Foreign aid is just the beginning when it comes to Africa’s development.
President Trump’s controversial decision to dismantle the US Organization for International Development (USAID) has been met with widespread condemnation across the aid industry and foreign policy establishment. The blame is not unfair. While questions about the legality of the move remain unresolved (a federal judge ruled that the president “stomped his constitutional authority”), even those who have Trump’s claims about the need to lie alongside the administration’s “American first” agenda need to ask whether a more human approach can be adopted.
That being said, it is beneficial that the majority of the response to this move is focused on the severity of pain and confusion that is expected to be caused by sudden withdrawals, especially in poor countries.
This exclusive focus on aid is driven by two related factors. One is the passion of aid workers and their belief in the human importance of what they are doing. The second factor is the passionate beliefs of workers in aid systems, and the beliefs fixed in experiences in underserved communities across developing countries where well-targeted aid can be achieved. From this perspective, it appears to be negligible to pay for a morally unmoving goal of worrying about waste and fraud not only completely overlook the point, but also bringing tormented smiles on strange lands and places to suffer and smiles.
No matter what feelings or prejudices about this approach, there is something to be praised for his bloody devotion to doing good. In a world that is plagued by doubt and irony, I long for it more. And it can certainly prefer the hand-made irony that can’t do anything, so that nothing can be done. Due to pure dedication and stickiness, the index of foreign aid is worth the weight of gold.
But their ointment has flies. This can be summarised as follows: First, while belief in the morality of aid is commendable, it is not enough to dismiss just and well-founded concerns about its effectiveness. Certainly, these concerns are well known not only to concerns before Trump’s executive order, but also to development activists and academics in both donors and receiver countries. And it is difficult to imagine how they could continue to ignore them, claiming that they take the institutions of the award-winning nations seriously, as Western development activists cannot pretend to be ignorant of these nagging reservations. While current conjunctions may be far from ideal, these activists offer a real chance to preempt the curve.
To do this is to return to the first principles on the issue of foreign aid by raising the question of how a country develops and how much foreign aid promotes or frustrates the achievement of developmental goals. Wanting to ask this question will not erase it. Furthermore, foreign aid is an integral part of the broader development paradigm, so foreign aid is holding off such time in the near future if it is worth asking why, why, the aid is bigger, lesser, more dependency-building, that recipient countries can ultimately rise and walk under their own power.
Either way, and now we reach the second aspect of the flies of the ointment – it appears to be surrounded by definition, a small facet of the wider developmental issues of Africa, even when done with the necessary candity. If this is correct, the more we pay attention to aid, the less we will undoubtedly be in the greater moments, the future of human freedom in Africa.
The paradox of the situation is that we can barely imagine a time when conversations about the future of freedom in Africa are more urgent than they are now. This is due to the nature and persistence of the urgent challenges to human freedom in Africa. The first challenge is the rise of “unexpressed governance” (of my money) that argues that Africa’s issues are not democracy, but food, security, and reliable infrastructure. All of this can be provided by a benevolent leader. While we can see the appeal of this discourse (how can anyone oppose food, security and infrastructure?), what is particularly frightening is the willingness to incinerate freedom in particular? The facilitators of this discourse are in a hurry to source decent digs and grabs for the Africans who appear, so people miss the point that they are not surrounded by rulers.
The second challenge to human freedom in Africa is the early cult of Strongman, symbolized by the growing popularity of military rulers like Burkina Faso’s interim leader (sic) Ibrahim Traore. Such adventurers mix democratic disillusionment with justified responsibilities to foreigners who can replace them, and never reduce the threat that cults and massive weaknesses need to feed them, bringing to human freedom on the continent.
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So far, the response to President Trump’s move has been dominated by genuine solicitations for African communities that are likely to be negatively affected by the sudden withdrawal of foreign aid. However, for the conversation to be truly generative, mere petitions must be raised to restore the status quo to address the broader issue of what foreign aid is. In other words, it is very important to use this moment to think deeply about Africa’s development, its intellectual and moral foundations, and the means to ensure it. In my book, this cannot achieve a fundamental commitment to human freedom, but at the same time, the lack of development prerequisites and objectives.
Nathan Schoonover and Giulio Bianco contributed to the research in this article.
