Written evidence submission from Rt Hon
Gordon Brown MP, Co-Convenor, Global Campaign for Education High-Level
Panel
1. Please find attached a speech I made
to African leaders, in Kampala, 24 July 2010, at the African Union
Summit.
2. This speech gives further background
to the key points I believe the Committee should consider in relation
to their inquiry into The 2010 Millennium Development Goals Review
Summit.
3. Those points are, briefly, as follows:
4. There is no way forward in protectionism
and narrow nationalism: instead we need to match the onward march
of a fully global economy with the creation of a truly global
society founded on shared values, agreed objectives and new and
better global institutions.
5. Africa must be not simply the beneficiary
of that global society, but actually one of its key authors.
6. Since the turn of the Millennium we have
witnessed a decade of development, but have thought too narrowly
of development as aid. In the coming decade we need to go well
beyond an old paradigm of development based on relationships of
donor and recipient, and adopt instead a new conception of development
as a partnership for investment and growth. The future is no longer
giving and receiving, but instead investing together in a future
which is shared.
7. The world requires a new driver of consumer
demand : the world needs Africa. Some time ago we moved beyond
the idea of charity, and said that Africa's development was not
about charity but about justice. But the imperative is stronger
still; it is both about justice and our shared prosperity.
8. Future growth in the world economy, and
future jobs in the developing world, will depend on harnessing
both the productive potential and the pent-up consumer demand
of this continent and the developing world.
9. However, at precisely the moment we need
to be creating the conditions for Africa sustaining its high growth
levels for decades and therefore being part of the world's economic
recovery, some people are advocating world leaders take decisions
which will lock in high unemployment levels in Europe and America,
with growth at least 2% less than it could be and cutting aid
and investment in Africa—support lost which will not only
destroy jobs but destroy lives.
10. The only way out of this vicious spiral
of less spending, slower growth and fewer jobs is for the G2O
to agree a strategy for global growth which has as its goal increased
world growth worth three trillion and 30 million jobs over the
next three years, and has at its the idea that Africa is not the
problem but a key part of the solution.
11. Africa can drive the global recovery,
but not without Africans driving the global agenda.
SPEECH BY
THE RIGHT
HON GORDON
BROWN MP TO
AFRICAN LEADERS,
KAMPALA, 24 JULY
2010
Friends, it is a great honour to have been invited
here today and to speak with you at the invitation of Prime Minister
Meles, whose work alongside you all has inspired much of what
I want to talk about today.
And here in Kampala it is fitting to begin by
remembering all the innocent lives which have been lost to terrorism.
And so friends let me say to you, and to the
people of Uganda, that I grieve with you in this night of agony.
In Britain, the United States, Spain, Kenya,
Bali, across the Middle East—we each and all know the suffering
and the sorrow that terrorism brings, and must stand strong with
one another in the darkness.
And so together let us say to the families of
the victims—they will never be forgotten. And let us say
to the people of Uganda—you will never walk alone.
And it is this sense—that our fates are
shared, our destinies entangled—that I want to discuss with
you today. My argument is three fold.
Firstly—there is no way forward in protectionism
and narrow nationalism: instead we need to match the onward march
of a fully global economy with the creation of a truly global
society founded on shared values, agreed objectives and new and
better global institutions.
Secondly—Africa must be not simply the
beneficiary of that global society, but actually one of its key
authors and indeed its soul.
And thirdly—since the turn of the Millennium
we have witnessed a decade of development, but have thought too
narrowly of development as aid. In the coming decade we need to
go well beyond an old paradigm of development based on relationships
of donor and recipient, and adopt instead a new conception of
development as a partnership for investment and growth. The future
is no longer giving and receiving, but instead investing together
in a future which is shared.
It will take a lot from all sides to achieve
the new partnership I am talking about. But I am confident that
in this room we have the leadership which can accomplish all this
and more.
Because just look what you have already achieved.
Your levels of growth inspire the world—with
lower income countries forecast to grow at 5% this year, compared
to 2% growth in high income countries.
And you have transformed the lives of your people
these last 10 years. Now 8.5 million extra African children go
to school compared to just 10 years ago, and in just one decade
you have put three million extra Africans on ARV treatment for
HIV.
And you have persuaded the richest countries—and
I am proud that Britain helped—to cancel 100 billion dollars
of debt and to commit to doubling their spending on international
development.
In the 10 years since the start of this new
century you have created a unique peer review mechanism in NEPAD,
one which is now being attempted by the G20 in the peer review
of the Framework for Strong Sustainable and Balanced Growth.
No injustice should endure forever and it is
to your credit as leaders that you as a group have achieved more
for social justice by working together in these last two decades
than has been achieved in the previous 100 years.
But as Nelson Mandela has said—the struggle
for justice never ceases, and once one mountain top has been scaled,
you always see a new summit to climb towards.
And my argument today is that while Africa's
achievements—your achievements—are enormous, the world
asks yet more from you now.
Africans have always inspired progressives with
the heroism of your struggle—against the wrongs of imperialism,
against apartheid, against poverty. But it is time not merely
to inspire us, but to lead us.
Africa must lead, because today, because of
the interdependence of our economies, and because what happens
in the richest city of richest country can directly affect the
poorest citizen in the poorest country, we can no longer think
of policies as only for the North or only for the South, or only
for developed countries or only for developing countries: shared
global problems require shared global solutions.
And this is one world in need of global leadership—one
world in which I am clear too that Africa does not only stand
to gain from a global society, but must be its inspiration and
a leader.
Let me explain what I mean by a global society.
I think you all know that President Obama spent some time as a
community organiser before becoming a politician. I'm somebody
who spent some time as a politician before becoming a community
organiser…
I believe in people-powered movements, now more
than ever, because I think that achieving the biggest changes
that all of our countries need will require the mobilisation not
simply of elected politicians but of citizens on an unprecedented
scale.
All of our lives are connected: we can all impact
for good or ill on the lives of people we have never met. And
yet we don't currently share a common society or effective global
institutions that allow us to treat strangers as neighbours or
give life to our feelings of fellowship, solidarity, compassion
and care.
But it doesn't have to be that way. I believe
that it is possible for people, acting together, to build a global
society, and design the institutions that would best serve its
values. The social and democratic deficits which are at the heart
of globalisation and which leave Africa so underrepresented are
not inevitable—they can be overcome by we the people of
this world.
I believe a global society with global institutions
founded on shared values is possible—and that the need for
it is nowhere more apparent than here in Africa. The continent
to be hit first and worst by climate change. The continent whose
integration into the global market is least advanced and whose
vulnerability to commodity price shocks and financial instability
is most pronounced. And, of course, the continent which carries
such an intolerable burden in terms of disease, illiteracy, conflict,
hunger and the unnecessary loss of life.
Africa has so much to gain from a global society,
but also so much to offer. And so I wanted to come to this magnificent
continent, full of more untapped potential and unrealised talent
than any other, to talk about the future, and the global society
that we can build together.
You know better than anybody that the great
challenges Africa faces—climate change, poverty, terrorism,
stunted growth, financial instability—are issues that no
one country and no one continent can face on their own. They are
challenges we will only meet and master working together across
borders.
And the acceleration of globalisation and our
interdependence is bringing with it something bigger than simply
a shift in power around the world—more than a shift from
West to East, North to South. It is bringing something more fundamental
still. Twenty years ago nobody would have predicted that China
and India would be the big drivers of growth and political superpowers
they have become. And there is no reason to believe the countries
of Africa cannot make similar leaps in the decades to come.
So I am here to speak not just of the ascent
of Africa and Asia, but to say today just as people have spoken
of an American century and an Asian century, I believe we can
now speak of an African century.
People are no longer prepared to accept that
some countries will always be rich and powerful, while others
will always suffer poverty and powerlessness. I recall when I
visited Mozambique I saw an election slogan that has always stuck
with me and could be applied to all of Africa. It said "It
is not our destiny to be poor".
And today we can say with certitude, not only
as a moral cry from the heart but as a hard-headed market reality,
that every country in the world shares an economic destiny. And
that destiny cannot tolerate these seemingly unbridgeable gaps
between rich and poor. Today no border is strong enough to insulate
any of us from our shared reality; that we face insufficient world
demand side by side with continuing risks of a new wave of financial
instability, all taking place in a world where millions of people
are still literally too poor to live. So what we need is more
than a recalibration of power between the first and third worlds.
The financial crisis has shown that the old Washington Consensus
is dead, and with it must die policies of separate development,
and a third world treated differently from the rest. This is more
than the rise of the third world—it is the end of it.
Because the financial crisis which has cost
you so much, started by the irresponsibility of Western bankers,
revealed that there was also an underlying problem of long standing
of global financial instability and global imbalances that cannot
be dealt with other than by us working together. Global demand
was fuelled by Western, mainly US consumers, who were supplied
by Asian exports. Asia and some other emerging markets grew huge
surpluses that became like a giant lending scheme for US consumers
who grew large deficits. Finance became cheaper and cheaper and
so began the "chase for yield" and "socially useless"
financial instruments of fiendish complexity that increased yields
and hid risks.
As we unravel this we know the situation going
forward is unsustainable. The US consumer can no longer be the
"buyer of last resort". And that is why the G20 has
begun the Framework for Strong Sustainable Balanced Growth. But
the fear is either we will have low growth affecting the whole
world as we move from this unsustainable cycle of demand and finance
or we will have better growth but a continuation of this cycle.
Some people will say these balances are inevitable,
that the world is out of kilter and there's simply nothing you
can do.
But I believe there is an alternative. An alternative
to what is now called the new normalcy in the global economy of
low growth, high unemployment and instability on the one hand,
high levels of absolute poverty and the waste of human lives in
Africa on the other.
There is an alternative to a decade of low global
growth which would fail to meet both the development needs of
Africa and the growth needs of Europe and America.
To me the answer is obvious: as we struggle
to find new sources of growth we must turn here, to Africa, to
this continent of huge potential and talent.
There is an alternative—it is an alternative
where Africa grows, thrives, and contributes not only to her own
development, but to world recovery.
That is the alternative—but it is a possibility
rather than a probability. If we want that future, we will have
to struggle for it, because it will happen through choice not
chance. And if we want it, you as African leaders will have to
lead the charge.
And so that brings me to the third and to my
mind most important part of my argument today. It is not enough
to believe that we need a global society. Not enough to believe
that Africa can and must lead that global society's formation
and drive its agenda.
I believe the key imperative for the world—not
just for Africa—is delivering for this continent not just
what we have seen these last 10 years—a decade of growth—but
something much more than that. What I believe is possible is a
continuous uninterrupted period of three decades of growth. This
should not be a sprint for growth but a marathon of growth.
Economic history has shown us that 80% of poverty
reduction is achieved by growth—but it has to be continuous
and sustained—it takes decades of very high inclusive growth.
If we can achieve this, then Africa will become a new source of
dynamism in the global economy.
Because let us consider the facts.
While the Asian market continues its breathtaking
expansion, China and India would have to increase their consumer
spending by 50% overnight just to replace the growth lost by America
in the last two years.
And so the world needs a new driver of consumer
demand, a new market, and a new dynamo. In short; the world needs
Africa. Some time ago we moved beyond the idea of charity, and
said that Africa's development was not about charity but about
justice. But the imperative is stronger still; it is both about
justice and our shared prosperity.
Because, in the simplest terms, future growth
in the world economy, and future jobs in the developing world,
will depend on harnessing both the productive potential and the
pent-up consumer demand of this continent and the developing world.
There is a shortage of global aggregate demand,
so today every job not created in Africa is a job lost to our
common global growth; every business that fails is a business
lost to global growth; every entrepreneur whose idea can't be
realised is a driver lost to global growth.
And so there is, quite simply, no sustainable
route back to long term prosperity in Bonn and Boston and Bristol,
without growth in Accra and Addis and Abuja.
But at precisely the moment we need to be creating
the conditions for Africa sustaining its high growth levels for
decades and therefore being part of the world's economic recovery,
some people are advocating world leaders take decisions which
will lock in high unemployment levels in Europe and America, with
growth at least 2% less than it could be and cutting aid and investment
in Africa—support lost which will not only destroy jobs
but destroy lives.
The only way out of this vicious spiral of less
spending, slower growth and fewer jobs is for the G2O to agree
a strategy for global growth which has as its goal increased world
growth worth three trillion and 30 million jobs over the next
three years, and has at its the idea that Africa is not the problem
but a key part of the solution.
And so I am very pleased that my successor to
the Presidency of the G20 President Lee is putting development
through growth at the heart of the agenda for the Seoul Summit.
Africa can drive the global recovery, but not
without Africans driving the global agenda. And that is why I
propose enhanced African representation at the IMF, increased
African representation in the World Bank and a constituency system
for the G20 where Africa can be permanently and fully represented
along with other non-G20 countries of the world.
So I say no more begging to attend, no more
there as the afterthought, no more having to plead just for consideration;
everywhere growth is being debated, examined and planned there
too must Africa's representatives be as of right.
And while it is not for me to tell Africa's
leadership what your agenda at those negotiating tables should
be, I would like to offer, with all humility, some reflections
on the policies which I believe would best promote Africa's development,
and therefore the world's recovery. Let me begin by saying what
I do not believe.
I do not believe that the lesson of the financial
crisis and the subsequent world recession is that globalisation
is doomed to fail and should be abandoned in favour of economic
nationalism or command economies. Even though Africa paid a high
price for financial problems caused elsewhere, this is not the
time to decouple Africa from the world economy, or to abandon
market-based competition, but the time to set out a catalytic
role for government in partnership with markets to invest in infrastructure,
skills and regional economic integration.
No country has ever grown without trade and
without a successful private sector. But that does not mean that
we should simply let the market rip and leave Africa reliant either
on aid, or on the episodic and unstable growth which volatile
commodity prices have bequeathed us.
Instead, I believe the new African growth will
come from five sources;
— a faster pace of economic integration
in Africa's internal market, and between your market and those
of other continents, facilitated by investment in infrastructure;
— a broader based export-led growth, founded
on new products and services;
— investment in the private sector from
African and foreign sources in firms that create jobs and wealth;
— the up-skilling of the workforce, including
through the acceleration of education provision, IT infrastructure
and uptake and finally through; and
— more effective governance to ensure that
effective states can discharge their task of creating growth and
reducing poverty.
Each of these five priorities will be difficult
to achieve. But we should remember the value of the prize. Because
if we can agree a new model of post-crisis growth then Africa—already
a 1.6 trillion economy—will continue to grow even faster
than the rest of the world. This is not my assessment, but that
of the world's leading companies and analysts. For example a report
just published by the McKinsey Global Institute claims that Africa's
consumer spending could reach 1.4 trillion dollars by 2020—a
60% increase on 2008. In other words in 10 years African consumer
spending will be as big as the whole African economy is today.
It is those sorts of projections which mean
people are now rightly talking not just of East Asian tigers,
but of African lions.
But to make development work for the people
of Africa we need a new philosophy of development—a reaffirmation
that aid promised must be aid delivered, but that aid's ultimate
objective must be to make aid redundant. There are those who argue
against aid and say it doesn't matter if we break our promises
to the poor. And there are those who say that aid is an end in
itself—somehow a perfect proxy for how progressive and compassionate
we are as donors. I believe neither of those things is true.
I believe aid should not be cut but continue
to grow and that those countries which break their promises to
the poor must be asked to explain themselves in the court of world
opinion. But at the same time future aid must be an investment
not in people's dependency but in their dignity.
And what do I mean by that? Something very simple;
that the job of aid is to kick start business-led growth and not
to replace it. And so I believe we need to focus not just on poverty—but
on growth. Not just on providing services for the poor, but on
an investment climate for those who bring wealth. And not simply
on how to support Africa's public sector, but on how to unleash
its private sector. Because for me, the purpose of aid ultimately
must be to no longer need it.
Of course this new emphasis is not instead of
the development initiatives you are already planning—growth
is designed to reinforce these—and be reinforced by them.
Aid and a focus on both rights and poverty reduction
still matter. For example, for an economy to thrive it needs all
of its citizens to contribute and that's why gender justice is
so key to development, as well as a moral imperative on its own.
So I salute the African Union's focus on maternal mortality at
this summit.
Likewise, education for all helps build a skilled
workforce which sustains growth and a growing economy enables
you to abolish fees and increase access. A healthy population
means a more productive workforce; a more productive workforce
increases tax receipts for funding a national health service.
So while some may try to paint an emphasis on
growth against an emphasis on aid, I believe they are mutually
reinforcing. Growth relies on good health and education services—but
those services rely on growth in turn.
So we as donors need to broaden our focus to
include all those investments which enable African entrepreneurs
to succeed and the market to do its job.
The benefits of regional integration and an
internal market for Africa are massive. Just think that 60% of
ASEAN and NAFTA exports are sold to markets in those blocs, even
more in Europe. But only 10% of Africa's goods and services are
sold in Africa. And while the trade barriers the North erects
at the expense of the South are grotesque and cannot be allowed
to stand, so too must we face up to the formal and informal barriers
which Africa erects against itself.
So I believe donors or as I would call us partners
need to be more open to the need for infrastructure investment
which would enable Africa to build the roads, ports, electricity
grids and digital infrastructure on which future trade expansions
will rely. That means an estimated 93 billion dollars of new investment
which we together should seek to mobilise with new public-private
partnerships to frontload investment.
Of course the creation of wealth and an increase
in trade will not, in and of themselves, equal development. Prosperity
does not simply trickle down but must be actively distributed
to ensure that the many and not just the few see the benefit.
But there is no sustainable poverty reduction strategy which does
not depend, in the end, on dynamic private and public sectors
creating decent work. And so that must be our primary goal.
My second recommendation is diversification
of the economy. We know that the best insurance against shocks
in one sector is to have healthy growth across a number of sectors.
And while Africa as a whole has already travelled some way along
this road—with two thirds of GDP growth from 2000 to 2008
coming from sectors such as retail, transportation, telecommunications,
and manufacturing, 80% of Africa's exports are still based in
oil, minerals and agricultural goods.
So the issue today is how to create sustained
growth free of the commodities cycle which is vulnerable to such
wild fluctuations and which has done so much harm to Africa.
I believe that will only be possible if we accept
my third point; that Africa's best hope for diversification is
not just in improving agricultural productivity which is a priority,
but also creating jobs in the high-value sectors with a massive
acceleration in the use of IT. A third of people in Africa now
have mobiles, but less than 1% has access to broadband. I am already
working with some of you to bring together experts in this field
for a major campaign and programme of work, because I truly believe
that the rapid expansion of internet access in Africa could transform
how Africa trades, learns and holds political power accountable.
And my fourth point is that African growth can
only be sustained in tandem with a huge upswing in good governance.
Companies simply will not invest without guarantees of minimum
standards on corruption, stability of regulation, property rights
and the rule of law. I know that this is at the heart of NEPAD's
work, and I want to congratulate you on all the progress which
has been made so far.
And I truly believe that if that progress continues,
and the ideas I have discussed today are adopted, that we stand
at the beginning of a decade of investment, and the dawn of a
global society.
We are at the beginning of the second decade
of a still-young century. How the 21st century unfolds is in large
part in the hands of the people on this room, and the leaders
who meet in the coming days.
My message to you is simple, and it is a message
not simply from Britain, but from people all over the world. It
is time to rise. Rise, because just as Africa needs the world,
the world needs Africa.
| 
