ISSUE Vol 10 No.2 2007 US$5.00 GB£3.00 5.00 • DOHA WAS NEVER ABOUT DEVELOPMENT AFRICAN AGENDA VOL.10 NO.2 • TWN-Africa & OXFAM PUT EU’S POLITICAL WILL TO TEST Find out what's on the African Agenda To subscribe, please fill in the form and post it to the address shown ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES (INDIVIDUALS) Africa & Global South $35 North America & Australia $55 Europe €55 The African continent is mostly reported as a land of poverty, civil strife and end- U.K £35 less lines of begging hands. Problems facing the continent are portrayed and communicated mostly by foreign eyes through the monopoly-controlled news Ghana ¢90,000 media. Rarely are Africans themselves given a forum to highlight what they see as press- INSTITUTIONAL/ CORPORATE ing problems, and offer analyses and solutions to tackle the challenges. By pub- lishing African Agenda, Third World Network Africa aims to provide exactly that Africa & Global South $45 forum. 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West Africa Telephone +233 -21- 511189 fax 233-21-511188 Email: [email protected] /[email protected] Contents Cover Ghana, a contested model ...........................................................................5 Continental unity and social justice are the legacy of Nkrumah .………....9 Nkrumah’s ambition was the full realisation of the dignity of the African, says daughter…......…………….………..…..............……...11 US $20 million indece celebrations budget sparks controversy ................14 Women side-stepped in anniversary celebrations .....................................17 Development Doha was never about development …………..................................……20 Poor need more than a declaration ………………………...................….21 Beef up budget allocation to achieve MDGs ……...........................…......23 Trade EPAs must be subjected to electoral test …………………...............……25 Oxfam & TWN-Africa put EU’s political will to test ....…...............……26 page 12 Photo: Nkrumah and Haile Sellasie - pioneers of Serious threat to producers ………….....................………...............……28 African Unity Women Proposed UN women’s agency gains key ally .....………...............……...29 Women stuck at the small-scale level .....………...............….............…...31 African Agenda International Published by TWN Africa Security Council accused of overstepping bound ..…...............…………33 Editor-in-Chief: Yao Graham Editor: Cornelius Adedze Rights Assistant Editor: Kwesi W. Obeng Circulation: Joyce Ofori-Kwafo Privatisation violates right to health, say activists .....……...............…….35 Design: David Roy Quashie Printing: Royal Crown Press Ltd, Accra - Ghana Tel: +233 51 506404, 504041, 0244 360686, 0277 404447 Society E-mail: [email protected] Remember Benjamin Zephaniah ........................…………..............…….37 EDITORIAL, SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ADVERTISING: TWN-Africa P.O. Box 19452 Accra-North Ghana, West Africa Note to subscribers Tel: (233) 21 511189/503669/500419 Fax: (233) 21 511188 As part of efforts to improve our data management all Email: [email protected] subscribers have been allocated identification numbers. Website: www.twnafrica.org You will always find them on your address labels. Please quote these numbers in all correspondence regarding TWN INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT your subscription. President: Mohammed Iddris Director: Martin Khor The material in this magazine may be freely reproduced and 121-S Jalan Utama distributed without prior permission, provided that the source of 10450 Penang the material is attributed to African Agenda ISSN 0855-3378. Malaysia African Agenda is published six times a year by Third World Network (TWN) Africa. TWN is an international network of groups and individuals who seek greater articulation of the needs and rights of the peoples of the Third World, especially marginalised social groups, a fair distribution of the world’s resources and forms of development which are ecologically sustainable and fulfil human needs. TWN Africa is grateful to NOVIB (Netherlands), Development and Peace, InterPares (Canada), Oxfam (UK), HIVOS (Netherlands), Kairos (Canada) and G-RAP (Ghana) for their support. Editorial Ghana in African history he turn out for the 50th anniversary the rule of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ghana’s democracy offers many strong of Ghana’s independence was a truly the prime identity of whose lineage is the points for the rest of Africa. Kufuor’s choice pan-African affair. There were offi- negative of being the ‘other’ to the CPP. of a guest of honour for the anniversary, Tcial delegations from about 30 African This political tradition has clung onto a par- Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, countries. The proximity of the 6th March tially fictionalised version of anti-colonial who had tried to extend his rule and was date to the 200th anniversary of the British history that has failed to see that Ghana’s embroiled in a very public spat with his abolition of their transatlantic Slave Trade independence was substantially more than estranged Vice as to which of them was helped swell the numbers of Africans from the CPP defeating their domestic political more corrupt hardly counts as a celebration all over who came to Ghana around the opponents and was an achievement of pro- of African excellence. The invitation was time. Alongside those who came to cele- found global import which Africans all over widely seen as an act of gratitude for the brate Ghana’s place in history were many the world see as theirs. The blinkered per- support that made Kufuor’s 2000 electoral who proclaim today’s Ghana as a model for spective led to the bathos of the NPP seeing victory possible. The questions the invita- the rest of the African continent. These the 50th anniversary as a chance to settle tion raised about where Kufuor stood included the disgraced warmonger Paul scores by diminishing Nkrumah and the between cronyism and principle were Wolfowitz, at the time President of the CPP rather than as a moment in world and answered by his reaction to the fraudulent World Bank and British Deputy Prime African history to be truthfully celebrated. Nigerian elections that Obasanjo presided Minister John Prescott. The concerted effort to diminish over soon after Ghana celebrations. Kufuor There was no mistaking the mood of Nkrumah, as well as what was played up by was quick to offer his support to the succes- national celebration among ordinary the official programme underlined some of sor Obasanjo has imposed on the Nigerian Ghanaians during the period around March the flaws in the African model that Ghana is people. 6th, comparable only to the excitement gen- today, as did some of the issues that pro- While the Ghana government saw the erated by the Black Stars qualifying for the voked public outrage. What Bush, 50th anniversary as a chance to rewrite his- second round of the last FIFA World Cup. Wolfowitz, Blair and the Queen toast about tory the rest of the continent, in a negation Ghanaians had a lot to celebrate. The coun- today’s Ghana contrast sharply with why of the NPP’s negation of history,