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AFRODAD launches reality of aid, Africa edition in Harare
African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD)
August 06, 2004

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The African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) launched the Reality of Aid, Africa Edition 2003/4 on Tuesday 3 August, 2004 at a public meeting held at the Kariba Room, Harare Holiday Inn, Harare. The well-attended public meeting under the Reality of Aid framework was to discuss development aid, conditionalities surrounding aid and sustainable development for Africa.

Speakers included Mr Bvumbe, Principal Director in Charge of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning in Zimbabwe, Professor Sam Moyo, African Institute for Agrarian studies of Zimbabwe, Mr Opa Kapijimpanga of Zambia who is also AFRODAD chairman and Professor Edward Oyugi of Kenya. The discussion focused on various aspects of donor aid and its effectiveness and purpose while also examining its relevance to sustainable development in Africa.

Participants to the public meeting were asked their opinions on development aid before the speakers took to the podium, to gauge the level of understanding on aid among society at large.

The participants’ feelings on Aid were generally as follows:

• Africa needs access to markets.
• Need aid and not conditionalities.
• Aid is necessary under win-win situations.
• Aid is needed, with or without conditionalities.
• Aid is necessary, but should not foster a dependency syndrome.
• Aid should be redefined as a gift to create friendships.
• Aid is needed, but conditionalities have to be negotiated.

Moreblessings Chidaushe from AFRODAD welcomed the participants and gave a brief background to Reality Of Aid project. She said ROA, Africa Edition was part of a global process which came into existence after the realisation that only Northern views dominated all issues to do with Aid. It was established to incorporate Southern views. The Global ROA publications are published every two years, and contain different themes. The theme for 2004 was Governance and Human Rights. 

• Ms Barbara Kalima, the AFRODAD Coordinator who introduced the key speakers and their respective areas of discussions as follows, chaired the meeting:
• Prof. Sam Moyo (from African Institute for Agrarian studies) – Background to Development Aid.
• Opa Kapijimpanga (Zambia) – Aid and Conditionalities.
• Prof. Edward Oyugi (Kenya) – Does Africa need Aid? Towards sustainable development for the Continent.
• Dr. Godfrey Kanyenze (LEDRIZ) – Discussant.

Members of the public would ask questions or make comments after presentations.

Background to Development Aid (by Prof Moyo)
He noted the following two key points from the ROA 2003/ 2004 publication:

1. There was a rights centred approach to aid, although Civil and Political Rights were not adequately covered.
2. Lack of Good Governance was the explanation of poverty.

After 2nd World War, there was the idea of the state and the nations, including Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), which are today’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund. BWIs were seen as key elements in development and Aid was meant to promote developmentalism. However, there was polarisation between the North and South because of Aid. This is as a result of lack of industrialisation in Africa where Labour relations continue to be a problem. Aid has therefore not achieved development in Africa except for South Africa. The state is built in a multilateral setting, and does not have enough leverage to determine its own destiny because pf neo-colonialism.

Since the 1970s, that is, after the oil crisis and the ascension of the $US as the main currency, the global economy has tended to be capitalist. It is based on managing the financial crisis. Prof. Moyo told the participants that this was not the time for voluntarist ideas, that is, whether to or not to receive Aid. It is clear that Aid is a tool for increased control by imperialist states, and therefore makes the whole issue of multilateralism a mockery.

Development Aid has been and continues to decline. Aid is shifting from a development idea to a welfarist idea. The four (4) principles being contested in Aid are:

Aid and conditionalities (by Opa Kapijimpanga)
Africa is a continent with massive wealth and massive poverty, there is a divergence between resource base and resource use. Closing this gap will result in development. However, Aid has not lead to development, for it has widened the divergence. Conditionalities reinforce a certain model of development, which is imposed on Africa by the West. Mr Kapijimpanga gave an example of Zambia where more than 9000 teachers are out in the streets. Government cannot employ them because it would be violating its obligations to cut down on expenditure. The government of Zambia has had to retrench employees in order to minimise its expenditure.

"Good governance is one that does not violate rights," said Kapijimpanga.

For Africa to develop, Aid should be the key to production. Kapijimpanga said the production process was mystified, and development Aid has entrenched a level of dependency. To round up, he challenged the participants to go beyond castigating conditionalities and develop their own tools for sustainable development.

"Development Aid has created dependency even on the way we think about Aid," said Barbara Kalima rounding up Kapijimpanga’s presentation. She said technology was the basis of improving production.

Mr Bvumbe, the Principal Director in Charge of Economic Affairs in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Finance pointed out the following issues in relation to Aid:

1. Resources (land, Sun, Water, people). He said Africa had plenty of resources, but needed to fully utilise them in order to develop. He gave an example of land, which could be utilised to produce agricultural commodities.
2. Technology, he said, has to be small and relevant.

Dr. Kanyenze, a Trade Unionist began by turning around Aid, and said it came from South to the North, and not the other way round. He said Aid revolved around the relationship between the giver and the receiver. The intentions of Aid are either "overt or covert."

"Every dollar that comes from Africa triggers $3 out of Africa," explained Dr Kanyenze. He reinforced his point by giving an example of diamonds that Africa mines and sells to the West for $1. The West polishes the diamond and sells it back to Africa for $6. The West also give Africa $1 as Aid. The question that he posed to participants was "Who is the giver?"

The following were attributed to the point that for every $1 that lands in Africa, $3 leaves:

1. Transfer pricing.
2. Massive debt repayments.
3. Corruption.
4. Undeserving beneficiaries of Aid.
5. Nature and character of the state.

He gave an example of COSATU in South Africa, which does not receive Aid unnecessarily from donors, while ZCTU, in Zimbabwe, were more than happy to be recipients of any aid. He said it was important for one to be independent of donors. He attributed contradictions in Africa to lack of strategic thinking. For example, NEPAD and SADC agree that it is important to liberalise trade. But when Africans confront The World Trade Organisation, they say they will never liberalise trade. This is a sign of confusion.

"A time has come to reflect on Aid. Aid is not helping Africans because of the power relations it creates."

Dr Kanyenze congratulated AFRODAD for the continued publication of Reality Of Aid.

Barbara Kalima posed the following question to the floor:

"Is Africa willing to wait, and for how long? At what cost?"

The general feeling amongst the participants was that a time has come for Africa to do without Aid. One participant said that if Africans think they are not ready to let go of Aid, then they will never be ready.

Some participants expressed fear of the unknown in abruptly refusing aid. However, it was agreed that the process of weaning Africa from the dependency syndrome had to be gradual, and Africans ought to be prepared to face the consequences thereof.

Another participant said that Africa still needed aid in light of the HIV/ AIDS scourge. Other participants tried to rule out this point saying that the ultimate beneficiaries of anti-retro-virals were the producers of drugs who were profiteering. It was also felt that Westerners created employment for themselves by coming to Africa in the name of assistance. Another participant pointed out that all that is good in Africa is taken away by the West, including human resources resulting in a brain drain and, therefore, the underdevelopment of Africa.

"Our development model is extroversial, it looks at the outside and not the inside," said Prof. S. Moyo. He said civil society was as extrovert as everyone else, and therefore not developmental at all. He said the evolution of NGOs was erratic and changing, opportunistic. The concept of human rights is Eurocentric. It emphasises property rights in order to exclude other people from developing.

Participants felt that ROA has to be translated into vernacular so that information on debt and development reaches ordinary citizens.

Although some participants castigated NEPAD as being foreign, it was felt that NEPAD was necessary to help Africa to speak with one voice because IMF has a tendency of harassing African countries individually.

Barbara Kalima summarised the main issues as follows:

• Africa should export finished and value added products. She cited President Sam Nujoma’s threat to the West at the world summit that Africa would impose sanctions on raw materials.
• Africa is less desperate for Aid.
• There is need for national ethos.
• There is need to define what Aid really is.
• Brain drain is bad for Africa.
• We need to love ourselves and we should always remember where we are coming from.

Moreblessings thanked the participants and told them that the next theme for ROA was Securitisation of Aid. She said this was in light of terror, which was at the expense of poverty reduction, and therefore had implications on the Millennium Development Goals.

The Reality of Aid debate was part of a two-day High Level regional workshop AFRODAD held at Pandhari Lodge in Harare on the theme "The International Financial Institutions’ Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF) financing tool and its implication for poverty reduction". The Workshop, which brought together permanent secretaries and senior officials of finance from seven African countries and civil society, drew heavily from AFRODAD’s studies on the Process and Content of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) in ten African countries.

The workshop allowed participants, who were mostly African government officials and policymakers:

• To discuss the outcome and concerns of the PRGF study.
• To inform and educate government officials and CSOs on the PRGF and its composition.
• To map a way forward on how African governments can deal with IFIs on issues of conditionalities and other development initiatives.

The workshop aimed to simplify the PRGF, raise and increase awareness on its technicalities and politics. This together with a popular pamphlet of the PRGF was meant to increase capacity in understanding and influencing policymakers on the PRSPs and other development initiatives.

Since the majority of countries affected by the IFIs’ initiatives are not familiar with the PRGF concept, AFRODAD commissioned a desk research to unpack, demystify and simplify the concept and its tenets. The donors and not the countries themselves determine the issue of conditionality embodied in the PRGF. This study was aimed at increasing the pressure towards ownership of development processes.

Objectives of the study were to:

• Repackage the PRGF to make it user-friendlier - it is a central issue that needs, unpacking and demystifying for use by the ordinary person.
• Expose the conditionalities that undermine the achievement of the PRSPs and other development initiatives.
• Raise awareness on the impact of the PRGF on various poverty reduction initiatives.
• Increase stakeholders’ participation in PRGF and other programme debates thus increase pressure on policymakers to come up with policies that are more beneficial to developing world.
• Contribute to the debate and thinking around processes that undermine Africa’s development
• Contribute to the resolution of the debt crisis.
• Build a critical mass within civil society willing to resist or provide alternatives to PRGF e.g. promoting and encouraging governments to look into alternative sources of finance.

The Reality of Aid is an independent assessment of the quality, performance and effectiveness of development aid. AFRODAD is a regional civil society organisation, based in Harare, Zimbabwe, that was born of a desire to see lasting solutions to Africa’s mounting debt problem which has impacted negatively on the continent’s development process. AFRODAD aspires for an equitable and sustainable development process leading to a prosperous African society by securing policies that will redress the African debt crisis based on a human rights value system.

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