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Q&A: “Too Few African Governments Have Had the Guts to Say ‘No'”

Interview with Eveline Herfkens

ROME, Jun 22 2007 (IPS) - While Kofi Annan was the United Nations’ secretary-general, he handpicked Eveline Herfkens to be the executive coordinator of the Millennium Campaign, a body which mobilises support for the achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Herfkens had previously worked as the Dutch minister of international development and as an executive director at the World Bank.

She is in Rome to participate in the Local Governments’ International Mid Term Evaluation Conference on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, underway today and tomorrow. Christi van der Westhuizen, editor for an IPS project on the MDGs, caught up with her.

IPS: What is your diagnosis of the progress so far towards reaching the 2015 deadline for the MDGs?

Eveline Herfkens (EH): Well, there is a lot of progress, actually, but it is too slow and too patchy. Some regions are doing great; other regions are lagging, and the biggest concern is the poorest region – sub-Saharan Africa.

But even in sub-Saharan Africa you see that some of the poorest countries are on track to achieve some of the goals. Mozambique will achieve the poverty goal (MDG one) and the child mortality goal (MDG four). There are at least 12 countries that are on track to achieve the education goal (MDG two). The countries that will achieve the goals live up to their promises – (those) that have the right priorities, that fight corruption, improve the health and education systems, they are on track. And it is those countries that also benefit from the fact that some donors are living up to their promises.

Generally, the countries that are successful are the ones that got generous debt relief…like in Tanzania, a million extra kids are going to school because of the fact that they don’t have to repay us – they can put that money in the education budget. And these countries benefit from generous aid but, more importantly, aid that enables these countries to take responsibility.

So, (what is necessary is) not little projects (that are) fragmented, but donors working together to back up improved policies on the recipient’s side. And that shows that if you can do it in the poorest countries the goals are still achievable. But everybody (has to) live up to their promises.

IPS: What are the reasons for sub-Saharan Africa, and especially Southern Africa, lagging behind? Many of the goals will still be missed…

EH: You can go back centuries for the reasons but let me just focus on the last few decades. There has not always been perfect governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Trade laws internationally have not been particularly beneficial for countries in Africa. They are particularly the victims of the (European Union and U.S’s) agricultural subsidy policies.

And then the way aid has been delivered in the past has not been very helpful for improving governments’ accountability to their own people. There are too few governments in Africa which have taken responsibility for themselves, for their future. The way that donors have operated was undermining whatever accountability and responsibility there was, making African countries look more at what their donors want than what their own people want.

So there is a lot that needs to be changed – but I am positive, because you are seeing an increasing number of countries where governments are taking responsibility and there is some improvement on the side of donor behaviour. What is not going well is the trade issue.

IPS: At the same time we are seeing a pattern of commitments being made but not kept. The Gleneagles Group of Eight meeting has come and gone. There seems to be a lack of political will to level the playing field between the North and the South – we are talking about global power relations…

EH: But this is about ignorance, partly. It is very difficult to expect politicians in Japan, in the U.S. or in Canada to really do something about these issues if their own electorates don’t see these connections. As I don’t like talking about averages in sub-Saharan Africa, I don’t like to talk about averages in the G8 either. Because let’s be honest, the French, the British and the Germans kept their commitments on aid volumes. In the G8 Russia is not a player in the whole development field, so we’re actually talking about Italy, Japan, Canada and the U.S.

But even in the U.S. there has indeed been more than a doubling of aid to Africa…Of course it came from a very low level, but things are moving. The (U.S.) president has come with pledges and offers and the U.S. congress has become more generous. Here in Italy we still see little, but there is a debt problem here. Nevertheless, there is a move on the aid agenda, things like untying aid – things that don’t really cost money but that are important too.

IPS: I would like to talk about policies imposed on sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of people would say that this is really at the heart of the problem – that policies have been imposed on governments, that national agendas have been set by foreigners, and that this is why these states are unable to achieve the MDGs.

EH: There are some nuances to this story. There have been African governments that are blaming the outside world for all kinds of things that they are themselves responsible for. Secondly, I would agree that there are too few African governments that have had the guts to say “no” to their donors if things were not helpful. It was a tremendous breakthrough when Tanzania told donors five years ago, “Listen guys, you are driving us crazy with all your missions and your separate reports. We’re going to have three months mission-free – you are not welcome. We really have to focus on running our own budget and getting our own act together.” Partly there has been a lack of outspokenness on the African side, saying “no” to things that are not helpful.

The point you make has been made too often by African governments that don’t have that much credibility themselves, saying that because they did so little themselves for the poor. Not all of the imposed policies stink. If you as a donor say “I really want you to draft your poverty reduction strategy or Millennium Development Goals plan together with civil society and the parliament,” – that is a basically good idea. But it should not be imposed. These governments should have done it themselves, I think. Some of the issues that donors raise are not total nonsense.

IPS: The problem, some would say, is that a cookie cutter approach has been followed. The World Bank has been trying to be more responsive to national interests, but even with this they haven’t gone far enough – and I think it is because there is an agenda of rearranging policies to benefit the North. As long as that is the case, you won’t have states that can take control of their own matters and put in place policies that will serve their populations.

EH: Well, again, the nuance is that some people in the North are trying to be helpful. One of the things that I find frustrating from my side is that there are people in the North that have been trying to create space for Africans to speak out… for instance, the campaign against the (E.U’s proposed) economic partnership agreements. Then they end up in an international meeting and none of the African governments raise any problems with the EPAs. That doesn’t really help, so the Africans have not really used the forums available to actually come up with their issues.

Also, if you look at the broader group of developing countries, they have often been dominated by the interests of large Asian and Latin American countries, and Africans have not made the effort to say, “Come on guys, this is not relevant to us.” Or: “Can you please take care of our concerns here?” I’m not saying the North is perfect, but if you write for the South I would really want the other side of the story too.

I make speeches in the North non-stop about the fact that we in the North impose policies, that our trade policies hurt people, that our aid policies are stingy and not effective. I make these points all the time. But I’d like to hear a little bit more in the South about your own responsibility. There is no reason for even the poorest country in the world not to have free primary education for all – I’m sorry, there is not. It’s a question of priorities. So there are no excuses…there are spaces that have not been used domestically or regionally.

It’s all very persuasive to discuss endlessly the lack of access to Northern markets. I have spent most of my life fighting for more market access for African products; but then there has been very little serious effort up to now to open markets among yourselves in Africa.