BELGIUM: European Development Days on governance in Africa overshadowed by Sudan crisis

The European Union has opened on Wednesday (November 15) high level talks on governance in Africa to promote a positive image of Africa but also to build on the European Development Consensus that puts good governance, democracy and respect for human rights at the centre of development assistance and poverty reduction. EU-Africa week includes exhibitions across the Belgian capital Brussels. European Development Commissioner Louis Michel inaugurate 'Africa Europe: crossed dreams' on Monday (November 13) to kick start the talks. The exhibition in Brussels' Ateliers des Tanneurs displayed works by 26 renowned African artists. At the art centre Michel said it was important to show the rest of the world that Africa was about more than what is traditionally reported on the international news channels "We always show the face of Africa with conflicts, with sadness, distress, with AIDS, with a lack of education, a lack of health policy, dictatorships, wars and deaths. Africa is also another face: its also 6 percent growth in 2006, Africa is 29 out of 59 countries to have signed and ratified international cooperation; Africa is 8 to 9 countries which, in the last 2 years, have moved into a democratic system; its the Congo which has just had democratic elections. Africa is all of that," Michel said. Just one year after taking the leadership of her previously troubled country, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was set to join Mark Malloch Brown, the United Nations' Deputy Secretary General, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Kaberuka, the president of the African Development Bank, to talk about governance. Liberia will be put forward as a star example of the success of good governance. The Government's progress towards that goal and respect for human rights and the rule of law has seen greater European Commission cooperation with government than was possible prior to 2004. Malloch Brown said Europe contributes up to 80 percent of the increase in aid to the continent and praised Michel's effort to bring together leaders from Africa and the world to improve the pace and quality of change. "... When you combine the Commission and the individual European member states, 80 percent of the increase in aid by OECD donors between now and 2012 will come from Europe. Europe is a, and that makes it by far a majority of all aid, you know, Europe, collectively is a huge force in development cooperation..." Malloch Brown said. Wolfowitz was due to open the high level talks with the European Commission. Speaking with Louis Michel on Wednesday morning (November 15) he said it was crucial to improve business and the investment climate in African countries if we hoped to see an end to poverty. Striking an optimistic note in line with the spirit of the high -level talks he said he believed that EU-Africa week in Brussels could well represent the turning point for Africa which could banish poverty within 10 years. "What we need to work on is first of all to help those countries that are doing well, to move from 4 to 5 percent real growth which will take a very long time to make a dent in poverty, to the kinds of growth rates which the very successful developing countries have registered: 7-8 percent and to make sure that that growth is, we would call it shared growth, that it does show up in improved social indicators, in improved progress toward the millennium development goals. You can't, growth alone will not reduce poverty although you can't reduce poverty without growth," Wolfowitz said. However the bright light of optimism being shone by the EU at these talks risks being overshadowed by the deepening crisis in Darfur. The United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan has invited officials from the United Nation Security Council's permanent members to talk on Thursday (November 16) in Addis Ababa along with others from Egypt, Gabon, the EU and the Arab League. The Sudanese rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) called for U.N. troops to be deployed to Darfur. Malloch Brown called for flexibility on the composition of troops in Sudan now made up of overstretched African Union forces. Sudan has refused to accept UN troops. Annan said on Wednesday he has not given up on sending UN own troops to the region saying the situation on Sudan's border with Chad as "very fragile and volatile" and said the U.N. might post observers there. "By dealing with the root problem in Darfur extremely quickly there is a real urgency to this now for the reason you say that it IS spilling over into Chad and into the Central African Republic and is more generally having a kind of negative impact on the region's reputation as an investment destination etc, etc, etc And so, you know, there is sense now that we have go to address this and I think this is felt every bit as strongly by African countries as it is by Western ones and is also now, and this is where you really see a pulling together of the right kind of international combination to get solution, you also see that the Egyptians are deeply concerned about this as well as other North African Arab states and China and Russia. So this is now becoming a universal concern to get this problem fixed and I think that its a very important united diplomatic front that we now have," Malloch Brown said. The under-equipped and over-stretched AU force has struggled to protect civilians in the huge Darfur region from repeated attack and its mandate expires on Dec. 31. The conflict broke out in 2003 when local people, mostly non-Arabs, took up arms to fight for a greater share of power and resources. The government then backed Arab militia known as Janjaweed, who have pillaged, raped and killed.

ITN Source | November 17, 2006

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