Inter Press Service - July 20, 2001
Remi Oyo

Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Omar Konare of Mali, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria have travelled to Genoa to deliver a strong message on the issues of debt, poverty and HIV/AIDS critical to Africa.

"Poverty remains a challenge for the developing world including Africa", says Tunji Oseni, Press Secretary to President Obasanjo.

"If the debt overhang is not seriously and mutually addressed, development efforts in Africa will be arrested and this phenomenon will impact negatively sooner or later on the developed countries," he says.

A similar demand came from the Zimbabwe-based African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), which has called upon the G-8 leaders to ''take decisive measures for total debt cancellation.''

''We call upon the G-8 leaders to go beyond HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Countries, initiated in 1996) which has so far only delivered 13.2 billion US dollars of the 100 billion dollars promised at the Cologne G-8 meeting two years ago. This falls far short of providing a lasting exit from unsustainable debt as had been promised by the leaders when the initiative was launched,'' AFRODAD said in a statement, made available to IPS on Friday.

AFRODAD said, ''In Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, where only 13 percent of the population has access to sanitation and 87 percent of adults are illiterate, the country's annual debt service payments will jump from 28 million dollars in 1999 to 49 million dollars in 2002. In contrast, Niger spends an average of 27 million dollars each year on health care''.

Nigeria, with an external debt of about 30 billion US dollars, is also looking for some form of relief.

But Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, has said it will be hard for Nigeria to convince its creditors for debt forgiveness in view of its enormous resources, which include oil.

"I wish it, but I am prepared to admit it will not be easy, he said at a recent gathering in Lagos. "But it ought to be easy to achieve a debt relief in the form of rescheduling of our debt servicing".

Nigeria recently secured a 60-million-dollar loan from the Word Bank for its community-based poverty reduction project.

While in Italy, Obasanjo and his colleagues also will find out if Africa's expectations can fit into the US strategy to reduce poverty.

A source in Abuja says President George W. Bush who is also in Genoa is expected to articulate his country's stratety on proverty alleviation at this meeting. Debt forgiveness is an issue that Obasanjo has been selling since he came to power two years ago. At every forum he attended, Obasanjo has mentioned the debilitating effects of Africa's huge debt -- about 350 billion US dollars -- which, he says, is slacking development and progress.

The number of debtor nations in Africa and Latin America that have had their debts forgiven rose to 23 last year from 14 in 1999. Debt forgiveness by G-8 nations has totalled 54 billion US dollars, since the initiative was launched in 1996, according to non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

In a new report, Oxfam said debt relief by the world's richest countries has not been deep enough to tackle the education crisis blighting the lives of children of school-going-age in impoverished countries.

''Debt relief is not deep enough, and aid levels are falling. The world's richest nations should launch a global initiative to abolish school fees and get all the world's children into school,'' said Oxfam (Great Britain).

As a result, lamented Oxfam, 125 million children who should be attending school are not enrolled, and 900 million adults are illiterate.

According to OneWorld's Debt Channel, which campaigns for the writing off of debt of the poorest countries, 58 cents out of every dollar that Zambia pays out in debt service in the next five years will go into the coffers of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Similarly, high levels of 40 cents or more to the dollar will be channelled to the IMF and World Bank from Uganda, Malawi, Mali, Burkina Faso and Benin. Activists have described the two Bretton Woods institutions as the two greatest debt collectors from the poorest countries.

The 22 most indebted countries owe more to the World Bank and IMF than they owe their next 17 biggest creditors put together, according to the OneWorld.

''In all, because of the refusal by the World Bank and IMF to match the G-8 commitment to 100 per cent cancellation, these 22 countries will be denied more than half a billion dollars every year for the next five years. And the payments will continue long after that,'' according to OneWorld.

Oseni also says Obasanjo will seek support for efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. In April, Nigeria hosted a summit on HIV/AIDS at which the idea of a Global Fund to tackle the disease was first mooted by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Nigeria has contributed 10 million US dollars to the fund, and according to Obasanjo's Press Secretary Oseni, "Nigeria and Africa will want to be involved in the structure and management of the fund". Africa, in particular has a stake in the success of the Fund because of the high number of 25.3 million who are living with HIV/AIDS. Some 11.6 million Africans have already died of AIDS.

Another issue that leaders will strongly push for is redress to the current world trade situation, where scales are often tipped in favour of the developed countries.

"The WTO has given unfettered access to developed countries into the economies of those of the developing nations", Mike told IPS on Thursday.

"We have tasted the pill and it is not sweet. We have seen toothpicks imported into our country, including all kinds of imported goods, our exchange rate has taken a battering and interest rates have risen", he explained.

He said, "factories have closed down because they cannot compete effectively with cheaper and better quality goods from abroad". He did not elaborate.

The Nigerian Parliament is also worried about the massive import of foreign goods. Senator Salisu Matori was quoted by ''Vanguard'' newspaper Tuesday as saying that Nigeria spends between 300 million US dollars and one billion US dollars on the importation of fruit juice alone.

He plans to introduce a bill in the House to restrict the importation of non-essential items including textiles and fruit juice.(END/IPS/AF/DV/RO/MN/01)
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