By Simegnish Yekoye
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is appealing to the international community to provide Africa with policy space so that the continent can weather the current economic challenges.

The Prime Minister said that the international community could and should provide adequate policy space, live up to its commitments in terms of development assistance, limit global warming and pay compensation for the unavoidable damage caused by it so that it could assist Africa.

“Sovereign African nations are not so sovereign when it comes to economic policy making”, Meles said indicating that most African states depend heavily on foreign aid and credit to sustain their economic activities and the aid is largely disbursed on the basis of how well countries adhere to the policy orthodoxy promoted by donors.

“While there may have been a neo-liberal consensus among major donors, there was never any such consensus in Africa.  It was imposed on Africa,” Meles argued.

While making his speech on Africa’s policy response to the Global Financial Crisis and how the International Community should help Africa Meles said that it is necessary for the International Community to make a distinction between “development assistance that Africa is asking for and the compensation for global warming that it is demanding”.

Meles who represented Africa during the G20 meeting and is referred as the voice of Africa said reduced growth, low commodity prices and high oil prices were likely to affect Africa for about 10 years and the West needed to give African nations the ability to devise their own policies to lessen impacts.

Meles also note that rich countries should stop attaching economic polity conditions to foreign aid, which he said the hungry continent was dependent on.

 “African countries are faced with very well-coordinated and solid policy orthodoxy from donors… They either adhere to it and get the money, or chart their own course and face the risk of the drying up of external assistance.”

“Growth in Africa collapses when prices go up too far and when they go down too far. In other words the fragility of Africa’s economy is at the root of the impact of the current crisis on our economies.”

If the international community does the things he suggested, Prime Minister Meles advised: “ I think many if not all of the African countries will have a fighting chance of surviving the dangerous economic storms that we are passing through and even thrive in them”.