G-20 Summit: Why Africa should prioritize Global Governance Initiative

By Ochiaka Ugwu

All is set for G20 summit in South Africa, the first time this will be held in African soil in its nearly 26 years of existence, The two-day summit kicks off Saturday November 22 through to 23 and is expected to attract leaders and top diplomats from more than 40 countries as well as global institutions like the United Nations. The summit will also bring together leaders from the world’s largest economies to address pressing global challenges and foster economic cooperation.

But the G-2 which includes China and United States are expected to provide leadership and economic direction in the summit especially to most African Nations still crawling in world economic index to leverage on the hosting right to retool their economy and place their nation in the world wellness graph.

Unfortunately, the United State has announced a boycott which most African country consider a humiliation on their collective interest being the first time the summit will be hosted in the continent. US President, Donald Trump will not attend the summit in a boycott over his widely-rejected claims that South Africa’s Black-led government is pursuing racist, anti-white policies and violently persecuting its Afrikaner minority. Claims that have been widely rejected as baseless, but the US government boycott threatens to undermine the first G20 summit in Africa and most African nations are not taking it lightly.

Based on this development, it means that the whole responsibility of addressing these challenges now squarely fell on China being one of the foremost advanced economies that has opened itself to other nations of the world to tap into for mutual benefits.

However, Nigeria having confirmed participation had sent high powered delegation to the summit after Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu who was earlier scheduled to travel to South Africa for the summit cancelled his journey owing to some domestic challenges. The delegation among other things is expected to reach out to some of these developed economies especially China to discuss issues pertaining to the development of Nigeria’s political, trade and economic cooperation as well as current regional matters like insecurity. At the summit, they are also expected extract commitment on establishing an intergovernmental commission to respectively sustain contacts and accelerate the process and trend of whatever they must have agreed upon with big economics notably, China.

Believing that this is time for sovereign equality in global governance given the traction GGI has attracted following it inauguration by Beijing, the whole African delegation should as matter of necessity and priority discuss the provisions of Global Governance Initiative as they hold the short end of the stick in global affairs for the summit to interrogate the ln-equality of sovereign states in current global governance.

Recall the Chinese President, XI Jinping at the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) underscored the dangers of sovereign inequality when he put forward the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), emphasizing that ‘’staying committed to sovereign equality’’ is the foremost premise of global governance. The delegations should leverage on Xi’s position to drive home their point with aim of meeting up with the aspirations and yearning of their peoples.

However, African delegations need to push the narrative of significant and growing demand from ‘’the international majority,’’ the Global South made up of mostly the developing countries for a rearrangement of global governance based on the principle of sovereign equality, the rule of law, genuine multilateralism (the principle of collective action to address common goals and solve problems that are bigger than any one nation can tackle alone), and the ability to solve global problems effectively.

Moreover, this should serve as a response to the current Western-led international system, which the Global South and others argue excessively favors a few advantaged countries and marginalizes African nations. Adding that for decades, the resources of the African nations have been relentlessly exploited by Western powers. Most western nations-industrial complex profits from arms sales to developing nations. Western corporations reap enormous gains from disparities between raw material and finished-product prices, and the West financial system, that continues to rely on Petro-dollars from the Middle East and Africa.

Africa delegations should advocate for balance of trade and real investment in Africa like the Chinese has done in many African nations especially in Nigeria where there are manufactured goods tagged: “Made in Nigeria with China”. This would no doubt absorb the teaming unemployed youth roaming the streets becoming ready tools for violence acts.

With the West prosperity been built on tightening control over the natural and human resources of the African countries, through modern forms of subjugation, African Delegations should invoke the United Nations resolution against colonialism that is aimed to empower oppressed nations, which states that every country has the right to determine its own political future, thereby fostering global equality and freedom as enunciated by President Xi Jinping.

This UN provision also advances the global equality agenda by affirming the accountability of developed nations and urging them to accelerate technology transfer and public goods to countries in need. The delegation should insist on this to birth the much-needed massive African industrialization takeoff. African nations raising the issue of a global model for development of Africa to a new international level is essential and needed at this material time. There should be call on the West to recognize historical injustices, take developing nations’ interests into account, and consider debt relief as a form of support and encouragement for African Economic growth. This should be the greatest gift the developed countries should extend to Africa as it needed it most now.

Exploitation has continued with the global trade structured in a way that allows developed economies to appropriate a large net number of resources and labour from the Global South through price differentials for raw materials versus finished goods. Way and method of balancing this needs to be raised and addressed at the summit.

Instructively, both World Bank and IMF policies are helping to impoverish Africans as they prioritize neoliberal reforms like privatization and austerity. These have been linked to increased poverty, unemployment, and inequality. These policies tend to favour Western corporations, and reduce national sovereignty.

The fact remains that conditions attached to loans to developing economies which African nations fall into including Nigeria undermine their national sovereignty by forcing them to adopt policies they may not agree with, thus hindering their ability to pursue their desired path for development. These policies tend to involve reducing government borrowing- higher taxes and lower spending; higher interest rates to stabilize the currency; allow failing firms to go broke; structural adjustment – privatization, deregulation, and bureaucracy. The problem is that these policies of structural adjustment and macroeconomic intervention can make difficult economic situation worse.

Recent findings show that the West has continued to rely on a large appropriation from the Global South, including billions of tons of raw materials and hundreds of billions of man hours of labour yearly, visible not only in primary commodities, but also in high-tech industrial goods.

The delegation should focus again primarily on education and training, as it is considered an important area in African overall development. Thousands of Nigerian citizens are studying in China, with most of them on scholarship of Chinese government, and after completing their course of study, will make significant contributions to the development of their homeland in future. This relationship needs to be expanded and given a boost. It should signify a new era in bilateral relations with the opening of opportunities in education and other areas of learning.

Although, Nigeria is a nation with several priorities, but one area that plays a key role is education. It will be an excellent way to make a significant contribution to the development of relations and in the country. And I believe that opening new frontiers of deeper cooperation with China and other nations will only allow Nigeria to expand bilateral cooperation in this area.

Nigeria should be emphatic on getting the commitment of China and other developed economics in fighting terrorism and security in West African region. China having an advanced military should help the countries of the West African region in the fight against terrorism. This is extremely important for the region, because it is too vulnerable to attacks by terrorists operating in the corners of these countries. West Africa region suffers from the terrorist threat, and in this regard, China has to support these West Africa countries with Nigeria leading the negotiation.

Therefore, Nigeria delegation and their African brothers should move for a resolution to ensure that the West recognize historical injustices and take the interests of the developing nations into account, this would not only strengthen the international standing of any participating state, but also augment its credibility both within its region and beyond, while reinforcing its positions in bilateral relations with developed countries. It will see that no world power would threaten to invade any country to achieve their enlightened self- interest on the principle of sovereign equality of states.