A deadly and dangerous species of vulture is evolving. Policy experts are trying to trace the exact whereabouts of this new species because it has caused around $1 billion in damage to poor nations in recent years. These creatures have no feathers. They are predatory investors known as "vulture funds."
Hussein Yusuf’s initial essay in this strategic dialogue is Indicting Bashir is Wrong; Meghan Stewart’s initial essay is Indicting Bashir is Right.
"We cannot assure our development on our own," stated France’s pet dictator and Africa’s longest-serving ruler, Omar Bongo. The Gabonese leader was talking about national economic development, but he might just as well have been talking about his own personal economic development. Transparency International’s French chapter singled out Bongo, who died this month at 73 after ruling his country for 41 years, for a spectacular misappropriation of state funds. The lawsuit, lodged via civil party petition, charges Bongo, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congo, and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea of acquiring vast patrimonies in France including expensive real estate, capital, villas, and cars that cannot be justified by official income.
Children in Sierra Leone. Photo Credit: David Alan Harris.
“You have the right to receive all the assistance [you need],” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told displaced people in early March at Kibati I camp, located north of the provincial capital, Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “I will do my best to give you assistance,” he added. These powerful words were supposed […]
At the end of April, the UN Security Council will have the opportunity to make the right choice or the safe choice when it renews the authorization for the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The right choice would be to give the new UN envoy a mandate for peace. To do this, the Security Council would have to secure the commitment of both sides of the conflict, Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front, to power-sharing and self-determination. The safe choice, meanwhile, would be to continue under the weak mandate that contributed to the failure of the previous UN envoy.
Corruption isn’t an issue that Jacob Zuma, the current president of the African National Congress — South Africa’s liberation party — is particularly enthusiastic about. Until prosecutors dropped charges in early April, Zuma stood accused of 18 counts of corruption, graft, fraud, and racketeering related to a rigged multibillion-dollar arms deal. He was alleged to have accepted 783 payments from French arms multinational Thint via his financial advisor Shabir Sheik, who was later convicted for graft, fraud, and corruption. Sheik has since emerged from prison, serving just 28 months of his 15-year term.
Editor’s note: The Africa Policy Outlook is an annual publication released jointly by Africa Action and Foreign Policy In Focus that highlights the key themes and trends in U.S. Africa policy. See the appendix below for a general schedule of African elections planned for 2009.
I have been asked many times a variation of the same question: "Why do Africans wait until it is too late?" For most Westerners, Africa is hunger, war, despotism, AIDS and poverty — full of Africans who are either helpless victims, or who choose to sit on their hands, only lifting them up to accept Western handouts.
Africa, the poorest and least robust part of the global economy, could be the region most severely affected by the financial crisis that began in the rich countries and is now metastasizing into a global economic crisis. Its export earnings are being hit by the recent decline in commodity prices (some prices have dropped by more than 50% since July). Its access to international finance, never exactly robust, is receding: economists estimate that private financial flows to developing countries will be 30-50% lower next year and it’s not yet clear if aid and other official flows will fill the gap. In addition, the World Bank expects remittances from emigrants, which represent about 2% of GDP for all sub-Saharan African countries to decline, and that will directly impact millions of individual households. Growth rates in 2009 will be lower than 2008 rates, and inflation rates will be higher. These developments will set back African efforts to meet the Millennium Development goals and lead to an increased number of extremely poor people in Africa. And already 320 million out of a total population of about 500 million live on less than $1 per day.