Africa, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Energy, Environment, Global Governance, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA: Summit for South-South Cooperation

Humberto Márquez

PORLAMAR, Venezuela, Sep 25 2009 (IPS) - South American and African leaders are meeting over the weekend on the Caribbean island of Margarita in their second summit in three years, to forge stronger cooperation between the two regions and discuss their positions with regard to a number of pressing international concerns.

More than 20 heads of state and government and high-level officials from around 60 nations are meeting in the South-South summit to “approve a declaration that announces a multipolar world and salvages and safeguards our cultures and identities,” said host President Hugo Chávez.

But above and beyond the final declaration, “the success of the summit will be measured by the follow-up on the binational and suregional cooperation accords that are established, which can be assessed at the next summit, in 2011,” said Venezuela’s deputy foreign minister for Africa, Reinaldo Bolívar.

And apart from the strength of the declaration or its effective implementation, just the fact that the South America-Africa summit is taking place is a sign of renewed interest in South-South cooperation, at the end of a week of high-profile international summits.

A summit on climate change was held in New York and addressed by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon immediately ahead of the 64th United Nations General Assembly, which was followed by the G20 summit of major emerging and developed economies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The first to arrive at Isla Margarita were Presidents Mamadou Tandja of Niger and Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay. But the spotlight was hogged by Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, current chair of the African Union, on his first visit to Latin America.

In New York, Gaddafi was not allowed to set up his traditional Bedouin-style tent. But he has been permitted to do on the grounds of the Hilton Hotel on Isla Margarita.

A source with the summit organisers said Gaddafi would not actually sleep in the tent, but would stay in a hotel room, while several of his advisers and officials would occupy the tent.

The presidents declined to speak to the press as they arrived, a process that will continue until Saturday afternoon, when the summit will officially start and a photo-op of the leaders will take place.

Ahead of the summit, Chávez said “we hope Caracas will become an arrival point and a centre of activities and connections between Africa and Central and South America and the Caribbean.”

But while stressing the possibilities for cooperation – “because we are only separated by a canal – the Atlantic Ocean” – the Venezuelan leader also underlined the need for stronger political alliances: “This is a summit for the struggles of the South, because the empire (the United States) does not want us to join together.”

“The countries of Africa are rethinking things and are returning to the idea of African socialism,” said Chávez, who advocates political and social changes that he calls “21st century socialism” for Venezuela and other Latin American nations.

If Venezuela stands out as a political leader, the economic powerhouse is Brazil, whose trade with Africa climbed to nearly 26 billion dollars in 2008, up from just five billion dollars in 2002, and which has invested more than four billion dollars in farming in Africa in the last five years.

Brazil constantly brings up the question of energy, whether for the production of biofuels or agreements on the use of the South Atlantic seabed, with its African allies.

Venezuela, whose diplomacy is largely based on oil cooperation accords – it offers fuel on preferential terms to a number of small neighbouring countries – has launched the idea of new alliances with Africa.

Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez pointed out Friday that Africa and South America together have one quarter of the world’s energy resources, counting the oil and natural gas reserves of Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela and those of Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Chad, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Algeria, Angola, Libya, Ecuador and Venezuela are all members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but their energy agreements have not gone beyond the accords negotiated within the oil cartel.

Venezuela has proposed the construction of a small oil refinery in Mauritania, to process 30,000 to 40,000 barrels a day and supply neighbouring Gambia, Mali and Niger.

The leaders will instruct ministerial committees to follow up on their instructions with respect to the negotiation of agreements on trade, investment, tourism, transport, mining, energy, agriculture, the environment and telecommunications.

The draft documents assign a growing role to the African Union and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

Bolívar said the final declaration will issue a strong call for reforms aimed at democratising the United Nations, and will reiterate the developing South’s demands that the nations of the industrialised North assume greater commitments with respect to climate change, fair international trade, the fight against poverty and measures to overcome the global financial crisis that broke out last year in the United States.