Patronage or Partnership: An African perspective on global governance initiative

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OPINION

By George Musiime

The global governance initiative (GGI) is animated by two fundamental facts.

First, that central to China’s remarkable achievements over the past half-century has been the Chinese communist party (CPC), while the other is that, in addition to visionary leadership, the CPC has had the ability to continuously evolve and adapt (both) itself and its outlook to a changing world.

Proposing the GGI for the first time during the Shanghai cooperation organization summit, President Xi rationalized the initiative by pointing out three drawbacks of the current global governance system, i.e. its waning authority, disproportionate representation of the global south, and the imperative for greater effectiveness, pointing to the urgent need for reforms in this system.

To address these deficiencies, the GGI proposes five action points, not to replace but to increase inclusivity and relevance of the current global governance systems to emerging challenges.

By focusing on sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, a people-centred approach and real results, the GGI also converges on the principles laid out in the UN Charter. Currently, the world is grappling with a chaotic geopolitical and geo-economic landscape; novel areas of space and cyber space regulation, climate change, political and economic conflicts, for which lasting settlement remains elusive due to unilateralism and a lack of commitment from some actors holding critical leverage.

In fact, some analysts contend that today, “the international community is synonymous with the West.” This position highlights the extent of the power wielded by some actors under the current order, resulting in nascent unilateralism- undermining the principle of sovereign equality.

It is also important to clarify that the spirit of the GGI from both the proposing authority and a multitude of independent analysts is not to replace the existing global governance system.

Instead, it is proposed as a political defibrillator-  a device to expand agency in the existing global governance framework that has been superseded by the world it was created to adjudicate while it slumbered off. This also leads me to the question of why the GGI should matter to the global south and Africa in particular.

Foremost, Africa’s population and economic weight have been growing steadily and fast. For instance, the continent now accounts for between 18-19 percent of the global population, projected to soar to about 25 percent by 2050.

Also, although its share of global trade remains low, initiatives like the African continental free trade area (AfCFTA), the gradual removal of trade barriers, and connectivity-enhancing initiatives such as the BRI are already increasing the continent’s role globally.

Nevertheless, Africa’s representation on the United Nations Security Council, the World Trade Organisation, or even the International Monetary Fund voting power has all stayed disproportionately weak.

In a case where many decisions made by these bodies directly impact Africa and its peoples, let alone unilateral actions that sidestep their authority, for Africa, the call for reforms has been a long-standing one.

Regardless, efforts to shrink the rhetoric-reality gap have come up against the high wall of sovereign inequality.

It has been commonplace for Africa to be presented as an equal partner at global governance forums such as COP, the UN or G20.

However, as majority decisions are made in Western capitals, predominantly by Western industrialized and economically powerful nations, African agency has not been felt, and not just that, but also the continent’s most pressing challenges have often not received due attention.

For instance, being most vulnerable to the adversities of climate change aside, a report by Action Aid International revealed that rich polluting countries still owe the continent $36 trillion in climate debt. Conversely, this runs parallel with the recent virulent wave of aid cuts to Africa in the West.

In fact, this is no different for the UN Security Council, which, despite 70-percent of its resolutions over the past 30 years concerning Africa, has had no permanent seat for the continent.

Moreover, only less than half of the continent’s 54 states have occupied the council’s rotating seats during the same time.

The legacy of patronage networks rather than genuine partnership. China’s efforts to offer alternatives to the status quo notwithstanding, development aid, loans, and even climate financing have oftentimes been structured in ways that reinforce historical dependency.

To this, there is no better example than the reaction to Washington’s aid cuts that left everyone from HIV/AIDs programs in South Africa to internally displaced persons in Nigeria in disarray.

Furthermore, the funneling of aid directly through large NGOs, has often bypassed and sometimes substituted, in some sense, state authority with international entities.

Overall, whether it’s conditions that allow donors to set priorities for recipient governments, aid that dampens state capacity to mobilise domestic resources or elevates large NGOs over state authority, the one irrefutable upshot is weakening state sovereignty.

Similarly, in a world where the voice of a state is determined to a large extent by its economic power and military might, African states have found themselves caught in the crossfire of rivalries between the West and China or other emerging economies.

The tariff war waged unilaterally by the US for example triggered sudden dips in commodity prices destabilizing the economies of resource-intensive African countries. Likewise, as the continent looked to leverage South Africa’s leadership of the G20, both Marco Rubio and Trump conveniently chose to skip the summit over supposed “problems with the country and very bad policies.”

These, some observers have opined include alignment with BRICS and China, land reforms, and its position on the Gaza conflict. Whereas experts show that the absence of the US could not affect the success of the summit, Washington still took from this year’s summit and the African audience, a major stakeholder in global governance.

Despite being an undeniable fact that regional blocs and treaties like the African Union and AfCFTA might be critical in circumventing the patronage trap, Africa still struggles to transcend a thickness of historical challenges related to the structure of current global governance and its colonial past.

Therefore, the global governance initiative looks to actualize the existing multilateral system’s capacity for action towards its vision for the world at conception; a world animated by the principles of sovereign equality cooperation and fairness.

The GGI is proposed as a vehicle for reforms in global governance, while to Africa and the global south, the initiative represents an apparatus for redefining engagement in international relations.

By advocating for fairness, equality and consensus born of extensive consultation, the GGI not only reimagines the shared aspirations of all nations as envisaged in the UN charter, but it also serves as an inroad to the community with a shared future for mankind. And for Africa, it highlights a pathway to increased African Agency, proposes a way to transition from illusory partnership, into an Africa capable of actively partaking and influencing global governance decisions.

The writer is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.