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State of Africa – Parameters and Legacies of Governance 171 PART 3 External Relations and Issue Areas Introduction It is neither superÁuous nor an exaggeration to observe that post-Cold War politics can be characterised as a period of partnership. Global and regional institutions, states, major non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and the specialised agencies of the UN have referred to partnership as a vital channel through which debates and policy discourse about development are expected to take place. The call for it has been massive. Nevertheless, the partnership between Africa and Euro-Anglo-American states faces a serious crisis of legitimacy. It is an area of political contestation . The crisis is rooted in unequal power relations, development aid fatigue, political arrogance and the failures of programmes to contribute signiÀcantly to the improvement of the African condition. Alison Johnson and Matthew Martin, for instance, have formulated elements of the problematique of ‘donor aid’ from the ‘traditional partners’ as follows: the funds are not Áexible for the recipient countries to use in priority areas, and donor countries are unwilling to provide ‘additional budget or balance of payments support to combat exogenous shocks’; there are too many conditions that come with the aid; and the disbursement procedures are cumbersome and time-consuming.1 Furthermore, there is a range of contending theoretical interpretations of the partnership itself between Africa and the industrial countries, as actors and agencies have perceived it differently. This has led to its various usages depending on who uses it, where it is being used, and what speciÀc purposes it is serving. This chapter is basically a general reÁection on the problematic nature of Africa and its ‘traditional partners’. It is a reÁective essay that has both policy implications and critical intellectual propositions. This examination is based on the historicisation of how Africa as a political entity, a fabrication of artiÀcial, but relatively sovereign nationstates with dependent economies, has become part of the world system. Whether Africa is perceived as being CHAPTER 11 Africa and its Traditional Western Partners Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo 172 Africa Institute of South Africa PART 3 External Relations and Issue Areas Africa and its Traditional Western Partners integrated into the world system with some degree of political autonomy through the sovereignty principle or viewed as a fragmented entity of the world economy, in general, it is the most vulnerable region with the weakest link to the world political economy despite its potential and its people’s struggles for social progress. The main interrelated objectives in this chapter are, Àrst, to critically examine why and how the ‘traditional partnerships’ were established. Secondly, to historically interrogate the quality of such partnerships in relationship to values of decolonisation, sovereignty, development, democracy and human rights, political stability, peace, self-sufÀciency and self-reliance as advanced by the African institutions and people, and synthesised in the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) of 1980 and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in 1981. Thirdly, to explore how to transform existing partnership goals into positive policy and political outcomes for building a progressive Africa. It is not possible to fully discuss a historiography of partnership here. Only a few illustrations are examined to support and elucidate our points. However, the United States, partially because of its dominant role in the world and also because of its claimed controversial liberal premises in states’ interactions. The rest of the chapter is divided into four parts. The Àrst part is the rede Ànition of traditional partnership. The second part focuses on the United States-Africa partnership given the global dominance of the United States. The third part looks at Nepad, which is seen as the new hope of partnership between Africa and the West. The last part forms the conclusion. A number of things, however, need to be noted from the onset. First is the fact that the emergence of new trade partnerships between Africa and Asia challenges the status of the ‘traditional partners’ in international cooperation. There has been an increase in trade between the two continents, rising from 14 per cent of Africa’s external trade in 2000 to 27 per cent in 2008. Asian exports to Africa are growing signiÀcantly, estimated at 18 per cent per annum. Additionally, China’s partnership, with its pragmatic socialism (known as ‘socialism with the market economy’), is covering new schemes of investments in the construction, agricultural, health, education, mining and petroleum-related areas in Africa, which are being...

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