>> Henning Melber

Africa is NOT a Great Country!

5 comments April 8, 2013

by Francis Matambalya, Senior Researcher at The Nordic Africa Institute and Professor at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and

Henning Melber, Senior Advisor/Director emeritus of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and the University of the Free State.

Africa is a big continent with more than 50 countries. In fact, it is the second biggest continent after Asia. Africa is not a great country. Neither is Europe a great country, nor Asia, nor Latin America.

The difference seems to be, that nobody would even consider calling these continents a country – Why then Africa? Jens Assur’s fine pictures from Africa do not add up to a “great country”, as the title of the exhibition (“Africa is a Great Country”) – to open this week at Liljevalchs in Stockholm – suggests.

Coming from a diverse continent that has been very much misconstrued, we are weary and worried by a potentially denigrating language, even if this narrative is done with the best of intentions.

Sweet and sour ― China’s promises to Africa

6 comments April 2, 2013

By Henning Melber, Senior Adviser/Director emeritus of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, and

Iina Soiri, Director of The Nordic Africa Institute

The presence of China and Chinese in Africa has changed global and African realities. While elites have until recently mostly praised Chinese contracts, ordinary people have more often felt threatened in their livelihoods. Chinese compete with them in economic activities, in which Europeans have never been directly engaged.

The recent BRICS Summit in Durban was part of the new realities, though it was not welcomed by all. A broad local alliance of social movements mobilized against the Summit. The protest movement does not consider the new configuration of any benefit for the majority of the African people.

The call for responsible states in Africa to make use of the new economic opportunities provided by China and the other BRICS to promote social development at home offers space for a renewed partnership with the old friends in Europe. The Nordic countries can provide support to strengthen and increase African governments’ bargaining positions.

Save the SADC Tribunal!

1 comments August 3, 2012

by Henning Melber, Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden and Extraordinary Professor at the Department of Political Sciences/University of Pretoria; member of Swapo since 1974.

The SADC Tribunal was officially inaugurated in 2005 in a major step towards the establishment of a sub-regional common rule of law. After several judgments ruling against the Zimbabwean government, the Tribunal was de facto suspended at the 2010 summit.

An independent review commissioned by SADC concluded that suspending the court violated the international legal obligations of the member states. The SADC Lawyers Association declared the continued suspension of the SADC Tribunal illegal and as a breach of the SADC Treaty and the SADC Protocol.

Since then a number of human rights organisations and prominent individuals in the region, including Desmond Tutu, campaign for the full restoration of the Tribunal.

The Tribunal’s future will be discussed at the 32nd SADC summit in mid-August in Maputo.

The dysmal prospects of Rio+20

June 20, 2012

by Henning Melber, Executive Director, and Robert Österbergh, Project Coordinator, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden.

When the international community now convenes again in Rio, they have to deal with a harsher reality than twenty and forty years ago. While global GDP has grown by 75% since 1992, the planet has never been under such massive pressure. Humanity is now facing its biggest threat so far, global warming.

In just 15 years’ time, global demand for natural resources has doubled, with the regeneration of renewable resources that humans consume in a year now taking 1.5 years. The UN report “A Future Worth Choosing” estimates that in 2030, the world will need at least 50% more food, 45% more energy, and 30% more water.

It is against this background of increasingly greater challenges in almost every environmental respect, that the Conference, popularly known as Rio +20, takes place. The prospect of achieving adequate and legally binding commitments to address environmental degradation is unlikely to be better today than on previous occasions.

World governments should now establish global sustainability goals on the model of the Millennium Development Goals (2000) for poverty reduction and development. An institutional condition is to upgrade the UN Environment Programme to a full UN body to ensure that commitments are fulfilled. The world has never needed it as much as today.

On the State of the State in (not only) African Development

1 comments May 14, 2012

by Henning Melber, Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden and Extraordinary Professor at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa; formerly Research Director at the Nordic Africa Institute.

The ‘developmental state’ was a populist slogan suggesting development first while democracy, human rights and social justice would follow later, though development hardly happened outside of the elite circles. Neither did democracy and human rights follow.

A responsible state acting in the public interest takes measures for the security and wellbeing of all. It must thus protect against the abuse of access to public goods and the protection of non-renewable natural resources.

This applies especially in the case of people who suffer marginalization and are subject to corporate encroachment upon their means of survival. A responsible state would ensure strict and categorical intervention to protect the victims and prosecute the perpetrators.

A state’s legitimacy lies in seeking equality and justice. Sustainable development needs to be development for all, both locally and globally, and cannot take place at the expense of others, be it in their own country or elsewhere.