Early April, Speak Up Africa, a strategic communications and advocacy not-for-profit organization dedicated to catalyzing leadership, enabling policy change, and increasing awareness for sustainable development in Africa, launched the “Stay Safe Africa” campaign. This campaign aims to empower communities and individuals to take simple and proven preventative measures to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Africa.
Around the world, COVID-19 is having a devastating impact on the health of citizens, as well as national and global economies. At present, in Africa, there are 47,118 confirmed cases, 1,843 deaths and 15,587 recoveries. Several risk factors mean the virus could spread quickly across the continent. High population densities, communal living, frequent and close contact between generations, as well as the constrained access to water and washing facilities all increase the likelihood of coronavirus infections and fatalities.
A co-ordinated Africa-led approach to slow the spread of COVID-19 is crucial to address the continent’s uneven access to tools and services and respond to Africa’s diverse cultural landscape. In April, to mobilize and manage funds from the public and private sector as well as individuals in Africa and to further strengthen the continent’s response to the pandemic, the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) launched the Africa COVID-19 Response Fund. “Many countries from South Africa to Senegal via Nigeria and Kenya have announced the creation of solidarity funds. While these funds will serve primarily a national agenda, the virus knows no borders. And because the average citizen with disposable income can give small amounts of money, our best bet to fund the Africa CDC, in times of economic hardship, is to pool our resources.” adds Carl Manlan, COO of
the Ecobank Foundation.
The Stay Safe Africa campaign incorporates messages and advice tailored for African communities and leadership, accounting for language, literacy and cultural barriers. “It is vital that individuals across Africa take responsibility to protect themselves, their families and their communities, by following the recommended prevention measures. As Africans, we must come together, with distance, and realize the importance of protecting ourselves from COVID-19 and act quickly”, highlighted Yacine Djibo,
Executive Director of Speak Up Africa.
As the world comes together to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to ensure that essential services and operations continue to protect the lives of people affected by malaria, Neglected Tropical Diseases, vaccine preventable diseases and in need of improved access to adequate sanitation.
The campaign is open to all partners, journalists, civil society organizations and communities to adopt and support and all assets to help support the campaign are available at StaySafeAfrica.org in both English and French. “Now more than ever, we must acknowledge the importance of communications and digital communities, leverage information, unite across the board and stand together”, says Eloïne Barry, CEO of Africa Media Agency.
COVID-19 is a deadly disease that poses an immediate threat to the African continent and has the potential to take many lives. It is crucial that coronavirus transmission in Africa is restricted as quickly as possible to prevent a surge in cases and deaths, which would have a devastating impact on Africa’s already strained health systems. “The current pandemic is a striking reminder of the need for stronger health systems.
This is a prime opportunity to take measures aimed at social protection and sustainable financing of the health sector”, underlines Dr. Magda Robalo, Minister of Public Health of Guinea Bissau.
Stay Safe Africa A campaign urging all Africans to play their part against COVID-19
Ethiopia has the legal right to operate a Dam on the Nile, no matter who tries to deny it
By Hannah Getachew
Tension between Ethiopia and Egypt have been mounting ever since the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) began construction in 2011. Now that the dam is nearing completion the dispute is growing in intensity as its inevitable socio-economic effects are fast approaching. Egypt complains that the Dam will restrict their access to the Nile River’s waters on which their economies are reliant. Ethiopia on the other hand maintains that the Dam will not adversely affect downstream states and evokes its legal right to use the natural resources within its borders to uplift millions out of poverty.
Two regional agreements stand out as the foundation from which the governance of the Nile River must be examined. These treaties are: the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and the 1959 Bilateral Agreement between Egypt and Sudan. Taken together these two treaties are referred to as the Nile River Agreements. Despite Egypt clinging to them and proclaiming their legal validity, they are archaic colonial era documents with no bearing on current circumstances.
The 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, formally known as the ‘Exchange of Notes between His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Egyptian Government in Regard to the Use of the Waters of the Nile River for Irrigation Purposes’ is the first documented formal agreement on the Nile River. At that time the British monarchy was the colonial power of the region and the key player in the drafting of the content of the agreement.
When the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian treaty was reached Ethiopia was not a signatory to the agreement. Nor was it a British colony that was subject to the laws of the British empire. Ethiopia was a sovereign nation that was not involved in the process of designing this agreement. For this reason, amongst others, the Ethiopian government today claims that it is not bound to the provisions of the 1929 Agreement. “Perhaps more important is the argument advanced by Ethiopian authorities that it is hardly fair, reasonable, or equitable for Egyptian authorities to demand that Ethiopia accept an agreement that granted Egypt authority to control development policy in Ethiopia – for, by subjecting irrigation and other projects on the Blue Nile to prior approval and oversight by Egypt, the treaty effectively made Egypt an overseer of development policies in Ethiopia,” write scholars Mwangi Kimenyi and John Mbaku.
Ethiopia’s position is contested by Egypt, who points to paragraph 4(ii) of the treaty as the legal basis for which they should be consulted on any infrastructure projects built on the Nile. This provision reads as follows – “save with the previous agreement of the Egyptian Government, no irrigation or power works or measures are to be constructed or taken on the River Nile and its branches, or on the lakes from which it flows, so far as there are in the Sudan or in countries under British administration, which would, in such a manner as to entail any prejudice to the interests of Egypt, either reduce the quantity of water arriving in Egypt, or modify the date of its arrival, or lower its level.”
A few decades after the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian treaty was reached, Egypt and Sudan unilaterally concluded a second Agreement regarding the Nile River. In this instance the 1959 bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan effectively reinforced the provisions of the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian treaty. This time the agreement purported to establish acquired rights of the Nile’s waters to Egypt and Sudan to the point that they are entitled to full utilization of the Nile Waters.
One of the cornerstone principles of public international law is the territorial sovereignty of nation states. In order for a nation to be bound by the content of an international treaty it must first provide its consent. This principle was enshrined in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of May 22, 1969. The Convention goes on to elaborate upon the context in which a treaty is to be interpreted. As per Article 31 “The context for the purpose of the interpretation of a treaty shall comprise, in addition to the text, including its preamble and annexes: (a) any agreement relating to the treaty which was made between all the parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty; (b) any instrument which was made by one or more parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty and accepted by the other parties as an instrument related to the treaty.”
Yet the Nile Agreements were concluded between Egypt, Sudan and Great Britain, without the involvement of other riparian states. Therefore, under the law and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties “these non-party riparian states are total strangers to that contract and can neither be beneficiaries of any rights conferred under the treaty nor be bearers of any obligations imposed thereunder” writes the expert Patrick Lumumba. Further evidence supporting this position can be found in the declarations made by independent riparian countries. Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda all announced their refusal to be bound by illegitimate colonial treaties and denounce the Nile Waters Agreements.
Ethiopia has evoked a position similar to the ‘Harmon Doctrine’ as its justification towards the invalidity of the Nile River agreements. United States Attorney General, Judson Harmon coined the term Harmon Doctrine in an 1895 declaration on the Rio Grande waters on the boundary between the United States and Mexico. The Harmon Doctrine provides that each state, because of the absolute sovereignty it exercises over its territory, may use waters of an international river within it as it pleases.
One of the most contentious issues at this time is the duration of the filling period of the artificial lake that will be needed to contain the water of the GERD. The Ethiopian government plans to fill it during the wet season (typically from July to August) over several years, the precise number of which is to be determined based on annual rainfall. This flexible and precautionary measure is to ensure Egypt and Sudan are not adversely affected.
With the dated Nile Agreements bearing no basis in modern day law and the Harmon Doctrine pointing to Ethiopia’s legal right to tap into its natural endowments, Egypt does not have any legal basis for demanding Ethiopia alter its plans to build the GERD. Instead of debating over whether or not Ethiopia should go ahead with the Dam, riparian states are better off putting in place a regional governance mechanism that will allow for the reasonable and equitable distribution of the Nile’s waters in the face of inevitable climate change.
The writer can be reached at hannah.getachew8@gmail.com
COVID 19 and the temptation to forecast the end of globalization
The list of potential victims of the COVID 19 crisis, according to some analysts, includes the process of globalization itself. While crises are indeed moments for changes in the course of history, not everything is fundamentally different after the crisis has passed. Michael Zurn, Director of Research on Transnational Conflicts and International Institutions at the Social Science Research Center in Berlin, Germany indicated that the will be three conditions of fundamental change. Social science research shows us that social practices change as a result of a crisis when three conditions are met.
First, the practices in question must be seen as the cause or at least the aggravation of the crisis. Second, there must be alternatives to the previously established patterns of action that are feasible and not too costly. For example, during the ozone crisis, substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were the cause of the problem were able to establish themselves relatively quickly, because their development was not expensive. Third, a crisis is particularly likely to lead to change if the practices concerned were already in decline before the crisis. For instance, the Second World War led to a significant surge in decolonization, not least because colonialism had already passed its peak before.
Uwe Bott, Senior Economist argued that against this background, it must be doubted whether economic globalization will also become a victim of COVID 19. There is a simple reason for that. The virus as such is not a consequence of globalization but of the failure of, or over-reliance on, localization. In each case, the onset of the pandemic occurred locally and then spreads epidemically in the region. The global contagion map demonstrates this by the many, more or less thick circles, and each of which stands for a regional epidemic. It is true that the pandemic became global through the networking of regional epidemics. But the results differed widely, depending on the competence and intensity of local/national management of the pandemic.
However, the ability of the infection to spread from region to region did not depend on globalization. The transportation connections that had long been the hallmark of an interdependent world would have been sufficient for this. According to Uwe Bott, the only way for a virus to be confined regionally is to ensure that there are no more airplanes, trains or ships. But that would not be the end of globalization. Rather, it would represent a return to the 18th century. Even in 1831, cholera was able to reach Europe from Asia – and that despite a military cordon. This underscores that the causal contribution of the further push toward globalization that was undertaken in the 1990s and 2000s to the spread of the global pandemic is low.
Of course, there are alternatives to the present patterns of global production and supply chains. A partial renationalization of economic processes is possible. However, this would lead to increased costs and considerable welfare losses. When normalcy returns, the mountains of public and private debt will have grown everywhere. We will find ourselves in a global recession. The cost pressure will then be particularly high. However, it is important to realize that this is not an environment in which the prospects for globalization will decrease.
It is true that the production of protective masks and some medications may be rebuilt in many nation states. But these are special circumstances that are not suitable for generalization. It is also true that the pace of globalization was already slowing down before the crisis. But that is not the same as saying that it was actually declining in practice. Uwe Bott noted that a slower acceleration does not represent a reversal. That is also why it should not be compared to a decline. Economic globalization was at a high level before the crisis. The odds are that, give or take some modifications, it will probably return to that level after the crisis.
Therefore, caution is called for when prematurely proclaiming the end of globalization. After the crisis, some practical aspects will change. There will probably be more video conferences and fewer international business meetings than before. That would make sense. All the more so as during the COVID 19 crisis, many of us have intuitively learned the immediateness of video conferences. It is much easier to assemble a great group of people for discussion, if they just have to clear their schedule for a four-hour session, rather than traveling for most of a day on the front and back ends of such an event.
Michael Zurn stated that it is also likely that the virus will accelerate the death of local retailers and, by the same token, further increase the market share of Amazon & Co. That would be a pity. COVID 19 will also speed up the process of digitalization – and, better yet, more globalization, of education – since we found ourselves forced to adopt new digital practices. Perhaps the corona virus will also lead to the end of the handshake and the welcoming kiss as a social practice. We will probably get used to that as well.
Finally, as to supply chains, it seems unlikely that German or other companies will cut back foreign production facilities on a large scale. It is true that companies that depend on supplies from the Wuhan area ran into difficulties in February. But if their production facility or supplier had been based in, say, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the problem would have arisen in exactly the same way, only a little later. Thus, much speaks for the fact that after the crisis is before the crisis.
The right type of free trade matters
From a political and economic point of view, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) represents one of the most ambitious initiatives since the establishment of the African Union. Things were going as expected, until Covid-19 got involved, and so now the negotiation for implementing the agreement is temporarily suspended. The issues concerning rules of origin, dispute settlement, agreements of tariffs for certain products and more remain to be settled.
No Reason to panic! The AfCFTA is not going to peter out.
Yes, at this stage, the pandemic may produce less enthusiasm for the AfCFTA. Governments don’t know what to think. …to free or protect the economy!
Will our leaders learn the lesson, and realize that a closed economy is poorer? We’ll see. But the first indication is not inspiring.
African countries should continue negotiation to construct an effective AfCFTA regime that promotes development, and is beneficial in a balanced and fair manner, to all parties that participate in the market. The AfCFTA should offer a system that builds on deeper integration within a shared rule-based framework, provide benefits across the continent by restraining costly and inefficient protectionism, encourage cost-reducing scale economies in production of goods and services, and help prevent races to the bottom that would have otherwise have occurred from competitive pressures. No wonder why poorer countries want to be sure free trade is not only acceptable but is a promising solution for development.
Why should policymakers be concerned about poorer African countries?
Naturally, poorer African countries, in comparison to their trading partners, fear that benefits from increased trade are often heavily concentrated within the richer more developed economies, with superior firm level capacities as well as the national capacity to comply with the AfCFTA and international trade policies. It’s no surprise if these countries insist for some degree of protection in order to develop competitiveness in certain sectors, thus going against the process (at least temporarily) of “leveling the playing field” and free-er trade. According to a poll conducted by PACCI in 2019, roughly 69% of SMEs in the UN list of Least Developed Countries think that free trade would harm their economies. And yes, it may be the case that improvement in the productive capacity of one country can only be attained at the expense of another country’s general welfare. But where it’s feasible, there is clearly a justification for policies to enable the players to become more equal and to benefit from the AfCFTA.
The suspension of the negotiations, which hopefully will not last long, should be an opportune time for many countries to reflect on how to operationalize the AfCFTA.
Otherwise the road to Brexit might be irresistible!
