Global Witness seems to be either confused or applying double standards when it comes to the issue of conflict funding. The Financial Times says that a Global Witness report, due out today, claims cocoa exports from the Ivory Coast – the world’s largest producer – ‘have contributed to funding and prolonging the conflict there’.

 

Pods of war

Pods of war

Global Witness has drawn a parallel between the way cocoa exports have been used by both the government and rebel forces to fund war efforts with the way rough diamond and sales were used in neighbouring Liberia. Cocoa exports, says Global Witness, have provided up to $30 million a year to rebel groups since 2004.

But GW isn’t calling for a certification scheme along the lines of the Kimberley Process, which it helped initiate for diamonds. It is proposing instead that cocoa exporting companies operating in the country publish information on the origin of the cocoa they buy, carry out due diligence on purchases, disclose payments to Ivorian cocoa bodies and use their influence to prevent revenues from entering war chests.

First of all, how can any group of companies influence the way a government – or any group of suppliers – spends its revenues? Even a UN-backed international effort like the Kimberley Process hasn’t really been effective as Global Witness themselves will tell you. The issue needs a complete rethink.

The fact of the matter is, almost any economic activity that involves exports has the potential to fuel conflict as long as it generates the hard cash necessary for arms purchases. Even the timber industry, involving the felling and transportation of huge, hardwood trees, was a source of conflict funding as mentioned above.

The diamond industry – perhaps because it is associate with luxury and affluence in stark contrast to the grinding poverty in these countries – was easy to brand as bad guys. And once that label was pinned on, it was inevitable that the security agencies of various countries would begin sniffing around for possible terrorist connections. But diamond digging is the only source of income in many places like Sierra Leone – I know, I spent nearly a month in that country a couple of years ago and nothing much has changed since then.

Diamond digging is as legitimate a commercial activity as cocoa growing. What use the money earned is put to, is another matter altogether. As long as there is a breakdown in civil society and its institutions, money can be diverted to all sorts of negative and harmful uses.

While I maintain that we need the NGOs to play a watchdog role in these areas, I also agree with Rob Bates that they do seem to be going to ridiculous lengths. By simply concentrating on the potential dark side of perfectly legitimate economic activity – that the concerned conflict-hit areas desperately need – they might have lost the plot. The diamond and chocolate industries do have a responsibility to the people in the countries they source their product from. But I think everyone including the NGOs need to concentrate more on building up civil society and institutions in these areas. Trying to control any economic activity in impoverished countries is hopeless.