*By Emmanuel Kihaule:
*How much has Africa benefited from development aid
from donors? Is Africa anyhow better now than it was say fifteen or twenty
years ago? These are questions which normally dominates discussions on the
state of poverty in Africa versus development aid.
To some people, including myself nothing much, in terms of development, has
been recorded out of the aid which keeps on flowing into the continent
almost on a daily basis whereas the situation on the ground remains wanting.
Everyday you hear that the World Bank has given out several million dollars
to a certain country to improve ecological sanitation in urban slums, the US
giving out trillion dollars to fight HIV/Aids in Africa, European Union
dishing out millions of Euro to fight and poverty in the continent and many
more.
Actually, several studies indicate that Africa has received over 500 billion
dollars in the last two decades in form of development aid. But has the
situation on the ground improved? Certainly not except for a few and
isolated cases that are likely to be swallowed by the majority (appalling
situations).
As a result, poverty has continued to entrench itself into the continent
more than ever before. For instance, Joseph Ouedraogo, the Director of the UN
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) said in 2004 that poverty levels in
Africa had increased by 43 percent over the last 10 years, with women making
up to 80 percent of the people living on less than a dollar a day.
Now where does the aid, which most of the times is in form of money, go?
Much of the money has been misallocated and used for issues that have little
or no connection at all to national development whereby a certain class of
politicians (leaders) have made themselves hell rich at the expense of the
poor.
These people have built posh castles with swimming pools amidst poverty
stricken slums or villages and for them the sight of the increasing number
of beggars and orphans in the streets together with the mushrooming of
poorly built structures around their ‘heavens’ is a tourist attraction that
they enjoy looking at as they cruise on the latest makes of Toyota Prado and
Mercedes Benz.
Recent years have witnessed a shift in channeling of development aid whereby
most Western donors have resorted to working with civil society
organizations such as NGOs that they think are much more unbureacratic,
transparent and close to the people than governments.
Though it is important to reckon the fact that some NGO have tried to do a
good job, majority are conduit pipes for exploiting donor funds for personal
benefits leaving the target beneficiaries with nothing to depend on.
NGOs have now become an important type of business and they are rapidly
increasing almost on a daily basis. Consequently, interested people are more
and more forced to resort to full sentence names because almost each and
every name has already been allocated. An NGO’s name with two or three words
is definitely bound to collide or resemble with several other NGOs’ names!
Now the question is, has this traditional way of helping Africa to come out
of poverty worked? Some people are of the view that such ‘development aid’
is the very cause for the continent’s underdevelopment.
“This thing (aid) is killing Africa,” this is how the Kenya Airways Chief
Executive Officer, Titus Naikuni, argues over the current state of poverty
in Africa amidst ‘much’ donor funding.
This is because, according to him, Africa needs to be given trade
opportunities and access to the markets in developed nations so as to
develop than just receiving aid.
Though it is safe to conclude that aid does not necessarily ‘kill’ the
continent, it is important to note that it discourages self confidence among
African nations and at the same time makes them life-long beggars. It thus
kills the sense of self reliance and commitment as far as development of the
continent is concerned.
At the moment majority of African countries look towards Europe even for
salaries for their presidents let alone conducting of general elections and
besides, majority still depend on donors in their budgets for over fifty
percent.
“Traditional aid has virtually failed to push Africa forward and it’s time
that developed nations change their perceptions about Africa,” says the
Director General of the Norwegian volunteer programme FREDSKORPSET or in
short FK, Tor Elden.
He was in Uganda to attend the 5th African Conference on Child Abuse and
Neglect and the FK Uganda Chapter’s annual meeting.
He says that so far the assumption is that there is a person in Europe with
money and knowledge and on the other hand there is a poor African man who is
in need of the knowledge and money.
“I don’t think this traditional approach can develop Africa. It’s through
assisting the continent to strengthen its corporate sector, trade and
supporting its efforts to take MDGs (millennium development goals) seriously
that lasting development can be realized,” Elden says:
“Africa has dramatically changed. It’s not the continent of 1960s. Now there
is new Africa.”
* *
He is of the view that majority of people in Western countries including
government officials do not know the real situation on the ground as they
solely rely on the information from the Western media which give emphasis on
the negatives leaving a lot more of good things about the continent.
* *
According to him, it was on the same ground that the Norwegian government
came up with the FK programme which he calls it ‘a challenge to other
international development agencies’.
Traditionally FK is a Norwegian volunteer organization with roots that date
back to the 1960\’s and the original Fredskorpset ceased to operate in 1999
and it was re-established in 2000.
It is a governmental international development programme that is directly
responsible to the Norwegian Minister of Development Cooperation and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it mainly involves the exchange of
volunteers between Norway and among developing nations in the South.
At the end of the exchange which is normally one year these youngsters go
back to their respective countries where they become potential key figures
who contribute to the development efforts.
Elden himself spent his youthful years in Uganda in 1960s as a volunteer
under the programme an opportunity, which according to him, gave him time to
know Africa better.
“FK is a new approach to development and puts all efforts into the human
resource development and it is in this way that poor countries could develop
through increased sharing of skills, knowledge, exposure and experience
among the participants (volunteers),” he Elden explains.
So the major advantage is that FK works through partnerships, and it is the
partners who define their own objectives which is different from a
traditional aid organization which will normally transfer knowledge from a
developed country to a developing country.
Elden says that it is high time Western countries gave room for southern
perspectives to development and that Africa should be regarded as an
important and equal partner in the development process.
He advises that the best way would also be opening up markets of the
developed countries for products from Africa and at the same time provide a
plain field instead of protecting farmers or industries with subsidies.
Failure to do so would result into many problems not only in the developing
nations but also to the West citing the struggles by young people from
Africa crossing Mediterranean waters to Europe in search for greener
pastures.
He concludes by asking “Are we going to parade all our armies to guard
against this?
* *
*End.*