The administration of US President Donald Trump recently said it was terminating US-funded projects worldwide that do not align with the administration’s America First policy.
It said it was eliminating more than 90 per cent of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall US assistance around the world.
“In the changing world order, Africa must wean itself from the disease of aid dependency,” says Father Stan Chu Ilo, a research professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago.
The measures taken by the administration have been criticised for putting the lives of millions of people in jeopardy, particularly in Africa where health experts and aid organisations have warned that United States funding cuts to HIV/AIDS programs could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Reports suggest USAID programs in Africa have been hugely successful, earning plaudits for containing the outbreak of diseases like Ebola, and saving over 20 million lives through HIV/AIDS treatment.
Much of the funding for these programs have been cut as the Trump administration works to reduce government spending, and to shrink the US’s ballooning debt burden.
Furthermore, the United States might not be the only major power trying to shrink foreign aid. Ilo said he believes that in the next ten years, “other European nations may soon follow suit, redirecting aid money to bolster their military spending or cater to the nationalist whims of ascendant right-wing parties”.
“In South Africa alone, US funding halts could lead to 500,000 deaths in the next ten years,” he told Crux.
In the face of this changing dynamic, the priest has proposed ways by which Africa can mitigate the impacts.
“We in Africa must confront the harsh truth that the global geopolitical landscape is shifting rapidly, and we must change with it,” he said.
Ilo said it would be necessary to engage short-term solutions directed at bridging the gap left by the vanishing aid, but the continent must simultaneously devise long-term solutions which involve strategies to wean our countries off aid dependency.
One way of doing this, he suggested, is by tackling the cankerworm of corruption that deprives the continent of over $128 billion per year.
“First, according to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Africa loses $128 billion a year to corruption, equivalent to 50 per cent of its tax revenues and 25 per cent of its GDP,” Ilo said.
“Africa would need less aid if it effectively tackled corruption, wasteful spending and mismanagement of funds,” he explained, proposing that the continent establishes “robust pan-African anti-corruption institutions, including a credible peer-review mechanism and a continental anti-corruption court”.
Ilo, who is also the Coordinating Servant of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN), argues that curbing illicit financial flows that drain foreign exchange reserves, affect asset prices, distort competition and undermine the capacity of countries to maintain economic and financial stability, is another way by which the continent can extricate itself from the blows of the Trump aid cuts.
“Africa loses $50 billion in illicit financial flows,” Ilo told Crux.
“Some argue that the amount that Africa loses through illicit financial outflow is more than the amount received through aid. While pressuring the global community to implement international tax conventions, Africa needs to coordinate a unified continental response to tackle illicit financial flows [IFFs] and other commercial crimes,” he said.
According to the United Nations, curbing IFFs can reduce the region’s financing gap by 33 per cent, and so release funds that can help the continent meet commitments made under various regional and international frameworks, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063, a set of initiatives proposed and overseen by the African Union, with the aim to transform Africa into a global powerhouse by 2063.
The Nigerian-born priest said the only way of dealing with the aid cuts is a restructuring of the global financial and trade architecture. This, he explains, will allow more room for “homegrown financial systems, including African currency and efficient regional banks”.
“Intra-continental trade, which is key to ending aid dependency, will not achieve its optimal performance if the global financial architecture and global value chains are not transformed,” the priest said.
He explained further that Africa will not stop depending on foreign aid if it fails to achieve both food and energy sovereignty. He also urged Africa to prioritise technology-focused education.
“Reducing aid in the form of technological transfers will require Africa to prioritise technology-focused education from the elementary to tertiary levels. The priority should be to lay the foundation for homegrown technological innovation in agriculture, mining, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing,” Ilo said.
Noting that aid dependency is primarily a mindset issue, not just a structural one, the priest said, “Africa must cultivate a self-reliant mindset and reject the victim mentality. There should be a comprehensive reform in the life skills learning, with a focus on building collective self-confidence and liberating African minds from this dependency mindset.”
These strategies, he noted, can only be achievable with the right leadership in place, not by the lethargic leaders the continent has today.
He called for “the emergence of a new generation of African leaders with ethics, vision and the ability to establish capable states”.
At the same time, he said that to “build such visionary and ethical leadership, we need a serious conversation [about] what it means to a capable state in an African context, and [about] whether the current arrangement of state power, including current configuration of democracy, is conducive to nurturing a capable state on an African soil”.
“And such a conversation should begin now, and not in the future,” Ilo concluded.
@The Catholic Herald