The Hindu Business Line : African poverty: A cry in the wilderness?

EVEN AS a global, and musical, cry went around in the form of Live 8 Concerts in which prominent Western musicians performed to draw world attention to African poverty and hunger, the leaders of G-8 gathered at Gleneagles Hotel at Perthshire in picturesque Scotland to deliberate on the strategy of eliminating poverty in the continent. It is said that the leaders of the world's eight wealthiest countries can easily deliver the continent from its misery if they so wish but the point is will they? If their previous performance is any criterion, they have delivered much less than what they promised.

Ironically, eroding the whole concept of "Aid to Africa" are the menacing spectre of corruption, bad governance and absence of rule of law in most of its countries. Hence, there are serious doubts in many quarters about the "viability and pragmatism" of aid. In Africa, corruption at all levels is almost endemic and most politicians and senior civil servants look at foreign aid as a means to their end — to boost their personal wealth in private foreign bank accounts. It is thus debatable how much of the foreign aid filters to the grassroots level; the educated guess is less than 20 per cent.

Hence, prominent Western observers have submitted that to resolve the problem of African poverty, hunger and under-development, the strategy should be to first eliminate both petty and institutionalised corruptionAfrican countries have been recipients of foreign aid but the impact on the economic development has been minimal. For instance, from 1970 to 2000, Africa received $400,000 million in reconstruction and development aid. Yet, it is well known that the living conditions even in some of the major countries have worsened. There are a few exceptions; Uganda, Ghana and Botswana have shown some progress. But, overall, the pronounced profile of an African country is "inefficiency and corruption".

In totalitarian African states, the foreign aid is spent ruthlessly — encouraged also by Western arms manufacturers — on purchase of military equipment. More Africans join the "rag tag" armies of local "war lords" because they have no viable sources of legitimate employment. There are no exact estimates of the number of African civilians and soldiers killed in such conflicts but the figures, especially in Burundi and Congo, are high. This milieu breeds poverty and hunger. As the Nobel laureate and prominent Kenyan environmentalist and social worker, Muta Maathai, told a German magazine: The only people who benefit from debt forgiveness would be "those responsible for mismanagement in the first place."

Africa is a vastly rich continent endowed with impressive quantities of gold, diamonds and some of the "rarest of the rare" minerals. Former colonial powers have ensured that their investments are well guarded. Now, China and the American companies are prowling the continent for crude oil and rare minerals.

The G-8 meets this week even as the global slowdown threatens Africa. African farmers have no access to the rich world's agricultural markets. The Western countries have made sure that their own farmers are protected by a Common Agricultural Policy. To compound the crises, African countries have failed to "coordinate and consolidate" their strategy, and remain deeply divided among themselves. This well suits the rich countries and, hence, the case of poor African and Asian countries often go unnoticed. The rich countries spend only 0.7 per cent of their GDP on aid to poor countries and this money is often used to propagate their own version of economic development.

Western politicians, ranging from the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to the American President, Mr George Bush, have outlined their own agenda to solve the problems of Africa's poverty.

Mr Tony Blair wants to cancel debt to world's poorest countries and double the aid to Africa by £50,000 million by 2010. The other European leaders and Mr Bush are more cautious and, as the latter stated, only those African countries with better transparency and backed by governance in rule of law would be entitled to receive increased of aid from the US.

How much of such rhetoric will be translated into concrete measures remains to be seen. Many ordinary African coffee and tea farmers think that the G-8 leaders are out of touch with the ground realities of Africa and that unfair trade practices are enriching African officials even as the farmers grow steadily poorer.

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