ملخص

تهدف هذه الورقة إلى فهم وتحليل محدّدات وصعوبات الانتقال العادل للقطاع الزراعي في مصر وتونس والمغرب والجزائر، ومن ثمّة امكانات بناء هذا الانتقال العادل للزراعة ارتكازا علي المقومات المحلية والتبادل والتعاون بين صغار الفلاحين ومنظماتهم والفاعلين الاجتماعيين بتلك الدول. تبدأ الورقة بتحليل واقع السياسات الزراعية الوطنية في بلدان الدراسة وتحوّلاتها، مع التركيز على علاقات القوى على المستويَيْن المحلي والدولي وموقع هذه الدول في الاقتصاد السياسي العالمي للغذاء. بعدها نتناول مسائل التبادل البيئي غير المتكافئ والديْن البيئي والمناخي المُستَحَقّ لدول المنطقة قبل أن تُعَرِّج الدراسة الى طبيعة الممارسات والمؤسسات والشبكات الداعمة للانتقال العادل للزراعة. وتخلص الورقة ان الانتقال العادل للزراعة بشمال أفريقيا يتطلب ان يكون مبنيا على الاستقلال الذاتي وانهاء التبعية وانهاء تهميش صغار الفلاحين وتخفيف حدة التغيرات المناخية والتكيف مع اثاراها عبر اعادة بناء النظم البيئية الزراعية المحلية ووقف التدهور البيئي.

مع كل تقرير جديد من تقارير الهيئة الحكومية الدولية المعنية بتغير المناخ يزيد التشاؤم حول مستقبلنا المناخي الذي يبدو أنّه يسير من سيّء الي أسوأ. تشهد منطقة دول شمال أفريقيا حالة من الهشاشة في مواجهة التغيرات المناخية والأزمات البيئية والتي تمثّل واقع يوميًا لملايين البشر بالمناطق القاحلة وشبه القاحلة والصحراوية. خلال العقود القليلة الماضية واصلت معدّلات الجفاف ودرجات الحرارة  في الارتفاع إلى أعلى مستوياتها، ممّا يؤدّي إلى تسارع التصحر. كما تعاني المنطقة أيضًا من ندرة شديدة في المياه وتدهور جودة الأراضي وحجم الثروة الحيوانية. هذا التسارع للأزمة البيئية له آثار مباشرة وغير مباشرة على الزراعة والرعي وصيد الأسماك، ويزيد من انعدام السيادة الغذائية في المنطقة . من الجدير بالذكر أنّ سكان الريف وصغار المزارعين وعمال وعاملات المزارع هم من الفئات الأكثر فقرا والأكثر تضررًا من الأزمات الزراعية-البيئية. علاوة على ذلك، فإنّ سكان الريف يمثّلون حوالي 52٪ من إجمالي سكان شمال أفريقيا.

من ناحية أخرى، تنفث منطقة شمال أفريقيا  قدرًا ضئيلًا جدا من غازات الاحتباس الحراري. اذ ساهمت القارة الافريقية مجتمعة عام 2017 بحوالي 4% من انبعاثات ثاني اكسيد الكربون عالميا وبلغ معدل الانبعاثات لكل افريقي حوالي 0.9 طن سنويا وهو الأقل عالميا.. في دول شمال أفريقيا تساهم مصر بحوالي 0.6% والجزائر 0.5% وتونس 0.1 % والمغرب 0.15% من الانبعاثات العالمية. وتظهر دراسة حديثة أنّ  المسئولية التراكمية للشمال العالمي عن اطلاق غازات الاحتباس الحراي تمثل 90% في حين يتحمل الجنوب العالمي المسؤولية عن 10% فقط ومع ذلك تتحمل تلك الدول أعباء كبيرة لهذه الظواهر وهي في امس الحاجة الى انتقال عادل لتخفيف حدة التحولات البيئية والتكيف مع نتائجها.

ولا تتأثر الزراعة سلبا بسبب التغيرات المناخية وتدهور الموارد الطبيعية فقط ولكنها تمثل بدورها  مصدرًا للانبعاثات. اذ  تسبّبت الزراعة واستخدامات الأراضي وادارة الغابات في اجمالي نحو 23% من انبعاثات غازات الاحتباس الحراري بين 2007 و 2016 وذلك نتيجة هيمنة نظم غذاء عالمية رأسمالية في القطاع الزراعي. هذه النظم الغذائية عالية الانبعاثات ومنخفضة القدرة على التكيف مع التغيرات المناخية تهيمن أيضا على  دول شمال أفريقيا كما سنوضح لاحقا. ومن هنا تنبع أهمية مناقشة امكانات ومعوقات الإنتقال العادل للقطاع الزراعي في المنطقة.

شهد القطاع الزراعي في بلدان شمال أفريقيا تحولات كبيرة في العقود الأخيرة. يوضح الجدول رقم (1) أنّ حصة مساهمة الزراعة في الناتج المحلي الاجمالي منخفضة. سجل الميزان التجاري عجزا مع أوروبا في الدول التي شملتها الدراسة  فيما عدا المغرب وتونس (انظر جدول 1). ورغم انحسار حصة القطاع الزراعي من الناتج العام الاجمالي في هذه الدول الّا أنّ القطاع الزراعي مايزال يمثل مصدرًا أساسيًا للتشغيل، خاصة في مصر والمغرب، كما أنّ نسبة السكان بالمناطق الريفية ماتزال كبيرة رغم  ما  تشهده الأرياف من تحضّر. شهدت دول المنطقة خلال العقود الأخيرة أيضا ارتفاعا في معدلات الفقر الريفي وسوء التغذية وزيادة التفاوت الاجتماعي.

من أجل مكافحة الجوع والتكيّف مع تغير المناخ وتخفيف آثاره على القطاع الزراعي والعاملين به وسكان الأرياف، هناك ضرورة لإحداث  انتقال اقتصادي اجتماعي وبيئي في هذا القطاع. مثل العديد من البلدان في جميع أنحاء العالم، طُرحت في السنوات القليلة الماضية المعارف المحلّية، الزراعة البيئية والتجديديّة، ونُظم الغذاء المحلية كحلول لأزمات النظم الغذائية والزراعية والبيئية المهيمنة في شمال أفريقيا. ومع ذلك، فإنّ هذه الديناميكيات الجديدة لم يجر توثيقها أو دراستها بالقدر الكافي، وهناك نقص في تكوين صورة عامة حول هذه التطورات في الممارسات والشبكات المختلفة الداعمة لها. يأتي هذا النقاش أيضا في ظل تنامي النقاشات حول الانتقال العادل في القطاع الزراعي والتساؤلات حول امكاناته ومحدّداته   في  دول شمال أفريقيا .ويُعبّر مصطلح الانتقال العادل عن مجموعة من المبادئ والعمليات والممارسات التي تؤسس تحولًا من الاقتصاد الاستخراجي إلى الاقتصاد البيئي منخفض الكربون دون ترك أي بلد يتخلف عن الركب. ظهر مفهوم الانتفال العادل بدايةً عبر النقاشات بين الحركة البيئية والحركة العمالية في أمريكا الشمالية ثم تطور في التسعينات كمفهوم مرتبط بالعمّال ليعبّر عن ضرورة خلق عمل لائق ووظائف خضراء،  وقد اعتمدته منظمة العمل الدولية كما  سُلّط عليه الضوء  في اتفاقية المناخ بباريس. لكن في الآونة الاخيرة أصبح المفهوم أكثر شمولاً ويدمج الأبعاد الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والبيئية لا فقط داخل نطاق الدولة القومية، ولكن على المستوي العالمي. 

هذا التعريف الأوسع والأكثر جذرية لـ “الانتقال العادل” يفتح المجال للنقا حول إعادة هيكلة اجتماعية واقتصادية طموحة تعالج جذور عدم المساواة في القطاعات المختلفة. كما أنه يفتح المجال ايضا للاشتباك مع قضايا النوع الاجتماعي والطبقة وكذلك مناهضة الاستعماري بأشكاله المتعدّدة في علاقتها بالانتقال نحو عالم منخفض الكربون.  في هذا السياق، نناقش تحدّيات ومقومات وملامح الإنتقال العادل للزراعة في شمال أفريقيا.

تهدف  الورقة الراهنة إلى معالجة هذه المسائل من خلال تقييم ومقارنة تحولات السياسات الزراعية في الجزائر ومصر والمغرب وتونس وامكانات بناء انتقال عادل للزراعة. نفترض بأنّه من أجل فهم دقيق لواقع السياسات الزراعية الوطنية وتحولاتها من المهمّ أن تشمل مناقشتنا الجهات الفاعلة الرئيسية في القطاع الزراعي، الى جانب تحليل علاقات القوى على المستوي المحلي والدولي وموقع المنطقة في الاقتصاد السياسي العالمي. تحتوي هذه الورقة ثلاثة أقسام، أولها يهتمّ بدراسة وتحليل السياسات الزراعية والمحدّدات الهيكلية للتنمية الزراعية بالمنطقة في حين يناقش ثانيها مسألة الديْن البيئي والمناخي وآثار عمليات التبادل البيئي غير المتكافئ على حالة الموارد الطبيعية وفرص التنمية بالمنطقة. وثالثها يناقش الممارسات الفعلية للزراعة البيئة والتجديدية والمبادرات المحلية وشبكات الفاعلين من أجل بناء تحول عادل للزراعة بشمال أفريقيا.

نحاول في هذا القسم تقديم قراءة تحليلية للتحولات في النفاذ للموارد والسياسات الزراعية في دولة ما بعد الاستعمار وواقع القطاع الزراعي والمجتمعات الريفية والموارد الطبيعية في بلدان المنطقة. يمكّننا ذلك من فهم تحولات الاقتصاد الزراعي والسياسات الزراعية في دول المنطقة وتحولات نموذج التنمية المهيمن. لا نقدم هنا مقارنة تفصيلية، ولكن قراءة متقاطعة لبعض القرارات والسياسات المركزية التي أحدثت نقلات نوعية في بنية السياسات الزراعية بدول شمال أفريقيا. 

• 1.1 النفاذ للأراضي والمياه في دولة ما بعد الاستعمار

كانت المسألة الزراعية والنقاشات حول المستقبل الاقتصادي والاجتماعي حاضرة اثناء النضال ضد الاستعمار وفي أعقاب تحقيق التحرّر الوطني.مع نهاية الحقبة الاستعمارية اتخذت الدول المختلفة مسارات متعددة لإدارة مواردها الزراعية وميراثها الاستعماري. ومثلت المسألة الزراعية الموروثة عن الاستعمار لدى اغلب القوى الوطنية موضوعا سياسيا حاسما مع ميلاد دول ما بعد الاستعمار. لذلك شهدت السنوات 1950-1970 تحولات حاسمة في مسار السياسات الزراعية وواقع المجتمعات الريفية في بلدان شمال أفريقيا حيث طبقت كل من الجزائر ومصر وتونس والمغرب نماذج متعددة من الاصلاح الزراعي.

في الجزائر اعتمدت جبهة التحرير الوطني الإصلاحات الزراعية المستندة إلى التسيير الذاتي والثورة الزراعية المطبقة غداة الاستقلال (1962). عززت هذه السياسات التنمية الريفية وسهلت النفاذ للأراضي لصغار الفلاحين والفلاحين دون أرض، علاوة على تقديم الدعم الاجتماعي والتقني لهم  كذلك  أعيد توزيع 250 ألف هكتار على قدماء المجاهدين من خلال تجميعهم في 250 تعاونية فلاحية انتاجية. وُزِّعت أراضي المستعمرين على 2200 مزرعة وكان معظمها كبير بمتوسط 1000 هكتار وباجمالي مساحة 2.5 مليون هكتار. وخلال السبعينيات، أُمّمت ممتلكات الأراضي التي لم يزرعها أصحابها، وقُيّدت حيازات الأراضي الكبيرة. في المغرب احتلت المسألة الزراعية مكانة أساسية في الإدارة السياسية للمجتمع. كان هاجس التحديث الزراعي حاضرا منذ الاستقلال، وفي عام 1962 تأسس المعهد الوطني للبحث الزراعي بهدف تحديث القطاع الفلاحي وإعداد فلاحة ناجعة مرتكزة على الابتكار والتجديد. تحت ضغط النقاشات التي طرحتها نقابة الاتحاد المغربي للشغل وحزب الاتحاد الوطني للقوات الشعبية وحزب التقدم والاشتراكية وحزب الاستقلال في البرلمان، أقرت الحكومة قوانين الاصلاح الزراعي في عام 1963 لاسترجاع اراضي المستعمرين على مرحلتين تنتهيان عام 1973. وفي عام 1969 أُقٍرّ ميثاق الاستثمارات الفلاحية، وفي عام 1972 القانون المتعلق بمنح الفلاحين أراضي فلاحية من ملك الدولة الخاص، وبعده القانون المتعلق بالتعاونيات الفلاحية المؤسَّسة بين الفلاحين الممنوحة لهم القطع الأرضية المحدثة في العقارات الجماعية القديمة. وقد مثّل القطاع الاستعماري في المغرب أكثر من مليون هكتار من الأراضي الصالحة للزراعة.  قام النظام الملكي بإعادة توزيع الأراضي التي كانت بحوزة الاستعمار الفرنسي على النخب الريفية لتأمين سلطته وشراء ولاءاتها للمخزن. كما استثمرت الدولة بشكل أساسي في بناء السدود ومشاريع ريّ واسعة النطاق وتنمية طبقة جديدة موالية من المزارعين المتوسطين. ومع ذلك ظلّ نظام التحكم في الأراضي تحت سيطرة الدولة ويُستخدم كأداة لضمان  الولاءات وخفض توتر أو احتجاج المجموعات التي لا تملك أراضي.

في تونس بعد ثلاثة سنوات من الاستقلال، وعبر قانون 48 بتاريخ 7 مايو 1959، استحوذت الدولة على العقارات الفلاحية المهمَلة أو غير المستغلة والأحباس وشمل هذا القرار الاراضي المشاع وقُدّرت المساحة بحوالي 500 ألف هكتار. وفي 12 مايو 1964 صدر قانون تأميم الاراضي الاستعمارية وقُدرت المساحة بحوالي 300 ألف هكتار. قبل نفاذ هذا القانون استطاع بعض الأعيان المحليين وبعض التجار وأصحاب المهن الحرة والأعضاء النافذين في حزب الدستور (الحاكم) من شراء جزء من الأراضي الاستعمارية. نتيجة لهذه العملية تكوّن لدى الدولة التونسية بنهاية الستينيّات ملكية عقارية زراعية تقدر بحوالي 800 ألف هكتار بما يقارب 10% من مساحة الاراضي الزراعية بتونس . ساهمت هذه الاراضي في تدشين التجربة الزراعية التعاونية (التعاضدية) بتونس والتي لم تستمر كثيرا، اذ تفككت عام 1969، أي بعد ثماني سنوات من انطلاقها. بعد ذلك بدأت تونس في التحول نحو المسار الليبرالي بشكل مبكر بخصخصة الاراضي الجماعية عبر قانون 14 يناير 1971، وقد استفادت القيادات المحلية والمتنفّذين من هذا التشريع

وفي مصر يحتل الإصلاح الزراعي مكانة مركزية في قراءة الحقبة الأولى لنظام يوليو 1952. قام الإصلاح الزراعي بإعادة توزيع حوالي 343 ألف هكتار في الفترة بين 1952 و1970 أي نحو 12.5% من الأراضي الزراعية، وقد وُزِّعت على 343 ألف أسرة تضم نحو 1.7 مليون فرد، أي نحو 9% من سكان الريف في تلك الفترة  . ويمكن تلخيص الوضع بعد نهاية الحقبة الناصرية بأنّ تغيرات مهمة طرأت على الخريطة الطبقية والاجتماعية في القرى منذ سنة 1952.حيث فقد الكثير من كبار الملاك العقاريين والنافذين سياسيًّا جزءًا كبيرًا من أراضيهم بينما زادت المساحة المملوكة للفلاحين الصغار والمتوسطين وتحقق الأمان الإيجاري للمستأجرين وتحسنت أوضاع الفلاحين دون أرض وعمال الزراعة بشكل طفيف. ساهمت أدوات “الثورة الخضراء” التي تبنتها تلك الدول والتي تمثلت في استخدام الميكنة الزراعية والاعتماد على الاسمدة الكيماوية والمبيدات الحيوية والاصناف الهجينة من البذور في زيادة الانتاج الزراعي. 

رغم تعدد اشكال ادارة الاراضي وتحقيق قدر من التنمية الزراعية الا ان النماذج التنموية التي اتخذتها دول شمال أفريقيا خلال العقدين الأولين تقريبًا بعد الاستقلال اتسمت بتمركزها حول تحديث القطاع الزراعي والحفاظ على المزارع الكبيرة سواء عبر ادارة الدولة أو عبر التعاونيات، التي كانت شديدة المركزية والرقابة. وقد تبنت هذه الدول بدرجات مختلفة سياسات تقدمية و/أو رأسمالية الدولة و/أو سياسات الثورة الخضراء سواء عبر الدعم التقني والمادي أو عبر دعم مستلزمات الانتاج أو من خلال بعث مشروعات ريّ كبيرة ودعم المعرفة الزراعية الحديثة ونشر الارشاد الزراعي وتأسيس مراكز بحثية ومدارس زراعية وبناء تعاونيات زراعية. تميزت تلك الحقبة بخطاب للدولة منحاز للتحديث والزراعة التجارية والتصديرية وتهميش الزراعة الصغيرة/العائلية والمعاشية. في نفس الوقت الذي هيمنت فيه سياسات تحقيق الاكتفاء الذاتي، فيما يتعلق بالأغذية الأساسية مثل الحبوب، استمرّ التركيز على المحاصيل التصديرية التي كانت تهيمن على المزارع الاستعمارية (مثل الحوامض والكروم والخضروات والقطن والزيتون).

• 1.2 التحولات النيوليبرالية وآثارها على الموارد الزراعية

منذ الثمانينيات، بدأ الانعطاف نحو سياسات الليبرالية الجديدة لدول شمال أفريقيا عبر تحرير السوق بضغط من المؤسسات المالية الدولية (صندوق النقد الدولي والبنك العالمي). اذ خضعت هذه الدول الى مشروطيّة تطبيق “توافق واشنطن” فبدأت تدريجيًا تحرير التجارة الخارجية وخفض سعر العملة المحلية وإحكام سيطرة السوق بتوالي خصخصة الشركات العمومية والتصفية التدريجية للخدمات العامة، وأُعطيَت الأولوية لخفض الديْن العامّ وتقليص الإنفاق الاجتماعي وخفض معدلات التوظيف في القطاع العام. 

أحدثت هذه التحولات في بلدان شمال أفريقيا تغييرا كبيرا في إدارة المياه والأراضي الزراعية في المناطق الريفية؛ انسحبت الدولة من إدارة الموارد الطبيعية وتركت مساحة أكبر للقطاع الخاص. وقد أدى ذلك إلى زيادة نفاذ شركات الاستثمار الخاصة في الزراعة واستحواذها على الأراضي والمياه، خاصة في المناطق الصحراوية الشاسعة اعتمادا على المياه الجوفية عبر تسهيلات الحصول على الأراضي التي تقدمها الدولة لكبار المستثمرين الزراعيين.

في الجزائر، اُنهيَت مزارع الدولة وقُسِّمَت إلى مزارع أصغر (10-70 هكتارًا). في عام 1987 انتقلت هذه الأراضي تدريجيا إلى أيدي المستثمرين الزراعيين. ورافق هذا التغيير التحرك تدريجيا نحو قوانين السوق: حُرّرت أسعار مستلزمات الانتاج الزراعي منذ الثمانينات بشكل تدريجي وارتفعت أسعار الأسمدة والمبيدات والمعدات الزراعية ونتج عن ذلك زيادة اسعار المنتجات الزراعية. وبعد توقيع الجزائر على اتفاقية مع صندوق النقد الدولي عام 1994 رُفع الدعم عن جميع مستلزمات الانتاج الزراعي. في المغرب زادت حدّة التحولات النيوليبرالية في القطاع الزراعي في العام 2003 حيث تمّ خصخصة الشركتين العموميتين اللتين كانتا تديران الجزء الأكبر من الأراضي المسترجَعة، وهما شركة التنمية الفلاحية (صوديا) وشركة تسيير الأراضي الفلاحية (صوجيطا)، وتحولت ملكية 90% من الأراضي الزراعية الاستعمارية السابقة الى يد شريحة من الرأسماليين وأعيان الدولة الكبار في الإدارة والجيش والأمن. أمّا في تونس فقد طُبِّقت السياسات النيولبيرالية مبكّرا قبل توقيع برنامج  التكييف الهيكلي مع البنك الدولي عام 1986. فقد اتجهت الدولة نحو توجيه الانتاج الزراعي نحو التصدير والمحاصيل عالية القيمة المضافة وتوفير التمويل للاستثمارات الزراعية وانهاء تسويق الدولة للمنتجات الزراعية . صاحب هذه السياسات ايضا انسحاب تدريجي للدولة من القطاعات الزراعية التقليدية..

وفي مصر ومنذ العام 1979 انتُهجت سياسات الانفتاح الاقتصادي وتمّ تفكيك  المزارع المملوكة للدولة ووقع  إعادة النظر في قوانين الاصلاح الزراعي وحلّ الاتحاد التعاوني الزراعي. كذلك اتخذت الدولة مجموعة من الإجراءات لتقليص الدّعم على الفلاحين بالوادي والدلتا مثل: تحرير أسعار توريد المحاصيل الزراعية والغاء دعم المبيدات والاسمدة والسماح للقطاع الخاص بالاتجار في مستلزمات الانتاج الزراعي . وأُلغيَ الحدّ الأقصى لملكية اراضي الاستصلاح للشركات الزراعية وتسهيلات تمكين المستثمرين من الاراضي. وفي عام 1992 صدر قانون تنظيم العلاقات الايجارية بين المالك والمستأجر (قانون 96 لسنة 1992) والذي أنهى الأمان الايجاري وتسبَّب في موجة من الاحتجاجات في الريف المصري. في جميع بلدان شمال أفريقيا، اهتمت الدولة بالتوسع في الزراعة الصحراوية من أجل التصدير وتوسيع تسليع اراضي الدولة وتوفيرها للمستثمرين الزراعيين. منذ التسعينيات، كانت سياسات التنمية الزراعية في الصحراء تُعتَبر الحلّ لتوفير أو انتاج المواد الغذائية في بلدان شمال أفريقيا .كانت سياسات التوسع الزراعي في الصحاري مدعومة من المؤسسات المالية الدولية وكانت مستوحاة من التجربة كاليفورنيا، أي تكثيف رأس المال والتكنولوجيا واستنزاف الموارد المائية والارضية من أجل انتاج محاصيل ذات قيمة مضافة عالية للتصدير.

أدّت هذه التحولات الى انهاء سياسات الاكتفاء الذاتي للغذاء. وذلك من خلال وقف دعم الانتاج المحلي والتوجه الى سياسات الأمن الغذائي، والتي تعني الحصول على الغذاء من أيّ مصدر سواء عبر انتاج الاستثمارات المحلية أو الاستيراد أو الاعانات الغذائية. كما حدثت تحولات كبرى في النُظم الغذائية وشهدت الدول ارتفاعًا في أمراض التغذية وزادت التبعية الغذائية واصبحت الجزائر أكبر مستورد للقمح في العالم وتتنافس في ذلك مع مصر.

يمكن تلخيص أهم الملامح الرئيسية للنظام الغذائي-الزراعي المهيمن في بلدان شمال أفريقيا بعد حوالي أربعين عامًا من تطبيق السياسات النيوليبرالية بالنقاط التالية:

• إلغاء دعم صغار الفلاحين وانسحاب الدولة التدريجي من كل أشكال السند التقني والعيني للإنتاج الزراعي الفلاحي والواحي، ويتضمّن ذلك تخلّيها عن دورها في التحكم في العمليات والممارسات الزراعية من التسميد ونوع البذور والمبيدات مركزيًّا، وكذلك تسعير مُدخلات الزراعة أو مُخرجاتها وترك كل ذلك لقوى السوق، وتخليها عن دعم مستلزمات الإنتاج، وكذلك الدعم الائتماني. وإطلاق حرية القطاع الخاص في استيراد وتداول المستلزمات.
• الترويج لنمط الإنتاج الكبير ودعم نموذج المزارع الزراعية الشاسعة، على غرار نموذج كاليفورنيا. وذلك عبر استصلاح الصحراء وتسهيل حصول المستثمرين الزراعيين على مساحات شاسعة من الأراضي، بالشكل الذي يعيد انتاج الاستعمار الجديد عبر استحواذ القلة على الأراضي ويَظهر ذلك بوضوح في حالات كُلٍ من المغرب ومصر.
• تبنّي سياسة الزراعة من أجل التصدير، بمعنى خلق حوافز للتصدير وتقديم تسهيلات لبناء مبرّدات بالمطارات وأيضًا إعطاء حوافز مالية للتصدير عبر صناديق دعم الصادرات والانخراط في منظومة علاقات تجارية دولية تُحقّق مصالح الشمال العالمي وليس مصالح السكان المحليين، ويتضّح  ذلك في كُلٍ من المغرب وتونس ومصر
• هيمنة نمط غذائي استهلاكي مُعوْلم وعالي في استهلاك الكربوهيدرات الرخيصة مُحدثا ارتفاعا في معدلات الأمراض المرتبطة بالغذاء وارتفاع معدلات السمنة وسوء التغذية. واستبدال سياسات الاكتفاء الذاتي من الغذاء بسياسات الأمن الغذائي، بمعنى الحصول على الغذاء من أي مصدر بدلًا من إنتاجه محليا   في جميع بلدان الدراسة.

1. 1.3 الوضع الراهن: زراعة فلاحية مهمشة وزراعة رأسمالية استخراجية

بعد انحسار سياسات الرفاه لحكومات ما بعد الاستعمار في طور السياسات النيوليبرالية أعيد انتاج شكل أكثر محلية من الثنائية التي كانت حاضرة في الحقبة الاستعمارية: بين قطاعين زراعيّين، أحدهما يتمتع بالتطور وبالحيازات الكبيرة ودعم السلطة والآخر يوصم بالتأخّر ويَلقى التهميش ويمثل زراعات صغار الفلاحين في السهول والأودية والواحات والزراعات المطرية.

في شمال أفريقيا تُعَدُّ الزراعة قطاعا رئيسيا لتوظيف النساء، حيث تُوظِّف حوالي 55 في المائة من عمالة الإناث في مقابل 23 في المائة فقط من عمالة الذكور. يزيد أعداد العمال الموسميّين المهاجرين مع هجرات النساء والرجال الاقتصادية أو من جراء الحروب والنزاعات. في مصر، على سبيل المثال، وفقا للتعداد الزراعي لعام 2010 وصل إجمالي العاملات  في القطاع الزراعي الى  خمسة ملايين سيدة، تعمل 40% منهنّ دون  أجر لدى  عائلاتهنّ. مع نمو أشكال الزراعة الراسمالية زادت عمليات تأنيث العمل الزراعي والاعتماد بشكل كبير على  الفتيات من سنّ صغير (يبدأ أحيانا من عمر 8 سنوات) في ظل ظروف عمل شديدة السوء. يَطرح العمل في القطاع الزراعي إشكاليات عديدة مرتبطة بظروف الشغل  والمسائل الصحية وتقسيم العمل محليا ودوليا وعلاقة ذلك بتمكين النساء وتحقيق التنمية. تكتسب أوضاع عاملات المزارع أهمية خاصة في ظل اللحظة الحالية المرتبطة بالأزمة الصحية ومخاوف تكرار أزمة غذائية جديدة تزيد بُعدا إضافيا إلى  الأزمات التي تشهدها المنطقة. 

الزراعة أيضا هي واحدة من أكثر القطاعات الإنتاجية خطورة في العالم. وفقًا لتقديرات مكتب العمل الدولي، يُقتل حوالي 170.000 عامل أو عاملة زراعي كلّ عام. وهذا يعني أنّ العمال في الزراعة يتعرضون على الأقل لخطر الوفاة في العمل بمقدار الضعف مقارنة بالعاملين في القطاعات الأخرى. كما أنّ الملايين من العمال والعاملات الزراعيين يتعرّضون  لإصابات عمل خطيرة في حوادث مرتبطة بالأدوات الزراعية أو التسمّم بالمبيدات الحشرية والمواد الكيميائية الزراعية الأخرى. علاوة على ذلك، بسبب قلّة الإبلاغ عن الوفيات والإصابات والأمراض المهنية في الزراعة، من المرجح أن تكون الصورة الحقيقية للصحة والسلامة المهنية لعمال المزارع أسوأ في دول المنطقة.

الأوضاع المتدهورة للزراعة بشمال افريقيا مدعومة بالعلاقات غير المتكافئة في النظام العالمي للإنتاج والاستهلاك. فدول المنطقة تخضع الى أحد اشكال التبادل غير المتكافئ مع الشمال العالمي، خاصة الاتحاد الاوربي محكومة بالاتفاقيات التجارية التي تدعم وصول المنتجات الزراعية لدول شمال أفريقيا الى الاتحاد الأوربي بأسعار تفضيلية للمستهلك الاوروبي وتسهل استغلال موارد المنطقة وفارق أجر العمل في القطاع الزراعي بالجنوب واستخلاص فائض القيمة لصالح المستهلك الاوربي. يتحمل الاتحاد الأوروبي مسؤولية كبيرة عن هيمنة الزراعة التصديرية بدول المنطقة باعتباره أكبر شريك تجاري لدول شمال أفريقيا وممول رئيسي لنموذج التنمية النيوليبرالي بالمنطقة. وبالتالي يؤثر على سياسات التنمية وعلى خطط التجارة والزراعة المهيمنة بالمنطقة. فالاتحاد الأوروبي يتبنّى شعار “التجارة من أجل التنمية” ويضغط بدعم من النخب المحلية من أجل توقيع اتفاقيات تجارية حرّة ومعمقة مع دول شمال أفريقيا تزيد من أزماتها الهيكلية .

 يرى منظرّو التبعية أنّ الاستعمار ربما يكون قد رحل لكن نموذج التنمية للحقبة الاستعمارية ظلّ مهيمنا بدرجات مختلفة مكرّسا التفاوت بين الشمال والجنوب العالميين. ومع العصر النيوليبرالي لعب المستعمرون السابقون دورًا مركزيًا في ادماج اقتصاديات الدول المجاورة في الاقتصاد العالمي ومنظومة التجارة العالمية، خاصة في منظومة الاتحاد الأوروبي، كأطراف تابعة. تتطلّب تلبية احتياجات السوق الاوروبي التركيز على زراعة المحاصيل الأحادية والمزارع الكبيرة والالتزام بمتطلبات الذوق العام الاوروبي في طريقة اعداد زيت الزيتون مثلا أو زراعة أصناف محددة من التمور، أو الفراولة، أو اللأزهار أو التخصص في زراعة اصناف محددة من الحمضيات.

خلقت هذه السياسات والممارسات الزراعية وضع بيئي للقطاع الزراعي يعبّر عن ثنائية أخرى. من ناحية هناك استنزاف للموارد البيئية من أرض ومياه من قبل الزراعة الرأسمالية التي ترتكز على تكثيف رؤوس الأموال والطاقة وتزيد من هشاشة أوضاع العاملات وعمال الزراعة وزيادة التفاوت وتمركز الملكية العقارية الذي يظهر ذلك بشكل واضح في الزراعة الصحراوية، حيث تُخَصَّص مساحات شاسعة لكبار المستثمرين في حين يحصل الفلاحون الصغار على مساحات محدودة.  ومن ناحية أخرى هناك تدهور في الموارد في الواحات والمناطق الريفية نتيجة لغياب دعم الزراعة الفلاحية الصغيرة. أضف إلى ذلك أنّ ميراث “الثورة الخضراء” من تكثيف للأسمدة والمبيدات والبذور الهجينة قد أدى إلى اهمال النظم الزراعية والبيئية المحلية الموروثة. وهو ما تسبب في تدهور الموارد الطبيعية من أراضِ ومياه  وفقدان التنوع الحيوي للبذور والاخلال بالتوازن في التبادل بين الانسان والبيئة مُحدِثًا ما يُعرف بالتصدّع في التبادل المتكافئ الاجتماعي-الإيكولوجي Metabolic Rift

تندمج دول شمال أفريقيا بدرجات وطرق مختلفة في النظام الغذائي العالمي المعاصر، الذي تهيمن عليه الشركات عابرة الجنسيات والساعية نحو تحقيق الارباح والزراعة من أجل التجارة الدولية والتصدير. يتسبّب هذا النمط كما أوضحنا  في تدهور البيئات الطبيعية والموارد بشكل متسارع ويُهمّش صغار الفلاحين والمجتمعات المحلية.

تحتاج المنطقة اذن الى إعادة رسم سياساتها الزراعية والبيئية والغذائية وسياسات الطاقة. من الضروري أن تتمركز هذه السياسات البديلة  حول الداخل وعلى فكّ الارتباط مع خطط وأهداف ورؤى المركز الأوروبي.

لن ينزل هذا الانتقال العادل  من الأعلى، مثل المخططات والسياسات التي تفرضها المؤسسات المالية الدولية، ولكن يُبنى محليا من خلال الممارسات والنضالات اليومية للعاملين في الزراعة والناشطين والفاعلين المحليين بالمنطقة. تؤكد الملاحظات ـنّ بعض ممارسات الفلاحين والأفكار الآخذة في الانتشار في دول المنطقة تتقاطع مع مبادئ الزراعة البيئية التجديدية وتُمثّل بذور/لبنات الإنتقال البيئي في القطاع الزراعي. يحدُثُ تبنّي هذه الممارسات نتيجة لأسباب مختلفة، منها حاجة الفلاحين الصغار لمواجهة التحولات المناخية وارتفاع أسعار المبيدات والأسمدة الكيماوية، إلى جانب نمو قطاعات من السكان بالحضر والريف مهتمة باعادة استخدام تكنولوجيا زراعية قديمة أو ابتكار أفكار جديدة لمواجهة ندرة المياه وتدهور التربة وارتفاع درجات الحرارة. تمثّل  هذه الممارسات الميدانية، التي تحدث على أرض الواقع، نقطة انطلاق ممكنة لبناء سياسات الانتقال العادل من أسفل الى أعلى وليس العكس. انّ الإنتقال العادل يجب أن يُمكّن السكان المحلّيين ويعيد تعريف التنمية بمضامين تشمَلُ المشاركة وصون وتجديد الموارد.

وتُعَرّف الزراعة البيئية بأنّها علم وممارسة وحركة اجتماعية تهدف الى انتاج كمية مناسبة من الغذاء عبر الاستغلال الأمثل للعمليات البيئية وخدمات النظم البيئية. والفكرة الرئيسية لعلم الإيكولوجيا الزراعية هي تجاوز النموذج المهيمن وتطوير نظم إيكولوجية زراعية بأقلّ قدر من الاعتماد على المُدخلات الملوثة للبيئة. الزراعة التجديدية هي إحدى فروع الزراعة البيئية وتمثّل خيارًا أكثر استدامة للنظم الزراعية. الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية Regenerate agriculture and agroecology  هي الأكثر ارتباطا بمواجهة التغيرات المناخية حيث أنها تركّز علي صحة التربة وزيادة المكوّن الحيوي بها وعلى اعادة انتاج التنوع الييولوجي وكذلك  تخزين الكربون بالتربة. ويمكن تلخيص فلسفة الزراعة البيئية التجديدية في ثلاثة نقاط: 1) الترابط بين جميع أجزاء النظام الزراعي، بما في ذلك المُزارع وعائلته؛ 2) أهمية التوازنات البيولوجية؛ و3) الحاجة إلى مضاعفة العلاقات البيولوجية المرغوبة في النظام، وتقليل استخدام المواد الكيماوية والممارسات التي تعطل تلك العلاقات.

تمكّن الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية الفلاحين من زيادة الإنتاج وتلبية الاحتياجات الغذائية وخفض آثار التغيرات المناخية واعادة إحياء بيئتهم الطبيعية والزراعية، كما أنّه يطرح علاقات النوع الاجتماعي قائمة على المساواة. سأركّز في القسم التالي على بعض الممارسات والمبادرات المحلية التي تندرج ضمن ممارسات متعلقة بالزراعة البيئية والتجديدية التي يطبقها صغار المزارعين وتدعمها حركات اجتماعية أو مؤسسات علمية.

الممارسات المرصودة حول الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية والسيادة على الغذاء

يوضح الجدول رقم (2) بعض الممارسات المتعلقة بالزراعة البيئية والتجديدية، والتي تمّ رصدها عبر الدراسات حول المعارف المحلية والأصيلة المرتبطة بالمحافظة على المياه في شمال أفريقيا أو عبر الدراسات القليلة التي تناولت الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية، في ثلاث دول في المنطقة المغاربية وهي تونس والمغرب والجزائر. وأيضا ملاحظاتي الميدانية في ريف مصر وتونس والمغرب من 2008 الى 2019 واللقاءات مع باحثين وناشطين في شبكة شمال أفريقيا للسيادة الغذائية.

توضِح هذه الملاحظات والدراسات كما هو مبيّن بالجدول رقم (2) أنّ هذه الممارسات ترتبط بزيادة الكتلة الحيوية بالتربة وضمان مستوى عالٍ من المادة العضوية فيها وتعزيز التنوع البيولوجي وزيادة التفاعلات البيولوجية والفاعلة بين مكونات النظام البيئي الزراعي لاستمرار تجدّدها وحفظ المنظر الطبيعي- الزراعي وصيانة الموارد المائية وتوفير المياه وتحسين سُبُل عيش العاملين بالزراعة وتوفير غذاء آمن وصحي ومناسب ثقافيا للسكان المحليين.

لا نحاول هنا اعطاء صورة كاملة، بل فقط بعض المؤشرات عن وجود ممارسات مرتبطة بالزراعة البيئية والتجديدية بمناطق الدراسة. تتقاطع هذه الممارسات مع مبادئ الزراعة البيئية التجديدية لكنها لا تتجسّد بشكل متكامل. هذا يعني أنّ المزارعين يمزجون في أحيان كثيرة بين ممارسات الزراعة البيئية مع ممارسات الزراعة الرأسمالية، فيتمّ مثلا استخدام أسمدة كيماوية مع الأسمدة العضوية أو استخدام أساليب بيئية وغير بيئية في ريّ المحاصيل وما إلى ذلك. ولاتزال المزارع البيئية المتكاملة نادرة جدا ومحدودة العدد في شمال أفريقيا، وإن كان هناك تجارب بدأت في الظهور بدعم من مبادرات ومنظمات  نشير  الى  دورها لاحقا.

نستطيع  ارجاع أسباب ظهور هذه الممارسات الى نتاج تفاعلات متعددة يمكن تقسيمها الى شقين. الشق الاول مرتبط بالممارسات التي يطورها صغار الفلاحين للتحايل على الظروف البيئية أو الاقتصادية الصعبة. على سبيل المثال يواجه صغار الفلاحون في مصر ارتفاع أسعار الأسمدة الكيماوية والمبيدات باستخدام الأسمدة العضوية والمخلّفات الحيوانية، كما أنّهم يواجهون ارتفاع أسعار البذور المستوردة باستخدام البذور المحلية وإعادة انتاج البذور ذاتيا. كذلك  يلجأ الفلاحون بالمنطقة المغاربية الى استخدام أساليب بيئية في صون المياه والاستخدام الأمثل لها لمواجهة ندرتها.  يتم توفير الطاقة أيضا عبر التركيز على الجهد البشري. لا تنبع هذه الممارسات  بالضرورة من  تبنّي رؤية بيئية للزراعة، ولكنها تستند إلى محاولات تحسين سبل عيش صغار الفلاحين واستمرارهم في عمليات الزراعة في مواجهة التوغّل الرأسمالي في القطاعات الزراعية الفلاحية الصغيرة. وفي هذه الحالات يمكن وصف ممارسات الزراعة البيئية التجديدية بأنها زراعة الفقراء البيئية agroecology of the poor  لأنها نتاج التركيز على سبل عيشهم. أمّا الشقّ الثاني من الممارسات فيخصّ التحولات المرتبطة بنموّ طلب محلي وعالمي على الغذاء النظيف وتوسع دوائر المعرفة والتعلم ونقل الخبرات، سواء عبر وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي أو الجمعيات الاهلية أو الجهات المانحة. سنعرض في القسم القادم بعض المؤسسات والهيئات الفاعلة في مجال دعم وممارسة الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية في دول شمال أفريقيا.

1. 2. الفاعلون المحلّيون (تعاضديات – جمعيات – منظمات – شبكات … الخ)

إلى جانب الممارسات الفلاحية الحاملة لامكانات الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية (ولكنها لا تمثل في حد ذاتها تحولا متكاملا وممنهجا نحو الزراعة البيئة كما أشرنا) توجد مؤسّسات أهلية وهيئات بحثية حكومية تدعم الإنتقال نحو الزراعة البيئية عبر أدوات متعددة. تدفع هذه المؤسسات نحو تشبيك الجهود لتحقيق السيادة على الغذاء والزراعة البيئية على مستوي محلّي أو قُطري أو اقليمي. لا نحاول هنا تقديم خريطة كاملة لهذه المبادرات ولكنّ القاء الضوء على بعض النماذج قد يكون مفيدا لاعطاء صورة عامة.

ضمن المنظمات والهيئات المذكورة بالجدول (3) هناك من تلعب أدوارًا متعدّدة في نشر ثقافة الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية وتقديم التدريبات، وأحيانا الأدوات والممارسات وأيضا التقارير والأبحاث العلمية والتشبيك بين الفاعلين. في منطقة شمال أفريقيا تلعب تعاضديات صغار الفلاحين (التعاونيات) دورا مهما في دعم ممارسات الزراعة البيئية. ومعنى التعاضد (وهو المفهوم المحلّي بدول المنطقة المغاربية) أكثر دلالة من التعاون حيث يشتمل على التضامن والتعاون والأخوة أيضا. فهذه الأشكال المحلية من العمل المشترك والتحالفات تساعد في تحقيق المزيد من التكامل في النظم الزراعيّة البيئية عبر نشر معارف الزراعة البيئية التجديدية. وذلك من خلال توفير الأسمدة العضوية وعمل دورات تدريبية في عمليات صيانة وتجديد التربة وانتاج البذور وإكثارها محليا والعمليات الزراعية البيئية التي تحسّن من جودة المنتجات الزراعية. فشراكات المنفعة المتبادلة وتدوير المحاصيل وتبادل المعلومات والممارسات، كلّها ضرورية لتوسيع نطاق التجربة وتعميمها. كما تدفع نقابات عمال الزراعة، عبر مواجهتها للاستخدام المفرط للأسمدة وصحة العمال، نحو استخدام أساليب عضوية في مكافحة الآفات، كما تسمح جمعيات “الأكّيلة” (المستهلكين)ببناء علاقات تشاركية عبر البيع المباشر والاتحادات والدعم المتبادل في علاقات تتجاوز المفهوم الضيق للسوق والمنفعة والمصلحة.

ومع ذلك، ورغم النموّ المتزايد للاعتراف بأهمية المعارف المحلية والزراعة البيئية التجديدية لمواجهة الازمة البيئية والتغيرات المناخية على المستوى العلمي كما أشرنا، تظلُّ هذه الممارسات غير معترف بها على نطاق واسع ومُهمَّشة إلى حدّ كبير في دول المنطقة سواء في سياسات التحديث الزراعي أو في المناقشات حول تغير المناخ. كما أنّها تتم في الغالب على نطاق فردي (على مستوى  المزرعة) أو محلّي (المجتمع المحلي) وبدعم من بعض منظمات المجتمع المدني وبعض المؤسسات البحثية. ولا يسمح ذلك بإحداث تغيير كبير في بنية السياسات الزراعية ولا بتحقيق اعادة بناء سياسات السيادة الغذائية للبلاد على أًسس الزراعة البيئية التجديدية.

هناك أيضا حاجز آخر مرتبط بإنتاج المعرفة العلمية، اذ أنّ الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية هي حركة اجتماعية وممارسة زراعية ومعرفة علمية تجمع علوم الزراعة بعلوم البيئة. تهيمن أفكار الزراعة الصناعية على المناهج التي تُدَرَّس بكليات الزراعة بدعم من الدولة والشركات العالمية المهيمنة على مستلزمات الانتاج الزراعي، فمثلاً في مصر تموِّل شركات مبيدات وشركات أسمدة وشركات تقاوي المؤتمرات العلمية بكليات الزراعة. كما أنّ مناهج كليات الزراعة في مصر تُقدّم للمهندسين المستقبليين برامج تفيد بأنّ الهندسة الوراثية أو الثورة البيوتكنولوجية هي حل أزمة الغذاء في العالم.  وذلك رغم اتساع دوائر النقاش العالمي حول فشل هذه الوعود منذ اطلاقها خلفا للثورة الخضراء منذ عام 1990.

رغم حدود هذه الممارسات وعدم انتشارها على نطاق واسع فإنّ الملاحظات الميدانية توضح النمو المتسارع لعمليات الضغط من أسفل لبناء السيادة الغذائية ودعم الزراعة البيئية التجديدية في جميع دول الدراسة. ويمكن البناء على هذه الديناميكيات المحلية والممارسات الفلاحية للوصول الى الانتفال العادل للقطاع الزراعي في شمال أفريقيا.

حاولنا في هذه الورقة القاء الضوء على التحولات الزراعية ومعوقات وفرص تحقيق الانتقال العادل للزراعة في دول شمال أفريقيا. لايزال النظام المهيمن على السياسات الزراعية في دول المنطقة هو الزراعة الرأسمالية كثيفة استعمال الطاقة ورأس المال والموجَّهَة أساسا للتصدير. هذه السياسات عاجزة عن مواجهة التغيرات المناخية والأزمة البيئية، كما أنها غير قادرة على  تحقيق السيادة الغذائية لدول المنطقة وتزيد من تهميش وإفقار قطاعات كبيرة من العاملين بالزراعة وسكّان الأرياف. أظهرنا ديناميكيات المجتمعات الريفية ومحاولات الابتكار والتجديد، وأيضا المعارف المحلية لمواجهة تدهور الموراد الطبيعية وسبل عيش الفلاحين. كما بيّنا تعدّد ممارسات الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية التي يستخدمها المزارعون ممزوجة مع أدوات الزراعة الرأسمالية، وبالتالي لم يحدث تحول كامل أو تبنٍ كامل للزراعة البيئية. ويمكن ارجاع ذلك بشكل أساسي الى غياب أيّ ي دعم مُنَظَّم ومستدام لهذا الانتقال على مستوى السياسات العامة الزراعية والبيئية.

تحتاج المنطقة إذن الى إعادة رسم سياساتها الزراعية والبيئية والغذائية والطاقية استنادا الى التمركز حول الداخل وفكّ الارتباط مع الخطط والأهداف والرؤى  المركزية الأوربية. يقع الاستقلال الذاتي وانهاء التبعية وخفض حدّة الفقر وآثار التغيرات المناخية والتدهور البيئي في صُلب أيّ برنامج جدّي للانتقال العادل للزراعة. يتطلبُّ بناء هذا البرنامج أكثر جذريةً وتشاركيةً محليا، من أجل الاستفادة وتجديد الموارد الطبيعيّة المحلّيّة وصيانة تجددها. ويتطلبّ هذا المسار التحرّري من التبعية بناء مهارات ومعارف علمية جديدة ومتجذرة محليا في ذات الوقت تدعم الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية. لم تكن الثورة الخضراء لدولة ما بعد الاستقلال ممكنة بمعزل عن تدخلات ودعم الدولة، ليس فقط عبر توفير مستلزمات الانتاج ومشروعات الريّ والمَكنَنة، ولكن أيضا عبر خدمات الارشاد الزراعي والمزارع الارشادية وتأسيس المراكز البحثية وكليات الزراعة، وبالتالي تحتاج الزراعة البيئية والتجديدية في شمال أفريقيا الى خطة انتقال عادل محلية للزراعة. ومع ذلك لن يتم هذا الانتقال العادل بدون الضغط من أسفل عبر الفاعلين المحلّيين والناشطية التي لا تقوم فقط على بناء لبنات الانتقال العادل، ولكن أيضا وبشكل أساسي تعمل على مواجهة هيمنة الزراعة الرأسمالية.

Fintech is being sold throughout the world as the new panacea to poverty, promising financing to anyone with a mobile phone. However, driven by investors and venture capitalists seeking short-term returns, it often leaves people and communities with unmanageable debt burdens and facing increasing poverty and vulnerability. The city of Maricá, Brazil, is pioneering a community-based model of Fintech. Could it point to a different path for addressing vulnerability and building long-term sustainable development?

For many of the world’s precarious workers, the COVID-19 pandemic led to immense financial stress and anxiety, particularly in cash-strapped low-income countries that could not afford to provide furloughs or stimulus payments. In the coastal town of Maricá in Brazil, however, locals had a different experience. During the pandemic, the municipality doubled the guaranteed monthly income to 300 mumbucas – a digital currency unique to the town – equal to roughly a third of Brazil’s minimum wage at the time.

Luciana de Souza Nunes, who works as a freelance massage therapist in Maricá, benefited greatly from this programme. ‘Even though I can only buy within the city, it helps a lot,’ she told El Pais.¹ ‘I use the mumbuca mainly at the supermarket and at the pharmacy, to buy the basics. With the money from work I pay the extra bills.’ The injection of money into the local economy also had wider benefits, as it sustained local businesses and prevented job cuts.

The municipality of Maricá is located in the greater Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area and is home to around 160,000 people. It has the good fortune of being situated inland from profitable offshore oil reserves. Since 2010, the left-wing municipality has used the revenues from both oil and gas exploration to fund one of the largest basic income experiments in the world.²

Under Maricá’s basic income programme, the Renda Básica da Cidadania (Citizen’s Basic Income, RBC), around a quarter of the city’s residents receives a monthly stipend of mumbucas equivalent to 170 Brazilian reals (US$33). Mumbucas are accepted by local businesses and retailers and can be used to pay for a range of services, but it is worthless outside the town’s borders. This model ensures that the stipends paid out by the municipality are spent locally and that the money stays in the town and helps promote local economic and social development. 

Upon its introduction, the so-called Maricá Model was met with hesitancy from the local population. ‘Only about 40 people signed up when it was created. As the programme grew, people began to believe,’ recounts José Carlos de Azevedo, who commands the municipality’s Solidarity Economy portfolio in conversation with El Pais.³ But over the years the model has proven its worth – even more so since 2018 due to the failure of the central government under President Jair Bolsonaro to meaningfully invest in poverty reduction and social development, as well as its weak response to the COVID-19 health crisis.

The Maricá Model is an important example of how grassroots and locally developed ‘fintech’ (financial technology) can be used for social development programmes offering direct support to those in need.

Photo credit: Prefeitura de Maricá/Flickr

The Maricá Model began as an economic, social and political development intervention heavily influenced by the Solidarity Economy movement in Brazil.⁴ The Maricá Model has not just survived the COVID-19 crisis, but appears to have emerged even stronger out of it.

Over the past few years there has been a wild-growth of fintech initiatives and start-ups around the globe proclaiming that they possess the power to address poverty and to promote sustainable and equitable local economic and social development. Almost none live up to their claims. The basic fintech model must, first, be described as investor-driven⁵ because it has evolved to overwhelmingly serve the interests of private investors and venture capitalists. Such fintech financial platforms have boomed in low-income countries, promising short-term gains for the poor and marginalized, including reduced costs of, and greater access to, many important financial services, such as credit, remittances, and payments. But in the medium-to-longer-term, they have failed to live up to their claims and have instead led to individual indebtedness, unviable, speculative, and short-lived enterprises and increased poverty, vulnerability and suffering. 

The Maricá Model is different in many respects and can best be described as a ‘people-centred’ fintech model. It shows how it is possible for basic fintech applications to be directly used to promote the common good rather than to generate profit. Put simply, the explicit aim of the Maricá Model is not to lavishly reward private investors, but to substantively address local poverty and rising inequality, promote sustainable local enterprise development, extend social justice through the retention and reinvestment of community-based wealth, and to enhance democratic participation in economic life.

The Maricá Municipality is one of four regional and local governments in Brazil – along with Niterói in the State of Rio de Janeiro, the municipality of Ilhabela in the State of São Paulo, and the State of Espírito Santo itself – that have opted to creatively use the royalties that flow from the oil and gas industry to endow a sovereign wealth fund.⁶ In 2019, up to 70% of Maricá’s municipal budget was financed by oil revenues.

While the exploitation of these new oil and gas reserves is certainly problematic in light of the climate emergency, it remains the case that marginalised communities like Maricá often have no other means to develop their local economies than by carefully using such natural resources.⁷ This is the case for many of the poorest communities in the underdeveloped regions of Brazil.

Fortunately, among some of these communities, we are witnessing a genuine desire to manage fossil fuel reserves in such a way as to provide a permanent economic and social benefit to the local populations.

Photo credit: Prefeitura de Maricá/Flickr

The mumbuca is regulated through the Mumbuca Bank, Maricá’s municipal community bank founded in 2013. It is based on a model of community development banks famously pioneered in the Palmeira neighbourhood of Fortaleza, a city in northern Brazil, which sought to promote a bottom-up Solidarity Economy. Banco Palmas (Palmas Bank) in Fortaleza was the first community development bank to introduce a local social currency to stimulate the economic and social development of marginalized communities. These local currencies are only accepted as legal tender within their own communities, and have evolved from actual paper bills like the palma in the year 2000 to digital currencies like the mumbuca in Maricá today.

For the circulation of the mumbuca the Mumbuca Bank relies on a digital payments platform called E-dinheiro.¹⁰ Launched in Palmeira in 2015, this platform is a community technological innovation that links the Palmas Bank with more than 40 community banks around the country that also use local digital currencies. Crucially, the links with other local digital currency programmes reinforces the sense of solidarity between the community banks.

But in Maricá, the municipality has taken the experiment a step further. Not only has it developed its own local digital currency, it also pays the RBC in mumbacas, injecting millions of the local currency into the local economy every month. In the short term, this cash injection underpins the local economy and addresses local poverty. In the long run, it aims to stimulate sustainable new enterprises serving unmet local needs.

The use of mumbuca in the business community continues to grow. Of more than 8,000 businesses registered at the Mumbuca Bank, over 70% received a payment in mumbuca and 67% used mumbuca to pay for their own raw materials and other intermediate inputs, utility bills and so on.

Finally, the Mumbuca Bank has in the last year expanded its offer of low-cost microcredit to local businesses, especially targeting those with the most potential to serve the local community, such as cooperative businesses. It also offers a credit line that is designed for home renovations and repairs.¹¹

Through its development company Codemar, the Maricá municipality also seeks to invest in more medium and long-term economic development, including funding and developing new enterprises linked to the oil and gas sector. To that end, Codemar has sought out a range of local and international partners to assist it in developing a technology-intensive local SME sector with the capacity to expand sustainably.

Progress in regards to this effort to promote sustainable local economic development was inevitably delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Maricá municipality’s vision remains to fund a wave of sustainable SMEs through the Mumbuca Bank. The aim is to advance the level of local innovation and technology development, as well as create more well-paying, high-skill and environmentally-friendly employment opportunities for locals.

The mumbuca digital currency and E-dinheiro payment platform fit into a wider economic and social development programme by the Maricá municipality, which also includes ‘savings accounts for high school students, free public transportation, massive infrastructure investments, and a sovereign wealth fund to lower costs of capital and guarantee social programmes in perpetuity.’¹² Together they powerfully demonstrate the ability of a local government to use its financial resources to promote equity and social development for its citizens.

Photo credit: Prefeitura de Maricá/Flickr

There is, however, a real threat facing community-based initiatives such as the Mumbuca Bank. Brazil’s oligopolistic banking structure – almost 80% of credit goes through only five large banks – has allowed large banks to invest huge amounts of money in technology. In 2021 alone, around R$30 billion (US$5.6 billion), was invested in fintech incubators and spent on the acquisition of smaller fintechs.

At the same time, an increasing number of Brazilians are taking out individual loans using digital platforms: 2021 saw a 26% increase in the number of loans compared to 2020.¹³ In 2021, Brazil’s fintechs issued nearly R$13 billion (US$2.4 billion) in loans, which was nearly double the volume of loans registered in the previous year, and a quadrupling of loan volume compared to 2019.¹⁴

In addition, Brazil has witnessed quite spectacular growth by a new investor-driven fintech sector.¹⁵ By far the most important example here is Nubank. Founded in 2013, it is now Brazil’s largest investor-driven fintech platform with around 45 million clients. Its lower costs, thanks to the lack of physical branches, and backing by deep-pocketed – mainly foreign – investors willing to accept significant initial losses in the hope of eventually creating a hugely profitable monopoly (similar to Safaricom in Kenya, the owners of M-Pesa¹⁶), has enabled it to lure a large number of clients away from the largest legacy banks.¹⁷

Similar developments elsewhere¹⁸ have shown conclusively that a dominant market share will indeed enable a fintech enterprise to extract stratospheric monopoly profits from the poorest communities, which is clearly the strategic, albeit unstated, goal of many of its shareholders and senior managers.

For progressive forces in Brazil, one of the most serious risks associated with the emergence of fintech banks is that they stand to wipe out Brazil’s democratically-managed financial cooperatives and local community-owned financial experiments such as the Mumbuca Bank. The more control investor-driven fintechs gain over local financial systems, the more likely the chance that grassroots democratic financial institutions will be forced out of business.¹⁹

Crucially, this risk exists even if local fintech applications are adopted by community-based institutions in an attempt to streamline business and lower costs. This is because their more solidaristic operating methodology, democratic approach and concern for social justice inevitably leaves such financial institutions exposed to the competition coming from the far more aggressive and often unethical business tactics adopted by the new generation of investor-owned fintechs.

While institutions like the Mumbuca Bank are undergoing major changes, they still lag behind many investor-driven fintechs. The risk here is that the millions of reals that Maricá’s RBC basic income programme injects yearly into the local economy will be all too easily drained away by investor-driven digital platforms that offer attractive initial benefits to secure new clients, but in the fullness of time end up over-charging them for the digital services they provide. In the meantime, of course, the competition will have been thinned out and clients reverting to their former smaller financial institution or community-based fintech may no longer be possible if it has been forced out of business.

Another potentially problematic issue concerns the contract signed in 2019 between Codemar, the Maricá government’s development company, and Leonardo, the major Italian aerospace, defense and security company. The aim of the contract is for Leonardo to help develop various technology-intensive small- and medium enterprise (SME) projects in the locality that are linked to the oil and gas industry. The intention is to create many sustainable high skills jobs and raise productivity. However, with Leonardo known worldwide as a major arms dealer and border militarisation contractor²⁰, this connection might prove politically awkward to maintain into the longer-term. A less controversial enterprise development partner might thus be needed in due course.

Photo credit: Prefeitura de Maricá/Flickr

The ‘people-centred’ fintech model being implemented in Maricá, now being adapted by neighbouring cities in Brazil, stands as one of the most exciting ways that fintech can made to directly benefit the local community as opposed to enriching a small number of wealthy – and mainly foreign – investors. In Maricá, this model has helped to cut the costs of local government, has directly aided the poor, is boosting local demand and provides financial support to promote the sustainability of local businesses.

The main threat the Maricá Model faces, however, is from big fintech platforms, such as Nubank, that can attract clients away with promises of cheaper services before going on to exploit its clients thanks to the monopoly it aims to create in the longer run.

Ultimately, the fate of the Maricá Model will be determined by its ability to provide quality financial services to the community while at the same time advancing greater equality, building a sustainable local economy and promoting social development. Links to similar experiments elsewhere in Brazil and across the region will also help to create the necessary economies of scale that can offset the advantages sought by the monopoly-seeking investor-driven fintech platforms. In this way, local fintech initiatives like the Maricá Model can ensure that local communities retain control of their own financial systems in the long run.

Conservation finance has become the dominant ideology of most of the world’s biggest environmental NGOs. It is also heavily promoted by the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union. The basic premise of conservation finance is that saving nature and averting the climate crisis requires enormous funds, but money derived from public and philanthropic grants is woefully insufficient. Proponents argue that the only way to bridge this funding gap is to tap into the trillions of dollars of private capital circulating through global financial markets. To do this, saving nature must be turned into a profit-making endeavour, appealing to what are known as ‘impact investors’.

The rise of conservation finance has transformed not only the way in which conservation is addressed, but by whom. People with backgrounds in finance, banking and business consulting are taking over the management of most of the big conservation organisations. Their governing boards are stacked with investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. Consequently, risky and opaque financial instruments, originating in financial markets, are being repurposed for environmental projects. As elaborated elsewhere by the author, this process represents another dimension of financialisaton; the process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites are gaining greater influence over almost all aspects of society.¹

This long read aims to scrutinise one particular financial instrument promoted by this conservation finance industry: the debt swap. Over the past few years, the world’s largest conservation organisation, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), has concluded three of these: in the Seychelles, Belize and Barbados. These deals are intended to expand marine protected areas, parts of the ocean where (certain) commercial activities are restricted with the goal of allowing wildlife to recover and be preserved. According to TNC, many more deals are in the pipeline. It has US government support for concluding deals in at least 20 coastal and small island developing states. Most recently, it is being reported that TNC is on the brink of securing a debt swap in Gabon, where it will buy $700 million of the country’s debt in exchange for ocean conservation, including a marine protected area, but also other commitments, such as on carbon trading and fish farming. Other countries rumoured to be negotiating these kinds of deals include St Lucia, Kenya, the Gambia, Ecuador and Namibia. If this ambitious programme succeeds, TNC estimates it will have saved 4 million square kilometres of the ocean. It will also have leveraged several billion dollars in private capital, giving it unprecedented power for an NGO over a vast area of the planet and the economic health of many highly indebted countries. This is a development that demands attention.

World leaders at the UNFCC Climate COP (COP-27) have made positive statements about debt swaps. These instruments will also feature prominently at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP-15 of the UN Environmental Program) in Montreal this December, where the task is to agree on a global framework for the conservation of biodiversity. One of the key issues on that agenda is a commitment to designate 30% of the world’s land and oceans as protected areas by 2030. Debt swaps are likely to be seen as a viable way of achieving this. What is alluring about these deals is they claim to accomplish two things: they increase the flow of private capital for developing countries to use for saving nature and mitigating the climate crisis, and they provide relief for developing countries from their crippling debt crisis. Indeed, many organisations are recognising that ‘climate justice’ cannot be divorced from ‘debt justice’. The question, however, is: Do debt swaps really deliver either?

Photo credit: Kristin Marie Enns-Kavanagh/Flickr/(CC BY-NC 2.0)

To fully understand debt swaps they must be put in historical context. They also need to be understood in a wider perspective of the troubled relationship between developing countries and loans from investment banks.  

Debt swaps for conservation were first proposed in the 1980s, when they were used predominantly by environmental NGOs to raise money for rainforest conservation. They were inspired by equity swaps that were once seen as a viable way to save Western banks and developing countries from an economic disaster caused by the gluttony of recycling petrodollars in the 1970s. It has been estimated that during the 1970s $450 billion was deposited in US and European banks from Arab oil producing states, and that the irresponsible lending bonanza that followed saw developing country’s debt rising at astonishing levels: from under $200 billion in the mid 1970s to well over a trillion in the mid 1980s. Most of this debt was via bank loans for government projects with high interest rates, pegged to the US government’s interest rates. It is well documented that many of these loans lacked both transparency and due diligence.² The money was often squandered while providing bankers and political elites fabulous wealth at the expense of citizens. For developing countries, the 1980s was famously dubbed ‘the lost decade’.

The bubble burst in 1979 when the US government aggressively raised interest rates to halt inflation back home, thereby increasing the value of developing countries’ debts by 25%.³ In 1982, Mexico became the first country to ever default on its debt repayments. In a panic, banks began to sell debts owed to them by developing countries to private investors at steeply discounted rates. For countries such as Peru, Western banks were willing to sell debts at a discount of as much as 95% (although they could recover part of their losses through tax accounting). Loan agreements between Western banks and foreign governments prohibited governments from buying their own debts, so to entice others to do so, they had to offer investors something in return. This was often done either by giving them the face value of the debt in local currency (enticing the investor to spend it in their countries) or a share of a nationally owned industry. These ‘equity swaps’ were controversial, blamed for a wave of costly privatisations and the capture of businesses by foreign investors for knock down prices.

In this context US conservation organisations identified an opportunity. Developing countries had other valuable assets they could trade for discounted debt—their wildlife and pristine rainforests. So, environmental NGOs such as WWF, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy set up ‘equity swaps for nature’. There were several ways they did this. However, in essence they would use their own money to buy discounted debts from banks in the US and Europe. Then they would get developing country governments to provide the face value of the debt in local currency to be used on a conservation project of their choosing. Some of the deals involved a straight swap for cash, whereas others involved payments in kind. These deals usually involved a commitment by the host country to designate a new area of land as a protected park and allow the foreign NGOs a role in its management. Debt swaps were therefore considered a clever way of multiplying NGO’s limited funds and enlarging the size of rainforest parks.

These swaps were also described as deals to help lower the debts of developing countries. It was an important claim, first made by Thomas Lovejoy at WWF in an article in the New York Times in 1984. A prevailing view among conservationists was that the debt crisis was itself a primary driver of deforestation: highly indebted countries were selling off their natural resources to raise foreign cash to service debts to Western banks. Debt swaps were therefore seen as a ‘win win’ solution.

By the early 2000s, it was estimated that there had been 47 separate debt swaps paid by conservation organisations, with a total net spend of about $42 million.⁴ But for several reasons, including changes in US tax laws, new systems for debt restructuring led by the US, and then ultimately debt forgiveness, the market opportunities for equity swaps dried up, and so did those for nature swaps. The enthusiasm for debt swaps among conservation organisations also waned; they were expensive deals to finalise and the resulting agreements with governments were hard to enforce.

Like equity swaps in general, nature swaps were also controversial, being rejected by many social movements working with small-scale farmers and indigenous people because they threatened land rights and were seen as legitimising odious debts.⁵ They were also subject to critical assessments by multilateral organizations, including the World Bank.⁶ They had no effect on the debts of developing countries and rarely led to meaningful achievements in conservation. In 1993 the Italian academic Mauricio Minzi provided a withering summary of these criticisms;

‘Scholars and activists were mesmerised by the potential of debt-for-nature swaps; in buying distressed debt on the U.S. market, and, then selling it at face value to a LDC [Least Developed Country] one could leverage the financing of conservation programs. For instance, debt bought at twenty cents on the dollar could be used to finance the equivalent of one full dollar in conservation projects. In the roaring ‘80s, the mystique of financial engineering was very influential and people were prepared to believe that the mere shuffling around of paper could somehow create value. Unfortunately…the leverage of conservation dollars is at least in part a myth…Proponents of the swaps mistakenly believed that these transactions were generous forms of assistance provided by the North to the South. In reality, the economic substance of the swaps appears to benefit the North more than the South’.⁷

Photo credit: The TerraMar Project/CC BY 2.0/ via Wikimedia Commons

The first swap for oceans NatureVest tried to negotiate was in Belize in 2011. Belize was one of the most indebted countries in the world, largely due to reckless borrowing from the US bank Bear Sterns, one of the first banks that went bankrupt in the sub-prime mortgage scandal. But in 2012 the Belize government negotiated a debt restructuring deal, so the time wasn’t right for a swap. NatureVest turned attention to the Seychelles, also among the most debt distressed countries in the world at that time, partly due to unsustainable loans provided by other disgraced US banks, including the Lehmann Brothers.

An IMF debt restructuring package had taken the pressure off Seychelles debts as well, so again timing was not right for a debt involving bonds. Perhaps impatient for a deal, NatureVest instead offered to buy some of the Seychelles debt owed to Paris Club donors.¹³ This could then be swapped for commitments to declare 50% of the Seychelles oceans a marine park. NatureVest asked the Paris Club donors to sell $75 million dollars of Seychelle’s debt at a discount of 25%. The donors agreed to sell only $21.5 million at a discount of 6.5%. But the deal was sufficient as a proof of concept and gained impressive international media coverage.¹⁴ However, it was not a good example for the audacious plan: TNC did not raise private capital to finance the deal and instead had to provide the cash itself: about $15.5 million. They also required $5 million extra from philanthropic grants. But the deal was important for one major reason: for the first time a conservation NGO had lent money to a government to buy its own debt, and then charged them interest to pay it back. TNC charged 3% on their loan of $15 million, requiring it to be paid back in full over 10 years. This provides TNC an estimated return of $2.5 million on their investment.¹⁵

For 6 years after the Seychelles deal, NatureVest did not finalise any more debt swaps. That changed with the COVID pandemic and the acceleration of the debt crisis. NatureVest went back to Belize, this time with the help of Credit Suisse. Late in 2021—when the Belize government was on the brink of defaulting on its debt repayments—Credit Suisse arranged a loan for NatureVest to buy the entire commercial debt of the country, which had been consolidated into one ‘superbond’ with an outstanding value to bondholders of $533 million.

NatureVest announced that this was one of many deals in the pipeline. There was evidence supporting this: the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) had offered NatureVest an investment guarantee to help raise money for the Belize transaction. These agreements were published on the website of the DFC’s website, with a reference to a master plan for 20 debt swaps in total that will create an additional 4 million square kilometres of marine protected areas.¹⁶

The next deal NatureVest secured was in Barbados, which involved them buying Eurobond debt worth $146.5 million. As indicated already, Gabon looks to be the next deal nearing completion, were NatureVest will purchase a Eurobond worth $700 million.¹⁷ From what can be gleaned from various sources, the next countries include Kenya, Cabo Verde, St Lucia, Namibia and Ecuador.¹⁸ During Cop-27, at a meeting at the Resilience Hub, sponsored by JP Morgan and others, the environment minister from the Gambia declared her government’s interest in working with TNC on a debt swap as well.

Photo credit: Olivier ROUX/Flickr/(CC BY-NC 2.0)

The structure of these deals requires NatureVest to obtain a loan from an investment bank. So far NatureVest has worked only with Credit Suisse, although it might choose to work with others. This money is referred to as a ‘blue bond’, which is then lent to the government of the indebted country to pay out bondholders. In the case of Belize, the loan to the government did not come from NatureVest directly, but from a company they set up in the tax haven of Delaware, called the Belize Blue Investment Corporation (BBIC). Credit Suisse then repackaged the loan to the BBIC to be sold in notes to investors. Credit Suisse did not issue the new bond notes themselves but passed this over to Special Purpose Vehicle registered in Amsterdam, called Platinum Securities. It is assumed this SPV is a subsidiary of Credit Suisse. However, there is no online information available on who owns this company or works for them, and the company does not have a website. The Swedish pension fund Alecta announced it bought $75 million worth of bond notes from Platinum securities in January 2022.¹⁹

The key to these deals is an agreement by the owners of the original Eurobond to sell their debt at a discount. The successful buyout in Belize saw bondholders agree to a ‘haircut’ of 45% of the face value of their original debt; the value of the bond notes when they were first issued including all outstanding interest rate payments. The loan to Belize to buy out the bondholders was therefore $301 million. However, another $64 million was added for other costs. The contract between the BBIC and the government of Belize commits the government to several things:

1. Repay BBIC with interest and compensate for legal and banking fees, as well as financial inducements (discounts for early buyers) of the new bond issued by Platinum Services. There was also an insurance contract attached to this deal that provided Belize temporary respite for repaying BBIC in case of a climate disaster, which they needed to pay for on an annual basis. In total these extra fees came to $40 million.

2. Implement a range of policies for marine conservation, including scaling up marine protected areas from the current size of 20% to 30% of their oceans, implementing a strategic plan for the use of ocean resources (usually known as a marine spatial plan²⁰), advancing fish farming in coastal areas, and engaging in blue carbon trading schemes.²¹

3. Use a proportion of the money lent (the remaining $24 million from the loan) to set up a marine trust fund. This fund will invest the money over a 20-year period, which is estimated by TNC to result in annual revenues of 7%, or a total amount of $71 million after 20 years. It is not specified how the money will be invested.

4. Establish a new national Conservation Fund to receive the money from the earnings on the trust fund and savings in the debt swap. Precise details of how this financing arrangement will work remain elusive, however according to an IMF report the Conservation Fund will receive annual payments from the Belize government of $4.2 million for the next 40 years.²² The role of this new Conservation Fund is to oversee policy implementation of the marine spatial plan and administer grants for marine conservation projects. TNC is given a permanent position on the governing board of this new organisation.

It is likely that the same general model has been used in Barbados and will be used in Gabon, although the exact figures depend on several variables, including the discount rate achieved in these deals and the value of bond being bought out.

Photo credit: Olivier ROUX/Flickr/(CC BY-NC 2.0)

NatureVest’s debt swaps have been covered in an enormous number of reports and news articles, and they have received substantial attention in international events on ocean conservation, the climate crisis and debt restructuring. Almost all of this has been positive. These complex financial deals are celebrated as ingenious financing mechanisms that could be replicated and scaled up even further. During COP-27, Kristalina Kostial the deputy director of the IMF, described these debt swaps as a critical solution to the international community’s failure to provide adequate climate finance, adding that ‘carbon credits could feature as part of the swaps’.²⁴

Few organisations seem to scrutinise these deals, especially in light of all the criticisms raised against the past debt for nature swaps. Yet many of the same critical issues appear relevant. To simplify, there are three broad themes that more critical debates over these deals should explore.

Transparency and democratic participation

We should expect international finance that helps developing countries tackle their debt crisis and fund nature conservation to be transparent. So far, however, these deals remain astonishingly opaque.

News of these deals is deliberately kept secret, probably to avoid inflating the market value of bond notes before debt buybacks. However, even after they have been concluded, public access to information is limited. The investment and conservation contracts signed between NatureVest and governments in the Seychelles, Belize and Barbados are not in the public domain. This means it is impossible for citizens to understand what their governments have signed up for.

So far, information on conservation commitments have filtered through via statements by TNC. But these statements lack detail. It is currently unclear why the full conservation contract itself cannot be published. Several of the financial terms of this agreement are also kept from public scrutiny, again with summary information only found in statements and press releases, sometimes with inconsistencies. One aspect that is left unreported is the profits being made by NatureVest and Credit Suisse, including through the SPV in Amsterdam. There will be various commission and legal fees occurring as debt is transferred throughout this web of company structures. There is also a possibility that interest charged by the BBIC to the government of Belize is less than the interest provided to companies buying the bond notes supplied by Platinum Services, meaning the intermediaries in this deal would be making further profits. The fact that NatureVest establishes new companies, registered in a tax haven, to handle payments and revenues, is concerning. It is important for TNC to clarify the financial structures of these deals and be transparent about the income from these arrangements.

Due to this secretive approach to debt swaps, they fail to achieve the free, prior and informed consent of people relying on marine resources for their livelihoods. This is critical. Debt swaps establish binding commitments for the management of marine resources, including expanding marine protected areas that might curtail economic activities, such as fisheries. They also introduce other contentious policies such as carbon trading and the development of commercial aquaculture. However, NatureVest and the host governments of these deals have failed to consult with citizens or parliament before signing the contracts. None of these deals have produced environmental and social impact assessments either. It is hard to imagine such undemocratic instruments being employed in Europe or the US, and difficult to reconcile this with international human rights instruments such as the Tenure Guidelines and SSFGs which recognise the rights of small-scale fishers.

Resolving this lack of consultation is not straightforward. Debt swaps targeting commercial loans also rely on stealth. In negotiating the buyout of bondholders, it is unlikely that NatureVest could succeed if it had to subject its plans to lengthy public debate. Anyone familiar with the process of developing national plans for the oceans will know that this can take a long time, particularly if it involves genuine participation form marginalised people. As such, debt swaps, following the model used by NatureVest, would seem fundamentally inappropriate for financing ambitious programmes for reforming policies on nature conservation or climate mitigation and adaptation.

The illusion of generosity

One of the claims surrounding debt swaps negotiated by TNC is that they represent an act of generosity by creditors. Often creditors are described as forgoing debt repayments, equating these deals with debt forgiveness. The Guardian’s write up of the debt swap in the Seychelles described that creditors had agreed to forgo millions in debt. This makes these deals seem relevant for global debates on compensation for loss and damage. But this is clearly misleading now, as it was for debt for nature swaps in the 1980s.

In the debt swap for the Seychelles, for example, Paris Club donors agreed to a mere 6.5% discount for their debts. This is an attractive deal to them because they receive an early payment in cash for debts that were not due to be paid in full for several years. However, what has been overlooked in this deal is that the donors all reported this discount as a grant. This means the money ‘gifted’ to the Seychelles reduces the donor’s commitments for other aid spending. It was not a transfer that increased aid flows from donor countries to developing countries. Bi-lateral debt swaps can be designed to reduce this problem; combining a greater element of debt forgiveness with rules that prevent donors from using an accounting trick to avoid additionality. But that did not happen in the case of the Seychelles.

When it comes to commercial deals involving Eurobond swaps, investors are not acting charitably either. They are being offered lump sum cash payments based on the market value of their bond notes. It is possible that bondholders would reject this offer of a buyout, preferring to hold out for the full value of their assets. However, it was clear in 2021 that Belize’s economic situation was worsening, and bondholders were holding assets that were depreciating in value. The value of bond notes of Belize’s superbond have been volatile,  trading as low as 30% of their face value in 2020. That bond holders were offered 55% of the face value in 2021 suggests it  was in the interests of investors to sell then, irrespective of their concerns for the oceans and the climate disaster. Still, the bondholders, represented by a committee, issued the dubious statement that they agreed to sell out because savings in the deal were going to a good cause.²⁵

Debt justice

Positive assessments of nature swaps point to the fact they reduce the debt burdens of developing countries. In the past this claim was unconvincing because debt swaps were so small they achieved only tiny changes to the overall debt burdens of countries. That was also the case in the Seychelles, as the debt for ocean swap there reduced the country’s future debt obligations by less than $2 million. It was a drop in the ocean. But the situation is now changing in the mega deals targeting Eurobonds, and the credentials of nature swaps creating fiscal breathing space for countries seems to be strengthening.

In Belize, for example, it is described in news reports that the debt swap saved the country $189 million and NatureVest has swapped a high interest rate loan for a more favourable blue bond. While part of that is true, the IMF confirm the interest rate schedule for the new blue bond starts with a lower interest rate, of 3%, but after 4 years this rises to over 6%; the same rate that Belize was paying for its previous Eurobond.²⁶ But most importantly, while Belize has reduced the total amount it has to pay to foreign creditors by $189 million, almost all of this money is reserved for spending by the new Conservation Fund for marine projects. There is limited fiscal space created by this swap for other pressing areas of government spending, such as health or education.

As debt swaps become larger transactions dealing with a sizeable share of a country’s foreign debt, they also become more relevant to other efforts for debt restructuring. In this view, they appear more problematic rather than less. For example, a substantial barrier to co-ordinated and effective debt relief has been the difficulty of bringing different creditors to the table, including bilateral lenders, multilaterals, and foreign private creditors. This leads to heightened concerns that debt relief will not be shared fairly. Furthermore, the scale of the debt crisis in many countries now is such that the only chance for lasting solutions is a co-ordinated response based on a transparent and participatory dialogue. However, debt swaps undermine this ideal: without consultation, they capitalise on a period of debt distress to benefit commercial lenders.²⁷

A recent IMF publication analysed debt swaps alongside other forms of assistance for developing countries for both debt relief and financing for climate related spending.²⁸ This report made it clear that debt swaps are sub-optimal solutions. For highly indebted countries requiring urgent assistance to deal with climate change, the case for scaling them up should be rejected:

‘Debt-climate swaps subsidize the creditors that do not participate in the operation. In contrast, deep debt restructurings generally come with frameworks that seek to ensure wide participation… For this reason, it is generally efficient to de-link the restoration of debt sustainability from fiscal support of climate action, which should be additional to the debt relief required to restore sustainability, and ideally come in the form of conditional grants (or a combination of grants and loans) rather than debt-climate swaps.’

It is therefore surprising that senior officials at the IMF have been advocating so stridently for scaling up debt swaps at COP-27, including praising TNC’s deals. Tellingly, the IMF in their latest country assessment for Belize did not consider the debt swap sufficient to change its view that the country was still stuck with unsustainable debt: highly likely to struggle to maintain payments to its creditors, with a strong probability of needing more comprehensive debt restructuring in the future.

Finally, international recommendations on debt justice also stress the need for public audits of debt, and the urgent need for regulating the way in which sovereign commercial loans are raised for developing countries. Moving out of the debt trap is therefore not simply achieved through financial restructuring, but also regulatory and political reforms. None of this appears to be advanced by debt swaps so far. Instead, the public relations surrounding nature swaps legitimise the institutions that have created and benefited from the reckless Eurobond market. In the 1980s debt for nature swaps were rejected as unwelcome distractions from campaigns on odious debt. The same could be said of the reincarnation of nature swaps today.

Saving nature

Finally, although the stated purpose of these swaps is to save nature, it is doubtful they will succeed. Many of the statements made about these swaps assume that the debt buyout and the commitments of governments to set up endowment funds for new conservation organisations will protect the oceans. The mere act of designating an enlarged area of the ocean as protected is taken at face value, conflated with nature being actually saved.

TNC’s limited public reports on its debt swaps are devoted to explaining the financial benefits of these deals. Almost nothing is provided on the considerable political and practical barriers countries face in following through on the ambitious conservation pledges. Meanwhile their conservation contracts reveal potential policy incoherence: they promote eco-tourism and commercial aquaculture, for example. These sectors may help boost economic growth or food production, but they have high risks of costly environmental externalities and exacerbating inequality.

The plans for spending the money from debt swaps are also questionable. Channelling all the money through a new Conservation Fund creates another organisation running parallel to, and possibly in conflict with, existing government agencies. The resulting Conservation Funds will have annual budgets that surpass government departments and will dwarf those of existing civil society organisations working with groups such as small-scale fisheries. The intention is that the Funds will disperse money to others through grants, but this arrangement is fraught with risks relating to democratic accountability and conflicts of interest. TNC’s guaranteed seat on the governing board of these Funds is also questionable, given their lack of democratic legitimacy or direct links to local communities.

In short, the mere act of increasing financial flows to conservation efforts does not solve deep-rooted conflicts over the use of resources, while it may work to aggravate them. Herein lies the fundamental dilemma in the debt for nature swap concept. This is the simplistic assumption that ecological destruction is due to an absence of funding and that this problem can be solved by more money. Once the absurdity of that belief is exposed, the entire proposition for conservation finance falls apart. Ecological justice is first and foremost a political struggle, not a financial one.

Photo credit: U.S. Geological Survey/Public domain

The audacious plan by TNC deserves intense critical scrutiny. This is clearly difficult to do given the complexity surrounding its deals and their lack of transparency. However, if TNC delivers on this plan, then it will represent an astonishing development in the governance of the oceans. The arguments presented in this paper suggest the considerable international praise that debt swaps are receiving is unmerited. Unfortunately, few organisations involved in marine conservation seem to be ringing alarm bells. 

Debt swaps are just one of several innovative financial instruments being developed by the conservation finance industry. There are other forms of blue bonds, as well as CAT-Bonds and Rhino bonds, for example. The financialisaton of conservation is producing a bewildering set of instruments described through jargon that most of us find impossible to decipher. 

Addressing the heavy burden of unsustainable and illegitimate debt carried by Southern countries, who are increasingly confronting the worst effects of the climate crisis, is pivotal to addressing this global crisis. Comprehensive frameworks for debt forgiveness, economic justice, loss & damages and reparations will be needed if we are to move towards climate justice. However, debt for nature swaps instead represent a dangerous distraction, moving us further away from genuinely democratic solutions and just transitions, undermining the ability of working people to shape the policies that impact their lives, and further consolidating the power of international finance.  

The bleak reality of global climate change becomes clearer with each new report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.¹ North Africa is extremely vulnerable in the face of climatic and environmental crises, which are a daily occurrence in the lives of the millions of people living in the arid, semi-arid and desert areas of the region. Over the last few decades, drought rates and temperatures have risen continuously, leading to increasing desertification. The region also suffers from severe water scarcity², land degradation and livestock depletion.³ The accelerated environmental crises directly and indirectly affect agriculture (including grazing) and fishing activities. They also intensify poverty and erode food sovereignty.⁴ Approximately 52 per cent of the total population in North Africa live in rural areas⁵ and this population, which includes small-scale farmers and farm workers, is among the poorest and most impacted by the stark effects of agroecological crises. 

North Africa’s perilous situation in regard to climate change stands in contrast to the fact that the region accounts for a very small percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2017, the entire African continent produced approximately 4 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, while the average emissions per African person were the lowest in the world, at approximately 0.9 tonnes per annum.⁶ In the North Africa region, Egypt produced 0.6 per cent of global emissions, Algeria 0.5 per cent, Tunisia 0.1 per cent and Morocco 0.15 per cent.⁷ A recent study shows the global unevenness of greenhouse gas emissions: while the Global North’s rates stand at 90 per cent, the Global South produces only 10 per cent.⁸ However, countries in the Global South bear the brunt of the crises brought on by climate change, and are in dire need of a just transition – to help mitigate the harmful impacts of environmental change and to adapt to their long-term consequences. 

Agriculture is both negatively impacted by climate change and a significant contributor to it. Due to the dominance of global capitalist food systems and industrial agricultural production, land use and forest management accounted for a total of 23 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions between 2007 and 2016.⁹ North African countries are no exception to this pattern, dominated as they are by a high-emissions corporate food regime.¹⁰ Against this background it is vital to assess the possibilities for, and obstacles to, a just transition in the North African agricultural sector. 

The agricultural sector in North Africa has experienced significant transformation in the last few decades. As Table 1 shows, the share of agriculture in GDP is low. Yet despite the declining share of agriculture in GDP, the agricultural sector remains a primary source of employment, particularly in Egypt and Morocco. Likewise, the percentage of the population that lives and works in rural areas remains high, despite ongoing urbanization. In recent decades, North Africa has also witnessed a sharp increase in rural poverty, malnutrition and social inequalities.¹¹ Finally, with the exception of Morocco and Tunisia, North Africa also has a negative trade balance with Europe.

Fighting hunger and coping with the impacts of climate change on agriculture and rural populations necessitates an economic, social and environmental transition. What such a transition should look like, how it takes place, and who should carry it out has been the subject of much debate (see Box 1).

In this context, this article looks at the challenges, components and characteristics of a just transition within the agriculture sector in North Africa. As in many other countries,¹⁵ the last few years have seen local and traditional knowledge of food systems, and ecological and regenerative agriculture, put forward as solutions to the dominant agri-food system and ecological crises in North Africa. However, these new dynamics have not been sufficiently studied: there is no overview of these developments or the practices and networks upholding them. This article fills this gap by evaluating and comparing agricultural policy transformations and the possibilities of a just transition in the agriculture sectors in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.¹⁶ The article is divided into three sections. The first section analyses agricultural policies and the trajectory of agricultural development in the region. The second section explores questions of environmental and climate debt, as well as the effects of uneven environmental changes on natural resources and opportunities for development. The third section presents and discusses ecological and regenerative agriculture, local initiatives and networks of actors who are building a just transformation of agriculture in North Africa. 

This section analyses the shifts in access to resources and agricultural policies that took place in North Africa in the post-colonial era, in order to better understand the transformation of the agricultural economy and the dominant development model in the region over time.

1.1 Access to land and water in the post-colonial era

Discussions about the agrarian question were prominent during anti-colonial struggles and in the aftermath of national liberation projects.¹⁷ After the colonial era ended, countries pursued multiple pathways in regard to managing their agricultural resources and the colonial heritage within the sector.¹⁸ Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco implemented a variety of agrarian reform models in the period 1950–1970, which produced crucial shifts in agricultural policies and the state of rural societies across these countries.

Following Algerian independence in 1962, the National Liberal Front (FLN) adopted agrarian reforms that amounted to an agricultural revolution. It promoted rural development by facilitating the access of small-scale and landless farmers to land and by providing them with social and technical support.¹⁹ Additionally, 250,000 hectares were redistributed to war veterans who were grouped into 250 productive peasant cooperatives. The lands previously held by colonists were distributed to over 2,200 farms, the majority of which were large farms with an average of 1,000 hectares, for a total area of 2.5 million hectares.²⁰ During the 1970s, uncultivated lands were nationalized while large land holdings were restricted.²¹

In Morocco, agricultural modernization became a central pillar of the country’s development path after independence in 1956. In 1962, for example, the National Institute of Agricultural Research was established with the aim of modernizing the agricultural sector. Under pressure from the Moroccan Workers’ Union (UMT), the National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP), the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS), and the Istiqlal Party, the government passed agrarian reform laws in 1963 to recover the lands of colonizers, implemented over two phases, ending in 1973. Expropriation of previously colonial land was significant, amounting to 1 million hectares of arable land:²² the monarchy redistributed the lands formerly in the hands of French colonists to rural elites as a means of securing power and buying loyalty towards the Makhzen.²³ In 1969, the Agricultural Investment Charter was approved, and in 1972 a law was passed which granted farmers agricultural lands from state-owned private property. A law on peasant cooperatives, giving them access to modernized plots in former collective lands, was also enacted. The state also invested in building dams and undertook large-scale irrigation projects, with the aim of developing a new, loyal class of middle-income farmers. Nevertheless, the system of land control remained in the hands of the state. Indeed, it served as a tool to purchase local elites’ loyalty and to reduce conflict.²⁴

In Tunisia, three years following independence, Law 48 of 7 May 1959 enabled the state to take possession of neglected and unused collective agricultural properties, covering an area of approximately 500,000 hectares. In the same period, local notables, merchants, self-employed and powerful members of the ruling Constitution Party were able to buy some of the colonial lands.²⁵ Then on 12 May 1964 a law was passed that nationalized 300,000 hectares of colonial lands. Thus, by the end of the 1960s, the Tunisian state owned 800,000 hectares of agricultural land: approximately 10 per cent of the total area of agricultural land in the country.²⁶ These lands helped initiate the short-lived experiment of peasant cooperatives in Tunisia, which disintegrated in 1969, just eight years after it was launched. After this, Tunisia began to shift towards a more market-based, neoliberal approach. In a move that benefited local leaders and powerful individuals, Tunisia privatized collective lands through the Law of 14 January 1974.²⁷

In Egypt, agrarian reform was a central policy during the first era of the July 1952 regime, in the early post-colonial period. Between 1952 and 1970, 343,000 hectares (12.5 per cent of agricultural land) were redistributed, to 343,000 families, consisting of 1.7 million individuals – almost 9 per cent of the rural population.²⁸ As the result of the Nasser regime agrarian policies, villages saw significant changes in their class composition: while the larger, more influential landlords lost much of their lands, there was an increase in the area owned by small- and medium-scale farmers, and there was improved rent security for tenants. Also, there was a minor improvement in the situation of landless farmers and agricultural workers.²⁹ The ‘green revolution’ instituted by postcolonial governments relied on agricultural mechanization, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid seed varieties to increase agricultural production.

Ultimately, North African agriculture development models in the two decades following independence focused on modernizing the agricultural sector and preserving large farms, whether through state administration or through highly centralized and controlled cooperatives. To various degrees, North African countries adopted progressive, state capitalist and ‘green revolution’ policies. This was achieved through a combination of strategies, such as providing technical and material support to farmers, supporting production inputs, inaugurating large irrigation projects, boosting and disseminating modern agricultural knowledge and guidance, establishing research centres and agricultural schools, and establishing agricultural cooperatives. In this era, the state in these countries utilized discourses of modernization reliant on mechanization, commercial and export agriculture, and the marginalization of small-scale local knowledge. In fact, despite the emphasis on food self-sufficiency, the export of cash crops continued to follow the same pattern that had been dominant in the colonial era, especially for commodities such as citrus, vines, vegetables, cotton and olives.³⁰

1.2 The impact of neoliberalism on agriculture and natural resources

The turn towards neoliberalism in North Africa began in the 1980s. Under pressure from international financial institutions, namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, countries in the region began to liberalize foreign trade, devalue local currencies, and allow an increased dominance of the market, through both the continued privatization of public companies and the gradual erosion of public services. Priority was accorded to reducing public debt, social spending and employment rates in the public sector.³¹

As a result of neoliberal transformations, North African countries saw a major change in water and land management. The state withdrew from the management of natural resources, allowing the private sector to take over. This led to an increase in the penetration of private investment companies in the agricultural sector, with the private sector acquiring more resources, particularly in vast desert areas, through access to groundwater and land that the state made available to major agricultural investors.³²

In Algeria, the era of state farms came to an end in 1980s, with the latter being divided into small farms of 10 to 70 hectares. In 1987, these lands were progressively moved into the hands of agricultural investors. Accompanying this change was a gradual shift towards market forces,³³ notably with the long-term liberalization of agricultural production inputs, leading to an increase in the price of fertilizers, pesticides and farming equipment. This in turn led to an increase in the prices of agricultural products as a whole. Following the 1994 agreement between Algeria and the IMF, state support for agricultural inputs was completely removed.

In Morocco, the neoliberal transformation in the agricultural sector intensified in 2003. This was exemplified in the privatization of two public companies that had managed the bulk of the lands recovered from colonists: the Agricultural Development Company (SODEA) and the Agricultural Land Management Company (Sojita). With this move, the ownership of 90 per cent of former colonial lands was transferred to private investors, the state’s major administrative notables, the army, and the security apparatuses.³⁴

In Tunisia, neoliberal policies were implemented before the initiation of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) under the World Bank in 1986. The state geared agricultural production towards export and high value-added crops, facilitating private sector access to land and putting an end to state commercialization of agricultural products.³⁵ These policies were coupled with the state’s progressive withdrawal from traditional agricultural sectors.³⁶

Since 1979, Egypt has pursued a policy of economic openness. State-owned farms were dismantled, agrarian reform laws were amended, and the Agricultural Cooperative Union was dissolved. Also, the state applied a set of measures to reduce subsidies to farmers in the Nile Valley and Delta, such as removing pesticide and fertilizer subsidies, and allowing the private sector to control agricultural production inputs.³⁷ Further, the ownership limit imposed on agricultural companies was abolished, enabling investors to own more reclaimed lands. In 1992, Law 96 was passed, regulating rental relations between landlords and tenants. This law put an end to rental security, triggering a sustained wave of protests in the Egyptian countryside.³⁸

In North Africa as a whole, during this period, states focused on expanding their hold over desert agriculture for the export market while accelerating the commodification of state lands, making them available to agricultural investors.³⁹ Since the 1990s, policies of agricultural development in the desert have been regarded as a solution to the food provision and production crisis in North Africa.⁴⁰ International financial institutions supported policies of agricultural expansion in the desert based on a capital- and technology-intensive model of production of mostly export crops, with associated degradation of water and land resources.⁴¹

As a result of these neoliberal transformations, food self-sufficiency policies were terminated in favour of more market-based food security policies. The latter meant that food came to be sourced through market mechanisms, often irrespective of provenance – whether this be global commodity markets, domestic production or even food aid. Accordingly, major shifts occurred in diets, leaving North African countries exposed to a sharp increase in nutritional diseases and food dependency. Algeria and Egypt became amongst the biggest importers of wheat globally.

Following 40 years of neoliberalism, the key features of the current dominant agri-food system in North Africa can be summarized as follows:

• The removal of subsidies for small peasant farmers and the gradual withdrawal of the state from all forms of technical and material support for agricultural production. This includes the state abandoning its role in centrally controlling agricultural operations and practices, such as fertilization, and the types of seeds and pesticides used. This withdrawal has given the private sector unfettered access to food staples and import channels. The state also entirely surrendered its role in determining the prices of agricultural inputs and outputs to the forces of the market, ceasing agricultural input and credit subsidies.
• The promotion of a model of industrial agriculture based on large-scale farms. This was achieved by reclaiming desert spaces and enabling agricultural investors to access large areas of land. Thus, colonial structures were repurposed and reproduced through a system in which land is now in the ownership of the few; these dynamics are particularly visible in the cases of Morocco and Egypt.
• The adoption of a policy of primarily export-driven agriculture through financial incentives, the provision of chillers in airports, etc. Most importantly, North African states form part of a system of international trade that serves to bolster the interests of the Global North at the expense of local populations in the Global South.
• The dominance of a globalized, consumerist diet with a high rate of cheap carbohydrates, leading to an increase in the rates of food-related diseases, high rates of obesity and malnutrition. Additionally, there has been a replacement of food self-sufficiency policies with market-based food security policies.

1.3 The current situation: a marginalized peasantry and an extractive capitalist mode of agriculture

The decline of the welfare state in the post-colonial, neoliberal era saw the emergence and reproduction of a localized dualism that had existed in the colonial era: the existence of two agricultural sectors – one characterized by private, large-scale farms in receipt of state support, the other based on small-scale farmers in plains, valleys and oases, dependent on rain-fed agriculture and characterized by under-development and marginalization.

In North Africa, agriculture is a major sector of employment for women, accounting for 55 per cent of women’s employment, in comparison to only 23 per cent for men.⁴² With the migration of men and women (whether it be for economic reasons, or as a result of wars and conflict), the number of seasonal migrant workers is continuing to increase. In Egypt, for instance, according to the 2010 agricultural census,⁴³ the total number of women workers in the agricultural sector amounted to 5 million in that year, 40 per cent of whom undertake unpaid labour for their own families. Further, the growth of capitalist forms of agriculture has amplified the feminization of agricultural work, along with the dependence on girls, who can be as young as eight years old, who work in very poor and exploitative conditions.⁴⁴ The nature of agricultural work is problematic on many fronts, starting with the working conditions and health and safety issues (see the next paragraph), and extending to the local and global division of labour and its relationship with women’s empowerment and development. The working conditions of women farm workers are especially important in light of the current Covid-19-related health crisis, as well as fears of a new food crisis, which would exacerbate already existing tensions in the region. For instance, the recently published FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) shows a large increase in the prices of meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable oils and sugar between November 2020 and November 2021, worldwide.⁴⁵

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous production sectors in the world. According to estimates of the International Labour Organization, approximately 170,000 agricultural workers are killed every year. Workers in agriculture are at least twice as likely to die at work as workers in other sectors. Millions of agricultural workers are exposed to serious work injuries in accidents linked to agricultural equipment or poisoning with pesticides and other chemicals.⁴⁶ Indeed, due to the underreporting of deaths, injuries and work-related diseases in the sector, it can be assumed that the real picture of health and safety for agricultural workers is likely to be worse than official accounts.

Relationships of unequal exchange in the global system underpin the agricultural crisis in North Africa. Countries in the region are subjected to unequal exchange with the Global North, particularly the European Union (EU), through a variety of trade agreements that enable the EU to benefit from North African agricultural products at preferential rates. These agreements not only facilitate the exploitation of the region’s resources, they also maintain and further entrench the difference in wages in the agricultural sector in the South compared to the North, and the extraction of surplus value for the benefit of European consumers.⁴⁷ As the biggest trading partner of North African countries, much of the region’s production is geared towards export to the EU market. The EU therefore directly impacts development policies and the dominant trade and agriculture plans in the region. Under the slogan of ‘trade for development’,⁴⁸ the EU, in partnership with local elites, pushes North African countries to sign free trade agreements, which, in turn, aggravates the structural crisis.⁴⁹

As dependency theorists argue, while colonialism may have gone, the development model of the colonial era has remained dominant in different ways, perpetuating the disparities between the Global North and South. Under neoliberalism, former colonizers played a key role in integrating peripheral economies into the global economy and trade system and creating patterns of dependency.⁵⁰ Meeting the needs of the European market necessitates monocropping, large farms, and catering to the preferences of European citizens – for example in the way in which olive oil is prepared, or in the cultivation of specific varieties of dates, strawberries, flowers and citruses.

In sum, these agricultural policies and practices have created another form of dualism. On the one hand, industrial agriculture degrades land and water. Based on the intensification of capital and energy, capitalist agriculture further pushes agricultural workers – men and women – into precarity. It also exacerbates inequalities and centralizes land ownership. This is clearly the case for desert agriculture, where large areas are allocated to big investors while small-scale farmers are restricted to limited spaces.⁵¹ On the other hand, the absence of subsidies for peasant farming has led to the impoverishment of small farmers and the degradation of natural resources in oases and rural areas. Further, the legacy of the ‘green revolution’, with its intensive use of fertilizers, pesticides and hybrid seeds, has culminated in the neglect of intergenerational local agricultural and ecological systems. As a result, natural resources such as land and water have deteriorated, the biodiversity of seeds has declined, and the balance between humans and the environment has been disrupted, causing what is referred to as a ‘metabolic rift’.⁵²

North African countries are, to varying degrees, integrated into the contemporary global food system, which is dominated by transnational corporations, international trade and export-led agriculture. As previously argued, these patterns of global unevenness have led to the rapid degradation of natural environments and resources, and to the marginalization of small-scale farmers and peasants, and the local communities in which they are embedded.

The region therefore needs to rewrite its agricultural, environmental, food and energy policies. It is necessary for alternatives to be locally centred and to be able to flourish autonomously, independent of European interests. This necessitates a bottom-up, rather than top-down, approach – one that is informed by the daily practices and struggles of agricultural workers, local activists and actors in the region. It is evident that some peasant practices and ideas spreading in the region intersect with the principles of regenerative ecological agriculture – also known as agroecology (see Box 3). These form the building blocks of an ecological transition in the agricultural sector. The adoption of these practices is driven by a number of factors, including peasants’ need to cope with climate change, and the high prices of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. There has also been a renewed interest among sections of both the rural and urban population in re-invigorating traditional agricultural technologies and using innovative ways to confront water scarcity, soil degradation and rising temperatures. Grounded in concrete realities, these practices delineate a possible starting point for building a bottom-up just transition project. A just transition must empower the local population and redefine development as development that is based on participation, and the preservation and renewal of resources.

3. 1 Practices of agroecology, regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty

Table 2 shows a selection of eco-regenerative agricultural practices identified through studies of local and indigenous knowledge related to water preservation in North Africa,⁷³ as well as the few studies dealing with ecological and regenerative agriculture in the Maghreb, namely in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.⁷⁴ These have been complemented by the results of my own fieldwork in the countryside of Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco between 2008 and 2019, as well as interviews with scholars and activists in the North African Network for Food Sovereignty. 

As demonstrated in Table 2, these practices are linked to an increase in soil biomass,⁷⁵ a high level of organic matter, the enhancement of biodiversity, and an increase in effective ecological/biophysical interactions within the agricultural system. Additionally, these practices renew and preserve the agricultural landscape, maintain and provide water resources, improve the livelihoods of agricultural workers, and provide safe, healthy and culturally appropriate food for local populations. 

The aim here is not to give a complete overview, but rather a snapshot of practices related to ecological and regenerative agriculture in the contexts studied. Despite increasing experimentation with agroecological practices – often with the support of grassroots initiatives and organizations – fully integrated eco-farms remain very rare in North Africa.More commonly, peasants mix ecological farming practices with capitalist farming practices, examples being the use of both chemical and organic fertilizers, or resorting to both ecological and non-environmental modes of crop irrigation.

The emergence of these practices can be explained in part by the strategies small-scale farmers develop to bypass difficult environmental and economic conditions. For instance, small-scale farmers in Egypt are more inclined to switch to the use of animal waste and organic fertilizers when faced with the exorbitant prices of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Similarly, they favour local seeds and rely on seed saving and sharing practices to circumvent the high prices of imported seeds. Likewise, in the Maghreb, small-scale farmers and peasants use local knowledge and technology relating to environmental water preservation in the face of increasing water scarcity. While these practices do not necessarily stem from a radical environmental vision for agriculture, they can nevertheless be transformative. They serve as attempts to improve the livelihoods of impoverished farmers, helping them continue their farming work in the face of capitalist exploitation. In this case, practices of agroecology and regenerative agriculture can be depicted as a kind of agroecology of the poor, as they are a product of poor people’s focus on their own livelihoods.

3. 2 Local actors and networks

There are a number of civil society organizations and government research institutions that support the transition towards ecological agriculture at different scales. This section highlights some of these initiatives.

Some of the institutions, associations, organizations and networks mentioned in Table 3 below play multiple roles in promoting agroecology and regenerative agriculture, through for example providing training tools on agroecological practices, producing research and reports, and facilitating networking between actors. In North Africa, farmers’ cooperatives occupy a key position in supporting ecological farming practices,⁷⁶ particularly when understood in the context of the Maghreb-specific concept of cooperatives (Ta’adoudya), which encompasses notions of solidarity, cooperation and sisterhood. These local forms of joint action, solidarity and alliance building are crucial: they help further integrate ago-ecological systems through knowledge dissemination and the extension of practical help in the form of training courses in soil maintenance and renewal, the provision of organic fertilizers, and the propagation of native seeds. These mutually beneficial partnerships are necessary to widen and popularize agroecological experiences. Raising issues around workers’ health and the use of chemical fertilizers, agricultural workers’ unions push for organic methods of pest control, while associations facilitate the building of participatory relationships through direct selling, unionization, and mutual aid in a way that transcends the narrow confines of the market and private, individual interests.

As previously argued, despite the growing emphasis placed on the importance of local forms of regenerative agriculture and agroecology in confronting climate change, these practices remain largely marginalized in North Africa, at the level of both agricultural development policies and climate change mitigation policies. Indeed, these practices are primarily implemented on an individual level (farms) or at a local scale (community) with the support of civil society organizations and some research institutions. These dynamics do not allow for major changes to take place in agricultural policies, and they do not help rebuild food sovereignty on the basis of regenerative ecological agriculture. This problem is compounded by the dominance of industrial agricultural science and technology in the curriculums of agricultural colleges. For instance, in Egypt, pesticide, fertilizer and seed companies fund academic conferences in colleges of agriculture, while the curriculum promotes genetic engineering and the biotechnological revolution as solutions to the global food crisis. 

Despite these limitations, observations from the field demonstrate growing bottom-up pressure to build food sovereignty while supporting regenerative ecological agriculture in the region. It is on this basis that it is possible to set in motion a just transition of the agricultural sector in North Africa. 

This article has shed light on the opportunities for, and challenges to, a just agricultural transformation in North Africa. Mainly export-led and intensive in its use of energy and capital, industrial agriculture remains the dominant framework for agricultural policies in the region. These policies are incapable of confronting climate change and the environmental crisis in the region. In fact, they add to it. Further, they are unable to achieve food sovereignty in North Africa, and actively contribute to the marginalization and impoverishment of agricultural workers and rural populations. This article has highlighted some of the dynamics within rural communities and their efforts to innovate and regenerate through local knowledge, with the aim of counteracting the degradation of natural resources and peasants’ livelihoods. Additionally, the article has shown the pluriverses of agroecology and regenerative farming practices. However, these practices remain interwoven with capitalist farming methods. This can be mainly attributed to the absence of organized and sustained public policy support for an agroecological transition. 

North Africa needs to rewrite its agricultural, environmental, food and energy policies. At the heart of any serious just transition programme should be the goal of achieving autonomy, ending dependency, reducing poverty, and mitigating the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Building such a programme requires a more radical and local participatory approach, in order to regenerate and preserve local natural resources. This move offers a road to liberation from dependency; it requires building novel and locally-rooted knowledge systems and skills that support ecological and regenerative agriculture. The green revolution of the post-independence state would not have been possible without state intervention and support. State support consisted not only of providing production inputs, irrigation projects and mechanization, but also of providing agricultural extension services and establishing extension farms and research centres and institutes. Therefore, ecological and regenerative agriculture in North Africa is in need of a locally-oriented just transition plan. However, this will not be achieved without pressure from below, informed by the needs and aspirations of small-scale farmers, peasants and farm workers, who remain indispensable in a just transition in the region and beyond.  

Photo credit: © Javier Quiroga/Unsplash. Busy street in Shanghai, April 2019. 

Over the last 30 years, China has undergone dramatic economic growth and social transformation, bringing enormous changes in the daily lives of ordinary people. Often overlooked in the Chinese government’s grand narrative and its large-scale social engineering projects, however, are the lives of women, workers, and ethnic minorities in the country’s changing political and economic structure. 

Women in China

After the Communist Party took power in 1949, the Chinese state introduced a series of laws to narrow gender gaps. In 1950, the first Marriage Law was passed to prohibit arranged marriage and child betrothal, which had existed since the imperial era. The new constitution stated that women enjoy equal rights with men in all aspects of political, economic, cultural, social, and family life. 

In the state socialist era (1949–1976), ‘women can hold up half the sky’ was a symbolic and widely used slogan. As the state pushed industrial accumulation and agricultural production, women were mobilised to work in factories or agriculture. To support women’s full employment, the government promised to socialise much of women’s domestic work. As a result, women’s labour participation rate reached nearly 90%, among the highest worldwide. Despite this, the gendered division of labour in the household and public sphere remained intact. Women still had to bear most of the burden for unwaged reproduction work. New gendered divisions also emerged in the productive sector. In most workplaces, male workers were concentrated in the skilled positions in heavy industries, whereas female workers were concentrated in low-end positions in service and light industries. 

In the wake of the economic reform, which began in 1978, women in China have faced widening gender gaps in both their participation in the labour force and in wages. By 2000, most government-run childcare facilities were privatised or shut down, which moved the parenting burden to working women and jeopardised their position in the labour market. In contrast to the mobilisation of women’s labour in the socialist era, from the 1980s some male intellectuals began calling for women to ‘go back home’ to fulfil their domestic duties. Women have also faced increasing pressure to enter into marriage. Between 1990 and 2018, the female labour participation rate dropped drastically from 90% to around 60%, and  women’s earnings declined from about 84% of men’s wages in 2000 to 65% in 2013.

Since the early 2010s, the crisis of social reproduction has intensified. With a rapidly growing urban population and inadequate public services, the cost of social reproduction has been driven up further, which has in turn contributed to declining fertility rates. Chinese women continue to face systemic exploitation and appropriation of their reproductive labour and discrimination in the job market, although of course their experiences vary according to their social position. Women who work in the formal economy not only experience sexual harassment and earn lower wages than men, but also disproportionally shoulder the burden of childcare in the deepening class gap in the cities. Meanwhile, poor rural women have been pushed to enter informal, precarious, and poorly paid job markets to provide essential urban services. Owing to the lack of access to social welfare in the cities where they work, they are often separated from their children. These female migrant workers in China make up the world’s largest domestic service market, made up of approximately 35 million people.

In the face of this discrimination and oppression, women have not stayed silent. Chinese feminism dates from the turn of the twentieth century, when revolutionaries advocated for women’s rights as a part of national modernising project. As stated above, after the Communist Party took power, the state played a key role in launching campaigns to promote women’s legal and economic rights. More recently, between the 1990s and the early 2010s, non-government organisations (NGOs) emerged, focused on combatting domestic violence and promoting reproductive health rights. This included the ‘Anti-Domestic Violence Network’, which was shut down right before the government passed the ‘Anti-Domestic Violence Law’, for which the network had long advocated.

Over the past decade, explosive online discussions have contributed to unprecedented debate on gender issues, with wide scope and high visibility. Scholars Wu and Dong identify two major styles of expression women used during this period in a ‘Made-in-China’ feminism. The first and most pronounced is the ‘entrepreneurial’ voice, which resonates with women’s anxiety about economic security and encourages women to abandon traditional wifely duties and exercise their autonomy in deciding on marriage to maximise their personal returns. They also identify a more radical style, most represented in the ‘Young Feminist Activism’ (YFA). Since the early 2010s, this network of young students and activists has organised street demonstrations and online campaigns to against discrimination and gender-based violence and advocate for women’s rights. After the crackdown on the YFA, the #MeToo Movement, which emerged at a larger scale in 2018, has become one of the most energetic forms of activism in China today and the most pronounced critiques of the status quo. The #MeToo movement is reviewed in more detail in the later section ‘Social Movements in China’.

Workers and migration in China 

At the turn of the millennium, the working class in China could be divided into two main groups: permanent workers in the old state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector and internal migrant workers originally from rural areas and working as contract workers in cities. 

In the state socialist era, SOE workers held permanent jobs in public employment, and enjoyed socialist benefits from cradle to grave, such as housing and childcare benefits – all of which were distributed through membership in a work unit. However, as China accelerated its integration into the global capitalist system in the late 1990s, around 30 million SOE workers were laid off during corporate restructuring. This marked the demise of the old SOE working class, as China’s SOEs were pushed to operate as profit-driven corporations. More detail about the development of China’s economic system is reviewed in the section ‘China’s Economic System’.

China’s economic transition also increased its reliance on internal migrant workers. In the late 1970s, special economic zones (SEZs) were set up to attract foreign capital for export processing. By the 1990s, as China further opened up and became the world’s factory, tens of millions of migrant workers moved from poor rural areas to coastal cities to make a living in the hyper-exploitative manufacturing sectors producing goods for markets overseas. Transnational capital boosted its profitability through the massive relocation of global supply chains to China, where the overall enforcement of labour law was poor and basic labour rights of migrant workers were systematically abused. Migrants often worked in on-site dormitories, subjected to extremely long working hours for a meagre salary, where they suffer frequent work injuries. Moreover, workers’ right to strike was removed from the constitution in 1982, and workers’ bottom-up struggles were often repressed. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the only legal trade union, is also controlled by the Party and, despite occasional bids for greater autonomy since the 1949 revolution, primarily ‘maintains stability’ and ensures that production continues, rather than representing workers’ interests. At the enterprise level, union officials are often part of the management.

The collaboration between the Chinese government and transnational capital was essential to China’s emergence as the ‘world factory’. The government identified the large rural surplus population as its ‘comparative advantage’ in the global supply chain and crafted political and social policies to facilitate massive economic growth. The hukou system, which links the provision of social services to household registration in a particular location, has served as an overall development strategy to enable cities to enjoy a cheap workforce without having to pay any of its reproduction costs. Under the hukou system, rural migrant workers are denied access to all kinds of state-subsidised social services in the cities, including health care and their children’s education. As a result, despite some variations between successive waves of migration since the late 1970s, the pattern for many migrant workers is that they work in the cities when they are young, briefly moving back to the countryside to get married and have children, and then leaving them to return to work in the cities. By 2013, 61 million children were separated from one or both of their parents. Some of these children have been subjected to sexual and physical abuse. 

By 2021, there were 292 million migrant workers in China, comprising more than a third of the entire working population. In 2018, for the first time, the number of migrant workers employed in the service sector exceeded those in the manufacturing and building sectors and this share has continued to grow. Migrant workers in the cleaning, hospitality, food and logistic sectors have been crucial to sustaining the lives of the modern urban population, yet their jobs are both precarious and exploitative. In recent years, the central government has begun to address the situation of migrant workers in its rhetoric, and enacted some reforms of the hukou system. However, since the central government leaves implementation to local governments, but without providing additional resources, the welfare system remains effectively unreformed. Although restrictions on securing residence in smaller cities have been loosened, social services are still typically available only to a small number of better-educated non-locals. Registration in bigger cities, where better job opportunities are concentrated, remains extremely difficult. 

In response to the exploitation and exclusion of migrant workers, there have been persistent protests and wildcat strikes. These have articulated a range of demands – from wage increases and pensions to compensation for factory relocation – and led to both repression and policy reforms. We review labour movement in China in the section ‘Social Movements in China’.

Ethnic Minorities

China’s official position is that it is a unitary multi-ethnic state comprising 56 different groups. The Han constitute a 91% absolute majority of the total population, and other ethnicities are often referred as ‘ethnic minorities’. In 1950s, the Communist Party started its ‘Ethnic Classification Project’ to call for applications from ethnic groups for official recognition. The government sent hundreds of researchers to investigate groups for classification and identification, and eventually over 400 self-reported groups were classified into 55 officially recognised minorities that could claim minority rights enshrined in the law. It is worth noting that, within the process, the government categorised the ethnic groups in a way that fit its political concerns of territorial integrity and stability. For example, the Baima and Ersu people, who are classified as Tibetans, have petitioned to be recognised as separate ethnicities, which the authorities have rejected.

As China instituted its economic reforms, the government has presented itself as an inclusive and multicultural state and invested in infrastructure in order to promote tourism. This commodified and exoticised ethnic cultural representation for domestic and international tourist markets. For instance, the provincial governor of Yunnan initiated tourism projects in Lijiang and used The Old Town, which features the Dongba culture of Naxi, to apply for the UNESCO-monitored legacy project. Meanwhile, as the central government encourages further urbanisation, some ethnic minorities in the border regions have been dispossessed from their lands and become part of the urban workforce. In the film project ‘Caches From The Landscape’, the Nomadic Department of the Interior (NDOI) features villagers in the southwestern province of Guizhou who were being displaced by the world’s largest radio telescope. It captures changes in the landscape, peoples’ collective identity, and the constant migration experienced by many ethnic minorities in China. 

According to scholars Gerald Roche and James Leibold, a ‘second-generation’ of Ethnic Policies was first proposed in 2011, and has been implemented across the country since 2013. This new approach, with its more forthright embrace of cultural assimilation, marks a break from the somewhat Soviet-inspired approach adopted in earlier periods, which featured language protections and occasional rebukes of ‘great Han chauvinism’ at the same time as even while it also repressed ethnic groups, such as Tibetan and Uyghur movements. In recent years, the government has placed increasing emphasis on ‘inter-ethnic mingling’ and proactive forging of a common identity, while also promoting universalisation of Mandarin-medium education, and scaling back a range of preferential policies. The response to these policies builds on long-standing grievances and campaigns for national self-determination by groups on China’s periphery, resulting in intensified grievances and social unrest in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other autonomous regions. In 2020, a newly implemented language policy sparked petitions, street demonstrations, and school boycotts in Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The Chinese government has constructed a digital enclosure and mass internment system in the Uyghur autonomous region, which has detained at least one million ethnic Uighurs ( more context and details is reviewed in the later section ‘Political System’).

Webinar participants

Yige Dong, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo and author of the forthcoming The Fabric of Care: Women’s Work and the Politics of Livelihood in A Chinese Mill Town. 

Eli Friedman, Associate Professor and Chair of International & Comparative Labor at Cornell University’s ILR School.

Yutong Lin, Nomadic Department of the Interior art research collective

Resources

• Byler, D. (2021) Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Chan, J. Selden, M. and Ngai, P. (2020) Dying for an iPhone. Chicago: Haymarket.
• Friedman, E. (2022) The Urbanization of People: The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Rozelle, S. and Hell, N. (2020) Invisible China. How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Wang, Z. (2017) Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1964. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Photo credit: © Yuri Kozyrev / NOOR. Gulzira Auelhan, an ethnic Kazakh, returning to Xinjiang in 2017 to visit her ailing father, was detained for 437 days in China’s sprawling new system of incarceration and indoctrination. 

China’s political system is often difficult for outsiders to understand. While it is often portrayed as a monolithic, top-down bureaucracy, the Chinese government claims to practise ‘whole-process people’s democracy’, a model of socialist democracy which it characterises as ‘true democracy that works’. To explore the complexity of China’s political system in its own context, it is useful to look at the dynamics from several angles, such as the class character of the Chinese state, the ways the system shapes daily life, as well as recent political events such as the government’s ‘People’s War on Terrorism’ in Xinjiang, the crackdown on Hong Kong and the response to the pandemic.

Class character of Chinese state

At the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949, Mao proclaimed that the new socialist state would constitute a people’s democratic dictatorship, serving the class interests of the revolutionary peasant–proletarian alliance which had ushered the new state into existence. Throughout the socialist era, the state insisted on making its class character apparent and ensured the supremacy of the peasant–proletariat alliance in state practice and ideology. In other words, the state made no pretence of class neutrality, announcing that the state served the peasant–proletarian alliance and acted on behalf of the revolutionary people of China. This provided the state with its ideological legitimacy. While the state was to be democratic for those people who supported the revolutionary party and its allies, it was to prove a dictatorship to those who were considered anti-revolutionary or whose class background was suspect.

By contrast, although the state still claims universal continuity between its interests and those of the supposedly classless nation, it usually serves the interests of the wealthy and subordinates the interests of workers and peasants. During and after China’s reform era, far from retreating from social life the state has embedded itself further, issuing policies that advance the commodification of land and labour. At the same time, capitalist activity is subject to state control and surveillance. Today, although China acts in the name of socialism, the state largely serves to safeguard the conditions for capitalist accumulation and its power lies in its demonstrated capacity to ensure economic growth and stability.

The structure of China’s political system

The territories of China, especially the peripheral regions where non-Han Chinese reside, are largely a legacy of the Qing empire’s military conquest, and were inherited by the Nationalist-led Republic of China and subsequently reshaped by the upheavals of the twentieth century. Since 1949, the entire territory has been ruled by the Communist Party, whose leadership is enshrined in China’s constitution. The party is structured as a pyramid. At the lowest level, there are around 92 million party members across the nation, and around 2,200 delegates are elected as representatives to the National Party Congress, convened once every five years. At the Congress, a Central Committee of about 380 members are elected and take up key roles in the central government. Finally, a new Politburo and its standing committee are elected from the Central Committee. These are the organs of government that hold real decision-making power. Currently, there are seven members in the Politburo Standing Committee, representing the apex of power in China. The committee makes decisions through a majority vote. It has been led by party chief Xi Jinping since 2012, who is also the chair of the central military commission. 

While on paper the Communist Party operates on the principles of ‘Democratic Centralism’, which allows the party to elect its leadership from the bottom up and discuss and vote on policies in a democratic way, in practice the composition of the Politburo and standing committee is determined through closed-door negotiations. It is unclear to what extent democratic internal debates take place or whether lower-level party members simply go along with top-down directives. 

Moreover, the Communist Party has control over all branches of government, including legislative and judiciary institutions. Though there are a number of other smaller political parties present in the National People’s Congress (NPC), the existence of those smaller parties is based on the condition that they accept the Communist Party’s leadership. In effect, they serve as a rubber stamp, offering a nominal diversity of opinions, rather than a real supervisory power or a political opposition. The state council, tasked with enacting national policy and supervising all government departments, is also led by the Chinese premier who is himself a member of the standing committee of the Politburo. Meanwhile, the judiciary is supervised by the party’s central political and legal affairs commission, chaired by a member of the Politburo. However, it is worth noting that although the Chinese state generally works in a way where the power is concentrated at the top, it also consists of many departments and actors with conflicting or competing interests. In addition, lower level bureaucracies are not always in line with the central government, which often creates imbalance and tension in the system.

Pandemic as a case study

The Chinese government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic illuminates the structure of the state in motion and shows how the population interacts with the government. At the start of the pandemic, when its severity was still unknown, local governments’ interests in economic performance and social stability trumped public health concerns, resulting in an extended period of cover-up. The doctors who first detected the virus and alerted others on social media were reprimanded by local police and hospital administrators for sharing false information. Dr. Wen-liang, Li was one of the whistle-blowers who later died from the virus in February 2020, prompting a national outpouring of grief and anger at the government’s handling of the pandemic crisis. 

The Chinese government took some measures to enable a certain level of sharing information from the public to improve governance. One example is the health emergency system restructured by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after the SARS pandemic in 2003. The system enables individuals to report health incidents to local commissions, but only the national commission and its designated provincial agencies are allowed to make public announcements. As a result, information could flow from the bottom up within the government bureaucracy while still being kept from the public. During the lockdown, there was also a brief period where the government loosened some controls on the media and public expression, which served as a way to collect information and respond to public resentment. However, after the brief loosening of public expression, there followed immersive social media censorship and arrests of ordinary people and citizen journalists. At least 897 people were penalized for online speech about COVID-19, and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was handed down a four-year prison sentence for her reporting on the pandemic.

China’s security state and people’s daily life

The governance of the state is expressed through the intertwined relational networks that operate at the most molecular level of everyday life. For instance, schools, neighbourhoods, as well as private and public companies, are all required to set up a party branch, which ultimately links back to the formal bureaucracy and is responsible for overseeing and reporting to the upper-level party. In addition, a ‘patriotic education system’ is another important rhetorical device to buttress the ideological legitimacy of the state in people’s daily life.

In the past decade, rapid digitalisation has enabled the government to build security infrastructure to regulate the public sphere and increase surveillance. In the 2000s, the newly available internet enabled people to enjoy a certain level of freedom and autonomy by self-publishing on social media. This led the state to shift from attempting to direct the whole public sphere to managing and controlling discourse. Around 2010, the Chinese government initiated the all-round development of China’s security state; for the first time its domestic security budget surpassed military spending. Over subsequent years, the government implemented a real-name registration system for all mobile phone users and social media accounts, introduced an ID-based ticket booking system for public transport, and constructed an extensive network of CCTV cameras, which was soon connected to facial recognition technology. 

In 2013, an internal document entitled ‘Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere’ was circulated by the state leadership. The document identified universal values, freedom of the press on the internet, and civil society as major political ‘perils’ that the Party should be on guard against. A year later, the government formed the ‘Central National Security Commission (CNSC)’ in response to the internal and external ‘double pressures’ identified in its documents alongside other factors as a threat to political stability. The CNSC was directly chaired by Xi and developed an ‘overall national security outlook’, which covers politics, territory, military, economy, culture, society, science and technology, information, ecology, nuclear and natural resources.

Around the same time, the crackdown on media and civil society began to intensify. Since 2013, the government has tightened its censorship of mainstream media, arrested investigative reporters and constrained public discussion. In early 2015, a group of five Chinese feminists were detained in Beijing for planning a protest against sexual harassment. In July 2015, the Chinese government launched a nationwide campaign in which it jailed over 100 human rights lawyers and activists and in December, five labour activists were arrested for allegedly ‘disturbing public order’. There have since been numerous waves of repression against every part of civil society. In 2019, when the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in Hong Kong began, the government conducted a particularly harsh crackdown, arresting more than 10,000 people, and implementing the National Security Law to further break up the movement. For more detail about movements in Hong Kong, see the section ‘Social movements in China’.

Terror capitalism and dispossession of Uyghurs

The Chinese government has constructed a digital enclosure and mass internment system in Xinjiang, the Uyghur autonomous region in northwest China, to control the dissent that has resulted in large part from expanding the capitalist frontier and land dispossession. The technology-enabled entrapment of at least one million ethnic Uighurs illustrates how China’s security state and mass surveillance systems operate.

In the 1990s, the Chinese government expanded its capitalist frontier by encouraging companies and migrants to move to Xinjiang to extract natural resources and extend infrastructure. This led to land dispossession and antagonism between the local population and the new settlers. In the 2010s, with the arrival of 3G networks and digital media, migrant workers in the city used smartphones to find jobs and discuss topics including religion. This not only enabled a revival of Islamic piety and but also allowed for increased connection with the larger Muslim world. Due to the lack of language-recognition technology, voice memos sent in Uygur through social media apps were outside the state-managed public sphere. The combination of these trends made the Chinese state nervous.

Chinese counterterrorism was also inspired by post-9/11 Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programmes in the United States and Europe and an emerging global discourse around Islamophobia and counter terrorism. As early as 2001 China had started to describe Uyghurs as a population prone to terrorism, but restrictions on the public sphere took off after 2010. In 2013, the Chinese media started to publish numerous stories about cases of terrorism involving Uyghurs attacking Han civilians in Beijing and Kunming, increasing public support for some kind of action to control the Uyghurs.

In 2014, the state declared the ‘Peoples War on Terror’, marking a shift towards preventative policing through surveillance and education systems. The government began to build a new security apparatus to enforce a new wave of racialisation and dispossession of Uyghurs. Apart from the massive deployment of police and lower-level police contractors, the government largely relied on a digital enclosure system to restrict privacy and assert state control of the internet and the Uyghur population. Up to 1,400 private technology firms worked with the Chinese government to develop tools to automate the transcription, translation and detection of Uyghur speech. A ‘counter-terrorism sword’ – software used by police to download all the contents of Xinjiang residents’ phones – was one of the tools the Chinese authorities used extensively  to scan people’s digital activities. Through these scans, at least 100,000 people were determined to have committed newly defined criminal activities, such as using a VPN or WhatsApp. Many of them ended up being locked up in internment camps and/or were forced to work in associated factories. In December 2019, the governor of the region announced that all ‘trainees’ had graduated. However, investigations revealed that the government continued to build new detention facilities or renamed ‘training centres’ as ‘detention facilities’, now intended to detain people prior to their trials. As mapped by the Xinjiang Data Project, there are currently around 380 suspected detention facilities in the region. Darren Byler described the process as a shift from mass internment to coerced labour and mass imprisonment. 

The mass internment in Xinjiang not only reveals the operation of a security state in China, but also illuminates how terror capitalism in the country is part of global surveillance capitalism. The security apparatus in China is interconnected with American institutions, military programs, and private companies. For example, the US Army has funded joint research with Chinese AI companies which are involved in building the security apparatus in Xinjiang. So, while the Chinese government outsources its policing duties to private and state-owned technology companies to enhance the state’s surveillance capacities, the ‘Public–Private Partnership’ (PPP) creates a space for private industries to expand their market share rapidly and improve their AI capacities through data harvesting and the construction of new analytic tools. Moreover, there is also a racialised component, where difference is accentuated in order to exploit people. In Xinjiang, ethnic Uyghurs have been labelled as terrorists and criminals based on their ethnic status, and their social existence has been systematically undermined through surveillance and indoctrination camps. A similar logic has worked in many places around the world, manipulating the abstract fears of the protected and creating entire groups of ‘suspect communities’ considered to pose a risk. 

Webinar participants

Rebecca Karl, Professor of History at New York University 

Darren Byler, Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University

Yangyang Cheng, Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, where her research focuses on the ethics and governance of science and US–China relations.

Au Loong-Yu, labour activist 

Resources

• Byler, D. (2022) Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• China Media Project: chinamediaproject.org
• Chun, L. (2021) Revolution and Counterrevolution in China: The Paradoxes of Chinese Struggle. London: Verso.
• Gallagher, M.E. (2017) Authoritarian Legality in China: Law, Workers, and the State Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Karl, R.E. (2020) China’s Revolutions in the Modern World: A Brief Interpretive History. New York: Verso.
• Karl, R. (2010) Mao Zedong and China in the 20th-century World: A Concise History Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Loong-Yu, A. (2020) China’s rise: strength and fragility and Hong Kong in revolt: the protest movement and the future of China. London: Pluto Press.
• Manfred E. (2021) Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• McGregor, R. (2012) The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers. New York: HarperCollins.
• Pan, J. (2020) Welfare for Autocrats: How social assistance cares for its rulers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Saich, T. (2010) Governance and Politics of China (3rd edn). Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan.

Photo credit: © Joshua Fernandez/Unsplash. Scene inside a Sam’s club during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic in Shenzhen, China. 

There has been heated debate over the nature of China’s economic system – specifically whether it is capitalist or socialist. This section summarises different views on the development of China’s economic system over three periods of recent history: the socialist period between the 1950s and 1970s, the transition period between the late 1970s and 1990s, and the capitalist period as from the 1990s. This is followed by a summary of several characteristics and trends in China’s current economic system, the crisis it has been facing and its responses.

Socialist period (1950s–mid-1970s) 

After the Chinese Communist Party gained power in 1949, it first eliminated private property from the means of production to establish new socialist economic structures. In urban areas, the party nationalised and collectivised industries and established work units based on public ownership. In rural areas, land was redistributed and placed in the hands of villagers’ collectives. But there are diverging views on the character of society in this period and the trends it manifested. 

Joel Andreas argues in ‘Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China’ that, during this period, Chinese workers gained ‘industrial citizenship’, which secured their recognition as legitimate stakeholders in factories through job tenure and extensive membership rights. Although the constraints on autonomous collective action severely limited the potential for workplace democracy, the work structure at the factories was designed to learn from workers’ grievances and the social hierarchy was compressed. 

In ‘The Communist Road to Capitalism’, however, Ralf Ruckus contends that, after the abolition of the old class divisions, new ones soon arose between peasants and workers and between different strata of workers. He argues that many overviews of the period are too optimistic and simplistic, and that it is important to examine some of its contradictions. In the 1950s, the system of taxation and unified purchase used to generate resources for the socialist industrialisation programme came at the cost of squeezing peasants’ livelihoods. The workforce was divided into permanent and temporary workers, who were accorded substantially different rights under the hierarchical dual labour system. Moreover, women faced a sexist division of labour as they occupied less skilled positions with lower pay. 

Transition to Capitalism (late 1970s–1990)

In ‘Rise of the Red Engineers’, Joel Andreas argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s class-levelling project ended in the late 1970s, after which the party started to restore the cultural and political class hierarchies that had been condemned during the Maoist era. This was done by establishing a more hierarchical education system, as well as through elitist academic and party systems that rewarded cultural and political credentials. In this period, the party retained the socialist economic infrastructure, but merged the cultural and political elites into a new class of ‘technocratic bureaucrats’. These bureaucrats would eventually become the new capitalist class, stimulating the transition to capitalism from the late 1970s.

Others contend that the economic basis for capitalism had already been established in the socialist period. Ralf Ruckus sees the socialist industrial infrastructure, including a disciplined industrial workforce and the patriarchal family structure, as laying important foundations for the new capitalist social relations. In this regard, the market reforms in the late 1970s facilitated the transition to capitalism in the 1990s. For instance, soon after the party officially announced the Economic Reform and Opening policies in 1978, it set up Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to facilitate foreign investment, and restructured the hukou system to enable rural populations to migrate as a cheap labour force in the SEZs. This then triggered new kinds of social struggles arising from rapid urbanisation and proletarianisation. 

Capitalist Era (1990s to the present)

From the 1990s, however, commentators and analysts tend to converge. Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 ‘Southern Tour’ marked a clear declaration by the party’s leadership to further transform China’s economy and integrate it into the global capitalist system. 

From the mid-1990s, the party accelerated the elimination of full employment and membership rights in the old socialist welfare system, which in cities had been based on the work unit structure. Between 1998 and 2003, around 16 million workers, or 40% of the state sector workforce, were laid off when most of the country’s SOEs were privatised or closed down. The remaining SOEs were amalgamated into modern, profit-driven conglomerates, making the workforce vulnerable to being hired and fired at will to minimise labour costs. In the rural areas, local governments dispossessed many villagers of their land, to be used to develop  infrastructure or industrial and commercial projects, totalling over one million illegal land grabs between 1998 and 2005.

After China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, more transnational corporations (TNCs) relocated their global supply chains to the country in pursuit of cheap labour and profits. In 2008, there were 225 million internal migrant workers, most of whom worked in coastal cities in export production. Built on the exploitation of migrant workers, China became the ‘engine of global capitalism’ and the largest destination for FDI. Throughout the 2000s, China enjoyed an unprecedented economic boom with an average of more than 10% annual GDP growth. Production for global markets was central to this boom, with the country becoming the world’s biggest exporter in 2009. 

After 2010, however, China’s economic growth has slowed. Although China was able to avoid the worst impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis due to its insulation from the global financial system, its export sectors were seriously affected. Throughout 2009 and 2010, the Chinese government introduced massive stimulus programmes, which totalled 4 trillion RMB (USD 586.68 billion), amounting to 12.5% of the country’s 2008 gross domestic product (GDP). Immersive infrastructure projects, such as high-speed railways, roads, and airports, were built with government funding and bank credit. Ho-fung Hung argues that China became burdened with diminishing returns from its continuous credit-funded stimulus projects, as it began to suffer a crisis of over-accumulation and over-leveraging, which worsened throughout the decade. Despite the government’s rhetoric about boosting domestic consumption to respond to over-production, the reality of growing inequality has made this less feasible. In the last 30 years, the growth rate of China’s per capita household consumption expenditure and disposable income has lagged behind its GDP per capita, leading to an increasing gap.

Chart 1: GDP per capita, household income and household consumption between 1990 and 2018

Characteristics of China’s economic system today

China’s current economy is fundamentally capitalist, in the sense that all businesses have to be oriented towards maximising profit. These enterprises co-exist with a strong state that regulates the economy to serve its national goals and ensure social stability. 

Yet, while capitalist, China’s economy is also distinct from many others. As Ho-Fung Hung points out, the domination of state enterprises is one distinctive characteristic. The Chinese constitution guarantees the state sector a dominant position in the economy and the party has used SOEs as important levers to direct the economy, playing a major role in domestic and global markets. In the 2021 Global Fortune 500 List, 124 out of 500 are corporations from China and 82 of these 143 are state-owned. The proportion of SOEs’ total revenue compared to private enterprises varies between sectors. In 2018, in strategic industries such as armaments, electricity, and minerals, SOEs compose 85% of all enterprises; in pillar industries, such as construction and electronics, they make up 45%, while in other industries they represent only 15%. Telecommunications and finance are exclusively state-owned, giving the state a continued monopoly of big data and finance. 

Ho-Fung Hung also argues that China’s economic slowdown, related to the debt and over-production crisis that has worsened since 2010, has created the context in which the state has launched regulatory crackdowns and is seeking to export capital overseas. Domestically, the government has pushed ahead with the expansion of state sectors at the expense of the private sectors in a situation of ‘economic cannibalism’ that has depressed the overall growth rate. For instance, while the state retains its monopoly in many sectors, its anti-monopoly laws have been disproportionately used against private and foreign enterprises. Internationally, Xi Jinping launched the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) in 2013 to provide credit to 70 low- and middle-income countries for infrastructure projects to absorb China’s over-accumulation. By 2015, the supply of local currency and loans was still growing while China’s foreign-exchange reserves were stagnant, which led to capital flight, a meltdown of the stock market, and devaluation pressure on the RMB. The state then introduced heavy-handed regulations on the financial market to tighten capital controls. More detail about China’s BRI project is provided in the section ‘China and the World’.

In all of this, it’s important to emphasise the enormous class polarisation and the struggles of ordinary people lying behind economic growth. In the past three decades, China’s explosive capitalist development has largely been built on the massive surplus rural population that supplies cheap labour to the export-oriented economy. In order to keep down the cost of labour, the state has facilitated the exploitation of its workers through overall development strategies in favour of capital. As a result, workers’ basic labour rights are often systematically abused, and their access to social welfare is also structurally limited. More detail about workers’ lives and their struggles is reviewed in other sections, ‘Life in China’ and ‘Social Movement in China’. 

Webinar participants

Ralf Ruckus, editor of gongchao.org 

Joel Andreas, Johns Hopkins University 

Ho-Fung Hung, Johns Hopkins University 

Resources

• Andreas, J. (2019) Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Chuang, J. (2020) Beneath the China Boom: Labor, Citizenship, and the Making of a Rural Land Market. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.~
• Chuang collective (2021) Social Contagion. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr.
• Hung, Ho-fung (2015) The China Boom: Why China will not rule the world. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Naughton, B. (2018) The Chinese Economy. Adaptation and Growth. (Second Edn). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Roberts, D. (2020) The myth of Chinese Capitalism. London: St. Martin’s Press.
• Ruckus, R. (2021) The Communist Road to Capitalism. How Social Unrest and Containment Have Pushed China’s (R)evolution since 1949. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
• Shih, V.C. (2007) Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Weber, I. (2021) How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. Abingdon: Routledge.

Photo credit: © 8268513/Pixabay. Hong Kong Pride Parade. 

While the Chinese state’s political and economic structural power is characterised by capitalist relations and repressive authoritarianism, the country is still shaped in different ways by power from below. Despite the government’s increasing investment in new forms of technological surveillance and intensifying political arrests, people in China persistently struggle against exploitation, discrimination, and political repression and to secure their rights to a healthy and dignified life. The section explores workers’ struggles and feminist movements in mainland China, as well as the Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill movement in 2019.

Labour movement in China 

China has a long tradition of labour militancy, stretching back to mobilisation in foreign-controlled ‘treaty ports’ like Shanghai and Guangzhou in the early twentieth century and, from there, to waves of workers’ protests during the Hundred Flowers Movement, as a part of the Cultural Revolution, and during the Tiananmen Square Movement of 1989. Since the beginning of China’s Economic Reform Era, and especially in the early 2000s, there have been numerous strikes and workers have staged protests, petitioned, and rioted in order to push for their demands. Chinese workers have been extraordinarily active. There was a dramatic rise in labour actions during the Hu-Wen administration (2003–2012). There have been fewer since then, which could be interpreted either as a fall in the number of strikes or on reporting on them.

Chart 2: Worker actions between 2003 and 2012
 – Source: China Strikes, China Labour Bulletin, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

As noted earlier, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the working class in China was still divided into two main groups: permanent workers in the old SOE sector and internal rural migrant workers with temporary urban employment. Their  different experiences have led to articulating distinct claims. SOE workers experienced privatisation and corporate restructuring, which led to many job losses during China’s Market Reform in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As we have already seen, migrant workers never enjoyed socialist benefits, such as membership rights of their work units, and housing and childcare benefits. On the contrary, they experienced a discriminatory system in the cities, where they were hyper-exploited by factories operated entirely according to a capitalist logic.

C.K. Lee argued in ‘Against the Law: Labour Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt’ that the claims of the SOE workers in the 1990s and early 2000s were rooted in their tattered socialist social contract, whereas the migrant workers focused on narrower legal rights. Conversely, Manfred Elfstrom points out that an increasing number of workers also made more assertive demands for higher wages and better social benefits in the later 2000s. For instance, in 2010, thousands of workers stopped Honda automobile plants in Guangzhou which led to the shutdown of the entire supply chain in demand of better wages. 

Various actors have given support to these struggles. Workers gain support from social media, from the loose networks of workers from the same home town, and, more recently, from Marxist students. Several years ago, grassroots non-governmental organisations were notable supporters. These were usually based in the industrial zones, where they opened community centres. They later became the target of government crackdowns. Elfstrom argues that NGOs played a complicated role in workers’ struggles. Certainly, some of the criticisms that they focused too much on advocacy and individual legal work as opposed to organising collective actions may be justified, but NGOs also had a more militant side, for instance when they provided advice in strike-making and facilitated informal collective bargaining in the aftermath of work stoppages. 

We have noted that China has a single, party-controlled union, ACFTU. Despite its revolutionary history, the union’s main goals today are to maintain peaceful industrial relations and restore normal production if it is disrupted. These goals are inscribed in the country’s Trade Union Law. Very occasionally, the union serves as a fairly neutral mediator between workers and capital, and is a mild internal advocate for new labour legislation on behalf of workers. In most cases, however, the union is merely an arm of management and the local government. 

Elfstrom argues that the results of workers’ activism in China have been double-edged: increased responsiveness and increased repression. The struggles of SOE workers have spurred the state to expand the social safety net, and workers’ protests have been credited with encouraging the enactment of a new Labour Contract Law in 2008 and a Social Insurance Law in 2011, providing a more comprehensive legal framework for labour protection. There have also been sporadic pilot experiments to allow elections in enterprise-level unions, and/or sectoral bargaining. It is important to note that these reforms took place in specific localities where independent collective actions were already more frequent. As the union reformers themselves have acknowledged, it was the workers pushing the unions to act, not the other way around. Elfstrom points out that although the repression has been more pronounced under Xi’s administration, with a crackdown on NGO leaders and Marxist students, strikes nevertheless continue and have even expanded to more sectors, like service industries, and the platform economy.

#MeToo Movement in China

China’s feminist movement has a long history (see section ‘Life in China’) but in 2018 it connected with the global #MeToo movement, when Xi-xi, Luo shared her allegations of sexual harassment against her former university professors on her social media platform. Her story went viral and encouraged a wave of women to publish their accounts of sexual harassment. To counter the censorship, netizens also invented the hashtag ‘Rice Bunny’ (the Mandarin pronunciation sounds like ‘Me Too’) and used it widely in the online discussion. The #MeToo movement has since expanded to universities, cultural, business and non-profit sectors in China.

The #MeToo Movement responds to the context of the long-term structural suppression of Chinese women and their grievances – as well as a history of women’s mobilisation against this. Women in China continue to face a discriminatory labour market and a society which urges them to have children but fails to provide public childcare support. 

In 2011, members of ‘Young Feminist Activism’ started to campaign against discrimination and sexual violence. They organised the ‘Occupy the Men’s Toilets’ campaign to protest over unequal provision of public toilets. They wore wedding dresses covered in red to draw people’s attention to domestic violence. They shaved their hair to address the unequal requirements women face to enrol in university. These eye-catching campaigns caught the attention of Chinese mainstream media, and provoked heated discussions on social media. A few policy changes were also made, including China’s first Anti-domestic Violence Law in 2015. However, in the same year, repression of civil society also intensified: five feminist activists were detained after planning a multi-city protest against sexual harassment on public transport.

In 2018, despite the political climate, the #MeToo Movement expanded and became more decentralised. Countless women continued to post their accounts of sexual harassment online and a handful brought their cases to the courts. In 2018, Zhou Xiaoxuan accused Zhu Jun, a prominent host on state broadcasting, of sexual harassment and drew enormous public attention. After being sued by Zhu for defamation, Zhou counter-sued him for ‘violation of personality rights’, as sexual harassment is not clearly defined in the civil code. In 2020 and 2021, when Zhou’s trials were held, crowds gathered outside the court to show support for her despite police harassment. Although the court eventually ruled that Zhou had tendered insufficient evidence in her sexual harassment case, her action was empowering to many participants in the #MeToo movement. Besides the lawsuit, there have also been various efforts to document and discuss the #MeToo movement in China despite government’s attempt to silence it, including a 2600-page ‘#MeToo in China Archive’ compiled by volunteers, and exhibitions in Guangzhou and Beijing. 

Since the #MeToo movement in 2018, a couple of policy initiatives have been introduced. For instance, in 2018, The People’s Procuratorate and the Education Bureau of Hangzhou Xihu District jointly announced the first guidelines to handle sexual harassment cases in schools. In 2021, nine Shenzhen government departments co-published a guidebook to provide a unified standard for sexual harassment policies at schools and workplaces to prevent and punish sexual harassment. In the same year, China’s first-ever Civil Code obliges companies to adopt measures to prevent and respond to sexual harassment in the workplace. However, while the state introduced the new policy initiative, it has also censored the online discussion, arresting and harassing the activists who were part of the grassroots movement that pushed for the changes. A prominent feminist activist, Huang Xueqin, who supported women to come forward with stories of sexual harassment, has been detained since 2021 on the charge of ‘inciting subversion of state power’, and her lawyer’s request to meet with her has been denied. 

Hong Kong Movement in 2019

In the summer of 2019, a million people marched in the streets to protest against the Extradition Bill, introduced by the Hong Kong government to enable the extradition of suspects from Hong Kong to mainland China. In so doing, they kicked off the biggest mass movement in Hong Kong’s history.

The government’s refusal to withdraw the bill and increasing police suppression led to a shift in the protesters’ focus, coalescing into Five Demands: complete withdrawal of the Extradition Bill, police accountability, retracting classification of the protests as riots, amnesty for arrested protesters, and universal suffrage for the legislative and chief executive bodies. The protests also expanded to various locations throughout Hong Kong, moving from the financial and political centres to outlying communities. Moreover, due to the intense police crackdown and the government’s refusal to make concessions, protesters began to complement mass demonstrations with more radical tactics, including road blocks, raids of government buildings, and petrol bombs. 

The street clashes escalated and reached their peak in mid-November 2019, with street actions taking place every couple of days. In response, the police crackdown and mass arrests also escalated: over a thousand people arrested in a single day as battles took place in two universities. The repression caused immense, social and psychological trauma and led to a decline in this radical street action as protestors perceived little possibility that it could achieve a change.

At the same time, there was a growth on other fronts in the movement, such as unionisation drives, ‘Yellow Economic Circles’ (a network of businesses which openly supported the protests), elections, and community-based organising. These fronts were explored through trial and error. When the pandemic struck at the start of 2020 the networks and solidarity formed by the movement enabled a prompt civil society response. For instance, the network of cross-sector unions became important for workers to express a joint and critical voice to the government’s pandemic policies and facilitated an unprecedent industrial action launched by health workers.

From the start of the Anti-Extradition Movement to early 2021, the Hong Kong police made over 10,200 arrests linked to the movement. In June 2020, the Chinese government escalated the crackdown by bypassing the local legislature to impose a National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong. The new law vaguely defined and criminalized activities related to ‘Subversion’, ‘Secession’, ‘Terrorist’ and ‘Collusion with a Foreign Country,’ which could potentially lead to a life sentence. Since the enactment of the law, the National Security Department (NSD) carried out a widespread crackdown on various parts of civil society, including universities, the media, and trade unions, arresting a total of 183 people. In early 2021, 53 activists and legislators were arrested on the grounds of ‘conspiracy to commit subversion’ for taking part in an opposition-organised primary election – speech crimes constitute nearly a third of arrests carried out by the NSD. The same year, dozens of activists from a speech therapists’ trade union and former news outlets were arrested for publishing books and articles under the charges of ‘conspiring to publish seditious publications’, a notorious offence introduced during the colonial period. The arbitrary arrests functioned as an intimidation campaign and led to the mass disbanding of civil society organisations (CSOs) and self-censorship in public discussion. 

The crackdown on Hong Kong’s civil society has also had deep repercussions on mainland China. Au Loong-Yu pointed out that Hong Kong’s organisations have a long history of supporting social movements and grassroots initiatives in mainland China, covering a wide spectrum including environmental, labour, and human rights issues. For instance, in the last 30 years, the ‘Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China’ has continuously organized mass vigils to remember the June 4^th Tiananmen Square massacre, until it was banned in 2020, with several activists jailed for participating in the illegal gathering. A handful of labour organisations based in Hong Kong have also played a crucial role in supporting groups in mainland China in awareness raising and empowerment of migrant workers. Au Loong-Yu thinks that if the cross-border solidarity and support had continued, we could see a different China, but the government has turned the clock back and cracked down on civil society in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Webinar participants

Au (a pseudonym), an activist from Hong Kong 

Manfred Elfstrom, University of British Columbia

Crystal L. (a pseudonym), a Chinese feminist activist  

Au Loong Yu, a labour activist

Resources

• China Labour Bulletin. https://clb.org.hk/
• Elfstrom, M. (2021) Workers and Change in China; Resistance, Repression and Responsiveness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Lee, C.K. (2007). Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Franceschini, I. and Sorace, C. (eds.) (2022) Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour. London: Verso Books.
• Loong-Yu, A. (2020) Hong Kong in Revolt: The Protest Movement and the Future of China. London: Pluto Press. 
• Lu, Z. (2015) Inside China’s Automobile Factories: The Politics of Labor and Worker Resistance. New York: Cambridge University Press. 
• Lee, C.K. (2022) Hong Kong: Global China’s Restive Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wu, G. Feng, Y. and Lansdowne, H. (2019) Gender Dynamics, Feminist Activism and Social Transformation in China. Abingdon: Routledge.

Photo credit: © European Council President/Flickr. President of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker,  Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and European Council President Donald Tusk at the EU-China Summit 2017. 

This section provides a contextualised overview of China’s economic and military rise, including the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s overall military capacity, and cross-strait and South China Sea tensions. It also explores reflections from an activist in the Chinese diaspora participating in a transnational social justice movement in a period of heightened US–China geopolitical tensions. 

China’s Economic Rise – Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

China’s contemporary economy has been largely integrated with the global economy, but one project above all is seen as representative of China’s global aspirations. Since Xi Jinping unveiled the ‘One Belt One Road Initiative’ in 2013 – later renamed ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) – to connect the economies of Asia, Europe and Africa with transport and energy infrastructure projects, it has been depicted as a coherent and geopolitical-driven ‘grand strategy’ orchestrated by top Chinese political leaders to dominate the world. Research by Lee Jones and Hong Zhang suggests, however, that BRI was largely determined by ‘multilevel, multi-actor struggles for power and resources’. 

Lee Jones argues that profit-seeking SOEs and banks are the dominant actors driving the further internationalisation of the Chinese state. Because SOEs have been facing massive over-capacity, saturated markets, and declining domestic profits, their motives to seek overseas markets became the most significant drive behind the BRI. Political leaders then overlaid diplomatic language on this overseas economic expansion and framed it as a diplomatic ‘win-win’: recipient countries receive investment in projects that other risk-averse competitors are hesitant to back, while China expands its economic globalisation and boosts its international legitimacy. Moreover, the BRI is not an entirely new initiative, but an aggregation and scaling-up of China’s existing overseas economic activities, consolidated to allow foreign governments and consumers to soak up SOEs’ excess capacity and banks’ surplus capital. More discussion about China’s crisis of over-accumulation and overleveraging is reviewed in the section ‘China’s Economic System’. 

Hong Zhang categorises five major BRI actors: the central political leadership, government ministries, sub-national governments, enterprises, and social organisations. While the BRI actively mobilises agents across all levels, the central government’s ability to coordinate and oversee these has been weak and ineffectual. Characterised by Jones as a ‘Chinese style regulatory state’, the Chinese government often fails to devise detailed strategies and micro-manage outcomes; conversely, diverse actors may influence, interpret or ignore the broad policy guidelines formulated by the upper echelons. Usually, enterprises are the primary actors, scouting for overseas business opportunities then retrofitting their projects into the country’s overall development strategy and competing for the government’s diplomatic and financial support. This means that ‘the tail wags the dog’, with many uncoordinated and poorly thought-through projects being approved. Moreover, as Hong Zhang’s research shows, SOEs are often powerful economic actors in their own right, and are to some extent independent of the government’s ‘financial power’.

China is now a major international investor and creditor, and its involvement in development financing is also noteworthy. Over the 2000–2014 period, China’s overall provision of development finance totalled US $354 billion, only US $40 billion behind the US. However, while China’s share of foreign governments’ debt has risen substantially, its debt ownership is still relatively small compared to private lenders overall and lags well behind the established multilateral lenders. As of 2022, China is the dominant lender in only 17 debt-distressed states worldwide.

Chinese market dominance in overseas infrastructure projects, particularly in Africa and Asia, is unassailable, with nearly 1,000 projects totalling $170 billion dollars over the 2013–2021 period. Further information on some of these projects can be found on ‘The People’s Map of Global China’, a bottom-up, collaborative initiative documenting infrastructure and other projects financed and/or built by Chinese entities worldwide. Some of these projects are facing great challenges or already failing, which Jones interpreted as a reflection of the shortcomings of Chinese-style regulatory governance and recipient states’ economic unsustainability, rather than the success of Beijing’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’. 

Low transparency in governance and in engagements with the local community are common problems, which have led to significant ‘blowback’ for China from recipient countries. For instance, the land-grabs and displacements associated with several BRI projects in Cambodia and Sri Lanka have caused serious local unrest. In recent years, due to rising concern about the potential risks and backlash, an increasing number of recipient countries are suspending (Sierra Leone) or scaling back (Myanmar, Malaysia) major planned BRI projects. The BRI therefore does not only strengthen China’s ties with recipients, but may also generate local and inter-state discord, undermining Beijing’s broader foreign policy goals.

China’s Military Rise – Cross-strait and South China Sea Tensions

There is no doubt that China is modernising and expanding its military capacities, although Walden Bello argues that this is largely limited to its own region rather than being a global phenomenon. Key indicators show that China’s military capacity remains largely inferior to other global powers, specifically the US. In terms of nuclear weapons, it is estimated that China has 350 nuclear warheads while the US has 5,600; the US has 800 military bases in 177 countries (out of a total of 195) while China only has one military base in Africa, and an overseas military presence in a few sites in Tajikistan and artificial islands in Asia. China only has two aircraft carriers based on an antiquated design while the U.S. has 11 of the total 43 that exist in the world today. 

However, the South China Sea (SCS) dispute and cross-strait tension with Taiwan are two major flash points for intensifying geopolitical tensions. The South China Sea (SCS) is a strategic link between the Pacific and Indian Ocean, which is not only an important trade route but also rich in oil, natural gas, and fish. It has been a point of contention in the disputed territorial claims among Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. In the past decade, China has carried out increasingly aggressive military activities in the region by building artificial islands for military bases, exploring for natural resources, and violating the rights of neighbouring countries. Walden Bello points out that an important factor in the SCS is US forward-deployed military presence in the region. Furthermore, China is surrounded by around 50 US military bases from Northern Japan to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea has also been controlled by the US 7th Fleet with its carrier taskforces, surface ships, nuclear-armed attack capacity, strategic submarines, and provocative air reconnaissance. Bello argues that, while the US and China are jostling for power in the region, this has created an explosive situation for the entire region, and although China’s moves might be understandable in its geopolitical tension with the US, this is no justification for them. 

Taiwan is only 160 km off China’s coast, and its political status has been contested. While Beijing claims Taiwan is part of China, Taiwan enjoys de facto autonomy with its own elected president and independent political system. Although China’s military aggression is not new to Taiwan, in the past few years, Chinese warplanes have crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait at a historically high level. However, although the western media plays up the military threats, survey results show that the Taiwanese are aware of these but are not necessarily worried about the prospects of an immediate military conflict. 

Brian Hioe lays out some political and economic context to take into account when assessing the possibility of a cross-strait conflict. Despite the significant difference in military capacity between China and Taiwan, occupation of Taiwan would not be as easy as some observers might assume. Militarily, Hioe argues that China would face a severe death toll from a beachhead invasion, and currently China still lacks the ‘lift capacity’ to send troops for a long-term occupation of Taiwan. Economically, the world’s dependence on China and significantly on Taiwan would also be a decisive factor. As Taiwan produces more than half of the world’s semiconductors, used in all kinds of electronic devices from missiles to mobile phones, China would want to ensure minimal disruption and preserve know-how and infrastructure in Taiwan. This has led China to follow a multi-pronged strategy: not just intimidation campaigns and psychological warfare, but also economic and political co-optation as a strategy towards unification. So, China facilitates a class of cross-strait elites to encourage economic integration and supports KMT, the Chinese National Party, as its domestic proxy to attempt to take over Taiwan through electoral means. Similar to the regional tension in the South China Sea, Hioe points out that Taiwan is caught between the US and China. US diplomatic visits and gestures regarding Taiwan often lead to a response of China’s military aggression in a tit-for-tat escalation. 

Diaspora activists’ experiences in the heightened US–China tension

May Wu is a social justice organiser who works with Chinese students and activists in the US and internationally. She shared her personal experiences of participating in transnational social justice movement in the US, which also sheds light on the struggles of the Chinese diaspora in the heightened US–China tension and her insights on reimagining international solidarity. 

With the population of Chinese students in the US totalling more than 300,000, May underlines the importance of mobilising them while the liberal environment gives them opportunities to engage in social movements. However, as Mengyang Zhao argues in his article ‘Chinese Diaspora Activism and the Future of International Solidarity’, diaspora activists often suffer the ‘triple penalty’ of simultaneously being activists, immigrants in their countries of residence, and activists in their home countries. In the context in the US, the Chinese state is aggressively tightening its grip on diaspora activists, and puts them under extensive surveillance and scrutiny. At the same time, the worsening US–China relationship, Trump’s rise, and anti-Asian hate crimes following the pandemic outbreak has caught diaspora activists between two state actors and growing hostility in the US. For instance, May noted that when Chinese students and activists participated in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the US, their actions were viewed as evidence of having been brainwashed by ‘western liberal values’ among the mainstream Chinese public, and perceived by some US audiences as an intervention by Chinese communist spies sent to sabotage US domestic politics. 

It is important to move beyond the common stereotype that Chinese diaspora activists are only ‘dissidents against Chinese government in liberal democratic countries’. Diaspora activists  have huge amounts to contribute to social movement in their countries of residence practically and intellectually. During the BLM movement, in solidarity, some Chinese students joined rallies, created content and workshops about the topics, and participated in initiatives led by people of colour. Some also organised fellow students to contact Chinatown vendors to explain the cause of the movement. May argues that overseas Chinese students have a long history of transnational social movement organising in the US, and their participation in activism today is a living example of this transnational identity, building bridges between Chinese students, resident and home communities, and with other diaspora activists and local movements. 

Webinar participants

Brian Hioe, activist in Taiwan, editor of New Bloom Magazine 

Lee Jones, Queen Mary University London

Hong Zhang, John Hopkins University and co-editor of the People’s Map of Global China (https://thepeoplesmap.net)

Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South 

Resources

• Bello, W. (2019) China: An Imperial Power in the Image of the West? Bangkok: Focus on the Global South.
• Dreher, A., Fuchs, A., Parks, B., Strange, A. and Tierney, M.J. (2022) Banking on Beijing: The Aims and Impacts of China’s Overseas Development Program. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Global China Pulse: https://thepeoplesmap.net/globalchinapulse/global-china-pulse-1-2022/
• Jones, L. and Hameiri, S. (2021) Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China’s Rise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jones, L. and Hameiri, S. (2020) Debunking the Myth of ‘Debt Trap Diplomacy’: How Recipient Countries Shape China’s Belt and Road Initiative. London: Chatham House. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy
• Lee, C.K. (2017) The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, And Foreign Investment in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• New Bloom: https://newbloommag.net/
• Pettis, M.K. (2020) Trade Wars are Class Wars. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Reilly, J. (2021) Orchestration: China’s Economic Statecraft Across Asia and Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Ye, M. (2020) The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China: 1998–2018. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Photo credit: © Photoholgic/Unsplash. Shanghai’s high rise buildings covered in smoke.  

The climate crisis affects the entire globe. Addressing it depends on international collaboration and collective action coordinated across the planet. This section examines China’s contribution to the global climate crisis, and the progress and shortcomings of its current policies. China has long been at the centre of the debate over this crisis, but much analysis often fails to understand its position in the global economy, the role of social movements in the country, and the possibilities for international climate cooperation.

Economic development and the energy model

China’s economic model and its position in global supply chains have significant implications for its energy model. China’s contribution to global emissions is a relatively recent phenomenon, coinciding with its spectacular economic growth and its emergence as ‘the factory of the world’. China’s export-led and infrastructure-building economic model, as well as its coal-rich energy resources, established an energy system that is highly dependent on coal, which has led to high carbon intensity given its economic outputs and also created enormous greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. China’s carbon emissions started to take off in the early 2000s and escalated until 2012. In 2006, China overtook the US as the largest annual contributor to global carbon emissions in absolute terms, although US remains responsible for the largest share of historical emissions, with some 20% of the global total as of 2021.

As Ying Chen points out, however, different data sets can affect how people understand the climate crisis, influencing the questions to be posed and the possible solutions. While the mainstream media highlights aggregate data showing that China is responsible for 27% of global carbon emissions and more than 50% of the world’s total coal consumption, in per capita terms, China’s emissions are 10.1 tons per person, compared to 17 tons in the US. In addition, most emissions data is based on the production that occurs within a given territory. It does not reflect externalities, such as the fact that much of this production represents carbon-intensive activities that have been outsourced from the former industrialised countries to poorer ones. Per capita consumption-based data is a more accurate indicator, since it shows how those who are on the end of the consumption chain bear responsibility for the emissions. Using these measures, the G7 group of high-income countries have a much higher level of per capita emissions than lower-income countries, including China, which is the highest among emitter among the non-G7 economies. 

Per capita consumption-based CO2 emissions – Source: Our World in Data based on Global Carbon Project

Environmental consequences and environmental movements 

By the early 2000s, China’s massive coal consumption had led to severe smog and poor air quality across the country. An internal government report from 2003 estimated that 300,000 people died each year from air pollution, mostly due to related heart disease and lung cancer. The contamination of water and soil with chemical waste and heavy metals are also huge concerns. A nationwide soil survey conducted by land officials from 2005 to 2013 revealed that about 16% of China’s soil and about 19% of agricultural land were contaminated. Recent estimates suggest that water pollution in China causes more than 100,000 deaths each year. 

Environmental public health issues have become a major concern and generated domestic discontent. This pressure from society and emerging environmental movements became one of the most important forces that eventually propelled China’s environmental policies. In the 2000s, an emerging middle class with a growing environmental awareness – including journalists, NGOs and self-organised groups – formed an nascent environmental movement advocating for cleaner air and clean water. In the mid-2000s, around 80,000 mass protests were taking place every year, many concerned with the environment. Some officials working in environmental protection agencies made alliances across society and attempted to regulate the polluting industrial sectors. However, as economic growth remained the state’s top priority and local governments were dependent on industrial revenues to meet economic targets, environmental protection agencies often lacked real power to take action. 

From the 2010s, demands from Chinese civil society to control air pollution made some progress. The government increased transparency in environmental data and accountability in the governance of public health, and has gradually embedded some of the calls for environmental changes into its own policies and launched ‘Ecological civilisation’ as a major campaign. In 2018, the Chinese government set up the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to coordinate, supervise, and regulate the country’s environment and formulate a new industrial strategy. However, as Hongqiao Liu and Isabel Hilton observed, unlike the vibrant social movements and self-organised groups of the 2000s, today’s civil society is compelled to address environmental issues through official channels, as popular movements face political repression and increased regulation. 

China’s environmental policies

After becoming the largest global emitter by volume in the mid 2000s, the Chinese government not only faced domestic discontent but also increasing international pressure. In addition, it began to be accepted that the country’s future prosperity could also be negatively affected by the climate crisis. For instance, much of the country’s urban infrastructure is located in the coastal regions, which are vulnerable to sea-level rise. 

In 2010 – and coinciding with the Chinese government’s attempt to encourage industrial restructuring in response to the economic downturn – the central state orchestrated a strategic shift in energy and climate policies that, it argues, will lay the groundwork to build a carbon-constrained world. China’s energy structure has been extremely dependent on hydrocarbons. In 2020, 84% of its primary energy consumption came from fossil fuels, of which about 57% is derived from coal. At a 2020 United Nations meeting, Xi Jinping pledged to peak C0₂ emissions before 2030, a promise first made at COP 21 in Paris in 2015, and to reach a target of carbon neutrality by 2060 – the first time China had put a carbon neutrality deadline on the table. Prior to COP26 in late 2021, China officially submitted its carbon neutrality ‘before 2060’ target, which could significantly prevent an extra 0.2–0.3ºC of global warming. The strategic vision to achieve carbon neutrality also specifies that China will increase the share of non-fossil fuels in the energy mix to 25% by 2030 and to 80% by 2060.

To build a carbon-constrained world, the Chinese government has launched national policies and devoted enormous resources to renewable energies, including wind, solar, nuclear, and hydropower. Starting in 2010, China began building the supply chain of the green economy, spanning from mineral inputs to manufacturing, as well as developing new technologies. Today, China is a significant player in the global green economy, and accounts for 75% of world’s supply chains for solar power, while its refineries supply an estimated 85% of the world’s battery-ready cobalt for lithium-ion batteries. China’s technologies and ability to manufacture renewable alternatives cost-effectively have also brought down the cost of solar and other renewables for the rest of the world, making it more possible for Low and Middle-Income Countries (L&MICs) to bypass a high-carbon emitting route to fuel their development. At the same time China’s GDP is also growing from being a major manufacturer and exporter of renewable energies. There are, however, various injustices within the green supply chain. One investigation reported by the New York Times found that the growing solar industry in Xinjiang is based on forced labour of the Uyghur minority, and that workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are exposed to severe exploitation when working in the cobalt supply chain to fuel the switch to electric vehicles. 

It will be a major challenge for China to meet its environmental targets. It is estimated that, to achieve the target of carbon neutrality, China will have to cut the same level of CO₂ emissions between 2020 and 2060 as it produced over the last 50 years. China will need to implement huge structural transformation of its economy. Although it appears to be on target to meet the peak C0₂ emissions by 2030, it remains unclear if it can meet its 2060 goals. Regardless, the priorities of the Chinese government have clearly undergone a significant shift away from a sole focus on economic growth towards a different development path that emphasises environmental sustainability. 

International Climate Collaboration 

The climate crisis requires global collaboration, argues Tobita Chow, the director of the Justice Is Global project, and the co-author of an outline on US–China cooperation. As Jonas Nahm has argued in ‘Collaborative Advantage: Forging Green Industries in the New Global Economy’, collaborative approaches between China, Germany and the US have historically brought positive outcomes and helped develop the wind and solar industries. 

Chow points out that the US and China are currently stuck in a nationalist competition over the dominance of cutting-edge clean energy technologies, which encourages both countries to hoard these technologies. However, since China has the largest industrial capacity in renewable energies, and the US is leading in the development and financing of green technologies, their collaboration on tech sharing, financing, and debt relief could potentially accelerate climate action in other countries. 

In addition, Chow argues for the importance of weakening the global intellectual property rights (IPR) regime for clean technologies. Currently, poorer countries struggle to build their own clean energy industries due to the monopolies granted by the IPR regime, which mainly benefits capitalists in industrialised countries, including China. Although cooperation on carbon pricing and carbon tariffs has been at the centre of the debate in industrialised countries, Chow argues that any such mechanisms need to be paired with other measures that support climate-friendly economic development in L&MICs. Otherwise, these could end up as punitive measures that further alienate and undermine poorer countries and would not help achieve a just climate transition. Last but not least, Chow advocates that people around the world should build political power not only to push for better policies domestically, but also to promote cooperation at the sub-national level. 

Webinar participants

Tobita Chow, activist and founder of Justice is Global 

Isabel Hilton, founder and senior advisor of China Dialogue

Ying Chen, Assistant Professor of Economics at The New School

Hongqiao Liu, independent journalist covering climate change and China

Resources

• Chen, Y. and Li, A. (2021) ‘Global green new deal: a global South perspective’. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 32(2): 170-189. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F10353046211015765
• China Dialogue: www.chinadialogue.net

AUTHOR: Sophie Chen

EDITORS: Nick Buxton, Deborah Eade

DESIGN: Evan Clayburg, Jess Graham

Acknowledgements

Warm thanks to Stephanie Olinga Shannon, Pietje Vervest, Fiona Dove, Ralf Ruckus, Kevin Lin, Darren Byler, Yangyang Cheng, Rebecca Karl, Yige Dong, Tobita Chow and Sandy Shan for advice, guidance and support for the webinar series and this booklet.

The multiple ecological crises provoked by human activities are linked to and exacerbate the other political, social and economic challenges currently faced by North Africa.¹ In Western Sahara, these challenges and crises are shaped by its continued condition as a colony. This report aims to contribute to conversations on a just transition – that is, a transition to ‘thriving economies that provide dignified, productive and ecologically sustainable livelihoods; democratic governance and ecological resilience’ – in Western Sahara.² The authors do this by highlighting how extractivism currently operates in the part of Western Sahara currently occupied by Morocco. The bulk of the analysis focuses on renewable energy developments, because Morocco is widely celebrated on the international stage for its commitments to the so-called ‘green energy transition’.³ The story told here, which aims to highlight the voices of the Saharawi population that is indigenous to Western Sahara, is different. Precisely because renewable energy developments undermine Saharawi self-determination and further (perceived and actual) inequalities between Indigenous Saharawis and Moroccans, such developments undermine a just transition.

Below, after giving a brief history of the Western Sahara conflict, the authors firstly identify forms of extractivism in occupied Western Sahara and map who contributes to, and profits from, extractive industries there. While the primary focus of the report is on energy developments, it also shines a light on related forms of extractivism, including phosphate extraction, fishing, and sand and agricultural industries. The authors situate their research on extractivism in occupied Western Sahara in wider academic and activist conversations on energy and colonialism globally. The report also makes the case for why renewable developments in the occupied territory should be considered forms of extractivism.

Secondly, the authors go on to argue that energy (potentially) produced in occupied Western Sahara contributes to the diplomacy of the Moroccan regime abroad, furthering its colonial hold on occupied Western Sahara.

Finally, the report asks what a Saharawi just transition would look like. For inspiration, the authors turn to the Saharawi refugee camps and state-in-exile located near Tindouf, Algeria. A small sample of Saharawi initiatives there are analysed in terms of how they might relate to, or inform, a just transition.

The Spanish colonization of Western Sahara started in 1884, after the Berlin Conference, in which the European states divided up Africa among themselves, with Western Sahara becoming a Spanish possession. At first, the Spanish presence in so-called ‘Spanish Sahara’ was limited to fishing the coastal waters and trading with Saharawi tribes. However, the discovery of phosphates, oil and other mineral deposits in the 1940s encouraged Spain to extend its hold over the territory politically, socially and economically.⁴

At the start of the 1960s, a new era of decolonization began, with the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1960.⁵ Spanish Sahara (Western Sahara) was included in the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonized in 1963. Around this time, organized mass movements for Saharawi independence emerged, the first of which was the Vanguard Organization for the Liberation of the Sahara, which was formed in 1968 by Mohamed Sidi Brahim Bassiri. Later, after Spain disappeared Bassiri⁶, a group of young students and members of the Vanguard Organization formed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia El Hamra and Río de Oro (POLISARIO) in 1973. In the same year, they launched an armed struggle against the Spanish.⁷

Since its independence in 1956, and with expansionist ambitions, the Moroccan regime has expressed its dream of a ‘Greater Morocco’, which would encompass Western Sahara, Mauritania and parts of Algeria and Mali.⁸ Thus, when Spain signalled its plan to hold a self-determination referendum for Saharawis in 1974, Morocco and Mauritania again expressed their own cases for territorial sovereignty over Western Sahara. The two states’ claims – that ahead of Spain’s colonization, Western Sahara had belonged to Greater Morocco and Greater Mauritania – were heard by the International Court of Justice. The latter rejected these claims in an advisory opinion and urged the application of United Nations Resolution 1514 (XV), allowing for the self-determination of Indigenous Saharawis.⁹ Spain, however, signed an illegal tripartite agreement with Morocco and Mauritania, which divided Western Sahara between the two African countries and gave Spain a 35 per cent share of profits from Western Sahara’s phosphates reserves, as well as continued access to Western Sahara’s fisheries.¹⁰

In October 1975, Morocco and Mauritania invaded Western Sahara.¹¹ Tens of thousands of Saharawis fled to refugee camps in neighbouring Algeria, some of them being bombed with napalm en route.¹² In 1976, POLISARIO, based in the camps, declared the establishment of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in exile. This would be the headquarters of POLISARIO’s armed struggle against Morocco and Mauritania until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in 1991, which was agreed based on the promise that a self-determination referendum on independence for the Saharawis would be held. This referendum never took place, resulting in a stagnant diplomatic process that stretched on until November 2020 (see below).

Mauritania withdrew from the war in 1979, when it signed a peace treaty with POLISARIO. Morocco, on the other hand, remains the occupying power of Western Sahara. The United Nations General Assembly has ‘urge[d] Morocco to join in the peace process and terminate the occupation of the territory of Western Sahara’.¹³ POLISARIO currently controls approximately a quarter of the territory of Western Sahara, lying eastwards of the Moroccan-built berm, which is considered the ‘largest functional military barrier in the world’.¹⁴

Today, some 180,000 Sahrawi refugees live on international humanitarian aid in the refugee camps in Algeria, while Morocco continues to pursue settler colonial policies in occupied Western Sahara. Such policies range from forced disappearance and the torture of prisoners of conscience¹⁵ to moving a sizeable Moroccan settler population into the territory (there is no reliable data on the exact proportion of settlers to Indigenous Saharawis, but the consensus is that the former today greatly outnumber the latter), as well as cultural appropriation.¹⁶

The United Nations-brokered ceasefire between POLISARIO and Morocco which began in 1991 lasted for 29 years but ended on 13 November 2020 after a violent incident. Saharawi civilians had mounted a roadblock at a breach in the military wall near the village of Guerguerat, which is located by the Mauritanian border in a demilitarized buffer zone. Abdelhay Larachi, a Saharawi who helped mount the roadblock, explained: ‘our purpose was to close down the illegal breach at Guerguerat […][it’s] a gate through which Morocco passes our plundered natural resources to Mauritania and other countries’.¹⁷ Morocco fired on protesters at the site, and POLISARIO, declaring the ceasefire broken, fired back.

It is no coincidence that the new war was provoked by the Saharawi blocking of the so-called ‘plunder corridor’ at Guerguerat (through which produce from the occupied territory passes on its way to the port of Nouadhibou, from which it is exported globally): extractivism is at the heart of conflict and colonialism in Western Sahara.

Energy developments are used to create new forms of dependency outside Morocco on energy that is at least partially sourced in Western Sahara. This arguably creates a diplomatic incentive for other countries to support the occupation. Western Sahara is connected to Morocco’s electricity grid via an interconnection in its capital El Aaiun. A 400 kilovolt (kV) interconnection is now being set up between El Aaiun and Dakhla, a city in the south of Western Sahara:³⁵ Morocco hopes to connect its grid to the Mauritanian one via Dakhla, with the eventual aim of exporting energy to the West African market.³⁶ Similarly, at the COP22 climate talks in Marrakech in 2016, Morocco signed a workplan to eventually establish energy exports to the European internal market.³⁷ These plans and agreements represent serious additional obstacles to the self-determination of the Saharawi people. If these interconnections are established, Morocco could create a partial European and West African dependency on energy generated in Western Sahara.

The Moroccan regime also uses the promise of energy to enhance its ‘soft power’ referring to the power to persuade or coerce other states to pursue certain policies or take certain actions) on the continent.³⁸ For instance, the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) is a planned onshore and offshore project that aims to deliver Nigerian gas to West and North Africa, with the potential to supply Europe. NMGP is a huge energy project that has equally huge political implications: while the Nigerian regime has traditionally been a strong supporter of POLISARIO, its diplomatic stance on the Western Sahara conflict has softened because of this project.³⁹ This can be seen as a form of energy diplomacy: Morocco implicates powerful actors in the occupation and creates alliances for its colonial project through its planned energy system developments.

It is also possible to read Morocco’s renewable energy developments in occupied Western Sahara through the lens of greenwashing. To ‘greenwash’ is to deceptively promote a product, policy or action as environmentally-friendly. Morocco currently markets itself as ‘[t]he African leader in the development of renewable energy in Africa’.⁴⁰ In doing so, it greenwashes its occupation of Western Sahara. The environmental impact of a huge military deployment, of the wall that bisects the country, of phosphate exploitation and of draining freshwater wells to irrigate industrial-sized greenhouses is hidden behind the Moroccan regime’s carefully-curated ‘green’ image.

Energy developments in occupied Western Sahara simultaneously bolster a false energy ‘sovereignty’ for Morocco (false because Morocco is not legally the sovereign power of Western Sahara): they make Morocco ‘energy independent’ from other countries in the region, through the expropriation of Western Sahara’s resources. As at autumn 2021, Morocco is allegedly attempting to hasten the NMGP project, due to Algeria’s refusal to continue gas cooperation with Morocco, after cutting diplomatic relations with the kingdom, due in no small part to the Western Sahara conflict.⁴¹ Indeed, in a situation in which the kingdom produces only marginal amounts of its own oil and gas, Morocco’s renewable energy plans are designed to end its reliance on foreign imports of energy. Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) reports that ‘the energy produced from wind in occupied Western Sahara could constitute 47.20 per cent of Morocco’s total wind capacity by the year 2030. By that same year, the share of solar power generated in the territory could be between 9.70 per cent and 32.64 per cent of Morocco’s total solar capacity – likely towards the higher end of that range.’⁴² Morocco is thus seeking to alleviate the energy supply issues it faces through its colonial exploitation of Western Sahara’s resources.

The authors gathered data on Saharawi perceptions of the energy system in occupied Western Sahara through participant observation (2015), two focus groups (2019), and 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews (2019-2020). The research participants, whose names have been changed here, were Saharawis living in occupied El Aaiun or Boujdour, who self-identified as non-activists or as low-profile activists (on the issues of independence, environmentalism and/or human rights).⁴³ By ‘energy system’, we refer to energy developments, infrastructure, transmission, use and imaginaries (that is, understandings of energy and the meanings attached to energy in any given community). This covers both fossil fuel-powered systems and renewable ones.

The research participants described power outages as ‘frequent’ and gave several explanations as to why this was the case. Dadi said: ‘[a black out] happens for political reasons, for example because of late-night demonstrations’.⁴⁴ Similarly, Hartan explained: ‘when there is a homecoming of Saharawi political detainees, Moroccan occupying authorities intentionally cut [the power] off in order to screw up the event … I was personally able to see the suffering of media activists and this was when we were trapped during popular demonstrations in conjunction with UN envoy Christopher Ross’ visit to occupied El Aaiun … I noticed how their camera batteries had run out so they couldn’t monitor the violations…’.⁴⁵ Mahmoud reported: ‘[the energy providers] say [power outages] are due to problems in the grid, but we know that they sometimes cut the power on purpose when they want to bring secret things to the city, or when the young people protest in the streets’.⁴⁶ As for the ‘secret things’ mentioned by Mahmoud, Fadel reported: ‘sometimes they cut [the power] if they bring more soldiers and arms from the airport to the desert, to the berm, they don’t want people or activists to know how many arms, tanks, and soldiers are entering’.⁴⁷

Who is the ‘they’ referred to by Fadel? Is it both the energy provider and the Moroccan state? Or just the latter? The need to ask this question reflects the frequent conflation of the two – energy providers and the Moroccan state – by the research participants. Such a conflation is common in (neo)colonial contexts and has wide implications for how states are viewed by their citizens. As Idalina Baptista argues, when service providers are perceived as closely associated with a state, the provider–customer relationship becomes understood as a proxy for the state–society relationship.⁴⁸ Similarly, Charlotte Lemanski argues that a people’s access to public infrastructure shapes their identity as citizens, and their relationship to the state.⁴⁹ In Western Sahara, the research participants’ experiences of the energy systems deepened the antagonism they felt towards the Moroccan state.

The research participants felt that districts with higher proportions of ethnic Saharawis, such as Maatalla district in El Aaiun city, were prone to more power outages. Some participants were also keen to highlight that the same was true for running water. For example, 31-year-old Ali told us: ‘these cuts are usual in Maatalla and the other Saharawi suburbs but you can bet the settlers still have their showers’.⁵⁰ He understood infrastructure – both water and energy in this case – as a tool that is wielded by the colonizer in order to differentiate the settlers from the natives. As in other colonial situations, historic and actual, energy infrastructure mediates ethnic segregation.⁵¹ The gendered dimensions of power outages should also be taken into account. In Saharawi society, the burden (or pleasure) of childcare and looking after the home falls disproportionately on women and girls. The impact of domestic power outages is therefore gendered. In Mahmoud’s words, ‘[a]s a nomad [a power cut] doesn’t affect me, I’m familiar with it. But sometimes we are really in need of electricity, and my wife and kids especially’.⁵²

All research participants that were connected to the grid felt that their energy bills were ‘expensive’, and in most cases the expense caused significant anxiety. Salka told the authors that she spent over half of her monthly income on energy bills.⁵³ The research participants also reported that there were several families, especially in the slums of east El Aaiun, who had no electricity at all. Zrug’s words are worth quoting extensively, as they reveal the sense of injustice linked to the expensive nature of energy, the importance of popular sovereignty over energy resources, and the wider political issue of natural resource exploitation:

‘We are in 2019 and in a few days, we will be in 2020. I know many who do not have electricity at home. A lot of companies have launched big projects of energy power and, not far from these projects, people in El Aaiun are living without electricity … There was a protest in Al Matar neighbourhood concerning the energy and water outages … Wind farms and so on are making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Green energy is being exported out of Western Sahara to other places in Africa and elsewhere. Although this is illegal because it is done by the Moroccan occupation, I feel proud as many elsewhere will be able to use electricity for lighting and other activities. They need electricity, just as I do. I am in favour of benefits for people everywhere and I can compromise my rights for them to produce light for poor people, but under one condition: it has to be for free and not for sale.’⁵⁴

Several participants said that energy providers had mischarged them. For example, Mahmoud stated: ‘they sometimes send us invoices with the wrong amounts. In our house we haven’t a lot of machines, so we know how much energy we use’.⁵⁵ Such mistrust of providers among the research participants was also reflected in the latter’s perceptions of who manages and owns energy in occupied Western Sahara. Nguia understood the energy developers to be ‘foreign companies’ with ‘no humanity’.⁵⁶ She stated: ‘the occupying power is letting other countries invest here as a way of getting them to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara’.⁵⁷ Dadi commented: ‘these companies contribute to Moroccan colonization and endlessly support its presence’.⁵⁸ Salka reported: ‘all profits go to the Moroccan occupation and foreign companies’.⁵⁹

All of the research participants voiced a desire to (further) protest energy developments, but some were too scared to act on this desire. Those that had attended protests against energy developments in the past reported that they had been beaten by police, and/or had suffered other forms of retribution, including having their social security benefits and/or employment terminated, and/or receiving threats to their relatives and travel bans. While Saharawi-led non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are mostly prohibited from officially registering their existence in occupied Western Sahara, there are two unregistered Saharawi NGOs that have focused their work on campaigning against the exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources, including in the realm of energy. One is the Saharawi League for Human Rights and Natural Resources, led by Sultana Khaya; the other is the Committee for the Protection of Natural Resources in Western Sahara (CSPRON), whose President is Sidahmed Lemjeyid. Both individuals have suffered serious human rights abuses at the hands of the Moroccan state due to their work: Lemjeyid is currently serving a life sentence in a Moroccan prison⁶⁰, while Khaya is currently under house arrest, having also lost an eye during police torture.⁶¹ Police have recently attempted to rape her; they also raped her sister in the Khaya family home, in retribution for Sultana’s activism.⁶² This follows a wider, entrenched pattern of gendered repercussions against Saharawi activists: the Moroccan state has used gendered forms of torture against Saharawi political prisoners since 1975, including sexual assault, sexual humiliation and forced sex between prisoners.⁶³ The energy system in occupied Western Sahara is thus clearly linked to grave and gendered human rights abuses.

High-level debates on the future of energy systems often fail to engage with Indigenous voices.⁶⁴ In this section, the authors wish to highlight a handful of Saharawi initiatives that illuminate what a Saharawi just transition might look like. These include low-tech hydroponics for sustainable food production, homes made from re-used plastic, and plans for future renewable-powered towns in a free Western Sahara. Nevertheless, we must be aware that such ‘good practice’ cases from the camps are not in themselves a guarantee that the government of an independent Western Sahara would realize a truly just transition in the event of decolonization. Although self-determination is, as we have seen in the previous section, a fundamental component of a Saharawi just transition, it would not guarantee a just transition in and of itself. In this section, then, the authors therefore also wish to highlight questions that would need to be addressed in a future independent Western Sahara in order to ensure a transition away from extractivism towards a just, equitable and regenerative system.

Engineer Taleb Brahim has developed innovative low-tech hydroponics to allow refugee-citizens to grow their own fruits and vegetables, and fodder for their animals. Hydroponics is a type of horticulture that involves growing plants without soil. ‘Low-tech’ here refers to technologies that, according to Brahim, refugee-citizens have access to and can afford. This method is designed to be accessible to all, so that even the poorest families can reasonably have access to self-produced, healthy, nutritious food. The hydroponic units recycle water and use naturally-produced fertilizers. As Brahim points out: ‘if you insist that pesticides and artificial fertilizers are necessary for agriculture, then you will rely on multinationals’.⁶⁵ Brahim explained that he is driven by an ethic of ‘sustainability, self-sufficiency and independence for Saharawis’.⁶⁶ According to Brahim, as far as he knows he is the first person globally to have developed low-tech hydroponics in conditions that are widely considered to be ‘extreme’ in terms of climate and availability of resources. The World Food Programme is now trialling his model in seven other countries with refugee populations, and 1,200 Saharawis in the camps have received the training necessary to allow them to replicate his innovation.⁶⁷

Engineer Tateh Lehbib has created a new construction method that leads to lower household temperatures and higher resistance to winds and floods (traditional houses are made using adobe, which crumbles in the rain). His method relies on cheap materials – recycled water bottles – and can be easily replicated by anyone. The curved dome shape of these buildings keeps interior temperatures lower than in traditional square homes. Especially vulnerable refugees, including the elderly and those with long-term health conditions, have been the first to benefit from Lehbib’s new form of housing.⁶⁸

While Brahim and Lehbib have spearheaded innovations that make life in the camps more sustainable, comfortable and healthy, other refugee-citizens are looking to the future of the POLISARIO-controlled zone of Western Sahara. Architect and engineer Hartan Mohammed Salem Bechri has designed a future sustainable city, or, as he calls it, a ‘durable, permanent habitat’ for humans and their non-human companions (camels and goats), with the POLISARIO-controlled zone in mind. His design includes areas to house sedentary citizens, as well as zones with amenities for visiting nomads and non-human animals. The city would be run fully on renewable energy.⁶⁹

Bechri, Lehbib and Brahim’s innovations speak to a just transition in several ways. A just transition requires an equitable redistribution of resources.⁷⁰ Lehbib and Brahim’s innovations reveal a concern for affordability and self-sufficiency. The two engineers have developed ways to ensure the poorest families have access to shelter and healthy food, without reliance on multinationals for raw materials, with their innovations aiming to be economically sustainable (for the families themselves) and environmentally sustainable. Lehbib’s designs, although they are just plans at this stage, take into account more than just humans in his vision for a Saharawi future in an independent Western Sahara. Most frameworks for a just transition emphasize the importance of caring for ‘more-than-human nature’, as well as for human communities. In the Saharawi case, this is in line with nomadic traditions. Traditional ecologically-aware and environmentally-conscious Saharawi practices have been documented back to the eighteenth century at least,⁷¹ while the traditional centrality of, and care for, camels is also well-evidenced.⁷² SADR’s forthcoming indicative Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Climate Agreements further illustrates its government’s intention to contribute to wider, global conversations on addressing the climate crisis and to sustaining these traditional ecologically-aware practices.⁷³

More immediately, SADR’s Energy Department has plans for rolling out renewable energy in the area of Western Sahara controlled by SADR. The roll-out would incentivize a return of refugees to Western Sahara. The Department has carried out a scoping study and is looking for funding to pilot some recommendations of the study, which calculates the solar and wind infrastructure that would be needed to power essential public infrastructure, such as hospitals, and takes stock of existing infrastructure, such as communal wells, currently powered by wind turbines, which are used by nomads. The study also looks at options for residential energy. Electrical engineer and co-author of the scoping study, Daddy Mohammed Ali, together with his team, has discussed the option of large-scale solar farms. However, they wonder if such a model would be ‘adaptable enough’ for nomadic lifestyles. The team has therefore scoped the possibility of providing every Saharawi family with its own portable, independent solar technology. Mohammed Ali explains: ‘We find that families in the liberated zone often travel, so it’s good if they have their independent panel, that they can transport, have their own independent network if you like’.⁷⁴ Such concern for sustaining non-sedentary lifestyles would be a vital part of a Saharawi just transition, ensuring inclusionary spaces for nomadic practices.

The recent plans for a renewable future set out by the SADR government’s Energy Department depart drastically from older plans by the government’s Petroleum and Mines Authority (the PMA). Through licensing rounds that began in 2005, SADR entered into assurance agreements with four international companies over oil exploration rights in a future independent Western Sahara.⁷⁵ The PMA claims to have consulted extensively with civil society ahead of launching its licensing round;⁷⁶ however, research among Saharawi youth activists found both civil society groups that were supportive of such agreements (on the basis that they challenged Morocco’s efforts to exploit petroleum) and those that were critical of such plans on the basis that solar energy is far preferable for environmental reasons.⁷⁷ This raises the question of popular sovereignty – integral to any just transition – and how energy-related decisions would be made in a free Western Sahara. Would oil be exploited despite the climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on communities living in hot climates like the Saharawis? Would existing wind and solar farms in occupied Western Sahara be nationalized? A just transition, as well as moving away from fossil fuels extraction, requires democratic, participative decision-making over, and equitable benefit from, energy resources.

On the other hand, there are reassuring aspects in the SADR government’s existing energy policy in the camps. For example, when limited opportunities for solar-powered electricity arrived in the camps in the late 1980s (largely via funding from Swiss and Spanish NGOs), the government prioritized three public institutions for electrification: hospitals and pharmacies, primary schools, and women’s education and training centres.⁷⁸ Arguably, such prioritization reflects SADR’s professed dedication to gender equality.⁷⁹ As the authors have argued in the previous section, the current energy model in occupied Western Sahara has disproportionately negative impacts on women and girls, due to the frequent power outages and the gendered oppression of those who oppose the extractivist energy model. A Saharawi just transition, as in other contexts, should therefore by a feminist one.⁸⁰

The energy system in occupied Western Sahara physically connects Morocco and Western Sahara through transmission lines and cables. As well as providing Morocco with opportunities to greenwash its occupation, Morocco’s renewable energy developments in occupied Western Sahara provide it with a false energy ‘sovereignty’, which decreases its energy dependency on neighbours such as Algeria. Furthermore, these developments are used to create new forms of dependency outside Morocco on energy that is at least partially sourced in Western Sahara. These energy developments arguably create a diplomatic incentive for other countries to support the occupation.

For Saharawis, the present energy system in occupied Western Sahara is an oppressive, colonial tool. For Saharawis living in the occupied territory, energy justice is inextricably linked with independence and decolonization. This is also true of Saharawis living in the state-in-exile and refugee camps in Algeria, where innovations based on sustainability, self-sufficiency and self-determination have been trialled. Nevertheless, questions over energy policy in a future free and independent Western Sahara remain. While an end to the Moroccan occupation and full decolonization are integral to a Saharawi just transition, the SADR government’s ability to ensure popular sovereignty over Western Sahara’s energy resources will also be of fundamental importance.

The current Covid-19 pandemic, which is part of the global multi-dimensional crisis we are living through, demonstrates that what we are experiencing now is a taste of the worst things to come if we don’t take the necessary measures to implement just solutions to the unfolding climate crisis.

The impacts of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are already a reality and they are undermining the socio-economic and ecological basis of life in the region. These impacts are disproportionately felt by the marginalized in society, especially small-scale farmers, agro-pastoralists and fisherfolk. People are being forced off their lands due to stronger and more frequent droughts and winter storms, and due to the growth of deserts and rises in sea levels. Moreover, crops are failing and water supplies are dwindling, which is having a large impact on food production.¹

Addressing this global climate crisis requires a rapid and drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, we know that the current economic system is undermining the life support systems of the planet and will eventually collapse. Therefore, a transition towards renewable energies has become inevitable. However, it is very possible that this transition, if and when it comes, will maintain the same practices of dispossession and exploitation that currently prevail, reproducing injustices and deepening socioeconomic exclusion. Thus, before talking about ‘green’ projects themselves, it is appropriate to question the frameworks and design choices applied in an energy transition, to shine some light on transitions that would be unjust, and on some problematic aspects of renewable energy that have been sidelined by the mainstream narrative.

The Sahara is usually described as a vast empty land that is sparsely populated, and as representing an Eldorado of renewable energy, thus constituting a golden opportunity to provide Europe with energy so it can continue its extravagant consumerist lifestyle and excessive energy consumption. However, this deceptive narrative overlooks questions of ownership and sovereignty and masks ongoing global relations of hegemony and domination that facilitate the plunder of resources, the privatization of commons and the dispossession of communities, thus consolidating undemocratic and exclusionary ways of governing the energy transition.

Several examples from the North African region show how energy colonialism and extractivist practices are reproduced even in transitions to renewable energy, in the form of what is described as ‘green colonialism’ or ‘green grabbing’. If what really matters to us is not just any kind of transition but rather a ‘just transition’ that will benefit the impoverished and marginalized in society, instead of deepening their socio-economic exclusion, these examples raise some serious concerns.

Before delving into some of these examples, I would like to provide some short definitions of the terms ‘green colonialism’ and ‘green grabbing’. ‘Green colonialism’ can be defined as the extension of the colonial relations of plunder and dispossession (as well as the dehumanization of the other) to the green era of renewable energies, with the accompanying displacement of socio-environmental costs onto peripheral countries and communities. Basically, the same system is in place, but with a different source of energy, moving from fossil fuels to green energy, while the same global energy-intensive production and consumption patterns are maintained and the same political, economic and social structures that generate inequality, impoverishment and dispossession remain untouched.

Scholars and activists have coined another useful concept: ‘green grabbing’. This refers to cases where the dynamics of land grabs take place within a supposedly green agenda.² In other words, land and resources are appropriated for purportedly environmental ends. This ranges from certain conservation projects that dispossess indigenous communities of their land and territories, to the confiscation of communal land in order to produce biofuels, and to the installation of big solar plants/wind farms on agro-pastoralists’ land without their proper consent.

The current uneven transition to renewable energies, which is happening mainly in the global North, is predicated on the ongoing extraction of base minerals and rare earth metals (such as cobalt, lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, etc) that are used for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, blades and electrical batteries. Where will these resources come from? The answer is from countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Bolivia, Chile and Morocco, where environmental destruction and workers’ exploitation will continue and even intensify.

Colonialism – if it ever formally ended – is continuing in other forms and at various levels, including in the economic sphere. This is what some scholars and activists call neocolonialism or re-colonization. The economies of the peripheries/the global South have been placed in a subordinate position within a profoundly unjust global division of labour: on one hand, as providers of cheap natural resources and a reservoir of cheap labour, and, on the other hand, as a market for industrialized/high-technology economies.³ This situation has been imposed and shaped by colonialism and attempts to break away from it have been defeated so far by the new tools of imperial subjugation: crippling debts, the religion of ‘free trade’, and Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) imposed by international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, etc.

So, if we are serious about moving beyond fossil fuels, it is crucial to closely examine the linkages between fossil fuels and the wider economy, and to address the power relations within, and hierarchies of, the international energy system.⁴ This means recognizing that countries of the global South are still systematically exploited by a colonial, imperialist economy built around the pillage of their resources and a massive transfer of wealth from South to North.

While some of the projects in Morocco, like the Ouarzazate and Midelt solar plants, certainly qualify as ‘green grabbing’ – the appropriation of land and resources for purportedly environmental ends – similar renewable projects (solar and wind) that are being implemented, or will be implemented, in the occupied territories of Western Sahara can simply be labelled ‘green colonialism’, as they are carried out in spite of the Saharawis, and on their occupied land.

At present, there are three operational wind farms in occupied Western Sahara; a fourth is under construction in Boujdour, while several others are in the planning stage. Combined, these wind farms will have a capacity of over 1,000 megawatts (MW). These wind farms are part of the portfolio of Nareva, the wind energy company that is owned by the holding company of the Moroccan royal family. 95 per cent of the energy that the Moroccan state-owned phosphate company OCP needs to exploit Western Sahara’s non-renewable phosphate reserves in Bou Craa is produced by windmills. This renewable energy is generated by 22 Siemens wind turbines at the 50 MW Foum el Oued farm, which has been operational since 2013.¹²

In November 2016, at the time of the United Nations COP22 climate talks, Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power signed an agreement with MASEN to develop and operate a complex of three solar PV power stations totalling 170 MW. However, two of these power stations (operational today), totalling 100 MW, are not located in Morocco but rather inside the occupied territory of Western Sahara (El Aaiún and Boujdour). Plans have also been issued for a third solar plant at El Argoub, near Dakhla.

It is clear that these renewable projects are being used to entrench the occupation by deepening Morocco’s ties to the occupied territories, with the obvious complicity of foreign capital and companies.

The Algerian ruling classes have been talking about the ‘after oil’ era for decades and successive governments have paid lip-service to the transition to renewable energies for years, without taking any concrete action. In fact, there have been significant delays in the implementation of current renewable energy plans, which in my view reflects a lack of any serious or coherent vision of the transition. Announcements and declarations from officials follow each other, while promises remain merely ink on paper. For example, the recent tender for the deployment of 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar capacity has been delayed for more than two years. Algeria’s plans to deploy 15 GW of solar energy generation capacity by 2030 are simply not realistic when we realize that the country had around 423 MW of total installed solar capacity at the end of last year (2021), according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).¹³ All sources combined, the installed capacity of renewable energy does not currently exceed 500 MW. This is a far cry from the 22 GW planned for 2030 that was announced in 2011. The Ministry of Energy Transition and Renewable Energies, which came into being in June 2020, has reduced these targets to 4 GW by 2024 and to 15 GW by 2035. However, even this is overly optimistic.

In a nutshell, Algeria needs to move fast towards renewable energies as the day will come when the country’s European clients will stop importing its fossil fuels for energy purposes. The European Union (EU) is expanding and accelerating its energy transition, a pattern that has been rendered urgent by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the short term, the EU will obviously continue importing gas and will intensify its efforts to diversify its sources, but in the long term, it will do its best to move away from fossil fuels. This will be an existential threat for countries like Algeria, if they continue to remain dependent on oil and gas. Therefore, the urgent move towards the production of renewable energies (primarily for the local market) is not only the right thing to do ecologically, it is also a strategic and a survival imperative.

However, the general tendency in the last few years in the country has been to move towards more liberalization of the economy and to extend more concessions to the private sector and foreign investors. The cases of the budget laws of 2020–2021 and the new Hydrocarbon Law are edifying in this respect. The new Hydrocarbon Law is very friendly to multinationals and offers more incentives and concessions for them to invest in Algeria. It also opens the way to destructive projects, such as the exploitation of shale gas in the Sahara and offshore resources in the Mediterranean. 

Regarding the budget laws of 2020–2021, they reopened the door to international borrowing, and imposed harsh austerity measures by lifting various subsidies and cutting public spending. In the name of encouraging foreign direct investment, they exempted multinationals from tariffs and taxes and increased their share in the national economy by removing the 51/49 per cent investment rule that limits the part of foreign investment in any project to 49 per cent, undermining national sovereignty still further. Now it is the turn of the renewable energy sector. This is definitely not a decision that is likely to ensure sovereignty in this strategic sector that will grow in importance in the coming years!

While certain Western governments portray themselves as pro-environment by banning fracking within their borders and by setting carbon emissions-reduction targets, they simultaneously offer diplomatic support to their multinationals to exploit shale resources in their former colonies, as France did with Total in Algeria in 2013.¹⁴ If that’s not energy colonialism and environmental racism, I don’t know what it is!

In the context of the war in Ukraine and the EU’s attempts to cut reliance on Russian gas, we see once again that EU energy security comes above everything else. We are seeing more gas lock-in, more extractivism, more path dependency and a halt to the green transition where those extractive projects are taking place. That’s exactly what has happened in the case of Italy and Algeria agreeing to boost gas supplies to Italy. In fact, Algeria’s national company Sonatrach and Italian ENI will pump an additional 9 billion cubic metres from 2023/2024.¹⁵ The EU will also receive LNG shipments from Egypt, Israel, Qatar and the United States.

Some fossil fuel-based economies in the North Africa region, like Algeria, Libya and Egypt, will be hugely impacted when Europe significantly reduces its fossil fuel imports from this region in the coming decades. Therefore a serious discussion and public debate need to take place regarding the necessary and urgent transition to renewables, while phasing out fossil fuels. New projects for the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels should be considered out of the question and this cannot be disconnected from questions of democratization and popular sovereignty over land, water and other natural resources. In kleptocratic military dictatorships like Algeria and Egypt (where the next climate talks, COP27, will be held), how can people decide and shape their future without demilitarizing and democratizing their countries and societies? Moreover, there is a need to consciously build alliances between labour movements and other social and environmental justice movements and organizations. We need to find a way of involving workers in the oil industry in discussions around the transition and green jobs as the transition won’t take place without them. It is therefore of paramount importance to start engaging with the trade unions around these issues.

In Algeria and in other countries in North Africa and the global South, the energy transition needs to be a sovereign project, primarily looking inwards and directed towards satisfying local needs first, before embarking on any export initiatives. We cannot continue in the old ways of producing for Europe and obeying its diktats, including its desire to wean itself off its dependency on Russian gas by diversifying its energy sources. The priority now is to decarbonize North African economies by reaching 70 to 80 per cent renewables in the energy mix before even starting to think about exporting to the EU. 

On top of this, it needs to be borne in mind that countries like Algeria that have been locked into a predatory form of an extractivist model of development have neither the financial means nor the sufficient know-how to carry out a rapid energy transition. In this respect, some financial compensation must be on the table to keep the oil in the ground, and monopolies on green technology and knowledge must be ended, and these resources made available to countries and communities in the global South.

The drive towards the privatization of energy and corporate control of the energy transition is global. Morocco is already on this path, and so is Tunisia. Right now, there is a big push to privatize the Tunisian renewable energy sector and to give huge incentives to foreign investors to produce green energy in the country, including for export. The 2015-12 law (modified in 2019) even allows for the use of agricultural land for renewable projects in a country that suffers from acute food dependency (revealed once again during the pandemic and right now in the middle of the war in Ukraine). In this context, one must ask, energy transition for whom?

In 2017, the company TuNur applied to build a 4.5 GW solar plant in the Tunisian desert in order to deliver enough electricity via submarine cables to power 2 million European homes. This still-unrealized project is a partnership between UK-based Noor Energy and a group of Maltese and Tunisian investors in the oil and gas sector.¹⁶ Until recently, TuNur was openly describing itself as a solar energy export project linking the Sahara and Europe. Given that Tunisia depends on Algeria for some of its energy needs, it is outrageous that such projects are turning to exports rather than producing energy for domestic use.

The same goes for another project proposed in 2021 by an ex-Tesco CEO, in partnership with the Saudi ACWA Power, which aims to connect southern Morocco to the UK through underwater cables that will channel electricity. Once again, the same relations of extraction and the same practices of land-grabbing are maintained while people in the region are not even self-sufficient in energy. These big renewable projects, while proclaiming their good intentions, end up sugar-coating brutal exploitation and robbery. It seems that a familiar colonial scheme is being rolled out in front of our eyes: the unrestricted flow of cheap natural resources (including solar energy) from the global South to the rich North, while fortress Europe builds walls and fences to prevent human beings from reaching its shores!

As the world seeks to switch to renewable energy amid a growing climate crisis, hydrogen has been presented as a ‘clean’ alternative fuel. Most current hydrogen production is the result of extraction from fossil fuels, leading to large carbon emissions (grey hydrogen). This process can be made cleaner (blue hydrogen): for example, through carbon capture technology. However, the cleanest form of hydrogen extraction uses electrolysers to split water molecules, a process that can be powered by electricity from renewable energy sources (clean or green hydrogen).

In recent years, in response to heavy lobbying from various interest groups, the EU has embraced the idea of a hydrogen transition as a centrepiece of its climate response, introducing in 2020 its hydrogen strategy within the framework of the European Green Deal. The plan proposes shifting to ‘green’ hydrogen by 2050, through local production and establishing a steady supply from Africa.¹⁷ This strategy was inspired by ideas put forward by the trade body and lobby group Hydrogen Europe, which has set out the 2×40 GW Green Hydrogen Initiative. Under this initiative, by 2030 the EU will have in place 40 GW of domestic renewable hydrogen electrolyser capacity and will import a further 40 GW from electrolysers in neighbouring areas, including the deserts of North Africa, using existing natural gas pipelines that already connect Algeria to Europe.¹⁸

It is worth saying here that the drive for green hydrogen and the push for a hydrogen economy has already gained support from major European oil and gas companies, which see it as a back door to the continuation of their operations, with hydrogen being extracted from fossil gas (the production of grey and blue hydrogen). It is thus becoming clear that the fossil fuel industry wants to preserve existing natural gas and pipeline infrastructure.¹⁹

In Africa and elsewhere fossil fuel companies continue to use the same exploitative economic structures set up during the colonial era to extract local resources and to transfer wealth out of the continent. They are also keen on preserving the political status quo in African countries so they can continue to benefit from lucrative relations with corrupt elites and authoritarian leaders. This allows them to engage in labour exploitation, environmental degradation, and violence against local communities with impunity.

In the context of the war in Ukraine, replacing fossil gas with hydrogen from renewables has become a key plank of REPowerEU, the European Commission’s plan to end dependence on Russian gas.²⁰ Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told the European Parliament in May 2022: ‘I strongly believe in green hydrogen as the driving force of our energy system of the future.’ He added: ‘and I also strongly believe that Europe is never going to be capable to produce its own hydrogen in sufficient quantities.’²¹

As well as shifting gas suppliers from Putin’s Russia to other authoritarian regimes, like those ruling Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar, or to the settler-colonial apartheid state of Israel, and building more ports and pipelines to import and transport gas, the European Commission has quadrupled its hydrogen target from 5 million tonnes by 2030 to 20 million tonnes, with half of that to be imported primarily from North Africa, though other countries are also on the target list, including Namibia, South Africa, DRC, Chile and Saudi Arabia, etc. However, some studies have shown how unrealistic these targets are from a cost and energy perspective, and how they are already leading to more fossil fuel exploitation.

Within Europe, Germany is at the forefront of green hydrogen efforts in Africa. It is working with the DRC, Morocco and South Africa to develop ‘decarbonized fuel’ generated from renewable energy for export to Europe, and is exploring other potential areas/countries that are particularly suited to green hydrogen production. In 2020, the Moroccan government entered into a partnership with Germany to develop the first green hydrogen plant on the continent.²² As always, Morocco, boasting one of the most neoliberal(ized) economies in the region, garners praise for its business-friendly environment, openness to foreign capital and its ‘leadership’ in the renewable energy sector. According to certain estimates, the country can take up to 4 per cent of the global Power-to-X market (production of green molecules) by 2030, given its ‘exceptional renewable resources and its successful track record in deploying large scale renewable plants’.²³

All of this is happening at the expense of the energy transitions in these African countries. If these developments are not stopped, the green transition will be derailed in the name of the EU’s energy security and its efforts to meet its climate targets. Moreover, EU plans for renewable hydrogen in its RePowerEU strategy are not simply about emissions, but are part of a broader move to re-establish itself and its corporations as global players within a green high-tech economy, competing with other powers such as China.

In 2009, the Desertec project, an ambitious initiative that aims to power Europe from Saharan solar plants and wind farms stretching across the MENA region, was launched by a coalition of European industrial firms and financial institutions based on the idea that a tiny surface area of the desert can provide around 20 per cent of Europe’s electricity by 2050 via special high-voltage direct current transmission cables.

After a number of years of hype, the Desertec venture ultimately stalled amid criticisms of its astronomical costs and its neocolonial connotations.²⁴ However, attempts to revive it as Desertec 2.0, with a focus on the local market for renewable energy, then followed, and the project was eventually reborn as Desertec 3.0, which aims to satisfy Europe’s demand for hydrogen, which is seen as a ‘clean’ energy alternative to fossil fuels. In early 2020, Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) launched the MENA Hydrogen Alliance, which brings together private and public sector actors, as well as science and academia, to kick-start green hydrogen economies and produce hydrogen for export.²⁵ Two of DII’s partners are the French energy giant Total and the Dutch oil major Shell.

The Desertec 3.0 proposal,²⁶ which advocates for a European energy system based on 50 per cent renewable electricity and 50 per cent green hydrogen by 2050, starts with the assumption that ‘due to its limited size and population density, Europe will not be able to produce all its renewable energy in Europe itself’. The new Desertec proposal attempts to distance itself from the focus on exports in the initiative’s early days, by adding the dimension of local development of a clean energy system. However, the export agenda cannot be underestimated or ignored as the Desertec 3.0 manifesto points out that ‘…over and beyond catering for domestic demand, most North African countries have huge potential in terms of land and resources to produce green hydrogen for export’. 

If that was not convincing enough for the political and business elites on both sides of the Mediterranean, the Desertec crew have other tricks up their sleeves. The document goes on: ‘Furthermore, a joint European – North African renewable energy and hydrogen approach would create economic development, future-oriented jobs and social stability in North-African countries, potentially reducing the number of economic migrants from the region to Europe.’ It is not clear if this is a desperate hard-sell strategy but it seems clear that this Desertec vision lends itself to the agenda of consolidating fortress Europe and expanding an inhuman regime of border imperialism, while trying to tap into the low-cost energy potential of North Africa, which also relies on under-valued and disciplined labour. 

Desertec is thus presented as one solution to Europe’s energy transition: an opportunity for economic development in North Africa and a brake on South–North migration. Being an apolitical techno-fix, it promises to overcome these problems without making any fundamental changes: basically maintaining the status quo and the contradictions of the global system that has led to these problems in the first place. Techno-fixes of this kind embrace the obsession with endless economic growth, repackaged in the oxymoron ‘green growth’, and give the illusion of an endless availability of energy and resources, thus indirectly perpetuating consumerist lifestyles and energy-intensive productivism. This will do nothing to bring our socio-economic system within the planet’s limits in time to avert a climate and ecological breakdown. 

Big engineering-focused ‘solutions’ like Desertec tend to present climate change as a shared problem that has no political or socio-economic context. This perspective hides the historical responsibility of the industrialized West, the problems of the capitalist energy model, and the different vulnerabilities experienced by countries of the North compared to those of the South. Moreover, using language such as ‘mutual cooperation’ and ‘for the benefit of both’, presents the Euro-Med region as a unified community (we are all friends now, fighting against a common foe!), masking the real enemy of African people, which is neocolonial structures of power that exploit them and plunder their resources. 

Furthermore, pushing for the use of the current gas pipeline infrastructure effectively advocates for a mere switching of the energy source, while maintaining the existing authoritarian political dynamics and leaving intact the current hierarchies within the international order. The fact that Desertec is encouraging the use of pipelines from Algeria and Libya (including through Tunisia and Morocco) raises the question of the future of the populations in these two fossil fuel-rich countries. What will happen when Europe stops importing gas from them (in a context in which 13 per cent of the gas consumed in Europe is from North Africa)? What about the ongoing chaos and destabilization caused by the NATO intervention in Libya? Will Algerians’ aspirations for democracy and sovereignty – well expressed in the 2019–2021 uprising against the country’s military dictatorship – be considered in this equation? Or is it simply another remake of the status quo where hydrogen simply replaces gas? Perhaps there is nothing new under the sun after all.

To add insult to injury, the Desertec manifesto points out that ‘in an initial phase (between 2030-2035), a substantial hydrogen volume can be produced by converting natural gas to hydrogen, whereby the CO2 is stored in empty gas/oil fields (blue hydrogen).’ First of all, carbon capture and storage technologies are still expensive and unreliable. Second, there is a big risk that the captured CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery, as is currently the case around the world. Notwithstanding this, storing CO2 in empty gas fields in North Africa, alongside the use of the rare water resources there to produce hydrogen, and the potential pollution from desalination, would be yet another example of dumping waste in the global South and displacing environmental costs from North to South (the creation of sacrifice zones): a strategy of imperialist capital in which environmental racism is wedded to energy colonialism. 

Last but not least, huge upfront investment will be needed in order to establish the infrastructure required to produce and transport green hydrogen. Given previous experiences of implementing such high-cost and capital-intensive projects (such as the Ouarzazate solar plant), the investment could well end up amassing yet more debt for the receiving country, deepening the dependence on multilateral lending and foreign assistance.

If these plans do go ahead, they will represent the latest neocolonial resource grab, at a time when renewable resources should be used for local energy needs and to meet local climate targets, rather than helping the EU safeguard its energy security and deliver its climate strategy.

What seems to unite all the aforementioned ‘green’ projects and the hype around them is a deeply erroneous assumption that any move towards renewable energy is to be welcomed, and that any shift from fossil fuels, regardless of how it is carried out, is worthwhile. One needs to say it clearly: the climate crisis we are currently facing is not attributable to fossil fuels per se, but rather to their unsustainable and destructive use in order to fuel the capitalist machine. In other words, capitalism is the culprit, and if we are serious in our endeavours to tackle the climate crisis (which is only one facet of the multi-dimensional crisis of capitalism), we cannot elude the issue of radically changing our ways of producing and distributing things, our consumption patterns, and fundamental issues of equity and justice. It follows from this that a mere shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, while at the same time remaining within the capitalist framework of commodifying and privatizing nature for the profit of the few, will not solve the problem we face. In fact, if we continue down this path we will only end up exacerbating the problem, or creating another set of problems, relating to issues of ownership of land and natural resources.

A green and just transition must fundamentally transform the global economic system, which is not fit for purpose at either the social, ecological or even biological level (as revealed by the Covid-19 pandemic). It must put an end to the colonial relations that still enslave and dispossess people. We must always ask: Who owns what? Who does what? Who gets what? Who wins and who loses? And whose interests are being served? Because if we don’t ask these questions we will go straight to a green colonialism, with an acceleration of extraction and exploitation, in the service of a so-called common ‘green agenda’.

The fight for climate justice and a just transition needs to take into account the differences in responsibilities and vulnerabilities between North and South. Ecological and climate debt must be paid to countries in the global South, which happen to be the hardest hit by global warming and which have been locked by global capitalism into a system of predatory extractivism. In a global context of forced liberalization and the push for unjust trade deals, as well as an imperial scramble for influence and energy resources, the green transition and talk about sustainability must not become a shiny façade for neocolonial schemes of plunder and domination.

Furthermore, while there is always talk about the lack of technology expertise where renewable projects are installed in the global South, it is usually not asked why this is the case in the first place. Isn’t this lack attributable to the monopolizing of technology and the intellectual property regime (the cruelty of which was revealed in the current pandemic)? Isn’t it because of all of the SAPs that have been imposed, which have hollowed out public services and scientific research? Technology transfer must be a cornerstone of any just energy transition; otherwise, nations of the global South will always remain dependent.

In this context, just transition is a framework for a fair shift to an economy that is ecologically sustainable, equitable and just for all its members. A just transition means a transition from an economic system that is built around the excessive extraction of resources and the exploitation of people, to one that is structured, instead, around the restoration and regeneration of territories and people’s rights and dignity. A robust and radical vision of just transition sees environmental destruction, capitalist extraction, imperialist violence, inequality, exploitation, and marginalization along the axes of race, class and gender, and as simultaneous effects of one global system which must be transformed. Seen in this light, ‘solutions’ which try to address a single dimension, such as the environmental catastrophe, in isolation from the social, cultural and economic structures which give rise to it, will inevitably remain ‘false solutions’.²⁷

A just transition will obviously look different in different places. It is indeed better to speak of transitions in the plural, in recognition of this reality. We must be sensitive to the fact that massive global and historical inequalities, and their continuation in the present, are part of what must be transformed in order to bring about a just and sustainable society. This means that a just transition may mean very different things in different places. What might work in Europe will not necessarily be applicable in Africa. What might work in Egypt might not work in South Africa. And what might work in urban areas in Morocco may not be good for rural areas there. And, perhaps, a transition in a fossil fuel-rich country like Algeria will look different to one in other countries that are less endowed with such resources. Thus we need to be imaginative and to have a decentralized approach, and we need to seek guidance from local populations themselves.

The concept of just transition draws on concepts like energy democracy and energy sovereignty to elaborate a vision of a world where people have access to and control over the resources they need to lead dignified lives, and have a political role in making decisions about how those resources are used, and by whom. This transition must be under the control of communities and their democratically elected representatives. It cannot be left to the private sector and to companies. Active participation in the decision-making and shaping of transitions is crucial.

Finally, just transition is not just about energy. In this regard, the way we do agriculture must also be transformed. Industrial agriculture/farming, or agribusiness, is another locus where imperialist domination and climate change intersect. Not only is it one of the drivers of climate change, it also keeps so many countries in the South prisoners of an unsustainable and destructive agrarian model, a model that is based on the exporting of a few cash crops and the exhaustion of land and the rare water resources in arid and semi-arid regions, such as Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco (and Algeria to a growing extent).

In many ways, the climate crisis and the needed green transition offer us a chance to reshape politics. Coping with the dramatic transformation will require a break with existing militarist, colonial and neoliberal projects. Therefore, the struggle for a just transition and climate justice must be fiercely democratic. It must involve the communities who are most affected, and it must be geared towards providing for the needs of all. It means building a future in which everybody has enough energy, and a clean and safe environment: a future that is in harmony with the revolutionary demands of the African and Arab uprisings: popular sovereignty, bread, freedom and social justice.

In the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the war frenzy reached fever pitch. A call to arms went out to join the war effort and arms consignments were shipped from the US and Europe to the country’s battlefields and trenches to counter the advance of Russian tanks and troops. Calls for de-escalation and dialogue were side-lined, ignored, ridiculed, or misconstrued as pro-Russian or pro-Putin.

It became taboo to reject militarism in favour of peace.

There are no easy solutions to stopping war once it has started, but by now it is clear that providing high-calibre weaponry worth tens of billions has not stopped the fighting. Peace will not be achieved through military victory and in attempting to do so Ukraine has become a bloodbath and its people cannon fodder.  By now the country is almost entirely irrelevant in a geopolitical quagmire between the world’s most powerful nations, the ramifications of which are reverberating around the globe.

There is no justification for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. President Putin is ultimately responsible for initiating this war and for the brutal conduct of the Russian armed forces on the battlefield. But this war did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred within a context where states have, for decades, rigorously pursued policies that drive militarism and war, where a nation’s worth is measured not by meeting the human-centred security needs of its own population, but by its military might. 

Although militarism enables and prolongs war, since the invasion of Ukraine, Western governments have ratcheted up defence spending, strengthened military alliances, and intensified divisive rhetoric. Perhaps stopping the war isn’t the end goal but rather defeating Russia, regardless of how long that may take or what the immediate and long term cost of that strategy may be. How did we get here and where will this unbridled militarism lead us?

In the years following World War II, French foreign minister Robert Schuman declared that ‘world peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it’. In 1951, these creative efforts were realised in a treaty between previously historic rivals who agreed to make war ‘not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible’.¹ The European Coal and Steel Community, which eventually evolved into today’s European Union (EU), was born.

Almost 60 years later, EU member states pledged to ‘preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security’ in the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force in 2009.² However, preserving peace was no longer about finding creative solutions to pre-empt brewing conflicts between rivals, but rather a business opportunity within a capitalist system, where profit and growth is the ultimate goal, regardless of the deadly consequences. Guaranteeing peace was seized upon by lobbyists for the arms trade, who positioned themselves as security experts and enjoyed unfettered access to the corridors of power. This corporate model of keeping the peace, and the politics that underpin it, only serves to secure capital, protect the elite, and line the pockets of the lucrative private security sector, while consigning the vast majority of the world’s population to a continuous cycle of insecurity and instability.

To exemplify just how embedded the arms industry is in influencing policy it is worth examining the Group of Personalities on Defence Research, an advisory body tasked with advising the EU on funding research and development within the context of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy.³ The Group of Personalities was composed of 16 representatives, nine of whom were directly affiliated with the arms industry. Based on their final report, the European Commission (EC) allocated unprecedented amounts of public money to private security companies for weapons research and development (R&D).

European Network Against the Arms Trade and Transnational Institute ‘Fanning the Flames’ March 2022

The initial precursor programmes got almost €600 million⁴ while the European Defence Fund (EDF) received an €8 billion budget. To date, the arms companies that directly influenced the creation of these funds have received €122 million or 28.1% of the current allocation, although this will undoubtedly rise once the entire budget is granted.⁵

In 2021, the EC approved the € 5.7 billion European Peace Facility (EPF),⁶ which, contrary to what its name suggests, finances EU military operations, such as those in West Africa or the Horn of Africa, as well as the provision of military equipment and training, with Ukraine being the first to receive such assistance. The fund is off-budget and therefore circumvents transparency, oversight and accountability procedures.

Research by Statewatch and the Transnational Institute found defence spending more than doubled from one budgetary cycle to the next, with €43.9 billion allocated for the 2021–2027 budget.⁷ By comparison, the amount allocated to the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme is just €1.4 billion. Arguably though, funding civilian peace initiatives would be much more conducive to building an enduring peace and align more closely with the EU’s founding principle of safeguarding it.

Statewatch and Transnational Institute ‘At What Cost?’ April 2022

Increased military spending is part of a worldwide trend, however. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that the 2021 global military budget surpassed US$2.1 trillion for the first time.⁸ The US invested US$801 billion, while Europe’s top military spenders combined spent the equivalent of US$329.2 billion. China’s budget came in at US$293 billion, and Russia’s at US$65.8 billion.  Although the EU’s €43.9 billion over a seven-year period may pale in comparison, the intended direction is clear and indicative of how the EU’s identity is shifting to include a growing military dimension to the union. This began long before the Ukraine war.

The share of world military expenditure of the 15 countries with the highest spending in 2021
Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, Apr. 2022.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EC has indicated that it intends to increase the EDF and EPF budget lines, as well as create a €500 million fund to incentivise joint arms procurement among member states to replenish military materiel sent to Ukraine.⁹ In the run-up to the June 2022 NATO Summit, European Council President, Charles Michel, announced an increase in military spending to an unprecedented €200 billion in the coming years.¹⁰

Although in absolute terms Russia spends significantly less than the US (S$801 billion) and the combined sum spent by European nations (US$329.2 billion), its military expenditure (US$65.8 billion) has grown significantly over the past two decades, increasing by 175% between 2000 and 2019.¹⁹ Moreover, Russian military expenditure is estimated to be 4.3% of its GDP, which is higher than the 3.7% of GDP spent by the US.²⁰ As early as April 2021 Russia began building up its military presence in the annexed territory of Crimea, and subsequently in Belarus and along its border with Ukraine, deploying large scale artillery, missiles and eventually fighter jets, as well as establishing military training camps and bases.²¹

In July 2021 President Putin published an article titled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians in which he lays out his belief that ‘Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole’ stating that ‘modern Ukraine is entirely a product of the Soviet era … shaped on the lands of historical Russia’.²²

In November 2021, President Putin warned that ‘Russia will act if NATO crosses its red lines in Ukraine.²³ But instead of taking steps to mitigate the risk of a Russian military attack, in January 2022 the US State Department did the opposite by clearing Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as the UK, to send high calibre US made missiles and other armament to Ukraine.²⁴

Ukraine had become a tinderbox.

On 21 February 2022, President Putin took what he described as a ‘long overdue decision’ to recognise the independence and sovereignty of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.²⁵ For Ukraine, this was a direct affront to its sovereignty and significantly heightened its fear of Russian imperialist aspirations being realised. The stage for war was set.

Before dawn on 24 February 2022 Russian tanks rolled in to Ukraine. The long looming war had begun. The EU’s shift from a being a political and economic alliance to also becoming a military one was cemented when EC President Ursula von der Leyen stood alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and declared ‘we are one union, one alliance, united in purpose’.²⁶

On 18 May, Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO,²⁷ whose accession Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed ‘… would make the Alliance stronger and the whole Euro-Atlantic area more secure’.²⁸ In response President Putin stated that if military contingents and infrastructure is deployed to Finland or Sweden, Russia ‘would be obliged to respond symmetrically’.²⁹

Both countries have a long history of military neutrality and remaining outside military alliances has served them well. Yet in a time of war they have abandoned a strategy that has brought them stability to join an alliance, the very expansion of which is a key factor that Russia has cited for its invasion of Ukraine.³⁰ NATO member Turkey quickly announced that it would only accept their membership in exchange for the relaxation of arms embargoes and the extradition of persons alleged to be connected with the Kurdish struggle. Considering that Turkey exports arms to conflict zones, and has used similar trade-offs to justify waging war against the Kurds in the past, the knock-on effects of these Nordic nations joining NATO will be felt far beyond the geopolitical inner circles of the NATO alliance.³¹

In Denmark a referendum was passed in June with over a two-thirds majority to remove an exemption to it participating in the military dimension of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy.³²

In all three countries this unprecedented embrace of militarism was ushered in by left-leaning Social Democratic Parties. Instead of upholding leftist principles of internationalism, social justice and equality, they have thrown their weight behind militarism, hierarchy, authority, and patriotism, concepts that are more broadly associated with right-wing politics and not conducive to building peace.

Colombia signs historic peace deal with Farc. Credit: Gobierno de Chile, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (Cropped)

Far too often, and increasingly with the war in Ukraine, military neutrality is misunderstood as a weak, passive, inactive stance, that permits and facilitates war while bringing nothing to conflict resolution. In fact, unaligned, militarily neutral nations have historically played a fundamental role in creating the conditions that give rise to a ceasefire, providing a neutral setting for peace negotiations to take place, accompanying these negotiations as a neutral mediator, and serving as a starting point from which the seeds of an enduring peace can be sown and political grievances can be resolved through diplomacy. Cuba, for example, played a crucial role in hosting and accompanying the peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla group that culminated in the signing of a historic peace agreement in 2016.³³ It is incumbent on states, particularly neutral nations, to use their position to actively engage and insist unapologetically that dialogue and diplomacy is the only way forward, rising above binary ‘with us or against us’ politics. Ireland, which has also experienced the fruits of a negotiated peace and currently sits on the UN Security Council, should lead by example in this regard.

Four days after the war began, EC President Ursula von der Leyen announced that ‘for the first time ever’, the EU would ‘finance the purchase and delivery of weapons… to a country that is under attack’.³⁴

On the same day in Berlin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the country’s defence budget would be increased to more than 2% of GDP and that €100bn would be invested in a one-time special fund for its armed forces. Although this was framed as a direct response to the invasion of Ukraine, it had, in fact, been on the cards since at least October 2021, when it was proposed by Germany’s Defence Minister. This represents Germany’s largest jump in military expenditure since World War II. ³⁵

For its part, long before the invasion, the Biden administration had begun increasing its military assistance to Ukraine, providing US$650 million during his first year in office. A further US$350 million weapons package was pledged in the days following the outbreak of war in February. Subsequently a bipartisan support package of US$13.5 billion was approved to ship materiel and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, before a whopping US$ 40 billion was pledged, of which at least half is military assistance.³⁶ In July an additional US$270 million security assistance package was announced.³⁷ Thus far the US has pledged US$55 billion to Ukraine’s war effort. By comparison, it contributes just US$1.5 billion to the UN’s Global Peacekeeping Fund 2022 – 2023.³⁸ Moreover, there are currently 100,000 US troops stationed in Europe, up from 85,000 already in place before the outbreak of war. This is highest number since the end of the Cold War and has steadily increased since 2014.³⁹

As the war goes on, the US has called, not for de-escalation and a ceasefire, but for the protection of the sovereign nation of Ukraine and for Russia to be weakened.⁴⁰ Having received such a vast array of military equipment and training from the West since well before the outbreak of the current war, it is questionable to what extent Ukraine, or any other nation for that matter, that serves the agenda of US hegemony and benefits materially from it, remains truly sovereign.

While NATO member states have not deployed troops to Ukraine, they have provided artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, armoured vehicles, reconnaissance and attack drones, helicopters, smalls arms including rifles, pistols and machine guns, ammunition, body armour and helmets.⁴¹ The US has also provided intelligence assistance with aircraft designed for this purpose positioned over Poland, Romania and the Black Sea.⁴²

Since the invasion arms companies’ profits have soared. Between 23 February and 8 June, the share prices of Lockheed Martin rose by 14%, Northrop Grumman by 22.3%, BAE Systems by 31.9%, Thales by 39.4%, Leonardo by 67.8% and Rheinmetall by a colossal 123.9%.⁴³ Within this context, states have published extensive shopping lists of sophisticated armaments that they plan to purchase in the coming years to replenish their armed forces.

Coupled with that, the EU intends to relax the criteria for arms exports⁴⁴ and the European Defence Agency has begun promoting the notion that the arms industry is sustainable, boasting that ‘defence is going green’.⁴⁵ There is a complete disconnect between the death, devastation, and destruction caused by the use of armaments, and the narratives peddled to justify their development, export, and use. This is even more perverse given that so many of the policies that permit the expanse of the arms industry are made precisely by those who will benefit directly from them.

At least 20 US federal legislators or their partners hold stocks in Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin,⁴⁶ while in the UK, Tory peers Lord Glendonbrook, Viscount Eccles and Lord Sassoon, and unaffiliated peers Lord Lupton and Lord Gadhia, each own shares of at least £50,000 in BAE Systems.⁴⁷ While legislators are not prohibited from sitting on committees, writing legislation, or voting on bills that might affect them financially, the optics might suggest otherwise. The fact that those in positions of power benefit hugely from militarism is a point that is often missed when analysing the structural drivers of war. 

Ukraine has been devastated by this war. In its most recent update from 25 July, the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 5,237 civilians had been killed and a further 7,035 injured.⁴⁸ The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that one in three Ukrainian citizens has been displaced, seven million within the country,⁴⁹ and a further 5.5 million have sought refuge elsewhere in Europe.⁵⁰ In the city of Mariupol, which saw some of the worst fighting, the UN estimated that up to 90% of residential buildings and 60% of homes have been destroyed.⁵¹ Across the country infrastructure – such as bridges, roads, railways, hospitals and schools – have been targeted and destroyed. According to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the cost of reconstruction is already set to reach $750bn.⁵²

The effects of the war have been felt way beyond Ukraine. According to António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, the world will face severe food shortages with many countries expected to experience food insecurity and even famine as a result of the war being added to existing pressures.⁵³ Similarly, with very few exceptions, governments are forcing consumers to cough up for rising energy bills related to fuel insecurity caused by the war, as opposed to addressing massive corporate profits. This will severely affect those who are already economically vulnerable and push many into poverty.

Annette Jones/Pixabay License

There is no long-term strategy or ultimate goal beyond militarise by any and all possible means. At a national level, money that could be spent on strengthening access to health, education, social care and other essential services, is instead invested in military expenditure. Globally, resources that could be invested to offset the excessive warming of our planet and the destruction of ecosystems, to guarantee universal access to water and food security, or to prevent conflict and build peace, is used to guarantee the security of the few to the detriment of the many. This is madness. Recalling the global sum of US$2.1 trillion on military spending, what would our world look like if there was a committed collective effort to invest in peace, not war?

However dire things are now, they will undoubtedly get significantly worse if the threat of nuclear warfare is realised. Currently the US and Russia hold the highest number of nuclear warheads, with the US arsenal also dispersed around Europe.⁵⁴ Moreover, other nuclear powers such as India, Israel, or Pakistan, may be emboldened to flex their nuclear muscles in their own ongoing conflicts were Russia to make good its threat of doing so first. The consequences of nuclear warfare are terrifying and yet if this war continues, it may eventually culminate in exactly that. If for no other reason, global leaders must urgently shift course in favour of dialogue, diplomacy and peace. The stakes of doing otherwise are too high.

The crisis

Over the last few years, the electricity sector in Sudan has been in a state of crisis: 60 per cent of the Sudanese population have been living without electricity, while millions of Sudanese people currently suffer from hours of continuous power cuts, as the available electricity capacity covers a mere 60 per cent of the demand.¹ Frequent tariff increases, reaching 13,000 per cent for some social groups, have also exacerbated the crisis.

Several factors – linked to questions of supply and consumption – have caused this deteriorating situation. Investigating this context requires identifying the key political transformations, involving both civilian and military governments, that have occurred throughout Sudan’s modern history, as well as reviewing the energy policies of the colonial era and discussing subsequent long-term changes in the energy sector. In this paper, we also uncover the extent of the environmental vulnerability of energy production and consumption in Sudan, in addition to its link to a sustainable energy transition. Finally, this paper seeks to interrogate the role the energy sector might play in meeting the political demands of the glorious December 2018 Sudanese revolution: freedom, peace and justice. 

Sudan’s two main sources of energy are hydro-energy and thermal generation, with the current capacity of 3.5 gigawatts divided by rates of approximately 50 per cent for each category.² According to 2018 estimates, only 32 per cent of the Sudanese people enjoy an electricity supply from the national grid, the majority of which is concentrated in urban spaces. This uneven geographical distribution excludes the five federal states of Darfur and the region of South Kordofan, whose metropolitan areas are supplied by local networks that operate for an average of six hours per day.³ These are the same sites that experience frequent conflict – a situation that has largely been shaped by historical developmental inequality.

Figure 1: Sudan’s electricity network, made up of medium-voltage (blue) and high-voltage (green) transmission lines, according to the current state-level of governance

a) Colonialism and developmental inequality

Sudan is marked by severe developmental disparity, connected to the country’s significant cultural diversity, which has been present since the colonial era. That diversity gave rise to the separation of northern Sudan and the country’s southern regions, including some areas of Darfur, Kordofan, and Blue Nile,⁴ under the law of ‘closed districts’, which cut off large areas and diverse population groups from the socio-economic development of the rest of the country until 1946, after the end of World War II. In 1955, just prior to the declaration of independence, war erupted between northern and southern Sudan. Country-wide developmental disparity and the northern monopoly of power were some of the most important factors behind this conflict.

The colonial policies did not stop after independence: conflict continued and evolved from limiting government participation towards taking on an explicitly religious character following the first military coup in 1958.⁵ Indeed, this colonial policy continued, reaching its pinnacle under the military government that ruled from 1989 to 2010 (which called itself the ‘salvation government’). During this period, the country’s military rulers made what is locally known as the ‘Hamdi Triangle’, comprising areas within Dunqulah, al-Abyad and Sennar, the core of its developmental policy. These policies resulted in the concentration of development in a geographically limited area that, on the one hand, is culturally homogenous, and, on the other hand, facilitates the formation of an Arab/Islamic alliance that was intended to provide the core of a homogeneous state capable of operating effectively even after geographical divisions. Thus, these policies provided an overt ideological cover for the state on the basis of developmental marginalization, while cultural and religious exclusion divided Sudan.⁶ During this period, energy was one of the most important central services provided by the state, and was thus inherently political: it served to perpetuate the power of the country’s military rulers.

This brief historical context is key to investigating Sudan’s electricity supply, as demonstrated in Figure 1.

Sudan’s hydrological dam projects are another colonial legacy that continues to heavily impact the energy sector. A quick glance at the history of dam construction shows that it was linked to British-Egyptian colonialism in Sudan. For example, studies of the Second Cataract of the Nile began in 1897: that is, before British colonists entered Khartoum. This demonstrates the central position of control over the Nile waters in the colonial power’s strategy. From the initial phase of colonialism preparatory studies of the waterfall were undertaken, and in 1904 a detailed strategy was developed. These studies were carried out in accordance with the colonial priorities at the time, which focused on storing water for the benefit of expanding agriculture in Egypt and then in Sudan, in order to provide agricultural products for the colonizer at a low cost.

Sir William Garstin, a renowned scientist who studied the hydrology of the Nile and who had a long history of working in India and Egypt, was commissioned to research water storage options on the Nile. Garstin was the first person to conceptualize the construction of dams on Lake Albert (located in Uganda and extending into the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan. Garstin pointed to the need to build a dam on Lake Tana in Ethiopia, as well as a dam on the Atbarah River in Sudan, to regulate the flow of the Nile’s water. He also highlighted the possibility of benefiting from the lands between the Blue and White Nile through the Gezira Scheme in Sudan. In order to achieve this, Garstin proposed building the Sennar Reservoir in Sudan. 1904 saw the publication of Garstin’s report which contained various proposals, including initiating projects in Egypt.⁷ It is thus clear that storing water for the benefit of Egypt was one of the motives of the British colonial project in Sudan.

The colonial project of agricultural expansion in Egypt relied on preserving water and protecting Egypt from floods, particularly following the floods of 1945–1946.⁸ This was exemplified in the 1946 report on the future maintenance of the Nile, which contained a detailed discussion of the question of the storage of the Nile waters through reservoirs. Moreover, a 1953 report entitled ‘Control of the Nile Waters’, and the 1954 report by H. A. Morris, who was the Sudanese government’s adviser on irrigation,⁹ briefly alluded to potential and expected energy production from the Nile. Similarly, the official documents of the Sudanese Dams Implementation Unit make clear that the colonial enterprise had, since the 1940s, drawn up plans to preserve water for the benefit of Egypt, and that the strategy had changed from building the Merowe Dam in Sudan to establishing the High Dam as a means of securing its presence within Egyptian territory.¹⁰ The shift in the aim behind constructing dams away from preserving water for the benefit of Egypt to only energy production began to clearly crystallize after the World Bank report of 1983, which detailed the possibilities of utilizing the proposed dams for energy production.¹¹ This is what the ‘salvation government’¹² (1989–2019) relied on in its studies thereafter, when it shifted all of its projects towards a sole focus on energy production.

The overall vision for maximum exploitation of the Nile’s waters was developed according to the colonizer’s priorities at the time, which were to store water in order to ensure agricultural expansion in Egypt, after the failure of all previously adopted measures.¹³ Nevertheless, the projects that have more recently been proposed by different national governments, and specifically those related to dams under al-Bashir’s rule (1989–2019), do not greatly differ from the colonial vision that was put forward in Garstin’s report.

The main transformation in these plans that took place in the second half of the twentieth century was a change in the declared primary aim of exploitation of the Nile’s waters from water storage for the purposes of agricultural expansion (to benefit Egypt) to dam construction to produce energy, and thereby achieve development objectives. This camouflages old colonial projects under a mask of development which carries promises of energy production. However, these promises were to remain unfulfilled, both in theory and in the face of reality and practical experience.

In its first stage, the period of al-Bashir’s rule (1989–2019) was associated with isolationism and economic blockade, which drastically reduced the possibilities for expanding services. Soon after, in the early 2000s, oil was discovered in Sudan and, at the same time, a political settlement was signed with the largest movements and political parties. Together, these developments provided an economic surplus which was reflected in the provision of various services, notably in the energy sector. Nevertheless, this period was not without political challenges, including in regard to managing the post-settlement transitional phase. At the time, the government’s priority was the survival of al-Bashir’s rule, and by extension, the system of political Islam in Sudan. This was reflected in the government’s energy-related policies, which played a political role.

This governmental strategy of survival was evident in al-Bashir’s government’s attempt to mobilize community networks for political purposes at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This initiative, which was one of the biggest political projects ever seen in Sudan, sought to transform energy production and distribution operations in the center of the country, i.e., the Hamdi Triangle. By expanding the electricity supply network serving the residential sector in this area, the government aimed to garner political support. As part of this initiative, the Merowe Dam was marketed as a saviour that would guide Sudan away from darkness towards light and development. Al-Bashir illustrated this in his speech inaugurating the dam: ‘The Merowe Dam is the project of the century, the project of the beginning of the end of poverty, and the project of the great launch of the Greater Sudanese state.’¹⁴

Al-Bashir’s government presented the Merowe Dam as a major development project. Indeed, al-Bashir himself attempted to market the project at the opening ceremony as a response to the 2009 International Criminal Court’s memorandum. He declared in the same dam inauguration speech: ‘They will issue their decision tomorrow, and after that they will issue a second and third decision, and people will not pay attention to them; they will be preoccupied with decisions and we will continue to develop.’¹⁵ At the time, the slogan of al-Bashir’s supporters was ‘the dam is the response’.¹⁶ However, the fog of developmental discourse was soon cleared away as the reality of increasing electricity cuts and the rising costs of electricity itself became clear.

As the Sudanese government focused its construction and marketing operations on pro-government companies, construction costs rose, a result of increasing corruption and nepotism, and a lack of oversight. This resulted in an exorbitant debt – approximately $3 billion – related to the construction of the Merowe Dam, even as the dam’s ability to produce electrical energy actually decreased compared to the initial promises: during its opening, it was proclaimed that the dam would produce 1,250 megawatts; however, its actual capacity dropped to less than 600 megawatts.¹⁷

The lack of transparency surrounding the dam project was a crucial factor in increasing its environmental costs. The government assigned the engineering aspects of the work to Lahmeyer International, a German company which had been convicted in corruption cases related to water projects in the Lesotho Highlands in southern Africa,¹⁸ as a consequence of which the World Bank had discontinued dealings with Lahmeyer for seven years. In Sudan Lahmeyer received funds from parties that had rarely considered transparency a priority. Lahmeyer continued operating as an engineering consultant for other dam projects, even expanding its work under the period of ‘salvation rule’.¹⁹ The construction of the Merowe Dam, under Lahmeyer’s guidance, involved violations related to environmental studies – such studies were not approved for the dam until 2007. A report on the environmental situation in Sudan, which was issued after the protracted armed conflict between 1983 and 2005, made clear that the government did not adhere to its own legal standards when approving studies of environmental impact.²⁰ This report described how studies that were presented to Sudan’s competent authorities were not approved as they lacked basic components relating to integrity. This placed pressure on the financiers to stop the flow of funding to the related projects. As a result, the government announced a ministerial change that removed the minister and all departments involved in approving environmental impact reports. These reports were only approved almost a week after the appointment of new departments replacing those that were removed. This demonstrates that the Merowe Dam was considered to be of extreme importance. Furthermore, it demonstrates the lack of attention to the environmental and social costs of building dams, such as increased evaporation rates. Indeed, Merowe Dam’s²¹ evaporation rates are as high as approximately 1.5 billion cubic metres of water. This is in addition to the general increase in the number of artificial lakes in Sudan, which clearly impacts the production rates of staple crops and orchards in areas north of the Merowe Dam. This has also contributed to the displacement of tens of thousands of affected people, and the loss of their means of livelihood.²²

A few years later, in 2013, it was announced that an operation to increase the height of the Roseires Dam had been completed. This dam is located in Blue Nile state, approximately 550 km southeast of Khartoum. After that, in 2017, the Upper Atbara and Setit Dams, in the states of Kassala and El-Gadarif, about 460 km east of Khartoum, were completed. Theoretically, these two dams produce 280 and 320 megawatts, respectively. Various projects in Sudan have been built using loans from Gulf and Chinese state funds. However, many specialists have questioned the usefulness of Chinese and Gulf financing for hydro-energy projects. In regard to China, it is argued that it provides Sudan with loans in return for its government-owned companies being commissioned to construct dams in the country. In regard to the Gulf countries, on the other hand, it is argued that they provide loans in exchange for fertile land, as a means of addressing their own food security issues.²³

Loan-based financing is one of the major problems facing energy production projects, especially dams. Instead of mobilizing countries’ own resources by taking advantage of financing through progressive taxation, the creation of public shareholder companies, and the provision of opportunities for the affected population in general to contribute to projects and solutions that guarantee broad participation and benefits, these projects are financed by loans that not only reduce national sovereignty in relation to strategic projects, but also increase the debt burden.

Projects such as the Merowe Dam, the heightening of the Roseires Reservoir, and the construction of the Upper Atbara and Setit Dams, offer clear examples of these dynamics related to loans. Chinese companies obtained construction contracts relating to these projects, while Saudi Arabia acquired more than 1 million acres (404,700 hectares) of Sudanese land for a period of 99 years. Saudi Arabia’s land acquisition equals the total area of the new Upper Atbara project, which is located on fertile lands that Saudi Arabia wishes to exploit as part of a project to provide food security for itself.²⁴ The residents of this area were forcibly displaced from their lands, receiving inequitable compensation: those who owned less than 10 agricultural acres (approximately 40,468 square metres) were compensated with a residential plot of 300 square metres, and those who owned more than 10 acres were compensated with two residential plots with a total area of 600 square metres.²⁵ Thus, in addition to approximately 700,000 citizens being forcibly displaced from their homes, the population in this area lost their agricultural lands, and shepherds lost the natural grazing paths utilized by more than 7 million head of livestock.²⁶

The energy return from these hydro projects is low in comparison to their exorbitant economic, social and environmental costs. These projects have exacerbated development inequality as they have involved a large section of the population losing its traditional means of livelihood. At the same time, the areas closest to these dams, such as the localities of El Buhaira and El ‘Azaza near the Roseires Reservoir, and most of the villages in the banks of the Atbara River, have neither electricity nor regular access to water. These hydro-energy projects thus create spaces of sacrifice for the benefit of ‘development’ and capitalist accumulation in other spaces. This helps reproduce developmental disparity, deepens historical inequality and further increases conflict in various degrees and forms.

b) Hasty solutions

In addition to denying more than 60 per cent of the Sudanese people access to the national grid, the relatively large annual consumption rates (averaging 10 per cent) worsened the national supply gap. As a result, the energy sector was under pressure to provide more electrical capacity. These pressures were addressed through the construction of new thermal power plants, which are heavily reliant on imported fuels: more than 1,500 thermal megawatts were added between 2008 and 2019. In 2017, the cost spent on fuel was estimated at $1.3 billion, with the government’s support for the sector thus reaching 15 per cent of state expenditure.²⁷ These plants cause significant emissions, equalling about 6.25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The speed and relatively low initial cost with which these new thermal plants added to national electricity capacity has tended to obscure the significant operational challenges facing the country, which lost more than 75 per cent of its oil reserves and their associated profits following the secession of South Sudan in 2011. This event rendered Sudan largely dependent on imported fuel, as well as being exposed to unstable exchange rates and accelerating inflation rates. In addition to increasing electricity prices, the expansion of thermal production does not take into consideration the negative impact of this form of production, which causes a significant increase in the emission of greenhouse gases.

Despite the presence of these thermal projects, hydro-generation options have remained at the heart of future plans for electricity supply in Sudan. The salvation regime²⁸ has repeatedly expressed its intention to construct a group of large dams on the Nile River north of Khartoum, in the areas of Dal, Kajbar, and Al Sheraik, located on the second, third and fifth cataracts in the north of Sudan. They would have a total combined operating capacity of 990 megawatts. These dams would be in addition to various other projects in Daqash, Mukrat, Sheri, and Sablouka.²⁹ However, as a result of the widespread rejection of the local populations in these areas, these projects face challenges. In the view of these populations, these projects will not be useful and will flood most of the residential, agricultural, and archaeological spaces from north Khartoum to Old Halfa. The local populations are also challenging these projects on the basis that they require high costs but will provide small returns. The endeavour of marketing hydro-energy projects as a solution collides with the reality of the construction of the Renaissance Dam, which will change the nature of the Nile and help stabilize water flow throughout the year. Such a development will not only render these projects technically useless; they also impose implementation challenges that make their implementation unrealistic.

In sum, all of these factors render the electricity sector plan, which aims to achieve 80 per cent electricity supply by 2031, a very ambitious goal.³⁰ In addition to the gap in the available capacity, the significant cost of extending transmission and distribution networks means that a large segment of the population are currently left in the dark. As noted in Figure 1, electricity supply lines are concentrated in the centre and north of the country, which is the historical centre of economic and political power in Sudan.

There are some common features between Sudan and some sub-Saharan African countries in terms of a decline in electrification rates and population density, and the fact that these countries have not succeeded in creating thriving markets and industries from energy alternatives. However, unlike those countries, Sudan’s situation is in part the result of the international isolation imposed on the previous regime due to US sanctions. For example, compared to Tanzania,³¹ which has 109 insulated solar plants, with a total capacity of 158 megawatts, Sudan only has one plant, with a capacity of no more than 5 megawatts. The first solar initiative was launched in Sudan in 2014, involving piloting of the solar home systems model whereby individual homes are provided with solar systems in instalments, in cooperation with local banks. The initiative first targeted 100 users with a capacity of 100 watts per user (the aim is to reach a total capacity of 110 megawatts by 2031).³² According to the latest report on this initiative, the number of homes benefiting from the service reached 1,500 in 2018.³³

It was only in 2020 that Sudan’s first solar plant was established, in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State and one of the most important cities in the Darfur region.³⁴ This plant has a capacity of 5 megawatts. A twin plant in the city of El Daein in Darfur encountered various obstacles that have so far prevented its completion, including issues related to funding, delays in receiving materials and equipment, and some cases of equipment theft. The two plants were financed by the Sudanese Hydro Generation and Renewable Energy Company (SHG&REC) and are implemented by a local private company called Top Gear.³⁵

While the crisis currently affecting the electricity sector can be traced back to the al-Bashir era, and its corruption, the post-revolution transitional government of 2018 directly and indirectly aggravated it. The neoliberal doctrine of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictated all macro-economic reforms implemented by the transitional government. Abdalla Hamdok, the Prime Minister who has previously worked in the United Nations, did not attempt to resist this neoliberal tide, even arguing that these reforms were prerequisites for debt relief and for obtaining new loans and subsidies.³⁶ Furthermore, floating the Sudanese pound and lifting subsidies on basic commodities led to the value of the pound plummeting against the official dollar: today, it stands at 570 pounds to the dollar, in comparison to 55 pounds to the dollar in January 2021. The floating of the pound also led to a massive increase in fuel prices, from 100 pounds per gallon to 2,500 pounds per gallon.³⁷

The direct ways in which the transitional government destabilized the electricity supply are also rooted in these neoliberal economic reforms, which directly targeted the energy sector. The implementation of these reforms, which came at a critical time, was subject to a great degree of coordination and planning. The sector’s failure in this matter rendered users the victims of unjust reform recommendations and their poor implementation. The situation then worsened after the coup d’état of 25 October 2021, in response to which all foreign aid was suspended. As a result, the state treasury is now under increasing pressure and has accelerated the implementation of the package of flawed reforms. 

The main reforms proposed in the World Bank report can be divided into three elements: first, the lifting of tariff subsidies; second, the energy mix to ensure future capacity; and third, the private sector’s involvement. 

a) The lifting of subsidies on electricity tariffs

According to the World Bank report, electricity tariffs in Sudan are the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, regardless of the income rates of the comparator countries. The report shows that electricity tariffs represent between 1 per cent and 3 per cent of families’ average monthly income – compatible with the recommendation that electricity tariffs should not exceed 5 per cent of families’ average monthly income.⁴⁰ However, this recommendation does not take into account the fact, in a country in which more 65 per cent of the population is employed in the informal sector, many families do not have a fixed monthly income. The World Bank report also adds that the bulk of the electricity tariff subsidy provided by the government is directed to the wrong social classes, as a greater percentage of electricity is consumed by classes higher up the income pyramid. In other words, the largest proportion of government subsidies actually goes to the rich. The report concludes that these subsidy rates are very ‘generous’ and it recommends gradually reducing them over five years to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit.

Between January 2021 and January 2022, electricity tariffs were adjusted three different times, at exponential rates. For instance, compared to the pre-2021 tariff, the Lifeline Tariff, which is the least expensive type and which targets the weakest social classes, has been reduced from 200 kilowatt hours (kWh) to 100 kWh. At the same time, the kWh cost has increased at a rate exceeding 3,000 per cent: from 0.15 pounds to 5 pounds.⁴¹ In addition, the commercial and agricultural tariffs have increased by 13,000 per cent and 5,000 per cent per cent, respectively, among other increases.⁴² The outcomes of these severe increases have been reflected in increases in the prices of all manufactured products and commodities – a context which has only increased the suffering of a population whose resources are consumed by inflation.

While we can agree on the necessity for electricity tariff reforms in light of the current conditions of the energy sector, as well as the overall economic situation that Sudan has inherited from al-Bashir’s corrupt regime, the details of these reforms remain a matter of debate. It is unfair to assume that different social classes have the same ability to absorb great increases in electricity tariffs, and the prices of goods and services accompanying them. It would have been possible to achieve a better reform formula by balancing the rates of increase for the different groups that make up the class pyramid. Examples of such nuanced measures include maintaining the same tariff for the social groups that consume the least electricity (an average of 177 kWh per month), and setting the tariff for higher consumption groups (about 600 kWh per month, for example) at its real cost. Not only would this increase the sector’s revenues, it would also stimulate the 1 per cent that consumes more than a quarter of the residential sector’s supply to rationalize their electricity use.⁴³

Despite the significant increases in tariffs, so far the lifting of subsidies has been only partial, which means that there are more increases on the way to reach the World Bank’s full recommended hike. Such increases may exacerbate the popular anger that has engulfed citizens following the recent coup measures, especially in light of the current situation, in which tariff increases do not translate into supply stability. Additionally, the latest wave of increases in 2022 sparked strong opposition within the ranks of small-holders, who saw the tariffs they pay increase by 2,000 per cent.⁴⁴

In early 2022, small-holders in northern Sudan, with the support of other civil forces, protested against the increase in agricultural tariffs and demanded a reduction. They expressed these demands by constructing barricades on the national road that links northern Sudan with Egypt and that facilitates the movement of significant quantities of goods and people. This protest culminated in what was later known as the ‘North Barricades’. This action was successful: the protestors seized suspicious commercial goods (gold and raw materials) smuggled by regular forces and their collaborators into Egypt; they also expanded their protest from one point along the route to 14 further points along the route. In addition to the demand to reduce electricity tariffs, the region’s residents added a set of historical demands, related to the suffering they have endured as a result of hydro-generation projects since independence. The North Barricades continued for more than four months and succeeded in reducing the electricity tariffs for local small-holders from 21 to 9 pounds.⁴⁵

In sum, without controlling Sudan’s macro-economic indicators, inflation will devour all additional profits gained from reducing subsidies, leaving the electricity sector with a double bill for fuel from thermal stations, current and future. Also, in light of inflation rates, which exceeded 260 per cent in March 2022,⁴⁶ and the very low purchasing power of the population (more than half of whom are below the poverty line),⁴⁷ the liberalization of prices in this context can only lead to further deviation from the sector’s goals for electrification by 2031. Indeed, successful electrification experiences in countries such as Ghana and South Korea⁴⁸ have only come as a result of government efforts to design a fee and tariff package that is appropriate for citizens with limited and irregular incomes.

b) The energy mix for future capacity

Figure 2: A comparison between the five-year plan of the Government of Sudan and that proposed by the World Bank

As a result of the lack of full coordination between the various competent authorities during al-Bashir’s era, it is difficult to compare the plan developed in 2018 for Sudan’s future energy capacity and the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions that were agreed upon at the Conference of the Parties in Paris (COP21) and updated in 2021.⁴⁹ The 2018 plan aims to construct new plants with a capacity of 3,000 megawatts before 2031, with a mixture of wind and solar energy, both on and off the grid. Meanwhile, the government plan recommends additional 60 per cent capacity from thermal plants, a proposition which the World Bank report slightly revised, reducing the thermal generation rate to 50 per cent and increasing renewable energies (excluding hydro-power generation) to 800 megawatts for both wind and solar energy. This equates to 10 per cent of the future additional capacity of each of the two sources, as demonstrated in Figure 2. Also, the report adopts criteria of the least-cost plan in order to reach the energy mixture for future capacity. This approach only takes into account the financial costs of projects, ignoring their social and environmental costs.

In light of this discussion, one question cannot be overlooked: why do future capacity plans not include renewable energies? This question is particularly important for two reasons. First, daily solar radiation rates are extremely high in Sudan, and wind speeds exceed 7 m/s in several locations,⁵⁰ which makes it an ideal environment for producing wind energy. Second, there has been a discernible decline in the prices of renewable energies over the last few years, with prices reaching a level of competitiveness comparable with those of conventional energy sources. 

Hyper-centralization is another feature that remains dominant in the planning mindset in Sudan. The experiences of countries in the region and other countries of the Global South offer many examples of alternative and decentralized models being successfully utilized as appropriate solutions for electrification problems, challenges with attempts to transition to clean energies, and the huge financing obstacles that hinder centralized projects. For example, Kenya successfully increased its electrification rates from 32 per cent in 2013 to 75 per cent in 2018. It achieved this by resorting to a mixture of technical and institutional solutions including conventional on-grid, solar home systems, and mini/micro-grids.⁵¹ Moreover, the cost of micro-grids is steadily decreasing, and the capacities of what is currently known as the technologically flexible ‘third generation’ micro-grids offer real prospects, such as the possibility of connecting groups of micro-grids together, or connecting them to the national grid in the future.⁵²

Although the parameters of the future energy capacity plan emphasize the crucial role of micro-grids in the project of universal electrification in sparsely populated areas of Sudan, there are in fact no details about their role in the short term. Further, the report follows the model of government policies, which are characterized by directing limited financial resources to strengthen consumer supply within the grid. This strategy came about as an urgent response to the urban supply crisis but it was at the expense of electrification projects for off-grid users, despite the high social costs of depriving more than 60 per cent of the population of their right to access electricity, which should be seen as a basic service.

c) Involvement of the private sector

In the concoction of liberalisation that has been described over and over again globally, the magic ingredient is the opportunity for the private sector to participate in order to attract funding and expertise. In 2010, the National Electricity Authority, which monopolizes all electricity supply operations, was divided into five companies, as per their technical functions, such as thermal and hydro generation, transmission and distribution, and so on. This reform provided the private sector with the opportunity to enter the generation sector, as independent power producers (IPPs). However, with the exception of isolated plants whose construction and operation were privatized, accounting for no more than 3 per cent of the total capacity – the private sector did not engage in any way in subsequent generation projects. The World Bank report attributes this lack of involvement to the absence of a comprehensive framework detailing the partnership process and its regulations, in addition to the low (subsidized) electricity tariffs, which are deemed unattractive to investors.

The framework that the World Bank report proposes pushes the current sector reforms towards becoming more attractive to investors, rather than increasing electric capacity and restructure public companies so they can efficiently lead future projects. Not only does the profitability (un)logic at the core of the electricity sector reforms threaten the latter’s durability, these reforms may be difficult to attain in the first place, which will render the sector prey, once again, to quick-fix emergency solutions.

The guidelines and best practices in the power generation industry,⁵³ which guide the world’s energy investors, contrast sharply with the current state of the sector in Sudan. Among guidelines and best practices are a range of determinants considered important for a successful energy sector, such as environments that are conducive to investment, clear and consistent policy frameworks, competitive practices of competitive bidding, stable fuel supplies, and so on. Such conditions are difficult to imagine in the near future in Sudan, especially in light of the political and economic instability currently affecting the country. For instance, Turkish independent powers producers, which own some isolated plants in Sudan, currently suffer difficulties in securing fuel supplies, as well as experiencing delays in receiving government payments. In response to these problems, they have cut off supplies to some Sudanese cities for days at a time.⁵⁴

Perhaps the most reasonable and just scenario, especially for the poorer classes, lies in extricating the private sector from attempts to solve the electricity crisis in Sudan. Indeed, this scenario would involve directing those very development loans to public companies directly to the sector itself, as well as departing from free market conditions and determinants. Most of these free market conditions terms have been shown to be in stark contrast to electrification projects that incorporate a social dimension, such as the Lifeline Tariff, cross-subsidy,⁵⁵ fair import taxes, and localization requirements for industries and labour. In a general sense, the provision of financing – which the private sector has sought to rationalize – has become a means of ‘privatizing aid’. In turn, this serves as a neo-colonial tool that increases the dependence of the Global South. Furthermore, it does not help achieve sustainable solutions to distinctive problems facing societies in the Global South. Rather, privatized aid becomes a channel through which the budgets of development support for private companies are spent. Power Africa, for instance, is the largest energy project initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, with total funding commitments of $54 billion. This project is being used by the US government to increase the profits accrued by the private sector in the US. In 2016, it directed nearly 90 per cent of its funds – amounting to $7 billion – to private US banks and financial institutions in order to implement or finance energy projects in sub-Saharan Africa.⁵⁶

Therefore, the argument that local energy companies lack the operational competence required to lead such projects is refutable. During the oil years in Sudan (1999–2011), the economic recovery associated with this era provided the state treasury with significant surplus. Despite the corruption and nepotism present at this time, the National Electricity Authority did not lack technical and administrative expertise to carry out successful and large-scale reforms. These included the shift to a pre-payment system,⁵⁷ which raised collection rates to 93 per cent (among the highest in the region).⁵⁸ Also, generous amounts were spent on rehabilitating and training cadres within and outside Sudan, which put the country in a good position: high financial benefits preserved the electricity sector from the phenomenon of brain drain that characterizes most other sectors in the country. In the last few years, projects have also been undertaken to localize the manufacture of equipment, such as transformer assembly plants, and the manufacture and programming of pre-payment meters.

It can be argued that it would be better to take even the smallest of steps in the right direction, one which is sustainable and socially just, rather than attempting to take big leaps to solve the problems of limited social groups (the rich and the upper classes), including through taking choices that have significant environmental and social ramifications, often for the poor and marginalized classes. In addition to the problem of access to the grid, from which the rural population, nomads, and the precarious urban classes in Sudan have continuously suffered, the extent of frequent power outages in urban areas has only worsened in recent years. While this crisis situation motivates the search for emergency and less costly solutions, it can also be an opportunity to rethink conventional ways of generating and managing the electrical supply. 

From independence until now, the complete disregard for the livelihoods of local communities and their problems has been a steady feature of large energy projects in Sudan, such as hydropower dams. This neglect has been manifested in forced displacement and the destruction of traditional livelihoods. Additionally, this trajectory of increasing thermal plants in the country, driven by their low initial cost and the relative ease of their construction operations, severely harms the environment. Furthermore, the dependence on imported fuels has been proven to inflate the operating costs of these plants, especially in light of the continuous deterioration of the local currency and the recent rise in global fuel prices. 

The current roadmap for resolving the electricity crisis relies on the full and unconditional adoption of neoliberal reforms dictated by international financial institutions. The latter claim to support the Sudanese people in their aspirations for a democratic transition. Nevertheless, the outline of these future reforms is no different from the sector’s previous strategies, or even from the hydro-energy projects implemented in the colonial era. Among the key features of these reforms is the gradual lifting of subsidies on electricity tariffs, attracting private investors, and estimating future capacities using the criteria of the least-cost plan. These three themes have been discussed throughout this paper, as well as their social, economic, and environmental consequences, especially for the most vulnerable social groups in Sudanese society. 

It is important to note that this paper does not claim to provide a comprehensive answer to the thorny questions which the current electricity crisis in Sudan poses. Rather, it has attempted to point out basic criteria and priorities which must be taken into account when considering solutions to this crisis, and the reason why current approaches to the crisis are flawed. When it comes to the question of supply, there is the problem of prioritizing the private sector and centralized generation plants with energy sources that are not environmentally friendly, for purely financial reasons. When it comes to consumption, citizens outside the grid’s range and in marginalized areas are given secondary importance, while the high tariffs are disproportionate to the conditions of the poorest groups. 

Moreover, it is worth emphasizing that there is no single solution that can meet the needs of all of Sudan’s social groups. The current complex situation calls for studying and understanding the needs and contexts of different social groups, which will dictate different technical solutions and institutional structures. In turn, such a process will require different forms of financing that can enable the mobilization of financial resources, ranging from self-financing and public and private capital to low- or zero-interest rate development aid. Sudan can also join other countries in pushing the climate reparation agenda,⁵⁹ in order to obtain financial resources that do not carry the burden of additional debt. Indeed, this would enable Sudan to adopt energy generation technologies which can help reduce emissions and reduce dependence on plant sources of fuel, which threaten forests and vegetation. This move will also enable access to an appropriate mix of solutions based on centralized, decentralized, or stand-alone supply systems and a more socially just budget allocation. 

As with many problems in countries in the Global South, the current electricity supply crisis in Sudan requires an urgent, sustainable, and feasible solution. Such a solution will need to involve a great degree of integrated planning between various state apparatuses, as well as rearranging priorities on basis of the requirements of a socio-economic development which is just, sustainable and suitable for local contexts. A green and just energy transition in Sudan must take into consideration the importance of formulating policies independent of the imaginaries of the old colonial legacy – a legacy which is based on huge infrastructure and political symbols and icons that serve the elites. A just transition will also need to eschew the neo-colonial facades and their promises of financing, whose effects are only reflected in the stock prices of transnational corporations.

Cuando el holandés Gijsbert Huijink intentó instalar placas solares en su casa de Banyoles, en la provincia catalana de Girona, descubrió un laberinto jurídico que criminalizaba el autoconsumo energético. “Si me quería conectar a la red para rellenar las baterías y para volcar mi sobrante tenía que pagar un dineral”, aseguraba Gijsbert Huijink en una entrevista.¹ Huijink cocinó una dulce venganza colectiva: fundó Som Energia,² la primera cooperativa energética de España. Con ayuda de su esposa, sus alumnos en la universidad y algunos amigos, Gijsbert puso la primera piedra para cambiar el mercado energético español. Som Energia ha pasado de los 150 contratos iniciales de 2010 a 125.589 en marzo de 2021,³ y es la cooperativa energética de mayor crecimiento de Europa. Cientos de ayuntamientos han contratado ya sus servicios y decenas de nuevas cooperativas de energía están replicando su modelo.

Som Energia tiene una característica que marca diferencias con buena parte del ambientalismo. No es apenas un proyecto reactivo: es propositivo. No apuesta por la protesta, sino por la acción. No se queda en la defensa de unos ideales, sino que los pone en práctica. No se limita a criticar un orden económico basado en los combustibles fósiles: pone en marcha uno nuevo. No solo denuncia la injusticia de unas normas, sino que experimenta con nuevas formas de democracia. No apuesta por lo individual: busca la sostenibilidad con recetas comunitarias y en red.

Som Energía fue una de las 32 iniciativas que participaron en la primera edición del Premio del Público Ciudades Transformadoras y el Atlas de Utopías, la peculiar coopetición⁴ lanzada por el Transnational Institute (TNI) en 2018, que ha completado ya tres ediciones⁵ y encarna a la perfección el espíritu que permea a todas ellas. Los proyectos ganadores⁶ de este premio son un refrescante mosaico de “utopías reales”. Utopías en marcha, pragmáticas, asumibles. Utopías simples que satisfacen deseos simples, como apunta Rutger Bregman en su ensayo Utopías para realistas.⁷ “Utopías reales”.⁸

¿Qué características comparten las iniciativas del Atlas de Utopías?⁹ ¿Qué horizontes despliegan?  

Una respuesta comunitaria a la contaminación del agua / Cochabamba, Bolivia

Desde que en 1516 Tomás Moro describiera en su libro Utopía una isla con un sistema político, social y legal perfecto, esa palabra ha provocado ríos de tinta. La humanidad comenzó entonces a proyectar sus deseos hacia el futuro. La mitología que explicaba el pasado –mitos fundacionales, leyendas– se canalizó hacia el futuro, creando la utopía. Su forma más exaltante llegó en El principio esperanza, publicado en la década de 1950 por Ernst Bloch, donde se superpusieron los mitos modernos de la utopía, la revolución y el arte.¹⁰ La utopía está en el horizonte. Sirve para caminar.¹¹

Sin embargo, desde que Francis Fukuyama proclamase en 1992 el fin de la historia,¹² emergió un presente claustrofóbico gobernado por la economía global. El desplome de los gobiernos comunistas, según dicho autor, consagraba a la democracia liberal como única alternativa posible. El futuro empezó a no estar a la altura de las expectativas de tantos siglos utópicos. El futuro perdió brillo inspirador. Los horizontes posibles se difuminaron. Los sueños grandilocuentes de la modernidad se deshilacharon, tal vez por su desmesurada ambición. La utopía se desinfló. Como apunta Franco Bifo Berardi en Después del futuro,¹³ la técnica se ha revelado una divinidad despótica que anula el futuro, transformando el tiempo en una ilimitada generación de fragmentos idénticos.

El Atlas de Utopías es una bocanada energizante para un mundo que se quedó sin la gran utopía. Y una prueba palpable de que las “utopías reales” están en marcha. Nos encontramos no ya con una utopía mayúscula, sino con decenas, centenares, miles de micro utopías en red.¹⁴ Micro utopías en las que los encuentros humanos tejen territorios. Micro utopías concretas que activan lo que la socióloga argentina Maristella Svampa denomina “comunidades de afinidad”.¹⁵  Comunidades que se recrean y se reproducen a sí mismas en el proceso de su hacer. Cuando la vecindad de San Pedro Magisterio, un barrio de la ciudad boliviana de Cochabamba, se organizó para la construcción y gestión de una planta de aguas residuales, se reforzó la gestión comunitaria del ciclo del agua y del propio barrio.¹⁶ La Fundación Abril, con el apoyo de varias organizaciones, hizo posible la instalación de una planta de tratamiento de aguas en el barrio. El proceso se transformó en una herramienta educativa (sesiones en los colegios), de acción política y de cohesión social. La gestión comunitaria del agua desde un territorio desborda a su vez el paradigma de lo público. Las finalistas de todas las ediciones del premio Ciudades Transformadoras, del que se nutre el Atlas de Utopías, son utopías situadas en el territorio y en las comunidades y están ancladas en la esfera más propicia para poner en práctica estas micro utopías: la local.

En su libro Decir no no basta, la periodista canadiense Naomi Klein desmenuza la importancia de la creación y afirmación de un mundo nuevo. La reacción contra un sistema es insuficiente. “El ‘no’ no es suficiente. Debe ser un sí y debe haber confianza en el sí. Hay que proponer una alternativa que genere confianza. Lo primero es diseñar alternativas reales, que no solo sean creíbles, sino inspiradoras y excitantes”.²⁵ La demanda propositiva de Klein dialoga con una de las frases más míticas de Buckminster Fuller: “Nunca cambias las cosas combatiendo la realidad existente. Para cambiar algo, construye un nuevo modelo que haga obsoleto el modelo existente”.²⁶ Un mundo se combate con un mundo. Una visión, con otra visión. Las micro utopías en red, a diferencia de la utopía, visibilizan un nuevo sistema, un nuevo mundo tejido con mecanismos y hábitos de reconocimiento mutuo.

La eco aldea irlandesa Cloughjordan, finalista de la edición 2020 del Premio Ciudades Transformadoras, camina en la dirección del sí holístico de Naomi Klein. Y enuncia un mundo completo. No se limita a denunciar el crecimiento ilimitado y no sostenible de las ciudades, sino que pone en práctica un modelo de transición basado en las comunidades y el consumo de proximidad. Gracias al diseño de bajas emisiones de sus 55 viviendas, a un sistema de calefacción urbana neutral en carbono, a una granja comunitaria, a un centro empresarial ecológico y a una planta de tratamiento planificada de lechos de juncos, Cloughjordan tiene la huella ecológica más baja de Irlanda. El mundo propio de la eco aldea está interconectado y multiplicado por numerosas actividades educativas.

La ecocomuna Cloughjordan modela la transición hacia una sociedad con bajas emisiones de carbono / Cloughjordan, Irlanda

Aunque en el sí y la afirmación de un mundo resida la viabilidad del nuevo sistema, existen casos en los que una acción es “no” y “sí” simultáneamente. Algunas de las iniciativas del Atlas de Utopías reúnen la poco habitual característica de la resistencia creativa. Cuando una acción consigue ser “sí” (creación) y “no” (resistencia), la micro utopía visibiliza al máximo la potencia transformadora del nuevo modelo. El caso de las mujeres trabajadoras de la industria beedi (cigarros) en la ciudad india de Solapur hace patente cómo la resistencia contra la especulación y la infravivienda acabó dando forma a un mundo. Tras años de luchas y de organización de cooperativas, las mujeres cigarreras consiguieron fundar la RAY Nagar Cooperative Housing Federation,²⁷ la mayor cooperativa de vivienda de Asia. En 2015, los gobiernos locales accedieron a construir 30.000 viviendas asequibles para las cigarreras y las trabajadoras textiles en el barrio marginal de Kumbhari. El proyecto incluye espacios al aire libre, así como terrenos para establecer servicios comunitarios, escuelas y hospitales. El Gobierno estatal y el federal contribuyeron con la construcción del tendido eléctrico, una subestación eléctrica y tanques de agua. Kumbhari renace con los nuevos servicios públicos y la apertura de nuevas tiendas. El mercado de verduras Kranti Chowk es uno de los más vibrantes de Solapur.

Una asociación de mujeres trabajadoras construye decenas de miles de viviendas / Solapur, India

El filósofo Bertrand Russell, a su manera, llegó a declinar la definición categórica de la utopía: No es una utopía acabada lo que deberíamos desear, sino un mundo donde la imaginación y la esperanza estén vivas y activas.²⁸ Tras el derrumbe del gran relato de la utopía moderna, el gran potencial de lo utópico no reside tanto en la concreción y la descripción de una realidad cerrada por venir, como en posibilitar que el mundo esté necesariamente poblado de mundos, como insiste desde hace décadas el neozapatismo. Un mundo que pueda ser habitado por la esperanza. Tal vez por eso, Ernst Bloch se esforzara tanto en estudiar la esperanza que persiste hasta en situaciones terroríficas gracias a lo que denomina “imágenes deseo” o “imágenes anhelo”. Imágenes que sirven de prototipos para pasar fronteras. Imágenes cargadas de emociones. Emociones positivas que,²⁹ aunque no conduzcan a acciones tan urgentes como las negativas, acaban abriendo y ampliando el rango de pensamientos y acciones.

De las iniciativas del Atlas de Utopías emanan “imágenes deseo” que, de alguna manera, hacen deseable un mundo nuevo. Ya sean niños participando en la limpieza de un río en Cochabamba o un grupo de cigarreras yendo en autobús público a su fábrica de Solapur, las “imágenes deseo” desplazan el horizonte de lo posible. Emocionan. Y ensanchan, conectando las micro utopías en red puestas en marcha por las más diversas comunidades. El sí de Naomi Klein es inviable si apenas es un modelo teórico. El no no basta. Un sí emitido desde la teoría, tampoco. El sí tiene que estar habitado por prácticas políticas y ciudadanas, por narrativas, por imaginarios, por símbolos nuevos, por valores compartidos, por emociones, por nuevos sentidos comunes, por visiones del mundo, por sistemas económicos alternativos. Los espacios acogedores para el encuentro, un nosotros abierto (el jiwasa de los aimaras), los lemas agregadores (el “somos el 99%” de Occupy Wall Street) y las emociones positivas compartidas desbordan el principio esperanza de Bloch. La acción colectiva multiplica la esperanza hacia un futuro que puede ser habitado en común. Y hay menos incertezas en ese futuro, porque está controlado por las comunidades.

Por ello, escribe Andrea de la Serna en el artículo Un común por venir,³⁰ no debemos ya depositar las esperanzas de la revolución en un horizonte futuro, sino generar las condiciones para darnos el horizonte que queramos. Para saltar el muro del fin de la historia y vislumbrar algo de esperanza, la humanidad debe restituir la confianza en las fuerzas del presente. Cuando aparezca un desvío, por pequeño que parezca, tenemos que potenciarlo, alimentarlo, hacerlo respirar. Organizar encuentros, cuidarnos en comunidad, crear “imágenes deseo” en todas partes.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, poetisa y fundadora del Partido Pirata islandés, destaca la importancia de enunciar un futuro poblado de imágenes y visiones de esperanza: “Si la gente tiene que elegir entre miedo y esperanza, suele elegir esperanza. El futuro no va a ser una única visión, será un collage de visiones. Necesitamos un pensamiento inclusivo sobre el futuro”.³¹