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Welcome
to AFRICABIZ, 
Welcome
to Africabiz Online Synopsis
RSS Feed edition. Previous issue available at this
link
Dear faithful reader,
AFTER
CANCUN, IT IS TIME TO THINK ABOUT ANOTHER STRATEGY
After Seattle (1999) and
Doha (2001) World Trade Organization - WTO - big circus took place at Cancun (10-14
September 2003). Any hope raised at Seattle's gathering and rekindled at Doha
to reaching a global trading agreement between the North and the South was squashed
at Cancun.
Eleven years ago, in 1993, developing countries were told
that, according to computer' simulation, giving away their right to regulate imports
and exports would turn around their stagnant economies into prosperous ones. And
the rounds of negotiations started in 1995 at WTO center, Geneva, Switzerland,
followed by Seattle, Doha and Cancun.
It is odd that poor countries policy-makers
bought into that false and misleading
concept. For instance, how sub-Saharan African countries, which get 70% to
90% of their budget revenues from customs duties - levied on imports and exports
- could become richer if they forego said revenues? Furthermore, how could they
compete with heavily subsidized agricultural commodities dumped by the United
States of America and the European Union on international marketplaces and particularly
in Africa?
So, third world's producers of agricultural commodities -
cotton, coffee, sugar, tea. Etc. - agree to the false concept of Free Trade -
which is in fact a deregulation of the international trade. They expect the big
players - USA and the European Union - to be fair and put an end to the subsidies
they grant to American and European farmers - US$ one billion a year since
decades.
Once again, how one could expect (or hope) the rulers of
the United States of America and the European Union would suppress said subsidies?
Of course, they cannot. To hope for that and to continue believing it is another
(strategic) mistake made by African decision makers. American and European rulers
have to protect the interests of their countries if not their own interest to
retaining the confidence of their constituencies. Even if they do ever agree,
the subsidies cannot vanish overnight. It will be taking at least one decade -
speaking conservatively - to suppress them - to sugar the pill to the beneficiaries.
Now, with the collapse of WTO's Cancun negotiations, the deceptive concept
of Free Trade is naked for everyone to see. Cancun revealed the true reality
behind the false concept of Free Trade: A door opened for the powers of the
day to reinforce their hegemony on developing countries.
Of course, trading
had always existed amongst the nations of the earth. However, trading between
nations had always been an economic war. A war won only by nations prepared for
the "battle". A global economic war that nowadays renders ideological debates
and conflicts obsolete and anachronistic. (Visit
French daily "Le Figaro" archive at www.lefigaro;com for an article by French
economist Jean-Jacques
Rosa titled: "Penser la Guerre Economique" that is "To plan for the economic
war", published in the French daily Le Figaro Economique on January 21-22,1989.)
After the collapse of the negociations at Cancun, it is now obvious that the powers
of the day are not ready to relinquish their power to new comers. Have you ever
seen a prosperous merchant freely handing over market' share to the competition?
No way. The competitors will have to work hard to grabbing pieces of the pie.
Therefore, all the talk about the "moral responsibility" of the North
towards the South is plain joke to which the powers of the day will continue to
turn a deaf ear. It is simply a waste of time for developing countries because,
when the South is talking and wailing for a portion of the pie, the North's lobbyists
and trading professionals are busy protecting themselves against the "intrusion"
of the South into their Garden of Eden -
Click following link to read about: Backlash:
Behind the Anxiety over Globalization or Search the web for Opposition
to free trade
Therefore, the only scenario, which might give some
reprieve to sub-Saharan African countries' farmers and help improving the economy
of the South is to plan for and implement another economic development strategy:
| 1-
To progressively shift from selling raw cash crops on the international market.
2- 2. To take necessary measures to supply first, national market; second
African regional markets and last to sell to North's markets only a minimal portion
of the cash crops. In other words to reverse the actual trend that is selling
90% to 99% of cash crops to the North and neglecting national and African regional
markets.
3- To promote and develop new agriculture crops as Economic
Catalysts capable of boosting up the economy and supplying national and African
regional markets in all kinds of goods and services.
4- 4. To process
the crops into manufactured products. |
For instance, is it not odd that sub-Saharan African countries import chocolate
bars from the North when the two world's top producers of cocoa beans are Ivory
Coast and Ghana? There
are plenty of examples like chocolate bars, which
are regularly reported in the Opportunities bulletin of Africabiz Online.
Indeed, there is a huge market in Africa for all kinds of manufactured
products that could be supplied by African nations themselves, to creating national
and inter-African trading relationships. Targeting said opportunities will be
more productive than trying to convince the North to fulfill its "moral responsibility"
towards the South. Click following link to read:
Industrialization is the recipe to creating jobs and wealth in African countries
"CONTRIBUTOR'S
GUIDELINES" are
available here. We invite you
to contribute to AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE - with articles related to
"How Africa Could Bridge The Developing Gap".
Many
thanks for subscribing to Africabiz. See you on November 15, 2003.
Dr. B.M. Quenum
Click here for support console
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| Business
Opportunities
TROPICAL ROOTS AND
TUBERS PART I: THE BURIED TREASURE OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Roots and tubers could be set up as economic catalysts in Integrated Schemes
to boost up the development of an African country. However, for the time being,
roots and tubers produced in SSA countries are consumed as food staple - boiled
(and crushed into pasta) and dried or wet flour. These foods are produced by traditional
methods by women who sell their production on villages and cities markets.
Rare are the industrial concerns established in SSA countries to transform
the raw material into value added products - as
reported in the following diagram. Contrary to what happened in Thailand,
where the country's policy-makers devised a winning strategy to promote the cultivation
of cassava and its industrial industrial products. Nowadays, Thailand is a big
player in the supply of cassava products for animal feed worldwide.
Adobe
Acrobat Reader is available here
Click
following link for more on Roots and Tubers as
Survival Crops in developing countries
Control Your Desktop
STOP
THE OCCURRENCE OF PINK SCREEN AND STABILIZE YOUR COMPUTER
In a previous
issue we discussed the problem of Pink Screen and given solutions to minimizing
the occurrence of the strange phenomenon. In the meantime, we found out that after
applying said solutions, the problem persists on our XP platform. Not only for
the monitor screen, which suddenly become blurred with a pink screen, but also
for the operating system itself, which also crash from time to time. Very annoying
when you are in the middle of typing a report or conferencing over the net.
In previous delivery above mentioned, we wrote: "There are people who
took the matter seriously and made suggestions [a
- b
- c
- d]
to solving it. However, these suggestions and tips might not be the ones to help
you get rid of the annoyance. The problem remains a mystery for the moment.
Is it coming from the Monitor itself (loose Power cord) or from the Graphics card?
Or from a magnetic field (Speakers) near the Monitor? The numerous links available
give no final indication to which device to blame." And we
contributed to solving the annoyance - under Windows 98 - with a suggestion available
here
However, we did continue making research and thought about the
problem of Disk Cache under Windows operating systems - Win9x or XP.
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