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W
hen eight southern African
leaders met the heads of the
World Bank and International
Monetary Fund leaders at Dar es Salaam
in February their discussions centred on
the critical issues of debt, poverty and
HIV/AIDS.
Outside the meeting the same issues
were being raised by about 20 demonstrators
from civil society organizations
who attempted to influence the high level
talks but were kept at a distance by
Tanzanian police.
At the meeting, the SADC leaders told
James Wolfesohn of the World Bank and
Horst Kohler of the IMF that their institutions
should be considering the particularities
of the regions and states and
their economies when developing cooperation
arrangements. The leaders of
Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda also joined
the eight SADC leaders.
The SADC countries also called for a
balanced and transparent flow of resources
to southern Africa, which are presently
skewed towards Europe and Latin
America.
“We wanted them to explain why
conditions of facilities extended to us in
Africa are different from those extended
to Europe and Latin America,” Zimbabwe’s
President Robert Mugabe told
journalists. The regional leaders told the twin
institutions to go beyond accounting
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and look at the fundamental issues of
development which are often the victims
of economic reform prescriptions. They
also called for more investment in social
concerns. They said that debt was choking
development and told the bankers
that debt must be cancelled as a matter
of urgency in order to tap into Africa’s
enormous potential.
The two world financiers, who were
on a week-long trip to Africa as a follow-up
to their commitment at their 2000 annual
meeting to put the continent at the
center of their priorities, had not even
put debt on their agenda. African countries
owe a staggering US$41.6 billion to
the IMF and World Bank.
The other most immediate concern
for southern Africa is the devastation caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
which has decimated societies and economies.
It is urgent and help is long overdue.
Africa has 70 percent of the 36 million
people known to be living with the
disease worldwide.
The leaders agreed the meeting had
gone some distance in defining key roles
and developed some trust in the sub region. “For the first time we have African
leaders taking ownership of what they
want to do in Africa,” said Callisto Madavo,
World Bank vice-president for
Africa. “A new partnership is emerging
in which African leaders
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are telling us
what they want to do. And, in turn, they
are asking the Bank and the Fund as their
external partners to provide support.”
His IMF counterpart, Goodall Gondwe
agreed. “This time there was a very
clear understanding of what the problems
are as well as enthusiasm in taking
responsibilities for what has to be done.”
Outside the venue, the demonstra
tors were showing their support for the
African leaders position by raising placards
which said, “End debt slavery” and
“Why do IMF and World Bank rob the
poor to pay the rich?”
The Tanzania Gender Networking
Programme (TGNP) had also purchased
an advertisement in major newspapers
the day of the meetings which emphasized
the issues and called on Tanzanians
to protest. It said that the economy of
Tanzania had failed to grow after the
country embraced structural adjustment
advanced by the two institutions that
TGNP blamed for increasing poverty.
For their pains, some demonstrators
were arrested, as was Demere Kitunga,
TGNP chairperson, when she went to bail
out her colleagues.
They were later released and Tanzanian
President Benjamin Mkapa apologized
for the arrests, saying that they
were unnecessary.
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