PHM-Exch> The trouble with aid: why less could mean more for Africa

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Will Podmore <W.Podmore at bso.ac.uk>


The trouble with aid: why less could mean more for Africa, by Jonathan
Glennie, paperback, 175 pages, ISBN 978-1-84813-040-1, Zed Books, 2008,
£12.99.





Jonathan Glennie, an experienced policy analyst for several international
development charities, has written a very useful study of aid. He criticises
the simple assumption that doubling aid would halve poverty.



He points out, “In reality, in many African countries aid has meant more
poverty, more hungry people, worse basic services for poor people and damage
to already precarious democratic institutions.”



African incomes per head rose 36 per cent between 1960 and 1980, but under
international Thatcherism, between 1980 and 2000, they fell by 15 per cent.
IMF cuts forced Africa’s spending on education down by 65 per cent between
1980 and 1987. In the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF imposed user fees on health
care, making child mortality in Zimbabwe rise by 13 per cent.



The aid conditions of privatisation and liberalisation have had more impact
than aid money. As he observes, “donor conditions have harmed Africa
overall.” He notes, “trade liberalisation policies as a whole have cost
Africa $272 billion since 1985.” A 2004 report found that “adjustment
policies have contributed to the further impoverishment and marginalisation
of local populations, while increasing economic inequality.”



Glennie notes, “The European Union is currently using the promise of better
trade access through Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) to pressurize
African governments to adopt policies most do not want to adopt. Just like
aid conditionalities, this pressure undermines democratic accountability and
the ability of African countries to make decisions in their own interests.
In fact even EU aid priorities, according to the EU’s Trade Commissioner,
will be directed towards helping implement EPAs.”



He observes, “billions of dollars are lost to Africa every year in illicit
capital flight, investment abroad, debt repayments and bolstering central
bank reserves, far more than arrive in the form of aid and foreign
investment.”



He notes “the central paradox of aid – that the act of aid giving in itself
undermines both state capacity and accountability.” As he writes, dependency
on aid from foreign donors has undermined the development of the basic
institutions needed to govern and the vital link of accountability between
state and citizen.” He sums up, “aid itself has undermined democracy,
institutions and the capacity to govern in Africa.”



Glennie observes that aid is good for the donor governments. “There are two
main reasons for the donor focus on aid. First, aid is the easiest and least
costly way for politicians to be seen to be responding to the continuing and
unacceptable poverty that exists in most of the world, particularly in
Africa. And second, far from being costly, aid is a cost-efficient way of
buying economic advantage and political support.” For example, spending on
technical aid, mostly the salaries of foreign advisers shipped in from donor
countries, accounts for half of all aid.



He concludes, “Aid increases may harm efforts to reduce poverty and improve
governance and sustainable development in most African countries.” Nations
need to control capital flows, create and use their own resources, and not
rely on foreign aid.
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