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to AFRICABIZ, 
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Dear faithful reader,
 -AFRICABIZ
editorial team is pleased to announce the set up of Africabiz InterActive that
gives the opportunity to readers to post comments and discuss about articles delivered
in Africabiz. Africabiz
Interactive is moderated to keep the platform free of abuse of language.
DEBT
RELIEF WITHOUT ADDITIONAL LOANS TO DEVELOPING WOULD NOT
ALLEVIATE POVERTY
Click
here for the beginning of the article Eliminating
poor countries'debts had been a constant plea expresed since years by the poorest
countries' governments, charities, NGOs and development
experts. Those groups arguing the developing world will never succeed alleviating
poverty so long as poorest countries' meager financial resources are used to pay
back debts - instead of being spent for education and health care programs for
their citizens.
Mid September 2004, UK finance minister, Gordon Brown,
sent a positive signal about debt relief in favor of African countries declaring
UK is prepared to pay off 10 percent of the debt out of its own funds.
Following
the path US Treasury Secretary John W. Snow declared, for the first time, on September
30, 2004 before the Bretton Woods Committee, a private group that promotes the
IMF and the World Bank that the United States would consider 100 percent debt
relief.
The move from UK and the United States was a sharp turnaround
from the policy carried out by the two institutions, which, till now, rejected
the notion of granting 100 percent debt relief to African countries on the grounds
that such a policy would be inequitable. "Total debt cancellation for those
countries alone would come at the expense of other borrowing countries,'' the
institutions concluded in July 2001.
Unfortunately, other IMF big
powers such as Germany and Switzerland do not agree with UK and the United States.
Swiss politicians at the IMF and World Bank 2004's annual meetings (October 1-2,
2004), in Washington, said cancellation would not solve the real problems.
Switzerland's
Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz, Economics Minister Joseph Deiss, and Swiss
National Bank chairman Jean-Pierre Roth declared on October 2, 2004 they could
not support canceling the debt. Merz stated he remains open, but "total cancellation
is not a perfect and final solution."
Merz goes further stating that
debt relief must be part of a general strategy that is not yet in place, to
wean dependent countries from development aid.
He added that canceling
debt for the poorest African countries alone "would be an injustice" to other
poor countries, which control debt through rigorous economic policies.
On
his part, the Swiss Economics Minister declared "progress has already been made"
for at least 20 (African) countries through the existing relief program - Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). "A debt reduction of two-thirds is
significant," he said. During the Washington meetings, HIPC, which comes to end,
had been extended for two more years.
Germany is holding the same line
of reasoning as Switzerland.
Germany's Finance Minister Hans Eichel rejected the proposal of total debt forgiveness
for the poorest countries of the world, as suggested by UK's Gordon Brown.
Germany's
Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul was more optimistic. She hopes
new initiatives in the debt relief debate will come when UK takes over chair of
the G7 leading industrial nations in 2005.
TRADE
FACILITIES ALONE WILL NOT HELP ALLEVIATE POVERTY IN AFRICA
Germany's
Minister Hans Eichel also said that the most effective help for the poorest countries
lies in a successful completion of the Doha round of trade talks. He stated that
'Poor countries must obtain markets for their products, for which trade barriers
and subsidies must be dismantled."
Certainly. African nations
need trading facilities for African productions to enter the G7 countries markets.
However, would that be enough to resolve the problem of the heavy indebtedness
that now plagues African countries? The question mark is big and discussed in
the following article: Before Trade Comes Production of Goods At Competitive
Prices here available.
An excerpt from said article reads as follows: "Before you sell anything,
you have to produce it first, at competitive price, to be in the position to sell...Now
what Africa has to offer? Only agricultural and mineral bulk commodities: Coffee,
cocoa beans, tea, cotton; and mineral productions such as oil, iron, copper, manganese
and aluminum ores! (See Figure on above link about The Percentage of Main Exports
From African Countries.)
Rare are African countries that have the capability
to sell value-added manufactured products on the international marketplace. The
few African countries (a dozen countries in total, out of 48 sub-Saharan African
countries. South Africa and Mauritius having the lion share), which are in the
position to trading such added valued products offer mostly textiles, small tonnage
of agribusiness productions and canned food.
Therefore, one sees that
granting trading facilities to African countries, at the current state of African
economies - that do not produce high-added valued goods and services - would not
help resolving the debt problem and alleviate poverty in Africa.
DEBT
RELIEF PLUS ADDITIONAL FUNDS TO DEVELOPING PROJECTS
In
a previous delivery,
it was exposed that refusal to pay back debts would not help African nations attract
Foreign Direct Investments. Such a move would be counterproductive; scaring away
would be international investors.
No doubt that the initiative from UK
brought a new dynamics into the discussion, which is already a progress compared
to the blockade of past 10 years. One could expect and hope for some kind of result
in the future.
However, as stated by Switzerland's Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf
Merz: "Total cancellation is not a perfect and final solution... debt relief
must be part of a general strategy that is not yet in place, to wean dependent
countries from development aid."
Doubtless, some brainstorming
is needed to find the proper formula to making debt cancellation a success to
alleviating poverty in African countries.
In the article above mentioned
we suggested the following: "African countries should lobby for debts'
payment reorientation into equity shares instead of fighting for debt forgiveness
or outright cancellation. They should lobby to attract creditors to take participation
in projects included in developing schemes."
THE CONCEPT OF DEBT REORIENTATION INTO EQUITY SHARES
Say you are heavily indebted and in red for -100 US$; and your creditor
agrees to grant you a debt relief of US$ 100. You are no more obliged to pay back
for example a monthly settlement of US$ 10 and the interests bore by the loan.
Thus, your account is balanced at zero. However, if you do not have a
regular income (the case of most poorest African countries) the debt relief brings
you no solace. You are no more in red. But you cannot afford paying household
expenses (food, water, electricity), clothing and Medicare. Sometimes you eat
only once per day - as people do right now in several African countries. In short,
you have a debt relief, but you are still in dire straits making ends meet.
That
means the debt relief granted to you has not solve your living problem. You remain
a poor person even if you are debt free. That is exactly what would happen if
African countries are granted debt relief or cancellation without additional funds
to undertake productive projects.
If
debt relief is conceived as "Debt Reorientation Into Equity Shares",
African countries and their creditors could then partner in carrying out developing
schemes that produce riches for all. The crediors taking participation in developing
schemes (with their debts package) and providing additional loans to promoting
and operating projects in Africa.
That way, creditors would get paid
for previous debts and also for new loans they granted to set up joint-venture
projects. First they would earn share dividends (based on their participations)
and or bonuses when they eventually sell portion of their participation in the
joint ventures. Second, through loan repayment and interest gained on loans provided
for the operations.
The scheme needs further consideration for implementation
procedure. A technical support by international companies for instance would be
an asset for the success of the joint venture and a guarantee that loans granted
will be paid back.
Contrary to outright cancellation of debts or debts'
relief, "Debt Reorientation Into Equity Shares" would establish a win-win partnership
between creditors from the North and debtors from the South if implemented within
the framework of the developing Strategy
exposed here.
You may visit Africabiz
InterActive to post comments and discuss about this article.
"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 here on November 15, 2004.
Dr. B.M. Quenum
Click here for support console
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| Business
Opportunities
FOWL BREEDING AS
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY - PART I: - INTRODUCTION
With
this delivery starts a new series of "Business Opportunities" dedicated
to fowl breeding. Over coming months will be discussed all kinds of fowl breeding:
poultry, turkey, goose, ducks, ostrich and emu as income building power for African
communities.
Indeed, fowl breeding is an economic component to the strategy
here exposed that could make an important contribution to boosting the economic
development of any African country. It is the provider of animal protein to the
populations. It helps set up small breeding farms as well as big cooperative undertaking
for villages and regional development.
Therefore for several months to
come, starting from this delivery, fowl breeding will be exposed with regards
briefs about investment and generated incomes.
| MORE
ON FOWL BREEDING | 1-
Poultry
Breeding and Genetics
by R.D. Crawford
2- The
Dollar Hen: The Classic Guide to American Free-Range Farming.
by Milo M.
Hastingd, Robert Plamondon
3- Small-Scale
Poultry-Keeping: A Guide To Free-Range Poultry Production.
by Ray Feltwell
4- The
Encyclopedia of Farm Animal Nutrition
by M.F. Fuller, et al
5- The
Mating and Breeding of Poultry
by Harry M. Lamon, Rob R. Slocum.
6-
Modern
Livestock and Poultry Production
by James R. Gillespie
|
7- Success
With Baby Chicks: A Complete Guide to Hatchery Selection
by Robert Plamondon.
8- The
Classic Guide To Poultry Nutrition:
Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks, Geese, Gamebirds,
and Pigeons.
by Gustave F. Hauser
9- The
Strange History of The Ostrich
In Fashion, Food and Fortune.
by Rob
Nixon
10- Ostrich's
Avian Incubation: Behaviour, Environment and Evolution.
by D. Charles Deeming |
Control Your Desktop
SOME APPLICATIONS MAY SHOW INSTABILITY ONCE XP SERVICE PACK2 INSTALLED
One
crucial utility that might show some instability is Microsoft Internet Explorer
if you have third parties Adds Ons installed such as Search Tools Bar.
For
instance, once XP Service Pack2 installed, some links in webpages stop functioning.
Clicking with the mouse produce no page loading.
Sometimes you cannot
either highlight a portion of a text in a webpage and make a copy to paste to
another application such as NoteTab or Microsoft Notepad.
When you right
click with the mouse to copy, the "Paste" signet does not show. Worse,
after such failed copying process, if you click on the browser icon in the Taskbar,
to reload the browser, the webpage is no more available. You need to close the
browser and open it again to access the webpage.
If you are encountering
such annoyances, fire up your browser; and on Internet Explorer's Menu do the
following:
1-
Choose "Tools".
2- Then: "Manage Add Ons"
- A panel will exposed Add Ons entailed on your system.
3- Highlight
them one by one.
4- Disable and Enable them one by one.
5- Test and Verify links or any other trouble in a webpage. |
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