Source: How long shall Africa rely on Western benevolence? – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 29, 2017
With more than 40 million African citizens facing food insecurity and some outright starvation, United States President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut the American aid budget by 38% couldn’t have come at a worse time. It is unfortunate that as Africans we find ourselves thrust in this precarious position, sitting and passing judgment on America over its own budget plans.
OPINION: Whitlaw Mugwiji
When instead we are supposed to focus our attention on our governments that subcontract their responsibilities to foreign governments, leaving African citizens to rely on western benevolence. Such an approach is unsustainable and very irresponsible, more so now when the anti-aid sentiments are on the rise in many western capitals.
If ever we are going to be able to respond to future human and natural disasters on our own, we need to revisit the aid-development debate, which once gained international prominence in 2009 when Dr Dambisa Moyo published her book Dead Aid.
Aid festers corruption, laziness and makes our governments unaccountable
In her book, she asserts that aid festers corruption, makes our governments lazy and less accountable to their citizenry. Rimmer and Hope in their journal article titled Aid and Corruption note that there is widespread systematic corruption in Africa when it comes to aid. Even more worrying they note that Western governments have at times used aid as a tool for patronage, festering corruption in order to further their foreign policy objectives. The late Mobuto Seseko’s Zaire provides a classic example in that regard.
President Robert Mugabe, the “expatriate” as he is commonly known in some circles illustrates how African governments can be very lazy and irresponsible. In 2016, Mugabe spent over $50 million in travelling expenses at a time when Zimbabwe’s government hospitals did not have medicines and had to rely on foreign donations for their basic medical supplies. Just a month ago, Zanu PF spent close to a $1 million on a lavish party, celebrating Mugabe’s 93rd birthday whilst over a million Zimbabweans facing starvation were being fed by the international community.
This irresponsibility is not unique to Zimbabwe alone, but to many places where donors play a major role in the economy. According to a 2010 article in the Economist, Kenyan Members of Parliament were the highest paid in the world in relation to their country’s gross domestic product.
Yet in the very same year Kenya received over $400 million in foreign aid.
Aid has failed to foster economic growth
Consistent with earlier findings by other economists, Burnside and Dollar found that aid had little impact on economic growth. Thus, reaffirming doubts over the ability of using aid to fight poverty. Some economists even argue further that aid can create a dependency in the recipient countries, which is detrimental to their long term economic development as it induces them to create structures and institutions that are more sensitive to aid than to their long-term goals.
How then can we disagree with Dambisa Moyo when she says that aid is doing no good in Africa? If we disagree how then do we explain the paradox that Africa has received over a trillion dollars in foreign aid since 1960 and yet poverty has substantially increased from 280 million in 1990 to 330 million in 2012 (World Bank, 2016)?
Least I be misunderstood, let me categorically state here and now that I am not against humanitarian aid, but against foreign aid or development aid. My conscience could never allow me to sit here arguing against humanitarian aid. For I know too well that humanitarian aid will be the difference between life and death for those facing starvation and food insecurity.
There are important lessons to learn from China
Chinese wisdom tells us that when you give man a fish you feed him for a day, but when you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. It’s time to look up to China for inspiration, for they have managed to debunk the aid-development model, which we have adopted and used with little success.
They have managed to move hundreds of millions out of poverty in the past four decades and yet they receive very little foreign aid.
China’s success story has confounded many, politicians and academics alike. Instead of just praising China to spite the West, our African academics and policy makers must conduct an in-depth study and provide us with adaptable lessons that we can use to grow our economy.
In my narrow, rushed and limited research, these are the lessons I found most interesting and I believe they can help spur our economic growth.
Building strong institutions
Quantitative studies done on the Chinese economy (Lin, 1992; Fan, Zhang, Zhang, 2004) inform us that institutional reform contributed immensely to the Chinese economic growth. As former US President Barak Obama once remarked, Africa does not need strong men, it needs strong institutions.
Even though China currently lacks multi-party democracy, it has strong institutions, which have provided stability and an impetus for their economic growth. We too need strong institutions, institutions that do not bend to the whims of an individual, but more importantly institutions that provide stability and in turn an environment conducive for business.
Re-aligning our development strategies towards agriculture
As part of the Chinese reform agenda, they realigned their development strategies towards cheap labour where they enjoyed a massive comparative advantage. Initially towards agriculture, and then increasingly towards export-oriented rural industries.
We too must realign our development strategies around agriculture, where we have a comparative advantage. Food demand is expected to increase substantially by the middle of this century if the world’s population forecasts are anything to go by. Having an abundance of arable land and a favourable climate, at least most of the times presents us with a unique opportunity to play an important role in meeting that challenge. Even if we fail to feed the world, we should be able to least feed ourselves without fail.
Experimentation and learning by doing
During Mao Zedong’s era, drastic policy measures such as the agricultural and the cultural revolutions resulted in starvation and the death of millions. As a result, the Chinese under Deng Xiaoping learned pragmatism, adopting evidence-based policies, where they experimented with small scale policy reforms and scaled them up if they were successful or times with slight modifications.
As with any reform agenda, there are potentially many routes that we can take to spur our continent towards development but we too must learn by experimentation.
We must gradually wean ourselves off aid
In as much as I agree with Dambisa Moyo that foreign has done our continent little good, I personally think that a complete closure of the foreign aid taps would be too drastic a measure. Many African countries are dependent on aid, without which they will not be able to finance their recurrent expenditure.
I, therefore, suggest that we must gradually begin the weaning process. Instead of focusing on foreign aid, we must concentrate on finding policies that spur economic growth and improve inter-Africa trade. Policies that create a conducive environment for business and entrepreneurs to thrive.
For how long shall our people rely on western benevolence for their survival?
Whitlaw Mugwiji is a political analyst and social commentator for Khuluma Afrika
COMMENTS
To wean yourself off aid you first need self respect. It is also worth noting that a bit of gratitude towards those who help you when you are too useless to help yourself could be considered an act of self respect. After all it is only a beggar who is never thankful.
The West must stop giving any sort of aid whatsoever. It just enables the despots.
Even humanitarian Aid should be stopped. Once we hold dying children knowing no one is coming to our rescue we will think again, we will act differently – appealing for assistance is not acting. Africa has turned itself into a continent of escaping or waiting people. Escaping to far away lands to enjoy fruits we did not plant. If we are not welcome there we will see what to do with our own land. Waiting for help, for aid, salvation, for a political saviour, for rain, for God – and crying that all come to them. The best way to help those who wait is to let them be, once they realise no one is coming they will stand up and walk. In that movement they will find something. Painful, yes but necessary. Yes, a few millions will perish fast, but with aid millions are dying slowly. With more aid and inaction on Africans’ part many times over shall die. There is a limit to other people’s kindness. In the 80s Band Aid could feed 30 million Ethiopians, 30 years later no Band Aid can feed the 60 million in Ethiopia alone. We just need to own up, face our reality and realise that the solution to our problems either comes from us or it does not come at all. Africans, like anybody else who has developed, must go through the labour pains needed for development. It is true, no pain no gain. We must sacrifice and suffer for our own development. We cannot have our cake and eat it at the same time. There is no one to blame for our predicament but ourselves. Learn from others, yes but WE MUST ACT for ourselves.
I could not agree with you more on many points expressed. Please take into consideration a factor like climate change, over which we have no control,which has affected countries like Mozambique,Madagascar,Malawi and East Africa. Until we accept the consequences of our inertia concerning our selfish and corrupt rulers, we only have ourselves to blame. I’m optimistic for my continent and predict that Africa is the future ,our time will come and I will live to see it!