African Trade Agreement--Not Entirely Free?

The launch of Africa's first multination free-trade area in October 2000 by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has raised hopes for an improved economy that will spur trade, promote peace, and attract foreign investors to this impoverished and often embattled region of Africa. On 30 April 2001, COMESA reported that interest in trading in the region has indeed increased. But environmentalists are wary of the effects the zone may have on the region's air and water quality and the health of its citizens. If, as COMESA itself says, industrialization is the "driving force in the development process," to what extent are COMESA member nations willing--or able--to respond with effective environmental regulation?

COMESA is a group of 20 nations that has committed itself to removing trade barriers among its members. Nine member nations have been trading with other COMESA countries at zero tariff, with the other 11 countries operating with reciprocal reduced tariffs. COMESA also intends to establish a common external tariff by 2004.

"I don't see [COMESA] as doing the environment a lot of good," says Jerome O. Nriagu, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who compiled a report on hazardous waste and its impact on the citizens of member nation Zambia. "They're trying to go down a path where they'll pollute the environment and then clean it up ... [but] they probably will never have the kind of money to do the remediation and the cleanup."

Nriagu says he was "quite horrified at how careless people are with some of the most toxic stuff," such as mercury-containing soaps, which are banned in other parts of the world but widely used among Zambian women to lighten their skin. "Nobody told [consumers] the soap was not good for them," says Nriagu. "Ultimately, it goes into the sewer. Then it gets into lakes and rivers, and you end up with high levels of mercury in the fish, which people then catch and eat." Nriagu believes COMESA nations should enact uniform environmental policies and emissions standards, labeling requirements, and public education campaigns to counter the influx of environmentally unhealthy products.

David Ugolor, president of the Nigerian organization African Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), believes a larger, unified regional market may attract industry that will exploit the area's natural resources. Competing agricultural products could exacerbate poverty, he says. Deforestation is already a problem, and in many areas water is a fragile resource. "The weak regulatory mechanism in the region will not secure the environmental quality of eastern and southern African countries," Ugolor says. "There are a few safeguards in the COMESA countries, but they are not strong enough to play the watchdog role."

Ugolor contends that the answer may lie in the efforts of groups such as ANEEJ and African nongovernmental organizations in the United Nations to maintain pressure to keep polluting technologies and trade out of the region. He adds, "Whatever happens to the African environment also has implications for the United States and the international community as a whole. Whatever happens to the African environment should be of concern to the international community."

To paint African countries as uniformly negligent when it comes to the environment is incorrect, says Graeme Donovan, a World Bank economist. COMESA members Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda are launching a World Bank-financed strategy to manage toxic waste in neighboring Lake Victoria. The bank has also required African nations receiving loans to develop national environmental action plans since the mid-1990s. While these plans do not have "teeth" in every country, says Donovan, they have led in some cases to strong environmental regulatory frameworks. "There are the beginnings of safeguards in place for most [COMESA] countries," he says. "They are thinking about those kinds of things separately from the trade agreement."