Bono turned 50 last week, and excuse the sneer on my face, but I’m not about to celebrate the man’s life or achievements. I don’t like him very much. For quite a simple reason – he has become the embodiment of what is wrong with Western aid to Africa.
Ghana was the first African country to win its independence from colonial powers in 1957. Other sub-Saharan countries quickly followed suit. Back then, there was not much infrastructure to speak of in sub-Saharan Africa. Industries were very few and far between, and the people were largely unskilled. Over the next 60 years, more than $1 trillion flowed into the region in the form of aid. Yet Africa is poorer today than it was back in the 1960s.
A lot of things went wrong, but the recurring issue is despots using the aid as their personal bank accounts rather than what it was intended for in the first place. Astonishingly, rather than those actions being punished, more money was thrown at the problem. Leaders were literally rewarded for squandering aid. It’s beyond ludicrous. If you borrow money from the bank, and then choose to spend it unwisely in unprofitable thrift, you might get away with it. Once. As Adam Smith once put it, “The man who borrows in order to spend will soon be ruined, and he who lends to him will generally have occasion to repent of his folly.” Of course, he had never heard of Western aid to Africa. Instead of repenting, the lender repeats his folly again and again. And again.
Over the last 10 years, more aid has flowed into Africa than ever before. Who’s to say history won’t repeat itself? There isn’t a single Western leader with the bollocks to make African countries that abuse aid pay. I’m not referring to interest on loan, or repayment of debt. Instead of Bono’s cancellation of debt, how about cancellation of aid?
Aid to Africa fails because it disowns Africa of her problems. That is what Bono and his troupe of stifling do-gooders don’t get. There is absolutely no incentive for African leaders to fix their countries, because not their biggest source of no-strings-attached income will dry up. We need to own our problems as a continent. Solutions for our ills need to come from us in Africa. I find it quite reprehensible that the West think they know what’s best for Africa. It’s the underlying philosophy of aid to Africa, in my view. Think about it, how can it be right that the face of the global effort to end poverty in Africa is an Irishman wearing an ostentatious cowboy hat and gittish sunglasses?
Bono represents Western aid at its worst – a handy PR exercise, a photo opportunity with emaciated children in Sudan to boost album sales, an easy way out for Western politicians to soothe their consciences without losing votes. Bonoesque aid is destructive because it’s blind. It doesn’t differentiate between countries, because it relies on the stereotypical image of Africa as a seething mass of war, decay and flies. Success stories like Botswana, Ghana and South Africa are conveniently forgotten when the offering plate is passed around at G8 meetings. It just throws money at problems. It’s like McDonalds: It may taste good, but too much of it kills.
Africa’s problems are not only to be blamed on aid. A lack of resources such as skills, capital, infrastructure and private property all play a role (to gain a deeper understanding of the problems plaguing Africa, as well as the destruction wrought by aid on the continent, I recommend Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid). But none of these are as cynically and calculatingly designed to keep Africa in a constant state of beggary like aid is.
What lifts countries from a state of poverty to one of sustained economic growth is investment. Investment thrives in an atmosphere of predictability and transparency. Investors must have the confidence to invest their money in a country – it boils down to the assurance that they can go to someone for recourse should debts not be honoured. Corruption and the lack of transparent governance destroy that assurance. Worst of all, aid removes the need for governments to set these structures up in the first place.
Africa does not need hand outs.
What an unbelievably superficial analysis of the problem. And what a complicated problem it is.
I completely agree with you regarding the annexation of aid by despots (witness Mugabe in Zimbabwe - without aid, would starving masses have perhaps revolted?).
But perhaps you are too young to remember the devastating images of starving Ethiopian children from the early eighties? I do not believe it is as simple as switching off the aid tap. Even if countries could stomach the death of millions, could they deal with massive dislocation of economic refugees such as that of the estimated 5 to 8 million Zimbabweans in South Africa?
I certainly do not share your conspiracy theory regarding aid as some grand plot designed to keep Africa at the begging bowl. For example, it would seem that developed nations need new markets to absorb their goods and stimulate their exports far more desperately than they need economic power over Africa .
The complexityof Africa’s poverty is illustrated through some of its roots in farming subsidies in the US and Europe that make Africa's exports uncompetitive. Perhaps the loss of votes makes aid easier than cutting subsidies and protection. Perhaps the failure of GATT and the WTO lies there. And perhaps that has resulted in the perverse situation where developing countries have borne the weight of free trade measures rather than developed nations.
The complexity of the problem is further illustrated by the debate that has raged between proponents of the Washington Consensus such as Jeffrey Sachs and critics such as William Easterly and Joseph Stiglitz. On the face of it, your criticism lends itself to the arguments of the Washington Consensus that ties aid to "good" economic management. South Africa has largely followed the tenets of the Consensus to the vocal criticism of the left. It would seem that - in the short term at least - neoliberal policy has failed to lift countries from poverty, create jobs and spark growth in more cases than it has worked, including in South Africa (despite the better state of our economy than many northern neighbours).
But I do not think you are arguing for aid tied to positive change. Your argument appears to criticise aid in all forms and you denounce Bono's intentions as those rooted in commercial promotion. I cannot be sure of his motivation - neither can you.
Your argument for the release of Africa's dependency on aid might better be advanced by focusing on alternatives than criticisms of individuals who may genuinely be attempting to help.
Sipho's broad point is right, having Bono sing for Africa's dinner infantalises the continent, simplifies us and our problems to objects of western guilt or western virtue where we are assumed to have no moral agency. African elites are complicit in the charade because it allows them to eschew responsibility and to "guilt-trip" the west out of money. The whole thing is highly undesirable and we will never fix Africa until it stops.
This however is simply the final result of exponential fiat currency printings, and exponential 'economic growth' (i.e. resource use and depletion), collidiing with Peak Oil (end of cheap energy).
There is no such thing as sustainable economic growth in an environment with finite resources, i.e. such as planet earth.
See Prof. Al Bartlett's, Arithmatic, Population and Energy; or his laws of sustainability...
To believe in sustainable economic growth, is to be stuck in the belief that the earth is flat with infinite resources. It is not, time to wakey wakey...
As far as I see it, what you're saying here is Africa must stay poor in order to save the environment. Quite an unpalatable argument, I must say.
In my mind, the World Bank and aid has a purpose, but only if it's administered properly.
Business, not charity. But I don't know how you enforce that.
There's a saying: "Give a man a fish and he'll have food for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime". The main problem with Western aid is the lack of personal involvement. The West acts well in the "Giving" role, but rather poorly in the "Teaching" role.
By donating tons of cash the West serves its own consciense, rather than the plight of needy Africa. And by buying the loyalty of the (corrupt) African elite the West had a cheap point of entry to exploit Africa's resources at little to no cost.
Although China's alterior motives are up for speculation, they are stepping in where the West failed - Capital investment in Africa (add to that investment in education and health care). I believe the prize remains the same: Africa's resources. But rather than just handing over food parcels, the Chinese are actually getting their hands dirty to build infrastructure in Africa.
The problem is that no matter how motivated the U.N. worker is, the general with a poor background is more motivated. The latter is far, far more likely to outwit the former over time.
Since investment is the key, think a little about what investors want. They want a return commensurate with the risk. In Africa, you're guaranteed risk - risk of not getting much return, and risk of capital, risk of being blamed when someone thinks you should have invested otherwise.
So come, mr Rage - show us how it's done instead of pulling others down. Or is it easier to sit behind prose, because that is your action?
I'd add Nuruddin Farah's novel Gifts for a thought-provoking fictional exploration of some of the issues surrounding aid.
Interesting article. The last time I checked, Bono was a rock star from Dublin. In his 50 years of being on this planet, he has surely done more for african children than you and me.
Yes the problem is complex but my take on "Bono bashing" is, look at his campaigns ONE and (R)ED and evaluate his contributions to the development of Africa's children against your own. If you want to see change on the African continent, BE THE CHANGE. Is it a PR exercise, well I am not sure if U2 needs that kind of PR to sell their music.
Yes Africa does not need hand outs. Africa needs its citizens to start doing the right thing. Instead of focusing on what the west is not doing right, focus on what african leaders are not doing right and address them directly because they are the ones holding you and the continent backwards. I am afraid Bono has very little to do with the problem.
The Western Aid Organisations surely have enough expertise to find a way to get the aid to the people that need it, so why is it happening?
On the other hand, the irritating cliché about teaching someone to fish blah di blah just won't work because the people that need the aid are often too weak to crawl to the river to fish - let alone hold a rod.
Dramatic photographs don't even begin to describe the horror that is hunger and as far as I'm concerned, anyone that can leave innocent children to die of hunger under any circumstances, cannot be normal.
I traveled through the continent for many years and saw, first hand, the horrors of extreme poverty and it haunts me every day. We cannot stop helping but we do need to start helping intelligently. So why isn't it happening?
On the other hand, I also saw people living quite happily with children that were a lot healthier than many of our urban children but that fact is never publicized. Why?
And the uncomfortable truth about economic development and democracy is that to impose democracy on a weak country is to invite trouble. Usually when a country is at a stage where bold and decisive changes need to made in order to foster economic growth, changes that may be very unpopular but very necessary, a democratic government will not have the power to ram them through. It would be far better to have a benevolent dictator than a democratic government at that stage.
Economic growth brings forth democracy. Not the other way around.
There's a further argument to make about aid, and on which I'd have elaborated. It goes beyond corrupt government, but Sipho only touches on it towards the end. Aid competes private services out of business, and therefore makes it hard for homegrown infrastructure and capacity to develop. The simple example is free food, which competes farmers out of business, leading to inevitable famine once aid is withdrawn. A more complex example is education, which should likewise develop organically within a society itself, rather than be imposed by outside aid. A country that receives aid thus becomes systematically unable to provide for itself. This goes even for emergency aid: if a country is dependent on aid every time some disaster strikes, they will never build the capacity needed to deal with the disaster themselves. In this sense, Sipho's comment about keeping Africa in beggary is quite accurate, whether this is the intent of international donors or not.
So, the alternative to aid is no aid, independent of whether recipient governments respond by strengthening property rights and the other legal infrastructure required for a domestic economy to develop and thrive. With aid, they won't. Without aid, they might. That's an improvement. That puts power back into the hands of the people of Africa, rather than corrupt domestic elites and foreign do-gooders.
Great piece.
The answer is not simple at all because to cut off aid to Africa would mean that we would have to cut out that which makes us human - thus not the answer.
Does the answer not, perhaps, lie in educating the young and applying strict rules (of some kind) to the handing out of aid?
Education. Imagine trying to implement a working education system in Somalia. Every single part of the program would have to work, everything from school buildings, textbooks through to an administration system and teachers would have to be ready. Who would implement these changes more efficiently, a democratic government or a dictator? Think about it.
And rules don't work with aid, because the givers thereof never punish the violators of the aid conditions. History has proven that.
"In the past decade, I have watched the emergency aid business ... grow from a small element in the larger package of 'development' into a giant, global, unregulated industry worth UKP 2,500 a year."
Fast forward to today and we find that same industry is now worth upwards of $70 billion (http://www.globalissues.org/article/35/foreign-aid-development-assistance), roughly half of which isn't available to poor countries to fight poverty; it is used to feed the AID machine and to keep the purveyors of AID in the luxury to which they've become accustomed. These, let me remind you, are the do-gooders of our society.
How about bringing these people who abuse the aid offered to their countries before an international court for crimes against humanity, because that is what it is? I think it is time to take off the kid-gloves and start dealing with these people harshly.
Really? I beg to differ.