Cape Town — Africa needs to reinvigorate its traditions, revitalize its academic institutions and move away from aid to infrastructural development and intra-African trade, says Njongonkulu Ndungane, president of African Monitor. Ndungane, a former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, founded the organization primarily to monitor how effectively aid is used. He spoke to AllAfrica in his offices in Cape Town.
What is the role of the African Monitor?
African Monitor is an independent, not-for-profit company which monitors from an African perspective what donor countries give in aid; secondly, what African governments do with that aid and also what [they] do for their citizens; and thirdly - and this is our particular niche - what impact it makes on the ground. We are a grassroots-focussed entity, independent civil society working with faith communities on the ground.
So we look at the whole development programme from an African perspective. As our motto says, it's "African voices for Africa's development." We collect all the voices. There are different sectors in Africa that are doing various things and we collect those voices for Africa's development.
On the ground, is aid working?
Dambisa Moyo's book Dead Aid has led to much debate on aid recently. But there are countries in Africa which are dependent on aid and I think we should make a distinction on the basis of how effectively aid is used.
It's very interesting when you look at agriculture. One of the things that we have focused on in our development support monitor has been food security and food sovereignty. Africa has identified agriculture as a significant sector of its economy, hence the commitment of African governments arising from the [2003] Maputo Protocol to having 10 percent of their annual budgets devoted to agriculture.
Some six countries have implemented that. The greatest success is Malawi, which has achieved a fantastic turnaround, moving within three years from a 43 percent food deficit to a 57 percent surplus. In that sense the focus on agriculture is working.
Is the effect of Moyo's book going to damage the flow of aid?
I don't think so. The G8 has just made a statement pledging support for agriculture [promising to mobilize U.S. $20 billion over three years].
There has been a steady increase in aid... and of course we know that humanitarian assistance with HIV/Aids and other health issues and education [is] significant.
But what is being said on the continent is that we need to devise strategies that move away from aid dependency. Aid is not sustainable.
What is sustainable is trade and therefore we have the slogan "aid for trade." We need to be channelling aid towards infrastructural development and towards encouraging intra-African trade... and creating an investment-friendly climate in Africa.
You don't think that her book, which calls for an end to aid, will give ammunition to forces which are not friendly to Africa, that it will give them an excuse not to give aid?
In a sense, yes, but there are sufficient voices in the continent saying that this is an irresponsible statement at this stage, [although] we can understand her critique where aid has not been used effectively.
She makes some valid points doesn't she?
Yes, but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you look at the Marshall Plan after World War II [under which the United States helped rebuild Europe], that was aid. Helping companies [to survive] the global economic meltdown - trillions of dollars being pumped to help people who have been irresponsible - that's some kind of aid. In this globalized environment we need one another, we need to help one another, whatever we call that.
Elaborate a little bit on the relationship between aid and trade. You are saying that aid is not a long-term solution for Africa?
Definitely. To go back to Malawi, when the president of Malawi said, "I'm not going to go about begging for food," and doubled government expenditure on agriculture - from 7.4 to 14 percent of the budget - the donors were not supportive. But look at what happened when he just stood his ground.
Aid is not sustainable in that it ebbs and flows according to the whims and wishes of the donor countries, whereas if you insist on trade, that is sustainable. What is key from our perspective is that for development to be effective it must involve the people on the ground for whom it is meant. It's a wrong use of aid for donors to determine what is going to happen, rather they should be partnering people on the ground in the initiatives that they are making for sustainability.
Can you think of examples of bad aid in that it does not sustain people on the ground and encourages dependency?
We have had some cases in which leaders in some countries have told us that donors tend to push their agenda, that a country - let's say Mozambique - says "these are our priorities," but donors come with what they think is best for a country. That sometimes creates a difficulty and because people need the money they tend to be dominated by this kind of pressure. That's why there has been a clamour that donors must listen and be in true partnership.
I will never forget one leader saying to me that one of the potentials of the African Monitor is being able to say the things that they can't say. Because, he says, at the end of the day if you open your mouth too much the cheques won't come. The African Monitor can address the corridors of power [whereas] the leadership of Africa is sometimes hamstrung.
The G8 announcement on agriculture shows they have heard what Africa is saying and I think the examples of countries like Malawi and Burkina Faso -which are turning things around in addressing food shortages - show there is a kind of a listening to the noises that we are making about what Africa's priorities are.
Tell us how monitoring the effectiveness of aid relates to good governance. And is the state of African governance such that donors can have confidence in the use of their aid?
People at the grass roots are the ones who can tell us whether aid makes a difference. I think that it's important in our monitoring that we are giving capacity to people on the ground to hold their leadership to account. We are developing what is called a "grassroots focus index" which will be used on the ground, using our partners in the NGO world and faith communities. The experience is that where there is accountability, donors are likely to give more assistance.
As a monitor of aid effectiveness, what's your feeling about donors and their performance?
I think that we have to stiffen our spines and call the donors to honour their promises. Where that takes place, there is improvement in the quality of life. We have figures which show that from 1985 to 2003 there was a decrease in official development assistance for agriculture from 12 percent to four percent. There has [since] been some kind of an increase, to seven percent in 2007, but it's still not up to [1985 levels].
[But] donor commitments are increasing. They are supporting the African Union's comprehensive African agriculture programme. So it's about being responsive to the calls to honour pledges that come from our leadership, from civil society entities like ourselves and various other monitoring agencies...
Let me just add my pet subjects.... The Organization of African Unity took a decision [in the early 1960s] which ran like a mantra, that it would not rest until every square inch of Africa is free. My challenge to this generation is that we should not rest and we will not rest until every child of Africa has access to what is basic for human living, such as access to food, to water and to shelter, to education, health care, those kinds of things.
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Related to this [is a call] that came from a policy forum that we held on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Cape Town this year... We are a continent that has retrogressed - we had outstanding universities like Makerere [in Uganda]... We are calling for the revitalization of African research institutes of excellence to come alongside the leadership of Africa, so that in the developmental challenges we face - like infrastructure development, like agriculture - our leadership doesn't depend solely on advice from people outside our continent, important though that is...
It was very interesting to find in our discussions that it was an experience common to all of us that traditionally in every community, in every village, we used to have agricultural advisors. In our country, where I grew up we used to call them "abalimi." "Lima" means to plough and "abalimi" was the person who helped to plough. They were the people who stood alongside communities, advising them on how to plough, on seed, on soil. But those kinds of advisors don't exist in most countries any longer. We need to revitalize those traditions to assist people in their struggles to make a living.
What are African voices at the grassroots saying?
I never forget the voices of the poor from the poverty hearings we held in South Africa in 1998 and again last year. They told us: "We don't want hand-outs, we've got the hands, we've got the brains, give us the wherewithal to eke out our existence." A man in the Eastern Cape, a middle-aged man said, "All we want is to be given equipment or the capacity to grow our own food. I've got land, I would like to grow food so that I can feed my children."
That is the way forward. We have set up in this continent an Alliance for a Green Revolution, which is headed by [former United Nations chief] Kofi Annan, focusing on advice on seed, on soil, on water conservation and marketing. It's targeting small farmers, it's targeting women and that is something that will make us sustainable in our continent.
