Interview with African diplomat where he asks for the aide to stop...
SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...
Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.
Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...
SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ...
Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.
SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn't do anything, the people would starve.
Shikwati: I don't think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders -- drawn by the Europeans by the way -- more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.
SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?
Shikwati: Of course. Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either.
SPIEGEL: But AIDS didn't exist at that time.
Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.
SPIEGEL: And why's that?
Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.
SPIEGEL: The Americans and Europeans have frozen funds previously pledged to Kenya. The country is too corrupt, they say.
Shikwati: I am afraid, though, that the money will still be transfered before long. After all, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the Europeans' devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason. It makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected -- a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois -- the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country.
SPIEGEL: Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though.
Shikwati: That doesn't change anything. Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: "The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."
DPA
Former Central African Republic leader Jean-Bedel Bokassa: "We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."
SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags ...
Shikwati: ... and they flood our markets with that stuff. We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets. There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany -- for three times the price. That's insanity ...
SPIEGEL: ... and hopefully an exception.
Shikwati: Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They're in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria's textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.
INTERACTIVE MAP
Click here to load our interactive African development aid map.
SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn't that qualify as successful development aid?
Shikwati: In Germany's case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.
SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost ...
AFP
Congolese line up for a United Nations food delivery in 2002.
Shikwati: ... jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it's unacceptable that the aid worker's chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently -- and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That's just crazy!
SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.
Shikwati: And what's the result? A disaster. The German government threw money right at Rwanda's president Paul Kagame. This is a man who has the deaths of a million people on his conscience -- people that his army killed in the neighboring country of Congo.
SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?
Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.
Thoughts?
I think he is gonna get killed pretty soon. Too honest and too intelligent
hahah, maybe a few years ago, but delusions can only be maintained for so long--people are not dumb as they appear, the question is when they will break off of it, and not if.
Very interesting... Thanks for posting it.
^^Agreed, thanks for posting. I read another article once just trying to calculate all the billions of dollars lost/stolen through corruption in Africa. It's pretty crazy...
It is very simple, if you want to help a country, use the resources to stop corruption, that is what every developing country really needs and every developed country is in position to do, specially diplomatic pressure and domestic pressure on companies. Underdeveloped countries, lets call them by its name, are more often than not very rich but even more corrupt, usually this being the fundamental reason for all other issues. However there are no incentives for that change, so it will not happen. Also nice of the Spiegel, great journalism, and it sucks I agree with Argonaut, he has a (higher) non-zero probability of getting "hurt" in an "accident" now XD.
Great article and in my opinion Shikwati is absolutely right. Having studied abroad in the great lakes region of sub-Saharan Africa, I researched the effectiveness of foreign aid programs and came to the same conclusions. More and more people are starting to question the entire process and rightly so, but part of the problem is that it's largely a political game as much as it is about "helping people". Shouldn't the purpose of aid be, to become obsolete? But US funded aid organizations pump millions of dollars into corrupt East African governments in exchange for relative political stability and military oversight of countries like Sudan, Somalia and Congo. What is more in the United States' self interest, helping provide opportunities for African citizens or supporting autocrats who gives us their political allegiance and military support and help us monitor countries we don't like? So which Western government is going to say "No, after fifty years, we're not going to 'help' you anymore," and which African government is going to simultaneously say, "Great, we don't want your money anymore anyway."
Clearly I'm not trying very hard to hide my disillusionment, but thanks for posting this.
Read: http://www.amazon.com/White-Mans-Burden-Efforts-Little/dp/1594200378 (Happy I can lone this to you), which not only has an awesome name but is a rebuttal to that jack ass Jeffrey Sach's "End of Poverty." You should also read that, but only to mock its thesis.
Africa, the cradle of civilization, had a head start on the rest of the world in terms of development and has some of the most fertile land on earth and crop and livestock diversity, yet they can't do anything for themselves or make use of the abundant resources they have.
Thanks for posting. Good read.
FYI... that interview is from 2005... not a lot has changed.
Absolutely, I was asserting the irony of just that. If anything to Shikwati's point, 6 years of aide since the article and what is there to show for it but the likely continuation of the established undesirable status quo...
You guys should really read Dambisa Moyo and her book on ending Aid to Africa. She is really good on this topic. I have always believed that one of africa's main problems is the amount of aid it gets from the west. I also believe they should end all aid to Africa.
here is Dambisa Moyo's website
http://www.dambisamoyo.com/biography/ former GS econmist. Oh and I would definitely take her out on the town :)
I use to date this girl from Sierra Leone one of the most war ravaged countries in Africa. She came here with her family because her mother was in governmnt there and when the government fell her family had to flee. Let me just say she commented a few times about how much money her family got from the government aka international aid.
Her family now owns multiple homes and businesses in the DC area with money they got from international "aid" Spread the wealth around!
What about donating money to starting businesses in those areas? I know there's some organizations that do this... Is there a reason it isn't as popular as I think it should be?
Blah blah blah teach a man to fish...
I am currently working with one of the government agencies in an African countries that receive quite a bit of aid. These guys are pretty immune to donors now, someone visiting every week. More agitated because everyone wants a report on how their money was spent in their own format, and they end up spending more time creating reports than doing their actual work.
And along with reducing aid, all these nonprofit crap has to stop. City where I am has so many nonprofits with so many unpaid interns and underpaid full timers from US/EU working on initiatives that make no business sense whatsoever - it's totally mind boggling.
I definitely agree with the article and general sentiment expressed above, however ending all aid to sub-Saharan Africa is not the answer (not that black and white). Aid to regions with acute and severe hardship is vital to detour (or minimize to extent possible) large-scale suffering--ie. natural disaster situations, severe drought, sudden outbreak of violence, acute disease outbreak, etc. While aid, even in these circumstances, can distort local markets and have negative side effects, it is necessary in the face of large scale suffering.
Private investment is obviously the more desirable option and development of infrastructure and governance in sub-Saharan Africa is the only way for the region to improve economically. However, improvement in these areas can take significant time to develop. Private foreign capital has little incentive to invest in these regions until a foundation of infrastructure and governance is laid bc it is simply too risky in most cases. Even organizations like Acumen Fund (I recently attended a lecture by Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz) that employ private sector approaches to development problems such as access to energy, sanitation, etc/ agriculture/healthcare are partnering with aid organizations and governments to provide funding bc it is not financially feasible to profitably provide many of the required products and services to the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ without subsidy and backing from such bodies. Organizations like the IFC or large foundations can do a lot of good providing aid that is targeted at enhancing local business growth and fostering private sector responses to the regions biggest challenges—which may not be financially feasible by a pure for-profit entity but can reach a future level of sustainability with initial subsidy. Organizations such as these not only can provide local private businesses with funding but also credibility which can lead to additional access to funding and future successes.
Additionally, organizations like the UN or the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation can provide vital aid financing for initiatives such as the eradication of malaria or HIV/AIDS which healthcare companies cannot profitably address in the African region.
chuck norris once killed 2 stones with 1 bird
Another excellent, and short, book on aid to 3rd world (mostly covers Africa) is The Elusive Quest for Growth : Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics by William Easterly.
The book is a historical analysis covering the silver bullets du jour for the 3rd world's problems (ie infrastructure investments, education, birth control, etc.) from the 1950s to today. While it is a quick read, it is well researched (lots of tables for all you data whores). I highly recommend it as an introduction to the roots of the modern foreign aid movement.
As an aside, Easterly got kicked out of the WB (or maybe the IMF, I forget) for not towing the party line so he got to see the inner workings of the beast.
Friedman mentions Africa in The Next Decade and says that even though we know the aid won't help or change anything, the US will continue pouring money into Africa because it makes us look good
Will it make any difference, these people know exactly what the aid does to Africa. Do you think its good for business to have Africa actually compete?
Great read. Not something I give much thought to on a day to day basis, but very interesting.
Hoss42, it's not even a matter of teaching a man to fish, Shikwati's argument is that the people won't be worse off without the aid, because the aid doesn't trickle down to them anyways.
I understand what the argument is but I'm saying that's a very absolute way of looking at things. Does all (or even most) famine aid make it down to the hungriest individuals in many cases--probably not, but those that it does reach are receiving often life sustaining nutrition. So I guess the question is more is the potential waste and possible corruption inherent in aid operations worth it for the good it can do for those truly in need? As I said before, only in acute/disaster type scenarios, not long-term aid that encourages dependence but you can't paint all aid with the same brush so to speak
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