AFRICA: Resources for Development “Scarce and Grossly Mismanaged”

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Øystein Meland

OSLO, Apr 4 2006 (IPS) - The first United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) could arguably be seen as the mother of MDGs, as a country’s ability to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty will be a determining factor in whether it attains the other seven goals.

Global leaders agreed on the MDGs at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000, setting 2015 as the deadline for reaching the goals. Apart from requiring the number of persons living in extreme hunger and poverty to be halved, the MDGs deal with achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality – and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

The goals also focus on environmental sustainability, and the development of global partnerships to tackle issues such as unfair trade rules, and debt cancellation.

Francis Nwonwu, chief research specialist for sustainable development at a Pretoria-based think-tank, the Africa Institute of South Africa, has concerns about whether enough is being done to achieve MDG one. She explained why in an interview with Øystein Meland.

FN: Extreme poverty and hunger eradication is key to most developing countries’ ability to achieving the rest of the Millennium Development Goals…(But) with only 10 years to go (until the 2015 deadline), the gap remains wide, the resources scarce and grossly mismanaged.

Neglecting the impact of poverty, hunger and deprivation will undermine the achievement of the other goals, as poverty and hunger lower resistance to diseases, and will in turn destroy the environment as people seek extreme ways of survival. Increasing population and declining per capita income add their negative impact to the incidence of poverty in Africa.

OM: Could you elaborate on your observation about resources being “scarce and grossly mismanaged”?

FN: Africa’s poor performance with respect to meeting the MDGs is attributable to both inadequate financial resources and mismanagement of the available funds. The continent does not have sufficient investment capital to boost economic growth and development.

In addition, the continent has the highest number of heavily-indebted poor countries among the developing continents of Asia and Latin America, to the extent that much money is spent in servicing debt owed to the developed countries – and multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Africa has not been the best destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA) lately. There has been a steady decline in FDI flows into Africa for reasons of insecurity and lack of adequate infrastructure.

(A 2005 U.N. report) states that a plausible level of ODA required for the MDGs for the coming decades will be 135 billion dollars in 2006, rising to 195 billion dollars in 2015. This then requires a stepping up of ODA to the developing countries by double the current level.

OM: Food shortages in Southern Africa have given cause for concern over recent months, with millions in need of emergency supplies across the region. Can these shortages simply be ascribed to bad weather conditions, or are there other factors at play?

FN: Most parts of Southern Africa are prone to hazards caused by extreme weather conditions, especially drought and famine. These natural hazards adversely affect the food supply. However, political instability, poor governance and mismanagement of available resources contribute significantly to the short supply of food in the region.

For instance, Malawi should invest in irrigation technologies to make the best use of Lake Malawi, to transform and modernise its agriculture to minimise the risks of water shortages experienced during droughts, which constantly threaten its rain-fed agriculture. Accompanying the investment in irrigation equipment and infrastructure is the need to adopt drought-resistant crops and livestock in the farming system.

OM: Which African countries are registering success in the fight against poverty and hunger – and what are they doing right?

FN: The North African countries of Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco are performing well; because they have large economies, they can attract large quantities of FDI…and they are relatively more industrialised than the majority of sub-Saharan African countries. Their proximity and closer relationships with the countries of Europe are added factors that have contributed to their relative success in poverty eradication.

In general it is my view that political, economic and social stability hold the key to problem-solving development. I say this on the premise that such a state of stability will attract development aid by minimising investment risks for local and foreign investors, and would attract external capital in the form of FDI and ODA to accelerate the pace of development and distribution of wealth.