Opinion

Why Africa Is Losing its Dignity

By Kurt Gerhardt

Part 2: The Results of our Aid Are Often Less Than Zero

When "we" build roads, irrigation canals, wells and schools in poor countries, it improves our ODA quota, but it is not necessarily good for development. If these achievements could have been made through local efforts, that is, without our help but rather through labor intensive efforts modelled on the Chinese example -- and shouldn't African governments be capable of this, after decades of training for their engineers and other specialists at our universities? -- we have not promoted but in fact prevented development, by violating the principle of subsidiarity.

When such violations happen, the return on our aid isn't zero, it is in fact negative, because it has actually caused harm. The same applies to the many thousands of failed development projects that must not only be written off, but also leave a legacy of damage.

Anyone who applies this standard to development aid of the last few decades and to the realities of life in Africa should not be surprised to find that, according to the " Bonn Appeal*," our development policies have failed.

We must expect Africans to be able to generate the economic progress that they actually want themselves.

Salvation Will Not Come from Washington or Brussels

Calling for foreign donors and aid workers whenever a problem arises will not bring progress to Africa. Its salvation will not come from Washington, Brussels or Berlin. It will either come from their own heads and hands, or not at all.

We have contributed our fair share to this lack of ambition to promote development from within. The farce over road construction that has been going on for decades is one example. Once roads are built, after being paid for with development funds, they are usually poorly maintained and eventually deteriorate. At some point, the foreign partner government can no longer stand the sight of such poor conditions, so they build another road and call the effort "rehabilitation," until the road, once again, deteriorates for lack of maintenance and yet another compassionate round of rehabilitation begins.

As a matter of principle, we should only finance new African infrastructure with development aid when our partners there have demonstrated that facilities built in the past are kept up. Rehabilitation simply promotes underdevelopment.

Sub-Saharan Africa hardly even manages to take advantage of its wealth of mineral resources to promote the wellbeing of its citizens. On the contrary: They have proven to be a curse for the majority of Africans. The enormous profits are used to pay for wars and fill the bank accounts of the upper class. According to Transparency International, the president of oil-producing country Gabon, Omar Bongo, and members of his family own 39 pieces of real estate in the best of locations in Paris and on the Côte d'Azur.

Even though the relationship between money and development is dubious at best, the donor world is obsessed with numbers games. The most well known of these pastimes revolves around the question of when the ODA quota reaches the goal of 0.7 percent of GDP, which the donor nations established 40 years ago and yet have never taken seriously, with the exception of a few smaller countries. Because this number was calculated on the basis of the situation at the time, there can be no plausible relationship between it and today's demand for development aid. Its only purpose is to increase spending.

Africa Must Assume More Responsibility

When it comes to development assistance, priorities have been turned upside-down. The important issue is not when certain financing goals are achieved, but which tasks are to be fulfilled. Only after this has been determined can we calculate how much money we need to reach our goals. For this reason, it is incorrect to say, from the outset, that more money is needed for development aid. Equally misguided was the decision, reached at the 2005 G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double development aid for Africa. No matter how many of the world's Bonos and Geldofs call for "more money," this approach remains hazardous to Africa's development.

The massive international aid machine, made up of countless agencies and organizations, is too far removed from reality. It rotates on its own axis and circles the African continent like some spaceship filled with industrious and committed experts who are constantly dreaming up strategies, holding conferences, forging consensuses, publishing studies, formulating agendas, running the numbers on their macroeconomic models and generating tons of paper. The question of who actually reads these documents is better left unasked. This spaceship functions so perfectly that it could easily exist without Africa.

If we want Africa to embark on a more effective course of development, it must assume more responsibility. This is the core message of the "Bonn Appeal." We are no longer clueless as we face the problems of development. China pointed the way out of poverty by developing economically on its own strength, not by extending its hand for outside assistance. That would only be acceptable in times of acute need, when humanitarian aid is appropriate.

Why should we assume that Africa could not successfully pursue its own path in much the same way? This doesn't mean that we would simply step aside, but a clear division of labor is needed. The best thing we can do for Africa is to improve educational opportunities for young people. But it is up to them to make something of it, to turn education into material progress.

And wherever material and financial assistance is needed, in addition to the provision of skills, we must observe one principle: No handouts! Whenever money is given, the problems begin. As a matter of principle, development aid should only be distributed in the form of loans. This presupposes that all people willing to work for progress have access to loans, and to achieve this, the successful micro-lending model must be expanded, including the use of development aid, so that it reaches all of the poor.

If Africa pursues this path self-confidently and energetically, it will not only attain prosperity but will also regain its dignity.