On Monday, the London-based multinational consumer goods company Unilever decided to pay compensation to 77 tea pickers who worked on its plantation in Kenya, which was attacked during the post-election violence.
However, the decision did not satisfy the victims' lawyers, who argue that Unilever's new payments continue the company's attempts to avoid addressing the workers' grievances and that justice must be served.
Sputnik Africa sat down with experts to discuss the challenges for Africans posed by the activities of Western multinationals in the continent and how African countries can avoid similar scenarios in the future.
Instead of cooperating with Western corporations, African nations have an alternative, which is South-South collaboration, Isaac Yitzhak Mosbey, Kenya's Nandi county Assembly leader and former chairman of a trade union told Sputnik Africa.
The expert brought an example of a number of developing countries that had similar difficulties as those Africa is facing now, but managed to escape from them.
"Ideally the South-South collaboration is the way to go [...] Countries like India, progressive countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and such kinds of the tigers [Tiger Cub Economies], they had similar problems like we do now, particularly in Africa where the Western conflicts were being waged in places. But now they managed to liberate themselves through collaborations and solutions coming from within themselves," Yitzhak Mosbey noted.
However, the pundit warned that "there will always be frustration" from the West. According to him, the US and Western countries are interfering in countries that lean toward the Global South, generating instability there.
"For example, when China came in strongly, it didn't please them [the US and the Western countries] and that's why you see the instability that is usually created in the form of elections [...] In some other countries, you've seen dissenting factions being armed in order to rise against a regime that is seen not to be from the West or rather that they seem to be leaning to the south-to-south kind of inclination," Yitzhak Mosbey pointed out.
Commenting on the presence of Western companies in Kenya, the expert noted that multinationals get "the prime land and are reaping huge profits," while local farmers who work on their country's land for the sake of companies, "are given so little returns."
In this vein, the expert suggested that it is necessary to develop strict laws that would limit the amount of profits that are allowed to be exported to countries where transnational corporations are registered.
Turning to Uniliver's payment of compensation to affected workers, the expert noted that "there is no financial compensation that can be sufficient," since the natives were displaced and lost their prime lands.
Challenges Posed by Western Corps
Uniliver's decision to pay compensation more than a decade after the violent events is belated and surprising given the company's positioning as a conscientious employer that cares about its employees and the environment, Christopher Oyier, advocate of the High Court of Kenya, explained to Sputnik Africa.
"For a company of the scale of Unilever which prides itself in protecting employee health and well-being and a beacon of observance of environment, of human rights standards that are set out by the United Nations, it's really surprising that it took them so long, first of all, to make this kind of move to pay the victims," the advocate said.
The expert added that the corporation's move was not an internal motivation, but was a "reactionary gesture based on the lawsuits they faced in the UK." Furthermore, since the London-based company announced it was paying compensation on a voluntary basis, there's "no accountability to it," he opined.
"If they are making this gesture 15 years after the event, it's not very much in good faith. It shows that they had to be prompted. And it doesn't look well on a company like Unilever," Oyier remarked.
Responding to Sputnik Africa's question on what can be done to make Western multinationals more socially accountable in Africa, the expert noted that the biggest challenge for African countries is the lack of enforcement mechanisms for already existing laws and policies on transnational companies.
"Enforcement needs to be strengthened by the host governments in Africa to ensure that the laws that we have on environmental and social standards are adequately enforced against these multinational corporations," he pointed out.
It becomes a daunting task for the governments to ensure that companies comply with laws since "a lot of the host states depend on these multinational corporations" which are "some of the largest taxpayers and largest employers locally," Oyier explained.
Another challenge for African governments is to facilitate workers' access to rights protection systems, i.e. local courts and thus provide legal recourse, the lawyer said, arguing that people who are trying to enforce their rights "are very vulnerable and are at the bottom of the ladder."
"Most of the people who are trying to enforce their rights are at the bottom of the ladder, they are very vulnerable, employees who cannot afford legal action at a scale against this giant multinational company," Oyier said. And if there's need to support people to enforce their rights outside the country, for example, again, the mother company, there has to be proper standards."
In addition, the lawyer mentioned the problem of arbitration of disputes, saying that multinational companies operating in an African country are trying to move dispute resolution procedures outside the country, which puts local courts at a "disadvantage."
"So even if you have an award against a multinational company, there's an additional step that you need to unlock the fruits of your award," the expert stressed.
The expert summarized by noting that African host states make a lot of concessions to foreign corporations, which does not put African governments on an equal footing with them, hence the need "to look at other ways of improving cooperation."
Within that approach, Oyier pointed out, South-South cooperation is a "sure way that needed to be explored."
"It's possible to bring together the developing countries and not only to address issues on climate change, but economic cooperation and strengthening local economies through trade facilitation. So I think that's a way that will help them avoid some of these challenges they face with the big corporations resident outside the continent," he concluded.