In the movie ‘Everything’s alright/ Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas says to Magdalene, ‘Woman, your fine anointment, brand new and expensive, could have been saved for the poor. Why has it been wasted? We could have raised three hundred silver pieces or more….,’ to feed the hungry, he claims. Turning to Jesus, he says, ‘People who are hungry, people who are starving matter more than your feet and hair!’ In reply, Jesus rebukes Judas, quite tartly, ‘Surely, you are not saying we have the resources to save the poor from their lot! There will be poor always, pathetically struggling; look at the good things you’ve got! Think while you still have me…. You will be lost, you will be sorry when I’m gone.’
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, advising the Secretary General of The United Nations, argued that Africa and other less developed countries would make a leap if a certain minimum amount of money was poured in. This was the main rationale behind the Millennium Villages. The villages were meant to achieve and demonstrate ‘what success looks like’. While the debate of their success is still out there, the last Millennium Village I visited in Uganda a couple of years ago already had hyparhenia rufa; shoulder-high, growing right up to the door of the warehouse meant to facilitate agricultural produce marketing.
Clearly, the warehouse had been abandoned for longer than a cropping season, a few years after ‘the project’ ended. On the other hand, The Marshall Plan,
mounted after the Second World War to help Europe rebuild, achieved what it was designed to do. It was massive. Funded by the United States, it took dollars in the billions. For the United States, the plan ‘provided markets for American goods, created reliable trading partners and supported the development of stable democratic governments in Western Europe” This was aid. This is aid that succeeded.
It would appear that a people befallen by a catastrophe, determined to pull themselves up, extended a benevolent hand by a well-meaning partner, can indeed succeed with a certain minimum amount of good money poured in. What catastrophe befell Africa? Who is extending Africa a benevolent hand with a stash of good money? What is in it for the partner? Who are Africa’s people, and are they determined to pull themselves up?
Post-colonial Africa, a patchwork of states (that are not necessarily nations) fifty to seventy years of age, has been the recipient of bits and pieces and sometimes larger morsels of aid since the seventies but especially, in the case of Uganda, since the eighties. In the nineties, it became quite stylish for academically bright new graduates to take a post-graduate diploma or certificate course in ‘Project Planning and Management’, the aim being for them to ‘write their own project’, start a Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO), ask for money from ‘donors’ and soon drive a four-wheel pick-up truck or even SUV.
By the break of the millennium, there was a plethora of signposts on all streets urban and rural announcing project this, project that; NGO this, NGO that. Enthusiastic young men and women in thousands, implementers and project beneficiaries alike, wore on their breasts, emblazoned in bold, scripts like ‘Aid From The American People’, ‘UKAid’, etc. Sometimes the recipient entities are central government MDAs (Ministries, Departments, and Agencies), not NGOs.
Invariably, however, the projects are staccato, starting and stopping and starting and ending, detached each from the other or even from within the same, one phase from the next. Not concerted enough, if at all. And, it can be argued, this projectisation of Africa is the major reason this aid has not worked. One morsel handed out. One morsel swallowed. A new bowl held up, ignored a while and then, at the whims of the erratic donor, rewarded.
One could say that Africans of course want development; that is obvious, a truism. Who are the people of Africa? It has been said, sarcastically, that there are wananchi but then there are wenyenchi, i.e. citizens, ordinary, and then there are owners of these units, the states of Africa. The two are hardly ever on the same side. Governance and leadership (or the lack of) distort the purpose and impact of aid.
There is no doubt that in polities whose rulers (can one say leaders?) are not accountable, where there is impunity and no transparency, other discipline breaks down and resources, not only aid, disappear into gargantuan bellies of the wenyenchi and their cronies at the expense of general development. To make matters worse, the givers and handlers of aid on the side where it comes from also have their own intricate interests. It is at this point that one asks, who is that ‘benevolent’ partner and what do they want? What is
in it for them?
It was revealing to learn way back in 2000 that one organization implementing aid in Africa retained 35% of it at its Head Quarters and then went on to export ‘experts’ to be expatriates remunerated off what reached the destination country, remunerated at American work rates, with risk allowances on top. Not too long ago, one Danish minister said that Denmark was the biggest recipient of Danish foreign development aid! There are project writers the other side, as there are over this side. It becomes an industry for private gain really and for richer countries to deploy their citizens meaningfully for themselves. Doesn’t one despair!
To compound it, Europe and America and China and Russia, all of them know what they want and they know it in very clear terms. Where Belgium’s King Leopold amputated and decapitated Africans for rubber a century ago, raw materials are still a major and even crucial interest of the partner: minerals and riches galore as abound in the continent. Does Africa know in clear terms beyond ‘aid’ what she wants? And whose definition is it?
Is aid the key for Africa as it is today?
Africans have to decide, especially the wenyenchi. The wenyenchi because leadership is key and Africa needs her Gandhis and Lee Kuan Yews. The stakes are very high. Forget gold and diamonds and petroleum. There are ‘new minerals’ on the globe and they are in Africa and the partner wants them.
Aid may assist gorge the wenyenchi and lull the wananchi, not to rock the boat. As in the film, there will be poor always, pathetically struggling. Let us instead look at the good things we’ve got. Is aid always one of them, or are we, like Judas, focusing on the wrong thing?
By Iga Zinunula Samuel
