hans Abrahamsson, Soren
Ambrose, Michael Barratt-Brown, Salih Booker, Sarah Bracking, Victoria Brittain, Jan Burgess,
Ray Bush, George Caffentzis, Horace Campbell, Claudia Carr, Lionel Cliffe, Carole Collins, Dan
Connell, Fred Cooper, Imani Countess, Basil Davidson, Jennifer Davis, Silvia Federici, Bill
Fletcher, James Ferguson, Reginald Green, Branwen Gruffwydd Jones, Joe Hanlon, Colin Leys,
Bill Martin, Bill Minter, Giles Mohan, Jane Parpart, John S. Saul, Ann Seidman, Tim Shaw,
Vladimir Shubin, Colin Stoneman, Carol Thompson, Meredith Turshen, Michael Watts, David
Wiley, Gavin Williams, Anna Zalik and many others;
• Aside from solidarity activism, they work through radical academic
associations (e.g. Association of Concerned African Scholars and the
Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa), journals (e.g. the Review of
African Political Economy) and solidarity groups (the Toronto Committee for
the Liberation of Southern Africa was exemplary, as is Africa Action today).
• Key funders: Osisa, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, ActionAid, Oxfam
2) Wealth
extraction:
debt and
capital flight
12
Debt slavery includes the
uncompensated environmental
goods and services that African
countries give to Northern countries
– which along with Odious Debt that
the North should cancel, and capital
flight that should be repatriated,
would result in substantial resource
transfers to the South
‘Odious debt’ (16 African countries)
Source: Eric Toussaint
Capital flight from Africa, 1970-2004
Source: James Boyce, Leonce Ndikumana
15
3) Ecological
debt
Jubilee South: ecological debt is
‘the debt accumulated by
Northern, industrial countries
toward Third World countries on
account of resource plundering,
environmental damages, and the
free occupation of environmental
space to deposit wastes, such as
greenhouse gases, from the
industrial countries.’
Types of ecological debt
(Joan Martinez-Alier):
•
•
•
•
•
•
unpaid costs of reproduction or maintenance or sustainable
management of the renewable resources that have been exported;
actualised costs of the future lack of availability of destroyed natural
resources;
compensation for, or the costs of reparation (unpaid) of the local
damages produced by exports (for example, the sulphur dioxide of
copper smelters, the mine tailings, the harms to health from flower
exports, the pollution of water by mining), or the actualised value of
irreversible damage;
(unpaid) amount corresponding to the commercial use of information
and knowledge on genetic resources, when they have been appropriated
gratis (‘biopiracy’);
(unpaid) reparation costs or compensation for the impacts caused by
imports of solid or liquid toxic waste; and
lack of payment for environmental services or for disproportionate use
of ‘Environmental Space’, e.g. (unpaid) costs of free disposal of gas
residues (carbon dioxide, CFCs, etc) assuming equal rights to sinks and
reservoirs ($75 billion/year) – crucial for addressing climate crisis,
which will hit Africa far worse than elsewhere.
Lake Chad dries –
1973-2001
Kiliminjaro
melts –
1970-2000
Climate and African food
“It is projected that there could be a
possible reduction in yields in
agriculture of: 50% by 2020 in
some African countries... In Africa,
crop net revenues could fall by as
much as 90% by 2100, with smallscale farmers being the most
affected.”
– Testimony to the US House of Reps. Select Committee
on Energy Independence and Global Warming, by R.K.
Pachauri, Chairman, United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, August 2007
4) Trends in
aid, trade and
commodity
prices
AID: Declining commitments
Source: ActionAid
Aid in context:
Far less than
military spending
Source: UNDP HDR 2005
“Trade not aid”?
Recent commodity price increases
But longer-term commodity export
value trends are negative
Africa’s exports (excluding SA)
Source: Africa Commission
26
Export dependence
Source: Africa Commission
27
Multinational corporate profits
Source: UN Conference on Trade and Development (2007), World Investment Report 2007, Geneva.
5) Correcting
GDP for
environment,
society
It is time to correct GDP bias (global)
for pollution, resource extraction, etc
A “genuine progress indicator corrects the bias in GDP” Source: redefiningprogress.org
World Bank estimates of tangible wealth:
subsoil, timber, not-timber forest resources,
protected areas, cropland, pastureland, produced
capital, urban land, intangible wealth the cases of Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles,
Singapore and South Africa
(per capita US$ measure – Where is the Wealth of Nations?, WB, 2006)
31
World Bank
method for
adjusting
savings to
account for a
country’s
tangible wealth
and resource
depletion:
The case of
Ghana, 2000
(per capita US$ measure)
32
Where is
Africa’s
wealth?
World Bank
recording of
African
countries’
adjusted
national
wealth and
‘savings gaps’,
2000
6) Energy
rights
A typical rural
African energy
system
Energy Source
Energy Transmission
Energy Use
North
Africa
SubSahara
Africa
Developing
Asia
Latin
America
Middle East
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Transition
economies
OECD
Electrification rates
World average
Developing countries average
Redirect resources to
lifeline household supplies:
SA’s ‘Free Basic Electricity’
• ‘African National Congress-led local government
will provide all residents with a free basic amount
of water, electricity and other municipal services,
so as to help the poor. Those who use more than
the basic amounts will pay for the extra they use.’
(ANC campaign promise, 2000 municipal elections)
Two features:
• The promise is based on a ‘universal
entitlement’ -- basic needs should be met
(regardless of our income), consistent with the
SA Constitution’s Bill of Rights to a clean
environment;
• The promise also means that those who
consume more should pay more per unit after
the free basic supply, which promotes ‘crosssubsidies’ (i.e., redistribution), and
conservation.
• Of course, in reality: still too expensive for the
poor, as large corporations get cheap electricity
7) Climate
Genuine climate change reform:
plug fossil fuel consumption
leave the oil in the soil,
the coal in the hole,
the resources in the ground
Enlightened establishment:
The Extractive Industries Review
Dec ’03 RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE WORLD BANK, MANY
OF WHICH WERE IMMEDIATELY REJECTED:
• Phasing out lending in support of
oil and coal and to invest its
scarce development resources in
renewable energy by setting
lending targets of increasing
renewable energy lending by 20%
a year
“I can’t understand why there aren’t
rings of young people blocking
bulldozers and preventing them from
constructing coal-fired power plants.”
- Al Gore speaking privately, August 2007
Petro-mineral resources:
Leave the oil in the soil!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Alaska wilderness and California offshore drilling campaigners
Oil Watch
women of the Niger Delta, ERA, MEND
Australian Rising Tide v Newcastle coal exports
British Climate Camp
Attac, Norway
Alberta, Canada tar sands green & indigenous activists
South Durban Community Environmental Alliance against new
pipeline that will double petrol flow to Johannesburg
• Ecuadoran indigenous activists, Accion Ecologia and Rafael
Correa - who agree that Ecuador’s main oil reserve (Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha, in Yasuní
National Park) should stay in the ground (August 2007)
– La Vía Campesina;
Climate Justice Now!
Bali, December 2007
– Durban Group for Climate
Justice;
– Oilwatch;
• Carbon Trade Watch (a project of the
Transnational Institute);
– Pacific Indigenous Peoples
Environment Coalition;
• Center for Environmental Concerns;
– Sustainable Energy and
Economy Network
(Institute for Policy
Studies);
• Focus on the Global South;
• Freedom from Debt Coalition,
Philippines;
• Women for Climate Justice;
– Indigenous Environmental
Network;
• Global Forest Coalition;
– Third World Network;
• Global Justice Ecology Project;
– Indonesia Civil Society
Organizations Forum on
Climate Justice;
• Friends of the Earth International;
• International Forum on Globalization;
• Kalikasan-Peoples Network for the
Environment;
– World Rainforest
Movement.
• leaving fossil fuels in the
Climate Justice Now! ground and investing in
Bali, December 2007
appropriate energyMovement demands:
efficiency and safe, clean
and community-led
• reduced consumption;
renewable energy;
• huge financial transfers
• rights-based resource
from North to South
conservation that
based on historical
enforces Indigenous land
responsibility and
rights and promotes
peoples’ sovereignty over
ecological debt for
adaptation and mitigation energy, forests, land and
water; and
costs paid for by
• sustainable family
redirecting military
farming and peoples’ food
budgets, innovative taxes
sovereignty.
and debt cancellation;
Leave the Oil in the Soil!
Nigerians campaign against Shell and
against drilling in new blocks, June 2008
Is a green-red energy alliance possible?
Leave oil in soil plus electricity-as-a-right?