African continent has a long
history in receiving external aid and assistance. This approach of
international community is partially legacy of the colonialism and partially it
is a result of chaotic and sudden decolonization that did not establish a
stable political environment. Many Western states felt responsible for war torn
countries that they left behind and therefore established a framework for
constant financial donations and humanitarian aid. But nowadays are many
experts and scholars analyzing to what extent actually foreign aid helped to
develop African countries. More and more of them are starting to reconsider the
impacts of material aid that is flowing to the African continent.
The two issues are being
discussed in the relation to the foreign aid. Firstly, many critical voices are
pointing out the fact that developing projects for African countries are
completely out of touch with the local reality and actual needs of the people. Experts
who draw development plans can struggle to gain real information in real time
so at the end there is no sufficient solution to problems. Furthermore, foreign
loans and aid programs in Africa are usually badly monitored and often stolen
by corrupt bureaucrats. This just led to the point where money from rich
countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower
economic growth and poverty.
It is clear that instead of
creating development, foreign aid created dependence. Countries cannot be
developed through aid and credit – it has never worked in this way and never
will be. Of course, intentions were not to make African continent dependent on
foreign donators but it has eventually resulted in the situation where majority
of African states failed to set its own pace and direction of development free
of external interference. However, sustained growth is still missing and it
became clear that foreign funds could help only to those countries which
undertake political, economic and institution reform.
After looking into some cases,
it can seem that the more aid is poured into some country, the lower standard
of living we can observe. However, one cannot generalize and simplify it. There
are different conditions and pretexts that are crucial in each case. Foreign
aid should not be seen as a universal tool for solving all the social and
political issues in Africa. Money and funding are only a small part in the more
complex projects that should bring stability to the country. But what is more
important, those projects should not be brought by foreign institutions/ banks
and by people who do not know local conditions and real roots of the problems.
Such an attitude just leads to a general ineffectiveness and vicious cycle of
developments’ failures.
A mindset that is popular
especially in the Western countries that aid, whatever its form, is a good
thing. Idea that large donations can remedy poverty has dominated the theory of
economic development but, unfortunately, the results are not as good as one
would think. More than a quarter of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are
poorer now than in 1960s. Huge aid flows appear to have done little to change
the development trajectories of poor countries. The key to understanding and
solving the problem of world poverty is to recognize not just that poverty is
created and sustained by extractive institutions — but to appreciate why the
situation arises in the first place. This I find as the biggest problem so far
when it comes to international aid programs aimed at Africa.
The second issue that I would
like to mention is the problem of aid distribution. Especially African
countries that find themselves in turmoil and armed conflict are vulnerable to food
shortages and humanitarian crises in general. But in those cases can we observe
another problem: humanitarian organizations cannot be sure for 100 percent that
the aid ends up in the right hands. An example of it is al-Shabab region in
Somalia where many of NGOs already refused to provide any kind of humanitarian
aid as it never reached those who needed it most.
This resulted in unintended
consequences of humanitarian action such as contribution to war economy or
legitimizing certain leaders in area. Nowadays we can also talk about
“criminalization of aid” when innocent suffering civilians are punished for
receiving aid and food supplies by local terrorist groups and militias. Another
undesired consequence of humanitarian action is the way how it is possibly
prolonging war and suffering. For instance, Red Cross was helping wounded
soldiers that then could return to the fights and kill more civilians or the
case of Rwandan refugee camps that served as a base for Rwandan Army and other
actors to finish the genocide when they took control of camps and also gained
enormous amount of aid money.
However, sometimes when the
conflict is too violent and chaotic it is difficult to say who is at the end
benefiting from the aid that is coming in. In some cases, humanitarian aid had
to be stopped because humanitarian staff became a target for armed groups and
was often threatened to be killed. This led to militarization of humanitarian
action itself – many organizations had to hire private security companies in
order to provide safe conditions for their workers and people in need. Nonetheless,
it should be still stressed out an importance of neutrality when it comes to
providing aid and food supplies and not taking sides in conflict. At the moment
when NGOs’ humanitarian actions became political, it is doomed to be targeted
by local militias and armed groups as it is seen as a weapon of war.
Last thing I would like to
address is the way how African states should approach the foreign aid. There is
empirical evidence that no foreigners ever developed any country, only
nationals can develop their own countries. In spite of popular image that Africa
is very poor continent and is in constant turmoil, the truth is that African
economy is not in such a bad shape. But pressure needs to come from citizens
who do care enough about international development to force politicians to
overcome the basic problems in the country. Make institutions more inclusive is
about changing the politics of a society to empower the poor — the empowerment
of those disenfranchised, excluded and often repressed by those monopolizing
power. Aid can help but it needs to be used in such a way as to help civil
society mobilize collectively, find a voice and get involved with decision-making.
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