African States Urged to Review Aid Approach

By George Okore

Most African countries have witnessed high and accelerating growth, with the future looking bright for about 22 non oil exporting countries as well, Shanta Davarajan, Chief Economist for Africa region at the World Bank,  has remarked.

Presenting World Bank on report on Africa’s progress, challenges and solutions to Midrand, Johannesburg based Pan African parliament (PAP),he said progress has also been recorded in the area of information and communication technologies.

According to the report released Wednesday, Africa is experiencing technological revolution with 38 per cent of Africa’s population having a cell phone. South Africa and Botswana are amongst the African countries that have high cell phone users. According to World Bank, there are 961 cell phones per 1000 people in Botswana. The World Bank estimates 5 per cent average growth for Africa in 2011.

Despite this progress a lot still needs to be done in Africa since the continent is faced with many challenges which impede development in many countries.  Natural disasters, violence and conflict have been pointed out as being among the major obstacles to the African continent’s development.

While access to primary education is improving, there are concerns whether pupils are acquiring enough education and skills. The World Bank has discovered that in Tanzania, 20 per cent of primary schools pupils could not read second grade level Kiswahili, solve second grade maths problem or read English.   The World Bank remained confident, though, that things can improve.The Bank has implemented a strategy that seeks to help many governments on the continent. The strategy comprises of three faces- finance, knowledge and partnership.

In another presentation to the House, Prof Ben Turok, the Chairperson of the Network of African Parliamentarians argued that no country in the world had ever developed its economy by focusing on eradicating poverty. He was presenting a paper entitled ‘Move from Aid Effectiveness to Development Effectiveness’.

Prof Turok opposed views propagated by World Bank that Africa’s biggest problem is governance, suggesting that focus should be on the economy. “If you fix governance and you don’t use your economy, your economy will be floating in the sky. We will all be perfect human beings but do nothing because we fail to locate governance in real economic activity and development,” he said. 

Citing growth statistics on the continent, he said Africa had managed to collect $400 billion in taxes in 2008, ten times more than the amount in aid received during that year. In addition, African banks were holding $669 billion in assets, equivalent to what all the banks in Russia possessed.

Prof Turok advised African states to form partnerships with institutions in developed economies to carry out value addition at home, instead of exporting minerals in raw form. South Africa, he cited, is the largest exporter of platinum and other minerals, but still suffers a high rate of unemployment. Kenya, which produces the best coffee in the world, exports beans to Germany where they are baked, turned into Nescafé and sold expensively at home.

He warned that no amount of aid from multinational institutions such as the World Bank would redeem the continent, unless African states exploit their natural resources. Turok also advised governments to carry out research on the mineral wealth in their countries, to guide the process of value addition. He said a team of top ten economic specialists from across the continent would be set up to lead research into the mineral wealth potential on the continent.