Free Africans for global trade

Yet another session of the World Trade Organisation’s Ministerial Conference on Monday, November 30, will hear appeals to save the crumbling free-trade Doha Round from US and EU farmers’ subsidies — but that boring news hides an exciting fact: Africans can free themselves.

Many African intellectuals and activists blame globalisation for the continent’s numerous ills.

Starting from the assertion that some multinational companies can do what they want in Africa, they conclude that globalisation must be the cause of African underdevelopment — in fact, it’s the lack of it.

There is no doubt that a few multinational companies can sometimes exert some sort of monopoly, buy a corrupt political clique or cover up their activities.

But this is cronyism, not capitalism or free trade.

To get public contracts they had to pay officials, feeding corruption at the top of States that do not respect the rule of law, propping up unpleasant regimes and fostering the legitimate resentment of local populations.

But is this really globalisation?

Globalisation, capitalism or free trade is in reality openness, competition, freedom of movement and of opportunities, all under the rule of law.

Far from foreigners flocking to Africa to exploit its opportunities, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development says Foreign Direct investment (FDI) in all Africa in 2008 equals 3.42 per cent of all FDI in the world: merely half of what goes to France alone.

Yet many in power in Africa and the Western aid industry still blame globalisation for Africa’s ills.

They even argue that Africans are not ready for the idea, manufacturing and commerce, which would only make sense if Africans were too lazy or too stupid to improve their own lot.

In fact, Africans are more than ready, full of energy and innovative ideas.

African roads often form a single big market for miles and miles.

In Treichville, Abidjan, for example, a foreigner cannot walk around without being hassled by youngsters trying to do foreign exchange on the street — entrepreneurs that is.

The idea that Africans do not have the spirit of commerce is mainly spread by African bureaucrats, rulers and even economics professors, along with Western aid agencies, to legitimise paternalism and its bureaucracy.