G8 business network fails to involve Africa

DAKAR – A business network to tackle poverty and graft in Africa, launched amid fanfare at the Gleneagles G8 summit two years ago, is failing because it has not won the support of African firms, a study said yesterday.

Business Action for Africa, a brainchild of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa, has not received the backing of other G8 governments and is perceived as a cosy club of multinationals linked to the British government, London-based think tank Chatham House said. As the G8 convened in Germany amid criticism from African leaders that it is not listening to the world’s poorest nations, the report found only one member of BAA’s 14-strong policy group was based in Africa: diamond miner De Beers.All but two of the rest had headquarters in Britain.”Without real African ownership of the project, BAA is not yet a credible interlocutor between African business and the G8,” the report concluded, saying the British-dominated image of the project was deterring African companies from taking part.Although Africa is undergoing its longest period of sustained economic growth since the 1960s, it is missing the goal of seven per cent a year growth needed to meet a UN target of halving extreme poverty by 2015.Total foreign direct investment to the continent surged 78 per cent to US$31 billion in 2005, according to UN figures, but perceptions of corruption deter many potential investors.In 2006, half of the world’s top 20 most-corrupt countries were in Africa, Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International said.BAA was launched in 2005 to develop and showcase good business practices, promote growth and poverty reduction and lobby for a more balanced international perception of Africa.The network has 145 members spread among companies, business groups, NGOs and government departments – but of its 79 corporate members only a quarter are African.A survey by the Commonwealth Business Council in July concluded that African companies believed it was difficult for them to play an active part in BAA.”There is a perception that African companies are less welcome than they could be,” the report’s author Richard Reeve told Reuters.He noted an ambivalence among BAA’s policy group to African companies joining it, as this shift its headquarters away from London and require more staff, thereby raising costs.Some of this may be poised to change.BAA will launch the first major recruitment drive since its foundation this year, focused on attracting associations of small businesses as well as corporations in the strategic telecoms and transport sectors.Nampa-ReutersAs the G8 convened in Germany amid criticism from African leaders that it is not listening to the world’s poorest nations, the report found only one member of BAA’s 14-strong policy group was based in Africa: diamond miner De Beers.All but two of the rest had headquarters in Britain.”Without real African ownership of the project, BAA is not yet a credible interlocutor between African business and the G8,” the report concluded, saying the British-dominated image of the project was deterring African companies from taking part.Although Africa is undergoing its longest period of sustained economic growth since the 1960s, it is missing the goal of seven per cent a year growth needed to meet a UN target of halving extreme poverty by 2015.Total foreign direct investment to the continent surged 78 per cent to US$31 billion in 2005, according to UN figures, but perceptions of corruption deter many potential investors.In 2006, half of the world’s top 20 most-corrupt countries were in Africa, Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International said.BAA was launched in 2005 to develop and showcase good business practices, promote growth and poverty reduction and lobby for a more balanced international perception of Africa.The network has 145 members spread among companies, business groups, NGOs and government departments – but of its 79 corporate members only a quarter are African.A survey by the Commonwealth Business Council in July concluded that African companies believed it was difficult for them to play an active part in BAA.”There is a perception that African companies are less welcome than they could be,” the report’s author Richard Reeve told Reuters.He noted an ambivalence among BAA’s policy group to African companies joining it, as this shift its headquarters away from London and require more staff, thereby raising costs.Some of this may be poised to change.BAA will launch the first major recruitment drive since its foundation this year, focused on attracting associations of small businesses as well as corporations in the strategic telecoms and transport sectors.Nampa-Reuters