17 June 2005: Dallas Morning News
By Jim Landers
WASHINGTON - Debt relief, aid, trade preferences - any help for Africa is welcome, given the need, says Toyin Falola, a history professor at the African studies program of the University of Texas in Austin.
"There can never be enough aid for poor people. But canceling debts can start them out of a hole," Dr. Falola said. "And packaging aid, not just giving cash, but tying this to capacity building, that can make a difference, too."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is pushing for $50 billion in new aid commitments for Africa at the July 6-8 Scotland summit of the leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia.
Wealthy nations agreed Saturday to cancel $40 billion of debts held by poor countries, most of them in Africa.
But both Africans and Americans are reluctant to take steps that may matter more.
Sanmi Akinmulero, president of the African Chamber of Commerce of Dallas/Fort Worth, says that deepening trade ties is the best way to help.
He's enthusiastic about the African Growth and Opportunity Act, now five years old.
The act grants trade preferences to African nations committed to free-market economies, the rule of law and elimination of trade barriers.
But he wonders whether Dallas businesses are themselves aware of the opportunities.
He counts 298 companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area doing business with Africa.
Only two are members of his chamber.
The business people he meets around town discuss the growth and opportunity act as a vehicle for importing textiles from Africa, but it covers more than 6,000 products.
They express concerns about crime in Africa.
But they seldom look twice at job applicants from Africa who could offer them insight into the African experience.
"In the interior of Nigeria, there is a guy who used to live in Dallas who could find no job here, but now he's one of those who decided to mobilize youth for vandalizing and taking people for ransom," Mr. Akinmulero said.
"There are 141,000 Africans in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. For the majority of them, when they look for jobs, these companies won't do anything with them."
Untaken opportunities
The African Chamber works with the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, the Dallas City Council, DART and the U.S. Department of Commerce, trying to drum up interest in trade with Africa.
A trade mission is supposed to head to Ghana next month. It may be postponed due to lack of interest.
"There are so many opportunities in Africa," Mr. Akinmulero said.
"But we need to start at home. We need to start from here."
Ian Vasquez of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, says that cutting trade barriers will add twice as much to the income of poor African states as all the aid now given.
U.S. cotton subsidies, for instance, depress world cotton prices.
Eliminate them, and you'd boost the income of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Benin by $150 million a year, says World Bank trade economist John Baffes.
To pass that boost to West African cotton farmers, however, you would also have to sort out the obstacles to trade and investment within Africa.
“In some African countries, the farmers get close to the world price. In others, they get only 30 percent because of their governments," Mr. Baffes said.
Loss of talent
Mr. Blair's $50 billion aid increase is aimed mostly at improving education and health care.
Dr. Falola, though, wonders how African nations needing doctors, nurses and teachers can bring home people who have moved abroad.
"Nobody talks about the brain drain of African doctors and professionals like me," he said.
"Half of the Ghanaian doctors live in the U.S. Almost 30 percent of the nurses in England are from elsewhere. The African continent is losing a lot of skilled workers."
South African Nicky Oppenheimer, the chairman of the diamond-mining DeBeers Group, said in a London speech Monday that Africa for too long has been treated as a charity case, a view that obscures investment and trade opportunities.
"It is no accident that those countries ... which have grown fastest in recent years, such as Mozambique and Botswana, owe their growth not to aid, but to business," he said.
