Crisis threatens African recovery

South Africa's president cannot ignore British Prime Minister Tony Blair's warning that support for Africa's recovery plan could be jeopardised, a debt-relief lobbyist told IRIN on Wednesday. Jubilee 2000 South Africa's secretary-general, George Dor, told IRIN that President Thabo Mbeki could not afford to ignore Blair's warning as the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) programme relies heavily on the support of the developed world. "He (Mbeki) is going to have to listen to the threats that (a leader such as) Blair puts to him ... he will have to take it into account when he decides South Africa's position in relation to Zimbabwe," Dor said. The response by regional leaders, particularly that of regional powerhouse South Africa, to Zimbabwe's deepening political and humanitarian crisis has come under close scrutiny. The chasm between African leaders, who have been considered soft on Zimbabwe, and western leaders such as Blair, who have called for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth, widened at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia last week. Blair has denounced the CHOGM statement on Zimbabwe - which sought to take no action until after the election on 9-10 March, and then only if the report from the Commonwealth's election observer team is adverse. He called the compromise statement "the lowest common denominator". He has now gone a step further. The Financial Times reported the British leader as warning that the Nepad plan could be undermined by the crisis in Zimbabwe. Blair said: "The credibility of my country (Britain) - investment in my country - does not depend on Zimbabwe. But for Africa it is a major issue on which their credibility and the possibility of investment flows depends." "The reason I feel strongly about Zimbabwe is I know that if there is any sense in which African countries appear to be ambivalent towards good governance, that is the one thing that will undermine the confidence of the developed world in helping them," he was quoted as saying. Nepad was drafted by President Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegan Obasanjo, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. The plan aims for the continent to move away from its broad reliance on loans and aid towards self-sustaining development and economic advancement. Nepad priorities include: "Creating peace, security and stability and democratic governance without which it would be impossible to engage in meaningful economic activity; investing in Africa's people through a comprehensive human resource strategy; harnessing and developing Africa's strategic and comparative advantages in the resource-based sectors to lead the development of an industrial strategy; increasing investments in the information and communication technology sector; and developing infrastructure ... and financing mechanisms." Support for the plan was sought, and largely won, from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the G8 group of industrialised nations. Blair has now suggested that the G8 would be reluctant to support Nepad if President Robert Mugabe is allowed to retain power through a fraudulent election. Dor said: "The whole Nepad process has ... looked for northern endorsement." Jubilee is critical of Nepad, alleging it perpetuates the leverage the developed north and institutions such as the World Bank and IMF have over African economies. He said: "The World Bank and IMF leverage is very direct and odious in that countries are so entrenched in debt they have to get new loans to repay that debt and meet certain conditions in terms of cutting social expenditure and the like. That's hands-on interference in economies of countries in the south. With something like Nepad it's a little more complex than that, the leverage is more on the basis of the way in which Mbeki and other African leaders have chosen to run their economies. "It is a policy of cutting down on the public sector and what government can do, and relying instead on the private sector for growth and foreign direct investment to boost that growth. They've effectively handed the large governments of the north the leverage to start to manipulate (African countries) according to their needs." Mbeki could therefore not afford to ignore Blair's statements, Dor said. Meanwhile Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is mounting a legal challenge to last-minute changes in the election laws, the BBC reported. The party said it hoped to file an appeal at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, after President Robert Mugabe re-introduced regulations thrown out by the court last week. Among other things, the decree bans local election monitors other than state employees - which includes the armed forces - for this weekend's critical poll and revives a ban on voting by people with dual citizenship.