Why Foreign Aid Is Not Changing Africa And What Can Be Done
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(OPINION) Senegal’s President Macky Sall, the current chair of the African Union, unambiguously set the scene before the December summit between African leaders visiting Washington. In an interview with the New York Times, he said that what Africa is seeking from the U.S. is not aid or hand-outs but investment and access to markets for African goods.
He's right! The US government must now accept that foreign aid or what it calls “development assistance” to Africa has failed to achieve its goal for more than five decades, and therefore, the principles and practices that underlie aid must now be recalibrated to focus on trade, investment and human development. The Biden administration took a step in the right direction by pledging billions in trade agreements and economic investments in Africa during the summit with African leaders in December. The question now is how those programs and investments will be administered.
For the last 15 years, some African leaders, such as Rwanda President Paul Kegame, have been challenging Western donors to accept that aid has not accomplished the desired social and economic transformation and that the West must help African states to be weaned off aid dependency. Meanwhile, 15 years on, aid remains a centerpiece in U.S.-Africa relations. The U.S. continues to be the largest bilateral overseas development assistance donor to the continent.
That aid to Africa has failed to achieve its ultimate goal of transforming Africa and, in so doing, liberating the continent from aid dependency for more than half a century is incontrovertible.
In this article, I wish to argue that the U.S.-led Western governments must now accept that so much aid generously gifted by churches, organizations and governments in the West has failed to change Africa. Therefore, the principles and practices that underlie aid must now be reviewed and recalibrated to shift focus toward human development, entrepreneurship, trade and investment.
This is not to suggest that aid should be cut off immediately. It is rather to say that there must be a roadmap toward a point where foreign aid is no longer necessary. It is also to say that in the meantime, aid must only be done in such a way that the interests of its recipients are at the center, contextually relevant strategies and frameworks are adopted and, more importantly, it contributes to human development, improved governance, fairer trade and entrepreneurship. In this connection, I will discuss below how a new initiative called Sophos Africa is seeking to stimulate, nurture and empower a critical mass of Africans toward individual and societal flourishing in the continent.
Foreign aid and Africa
The goal of aid is to end situations that lead to aid. It is estimated that the West has given $1.2 trillion in aid and development assistance to Africa since 1990 according to Greg Mills in his book “Expensive Poverty.” But sadly this aid has had little or no impact on bettering the lives of poor Africans. Africa still is where 70% of the world’s poorest live and 140 million people face food insecurity. It is a continent with the worst corruption record and democratic deficit. Africa is a continent that continues to be ravaged by probably more than 40 ethnically and religiously fueled conflicts. It is a continent that has experienced five attempted and six successful coup d’états in the last three years alone.
While aid — humanitarian, governance, military or development — has spectacularly failed to achieve its goal in Africa, opinions remain divided. Some, like economist Jeffery Sachs, continue to call for increased aid. Others have argued that aid not only has failed to end the pandemic of poverty in Africa but also, in William Easterly’s words, ‘the West’s efforts to aid the Rest have done so much ill and so little good’ (“The White Man’s Burden”). Easterly argues that the donors must change their approach in order that aid reaches those for whom it is intended.
African thinkers and practitioners such as Dambisa Moyo in her book “Dead Aid” and Greg Mills in his book “Expensive Poverty” have argued that aid has caused so much corruption and conflict, inhibited social capital and deepened state aid dependency that both Western donors and African governments must move toward the point where the aid cycle stops and aid is no longer necessary. Eggen and Roland (“Western Aid at a Crossroads: The End of Paternalism”) are critical of the administration of aid and have argued that aid should be done without Western paternalism signified by crowds of so-called experts. In the light of all this, we must ask why aid has failed to achieve its goal of bringing aid to an end in Africa in the way that it did in Asia and Europe after World War II and what should be done for genuine change in Africa. Before discussing these issues, I wish to add an anecdote from my own personal experience.
Personal story
I am now over 50 years old. I grew up in the countryside in southern Ethiopia with poverty and all its consequences. I have known aid since my childhood. I have worked for a humanitarian organization and witnessed humanitarian emergency aid saving thousands of lives. I have also witnessed aid undermining social capital, tearing apart communities, corrupting officials and fueling conflicts. And yet, I believed that the West’s strong commitment to aid could address Africa’s problems. I also believed that as someone who was studying in the West and benefiting from its blessings, I could solve some of the problems faced by my family and my village. My friends and my church in London collected pre-loved children’s clothes and raised money to dig wells in my village and improve the state of the school I went to as a child.
Our effort brought some temporary relief to my village and the school, but it did not bring a sustainable solution because neither had a critical mass of people committed to leading a long-lasting change. Against all expectations, I have not gone back to my village with another project. Some in my village, however, continue to benefit from the social safety net programs run by Western agencies in collaboration with the government. Alas, the village unfortunately is poorer than it was when I was in my teens. I have come to realize that no amount of money or expertise will solve the problem in my village unless the villagers themselves are ready to solve their problems. My village is a microcosm of Africa. Africa will not change until a critical mass of Africans consistently works to tip the prevailing harmful conventions and practices in African societies and states. The West can support this effort but cannot change Africa. In short, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, the West cannot help Africa permanently by doing for Africa what Africans could and should do for themselves.
To be sure, cutting off aid immediately could worsen the lives of the majority of Africans because African governments, who depend on foreign aid for a big chunk of their national budgets, could collapse and tens of millions of people who are food insecure could die. However, I do not believe that foreign aid should continue everlastingly. U.S.-led Western governments and organizations must review and recalibrate the principles and practices that underlie their policies of aid to Africa and seriously consider shifting their focus from aid to providing fair access to African markets, making foreign direct investment and supporting entrepreneurial endeavors and the development of human capital.
Investment and access to markets
Africans appreciate China not for its aid commitment but for its generous loans and investments. The majority of Africans equally appreciate Western values underpinned by Judeo-Christian traditions. But the U.S.-led West has lost ground in Africa and is now using Africa as a strategic battleground with China and Russia. Instead, the best approach, in my view, would be aggressively investing in infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, service and tech industries.
Investment must go hand in hand with access to markets. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act 2000 in the U.S. was designed “to facilitate the integration of the Sub-Saharan African countries into the global economy by providing preferential access to the US market for exporters from these countries.” This was believed to create jobs and reduce poverty, which it did to some extent. However, its impact in terms of improving U.S.-Africa trade is very limited. And its goal of promoting economic growth through good governance and free markets means that when a country is accused of engaging in human rights violations, for example, the agreement is terminated. It is well known that this approach is fundamentally inconsistent, as the U.S.-led West does trade with countries that do not adopt the kind of values and principles that the West seeks to promote. This unfortunately has undermined the moral authority of the West. But the situation is not beyond redemption.
My perspective, for what it is worth, is that value-centered trade with African nations and ethically driven investment in the continent guided by the virtue of consistency and moral authority would be much more effective in terms of changing Africa. The current negatively framed formula, which is accompanied with a mixture of legitimate and spurious conditions and strings often promoted by entities with self-serving goals, has failed. These conditions and strings are often dismissed out of hand, because they are perceived to originate from a belief that Africans are generally morally bankrupt and therefore in need of help by a morally superior West. So much effort, as a result, bears so little fruit.
I believe that it is now time for the U.S.-led West to develop a positively framed formula for its trade and investment as well as political and humanitarian relations with Africa. This new formula must be based on the principle of reciprocity rather than power relations. On a practical level, this new formula must include engaging in a mutually beneficial trade with Africa through the African Continental Free Trade Area, which will be the fifth-largest economy with the potential to have the combined GDP of over $3.4 trillion.
Investment in human capital: Sophos Africa
Africa is where it is today because of the shortage of a critical mass of Africans with transformed mind-set and value systems. Sophos Africa — a new nonprofit organization incorporated in the U.S. and United Kingdom and guided by values rooted in Judeo-Christian and other traditions — believes that we can see a resilient and flourishing Africa only through developing a critical mass of genuinely transformed and entrepreneurial Africans: Africans who believe that change can happen even in Africa; who consistently stand against corruption, ethnocentrism and religious extremism; and who promote virtues and values, entrepreneurial spirit and a culture of integrity, accountability and stewardship. Sophos Africa will have a kickoff event and conference on Saturday, Feb. 18, in New York City in partnership with Acton Institute, Pepperdine University’s school of public policy and the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute at The King’s College. Interested people can RSVP here: https://sophosafrica.org/event/nyc/.
So, SA dreams for a better Africa that maintains a consistently solid mindset and outlook and constructive culture and moral ecology. This dream can be realized if those who believe in the good of the world and humanity live out their faith and convictions for a better Africa. This dream can also be realized if Africans fully accept that they are mainly responsible for Africa’s political, moral and economic poverty. The root cause of this poverty, in my view, is the lack of a sufficient number of Africans who possess changed mindsets, have commitment to basic values and human dignity, and cultivate the virtues of cooperation, flexibility, integrity and accountability. This is also one reason why aid has failed to achieve its goal and even in some contexts has become a societal poison.
The U.S.-led West must now become intentional in investing in the capacity development of a critical mass of Africans who can become change agents and leaders in Africa. This, in my view, is much more effective than sending few experts with development frameworks and tens of millions of dollars. This is not to say that Western expertise is not necessary for African development. But excessive dependence on a few highly educated and well-meaning experts, who have little or no knowledge of diverse African cultures, has not helped. And the development frameworks, which are devised in New York, Washington, Brussels or London and, by and large, contextually irrelevant, have done Africa little or no good. African problems can only be addressed through contextually relevant schemes developed by Africans who are open to learn from others, including Western experts.
Building a web of change agents and leaders
One of Sophos Africa’s strategies is bringing together a network of Africans who accept that Africans are chiefly responsible for Africa’s problems and that they must therefore be responsible for finding solutions. These are Africans who believe in abandoning a victim mentality, unhealthy Afro-centrism and anti-Western sentiments. They are willing to engage in healthy partnerships with those in the West and East who are open to reciprocally share knowledge, expertise, experience and resources for mutual benefit.
So far in Ethiopia, hundreds have become part of a network of women and men who are committed to personal transformation, maintaining integrity in their life and work, and promoting transformed culture, mindset, value systems and the common good. This network will become a social movement that organizes and exerts social pressure for change. Furthermore, the network is being expanded to government, business, religious and educational sectors using discussion modules on topics such as change agency and leadership, ethics and corruption, religion and extremism, ethnicity and identity, mindset and culture, and poverty and entrepreneuriship. The modules are developed through cross-cultural collaborations, and their contents are designed to help participants to examine themselves and change their ways of thinking, relating and acting. They are also designed to provoke them into coming up with ideas and strategies to address the problems they face in their work place.
Our target in a given office or organization would be to develop 18% of the total number of people. These are those who have resolved to do all they can to ensure that their work place and by extension their country is free from harmful conventions and practices. Employing this approach, SA seeks to develop change engineers and leaders who can help tackle interrelated societal problems that have dogged Africa, namely a culture of corruption, ethnic mistrust and exclusion, and extremist and violent behavior in religions.
Mobilizing a generation of entrepreneurs
SA further seeks to develop a critical mass of transformed Africans in the area of wealth creation. We are designing an economic empowerment program for women and young people from similar social and economic backgrounds in order to enable them to achieve change of mindset and culture and become value-driven entrepreneurs, responsible citizens, change agents and leaders. We are starting this program with unemployed young graduates in Ethiopia.
It is estimated that almost 13% of Africa’s youth aged 15-35 (approx. 150 million) are unemployed (https://www.afdb.org; https://www.statista.com) and 50% of graduates don’t find jobs each year. This is mainly due to an explosion of new universities, which contributes to a higher output of graduates without corresponding job opportunities. The poor qualities of education that results in limited knowledge and skill sets compound this.
Currently, it is estimated that half a million unemployed graduates exist in Ethiopia alone. A large number of them are ending up on the streets in towns and cities, perishing in seas and deserts while trying to reach South Africa or Europe, victimized in the hands of human traffickers and cruel masters in the Middle East, or falling prey to extremist political and religious organizations. Our plan is to help some of these to help themselves and, in so doing, to develop ethical entrepreneurs and a generation of change agents and leaders from among them.
Providing institutional support through research
In addition to all the above, we believe that it is necessary to engage and partner with government, civil society organizations and religious institutions in order to address poverty and causes of poverty. Our main focus in this engagement will be on providing research-based data, evidence and ideas in order to positively influence public policies, conversations and practices. We carry out research in a context that is free from political partisanship and external influence and in a manner that is balanced, culturally sensitive and contextually relevant.
In Ethiopia, for example, the first area of engagement will be the issue of ethics and corruption. Corruption is a huge problem the world over, but it is killing Africa. SA seeks to work with bodies such as the recently established national anti-corruption committee and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in order to contribute research-based evidence and ideas to their effort of tackling the culture of corruption in society in general and state structures in particular.
The second area of engagement is the issue of ethnicity and politics. Ethiopia is probably the only country in the world whose constitution enshrines administrative structures on the basis of ethnicity. This has caused much mistrust, division and so many other problems, including the recent conflict in northern Ethiopia. The Parliament has now established a National Dialogue Commission in order to oversee broad inclusive dialogue. This process seeks to deal with some difficult and divisive issues and engender national consensus towards building a social and political culture based on trust. SA’s main contribution will be providing research-based data and recommendations to the commission on the issue of ethnicity and politics towards inclusive policies and peaceful coexistence in Ethiopia.
The third area of engagement will be in terms of religion in education. Successive Marxist regimes have excluded religion from the Ethiopian educational curriculum for almost five decades. SA is now working with religious institutions and other organizations in order to make the case to the Ethiopian government for the reintroduction of religion in education. Offering religious education in schools and religious studies in the universities helps overcome religious misinformation that results in radicalism and violence. It also contributes to a holistic education that is characterized by virtues and values, the result of which is a flourishing society with strong moral foundations.
Conclusion
In my discussion above, I hope I have shown that it is now time to review and recalibrate the principles and practices that underlie foreign aid to Africa toward a point where aid is no longer necessary. I also hope that I have shown that Sophos Africa matters not only to Africa but also to the rest of the world because it seeks to develop Africans who are against corrupt, ethnocentric and extremist behaviors and practices and have respect for basic human decency, civility, virtues and values. This will obviously have global ramifications due to the growth of world population and the increasing movement of people.
The recent UN study shows that five countries out of eight that will contribute the 9th billion of the world’s population will be in Africa, one of those being Ethiopia. This supports the 2014 UNICEF report that by 2050, two children out of five in the world will be African. It is, therefore, in the interest of all those in the West and East, North and South to work hard for a transformed Africa. It is in the interests of us all to develop African women and men who possess truly changed mindsets and value systems, and who are ethically and economically empowered and are able and willing to engineer and lead change in our ever-changing world.
Desta Heliso studied at King's College London and London School of Theology and served as lecturer and director of the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa. He currently resides in London but continues to coordinate the Center for Ancient Christianity and Ethiopian Studies at EGST. He is also a fellow of the Center for Early African Christianity in New Haven and a visiting lecturer at the London School of Theology.