The Problem with the Aid in Africa - Essay Example

African Politics – Aid Affiliation: If donors withdrew all aid from Africa tomorrow, would the continent be better or worse off? The history of aid in the world dates back to the 1940s but in Africa, it goes as far as 1950s and early 1960s. It can be thought that from then to date, African states should have become self-sufficient and not be relying on aid anymore. The problem however is that aid has become tied up with the political economy of the nations and this has led to it not being helpful and actually become more of a burden. According to Andrews (2009), Africa would be in a better place without the aid as even with it no changes are being seen as will be discussed below focusing on Kenya and the education policy. Aid was started in Africa in order to facilitate development projects after colonialism. Colonialism had impoverished African countries and the western nations came in with the concept of aid to assist. The intentions were pure and there was initially no agenda behind the money being provided. As Michelle (2013) stipulates in the journal article, there were big development ideas that were to be funded by the aid money but what lacked is the technical expertise. Aid was to be used in various developmental areas such as education, health, infrastructural development among others. Education is the baseline of every country whether developed or developing. It is therefore in the best interest of every nation to have its entire people educated if it is to have developments in the future and use it to enhance their livelihoods. Africa has been left behind for decades on the issue of access to education and this has led to aid being given and debt accrued in the need to educate their public. The dire need to raise the education standards led to need to borrow money from the Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank in order to complete the project. The project ended up consuming more and having no much return benefits to the intended public and a debt accrued. Drazen, (2002) explains how debts from the aid continued to increase with no hopes of them being paid back especially with the oil crises which led to an increase in food prices as well as the deplorable conditions in these African nations that have led to an increase in poverty. The Bretton Woods institutions together with the western countries that supplied the money for the aid came up with the concept of structural adjustment programs as the condition for being granted the aid. The African leaders desperate for the money went along with this program that saw massive layoffs and retrenchments taking place in the public sector. The structural programs were meant to reduce the number of people working in the public sector so that the countries would be able to save money and put it into development of the nation. The retrenched people were to work in the private sector as this would earn the country revenues to be used in especially education which was what lacked in these developing nations and especially those in the western part of Africa. However, this was taken as the beginning of neo-liberalism in the African states (Cammack, 2007, pg. 602). Following the structural adjustment programs was the condition of ensuring good governance. According to the aid providers, good governance entailed implementing democracy rather than dictatorial form of leadership which many heads of states were exercising. Good governance also demanded that growth potential had to be shown. This entailed having more human development as opposed to economic developments alone (Chakravarti, 2005, pg. 189). This was a more positive aspect of the conditions but it still did not work. The problem with the aid for the purpose of education is not purely external as seen above as there is also a lot of internal problem from the recipient nations. The first of the major problem was and still remains to be corruption. The money provided for aid was squandered by the leaders of the projects or by others in the process and in the end the money does not end up doing the development it was planned to do. The initial education funds were meant to ensure free education for all the children in basic and secondary education in all the African countries. In Kenya for example, the aid money was misused and a huge part of it became unavailable to complete the project. What the government did was therefore only set up free education for primary level and not secondary level and even this was marked with a lot of problems due to lack of necessary facilities. More aid money was sought to build classrooms and hire more teachers to handle the influx of pupils but even this disappeared in the deep pockets of the politicians and other stakeholders. It is no wonder some children in the northern part of the country as in other African nations still have their classrooms situated under trees and are disrupted in case the weather conditions are unfriendly. The teachers hired were still few and even they were not paid their due fees and ended up not attending classes and the children suffered. With the lack of secondary education being free, most of the children who attended primary education could not attend secondary education and therefore the education they got could not help them with contribution to the development of the country. The aid provided by foreign nations was fed to the corrupt individuals. The end result was the projects ended up collapsing and the money being lost yet again and the debt accrued. Politics also come in and play a huge part in the down fall of the aid funds. Politicians like to be in control of all that happens in the country even if it means jeopardizing the future of the nation. The political leaders are also under a lot of pressure and especially when it comes to leading their nations as everyone depends on them for guidance and protection from everything including poverty and discrimination. This pressure and lack of proper advice leads them to make poor decisions. This is what happens in the aid situation. The African states are poverty stricken and the only hope they are left with is to pump in more into the development projects in the hopes of them ending or at least alleviating the condition of the nations. They therefore borrow more and agree to the harsh and controlling conditions set for them. The African countries according to research by Moyo (2011) have become dependent on the aid as they keep on borrowing and borrowing without being able to pay all of it back. This has therefore led to a vicious cycle where the nations borrows from the rich nations and then the money disappears in corruption and other unaccountable means leading to lack of completion of projects. This therefore necessitates more borrowing and then the cycle never ends. The lack of accountability and political economy of these nations is what has made the aid money not help the people as it was initially supposed to. Politics in African nations is a heated up affair and which is awarded uttermost authority, power and respect from the rest of the community. Political leaders who are also the policy makers and law makers make decisions on behalf of their fellow countrymen. This has therefore put them in authority positions and made them invincible as well. They are involved in major money scandals where they have misappropriated public funds meant for development projects but they are simply walking free and no legal action is taken against them. They continue enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of the public and yet expect the same public to vote for them in the elections making false promises of helping them once elected. The fact that corruption is present makes them not see the inside of any courtroom even when there is enough evidence against them for the misappropriation of public funds. Those set on investigating them are also silenced in one way or the other. The revenue the countries collect therefore ends up paying the salaries and benefits of the numerous political leaders leaving no developmental funds or even emergency funds at all and this is what leads to continual aid in these African states. Ishengoma, (2002) explains how donor nations are getting tired of this misuse of their money without accountability of even being paid back. Some of these donor nations are therefore evoking sanctions against some African nations preventing them from selling their products to them and even assisting them or offering any aid money. This is a radical measure that has seen the public suffering even more due to the lack of money that was previously got from exports. Countries with misappropriation record and corruption high in their sheets are given tougher conditions to adhere to failure to which aid is cut off from them. Examples of such countries include Uganda, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Kenya among others who have suffered the wrath of the donor nations (Andrews, 2009, pg. 12). In spite of these sanctions, politics still find a way to interrupt the rest of the public from benefiting from aid money. Majority of the African nations that have had a falling with the western donor nations have turned to the east for aid in nations such as China and Japan. These nations also have their fair share of conditions which even though are not like the ones from the west are still present. They however do not offer money without anything in return for it. What this has led to is an invasion of the projects by the Chinese. All major contracts are awarded to the Chinese and Japanese and hence the money they give in aid reverts back to their countries. The major negative effect of this aid from the east is that the local people are not reaping any direct benefits and especially to do with education. They are concerned with developments where they will be reaping benefits and not benefitting the Africans only. This therefore means that the local communities only gets the end results of it and not reap the benefits. The people are therefore still lacking the developments they seek and which they are in dire need of and not the ones being awarded to them. An example is in the rural communities where there are no good education facilities including classrooms. They need funds to build those facilities but what instead they are given is having roads constructed for them. Prioritization by their political leaders who are also their community leaders is shocking. They choose instead to play politics with the development money instead of helping their community members and they do as unashamedly as Duffield explains in the journal. The image of Africa also is deemed as that of poverty stricken continent while there is a large population who are beyond rich having acquired these riches through taking the money meant for the public and using them for their own private businesses and the wealth of their families. If serious charges are inflicted on the corrupt leaders, then corruption and mismanagement of the money meant for educational development will be used for development. The leaders need to be focused on the development and stop playing political games with the aid money as this will still increase the debt of these nations. Leaders need to let the community prioritize their projects and not make the decisions for them (Pitcher, 2004, pg. 397). In spite of the African states being dependent on the aid and not being able to do without it, the African countries can actually do better without it. Most of the revenue in these African states goes towards paying the salaries of the political leaders who are the majority civil servants and earn a lot of money. If the salaries of these people or at least their benefits are reduced, then there can be enough money for the development projects without the need for aid (Ferguson and Lohmann, 1994, pg. 179). Reference Andrews, N. (November, 2009). “Foreign aid and development in Africa: What the literature says and what the reality is.” Journal of African Studies and Development, vol. 1(1), pp. 008-015. Cammack, D. (2007). “The Logic of African Neopatrimonialism: What Role for Donors?” Development Policy Review, vol. 25(5), pp. 599-614. Chakravarti, A. (2005). Aid Institutions and Development. New Approaches to Growth Governance and Poverty. USA: Edward, Elgar Publishing Limited. Drazen, A. (2002). “Conditionality and Ownership in IMF Lending: A Political Economy Approach”. IMF Staff Papers, vol. 49, pp. 36-67. Duffield, M. (2002). “Aid and complicity: the case of war-displaced Southerners in the Northern Sudan.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 40(1), pp. 83-104. Ferguson, J. and Lohmann, L. (1994). “The Anti-Politics Machine: Development and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho.” The Ecologist vol. 24(5), pp. 176-181. Ishengoma, J. M. (2002). Towards the Termination of foreign Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Proposal and Reflections from an African Perspective. Arusha: St Augustine University of Tanzania. Michelle, D. (2013). “Non-state actors and universal services in Tanzania and Lesotho: state- building by Alliance.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 51(2). Moyo, D. (2011). Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa. New Jersey: Penguin Books Limited. Pitcher, M. (2004). “Conditions, Commitments and the Politics of Restructuring in Africa.” Comparative Politics, vol. 36(4), pp. 379-398. Read More