[governance] Does Africa Needs Help?

[Nyangkwe Agien Aaron]

Hi all, I stumble on this quite interesting stuff that portrays how
the West patronizes dictatorship and bad governances to serve their
own agenda. Aids is handed over to plunderers who stash the money in
Western banks and the interest from the said money returns back as
AIDS. A vicious circle, isn't it
Question: Can the West outlive aids to their cronies that promote
dictatorship and bad governance?

How Not to Help Africa
REBECCA TINSLEY
June 2008
               http://www.standpointmag.com/node/109/full


In West Africa they describe people who waste money as being "as
stupid as a white man." As if to prove their point, the so-called
'donor' nations of the affluent industrialised West are changing the
way they give their aid to less developed countries. Instead of
allocating money, with conditions attached, for specific projects,
such as building roads or schools, we increasingly allow the
recipients to decide how to spend it. This is because 'conditionality'
is viewed as colonialist and 'confrontational,' to borrow the jargon
of the aid industry. This new fashion for unconditional aid is led by
Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) and it comes
in the form of "Budget Support".


It is the most recent in a long line of initiatives, dating back to
the 1950s, aimed at "building capacity," ostensibly enabling
developing countries to run themselves more efficiently and openly.


Consequently, twenty per cent of UK aid is put directly into the
coffers of governments, allowing the recipients to 'determine their
own priorities.' That percentage is set to rise, and governments such
as the Canadians and Scandinavians are following suit, keen to be seen
as sensitive to the needs of their 'clients.'


At the root of budget support is an assumption that political elites
in developing countries genuinely care about the welfare of their
poor, diseased and ignorant masses, when this is manifestly not always
the case.


Surely only politicians and civil servants seriously believe we can
make poverty history by handing cash to their opposite numbers in
poverty-stricken countries. As the development economist William
Easterly asks, "What are the chances these billions are going to reach
poor people?"


The results of this policy are plain for anyone inclined to inquire:
in one central African nation, children sit seventy to a classroom,
straining to see the blackboard in near darkness, while the Ministry
of Defence leaves the lights burning day and night in its 1500 rooms.


Anti-malaria drugs and mosquito nets paid for by the British
government fail to reach villages across Africa, and textbooks in
local languages never arrive at schools.


A comprehensive and understated survey of seventeen countries
receiving budget support from DFID published by Birmingham University
in 2006 finds,


"…over-optimistic assumptions about the ability of international
partners (meaning DFID) to influence matters that are deeply rooted in
partner countries' political systems." Budget support, they conclude,
"…does not transform underlying political realities."


Attempts to improve efficiency according to "agreed performance
targets and conditions," are always "more significant in the eyes of
the donors than in those of the partner governments."


The American who administers his nation's aid programme in one central
African country laughs at loud at the naivety implicit in DFID's
policy.


Yet, curiously, there is cross-party consensus in Britain in favour of
the 1960's belief that the state can solve any development problem,
given a big enough purse. The same parties noisily rejected this
mantra in domestic politics twenty years ago.


More seriously, we ignore the concerns of African citizens who are
incredulous that the rich West lectures them on the need for
accountability and transparency, while bolstering their thieving or
wasteful rulers with money.


As a community leader in a camp in northern Uganda commented to me
last month, We never see the schools or clinics. Your aid buys
Mercedes for the Big Men."


Some recipient governments grasp exactly what donors want to hear,
readily agreeing to 'capacity building' programmes emphasising
increased accountability. They dutifully echo the donor's jargon,
while laughing behind our backs, and flicking through the latest
Mercedes catalogue for their new ministerial limousine.


Indeed, the shrewdest foreign 'clients' spend some budget support
hiring British consultants, many of whom once worked for DFID. Then
they endure marathon meetings with DFID officials, drawing up
consultation papers outlining how capacity is to be built, agreeing to
whatever is being prescribed. And then they carry on as usual.


The corrupt African elite also understands which buttons elicit a
response from well-meaning donors who are terrified of seeming
colonialist or imperialist.


In case you think this sounds cynical, ask yourself for whose benefit
are the signs, written in English, in Ethiopia proclaiming, "Support
girls' education"? The answer, of course, is visiting donors, such as
DFID officials and politicians.


In extreme cases, such as the notoriously corrupt Cameroon and Malawi,
DFID has partly suspended funding. But why were they given budget
support in the first place? Don't the people at DFID follow the latest
corruption scandals in Africa Confidential?


An estimated $2.3 trillion of aid has gone to Africa since 1945 with
disappointing results. The World Bank reluctantly concludes time and
again in its reports that higher aid often leads to worse bureaucracy
and more corruption.


Not surprisingly, we share the blame for this regrettable state of
affairs. At independence we handed power to small elites, often from a
favoured tribe, without ensuring home grown interest groups could
adequately counter the private use of public power and resources, or
military force used to terrorise citizens.


If we were serious about fighting poverty, ignorance and disease in
Africa, we would do as the people – not their rulers – want: direct
more funds through reputable UK charities working with local civil
society groups at village level. Real empowerment and sustainable
development happens at the grassroots, not in the corridors of power.
Any visitor to Africa who has bothered to listen to the people grasps
this simple truth. Why don't our officials?


Meanwhile, we sign cheques, tick boxes, and feel better about
ourselves. Perhaps we should wonder, as the characters in Elspeth
Huxley's African fable, 'The Flame Trees of Thika' did, almost a
hundred years ago, for whose benefit it all is.

Rebecca Tinsley is director of Waging Peace
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COMMENTS
Anonymous
June 13th, 2008
4:06 PM A compelling case - but how can the UK government ensure that
those charities spend their (taxpayers') money effectively? Would it
not be better to allow taxpayers to decide directly how and whether to
give aid? Even if not so, there are serious foreign policy
implications - giving and witholding aid allows us to influence
recipient country's policies; this needs to be done more robustly
through offical channels as advocated herein. Moreover, DFID should be
abolished as a department and placed back under the FCO's purview
ensuring a link between foreign and development policy (which would
have mitigated some of the problems of Iraq) plus reducing
bureaucracy. Lastly, of course, the whole concept of continuing to
increase the amount aid is flawed; the problems lie more deeply rooted
in the world's unfair trading system and the protectionism of European
and US governments towards the developing world. The CAP most of all.
Note the new protectionist axis recently announced by France and Italy
and Americans move towards protectionism advocated by both McCain and
Obama.

-- 
Aaron Agien Nyangkwe
Journalist/Outcome Mapper
Special Assistant To The President
Coach of ASAFE Camaroes Street Football Team.
ASAFE
P.O.Box 5213
Douala-Cameroon
Tel. 237 3337 50 22
Cell Phone: 237 79 95 71 97
Fax. 237 3342 29 70
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