http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/Marxclass.htmMARXISM AND CLASS: SOME DEFINITIONSA paper from the COMMUNIST LEAGUE (Britain)The Concept of Social ClassThe concept of social class as “a division or order of society according to status (‘The Oxford English Dictionary’, Volume 3; Oxford; 1989; p. 279) is a very ancient one, the English word ‘class’ being derived from the Latin ‘classis’, meaning each of the “… ancient divisions of the Roman people” (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): ‘The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology’; Oxford; 1985; p. 180). Servius Tullius, king of Rome in the 6th century BC, organised a classification system which divided citizens into five classes according to wealth”. (‘New Encyclopaedia Britannica’, Volume 10; Chicago; 1994; p. 455).

The Marxist Definition of ClassMarxist-Leninists accept the concept of social class put forward above, but hold that a person’s social class is determined not by the amount of his wealth, but by the source of his income as determined by his relation to labour and to the means of production.

“Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated by law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and their mode of acquiring it”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘A Great Beginning: Heroism of the Workers in the Rear: ‘Communist Subbotniks’ in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 29; Moscow; 1965; p. 421).

To Marxist-Leninists, therefore, the class to which a person belongs is determined by objective reality, not by someone’s opinion.

On the basis of the above definition, Marxist-Leninists distinguish three basic classes in 19th century Britain:

“There are three great social groups, whose members… live on wages, profit and ground rent respectively”. (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’, Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 886).

These three basis classes are 1) the proletariat or working class, 2) the bourgeoisie or capitalist class and 3) the landlord class, respectively.

The Landlord ClassMarxist-Leninists define the landlord class as that class which owns land and derives its income from ground rent on that land:

“Land becomes… personified and… gets on its hind legs to demand… its share of the product created with its help…: rent (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’, Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 824-25).

With the development of capitalist society, however, the landlord class progressively loses its importance and a new class emerges — the petty bourgeoisie. Thus, in a developed capitalist society, there are still three basic classes, but these are now: 1) the capitalist class or bourgeoisie; 2) the petty bourgeoisie; and 3) the working class or proletariat:

“Every capitalist country… is basically divided into three main forces: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Constitutional Illusions’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 6; Moscow; 1964; p. 202).

The BourgeoisieThe English word ‘bourgeoisie‘ is derived from the French word ‘bourgeoisie’ meaning “… the trading middle class” (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 110) as distinct from the landlord class.

Marxist-Leninists define the bourgeoisie or capitalist class as

“…the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour”. (Friedrich Engels: Note to: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 204).

The capitalist class includes persons whose remuneration may come nominally in the form of a salary, but which is in fact due to their position in the capitalist class (e.g., the directors of large companies). It also includes persons who are not employers, but who serve the capitalist class in high administrative positions:

“The latter group contains sections of the population who belong to the big bourgeoisie: all the rentiers (living on the income from capital and real estate…), then part of the intelligentsia, the high military and civil officials, etc. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘The Development of Capitalism in Russia’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 3; Moscow; 1960; p. 504).

It also includes the dependents of these persons.

The ProletariatThe English word ‘proletariat‘ is derived from the Latin ‘proles’, meaning ‘offspring’, since according to Roman law a proletarian served the state “… not with his property, but only with his offspring (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): ibid.; p. 714).

Marxist-Leninists define the proletariat or working class as

“…that class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live (Friedrich Engels: Note to the 1888 English Edition of: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 204).

In modern society, “… the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class”. (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in:

Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 216) so that, in producing the proletariat, the bourgeoisie produces “… its own gravediggers”. (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 218).

The ‘Middle Class’The term ‘middle class’ is used by Marxists — including Marx and Engels themselves — in two different ways:

Firstly, in the historical sense,

“… in the sense of… the French word ‘bourgeoisie that possessing class which is differentiated from the so-called aristocracy (Friedrich Engels: Preface to ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England: From Personal Observation and Authentic Sources’, in: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 4; Moscow; 1975; p. 304).

secondly, when speaking of modern capitalist society, with the meaning of petty bourgeoisie’, discussed in the next section.

The Petty BourgeoisieBetween the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, stands the petty bourgeoisie:

“In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed” (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London,’ 1943; p. 231).

The English term ‘petty bourgeoisie’ is an anglicisation of the French term ‘petite bourgeoisie’, meaning ‘little bourgeoisie’. Marxist-Leninists define the petty bourgeoisie as a class which owns or rents small means of production which it operates largely without employing wage labour, but often with the assistance of members of their families: “A petty bourgeois is the owner of small property”, (Vladimir I. Lenin: Note to: ‘To the Rural Poor’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; London; 1944; p. 254).

As a worker, the petty bourgeois has interests in common with the proletariat; as owner of means of production, however, he has interests in common with the bourgeoisie. In other words, the petty bourgeoisie has a divided allegiance towards the two decisive classes in capitalist society.

Thus, the ‘independent’ petty bourgeois producer

“… is cut up into two persons. As owner of the means of production he is a capitalist; as a labourer he is his own wage- labourer”. (Karl Marx: ‘Theories of Surplus Value’, Part 1; Moscow; undated; p. 395).

and consequently petty bourgeois “…are for ever vacillating between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie”. (Joseph V. Stalin: ‘The Logic of Facts’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 4; Moscow; 1953; p. 143).

This divided allegiance between the two decisive classes in modern capitalist society applies also to a section of employed persons — those who are involved in superintendence and the lower levels of management — e.g., foremen, charge-hands, departmental managers, etc. These employees have a supervisory function, a function is to ensure that the workers produce a maximum of surplus value for the employer. On the one hand, such persons are exploited workers, with interests in common with the proletariat (from which they largely spring); on the other hand, their position as agents of the management in supervising the efficient exploitation of their fellow employees gives them interests in common with the bourgeoisie:

“An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers) and sergeants (foremen, overlookers) who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist”, (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: An Analysis of Capitalist Production’, Volume 1; Moscow; 1959; p. 332).

“The labour of supervision and management… has a double nature. On the one hand, all labour in which many individuals cooperate necessarily requires a commanding will to coordinate and unify the process…. This is a productive job…. On the other hand, this supervision work necessarily arises in all modes of production based on the antithesis between the labourer, as the direct producer, and the owner of the means of production. The greater this antagonism, the greater the role played by supervision”. (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’, Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 383-84).

Because of this divided allegiance, which corresponds to that of the petty bourgeoisie proper, Marxist-Leninists place such employees (and their dependents) in the petty bourgeoisie. For the same reason, Marxist-Leninists also place persons in the middle and lower ranks of the coercive forces of the capitalist state — the army and police — (and their dependents) in the petty bourgeoisie.

The Polarisation of Capitalist SocietyBecause of the small size of their means of production, petty-bourgeois are in constant danger of sinking into the proletariat:

“The lower strata of the middle class… sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital… is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production”. (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 213).

“The working class gains recruits from the higher strata of society… A mass of petty industrialists and small rentiers are hurled down into its ranks”. (Karl Marx: ‘Wage-Labour and Capital’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943′ p. 280).

and even the old, once highly respected petty bourgeois professions become proletarianised:

“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers”. (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 208).

Thus, as capitalist society develops, it becomes increasingly polarised into two basic classes — wealthy bourgeois and poor proletarians:

“Society as a whole is more and more splitting up… into two great classes facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat”. (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 205-06).

“Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, moral degradation, at the opposite pole”. (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’. Volume 1; Moscow; 1959; p. 645).

The PeasantryThe English word ‘peasant is derived from the Latin ‘pagus’, meaning a “… country district”. (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 660) and is defined as “… one who lives in the country and works on the land”. (The Oxford English Dictionary’, Volume 11; Oxford; 1989; p.402).

The above definition excludes the landlord class from the peasantry since, even if a landlord ‘lives in the country’ he does not work on the land’, but derives his income from ground rent.

The peasantry do not form a class of society, but consist of a number of different classes which live in the country and work on the land:

“It is best to distinguish the rich, the middle and the poor peasants” (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘To the Rural Poor: An Explanation for the Peasants of what the Social-Democrats want’ (hereafter listed as ‘Vladimir I. Lenin (1903’), in ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; London; 1944; p. 261).

The peasantry is composed of:

Firstly, rich peasants, or rural capitalists, who employ labour, that is, who exploit poorer peasants:

“One of the main features of the rich peasants is that they hire farmhands and day labourers. Like the landlords, the rich peasants also live by the labour of others…. They try to squeeze as much work as they can out of their farmhands, and pay them as little as possible”. (Vladimir I. Lenin (1903: ibid.; p. 265).

Sometimes rich peasants are called ‘kulaks’, a word derived from the Russian ‘kulak’, originally meaning a “… tight-fisted person”. (‘The Oxford English Dictionary’, Volume 8; Oxford; 1989; p. 543).

Secondly, the middle peasants or the rural petty bourgeoisie, who own or rent land but who do not employ labour. Speaking of the middle peasantry, Lenin says:

“Only in good years and under particularly favourable conditions is the independent husbandry of this type of peasant sufficient to maintain him and for that reason his position is a very unstable one. In the majority of cases the middle peasant cannot make ends meet without resorting to loans to be repaid by labour, etc., without seeking subsidiary’ earnings on the side”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘The Development of Capitalism in Russia’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 1; p. 235).

Thirdly, the poor peasants or rural proletariat. The poor peasant lives

“… not by the land, not by his farm, but by working for wages…. He… has ceased to be an independent farmer and has become a hireling, a proletarian”. (Vladimir I. Lenin (1900): op. cit.; p. 265-67).

Sometimes Marxist-Leninists describe poor peasants as “… semi-proletarians“, (Vladimir I. Lenin (1900): ibid.; p. 267) to distinguish them from urban proletarians, regarded as ‘full’ proletarians.

‘Neo-Marxism‘‘Revisionism’ is “… a trend hostile to Marxism. within Marxism itself”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Marxism and Revisionism’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 15; Moscow; 1963; p. 32). In other words, a revisionist poses as a Marxist but in fact puts forward a programme which objectively serves the interests of a bourgeoisie:

“The revisionists spearheaded their struggle mainly against Marxism-Leninism… and replaced this theory with an opportunist, counterrevolutionary theory in the service of the bourgeoisie and imperialism (Enver Hoxha: Report to the 5th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 4; Tirana; 1982; p. 190).

Despite all the torrents of propaganda levelled against it, Marxism- Leninism still retains enormous prestige among working people all over the world. It is for this reason that many modern revisionists call themselves ‘Neo-Marxists’ or ‘Western Marxists’ — claiming that they are not revising Marxism, but merely bringing it up to date, bringing into the age of the electronic computer which Marx and Engels never knew.

In general, ‘neo-Marxists’ pay their loudest tributes to Marx ‘s early writings, before he became a Marxist. ‘Neo-Marxism’ is essentially a product not merely of universities, but of the worst kind of university lecturer who equates obscurantism with intellectualism. One sees admiring students staggering from his lectures muttering ‘What a brilliant man! I couldn’t understand a word!’.

Even sociologists sympathetic to ‘neo-Marxism’ speak of “… the extreme difficulty of language characteristic of much of Western Marxism in the twentieth century”. (Perry Anderson: ‘Considerations of Western Marxism’; London; 1970; p. 54).

But, of course, this obscure language has a great advantage for those who use it, making it easy to claim, when challenged, that the challenger has misunderstood what one was saying.

Much ‘Neo-Marxism’ is an eclectic hotchpotch of Marxism with idealist philosophy — giving it, it is claimed, a ‘spiritual aspect’ lacking in the original. A typical example is the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who writes: “I believe in the general schema provided by Marx”, (Jean-Paul Sartre: ‘Between Existentialism and Marxism’; London; 1974;

p. 53), but — and it is a big ‘but’ — it must be a ‘Marxism’ liberated from “… the old guard of mummified Stalinists”. (Jean-Paul Sartre: ibid.; p. 53). And how, according to Sartre, is this ‘liberation’ to be effected? By merging it with the existentialism of the Danish idealist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard! “Kierkegaard and Marx… institute themselves… as our future”. (Jean-Paul Sartre: ibid.; p. 169).

However, this paper is concerned only with revisionist theories which are based on distortions of the Marxist-Leninist definition of class.

In particular, it will be concerned with ‘neo-Marxist’ definitions of the proletariat which narrow and restrict it as a class. While to these ‘neo-Marxists’ the proletariat may still be, in words, ‘the gravedigger of capitalism’, they portray it as a gravedigger equipped with a teaspoon instead of a spade.

The UnemployedSome ‘neo-Marxists’ exclude the unemployed from the proletariat on the grounds that someone who is not working cannot be regarded as a member of the working class!

But Marx explicitly characterises the unemployed, the “… industrial reserve army”, (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production Volume 1; Moscow; 1959; p. 628) as part of the working class, as “… a relative surplus population among the working class”, (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’, Volume 2; Moscow; 1974; p. 518) and speaks of “… the working class (now actively reinforced by its entire reserve army)”. (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’, Volume 2; Moscow; 1974; p. 414).

Clearly, therefore, the founders of Marxism did not exclude the unemployed from the working class.

Non-Productive LabourOther ‘neo-Marxists’ exclude all workers engaged in non-productive labour from the working class.

Certainly, for the purpose of analysing the complexities of capitalist society, Marx differentiated labour into productive and unproductive labour. According to Marx, “… only that labour is productive which creates a surplus value“. (Karl Marx: ‘Theories of Surplus Value’, Part 1; Moscow; n.d.; p 45).

It is on this basis that the Greek revisionist Nicos Poulantzas excludes non-productive workers from the working class:

“I have a rather limited and restricted definition of the working class. The criterion of productive and unproductive labour is sufficient to exclude unproductive workers from the working class”. (Nicos Poulantzas: ‘Classes in Contemporary Capitalism’; London; 1975; p 119, 121).

Poulantzas therefore assigns non-productive workers to the “… new petty bourgeoisie” (Nicos Poulantzas: ibid.; p. 117) asserting that “… the new petty bourgeoisie constitutes a separate class” (Nicos Poulantzas: ibid.; p. 115).

But

“… the distinction between productive and unproductive labour has nothing to do… with the particular speciality of the labour (Karl Marx: ‘Theories of Surplus Value’, Part 1; Moscow; n.d.; p 186).

The same kind of labour may be productive or unproductive:

“The same labour can be productive when I buy it as a capitalist, and unproductive when I buy it as a consumer”. (Karl Marx: ‘Theories of Surplus Value’, Part 1; Moscow; n.d.; p. 186).

For example, a teacher in a private school is engaged in productive labour (in the Marxist sense of the term), because his labour produces surplus value for the proprietors of the school. But a teacher in a state school, working under identical conditions, is engaged in unproductive labour, because his labour does not create surplus value.

Furthermore, many kinds of unproductive labour, such as the labour of clerical workers in a capitalist production firm,

“… while it does not create surplus value, enables him (the employer — Ed.) to appropriate surplus value which, in effect, amounts to the same thing with respect to his capital. It is, therefore, a source of profit for him”. (Karl Marx: ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy’, Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 294).

Thus the question of whether an employee is engaged in productive or unproductive labour has no relevance to the question of whether he belongs to the proletariat.

The ‘Labour Aristocracy’In developed capitalist states,

“… the bourgeoisie, by plundering the colonial and weak nations, has been able to bribe the upper stratum of the proletariat with crumbs from the superprofits”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: Draft Programme of the RCP (B), in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 29; Moscow; 1965; p. 104).

Superprofits are profits

“… obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their ‘own’ country”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: Preface to the French and German Editions of ‘Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 22; Moscow; 1964; p. 193).

Marxist-Leninists call employees in receipt of a share in such super profits “… the labour aristocracy”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 194).

Some ‘neo-Marxists’ exclude employees who share in superprofits from the proletariat. Thus, according to the London-based ‘Finsbury Communist Association’, in Britain “… the proletariat consists of the workers on subsistence wages or below” (Finsbury Communist Association: ‘Class and Party in Britain’; London; 1966; p. 4).

However, Lenin defines the labour aristocracy as a part of the proletariat, as a “… privileged upper stratum of the proletariat”, (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Imperialism and the Split in Socialism’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 23; Moscow; 1965; p. 110) as “… the upper stratum of the proletariat”, (Vladimir I. Lenin: Draft Programme of the RCP (B), in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 29; Moscow; 1965; p. 104) as “… the top strata of the working class”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘How the Bourgeoisie utilises Renegades”, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 30; Moscow; 1965; p. 34).

Furthermore, while Lenin characterises the ‘labour aristocracy’ as “… an insignificant minority of the working class”, (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Under a False Flag’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 21; Moscow; 1964; p. 152) the ‘Finsbury Communist Association’ presents it as “… the overwhelming majority of Britain’s workers” (Finsbury Communist Association: ‘Class and Party in Britain’; London; 1966; p. 5).

Thus, according to the ‘Finsbury Communist Association’, the British imperialists pay the overwhelming majority of Britain’s workers’ above the value of their labour power. Since there is not even a Marxist-Leninist party, much less a revolutionary situation, in Britain at present, this can only be out of the sheer goodness of their hearts!

Clearly the ‘neo-Marxist’ picture of imperialism bears no relation to reality. It merely lends spurious support to the false thesis that, since the workers in developed capitalist countries are ‘exploiters’, the future for socialism lies only in the less developed countries in the East!

ConclusionThe most urgent task facing Marxist-Leninists today is to rebuild unified Marxist-Leninist parties in each country, united in a Marxist-Leninist International.

But such parties, and such an international, can be built only on the basis of agreement on Marxist-Leninist principles.

Perhaps agreement to accept a few simple definitions put forward long ago by the founders of Marxism-Leninism, and to reject their revisionist distortions, might constitute a small step in that direction.

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USA/Africa: “Pro-Death” Health Agendas Advance

AfricaFocus Bulletin May 30, 2017 (170530) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“3.3 million more abortions. 15,000 more mothers dying. 8 million more unplanned pregnancies. … Those grim numbers from the Guttmacher Institute show the potential real-world impact of the Trump administration’s unprecedented proposed cuts to global family planning efforts; the budget the White House released Tuesday would basically eliminate those programs.” – Sarah Wildman, Vox, May 24, 2017

The headline (my wording) may seem alarmist, but detailed examination of the health agendas being advanced by the Trump administration and right-wing Republicans leaves little doubt of the consequences should they be fully implemented. There will indeed likely be millions of deaths resulting both from the House domestic healthcare plan, which would remove 23 million from health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and from the provisions for global health in the administration’s new budget. That would eliminate funding for family planning, threaten funding for HIV/AIDS and famine relief, and impose massive cuts on institutions such as the Center for Disease Control which are vital to protection against epidemics.

One may withhold judgment on the motivations of the policymakers, including the relative weight of ideology, indifference, lack of human empathy, and greed. And most observers say the full package is unlikely to survive Congressional scrutiny, even among many Republicans. But much of the damage, such as the Global Gag Rule cited above, comes from executive decisions already being implemented, such as the new version of the Global Gag Rule. The proponents of this agenda, it is clear by their explicit statements, reject the universal right to health, and give little or no value to the lives of those who are not wealthy and white.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin continues two summary articles on the Global Gag Rule and the Trump budget, as well as a reflection on the pressures facing progressive health advocates stretched by the attacks on both domestic and global health.

A few additional short articles highlight the threat:

Siobhán O’Grady, “How teen moms in Nigeria could wind up hurt by Trump’s U.N. Cuts,” Washington Post, May 5, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y9dn2odb Documents effects of cutting support for the U.N. Population Fund.

Los Angeles Times, “Editorial: Trump’s new global gag rule will devastate healthcare in poor countries,” Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/n6kprqw “The rule was bad enough in its earlier form [under previous Republican administrations], when it barred aid to family planning organizations that offered abortion or abortion counseling. … But the new Trump administration incarnation of the rule is far more expansive. … it will now cover approximately $8.8 billion in funds given out to healthcare providers of all sorts.”

Nurith Aizenman, “Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Cut $2.2 billion from Global Health Spending,” National Public Radio, May 25, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y9xgbc87 “Overall, Trump would cut the annual global health budget by about 26 percent, or around $2.2 billion in the 2018 fiscal year that begins October 1, decreasing it from about $8.7 billion in the current fiscal year budget to less than $6.5 billion.”

Emily Baumgaertner, “Proposed Cuts Alarm Bioterrorism Experts,” New York Times, May 29, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/yavxmskg The CDC’s budget would be cut by 17%. At the NIH, a program training foreign medical professionals in pandemic response would be eliminated.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on health, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php

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The Trump global gag rule: an attack on US family planning and global health aid

By Ann M. Starrs, Guttmacher Institute

The Lancet, February 4, 2017

http://www.thelancet.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/ya8ngh4h

On Jan 23, 2017, on his fourth day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing the global gag rule, an anti-abortion policy that under other conservative presidential administrations has caused serious disruptions to US overseas family planning efforts. Alarmingly, Trump’s order goes even further than in the past, with potentially devastating effect.

Credit for graphic: Human Rights Watch       

The global gag rule, also known as the Mexico City policy, was devised in 1984 by the administration of Ronald Reagan to impose a draconian set of anti-abortion rules on US overseas family planning programmes. This policy banned US family planning funds from going to foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that provide abortion services, counselling, or referrals, or advocate for liberalisation of their country’s abortion laws–even if they use non-US government funds for these activities. In 1984, and every time the global gag rule has been imposed since then, foreign governments were exempt for diplomatic reasons, as were US-based NGOs on constitutional grounds.

To be clear, legislation was already in place in 1984, and is still in place now, that bans the use of US funds under the Foreign Assistance Act from paying “for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning”. But for anti-abortion activists this Helms Amendment, passed in 1973, did not go far enough; they wanted to limit any activity that could possibly enable or promote abortion. Hence, the global gag rule.

Under Trump’s order, the gag rule now applies not only to US bilateral family planning assistance (US$575 million for fiscal year 2016), but also to all “global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies”–encompassing an estimated $9.5 billion in foreign aid. Foreign NGOs that receive US funding to work on a broad range of health programmes in about 60 low-income and middle-income countries–including on HIV/AIDS, the Zika virus, malaria, tuberculosis, nutrition, and maternal and child health, among others–will potentially be subject to the same ideological restrictions that have hampered family planning aid at points in the past. Thus, President Trump’s version of the global gag rule represents a wider attack on global health aid writ large.

Adding to the widespread concern among US government agencies, global health NGOs, and advocates is the Trump administration’s failure to provide any guidance on the interpretation or application of the new policy.

Those details may emerge in the coming weeks and months. But we already know that, when last in effect, the gag rule crippled family planning programmes. Many foreign NGOs, as a matter of principle and out of dedication to the patients they serve, refused to let the US Government muzzle their abortion advocacy efforts or dictate what services or counselling they provided using their non-US funds. These health providers were forced to reduce staff and services, or even shut clinics. As a result, many thousands of women no longer had access to family planning and reproductive health services from these clinics–sometimes the only provider of such services in the local community. Various actors, including the governments of Canada and the Netherlands, are mobilising to compensate for at least some of the damage that will be done by the gag rule. But the US is the largest funder of global health programmes worldwide, and the disruption this aid effort will suffer is massive.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the global gag rule has ever resulted in its stated aim of reducing abortion. The first study to measure the effect of the gag rule showed that this policy could actually have resulted in an increase in abortions. Another study assessed the gag rule in Ghana and found that because of declines in the availability of contraceptive services, both fertility and abortion rates were higher during the gag rule years than during non-gag rule years in rural and poor populations. This is consistent with anecdotal data that the gag rule’s main effect has been to reduce women’s access to quality contraceptive services, thereby increasing the probability of unintended pregnancy and making recourse to abortion more likely.

But the harmful effects of Trump’s order are likely be even greater. NGOs in lowincome settings often provide integrated health services; for instance, they offer patients contraceptive care, HIV prevention or treatment, maternal health screenings, immunisations, and information on safe abortion care all under one roof. By expanding the gag rule to the full scope of US global health aid, hundreds more national and local NGOs will be forced to choose between drastic funding cuts (if they decline to sign the gag rule) or denying their patients the information and services that are their right (if they sign, and can no longer provide or discuss abortion). Millions of women living in low-resource settings may now be unable to obtain the care they need, when they need it.

The unprecedented scope of the Trump global gag rule validates the fears of many observers: reproductive health and rights worldwide will face a sustained attack in the next 4 years of the Trump Administration. This assault will almost certainly include defunding the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as well as potentially drastic cuts to US overseas family planning aid. It will be mirrored domestically by efforts to restrict abortion access–for instance, by banning all private and public insurance coverage of abortion or prohibiting the most commonly used method for second-trimester procedures–and to shred the nation’s family planning safety net, including by defunding Planned Parenthood.

It is becoming clearer with each Trump executive order that not only reproductive health but also global health programmes and overall foreign assistance supported by the US Government are in grave jeopardy, as indicated by President Trump’s repeated promises to “put America first”. The social conservatives driving this agenda–who now control the US Presidency and both Houses of Congress–are showing complete disregard for the millions of women, men, and children who will suffer the consequences, intended or not, of these regressive policies.

Trump’s budget eliminates US funding for global family planning and famine relief

by Sarah Wildman

Vox, May 24, 2017

http://www.vox.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/lrtqf72

3.3 million more abortions. 15,000 more mothers dying. 8 million more unplanned pregnancies. Up to 26 million fewer women and couples acquiring contraception and family planning advice.

Those grim numbers from the Guttmacher Institute show the potential real-world impact of the Trump administration’s unprecedented proposed cuts to global family planning efforts; the budget the White House released Tuesday would basically eliminate those programs.

It also calls for gutting a key US famine relief program, slashing half the budget for the USAID’s internal disaster relief organization, and cutting $222 million from funds allocated to fight HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The justification listed in the budget is a simple hope for others to fill the shortfall:

The United States has been the largest donor by far to global HIV/AIDS efforts, providing over half of global donor funding in recent years to combat this epidemic. The Budget reduces funding for several global health programs, including HIV/AIDS, with the expectation that other donors can and should increase their commitments to these causes.

If Congress were to agree to those cuts (and that’s a big if), advocates say the global impact of America’s abrupt departure from world health and disaster relief would be immediate — and devastating.

“The family planning elimination is the headline here,” said Rachel Silverman, a senior policy analyst on global health at the Center for Global Development. “It will have the most impact on people’s lives.”

But Trump’s proposed cuts to food aid and disaster relief would also deal a major blow to some of the world’s neediest and most desperate. Marilyn Shapley, a top official at the aid group Mercy Corps, said some 70 million people need emergency food assistance, while 20 million more are in famine-like conditions.

“This is going to take away food assistance from 33 million people in a year when famine risk is higher than in decades,” she said in an interview. “Before today I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

Funding family planning actually makes economic, not just moral, sense

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has taken aim at global family planning and women’s health.

In January, Trump reinstated the “Mexico City Policy,” also known as the global gag rule, which literally bars family planning providers from mentioning abortion in their work. (The United States has long banned funds for abortion services.)

The policy is one that changes depending on the party of the president in power. Obama immediately rescinded the policy when he moved into the White House; Trump, like other Republican presidents before him, immediately reinstated it when he came into office. As I wrote in January, the policy has traditionally limited the ability of global family planning providers to give women and families comprehensive care if in any aspect of their work they recommend, discuss, or even mention abortions to clients, let alone provide abortion services.

But Trump went further than his predecessors. Previous Republican administrations limited the policy to family planning providers; the Trump administration extended the gag rule to all global health providers. That meant health care providers working on everything from maternal and child health to malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and vaccinations were now at risk of losing all US funding if they discussed abortion in their work.

The NGO PAI estimated that the extended gag rule would affect about 15 times more US funding than the gag rule had in the past. In mid-May, when the new rule went into effect, Suzanne Ehlers, president and CEO of PAI, said Trump’s move would do “unspeakable damage to integrated care efforts.”

That’s a problem. With integrated care, a woman can come to a single clinic for, say, vaccines for her children, then see a physician about her own contraceptive needs, and finally seek advice, or refill prescriptions. In other words, she can meet all her family’s health care needs in one spot. For families traveling long distances, an all-in-one clinic makes far more sense than one clinic for maternal health and another for child care and still another for other medical services.

The Trump administration spent the first quarter of 2017 signaling plans to undermine that sort of integrated care by reinstating the gag rule and beginning to reduce US funding for maternal and infant health around the world.

In April, the administration announced it would strip the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), which works on reproductive health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, and infant and maternal mortality in more than 150 countries, of all US funding. The putative reason was a specious one.

“This decision is based on the erroneous claim that UNFPA ‘supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization’ in China,” a statement on the UNFPA website read. “UNFPA refutes this claim, as all of its work promotes the human rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination.”

A State Department memo obtained by the Associated Press found no evidence that US money had supported forced abortion or sterilization in China.

The decision costs the UNFPA $32.5 million in funding from the 2017 budget; the United States was the fourth-largest donor to the organization.

The new budget would hit global health even harder.

Silverman noted that there’s a “dissonance” between White House messages on women and families. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, has claimed to be championing the idea of women’e economic empowerment. That sort of program, Silverman says, would be completely undermined by stripping global family planning from the budget.

“There is a lot of evidence that family planning contributes to women’s empowerment,” says Silverman, ticking off a list of things that planning, delaying, and spacing pregnancies allow women to do — like receiving an education, or even simply advancing at work. “When women have control over fertility, they have control over their lives.”

Silverman points out that USAID directly funds 28 percent of contraceptives and distribution in the developing world.

“If you cross-reference that with the number of women using contraceptives in those countries — a back-of-envelope calculation — that suggests that 10 million women are directly relying on USAID for contraceptives,” she said, adding that enormous numbers of women will “see a major disruption in their lives if this goes through and other donors don’t step up in a major way.”

But there aren’t other donors looking to step in. Jonathan Rucks, who runs PAI’s advocacy efforts, says there is no other donor government that can make up the shortfall, and even major private family foundations, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, simply cannot replace the US on family planning. In February, Bill Gates told the Guardian that Trump’s proposed reinstatement of the global gag rule could “create a void that even a foundation like ours can’t fill.”

“If you are cutting maternal health funding, then you don’t care about survival of women,” Rucks says bluntly. “We are also going to be really frank and say this is not pro-life. This is undermining all your pro-life credentials.”

Global Health in the Trump Era: Reflections on the Backlash

by Michelle Morse

Praxis, May 17, 2017

https://www.kzoo.edu/praxis/global-health-backlash/

Over the past thirty years, American medicine has witnessed an unprecedented expansion in global health engagement amongst its trainees and faculty, partially, if not largely, fueled by the health care injustices lived so dramatically by patients in resource-limited countries around the world during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Initially seen as disruptive, the interventions in the health sectors of Global South countries by American health professionals were eventually accepted as essential acts in the movement towards achieving global health equity. As America experiences the Trump era, endless questions have arisen amongst global health professionals about the implications of Trump’s “America first” platform on global health. Will Trump’s nationalist agenda eliminate funding for life-saving global health programs, cause progressive health professionals engaged in global health to make a reactionary turn towards the fire at home, and even force global health practitioners to more closely examine their own prejudices?

It is no secret that American physicians leading the guard in global health tend to be part of the political left. Global health tends to attract left leaning physicians because of the global health movement’s belief that every human being has a right to receive high quality health care. Asserting that Global North countries have a responsibility to contribute towards strengthening health care systems in the Global South (a redistribution of resources, of sorts), global health offers the opportunity to practically address urgent health care access inequities in the Global South. Considering these principles, global health professionals like myself are deeply frustrated by the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut global health spending at USAID and other similar programs. Though many of us are rightfully drawn towards activism in the USA to resist these moves by the new administration, I worry that the health and health systems of the Global South will suffer if the majority of global health professionals shift to focus domestically without continuing their engagement in global health.

While some would say that the current neoliberal structure of development aid is already ineffective, especially since so many of the aid resources are actually directed back to the country where the aid comes from, what would it mean if global health funding was eliminated, and American global health professionals suddenly focused exclusively on domestic health? Would it allow Global South countries to assume stronger leadership, decision-making, and self-directed problem solving? Or would it mean that Global South communities would be even more deprived of much needed resources and health care access? Post-earthquake Haiti, where I have worked for seven years and lived for two of those years, is one compelling example of both the peril and the potential of aid. Of the $8 billion US funds provided in aid after the earthquake, less than 1% went to the Haitian government who was ultimately responsible for rebuilding the country. Yet, as appalling as this statistic is, it does not adequately describe the individual impact of short- and long-term global health engagement by American health professionals in response to the earthquake. Take EqualHealth for example, the organization I co-founded. EqualHealth is a nongovernmental organization focused on bringing light to the socially determined root causes of illness and creating equity in opportunity for Haitian health professionals whose talent and vision are often overshadowed by negative media narratives about Haiti, weaknesses in the Haitian public health system, and limited opportunities for professional development. All things considered, the reality is that countries like Haiti rely on the shrinking aid from global health programs such as PEPFAR to keep their health systems running despite fluctuations in attention from the donor world. Where Global South countries would find themselves without USAID, or partnership with Global North health professionals, or other mechanisms to ensure more adequate resources for pressing health concerns is as predictable as where Americans, who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance, will find themselves when it is repealed and replaced with a market-based solution.

What I have witnessed in my academic institution is an exciting and growing interest amongst trainees in building infrastructure to resist the new administration’s domestic health care and civil rights policies. To mount a harmonized response, they are looking into establishing indivisible chapters and partnerships with community based organizations, learning and using direct action methods such as bird-dogging, non-violent protest, and holding teach-ins on community organizing. These are often the very same trainees that are also interested in global health. Though many of them are considering careers in global health, opportunities for long-term global health engagement with clear career paths and mentorship are often limited, and may now become even more limited given the policies of the new American administration. On the other hand, recent significant increases in donations to organizations like Planned Parenthood could mean new opportunities for engagement for these trainees, shaping careers focused on domestic health care. This is occurring at a time when structural competency and social medicine are emerging as key areas of focus in medical school and residency curricula, and trainees are being encouraged to engage in activism as a professional obligation rather than aspiration. Health professionals often hesitated to engage in activism as it was not an explicit part of their training, and opportunities to act were difficult to identify, but these barriers seem to be evaporating under the new administration.

In response to mounting evidence documenting how health care provider prejudice impacts health, American medical schools are also developing competencies in which trainees and faculty alike are encouraged to reflect on their personal biases. These competencies are even more relevant now as the policies of this new administration threaten the rights and livelihoods of people of color, women, Muslims, and immigrants. Efforts to establish global health competencies, while laudable, have often been silent on addressing the issues of racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice amongst global health professionals. The social and cultural power and privilege clash that occurs when predominantly white global health professionals from Global North countries descend on countries in the Global South to work hand in hand with local health professionals who are predominantly people of color is a tinderbox for racism and prejudice in all its forms. The global health movement can learn from the new light being shed on the old problem of racism, as a result of the racist policies and messages coming from the Trump administration in its first 100 days. The global health movement needs to take the necessary steps to explicitly address racism and other forms of prejudice amongst its members, and ask honest questions about why more Americans of color are not currently a part of it. The far too common assumption that being left leaning, progressive, or engaged in global health is incompatible with being racist is simply incorrect.

As communities and countries in the Global South continue to suffer the consequences of neoliberalism-induced fragile health systems, some global health professionals may decide to deepen their engagement outside the USA, attempting to flee the nationalist, racist, and sexist trends of the new administration by moving and working abroad. Other global health professionals may decide to engage domestically to resist the actions of the new administration, seeing the battle for health care access and civil rights at home as more urgent and compelling. Ideally, all progressive global health professionals, whether choosing a domestic or globally focused path, will begin to address their own prejudices in new action-oriented ways.

There is a delicate but important balance between advocating for ongoing American engagement in addressing global health inequities, while also addressing domestic health care threats. One shouldn’t be prioritized over the other or at the expense of the other, as they represent two parts of the same global battle for health as a human right that culminated in the Alma Ata Declaration, lost its way, and is reemerging. Perhaps the real test will lie in America’s response under the Trump administration to the next Ebola, the next Zika, or the next HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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The cult of ignorance in the United States: Anti-intellectualism and the “dumbing down” of America

AfricaFocus Bulletin May 24, 2017 (170524) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Nigeria’s corrupt elites have profited from conflict; with oil prices at a record low, defence has provided new and lucrative opportunities for the country’s corrupt kleptocrats. Former military chiefs have stolen as much as US $15 billion – a sum equivalent to half of Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves – through fraudulent arms procurement deals.” – new report on “Weaponizing Tranparency”

This new report, excerpted in this AfricaFocus Bulletin, was released earlier this month by Transparency International, Transparency International Defence and Security and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre in Nigeria: Entitled “Weaponising Transparency: Defence Procurement Reform as a Counterterrorism Strategy in Nigeria,” it stresses that considerable progress has been made by the Buhari administration in its campaign against corruption, but that corruption is still pervasive, not least in the military. This corruption, the report argues, is one of the major impediments to an effective counterinsurgency campaign against Boko Haram.

Both topics, corruption and Boko Haram, are frequent themes of both national and international coverage of Nigeria. But this report is distinctive in closely linking the two issues, and in presenting specific proposals to strengthening anti-corruption efforts aimed at arms procurement in particular.

For a press release on the report, launched on May 18 in Abuja, visit http://tinyurl.com/mel4ozo

Notably, the report has received wide press coverage in Nigeria, but little international attention and virtually no international news coverage, although it includes the point that Nigeria’s international partners share the blame for enabling such corruption.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Nigeria, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/nigeria.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Weaponising Transparency: Defence Procurement Reform as a Counterterrorism Strategy in Nigeria

In Partnership With

Transparency International (TI; http://www.transparency.org)

Transparency International Defence and Security (TI-DS; http://ti-defence.org)

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC; http://cislacnigeria.net/)

May 2017

[full report, with other related coverage, available at http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00051928.html; Direct link to full report: http://tinyurl.com/lozqbah]

Executive Summary

Defence sector corruption is a major threat to Nigeria’s internal security and political stability. Largely unaddressed, it has weakened Nigerian counterterrorism capacity whilst strengthening Boko Haram.

Nigeria’s corrupt elites have profited from conflict; with oil prices at a record low, defence has provided new and lucrative opportunities for the country’s corrupt kleptocrats. Former military chiefs have stolen as much as US $15 billion – a sum equivalent to half of Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves – through fraudulent arms procurement deals. Defence sector corruption in Nigeria has enabled the political elite to accumulate and distribute political patronage. Longstanding military exceptionalism meanwhile, has justified weak and compromised oversight of securityrelated spending and excessive secrecy.

By far the most significant corruption opportunities are those exploited through inflating procurement contract values and creating “phantom” defence contracts. Such contracts are used as a vehicle for money laundering: facilitated via weak or corrupted Nigerian banks, illicit financial flows are often hidden in property in the UK, United States, South Africa and Dubai.

President Buhari’s government has taken significant steps to identify and prosecute individuals involved in security sector corruption. And the campaign to focus international attention on returning stolen assets has been powerful. But however effective these efforts are, they will not be enough to win the long fight against corruption. The reality is that Nigeria’s attempt to secure the repatriation of large quantities of illicitly laundered assets from places like the UK makes a better media headline than it does anti-corruption strategy.

With the President’s first term ending in 2019, the window of opportunity for far reaching change is closing rapidly. Only a holistic reform agenda can deliver the deep, systemic changes and improvements in transparency and accountability needed to prevent the next US $15 billion quietly leaving Nigeria through the back door.

Ex-Air Force Chief of Staff Adesola Amosu was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in 2016, and his trial is still ongoing. Photo credit: Premium Times

Introduction

Violent extremism thrives as a result of exploitative governing structures and state predation. Terrorist groups motivated by radical political and religious ideologies have destabilized Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, and other weak or misgoverned states. These groups have been able to co-opt disaffected populations by leveraging popular antipathy toward corrupt governments, often by presenting their own radical agenda as having greater moral value and popular legitimacy than the secular governments they seek to destroy. Predation by these regimes – whether it takes the form of elite corruption, security force abuses, or ethno-religious chauvinism – serves to validate extremist narratives about the immorality of secular governance.

The Boko Haram insurgency is now entering its fifteenth year, fed by the notorious levels of public sector corruption that have eroded the Nigerian state’s legitimacy. Politicians compete for private control of national coffers, rather than delivering public goods based on the growing needs of Nigeria’s booming population – on track to be the third largest in the world by 2050. Yet for the vast majority, corruption remains endemic and systemic, warping the social contract between the government and citizens. Patronage – not performance – is the ticket to advancement.

Securing a prosperous future for nearly 180 million people will be tough. The continent’s largest economy has, since 1970, suffered from the largest per annum illicit financial outflow on the continent as corrupt actors seek to exploit banking loopholes to launder and hide their unlawful assets. An estimated US $217.7bn was illegally transferred out of Nigeria between 1970 and 2008. The same study estimated that illegal transfers from the African continent have tripled since 2001.

Across the board, public sector corruption is undermining the state’s ability to address Nigeria’s many challenges: socioeconomic underdevelopment, unemployment and insecurity. Nowhere is the failure of governance more evident than in the northeast, a region that was already impoverished even before it was devastated by Boko Haram. The conflict has displaced over 2.6 million people and killed as many as 50,000 since May 2011.

Corruption has been particularly destructive in the defence and security sector. Overlooked in peacetime, defence sector corruption has devastating real world consequences when conflict flares. With lower oil prices, corrupt elites have increasingly exploited alternative illicit revenue streams. The secret nature of defence and security budgets has made them the easiest and most lucrative opportunity to exploit. While Boko Haram has constructed a conflict economy geared around pillage, racketeering, and kidnapping; senior players in the Nigerian security sector have also profited from the insurgency.

Extra-budgetary spending on counterterrorism has dramatically increased throughout 2014 and into 2015, and with it the scale and scope of corrupt opportunities in the defence sector. Corruption has hollowed out the Nigerian Army, the largest in West Africa, and compromised the integrity of the country’s Navy, which has been implicated in the theft of millions of barrels of crude oil in recent years. The result has been a corrupt war economy that incentivises high- ranking officials and security personnel to perpetuate conflict for personal gain. War has been a boon to Nigeria’s corrupt.

Since coming to power in May 2015, President Buhari has taken some bold action in tackling defence sector corruption. Central to his approach have been two ad hoc, temporary audit committees: one investigating spending by the Office of the National Security Adviser and one investigating defence arms and equipment procurement. Taking on the defence establishment was a significant move: the evidence uncovered by these probes revealed that several of the country’s former military chiefs, using dozens of companies, together stole as much as US $15 billion.

President Buhari’s anti-corruption drive is a rare example of senior Nigerian defence and security officials being exposed to criminal investigation. By signalling that military impunity is not without limit, it is undoubtedly a positive step forward.

The approach has been coupled with a determined attempt to see the return of Nigeria’s stolen wealth. During the London Anti-corruption Summit in May 2016, President Buhari demanded the return of illicitly laundered assets from the UK. The point was powerfully made, but sadly, the chances of success are slim. Asset recovery is a lengthy and resource heavy procedure. The UK performs relatively well compared to international peers, but even at the highest estimate, asset freezing and repatriation are tiny in relation to the vast scale of theft.

Over the past 12 years, UK enforcement agencies have prosecuted just a handful of cases – three state governors – and repatriated only a few million pounds to Nigeria. This is a fraction of what has surely been stolen. The extent of misappropriation of public funds by former General Sani Abacha is notorious. Listed as one of the top four most corrupt world leaders, during five years in office Abacha is estimated to have embezzled between US $2 and 5 billion. Despite unprecedented cooperation between UK, USA, Swiss and Nigerian authorities to return these stolen assets, the case is on-going 19 years after Abacha’s death.

Abacha and these three governors all plundered defence and security budgets. Nigeria suffers from the continent’s highest illicit financial flows because it offers the most opportunities for corruption. To stop today’s assets being misappropriated, defence sector reform must be an equal priority to enforcement and repatriation, or Nigeria’s leaders will always be chasing the past. Since independence, every civilian and military administration has come to power promising to root out corruption. Without progressing its approach to anti-corruption reform, Nigeria’s current and future governments will at best be destined to the same media headlines as its predecessors.

1. The context for defence sector corruption

“Corruption in Nigeria is not mindless…it is calculated and systematic.” former Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi

Political patronage

With evidence uncovered by the two ad hoc audit committees established by President Buhari, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s main anticorruption agency, has indicted over 300 individuals and companies for defence sector procurement theft and misappropriation.

Fifty-five people, including former government ministers, military chiefs, state governors, and bankers were reported by the committees to have stolen 1.34 trillion naira ($6.8 billion) over a seven-year period in the shape of arms equipment deals. A further $2 billion was allegedly stolen from the National Security Budget under the watch of National Security Advisor, Colonel Sambo Dasuki. What these investigations illustrate is a system of kickbacks, where billions of dollars were diverted from procurement spending, through the use of ‘briefcase’ companies, in order to fund the ruling party’s supporters and ensure electoral success for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections.

The amounts stolen are shockingly bold. Yet the misappropriation of budgets to buy political support is not new. Successive Nigerian leaders, both civilian and military, have built governmental power structures around the country’s main income stream: oil. And until recently oil revenues have typically accounted for up to 70 per cent of government revenues – feeding powerful patronage networks. Obasanjo did not even appoint an oil minister, preferring to supervise the ministry directly himself. Successive administrations have maintained the same structure: former PDP president Goodluck Jonathan, a civilian, appointed his close ally Diezani AlisonMadueke as Oil Minister. Madueke – who has recently been charged with money laundering – was described by one Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) official as, “the oil institution.”

The drop in Nigeria’s state oil revenues has hit oil sector rents hard, and this has led Nigeria’s corrupt elites to raid defence and security sector budgets to maintain their power bases. With defence budgets forming close to 20 per cent of total government spending in 2017, the sector offers lucrative rewards to Nigeria’s corrupt elite. Much of this has been hidden through large value contracts. According to the former Head of the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) – the agency established to monitor, oversee and set standards for government procurement spending – 90 per cent of bribes in Nigeria occur through procurement. Both the size and opacity of the defence sector has made it an attractive veil for fake corporate activity.

While some of this money is stolen for individual profit, a great deal is dispersed through complex patronage networks. As former Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi phrased it, “corruption in Nigeria is not mindless…it is calculated and systematic.” Sustaining political patronage is a system, a system that was previously predominantly funded by the oil sector but is now increasingly relying on plundering of the defence and security budget. Former President Goodluck Jonathan expended unprecedented amounts of patronage, even beyond historical norms, to improve his electoral chances. One former adviser observed that President Jonathan and his allies acted “with a siege mentality” within an unstable PDP. The oil and defence sectors were exploited to record levels in order to sure up an extensive patronage network and safeguard President Jonathan’s political future. These kleptocractic networks have yet to be disabled.

Kleptocratic capture of the defence sector

What is overwhelmingly clear from the results of the ad hoc audit committee investigations is the extent of unmonitored, systemic control over the defence sector by senior government elites. The lack of clear separation between the executive and the military is a long running problem. Despite the formal end of military rule in 1999, the military has played a significant role in political life. With control of the armed forces and a monopoly on access to arms, military generals have the power to protect access to resource rents and ensure their place within the ruling elite.

Kleptocratic capture of the defence sector rests on three pillars: capture of defence budgets and income, capture of defence spending and procurement, and capture of senior military posts. Facilitating this capture are powerful senior figures – godfathers – who select and appoint personnel to defence sector positions, in order to operationalise systemic control over security finances. The system facilitates control from the highest levels of the political party to the lowest levels of the military.

Appointments can also be used as political bargaining chips: former President Jonathan cemented a pre-election political alliance with former head of state Ibrahim Babangida by appointing Aliyu Mohammed – a long-time Babangida loyalist, ex-Army chief, and NSA to two presidents – as minister. As one Nigerian Army officer put it, the “selection of officials [both civilian and military] is done politically and based on who is who. Even when personnel are picked to oversee certain aspects that involve anything in procurement, it is done based on the gain expected or to be reaped by the ‘godfather’ who does the selection.”

Among the rank-and-file, chronic pay shortfalls, inadequate training, and dilapidated facilities create powerful incentives for corruption by undercutting the overall professionalism and morale of the military. As the military’s esprit de corps has eroded, so too has its sense of purpose and focus on its core missions. Over time individual officers and soldiers have come to prioritise their own personal wellbeing – or even their mere subsistence – over the needs of the service. Perceiving themselves to be victims of corrupt behaviour, such as the skimming of allowances or embezzlement of essential operational funds, many have lost faith in the legitimacy of the system and the patrimonial guarantees made to them when they joined it.

Excessive secrecy

In any country, a proportion of spending must remain confidential for security reasons; typically 15 per cent, including among states in conflict. Yet Nigeria classifies nearly all defence contracts and budgets, and considers any broadlydefined security-related matter ‘secret’ by definition.

Even according to the Nigerian government, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) ranks among the agencies least compliant with the 2011 Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Civil society, meanwhile, ranks the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) among those security agencies most resistant to disclosing information in response to FOI requests. These opaque habits are cultural remnants of the decades Nigeria spent under military rule that have been preserved by contemporary military and civilian leaders keen to forestall outside scrutiny of their activities. As a result, Nigeria ranks among those countries at the highest risk of corruption due to the overclassification of budget data and weak oversight of secret budgets.

This culture of secrecy is often openly hostile or vengeful towards journalists and civil society. In December 2015, soldiers reportedly perpetrated gross human rights violations during two separate military crackdowns in Zaria and Onitsha. In response to these allegations the Nigerian Army has labelled its critics as “unscrupulous and unpatriotic”. Meanwhile President Buhari’s government has failed to take any action to hold the military to account for incidents such as the deaths of several thousand detainees – due to starvation, torture, and disease – at the Giwa Barracks military prison between 2011 and 2014.

Similarly, in June 2016 Nigeria’s Minister of Defence condemned media reports about the Chief of Army Staff’s links to high-end property in Dubai describing them as “disgruntled and unpatriotic elements” and warning the media that they should show more “professionalism [when reporting on] security and defence related matters”. In September 2016, military soldiers and officers of the State Security Services allegedly stripped and beat ten journalists and media workers with barbed wire before arresting them.

The Nigerian military’s hostile response to scrutiny reinforces the perception that it is distinct from other state institutions and can play by a different set of rules. Moreover, there has been a long standing culture among senior officers that rank has its privileges and that promotion to top echelons comes with the prerogative to use one’s position for personal gain. This heavily undermines public trust.

Military exceptionalism

Despite Nigeria’s 1999 return to democratic rule, the oversight exercised by civilian officials and other watchdogs over the military and security agencies remains very weak. Weak accountability has enabled powerholders along the entire defence spending chain to misappropriate state funds, from the Presidency down to unit commanders at ground level.

Although the Senate and the House of Representatives have several security committees (National Security and Intelligence, Defence, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Police Affairs), members of these panels rarely undertake in-depth oversight activities. With defence sector spending shrouded in secrecy, entities such as civil society groups, media organisations, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), the Auditor General of the Federation, and National Assembly committees are similarly unable to marshal sufficient information to play watchdog, even if they have the formal legal authority to do so.

By establishing two ad hoc investigatory committees to audit the ONSA and past defence procurement, President Buhari has attempted to sidestep existing undeveloped or ineffective oversight institutions. Official announcements from the Presidency declared the probe would investigate contracts entered into from 2007 to 2015, but critics claim that current ruling party members implicated in fraud have been allowed to pay to evade charges, while opposition supporters have been held without bail and charged. Whether or not accusations over political manipulations are true, the reality is that these ad hoc bodies lack the legitimacy and credibility to be a successful long-term solution.

The acquiescence of international partners

International military partners have a part to play and have done precious little to disincentivise Nigerian security-sector corruption. By failing to integrate effective anti-corruption measures into their security engagement policies, partners are inadvertently diminishing the impact of their military assistance. US military and police aid to Nigeria, totalled US $45.4 million from 2010 to 2014, but was just a small fraction of the more than US $2 billion in security funds that was allegedly stolen by Nigeria’s previous National Security Advisor – who for three decades enjoyed a close relationship with Washington.

Key international suppliers of Nigerian military hardware are facilitating fraud by agreeing to uncompetitive or unorthodox contracts. In 2013, Nigeria officials reportedly skimmed US $20 million from an internet surveillance contract directly awarded to an Israeli company in defiance of public procurement competition rules. Likewise, a former air-force chief admitted embezzling millions via seven arms contracts directly awarded to a Ukrainian company.

International partners are missing opportunities to encourage reform. The United States’ efforts to sell 12 A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft to the Nigerian Air Force – whose last three chiefs, along with other senior officers, are currently on trial for embezzlement and procurement fraud – looks like business as usual. Contracts such as this are opportunities to prompt change, yet it is not at all clear that the Nigerian Air Force has become more transparent about its finances and procurement; and the senior air force officer invited to Washington in July 2015 to discuss the Super Tucano sale, has since been charged with corruption.

The widespread use of both international and Nigerian agents to facilitate such deals also increases opportunities for inflating contracts and paying bribes, as illustrated by the recent investigation into Rolls-Royce. Although this case is a good example of how strong, coordinated international enforcement efforts can make businesses accountable for unethical conduct.

Disrupting financial crime

The most effective action against asset flight is to prevent it occurring in the first place; and here the Nigerian and international financial sectors could play a much greater role. Recent evidence from the Presidentially-appointed ad hoc Audit Committees has shown that stolen funds often pass through multiple accounts before being moved offshore beyond the reach of domestic authorities. As facilitators of corrupt funds, both Nigerian and international banks need to raise their standards of governance and control. Those that repeatedly fail should be sanctioned or shut down. But this is not currently happening: Skye Bank has been consistently implicated in the EFCC’s corruption and fraud prosecutions, such as the current N22.8 billion trial of three former air force chiefs and an Air Force Director of Finance for money laundering. Skye Bank has been indicted alongside the defendants, yet the Central Bank of Nigeria has not used its sanctioning powers to hold board members to account. Instead, the Central Bank allowed board members to announce they had “voluntarily resigned” – despite evidence of gross insider malpractice, including by the Chairman Tunde Ayeni. Ayeni is a close associate of President Jonathan and convicted PDP governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. Whilst chair of Skye Bank, Ayeni was also chair of Joint Aviation Services Limited – a briefcase company involved in bidding for inflated defence procurement contracts – highlighting the high level of elite control of defence spending and money laundering.

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AfricaFocus Bulletin May 17, 2017 (170517) (Reposted from sources cited below) Editor’s Note “We, the undersigned representatives of African civil society, express our deep concern regarding efforts by the European Union and France to hijack the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), an African-owned and African-led initiative endorsed by all 55 African Heads of State to scale up renewable energy on our continent.” April 6 statement by Pan African Climate Justice Alliance and over 200 civil society networks and groups from 34 African countries. In light of the threats to the climate coming from the new U.S. administration, it is tempting to look to other leading powers, including those in Europe and Asia, to provide positive examples of international action on climate change. Yet it is also clear that these actions fall short of what is needed. African activists are taking the lead in pointing out these inconsistencies. This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes documents and links illustrating that point, both on the continent-side statement cited above and on current mobilization in Kenya against plans for a major new coal plant in Lamu. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on energy-related issues, see http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++ NET hearings ongoing in Lamu Proceedings of court hearings, 11–12 May 2017 deCOALonize: the anti-coal, pro-renewable, pro-community, pro-sustainable development campaign in Kenya [Excerpts only: for full report with links and photos, see https://medium.com/@deCOAL/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/l3k9xax] [For additional background see http://www.decoalonize.org/ and http://www.savelamu.org/] From 11 to 12 May 2017, Kenya’s National Environmental Tribunal (NET) held hearings in Lamu County to consider community groups’ objections regarding the insufficiency of the proposed Lamu coal plant’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment. They visited the site and heard from witnesses pertaining to the proposed site, local community, and its ecosystem. NET commissioners on site visit to Lamu The objections were filed by a handful of residents, Save Lamu, and Natural Justice, in response to the granting of a license for the ESIA by the National Environmental Management Authority. Following this week’s site visit, NEMA will hold a second hearing in Nairobi later this month. Media coverage of hearings (to date) Mainstream media coverage of the 11–12 May National Environmental Tribunal meetings has been thus far limited to a handful of articles. A second round of allegations by the County Commissioner Kanyiri accusing anti-coal plant activists of being “used by cartels” appeared in The Star, despite citing no evidence. The Star further reported that Lamu Women Representative Shakila Abdalla pledges to take the matter to High Court (which the community groups already intend to do). Meanwhile, the Business Daily reported on the anti-coal demonstrations, a silent march through Lamu town, and community views: Protestors accused the Lamu County government, the National Environment and Management Authority (Nema) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) of trying to force the project on them. “We will continue fighting till the end. The project is harmful and that’s why it has been rejected in Kitui and other places in this country. We will not allow such kind of a project unless they come up with an alternative and environmental friendly project rather than coal. We are for green energy,” Ishaq Abubakar, a resident opposed to the project said. [continued at http://tinyurl.com/l3k9xax] As the World Cuts Back on Coal, a Growing Appetite in Africa New coal plants in Africa are largely being paid for by China and developed countries that are turning away from the technology at home. Here’s why. By Jonathan W. Rosen National Geographic, May 10, 2017 [Excerpts only. For full article see http://news.nationalgeographic.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/lwtqs7g] Lamu, Kenya – Few places in the world exude a sense of timelessness as Lamu, an island off of Kenya’s northern coast home to the oldest and best preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa. Lamu’s old town, a UNESCO World Heritage site and an epicenter of Indian Ocean trade for centuries, is a maze of narrow winding streets that cut through neighborhoods of limestone and coral houses, past elaborately carved mahogany doors and several dozen mosques and churches. Only a handful of motor vehicles are allowed on the island; transportation is mainly the domain of donkeys or men pushing wooden carts thorough the tropical swelter. Yet Lamu Island’s 24,000 residents are faced with what many here call an existential crisis. Some 15 miles north of town, on a sparsely populated seaside area of the mainland formerly used for growing maize, cashews, and sesame, a Kenyan company known as Amu Power is preparing to erect a $2 billion coal power plant, the first of its kind in East Africa. Financed with Chinese, South African, and Kenyan capital, and built by the stateowned Power Construction Corporation of China, the plant is intended to add 1,050 megawatts of capacity to Kenya’s national grid and power operations of an adjacent 32 berth deep-water port. Both are part of an ambitious government plan to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country by 2030. The project is controversial in part due to the risks it poses to Lamu’s delicate marine environment, which many fear will harm its two most vital industries: fishing and tourism. Yet it is also emblematic of Africa’s growing appetite for coal, the most polluting form of power generation, which until now has existed in significant quantities only in the continent’s most industrialized country, South Africa. According to data compiled by CoalSwarm, an industry watchdog, more than 100 coalgenerating units with a combined capacity of 42.5 gigawatts are in various stages of planning or development in 11 African countries outside of South Africa—more than eight times the region’s existing coal capacity. Nearly all are fueled by foreign investment, and roughly half are being financed by the world’s largest coal emitter: China. This comes at a time when China and India, which accounted for 86 percent of global coal development over the last decade, are putting coal projects on hold at record rates due to existing overcapacity, the lowering cost of renewables, and crippling pollution that is thought to kill more than a million people a year in the case of China alone. Many of the world’s more developed countries are also in the process of phasing out the fuel as a power source. “So many states are now withdrawing coal because of its emissions—because of its environmental destruction,” says Walid Ahmed, a member of Save Lamu, a local coalition that’s trying to stop the Amu Power project. “So we don’t see why they should bring it here.” [for more see http://tinyurl.com/lwtqs7g] EU, France accused of hijacking ‘Africa-led’ clean energy scheme April 27, 2017 African head of $10bn programme quits, saying French environment minister Ségolène Royal intervened to impose EU-preferred projects By Megan Darby http://www.climatechangenews.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/l3t9su7 [For May 10 amd May 17 updates from Climate Change News, see http://tinyurl.com/ka63foh and http://tinyurl.com/mwktayd Notably, French environment minister Royal has moved ahead with her own plan for a replacement for the former director.] A $10bn clean energy programme launched at the Paris climate talks “by Africa, for Africa” is in turmoil after interventions by the EU and France. Youba Sokona saw the African Renewable Energy Initiative as a chance for Africans to take control of climate finance. In a resignation letter obtained by Climate Home, the top official of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), Youba Sokona, accused donors of a deliberate strategy to “railroad” Africans into rubber-stamping projects selected by Europeans. Matters came to a head in Conakry, Guinea, on 4 March, where the board approved 19 projects worth €4.8 billion ($5.2bn). By Sokona’s account, the Europeans present “managed to effectively force through” the list, overriding “a string of reservations” expressed by some African members. “There was evident contempt for, and abandonment of, the AREI principles,” he wrote. Youba Sokona (Pic: Flickr/Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung/Stephan Röhl)When launched, the AREI was vaunted as a scheme to bring clean power to the continent, on African terms. But many of the projects chosen by European Commission representatives are neither new, renewable nor owned by Africans. Sokona announced his resignation on the spot and leaves the post at the end of April, with no replacement lined up. French environment minister Ségolène Royal and EU commissioner for international development Neven Mimica led the non-African delegation at the meeting. Mimica’s EU officials chose the projects, but according to Sokona’s letter, Royal asked him to present them to the AREI board. He refused, on the basis he had not seen the list until two days earlier. High-level representatives from Egypt, the African Development Bank – which hosts the AREI staff – and the African Union expressed concerns at the board meeting about bypassing the AREI screening process. But the presidents of former French colonies Chad and Guinea, Idriss Déby and Alpha Condé, aligned with the Europeans in urging members to give the go-ahead, Climate Home understands. Two officials from Royal’s private office acknowledged there had been disagreement, but denied Royal had exerted undue influence. President Condé convened the meeting, they said, and Royal was there to “facilitate”. “Our minister was very keen to help him push forward quickly and efficiently. It was important for everybody to jump-start the initiative… and not have it bogged down by governance issues,” said Royal’s advisors. This was an “exceptional process”, they added. “The decision was made by the Africans to select the projects as soon as this meeting because they considered that the projects were ready to be moved forward – despite the fact that the governance is not fully set up and finalised.” A spokesperson confirmed that the European Commission had identified 14 of the projects, at the request of the AREI board. Five that had been first presented at UN climate talks in Marrakech were then added to the list. Minutes of the meeting have yet to be published, nearly two months later. The incident is a fracture in the solidarity that allowed rich and poor countries to reach a climate agreement in Paris. Under the UN deal, many developing countries put forward their first ever pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Those commitments hinge on financial support from the developed world. But where the money comes from and who controls where it goes remain fraught questions. In this case, donors – which include Canada, the US and Japan as well as EU member states – pledged to “mobilise” $10 billion by 2020. This is to install 10GW of “new and additional” clean power capacity across the continent. But while the African technical team expected this to mean new climate finance, the developed countries argued for old money to count towards meeting the 10GW goal. In their joint statement from Paris, they said the money would flow “through a variety of mechanisms”, including a list of existing finance programmes. The resulting first tranche comes from various development banks and involves only one euro of public funding to 15 of private investment. Critics say the minimal public input indicates the projects were already commercially viable. That suggests the initiative has relabelled business-as-usual, not driven the access to clean energy Africans need. The list presented by the EU to Africans includes four large grid infrastructure projects, which support clean and dirty energy alike1. An interconnector planned for west Africa will facilitate “large-scale development” of hydropower and natural gas resources, according to the World Bank. At least one of the initiatives – the Tendaho geothermal project in Ethiopia – got funding approval before the AREI launched. This was all agreed by the African board, Royal’s advisors stressed. “A lot of these projects, they don’t come out of a bag just like that, a lot of them have been in the pipeline for a long time… If it was not for AREI, maybe these projects would still be in limbo.” Western private investors stand to benefit from the deals. For example, the privately-owned 30MW Djermaya solar plant in Chad is being developed by a group of companies headquartered in London, Paris and Toronto. Whatever the side-benefits, Chadians will pay for this clean energy and the profits end up in Westerners’ pockets. This was not the programme Sokona, a Malian with four decades’ experience in energy policy and sustainable development, had in mind. He laid much of the groundwork for AREI unpaid before being officially appointed to lead the independent delivery unit from August 2016. In a video on the AREI homepage, he explains his intention to “reverse the dynamic” whereby aid donors typically set the agenda. Under his vision, African countries would put forward proposals to be screened by African technical experts and approved by African leaders. “It is not energy per se. It is how to change the life of the people, how to give to them better conditions, better situation and better future.1 The technology is only a pretext to do that,” Sokona said in the video. By January 2017, Sokona’s team had identified a pipeline of 442 projects across Africa, but not filtered them through AREI criteria. An AREI report on the list of projects notes the “over-whelming dominance of plans for large regional projects” rather than “transformative” programmes for energy access and capacity building. At the same time, Royal was taking matters into her own hands. She had assumed the presidency of COP21, the historic 2015 Paris climate summit, after the event. This was a chance to start putting the Paris Agreement into practice. It may also have bolstered her credentials for an (ultimately unsuccessful) bid to lead the UN development programme. A report presented on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in September 2016 put Royal’s name above the AREI logo. It includes more than 20 photos of her touring African countries and glad-handing leaders. In the foreword, she hails the “extraordinary potential” of the initiative. “We… need Africa to be able to make a real difference with its own solutions,” she writes. Yet in the end, Africans were left out of the loop. Hearing of the Conakry row, nearly 200 African civil society organisations signed an open letter objecting to the EU “hijacking” the initiative. Tasneem Essop, founder of the Energy Democracy Initiative in South Africa, described the European players’ behaviour as “absolutely shocking”. “[AREI] was one of the most inspirational initiatives emerging from Africa. We were so desperate for this kind of leadership,” she told Climate Home. Far from the focus on community access to clean energy Essop hoped for, the EU list represented “business as usual”. And the way it was imposed was all too reminiscent of the history of development finance being dictated by the rich. “We thought we had passed those ways, but this is such an explicit and crude grab, it is mind-boggling that this could have happened now.” Essop argued that the developed world, which bears most responsibility for causing global warming, has a duty to support Africa in clean growth. “They [donors] think it is charity. It is not charity. This is very much part of the obligations under the UN climate convention.” The civil society letter calls on the EU and France to surrender any aspiration to board membership and respect the initiative’s autonomy. “AREI must be run by Africans for Africans. Interference in African governance belongs to another era,” it says. Asked how France would rebuild trust in the process, Royal’s advisors said: “It is an African-led initiative and it is really for the Africans to discuss this and make sure [the process] is inclusive. What our minister can do is mention this to President Condé and she will work to that effect, as a facilitator.” Stop European Hijacking of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative Statement by African Civil Society April 7, 2017 http://www.pacja.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/kvbysco We, the undersigned representatives of African civil society, express our deep concern regarding efforts by the European Union and France to hijack the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), an African-owned and African-led initiative endorsed by all 55 African Heads of State to scale up renewable energy on our continent. AREI (http://www.arei.org) was launched by the African governments with the support of African citizens during COP21 in Paris, with the goal to provide at least 10 billion watts (10GW) of new and additional renewable energy to Africa’s peoples by 2020, and put the continent on course to add at least another 300 GW and achieve universal access to energy for all Africans by 2030. It was supported by $10 billion in pledges for 2015-2020 by developed countries in Paris. AREI as defined in its framework, principles and work plans is a unique initiative. It is aligned with our values of people-centred approaches, community rights, equity and a bold vision of Africa taking a global lead towards flourishing societies powered by clean, renewable energy. Since Paris, an Independent Delivery Unit was set up to deliver in accordance with AREI’s people-centred principles and approaches. The expectation was that a Board with Heads of State representing each African sub-region would be established, supported by a technical committee involving broad representation and participation by civil society. AREI’s integrity and promise of bringing light and energy to Africa’s people is now being gravely threatened by the efforts of the European Union and France for premature, undue approval of ‘their’ projects and seeming attempts to co-opt the initiative to serve their ends, supported by a small handful of Africans. At a Board Meeting convened in Conakry on 4 March, we understand the European Union and France have: Publicly “announced the preparation of 19 new renewable energy projects, with a total potential investment of €4.8 billion” (EU press release 4 March – http://bit.ly/2mLxiqG) – when they are actually claiming to provide a mere 1/16th or €0.3 billion of this amount, not all of which is for “new projects” or even for “renewable energy”, and with no clarity whether any of these are “additional'” efforts. Managed to have rammed through the Board for adoption these partly EU-funded projects, despite the express objections from some African countries and institutions, and contrary to the principles of African ownership that would expect project priorities and proposals to stem directly from African countries Ignored and bypassed AREI’s own evaluation process in accordance to its criteria ( http://bit.ly/2mwiMDr) – developed with African and northern government, civil society and otherstakeholder inputs. These require all projects be assessed in line with AREI social, environmental, gender and other principles and safeguards before any approvals can be made Claiming Board memberships when they seem to have only been invited to the meetings (AREI minutes of the first inaugural board on 29 January – http://bit.ly/2mY6b82) and contrary to the idea there should be one developing and one developed non-African country in the Board. Pushed for the imposition of EU technical experts to supposedly take control of AREI core documents to be consistent with European interests All the above seems to have caused the Head of the Independent Delivery Unit, a prominent and well- respected African, to declare his resignation. These actions have been enabled by one or two African states while the interests of the majority of States, and of Africans, have been set aside. While we acknowledge that the EU has scaled up support for African renewables since COP21 in Paris, these most recent behaviors are completely unacceptable. Recycling existing projects as “new” ones for AREI virtually ensures it will fail to meet its goal of 10 billion watts of “new and additional renewable energy generation capacity by 2020”, leaving Africans in the dark. Listing projects in numerous African countries without their consent means these countries may miss out on genuinely new and additional resources from AREI in the future, undermining the legitimate expectations of those countries and their people. These carefully staged interferences in Africa’s institutions threaten not merely the potential of AREI to deliver new renewable energy, they call into question the independence and sanctity of African governance arrangements, including the African Union. Based on these concerns, we call on all African States, leaders and people to demand genuinely people- centred renewable energy for Africa, building on the great model set out by AREI and endorsed by all African countries. We demand: That the European Union and France step aside and abandon any aspirations to have seats as Board members, and ensure AREI remains African-led and African-owned. AREI must be run by Africans for Africans. Interference in African governance belongs to another era. Full accountability, transparency and participation must be provided for African states and for civil society in all aspects of AREI. The Initiative cannot and must not become a tool for one or two African States to benefit themselves or their European counterparts. That any ‘endorsement’ by the Board of the 19 existing EU projects is indefinitely suspended until a thorough review against AREI Criteria, environmental and social safeguards, prior informed consent by the States and citizens concerned, and active civil society participation are undertaken. It must be for individual African states and people, not the EU, to propose projects to AREI. That all further funding and projects through AREI be genuinely “new and additional” to ensure the delivery of real outcomes for our people, with no more accounting tricks, and to ensure that developed countries are accountable and meet their financial obligations. That active participation by all civil society constituencies is ensured at all levels of AREI including its governing bodies, its workplan and project development, and project implementation on the ground. That African countries immediately take action to put AREI back on track and ensure full independence for the Independent Delivery Unit from donors, the African Development Bank and other third parties, and the reinstatement of its Head We call for all partners in government, academia, faith-based, labour, gender, environmental, community-based organizations, national coalitions and regional and international networks to join us in championing a truly African-led and peoplecentred approach to renewable energy on our continent. AREI needs to succeed. We hereby sign on to this statement: Regional Groups & Networks Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) Kenya [Full list includes almost 200 civil society groups and networks from Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Chad, Djibouti, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe [Note: an statement of support for the African civil society demands was circulating as this AfricaFocus was prepared, and will be available on-line later today. AfricaFocus will post a link to that statement in the web version of this Bulletin as soon as possible.] Key excerpts from a semi-final draft of this international letter to the European Union/European Commission and France, are as follows: “We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to express our dismay at the actions of France and the EU regarding the governance of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), and to show our support for the demands of African civil society to reverse these developments.” “For all these reasons, we fully support the demands of African civil society to reverse recent developments and put the AREI and its leadership and governance back on track, as outlined in their recent statement.” “The AREI is an African-led initiative that, with proper governance, has the potential to address the energy needs of African peoples and the planet’s climate challenges. Only by respecting the initiative’s African sovereignty, ensuring projects are aligned with AREI criteria, and providing genuine support can the EU and France help to meet these goals.” AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org

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