On this 35th anniversary of PNG’s Independence, when everyone is looking back, summarizing great strides in self-determination, we might take a minute to reconsider the present. Is 35 too early for a midlife crisis? Not if the Independence leader himself, His Nibs, is also the man driving the newest and reddest sports car in the country. When autonomy becomes do-it-yourself governance. When idealism becomes self-service. A larger vision becomes a retirement fund. Democracy becomes dynasty. Look South becomes Submit East.
The current debate over international aid and its efficacy, as defined by Linda Polman and others, like Paul Collier, does not so much discredit the good that aid has done in the developing world as it lifts the veil on the bad—breaching the taboo against looking the gift horse in the mouth. Aid in the last 2 decades or more has become the de facto government of so many destabilized and corrupt governments, and can no more claim to be apolitical than the Pope is a-Catholic. Polman says aid organizations are in bed with warmongers. In War Games: the Story of Aid and War in Modern Times, Polman argues that humanitarianism has become a massive industry that, along with the global media, forms an unholy alliance with warmongers.
In turn, failed leaders complain that it is aid that prevents them from doing their job. The more hospitals and schools donated (or gifted by high interest loans, in fact), the less able a small emergent economy can foot its own bill. This leads to Collier’s famous argument—that trade is the real aid. Handouts are unsustainable development, and demeaning. Investment is the only option. This means outsourcing manufacturing for the investors, and emphasizing downstream processing for the resource rich developing countries.
PNG timber in China
This brings us to Africa’s argument. Following these well-researched critiques of international aid, African social scientists and leaders alike are taking on board the message that aid neocolonialism is a problem that cannot be solved, and that investment is the only equable alternative. Enter China. The great rationale for China’s ExIm loans and investment in Africa today is based on this postcolonial idea of liberal economic freedom. Noty The End of Poverty Jeffrey Sachs freedom, or Development as Freedom Development Theory freedom, but plain old unfettered investment for profit freedom. Again and again, African leaders report that it is the Chinese who do not insult them with human rights or best practice prerequisites---that these are the only development partners who do not sneer at corruption, warmongering, graft, bribery, and genocide. Their focus on the bottom line is, in other words, a form of postcolonial equality---a kind of see no evil pluralism in the post-humanitarian age.
It is only because PNG is relatively new to this bilateral ‘freedom’ that we haven’t heard this rationale explained as articulately as it has been for Africa.
In a recent article by Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, whose Tutsi government has been accused of retributive violence against the Hutus, Chinese great benevolent disinterest in the production chain is made to sound almost puritanical---and would please the grumpy Polman herself. In effect, the very nature of ‘aid’ and what it should effect is being redefined. In short, all concepts of social development or cultural continuity are eliminated in favour of economic viability. Grow the economy and the rest will come, so to speak. It is neoliberal fundamentalism in the guise of social equity. Indeed, an argument can be made that this flat-footed emphasis on investment is much the same as what western aid organizations have effected all along: self-serving investment, boomerang profiteering, and very little social development after all. But what Paul Kagame tells us in, Why Africa Welcomes the Chinese (guardian.co.uk 2 November 2009), is that Chinese investment should not preclude social development, and the fact that the investor cares little for human rights does not mean that the host country should or necessarily will lose interest in doing the right thing.
There is a debate among geopolitical and economic commentators about the merits of Chinese versus western involvement with Africa. One argument is that Chinese investment is exploitative and undermines the development of democracy and human rights on the continent. Others view the matter in terms of competition, arguing that China is encroaching on the decades-long monopoly of the west over Africa’s natural resources.
Neither of these viewpoints addresses the core issues. First, major players in global investment and development are discussing Africa without engaging its people as equal partners. Second, Africans are not seen to be proactive in setting their own priorities and terms of engagement.
Development aid, fashioned on this skewed relationship, has long been a key source of income for the continent. While helpful, aid has not delivered sustainable development. It is clear that trade and investment bring greater opportunity for wealth creation. Africa welcomes investment, from the east and west, north and south, and Rwanda is no exception. We want investment that offers skills and jobs, encourages entrepreneurship, and provides the opportunity to improve millions of lives.
This call for investment and trade rather than traditional aid does not mean the latter’s contribution to addressing poverty is not recognised. However, the fundamental problem with the current development aid practice is the danger countries face as they become perpetually reliant on handouts.
…The primary purpose of aid should ultimately be to work itself out, leaving a positive legacy behind. Aid should also be used to create opportunities for trade, enhance self-sufficiency and assist with the development of a robust private sector to attract investment. In many countries, for example, aid offers resources such as fertilisers for free. The intention is good but this often prevents local businesses from being able to provide these goods competitively. Given the choice, people would prefer to work and provide for themselves, rather than receive charity. Africans want self-determination and dignity.
…Of course, African leaders should take good governance and human rights seriously – and most do. This is not – and should not be – because anybody else tells us to, or in return for investment, but because it is the right thing to do. The presence of Chinese investment in Africa does not discharge governments of their responsibilities any more than its presence in the EU or US should erode human rights there.
..Ultimately, Africa’s relationship with its international counterparts should be redefined. For too long, we have not been able to trade fairly with Europe and the US; trade barriers and subsidies, particularly in agriculture, have protected external markets from African products, hindering our ability to trade as equals. Investment and trade with willing countries, including intra-African trade, helps the continent to build a much-needed culture of entrepreneurship and development.
All would benefit if the world focused on increasing investment in Africa, and if Rwanda and the rest of the continent worked to establish more equitable international partnerships. A trade relationship built on this new approach would be more helpful in reaching what should be our common goal: sustainable development, mutual prosperity and respect. [Emphasis added]
It all sounds a little like trading one demon for the other.
The problem of course is that this line of argument has been used to flog both the imperialists and the humanitarians. Paul Collier’s books, The Plundered Planet and The Bottom Billion remind us that some of the poorest countries are rich in resources that have never been used to raise their own standard of living. But instead of saying global trade inequities and monopoly capital are the major reasons for this, he points the fingers at those tree hugging do-gooders and ‘romantics’---from health and human rights volunteers to (worst of all) environmentalists.
His argument is that resources don’t have to be a ‘curse’ if they are properly managed. Aid could be used for prospecting and development of resources, and not left to private companies which are then compelled to exploit their advantage for a return on their investment. His big argument is that (surprise) resource revenues should be held in trust for future generations. Surely no one could disagree with these ideals. Unfortunately, however, Collier has no solutions to the endemic corruption that prevents them from being realised across the developing world.
At the same time, no one would today argue that aid is anything less than a massive scam of global proportions. It gets siphoned off by warlords, artificially props up an economy and prolongs the shelf-life of some of the world’s most horrendous regimes. The humanitarian principle of giving aid where it is needed (and asking no questions) has been revealed by reporters like Polman to be almost criminally naïve in this age. After Rwanda, after the Sudan and the Congo, no one can saw again that aid helps only those ‘in need’ or only the victims of a tragedy. It fuels a system that has brought about the tragedy and is more likely to exacerbate (in the case of war) than ameliorate those conditions. Even where lives are saved on a micro level, the structure of dependency between developing nations and western aid organizations grows increasingly dangerous on the macro level.
But again, this argument can be used to decry the givers as well as the takers. A lot of the money moving from The West to The Rest is dropped even before it leaves western shores. In The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs reports that for every $3 in US aid to Africa, only six cents reaches an African. The rest mainly goes on paying consultants.
Boomerang, as we say in PNG. Linda Polman calls this business dressed up like Mother Teresa. And she writes about aid workers as corruptible beasts themselves, like the putative enemies they face, and not unlike the major war profiteers like Halliburtan, Blackwater, CACI, Titan and every other corporate entity doing well off Iraq and Afghanistan. These people get rich under the banner of doing good, when in fact they enjoy the adrenaline rush of disaster as much as do mercenaries and adventure junkies. 'Like the international jet set on holiday,’ says Polman. Land Cruisers, hardship pay, nightclubbing, soft drugs, and quick thrills. As a result, prostitution spokes, along with real estate values and luxury items. 'I’ve known aid workers who cared for child soldiers and war orphans during the day,’ writes Polman, ‘and relaxed by night in the arms of child prostitutes.’