Fwd: Pambazuka News 825: G20 Compact with Africa: Whose agenda?
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Elisabeth Janaina
Jun 8, 2017, 11:23:25 AM6/8/17
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From: "Pambazuka Editor" <edi...@pambazuka.org>
Date: 8 Jun 2017 18:16
Subject: Pambazuka News 825: G20 Compact with Africa: Whose agenda?
To: "pambazuka-news" <pambazu...@pambazuka.gn.apc.org>
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From: "Pambazuka Editor" <edi...@pambazuka.org>
Date: 8 Jun 2017 18:16
Subject: Pambazuka News 825: G20 Compact with Africa: Whose agenda?
To: "pambazuka-news" <pambazu...@pambazuka.gn.apc.org>
Cc:
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FAHAMU AT 
On Monday-Tuesday next week, Berlin will host the G20 finance ministers’ negotiations with African elites led by a South African, Malusi Gigaba. Is this the next neo-colonial defeat for the continent, harking back to another process 132 years ago?
With its Compact with Africa the German G20 presidency is actively promoting private loans and investment as solutions to infrastructure deficiencies on the African continent. The Compact aims at using public resources in order to improve the investment climate and mobilize private capital to finance investment critical to achieving sustainable development.
The G20 Compact with Africa downplays climate change and sustainability, relegating them to mere side-effects of doing business. There is no acknowledgement of the ecological debt the North owes the South. For sustainable development, climate justice and action, it is imperative that the G20 meeting gives more attention to climate justice.
If African leaders had an ounce of self-respect, they would be expressing their absolute condemnation of the US withdrawal from the Paris Accord, or using this moment as an opportunity to speak out on the dangerous consequences of not taking climate change seriously.
Ironically, by pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Trump, the great negotiator, may expose America to greater global backlash than if he had just stuck with the agreement while doing little to nothing to actively address climate change.
Often considered to be largely insulated from the unrest and upheaval brought about by the Arab Spring, Morocco is now facing mounting turmoil throughout the country. The methods inherited from colonization and currently used by the government are doing little to appease the basic demands of a population hungry for equal opportunities and social justice.
The hope that the end of apartheid would herald a better life for the oppressed in South Africa has evaporated. Their conditions today are materially as bad as under apartheid - and even worse in some cases. But the upper classes are having the time of their lives. Working class struggles should be intensified and linked, based on self-organising and direct democracy to bring about real change.
Banro operates in a region that has seen incredible violence over the past two decades and the secretive company has been accused of fuelling the conflict. In 1996 Banro paid $3.5 million for 47 mining concessions that covered more than one million hectares of land in Congo’s North and South Kivu.
As business continues to grow in influence globally, sometimes enjoying asymmetrical power relations with developing states, a new report notes serious concerns over private sector practices that are leading to increased human rights abuses and attacks on fundamental freedoms.
The Manchester atrocity lifts the rock of British foreign policy to reveal its Faustian alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest weapons customer.
As neoliberalism plunges deeper into crisis, militarism and wars are being promoted and intensified throughout the world, especially in Asia-Pacific. There is a need to build a global anti-war and social justice movement that opposes militarism and wars of aggression; respects the right to self-determination of oppressed peoples; and supports various forms of resistance to imperialist aggression and intervention. 
America’s Africa policies have consistently remained destabilizing and predatory over the decades, despite the well-choreographed pretenses. It is this imperialism that has impeded the capacity of African nations to direct their future. Despite Africa’s vast mineral and agricultural wealth and labor power, a renewed debt crisis compounded by US interference is reversing the modest gains made in past years.
Nigerian author Chido Onumah argues that Nigeria’s key problem is nationhood. Except for a popular revolution that would fundamentally change the country, restructuring is the best option. That way, the country will remain one in order to deal with other serious issues such as poverty. “And the restructuring we are pushing is not to divide the country along ethno-religious lines but to create a civic nation along the principles of federalism.”
The Igbo cannot possibly be a part of the proposed new Nigeria, no matter how attractive the idea is made to look by its advocates. On 29 May 1966, the Igbo renounced forever their Nigerian citizenship. While wishing Nigeria and Nigerians well in their quest for a workable solution to their national problem, the Igbo have unequivocally opted for a separate Igbo identity and the separation of their territory from Nigeria.
The fuel subsidy regime was a huge scam in the Nigeria oil and gas sector, with the state colluding with its friends to steal from the people. It was during this time that entrenched corruption such as inflation of the subsidy figures, the rise of proxy marketers, over-invoicing and non-record keeping became common.
Extra-judicial killings are “normal” in Kenya, especially targeting poor young men in urban slums who police accuse of being criminals. The exact numbers of the victims – and their stories – remain unknown, because few people or organizations have the courage or interest to document this form of state violence. Mathare Social Justice Centre has just published details of these killings in their own community.
Prof. Mahmood Mamdani imperils the survival of the programme he heads at Makerere University by his capriciousness and reliance on political connections. This raises serious questions about his integrity as a person, scholar and administrator. Mamdani has for a long time abused the goodwill of many well-meaning but unsuspecting people who looked up to him.
The objective of the special issue is to examine the discourses of national, inclusive and equitable transformation as opposed to a mere exercise of power transfer between political elites.
As a way to reach more people and to make your experience with Pambazuka News better, we have developed an android app as another tool to create a better reading experience with mobile devices. The app will have periodic updates to cater for changing readers' requirements and 
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