More communications needed in crisis management in Africa

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

by Chinese media correspondent Yi Gaochao

DAR ES SALAAM, March 11 (Chinese media) -- This world is

more often than not tipped and tilted into disorder by bad communications or no

communications at all.

So communications and right communications are what

will be needed in the current dialogue and discussion about the management of

the ongoing financial crisis and economic downturn.

People had better bear in mind on which wave bands

and from how different points of view they do communications.

It seemed that the just-concluded IMF conference for

African finance ministers and central bank governors in Dar es Salaam might have

a communications hitch with the scheduled G-20 Leaders' Summit to be held next

month in London.

Both are on the same wave band alright by talking

about money and monetary policy. But they talk from two poles-apart view points

as far as Africa is concerned, with one on the asking-for and receiving end and

the other on the promising and giving end.

Financing is the keyword and catchword for both

conferences but while the Dar es Salaam conference was seeking effective and

increased financing to help the receiving end fend off or mitigate the fallout

of the current crises, the London conference will seek further financing to beef

up stimulus plans to bail the giving end out the crisis.

The Dar es Salaam conference, co-hosted by the IMF

and the government of Tanzania, would like to convey to the London conference

that African countries need donor countries to meet their aid commitments or

else their economic gains from the past decade could slip away in the face of

encroaching fallout of the crises.

In Dar es Salaam, African financial policy-makers

have suggested that their continent has the primary responsibility to deal with

the crisis fallout but the international community must fulfill its aid

commitments and accelerate assistance.

For quite some African countries, the effect of the

financial crisis and economic downturn has not yet arrived for them to feel the

real pinch.

But the effect of crises is arriving for sure, IMF

Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned Dar es Salaam conference

participants. "It is coming and its impact will be severe."

The G-20 leaders, however, have been busy finding

their own ways out of their own current financial dilemma which was caused,

guess what, by mis- or mal-communications about credits in the first place.

As the former United Nations secretary-general and a

born African national, Kofi Annan has proposed to include Africa as part of the

global solution to the global financial crisis and economic downturn.

This proposal bridged the two conferences to a common

talking point: not whether but rather how Africa can be part of that solution.

Mr. Annan went further to suggest that Africa can be

part of the solution by being part of a global stimulus plan and by being fully

represented in the evolving economic global architecture.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, whose country

played co-host to the Dar es Salaam conference, said that Africa is the last

frontier on this planet for further human development and the humanity should

take the responsibility for the resources of Africa which had helped the

development of countries in Europe and North America and which are helping the

development of new economic entities elsewhere in the world as well.

The IMF chief went a step closer to clarity by saying

that it is not only a moral duty but also a historic obligation, given the

colonial history of the continent, for the developed world now to feed back on

the development of Africa.

The international monetary institution therefore

called on donor countries, traditional and additional alike, to honor their

commitments to Africa, stressing that honoring the aid commitments would help

prevent the continent's economic gains from slipping away.

Mr. Kahn explained that though African countries are

in much stronger positions than they were many years ago, many African economies

still need significant additional concessional financing to weather and tide

over the crises.

"At a time when the international community is

finding hundreds of billions of dollars for crisis resolution, I cannot accept

that we will not be able to find hundreds of millions of dollars for LICs (least

invested countries)," said the IMF chief who reminded donor countries that they

had committed at the Gleneagles meeting to increase their assistance to Africa

to 50 billion dollars by next year and to 75 billion dollars by 2015.

The call at the Dar es Salaam conference for

increasing aid levels was made eloquently by American economist Jeffrey Sachs

and South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel.

Jeffrey Sachs pointed out that the U.S. budget

deficit was likely to touch 1.75 trillion dollars but there was no commensurate

increase in foreign aid commitments.

With a tinge of sarcasm but not without some deja-vu,

Trevor Manuel said that Africa probably needed to acquire nuclear weapons in

order to secure the attention of the international community.

The Dar es Salaam conference for African finance

ministers and central bank governors concluded by urging the international

community to take urgent actions needed for Africa to face the ongoing financial

crisis and economic downturn.

"This is the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes,

affecting the lives and hopes of people around the world," Tanzanian President

Jakaya Kikwete, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Africa Progress

Panel Chairman Kofi Annan said in a joint statement. "As leaders of the G-20

countries prepare to meet in April, we believe it is vitally important that

Africa's needs are addressed."

Their joint statement called upon the international

community to fulfill its promises to increase aid flows to Africa and called on

African countries to strengthen their economic policies and called on the IMF to

increase its support for Africa with more financing, greater flexibility,

enhanced policy dialogue and a further strengthening of Africa's voice in the

institution itself.

As some participants in Dar es Salaam doubted

conferences to be only empty-talks, Mr. Annan said that conferences can be the

prelude to actions.

And that is when the talks are done with all the due

parts taken on board and playing their due roles while all communicating on the

same wave band with a consensus on the how-to's and what-for's.