Africa needs more than just monetary aid
Democracy, Not Dollars
Africa needs more than just monetary aid. By President Mamadou Koulibaly On Wednesday, the World Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) opened at the United Nations. This summit follows the good intentions of the Gleneagles G-8 Summit in July, which, under the leadership of prime minister Tony Blair, stressed the need to increase official development assistance to Africa. These intentions are noble, but five years have passed since the adoption of the MDG by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2000. It is time to step back and frankly assess the results. We can no longer ignore that aid policies for African states have had only insignificant effects; key research-and-development aid institutes consistently draw our attention to the failure of these measures. How can aid be increasingly provided to African governments without making sure that the rule of law and transparency are promoted as the strategic framework to improve living conditions? Now seems an appropriate time to make new, more realistic and effective commitments for the future of the MDG. We would do well to question some of the irrelevant assumptions of those calling for an increase in the volume of aid. Numerous World Bank and IMF analysts, among others working at major research centers on international development, question the effectiveness of the policies adopted so far. Research increasingly shows that economic prosperity is primarily generated by private investment when states can stimulate economic freedom. Reflecting on international development, global prosperity, common security, and a millennium of universal peace must become a matter of primary concern to all of us. Introspection should focus more on methods than on goals per se. No golden solution will fall from the sky. The main challenge we face is to develop the capacity to open up our countries to international actors who can foster prosperity for the poorest amongst us. We also cannot shy away from our responsibilities as Africans. The MDG address only the effects of underdevelopment in poor countries. The commitments made in 2000 focused on reducing extreme poverty, hunger, infant, and maternal mortality and diseases, with an emphasis on tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria. Any honest assessment, however, shows that structural poverty has increased, with larger numbers of Africans trapped in the cycle of poverty. Farmers, often the largest social and professional class, are still amongst the poorest in Africa countries when they live off of lands that are not governed by precise ownership rights. Recent tragedies in Niger, Senegal, and Sudan remind us that famine remains a major problem in the 21st century, because of harsh climatic conditions exacerbated by armed conflicts. Infant and maternal mortality are likewise too common. In Africa, AIDS makes other contagious diseases harder to control. The MDG also sought to improve basic education and gender equality. They aimed at improving access to drinking water and at ensuring better environmental conservation, through a partnership between rich and poor countries. Yet there has been an increase in the number of child-soldiers and an increase in the number of armed conflicts; polygamy offers a marked contrast to the desire for equal rights for women; and the dramatic growth of cities has led to a destruction of forests and depletion of water tables. Moreover, the MDG have been pursued in most African countries within a macro-policy framework, and thus have been marked by unfair cooperation agreements that are a substitute for colonialism. The MDG do nothing to redress these unfair colonial pacts signed with departing European colonial powers in the 1960s. Another disturbing fact of the MDG, noble intentions notwithstanding, is that they have been used as benchmarks by African states to promote centralized national development, even though the past century taught us a clear historical lesson: that central planning and authoritarianism fails and that market economies and democracy work. Individual freedom and the right to self-determination are self-evident truths; they cannot be ignored. If ignored, unintended consequences such as the underlying conditions will continue to foster conflicts, and breed terrorism and extremism of all types in poor countries. There is now a good opportunity to begin advocating for freedom, democracy, and the enshrinement of clearer and more precise property rights regarding common goods that are all too often considered in Africa as state property. For common goals, we need common approaches based on rights and individual freedoms, which the signatory states should promote. Rich countries cannot be the only democracies in the world while poor countries are forced to content themselves with anti-democratic regimes. Developed countries should not maintain economic freedom exclusively for themselves and condone the collapse of countries receiving their assistance beneath the yoke of liberticidal regimes and protectionist pacts. Africa needs free trade and democracy. Democracy, as a universal value, as well as equity and freedom should be the foundation for common approaches to the MDG. To reach thess goals, we need imaginative leadership rather than cautious leadership. The level and flow of aid dollars matter less than improving governance in poor countries and inter-state relations at the global level. We ask the developed world to work effectively with us to end unfair trade practices, to promote freedom, economic development and the rule of law, and to assure a better future for all the children of our continent. — Mamadou Koulibaly, a noted author, is president of the National Assembly of the Ivory Coast. |
Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
I remember a time where a country was beaten in a huge, (some say world) war when they kept trying to place their beliefs and morals on other countries. But calling it 'democracy' instead of 'fascism' or 'communism' makes it better?
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Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
I'm not sure anyone (ever) has believed the just monetary aid was what Africa needed. Indeed, the recent Live 8 stuff was explicitly not to raise monetary aid but instead to concentrate on achieving "higher awareness" (whatever that might mean). Trying to pretend otherwise is pure straw-manning.
As for free-trade : in a sense, yes. Free trade is absolutley needed in Europe and the United States so areas where the developing world has a chance to export (e.g. agriculture and textiles). Highly subsidised and controlled European agricultural markets are not an example of free-trade and never have been. However, I would say that free-trade means whatever the speaker who uses the term wishes it to mean. It is becoming as meaningless as "freedom" and "democracy" among politicians. For instance, a key component of "free trade" for the United States is pressuring other countries to enforce rigid intellectual property laws. In concrete terms this usually means increasing the number of arrests of people who "pirate" software, cracking down on trading of counterfit goods, etc. The perversity of restricting trade of a harmless, safe under the banner of freedom of trade does not occur to the people persuing such a poolicy. Similarly, "free trade" in parts of Latin America and Afghanistan is dedicated to trying to stop farmers grow the most profitable crop they can grow (opium or cocoa in many cases) using violence in some cases. Again, the irony is lost on the policy makers. I'm also skeptical on the following remark Quote:
Among developing countries the countries which have flirted more directly with neo-liberal privatisations (e.g. in Latin America) have generally faired quite badly (in relative terms) in achieving long-term economic growth and stability. The countries which our media fawns over as the next big thing (China, India) have government systems in some senses which are far more controlling than our own. |
Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
Also, on the subject of the UN and since no-one will bother reading this thread past the first post :
Quote:
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Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
Does Africa know it needs US style democracy ?
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Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
I wouldn't be averse to a bit of good old-fashioned socialist economics to get many of the world's poorest countries up to a minimum subsistence level. Real free-market approaches would also be of huge benefit. Of course most of this is fairly obvious. Actually the first post is really just an incredibly long way of saying give a man a fish and he can eat for one day; teach a man to fish, and he will never be hungry for the rest of his life. Clearly it's a better idea to teach people how to create wealth rather than just redistribute it. It's just rather more difficult for busy middle-class drones to support democracy and fair trade policies in Africa than for them to give a few dollars a month.
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Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
Liberalism Through Empire!
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Re: Africa needs more than just monetary aid
Chavez is a fairly cool guy despite being some sort of raving socialist loon at times, he was the first foreign leader to offer aid after Hurricane Katrina if I remember correctly. It should be noted that the only way all those reforms get done is through profits from the oil industry.
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