In the Name of Aid

No continent is, perhaps, as closely associated with the term – Aid, as Africa is. I am even convinced that the ‘A’ in ‘AID’ stands for Africa (Smile). From Live Aid to Band Aid to USA for Africa to Bi-lateral to Multi-lateral Aid, Africa has received it all. In fact, an entire industry of Non-Profit Organizations, is sustained and a source of employment for millions of people worldwide, on the basis of African Aid. By some estimates, since the 1970s close to $1 Trillion has been transferred to Africa in the form of Aid. The proponents of Aid argue that Aid helps alleviate poverty, supplements national budgets, and even facilitates economic growth and development.
Certainly, Aid has provided Africa with short term benefits and many of the Aid workers and agencies operate from genuine motivations and concerns.

However, after decades of Aid, the proportion of Africans living in squalor and abject poverty is too great to let the issue of Aid pass by without a thorough scrutiny of its effectiveness and moral foundations.
The concept of Aid is advanced by resorting to arguments of morality and when that is insufficient it is clothed in questionable theories of development economics.
In terms of its moral basis, the question that needs to be asked is what should a moral compass place greater value on – a just or moral motivation or a just or moral end result? More importantly, what about having good or moral motivations behind an act when available evidence suggests that the act may even contribute to an evil condition?

One need only look at the quality of governance in Africa to understand how Aid undermines its own intentions. Large percentages of African national budgets are funded by Aid. For instance, many national healthcare budgets are less than 50% funded through internal resources the rest comes from international funding like aid. Other budgets like education and social services have similar funding ratios. This situation transfers government accountability from the electorate to donors.
In addition, aid effectively serves as a form of subsidy of government incompetence.
The need for competence is greatly reduced since the lack of results and the inability to provide minimal levels of basic services is concealed. African governments and Non-Profit agencies are so used to Aid that they claim it with a defiant sense of entitlement. When Pres. Obama recently made public his $63 Billion Global Health budget, health activists groups expressed their disappointment with the amount.

Nonkosi Kumalo of the Treatment Action campaign said:

"The broken promises and skewed priorities of governments and
donors have reduced the right to health and access to treatment to
unattainable rhetoric. In the last few months, we have seen
trillions of dollars spent on financial 'bailouts' to stimulate
economic recovery…a tiny portion of this sum could have bought quality,
sustainable healthcare for millions of people."

Said Paula Akugizibwe of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern
Africa (ARASA):

"We need to ensure that African lives do not become
a silent casualty of the global financial downturn. Our lives are
not cheap or expendable. We expect health to be prioritised over
weapons, sports and lavish politics."

The above sentiments, in my view, are quite representative of the sense of entitlement that aid recepients and activists harbor. African leaders, not Western leaders, should be held responsible for the deplorable conditions under which Africans live. These leaders have direct responsibility to improve living standards, provide basic amenities and ensure security, afterall, these are the very things they swore they would deliver during their electoral campaigns. Is it not to provide these very things, that taxes are insituted? More importantly, is it not to provide these very things that aid has been given for decades and still these amenities are in short supply if present at all?

The country now called Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as Zaire), in 1982 had accumulated a foreign debt of $5 Billion, whilst the then President Mobutu Seseko had a personal fortune of about $4 Billion. Where do you think Zaire’s Aid went?

All of these evil conditions all come about in the name of Aid.