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International Socialism, Summer 2005
Who are the Commission for Africa?
From International Socialism 2 : 107, Summer 2005.
Copyright © International Socialism.
Copied with thanks from the International Socialism Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The commission was chaired by Bob Geldof and
headed by prime minister Tony Blair, chancellor of
the exchequer Gordon Brown, and minister for
international development Hilary Benn.
It also included:
- Michel Camdessus, who as managing director
of the IMF until February 2000 was behind scores of Structual
Adjustment Programmes;
- Canadian finance minister Ralph Goodale,
who represents Canada, Ireland and a group of Caribbean countries on
the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC);
- Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former US
Republican senator for Kansas, married to Howard Baker, Ronald
Reagan’s chief of staff, whose Baker Plan to save the US banks
increased Third World debt by 20 percent in two years;
- President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, who
has consistently steered Tanzania towards reconciliation with the
IMF and the World Bank;
- Prime minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia,
who has driven Ethiopia towards the full adoption of World Bank and
IMF programmes;
- Trevor Manuel, architect of
the neo-liberalisation of economic policy in South Africa since
1994, first as minister of trade and industry, then as minister of
finance;
- Linah Mohohlo, Botswana Central Bank
governor, who has worked for the IMF, and serves on the boards of
major corporations in Botswana and abroad;
- Tidjiane Thiam, a senior executive of
global insurance giant Aviva, which owns Norwich Union; a member of
the World Bank Institute’s External Advisory Committee, 1998 World
Economic Forum (Davos) ‘Global Leader for Tomorrow’ and member
of the 1999 Davos ‘Dream Cabinet’;
- Kingsley Amoako, who went from the World
Bank to the UN Economic Commission for Africa;
- Dr Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, the convenor
of Tanzania’s Local Entrepreneurs Initiative (TALE), a voluntary
group mobilising Tanzanians to form joint venture companies with
overseas investors, and a director of a number of private companies
dedicated to ‘encouraging entrepreneurship in the marketing of
agricultural commodities’;
- Mr Fola Adeola, a director of Guaranty
Trust Bank Plc, and deputy general manager of the Continental
Merchant Bank Limited (1986–1990);
- Ji Peiding, NPC Standing Committee member
and vice-chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, China;
- Dr William S. Kalema, ‘leader of the
Ugandan private sector’, chairman of the Development Finance
Company of Uganda and of its related financial institutions,
including DFCU Bank, a commercial bank, and DFCU Leasing, the
leading leasing company in Uganda;
- The Director of Policy and Research and probably author of
the Commission report is Sir Nicholas Stern. He was
responsible for Russia and Eastern Europe at the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development in the 1990s, replaced the sacked
Joseph Stiglitz as World Bank Chief Economist in 2001, and then
became head of the British government’s economic service.
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