African consensus meeting - important

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Africa Consensus Commission
Press Release
29 August 1999

Nairobi is the venue for 2 very different continental meetings. A
civil society meeting, to demand that Africa reclaim its right to
determine its own development, has just been concluded. A meeting of
African finance ministers with the IMF and World Bank, to address debt
issues under the direction of the G7 countries, IMF and World Bank, is
about to begin.

Debt activists from across the continent met from 27 to 29 August in
Nairobi as a task force to take forward the areas of action identified
in the Lusaka Declaration of May 1999.

The debt cancellation, Jubilee 2000 and other civil society groups
agreed in Lusaka to: - reject HIPC as an entirely inappropriate
response to the African and Third World debt crisis - reject the
structural adjustment programmes that have worsened poverty and misery
on the continent - intensify the call for total debt cancellation, and
- reject and replace the bankrupt Washington Consensus, including the
IMF and World Bank.

The Nairobi meeting moved towards the pro-active establishment of an
Africa Consensus to challenge the Washington Consensus and determine a
human path to sustainable development on our continent.

The meeting established a framework for the Africa Consensus
Commission, including high profile African leaders, a Working
Commission with representatives from across the continent and a
Secretariat, the interim office of which will be set up immediately in
Arusha, Tanzania.

The Africa Consensus will take forward the call to cancel African and
Third World debt, debt that has already been paid over and over again.
It will take forward the call for the North to stop using debt as a
means to enforce structural adjustment policies so as to dominate
Africa and the South. It will take forward the call for reparations
from the IMF, World Bank, other agencies and governments of the North
for the damage they have caused in Africa and the South.

This is in stark contrast to the framework for discussions in the
meeting between the African ministers and the IMF and World Bank,
namely relief of parts of the debt within the context of continued
structural adjustment.

The Africa Consensus will also 
- address issues of trade, 
- oppose the introduction of new issues on the WTO meeting of
ministers to be held in Seattle later in November this year, - address
the international financial crisis and - develop an African approach
to the economic and social development of our continent, drawing on
past African thinking, writings and agreements.

The Africa Consensus will aim to
- enhance civil society understanding of economic and development
issues, - strengthen civil society organisations to act on these
issues, - give our parliaments the confidence in their capacity to
shape the economy and development of our countries and - pressure our
governments to address the social and development needs of our people.

The Africa Consensus is part of a growing movement on the continent
and in the South to challenge the role the IMF and World Bank have
played in arresting and reversing our development and to put an end to
North domination over the South.

Contact person: Sandra Bagenda, Nairobi, tel 441338/9,
bagendrasandra@hotmail.com

Neville Gabriel
National Secretary

Jubilee 2000 South Africa
43 Fraser Street
HOWICK
3290
South Africa
Tel. +27 (0)33 330 8162
Cell. +27 (0)83 449 3934
E-mail: j2000sec@sn.apc.org