Wake up from the Development Lie

The neoliberal agenda embodied by the Washington Consensus has well been criticised, widely discredited by the experience of Latin American and African countries in the past few decades, and whose failure has even been admitted by International Monetary Fund itself.

Recently, Thabo Mbek, President of South Africa, took up this subject again when he spoke at the Progressive Governance Regional Conference held in Johannesburg, on 28 July 2005. First of all, who are these "Progressives" to whom was Mbek was speaking? - approximately 200 politicians, policy-makers and academics from progressive parties across the African continent, alongside 50 international participants.

He cited the example of the European Union's regional policy to assist the development of the poorer parts of Europe:

"The European Union['s position is]... that it is not possible to develop the undeveloped parts of the member states of the European Union without large resource transfers from the richer parts of the EU to the poorer parts ... You need a conscious intervention which is going to result in the transfer of resources [the poorer parts of the EU]... Otherwise it could not develop as it should."

He went on to say:

"And if this policy is correct within the context of fighting underdevelopment within the EU, it surely must be correct with regard to fighting underdevelopment globally ... if you are serious about development, you the developed world, have got to match that seriousness with those resource transfers."

Mbek went on about the stricking frankness of a Swiss minister's response some two years ago to his proposition of resources transfers to bring about development:

"...she said to me, Mr President, I agree with you. We need to do that. In reality, what we try do here in Switzerland to address this challenge of poverty, is indeed to transfer resources to the poor of Switzerland. But, Mr President, you are not going to get that money, she said. She says, you won't get it, because the challenge of poverty within the developed world, said the challenge of poverty here in Europe, is in fact quite serious. So, indeed, we will speak very favourably about the challenge of development, but you are not going to get the resources that you are asking for."

The message was clear - sisters and brothers, we can't leave it to the North, nor the free market ideology it preaches to bring about development of the South.

Mbek demanded : 'Progressives of all countries, unite'. - to "unite around a perspective, informed by the need to achieve the right power balance between capital on the one hand and the working people and the poor on the other".

This is the link to the transcript of the whole speech.

Categories: Africa, Europe, Development