New Engagement: Contemporary Australian foreign policy towards Africa

By Melbourne University Publishing Ltd

Recent developments in both Africa and Australia have brought the two continents closer together. In Africa, a resources boom, greater political stability, and the creation of the new regional institutions have contributed to economic and human development, even if many challenges including conflict, poverty and exploitation remain. Australia has commercial and political interests in Africa and, if it wants to be a significant global actor, must engage with both Africa’s challenges and its growing international influence. Since coming to power in 2007, Australian Labor governments have pursued ‘new engagement’ with Africa after decades of relative neglect. This book, the first study of its kind, explores the key contexts for and dimensions of contemporary Australian foreign policy towards Africa. It highlights a deepening of diplomatic and political relations, a trebling of the official aid budget to Africa, and over $50 billion of Australian-based investment in Africa’s resources sector, and suggests measures to make such engagement sustainable and of mutual benefit. Contributions to the book come from academics, civil servants, diplomats and politicians.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780522862638

Book preview

New Engagement

New Engagement

Contemporary Australian Foreign Policy Towards Africa

Edited by David Mickler and Tanya Lyons

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

11–15 Argyle Street South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

[e-mail]

www.mup.com.au

First published 2013

Text © Individual pieces remains with the individual contributors, 2013

Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2013

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Text design by Phil Campbell

Cover design by Phil Campbell

Typeset by J&M Typesetting

Printed in Australia by Opus

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

New engagement: contemporary Australian foreign policy towards Africa / edited by David Mickler and Tanya Lyons.

9780522862614 (paperback)

9780522862638 (ebook)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Australia—Foreign relations—Africa.

Africa—Foreign relations—Australia.

Other Authors/Contributors:

Mickler, David, editor

Lyons, Tanya, editor

327.9406

Cover photo design: Bec Stevens of Earthling Delights

Photos clockwise from top left: the then Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Stephen Smith, delivering his address at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, January 2009, photo courtesy and copyright of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website www.dfat.gov.au ; African Union Building, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, taken by and copyright of Yilak Akloweg Kebede, March 2013; Australian Parliament House, Canberra taken by and copyright of Paul Lyons, March 2013; the then Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Kevin Rudd, and then Chairman of the African Union Commission, Dr Jean Ping, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, January 2012, by Jiro Ose, photo courtesy and copyright of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website www.dfat.gov.au, from DFAT Annual Report 2011–12.

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Acronyms

List of Tables and Figures

Notes on Contributors

Foreword

Kevin Rudd

Introduction: Locating Australian Engagement with Africa

David Mickler and Tanya Lyons

Part I: Contexts for Australian Engagement with Africa

1    Engaging with Contemporary Africa: Key Contexts for External Actors

F Wafula Okumu and Samuel M Makinda

2    National Interests and Altruism in Australian Foreign Policy Towards Africa

Samuel M Makinda

3    The JSCFADT Inquiry into Australia’s Relations with the Countries of Africa

Michael Forshaw

4    A South African Perspective on Australian Engagement with Africa

Koleka Mqulwana and Mauritz Lindeque

5    Australia, North Africa and the Arab Spring: Engaging Beyond Trade and Security?

Hannah Climas

Part II: Dimensions of Australia’s ‘New Engagement’ with Africa

6    Australian Investment and Trade with Africa: The Opportunities and Challenges of a One-Dimensional Relationship

Nikola Pijovic

7    Australian Interests and Responsibilities in the African Resources Boom

Geoffrey Hawker

8    Australian Development Policy in Africa

Joel Negin

9    Australia and Insecurity in Africa: New Interests and Influence

David Mickler

10   Migration and Australian Foreign Policy Towards Africa: The Place of Australia’s African Transnational Communities

Melissa Phillips

11   Education in Australia’s Relationship with Africa

Tanya Lyons

Conclusion: Evaluating Australia’s ‘New Engagement’ with Africa

David Mickler and Tanya Lyons

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

This edited book emerged from a special roundtable held at the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) Annual Conference at Flinders University, Adelaide, in December 2011. The roundtable, entitled ‘The Emerging Australia–Africa Relationship’, was chaired by David Mickler and featured as panellists three contributors to this volume—Tanya Lyons, Samuel Makinda and Geoffrey Hawker—along with Peter Run from the University of Queensland and Gashahun Lemessa Fura from Jimma University, Ethiopia.

Earlier, Lyons had editorialised on ‘Australia’s Re-Engagement with Africa’ in the Australasian Review of African Studies (vol. 31, 2010), while Mickler (co-authored with Melissa Phillips) had presented the paper ‘New Engagement or New Scramble? Identifying Australia’s Enhanced Relationship with Africa’ at the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Annual Conference at the Australian National University, Canberra, in September 2011. Lyons, Mickler, Hawker, Makinda and Joel Negin had also published or presented, in different fora, other pieces looking at the expanding Australia–Africa relationship. These earlier works, along with the June 2011 tabling of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade’s (JSCFADT) Inquiry into Australia’s Relationship with the Countries of Africa, chaired by Michael Forshaw, generated the idea for both the Adelaide roundtable and this subsequent book. Mickler and Lyons respectively presented some draft material from this present volume at the November 2012 AFSAAP conference held at the Australian National University.

At the University of Melbourne, we would like to thank the Faculty of Arts for providing funding for David Mickler to undertake fieldwork in Addis Ababa in May 2012 and for providing publication subsidy support, and the School of Social and Political Sciences for providing funding to host a workshop with the book’s contributors in September 2012. We would like to thank the following additional participants at the workshop for their critical comments on draft chapters: Derek McDougall, Berhan Ahmed, David Duriesmith, Sara Meger and Ed Yencken.

We would like to thank, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ambassador Matthew Neuhaus and Special Envoy Bill Fisher, and from the Department of Defence, Elizabeth McGregor and Colonel James Davey, for providing interviews or personal communications to inform this book. We would also like to sincerely thank the Hon. Kevin Rudd—to whom much of Australia’s ‘new engagement’ can be attributed—for generously agreeing to write the book’s foreword.

We would like to thank Melbourne University Press, and particularly Sally Heath and Penelope White, for agreeing to publish a book on Australian foreign policy towards Africa in amongst the great attention to the ‘Asian century’, although Bob Carr has suggested that we might also be witnessing the start of an ‘African century’. We would also like to acknowledge and thank our independent editor, Rebecca Miller, for spending half of her summer rigorously and insightfully copyediting the draft manuscript, and Diane Leyman for her excellent proofreading. We take full responsibility for the final copy.

Finally, we would like to thank our families for lovingly supporting us during the production of the book.

List of Acronyms

List of Tables and Figures

Front matter:

Map of Africa, noting Australian Diplomatic Posts as at 2012

Chapter 6: Australian Investment and Trade with Africa: The Opportunities and Challenges of a One-Dimensional Relationship

Chapter 8: Australian Development Policy in Africa

Chapter 11: Education in Australia’s Relationship with Africa

Notes on Contributors

Hannah Climas is undertaking her PhD at Flinders University, South Australia, and is researching the effects of the Arab Spring on Australia’s relationship with North Africa. She has previously completed an Honours thesis entitled ‘The Triumph and Tragedies of North Africa in the Arab Spring’.

Michael Forshaw served as a Senator for NSW from 1994 until his retirement in June 2011. He was Chair of the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade from 2008 until June 2011. He also served as a member of the Joint Statutory Committee on Intelligence and Security and a large number of other Joint and Senate Committees during his seventeen years in the Australian Parliament, including as Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence & Trade Committee and the Senate Finance & Administration Committees. Prior to entering the Senate in May 1994 Forshaw was the National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union. He is a graduate of Sydney University (BA Hons) and the University of NSW (LLB) and is a non-practising barrister. Michael is currently the ALP International Secretary and was also recently appointed to the Advisory Council for the University of NSW Campus at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in Canberra.

Geoffrey Hawker is an Associate Professor and Head, Department of Modern History, Politics & International Relations, Macquarie University, Sydney. Hawker teaches a topic on African Politics and Globalisation and he is a past-president of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific and also a co-editor of the journal Australasian Review of African Studies. Hawker has published articles on Africa, Zimbabwe and Australian politics.

Mauritz Lindeque is the Political Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission at the South African High Commission in Canberra, Australia. He has been in this position since arriving in Australia in January 2009. In the absence of a DTI representative at the Mission, his responsibilities have also included trade and investment-related issues. Prior to joining the South African Department of Foreign Affairs in 1991, Mauritz obtained a B.Admin (International Relations) and a BA (Honours) in Political Science from the University of Pretoria. During his career with the Department of Foreign Affairs/ International Relations and Cooperation, he has served abroad at South African Missions in Brussels (1994–97), Dakar (1999–2004) and Canberra (since 2009). While stationed at the Department’s Head Office in Pretoria, most of his work related to South Africa’s bilateral relations with different parts of Africa. Before being posted to Australia, however, he worked with issues relating to South Africa’s involvement in disarmament and non-proliferation at the United Nations level.

Tanya Lyons is the president of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific and the editor of the Australasian Review of African Studies. She is also a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, where she specialises in teaching African Political History. Lyons is the author of Guns and Guerrilla Girls: Women in the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle (Africa World Press, 2004), and co-editor of the book Africa on a Global Stage (Africa World Press, New Jersey, 2006). She has also written about ‘The State of African Studies in Australia’ (co-authored with Elizabeth Dimock) in Paul Zeleza (ed.), The Study of Africa Volume 2, Global and Transnational Engagements (CODESRIA, 2007), and more recently published a chapter on ‘Australian Foreign Policy towards Africa’, in James Cotton and John Ravenhill (eds.), Middle Power Dreaming: Australia in World Affairs Series 2006–2010 (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Samuel M. Makinda is the Professor of Politics and International Studies and the Chair of Security Studies at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. He previously served on the Australian Foreign Minister’s National Consultative Committee for International Security Issues. He has been a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University’s Global Security Programme, and a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. His most recent book is The African Union: Challenges of Globalization, Security and Governance (London, 2008), which was co-authored by Wafula Okumu. His other books include Seeking Peace From Chaos: Humanitarian Intervention in Somalia (Lynne Rienner for the International Peace Academy, 1993), Security in the Horn of Africa, Adelphi Paper No. 269 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1992) and Superpower Diplomacy in the Horn of Africa (Croom Helm, 1987).

David Mickler is a Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is also currently the Deputy Director of the Master of International Relations program. His research explores global and African regional security governance, particularly of non-traditional and human security issues and debates over interventions and institutions. His work has examined the response of both the United Nations and the African Union to the conflict and insecurity in Darfur, Sudan, and he has conducted fieldwork at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is also the author of ‘Australia’s New Engagement with Africa: What Role for Human Security?’ in Altman, Camilleri, Eckersley and Hoffstaedter’s Why Human Security Matters: Rethinking Australian Foreign Policy (Allen & Unwin, 2012).

Koleka Mqulwana is the High Commissioner of the Republic of South Africa in Australia, a post she took up in February 2011. Mqulwana holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Higher Diploma in Education from the University of Western Cape, and has undertaken other study in Australia and New Zealand. Mqulwana was previously a Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament where she held positions as a Member of the Standing Committee on Finance (1999–2002); Member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (1999–2004); Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (2001–2004); Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Social Development (2004–2008); MEC for Public Works and Transport (2008–2009); and Spokesperson on Public Works and Transport (2009–2010).

Joel Negin is Senior Lecturer in International Public Health at the University of Sydney and a Research Fellow at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy. His research focuses on multi-sectoral development models, aid effectiveness and health systems strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa. He has worked in a number of countries including Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, South Africa and Zimbabwe on various health and development projects for UN agencies, government departments and academic institutions. He served as technical adviser to the National AIDS Control Council of Kenya and worked with Botswana’s National AIDS Coordinating Agency.

F. Wafula Okumu works with the Border Program at the African Union in Addis Ababa. He has previously worked with the Peace and Governance Programme of the United Nations University in Tokyo and with the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa, where he was Head of the African Security Analysis Programme. His latest books include The African Union: Challenges of Globalization, Security and Governance (Routledge, 2008), co-authored with Samuel Makinda, and Rebels and Militia Groups in Africa (Institute for Security Studies, 2010), co-authored with Augustine Ikelegbe. His edited books include Towards Understanding Domestic Terrorism in Africa (Institute for Security Studies, 2008), and Democratic Transitions in East Africa (Ashgate, 2004).

Nikola Pijovic has a Masters degree in Global Studies from Roskilde University and the University of Wrocław. His research interests include Australian foreign policy and its engagement with the countries of Africa, African politics, and state secession issues in the African context, with a particular focus on Somaliland and Somalia. His MA thesis was entitled Seceding but not Succeeding: Explaining Somaliland’s Lack of International Recognition. Pijovic has also published on Somali politics in the Australasian Review of African Studies, in a 2012 article entitled ‘It is Chaotic but not Chaos: Civil Society, Local Governance and the Construction of Political Order In and Around Mogadishu’.

Melissa Phillips is a Doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne and Assistant Editor of the Journal of Intercultural Studies. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of New South Wales and a Master of Arts in Applied Anthropology and Development from Macquarie University. Melissa has over ten years experience working with refugees and asylum seekers in Australia, the United Kingdom and Southern Sudan. Her research interests include international migration, multiculturalism, refugee and migrant settlement in Australia, and transnationalism.

Figure 1: Map of Africa, noting Australian diplomatic posts as at 2012.

Source: modified by Bec Stevens for editors, based on a United Nations map 2012.

FOREWORD

New Engagement: Contemporary Australian Foreign Policy Towards Africa

Foreword by the Hon Kevin Rudd MP

Australia may have been a latecomer to Africa’s rise, but as my friend David Mickler notes, we were there when it mattered for South Africa and Zimbabwe—and more recently Australia has been there for South Sudan and for the people living in the Horn of Africa.

Most importantly of all—we are there now. Regularly engaging with the African Union, diplomatic relations with 51 countries, expanding our diplomatic presence—including at the heart of the African Union in Addis Ababa which I was proud to open in 2011— and through our aid program which has more than tripled since 2008.

This book appropriately documents Australia’s relationship with the countries and peoples of Africa. Its ups, and its downs, and where we can take the relationship into the future. It also marks appropriately across a number of authors the important role of Malcolm Fraser in holding our shared Australian values out to the world as we, a country with our own ‘white Australia’ past, described apartheid as ‘something that is repugnant to the whole human race.’

My first political engagement with Africa was on a Commonwealth election monitoring delegation in 2002 with Julie Bishop. It was, in my view, a fraudulent election and we reported it as such, going so far as to say the ‘election in Zimbabwe was marred by a high level of politically motivated violence and intimidation’ and that ‘the ruling party used its incumbency to exploit state resources for the benefit of its electoral campaign’. In the last 10 or so years Zimbabwe has come a long way, with Morgan Tsvangirai now serving as Prime Minister, although there is still a very long way to go.

While all Australian foreign and development policy should be in Australia’s interests, we should never fall into the trap of seeing that as at the expense of other interests. It is overwhelmingly in the interests of the countries of Africa and Australia to develop their exports in mining, it is in the interests of all to eradicate poverty and disease, and it is in the interests of all for transition to democratic forms of government in the countries of the African Union. These are not in Australia’s interests at the expense of others—these are Australian values being implemented for the benefit of all. That is why Australia initiated the $105 million mining for development initiative at the 2011 Commonwealth summit in Perth.

There is also no doubt that the Australian people want Africa to grow and thrive. That’s why Australia has almost quadrupled our aid to Africa since 2007. This was also reflected in Australia’s strong support for the World Food Programme’s efforts in the crisis in the Horn of Africa, where we were among the largest government contributors around the world helping to save hundreds of thousands of lives. We also saw this with the Australian government and non-government organisations working together to raise funds for the Horn of Africa Dollar for Dollar appeal, where Australians pitched in $12.7 million for urgent relief assistance—and the Australian government matched their contributions.

Our development assistance in Africa goes much further, but it is tangible and it is making a difference. Contributing to vaccinations against polio for 8 million children in Tanzania, food assistance to some 7.9 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and assisting with the safe delivery of some 7,000 babies while training 150 students to do the same. We have also invested in Africa’s future with more than 1,000 Australia Awards for Africa in 2012—filling our universities with the best and brightest of Africa and investing in the human capital of Africa for the future.

I have always believed Australia should never be afraid to look west. We are both a Pacific power and an Indian Ocean power. We have a gateway to Africa in Perth which has proved itself as a builder of people-to-people links though our mining and mining services.

This book is not afraid to probe the ideas of where Australia’s relationship should head for the future. We should have confidence in Africa’s future and the role that Australia has to play in that future. I believe the ideas in this book spark the discussion afresh and ensure that Australia will continue to embrace a new engagement with the African continent.

Introduction

Locating Australian Engagement with Africa

David Mickler and Tanya Lyons

‘Australia discovers Africa’. This is how David Goldsworthy, in his historical account of Australia’s emergence from the declining British Empire post-World War II, characterised Canberra’s newly independent foreign policy interests and forays westwards in the late 1950s. Until this time, he suggests, Australia ‘had no diplomatic ties with, let alone coherent and thought-out policies towards, any of the countries of tropical Africa’.¹ Of course, Australian troops had fought for the British Empire or Commonwealth in Sudan and South Africa during the late nineteenth century and in North Africa during both World Wars, and Australia had established a High Commission in South Africa in 1946 and Embassy in Egypt in 1950. Yet, sub-Saharan Africa remained ‘blanketed by European empires and of little apparent relevance to Australia’s material interests [and] barely impinged upon the official mind in Canberra’.² With Africa itself emerging as independent during that period, ‘it became evident to Canberra that Australia needed to formulate an approach, more or less from scratch, towards what would soon be a large number of new states’.³ At that time, Australia wanted to engage with an African continent of growing geopolitical importance, particularly in the context of the Cold War.

Fast-forward to January 2011, and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd officially reopened the Australian Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the diplomatic capital of Africa and home to the African Union (AU), the ambitious regional international organisation formed in 2002. The AU, along with other new pan-African initiatives, were ‘born out of a deep desire to revive a marginalized and exploited continent that has been ravaged by centuries of slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, exploitation, oppression, conflict and hunger’ and together represent ‘a concerted effort by African leaders to put the continent on track towards sustainable growth and development’.⁴ In Addis Ababa, Rudd declared that Australia, now a ‘middle power with global interests’, was ‘committed to a new engagement with Africa—in fact new engagements with this new Africa we have seen emerge over the last decade’.⁵

This suggested that in the half-century since Australia first ‘discovered’ Africa the relationship had in fact remained one of Canberra’s lower foreign policy priorities—a relationship in need of re-engagement. It also suggested that something was now changing in both Africa itself, and in Australia’s perception of its own interests and role in the world. Just like during the decolonisation era, a re-emerging and dynamic Africa was again of geopolitical importance to Australia; this time, to an ambitious Australia with a broader conception of its own global interests and one seeking to play a more influential role in global governance. Canberra therefore saw key political, economic and reputational opportunities for Australia in Africa that had been previously ignored.

In between Australia’s initial discovery and recent re-engagement with Africa, Canberra often used Commonwealth channels to engage with Africa. Conservative Prime Minister Robert Menzies, keen to keep the Britain-linked Commonwealth alive, opened Australian High Commissions in each of the major Commonwealth African nations: Ghana (1957–85, reopened 2004), Nigeria (1960), Tanzania (1962–87) and Kenya (1965). Australia later opened, and then closed, diplomatic posts in Algeria (1976–91), Zambia (1980–91) and Ethiopia (1985–87, reopened 2010), while adding posts in Zimbabwe (1980)