A Classic Revisited Part II: Aid and Partenalisation

A rather scathing review of “Dead Aid” was done by then Guardian Columnist Madeleine Bunting, in which she consigned the book’s substance to nothing more than historical relevance. And although she admits that the aid story has frustrated for large parts, she thinks the book plays into the hands of a very dangerous movement that wants to throw away both the baby and the bath water. In her words “this book will get more popularity than it deserves” precisely because of that reason.

A friend of mine Munalula Mulonda, commented on my blog, noting that his biggest problem with “Dead Aid” is that it holds several factors constant and over simplifies things. Although my friend is yet to come back to me with examples, I will be the first to say that the way the book breezes over history can be called rather simplistic. In addition, the rather complicated nature of Africa’s conflicts seems lost on the book when it links aid to civil wars. “Dead Aid” in spite of all of this, contains enough themes to fill out more space than this blog post can allow. Indeed as Patrice Nambayo observes, we could go on and on.

Dead Aid is a small book at only 154 pages, but it does touch on certain themes that have perhaps a deeper and more far-reaching historical resonance than the treatment they get in the book. One of the themes one immediately notices is the celebrity heavy almost fashionable baggage that Western aid tags along in its tow like a log. It seems the very mention of African poverty and aid brings to life a ubiquitous motley mixture of celebrities along with it. This fact is not lost on Dr Moyo, as she describes celebrities clamoring to carve out their own niche in the African sob story. Niall Ferguson, in his review of “Dead Aid” cheekily writes that he was left feeling like Africa needed a lot more Moyo and less Bono.

It is difficult ignore this partenalisation of Africa when you read Dead Aid. It is an undercurrent that accompanies the very words that Dr Moyo writes, and probably the source of much of terse tone. She acknowledges for example, that it is embarrassing that those that have gained fame in prescribing solutions to Africa’s very complex problems are seldom Africans themselves. Take for example “The Bottom Billion”, a very enlightening work authored by Paul Collier, in which he painstakingly tries to explain away the complicated tapestry that is Africa’s poverty. Often you read such a book, and go “oh well, this is all fine, but what do Africans themselves say?” Dr Moyo reserves some of her choice barbs for the fashionable and often orchestrated pity that has come to be associated with African poverty.

William Easterly in his review of “Dead Aid” calls it a kind of authoritarian paternalism, whose origins are probably steeped in colonialism. It is no wonder that in many promotional publications on aid, the overriding image one gets is that of impoverished children smiling into the lens, along with a Western figure, be it Bono, Bob Geldof or George Bush.

Ultimately, this feeds into the stereotypical view of Africans not being able to help themselves without foreign guidance and help, a view that has deep roots in colonial imperialism. At the crux of the case for colonialism, was the patronising assumption or view of “the poor as children”. Unfortunately, this has gone on even when imperial powers state to the contrary. William Easterly, gives as an example, the confusing fact that on one hand the UK Development and Welfare Act of 1940 (which was authored in London), stipulated a spirit of assistance and guidance for overseas territories, but no dictation on paper; yet on the other hand and in practice, it was totally different.

The so-called home-grown solutions to colonial welfare ended up being shoehorned policies crafted in London and brought down to bear on colonial territories. Interestingly, this same tone or attitude if you will has found itself in the numerous dealings between the World Bank/International Monetary Fund and the poor.

Many of us remember the ubiquitous Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, in the early to mid-2000s, which once were hailed as the only way of getting poor countries to have home-grown solutions to poverty reduction. Well what used to happen is once the PSPR is submitted, a joint team of experts from IMF and The World Bank would pore over the plan and subject to a further analysis of its strengths and weaknesses and tweak as they saw need.

Perhaps the rich paternalise the poor because there is something that the poor can genuinely learn from them. Perhaps the moral outrage that Dr Moyo pours out on the patronising rich should be reserved for African leaders and policy makers who not only court the rich for help, but have not offered or implemented enough home grown solutions to fight poverty. What is clear is that as Africans we cannot be passive observers while letting others determine our developmental agenda. And there are several ways in which we can do this. Hopefully, I can touch on the most important of these in my subsequent posts.