USA must improve aid balance - Refugees International

from IRIN News

An US based NGO has issued a report that critiques US policy. Refugees International explains how those policies effect their efforts in Africa. - Kale

DAKAR - Imbalances between US spending on defence, diplomacy and development are affecting the USA’s ability to stabilise fragile and conflict-prone African countries, the US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Refugees International concludes in a new report.

“The headline is that at the moment [US] policies are out of whack,” said Refugees International President Ken Bacon. “That is affecting our ability to act effectively and coherently in Africa and to carry out the war on terrorism in a coherent, long-term and effective way.”

According to the report, as well as short-changing foreign aid, the US government has allowed chronic weaknesses to build up in civilian capacity to construct and carry out effective, long-term policies to rebuild failed and post-conflict states, while the military is playing an increasingly active and well-funded role in promoting development and democracy.

“[Foreign aid] is increasingly being overseen by military institutions whose policies are driven by the Global War on Terror, not by the war against poverty,” the report states.

Foreign assistance represents less than one percent of the federal budget, while defence spending is 20 percent, the report says. The US military has over 1.5 million uniformed active duty employees and over 10,100 civilian employees, while the Department of State has just 6,500 permanent employees.

The report, which cites Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as examples of badly coordinated and ineffectual foreign assistance, proposes that the US military’s newly formed Africa Command (AFRICOM) has a major role to play in rectifying the imbalance, by focusing exclusively on military and political roles and providing civil-military expertise to African states. US humanitarian aid and diplomacy branches should be bolstered to allow them to complement each other, instead of being dwarfed by the military-run body.

“At the moment projects in Africa are just not joining up,” said the report’s author Mark Malan. “AFRICOM needs to stay in lane and concentrate on doing those things it should do and does well.”

“The military should not try to take over what USAID [the US Agency for International Development] or the State Department do - that should be left to people trained to do that, but they need more resources,” said Bacon.

The report criticises staffing imbalances in AFRICOM, noting that of 1,300 professional positions, just 13 are for non-Department of Defence civilians.

No humanitarian role for AFRICOM

However, Malan said AFRICOM does appear to have backed off from a previous and controversial assertion that AFRICOM would involve itself in humanitarian as well as developmental work.

“There was some confusing language before,” Malan said. “The new mission statement is focused on security with no mention of humanitarian or development assistance.”

“[AFRICOM Commander] General Ward spent a lot of time with aid organisations and the humanitarian community. I think he listened and responded to what he heard, and AFRICOM has been narrowing its reach as it comes closer to full command,” Refugees International President Bacon said.

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Feeding Africa: Key is better farms, not food aid

from the Associated Press via Google

By ANITA POWELL

AWASH MELKASA, Ethiopia — Hussein Ibrahim walked solemnly past tidy rows of bright green cabbages, vines bursting with tomatoes and trees weighed down with plump avocados.

This modern, thriving farm — a rarity in drought-ravaged Ethiopia — filled Hussein with envy. Like so many other farmers across the Horn of Africa, he has no hope for his own crops this year.

"We are behind all the other people in the world," said Hussein, who tends his land in southern Ethiopia the way his ancestors did hundreds of years ago — with rain, if it comes; and oxen, as long as they're healthy.

To break out of endless cycles of drought, poverty and hunger, experts say, Africa desperately needs to modernize its age-old farming techniques. But the vast sums in foreign aid to Africa go toward feeding the hungry, and very little is left for improving farming so that Africans will cease to depend on handouts.

It isn't impossible. A decade ago, a "green revolution" helped millions of farmers in Asia and Latin America emerge from poverty with basic innovations such as fertilizer, improved irrigation and hybrid seeds.

But Africa's farms, which employ more than half the labor force, remain one-fourth as productive as their counterparts around the world.

Ethiopia drew international attention in 1984 when a famine compounded by communist policies killed 1 million people. It is now gripped by drought that has left 4.6 million people in need of emergency food shipments.

Drought is especially bad for Ethiopia because farming employs more than 80 percent of Ethiopians and accounts for half of all domestic production and 85 percent of exports.

Yet it's not that Ethiopia is incapable of growing food, as this experimental farm 100 miles southwest of Addis Ababa demonstrates. It just needs the right tools.

The farm, part of a government-run research center, beats the drought with smart irrigation systems, higher-yielding seeds, and fertilizer and pesticides correctly applied.

Hussein and dozens of other farmers were invited to the farm in late June to learn about modern agricultural techniques.

The 640-acre center employs nearly 350 workers, nearly 60 of whom hold advanced degrees in agriculture. It was set up in 1969 in the dying days of Ethiopia's monarchy, survived a decade of Marxist dictatorship, famine and wars, and continues to point the way to food independence.

But all it can do is point. It costs the Ethiopian government about $1.1 million a year to run the farm. The average Ethiopian works two acres, has little education and earns about $800 a year.

Also on the visit to the center was Mitike Abebe, who farms wheat, barley, lentils and other crops in southern Ethiopia. She depends entirely on rainfall, sturdy oxen, and her overworked soil.

"We don't want food aid," she said. "We need tractors, we need seeds, we need farm machinery."

There's aid aplenty — Ethiopia alone got $1.95 billion in 2006 — but Africa-wide, less than 5 percent of it goes toward the sort of things Mitike needs.

The United States, Ethiopia's largest donor, this year gave it more than $570 million, but just over 1 percent of that money is going toward developing agriculture.

In 2004, African nations agreed to set aside 10 percent of their national budgets for agricultural development. Ethiopia exceeded that promise, with 16 percent of its $3.4 billion budget. But experts say it is simply not enough for a country so dependent on the land.

According to the U.N., nearly two-thirds of Africa's agricultural land has been degraded by erosion and misused pesticides. In Ethiopia, where bad farming practices have led to massive erosion, 85 percent of land is damaged.

"We've under-invested, and everybody appreciates this now," said Glenn Anders, who heads the American aid program in Ethiopia. "Particularly in Africa, for the last few decades, maybe more."

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Promises, promises

from the Economist

From The Economist print edition
How reliably aid is given can be even more important than how much is given

DEVELOPMENT aid can be as fickle as fashion. Remember those white Make Poverty History wristbands, which briefly made compassion chic in the run-up to the Gleneagles summit in 2005? Memories of the pledge made by G8 leaders there to double annual aid to Africa by 2010 also seem to have faded with time. According to the OECD, on current spending trends annual aid will fall $14 billion short of the $50 billion African target—not a statistic to savour as today’s G8 leaders tucked into their eight-course banquet on the Japanese island of Hokkaido on July 7th. Once again, they vowed to honour their aid commitments to Africa, but they are not legally binding nor are they easy to pin down. As usual in the aid business, making promises is a lot easier than sticking to them.

Does that matter? After all, the effectiveness of such sweeping aid pledges has been questioned a lot lately. Last year, in his book “The Bottom Billion”, Paul Collier, an Oxford economics professor, convincingly argued that aid, on its own, was unable to make a big difference to the world’s poor. He saw it more as a way of stopping things from falling apart, rather than fostering growth. He and other scholars have argued that large disbursements are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Even at Gleneagles, aid sceptics warned world leaders of the dangers of “Dutch disease”—that a sudden windfall of hard currency could push up the exchange rate and damage a country’s export competitiveness.

A new paper, by Oya Celasun of the IMF and Jan Walliser of the World Bank, suggests that failing to honour promises can in fact be more harmful than not offering any money in the first place. The authors examined yearly aid commitments, not long-term ones of the Make Poverty History variety. They show how unpredictable such aid flows are. The paper finds that the average absolute difference between aid promised and aid given was equal to 3.4% of each sub-Saharan African nation’s GDP between 1990 and 2005. That is far greater than in any other region of the world. In countries that had experienced war, the fluctuations were particularly marked, partly because of shrinking economies: in Sierra Leone the swings were equivalent to 9% of GDP. It is also a myth, the authors show, that donors always give less than they promise: they are both capriciously generous, as well as capriciously stingy. During the same period, rich countries exceeded their yearly aid commitments to sub-Saharan Africa by an average of 1% of each recipient country’s GDP.

Aid-dependent countries have limited access to international financial markets to help smooth over the sudden bumps and pot-holes. And governments cannot easily use their domestic debt markets to absorb the shocks, because these are shallow and too much government borrowing crowds out private investment. Poor governments thus have to alter their spending plans in response to aid surprises. The study shows that the impact is not spread evenly over the governments’ investment and consumption plans, with damaging consequences.

In poor countries, government consumption is mostly composed of salaries, which are difficult to cut at short notice, not least for political reasons. Investment, meanwhile, is typically carried out near the end of the budget year. When the amount of aid does not live up to expectations, poor governments find it easier to cut investment rather than consumption. In Burkina Faso, for example, government budgets are allocated in January. To build a new school, the government must decide its location, plan its construction and examine tenders, a process that lasts until June, when the rainy season sets in. If, while builders anxiously wait for the rains to end, aid falls unexpectedly short, the easy option is to shelve the plans.

This would be less damaging if, during aid windfalls, poor countries made up for the foregone investment—but they do not. Investment spending has a long planning cycle, and is difficult to increase quickly. Governments instead take advantage of windfalls to ratchet up their consumption—but not the good sort, such as hiring nurses and teachers, which also requires plenty of advance planning. For 13 countries Ms Celasun and Mr Walliser looked at the relation between government spending and aid used to expand the budget (as distinct from aid earmarked for a project). For some countries, more than a third of such aid was prone to unexpected fluctuations (see chart). They found that for every aid dollar unexpectedly withheld, government investment fell by 12 cents, while government consumption remained stable. For every aid dollar unexpectedly given, consumption rose by 64 cents, while investment was unmoved. This is not proof of cause and effect; natural disasters or shoddy policymaking may lead to both unpredictable aid and higher current spending. But it is strong evidence for it.

Aid cannot always be predictable. It may suddenly pour into a country after an emergency. A country’s political situation may change so drastically for the worse that donors may have doubts about the use of the money. Frequently they attach conditions to aid disbursements that may require governments to implement policies (such as fiscal straitjackets) or to reach goals (such as higher school enrolment). Some of these conditions may be worth their cost in unpredictability.

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$ 1.7 billion for Ghana’s Development

from My Joy Online

Ghana’s development partners on Monday announced a 1.7 billion dollar support for the year 2008 to accelerate implementation of programmes under the country’s Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy II.

The declaration came at the end of the 15th Ghana Consultative Group Meeting of government officials, development experts, partners and civil society organizations in Accra.

Ghana has in recent years witnessed a consistent increase in donor funding, reaching a level of 1.2 billion dollars last year.

Mr Filiberto Ceriani Sebregondi, Head of EU Delegation in Ghana, said the increased support was the joint effort of donors to align their contributions to the development aspirations of Ghana.

“We have constantly engaged in the last few years in a progressive alignment of aid to the country’s priority of human resource development, private sector competitiveness and good governance,” he told a press conference shortly after the meeting.

He was confident that the donors would deliver on their commitments in view of the performance in the last two years.

Development partners had delivered about 95 per cent of their commitments in the last few years.

Mr Ishac Diwan, World Bank Country Director, said attention was paid at the meeting to the oil and food price shocks and how it could impact on the country’s growth prospects.

He said the country had shown enough economic stability, which had enabled it to withstand the shocks.

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Peters announces $2 billion Pacific aid programme

from the National Business Review, New Zealand

Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealanders have a "clear expectation" that Pacific Island nations will take up the development challenge and do the work needed to lift their citizens out of poverty.

He announced today a Pacific Development Strategy that will deliver $2 billion in aid over eight years.

"This allows us to make a sustainable impact on improving health and education in the Pacific, to address infrastructure gaps and promote economic growth and to improve governance and leadership," he said.

"No one is saying this is going to be easy, nor that New Zealand has all the answers. The challenge is immense, complex and, most of all, long term."

Mr Peters said there was a need to encourage policies and practices which fostered growth and better standards of living.

"It also means preventing corruption, poor governance and conflict which erode development gains."

Mr Peters said economic growth around the region was failing to keep up with population growth.

In some cases, government decision-making was weak in addressing problems and modern practices were not followed.

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EU Renews Its Intentions

from IPS News

By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, European Union governments have resolved to ensure that international objectives on reducing extreme poverty are realised, but have backed away from devising concrete plans for increasing the amount of aid that they give to poor countries.

During a summit in Brussels Jun. 19-20, the EU's presidents and prime ministers agreed an 'agenda for action' against poverty. The summit reiterated their commitment to devoting 0.56 percent of their collective national income to development aid by 2010, rising to 0.7 percent by 2015. As a result, aid should double to 66 billion euros (103 billion dollars) within the next two years, with half of the increase going to Africa.

The leaders also said that all of the EU's 27 governments are "encouraged to establish their indicative timetables", outlining how they plan to make good on pledges that most of them signed up to in 2005.

Anti-poverty activists argued, however, that the 'agenda for action' was too weak and that explicit legally binding programmes for boosting aid are needed. Concord, a group that binds together most of the well-known aid agencies in Europe, complained that far from increasing aid, several EU governments cut the amount they gave to the poor over the past year. Without a dramatic improvement, the EU is likely to provide 75 billion dollars less in aid than it had promised between 2005 and 2010, the group estimates.

"A number of European governments have shown real commitment to keeping their promises on aid by setting timetables on how it should be delivered," said Jasmine Burnley, a spokeswoman for Concord. "But the majority are dragging their feet. This lack of commitment from some is pulling down the performance of Europe as a whole and compromising the EU's credibility on development."

The EU's leaders argued that the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for dramatically reducing the most extreme forms of poverty by 2015 can be attained in all of the world's regions "provided that concerted action is taken immediately and in a sustained manner."

Kumi Naidoo, chairman of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty suggested, though, that the EU had produced little more than a political statement, which may yield few tangible results.

"The agenda for action was designed to demonstrate Europe's leadership on poverty reduction," he said. "But the absence of annual timetables to guarantee timely aid provision really weakens it. We know that a lack of predictability in aid flows can severely impact on the poor by making it impossible for governments to pay teachers, nurses and other vital professionals."

In an analysis published this week, Debt AIDS Trade Africa (DATA), an organisation led by the Irish rock star Bono, berated three of the four European members of the Group of Eight (G8) top industrialised countries for not honouring pledges that they made during a summit at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. Of the four -- Italy, Germany, France and Britain -- only Britain appears likely to come close to meeting its targets for 2010.

Pledges made to Africa are being broken, the organisation suggested. France's assistance to sub-Saharan Africa fell by 66 million dollars between 2006 and last year, for example.

Desmond Tutu, the South African bishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, wrote the introduction to the DATA study, stating: "Intentions are one thing, follow through is another, and I am deeply worried that France, Germany and Italy are not going to keep the promises they made to Africa in 2005, because then all of Europe will be behind."

Even though EU governments implied that the fight against global poverty should be considered an urgent matter, this and all other issues on their summit agenda were eclipsed by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty a week earlier.

Because all 27 countries have to ratify the treaty before it can have legal effect, the vote against the treaty in the Irish referendum has called its future into question.

EU governments stated that despite the Irish 'No', the ratification process should continue in other member states. So far, 19 national parliaments have approved the treaty. Ireland was the only country to directly ask its voters their opinion about it.

Nonetheless, the leaders acknowledged that the treaty is in difficulty in the Czech Republic, as well as in Ireland. Ratification has been postponed in Prague because the country's Senate has asked for a court ruling on whether or not it complies with the national constitution.

And while Britain become the 19th country to endorse it via parliament this week, a High Court judge has called on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government to delay on formally ratifying it until a legal bid designed to force a referendum is assessed. The bid has been mounted by businessman and supporter of the opposition Conservative Party, Stuart Wheeler.
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[comment] Power v poverty

from the New Statesman

by Duncan Green

Privatisation, free trade and market forces . . . the rich world insists poor states play by our rules. But they don't work. Time to let countries determine their own destinies?

The global food price crisis is exposing frightening levels of vulnerability in poor nations around the world. Yet these are countries into which the rich world, for half a century or more, has diverted hundreds of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid in pursuit of the high ideal of ending poverty. It is a good moment to take stock and ask what went wrong.

Compare two of the most vulnerable economies, Haiti and Botswana. In Haiti, spiralling food prices have in recent months prompted widespread rioting, claiming the lives of six people and forcing the resignation of the prime minister. This unrest has set back the search for political stability in an archetypal "fragile state". No such riots have occurred in the Southern African nation of Botswana. In a country that imports 90 per cent of its food, soaring prices have undoubtedly hurt the poor, but the state has the money and capacity to help them cope.

Why does Haiti sink while Botswana swims? A landlocked state with a small population and an arid landscape, Botswana has a high dependence on diamonds - the very "curse of wealth" that has destabilised many other African countries. At independence in 1966, it had just two secondary schools and 12km of paved road, and relied on the UK for half of government revenues. Botswana ought to be a basket case.

But Botswana has become Africa's most enduring success story. Its GDP per capita has risen a hundredfold since independence. Over the past three decades it has been the world's fastest-growing economy. It negotiated hard-fought deals for its diamonds with De Beers and used the royalties well. It has throughout remained one of sub-Saharan Africa's few non-racial democracies, despite being bordered (and occasionally invaded) by racist regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia.

The secret of Botswana's success lies in politics. The country's elite come from a single dominant ethnic group (the Batswana) whose governance systems, emphasising broad consultation and consensus-building, emerged largely unscathed from colonialism. Botswana's leading human rights activist calls it "gentle authoritarianism". The government broke every rule in the so-called Washington consensus, setting up state-owned companies, nationalising mineral rights and steering the economy via six-year national development plans. "We are a free-market economy that does everything by planning," one local academic told me, laughing.

In the second half of the 20th century, dozens of developing countries emulated Botswana's success and achieved similar growth rates. "Getting the politics right" was key for them all. These countries have built effective states that guarantee the rule of law, ensure a healthy and educated population, control their national territories and create a positive environment for investment, growth and trade. For many, the growth spurt began with the redistribution of land and other assets.

This story bears little relation to the cruder theories of development advanced by rich-country governments or, for that matter, some NGOs. Yet, getting the politics right really can "make poverty history". Aid alone cannot.

In many countries the state remains a work in progress and the rosy picture is not without flaws. Power battles and shifting alliances mean reverses are frequent. Raw power and gangsterism prevail in states that are more master than servant to their citizens. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written at the onset of the Cold War, George Orwell portrayed a totalitarian state built around the cult of Big Brother: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever." In the 20th century, some 170 million people were killed by their own governments, four times the number killed in wars between nations. But the worse deprivation and suffering now are not Orwellian in nature. They exist where states are weak: half of all children who die before the age of five live in states defined as "fragile".

Fixing this is not easy, but it can be done. Some states once branded as "failing" provide evidence. Malaysia went within a few decades from a post-independence meltdown of ethnic rioting to an industrial powerhouse. The economist Ha-Joon Chang points to his own country, South Korea, from where, in the 1960s, government officials were sent by the World Bank to Pakistan and the Philippines to "learn about good governance". The pupil swiftly outstripped the master.

If you define development merely as rising GDP per capita, then the story almost ends there - effective states create the basis for rapid growth. But development, parti cularly tackling poverty, is about far more than that. When the World Bank, in an unprecedented exercise, asked 64,000 poor people around the world about their lives, what emerged was a complex and human account of poverty, encompassing issues that are often ignored in the academic literature: the importance of being able to give one's children a good start in life, the mental anguish that poverty brings. The overall conclusion was that, "again and again, powerlessness seems to be at the core of the bad life".

Tackling such powerlessness is not just about election campaigns and government. Building "power within" - for example, women's assertiveness to insist on their right not to be beaten in the home - and "power with" - in the form of collective organisation - is essential to achieving the wider empowerment that transforms politics and societies.

In 1900, New Zealand was the only country with a government elected by all its adult citizens. By the end of the century, despite severe reversals, including fascism and communism, and succeeding waves of military coups against elected governments, there were ostensibly 120 electoral democracies in place. Democracies are often flawed and, as we have seen in several African countries, progress is reversible, but the overall trend remains positive.

Successful transformations

Effective states in east Asia and elsewhere have typically taken off under autocracies. In Latin America, active social movements and political organisations have rarely been accompanied by effective states. Does this mean active citizenship and efficient governments are mutually exclusive? Happily, the evidence suggests that the "Asian values" argument for benign dictatorship, once espoused by leaders in Singapore and Mal aysia, is wrong. A recent survey by the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik found that democracies produce more predictable long-run growth rates, greater short-term stability and more equality, and are better able to handle economic shocks.

Many of the countries that have had active citizens and been run efficiently have already ceased to be poor and disappeared off the development radar. Some of the most successful transformations in the past century, such as those of Sweden and Finland, have been triggered by social pacts within a democracy, showing what the combination of activism and good government can achieve.

Yet, though this combination is at the heart of development, it is seldom acknowledged in debates about the "development industry", typified by international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Here, economic policy is king, and politics is often seen as an irritating process through which unworthy individuals use their power to unravel the plans of wise economists. "Getting the prices right" requires the state to get out of economic management, freeing the stage for the true heroes of development: the entrepreneurs.

It hasn't worked. The retreat of the state in Latin America, once a faithful devotee of Washington consensus prescriptions, failed to lead to lasting progress. Meanwhile, countries such as China and Vietnam, which maintained a central role for the state, prospered.

The importance of politics in development will only grow. The world is entering a new age of scarcity, in which food, water and carbon are rationed, either explicitly, through regulation, or implicitly, by price. In this environment, conflicts over access to basic resources are bound to intensify. Politics and power will decide who gets what.

All this poses challenges to the $100bn global development industry. Official donors such as the UK's Department for International Development are trying to reassess their thinking to understand better the role of politics in development. But they face a dilemma: any outside body, especially a government institution, interferes with domestic politics in developing countries at its peril. To get round this, there is always a temptation to turn political issues into technical ones - for example, by focusing on "governance" or "institution-building". But, by failing to confront issues of power, such approaches often give rise to the same frustrations as those that focus on economic policy: why won't these countries do what's good for them?

Duncan Green is the author of "From Poverty to Power", published by Oxfam on 23 June

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Africa: Major Increase in Aid From Spain

from All Africa

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

By Tito Drago
Madrid

Spain's development aid to Africa has increased significantly since socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero took office in March 2004.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and the African World Heritage Fund has signed a memorandum of understanding that includes one million euros (1.5 million dollars) in aid, making Spain the second largest donor to the Fund after South Africa.

The head of the Spanish Development Cooperation Agency (AECID), Juan Pablo de Laiglesia, told IPS that his country "has adopted an integrated aid policy," developed from scratch since 2004. Before then, international aid was lower in quantity and quality, "and was even at the service of interests that were not confined to the fight against hunger and poverty."

Its global aid policy is to help countries meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted by the United Nations in the year 2000 with a deadline of 2015, and to achieve sustainable development. Within this approach Spain had "the aim of widening the geographical horizon, so we have incorporated Africa," he said.

"Overall official development aid has doubled in the past four years, but aid channelled to fighting hunger and poverty and promoting development in Africa has increased threefold," he said. AECID alone increased its aid to the region from 90 million euros (138 million dollars) in 2004 to over 400 million euros (612 million dollars) in 2007.

In 2004, AECID had four offices in Africa. Now it has branches operating in Algeria, Angola, Cape Verde, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia.

De Laiglesia said that Spain "not only contributes by donating funds, but also by establishing an institutional presence, and collaborating in the planning process to tackle the different countries' development priorities."

Other European countries, such as France, Germany, Belgium and Portugal, have a greater institutional presence in Africa than Spain, as they were formerly colonial powers there.

That is why, these days, Spain's presence is perceived to be more neutral and friendly, and "aligned with the countries we cooperate with," de Laiglesia said.

The memorandum of understanding was signed Monday by de Laiglesia for AECID and Weber Ndoro, the executive director of the African World Heritage Fund, which was launched in 2006 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Centre to receive contributions towards the preservation of Africa's natural and cultural heritage.

Africa's rich heritage is neglected. As Ndoro said after the signing ceremony, only 65 out of the nearly 800 sites on the World Heritage List are in Africa, and 43 percent of them are on UNESCO's World Heritage in Danger list.

The memorandum specifies that Spain's contribution will be used specifically towards protection of the African heritage sites and the economic development generated by them, especially in terms of boosting their positive impact on tourism, the economy, and the educational and cultural level of the countries involved.

Is cooperating with Africa different from cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean? IPS asked de Laiglesia.

Yes, he said, because "we share a language with most Latin American countries, and a sister language (Portuguese) with the largest nation, Brazil, which makes the work of Spanish cooperation agents much easier."

In contrast, "Africa is a partner we must get to know and explore, and, as with other regions, respect the priorities it identifies in deciding how to spend the resources we contribute to promote sustainable development."

Is the language difference the main difficulty to overcome?

"No, more important than the languages in Africa is the lack of social structure, the absence of strong state institutions, and the weak capacity to implement public policies and provide significant services to citizens. These, rather than sharing a language or not, are the elements that set limits on our actions."

So would you say that strengthening states is one of your goals? De Laiglesia replied, "yes, of course, empowering the state is a goal that is constantly present in all of our activities, because there can be no sustainable development without public policies and institutional capability arising from the strength of the state."

That is why, he added, "good governance is always on the agenda in our projects. Along with the basic issues, there is always a governance component included in our actions."

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Karzai pleads for billions in new aid, promises to fight corruption

from the CBC

Canada, U.S. already committing extra money to Afghanistan

Afghanistan's president appealed for more than $50 billion in new aid for the country while attending an international donors conference Thursday in Paris, promising the money will be spent on reconstruction and not frittered away through corruption.

The appeal for new money was in a strategic development plan that Hamid Karzai presented to the conference, saying Afghanistan would achieve peace and stability by 2020 if it got the needed aid.

"Afghanistan needs large amounts of aid but precisely how aid is spent is just as important," Karzai said, referring to donors' worries about graft and thievery by government officials.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon also warned about the debilitating impact of corruption on reconstruction and development.

"Every act of corruption is a deliberate act by someone in a position of authority," he said in a speech at the Paris conference.

A recent report from an independent aid-monitoring group, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, said only 60 per cent of foreign help sent to Karzai's government since 2001 has reached the Afghan people.

Corruption was only partially to blame, the group found. International aid agency spending on bureaucracy and salaries soaked up a significant amount of money meant to create jobs, train police and build roads, said the group's report released Tuesday.
Karzai should fire corrupt officials: donors

CBC's David Common, covering the conference in Paris, said there are real concerns among donors about Afghan government corruption.

"Some donor governments have privately pleaded with Karzai to fire corrupt officials within his cabinet, including governors who run their provinces like personal fiefdoms."

There are also continuing concerns about the drug trade, with opium production at record levels in almost all the country's 29 provinces. Farmers say they're driven to grow poppies by poverty, and the failure to rebuild rural roads and infrastructure needed to produce other, legal crops.

Most Afghans still live in mud-brick homes, with fewer than 20 per cent having access to electricity, clean water or health services.
Poverty helps insurgency

Taliban insurgents use the country's continuing poverty and the seemingly slow pace of internationally assisted development to recruit fighters in desperately poor areas, observers say.

Canada has already announced a significant boost in its aid to Afghanistan over the next three years.

David Emmerson, acting foreign affairs minister representing Canada at the Paris conference, said the new Canadian money would include funding for a crucial hydro project in northern Kandahar province and a polio immunization drive for seven million children.

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NGOs call for improved Afghan aid

from Al Jazeera

By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul

As the Afghan government and the international donor community meet in Paris on June 12 to decide the future nature of assistance to the war-ravaged nation, NGOs and rights groups are urging that the needs of ordinary citizens come first.

Some $15 billion has been spent on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan since the US-led coalition deposed the Taliban and set up a democratic-influenced government in 2000.

But international aid groups believe donor priorities continue to overlook the needs of the people.

Oxfam, the international development agency which has maintained a long-term commitment and experience in Afghanistan, is critical of both the quantity and quality of aid that has been disbursed in the country.

"So far international aid to Afghanistan has not gone far enough to alleviate the poverty and suffering of the Afghan people," Matt Waldman, Afghanistan policy advisor for Oxfam International, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

"The amount of international aid has been wholly insufficient given the huge job of reconstruction in Afghanistan. Of the aid that has been given too much has been driven by the priorities of the international community and its security concerns rather [than] meeting the needs of the people and building a more effective state," he added.

Limited success

Though donor countries cite the return of six million children to school and the expansion of medical services and construction of roads as major achievements, there are limitations to the "success story".

The percentage of the population living below the minimum dietary level has increased from 30 to 35 per cent in the past year, increasing the need for food aid.

According to the National Human Development Report of 2007, literacy levels have fallen from 28.7 per cent in 2003 to 23.5 per cent in 2007.

Life expectancy figures have also fallen from 44.5 per cent in 2003 to 43.1 per cent in 2007.

Chrissie Hirst, the Chief of Policy and Advocacy in DACAAR, a development NG, says that while donors are willing to spend some amount on food aid, "they are not prepared to fund long-term intervention to provide for long-term food security".

Though 70-80 per cent of the country is dependant on agriculture, the total investment in this sector since 2001 has been only $400-$500 million.

"The agriculture sector is seriously underfunded," Hirst told Al Jazeera.

Drastic change needed

The Paris conference will be the venue for new benchmarks to be set as the final Afghanistan National Development Strategy, the roadmap for the next five years, is rolled out and fresh donor commitments are made. The follow-up to the London Compact of 2006 is expected to further cement the partnership between the Afghan government and international donors.

Participants are also expected to use slogans like 'Afghan first' and 'Afghan ownership' to reflect their commitment to Afghanistan. However, not everyone is convinced that Paris will result in the much-needed tectonic shift needed to bring about an alignment between donor and Afghan priorities.

Lorenzo Delesgues, the director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, an Afghan NGO that is committed to "increase transparency, integrity and accountability in Afghanistan's reconstruction process," says the status quo hinders the country's development.

"More of the same is not an option," he said.

Though foreign aid accounts for 90 per cent of all public expenditure in Afghanistan, Delesgues says "it remains highly unpredictable and too much aid is channelled outside of the government's priorities and of the core government budget".

USAID, the American aid agency, accounted last year for 40 per cent of the aid to Afghanistan. However 90 per cent of USAID spending remains outside the government budget, something that Delesgues says, must change.

"It is very important for them to increase aid but also their accountability to the government by channeling aid through the Afghan government," he said.

Government supervision required?

According to a recent report by Acbar, the coordinating agency for NGOs working in Afghanistan, 70 per cent of the aid coming in is spent outside the government budget and an estimated 40 per cent of the aid returns to the donor countries in the form of contracts awarded to implementing agencies and high salaries of expatriate experts.

At approximately $60 per month, an Afghan civil servant with a family of four (Afghan families are usually larger) is just above the acceptable poverty level of $14 per capita per month

Reports in recent weeks indicated that the escalating price of wheat was putting the cost of food well beyond the salaries of even government employees.

"Despite high level of aid pledged, aid remains highly unpredictable and too much aid is channeled outside of the government's priorities and the government budget," Delesgues told Al Jazeera.

He believes that the lack of consultation with the local populace has meant that the Afghan population has "not yet become an actor of aid but is a subject of aid".

This is an issue that the Afghan government has said is an impediment to development.

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Feeding Scheme for 100,000 People Stopped

from All Africa

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

The implementation of a food distribution scheme for 100,000 people has stalled after the Zimbabwean government suspended CARE International's operations for alleged "political activity".

CARE works to alleviate poverty and promote community health, with a particular focus on empowering women, and is one of the largest non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in Zimbabwe. On 28 May it was ordered to suspend its operations, pending a government investigation into its activities.

In a statement CARE said it was "committed to providing independent, impartial, apolitical relief and development assistance on the basis of need, to improve sustainable livelihoods for vulnerable populations, according to the Code of Conduct for Non-Governmental Organisations and to CARE International's Code of Ethics."

The suspension of CARE's operations would immediately affect about 500,000 Zimbabwean beneficiaries of projects such as water and sanitation, micro-credit, home-based care for the chronically ill, most of whom are infected with HIV, and support for orphans and vulnerable children.

CARE's Africa Communications Manager, Kenneth Walker, told IRIN that the feeding scheme for 100,000 people had been scheduled for implementation in June 2008, after the government said Zimbabwe's anticipated maize harvest would be poor - about one million tonnes shy of the national requirement. "I have no idea where they [people earmarked for food assistance] might get food from now," Walker said.

In 2007/08 international donor agencies provided food aid to 4.1 million people, more than a third of the population. The country's acute food shortages, compounded by government's recent admission that only 13 percent of the planned 2008 winter wheat crop had been planted, mean more people are expected to require food assistance earlier in 2008 than the previous year.

During the "lean period" between October 2007 and the March 2008 harvest, CARE was responsible for food aid to nearly one million Zimbabweans, or about a quarter of those requiring assistance.

CARE, which has channelled more than $US100 million in development assistance and relief since starting operations in 1992, said it had requested, "but to date has not yet received, the details of any allegations, including names, dates and locations ... [and] has pledged to cooperate with the government in resolving the situation so that humanitarian operations may be resumed as soon as possible."

About 300 Zimbabweans employed by CARE have been told to "remain at home pending further notice from the government".

NGOs agents of Western powers

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe told the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) summit in Rome, Italy, on 3 June that NGOs were being used to undermine his ZANU-PF government.

Funds are being channelled through non-governmental organisations to opposition political parties, which are a creation of the West. These Western-funded NGOs also use food as a political weapon with which to campaign against government, especially in the rural areas

"Funds are being channelled through non-governmental organisations to opposition political parties, which are a creation of the West," Mugabe said. "These Western-funded NGOs also use food as a political weapon with which to campaign against government, especially in the rural areas."

According to a report by the US-based New York Times newspaper, representatives of aid groups were summoned by government officials in four districts of Zimbabwe and told to stop operations until after the run-off presidential vote between on 27 June, when Mugabe will stand against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Zimbabwe Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche told ZimOnline, an internet-based news service, that "several other non-governmental organisations ... will be asked to cease their operations while we investigate them."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said after addressing the FAO summit in Rome that if reports that NGOs had been instructed to suspend their activities were correct, "this would be an unconscionable act."

"To deprive people of food because of an election would be an extraordinary perversion of democracy, and a serious breach of international human rights law," she said.

There have been widespread reports of violence since the elections for local, parliamentary and presidential candidates were held on 29 March, when ZANU-PF lost control of parliament for the first time since the country won its independence from Britain in 1980.

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Zimbabwe elections: Tsvangirai detained as agencies' work suspended

from the Guardian

James Orr and agencies

The Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was detained again today as the government banned all foreign aid agencies from operating in the country where millions are close to starvation.

The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and his campaign convoy was stopped at a roadblock and ordered to follow officers to a police station.

Reporters with the convoy heard police say that the planned rallies were illegal. Tsvangirai was ordered to go to Esigodini, a town about 30 miles south-east of Bulawayo.

It was the second time in recent days Tsvangirai has been detained and prevented from holding rallies in the run up to an election run-off later this month.

The ban on foreign aid agencies was announced by the government, which accused organisations of campaigning for opposition parties during the country's disputed presidential elections in March.

Last week, Robert Mugabe instructed some NGOs to suspend their activities, but the new announcement covers all overseas organisations working in the country.

In a public statement, Zimbabwe's social welfare minister, Nicholas Goche, said: "I hereby instruct all PVOs (private voluntary organisations)/NGOs to suspend all field operations until further notice."

The shock tactic means British charities working in the troubled country are now unlikely to be able to provide care for the millions of Zimbabweans reliant on aid.

Dominic Nutt, a spokesman for Save the Children, said: "We are seriously concerned about the consequences relating to reports of the suspension of aid operations in Zimbabwe, particularly for the most vulnerable children who we work with and who need our help."

Judith Melby, Africa specialist for Christian Aid, which has been involved in Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, said: "It is certainly going to have an extremely detrimental effect - it is quite frightening, frankly."

Some 10 million Zimbabweans out of a total population of 13 million people live below the poverty line. Four million of those rely on food aid.

Earlier this week Zimbabwe ordered aid agency Care International to halt its operations pending an investigation into allegations that had been politically active.

Care recalled its field staff but strongly denied the accusation, saying its projects benefited more than 1.8 million Zimbabweans.

Oxfam said in a statement: "International NGOs - Oxfam included - have been unable to conduct food needs assessments, making preparation difficult for the impending hungry season.

"We reject the present government's assertion that international civil society agencies are aiding and abetting the opposition."

The decision to ban all overseas development agencies came as security forces yesterday detained and harassed UK and US diplomats trying to investigate reports of violence against the opposition.

Yesterday, security forces in the country detained and harassed UK and US diplomats trying to investigate reports of violence against the opposition.

Zimbabwe's ambassador to Britain, Gabriel Machinga, was summoned to the Foreign Office to explain why the diplomats, who were travelling in two separate convoys, had been stopped at roadblocks north of the capital, Harare.

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[Comment] The boom in private giving

from the International Herald Tribune

By Carol C. Adelman

The big story of the cyclone that ravaged Myanmar's delta region and the earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan Province in May is not only how the Chinese government outperformed the Burmese military junta in responding to natural disaster. It is also how private citizens, companies, charities and religious organizations from many countries have emerged as a frontline force in helping victims of such tragedies, even within government-dominated states.

In the case of China, donations from American corporations alone totaled $90 million, compared to a modest $3.1 million in U.S. government aid. Private giving from British corporations and private citizens to help the more than 368,000 injured and 5 million homeless victims of the earthquake was almost four times larger than Britain's official aid. And Beijing estimates that aid from its own private citizens amounted to at least $192 million - double that of the American contributions.

In Myanmar, the aid levels are lower because the country's xenophobic rulers blocked most outside help and virtually all foreign aid workers for almost three weeks after the cyclone hit. Yet, even in this shameful situation where private philanthropy was discouraged, Americans donated $30.1 million through private charities, more than the official U.S. government aid of $24 million.

While government aid is particularly useful in large-scale disasters like earthquakes or the Asian tsunami, it has become a minority shareholder in overall financial flows to the developing world. In the 1950s and 1960s, the majority of the West's economic engagement with developing countries was through public aid and other governmental financial activity. Today, private financial flows from all donor nations - philanthropy, investment and remittances - the funds that migrant workers send back to their home countries for their families and local projects - now account for over 75 percent of the industrialized world's economic dealings with poor countries. (Although remittances by foreign workers would normally not fall under the broad category of foreign aid, they have grown so tremendously in our age of globalization that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international institutions consider them a major tool in reducing poverty.)

Besides being bigger, this private flow is better. With its focus on local ownership, low transaction costs and accountability, these contributions are more likely to have lasting results. That is why the savviest government aid agencies are beginning to leverage official aid through public/private partnerships - programs run by businesses, foundations, charities, religious groups, universities and even migrant associations that pool workers donations to build schools, roads and businesses abroad.

As documented by the Hudson Institute, American private philanthropy to poor countries, including remittances, comes to four-and-a-half times U.S. government foreign aid. Even when excluding remittances, private philanthropy was $34.8 billion in 2006, compared to official aid at $23.5 billion.

This American tradition has not waned, even as the international image of the United States has suffered in recent years. America, which is the single biggest donor of foreign aid, gave $23.5 billion for poverty relief and development assistance abroad in 2006, almost twice that of the next largest donor, Britain, which gave $12.5 billion that year.

Even when measured as a percent of gross national income, the U.S. ranks in the top third when all forms of international giving - official aid, philanthropy and remittances - are counted. (The top two givers are Sweden and Luxembourg.)

American generosity through its religious organizations of all denominations is even higher than previously thought. In partnership with the University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Religion and Society, the Center of Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute published results of the first-ever national random sample of giving by U.S. religious congregations to poor countries. The results, combined with other data, put religious giving to developing countries at a remarkable new high of $8.8 billion.

More than half of all religious congregations in the United States give donations for international work, mostly in the form of food, medicines, and cash for small business loans, clinics, schools and roads.

But they're not alone. U.S. foundations, corporations, universities, colleges and charities also give large sums abroad. Official aid should go to foster ongoing local partnerships. "Joining Hands for El Salvador," is a partnership among El Salvador's Banco Agricola, the Pan American Development Foundation, and 39 El Salvadoran "Home Town Associations" established by migrants in the United States to help their villages back home. An estimated 28,500 students in El Salvador have benefited from schools, computer centers and science labs since the project began in 2004.

Helping people survive after massive cyclones and earthquakes is one thing. Partnerships to help them prosper is another. The British charity, Tools for Self-Reliance, for example, provides tools and training for Africans to repair farm equipment, cars and sewing machines to keep local economies functioning.

The hottest trends in development assistance - dubbed "creative capitalism" by Bill Gates - focus on this entrepreneurial spirit. The New York-based Acumen Fund brings investment banking skills to bear on development projects, while Ashoka Fellows have been instrumental in fostering microlending.

The tragic disasters in Myanmar and China have shown that the spirit of philanthropy cannot be dampened, even in countries where independent non-governmental organizations are banned.

Carol C. Adelman is director of the Center of Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute, and former assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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Japan's More is Not Enough

from All Africa

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

By Ramesh Jaura
Yokohama, Japan

Japan is receiving kudos for what UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro has called the country's "strong commitment to Africa's development."

But praise for Japan at the fourth round of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) that kicked off Wednesday in Japan's port city Yokohama near Tokyo did not come without a touch of criticism, particularly from Zimbabwe.

The admiration is for the fact that Japan, the world's second largest economy, initiated the 'TICAD process' in 1993, when focus on Africa's concerns was drifting. As Migiro points out, TICAD that is held every five years "helped rally Africa's development partners in a collective and forward-looking effort."

Former prime minister Yoshiro Mori initiated a dialogue between Africa and the world's major industrial countries at the Okinawa G8 summit in 2000.

Eight years later, Africa's development concerns will again be tabled by a Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, at the G8 summit in Hokkaido in Japan, scheduled July 7 to 9.

President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso joined the UN Deputy Secretary General in testifying to the TICAD conference being held May 28-30 that the process had enriched the policy dialogue based on the principle of African countries taking ownership of their development, and the international community supporting Africa's efforts.

"This is also the basis upon which the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) was founded," Migiro told delegates. The delegates are from 52 African countries, 40 of them heads of state, representatives of 22 donor nations and the European Union (EU), and 12 Asian countries, besides officials from 16 African regional institutions and 55 international organisations.

While lauding Japan's decision to double its ODA in the next five years, bringing its annual aid to Africa from the current 900 million to 1.8 billion dollars by 2012, Migiro joined African leaders in pointing out that "donor countries must meet their commitments to increase the volume, quality and predictability of ODA."

Japanese officials say that though Tokyo continues to hold on to the UN goal of spending 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance (ODA), there is no plan to set a date for fulfilling the target.

Presently, only 0.17 percent of Japan's GNI goes for ODA.

Former prime minister Toshiki Kaifu (1989-1991), who founded Japan's volunteer corps to support developing countries, told IPS that it is much easier to convince people of the need for humanitarian assistance than for ODA to countries with which Japan has no historical ties. "But of course we must continue to pursue the goal."

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid expressed hope that more funds would be allotted to maternal health. Obaid warned that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be achieved unless the lives, the health and the rights of women are promoted more vigorously.

"Maternal health underpins all the other MDGs, especially those to improve infant and child health, to empower women, and to attain gender equality," she said. "Only when women are healthy, educated and empowered can they lift their families and their nations from the depths of poverty, and place them on a firm stairway to development."

In his opening speech to the conference Wednesday, Prime Minister Fukuda made a strong link between improving reproductive health and achieving the MDGs.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the largest civil society organisation delivering sexual and reproductive health care in Africa, said that TICAD IV comes at the half-way point of the MDGs, and provides a real opportunity to address the lack of progress being made towards improving maternal and child health enshrined in MDGs 4, 5 and 6.

"The dialogue between African leaders and international development partners should help remove bottlenecks and scale up action," IPPF said in a statement.

The consensus reached through a broad consultative process leading up to TICAD IV is that there are a number of policy recommendations and 'windows of opportunity for action' that could favourably be supported to realise the vision of a 'Vibrant Africa' over the next five years, IPPF said.

The Japanese government won some nuanced praise from Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Simbarashe S. Mumbengegwi for offering "a valuable platform for genuine policy dialogue free from the prescription-based approach."

Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister commended "the people and government of Japan" for taking the lead in the global efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic by providing 500 million dollars in 2000 which became seed money for the Global Aids Fund."

He added: "However, when they made this selfless gesture, the government and people of Japan were not aware that the Global Aids Fund would one day be used as a political weapon with which to sanction some developing countries for unjustified political reasons."

Since the launch of the Fund, Zimbabwe has received assistance from it only twice in the nine disbursements made so far. Besides, Mumbengegwi said, the amounts that were disbursed to Zimbabwe on those two occasions were paltry in comparison to what was given to other countries in the region.

The average per capita aid for Zimbabwe is only four dollars compared to 124 dollars for the region. "It is regrettable that the Global Aids Fund has been politicised," Mumbengegwi said.

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India Helps Burma, China in Wake of Disasters

from the Voice of America

By Anjana Pasricha

India has sent relief and pledged assistance to two neighboring countries recently struck by natural disasters: Burma and China. Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi on India's efforts to project itself as a responsible regional power.

When a cyclone devastated Burma, earlier this month, Indian navy ships and aircraft began ferrying relief supplies to its neighbor in less than 24 hours.

The foreign ministry says two Indian medical teams are treating 1,500 patients a day in the disaster area.

Commerce Minister Jairam Ramesh assured a recent pledging conference in Rangoon that India will assist the country in reconstruction work.

India has also reached out to another neighbor, China, which is coping with the aftermath of a massive earthquake. New Delhi has pledged $5 million in assistance and sent transport aircraft with relief material such as tents.

Unlike many countries, India has diplomatic relations with Burma's military rulers. Bilateral ties with China have vastly improved in recent years.

But analysts say India's efforts to help its neighbors are more than just friendly gestures.

A foreign policy analyst with New Delhi's Center for Policy Research, Brahma Chellaney, says India wants to demonstrate that it can play a responsible regional role.

"In recent weeks, India has rushed large amounts of aid both to impoverished Burma as well as to booming China," he said. "It did not make a distinction between China and Burma. It is an effort to reach out and help people in one's neighborhood -- of course with the hope that this will improve the diplomatic environment and help improve bilateral relations and also help increase India's role in the region."

Analysts say New Delhi has stepped up "aid diplomacy" in recent years, in a bid to raise its global profile.

India's efforts to project itself as an aid-giver rather than an aid recipient were first noticed after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami struck several countries in the region. Within hours, Indian warships had ferried supplies to Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia -- even though the disaster had struck its own southern shores. India declined foreign aid, saying the money should go to countries in greater need.

Former Indian Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh says New Delhi wants to emphasize that it is an emerging power.

"I think now India is giving a message that 'yes we have reached a state of development where we are in a position to help others, and that is why we are doing it'. There is a feeling that our capabilities have increased, and we can do it. We feel we have reached the stage where other countries deserve it [aid] more than we do," he said.

Last year, as a growing economy raised its confidence, New Delhi set aside $1 billion for international aid, saying this was in step with India's growing stature in global affairs.

It is a much smaller amount, compared to what other Asian countries such as Japan or China disburse as aid. But it is a far cry from the time when India was, itself, reliant on massive aid from foreign donors.

Saumitra Chaudhuri, an economist on the prime minister's economic advisory council, says India has virtually phased out relying on external aid, in recent years.

"There was a time, maybe till about the middle 80's, when bilateral and multilateral assistance used to comprise a very large segment of capital flows into India. Now, they comprise a very, very small segment -- such a small segment that it is barely noticeable."

India's large navy and air force make it easy for New Delhi to extend a helping hand when disasters strike. India has the world's fourth largest military and its fleet of warships in the Indian Ocean and large air force can ferry disaster relief material quickly to neighboring countries.

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Foreign aid chases UN goals

from The Australian

FOREIGN aid gets a substantive boost to $3.7 billion in 2008-09 fast tracking progress to meet the UN's so called Millennium Development Goals while notching a $500m increase in aid on the previous year.

The aid budget provides $1.3 billion of new initiatives over four years.

The main focus will fall on poverty alleviation and regional security building efforts and sees a recommitment by the Rudd Government to the United Nations left in the cold by the former coalition but a pledge now backed by a $200m partnership investment with UN agencies over four years.

The aid increase compares with last year's total of $3.2b and is in line with the Rudd Government's key pre-election pledge to increase Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to 0.5 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2015.

It is expected the ratio of Australia's ODA to GNI will be 0.35 percent in 2009/10, a year earlier than targeted. The MDGs are a set of global development objectives ranging from action to eradicate poverty and hunger to initiatives to boost environmental sustainability and education measured by progress against 18 targets.

The federal Government's decision to withdraw its 550-strong Overwatch Battle Group has been softened by a $140 million aid package spread over three years targeting the war-ravaged country's immediate humanitarian needs.

New funding of $300 million aims to improve clean water and sanitation in impoverished countries in the Asia Pacific region while a $45 million fund over two years should help eliminate blindness with a new pilot eye and vision care program.

The scourge of HIV/AIDS in the region will be tackled by a swag of programs totalling $130 million in 2008/09. These include support for an ongoing $100m program in Indonesia to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.

As part of its new approach to dealing with Papua New Guinea - assistance guided by the so-called Port Moresby Declaration signed by Mr Rudd in March - PNG has been allocated a total of $389m in ODA for 2008-09 out of a total ODA of $1billion earmarked for PNG and the Pacific.

PNG's aid will focus on the “four pillars'' strategy, measures designed to improve governance, nation building, sustainable economic growth and lift productivity.

The budget aims to help improve the Pacific's dilapidated state of infrastructure with a $127 million fund over four years to improve basic infrastructure - $5.5m allocated for 2008-09.

The facility will provide performance -linked support for basic infrastructure services in Pacific Island countries in combination with multilateral development banks and potentially other donors.

It should also help marginalise Taiwanese largesse in the Pacific.

“Support will be country specific, targeted to address local constraints to growth and challenges to nation building and stability,'' the budget statement said.

Troubled East Timor will get $58 million in Country Program aid bringing its ODA total to $96.3m with a priority on improving the country's dismal security record but also aiming to lift policing standards, rule of law and help with parliamentary development.

Humanitarian assistance to the long-suffering people of Burma will total $16.1 million focusing on support for public health, safe water and sanitation - measures that are an immediate priority given the devastating impact of Cyclone Nargis.

Aid under the Pacific Regional Program amounts to $219m designed to improve public health, but also tackling malaria, climate change and governance through a Pacific Leadership initiative.

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Food Aid Increase Merely a Band-Aid Solution to Bigger Problems, Critics say

from Embassy Magazine

A CIDA plan to increase funding for agriculture development programs is collecting dust on a bookshelf, while the world faces starvation.

By Jeff Davis

Despite the government's decision last week to step up its spending on food aid in response to the burgeoning global food crisis, experts are hungry for a more meaty response to a shortage they saw coming long ago.

Opposition politicians are also calling on the government to more than double funding for agriculture projects in the developing world, something they say should have been done long ago.

Last week, CIDA Minister Bev Oda announced that "the government's response to the world food crisis" was the donation of an additional $50 million to this year's food aid budget. This, the minister said, represents an increase of Canadian food aid to a total of $230 million for this year from $180 million last year.

In addition, Ms. Oda announced the government was "untying" aid contributions, dispensing with the previous requirement that a certain portion of goods and services be purchased here in Canada. While welcoming the announcement of the desperately needed money, international food experts say more is needed than short-term solutions.

"When you've got a bleeding finger, a Band-Aid is a very good thing," said Stuart Clark, senior policy advisor at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. "But you have to find out why you got cut in the first place."


Agricultural Aid Went Out of Style

Experts from NGOs such as Oxfam and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank told Embassy last week that over the past few decades, support for agricultural capacity development has gone out of style among both international donors and the governments of least developed countries.

Behind this, said executive director of Oxfam Canada Robert Fox, was the belief radiating from international financial institutions that agriculture for export, not agriculture for subsistence, was what the world's poor needed.

"The world's attention shifted from support for agriculture to other areas, particularly trade facilitation," he said. "Global co-operation for agriculture and agricultural development has fallen significantly.

"There is a bias at the World Bank and at some of the major global actors, that trade at a global level is the principle avenue for economic growth," he added.

Under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, said Mr. Clark, developing countries were pressured to cut funding for agriculture to around four per cent of total government budgets.

When considering that agriculture is the mainstay of developing economies, Mr. Clark said, this is an "absurdly low level," especially when some of these same countries spend 20 per cent of public finances on weapons.

The faith in the free market caused support for agriculture among international donors to drop to historic lows around 2000.

By this time, Messrs. Fox and Clark said, the liberal economic orthodoxy of the international financial institutions had changed the face of agriculture in the developing world.

Mixed subsistence farming, based on local techniques, was swept away by large-scale monoculture of products meant for export, they said. This has led also, they said, to increased reliance on imported seeds and fertilizers, land exhaustion, and soil erosion.

The plight of the world's poor farmers, they said, has been further exacerbated by agricultural subsidies in the Western world.

Messrs. Fox and Clark said that, in recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that export-oriented agriculture policies were hurting the world's poor.

In 2001, the International Fund for Agricultural Development said in its annual Rural Poverty Report that in the 1990s, global support for "aid to agriculture, the main source of income [for the world's 1.2 billion extremely poor], has fallen by two-thirds."

The World Bank has also come around, pulling a u-turn away from its past policies. The Bank's 2008 World Development Report calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries and warns that the agricultural "sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized."


CIDA Agricultural Policy Died Stillborn

When making her announcement last week, Ms. Oda mentioned that the government is "working with the international donor community to find a longer-term approach to food aid, including the question of food security."

However, it appears such a plan is currently collecting dust on CIDA's own bookshelves and websites.

Susan Whelan, a former Liberal MP under the government of Jean Chrétien, became CIDA minister in January 2002 and quickly determined Canada was not doing enough on the agricultural front.

During her initial briefings as minister, Ms. Whelan told Embassy, she repeatedly heard that 70 to 80 per cent of world poor live in rural areas and subsistence agriculture was main source of food.

Ms. Whelan then asked CIDA officials how much was being spent on agricultural development, and was met with "blank stares." She said the officials told her CIDA used to spend 15 per cent of their budget on agriculture, but that funding had been cut back to around six per cent.

Ms. Whelan, who grew up on a farm, decided it was time to launch a new policy for agriculture and rural development.

Elements of the policy, she said, included using Canada's world-leading agricultural expertise to develop co-operatives and marketing strategies. By stepping up support for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, she added, Canada would help ensure farmers on the parched soils of Sub-Saharan Africa have crops they can grow with less water.

The policy also came with a significant planned increase in funding. The plan was to see spending on agriculture ramped up to $500 million per year by 2007-2008.

Unfortunately, said Ms. Whelan, her plan for agriculture went off the rails after she left CIDA in 2003.

"Basically, after I left, CIDA decided to turn the clock back again," she said. "My understanding is that its not a focus anymore."

Ms. Whelan said she welcomes the recent food aid announcement, though she doubts $50 million is enough to alleviate hunger at a time when grain prices have tripled. More importantly, she says, it is not addressing the causes or poverty and hunger.

"We need long term development," she said. "If we don't have long-term agricultural development, than food aid is just Band-aid and that's not good enough.

"It's that old cliché," she said. "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."


Show Us the Money: NDP

And while the Liberal government of Paul Martin, as well as the current one, have ignored Ms. Whelan's target, it has not been altogether forgotten.

NDP International Development critic Alexa McDonough remembers the Liberal policy, and its $500 million target, and has been pushing the current government to re-instate it.

Ms. McDonough wrote a letter to Ms. Oda in December calling for action.

"In 2003, the government of Canada committed to increasing its annual financial commitment to agricultural development under the auspices of CIDA from an historic low of $80 million to $500 million by 2007-8," she wrote in the letter.

"Today, CIDA spends between $200 and $230 million on agricultural development projects. I call on you to urgently redress this significant financial shortfall, and ensure CIDA receives the required public funds to meet its financial obligations for 2007-8 and effectively support the vitally important development of the agricultural sector in the world's poorest communities."

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Global Aid For Trade May Hit $25bn By 2010

from Leadership Nigeria

Total aid for trade disbursements from individual donors, international organisations and regional development banks which hit $15.4 billion in 2004 may increase to $25 billion by 2010, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has said.

According to the latest edition of 'developments', an international magazine that focuses on the development of Africa, the director general of WTO, Pascal Lamy, said that "together with our partner countries and other institutions, we aim to raise this figure to $25 billion in 2010".

Lamy further said, "we are establishing enhanced monitoring and evaluation mechanisms so that countries pledging funds for trade capacity are held to account".


According to the WTO boss, "We know, that openness can unlock wealth creation which, when distributed equitably through sound domestic policies, can be a powerful tool for poverty alleviation".

Stating that in the last 15 years China, India, Brazil and Vietnam - to name only a few - lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, the WTO boss further said, "we've seen the extra-ordinarily rapid rise of these countries, and others, into important actors in the global economy, thereby changing the geopolitical landscape in ways we could never have imagined even two decades ago.

"We also know that in many respects, development activists were right when they said that the trading system did not adequately address the concerns of developing countries. A trading system which permitted rich countries to distort trade in agriculture through subsidies and high tariffs levied in rich countries were against precisely the sort of products in which the poorest countries were most competitive, was far from fair".

Humbly, the WTO boss agrees with the criticism against the body as the guardian of a system which permits trade distortions. "Yet, increasingly, development ministries and activists have come to see that WTO not only provides developing countries a voice, but hands them a tool for changing the rules of international trade to better meet their needs", he argues.

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