Development Assistance
Last updated December 2007
Africa faces significant human development challenges. But African struggles
to meet these challenges can be successful, and international support
in this area can make a real difference to the continent's future. Greater
investment in people has been proven to reduce poverty and promote economic
growth and stability. It is also essential to ensuring the achievement
of higher levels of health and education, which form the foundation for
sustainable human development.
The efforts of African governments to meet the basic needs of their people
and to ensure access to essential services are hindered by a lack of adequate
resources. Despite repeated commitments from the U.S. and other wealthy
countries, the international community is failing to adequately support
African efforts to promote human development.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted in 2000 by most governments,
including the U.S., seek to improve health, education, and the environment
across the world, with the overarching aim of reducing the number of people
living in extreme poverty by half by 2015. The United Nations (UN) estimates
that meeting the MDGs will require a doubling of development assistance
worldwide, to $100 billion annually. The 2007 Millennium Development Goals
Update commissioned by the UN confirmed again that halfway to the 2015
deadline, sub-Saharan Africa is making the least progress of all the regions
in the world and is not on target to meet the MDGs. In September 2007,
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon launched the Millennium Development Goals
Africa Steering Group to address the gap between rhetorical commitment
and effective sustained action.
The total amount of international aid in 2006 fell $46 billion short of
the funding needed to reach the MDGs, and at current projected levels
that deficit will rise to $52 billion by 2010. This trend is particularly
striking in sub-Saharan Africa, where the UNDP estimates that aid flows
will need to double by 2010 to meet the cost of financing the MDGs.
The U.S. is the richest country in human history, but it fails to provide
its fair share of development assistance to African countries. U.S. spending
on foreign aid has declined, relative to both the size of the U.S. economy
and the federal budget. Despite repeated promises from wealthy countries
to provide 0.7% of their Gross National Product (GNP) for development
assistance, not one of these countries comes close to that figure, and
the U.S. ranks at the bottom of all donor countries for official development
assistance worldwide. In 2006, just 0.17 % of the U.S. GNP went toward
official development assistance (ODA), a decline from .22 % in 2005.
Prior to the Group of 8 (G8) summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in July 2005,
President Bush announced that his administration had tripled aid to Africa
over the past four years. However, the reality is that U.S. official development
assistance from 2000 to 2004 only increased by 56%. Most of the increase
in U.S. assistance to Africa came in the form of emergency HIV/AIDS funding,
food aid, and emergency assistance for post-conflict relief in Liberia
and southern Sudan. There was only a very minor increase in official development
assistance, which is intended to contribute to sustainable development
as opposed to humanitarian and emergency relief operations.
In 2004, the U.S. Congress established the Millennium Challenge Account
(MCA) proposed by President Bush in 2002 to provide aid to countries that
meet specific economic and political criteria defined by Washington. Each
year, the Board of Directors selects certain countries that are eligible
to apply for funding in the upcoming fiscal year (FY). The Board identified
twenty-three countries for FY 2006, thirteen of which were in Africa.
In 2007, five additional countries were added, including Niger and Rwanda.
The eligibility criteria dictated by the U.S. reinforce an old-style imperialist
relationship with poor countries. They also create competition among poor
countries for a portion of the relatively meager MCA funds.
The MCA proposes only a relatively small increase in foreign aid - $1
billion in initial funding for 2004 and $1.5 billion for 2005. The original
target was to increase annual funding for the MCA to $5 billion by 2006,
but support has fallen far short of this goal. President Bush has only
requested $3 billion in annual funding each year since 2006, of which
the U.S. Congress has appropriated around $1.75 billion annually. To date,
only fourteen projects have been approved for funding (eight of them in
Africa) and project implementation is well behind schedule. Just 23 %
of funds allocated for MCA agreements have been dispersed. Madagascar
became the first country to receive MCA funds in April of 2005, and its
four-year compact was worth only $110 million. More recently, Mozambique
was marked to receive $547 million for a five-year anti-poverty program.
In addition, over the past two decades, African countries have paid out
more in debt service to foreign creditors than they have received in development
assistance or in new loans. This drain of Africa's resources reinforces
the need for debt cancellation in order to enable African countries to
focus their own resources on their own critical development needs.
Overall, the Bush Administration's proposed increases in foreign aid still
fall far short of what the U.S. can, and should, provide. The U.S. has
consistently failed to commit the level of aid that would be commensurate
with its own interests and obligations, or with African countries' needs.
The widening gap between rich and poor is a globally destabilizing phenomenon
that U.S. policies should seek to address. As the world's wealthiest and
most powerful country, the U.S. has the obligation - ethically and morally
- and the means, to help improve the lives of the world's poorest people
and to provide decisive support to African efforts to achieve sustainable
development.
Links
Millennium Development Goals 2007
"This UN document tracks progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and finds sub-Saharan Africa still trails behind other regions..."
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Africa and the Millenium Development Goals 2007 Update
“Using the same data and statistical methodologies as the global 2007 report, this UN document argues that urgent scaling up of assistance is necessary to get African countries on track to meet the MDGs. . .”
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Millennium Development Goals – Basic Information
" The United Nations Development Program website with resources on the Millennium Development Goals, including country progress reports, goals and indicators, best practices and more..."
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Op-Ed: The G-8 and Africa
July 7, 2005 - Ann-Louise Colgan, The Examiner
"One of the main items on the G-8 Summit agenda is how rich nations can do more to support Africa's development. However, their grand gestures will make little difference to the majority of people in Africa unless the G-8 cancels all of Africa's debts and dramatically increases aid for the continent's development..."
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U.S. Foreign Assistance to Africa: Claims vs. Reality
June 29, 2005 - Susan E. Rice, The Brookings Institution
"This report by former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Susan E. Rice from The Brookings Institution refutes President Bush’s claims to have tripled assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa. Rice finds that Bush has not even doubled assistance and the modest increases have mostly been in emergency food aid as opposed to assistance for sustainable development..."
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Africa Action Rejects White House Announcement on Aid to Africa
June 7, 2005
"Africa Action today rejected as 'disingenuous' a new U.S.-UK initiative, which would provide a small increase in humanitarian assistance to African countries threatened with famine, but which does nothing to address the crisis of African countries’ illegitimate debts..."
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UN Human Development Report 2004
"Prepared by United Nations Development Program (UNDP), this report argues that respecting cultural diversity and building more inclusive societies are vital parts of human development..."
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Aid - Let's Get Real
June 20, 2002 - Salih Booker & William Minter, The Nation
"Africa Action's Salih Booker and William Minter discuss some of the problems with foreign aid in this article published by the The Nation magazine. They make recommendations about what rich countries like the United States should be doing to promote global development..."
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http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020708&s=booker
PDF
Statement on the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development
March 20, 2002 - Africa Action
"This Africa Action press statement on the Bush Administrations actions at the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development argues that the cancellation of Africa's illegitimate foreign debts and the full funding of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS are the essential first steps for saving millions of lives lost each year in Africa to poverty and the related health crisis..."
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