By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Jul 4 2005 (IPS)

A leading campaign group has called for a substantial part of increased aid to Africa to be channelled directly to people, rather than governments.

A leading campaign group has called for a substantial part of increased aid to Africa to be channelled directly to people, rather than governments.

While G8 leaders talk of doubling aid to Africa, “we say that at least half of the doubling should be for more local initiatives,” director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, Camilla Toulmin, told IPS. The IIED is a policy research institute working in the field of sustainable development, with extensive work in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Development of Africa has been made one of the two priorities for the G8 summit by host Britain. The summit of leaders of eight leading industrialised nations (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) will take place in the golf resort Gleneagles in Scotland July 6-8.

The IIED says the biggest block to development is the “power deficit” that means those at the frontline, particularly women who are the majority of African small farmers, struggle to control their own lives. Direct aid, supported by “capacity-building” to boost the voice and influence of local people and organisations, would radically reduce the “power deficit” and put people in charge of building better futures, according to the institute.

IIED says it is concerned that the voices of marginalised people, such as small farmers or slum-dwellers, are sidelined in the current debate about Africa’s future, and warns that the “G8 project” risks failure unless world leaders do more to listen to and act on their concerns.

“Taxation forces governments to listen to people. If governments rely on other countries for 80 to 90 percent of their money, then that breaks the link of political accountability with people in a damaging way. So when Western governments then ask these governments to listen to their people, it becomes a rather empty process of consultation.”

Corruption is a particular problem with allocating resources only to governments, Toulmin said. “It is a serious problem if 40 percent of the wealth of Africa is exported into bank accounts and other activities in the West. South-East Asia had its rich elites but at least they re-invested the money back in their own countries.”

Accountability and cleaning up corruption are an essential part of the Bush agenda, she said. “That is the one thing on which Bush is relatively sound, though the trouble is that he combines that with being fantastically mean.” But all of the G8 countries need to deal with the issue of accountability, she said. “We have to find a way of shifting money from governments to the hands of people.”

G8 leaders also need to get away from a projection of Africans “as victims and passive people,” and Africa in terms of “crimes and disaster stories,” Toulmin said. “That may be true of a few places, but Africa is full of energy and activity. A lot of Africa is growing and developing, as an ordinary everyday place.” And much of this comes by way of “a ‘people agenda’ that is not on the map at the moment.”

IIED chair and former Irish president and UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson said in a statement: “Africa is not a failure, nor is it backward, but it is too often failed and held back by the unwillingness of the international community and national governments to trust local people and build on what works already, such as small-scale farming.”

African women need particular attention, she said. They face “the biggest hurdles in accessing land and markets, need the greatest support over property and inheritance rights, particularly as their vulnerability is increased by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”

Robinson said: “Who knows how best to manage land and other natural resources? Is it local people with hundreds of years of experience and knowledge? Or aloof national governments and big business touting an economic model that has already failed people and the planet?”

“Are we going to help Africa to help itself, which means bottom-up thinking, removing unfair barriers to development and putting power in the hands of ordinary people, or do we simply want to open up markets ultimately for rich country gain in the vain hope that some residual benefit may trickle down to the poor?”

The real solution lies in “investing directly in the African farmer and creating a fairer marketplace by ending subsidies on rich country produce and the dumping of surpluses on poor nations,” Robinson said. “The international policy lens has got to be refocused to recognise the positive things in Africa and all poor regions, and build on them rather than undermine them.”

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Jul 4 2005 (IPS)

A leading campaign group has called for a substantial part of increased aid to Africa to be channelled directly to people, rather than governments.

While G8 leaders talk of doubling aid to Africa, “we say that at least half of the doubling should be for more local initiatives,” director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, Camilla Toulmin, told IPS. The IIED is a policy research institute working in the field of sustainable development, with extensive work in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Development of Africa has been made one of the two priorities for the G8 summit by host Britain. The summit of leaders of eight leading industrialised nations (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) will take place in the golf resort Gleneagles in Scotland July 6-8.

The IIED says the biggest block to development is the “power deficit” that means those at the frontline, particularly women who are the majority of African small farmers, struggle to control their own lives. Direct aid, supported by “capacity-building” to boost the voice and influence of local people and organisations, would radically reduce the “power deficit” and put people in charge of building better futures, according to the institute.

IIED says it is concerned that the voices of marginalised people, such as small farmers or slum-dwellers, are sidelined in the current debate about Africa’s future, and warns that the “G8 project” risks failure unless world leaders do more to listen to and act on their concerns.

“Aid going from governments to governments means that power is concentrated at the centre, and so activities at local levels find it difficult to have access to resources,” Toulmin said. African governments are looking to Western governments for money, and that is disrupting the dynamics that emerge from taxation, she said.

Corruption is a particular problem with allocating resources only to governments, Toulmin said. “It is a serious problem if 40 percent of the wealth of Africa is exported into bank accounts and other activities in the West. South-East Asia had its rich elites but at least they re-invested the money back in their own countries.”

Accountability and cleaning up corruption are an essential part of the Bush agenda, she said. “That is the one thing on which Bush is relatively sound, though the trouble is that he combines that with being fantastically mean.” But all of the G8 countries need to deal with the issue of accountability, she said. “We have to find a way of shifting money from governments to the hands of people.”

G8 leaders also need to get away from a projection of Africans “as victims and passive people,” and Africa in terms of “crimes and disaster stories,” Toulmin said. “That may be true of a few places, but Africa is full of energy and activity. A lot of Africa is growing and developing, as an ordinary everyday place.” And much of this comes by way of “a ‘people agenda’ that is not on the map at the moment.”

IIED chair and former Irish president and UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson said in a statement: “Africa is not a failure, nor is it backward, but it is too often failed and held back by the unwillingness of the international community and national governments to trust local people and build on what works already, such as small-scale farming.”

African women need particular attention, she said. They face “the biggest hurdles in accessing land and markets, need the greatest support over property and inheritance rights, particularly as their vulnerability is increased by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”

Robinson said: “Who knows how best to manage land and other natural resources? Is it local people with hundreds of years of experience and knowledge? Or aloof national governments and big business touting an economic model that has already failed people and the planet?”

“Are we going to help Africa to help itself, which means bottom-up thinking, removing unfair barriers to development and putting power in the hands of ordinary people, or do we simply want to open up markets ultimately for rich country gain in the vain hope that some residual benefit may trickle down to the poor?”

The real solution lies in “investing directly in the African farmer and creating a fairer marketplace by ending subsidies on rich country produce and the dumping of surpluses on poor nations,” Robinson said. “The international policy lens has got to be refocused to recognise the positive things in Africa and all poor regions, and build on them rather than undermine them.”

Excerpt: