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Aid worker and diplomat Giles Bolton oIers his radical analysis oI the problems AIrica Iaces. Americans spent nearly as much money subsidizing the u.s. Cotton industry. Famine is really the result oI Iragile, poor lives, says bolton.
Aid worker and diplomat Giles Bolton oIers his radical analysis oI the problems AIrica Iaces. Americans spent nearly as much money subsidizing the u.s. Cotton industry. Famine is really the result oI Iragile, poor lives, says bolton.
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Aid worker and diplomat Giles Bolton oIers his radical analysis oI the problems AIrica Iaces. Americans spent nearly as much money subsidizing the u.s. Cotton industry. Famine is really the result oI Iragile, poor lives, says bolton.
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Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Скачайте в формате DOCX, PDF, TXT или читайте онлайн в Scribd
AIrica, a continent enormously rich in resources and people, remains the sick child oI the modern world.
Why, and what can we
do about it? is AIrica still poor? What happens to the billions oI aid dollars given yearly? Why do trade rules that Iail AIrican countries also cost us at the checkout line? Why doesn`t AIrica matter? In this engaging, jargon-Iree, reader-Iriendly guide, longtime aid worker and diplomat Giles Bolton oIIers his radical analysis oI the problems AIrica Iaces, drawing on years oI experience on the ground. Dividing the book into Iive sectionspoverty, aid, trade, globalization, and changehe analyzes the issues, breaking them down with helpIul Ieatures like sidebars and bullet points and humanizing them with stories about real people in AIrica and anecdotes Irom his own years in the Iield. In a Iinal section, he outlines what we as individuals can do to make a diIIerence. p7 In 2006 |Americans| spent nearly as much money subsidizing the U.S. cotton industry, $4 billion, as the entire value oI the cotton it produced. |Europeans| are paying to subsidize every cow in the European Union at $3 a day. |The Japanese| recently spent more than 1 percent oI |their| annual income at least $600 per household` on rice through a combination oI high prices and Iarmer support. p22
Five Myths about Africa Famine is due to Iood shortages. Drought or conIlict can certainly lead to much-reduced Iood production in particular areas. But it`s rare that a country as a whole has insuIIicient Iood, and the market can always bring supplies in Irom other places, or even Irom abroad. Famine occurs because individuals can no longer aIIord to buy Iood, so there`s no point in traders bringing in any to sell. Famine is really the result oI Iragile, poor lives, where just one bad harvest-or the death oI your cow, a collapse in crop prices, the loss oI a job-can leave you with nothing, and no means to provide Ior your Iamily. AIrica is overpopulated and they keep having too many children For its size, AIrica is relatively underpopulated. India is barely a tenth as big and supports more people. Rwanda has the heaviest land pressure in AIrica yet still has Iewer people per square mile than England. The problem is that economic growth too oIten lags behind population growth, land use is ineIIicient, and pressure on good land intensiIies in the absence oI other opportunities Ior employment. With stable growth and the new jobs it brings, AIrica`s population could aIIord considerable expansion. But in any case, birth rates tend to Iall where growth, education, and health care improve. AIrica has many killer diseases No, it doesn`t-or at least, little more so than other parts oI the world. Most deaths in AIrica don`t occur elsewhere simply because there is treatment available in hospitals and clinics, drugs we can aIIord, and inoculations we have as children. Some oI AIrica`s big killers? * HIV/AIDS (over 2 million a year). It`s pretty simple. II you get HIV in the West, you take antiretrovirals, which have a very high success rate at keeping you alive and healthy Ior years. II you get it in AIrica-and 70 percent oI the people in the world with HIV Live in AIrica-you probably don`t, and you will soon die once Iull-blown AIDS takes hold, unless you`re one oI a lucky Iew. * Malaria (about 1 million a year). Aside Irom the deaths, malaria takes a massive toll in sickness and loss oI productivity, with hundreds oI millions suIIering bouts every year. But with proper treatment and use oI bed nets, it could be reduced enormously. Southern Europe used to suIIer Irom malaria; it`s now all but extinct there. * Diarrheal diseases (about 700,000 a year). Yes, people die Irom diarrhea, especially the vulnerable, such as young children, all Ior want oI simple treatment like oral rehydration and access to clean water.` And so on and so Iorth. More than 4 million children in AIrica under Iive die every year; two-thirds oI their deaths could be avoided with low-cost solutions like vitamin A supplements, insecticide-treated bed nets, and oral rehydration tablets. Want to know how easy it is to stamp out a disease iI you put enough eIIort behind it-and enough resources? In a rare success story, polio is close to being wiped out in AIrica, Largely due to a mass inoculation campaign since 1988. Nearly all disease is about poverty. AIrica has many dangerous animals In some ways this would be quite romantic iI true, even though Irightening. But elephants don`t rampage through backyards on a regular basis, and leopards don`t make a habit oI chewing Iarmers in their Iields. Most wild game is conIined to relatively Iew reserves; there are thought to be only around 23,000 Lions across the whole continent, a decrease oI 90 percent in two decades.` They kill only a couple oI hundred people a year (and barely ever a tourist).8 In killing terms, it`s the malaria-carrying mosquito that is the true king oI the jungle. The climate isn`t conducive to development People tend to Iorget that much oI AIrica is in the tropics and receives lots oI rainIall. It is, aIter all, the continent we`re all descended Irom, so people have been living there successIully Ior millennia. Even on dusty plains, livestock can survive well as long as there is reliable access to water. It is thought that Uganda, a smallish country oI around 25 million people, could still probably Ieed the whole oI AIrica iI commercially Iarmed. II you can irrigate, almost anything will grow with all that sunshine. The bottom line is that iI you are able to extract enough water-substantially an issue oI cost-climate is hardly a problem: look at the agricultural heartland oI the American South (though it has been pointed out that part oI the reason the American South got rich in the Iirst place was AIrican slave labor). p31 It`s easy to Iorget how young most current countries on the oldest continent are. The landmass Irom which mankind originated was dotted with various realms and territories up until the 1870s, but these bore little relation to subsequent borders. The Iew European spheres oI inIluence were little more than trading posts along the odd stretch oI coast, plus the longer-established British colony oI South AIrica at the tip. The rest oI the continent got on with liIe as usual, having escaped the colonial march oI Europe`s powers across other parts oI the globe over previous centuries. There were powerIul kingdoms at various diIIerent times, such as Ashanti, Dahomey, and Oyo in the west, KanemBornu in the center, Abyssinia and Buganda in the east, and the Zulus in the south. Meanwhile, the detail in European atlases tended to peter out as soon as they covered any distance inland in AIrica, and whole rivers, lakes, kingdoms, and mountain ranges Iailed to bother the illustrators` pencils. Then came Europe`s mad scramble Ior AIrica. This was the era oI eccentric explorers and compliant cartographers, backed by the incomparable Iorce oI modern weapons. Gaps on Western maps were Iilled in apace. A small and reckless breed oI land-grabbing adventurers traversed their way across the continent, establishing 'Iacts oI ownership by signing treaties with bullied or giIt- Ilattered local leaders, or through the direct imposition oI Iorce. The resulting paperwork made its way back to European conIerence rooms, where it was considered and contested until pretty much the entire continent was divided up between Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, and Belgium. Then the mapmakers were called in to transpose these rough agreements into indelible ink, agreements that owed everything to imperial bickering, bribery, and the gun and little to the logic oI landscape or ethnicity. Thousands oI miles oI borders ended up in geography-deIying straight lines purely because they were nice and easy Ior Europe`s hungry aggressors to negotiate. It`s a strange situation when cartographers have a greater inIluence on the birth oI countries than the inhabitants oI those regions themselves; and it would come back to haunt much oI the continent. In the space oI IiIteen years, thirty new colonies and protectorates were established. p34 The late 1950s and early 1960s saw liberation and independence spread like wildIire across the continent, starting with Ghana in 1958, decades beIore the colonialists had expected it. A generation oI AIrican heroes oI independence triumphed aIter years oI struggle, reclaiming their land Ior AIrican rule: Nkrumah in Ghana, Kenyatta in Kenya, Senghor in Senegal, and countless others. . Fresh Irom the success oI independence AIrica`s new leaders Iaced a stunning set oI challenges. Three stood out above the others. First, the entire continent remained desperately poor and grossly ill-equipped to thrive as a bunch oI newly independent nation states. Few oI the colonial powers had done much to educate their subjects in the running oI the territories they had claimed. There was little transport inIrastructure to connect diIIerent regions and peoples in the same country, not least because what roads and railways there were had been designed to deliver raw materials to the coast Ior export rather than enable people to get together. Entire constitutions were created in an instant, sometimes copied word Ior word Irom other countries. State institutions, modeled on idiosyncratically European systems, were handed over in a job lot, with vacancy signs hanging over every senior post. In Iormer British colonies, AIrican judges dispensed sentences wearing eighteenth-century-style London periwigs. In French ones, communications between AIrican civil servants were written in the highly Iormalized legalese oI old-Iashioned Parisian government. The surrealism oI Europe`s arrogance in trying to rule AIrica in the Iirst place was outdone only by the inevitable culture clash oI the legacy it leIt behind. . While many thousands oI new politicians and public servants across the continent were inspired by their new responsibilities to build a Iresh Iuture, Ior thousands oI others the brieI celebrations oI independence were soon superseded by more practical questions oI securing their own status. People`s loyalty to a state that had done little or nothing Ior them to date was too oIten overtaken by attempts to get the best deals Ior traditional allegiances oI Iamily and tribe. In many countries, a struggle Ior power and a culture oI corruption took root. . Desperate poverty, lack oI national identity, hugely disproportionate rewards oI oIIice . not exactly a great Ioundation on which to build a brave new Iuture. Plunged headlong into a global economy on a competitive basis just as Southeast Asia was beginning to thrive, AIrica lacked a workIorce educated and skilled to compete, let alone the contacts and guaranteed custom oI colonial powers. Freed Irom Ioreign rule, it was also cut oII Irom the capacity to control access to the rich markets it needed to reach, or to inIluence international prices Ior the Iew exports on which so much now depended-exports that were attractive to the West but not essential enough to give AIrica a strong voice at the negotiating table. p40 While AIrica struggled to make a success oI its Iuture, the international community hardly covered itselI in glory. The enthusiasm oI cold war powers Ior compliant support Ior their cause saw them provide assistance to a number oI dubious AIrican rulers, which was oIten as inept as it was inapt. The Soviet bloc, short on cash, handed out arms shipments to Iavored leaders across the continent, even though most were communist only to the extent oI quotes craIted Ior Kremlin consumption. ConIlict boomed. Almost as inappropriately, the West courted its own set oI shady allies with large loans that bought immediate loyalty but leIt rising debts and nourished corruption. Western companies were happy to make deals to exploit the continent`s raw materials even iI they were signed by evidently crooked leaders with no intention oI sharing the rewards with their countrymen. By the 1980s, President Mobutu Sese Seko oI Zaire . was thought to be the IiIth richest man in the world thanks to his own knockout combination: the rape oI his country`s resources and the reliable Ilow oI poorly monitored external loans (and other aid: by the late 1970s the United States was splurging nearly halI its aid budget Ior sub-Saharan AIrica on Zaire). Mobutu built monuments and personal bank accounts but little else, while the West, especially the U.S., Iound itselI in the absurd position oI encouraging ever more loans Ior Iear that Mobutu`s previous Iailure to use them responsibly leIt Zaire increasingly Iertile ground Ior a socialist backlash. The irony was only deepened by the Iact that Patrice Lumumba, the leader who probably had the best chance oI leading his country smoothly through independence, had been murdered back in the 1960s in a crime widely thought to have been carried out by Belgian agents with CIA support Ior Iear he might not prove sympathetic enough in the Iight against Marxism.* Zaire may have been one oI the more extreme examples oI corruption and ill-advised Western eIIorts, but it was these kinds oI loans that did so much to give aid a bad name and make Western taxpayers skeptical their money would ever be well used. The ongoing civil war that has beset Mobutu`s country (now known as D.R. Congo) since his eventual departure and death in 1997 is a reminder oI what can happen when people receive no beneIit Irom their citizenship oI a state Ior too long: they are much more likely to Iight to get their own hands on the Iew assets leIt lying around. p44 The predicaments oI AIrica`s highly stressed societies were worsened |in the 1990s| by a new ideological stringency the 'structural adjustment policies |the West| now insisted borrowers Iollow were overly prescriptive and Irequently ill judged. Optimistic about the power oI markets to provide solutions Ior populations too poor Ior the market to have any interest in them, structural adjustment policies generally included rigid diets oI privatization and severe cuts to essential services like health and education in order to balance budgets. While the desire to get the books in order was understandable, in business terms this was the equivalent oI selling oII many oI your best assets at the same time as cutting spending on training and research and development and guaranteeing a large increase in sick days taken by your staII. Many economies declined Iurther, debts continued to build, and budgets still weren`t balanced. What was the eIIect oI these diIIicult years on AIrica`s great nation-building challenge? Unsurprisingly, Iaith in governments and the nation-state Iailed to grow in many places as people gained little Irom their still-new capitals, while tales oI pocketlining politicians gave even the good guys a bad name. The temptation to vote Ior your local big man regardless oI his policies or honesty-who at least promised your town a tangible new road or school or paid you directly Ior your vote-grew bigger than ever, compounding the calamity oI corruption. p114 An astonishing 70 percent oI U.S. aid is 'tied to U.S. consultants and materials, and Iully 47 percent oI U.S. aid spending in one recent year went to consultants. Nearly halI oI U.S. national aid never even got anywhere close to AIricans in terms oI Iood, water pumps, or direct support Ior AIrican systems: it went into consultants` pay envelopes, the vast majority oI whom are American. p115 Only about $4 in every $10 oI global aid goes to low-income countries (most oI which are in AIrica). p115 Many donors` aid still goes to 'strategic partners in support oI Western national interests rather than need. the two largest traditional recipients oI U.S. assistance in the last couple oI decades have been Israel and Egypt. p140 Being lending institutions, the |World| Bank and |International Monetary| Fund are closely involved in the unsustainably high levels oI debt most AIrican countries built up in the couple oI decades aIter independence. How did AIrica`s debt crisis come about? In the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, AIrican governments took out countless loans that Western governments and banks happily Iarmed out to them with little regard to how they would be repaid. Some went to prop up bad governments or military regimes that are now long gone, oIten in pursuit oI cold war agendas. Some were simply wasted by the governments that received them. Others Ioundered on Ialse expectations oI economic growth. Skyrocketing interest rates and bad economic policies multiplied these old debts over and over again. Many AIrican countries reached a point where they needed new loans simply to pay oII old ones. The Iull crisis hit when the lenders stopped lending at all, losing Iaith that new loans would ever be repaid, and AIrica inevitably started to deIault on existing payments. It was at this point that the international community, mainly through the Fund, started to apply stringent conditions Ior any new money. The blame Ior the debt crisis is a classic example oI AIrica`s problems. It lies primarily with the continent`s governments that wasted the money. But the West was highly irresponsible to support so many corrupt regimes, and nave in the extreme to allow AIrica`s debts to build up when economic growth was clearly insuIIicient to enable repayment . Regardless oI who was at Iault, the debt crisis leIt the West in what ought to have been a terrible dilemma. On the one hand Western countries wanted to be repaid and want the principle oI repayment to be maintained. On the other, they were demanding billions oI dollars Irom countries that were simply unable, by anyone`s calculations, to meet the basic needs oI their people. Should modern AIrican governments and their impoverished people pay Ior the Iaults oI previous regimes? Which comes Iirst: repayment or basic human rights? . Western Iinance ministries didn`t seem to Iind this much oI a dilemma until public pressure built up among Western electorates, not least through an international campaign in the late 1990s, Ior debts to be written oII on a one-time basis. Until that point, many AIrican countries simply continued to deIault and saw their debts rise and rise. The campaign Ior debt relieI has seen gradually increasing amounts oI money written oII, not least an agreement at the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles to write oII the entire debt oI the world`s eighteen poorest countries, most oI which are AIrican an initiative that has since been delivered on and expanded to other countries. Finally, AIrica`s debt problem is being tackled in a serious way. But it has yet to beneIit all needy countries and, rather depressingly, some Western governments continue to pay Ior debt relieI out oI their aid budgets-which means as an AIrican president that you might get some debt canceled, but you get less aid as a result. . AIrica`s continuing debt problem continues to grab headlines. But is debt relieI more important than aid, and would we need aid at all iI we wrote oII all the debt? Uganda, the Iirst AIrican country to beneIit Irom debt relieI and a big recipient oI aid, used the money saved to help double primary school enrollment and invest in its national HIV/AIDS plan, which has contributed to the country`s successIul reversal oI HIV inIection rates. It`s an example oI what can be achieved. In 2004, Uganda received $760 million overall in aid grants, more than eight times the savings Irom its debt relieI and hence could achieve much more with it. The truth is that a dollar oI debt relieI is pretty much the same as a dollar oI (good, systemic) aid. Writing oII debt is important, but Iar more aid will still be required iI AIrican countries are to have a chance oI meeting their basic needs. In many ways, debt is simply a useIul rallying point Ior public attention, an issue where the inequity and unsustainability oI AIrica`s plight stands out particularly clearly. It`s unconscionable to make people who have almost nothing send money to people who have lots, just because they used to have some bad leaders to whom the West gave money in the past. p153 A 2005 Washington Post survey revealed that about halI oI Americans thought that more money was spent on Ioreign aid than on Medicare or Social Security (combined 2006 cost: $921 billion Iorty times more than the aid budget). A similar 1996 survey showed that the median amount oI the Iederal budget Americans thought ought to be spent on aid was 15 percent-IiIteen times the actual sum.` When inIormed in a 2005 survey about the 0.7 percent GNI aid target, 65 percent oI Americans wanted their government to meet it as long as other rich countries were doing the same. There is no doubt, thereIore, that America`s government persistently spends less on aid than its electorate wants or believes. The reality is that spending oI 0.17 percent oI GNI on aid (2006) is dwarIed twenty to thirty times by Iunding Ior the military. And very little oI that little aid is the systemic support AIrica needs. AIter the 40 percent or more going to consultants, much oI the rest is spent through charities, leaving those charities loath to criticize administration policies Ior Iear oI losing Iunding. p240 There is a simple, iI shocking, reason why the West doesn`t do better by the poorest continent. AIrica Doesn`t Matter. Its poor markets hold little interest Ior Western business, and the continent provides almost no political or strategic threat to the West`s stability, Ior the moment at least. There are thus no natural incentives to allow it a Iairer deal. p243 Unlike poor groups within our own societies, or potentially volatile countries near America or Europe`s borders, AIricans provide almost no threat to this new global market`s stability. AIrica can remain marginalized, whereas marginalized groups within national and regional markets had to be brought (or bought) in. What it means is that AIrica becomes increasingly aIIected by the international decisions we make in a globalizing world- especially those on aid and trade arrangements-but has little or no ability to inIluence them. It has no markets oI its own to interest us, only a Iew tempting natural resources, and no major military machinery to make it geopolitically dangerous. It doesn`t produce terrorists that we need to take account oI (not yet, at least). Everything Irom aid to trade to our attitude toward conIlict resolution and humanitarian relieI is aIIected by its impotence. p250 In theory, the |World| Bank and |International Monetary| Fund are global bodies. This is certainly how they are presented. All countries are represented on their executive boards, which make all key decisions. But look at the small print. Who actually holds the votes on these boards? The combined share oI the vote oI all sub-Saharan AIrican countries adds up to around 5 to 7 percent. The people with a real stake in Bank and Fund activities do not have . a real stake. This is a Iundamental Ilaw at the heart oI these two key institutions. Sure, donors provide much oI the money so they are bound to demand much oI the say, yet they must have an interest in eIIectiveness too. Not only does common sense suggest that those countries with most experience oI Bank and Fund work should have some real input to their policies. But the sometimes painIul reIorms required in their programs are much more eIIectively accepted and implemented iI they result Irom selI- and peer analysis, rather than external imposition. It`s that old measure oI eIIective aid again: ownership. AIrican countries have been demanding a larger share oI the vote on the issues that most aIIect them Ior several years now. Rather typically, America and Europe, which currently hold the vast majority oI votes (and all the aces), have decided not to listen. Denied an eIIective vote, AIrican countries also lack the human resources to try to inIorm and inIluence the discussions that take place when the Bank and Fund boards consider how much and what kind oI support to give them-or to cut back on. To put this in some kind oI context, the oIIice oI a large European country in the Bank and Fund in Washington will have nine or ten highly qualiIied staII working Iull-time to prepare Ior board votes and policies, and a permanent place on the boards. Then there are large support teams carrying out and commissioning Iurther research back in European capitals, oI which I was once part (the United States, oI course, has the whole oI its Treasury Department just up the Street). And sub-Saharan AIrica? Its Iorty-eight countries have two seats on the boards between them, and are lucky iI they have one single oIIicial Irom their own government among the teams there. The Iinal irony is that while Bank and Fund programs are sometimes used by Western powers to increase pressure on AIrican countries to move toward democracy (not in itselI, oI course, a bad thing), their own procedures are Iar Irom democratic. The idea is that AIrica should move to electing leaders by merit, on the basis oI popular mandate, in order to try and get the best man or woman Ior the job. Strange, then, that the leaderships oI the |World| Bank and |International Monetary| Fund are, by tradition, never voted on. Instead, the United States gets to choose the leader Ior the Bank (how else did you think that neocon and Iraq war architect Paul WolIowitz ended up as its last / president?). And Europe gets to appoint the head oI the Fund. p252 What oI the World Trade Organization, oIten held up as an example oI a more democratic institution? It`s certainly true that the WTO doesn`t deserve the demonization it suIIers at the hands oI antiglobalization protesters. Each country in the WTO has a vote, nominally giving AIrican nations as much inIluence as anyone else-and much better representation than in either the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Unsurprisingly, however, some nations are more equal than others. Unlike the Bank or Fund, the WTO rarely votes-it is more oI a talking shop in which agreements are gradually hammered out, and no institutional design could ever change the Iact that poor AIrican countries need access to rich markets much more than vice versa. The rules may be nominally Iair, but the contenders are utterly mismatched. p253 The UN is a genuinely democratic organization, and powerIul Western countries dislike giving their money to bodies they can less easily control. Yet, in a sign oI how diIIicult international governance will be and we will surely move toward it over the next 200 to 300 years the inconvenient truth is also that having many, equal bosses also makes it much harder Ior UN agencies to be operationally eIIective. p323 Edmund Burke No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. p329 ln the long term, AIrica`s prospects must eventually be bright, iI only because it will eventually be the world`s only remaining repository oI cheap labor.