ВУЗ: Не указан
Категория: Не указан
Дисциплина: Не указана
Добавлен: 19.10.2020
Просмотров: 1760
Скачиваний: 4
Brazil expressed a similar position to other emerging powers such as India and South Africa, also serving non-permanent seats in the SC. Brazil was concerned about the use in Council resolutions of the “all means necessary” expression, which implies authorization of the use military force, such as what was used in UNSC resolution 1975 on the situation in the Ivory Coast. Brazil, together with India and South Africa, stressed that the African Union should play a leading role in helping all parties achieve a solution to the political crisis in the country. Although Brazil recognized the importance of protecting civilians under threat in the country, it expressed caution about the possibility of expanding the mandate to include other functions, particularly military intervention, that could bring more harm than good to the situation.124
In 2013, President Rousseff is scheduled to visit Africa on two occasions, in late February to attend the Africa-South America Summit in Equatorial Guinea and in late March, to attend the BRICS Summit in South Africa.
Brazilian development cooperation in Africa
One of the most important elements of the contemporary Brazilian engagement in Africa is related to the provision of development cooperation, particularly regarding the relation between providing cooperation and competition with other actors in the continent as well as supporting Brazilian economic and commercial interests.
Brazil has been receiving development cooperation since the 1950s, especially in the North and Northeast regions. As previously described, in the 1970s, Brazil sought to increase and diversify its foreign relations and the country became a provider of development cooperation at the same time that it continued to be a recipient. It was only under Lula that Brazil began to take on a new role as one of the most important non-DAC donors125. African and South American nations were the first regions to receive aid and continue up to the present time to be the main destinations of Brazil’s aid programs.
According to the Brazilian government126 and external actors, Brazil´s main source of cooperation is technical cooperation, since Brazil rarely provides aid recipients with cash, preferring to implement capacity building and professional training initiatives (Cabral and Weinstock, 2010; IPEA, 2010). Brazil’s cooperative efforts are coordinated by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency ( Agência Brasileira de Cooperação, ABC ) created in 1987 and subordinated to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, which reveals that Brazilian development cooperation is used as a foreign policy instrument, benefiting countries considered to be strategic to the Brazilian national interest.
In the end of 2010, Brazilian and international media started noticing Brazil’s new role as an important provider of development cooperation127. At the time, the ABC was developing 77 technical cooperation projects, more than half of them in the African continent. In 2009, African nations accounted for 50% of ABC´s budget and in 2010 this percentage was increased to 60% (IPEA, World Bank, 2011, p. 45).
During the Lula administration, an emphasis was placed on agricultural cooperation with the Africa continent. In an effort to promote Brazil’s domestically developed technology, Lula promoted Brazil’s energy sufficiency and praised the sugar-cane based ethanol production as Brazil’s major contribution to reducing the dependency on fossil fuels. The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has opened an office in Accra (Ghana) in 2006 and is involved in projects in more than 13 African nations. Brazilian varieties of plants and seeds have been introduced in Africa for over 20 years (Sotero, 2009, p 20).
In addition, Brazil wishes to reproduce in the beginning of 2012 a successful national program that increased family based agriculture. The program will support the capacity of African and Latin American nations to increase their productivity. Ghana and Zimbabwe already signed agreements with the Brazilian government and Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Cameroon, Namibia and Sudan also applied for similar partnerships. According to Brazilian authorities, the program also has a strategic dimension because it will increase the capacity of Brazilian companies to export agricultural machinery and supplies to the continent.128 Another important project run by ABC and EMBRAPA is the Cotton-4 Project, based in Mali but benefiting also Benin, Burkina Faso and Chad. The project intends to increase the cotton productivity in the four countries in order to empower local producers and reduce poverty129 (IPEA, World Bank, 2011, p. 56).
African nations have also benefited from the social programs implemented domestically in Brazil under the Lula administration. Representatives from several African countries visited the country as part of the Africa-Brazil Cooperation Program on Social Protection (ABCP) to learn about the implementation of these programs, that have a focus on social development strategies, child labor reduction and cash transfer, creating incentives for families to send their children to school ( Sotero, 2009, p. 19).
Education is also an important area of cooperation. Brazil has traditionally provided scholarships for African students to complete their graduate and undergraduate education in Brazilian public institutions. However, many of these students have faced racial discrimination while attending Brazilian universities. Brazil helped Cape Verde create its first public higher education institution in 2006 and in 2010, Brazil inaugurated the Federal University for Afro-Brazilian Integration130, opened to students and professors from African countries. The university is located in the first Brazilian district to abolish slavery in 1883 (Redenção), even before the abolition of slavery in Brazil’s entire territory in 1888 (IPEA, World Bank, 2011, p.81).
In terms of evaluating Brazilian cooperation in Africa, it is important to note that most of the projects started to be implemented in less than ten years, making it still very recent to properly evaluate the impact of these initiatives (IPEA, World Bank, 2011, p.5). One important element of success for the initiatives is the fact that Brazil only exports social technology that was successfully implemented domestically. Brazil’s success story in Africa involves the perception that it is better to invest in a small number of long-term projects in order to promote partnerships with local actors ( IPEA, World Bank, 2011, p. 40).
However, the mere assumption that Brazilian agricultural policies will be successfully reproduced in the African context only because of similar climate and vegetation conditions, has to be challenged and debated. According to Cabral and Shankland, in terms of social policies, there has to be a reflection on the capacity of African countries to absorb these policies and in addition, the fact that social movements and civil society organizations played an important role in the development of social policies in Brazil, makes it important to consider the involvement of African civil society organizations in these cooperation initiatives conducted by Brazil (Cabral and Shankland, 2012, p. 34).
Recent Brazilian engagements with African nations
Brazil– Libya relations
Libya was an important player in Brazil’s strategy to strengthen relations with the African continent. Libya participated actively in two foreign policy initiatives supported by President Lula to strengthen Brazilian relations with the global South: the Africa-South America Summit (in 2006 and 2009) and the South American-Arab States Summit (2005, 2009)131. In terms of economic relations, Brazilian construction companies benefited from the end of the international embargo against Libya in 2003 and began operating in the country. The Brazilian state oil company Petrobrás also began exploring oil in 2005. From 2003 to 2009, Brazilian exports to Libya grew 289% and Libya’s exports to Brazil grew 3111%.132
As for the Arab Spring events in Libya, in the beginning of March 2011, former President Lula and the Brazilian government rejected calls from the Libyan government to act as mediators between the rebels and the Libyan authorities. Brazil resisted recognizing the National Transitional Council as Libya’s government and it was only in the end of July 2011 that the Brazilian government sent a senior diplomat to Benghazi to establish informal talks with the rebel government. Brazil found itself in a situation similar to that of other BRICS such as Russia and China, whose companies also had contracts with the government that were threatened to be cancelled by the rebels because these countries were opposing NATO bombings and further Security Council against Libya.
It was only on September 16th 2011 that the Brazilian government recognized the new Libyan government after voting in favor of its participation in the UN General Assembly meeting.133
At the time of the NATO bombings, there were between 500 and 600 Brazilians living in Libya134 and between 2008 and 2010, Libya had become the seventh major destination for Brazilian exports to Africa135. In addition to commercial interests there are also normative concerns on the part of Brazil regarding the authorization of enforcement action by the Council, especially about the concern that the mandate of UN Security Council resolution 1973 was interpreted as to legitimate a regime change strategy in addition to a civilian protection mandate.
In July 2012, almost more than a year after closing its embassy in Tripoli, Brazil informed that it was sending a new ambassador to Libya. The Brazilian press informed that at the time, there were contracts with Brazilian companies valued at 6 billion US dollars still under consideration by the new Libyan authorities. The new Brazilian ambassador expressed its desire to bring the Brazilian national soccer team to play in Libya in order to improve Brazil’s image in the country136.
Brazil-Mozambique relations
Mozambique has become the largest African recipient of Brazilian development cooperation since 2003. The country was included in a group of 5 African nations that were visited by President Lula da Silva in his first state visit to Africa137. Brazilian cooperation with Mozambique however, predates the Lula administration, and a cooperation agreement had already been signed in 1981, shortly after the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975. In a presidential visit in 2000, President Cardoso had already cancelled 95% of Mozambique’s public debt with Brazil and signed several cooperation agreements (Almeida & Kraychete, 2012, 9). During the first visit by President Lula in November 2003, Mozambique expressed its support for a permanent seat for Brazil in the United Nations Security Council (Almeida & Kraychete, 2012, 10).
As of 2012, Mozambique concentrates the largest number of projects both by EMBRAPA and ABC in Africa, with a total of 32 projects coordinated by the ABC, of which 5 include the participation of EMBRAPA ( Lima, 2012, p .). Projects in Mozambique correspond to 15,6% of all projects run by the ABC in Africa, and 22,7% of EMBRAPA projects in Africa( Lima, 2012, p 26). In addition, Brazilian technical cooperation in Mozambique includes areas as diverse as the training of Mozambican Armed Forces officials and the creation of a National Archives System (Lima, 2012, p. 23).
In 2011, the Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports (APEX – Agência Brasileira de Promoção de Exportações) had already identified potential areas for Brazilian companies to export to Mozambique, highlighting agribusiness, civil construction and the sale of machinery and equipment (Almeida & Kraychete, 2012, p. 17). The 3 largest Brazilian civil construction companies have projects in Mozambique, including strategic projects such as the transformation of the Nacala Air Force Base in an international airport, the construction of a highway that will connect Mozambique and Tanzania and infra-structure projects in the Moatize coal mine, including the recovery of railway lines, the enlargement of the Beira Port and the construction of a thermo electrical power plant (Almeida & Kraychete, 2012, p. 17).
The connection between the agenda of promoting technical and development cooperation and the promotion of economic relations is also evident in the case of the Brazilian involvement in Mozambique. As Almeida and Kraychete point out, this complex and interconnected relation becomes even more evident when Brazilian companies operating in Mozambique provide donations to the Brazilian technical cooperation projects in the country in order to compensate for the impact of their presence, particularly accentuated in the case of the coal extraction in Moatize by the mining company Vale do Rio Doce (Vale Moçambique) in which families who lived in the area had to be resettled ( Almeida & Kraychete, 2012, 18-19).
Brazilian corporations have sought to balance the possible negative impacts of their presence in Mozambique by also contributing to local community development. According to Besharati, Vale is cooperating with USAID on a night clinic and HIV counseling project and has rehabilitated two health clinics in Moatize ( Besharati, 2012, p. 3).
In addition to previous sectors, in 2009 the Brazilian Defense Minister visited138 Mozambique and announced the donation of airplanes to the Mozambican Air Force and also the training of 700 soldiers from the Mozambican Army as part of a Mozambican peacekeeping contingent to serve in missions in Africa139.
Brazil-Equatorial Guinea relations
Diplomatic relations between the two nations were established in 1974 and Brazil inaugurated an embassy in Malabo in 2005, the same year in which the African nations opened an embassy in Brasilia. President Teodoro Obiango visited Brazil in 2006 and 2008140 and President Lula da Silva visited Equatorial Guinea in July 2010. Brazil was particularly criticized for the EG visit because Foreign Minister Amorim justified the visit as “business are business”141. During the July visit Brazil and EG signed a defense cooperation agreement142. In February 2010, President Lula enacted a technical cooperation agreement143 with EG that had been signed in 2005144.
Brazil was criticized for supporting in March 2012, the UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea award for scientific research in Africa. The prize had originally been approved by UNESCO’s Executive Council in 2008, but was never awarded and was suspended in May 2010. The Brazilian government responded that supported the prize because it would help finance research against diseases that are endemic in the African continent145. NGO representatives believe that Brazil’s decision to support the prize reflected commercial interests in Equatorial Guinea, especially regarding oil exploitation146. Oil was discovered in 1996 and since 2000, EG is exporting oil to Brazil, total trade between the two nations was 411 million US dollars in 2008, with a 369 million surplus for EG147.
Brazilian relations with EG also involve an important dimension of Brazil’s contemporary project towards Africa, which includes the Community of Portuguese Speaking Nations (CPLP).The Brazilian government was pressured by Brazilian and Portuguese activists not to support President Mbasogo’s desire that his country becomes a full member of the CPLP. Equatorial Guinea became an observer associate state of the organization in 2006 and a final decision on the status of EG was to be made in 2010, but a series of protests made the CPLP postpone the decision to a summit meeting in 2012. Former Brazilian Foreign Minister Amorim supported the admission of Equatorial Guinea mentioning that by bringing Equatorial Guinea closer to Brazil and other Portuguese speaking countries could have a positive influence in the political situation in the country and leading to the adopting of certain practices that are important to Brazil and other Portuguese speaking nations148.
Advantages and challenges in Brazil’s African Strategy
Among Latin American nations, Brazil is, at the moment, the only country that is capable of developing and maintaining a consistent African policy. Compared to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico149 and even Cuba, a country that developed a crucial African policy during the Cold War, are not able to meet the same presence and political importance that Brazilian foreign policy might be able to dedicate to the African continent. However, Brazil’s own location in South American and the importance that Brazilian governments have given to the region since the late 1980s150 might also set the limits of Brazil’s South-South strategy and further cooperation with Africa. Since the creation of Mercosur151 in the early 1990s, Brazil has decided to pursue a strategy of uniting South America in political, social and economic ways, with Brazil as the regional great power. This strategy has led to high levels of Brazilian investment in the region and to Brazil accepting a series of demands and complaints by its lesser powerful neighbors (such as Bolivia and Paraguay) and Argentina (especially regarding bilateral trade between the two countries). South America has played a key role in Brazil’s South-South cooperation, particularly because Brazil wants to assert its role as a regional leader and this might limit the possibilities of Brazil increasing its presence elsewhere, either in Africa or the Far East.
In terms of security cooperation, Brazil’s has a strong tradition of contributing troops to UN peacekeeping missions in Africa. It contributed troops during the entire duration of the UNEF mission ( Suez) in the 1950s and 1960s and to the UN missions in Mozambique and Angola in the 1990s. At the moment, Brazil has prioritized contributions to Haiti and to the naval component of the UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and logistical considerations have limited the country’s potential to contribute with troop contingents to missions in Africa. Brazil currently has 8 observers in the UN mission in the Western Sahara (MINURSO), 3 at the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), 3 at the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), 13 at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and 4 at the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire152.
Furthermore, there are other areas in which Brazil could initiate a more effective cooperation with African nations, especially in increasing existing efforts related to helping address state failure and the strengthening of state institutions. Existing cooperative efforts in Guinea-Bissau153 could be replicated to other countries within the continent. In addition, Brazil is currently a major destination for African refugees and of the 4401 refugees in the country, 2824 come from African nations (a total of 64% of all refugees in Brazil), with 1686 coming from Angola (38.37% of all refugees in the country), 453 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (10,31% of all refugees), and 258 from Liberia (5,87%)154. Resettlement in Brazil has been complicated and with the recent end to the civil war in Angola and the economic reconstruction of the country, there might be a potential that these refugees could return to their country of origin.
Practical challenges also add up to the limitations. Establishing a connection with Africa from Brazil is very difficult. There are limited flights between Brazil and the African continent, with only 3 direct flights, one from Fortaleza (in the Northeast of Brazil) to Praia (Cape Verde), one from Rio de Janeiro to Luanda (Angola) and one from São Paulo to Johannesburg. In addition, there is excessive bureaucracy that increases the time for ships to go between Africa and Brazil, and vice versa, as well as the existence of stereotyped images of the continent and of Brazil (IPEA, World Bank, 201, p.40).
Returning to political challenges, Brazil’s initiative to increase its commercial space in Africa is part of an effort to offer an alternative to the continuous increase in Indian, Chinese, as well as South Korean, Turkish and Malaysian influence in Africa. Brazil is seeking to preserve its traditional markets and longtime political allies (especially the Portuguese speaking nations) and also tries to extend its presence to previously unexplored markets. There is also an additional limitation concerning Brazil’s commercial presence in Africa: the need for diversification, since almost 70% of Brazil’s exports are concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Angola (Barbosa et al, 2009, p. 79). President Rousseff’s recent initiative of promoting Brazil’s commercial presence is an indication of an attempt to change that.
While Brazil has used the common Portuguese language as an element that facilitates the presence of Brazilian multinationals in Lusophone countries and also as a way of providing scholarships for citizens of Lusophone African countries, the Chinese government has recently started to emphasize Portuguese as part of its strategy for closer relations with Brazil155 and with Lusophone African countries, especially Angola156 and Mozambique. The Chinese initiative, launched in 2003, is called the Macau Forum157, short for “The Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese Speaking Countries”, and draws on the fact that the Macau Special Administrative Region (returned to China in 1999) was a Portuguese colony.
At the same time that there is completion with other BRICS for markets and resources in Africa, there are also joint cooperative initiatives such as the India-Brazil-South Africa Trust Fund ( IBSA Trust Fund) managed by the UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation158. The fund has provided resources from the three nations to help fund projects in several least-developed countries, including Burundi, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau in Africa. In addition, in 2007 Brazil and China announced that they would provide free satellite images to African government and organizations in order to support efforts related to food security, health and the prevention of natural disasters159.
In addition, there are also some advantages regarding Brazil’s approach to Africa. According to White, Brazil is perceived as having a more balanced approach towards the African continent than other emerging powers, involving a perception of mutual partnership and reciprocity and creating a “middle-ground” approach between the Chinese state-led approach and the Indian strategy based on private sector investment (White, 2010, p.239). Brazilian authorities have become well aware that Brazil’s relations with the African continent now take place in the context of emerging powers growing interest in the continent. President Lula himself mentioned that regarding Africa, Brazil and China are competitors and that Brazil needs to promote its comparative advantages, including the better quality of Brazilian products and the fact that Brazil employs local workers ( IPEA, World Bank, 2011, p.106).
Conclusion
Far from being able to address all the issues related to Brazil’s contemporary relations with Africa, this chapter dealt mostly with official, bilateral, government to government relations between Brazil and Africa nations, but nonetheless, it acknowledges the importance of an emerging relationship between civil society actors in Brazil and in the African continent. Brazil’s growing international presence, both as provider of development cooperation and also due to the presence of Brazilian multinationals, has drawn the interest of civil society organizations that have been dedicating more attention to Brazilian foreign policy and the impact of the Brazilian presence, especially in South America and in Africa. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry still remains as the main actors behind the coordination of the country’s external relations, but it is increasingly having to deal with demands from other ministries (such as the ones responsible for health, education, development and energy), the Legislative power and also NGOs and civil society groups. For example, the Brazilian Landless Movement has recently expressed support for the South African agricultural workers who went on strike in January 2013160. To what extent this growing number of relevant actors will be able to (re)shape Brazilian foreign policy in general, and to Africa in particular, remains to be seen.
In conclusion, two recent episodes reveal the challenges that Brazil will still have to face in Africa as it wishes to expand its presence in the continent. In December 2011, a young Brazilian diplomat died of malaria after returning from a short mission in Equatorial Guinea. The diplomat’s death received broad coverage in the Brazilian media and was credited mainly to lack of medical assistance and monitoring on the part of the Foreign Ministry after her return. In a rare gesture, Brazilian diplomats wrote a letter to the Minister asking for an improvement in the medical assistance and pre-departure orientation provided to diplomats sent to serve in posts located in areas of harsh conditions, such as some countries in Asia and Africa161. The second episode involves the kidnapping attempt, by pirates of the coast of Tanzania, of a ship serving the Brazilian state oil company Petrobrás on October 2011162. These two episodes provide some examples of what Brazil faces in expanding and deepening its relations with Africa and what will be required from the country from now on as it increases its presence in the continent.
REFERENCES
Almeida, Elga Lessa de & Kraychete, Elsa Sousa “ O discurso brasileiro para a cooperação em Moçambique: existe ajuda desinteressada ?” III Conferência Internacional do IESE “ Moçambique: acumulação e transformação em contexto de crise internacional” 4 a 5 de setembro de 2012, Maputo, IESE
Barbosa, Alexandre et al “Brazil in Africa: another emerging power in the continent ?” Politikon, vol 36, n 1, 2009, pp 59-86.
Besharati, Neissan Alessandro “ Raising Mozambique: development through coal” Policy Briefing 56, South African Institute of International Affairs, Governance of Africa’s Resource Program, September 2012.
Cabral, Lidia & Shankland, Alex “Brazilian agriculture cooperation in Africa: new paradigms?” III Conferência Internacional do IESE “ Moçambique: acumulação e transformação em contexto de crise internacional” 4 a 5 de setembro de 2012, Maputo, IESE.