Economic crisis: “Africa looks up to Europe”Increasing cooperation at macro-regional level; optimizing the use of natural resources; decreasing dependence on raw goods – that are mostly ‘in foreign hands’ and exported (such as oil, copper, diamonds); investing in “human resources”. These are among the proposals for Africa advanced by Donald Kaberuka, President of Africa’s Development Bank during a hearing at the European Parliament. “The global crisis has hit the Continent hard”, said Ruanda’s former minister. “We are 53 diverse countries differently affected by the crisis, 1 billion people that cannot be ignored”. “Plummeting commodity prices, the drop in exports and decreasing foreign investment dearly affected development. However, if you look at the history of Africa over the last 4 decades, many of the problems we faced on the economic front were internally generated. This crisis is of a completely external origin. So, the solution has to be in large part external as well. Internally we agreed to stick to the cause of reform, look at domestic resource mobilisation, capital market developments and, above all, regional integration”. In the Great Lakes region, regional integration and trade have registered significant progress over the past decade and “in fact Countries in this area better withstood the crisis”. “Our main concern – stated Kaberuka who underlined the need for aids from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the EU – is to stick to the cause of reform and regional integration”. Commission: measuring progress beyond GDP standards In a “communication” the EU Commission proposed a package of actions whose aim is to improve the measurement of a nation’s progress by complementing the current and best known measure of economic activity, Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Executive declared, “As a part of efforts to make the shift towards a low carbon, resource-efficient economy the Commission will present a pilot version of a comprehensive environmental index in 2010”. The Commission’s Note was released September 8 on the occasion of a seminar held in Brussels. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas explained, “To meet the challenges of the 21st century we need more integrated and transparent policies. To design these policies we need to better assess where we are now, where we want to go and how we can get there. To change the world we need to change the way that we understand the world and to do this we need to go beyond GDP.” GDP is used in economic forecasting but “GDP was not intended to be a measure of well-being. It doesn’t pick up on issues that are vitally important to the quality of our lives such as a clean environment, social cohesion or even how happy people are”, Commissioner Dimas said. The Communication proposes five concrete actions, notably “an environmental index that will assess progress in the main fields of environmental policy and protection. The index will cover areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, loss of natural landscapes, air pollution, water use and waste generation”. Industry, climate, environmental protectionThe role of manufacturing companies in the fight against climate changes was the main theme of a conference held in Brussels on September 9 promoted by the Swedish presidency-in-office, attended among others by Sweden’s premier Fredrik Reinfeldt, Belgian premier Herman van Rompuy and several European entrepreneurs. “The costs resulting from global warming increase for every day of inaction. But if we act now, we can not only limit these costs we can also create new jobs and business opportunities”. Reinfeldt mentioned a number of enterprises whose long-term environmental policies produced innovation, profit and employment. “The companies that have taken their seats on the green train are better equipped to face the future”, he said. Copenhagen’s December environmental summit was referred to on several occasions along with EU measures aimed at promoting “clean” economy. Entrepreneurs attending the meeting agreed that the industry can operate for environment-friendly development and that energy consumption in some cases is decreasing. However, some of the speakers called for consumers’ “mind-change”, enabling them to acknowledge and purchase low-carbon emission production goods.
