In January 2005 the Blair administration took control of the presidency of the G8, sanctimoniously promising to end the poverty and hardship faced by the majority of Africa’s population.

Blair obviously hoped that painting himself as the saviour of this continent would be his lasting legacy. Instead, he is seen as a privatising, warmongering prime minister, of whom even the Tories could be proud. One year on, Blair’s promises have proven to be yet another breathtaking exercise in cynicism.

The British presidency of the G8 also coincided with the launching of the Make Poverty History (MPH) Campaign, a coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and charities. The leadership of this campaign along with Bono and Bob Geldof argued for a strategy of pressuring this club of the major capitalist powers into granting concessions to African governments. Their demands centred around more and better aid, debt relief and fairer trading practices. At the end of January MPH was officially dissolved at a meeting in London with no move by capitalist governments like that of Bush and Blair’s to meet its three minimal demands.

In fact as events since the G8 summit in Scotland in July have shown, these governments are determined to pursue their ruthless exploitation and plunder of Africa thus impoverishing it further. At this summit over 250,000 people participated in protests reflecting a genuine desire by working people to end the plight of Africa’s poor. In light of this, the Blair government in particular wanted to be seen "doing something" on issues such as debt relief and aid. As the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers’ International pointed out at the time the "deal" that was agreed upon fell significantly short of the demands of the protesters that weekend. Despite this, Bono and particularly Geldof hailed it as a step forward for the people of the so-called "third world". The latter described it as "mission accomplished".

However on the question of debt relief the debt of only 18 countries was written off. According to the charity Actionaid, this accounts for less than 10% of the demand of debt cancellation. Even with this, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now arguing that the debt of 6 of these 18 should not be cancelled unless they "take remedial action over their economic and budgetary policies" (The Guardian, 21 December 2005). This is simply a euphemism for cutbacks and the privatisation of essential services in these countries. The debt relief given by the imperialist powers always comes with strings attached that negate any benefit that it might bring. When the debt of Angola was abolished a number of years ago, the government there was forced to bring in water charges resulting in an increase in dysentery and cholera.

Broken promises

Of the $50 billion that was promised in aid at the G8 summit, only $20 billion was new. Since then none of the governments of the G8 have increased their level of aid from the average of 0.2% to 0.7% that was agreed by the United Nations in 1970 and have no intention of doing so.

The issue of "fair trade" was not even mentioned at the G8 summit. Since then the EU and the Bush administration have shown only a willingness to maintain the grotesquely unfair terms of trade in their favour, as was shown by the summit of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Hong Kong in December. While 2013 was announced as a date for the ending of export subsidies (which usually go to the larger wealthier farmers in the US and Europe) the US government refused to end the $4 billion it gives to its cotton growers each year. In 2003 28,000 US cotton farmers received $2.4 billion in subsidies. This sum of money is bigger than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso in Africa, a country with two million cotton farmers.

No movement was made either on the high tariff rates which countries from Africa are forced to accept. Even the World Bank has been forced to admit that agricultural products from African countries face a "practically insurmountable global average tariff rate of 62%". When these countries have tried to raise tariffs on products coming into their countries it is completely different story. In 2003 when the government of Ghana raised its tariffs on rice imports by 25% due to pressure from rice farmers in the country, the IMF forced it to back down because of its control Ghana’s access to foreign funds. As well as this the WTO summit also pushed through the further privatisation of Africa’s resources and services under the cover of words like "competition" and "liberalisation".

Capitalism to blame

At a National Prayer Breakfast, with America’s religious elite, President Bush and members of Congress in attendance, Bono called for the US to increase aid to the African countries by 1%. It is clear that both he and Geldof have acted like ostriches, by choosing to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the lessons of the last year. The key one being the inability of capitalism to "make poverty history" in Africa; it can only aggravate the desperate situation there.

This is the not because of a lack of "goodwill" on the part of people like Bush and Blair as MPH have argued. It is the logic of the profit driven capitalist system of which they are the faithful representatives. This is a conclusion that many working and particularly young people will draw (and are drawing presently) that will lay basis for the building of a socialist movement internationally that can decisively challenge capitalism.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 315 million people, half the population live on less than $1 a day. One third of the African population suffer from malnutrition.

Less than 50% have access to doctors or hospitals. Only 57% of African children are enrolled in primary education. One in six children die before the age of five. Over the last ten years, the per capita average income in 20 African countries has declined.

The facts speak for themselves – Africa is going backwards. The continent proves that capitalism has failed the vast majority of humanity.

Famine

The spectre of famine continues to haunt Africa. At the moment, there are no less than three serious famines either ongoing or facing people in the next few weeks.

Niger, along with Burkina Faso, Mali and Muritana in the Sahel Region, have been severely affected by poor rains and locust invasions over the past two years and a famine now reigns. Niger is the poorest country in the world, where 63% of the population live on less than a dollar a day, and now three million out of a population of 11 million are facing starvation.

In Southern Africa, Malawi, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, 12 million people are affected by food shortages.

The most serious famine, in the Horn of Africa, affecting northern Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, is only weeks away after two years of drought. It is estimated that 11 million people are at risk of famine, and if February’s rains fail, that number could rise to 20 million. There are horrific reports of weakened children being eaten by hyenas and fields filled with dead cattle.

While drought and locusts are the immediate cause of much of these famines, these are not unpreventable natural disasters. In Niger, there is food on the markets, but it costs too much for poor people to afford it. Elsewhere, there are pockets not affected by drought because of investment in machine drilled wells, providing access to clean water. While Bush and Blair continue to prate on about bringing democracy to Iraq, spending $177 million daily, it was estimated at the start of the famine in Niger, that it would only have cost $1 per person affected to offset the famine. Most horrifically, the EU food mountains, designed to keep prices artificially high, pile up while millions starve!

The number one cause of death in Africa is AIDS. According to the UN, AIDS will kill more than one third of young adults in some parts of Africa. In four southern African countries, the national adult HIV prevalence rate has risen higher than was thought possible and now exceeds 24% -Botswana (37.3%), Lesotho (28.9%), Swaziland (38.8%) and Zimbabwe (24.6%). Average life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa is now 47 years, when it could have been 62 without AIDS.

The AIDS epidemic is not inevitable. While antiretroviral drugs have extended the lives of those who can afford them in the advanced capitalist countries, only a tiny fraction of the millions of Africans in need of antiretroviral treatment are receiving it. In 2001, the UN Secretary General estimated $7-10 billion would be needed annually to tackle the epidemic in low and middle income countries. But in the first year, only $1.5 billion was awarded!

The pharmaceutical multinationals that control the retroviral drugs are determined to maintain control over them. While the use of generic drugs has slashed the average cost per year for treatment from $10,000 to $150, the US government does not allow any of its aid to be used for drugs not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, which very few generic drugs are!

A capitalist Africa?

Bono and Geldof and those who echoed them in the "Make Poverty History" movement aimed essentially to create a prosperous capitalist Africa, with a thriving private enterprise that would be able to sell its goods on the world market. Emphasis is put by agencies like the UN Development Plan on helping small businesses and enterprise with micro credits, loans to assist with the purchase of machinery etc. This is a pipedream not based on an understanding of the causes of African poverty.

Imperialism’s legacy

Almost the entire African continent has been a colony of one or other of the imperialist powers at some time. Britain, France, Belgium among many others, had colonies in Africa. They consciously prevented African countries from developing their own industries, making them totally reliant on imports from the West. The products, mainly cheap raw materials, produced in African countries have their prices determined by the richer nations and multinationals who drive down their prices in order to increase their own profits. At the same time they force those same countries to buy imported manufactured goods from the West at a price determined by the West.

Today, the world economy is dominated by the ruling classes of the rich countries and their companies. The 500 biggest international companies control 70% of world trade, while the 50 largest banks and financial companies control 60% of all global capital. Just 300 multinationals and big banks account for 70% of all foreign direct investment.

This domination effectively blocks off the growth of independent rivals, like a developed capitalist Africa. Where new technologies or products develop they are quickly dominated by the imperialist powers. This approach of capitalism is not going to change. The ruling classes in the US and Europe don’t see Africa as a continent full of starving people to be assisted, they see it as a continent full of resources to be exploited, a place to buy cheap raw materials, while selling back manufactured goods at high prices.

A Socialist alternative

There is another side to Africa which is rarely reported in the Western media, where Africa is often portrayed as just a place of famine and civil war – that is the ongoing struggle of working class people against attacks on their living standards. Last year alone witnessed mass protests and strikes against capitalist, neo-liberal policies in Mali, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Niger, South Africa, and Nigeria.

In the 1990s to early 2000, it was working class led struggles and revolts that helped to propel the defeat of unpopular capitalist governments of Kerekou in Benin Republic and Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia. In South Africa, only the COSATU led strikes and mass protests have so far slowed the pace of the anti-poor, neo-liberal policies implemented by the ANC capitalist government. In Nigeria, the current pro-imperialist, anti-poor government of President Olusegun Obasanjo has been shaken to its roots on several occasions by a series of strikes and mass protests led by the trade union movement.

What is needed is a socialist leadership to these movements and the struggle of the working class generally. Such a leadership would point to the responsibility of both global capitalism and local corrupt leaders who are in the pockets of the multinationals for the problems facing ordinary people. It would clearly pose the need not just to change one government for another, but to replace the whole rotten system with a socialist one capable of breaking the chains of Africa’s poverty.

Such a leadership would make the argument that the current state and decline of Africa is not inevitable. It is a rich continent in terms of natural resources like oil and minerals. The problem is that these resources are not used for the benefit of those who need them. Instead, multinationals like Shell make billions of dollars annually from exploiting these raw resources, while the people starve. The ownership of this wealth is the crux of the solution to Africa’s problems. If this wealth was taken out of the hands of those who currently control it, brought into public ownership and the economy planned democratically by workers to meet people’s needs, Africa would be able to move forward.

Capitalist ideologists of course dismiss this socialist alternative as a pipedream, but capitalism stands condemned in Africa. Over centuries, it has proved unable to develop this continent, it has only abused Africa’s resources and people for capitalist profit. As long as the resources are in the hands of the multinationals, this will continue to be the case. The priorities of a socialist society would be entirely different.

A socialist society would invest in long term infrastructure to avoid famine, like machine drilled wells. It would launch a massive education campaign about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, involving the distribution of free condoms and would produce generic retroviral drugs for all who need them. It would make really available primary and secondary education for young people, by removing the poverty burden on their families which forces them out of school and into work.

t would diversify away from cash crops and raw materials, which have reduced the quality of the soil so drought has a worse effect, and would instead industrialise these societies in an environmentally sustainable way. In short, it would provide a sound basis for Africa as a continent to leap forward and dramatically develop. International socialism would mean fair terms of trade and long term development aid, along with assistance with the latest technology and infrastructure to fast-track Africa’s development.

Such a socialist society is not only possible, it is the only alternative to a descent into even worse poverty. Rosa Luxemburg’s saying about socialism or barbarism being the choice facing mankind rings truer today in relation to Africa than ever before.

For more information check out the Socialist World (CWI) website.