It is premature to say we need no aid

It may have been intended as an off-the-cuff remark, but President Uhuru Kenyatta’s tweet exhorting African nations to reject all foreign aid raised quite a hullaballoo prior to the recent African Union (AU) Summit.

Time will tell whether Mr Kenyatta’s rallying call was just playing to the gallery or represented a major pan-African shift in international relations.

The merits of aid are constantly contested, with the economist Jeffrey Sachs advocating for doubling of aid while Zambian scholar Dambisa Moyo argues that aid does more harm than good.

The so-called international community has committed itself to giving 0.7 percent of its GDP towards global poverty alleviation but very few countries — apart from the Scandinavian ones — have ever met that target. A decade ago, specific targets in the areas of health, education, and child mortality were set and these will come for review under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) later this year.

Of course, while aid should be a short-term programme, it has in fact become a business and few aid agencies have a timeline for winding up. On the contrary, donor organisations have become more sophisticated in their fundraising, while generally still focusing on the starving child commercial rather than the social justice appeal.

But is aid necessary and who benefits most from the aid business? While neighbouring Uganda depends on foreign assistance for up to 50 percent of its budgetary demands, aid represents around a mere 4 percent of the Kenyan budget.

However, the question remains as to whether Kenya could survive without any foreign financial assistance. Perhaps, a good starting point would be to look at the Auditor-General’s recent reports that reveal how up to Sh350 billion goes unaccounted for, is not spent or disappears each financial year. Put another way, 30 percent of your taxes is wasted or looted each year.

But a cocktail of fatalism, ignorance and fear prevents the public from confronting the government over corruption and mismanagement. In fact, many believe that development projects come from “wazungu donations” and are equally unaware that they will be repaying Chinese banks for decades for the mega infrastructural projects currently going on.

Donors, unfortunately, too easily fill the shoes of the State and let them off the hook, particularly in times of disaster and famine. The present system then thrives on corruption, ethnicity and nepotism as aid and donors allow the Kenyan government and many others to externalise the problem, always having someone to blame or to turn to for rescue.

Of course foreign donors have their own political and economic reasons for assisting as there is no such thing as a free lunch. They get back so much more in terms of influence, trade and resources than they ever give.

Ultimately, however, it is up to bottom-up democracy and pressure to ensure accountability. Only then can Kenyans, not their politicians, claim they no longer need assistance.

@GabrielDolan1 [email protected]