Africa and the Neoliberal Antichrist: How has this region relied on international organizations and are worse off for it?

“Our organizational goals are to secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world”, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “ensuring trade moves smoothly and effectively, opening doors to the developing world”. These are all the mandates of International Organizations that intend to be vanguards of neoliberalism and supporters of the developing world.

However, the last two decades have seen turmoil and severe instability within portions of Central and East Africa in spite of the intervention of the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations' Peacekeeping and the World Trade Organization. Are these organizations safeguarding this region from impending socioeconomic doom or are their efforts amplifying difficulties within the continent?

In analyzing the impact of these international organizations, key states come to the forefront. Ghana, Central African Republic, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Nigeria and the Niger Delta. These states all share similar forms of unrest, mostly by the hands of insurgents that identify with groups such as Boko Haram and regional separatists. In addition, these states all suffer from similar economic stresses, which amplifies the nature of their collective unrest.

Firstly, the IMF. In the last twenty years, the International Monetary Fund has reformed its operations, expanding its operational priority from the provision of short-term loans founded on macroeconomic policy change to supplying long-term aid conditioned on structural economic reforms with the intent of becoming an international gatekeeper of economic relief for financially downtrodden states. The IMF operates on the basis of a quota system, where funds are raised for loans. Each member state of the IMF is handed a quota that is representative of the size of each nation in the global economy. Crucially, these quotas also represent a state’s voting power in the IMF. The top five contributors to the IMF are the United States (16.75%), Japan (6.23%), Germany (5.81%), France (4.29%) and The United Kingdom (4.29%). Backed by the powerhouses of the Global North, the IMF is capable of providing bailout packages in the billions under the condition of carrying out economic reform in the guideline of a Structural Adjustment Program or SAP. These SAPs are devised for an individual state that is seeking financial support but they are identified by their basic tenets of privatization of state assets, trade liberalization/embracing a globalized economic market, a reliance on export expansion for economic growth and a strong faith in the stability and competence of the free market. These characteristics are manifested in an array of policy adjustments for a state.

In Nigeria, SAPs mandated a number of changes such as rationalizing the operation of public enterprises, the elimination of commodity boards, deregulating interest rates, restructuring tariffs to diversify industries, overhauling the administration of the public sector and strengthening the policies of demand management. On paper, these adjustments can be seen as effective in stabilizing a debt-burdened economy. However, in reality, they detrimentally intensify the disability of Nigeria’s economy, setting them back another decade. These policies led to closures of state refineries, oil companies retrenching tens of thousands of workers, middle class businesses being forced to shut their doors, a low inflation rate that denoted stagnation rather than stability and thousands of public servants being thrown unto the breadline (sounds oddly familiar, Colm). The economic growth of this oil rich nation was initially slow and when the structural adjustments were made, the progress became almost nonexistent. This middle class felt the crunch and pressured the Government into ushering in some form of relief, this led to a panicked administration to soften their stern fiscal policy. This then led to a decade of chaos as Nigeria’s inflation became erratic “going from 16% to 55%, dropping to 7% and going back to 50%” in the space of five years. In the DRC, we see SAPs acting as the harbinger of the neoliberal economic beliefs of the IMF and World Bank. These ideals entail the privatizing of state enterprises, more so, state resources, opening up to the free market and operating on the “assumption of rational choice”.

These approaches have led to over ten thousand workers being sent home without any occupational alternative when the IMF supervised the restructuring of the Congolese Gecamines. These frameworks mean that countries like the DRC, Niger, Ghana and the Central African Republic are opened up for exploitation by the Economic North, as they lack the technical capability, capital and economic stability to compete on a global stage. Often, we see cases like the domestic rice industry in Ghana which was stifled out by the IMF SAPs instruction of removing regulation and the subsequent foreign investment of multi-national corporations into the state. Companies like AGROVOLTA and FNJ Investments Ltd. are allowed to walk into the Ghanian industry and dominate the market due to their superior economic strength compared to domestic firms. Multinationals such as the Plexus Group storm their way into the cotton trade in Niger and Nigeria, forcing local farmers out of business. Companies based in London, New York and Sydney such as A&M Minerals, Anglo American PLC and BAE Systems kick down the door of the DRC, bullying local firms out of business and exploit the cheap labour market of this developing state.

Neoliberal agendas of the IMF and WB are also stunted by their unwarranted belief in rationality, that a state would make the best decisions in the name of maximizing gains and reducing losses. This is a detrimental fault in their practice as it fails to account for the political reality of many developing states. In the DRC alone, a lack of transparency and accountability of public spending, culminating in a government minister spending US$300,000 on a personal swimming pool meant that loan programs had to be halted in 2010 and 2011, subsequently being restructured in 2013. The IMF often “ignores diverse historical trajectories in its drive to prosecute governance templates in all states” which entails that these IO’s don’t care to know and subsequently fail to factor in the history of states in this region which leads to tone deaf and disastrous policymaking that bolsters the strength of corrupt dictatorships and “engenders regional and ethnic conflicts”. These highlight a fundamental lack of knowledge resource management by the IMF, leading to loan deals that are destined to fail and more crucially, further destroys the developing nation in question.

Then there is the World Trade Organization, the idealistic arbiter of global levity in trade. The successor to the General Agreement of tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO seeks to promote a globalized economy, acting as a governor for neoliberal global trade ideals. They do so by providing a global forum for trade negotiations, in an attempt to give every region a voice. In addressing the economic disadvantages of developing states, WTO Agreements contain special provisions which give developing countries special rights and which give developed countries the possibility to treat developing countries more favourably than other WTO Members. These special provisions include, for example, longer time periods for implementing Agreements and commitments or measures to increase trading opportunities for developing countries. These provisions are referred to as “special and differential treatment” (S&Ds). However, in the process of creating trade agreements and negotiating positions, the African states are often underachievers. The continent as a whole represents twenty seven percent of WTO membership. However, this statistical significance is not reflected in Africa’s presence and ability at the negotiation table. These delegations are often understaffed and underprepared legally to deal with negotiations and trade disputes. They lack the technical expertise of North American and European delegations and as a result, enter negotiations at a remarkable position of disadvantage. Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama once described the African Group’s delegation as a “shark with no fins, unable to be the predator that we need”. DRC, Niger, Nigeria and Central African Republic have detailed histories of being colonized and exploited by European states. This, coupled with the colonizers crafting and then abandoning economic and administrative systems that were built for the sole purpose of maintaining order during exploitation means that Central Africa is at a historical, economic and technical disadvantage, compared to the Global North.

This disparity and Central Africa’s inability to close the gap means that they must rely on the protective measures and promises of the WTO. However, the World Trade Organization has been faulted many times over the last two decades in how they protect and work with developing nations, particularly in Africa. They have failed to regulate American subsidies on their local cotton trade, with US$47bn being unevenly distributed amongst global cotton industries. Just ten percent of farmers in the global market, all from the US receive an astonishing eighty-nine percent of the subsidy share. This now means that countries such as the ‘C-4’ I.e. Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali along with Central African states such as Niger and the Central African Republic are battling an impossible competition. The superior expertise and engineering of the Global North compelled by the US$38bn in subsidies received between 2000 and 2011 means that 5 million of the world’s poorest farming families have been forced out of business and into deeper poverty in Western and Central Africa.

The aforementioned issue of lack of legal expertise and resources means that when it comes to the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), African nations are always on the back foot. Since 1995, there has been close to five hundred cases of disputes, with African countries launching a grand total of ZERO. This also means that they are left wide open for legal exploitation in trade disputes as these sharks without fins are almost literally sitting prey. Recognition must be given to organizations like Fairtrade that are investing their time and resources into eliminating the unfair subsidies in cotton and rice and providing a legal voice for nations such as Chad and the DRC. Most notably, the WTO has failed to apply the same ideals of globalization to developed nations, particularly in the sector of agriculture. Countries such as the United States, Germany, France, China and the United Kingdom are rarely advised on their high levels of protectionism. This furthers the gap as most of Central Africa relies on their agricultural trade and if larger, wealthier states are not cooperating while poorer states are being forced to open up, then that is a recipe for impending implosion. As economist Ha-Joon Chang states, “they are kicking away the ladder”. The same ladder that every single nation in the global north has used to become an economic power. The IMF and WTO’s insistence on trade liberalization and the removal of protectionism is to the detriment of developing states, alone.

These two IO’s prove ideal on paper yet inefficient, ineffective and often disastrous in reality. They use globalization as a driving tool for their agenda of neoliberalism. These policies do not aid developing states, rather they carve them open for exploitation. This means that in Africa, we have a group of economically depressed and exasperated states, which entails millions of families in turmoil. As Olalekan Afolabi noted in his thesis, “Terrorism in Nigeria: Culmination of Economic Disenfranchisement, Social Marginalization and Political Instability”, these organizations ripping apart that economic and by extension political stability of states like Nigeria, lead to a subjugated people who often become sympathizers with radical extremism and rebel factions. This theory is alive in 2019, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What we are witnessing in the DRC is a crisis of titanic proportion that is not being focused on enough. Political depravity and economic instability outlined by the aforementioned factors mean that the DRC is currently at their worst point in the world’s most longstanding humanitarian crisis. Between 2017 and today, close to four million people have been forced to flee their homes as over one hundred different factions are using political and militant capabilities to conduct one of the bloodiest and grandest turf wars ever seen in world history. As of January 2019, 13.5 million people required humanitarian assistance with that number set to rise as tensions continue to mount.

To address this almost three decade old crisis, the UN has deployed their largest peacekeeping operation to date, comprising of over twenty one thousand personnel, known as MONUSCO since 2010, formerly MONUC (1999-2010). MONUSCO’s mandate is defined by unmissions.org as “the use of all necessary means to carry out the effective protection of civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under threat of violence and to support the Government of DRC in its peace stabilization process”. Just like their counterparts that perpetuate this crisis, the IMF and WTO, the UN Peacekeeping Operation or PKO uses the most beautiful language to describe their intent. However, just like many other peacekeeping operations in this region, the UN have fundamentally lagged behind their lofty, silver-tongued mandate.

Firstly, the UN, since 2000’s Brahimi Report has valued and increased deployment of their fact finding missions, with critical success coming in the last three years in Myanmar and Mali. However, since MONUSCO/MONUC’s involvement in the region, which was a result in part by the Rwandan Genocide which spurred on said Brahmi Report, there has been little effort to deploy official fact-finding missions. This means that there is a twenty one thousand plus PKO that has been operating for twenty four years in the second largest country in Africa without proper knowledge based resources. To be part of a stabilization process of a politically volatile state with a lack of independent fact finding is a very ambitious operation by the United Nations, to say the least.

Secondly, according to the UN’s website, as of 2018, 70% of personnel in MONUSCO are supplied by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Three countries whose main languages are Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Farsi and Sanskrit. The Congo speaks two hundred and forty-three different languages, none of which are the five mentioned above. French is linguistically very far from Hindi, so is Lingala, Kikongo and Swahili from Urdu, Tamil and Farsi. This is particularly mind boggling as the DRC itself, provides close to two thousand troops that have been deployed in Nigeria, Niger, Mali and South Sudan. The deployment of troops into areas that they are not geopolitically or culturally familiar with has long been a critique of PKOs, and in 2019, in the Congo’s most desperate time, common sense can’t seem to prevail.

Thirdly, in the wake of escalating violence and tensions within Eastern Congo, in 2018 the United Nations saw it fit to cut funding from MONUSCO yet maintaining their staff amounts. This means that resources have become more stretched and this critical PKO is not only at an intelligence disadvantage, they are now at a self-inflicted financial disadvantage. Once again we must question this in context of their well worded mandate. With Peacekeepers already mandated to be lightly armed and to only use force in self defence due to a UN charter that was written more than ten years before Congo became a nation, how much protective power does this twenty one thousand man force actually have?

Fourthly, MONUSCO’s strategic plan of ‘stabilization’ is not clearly defined. What we do know for sure is UN PKO’s constant belief that a democratic election is effective in creating peace and charting a nation unto the path of prosperity. This has rarely been the case with the UN being proven wrong in Rwanda, Benin, Mali, Liberia, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo in the 2000s and Zambia amongst others. Elections have never and will never fix political instability caused by economic strife. Lest not forget, it was an election in Iraq that led to the eventual rise of the DAESH.

Fifthly, in some areas, MONUSCO is literally doing nothing. In Beni, protestors are demanding for the “UN to leave because we don’t need tourists, we need help”. We have on our hands another heart wrenching case of PKOs doing absolutely nothing when the innocent people of the developing world need saving the most. This level of ineptitude and apathy forces us to horrifyingly reminisce on the avoidable tragedies of Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Sudan, Liberia, Myanmar, Kosovo and Somalia. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost to history because of the restrictions of a piece of paper written in New York seventy-four years ago. Today, clearly, the UN has not learned their lesson. They have ignored the blood on their shoulders. The souls of the many men, women and children that have been ripped away by the scourge of war may haunt our hearts but clearly, that is not the case for the United Nations. Twenty years on from Brahimi and we are witness to a gruesome case study of the United Nations’ inability to adapt and their ability to forget.

In analyzing and understanding what these three International Organizations have done to Central Africa, a scripture comes to mind. “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God”. The IMF, WTO and UN have not proven to be a helper or protector of the developing world as their visions aforementioned. Instead, they have proven to be powers unto themselves, seeking to control and manipulate less fortunate states in the name of the Elitist Global North. They have come to the shores of the developing world and have sold a false gospel of globalization and economic fair play and whilst the wool is firmly over the eyes of the Global South, their prosperity gospel brings nothing but pain and bloodshed. The Antichrist might be one man, soon to be according to God’s word but we definitely have a great deceiver on our hands, today.