"Exploitation of a Higher Kind" - G7 In Africa

Under the specious claim of delivering "aid to Africa," western governments are backing an initiative—described by some as another form of "colonialism"—that is effectively enabling the corporate takeover of African nations by some of the world’s biggest food and agriculture companies.
On Wednesday, as corporate executives, politicians, and G7 officials assembled in Cape Town, South Africa for a closed-door meeting of the G7’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a coalition of small scale farmers, unions, workers, and food sovereignty groups released a statement condemning the program.
Though the public-private initiative has been championed by U.S. President Barack Obama, among others, as a means to combat poverty in Africa by bolstering "sustained, inclusive, agriculture-led" growth with the goal of raising "50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years," its critics say the New Alliance actually undermines the rights and food security of citizens of its partner nations.
In fact, some suggest, the rise of such programs signals a shift in the way the world is governed.

'Colonialism' continued

Under the New Alliance, ten African governments—Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania—have "committed to develop or revise policies that will facilitate responsible private investment in agriculture in support of smallholder farmers." However, the opposition coalition says, since its inception in 2012, there is little evidence of any positive impact. Instead, the policy changes have paved the way for corporate exploitation of local land and people.
According to the coalition statement, the New Alliance policies "facilitate the grabbing of land and other natural resources, further marginalize small-scale producers, and undermine the right to adequate food and nutrition"—all in the interest of courting large multi-nationals.
For example, at the urging of the New Alliance, a bill often referred to as the "Monsanto law," which criminalizes the saving and swapping of seeds, is poised for passage by the parliament of Ghana. A recent report put forth by international peasant farmer and food justice groups La Via Campesina and Grain notes that students and union groups who have been fighting the bill say it is a "precondition sought by transnational corporations as a requirement for operating in Africa."

Also, under commitments made by the governments of Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania, a seperate report (pdf) published on Wednesday by the international NGO ActionAid USA found that small farmers are being forced off their property as 1.8 million hectares of the countries' most desirable farmland has been offered to foreign investors, amounting to little more than what they call a corporate land-grab.
And in Tanzania, a New Alliance initiative threatens (pdf) to displace more than 1,300 people as the government works to recategorize village land to make it available for a Swedish-owned EcoEnergy sugarcane plantation.
While the benefits of such "investment" are tempting at first, many on the ground are now realizing what's at stake.

Josaphat Mshighati, head of programs and policy for ActionAid Tanzania, told Common Dreams that instead of increasing food security, farmers are losing access to the land in exchange for jobs laboring at an industrial agriculture plantation, whose sole crop is being raised for export.
"It is a form of colonialism," Mshighati said. "Small holder farmers are turned into labourers serving in big, private agriculture investments and some of them totally lose their access to productive land. Hence, they become much more dependent."
Further, he added that African governments including Tanzania are "being pushed to change their seed policies to allow for 'more modern seeds' that will definitely be supplied by big private companies. Thus, the indigenous seeds will perish in few years and all farmers will have to rely on seeds from the western companies."
Finally, the government policy changes that are forcing people off their land, he said, will ultimately "create disharmony between citizens and the government." All of these impacts, Mshighati concluded, "can be related to the previous history between Africa and the west—exploitation of a higher kind."
Doug Hertzler, senior policy analyst with ActionAid USA, also told Common Dreams: "Unfortunately G7 governments policies seem to be more about increasing corporate profits through access to African land and labor, and opening markets to sell patented seeds and pesticides rather than realizing the right to food."

On the other side of the New Alliance arrangement, private sector companies—which include some of the world’s biggest food and biotechnology corporations—have described through Letters of Intent how they plan to pursue allegedly "responsible investments in African agriculture and food security through models that maximize benefits to smallholder farmers."
These commitments have been made by food and agriculture giants including Syngenta, Monsanto, Nestle, Bayer CropScience, and Coca-Cola, among many others.

A model of corporate governance

After initially participating in the New Alliance Leadership Council, last year Oxfam International announced it was pulling out.
"The voices of farmer’s organizations, women’s producer groups and civil society organizations and CSO groups have, on the whole, been ad hoc and inadequately integrated into this policy planning," explained Tim Gore, head of policy, advocacy and research for Oxfam International's GROW campaign. This has lead to "serious concerns that the priorities of the Alliance reflect the interests of its more powerful members."
The New Alliance-backed changes in government policy have created an environment that threatens to "'tip the balance' of investment towards larger players, rather than small-scale producers and family farmers, and could harm the environment through the industrial, high-input model of agriculture," Gore said.
Finally, he warned, "this creates an acute risk that the members of the Alliance have created a form of global governance which is exclusive and potentially self-serving."

As critics note, the New Alliance model adheres to the same neoliberal ideology as 'trickle-down' economics, which has been increasingly discredited. 
Dan Iles, food sovereignty campaigner with Global Justice Now, described the New Alliance as "a branding exercise," under which western governments have funneled aid money previously committed to alleviating poverty in Africa and essentially channeled it into the pockets of big, international agriculture corporations.

The U.S. alone has committed at least $2 billion dollars for the effort.
Similarly, an August 2014 report (pdf) by the Global Policy Forum describes the New Alliance as "a political process designed to reserve corporate actors a seat at the table," where business is giving a role "almost equal to governments." The initiative, the report continues, "serves as an excellent example of a form of governance that is increasingly gaining importance on a global scale."
As writer and activist Martin Kirk explained to Common Dreams, while the New Alliance puts on a "very humanitarian face" it is part of a trend that is "actually shifting how we govern the world." The model, Kirk says, is also being followed by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum.
"In the public imagination, nation states are the main actors, when actually the corporate interests—which are not connected to the public world and whose primary purpose is to maximize profit—are now given equal weight," continued Kirk, who is a member of The Rules, a global network dedicated to tackling root causes of inequality and poverty.
The danger, Kirk continues, is that the New Alliance promotes this corporate concept as the only solution to overcoming hunger, when it fact it is "far from the only one."

A local answer

While most of the small scale farmers, villagers and other individuals directly impacted by the New Alliance initiative are unaware of upper-level mechanisms behind their forced relocation or intrusive growing restrictions, there are tremors of resistance.
Nearly 100 farmers organizations, social movements, and civil society groups from around the world endorsed the statement on Wednesday. Meanwhile, growing protests against pending policy changes, such as the "Monsanto law" in Ghana, are further spreading the word.

If outside actors want to help strengthen food security in Africa, advocates say that the solution must lift up the local community.
Small-scale farmers are currently producing 70 percent of the food in Africa, according to the coalition statement. "Addressing food and nutrition insecurity on the continent requires the full participation of those who are already producing, and promoting an agricultural system based on human rights and food sovereignty through local control over natural resources, seeds, land, water, forests, knowledge and technology."
Josaphat Mshighati said that the biggest hurdle for small farmers is a lack of rain, so directing funds to nation-based agricultural development programs, such as small and medium irrigation projects, would provide a huge boost for the local economy.
And Dan Iles added: "What small scale farmers need is investment in infrastructure that links them more locally and regionally...Where control and ownership over the means of farming, buying and selling food and the culture of food is held by farmers (and people)—not outside elites."  

from here

Africa's Second Liberation

On Monday many African Government offices, businesses and banks grind to a halt in order to commemorate Africa Day. In schools up and down the continent, little children are taught that heroic Africans liberated the continent from racist white colonial regimes and various events and parades are held to celebrate the occasion.
Colonialism in Africa is remembered as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the modern era. The exploitative economic system that underpinned colonialism remains alive and well today.
Africa’s liberation was from racist, colonial government. If this was to be the first stage of liberation, than the second stage must involve freeing Africa from the current white minority, who controls the majority of African land and resources.

Africa is not under-developed; she is over-exploited. From slavery to colonialism to present day neo-colonialism, Western policies have always been that of aggression and exploitation towards Africa. The African continent needs a second liberation to economically empower its indigenous majority who have been marginalized by Western capitals and corporations for centuries.

read the complete article here

'Casualisation Of Labour' = Exploitation - Zimbabwe

Ethel Maziriri, 27, holds an Honours Degree in Social Work from the University of Zimbabwe, but instead of working in her chosen profession, she works as a cashier in one of the country's leading clothing retail company. And it's not by choice.

Casual workers in Zimbabwe usually work for long hours without safety clothing. Labour unions say that many employees are hiring people as casual staff to avoid providing benefits.

Maziriri, who graduated in 2010, has been employed as a casual worker at the store for the past 12 months.

In a country that is reeling from a liquidity crisis and a crumbling economy, company closures and downsizing have forced many into unemployment here.
She earns 80 dollars each fortnight, for working 10-hour days. But the working conditions are less than ideal.
Maziriri told IPS that most of the workers at the company are causal workers, employed on temporary contracts for six weeks at a time. She says that as contract workers they have to be very cautious to avoid their contracts being terminated prematurely without any wages or benefits.

But she's more concerned about earning money rather than the unfair working conditions here.
"I do not think it is necessary for a contract worker to join a labour union and I do not have any money for subscriptions to pay the union. I treasure my job and if am dismissed I will just go home and wait until I get another one," she said.

But the Federation of Food and Allied Workers Union of Zimbabwe (FFWUZ), a union which represents more than 50,000 members in the food processing industry, says the "casualisation of labour" is leading to a new form of exploitation here.
"A new form of labour exploitation has erupted as employers prefer to hire short-term contract workers to escape from the costs incurred by permanent workers," Gift Maoneka, FFWUZ paralegal officer, told IPS.
He said that since January, more than six companies have retrenched and that most industries were retrenching at least 450 workers a week.
"Most of the companies are abusing the retrenchment board in doing away with permanent workers and the law does not provide an appeal against retrenchment," Maoneka said.

FFWUZ says that Zimbabwe's crumbling economy and lack of investment has forced companies to downsize and retrench workers. Many are doing away with formal employment, according to FFWUZ, and are instead offering contracts to workers as a way of avoiding providing benefits such as medical aid, funeral policies and pensions.
"Casual workers endure years of work with no terminal benefits, pensions, medical aid for them and their families," Maoneka said.
Maoneka pointed out that while employees were "putting workers on short contracts," the jobs were in fact "permanent of nature."

The latest annual Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme points out that across the world formal employment lacks social, legal or regulatory protection.
According to the report, nearly half the world's workers are in vulnerable employment, trapped in insecure jobs usually outside the jurisdiction of labour legislation and social protection.
According to FFWUZ, many casual workers here are afraid to join labour unions for fear of being victimised and hence continue to have their rights infringed, through lack of knowledge and representation.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa in his budget statement in December, 2013 said that government was reviewing the labour law to make the hiring of employees easier.
"The minister responsible for labour should seriously consider amendments to the Labour Act that relates work to productivity. It is also necessary that we introduce in our labour laws flexibility in the hiring of workers, as well as alignment of wage adjustments to labour productivity," Chinamasa said during the 2013 to 2014 budget announcement.  

The current Labour Relations Act makes dismissals and retrenchments a slow process as employees have to go through a number of hearings. The hearings start at company level and a dissatisfied party can appeal to labour courts.  
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions maintains that workers in Zimbabwe have no rights when faced with retrenchment, and this creates a situation where they can be manipulated by their employers.

Meanwhile, FFWUZ points out that the few people employed by foreign Chinese employers are also being subjected to unlawful working conditions, but lack the knowledge on how to deal with the matter of exploitation and unfair dismissal.
"Foreigners take advantage of the language barrier when we engage them on discussing labour laws and unfair dismissal of their employees. Non-provision of protective clothing, total disregard of labour laws are some of the matters that affect most employees," Maoneka said.

For Gareth Makaripe, who is casually employed at a Chinese-owned bakery in Msasa industrial area in Harare, the conditions of services are dehumanising.
"These people are slave masters and they use fear to intimidate workers."

from here

Capitalism: War, Pestilence and Millions of Dead Children

Six million children under the age of five died last year mostly from easily treatable diseases. Most of the deaths have been from pneumonia, malaria, or diarrhea. Over 70% of these deaths have occurred in Africa and South-East Asia. Nearly half of all under five deaths occur in five countries, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, China, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The women and children of the Congo have had to endure two decades of warfare, hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees and systematic rape and other atrocities committed against the women and girls by both government soldiers and rebels. This system is propped up by foreign mining of rare earth minerals for cell phones and other electronics. Western governments and capitalism props up this system of abuse and violence.

Nigeria accounts for more than 30% of early childhood deaths for malaria and 20% for HIV/AIDS. According to the UN Nigeria accounts for one in every eight child death, this is a trend that must be combated.

Other regions where the situation has been dire for tens of thousands of children are Cambodia, Guinea, Mozambique and Nepal.

Angola and Namibia are experiencing their worst drought in 30 years leaving more than 100,000 children without food according to UNICEF.

There has been some progress, a two thirds reduction in child mortality in Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi and Tanzania. Much of it from the work done by UNICEF, OXFAM, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders.

Another factor that can have a direct effect on people's well being is climate change. The size and severity of floods in West Africa and droughts in East Africa. In President Obama's first inaugural address he said "To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work along side you to make your farms flourish and let clean water flow."

taken from here