Leon P. Spencer
Washington Office on AfricaJune 25, 2003
Testimony of Leon P. Spencer, Executive Director of the Washington Office on Africa at the hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on The African Growth and Opportunity Act.
From the moment that the African Growth and Opportunity Act was first introduced in Congress, the Washington Office on Africa has been engaged in advocacy regarding US-Africa trade policy from the standpoint of a faith-based understanding of economic justice. A broad-based ecumenical organization, we were created thirty years ago in support of the liberation struggles in southern Africa. Since 1994, we have given special attention to economic issues - trade, aid and debt - as an expression of our concern for human development and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa.
While critical of aspects of US-Africa trade policy, we and our colleagues in the Africa Trade Policy Working Group of the Advocacy Network for Africa are not anti-trade. We are convinced that - to the extent that African business initiatives are enabled to be competitive, benefits accrue to workers (especially those living in extreme poverty), and environmental concerns are addressed - mutually-beneficial trade relations will result, and will serve Africa's interests. At the same time, we are convinced that trade between such unequal partners cannot be the sole answer to Africa's development, and without continuing development assistance and substantial debt cancellation, the economic marginalization of Africa in the global economic context will remain - to our detriment in the United States, as well as to Africa's.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act - by its very existence - indicated to many in Africa and in the United States that the US was at long last prepared to take Africa and its economies seriously. From the outset, however, we questioned the extent of the benefits of this legislation to Africa, and the price paid - the conditions established by AGOA - for access to those benefits. Early drafts of the legislation contained conditions that looked very much like the Structural Adjustment Programs of the international financial institutions - an economic agenda that even the International Monetary Fund has recently acknowledged has worked against Africa's interests. We looked warily at the "national treatment" and intellectual property rights conditions as indicative of a self-serving US agenda. We also questioned whether textile benefits would prove to be the stimulus panacea some claimed. We nevertheless welcomed the somewhat improved conditions in the final text, and we were prepared to applaud concrete pervasive benefits to Africa should post-AGOA data so demonstrate.
With AGOA now in its third year since passage, here is what we see:
Concern about the rule of law, poverty reduction, health care, education, labor rights, and human rights are well-placed in AGOA eligibility criteria, and they represent an effort to place trade in the context of a just society. By those standards it has been legitimate for this administration to raise concerns about Eritrea and Swaziland in particular.
It remains, however, a serious matter of concern to the Washington Office on Africa as to the application of the various narrowly-self-serving economic prescriptions among eligibility conditions. Insistence upon economic "reforms" that remove any barrier to US trade and investment and demand "national treatment" of foreign corporations ignores the fact that most industrialized nations, including the United States, achieved their economic status through "infant industry protection." Prior to 1913 the US was both the most heavily protected and fastest growing economy in the world. By suggesting that Africans efforts to protect fledgling industries from the might of multinational corporations, or that any barriers African countries impose upon US investment, prevent a "level playing field," the US Trade Representative is engaging in myth.
It is fair enough for the US to indicate its preference for particular economic policies by African governments. It is crucial, however, for Congress to demonstrate, in any future Africa-oriented legislation, its support of the right of African governments and civil society to define their own economic agenda without penalty or threat of penalty by the US.
The Free Market and Fair Trade
The free market mantra of this administration is self-serving. No country in the world, including the US, practices free trade, and US "free trade policies" are widely seen by other countries as a demand for free access by the US to their markets, rather than the reverse. The recommendations of the Commission on Capital Flows to Africa that the US permit all products from Africa to enter the US duty-free and quota-free is in striking contrast to this reality, despite the gestures made in AGOA.
US long-term interests are secured by engaging in fair trade. Africa's certainly are. US interests are also served by stable African societies where governments effectively address the needs of their people. Africa's certainly are. Tragically, current US trade policies and actions undermine both fair trade and Africa's societal needs. Whatever the legislative vehicle, moving forward with an alternative vision of US-Africa trade policy, where the US practices what it preaches on free trade, and where ideas of managed trade are not anathema, is crucial for mutually-beneficial relations. Here are some possibilities:
These potential actions by the Congress represent a way forward in US trade relations with Africa that would affirm the value of trade in advancing African economies while offering a vision of economic activity as serving the common good. We may debate at length the role of export processing zones, the extension of textile benefits beyond 2008, and the proper place for capacity building within the direct context of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Thoughtful proposals to assure AGOA eligibility for a period of, say, five years instead of annually; to broaden textile market access; and to extend AGOA itself, deserve consideration. But unless the US makes it clear that we consider Africans as genuine partners who define their economic agenda, find without hindrance public as well as private means to address the needs of their people, and act in the trade realm to secure peace with justice, then we will undermine our own interests by projecting an image that our economic dominance permits us to ignore the needs and hopes of Africa.
The agenda we set above helps to make the word "compassion" genuine. And economic justice toward Africa, expressed concretely in US trade policy, actually serves US national interests.
Civil society
A final word needs to be said about the role of African civil society. AGOA wisely envisioned an occasion at which civil society in the US and in Africa would meet parallel to the US-Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum that was mandated by the legislation. Unfortunately, no meeting materialized in 2002, and the NGO meeting in Mauritius in 2003 lacked integrity, a fact revealed not only by limited and unrepresentative participation from Africa but also by a closing document welcoming other NGOs to future meetings only if they embrace the AGOA agenda and if they agree not to be "adversarial" in relations with government and business sectors.
We readily acknowledge that African civil society propounds diverse views about the contribution AGOA makes to African economies. Many of our own partners within the African faith communities speak highly of AGOA's vision. Others have condemned AGOA as offering little to Africa and as principally serving a US corporate agenda. We find the same diversity of views in civil society in the United States.
The point is that the AGOA call for an NGO parallel meeting provides a singular opportunity to model democratic traditions by demonstrating that African critiques of an African government's trade policy enhance debate, strengthen civil society, and ultimately make for good governance. The Congress should ensure that this positive potential is realized by appropriating funds for attendance by diverse African NGOs and by providing for an independent coordinating structure committed to diversity at these annual meetings.
It is appropriate to reflect upon the particular contribution AGOA makes to US-Africa trade relations, but I have sought here to use AGOA, as well, as a vehicle to reflect upon a broader US-Africa agenda, both economic and social. AGOA should, we believe, stimulate thought about next steps in trade that might leave the US legitimately talking about economic justice rather than about narrow self-interest.
Fundamental to this testimony is the view that business and trade, placed in the context of human rights and conflict resolution and a broad vision of societal good, will contribute to poverty alleviation in Africa. Business and trade, properly regulated to protect workers and the environment, and with sufficient flexibility to permit African governments to support small business initiatives against multinational giants, will help African economies. Business and trade, recognized as one aspect of human relationships but firmly subordinate to the hopes and needs of the community, will significantly contribute to the common good. Business and trade, left alone, protected from interference by government and people, will not. To the extent that the US agenda gives unchallenged primacy to a trade that exploits both resources and people, Africa will suffer. And so will the rest of us. The African Growth and Opportunity Act - in its strengths and its weaknesses - ought to take us in an alternative direction.
More Information on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)
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