The challenges of globalisation for Africa

6 August 2006

A panel discussion on the impact of globalisation on Africa, held at the end of the day’s proceedings on Friday was addressed by Patrick Bond of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, Sipho Mthathi of the Aids Treatment Action Campaign and Dennis Brutus, South African poet and activist. Some 50 Congress participants attended the event.

Bond pointed out that from 1980 to 2000, Sub-Saharan Africa’s total foreign debt rose from US$60 billion to US$206 billion and the ratio of debt to GDP (gross domestic product) rose from 23 per cent to 66 per cent.
Mthathi said that, in the context of globalisation, HIV/Aids was a class and gender issue. “It is directly linked with the socio-economic environment that we are living in,” he declared.

Discussions that followed the speakers’ presentations centred on topics such as how unions could build alliances with other organisations on the basis of common interests and demands and on how unions could contribute to movements like the World Social Forum.

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