Why Swaziland puts so much trust in the Commonwealth

The Commonwealth trade declaration calling on next month's World Trade Organisation ministerial conference to reach agreement on the elimination of export subsidies has a more significant meaning to some of the poorer members of the Commonwealth.

The declaration was welcomed by Absalom Themba Dlamini, the Prime Minister of Swaziland, a small country of 1.1 million people, landlocked by South Africa and Mozambique.

With a gross domestic product per capita of $1,350, Swaziland is one of the poorest states in Africa. It had a drought problem in recent years and this, together with land degradation, increasing poverty and the problem of HIV and AIDS led the country's king to declare a humanitarian crisis.

Mr Dlamini believes that organisations such as the Commonwealth could help his country in both technical assistance and financial resources.

He said in a brief interview that the country needed to prepare itself to manage the disaster it was facing. It had to prepare the infrastructure to make the best out of torrents and rain, when these came.

"We have already built one big dam and we are building another. To a great extent, this will help us manage this disaster."

Swaziland, a nation with 17 per cent of its private sector employment being in the sugar industry, which contributed 18 per cent to the country's GDP, sought the Commonwealth's support to look into the price of sugar.

"We are also a sugar producing country and given the imminent reduction of sugar prices, which we feel will have a very big impact on us, it is now important that this issue makes it to the WTO agenda and the Doha round of trade negotiations.

"The WTO has to make a speedy decision, particularly with regard to relations between developed and developing countries."

So how does the EU's common agricultural policy and its proposed reform affect Swaziland's sugar industry?

This, Mr Dlamini said, would have a very big impact, especially on small farmers with loans, which they already have difficulty to service.

To combat the HIV/AIDS problem, Swaziland was investing expertise and financial resources and it was at this point in time getting assistance from the global fund and other organisations. These were helping the government conduct campaigns giving the people the facts about the problem.

During a visit there a couple of months ago, World Health Organisation Afro regional director Luis Gaos Sambo proposed that Swaziland increases from eight to 15 per cent the allocation of funds from its national budget to the health sector.

Asked whether the country would be taking up this proposal, Mr Dlamini said the matter was certainly being considered. Swaziland was not only willing to invest in the health sector, it was willing to invest quite a lot.

At 38.6 per cent, Swaziland is the Commonwealth country with the highest rate of people infected with HIV/AIDS.

To stimulate economic growth, the country recently held a job creation summit. Moreover, "we have mobilised the equivalent of a quarter of a billion US dollars in our currency from the private sector and the government.

"We, the government and the private sector, are investing this in the development of the country. We are making the environment as conducive to economic growth as possible. From the government side we need to make sure economic management is up to standard and that there is good fiscal discipline."

Asked to explain Swaziland's political situation and what changes would the Constitution ratified last July be bringing about, Mr Dlamini said the Constitution, coming into effect on January 26, would be ensuring human rights - rights for children, women and freedom of expression and of association. It also spells out who is responsible for what.