AEFJN stands with the G20 on the outcome of the July 7-8 Hamburg Summit on Climate and Energy. We welcome, in particular, the position of the “G19” on “the irreversibility” of the 2015 Paris Agreement. It demonstrates that we can still get it right with our choice of value system, putting global interests before parochial economic quests. It is a victory for the global community and human solidarity! It is a protest against the systematic effort to short-change human values for economic interests.  Where there are no values beyond exchange values, we can no longer speak of humanity. What exchange value can we place on the disappearing forests of the great lakes regions, and extinct animals of the Africa game reserves and other parts of the world? It is imperative to orient our global community once again to live in a way that rates the preservation of the integrity of our humanity above consumerism and exchange values!

Truly, the announcement of the President Trump-led administration to dump the Paris Agreement made the global community to sit on the edge about the outcome of the G20 Hamburg Summit. We salute the presidency of Germany for navigating through the tumultuous summit to bring the “G19”, with the exception of the new US administration led by Donald Trump, to recommit to the Paris Agreement and its swift implementation.

In addition, it gladdens our hearts to see the alignment of the G20 outcome to the Climate and Energy Action Plan for Growth (CEAP), its commitment to Goal No.7 of the UN SDGs and to the global energy transition by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement, and the outcome of the work on green Finance and risk disclosure under finance tracking. What the AEFJN asks for now is the swift implementation of the commitment. The commitment to clean global energy sends a red alert to African countries that are not making effort to move away from fossil energy based economy.

From the African continent, we recognise the storm of ‘magufulification[1] that swept across the shady financial landscape of Tanzania in East Africa engineered by the intervention of the eagle-eyed leader of the country, President John Magufuli. The recently published Tanzanian Osoro Committee report estimates that Tanzania lost up to $84 billion between 1988 and 2017 through misinvoicing and mispricing to the Acacia Mining Corporation. Going by the Tanzanian proposed 2017/2018 budget of approximately $15 billion, the money stolen by Acacia Mining Corporation would be sufficient to finance the Tanzanian budget for five years.  The report commissioned by Magufuli, after he paid a visit to the port of Dar es Salaam in March, opened up the can of worms. Commendably, he has set in motion a rigorous process that will ensure due process, accountability and transparency in the mining sector.

The case of Tanzania demonstrates that a wave of ‘magulification’ across the African continent by its leaders will reposition the continent financially. The countries of Europe, the US and the other continents of the world are also losing a lot of money through tax evasion and tax avoidance and nothing short of transparency in our global tax system will solve it. The need for global solidarity in this regard has become imperative!

[1] ‘Magufulification’ comes from Magufuli, the surname of the current Tanzanian president. It was coined by Prof. P.L.O. Lumumba, an African anti-corruption czar. Magufulification is the process of restoring sanity to the socio-political arena of Africa as Magufuli has been doing in Tanzania.