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Published in The Japan Times 2nd July 2005
By David Howell
Africa’s Lost Billions
LONDON – The huge popular pressure being mobilised on the G8 Summit countries,
including both the UK and Japan, to increase aid substantially to Africa and
cancel poorer countries debt, is certainly having an impact. But it is not quite
the one at which the campaigners were aiming.
Armies of celebrities and pop-stars have been mobilised by the energetic Irish
rock-star, Bob Geldof, to besiege the national leaders when they meet outside
Edinburgh for the Summit in a few days’ time. This has certainly aroused public
interest and awareness to a high pitch. More can certainly be done to end world
poverty. But the more reflective elements in public opinion are focussing on a
different aspect of Africa’s plight.
It is being increasingly argued that before more aid money is sent in Africa’s
direction, or more debts forgiven, some tough questions need to be asked about
what has happened to the billions of dollars already spent there. Why has most
of it disappeared? Why are living standards in many Africa countries – although
not all – lower now than thirty years ago? What happened to the hundreds of
millions earned from Nigeria’s oil, for example, when Nigeria’s citizens remain
as poor and oppressed as ever?
The new mood of questioning does not stop there. It is being widely asked just
why so many of the continent’s leaders, the so-called Big Men of Africa, equip
themselves with fleets of Mercedes-Benz motorcars, why these impoverished
nations have money to burn on expensive jet aircraft and on sophisticated
weapons, some of them supplied by China and North Korea and why, in short,
corruption persists on such a massive scale.
Should not these questions be answered more thoroughly, it is suggested, further
cash is disbursed?
So it is not so much the lack of aid as the effectiveness and destination of aid
which is coming under the microscope. And what the public are seeing they do not
like at all.
It needs to be said first of all that talking of ‘Africa’ as a single entity and
receptacle for development aid is deeply misleading. There are good stories in
some Africa countries and there are very bad stories in others. The worst story
of all at the present moment is in Zimbabwe, where a crazed and vicious tyrant
,Robert Mugabe, has reduced a once rich nation to starvation and misery, using
weapons of torture and intimidation, smashing down the homes of political
enemies and preaching extreme anti-white racism to justify his actions. Although
on a smaller scale, this begins to put him in the league of Chairman Mao, whose
bloodstained whims led to suffering and death for tens of millions of his
countrymen and women.
Immediate humanitarian food aid is obviously vital to prevent half of Zimbabwe’s
population dying of hunger. But any other aid programmes merely bolster Mugabe
and directly increase human suffering.
This raises an even bigger doubt about aid programmes. Do they in fact
contribute to development? Do they touch the mainsprings of wealth creation and
enterprise, without which no economic progress takes place and without which
grinding poverty persists alongside glittering wealth for the lucky few? The
more these issues are examined in the light of day the more it is being realised
that advance in the poorest countries is a far more complex process than
anything which outside aid can touch.
As the famous Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has shown, basing his
conclusions on practical research, assured rights to own property and investment
in poorer societies, protected by the rule of law, can do far more to encourage
economic prosperity than any amount of outside aid.
A further question being posed is whether it is other policies in thre rich
countries, rather than aid, which might do rather more for development and for
poverty reduction.
For example the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, whose financing is
currently the subject of furious debate between the UK and France, undoubtedly
does more to impoverish African farmers – by actually subsidising European farm
exports – than can be compensated for by any amount of aid giving.
It might be far better, and a far quicker way to end dreadful human suffering,
to curtail this practise than to hand over more aid funds, or even to cancel
debts in some cases.
Focussing heavily on Africa may anyway be a bad mistake. Hideous poverty exists
on a vast scale in Asia, where well-placed assistance with educational and
medical services might yield huge benefits.
Finally there is the question of whether aid dispensing agencies are anywhere
near adequate to their task. Some non-governmental agencies are inspired and
dedicated. Others simply undermine development by constant anti-capitalist bias.
Meanwhile it appears that many of the millions promised so generously for
victims of the South East Asian tsunami disaster last December have failed to
reach the poorest victims, going instead to businesses and the better off.
There can be no suggestion that vital humanitarian assistance, or worthwhile
local projects which pump-prime enterprise and teach new skills, should be
reduced. But blind enthusiasm for ‘more aid’, or arguments that poverty can be
conquered by this route, could turn out to be hurting the weakest even harder
and taking human progress backwards, not forwards. This is bad.
The public have rightly had their conscience stirred and their hearts touched by
the appalling suffering in the poorest round the world. But their heads are
telling them that the development recipes of recent years are dangerously wrong
and need changing, not enlarging .
This is not just an example of well-meaning but woolly-minded pop-stars being on
the wrong track. They can be forgiven for not understanding. But it is also yet
another example of supposed policy experts and politicians being out of touch
with reality and with the commonsense of their ordinary, compassionate but
down-to-earth citizens. When will they ever learn?
Ends
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