Africa's "friends" and HOPE.

Africa's "friends" in the U.S. Congress have again introduced a "NAFTA-for-Africa" bill.

In early February, Representatives Philip Crane, R-Illinois, and Charles Rangel, D-New York, reintroduced the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which passed the House of Representatives in 1998,

This year, however, a competing group of friends have offered a genuine alternative to the Growth and Opportunity Act.

Shortly after Crane and Rangel introduced their bill, Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. - who last year abandoned his support for the NAFTA for Africa bill and began calling the legislation the Africa Recolonization Act - introduced the African HOPE (Human Rights, Opportunity, Partnership and Empowerment) Act.

The two bills pit sharply differentiated views of how to assist African development efforts.

Proponents of the African Growth and Opportunity Act believe that they can best help Africa by providing it with the same kinds of benefits which Mexico has obtained with NAFTA.

"The African Growth and Opportunity Act represents a trade-centered approach to development that will complement traditional forms of assistance," said Crane in introducing the bill.

"Increased U.S.-African trade and investment is a win-win proposition, one that can facilitate and strengthen the development of sub-Saharan African countries and create opportunities for U.S. firms and workers."

He added, "At the same time, a strong trade and investment relationship between the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the United States will reduce poverty and expand economic opportunity in Africa."

While many of the other sponsors of the bill are clearly genuine in their belief that the Growth and Opportunity will benefit Africa, there is some reason to doubt Crane's sincerity on the matter.

Last year, Congress Daily quoted Crane as saying, "Of those countries in sub-Saharan Africa, to be sure, a lot of them are retards. I mean they've got a long way to go."

The basic structure of the Africa trade bill is to condition minor new aid and trade benefits (targeted money from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank, plus fuller access to the U.S. market for African textiles) on African countries opening their economies to foreign investment and adopting the "structural adjustment" policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The bill's conditionalities include:

* compliance with programs of and obligations to the IMF;

* joining the World Trade Organization;

* removing restrictions on foreign investment;

* minimizing government market interventions;

* and privatizing many government operations.

The bill also instructs the President to develop a plan for a free trade agreement with Africa.

A corporate coalition called USAfrica strongly backs the bill. Chevron, Mobil, Exxon, Enron, Caterpillar, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Bank of America, the Gap, Texaco, Amoco, Citicorp, Kmart and Coca-Cola are among the members of the corporate lobby.

It is no accident that oil companies are so prominent among the NAFTA for Africa supporters. The legislation would further open up African countries to exploitation by multinational resource corporations, and prevent countries from taking steps to control the drilling, mining, harvesting and use of resources within their own borders.

In 1998, most African governments were pressured by the Clinton administration into expressing their support for the bill, though privately many African officials were much more critical. The dynamic is repeating itself in 1999, with the Washington, D.C. African ambassadorial corps prominently supporting the Growth and Opportunity Act.

But dozens of African labor, consumer, environmental, development, health and human rights groups were not so intimidated.

"We have seen from the ground level the consequences of following IMF policy prescriptions," they said in a February 1999 statement. "These policies tend to undermine local business, drive up unemployment, damage the environment, harm consumers, undermine public health and increase poverty. We categorically reject any effort to impose such policies on African countries."

HOPE FOR AFRICA

In contrast to the IMF-style conditionalities of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, The African HOPE Act is centered around cancellation of the massive African debt burden.

Sub-Saharan African countries now owe some $230 billion in external debt. Huge debt servicing obligations drain African countries' financial resources and prevent them from investing in basic health care, education or the infrastructure needed as the foundation for a strong economy. Their inability to meet this debt burden forces the African countries to turn to the IMF for loans - loans which are made available only on condition of adoption of structural adjustment policies, including cuts in government services and spending, privatization of state-owned enterprises, high interest rates and orienting economies toward exports.

The African HOPE Act will lift some of the burden on African countries by canceling the debt owed by African countries to the U.S. government - without any IMF-style conditionalities. It would also require the United States to advocate for complete debt cancellation by the IMF and World Bank, and by other government and private lenders to Africa.

"Unregulated business and investment, and structural adjustment programs built on debt service, is the status quo or worse," said Jackson in introducing the bill. "This status quo formula has given Africa: wealth in the hands of a few; followed inevitably by civil wars (both ethnic and tribal) over food and economic security; undemocratic regimes; and economic and political instability."

In contrast the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the African HOPE Act "offers a solution to Sub-Saharan Africa's crushing $230 billion debt - unconditional, comprehensive debt forgiveness," Jackson said.

"Excluding South Africa, with upwards of 20 percent of Sub-Saharan nations' export earnings going to debt service, few resources are left to devote to development and urgent local needs."

A HUMANE FUTURE

The African HOPE Act also provides greater access to the U.S. market than does the Growth and Opportunity Act. It imposes no quotas on African countries' textile exports, transferring to African exporters as much of China's quota as they can fill.

Unlike the Growth and Opportunity Act, however, the HOPE Act requires that the African exports be made by Africans and by African-owned countries. These provisions are designed to block "transhipment" - exports through African countries that really come from China or other non-African producers.

The HOPE Act would also permit duty-free access to the United States for a host of African exports that do not compete with domestically made goods - this category includes minerals, tropical oils and many processed foods.

Again, however, this benefit is conditioned - not on the neoliberal reforms demanded by the Growth and Opportunity Act, but on respect for core labor rights and assurances that the goods are made by Africans, not imported laborers.

For minerals and oils produced by joint ventures involving U.S., European or Japanese firms, the Act would require the foreign parties to adhere to environmental standards equivalent to the rules imposed by their home countries.

Where any of the labor, environmental or made-in-Africa conditions are violated, the Act would give citizens the standing to sue to enforce its provisions.

"The clauses on the environment and access to jobs by the local people in the HOPE for Africa Act gives us reason to believe that there is a humane future ahead," says Nnimmo Bassey, director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA), the Nigerian branch of Friends of the Earth, "a future in which we can dream and see the fulfillment of our dreams, a future in which we can be surer of direct control of our resources and activities in our environment."

The African HOPE Act would restore aid to African countries to 1994 levels, and protect it from future cuts. It would also ensure that aid and development money is used for basic social services and strengthening and diversifying Africa's economic production capacity (for instance in the processing of African natural resources and manufacturing).

Importantly, the HOPE Act would block the U.S. government from challenging African government efforts to provide AIDS drugs and other essential medicines to their people at affordable prices.

South Africa, for example, has sought to rely on parallel imports to control drug prices. Under the parallel import system, if South Africa determines that multinational pharmaceutical companies are charging inappropriately high prices for drugs, it will buy the drugs in another country - where prices are lower - and then resell them in South Africa. This practice is legal under the rules of the World Trade Organization, but the United States has objected to it nonetheless.

Although most African governments, under pressure from the Clinton administration which supports the Growth and Opportunity Act, are supporting the Crane-Rangel bill, the African HOPE Act appears to speak to the core development needs identified by African non-governmental organizations.

"Any legislation to assist African development should address the priority areas of debt relief, fair trade not limited to the textile sector, targeted aid to meet basic needs and self-determination of economic and social policies," said the African NGOs in their sign-on letter.

"The African Growth and Opportunity Act not only fails this test, it would worsen the lives of Africans."

"We believe the HOPE for Africa Act is a promising effort to respond to the development priorities identified by African civil society."