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(Notes from a paper presented at the African
Regional Dialogue on Fighting Poverty: Social Innovations and New Coalitions in
Addis Ababa last November)
The theme of this African Regional Dialogue is
Fighting Poverty through Social Innovations and New Networking. When thinking about this theme, we may ask what we consider to define
poverty. What are the indicators of poverty? The concept paper includes as
indicators of poverty the facts that 1.3 Billion people live on less than one
dollar a day and that the assets of the world 200 richest people are more
than the combined income of 41 per cent--almost half--of the total world
population. The indicators of poverty here are real incomes, the proximity of
real incomes to the so-called poverty line and inequality. Such indicators
depend on relativity--relativity to what we have determined people
can subsist on and relativity in relation to others. Such indicators are
useful to gauge progress, but they do not encapsulate what the aims of any
poverty eradication strategy should be.
When all Africans have crossed
the so-called poverty line and accumulated enough assets and capital to
decrease inequality, will we consider the battle won? Is it feasible for
all Africans to cross the so-called poverty line? Is it feasible for all
inequalities to be eliminated? If so, what is it that we are actually working
for? With regard to this question, the concept of sustainable livelihoods
must be brought in.
Another sub-theme of this African Regional Dialogue
points to the importance of respecting cultural diversity. Culture is not
static and and culture is not just about cultural signifiers--culture is
about ways of life and how we organize ourselves. Culture is about
livelihoods. If we are convinced that maintaining cultural diversity is
important, then we must also be convinced that maintaining diversity of
livelihoods is important. So, a critical indicator of poverty is
the decreasing choice available to African peoples in terms of
our livelihoods. Do we all need or want to live in a wage economy? How
many of us actually own and control our own labour?
Thus an end and an
indicator of gains in the struggle against poverty is the ability to choose
between livelihoods, between modes of production that we ourselves own and
control. Therefore, it is appropriate to focus on sustainable livelihoods
and how our choices of livelihoods are being decreased by the national and
international policy choices we are making with regards to finance, trade and
investment.
What do we mean by sustainable livelihoods? In the south
of Tanzania, in Lindi, there is a center called the Mtwara Media Center.
This center has been using participatory video with traditional fishing
communities. A ban on traditional fishing practices was imposed by the
Ministry responsible. And there was a decrease of fish available to
traditional fishers due to large scale dynamite fishing for commercial sale
to urban markets and for export. Through participatory video,
villagers documented their experiences, the decrease in real incomes
and their inability to continue to survive on fishing, for both men and
women, even though the kinds of fish traditionally caught by men and women,
the fishing areas and methods were different.
Participatory video
enabled the local communities to share their experiences from one village to
another. It was an eye opener and enabled them to decide to challenge the
ban collectively. They decided to used participatory video to show how
traditional fishing methods protect coral, fish eggs and young fish in their
reef environment and compared this protection with the devastation of
dynamite fishing. With the help of the centre, they shot and edited the video
and sent representatives from different villages all the way to Dar
es Salaam. They managed to get an audience with the Minister. The Minister
was impressed by what he saw and lifted the ban on traditional fishing
practices.
The result, although positive, created conflict between
those who wished to continue with traditional fishing practices and those
who wanted to continue with dynamite fishing. What the story does not address
is why people within the communities involved were forced to go into dynamite
fishing, which is detrimental in the long term, to get money from
commerical sales and export. But the story is an example of how a Ministry
initially made a policy choice based on the lack of information. It is also
an example of how that policy choice was corrected with
information.
Another story, also from Tanzania, concerns the
Orkonerai Integrated Pastoralists' Survival Programme. This programme was
initiated by Maasai people in Terrat who were facing severe land alienation
from wildlife conservation projects, large scale commercial horticultural
farmers, and mining. They established a community resource center and entered
into contact and information exchange with indigenous people across the
world. Based on experiences shared, they engaged with human rights
organizations and put forward a case for challenging the forced removal of
their community from the Mkomozi game reserve. Last year, they won their
case--a historical and precendent-setting case which has recognized that
their removal was wrong and is granting restitution. They are going back to
court to seek restitution in the form of their original communal grazing
lands. They have thus played a part in getting the right to communal land
recognized and protected more explicitly in Tanzania's recent land
law review.
The first lesson for us, from these two stories, is that
the concept of sustainable livelihoods has not featured in economic
planning in Africa. Our economic planning tends to address the
commercialization of agriculture for export, which does not address
everyone's needs. The second lesson is that national economic policy choices
are actually often at odds with the concept of sustainable livelihoods. And
national economic policy choices are increasingly limited by international
commitments and obligations. Why else the investment in fishing for export,
in wildlife preservation over people's preservation and large scale
horticultural farming over food production?
Yet, these two examples
also show that communicating experience can validate experience and build
solidarity. Validated experiences of threats or wrongs and the
solidarity so created can find expression in organizing at the local level
in a manner that impacts the national level--despite the national level's
constraints. Organizing at the local level can be successful if it is done
with an awareness of national policy objectives and the context in which
national policy is made. For there are other international commitments
and obligations which can be utilized. In the case of Terrat, the people
drew from international human rights standards and law. These standards were
the basis on which they won their case. Other international commitments that
we can draw upon are international labor standards and law and, of
course, international standards and law relating to women's rights. From
the examples cited, it is also evident that even though the process of
negotiating interests, both at the local and national levels, is complex
nowadays, it can be done.
The examples above also show that the current
international context is contradictory. There is increasing
divergence between international environmental law, human rights law
and labor law on the one hand, and finance, trade and investment law on
the other hand. International environmental, human rights and labor law have
increasingly recognized and valued people and have codified their rights and
choices or options. However, its implementation through harmonization with
the domestic laws is slow, haphazard and resisted and its enforcement is
weak.
The concept of sustainable livelihoods is outside
of international commitments and obligations related to finance, trade and
investment. We ourselves do not always recognize the extent to which our
livelihood choices have been and are being defined for us. Such commitments
and obligations recognize only livelihoods based on capital accumulation and
production for such capital accumulation. Everything is for
consumption, and thus for sale. Yet, the implementation of such
commitments and obligations is immediate. What is said by the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Trade Organization (WTO) finds its way almost instantaneously
into national law and policy because its enforcement mechanisms
are stronger--we are dependent on the multilateral and bilateral loans,
the release of which is hinged on adherence to these commitments and
obligations.
What are we doing about it? There are two examples
of processes at the national level. The first addressed the formulation
and passing of the Kenyan law on the deregulation and privatization of
telecommunications. When the first draft of the bill to privatize
telecommunications was released, there was an outcry from a range of local
stakeholders -- internet service providers, telecommunications
service providers and developmentalists working on universal access who
were and concerned with what the bill would mean for the communications
ability of rural people. Thus came together a motley crew of advocates
against the bill. There was an interesting process of negotiation between the
civil society and private sector actors to agree on what could
collectively be said to the government. They finally succeeded in
getting the first bill withdrawn, a second one substantially revised and,
finally in 1998, the Kenya Communications Act was passed by
parliament.
What was interesting was that the local and
international private sector could understand the local civil
society concerns about getting telecommunications services into the rural
areas and that they supported recommendations around these concerns so as to
keep the lobby together. This shows that negotiating divergent interests can
be successfully done.
The second example concerns the Kenyan campaign
against the proposed Multilateral Agreements on Investment (MAI)
put forward by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. EcoNews Africa, a local non-governmental organization
(NGO), spearheaded a campaign among development NGOs that track international
economic policy. They produced research showing the impact of
current investment in Kenya in terms of community participation,
human rights, labour law and women's rights. The campaign then drew in
local Chamber of Commerce and the local manufacturing association, who were
horrified about the extent to which the proposed MAI would limit the
government's choices to prioritize local business and industry. The campaign
was launched and it resulted in Kenya taking a position against the MAI.
This example again shows that although interests may be divergent in other
situations, sectors can work together to address issues of common
concern.
The lesson here is that there are opportunities for
creating national and international solidarity. In the campaigns
around the liberalization of telecommunications and against the MAI, we
drew on the experience of civil society actors throughout Africa, throughout
the South and in the North as well.
There are links between the two
examples cited. First, the recognition in both instances that addressing
poverty cannot only be through service delivery but must be
through advocacy--engagement with policy that will bear results in terms
of service delivery. Second, the recognition that the globalization we talk
so much about is not an amorphous, intangible process--it is the result of
choices about policy at both the national and international levels. We can
map and track these policies and intervene while decisions are being made.
Third and most important, the recognition that we can represent ourselves, we
can fight for what livelihoods we do have and we can accept that our
different livelihoods are not necessarily mutually antagonistic--they can
co-exist.
What are the alternatives? We have never valued our
traditions of communal livelihoods in non-feudal African societies
enough to document and analyze whether and how they worked. We are told
that socialism has failed. We fight against globalization yet refer anxiously
to the WTO commitments to bolster our case when lobbying for the
privatization of telecommunications, for example. We are overjoyed when
privatization finally happens, hoping to get a telephone that does not fail
in the rainy season or to get a telephone at all. And yet, we are
angry when we learn that teff and Arabica coffee--both of which
are indigenous to Ethiopia--have been patented by Americans under yet
another WTO commitment.
We can see that our own thinking about choices
has been constrained. In short, we in civil society are confused
and contradictory. But not to worry. International finance, trade and
investment law is equally confused and contradictory. The assumptions of free
markets do not apply. There is no equal access to market information. Players
in the market do not have equal weight, especially in this age of
transnational corporation mergers (TNCs). There is nothing
more protectionist than the notion of intellectual property rights (IPRs)
in the form of patents and the so-called life industries. And what could be
more incredible than international law that forces a government to dismantle
its universal health care system on the basis that it is a form of subsidy
that acts as a trade barrier preventing the fair competition of private
commercial health insurance providers?
We may be confused and
contradictory, but we are not crazy. We shall not continue to accept such
confusions and contradictions in ourselves or in the national
and international laws that govern us forever. We need to open our eyes to
the whole picture. As civil society in Africa we have often failed to open
our eyes to the whole picture. We must reject in total the idea that we are
to become the privatized development and social service providers for our
governments. We must demand accountability for development and
social service provision.
When talking of debt relief, for example, we
must tie debt relief to national debt audits and be clear what was
sought, for what and what was achieved. And accountability here
refers both to our governments and to our financiers. Where the management
of development projects was taken over by foreign technical advisors and
still there was no delivery, we must refuse to be held accountable. We must
also refuse to be held accountable when lending conditions change midway,
especially given the historical context in which development
financing first began and the concessional terms that were
first offered.
We must also reject the idea that challenging our
governments at the national level precludes working with them at
the international level. The issues are too big and too important for
that. We must work for strong governments, strong in the sense that they are
willing to and capable of planning for sustainable livelihoods at the
national level and representing the concept of sustainable livelihoods at the
international level. We must seek to harmonize acceptable international
law with our own law, so that we can use such tools to
challenge unacceptable international law. We must move out
of international decision making bodies where we have already made space
and where we are already beginning to feel comfortable and seek to engage
with international decision making bodies where we have no space,
particularly as African women, and learn our way out of discomfort.
As
civil society actors, we have often failed to address the structural
framework in which we work. Many social innovations in this area--engendered
budgets, fair trade, voluntary codes of conduct, etc--while useful, are
concerned with achieving equity within the given structural framework. As
Africans, we know that the concept of fair trade is being perverted
to continue to shut out products from the South, the argument being that
such products were made with child labor or under environmentally unsound
conditions, etc. This is certainly not to say that in the South we should not
be concerned about labor conditions or the environmental impact of
production. We should be and we are. It is to question the convenience
with which and the speed at which Northern producers are suddenly picking
up issues they have no history of ever being concerned about.
As
African women who have been preoccupied with the debate over equity versus
equality, we know that solutions for equity are not the same with solutions
for equality. Social transformation is not about relativity--whether we are
under or over the so-called poverty line, or whether we are
creeping across the divide that separates rich from poor.
Social transformation is about setting our own standards--standards which
fundamentally question the divides and inequalities that exist. To do that,
we have to admit to ourselves that not everything is for sale and not
everything is for consumption. There are livelihoods that are based on values
of communal and sustainable use. We need to begin to work on creating
national and international law which acknowledges these values and allows
diverse livelihoods to fully
flourish.
L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Executive
Director African Women's Development and Communications
Network (FEMNET) E-mail: wanyeki@iconnect.co.ke
Transmitted 2000
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