Meles warns against global dangers of poverty

Global security is being undermined by massive poverty and political instability in Africa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi warned on Monday. He said huge immigration from the continent had sparked mounting political instability in Europe,leading to the re-emergence of fascism. Meles said that the 11 September terrorist attacks were conclusive proof of the growing divide between wealthy developed countries and the impoverished third world. "Wherever there is economic and social decay, there is bound to be political turmoil," he told a conference on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NePAD) – a framework aimed at resolving the continent’s political and economic ills. "September 11th has conclusively proved that you cannot have a desperate ghetto next door to a prosperous safe haven. In a globalised environment security is indivisible," he told the NePAD summit marking the four-day 2002 African Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Meles, who received a standing ovation after his speech, said millions had fled Africa in a desperate bid to escape the poverty and wars that have blighted the continent. "Massive immigration and human trafficking becomes a global problem. It has already reached the magnitude where countries in the developed world are being forced to see some sections of society drift towards a xenophobic and fascist tendency, as current electoral trends in Europe indicate." "People fleeing the poverty and political turmoil in Africa and elsewhere, initially in their thousands and hundreds of thousands, and later on in their millions, are a direct threat to the political stability and prosperity of the developed world," Meles warned. His warning shot to the international community was designed to reinforce the message that its interests would be served by a developed and prosperous Africa. He said that NePAD not only offered Africa a way to alleviate the continent’s massive poverty but also security and stability to the rest of the world. Meles said both the developed world and Africa must seize the opportunity that NePAD offered to escape the problems which had blighted the continent. He argued that NePAD could only work if both Africa and the developed world accepted it as a partnership to be honoured by both sides. He criticized western countries, such as the US, which had called on Africa to open up its markets while at the same time offering massive subsidies to their farmers. In his 30-minute speech, delivered a day before the official opening of the ADB summit, he also attacked African states for being "systems of patronage". Meles criticised NGOs and the private sector for using their positions for "personal enrichment", which, he argued was also often based on patronage. He said NePAD was not a blueprint, but a framework, because each country devised its own plan to tackle its individual problems. "We have to fulfil our end of the bargain," he stressed. "We have to get rid of notions of having a free lunch and aid without accountability in order to be worthy members of that partnership. "The developed world, too, must go beyond giving lip service to the process," he concluded.