Lisa Peryman
Odious Debts Online
May 24, 2005

Tony Blair’s historic win of a third term as prime minister earlier this month was tentatively welcomed as good news by African commentators who would like to see the newly re-elected head of Britain put his money where his mouth was before the election.Having made Africa’s problems the ennobling mission of his second-term as prime minister, Mr. Blair now has the chance to force the issue. As Britain is in the driving seat this year as both leader of the Group of Eight (G8) rich nations and the European Union, Mr. Blair’s efforts to make Africa a main focus of discussion and the ambitious recommendations of his Commission for Africa report have raised hopes he can now press ahead and rally the developed world to make good on promises to help Africa turn the tide on decline, disease and destitution, once and for all.

Given that previous international efforts to “Save Africa” have failed to accomplish their goals and acknowledge Western complicity in African corruption – corruption being the greatest obstacle to stable improvement in the region – Mr. Blair’s Africa Commission report was refreshing in that it saw graft as a two-way street. Mr. Blair’s commitment to ushering in a new era of partnership between Africa and the West also suggested a marked change in tone from the patronizing attitude wealthy nations have taken toward Africa in the past.

In light of this history, news of Blair’s return to office received approval from African observers, although enthusiasm appeared somewhat limited.

Chege Mbitiru of the Nairobi daily, The Nation, weighed in on the third-term victory as a “minuscule good for Africa” that “may not amount to much,” but did credit Mr. Blair with being the “first Western leader in decades to make Africa a personal agenda.”

“Mr Blair’s commission has been rubbished as just another ‘Save Africa’ jig,” writes Mbitiru, and “good reasons exist. In 22 years, there have been at least ten such jigs. Yet, other than a small elite that rubs shoulders with the likes of Blair, natives are worse off than 40 years ago.”

The real significance of Mr. Blair’s efforts, Mbitiru declared, “is that a looter is telling fellow looters: At least let’s get civilised; otherwise there’ll be nothing left …”

The results of Mr. Blair’s Commission for Africa report, released in March, have since provided a framework for the prime minister’s campaign to focus global attention on African issues.

The highly anticipated report proposed 100% cancellation of sub-Saharan Africa’s multilateral debt, a doubling of foreign-aid spending by wealthy nations to a total of $US50 billion a year and an end to the subsidies and tariffs that cripple African trade, by 2010. The 17-strong commission of African leaders, experts and development advocates also called on industrialized countries to strengthen their efforts to curb graft and help African governments crack down on corruption and recoup stolen assets stashed by African leaders in Western banks.

The following recommendations [PDF] formulated by the Commission for Africa are expected to be placed before G8 members at their next summit to be held at Gleneagles, Scotland in July:

• “Countries and territories with significant financial centres should take, as a matter of urgency, all necessary legal and administrative measures to repatriate illicitly acquired state funds and assets. [The commission calls] on G8 countries to make specific commitments in 2005 and to report back on progress, including sums repatriated, in 2006.”
• “All states should ratify and implement the UN Convention Against Corruption during 2005.” (The convention can come into force only if 30 nations ratify it. So far, 22 have done so and Britain is the only G8 nation that has pledged to ratify the convention.)

Amending and passing the necessary laws to facilitate the commission’s proposals for combating corruption would go some way to legitimizing Mr. Blair’s recovery plan for Africa and increase its chances of lasting success.

“However, in order not to let these proposals become another one of those endless communiqués normally issued at the end of every conference or seminar on Africa’s problems,” warns UK-based African journalist and scholar, Uche Nworah, “it is vital that both the Prime Minister and the Commission for Africa go a step further.”

“He should let his actions speak louder than the words contained in the 461-page [commission] report,” advises Nworah, in a recent edition of Global Politician. “The common man on the streets of Africa desirous of real change would like to see Mr. Blair convince his fellow Western leaders of the seriousness of the African situation,” but “he can only do this if he sets the ball rolling by acting decisively, the same way he did when he led the way in the aftermath of the Tsunami disaster, through his government’s record £75M contribution. This time, Africans expect a British government announcement of debt cancellations for poor African nations; such announcements may be the tonic the other creditor nations need to begin to take action themselves towards that direction.”

Writing off debts as “a radical but progressive and humanitarian course of action,” says Nworah, is a compelling argument in relation to African debt incurred by corrupt governments that used borrowed money to enrich themselves and remain in power.

“Corrupt regimes who ended up recycling the funds back into their private bank accounts scattered all over the western countries” continues Nworah, have left African citizens “to suffer from the repayments, without any real and tangible differences in the social systems and infrastructures” the loan money was secured to improve in the first place.

Writing off such debts, however, might strike Western creditors as a shrewd move for less than noble reasons. After all, what better way to conceal their complicity in the misuse of public funds by despotic rulers than by erasing bad debt at a time when debt cancellation is lauded as the way forward to making poverty history?

According to Mr. Nworah, the “good thing” about the Commission for Africa report is that it “talks about a partnership between Africa and the West,” which is a “new approach to dealing with Africa” that “is most welcome” because “it not only shows that Africa as a continent has grown up, it also challenges Africa to rise up and accept its responsibilities as a grown up.”

The report, he says, “entrusts Africa’s destiny into Africa’s hands.”

And yet as the upcoming G8 summit in Scotland this summer makes clear, Africa’s destiny is not in Africa’s hands. So long as African leaders continue to look to the West to bail them out, others will always be able to call the shots.

The most decisive way to signal responsible leadership and authority is to forgo debt forgiveness and declare a moratorium on debt repayments. Debt cancellation doesn’t punish the wrongdoers or curb corruption and odious debts left unchallenged will be treated as legitimate and enforceable by lenders. However, challenging odious debts is one way African governments can hold both Western creditors and corrupt African officials to account.

The time of the G8 summit in July poses the perfect opportunity for African leaders and the NEPAD Secretariat (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) to launch such a challenge and declare a new era of good governance and prosperity for Africa.

If Tony Blair is serious about a partnership between Africa and the West, he too should drop debt forgiveness in favour of a rigorous accounting of loose lending and corrupt spending.