Cristina Fernández and Wen Jiabao in a videoconference with Dilma Rousseff and José Mujica. Credit: Office of the president of Argentina.

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 8 2012 (IPS) - There is little likelihood that South America’s Mercosur trade bloc will take up China’s proposal to establish a free trade agreement, at least in the short term. Experts and industrialists fear an invasion of cheap Chinese goods, and unequal competition.

Although the sources consulted by IPS agreed that trade and investment between Mercosur (Southern Common Market) and China will continue to expand, they said a free trade deal was unrealistic under the present circumstances.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed interest in such an agreement on his Jun. 25 visit to Buenos Aires, in a videoconference with Presidents Cristina Fernández of Argentina, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, and José Mujica of Uruguay.

The four leaders welcomed the idea of forging closer trade ties between Mercosur and China.

Paraguay, Mercosur’s fourth founding member, has been suspended from the bloc since that country’s legislature removed President Fernando Lugo in a lightning-quick impeachment trial on Jun. 22.

At any rate, Paraguay is facing the dilemma of maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan or agreeing to cut off ties in order to negotiate with Beijing.

The fifth full member of Mercosur, Venezuela, had not yet been admitted to the bloc at the time of the videoconference. It officially joined on Jul. 31 in Brasilia.

At the last Mercosur summit, held in the Argentine province of Mendoza four days after Wen’s visit, the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay agreed to strengthen cooperation with China.

They also approved a proposal to send a joint trade mission this year to China ‘s commercial hub, Shanghai.

But they did not elaborate on the Asian giant’s suggestion of freeing up trade, which analysts agree will be a long, complex process.

Mauricio Mesquita Moreira, an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) expert on international trade, said the conditions are not in place for reaching a free trade deal in the near future.

“On one hand, Argentina and Brazil have industries that are highly vulnerable to competition from Asia. And on the other, the state still has too much of an influence in the promotion of industry in the Chinese economy for Mercosur to accept a liberalisation of trade,” the Brazilian economist told IPS.

“The smaller partners, Uruguay and Paraguay, lack industrial structure, and could benefit from an agreement with China. But being in Mercosur also gives them benefits such as privileged access to the bloc’s larger markets,” he said.

Mesquita Moreira was in Buenos Aires this month to present a study carried out by the IDB together with experts from the Asian Development Bank Institute, which analyses the future of ties between Asia and Latin America.

The study recommends an increase in trade and investment between the two regions.

Argentine economist Guillermo Rozenwurcel, director of the Centre for Research on Economic Development in South America (IDEAS), said “the Chinese proposal is not viable in the least, over the next 10 to 15 years.

“The presidents gave a diplomatic response to the Chinese interlocutors, to show that they had listened to the proposal. But until the playing field is level, there are few prospects for real discussions on free trade,” he told IPS.

Rozenwurcel also said there was little “political margin” for considering the question.

On the other hand, “there is a challenging and complex, but possible, outlook” for boosting trade, investment and scientific and technological cooperation between this region and Asia, he added.

According to the study by the IDB and the Asian Development Bank Institute, trade between Latin America and Asia has grown by an average of 20.5 percent a year since 2000, to 442 billion dollars today.

With that sharp increase over the last 12 years, China, Asia’s biggest supplier of imports to Latin America, is now the region’s second largest trading partner, after the United States.

But the pattern of trade between the two regions is based mainly on exports of raw materials from Latin America and sales of manufactured goods from Asia, experts point out.

Abeceb, a private consultancy in Argentina, reported that trade between Mercosur and China climbed from 10.3 billion dollars a year in 2003 to 77.9 billion dollars in 2011, and could reach 200 billion dollars by 2016.

But Abeceb also noted that in the same period, Argentina’s purchases of manufactured goods from Brazil such as textiles, capital goods, plastics or pharmaceutical products fell as a result of competition from lower-cost imports from China.

In the case of textiles, for example, 56 percent of Argentina’s imports came from Brazil in 2003, but today that proportion is less than 23 percent. Meanwhile, purchases of textiles from China grew from two to 34 percent of the total.

And while footwear imports from Brazil fell from 79.2 percent to 37.5 percent between 2003 and 2011, purchases from China rose from 12.6 to 36 percent in the same period.

The president of Argentina’s toy industry chamber, Miguel Faraoni, said a free trade accord between Mercosur and China “would be very counterproductive.”

“Competition is impossible due to the differences between the policies of each one. China produces between 75 and 80 percent of the toys sold around the world, which means it would be an unequal fight,” he said.

Faraoni said the share of locally produced toys sold on the domestic market has gone up from 10 percent in 2002 to 50 percent today. He also noted that the number of foreign companies producing toys in Argentina has increased.

“Production, employment and investment in machinery and new technologies have grown, and we are exporting eight percent of what is produced to the region and to the Latino market in the United States,” he said.

Faraoni stated that Argentine industry could compete in terms of price and quality with Brazil, “which has the same rules of the game,” but that “opening up the market to China would reverse the gains made in the last few years.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 1 (IPS) – The Brazilian government is stepping up South-South aid, to strengthen the South American giant’s status as a donor country and its international clout. It now provides assistance to 65 countries, and its financial aid has grown threefold in the last seven years.

A project to extend financing for food purchases to five countries in Africa has helped confirm that Brazil, traditionally a recipient of aid, has taken its place among the group of foreign donor countries.

The United Nations announced in late February that Brazil would provide 2.37 million dollars for a local food purchasing programme, to benefit small farmers and vulnerable populations in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal.

The project, carried out by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), will thus draw on the expertise accumulated by Brazil in its own food purchasing programme, known by its Portuguese acronym, PAA.

The PAA buys agricultural products from small farmers and distributes them to vulnerable groups, including children and adolescents through school feeding programmes. Besides fighting hunger, it is aimed at strengthening local food production.

The PAA is a cornerstone of the country’s Zero Hunger strategy, launched by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) and continued by his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, both of whom are moderate leftists who belong to the Workers’ Party.

The programme, in conjunction with other anti-poverty policies, has helped reduce malnutrition by 25 percent and pulled 24 million people out of extreme poverty, according to Lula administration statistics.

“This is a way to help other governments develop policies of support for family farmers, who in this country are responsible for the production of 60 percent of the food consumed,” Marco Farani, director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), told IPS.

The PAA “works very well, and keeps farmers in the countryside, caring for their small plots of land and making them their source of subsistence and livelihood,” said Farani, whose agency operates under the foreign ministry.

The project is based on cooperation between FAO and the WFP in the production and supply of seeds and fertiliser, and the organisation of the purchase and distribution of food, among other aspects.

Since January, FAO has been headed by José Graziano da Silva, from Brazil.

In an interview with IPS in December, Graziano said he would bring to the U.N. organisation his experience as one of the architects of the Zero Hunger programme, in areas like the strengthening of local markets to produce higher quality food, reduce food waste, and lower costs.

Now, in association with organisations like the United Nations or in bilateral aid, Brazil wants to extend throughout the developing South its own successful initiatives like the PAA.

This new cooperation and development aid strategy has been taking shape since 2005, when Brazil, now the world’s sixth largest economy, earmarked 158 million dollars for foreign aid. That amount rose to nearly 363 million dollars in 2009 and to an estimated 400 million dollars in 2010, according to preliminary figures from the ABC.

Meanwhile, Brazil plans to dedicate 125 million dollars to technical cooperation over the next three years, more than double what this country will itself receive in international aid in that period.

“Today we are active in more than 65 countries, while three or four years ago we were only active in the Portuguese-language countries of Africa. We currently have cooperation projects in 38 African nations, and in Latin America,” Farani said.

The countries of Latin America receive 45 percent of Brazil’s foreign aid. The rest is distributed among other areas of the developing South, mainly through bilateral channels, but also through the U.N., as in the case of the new local food purchasing fund for the five African countries.

Brazil is now one of the WFP’s 10 largest donor countries.

The difference, Farani said, is that “in our South-South cooperation, we do not impose closed models or solutions. We recognise the experience of the other countries, while sharing our own expertise.”

Brazil has thus established a kind of manual of principles to guide international aid.

“In first place, we are a developing country, which is why our attitude towards the challenge of development is one of humility, because development is still a challenge for Brazil,” Farani said.

“Besides, we have similar realities and challenges” as developing countries, and “we approach things from the idea that it is possible to overcome those challenges, while the attitude of a country from the industrialised North is ‘we are going to help to keep things from getting even worse’,” he said.

Mauricio Santoro, an analyst at the independent Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, mentioned political reasons as well for Brazil’s strategy of becoming a donor country.

Brazil hopes to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and wants greater decision-making power in multilateral bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.

“The political objective is to increase Brazil’s influence in other developing countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa. It’s part of the consolidation of Brazil’s international leadership vis-à-vis nations of the so-called global South,” he said.

But Santoro said there is a difference with respect to traditional donors that use aid as an instrument to establish a presence in new markets.

Brazilian companies, like the state-run oil company Petrobras and private construction and mining firms, are increasingly operating throughout Latin America and in other regions as well.

“The focus is more on politics than on the economy,” he told IPS. “Cooperation is not necessarily stronger with large commercial partners.”

“But it works as a kind of buffer for tension in countries like Bolivia, Paraguay or Mozambique, where there is a heavy presence of Brazilian companies,” he said.

Another difference, Santoro said, is that Brazil’s foreign aid does not come with strings attached, and generally promotes projects that put a priority on developing human resources, by means of training of public employees, for example.

It is the age-old concept of “teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish,” he summed up.

(END/2012)

Radio Zibonele began broadcasting under the bed of a shipping container truck in 1995. Davison Mudzingwa/IPS

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Feb 7 (IPS) – When a financial crisis threatened the existence of Africa’s oldest community station, Bush Radio, an outpouring of sympathy and appeals went viral on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, despite this outspoken support that showed that the station is worth saving, its future remains uncertain.

It got the message out there to the decision makers, and because it was in their faces all the time… there has been offers of assistance,” said Adrian Louw, programme integrator at Bush Radio.

The emergence of social media has opened new opportunities for community broadcasters in Cape Town, South Africa. Not only are they able to interact more effectively with their audiences, but they can now do so cheaply.

Bush Radio broadcasts to at least 260 000 listeners, predominantly in the poor Cape Flats, formerly an apartheid housing area for people of colour.

But thanks to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a blog, Bush Radio now maintains a strong presence in the community.

“The use of social media has been important for us because it has allowed us to do stuff without getting a specific designer on board that knows our internet protocols,” said Louw.

The station has a rich history of defiance during the apartheid era. Back then it broadcasted illegally after repeated applications for a licence were turned down. Since the granting of a broadcasting licence in 1994, the station has evolved with the times.

“If blogging works, why do we have to pay thousands of (South African) Rands to get a designer to design a fancy website for news when a free CMS (content management system) works?” asked Louw.

Core to Bush Radio’s programming are issues that affect their audiences. These include HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, poverty and crime. Highlighting these issues through social media is convenient in several ways. “The nice thing about social media is that it really assists community media with its mission, in terms of increasing access to the station and really making people feel that they are owners of the station because they now can communicate with the station quickly,” says Louw

“Even if you are not interested in something you get an alert, like ‘do not forget that Sakhisizwe (radio programme) is going to talk about HIV/AIDS at 12pm.’ In that way, a specialised audience will interact.”

Bush Radio is also renowned for training young people in broadcasting. Social media has enabled them to spread the message quicker. “For instance we had a recruitement for news volunteers. We had a response from over sixty applicants within three days.”

For Bush Radio, social media complements the weaknesses of radio – its immediacy and transient nature. With social media, the station can now relay important messages that have a presence on the internet.

“We seriously believe that technology must be used in bettering people’s lives,” said Louw.

Across town in South Africa’s biggest single township of Khayelitsha, Radio Zibonele has a lot in common with Bush Radio. Radio Zibonele’s listenership has steadily increased with the station’s meteoric rise from its days of broadcasting under the bed of a shipping container truck in 1995.

With over 220 000 listeners, feedback grew and inundated the single studio phone line. The advent of social media has been a welcome development for Radio Zibonele.

Like most community media, Radio Zibonele traditionally interacts with its audiences through outreach programmes such as road shows and other sponsored community activities. However, of late, dwindling sponsorship has been a hindrance. Social media, said Ntebaleng Shete, the station’s programme manager, fills the gap by reconnecting with the community.

Radio Zibonele broadcasts mostly in the local language, isiXhosa. Its flagship programme discusses various social problems, and feedback peaks during this two-hour programme.

The high penetration of mobile phones with internet connectivity has also boosted the number of listeners who log onto social networks. According to latest figures provided by Cellular Online, a mobile portal, South Africa has a growing subscriber base of close to 20 million users.

“I think people are growing with technology…many of the people want to be on Facebook and Twitter,” said Shete.

However, Chris Kabwato, the director of Highway Africa, a Pan-African programme at Rhodes University that focuses on research, education, media and digital technologies, said community media in Africa has a long way to go to utilise social media.

“(There are ) the perennial challenges of lack of internet access… and the general lack of technical knowledge around the use of new media on – mobile, internet, web-based social applications,” said Kabwato of the factors that have hampered the full usage of social media.

He, however, believes that vast opportunities to develop more interactive programmes and to generate revenue from social media exist.

*This story was produced with the support of UNESCO.

**The story that moved on Feb. 3 incorrectly stated that Bush Radio had received sufficient financial support to save the station.

(END/2012)

Poppy Agha, Pakistani chef on the 'Foodistan' reality TV show. Credit: NDTV

KARACHI, Feb 3, 2012 (IPS) – If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the path to peace between India and Pakistan may lie in the commonalities in their cultures and cuisines.

So when Poppy Agha, a renowned Pakistani chef, was recently served up kebabs made of okra (lady’s finger) and biryani (rice), followed by firni (dessert), the misgivings she had about India melted away.

“I was brought up in a very patriotic household with the usual Pakistani stereotypes in my mind towards India. This feeling has now changed completely,” she tells IPS from the Indian capital of New Delhi, where she has gone to take part in a reality show on food.

“You don’t have to think poorly of Indians to be a patriotic Pakistani!” said Agha, who runs a professional culinary institute in Pakistan, ladling out aromatic delights to entice the judges.

The Indian television channel NDTV Good Times, through its cookery show ‘Foodistan’, has diverted South Asia’s archenemies away from a nuclear race by pitting chefs against each other to a gruelling “cross border cook off”.

The 26-part series has 16 professional chefs, eight from each side of the border, who show what the “two most culturally rich and fascinating countries” in Asia can do with their respective cuisines.

“Cookery can be a terrific friendship builder,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist and peace activist. “It can transcend manmade boundaries.”

And that is exactly what the programme producers are hoping to achieve.

In an email exchange, Smeeta Chakrabarti, chief of NDTV Lifestyle, told IPS: “India and Pakistan have many common passions such as music, cricket and yes, fabulous food. The boundaries are just political, and the reality is that in many ways, the people of the two countries live and think in a similar fashion.”

“I wish the real wars were over,” said Vir Sanghvi, an Indian judge on the programme. “But, until we can be sure of that, the best way of ensuring peace is for our people to interact with each other in arenas such as Foodistan,” he told IPS.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and a traumatic partition on the basis of religion. Their relationship since then has resembled a rollercoaster with moments of understanding punctuating hostilities over the possession of the province of Kashmir.

Mani Shankar Aiyar, an Indian diplomat turned politician, told a roomful of Pakistanis that both nations had a choice to either continue living in “simmering hostility” or engage proactively and prosper. He said 90 percent of the people on either side of the border did not nurse grudges from a dark past.

Aiyar, who was invited by the Jinnah Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, to speak on ‘India and Pakistan: Retrospect and Prospect’ said: “History may have divided us but geography binds us.”

In India, Agha learnt to develop menus in different ways, but she told IPS that she gained much more at a personal level. “I have met some great people I can call friends,” she declares.

Zohra Yusuf, a Pakistani rights activist, believes that “any kind of contact, even a highly competitive one” can contribute to a better understanding in the long run.

“While passions may be inflamed, during a tense cricket match, for example, face-to-face interactions helps remove prejudices about the ‘other’ to a great extent,” she told IPS.

In spite of hurdles thrown in by officialdom on both sides, such as denial of visas, requirements for visitors to report to police stations and restrictions on travel, people-to-people contacts seem to find their own way.

Thus, India’s tennis star Sania Mirza could marry Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, or the tennis duo of Indian Rohan Bopana and Pakistan’s Aisam ul Haq Qureshi could get together to start a movement called “Stop War Start Tennis.”

The Jang Group, a Pakistani media house, has joined hands with the Times of India daily newspaper in a campaign called ‘Aman ki Asha’ (Hoping for Peace) that, over the last two years, has relentlessly promoted peace efforts.

Aman ki Asha’s success depends on a plan to begin anew with the next generation of Indians and Pakistanis and get them to take the responsibility for “shedding the baggage of history.”

Stark facts such as the 250 million dollar daily expense in maintaining an electrified, barbed fence with floodlights and security equipment along the border are thrown at young participants.

The success of the Aman ki Asha initiative can be gauged by the fact that it was unaffected by the public acrimony generated during the difficult period after the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008, carried out by a group of armed Pakistanis.

If anything, the peace show has been gaining ground. In 2010, ‘Chote Ustad’ (Little Master), a music reality show for young Pakistani and Indian singing and dancing talent, run by the Star Plus TV channel, turned into a huge hit on both sides of the border.

Rouhan Abbas, one of the Pakistani winners, returned home with a medal, a trophy, the prize money as well as a basketful of memories. He still misses the bonhomie that developed with young Indian participants at the show.

“The notion that India was our enemy was fixed in my mind, since I was little; that was completely erased after our Indian hosts showed us love and warmth,” Abbas told IPS.

There has, of late, been a definite thawing of the relations between the two neighbours, riding on the cultural front: enough for India to slip down to third position among Pakistan’s enemies, after the United States and Israel.

Shows like Foodistan can spread the message of brotherhood says Chakrabarti. “If you see participants from both sides and unless you are told you wouldn’t be able to tell who is from which side of the border,” she said.

“Because of travel and visa restrictions, we don’t know enough about each others’ cuisine and culture,” she said, adding that shows like Foodistan can help bridge that gap.

(END)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 12, 2012 (IPS) – Brazil, for decades a source of migrants to the United States and Europe, is now facing its own humanitarian challenge: applying the international solidarity it trumpets to the Haitians who are arriving in the thousands, in search of a better life.

The alarm was triggered by newspaper reports published in the first week of the year about “coyotes” or people smugglers bringing Haitians into the country across the border with Bolivia and Peru, in the Amazon jungle.

The Haitians reportedly pay between 2,500 and 5,000 dollars apiece for a trip that includes a plane ticket to Ecuador, Colombia or Peru and an arduous overland journey to Brazil.

The Haitian diaspora has grown exponentially since the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake that claimed some 300,000 lives and left 2.1 million people homeless in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Drawn by the economic boom in Brazil, now the world’s sixth largest economy, and the major infrastructure works in preparation for the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games to be hosted by Rio de Janeiro, some 5,000 Haitians have flocked to this country since the earthquake, according to the Institute of Migration and Human Rights.

“Brazil has become part of the map of the Haitian diaspora,” sociologist Rubem Cesar Fernandes, director of Viva Rio, a Brazilian NGO that has been carrying out social, economic and cultural projects in Haiti since 2004, told IPS.

The traditional destinations of Haitian migrants are Canada, the Dominican Republic, France, the French West Indies, and the United States. And now Brazil has been added to the list, for specific reasons, said Fernandes.

Since 2004, Brazil has headed the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, and Latin America’s giant has a growing presence in that Caribbean island nation.

“Brazil is now part of the collective consciousness of Haiti,” Fernandes said, referring to newfound “affective ties” between the two nations in areas like music and football, as well as the shared African origins of Haitians and much of the Brazilian population.

Furthermore, the first signals sent out by Brazil to Haitian immigrants were “friendly and welcoming, and non-repressive,” Fernandes said.

“I came in 1992, when we didn’t yet feel the Brazilian presence in Haiti,” said André Yves Cribb, an agronomist from Haiti who works on development aid projects for his home country at Embrapa, the Brazilian government’s agricultural research agency.

“Brazil started to play a more active role on the international stage and the foreign policy front,” he told IPS. “And this country’s growth has drawn the attention of people who are trying to find a way to survive,” he said, adding that there are also subjective factors like the Haitian people’s identification with the Brazilian people.

The Catholic humanitarian organisation Caritas says the majority of the most recent arrivals from Haiti, who came in early 2012, are waiting in the border towns of Tabatinga and Brasiléia, hoping they will be granted humanitarian visas that would allow them to work, since the Brazilian government does not consider them refugees.

“Brazil understands the situation. There has been no mistreatment, and humanitarian and work visas are being issued,” said Cribb.

The problem is that during the waiting period, which can take up to six months, the two small towns do not have the infrastructure or the conditions to receive so many immigrants.

The national bishops’ conference reported, for example, that in Brasiléia, in the northwestern state of Acre, there are now 1,250 Haitians – 10 percent of the population.

As of Dec. 23, 4,015 Haitians had applied for refugee status and the applications are being studied by the National Committee for Refugees.

“The immigrants are sleeping in the town square, or as many as 10 are crammed into rooms for three or four people,” said a local Catholic priest.

“The ‘coyotes’ are clearly exploiting people along these immigration routes,” José Magalhaes, Caritas national adviser for risk and emergency management, who is providing assistance to the immigrants, told IPS.

The governments of the Amazon rainforest states where the immigrants are arriving are unable to meet the rising demand for housing, food and healthcare, he added.

Many of the Haitian women who have arrived are pregnant, he noted. Under Brazilian law, anyone born in Brazil automatically becomes a citizen.

In the first days of the year, the situation was aggravated by the arrival of around 500 new undocumented Haitians.

The latest wave of immigrants prompted the government to take a definite stance and adopt measures, after wavering between granting humanitarian visas and worrying that doing so would open the floodgates to new arrivals.

On Tuesday, Jan. 10 President Dilma Rousseff authorised the regularisation of the situation of all Haitian immigrants who are already in the country.

But at the same time, she announced restrictions aimed at curbing the influx of undocumented Haitians. From now on, visas – a maximum of 100 a month – will only be issued by the Brazilian embassy in Haiti.

“The Brazilian government will not be indifferent to the economic difficulties faced by Haitians. But only people with visas will be allowed to enter Brazil,” said Justice Minister Eduardo Cardozo.

The government will also step up security along the borders with Bolivia and Peru, and will negotiate special measures with those two countries and Ecuador.

“We have to crack down on this illegal immigration and people smuggling route,” the minister said, to explain the measures that have been interpreted by many as a de facto barrier to Haitian immigrants.

Joseph Handerson, a Haitian student with the graduate studies programme in social anthropology at the national museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, questioned the measures.

“The ones who are arriving now are in the same situation as those who had already come and were granted legal status. Why are they being treated differently? Brazil should rethink its position and humanitarian policies,” he said.

Magalhaes took a similar stance, pointing out that Brazilian history was built by immigrants from Europe and from the rest of Latin America, and slaves from Africa.

“We in Caritas clearly see this as a humanitarian situation of the first order, one that calls for international solidarity,” he said.

Magalhaes said “these situations are complex.” But speaking in a personal capacity, he stressed that Brazil “has to have political coherence” and must understand that it has joined the route of the Haitian diaspora because it is now a financial powerhouse and is in need of workers due to the sports events to be hosted in the next few years.

“It should not shut its borders but should help these immigrants stay here,” he said, pointing to the humanitarian tradition of Brazil, which has granted refugee status to 4,359 refugees, 2,813 of whom are from Africa.

Cribb said the arrival of Haitian immigrants, many of whom have already been hired to work on hydroelectric dams under construction in Brazil, is doubly beneficial.

He said that, given the economic boom that Brazil is experiencing as an emerging country, the new immigrants – many of whom are skilled workers or university graduates in areas like engineering – will contribute to the country’s growth while themselves benefiting from their insertion in a dynamic economy.

Handerson explained to IPS that 80 percent of the Haitians who have arrived in Brazil are now living in the city of Manaus, the capital of the northwestern state of Amazonas, 10 percent headed to French Guiana, and the rest are in Brazilian states like São Paulo, Roraima and Minas Gerais.

And of those who are living in Manaus, 80 percent have jobs, mainly as construction workers, painters, carpenters, steelworkers or waiters, in the case of men, and as domestics, cooks or manicurists in the case of women.

But in Tabatinga, in the same state, the conditions are more complicated because there are not enough jobs or housing for the 1,300 Haitians in the town.

According to Handerson’s study, the great majority of Haitian immigrants in Brazil have not completed secondary school, but some have tertiary studies. Nearly all of those living in Manaus speak three languages – French, Creole and Spanish – and they earn around 400 dollars a month on average. (END/2012)

The United Nations climate negotiations ended with the world’s nations still to agree on a new global treaty to reduce carbon emissions. Credit:Tinus de Jager/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 11, 2011 (IPS) – The world is increasingly committed to dangerous levels of global warming with yet another failure by nations of the world to agree to needed reductions in carbon emissions here in Durban. However, as the 17th Conference of Parties ended early Sunday morning, members did agree to talk about a new global treaty to reduce emissions.

After two weeks and an additional 29 hours of intense and even bitter negotiations, the 193 nations participating in the United Nations climate talks agreed to a complex and technical set of documents called the “Durban Platform.” These include the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, a formal structure for a Green Climate Fund, new market mechanisms, and more.

The biggest development reached at dawn Sunday is an agreement to negotiate a new global treaty to reduce emissions by 2015. While this may look like simply agreeing to more meetings, it is the first time all nations have agreed to be governed by a new global emission reduction treaty under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Currently the promised emission reductions by industrialised countries and those of China, Brazil, South Africa, India and others under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord guarantee a world that is at least 3.5 degrees Celsius warmer on average according to climate science. It will be double that over large parts of the world. Some analysis says this global average could be even higher rising to four or five degrees Celsius threatening our species with annihilation.

Despite the political posturing by the United States, Canada and even the European Union, the fact is that developing countries’ promised reductions are greater than the industrialised world that are responsible for 75 percent of the total human emissions in the atmosphere.

“There are still no new pledges on the table and the process agreed in Durban towards raising the ambition and increasing emission reductions is uncertain in its outcome,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

COP 17 President, South Africa’s Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and others pleaded with countries to put their self-interest aside “for the greater good of the planet and its people.” Rich countries like the U.S., Canada and Saudi Arabia blocked progress on numerous fronts leaving smaller nations bitter and frustrated.

“The grim news is that the blockers lead by the U.S. have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding,” said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.

Even if a strong legally binding treaty is agreed to in 2015, it will have to ratified by governments before going into force. It took several years to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. backed and then failed to ratify following the election of George W Bush.

Waiting until 2020 to make major cuts means those cuts will have to be far deeper and far more costly to have any hope of keeping temperatures below two degrees Celsius, Hare previously told IPS.

“The world’s collective level of ambition on emissions reductions must be substantially increased, and soon,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Various analysis show that global emissions should peak between 2015 and 2020 to earn a reasonable chance of less than two degrees Celsius at doable cost. If the peak and decline comes later costs and risks of exceeding two degrees Celsius skyrocket.

“Powerful speeches and carefully worded decisions can’t amend the laws of physics. The atmosphere responds to one thing, and one thing only – emissions,” said Meyer.

It was clear that our governments these past two weeks listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people, Naidoo said in a statement.

The “Durban Platform” includes a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that will begin January 2013, avoiding a gap at the end of the first commitment period finishing next year. The length of the second commitment period is to be decided at COP 18 in Qatar.

Developing countries insisted on this condition because Kyoto is the only legally binding emissions reduction agreement. However, it only asked for small reductions from industrialised countries like those in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and a few others. The U.S. opted out and Canada ignored its obligations and increased emissions 24 percent. And now Canada, Japan and Russia have said they will take not take part in the second commitment period.

The continuation of Kyoto “is highly significant” said Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Participating countries are to submit their emission reduction offers by May 2012.

There is no formal adoption of a second commitment period based on the actual wording of the documents, said Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for the Plurinational State of Bolivia. “The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP.” Kyoto remains on “life support” he said.

The only progress on the Green Climate Fund (GFC) was on its design and governance. The GFC is supposed to funnel 100 billion dollars in assistance annually starting in 2020 to help developing nations to reduce emissions and help them adapt to climate change. There were no commitments on where the money would come from. What was agreed is to set up a “work plan” to mobilise significant climate funds from both private and public sources.

Private sources explicitly include carbon markets as governments from the rich countries frequently cited the financial crisis has tied their purse strings. Civil society and some developing nations noted that governments have made trillions of dollars available for the bank and financial sector and that world’s military budget is more than 10 times what is needed for the GFC.

Even though the carbon market has crashed the private sector is considered by the U.S., EU, New Zealand, Japan and other countries to be a key partner in mobilising money for climate change. Creating private markets for the buying and selling carbon offsets remains highly controversial and very complex in terms measurement, ownership of carbon in soil or forests and more. Then there are the ethics of rich countries offsetting their own emissions by buying up forests or land in poor countries.

“Keep the targets lose the markets” Oscar Reyes of the Friends of the Earth UK urged negotiators in in the final days of COP 17. “We’re worried that when the GCF has money it will lend it to the private sector to drive carbon markets,” Reyes told IPS.

“Durban is a disaster” for a fair and functional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme said experts with Ecosystems Climate Alliance, a coalition of forest NGOs. REDD is by far the biggest potential carbon market.

“From looking at past conferences (climate COPs) it would be more effective if members of the conference would come outside and plant trees for the two weeks. They’d probably make a bigger impact,” said 14-year-old Felix Finkbeiner of Munich, Germany. Finkbeiner launched an organizaton of children called Plant for the Planet that is now working in 70 countries and have planted nearly four million trees in past four years.

Their motto: “Stop Talking. Start Planting.”   (END/2011)

Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser / U.N. Photo/Mark Garten

ROME, Dec 6 (IPS) – South-South cooperation can play a key role in boosting the economies of developing countries, but it is not going to replace North-South cooperation, says Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

The Qatari diplomat was interviewed by IPS as the fourth annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) opened Monday in Rome.

This year’s GSSD Expo, a U.N. system-wide forum developed by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, is hosted by the FAO from Dec. 5 to 9, and is meant to showcase concrete innovative solutions that demonstrate how hunger has been successfully tackled through South-South cooperation.

“South-South and triangular cooperation, backed by adequate funding, are key tools for tackling the development challenges of our time,” Al-Nasser said. “All such partnerships are particularly pertinent given the current and recent challenges facing our global economy and sustainable development. Among such challenges, guaranteeing food security for all is paramount.”

He said the Expo offers an opportunity to examine holistic approaches to the search for innovative and sustainable solutions to food insecurity: “It will enable us to exchange lessons learned and showcase successful Southern strategies and technologies for, among other things: improving agricultural productivity; increasing social protection and building the resilience of the most vulnerable; managing fragile ecosystems; improving nutrition; and combating diseases.”

Q: In its latest report last week, the ‘World Economic Situation and Prospects 2012′, the U.N. warned that the EU-U.S. economic crisis is threatening to spill over into developing countries. How can the developing world protect itself against this threat?

A: The economic crisis is affecting the entire world. In the past, economic and social crises mainly had a regional or sub-regional range. Now the issue is global, it is not about the U.S. or the European markets. What is happening in the U.S. and in Europe is having effects on Latin America, Asia and Africa, and will certainly have an impact on development in these countries.

It is time for the United Nations to look at all this collectively and deal with that. This not only concerns the G20 (bloc of major industrial and emerging powers); this is the responsibility of the General Assembly. I am today focusing on this issue: last week two ambassadors were appointed as facilitators to work on a specific, very important event dealing with the financial crisis which is currently hurting people everywhere, all over the planet.

I’m hoping the General Assembly will see concrete results of this commitment by the first half of next year.

Q: What role can South-South cooperation play in boosting the economies of developing countries? Do you think that triangular and multilateral cooperation – as in IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), MERCOSUR (South America’s Southern Common Market) and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) – need to be strengthened further among these member states?

A: Yes of course. South-South cooperation today can play a major role in bringing all the South countries together, and sharing their experiences. At the same time it is also very important that developing countries do this with the support of the developed world.

Many Southern countries have lifted millions of people out of conditions of extreme poverty and hunger. These countries have at their disposal much knowledge and technical know-how. These can be put to further good use through enhanced South-South exchanges of information, experience and technology, with a view to raising agricultural productivity and to improving food distribution to the benefit of more people.

Through South-South solidarity, we can also learn from countries that are reforming customary norms and practices, in order to ensure that women are no longer denied equal access to land and other productive assets that contribute to food security. In doing so, women will be empowered and can gain their rightful place in society.

It is my hope that these exchanges, programmes and partnerships will be replicated and adapted widely.

Q: As the trend towards South-South cooperation continues, will this replace North-South cooperation in the future? Or is there need both for South-South and North-South cooperation?

A: They complement each other. The South cannot work without the North and the North cannot work without the South. Complement is the key word here.

As president of the United Nations General Assembly, I am committed to promoting South-South and triangular cooperation, as an important part of building a united global partnership. Only such a partnership, based on open dialogue and mutual understanding, can enable efficient collective action in a globalised, inter-dependent world.

Q: What contribution has Qatar made towards South-South cooperation following the Second South Summit which was held in Doha in 2005? Is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Qatar is a member, a prime example of South-South Cooperation? And how successful has it been?

A: It’s been very successful, yes. Qatar has been very active in regional and multilateral initiatives to promote South-South cooperation. I’ve been Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations and personally contributed to a number of South-South cooperation initiatives.

My country believes in Southern cooperation and I think it one of the most active actors in South-South cooperation, especially in terms of encouraging developing countries to work together and share their experiences.

Qatar hosted the Second South Summit of the Group of 77 in 2005, where the South Fund for Development and Humanitarian Assistance was launched.

(END/2011)

Geneva, Oct 7, 2011 (IPS) – The poorest countries in Africa are not merely the victims of natural calamities. They are also ravaged by the continued denial of market access as promised in the Doha trade negotiations, say African trade diplomats.

Almost six years ago at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Hong Kong ministerial meeting, the least-developed countries (LDCs) in the global trading regime, drawn largely from Africa, were assured that their industrial products will be given duty-free and quota-free market access in rich countries.

Further, the four poorest cotton producers in West Africa – Benin, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso – were promised that all trade-distorting cotton subsidies provided largely by the United States would be expeditiously slashed. The LDCs were also told they will be provided with a “wavier” on trade in services, implying that they would not have to undertake any fresh commitments.

All these promises are clearly spelt out in great detail in the Doha mandate, particularly the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration of 2005. The Doha trade negotiations began in 2001 with the objective to lower trade barriers around the world and thereby enable the increase in global trade.

The “daridra narayans” – a term coined by Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, the father of an independent India, to describe the conditions of the wretched of the earth – of the global trading regime were assured time and time again that their demands would be treated as part of the “early harvest” at every ministerial meeting.

Sadly, there are grave doubts now that these promises will be addressed at the WTO’s eighth ministerial meeting in December.

“African countries will be left high and dry at the ministerial meeting in December as their core LDC issues – duty-free and quota-free market access, cotton, services waiver – will not be addressed,” says an African trade diplomat, preferring anonymity.

Bangladesh, the coordinator for the LDCs at the WTO, remains confident that things can be turned around at the ministerial meeting.

“We are still hoping that our priorities will be adequately reflected at the outcome from the eighth ministerial meeting,” says Ambassador Abdul Hannan of Bangladesh.

Leading developing countries – South Africa, India, Brazil and China – among others have repeatedly underscored the need for addressing the duty-free and quota-free market access to enhance the “credibility” of the WTO.

“Any attempt to deliver on any issue will not be credible in the WTO if it doesn’t begin with the poorest members of the global trading system,” says Ambassador Faizel Ismail, South Africa’s trade envoy to the WTO.

“The developing country members of the WTO agree that the MC8 (eighth ministerial conference) should at the least send out a strong signal that the weakest members (LDCs) should have something to gain from the trade system, even if the Doha talks are deadlocked,” says Martin Khor, the executive director of the Geneva-based South Centre, an intergovernmental organisation of developing countries, which was established by former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.

The Doha trade negotiations are grid-locked because of the differences between the U.S. and other industrialised countries on the one side, and emerging powers such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa on the other.

The U.S. wants the leading developing countries to make onerous commitments given their current economic performance and status in the global trading system.

The developing countries refused to accept unilateral demands saying they will provide market access and make other commitments as per the Doha Development Agenda.

In the run-up to the ministerial meeting, the U.S. and some industrialised countries made it clear that they are not going to address the issues of duty-free and quota-free market access for the LDCs. They also will not address the reduction of cotton subsidies, which brought misery to African countries, unless China and other emerging nations like India, Brazil and South Africa also agree to the same commitments.

“The LDC package, particularly the duty-free and quota-free market access and cotton, are stalled,” says Ambassador Luis Manuel Piantini Munnigh of the Dominican Republic, the chair for the informal group of developing countries.

“It is unfortunate that some developed countries are insisting that unless their market access issues are addressed first, they will not address the LDC package,” he told IPS.

Under the Doha mandate, which was further clarified by the July 2004 framework agreement and the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, market-opening and subsidy- reduction commitments are clearly spelt out for developed and developing countries.

The Hong Kong ministerial declaration of 2005 says “developed-country members, and developing- country members declaring themselves in a position to do so, agree to implement duty-free and quota- free market access for products originating from LDCs” by 2008.

It further says that the “members (industrialised countries) facing difficulties at this time to provide market access as set out above shall provide duty-free and quota-free market access for at least 97 percent of products originating from LDCs, defined at the tariff line level, by 2008.”

Except for the U.S., all other industrialised countries more or less adhered to this commitment. Even developing countries like China, India, and Brazil continue to provide market access to LDCs for over 90 percent of their industrial products.

Effectively, the eighth ministerial meeting, which begins on Dec. 15, is going to cause a “trade drought” for the LDCs in Africa and elsewhere without addressing their bread-and-butter demands in the global trading regime.

“However, it is becoming more and more clear that even such a minimal outcome is becoming difficult, due to the position of a very few, or even one (the United States) developed country,” says Khor.

(END)

Ambassador Josephine Ojiambo of Kenya, President of the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation. Credit:Courtesy of GSSD Expo

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 (IPS) – “In South-South cooperation we are all partners,” Josephine Ojiambo, ambassador of Kenya to the U.N. and president of the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, told IPS. “SSC specifically shies away from the donor-client relationship.”

While partnership and support received by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) from traditional donors is often “far from adequate”, exchange of resources, technology, knowledge and best practices between developing countries – generally referred to as South-South cooperation (SSC) – is gaining momentum, Ojiambo said.

In the run-up to the 2011 Fourth U.N. Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in Istanbul, IPS talked with Ojiambo about how Southern solutions could complement North-South cooperation with LDCs. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What makes South-South sharing so helpful for LDCs?

A: The countries of the South are a tremendous source of tested solutions to development challenges faced by all developing countries especially the LDCs. SSC offers new concrete ideas, models and practices for LDCs and thus provides major additional opportunities. Additionally, Southern countries tend to offer technologies and solutions that are more appropriate to the special needs and circumstances of LDCs, given their similarities in environment, background or development path.

Developing countries – regardless of their size or level of development – have something to bring to the table… Today when LDCs participate in international negotiations, particularly as a group, they are able to exercise a stronger voice at the table while also bringing forward appropriate technologies, agricultural models, and other successful solutions.

Southern countries are now at the centre of the new geography of international trade – as producers, traders and consumers in global markets… South-South [Foreign direct investment] FDI flows peaked at 187 billion dollars in 2008 (representing 14 percent of the total global FDI), up from 12 billion in 1990 (4 percent of the total global flow). The LDCs have been major recipients of FDI from other countries of the South – accounting for 40 percent of total FDI from developing countries.

China, India, Brazil and South Africa in particular have become important sources of development financing for LDCs.

Q: Do the emerging southern powers – India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) or China – help LDCs within a South-South framework? How?

A: Many developing countries have developed substantial knowledge and acquired capacity and experience in setting up dynamic successful institutions for social and economic management, as well as for science and technology development and environmental management. There is now the potential for the sharing of concrete experiences among the South – with development-replicating value. A win- win scenario for all partners.

Examples of some success stories are the ‘Bolsa Familia’ hunger alleviation programme of Brazil, the ‘National Food for Work Programme’ of India, and the central regulatory and liberalisation policies followed by China. These are potentially useful practices to be replicated in other countries.

China and India both also have Africa strategies, which is relevant given the large number of LDCs within the continent.

Q: Building on the Nairobi Outcome of the High Level U.N. Conference on South-South Cooperation a large number of LDCs have called for an international programme of action aiming at reducing the number of LDCs by half over the next decade. What concrete steps can be taken at the upcoming LDC- IV to put LDCs on track to meet this goal?

A: At LDC-IV delegates have to agree on how the successes of the Global South over the last two decades can be translated into solutions to the numerous development challenges faced by LDCs in areas including: food security, agricultural/industrial productive capacities, climate change, public health, education, desertification, trade and investment, infrastructure, transportation, information and communications technology.

The Delhi Declaration – adopted by Foreign Ministers, Ministers, and Representatives of the LDCs and India at the India-LDC Ministerial Conference in February – stresses that the interconnected and globalised world has made it essential for the international community to accord its highest priority to the cause of LDCs.

The international community must express its highest political commitment in support of the Istanbul Program of Action as well. There is an urgent need for the development community to further its engagement with LDCs by helping to enhance their productive capacities, through such means as private sector development, the transfer of productive technologies, and the enhancing of LDCs’ enabling environments.

By developing their productive capacities, LDCs will be empowered to mobilise domestically the resources needed to finance their economic growth, thus lessening their dependence on aid and attracting the sort of private capital inflows that can support their development.

Of special importance is the need to commit to specific measures needed to boost LDC productive capacities – delegates emphasised at the February preparatory meeting for LDC-IV in India.

South-South and triangular cooperation, particularly that which engages the private sector through public-private partnerships, have the potential to play a significant role in this agenda as the South is home to many successful examples of effective partnerships, innovative technologies, and sustainable solutions to the very challenges faced by LDCs.

Now, more than ever, it is critical that the development community utilise South-South, triangular and public-private partnerships to empower LDCs’ in poverty reduction, employment creation and sustainable development, enabling LDCs to truly integrate into the international economy, engage in beneficial trade, and escape the poverty trap.

The UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS), which serves as the coordinator of the LDC- IV process, has mobilised the entire U.N. with a view to deliver a comprehensive, action-oriented and meaningful outcome of the conference, including concrete deliverables.

In response to this call, the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation will be hosting an event entitled ‘South-South Development Roundtable: Building Productive Capacities of Least Developed Countries through South-South, Triangular and Public-Private Partnerships.’ The main objective of the roundtable is to showcase announcements of concrete plans for the successful transfer and scaling-up of actual mechanisms for increasing the productive capacities of LDCs through the effective and efficient application of South-South, triangular and public-private partnerships… The event will feature several presentations of successful, transferable Southern mechanisms… each of which will include a comprehensive description of the mechanism and its expected benefits, and announcement of concrete plans and financial commitments for its transfer and scaling-up.

Q: What is the role Northern-industrialised countries have to play?

A: South-South cooperation is not a substitute for North-South cooperation.

SSC operates on very different principles from those of Northern donor aid. Not only does SSC encompass financial flows, such as loans and grants for social and infrastructure investment projects and programmes, but it also embraces cooperation through experience sharing, technology and skills transfer, preferential market access and trade-oriented support and investment, transmitting and stimulating similar kinds and levels of development, generating employment and building capital and capacity.

However, despite rapid progress in South-South cooperation in scale, scope and dimension, there are limitations also – as Southern countries, particularly LDCs, face huge challenges in terms of a high prevalence of poverty, malnutrition, and unemployment, serious deficits in infrastructure and productive capacities and the impact of external shocks. North-South cooperation and triangular partnerships remain critical in this regard.

Southern development opportunities can be brought to the table through multilateral mechanisms, such as the U.N. Fund for South-South Cooperation managed by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation hosted by UNDP. The multilateral development system can be a bridge between the countries of the South and Northern partners – it can mobilise donors and be a catalyst for developed and developing countries to intervene where and when needed.

Q: What are limits of South-South cooperation in supporting LDCs? And why?

A: Funding and resources are significant limits. In the last few years, during the financial crisis, LDCs are expressing concern that even past development gains have been eaten away.

(END/2011)

South African retailer OK Supermarkets’ store in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: South African imports dominate shop shelves in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Credit:Ignatius Banda/IPS

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 25, 2011 (IPS) – When the government of national unity (GNU) was formed two years ago, Zimbabweans expected that the days of shop shelves being filled with imported consumer goods would soon be over.

During the political turmoil of the past decade, cross-border traders thrived on the back of the shortages of basic commodities. Local manufacturers battled price controls and prohibitive production costs that forced mass factory closures and worker redundancy.

Zimbabweans hoped that, once political rivals ZANU-PF and the MDC formed a GNU, economic reconstruction would help local industries to function again.

Two years on, amid glaring policy differences between the GNU partners concerning how best to revive the economy, consumer goods imported from neighbouring countries, especially South Africa, continue to dominate on supermarket shelves.

Consumers still favour cheaper imported foodstuffs such as cooking oil, maize meal, flour and tea.

In a country afflicted by political thuggery that caused massive capital flight, analysts regard the lack of re-capitalisation as the major bane of local manufacturers.

Finance minister Tendai Biti announced in 2010 that government had set aside 75 million dollars through the African Export-Import Bank for local manufacturers to boost production.

But industrialists complain that the funds are yet to be released to local banks.

For a large-scale trader such as Nomusa Xaba,
local industry’s inability to supply major supermarkets has been a godsend.

For years Xaba has run a lucrative outfit sourcing basic commodities in neighbouring South Africa and selling these to local supermarkets and retailers
seeking to evade taxes and levies that come with importing the goods themselves.

“For me it has been business as usual since the formation of the unity
 government as some shops still only sell imported goods,” Xaba told IPS.
 “People complain that local goods remain expensive. They prefer South African products, ranging from chicken to beer.”

Zimbabweans have long struggled to purchase basic commodities, to such an extent that expatriates living in South Africa send
 groceries instead of cash remittances.

Cross-border transporters known as “omalayitsha”, who deliver 
consumer goods and groceries from South Africa, remain popular here — despite predictions that economic changes wrought by the GNU would push
 this sector out of business.

“I think it is all about how much people can afford,” says Bulawayo-based economist Tony Nyandoro.
”Local manufacturers have cried that they are being crippled by imports but it will be noted that even in the absence of these imports, they fail to supply the local market,” Nyandoro argues.

Poultry producers, for example, have in the past lobbied the government to ban chicken imports from neighbouring countries, especially South Africa. 
 Last year, government instituted such a ban, only to lift it after an outcry from consumers.

After the ban was lifted,
demand for South African chicken shot up as local producers could not keep up, especially in the run-up
to Christmas.

Before the GNU took power, the then ruling ZANU-PF government was accused of allowing Nigerians and 
Chinese too easily into the country. ZANU- PF then started with the “indigenisation” of the economy. Government officials have insisted that imported food is not good for
 people’s health.

Critics say without any government commitment 
to attracting foreign direct investment in local entities, consumers can expect
imports to fill shop shelves for a long time to come.

“There are many policy contradictions here. The government cannot encourage
 local production when, at the same time, local businesses say they are not fully 
capitalised.

“Such capitalisation can only come from outside investors with capital.
 How do we balance the two?” wonders Tendai Chikaraka, who works as an economic analyst with
 an international bank.

“If local producers are to contribute to economic reconstruction, they
 surely need partners. It has already been shown that Zimbabweans cannot revitalise this 
economy on their own,” Chikaraka told IPS.

Foreign-owned shops also continue to flourish in downtown Bulawayo, despite moves by
 ZANU-PF to push them out. The foreigners who spoke
 to IPS report that they are there because locals keep buying their 
cheap goods.

“We cannot just leave because some people think we are benefitting in their place.

“Our goods are affordable simply because the economy was opened up to us when
 no one else imagined this country would be using foreign currency,” one Nigerian shop–owner told IPS, referring to the legalisation of the use of foreign currencies in Zimbabwe in 2009.

“People must understand that business is about providing the best goods and
 services. We will
 keep on bringing goods into the country,” he says.
 (END)