Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

In a keynote address entitled "Delivering the G8 Goods: Who's Driving?", Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane focused on what Africa can do to ease the plight of its own poor.

The Archbishop spoke yesterday afternoon [Monday 17th October] in London to the Royal Africa Society.

The Text of the speech follows:

Lord Holme, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be with you today. Thank you for your invitation.

Our theme is 'Delivering the G8 Goods: Who's Driving?'

As I considered this topic, I realised that from Africa's perspective, the real question is a little different.

How do we keep the foot hard on the accelerator? And how do we ensure that we are steering in the right direction?!

In other words, how do we get, as quickly as possible, to our ultimate goal, which is a sustainable livelihood for everyone on our continent.

2005 has been a momentous year for Africa's development - and it is not over yet.

Building on the important foundations of the Millennium Development Goals, we have had the Commission for Africa report, the G8 summit, and the UN special summit. The conclusion of the Doha Round still lies before us.

A lot of words have been spoken, communiqu?s negotiated, promises made.

What we need now is for them to be implemented - as promptly, as efficiently, and, most of all, as effectively as possible. And we want all these programmes, whether on aid, debt or trade, to go on being developed and extended.

Those who are able to make this difference need all the help and encouragement they can get from the rest of us.

It is primarily the responsibility of the public sector. But the other two legs of society - the private sector and civil society - must play our complementary parts.

The success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign demonstrated the power of broad coalitions, and there is plenty of scope further to develop this influence.

This is why I am optimistic about our potential to keep the driver's foot on the accelerator - provided we maintain our encouragement.

I choose the word 'encouragement' deliberately - rather than a more combative word like 'pressure'.

Donors, and recipient governments, alike, have made their commitments. We must assume they want to keep their promises. Therefore, they and we should know that we are on the same side, working to help them do this.

Encouragement comes in many ways.

It comes through the lobbying of the private sector - who have the potential to be perhaps the most significant long term engine for growth, but need an improving climate in order to fulfil that potential.

It comes through the advocacy of NGOs, unions, professional associations, parliamentarians, clubs, guilds, and the whole range of civil society groups.

It comes through the research produced by academics, by think tanks, by international institutions, and by the donors themselves.

It comes through the media, which can do so much to keep Africa in the public eye and on the agenda.

All this we know - but we must aim to go beyond just 'more of the same.'

My particular concern is to bring a clear and authentic African contribution to this process.

Initiatives such as Jubilee 2000, and Make Poverty History, have come from the Global North. Much existing research looks primarily at donor performance or from donor perspectives. Advocacy largely shares a similar focus.

We need a strong African voice raised alongside. That will double the encouragement, double the impact.

How can we debate the development of Africa, and not listen to what this means for Africans?

What do Africans see as Africa's development priorities? What do Africans think is the best way to achieve them? What difference is all this making to the lives of Africans, especially the very poorest Africans?

So far, the African voice is too fragmented, too marginalised, too quiet. We can do better to make ourselves heard.

The potential is there - in much of Africa we are beginning to see a strengthening private sector (and here I include small and medium-sizes enterprises alongside the corporates); we see the flourishing of numerous and diverse NGOs; emerging independent media; and maturing civil society groups and structures.

We can create a broad coalition in support of Africa's development. We can let the voice of those at whom development policies are aimed, be heard.

And of course, I also want to stress the role of the faith communities.

We alone share networks that can reach the entire population of Africa within a single week. We reach across barriers of ethnicity or nationality or regional difference. Many of us also have strong channels of communication to our northern coreligionists.

I want to harness the latent influence of all these stakeholders - Africans, who have a true stake in the future of our continent.

We must take responsibility for ourselves, and play our part in keeping the foot on the accelerator - whether this means donor countries keeping their promises; or African governments living up to NEPAD's commitments to good governance. They must deliver the political and economic climate that will allow development programmes to have maximum impact.

This is the way of keeping up the speed - of ensuring that, at the very least, we maintain the momentum generated by the initiatives of 2005.

Now let me turn to the question of how we steer in the right direction.

This raises the crucial issue of monitoring.

Benjamin Mkapa, the President of Tanzania, and one of the Commissioners for Africa, wrote this to me, after I shared my concerns with him:

'You are right. The momentum for Africa generated this year this year must not be lost. The case can be made for a dependable follow-up and monitoring mechanism. How else can we know if we, on both sides, are living up to the commitments we make? How else do we know if we are moving forward, at what speed; or if we are stagnating and regressing?'

The G8 and NEPAD have only now begun to address this in detail, tasking the Africa Partnership Forum to work with a new unit within the OECD. But monitoring the performance of donors and recipients cannot be left to the donors and recipients themselves!

The rest of us - both donor country taxpayers, and recipient country citizens - have both a right, and a moral responsibility, to ensure that the best is achieved. Governments must not be allowed to let each other off any hooks! Yet we also want to support them in their commitment to mutual accountability.

There is no doubt that effective monitoring presents a complex challenge.

We must particularly do better in measuring what really matters, which is to answer the question 'What difference is all this making to the poorest people on the ground?'

This too is where I want to bring in the voice of Africa's private sector and civil society. We are the people on the ground - especially the faith communities. The poorest of the poor are our members - it is we ourselves, about whom we speak.

Alongside the northern voice, reporting from a northern perspective, we need the African voice: not just monitoring the same things from an African perspective, but bringing an authentic African flavour to the development agenda.

That is why I have given my initiative the name 'African Monitor.'

It is still a work in progress, as I discuss the concept with those who share my concerns, and who I hope will be partners in this endeavour.

Kofi Annan has written encouragingly, saying: The strength of your initiative lies in its effort to harness civil society energies in a broad partnership. This will reinforce the accountability mechanisms foreseen by the AU and NEPAD ...

Let me tell you a little more about what I envisage and how it might work.

In essence, I imagine an independent organisation, rooted in African civil society, to monitor and promote the implementation of development commitments to Africa.

The primary goal is effective advocacy by this authentic African voice.

This advocacy must be effective in what it speaks about; and in how it speaks.

So, then: What should the African Monitor speak about? What should we be monitoring and how?

First of all, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Duplication is a waste of precious resources. There is a huge amount of research and analysis already being done.

But I am not aware that anyone yet is pulling it together, analysing and synthesising it from a comprehensive, African, grass-roots up, perspective - and then turning that analysis into strategies to press effectively for better development.

There is a lot of available data, reflecting these priorities, which is not being brought adequately into the debate. We need to seek it out, and encourage more of it. We need to include it, and give it appropriate weight. We must publicise it and use it to provide a fuller picture and more persuasive lobbying.

And we must not be constrained to deal only in what can be easily quantified. We must also find ways - or press others to find ways - of better assessing the human impact and effectiveness of what is being done.

Beyond existing data on aid and trade and debt, we need to ask questions like:

1. How well are good governance measures dovetailing with donor efforts?
2. Are provisions for safeguarding disbursement and combating corruption working as they should?
3. Do trade special measures and other tailored provisions work in practice?
4. How is money freed up from debt servicing requirements now being used?

We want to home in on the most important questions of all:

1. Who is really benefiting? Is it the poorest - or is the biggest impact the consolidation of the middle classes?
2. Are those at whom the aid is directed given a say in its use; are they able to become part of their own solution?

Now, in most countries, there are people and groups and private enterprises on the ground who already know the answers to at least some of these questions - sometimes in quantifiable ways, sometimes through more personal anecdotes.

We need to provide a vehicle to bring this information together, and to make it work for the benefit of Africa's poor.

We may need to provide a safe channel for bringing bad practices into the open.

We certainly ought to provide a means for spreading good news, publicising best practice and sharing success stories.

And beyond this, through circulating this material with all our grass-roots partners, we will ourselves be helping inculcate the practices of mature civil society. We will be encouraging people to take a more active role in their own development, which is an important objective in itself.

How shall we do all this? One of my priority objectives is to raise sufficient seed funding to commission research to build a rolling model which will track the progress of development commitments and goals.

Let me say here, I do not see us as directly shadowing the work of the Africa Partnership Forum. We want to complement them and encourage them, but we must also remain independent. We must be driven by Africa's real needs, not political agendas from within the continent or beyond.

In terms of structure, I envisage a small central secretariat concentrating on analysis and the formulation of advocacy strategies. I do not see us becoming a primary research body - though we might prompt and encourage pertinent research by others.

It will not happen overnight, but in the longer term I see the secretariat as probably being supported by regional offices. Working with and through local civil society partners and networks, we would also have input from across the nations of the continent.

We have no desire to encroach on any existing work - rather, we want to offer 'value added' by providing a process through which the composite voice of the whole can be made greater than the sum of the parts, with room for each particular message to be heard distinctly.

We should be a supportive partner for every African non-governmental concern.

And we would be glad to welcome the support of all those, in Africa and beyond, who have Africa's best interests at heart. I particularly want to promote collaboration with the private sector, which has such potential to contribute to positive change, and so was very encouraged by the establishment of Business Action for Africa.

My other point was the need for the African Monitor to speak effectively.

We will, of course, use all the tools of advocacy at our disposal, at every level, public and private, broad brush and highly technical.

Sometimes we may stand alongside our own governments, calling on donors to do better. Or we may join donors in calling our own governments to account.

I also intend that there will be a particularly distinctive contribution, made by a high level group of individuals - 'Friends of the African Monitor,' though that may not be the final title of this 'Council of Elders.'

These individuals will be respected representatives of civil society primarily from across the Continent. They will be the public face of the Monitor, using their status to speak where and when the situation arises.

I hope we will also speak through our actions, as well as through our words.

I want the African Monitor to model the best practices of integrity, transparency and open collaborative working, that we would like to see in our governments and institutions.

In the Hebrew Scriptures the prophet Joel tells us that 'in those days, the Lord will pour out his Spirit and old men shall dream dreams.' Thank you for letting me dream my dreams before you today.

Yet I truly think that we are 'in those days' and that this is a dream whose time has come. You may laugh if I say that e-mail is God's gift to Africa - but it is just one of the innovations which now makes it possible to bring the voice of the Continent together in a way that could not been done before.

I am under no illusions - it will be hard work to make this dream reality. But I have been encouraged by the widespread support I have received in principle so far. And I am more than ready to talk with any of you who would like to help me turn principle into practice.

2005 has offered so many opportunities for Africa's development. Now is the time for Africans - public sector, private sector and civil society - to meet the challenge, and to shoulder our responsibility, to grasp these opportunities, and make them work.

I look forward to learning more about how we can do this together, in the rest of this seminar.