NAD
Supporting Them Support Themselves

"Is this really how to save Africa?" asks Tanzanian columnist AyubRioba, a day after Bill Clinton has left Africa. "We appreciate generousand humane contributions from people like Bill Clinton," he writes in TheCitizen, a respected Tanzanian national daily paper. "But we [Africans]must also show that we are doing something. We cannot sit just like couchpotatoes waiting for others to come and give us medicine."

"We have been made permanent recipients of aid, funds, scholarships,food, medicine, from developed countries.... And what exactly do we do with allthat aid and assistance and help? Almost nothing. Since we gained independence,almost 50 years ago, we have been receiving aid permanently, and statisticstoday indicate that we are becoming poorer!" adds the columnist.

Outside attention to the continent has fuelled thousands of successfulprograms ranging from eradicating smallpox and reducing infant mortality ratesto helping more children go to school and more farmers get microloans. But,despite the aid, the number of poor people in Africa has almost doubled in thepast decade.

Burdened as Africa is with government debt, trade barriers, droughts, andsickness, some 46 percent of Africans survive on less than a dollar a day.Nearly half of those make do with less than 50 cents a day, according to thedevelopment policy research unit the University of Cape Town in South Africa.According to the United Nations, life expectancy on the continent is falling,averaging just 46 years, in large part because of AIDS.

There are different schools of thought when it comes to explaining Africa'sdecline – and how to stop it.

Mr. Rioba fits squarely in the "governance first" camp, whichargues that the onus is on Africans to better their own governments and behaviour– not on outsiders.

For decades, countries such as Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo)under Mobutu Sese Seko received billions of dollars in aid and loans – much ofwhich was squandered by corrupt and incompetent officials.

Against this first camp sits the so-called "poverty first" camp,often represented by Columbia University economist and UN Millennium Projectdirector Jeffrey Sachs, who says the solution to Africa's problems lies intackling poverty, and that this can definitely be achieved with sufficient aid.

A third group believes in aid, but argues it's not the quantity that is problematic;it's the way it has been administered.

If ending poverty were so simple, argues William Easterly, a professor ofeconomics at New York University, why has the $2.3 trillion spent over the lastfive decades not done more? "The biggest difference between Sachs and meis that he thinks aid can end poverty and I think it cannot," he says. "Theend of poverty comes about for home-grown reasons, as domestic reformers gropetheir way towards more democracy, cleaner and more accountable government, andfree markets," he says. Mr. Easterly says aid can certainly help alleviatethe suffering of the poor, but that "the problem with aid is the peopleimplementing the aid projects have weak incentives because they are never heldaccountable for results."

Mr. Sachs, in turn, poses: Is $2.3 trillion really so much? That sum, hesays, is "from all donor countries in the world to all developingcountries for all purposes," which means, if you work it out, around $16per person per year in the developing world.

"To say that aid was gargantuan and that it failed is a cruel joke. Itwas neither gargantuan, nor did it fail when it was applied in good faith fordevelopmental purposes (rather than for the cold war, or to ship US grains orto pay high-priced consultants)," he argues.

Sachs points out that the US spends more than $600 billion per year on thePentagon, and less than one-hundredth of that in help for all of Africa."One day's Pentagon spending would pay for all the bed nets [to stopmalaria] for every sleeping site in Africa for five years," he charges."People are hungry. People are dying. There are countless proven andeffective ways to help, and which can extricate people from poverty in the longrun. The drama is whether American politics can rouse itself to takenote," he says.

In his quest for spreading this message and increasing aid, Sachs oftenturns to superstars, and many have embraced his ideas and his can-do attitude.Bono calls him "my professor." Actor Brad Pitt sings his praises.Madonna is a big supporter, and Angelina Jolie filmed a 2005 MTV special,"The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa" thatpromotes his work. Vanity Fair, in its recent Africa issue billed him an"adviser to the UN and movie stars" and a "saviour" ofdeveloping nations.

"Sachs offers very simple, concrete, and measurable solutions tospecific developmental problems," says John Prendergast of ENOUGH, a groupwith a mission to "prevent genocide and mass atrocities" in Africa."He doesn't necessarily have answers to major crises like Darfur andeastern Congo, but he does have important responses to malaria, dirty water,and bad sanitation. That is an important baseline for further socioeconomicdevelopment in the long run."

But Easterly is not impressed, calling Sachs a "messianic crusader who... skilfully uses celebrity and media for the cause." Celebrities"love" Sachs, explains Easterly, "because he promises a hugepayoff to Western aid efforts and describes the problem as easy to solve, ifyou just have a few celebrity videos and concerts." Easterly suggests aiddividends will almost always be modest. The solution requires donors to helpcontinuously and be accountable for results. But he says, that is just"not as ... appealing to the People magazine crowd."