Luckily a lot of folks are actively seeking out genuine news outside of the filtered mainstream info-confines. With regard to Africa there is currently a building momentum to pay deeper and more sustained attention to many of the core problems that keep grinding down developmental progress in Africa. Regrettably this momentum needs to be accompanied with scepticism as too often Africa has been "on the agenda", only to soon afterwards fall off an already marginalized spot on the radar screen of international news. Sill, the March 2005 report to the Commission for Africa "Our Common Interest" is an important and timely major document (http://www.brandt21forum.info/Commission... Produced in response to an UK initiative to "define challenges facing Africa and to provide clear recommendations" the report convincingly presents
a) the argument in favour of increased support and attention to Africa
b) analysis of why action on Africa is needed.
The report certainly points in the right direction and is a welcome high-level effort to push Africa a bit closer into the public spotlight. A deeper discussion of the report should definitely be started, but of course can't be done in this short article. Suffice to say that the report is based on good will and apparent commitment to improve bad political conditions and socio-economic situations across Africa. However the case made in the report is hardly a new one, but rather commonplace. The recommendations laid out are largely unspectacular and generally fall well short of what is needed to make systematic and structural changes and improvements. Most importantly, the basic rationale of current forms and practices of globalization are never really called into question. If recognised for what it's worth, free-market globalization under the thumb of a unilateralist neo-imperial power (no need to guess who here), is in effect a major root cause of poverty and the decline of African institutions, livelihoods and natural resources bases.
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