China has invested $552 million directly in Africa in the first half of the year, a report by Law Info China quoting the country’s Ministry of Commerce has said.

According to the report, the amount raises China’s direct investment in Africa to 81% from the same period in 2008.

Meanwhile, trade between China and African countries has dropped 30.5% to $37.07 billion in the first six months of 2009 as a result of the global economic crisis, the report added.

It said in the first half of the year, Chinese enterprises signed US$22.45 billion of new labor service contracts in Africa, up 25 percent year on year, and completed US$11.53 billion of business volume, up 61.1 percent year on year.

About 1000 Chinese enterprises have been approved or registered to do business in Africa. They are into trade, manufacturing, resources development, transportation, agriculture and agricultural products processing.

Trade between Ghana and China has grown over the years. In 2005 trade between the two countries was $769 million.

Trade between the two countries has blossomed over the years, with China benefitting most.

Ghana’s exports to China totalled only 25 million dollars with imports of 93 million dollars in the year 2000. Exports grew to 32 million dollars in 2003 with imports of 180 million dollars. In 2006, the figure went up to 39 million dollars for exports while imports surged to 504 million dollars.

A greater number of Ghanaians also prefer Chinese products, the results of a survey by Xinhua, a Chinese publication has shown.

Remarking on the results of the survey, which was done in July 2009, said it, “Ghanaians’ wrong perception about goods imported from China has gradually changed with the result that there is currently high patronage of all sorts of goods made in China.”

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

(ghanabusinessnews.com)

The Chinese Embassy on Friday donated about 600 textbooks to the faculty of Arts and the Balme Library of University of Ghana to assist in the teaching of Chinese.

This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU)between the Chinese government and the University in 2008, to start the teaching of Chinese language.

Wang Lushan, Charge D’affaires of the embassy who presented the books on behalf of the office of Chinese Language Council International of China, said the Chinese language was a very cordial one, thus attracting many people in the world to learn it.

He said most China visa applicants are students who are desirous of studying Chinese, adding that Ghana and China have had long standing bilateral and cordial relations.

He said University of Ghana began the Chinese language training programme last year, and that 30 students have so far gone through the course, adding that last year four students from Ghana were given scholarships to undertake a master’s degree in Chinese language in China.

He said two language instructors and eight volunteers from China were in the country to assist University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi.

He said about 30 students have applied to study Chinese at the degree level which begins this academic year at University of Ghana.

Professor E. Kweku Osam, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, thanked the Chinese government for supporting the programme.

He said to learn a language effectively there was need to have closer interaction with the instructor.

He said “we can count on the support of the Chinese government to build the Confucius institute in West Africa.”

Teddy Konu, Outgoing Registrar of the university, said Chinese culture was a broad one that many people find attractive, adding that Ghana and China had a long standing political relationship which should be continued into the future.

He urged the embassy to broaden the areas of co-operation by entering into other areas to promote greater understanding for benefit of the two countries.

Source: Xinhua

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund could further revise up its growth forecast for Africa next year to reflect a pick-up in demand in China and some industrialized countries where there are signs of recovery.

In an interview with Reuters, Antoinette Sayeh, Director for the IMF’s African Department, said the end of the global recession was still a way off and African economies are feeling the dramatic decline in demand, investment and commodity prices.

“On the one hand the external environment appears to be getting better and there are expectations that growth in China may be more robust, so we’re looking at our projections in light of what appears to be some improvement,” Sayeh said, adding, “But it is a long way from the end of the recession.”

Sayeh said the IMF had just revised up its 2010 growth forecast for Africa to 4 percent, from an April forecast of 3.8 percent, and could adjust it higher by October, when it will update its forecasts for the world economy.

“It takes significant amount of time to return to growth potential after these crises, which worries us also,” Sayeh said. “It may take Africa some time to get back to the 6 percent growth we were seeing before,” she added.

Demand for IMF funding from African countries had increased sharply, she said, and the rash of new loans showed how hard the region is being hit but also reflected more flexible lending practices by the IMF.

Currently, there are 28 African countries with active IMF programs, compared to just six in 2006. In the first six months of this year, lending increased to $3 billion — more than the last three years combined.

The IMF said on Wednesday lending to the region could hit up to $8 billion over the next two years.

In South Africa — the region’s largest economy — she said there was some evidence that private capital inflows are beginning to improve.

“This is all healthy, but it still doesn’t make up for the outflows previously, and even countries like South Africa continue to be very much impacted by reduced demand for its exports,” she added.

Sayeh said the IMF was concerned that a prolonged downturn in Africa’s growth could force countries to increase borrowing and push up their debt levels, just as many have benefited from debt cancellation.

But she said there were no signs yet that countries were building up their debt to unsustainable levels.

NEW LENDING PRACTICES

The IMF on Wednesday said it would mobilize up to $17 billion in new resources for lending to low-income countries, most of them in Africa, seen most at risk from the global crisis.

In addition to an increase in funding, the IMF also temporarily suspended interest rate payments on outstanding credit for 60 poor countries over the next two and a half years until the start of 2011.

It also unveiled three new lending facilities for poor countries, including a short-term precautionary credit instruments for countries that may not want to immediately tap the money.

Just a few months ago, the IMF announced a similar precautionary lending program for emerging market countries, but has not had one for its poorest borrowers until now.

The IMF will also offer emergency financing for countries hit by external shocks outside their control, such as the record increase in global food prices.

But Sayeh said the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) for countries facing protracted balance of payments problems will likely remain the “workhorse” of its engagement in Africa.

She added the IMF expects most African countries will use an allocation of $18 billion in IMF special drawing rights, expected in August, to rebuild their reserves instead of exchanging it for hard currency.

The allocation is part of a $250 billion boost to global liquidity agreed by the Group of 20 member countries in April, of which $18 billion will go to poor countries.

SDRs were created by the IMF in the 1969 as an international reserve asset, and can be exchanged between countries and converted into hard currency such as the dollar, yen, pound or euro.

Chana Auto, one of China’s biggest carmakers, plans to invest $80m in South Africa over the next five years. The investment would culminate with the construction of a new assembly plant, which would be the country’s first green-field car plant in 40 years.

Yang Qing, general manager of Chana International, told local newspaper Business Report that the investment would take place in three phases, with the construction of a new plant, whose location has not been decided, being the final stage. The investment is expected to create 1,000 jobs.

Initially, though, Chana’s activities will focus on boosting sales of imported Chana vehicles in the South African market. To date, about 5,000 Chana vehicles have been sold in South Africa, which is the biggest and most mature automotive market in Africa.

Meanwhile, Geely Automobile, another of China’s Big Five, is engaged in a similar expeditionary mission in Algeria. It has just awarded the PR deal to develop its brand in Algeria to Open2Europe, a pan-European hi-tech PR firm headquartered in Paris.

Open2Europe will accompany Geely in developing its brand in Algeria, which is seen as a strategic market by the Chinese carmaker. The campaign will start with the launch of the new Geely Panda.

Geely apparently chose Open2Europe because of its previous success with Chinese companies, and its expertise in increasing visibility in the European, American and Arabian media.

Car industry analysts have long argued that when China’s carmakers start flexing their expansionist muscles, they would most likely start with developing economies of Africa, Asia and eastern Europe, rather than compete head on with the established western and Asian carmakers giants in mature markets.

So while Europe’s media have been salivating over the potential implications of a Chinese-owned Opel — Beijing Automotive Industry Holding tabled an eleventh-hour offer for the German carmaker — China’s increasingly aggressive moves in smaller markets risk going unnoticed.

(engagingchina.com)

ACCRA (Reuters) – Barack Obama will visit Africa for the first time since being sworn in as the first black U.S. president when he travels to Ghana in July, a trip many Africans hope will herald powerful help for their poor continent.

Ghanaians celebrated Washington’s decision to choose their country for Obama’s presidential debut in Africa, where he is a hugely popular figure.

They said the visit represents a chance for Ghana, which expects to start producing oil in 2011, to press its claims for greater engagement with the West.

Obama will visit the former British colony on July 10 and 11, Ghana’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“It is my hope that Ghana will take advantage of this visit … we need help to boost trade for growth,” said former diplomat Kwaku Bapru Asante.

“We should try to push ideas to get the international institutions to modify their conditions and processes in our favor so that we can trade, rather than always asking for aid.”

Ghana, a gold and cocoa exporting country whose economy is struggling with inflation of more than 20 percent and a high budget deficit, is in talks with the International Monetary Fund to secure $1 billion to boost its foreign exchange reserves.

“During his visit, President Obama will hold bilateral talks with his Ghanaian counterpart, President John Evans Atta Mills, aimed at strengthening the fraternal relations existing between the two countries,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Accra residents were thrilled at the prospect of hosting Obama and his wife Michelle.

“I will not work that weekend and I’ll do all that it takes to be among the crowd to wave at his motorcade — for me, that alone is fulfilling,” said car mechanic Henry Boahene, shouting the president’s name.

Obama, whose late father was Kenyan, sparked a wave of high expectation throughout Africa when he resoundingly won elections in November, though the world’s poorest continent has barely featured on his agenda since taking power in January.

Many Africans had hoped Obama’s inauguration would mark the start of a new U.S. push to alleviate the poverty, hunger, conflict and corruption that blight much of the continent, but the president’s first four months in power have been dominated by the financial crisis at home.

Obama will also visit Cape Coast, a former slave trading hub in Ghana.

(Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Richard Balmforth)

Accra, May 17, GNA – The Chinese Embassy in Accra processed more than 200,000 visas for Ghanaians to visit the People’s Republic of China in 2008 to transact various businesses, Mr Yu Wenzhe, Chinese Ambassador to Ghana announced on Saturday.

He said China has become the largest investor in Ghana in terms of number of companies, noting that many Chinese companies in Ghana have been living up to their social responsibilities.

Mr Yu, who was speaking at a forum organised by the Ghana-China Friendship Association (GHA-CHIFA) under the theme; “Doing Business in Ghana In A Friendly Way,” urged successful Chinese businessmen and businesswomen to share their knowledge with their Ghanaian counterparts.

He said since differences in culture, customs and practices of both countries sometimes created barriers in communication resulting in misunderstanding, it was necessary for both Ghanaians and Chinese to learn each others’ way of life.

Mr Yu said after the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2006, the mutually beneficial relationship between Ghana and China stepped into the fast track and has yielded good results in various fields.

He said apart from the cooperation between the two governments, which dated back to the era of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Mao Zedong in the 1960s, people to people contact had also developed.

Mr Yu appealed to Ministries, Departments and Agencies to continue to improve the business environment to attract more foreign investment.

Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, Minister of Food and Agriculture, said it was of absolute importance for the country not only to do business with other countries but should do so in a friendly win-win way that would keep all partners satisfied, motivated and desirous of doing even more business.

Mr Kojo Ammo-Gottfried, President of GHACHIFA, said the founders of the Association believed that Ghana as a developing country had much to gain from China by forging close relations between the peoples of both countries.

GNA

Source: GNA

(modernghana.com)

FUZHOU, (Xinhua) — Nine Nigerian citizens who were allegedly forging passports were detained by police in east China on suspicion of illegal entry and residence, local police said Tuesday.

Police in Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian Province, raided the fake passport ring — including 10 Nigerians and one Ghanaian — on May 6. Nine members of the ring, all Nigerians, lacked valid identity documents.

Yusuf Olalekan Mustapha, a Nigerian national, was involved in another passport-forging case in the province, according to the Fujian provincial department of public security.

Xiamen police found many photos of foreign nationals, false documents and bank cards at the residences of the ring members.

Mustapha and eight other Nigerians without valid ID documents were detained on suspicion of illegal entry and residence, while the tenth Nigerian, Fuseini Haruna, and Ghanaian national Yusuf Idiyat Omolara were fined.

Police investigations against the nine detained are still in progress.

Editor: Pliny

Accra, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama has called for a deepening in Ghana/China relations to overcome the worldwide financial meltdown leading to serious dislocations in the economies of countries including Ghana.

He said with the two countries pursuing similar political and economic ideologies, there was need for them to synergise their relations to offset the burden imposed on them as a result of the financial crisis to minimise the impact on the people.

Vice President Mahama said this when he received a high powered Chinese delegation led by Dr Wang Jiarui, Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Castle, Osu, on Thursday.

Dr Wang, who is also a member of the Central Committee of the CPC, is touring some African countries including Ghana, Kenya, Cape Verde and Eritrea to deepen Sino/Africa relations within the context of south-south cooperation.

In addition to holding discussions at the governmental level, Dr Wang is also meeting with the leadership of the National Democratic Congress as part of the CPC’s collaboration with the ruling party through the aegis of the International Socialist Forum.

Bilateral relations between African countries and China has expanded rapidly in recent times, as China, using her clout as an emerging economic powerhouse, has poured huge resources into those countries to help shore up their flagging finances.

The cooperation has led to mutual trade volume of $73.3 billion in 2007 and $53.1 billion in the first quarter of 2008, indicating an annual growth rate of 30 per cent since 2000, a positive development Vice President Mahama said gave Ghana, and other African countries, a track which should be harnessed for the mutual benefit of all parties.

Vice President Mahama said while the global financial crisis imposed a lot of challenges for developing countries, it, nonetheless, also offered a number of opportunities which could be exploited to clean up the mess in the operations of the global financial system.

He said the crisis offered an opportunity to deal with the situation whereby a small clique of financial captains engage in unbridled and regulated financial deals that accrued to them huge wealth, while the majority of the people were left out.

Vice President Mahama appealed to the CPC to help in building the grassroots structures of the NDC since it was through the medium of active party organization that electoral victories could be won.

Vice President Mahama was grateful to the Chinese government for her remarkable investment in the Ghanaian economy, the recent being the construction of the Bui Hydro Power Plant.

Dr Wang commended the Ghanaian government for her achievements in the areas of human development and promised further cooperation to enhance the relations between the two countries.

The Chinese Minister urged Ghana to continue along the lines of people-centred development, assuring that China would continue to be a significant partner in that agenda to bring about social and economic transformation in the lives of the people.

Touching on the global financial crisis, Dr Wang said it would require the collaboration of the two countries to overcome it.

A Vice Chairman of the NDC, Mr Huudu Yahya, who led the NDC delegation, called for an urgent meeting between the CPC and the NDC to discuss the financial crisis and ways to be adopted to minimise its impact on the economies of the two countries.

At the meeting were Mr Yu Wenzhe, the Chinese Ambassador, Mr Newman Mantey, Chief of Staff, Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Alban Bagbin, Majority Leader and Mr Ludwig Hlodze, Deputy Youth Organizer of the party.

GNA

Source: GNA

BEIJING, (Xinhua) — A delegation of the Communist Party of China (CPC) left here Saturday for official visits to Kenya, Eritrea, Ghana, Cape Verde and Norway.

The delegation, led by Wang Jiarui, head of the International Department of CPC Central Committee, was invited by the three parties of Kenya’s ruling coalition–Party of National Unity, Orange Democratic Movement and Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice of Eritrea, African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde and Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

By Yao Graham

While many African leaders have aspired to inherit Nkrumah’s mantle as the visionary and driver of Pan-Africanism and continental unity, writes Yao Graham, a gaping political leadership vacuum remains at the heart of the continent’s collective expression. From an age when there were a number of outstanding African leaders, among whom Nkrumah was preeminent, Graham argues that the African Union’s election of Gaddafi as its leader is a statement of a collective failure of leadership and underlines the crisis in which the Pan-African project is currently mired at the inter-state level. Where, asks Graham, are the African leaders who see opportunities for change in the current crisis, and who are ‘ready to dare and look beyond guaranteeing the sanctity of aid flows?’

In February Ghana’s new President John Atta-Mills announced that Nkrumah’s birthday in September will be observed as Founder’s Day and a national holiday. The long and tortuous national rehabilitation of the man who led the country to independence and remains an inspiration to Africans all over the world had taken yet another important step in the centenary year of his birth.

In the years after Ghana gained independence, Nkrumah’s life and work was dominated by two primary concerns, one international, the other domestic. Internationally Pan-Africanism as a project of political and economic freedom, unity and structural transformation linked to the issue of Africa’s place and voice on the world stage was dominant. Inside Ghana the main issue was the structural transformation of the mono-crop dependent colonial economy bequeathed by the British into a balanced and internally linked one that offered improved and secure livelihoods to Ghanaians. The domestic and international concerns were of course closely linked in Nkrumah’s pronouncements and practice. He hoped that any achievements in Ghana would serve as a model as well as a unit in the economy of a united Africa. Nkrumah was ready to incur the wrath of the major imperialist powers of the day in pursuit of what he believed was in the interest of the African people.

David Rooney concluded his critical biography of Nkrumah with the acknowledgement that ‘His hopes were encapsulated in his ultimate goal of a United Africa in which its rich natural resources would be used for the benefit of all its people and would not be filched from them by foreign financiers and other exploiters. It may take centuries for Nkrumah’s goal to be achieved, but when it is, he will be revered as the leader with the dynamism and intelligent imagination to take the first brave steps’.

From an age when there were a number of outstanding African leaders, among whom Nkrumah was preeminent, the continent currently confronts the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and a host of other challenges such as the situation in and international political play around Darfur without a rallying figure.

Nkrumah’s leadership and rallying role in African affairs went well beyond his vision and theorising. Importantly it included support for national liberation movements. This support embodied a unity of his Pan-Africanism and commitment to anti-colonial independence as a necessary precondition for the continent’s unity and progress. The activities of the Bureau of African Affairs which oversaw support for national liberation movements and the training of their cadre in Ghana with support from the Soviet bloc and China led to Cold War accusation that Ghana was a base for communist subversion in Africa. Two events however stand out in Nkrumah’s readiness to support the national liberation struggle as well as defend its unity with the Pan-African cause, even when face to face with much more powerful countries. These are the financial aid Ghana gave to newly independent Guinea in 1958 and Ghana’s stance and action in support of Patrice Lumumba’s government during the Congo (DRC) crisis of the early sixties. Developments in the two countries soon after independence offer credence to Cabral’s argument that ’so long as imperialism is in existence an independent African state must be a liberation movement in power, or it will not be independent’.

As France stared defeat in the face in Algeria at the hands of the National Liberation Front (FLN) - a prospect made all the more difficult to countenance because of the humiliation inflicted by the Vietnamese in 1954 - it sought to re-package its colonial control by offering its African colonies membership of a French community. All French African colonies, except Guinea under Sekou Toure, agreed to the new colonial package. In an unforgettable act of vindictiveness, the departing French stripped Guinea of anything they could carry, leaving the country on the brink of collapse. Nkrumah stepped in with a £10m loan to help the newly independent country avoid collapse. This was a considerable sum in those days and big sacrifice by a small country like Ghana.

Nkrumah’s brave and sustained but ultimately doomed support for Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the unity of Congo and his faith in the UN in the face Western plotting and intrigue marked a high point of his willingness to assume international leadership on African causes. The outcome was also a stark statement of what could not be achieved without a concerted African engagement in the face of powerful external forces. Nkrumah maintained a consistent line during the Congo crisis. He insisted that the country should solve its problems with the support of other African countries within the framework of the UN without the meddling of global powers, especially the NATO bloc. He assumed that the UN framework would give international legitimacy to the African led process. Nkrumah sent troops to support Lumumba using Soviet planes much to the anger of the USA. On 23 September 1960 Nkrumah used the platform of the UN General Assembly to make the case for Congo’s unity, Lumumba’s leadership and for an African solution under UN auspices to the crisis in the Congo. The appeal failed to gain traction, mainly because the UN auspices also provided perfect cover for the US and its NATO allies to carry out their plans in the Congo.

It is now a public fact that even before Congo’s independence on 1 July 1960, the American CIA was getting ready to put its puppets in power. President Dwight Eisenhower issued a national security order for the killing of Prime Minister Lumumba within six weeks of Congo becoming independent. Congo’s fate as a Western plaything in the Cold War was sealed and its long and tragic descent into what it has become today had begun. The gulf between Nkrumah’s intentions and his weakness in the situation was tragically highlighted by how Ghana’s contingent in the UN military force became detached from Nkrumah’s political objectives and acted as accessories to actions against Lumumba.

Nkrumah’s lonely and heroic but ultimately futile stance on the Congo crisis contrasts sharply with the flabby collective African approach on Somalia and Darfur. The former process has lurched from crisis to crisis with ever diminishing credibility and capacity of the transitional government. The situation was further compounded by the readiness of Ethiopia, the host country of the African Union, to act in concert with the Bush administration in pursuit of their particular national interests that converged in Somalia. Old Ethiopian imperial pretensions meshed with Bush’s war on terror. All these fuelled the discrediting, resistance to and delegitimation of the AU’s role in that country.

The Darfur crisis and its escalation around the indictment of Sudan’s President Bashir by the International Criminal Court has provided a grave test for Africa’s collective ability to deal with African issues which are heavily intermeshed with international dimensions and interests. The UN/AU hybrid peacekeeping operation in Darfur (UNAMID) continues to face various difficulties. Joint UN-AU as well as Arab League mediation and peace initiatives do not appear to be making much progress. The indictment of Bashir and the issuing of a warrant for his arrest has further complicated the situation. Having failed to exert a decisive influence on the course of events in Darfur, including on the behaviour of the Sudanese government and the evolution of the ICC’s pursuit of Bashir, the African Union has taken a critical stance towards the implementation of the arrest warrant. As the internationalisation of the Darfur conflict widens, the purchase of the African Union on how it is likely to be resolved shrinks.

In recent years Pan-African structures, institutions and processes have proliferated. The mechanisms of the AU have been undergoing refinement since it took over from the OAU as the premier continental institution. Alongside these phenomena, many African leaders have aspired to inherit Nkrumah’s mantle as the visionary and driver of Pan-Africanism and continental unity. A gaping political leadership vacuum however remains at the heart of the continent’s collective expression.

Earlier this year the AU elected Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as chair of the Union. In recent years, he has emerged as the most forthright spokesman for the urgency of creating a United States of Africa. How best and how quickly to move forward to a union of African states was the main item on the agenda of the 2007 AU summit, fittingly held in Accra during Ghana’s 50th year of independence. The debate was inconclusive but the exercise underlined Gaddafi’s stature as a leader of the Unity Now! camp.

The African Union’s election of the unpredictable Gaddafi at this grave moment in history is more a negative than a positive. It is a statement of a collective failure of leadership and underlines the crisis in which the Pan-African project is mired at the inter-state level. His seemingly radical stance on African Unity notwithstanding, the sad truth is that Gaddafi is not the successor to Nkrumah that the continent currently and urgently needs. He does not offer a coherent vision or leadership practice of pan-Africanism in keeping with the needs of the age. These shortcomings are compounded by his unpredictability and histrionics. Some of his views and pronouncements show him up as a man deeply marked by his years as an authoritarian leader. Among his many bizarre acts is his current self-designation as king of Africa’s kings, a reactionary assertion out of tune with the democratic logic on the continent’s national liberation struggles.

The African people want democracy not monarchs. If there is one element of Africa’s post-colonial history that the masses want behind them it is the years of despotism. In Black Star, his deeply sympathetic study of Nkrumah’s life and times, Basil Davidson, who devoted his life to supporting Africa’s national liberation struggles, pointed to the decay of internal party democracy and the gradual ascent of authoritarian use of power in Nkrumah’s Ghana as a key contributor to the erosion of mass support for Nkrumah’s efforts to transform the economy for the benefit of ordinary people. ‘The view for tomorrow is that Nkrumah’s aims were the right ones and their realisation will become increasingly possible as conditions ripen and as other strategists take up further struggles for liberation. These strategists will succeed… in the measure that they undertake and carry through the work of building democratic organisations which become the vehicles of mass participation as well as mass support: movements in which the mass of ordinary people really make, enshrine and uphold the fundamental law of the land’.

The African delegation to the London G20 summit was led not by Gaddafi the chair of the AU but by Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, who is chair of NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) and a good friend of the West. NEPAD is at best a substructure of the AU and Zenawi’s presence is illustrative of the ease with which many outside Africa are able to pick and choose how to deal with the continent. During the Beijing China Africa Forum the Chinese were able to deal with African countries as individuals while the AU was treated as observer.

Processes of restructuring of global leadership are underway in the international level responses to the unfolding economic crisis. One strand of these is the emergence of the G20 as a key site of global economic leadership, the effective downgrading of the G8. This process mirrors the way in which the old wholly Western quartet of leading powers in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been replaced by a new quad of the US, EU, Brazil and India. The seating around the G20 table reflects the power of individual Asian and Latin American economies with South Africa the only African country there as an individual member country. Realistically the most effective way African countries could have optimised their voice would have been through effective prior preparation and definition of positions and South-South diplomacy ahead of the meeting, as well as having a collective representative of their own choosing.

The continent’s response to the global crisis has so far lacked urgency and the sense that this is an opportunity to make a break with some of the discredited policies which have failed to deliver transformative growth over the past couple of decades. The main line in the global fora has been to plead for Africa to be remembered and for the security of aid budgets. As African leaders traipse around international fora, the glaring absence of leaders who see opportunities for change in the current crisis stands in sharp relief.

The current global crisis has validated what critics of neoliberalism have been saying for years. In the last few years the annual Economic Report on Africa (ERA) published by the UN Economic Commission for Africa has been gently putting out its critique of the experience of the neoliberal agenda in Africa. Years of growth had failed to effect either transformation or the much touted poverty reduction. The current crisis had again brought to the fore the fundamental structural problems of Africa’s economies which the recent years of growth had masked, especially in countries exporting oil or benefiting from the commodities boom.

Nkrumah reportedly broke down in tears when confronted with the news that the collapse of cocoa prices had cut the ground from under his plans for the economic transformation of Ghana. In the years since Nkrumah’s overthrow, the cyclical movement of cocoa and gold prices have been the determinant factors in the health of the Ghanaian economy, tempered in recent years by the substantial aid that the country receives. For some years now Ghana has been a model of the type of economy and economic policy that has been proclaimed as the way forward for Africa but which has failed to deliver over a generation and has been exposed as bankrupt by the global crisis.

During the last six or so years of his rule Nkrumah attempted to transform the colonial economy he inherited. Many leaders of his generation - Nyerere in Tanzania, Kaunda in Zambia, and many others - recognised this to be a primary task of post-colonial economic policy. Despite the claims that Nkrumah’s difficulties were because of his socialist policies, the truth is that for a long time he was a good pupil of the dominant economic theories and ideas of his day as purveyed by leading thinkers in the West. His later attempt to learn from the development strategies of the Soviet Union as well as China and Yugoslavia showed a readiness to take risks and try uncharted paths. In retrospect it clear that many mistakes were made and offer rich lessons for today, but he dared.

In the 15 years Nkrumah was in power a leading role for the state in the economy was the norm in both communist countries and the West where Keynesian economics prevailed. The experience of the Soviet Union offered lessons in rapid industrialisation, which India had started learning before Ghana came along. The relative success of import substituting industrialisation in Latin America had made that strategy a respectable one by the time of Ghana’s independence. The Labour party was undertaking extensive nationalisations in Britain when Nkrumah first came to power. Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanism was powered by a grander vision and ambition than the modest European Coal and Steel community, which has flowered into the European Union, but they were united by a recognition of the benefits of regional integration.

Using existing resources, Nkrumah rapidly expanded education, health and infrastructure and aided other newly independent countries such as Guinea. With additional borrowing, industrial and agricultural investments were made. Many of the agro-industrial projects, not all well conceived, were in their infancy when he was overthrown. He inaugurated the Akosombo hydroelectricity dam, the centre piece of the Volta River project, which he saw as powering Ghana’s industrialisation a month before his overthrow. The creation of a local raw material base was not properly scheduled with the new factories that were built in the period before the 1966 coup. By that time the crisis in the international price of cocoa had wrought considerable damage to revenue and growth projections, putting pressure on imports and consumption.

The turn towards the Soviet Union and China was an economic as well as political act. Nkrumah’s anti-imperialism meant that he did not believe he could rely on the West for full support for his transformational project especially given the centrality of African unity with its implication for existing colonial spheres of influence as well as US intrusions into the continent.

One of the key lessons from Ghana’s development experience under Nkrumah is linked directly to his commitment to a pan-African solution to the challenges of under development. Nkrumah’s works are replete with warnings about the limits of what small ‘balkanised’ African countries can do on their own. Faced with the absence of a larger political economic unit he sought to transform the small economy and market of Ghana into an industrialised economy at a fast pace. The post-Cold War global economic framework has made the regional and continental even more key in any serious African project of economic transformation.

Sadly even in the face of the global crisis many African governments are looking only outwards towards their ‘development partners’ rather than exploring the opportunities for deepening regional and continental cooperation and integration. The IMF is offering its pernicious advice that not much needs to change and there seem to be many in African leadership ready to listen. Meantime in the global North, pages are being torn from the rulebooks by which African economies have been run from Washington. The norms which have driven the negotiating positions of the West in fora such as the WTO have been called into question by domestic policies in those countries.

All these offer important opportunities for a new agenda for economic transformation in Africa. Where are the African leaders ready to dare and look beyond guaranteeing the sanctity of aid flows? Wanted: an African ‘leader with the dynamism and intelligent imagination to take the first brave steps’.

* Yao Graham, an activist and writer, is the head of Third World Network Africa, a pan-African research and advocacy organisation based in Accra, Ghana.

()

A group of Chinese tourists
on Thursday announced a travelling expedition from Ghana across the Sahara desert to help them learn more about Africa and also promote Ghana and the continent as a good tourist destination for other Chinese.

The tourists will also serve as goodwill ambassadors for China by creating awareness among Chinese people about tourism opportunities and investment potentials on the continent.

Mr Jin Fei Bao, owner of a travel and adventure tour agency in China said during the 81 days trip across Africa they are in constant touch with the Chinese media and everything they did would be reported in the Chinese print and electronic media on a daily basis.

At a meeting with officials on the Ghana Tourist Board and private Tour Operators, Mr Jin said they chose Ghana as a starting point because of the good relations between Ghana and China.

The trip, code-named: “Expedition to Cross the Sahara Desert,” will take the tourists through Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Egypt and will end at the Red Sea after more than 7800 kilometres trek.

The trip will also enable the tourists to document environmental concerns such as desertification, climate change related issues and the preservation of habitat for the protection of plants and animal species.

In Ghana the group which has already visited the Meridian, the Centre of the World, would also tour Cape Coast, Kakum Park, Kumasi, Obuasi, Tamale, Bolgatanga, Sirigu, and Paga.

Mr Jin said they were particularly excited about the opportunity to meet so many Africans of diverse cultural and ethnic groups.

Mrs. Gifty Quansah, Marketing Executive at the Ghana Tourist Board, said Ghana abounds with a lot of diverse tourists’ attractions.

She said the Chinese market is one new area that the tourism industry in Ghana wanted to explore and urged the tourists to partner the Ghanaian tour operators to ensure that more Chinese visited Ghana.

GNA
(modernghana.com)

Ghana will be the starting point of an 88-day expedition by the Yunnan Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Kunming. The Chinese Exploration Team of adventurer-explorer includes, Jin Fei Bao and geoscientist Fei Xuan who will be joined by photographer and journalist Wang Yongji from the New China Agency.

The expedition begins at the shore of the Atlantic Ocean on April 7 in Accra and ends on April 18 when the team enters Burkina Faso. The expedition will cross seven countries in all: Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Egypt, where the journey will end at the Red Sea after a trek of more than 7800 kilometres.

This historic expedition marks the first time a Chinese team will be crossing the Sahara from west to east. The team chose Ghana as a starting point due to the long history of good relations between China and Ghana - and for the political stability and hospitality that Ghana is famous for.

During this historic journey, the Chinese team (led by China’s famed explorer Jin Fei Bao) will document environmental concerns such as desertification and the preservation of habitat for the protection of plant and animal species. They will also serve as goodwill ambassadors for China and hope to increase awareness among Chinese people of the potential that Africa holds for tourism opportunities and investment.

Fei Xuan is a member of the Yunnan Committee of the CPPCC and Deputy Director of the Economic Council for the same committee. He is also the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Yunnan Association of Geosciences, and economic management expert for Geological Prospecting and Mining.

Jin Fei Bao is based in Kunming and is the owner of a travel and adventure tour agency. Also a member of the CPPCC, he is known for his daring exploits, having faced many challenges in some of the harshest places on the planet. He has climbed Mount Everest and the highest mountains on seven continents, and has journeyed to both the North and South Poles on skis. Crossing the Sahara has been his dream and now becomes his next great adventure. In 2008, Jin Fei Bao and Fei Xuan completed China?s first crossing of Greenland, setting the first Chinese footprints on the icecaps of Greenland, and becoming “Heroes of China” and the pride of Yunnan.

The expedition is sponsored by the Hongta Group and the People’s Government of Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province, in association with the Yunnan Committee of China Association for Promoting Democracy. The team will utilise various modes of travel, including vehicles, by camel, trekking and river canoes. The expedition marks a new chapter in Chinese history in the Sahara by covering the longest mileage, crossing the most countries, and marking the first time the desert is being traversed from the west to the east by Chinese.

Beginning the trek in the climate and terrain of equatorial Africa will allow the team to observe firsthand the subtle changes in climate and topography as the trek continues north into the Sahel and ultimately into the forbidding landscapes of the great Sahara Desert.

During their time in Ghana, the team will meet with some members of the tourism industry and visit many of Ghana’s historical and natural attractions, including the forts at Cape Coast, Kakum Park, Kumasi, Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, Kintampo Falls, Mole Park, Sirigu Pottery Village and the Paga Crocodile Pond. The team is particularly excited by this unique opportunity to personally meet so many of Africa’s diverse cultural and ethnic groups as they pursue their quest.

(ALLAFRICA)

The Chinese government is to make available a grant of seven million dollars for the construction of a 100-bed capacity general hospital in Ghana.

The ultra modern hospital, to be sited at Teshie would also have an anti malaria centre and is scheduled to be completed in about two years.

Mr Yu Wenzhe, Ambassador of China told journalists on Friday when he paid a courtesy call on the Health Minister Dr. George Yankey in Accra on his appointment to office.

He said there was a strong collaboration between Ghana and China and hoped this grant would further strengthen the collaboration, adding, “The collaboration should bring progress to both countries.”

Mr Wenzhe said China government was ready to help boost this economic and social infrastructure development for rapid development in Africa.

He said China government had introduced a scholarship scheme for civil servants to upgrade their skills in fields including medicine, engineering, economics and architecture.

Dr Yankey commended the Chinese government for the gift and said it was a big relief to Ghana since it was going to solve one of the nation’s biggest health problems, malaria.

He noted that the Ministry was liaising with the Chinese Ministry of Health for the establishment of a malaria research centre in Ghana and hoped the establishment of the hospital and the research centre would bring together orthodox medicine and traditional Ghanaian medicine for smooth healthcare delivery.

Source: GNA

Seven Things No One Tells You About Marriage
You’re smart. You know life is no storybook. But admit it: Somewhere deep in your subconscious lurk romantic visions of Cinderella,

or maybe Julia Roberts. The images may be sketchy and a little outdated, but you can still make out the silhouette of the bride and

Prince Charming riding off into the sunset.
In real life, sometimes your Disney fairy tale ends up feeling more like a Wes Craven horror flick — and you’re the chick who

keeps falling down and screaming for her life. I’ve been there. Let’s face it, marriage is not for the faint of heart. You want to

believe your pure love for each other will pull you through. And it does. But it ain’t always pretty.

That may sound grim. But here’s a secret: Sometimes it’s the least romantic parts of marriage that have the most to teach you about

yourself, your partner, and the nature of love. Read on for some simple truths that will unlock the surprising treasures and

pleasures in your imperfect, unstorybook, real-life love.

1. You will look at the person lying next to you and wonder, Is this it? Forever?
When you get married, you think that as long as you pick the right guy — your soul mate — you’ll be happy together until death do

you part. Then you wake up one day and realize that no matter how great he is, he doesn’t make you happy every moment of every day.

In fact, some days you might wonder why you were in such a hurry to get married in the first place. You think to yourself, “This is

so not what I signed up for.”
Actually, it is. You just didn’t realize it the day you and your guy were cramming wedding cake into each other’s faces, clinking

champagne glasses, and dancing the Electric Slide. Back then you had no idea that “for better and for worse” doesn’t kick in only

when life hands you a tragedy. Your relationship mettle is, in fact, most tested on a daily basis, when the utter sameness of

day-in/day-out togetherness can sometimes make you want to run for the hills. That’s when the disappointment sneaks in, and maybe

even a palpable sense of loneliness and grief. It’s not him. It’s just you, letting go of that sugarcoated fantasy of marriage that

danced in your eyes the day you and your beloved posed in all those soft-focus wedding photos. You’re learning that marriage isn’t

a destination; it’s a journey filled with equal parts excitement and tedium.
Waking up from a good dream to face the harsh morning daylight may not seem like a reason to celebrate. But trust me, it is.

Because once you let go of all the hokey stories of eternal bliss, you find that the reality of marriage is far richer and more

rewarding than you ever could have guessed. Hard, yes. Frustrating, yes. But full of its own powerful, quiet enchantments just the

same, and that’s better than any fairy tale.

2. You’ll work harder than you ever imagined.
Early on, when people say, “Marriage takes work,” you assume “work” means being patient when he forgets to put down the toilet

seat. In your naivete, you think that you will struggle to accommodate some annoying habit, like persistent knuckle cracking or

flatulence.
If only it were that easy. Human beings, you may have noticed, are not simple creatures. Your man has mysterious, unplumbed depths

– and from where he sits, you’re pretty complicated, too. You have to learn each other the same way that you once learned earth

science or world geography. And getting married doesn’t mean you’re done — it just means you’ve advanced to graduate-level

studies. That’s because every time you think you’ve mastered the material, he’ll change a bit. And so will you. As two people grow

and evolve, the real work of marriage is finding a way to relate to and nurture each other in the process.
“It’s like losing weight,” says Andrea Harden, 45, of Buffalo, NY. “You want it to be a one-time deal. You lost it, now just live.

But then you learn it’s a lifestyle. That’s marriage. The effort is a forever thing.” So don’t be too hard on yourself — or him –

on those days when you feel like you’re struggling through remedial math.

3. You will sometimes go to bed mad (and maybe even wake up madder).
Whoever decided to tell newlyweds “Never go to bed angry” doesn’t know what it’s like inside a bedroom where tears and accusations

fly as one spouse talks the other into a woozy stupor until night meets the dawn. If this scenario sounds familiar, I’ve got three

words for you: Sleep on it.
You need to calm down. You need to gain perspective. You need to just give it a rest. I’ve found that an argument of any quality,

like a fine wine, needs to breathe. A break in the action will help you figure out whether you’re angry, hurt, or both, and then

pinpoint the exact source. Maybe the fight that seemed to erupt over the overflowing garbage can is really about feeling

underappreciated. Could be you’re both stressed out at work and just needed to unload on someone. Taking a break will help you see

that, and let go. Or maybe you really do have a legitimate disagreement to work out. Without a time-out, sometimes a perfectly good

argument can turn into an endless round of silly back-and-forth, rehashing old and irrelevant transgressions as you get more and

more wound up.
Even when you do manage to stay focused and on topic, there are some fights that stubbornly refuse to die by bedtime. And if you

stifle your real feelings just to meet some arbitrary deadline, your marriage will surely be the worse for it. “This was a huge

lesson for me,” says Andrea. “As women we’ve been trained to make nice. But the whole kiss-and-make-up thing just to keep the peace

was eating me up inside. I’d let things build up inside me until I just exploded. Now I wait a while to get hold of myself — let

the emotions settle a bit — and state my position. Even if that means reopening the fight the next day.”

4. Getting your way is usually not as important as finding a way to work together.
I can be a bit of a know-it-all. There, I said it. It’s really not my intention to be hurtful or brash with people I love. It’s

just that a lifetime of experience has taught me that in most areas, at most times, I am right about most things. What shocked me

several years into my marriage, though, was the realization that the more “right” I was, the more discontented my husband and I

were as a couple. See, oddly enough, throughout his life Genoveso has been under the misguided impression that he’s right most of

the time (go figure!). So we’d lock horns — often. That is, until I learned a few things.
Namely, that when it comes to certain disagreements, there is no right or wrong — there is simply your way of looking at things

and your husband’s. “I used to be very black-and-white earlier in our marriage,” says Lindy Vincent, 38, who lives in Minneapolis.

“Now I see that I’m not all right and my husband is not all wrong. There’s more gray in life than I thought, and that’s taught me

patience and the value of compromise.”

5. A great marriage doesn’t mean no conflict; it simply means a couple keeps trying to get it right.
Maybe you think that because of my newfound wisdom, Genoveso and I never fight anymore. Ha! As important as it is to strike a

balance, it’s also important to have a big, fat fight every now and then. Because when you fight, you don’t just raise your voices;

you raise real — sometimes buried — issues that challenge you to come to a clearer understanding of you, your man, and your

relationship. I wouldn’t give up our fights for anything in the world, because I know in the end they won’t break us; they’ll only

make us stronger.

6. You’ll realize that you can only change yourself.
Ever seen the ’80s sci-fi cult classic “Making Mr. Right?” When the stylish heroine, played by Ann Magnuson, is hired to teach a

robot how to act like a human, she seizes the chance to create a perfect guy. A hotshot commercial whiz, she uses her marketing

prowess to shape John Malkovich’s android character into her personal version of the ideal man — sensitive, eager to please, and

willing to listen.
There is a bit of that makeover fantasy in all of us — something that makes us believe we can change the person we love, make him

just a little bit closer to perfect. We may use support and empathy or shouts and ultimatums, but with dogged conviction we take on

this huge responsibility, convinced we’re doing the right thing.
Whatever our motives, the effort is exhausting. Transforming a full-grown man — stripping him of decades-old habits, beliefs, and

idiosyncrasies — is truly an impossible task. And you will come to realize, sooner than later if you’re lucky, that it is far

easier to change the way you respond to him.

7. As you face your fears and insecurities, you will find out what you’re really made of.
There were clues when Genoveso and I were dating, especially with the trust thing. Early on, I was supersuspicious of him. He used

to say things like, “I’ll call you at 8.” Then, just to try to trip me up, he’d call at 8. I knew he was up to something, I just

couldn’t figure out what. The same kinds of experiences followed after the wedding. Except occasionally he would actually mess up.

And I had no sense of scale when it came to rating his offenses; everything was a major violation. Whether he teased me about a new

haircut or came home late, I seethed for days and even let thoughts of divorce creep into my head. I figured, if he loved me –

really and truly — this stuff wouldn’t happen.
I’d like to be able to say that this irrational behavior lasted only a few months and I eventually worked it out. Kind of, sort of,

is closer to the truth. After years of looking deeply into my soul and talking to good friends and the best sister a girl could

ever have, I’ve come to recognize certain things about myself. Not to get all Dr. Phil about it, but I’ve had to examine my history

with an emotionally distant dad and a strong-willed mom and face up to all the ways, both good and bad, that those relationships

have affected how I approach my marriage.
That’s the strange beauty of marriage: It’s full of hard times and hard lessons that no one can ever prepare you for. But in the

end, those are the things that give richness to your life together — and make your love even deeper and stronger than when it began.

(ghanamma.com)

The boss of Peach Blossom Palace is spotted In Ghana’s most expensive casino, wearing Gucci shades, a golden brown Emperio Amani tuxedo and a custom-made Rolex wrist watch.

Scores of raunchy mini-skirted Chinese girls fill up his glass with exotic French champagne. He spins his cozy swivel chair in sensuous delirium as the ladies’ dainty fingers caress his neck, back and shoulders to orthopedic effect. “Ha,ha ha” he lets out another loud peal of frenzied laughter.

There is no doubt that this impressive figure is a successful man. His appearance likewise leaves little doubt that his prosperity comes from brisk business.

What is not immediately evident is the fact that he rakes in millions that flow not from his own pores, but from the bloody chores of hapless, naive lasses he has made whores on the shores of West Africa.

He presides over an evil empire, which trafficks his Chinese compatriots, engaging them in sex slavery, not only here in Ghana, but also in Nigeria and Togo.

The non-African expatriate community is the clientele. Peach Blossom Palace is the wholesale outlet from where the “goods” are marketed and sold. Poor, innocent and vulnerable Chinese girls, some as young as 19, are the human commodity on sale paraded in front of the clients like pieces of meat in a butcher shop window. They are lured here with promises of honest, well-paid jobs, only to have their passports and return tickets confiscated.

The travel documents may be recovered, but only after one had paid off the cost - invariably inflated of the trip to Accra. They are beaten and threatened with a high debt to be repaid only through the sale of their bodies.

They are thrown into debt bondage and forced to sell their innocence and human dignity for their master’s gain in nightclubs and casinos. “I was told that I was going to be waitressing in a Chinese restaurant, but it however turned into nightmare.

There was no way of turning back and I resorted to this dehumanizing business” said one of the girls. Any of this trafficker’s victims, who attempt anything akin to disobedience, not to talk of rebellion, is firmly, swiftly and brutally repressed.

Six months of backbreaking investigation yielded the above discovery on the nefarious activities of King James, the man at the centre of the sex trafficking ring.

Posing as a bartender in the hotels where this sordid business is carried out, “The New Crusading Guide” reporter managed to capture every aspect of this trade with a hidden camera. He also pretended to befriend a lady who lived in the brothel and from whom, over a period of four months, he obtained valuable, first-hand accounts of the activities of King James and his colleagues. All of the above described is captured on video. It was upon the presentation of this evidence that the Police CID planned and carried out a raid on the Peach Blossom Palace in Labadi, Accra.

The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, Supplemental Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafticking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000) serves as the international legal standard. It outlines the definition of human trafficking in Article 3 (a): “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, with total annual revenue for trafficking in persons estimated to be between $5 billion and $9 billion. The Council of Europe states that “people trafficking has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion.”

Enslavement Prevention Alliance - West Africa, an NGO that has provided the victims with postrescue care, stated that: “The ruthless criminals behind the sexual exploitation of these vulnerable women should feel the full hand of the Ghanaian law. This would not only serve to provide the victims with justice, it would also serve as a deterrent to all those who wish to perpetrate similar crimes in Ghana. Swift prosecution of this case will send a clear message that the business of sexual slavery is not welcome here.”

Credit: Anas Aremeyaw Anas
Source: New Crusading Guide

(ghanabusinessnews.com)

The global food and energy crisis, and now the financial crisis are making the future of life in Africa more uncertain, especially for the poor, and Africa has been relying on aid for over 60 years now to solve its economic and development challenges. To what extent has aid worked?

The developed world has spent around 600 billion dollars on aid since 1958, and yet the number of sub-Saharan Africans living in poverty keep increasing.

Meanwhile, the full impacts of the global financial crisis is expected to hit the continent, but the extent of the effect is not known yet, making the outlook even more ominous.

Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, said on October 7, 2008: “Although Africa is relatively protected from the initial impacts  on the financial markets, the continent could be seriously affected by the weakening of global economic growth and a decline in demand  for products from emerging markets… The current crisis will increase the cost of borrowing on capital markets, and make access to the markets more difficult… Budgetary pressures resulting from the various rescue plans could reduce the volume of aid and investments in Africa, and lead to rise of protectionism.”

While the banking sector on the continent has not as yet felt the spiraling effects of the global financial collapse, FDI, remittances and African economies in general are shrinking.

According to an IMF World Economic Outlook Reported of October 2008; “Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is expected to moderate in the face of the financial turmoil and high energy and food prices… Overall growth is projected to decline from near 7 percent in 2007 to just over 6 percent 2008-2009.”

For instance in Ghana inflation for January 2009 has hit over 19% and Nigeria, the largest economy in West Africa which in 2005 paid up its external debt of $14 billion is now piling up external debt, which has so far reached $3.76 billion and inflation in that country is rising.

Ghana on the other hand received debt forgiveness. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and other debt forgiveness programs canceled billions of dollars in debts and as a result, Ghana’s debt fell to around 41 percent of gross domestic product in 2006, from 70 percent of 2005.

However, high state spending deficits, partly due to measures to alleviate electricity shortages and high oil import costs, pushed government debt back up to 52 percent of GDP in 2007,  according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s – that was in June 2008.

The country is currently running a budget deficit of 13.3% of GDP.

Analysts do not think Africa can come out of the woods by depending on aid. Indeed, it is feared that even aid inflows to the continent would equally shrink as donor countries battle their own recession.

The Accra High Level Conference on Aid Effectiveness held in Accra, Ghana in September 2008 emphasised the fact that aid is not sufficient to deal with the continent’s development problems, and other factors ought to be looked at. Factors such as corruption, the strengthening of internal mechanisms and fair trade should be tackled to address the continent’s development challenges.

A large amount of aid money to the continent is siphoned into individual pockets and there are no properly established check and balance mechanisms for the use of aid money, and in instances where they exist, they hardly function effectively to make sure aid money meant for development go into these areas.

Dabansi Moyo, an economist with the World Bank is of the view that “development is not rocket science, it is very clear what works in terms of development. Africa has got lots of role models and doesn’t have to look to America and Europe, but can look to emerging economies.”

She told the BBC that Africa can do what these economies have done. “They have not relied on aid, they have gone to the capital markets, they’ve attracted trade and foreign direct investment and encouraged microfinance.” She advised that a very important factor like microfinance can be done on individual bases and “we don’t have to rely on governments to do that.”

She said further that there is no need to argue on the basis of a strong moral imperative to help Africa. She said, “We as a global society need to decide whether we want Africa to continue to be a drag on the global economy or to participate as an equal participant on the global stage?”

“If we want to see Africa and Africans as equal partners and its economies to grow, and its people to break out of the chain of poverty and grow,” she argued, “then this is the model, the model that we know works, it must be through trade, entrepreneurship, through capital market and fdi and through participation of locals, this is the model.”

She expressed concern about the fact that 60 years on Africa has no infrastructure. Most African countries are not growing because there are no entrepreneurs and the governments cannot raise the money through taxes to invest in education, health and other social services, she said.

Comparing Africa to some of the rapidly emerging economies, she said 60 years ago some of these countries were poorer than Africa. These countries she said, did not rely on aid, “they figured out what to do,”she emphasized.

“It is time for Africa to break out of the vicious aid cycle,” she said.

The global financial, food and energy crisis is not relenting anytime soon, and Africa as a continent must take a decision to move beyond aid and do the right things that have worked for other countries, especially, emerging economies of Asia, because aid won’t save the continent.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
Email: edogbevi@hotmail.com

()ghanabusinessnews.com