International capital is failing the workers of Africa, says Ben Udogwu

Africa, as part of the global village, is a sorry tale of lost opportunities in a world where development is measured in terms of trade volume, technological advancement, wealth and job creation. Global rules dictate to Africa deregulation, retrenchment, and cutthroat competition for Africa’s resources.

Africa is currently going through a difficult period of her history: she is faced with acute economic, political and social problems, including a huge debt burden. The ongoing transformation efforts on these fronts have brought in their wake devastating effects. There is deliberate misuse of Africa’s meagre resources by corrupt leaders, who show no remorse for the economic and social hardship they wreak on their people.

Then we have what looks like the deliberate economic and political Balkanisation of Africa by international capital, which, since Africa’s political independence, has been colluding with the geopolitical agenda designed by powerful nations to frustrate Africa’s development.

In today’s globalised world, there appears to be an aggressive competition that looks like another scramble for Africa. The continent is under intense pressure from creditor nations and international lending bodies to dispose of parastatals such as the railways, or transfer them to private ownership, or sell them to transnational corporations. Inevitably, these state enterprises will, in the name of free trade, cease to be public property and inevitably, massive job losses will follow to facilitate maximisation of profits.

The continent has become the global centre of poverty and some 18 years of “adjustments” engineered by the IMF have failed to create conditions for economic recovery, let alone take-off. These Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) have only deepened the development crisis in Africa, throwing millions of workers out of jobs and plunging them into poverty of unspeakable proportions.

Thirty years of Africa’s economic decline, which are sadly referred to as “The Lost Decades”, have left African countries more destitute than ever before. Will globalisation reverse the SAPs trend, in which real wages have declined by 25 per cent and employment has fallen by more than 20 per cent?

Over 30 million Africans are now jobless and 95 million under-employed. Per capita consumption in sub-Saharan Africa fell by one fifth, spending on health care declined by 50 per cent and education 25 per cent over the last decade. Certain UN circles are not amused at the cuts in education and health care as part of economic recovery for Africa. According to a research source, 10,000 children die each day in Africa due to malnutrition and lack of rudimentary health care.

Infant mortality is close to 40 per cent, thanks to SAPs. What about rampant violation of workers and trade union rights? What about unfair labour practices and our inability to cushion workers’ living standards due to massive currency devaluation and subsequent runaway inflation?

Presently every person in Africa owes between US$270 and US$300 to governments of the developed world, the IMF and the World Bank. The debt burden rests on the present generation of workers and those yet unborn.

Unfortunately, Africa has no choice but to get on the globalisation train, even though many suspect globalisation will be used to justify the claim that Africa is an irredeemable economic and political case. The same school of thought holds that the playing field of globalisation will be sloping against Africa, judging from what appears to be a conspiracy against prices for Africa’s raw materials.

It is against this background that African workers are doubtful that globalisation will bring them salvation and are therefore calling for greater unity and solidarity of the working class throughout the world – because only the global power of the trade unions can successfully challenge the power of global capital in the search for economic justice.

Ben Udogwu is African Regional Secretary of the ITF, based in Nairobi, Kenya